Title: Damaged
Summary: Everyone is damaged, she explained, but not everyone is broken. Ashley never thought that going back to Baltimore with Kyla would bring her face-to-face with the one person who made her feel like she wasn't broken.
Disclaimer: I don't own SoN. What I do own is a computer and the amazing ability to not do what I am supposed to with my time.
AN: OMG! It's been less than a year! Thanks for the reviews and for the excellent questions posed they will be answered, actually quite soonish. And what perceptive readers I have :)
It was after copious amounts of junk food and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (during which Spencer and Aiden quoted pretty much the entire thing to many eye rolls by the half sisters and Kyla's mother) that the matron of the house announced her retirement for the evening while muttering about the unfair nature of teenage metabolisms. She kissed both Kyla and Spencer on the foreheads and offered a wide smile and pleasant 'good-night' to her daughter's guests.
"So what next?" Kyla asked, uncurling her body from its position on one end of the couch.
Spencer jumped up from her spot next to her and grabbed a movie from a row on a nearby bookcase.
Kyla frowned at her, "No. I don't know what it is, but no." The blonde flashed the cover of The Hills Have Eyes and her best friend wailed, "Noo!"
"We'll put it to a vote. Aiden?"
The boy looked back and forth between the two, caught Kyla's pleading look and Spencer's raised eyebrows before he shrugged, "Sounds cool to me."
Kyla glared at him half-heartedly and crossed her arms over her chest. Spencer, on the other hand, grinned, "Score." She turned fully to the La-Z-Boy that Ashley was currently seated in, "Looks like its up to you, oh great guitarist."
The brunette in question, not wanting to appear like the wuss she actually was when it came to horror movies in front of the blonde, just nodded her head with as little reluctance as she could muster. She figured that if worst came to worst it was dark enough in the room that she could hide under the blanket she was currently wrapped in and no one would notice.
"Sweet! Majority rules, Ky," Spencer waved the movie in her face before turning to set it in the DVD player.
As she was moving back to her spot on the couch Kyla abruptly stuck her legs out to prevent the blonde from sitting down. "Nuh-uh, you've been banished to the floor," she stated in a matter-of-fact tone and pointed to the ground. Spencer rolled her eyes with a grin but sat down on the floor in front of the middle of the couch. "And no being an asshole and grabbing my feet during the scary parts!" so the blonde moved further down the couch away from her best friend.
Fifteen minutes into the movie and before anyone had actually died, Spencer jumped up and headed out of the room.
"Where are you going?" Kyla cried sitting up straighter, "You don't get to put the scary movie in and then make us watch it without you!"
"Chill out, spaz," Spencer waved her off, "I'm getting something to drink, is that all right with you?" Kyla just glared and settled back into the couch. "Would anyone else like something?"
Kyla muttered darkly to the negative, Aiden shook his head with a grin as he pulled Kyla's feet into his lap from his spot on the far end of the couch and Ashley was morbidly too drawn into the TV to answer.
She came back just as the action was getting started to find Aiden had moved closer to Kyla and Ashley sitting with most of her head covered by her blanket and only her eyes peaking out. Figuring that the boy could handle the fasionista, Spencer settled a hand lightly on Ashley's shoulder only to have her jump several inches in the air, which from a seated position was quite the feat.
Based on the way the blonde had been teasing Kyla, the brunette assumed she would laugh at her or something, so she wasn't really prepared for the concern in those deep blue eyes that caused an intense pulling sensation at the bottom of her chest.
Spencer crouched down closer to Ashley without alerting the other two in the room to what was going on, "You okay, Ashley?" The response was a shrug followed by a cringe for the action on the TV. "Look, if it freaks you out we so don't have to watch it, I just put it on 'cause it messes with Kyla."
"No, I'm good," she responded around another wince.
The blonde bit her bottom lip in hesitation, momentarily distracting the other girl, "If you're sure…?"
"Spencer, I'm fine, I promise," she reiterated, slightly put off but mostly touched by the concern of the athletic blonde.
"Okay, but I'm going to be sitting right there," she pointed to the floor at end of the couch closest to where Ashley now sat, "and it gets awfully lonely down there by myself, so you know, if you want to join me, that would be cool."
"Okay," she shrugged, resolutely watching the movie so the other girl wouldn't see her blush.
"Okay ," she nodded and took her place where she had indicated.
By the time the next killing took place, barely five minutes later, Spencer found a shaking brunette huddled by her side, simultaneously pulling the blonde's arm around her own shoulders and slipping the blanket over their laps. "I'm not scared," Ashley explained, "You said it was lonely and I thought that would suck, so I decided to sit next to you. So, you know, you wouldn't be alone."
The brunette was glad Spencer didn't turn to look at her, and figured it was done purposefully so as not to embarrass her further, but a smile did creep slowly across her face as she nodded and squeezed the other girl once, "I appreciate it."
From the corner of her eye she caught a matching smile on Ashley's face despite the gruesome scene on the TV and over her shoulder Kyla shot her a confused look from where she sat against the armrest and her knees bent over Aiden's lap. Spencer shook her head slightly, speaking silently in a way that her best friend always seemed to understand, that it was just friendly and nothing more.
She frowned in doubt as a response by Spencer had already turned her attention back to the movie, and she was distracted herself a moment later by Aiden's hand on her shin and a shy smile on his face. They spent the rest of the movie and the next, a romantic comedy that Kyla choose in revenge, in the same spots.
!
Floating up into the blissful state of semi-consciousness Ashley had a fleeting thought that she must have fallen asleep sometime during the movie but it was lost almost immediately in the deeper recesses of her sleep-heavy mind. She wondered what had pulled her from the warmth of sleep when she noticed a slight jostling of her own self and a bracing under her knees and shoulders. Instinctively she rolled into the solid strength of a person then curled into the decidedly female body.
There was a chuckling somewhere above her and a male voice asking, "You sure you have her?"
The husky tenor of a female voice, that tugged incessantly at a memory that would not permeate the warmth of her current position, answered as Ashley folded her hands against the other girl's chest, "Yeah, man, she's really light. You got Ky?"
There was a hum to the positive and something else said but Ashley felt herself being moved away from the noise and moments later settled onto a soft surface. She felt herself relax and lulled further into sleep by familiar fingers threading through her hair and just as she felt herself slip over the edge, a voice straight from half-remembered dreams whispered, "I told you you'd end up okay, didn't I?"
!
When Ashley woke up it was several hours later and she was in the bed of an strange room, alone, and with no idea of how she'd gotten there. It took her a second to reconcile it with the guest room in Kyla's house on the other side of the country, where she had stashed her stuff the previous day. The ticking face of the wall clock told her it was just past seven in the morning and for a second she felt surprised, it was rare that she slept that well at home and never at an unfamiliar location. The sticking sensation under her eyelids informed her that she'd slept in her contacts, so she quickly fixed that and sat back down on the bed.
She considered trying for a few more hours of sleep, knowing that Aiden would be dead to the world until at least 10 and, if the past two months worth of weekends were any indication, so would Kyla, but decided that whatever tiredness she felt could be dissolved by coffee and so she made her way quietly out of the room and down the stairs.
Down the hall and to the right was the living room where they had watched movies and where Aiden was currently sprawled out on the couch, snoring lightly into a pillow. She shook her head with a small grin and turned to walk into the kitchen only to stop short in the doorway by the sight in front of her.
Her half-sister's best friend was there, obviously awake, with a water bottle in one hand and headphones on dancing around the space like a maniac. The brunette crossed her arms and leant one shoulder against the wall as she analyzed the situation.
Spencer was just back from a run, evident by her tennis shoes, shorts and sweat dampened tank top, completely oblivious to the audience she now had. Her long tanned legs and carefree demeanor had Ashley mesmerized as she continued on with her eyes closed and body bouncing along with whatever song she was listening to. There was no doubt about it in Ashley's mind: this girl was gorgeous.
And a complete spaz.
"Oh!" Spencer stopped her movements abruptly as she finally tuned in to the brunette's presence. She cringed, realizing how loud she might have been, and tore the buds from her ears. "Oh," she repeated softer. There was a pause as she worked her mouth around whatever she was trying to say, then a self-deprecating grin as she explained, "I'm so not used to people being up at this hour in this house." Her voice sounded steady and unruffled, but Ashley could see her embarrassment in the rapidly spreading blush across her cheeks.
There was a moment where the California native considered teasing the other girl but she remembered what she had done for Ashley last night during the horror movie and changed topics without so much as a hesitation, "I was just wondering down here for my morning caffeine fix."
"Yeah, there might be a problem then," she raised an arm to rub at the back of her head, "Mama Woods only drinks tea so I don't think there is any coffee in the house."
"That's … fantastic," Ashley sighed, feeling a withdrawal headache come on just from the knowledge that she'd have to wait.
"But, I mean," Spencer gestured with her hand causing droplets of water to fall from the water bottle, "I was going to grab a shower and head over to Starbucks myself. I could bring you back something, or you could come with, I mean, if you want."
She blinked at the offer, wondering if this girl was for real, like actually that nice. But deeper thought was null as her mind was stuck on those blue eyes and the prospect of coffee in the near future.
"Okay."
No lie, I can repeat almost every line in Monty Python. And I do when I watch it. It drove my ex insane.