Hi! Sorry I haven't updated in ages. Pretty much a mix of being busy followed by be lazy. Anyway, this chapter is quite short, but I just wanted to let you know all know that I haven't vanished, so I put this short chapter on while I work on the next chapter, which will be longer I promise. Anyway, this chapter isn't much but I hope you like it.

Forever Changed

Chapter III

Two glasses, only two measly shots of Bacardi. No more and no less than that were all that had met an end as Revy sat alone, alone with nothing but her own thoughts laid out in front of her, just as senseless as the random mingling of words behind her.

This is it, she thought.

Her arms were folded, her chin resting on them. A whole mind-numbing hour had managed to limp its way by so far, spent in head-breaking contemplation. And two glasses was all she had managed to accomplish in all of that time.

She was more or less in the process of nursing her third drink, tapping her fingers against it, gently nudging it to the right and then to the left; dark liquid shuddered and rippled within the glass, creating the slightest of tsunami-like parodies within its miniature world. It might have been as long as five minutes since she had last touched it, but in her slowly dimming perception of the world it could have been closer to five years for all she cared.

What the hell am I doing?

The Yellow Flag was no different tonight than it was any other night; like every other heated evening it swelled with its typical commotion. Not that Revy even bothered to pay any real attention to the local sea of shit that waded here and there; waves of contempt sitting beneath the surface of drunken eyes, deep pits of aggression splashing against one another like a violent ocean storm.

There was a time when she would have felt kindred (she still did for the most part) to these cutthroat scumbags. She belonged with them, along side each and every one of them, joining them in the nightly repetition until her just deserts came to lethally greet her as well. Like them, she was just another walking infliction of death and destruction. However at this moment in time, within these waves of hostility, she felt like a very small island in the centre of it all. A tiny piece of land, a land of desperate confusion.

If there was one thing in the entirety of his life that she loathed intensely, it was uncertainty. Everything should have made sense, at least on some basic level. Only this time, it didn't. So to question herself, her own thoughts and feelings, as if they were now a fractured cluster of objects lying under a microscope – in the very startling way that she had been doing since entering the bar – was an uncomfortable exercise. Of course to say that would be putting things at their mildest.

She hadn't asked for any of this, to be entrapped by a deepening well of painful mystery, one that she was slowly but surely sinking into, further and further she went, every day. Even she couldn't fully understand her own state of mind at present. It wasn't like there was some much sort after textbook that could explain these things any better. And so there she was, unable to complete so simple a task as emptying her third glass of its contents, of which any other night would be so promising in its beckoning of her attention.

"What a fuckin' joke," she mumbled.

"Did you say something?" Bao yelled from his seat behind the bar.

"Shut up," Revy mumbled again, never once looking up from her glass.

The world she lived in, the air she breathed, the darkening path that she trod every day; these were all aspects of her life that she had been fully content with. Or at least she had thought so. She tasted the life of someone who walked on the very edge every second of every day. Feelings and self-examination were not traits that often pained the countless leagues of the condemned. So, she asked herself, why did that have to be threatened? Why had her existence, something that had been so incredibly and bleakly clear to her have to be challenged in such a way? And why by something that she should have regarded as so minute, so irrelevant?

Reflection, if this was indeed what it was, wasn't something that Revy – the girl once known as Rebecca – had ever been in any way proficient at. It caused her nothing but grief as her mind wandered on. It forced her already tired brain to ache long before its time, long before her will to keep drinking was completely spent and she had no choice but to be carried off by Dutch, back to her rats nest of an apartment. Sometimes she walked, sometimes. Or Rock would on occasion help her home, as long as he wasn't dead to the world as well.

Rock, she thought, a frown creasing her forehead at the sound of his name, bouncing off of the inner walls of her skull. Rock, you damn bastard. Son of a bitch! This is your fault, you fuckin' shit for brains!

By the time Rock and the others had made it to the Yellow Flag things had already begun to liven up. The colourful and violently varied commotion within the bar was now in its full swing.

Just as always, a swamp of headless chickens pacing this way and that, moving restlessly. Cards were dealt and played, money was scattered and reluctantly thrown away. Guns were kept close, triggers awaiting pressure from their precious owners. Narrow eyes danced back and forth in a relentless flow; voices roared over each other for supremacy. Shots and pints were knocked back and glasses crashed down onto tables. Fighting broke out in one place, followed swiftly by another.

Pretty much a regular night of consistent ill will and mistrust among the walking dead, Rock thought.

He found this to be somewhat of an oddity in a way, just how calm things had appeared from outside by comparison. It was almost too quiet out on the streets. Empty roads, layered with inactivity, as if the town was almost waiting for the tumbleweed to come rolling by. Nothing but the shadows kept the sidewalks company.

If Dutch or Benny had any thoughts on the strangely transformed scenery, then neither of them was in any big hurry to reveal those thoughts.

It was altogether possible that nothing was wrong at all. Perhaps Rock was simple looking too hard at the details, seeing things that weren't there? Maybe it was guilt? Perhaps that was his biggest problem, he thought? Revy had so far dominated his thinking all day long, shifting his senses into far too much of a scrambled mess, preventing clear thought from making itself fully known.

As soon as they pushed through the doors his eyes caught her. She was at the bar, slouching in her usual seat. From what Rock could see she appeared to be locked in some kind of discussion with Bao. She hadn't noticed them entering.

Rock slipped behind his co-workers, allowing them to take the lead from this point. He noticed Dutch sweep a questioning glance in his direction as he walked by, but other than that his employer made no comment as to what he was doing. Who knew what Dutch might have been thinking in that fleeting moment? Rock couldn't have guessed at this even if he tried. Although on the other hand, he didn't feel like trying anyway.

What the hell am I supposed to say to her? I can't even believe I'm doing this. Maybe she'll take the gesture for what it is? Ah shit! What am I thinking?

Whatever his previous thoughts were on this chosen course of action, none of them really mattered much at this stage. He had made his choice and the consequences of that ambiguous path were about to be made clear to him, one way or another.

"Hey, Revy," Dutch called, moving to the bar and taking a seat to her left.

"Oh," she snapped up from her conversation. "Hi boss man."

Benny moved off to Dutch's left, which just left Rock's seat beside Revy. He couldn't turn back now; the stage was set and apparently so was he, either to succeed in whatever the hell he was trying to do or fall flat on his face, probably breaking most of his teeth in the process. All he could think was that this was a mistake.

He took his seat next to her. She then swung herself to the right, looking straight at him.

"Rock… Jesus fuck!"

He sat perfectly still, breathless and frozen as she said the words. He saw the sharp gaping of Revy's eyes at the sight of him. He watched as she looked over his torso, to the one thing that he had once sworn that his skin would never have the misfortune of making any contact with, preferably for as long as he still had the good fortune of breathing the fresh air of the living.

Rock suddenly felt smothered, exposed, like a blinding beacon to every questionable pare of eyes that littered the Yellow Flag's contempt drenched interior. Revy's stare had enlarged her eyes to a whole new size as she speechlessly viewed his appearance in the Hawaiian shirt. And then she erupted into an almost lunatic fit of laughter.

"Shit!" she gasped, belting out short barks of hyena-like cackling. "Y-you, you know, you know what Rock," she only just managed to force words out as she struggled to breath. "You… you were right all along. Oh fuck me that's a bad look!"

Somewhere in the back of his mind, there had been a part of him that thought she might just take that gesture. He couldn't believe what a fool he had been for allowing any part of him to believe it. Revy face had turned a bright shade of red from her laughter, whilst Dutch and Benny simply remained silent, looking over to Rock with something resembling pity.

Rock felt near broken by her response. After all the nagging about the shirt and this was her reaction, one that he guessed he deserved. However none of that made this experience anymore easy to deal with.

Revy's amusement didn't look to be ceasing any time soon. Rock embarrassingly let his head fall; he waved Bao over with as much enthusiasm as he would manage, which wasn't much.

Drinking himself into the ground seemed to be the only other option. It was either that or turn and leave. But after Revy's outburst he just couldn't deal with the looks he'd receive on his way out the door. Best I keep my back to the onlookers, he thought, who probably found the shirt as distasteful as he did.

"Glad I could do something to make you happy," he said, and was surprised at how bitter his voice sounded.

Everything feels like its coming apart, he thought. He wondered if there was anything he could put back together anymore?

Again, I hope you liked this tiny chapter. Please let me know what you think, and I'll do the best I can to get chapter 4 out as soon as possible. Bye for now.