Nusac

Chapter 37
Faith’s POV

As the drummer strikes his final beat and the guitar is allowed to ring its final note I regain full control of my limbs. Which is the point where I do the only natural thing in this situation. I turn on my heels and run, with my own words still ringing in my ears.

The door into the training room at the back of the magic box pushes open easily aiding in my quick escape. I get to the fire door before I let myself stop. My legs screamed at me to just give in and run. That’s exactly what I do. I push down the bar across the fire door and run out into the ally.

Now I have to pick a direction. It doesn’t really matter, anywhere but here. Yet somehow it feels like a decision between cake and death. I make the split second decision and turn left. I run, I run at top speed until my lungs burn and my legs ache. It’s not until my body complains so much that I have to stop that I look up to see my surroundings.

The sight immediately stops my lungs from aching. City Hall. Doesn’t look like I’ve changed that much. I find myself needing to be somewhere safe and I run straight here. I almost want to laugh at being so childish. If only it could be back then, when I was the rouge slayer and everything was so much more simple. Where I could just walk up those steps get my new assignment and get a glass of milk and a cookie for my troubles.

“Thought I might find you here.” Pike voice brings me back to reality.

I flick my attention to as he leans against the nearest streetlight. “How did you figure that?” I return my gaze back to the large red brick building.

I can see out of the corner of my eye as he pushes himself away from his leaning post to come and stand next to me. “The way you used to talk about the mayor. It was like you’d just lose yourself. Forget I was even there.”

I do laugh at that comment. “I’d be careful then. The other side of those doors I was a raving psychopath.”

I can more feel than see him shrug. “We all have our days.”

This comment makes me turn away from the building and have to take in how inappropriately positive he always is. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

He just smiles at being able to make me smile. He pushes himself off of his leaning post, holding out his arm for me to thread my own through. Why not? Might be able to play at happy families for just a little while. Even if it is just Pike.

He lets me rest my hand on his as if he were royally escorting me to a ball or some shit. He makes a show of straightening his back and looks pointedly at me to do the same. I roll my eyes and shake my head but I do humour him, making a point to stand just as straight as he is.

He pulls me away from the building and away from my memories like only he can. Some how he just knows how to not talk about something but it never festers. It’s just… better somehow.

Me makes a show of almost parading me around on his arm all the way down the high street. His nose goes skywards and he puts on his really bad fake upper class British accent. “These mere peasants, moseying about there business.”

“Moseying?” Not something I would expect an upper class Brit to say. Well at the very least I’ve never heard G man utter anything close to ‘mosey.’

“Yes Moseying. ‘Tis an adequate enough word.” He clears his throat and slips back into his normal voice. “Where was I again?”

I can’t help but smile at him. “I have no idea.”

“No matter I’m sure we can find something to talk about.” He looks around as if searching for something to strike up a conversation with. “So you’re in love with Namine then?”

“Don’t dance around the issue do you?” Some times his bluntness outweighs even mine. He’s giving me his version of resolve face. Not so much with the scary but lets me know that he’s not going to just drop the issue. “I don’t believe I said anything like ‘I love you.’ It was very much with the ‘I just don’t get you.’”

“Yeah well there were undertones.” There he goes again dismissing what I say and knows exactly what’s going on in my mind. “There was mucho love if you just read between the lines.”

“Do you really have to?”

“Yeah well I used to write songs. There are undertones in all of them.” He’s still smiling.

Just keeps looking at me like he’s really proud of himself for noticing something like that. “There were not undertones. No big declaration. Just words. Adding up to a big ‘I don’t get it’.”

“You’re lying.” He practically sings. If he does for some reason just burst into song I might just hit something.

“Oh and you just jumped to this conclusion?”

He smiles wider if that’s at all possible. “Nope.” We reach the end of the high street and he steers us both round to walk back along it. “I took a series of tiny steps and there conclusions were.” My eyebrows shoot skywards in question. “Your song… By the way was rather good I might write it down.” He sees my expression and gets on with it. “I’m getting there. It was full of metaphors, both plainly obvious and not so easy to see. Which leads me to believe that you’re not as stupid as you like to make out.”

I make a big show of being deflated at his new revelation. “Busted.”

“So you create painfully clear metaphors to mask the others, both of which you actually feel. See? Tiny steps, equals conclusion.” Aww isn’t it cute when a man is proud of himself. His chest if all puffed out and everything.

“Can we stop psycho analysing me now?” I decide that dancing around this subject is getting me no closer to changing it. So what’s the harm in a little truth? “To be honest, love? I don’t know what that is Pike. I have no idea what it feels like on either side of that particular word.”

He shrugs a little. Just for a moment I think he’s going to dismiss that comment as well. “Well I love ya.” He says it in such a way that it sounds like no big deal. Where it is a big deal. It’s a huge deal. You need to understand that no one. Not ever has said those three words to me before. He bumps his shoulder into mine. “You’re like a sister to me Faith.”

“So that’s one half of the problem solved. I still don’t know what it actually feels like.”

“You will. It’s gotta happen at some point. The penny must drop in that thick skull of yours at some point.” The smile in his voice is usually infectious.

Not today though. “Yeah well it still sucks in the mean time.” I kick a rock under my feet so I don’t have to look at him.

I can still hear him smile. “It’s not all doom and gloom Faith. Come on at the end of the day…” I don’t want to look at him, I know what’s coming next and I really don’t want to have to deal with it. “ The sun'll come out, Tomorrow, Bet your bottom dollar, That tomorrow, There'll be sun!” Great that’s all I need, more singing. Isn’t that what got us into this mess in the first place? “Just thinkin' about, Tomorrow, Clears away, the cobwebs, And the sorrow, 'Til there's none!”

Hang on a moment. I know this song. It’s an actual song. This is not one of those moments. This is just Pike being Pike. As he pauses for breath between verses I jump in an interrupt. “Hang on there.” It gets his attention and he pauses mid breath. He looks like he can’t understand why I made him stop. “This isn’t one of those ‘I’m in a musical’ feels is it?”

He tries to answer a few times before he settles on his answer. “I had a strong urge to sing ‘tomorrow’.”

“But not a ‘if I don’t sing I’m going to bust, I mean actually bust’ kind of urge.” My eyebrows rise in question.

“Well…” He’s squirming. This is turning out to be much more fun that I thought it would be. “Everyone else was doing it. To be quite honest I was beginning to feel left out. So if I burst into song in the middle of the street, today of all days don’t you think I should be allowed to finish?”

I pull my arm free from his and try to hide my face from the passers by. “If it means so much to you.”

“Thank you.” He clears his throat. “When I'm stuck a day, That's grey, And lonely, I just stick out my chin, And Grin, And Say, Oh!” He throws his arms to the side like he was in a real musical and sings the last verse up to the heavens at the top of his lungs. “The sun'll come out, Tomorrow, So ya gotta hang on, 'Til tomorrow, Come what may, Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love ya Tomorrow! You're always, A day, A way!”