Title: Tokens

Summary: BA Post NFA

AN: Written for Dark Star’s Birthday rosebuds over at Blood Roses Forums

 

 

 

She digs in her purse, irritated that she has lost the subway tokens she bought a few days ago.  She supposes she will have to walk. She sighs, her entire body sagging at the thought. It has been a long day at the store and an even longer night patrolling.  She shoulders her bag, climbs the steps out of the station and starts down the sidewalk.  The wind taunts her, whirling around and searching for a place to shoot up her sweater or the leg of her pants. She stuffs her hands into the pockets of her leather coat and scrunches her neck down into the standup collar. She has lived here almost three years and the winters still chill her to the bone. She will always be a California girl. She thinks about returning sometimes but there are too many memories, too many hopes and dreams and if she is anywhere in the same state with him, she knows she will end up beside him.  They’ve both agreed a dozen times that it’s for the best that she doesn’t.

 

A trip through Times Square, down a couple of streets and through an alley bring her to the tiny flat on the top floor that she has called home for long enough that the word doesn’t seem odd anymore.  She pushes the up button on the elevator and waits, pushes it again and grumbles.

 

“Elevator’s broken,” old Mr. Felps says as he walks in the front door and starts up the stairs. Perfect, this completes the day. It has been a bad one from the customer that yelled at her, the crystal vase she broke, the vampire that got away and the lost subway tokens.  She starts up the steps behind Mr. Felps, chatting with him as they walk. He leaves her at the fourth floor to walk four more on her own. She desperately hopes she has some wine left. Right now she wants a glass of good merlot and a hot bath.

 

She starts fumbling in her bag for the keys to her apartment before she even turns off the stairway landing and into the eighth floor hallway. She stops automatically in front of her door, still searching for her keys when her eyes alight on the pair of boots beside her door. Her stomach jumps and she begins to suspect the reason her day has been thrown off can not be chalked up to a bad day. She follows the line of legs up to shoulders broader than she remembers, a mouth with just the corner quirked up in a crooked grin and eyes that seem a bit less haunted then the last time she saw them.

 

Her brow furrows and all thoughts of her keys are chased away by questions, hopes and fears. Usually if he’s here there’s an apocalypse or two on his heels. “What’s wrong?”

 

A look of pain shoots across his eyes and then disappears as quickly as it came. He shakes his head. “Nothing’s wrong. Can’t find your keys?”

 

She studies him, confusion marring her features and tilts her head. “Or a vampire or my subway tokens…I thought we had an agreement.” Seeing him throws a kink in the life she’s made. It’s not perfect by any means but at least she knows what each day holds, she knows how she’s going to deal with it and how she’s going to feel about it. When he’s here those things are twisted sideways, a little like her heart every time she sees him.

 

He reaches over, takes her hand and places it on his chest over his heart. The world tilts on its axis when she realizes its beating. His skin is warm beneath her fingers and the soft thud thud brings to life a dream she’s had since she was sixteen.

 

“I thought it was time we came up with a new agreement,” he whispers.