..What If.. -- Club Alien

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What if I'm a weeping willow?

Laughing tears upon my pillow...

What if I'm a socialite

Who wants to be alone?

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His hand was warm against the cool surface of her bony knee, making all thoughts of escape vacate her mind. Her cocoa gaze drifted down to settle on his grasp, aware that for the first time in many years she did not have to worry if that hand would suddenly clamp down upon her painfully. No, his touch was light and gentle, a whisper against her skin really. He was handling her as if she might shatter...and in any other moment, she might have raged against that too. But that gentleness was so unexpected, so foreign...Kat simply became swept up in it, the way a mongrel street dog might respond to a tasty morsel thrown its way. His voice drew her gaze away from her knee, back up to his stubbled face. There was something in his voice, something that she could not pinpoint for the life of her. His tone was tender, yes...but strained somehow. And she was just too tired to analyze it any further. With a resigned sigh, she gave a little nod, letting him win this little battle. The truck was truly a monster, and the ground looked both far away and so very hard from her current vantage point. She couldn't very well trust her own legs to get her down safely, and she did not want to take another blow to the head by falling. Besides...her life wasn't in danger here...this was Paige. He had never so much as lifted a hand to her...physically, she was in no trouble. Emotionally, on the other hand...

She watched cautiously as he moved around the hood of the truck, making an effort to conceal her awe at just how much he had changed in the years since she had last seen him. She had been smitten from the very first time he'd come up and delivered that cheesy pick-up line so long ago...there had always been an air of cuteness about him that had made it impossible for her to turn away. But now...oh, he was more than that. Cute had morphed into sexy, and strikingly so. He looked like he'd stepped right off the cover of GQ magazine... right out of the dreams of every red-blooded American female. She hadn't thought it was possible for him to become more appealing...but again, she had been wrong. The transformation was nothing shy of shocking, and she would have to be very careful to keep the urge to stare at bay. Not that she was currently in the market of wooing former flames, of course. For one, she was slathered in blood and dirt, having very nearly become a rape victim once again. For two...well, there really didn't have to be a second point, did there? The fact was, she was a mess. Her life was a mess. Anything beyond staying alive was effort she didn't need to expend. She used the sleeves of his jacket to wipe away the drying saltwater from her cheeks, forcing her anger to abate if only to put an end to the dreaded appearance of those tears. Tears were weakness, no matter their cause...she had learned that early on as the wife of Norbert Reynolds.

She hadn't known what kind of answer she had expected when she voiced her question...but what she received was so far out there that at first she couldn't fully wrap her head around it. Was that pain she had heard? Surely not! She blinked at him in the darkness, saying nothing even as he wrenched the key into the ignition and brought the monster of a truck to life. She flinched slightly at that sudden motion, despite the fact that she knew perfectly well that she was physically safe from him. It was a deeply ingrained reaction, one so second nature to her that she didn't even realize she had done it. The dashboard lights illuminated his features in the darkness as he maneuvered the big truck on to the road, and Kat was once again riddled with the illusion that she was riding next to an honest to god ghost. She tore her gaze away, settling it on the road ahead as they rode in silence.

"Still? She said after a long moment, in response to the words he'd spoke. Her voice was a little more even now that she had managed to gain a degree of control. She hugged his jacket around her rack thin frame, not quite daring to look at him. Instead, she focused on the yellow line dividing the pavement as it whizzed by. "I never thought badly of you...not back then. Yeah, you drove me crazy, but I was even crazier about you." A muscle in her jaw flexed then, as she remembered what if felt like to lose him. How it had felt to lose everything. He had been such an integral part of her world, back then. She had never been able to picture a future that didn't include him. Such a thing was no more than a distant nightmare to her young heart. That is, until the nightmare became reality. That was when she had begun to loathe him! And how dare he sound so wounded by it, anyhow? He had been free, free to go off and pursue his dream and never look back. She was the one who had been left by the wayside. Or so she felt. She turned in her seat to face him, her features accusing in the dim light of the cab. "But now, how could you blame me, Paige? How could you dare blame me for thinking poorly of you? You never came back! You left! You gave up!" Oh, now she was fired up again, the roller coaster of her emotions plunging her back into that dark place she always tried so hard to claw herself away from. She didn't care if she was hurting him, didn't care if her words stung. Nothing she could possibly say to him would ever match the pain she'd felt back then. Or so she thought.

Hot tears pricked the back of her eyes once more, and she blinked furiously to keep them at bay. With a harsh sigh, she let herself fall back against the seat again. She tore her gaze away from him, glaring instead at the road ahead. "I don't need charity, Paige, and I don't want it. I've been through worse, so don't feel obligated. You don't owe me anything." Her words still had a harsh edge, but they wavered slightly as another hot angry tear spilled over. It hung suspended on her lower lash, gleaming in the faint glow for a moment before pattering the the fabric of his jacket. She reached up and rubbed away the rest of the moisture, expelling a hot breath as she turned to look out the passenger side window. She could not cry anymore. And if she looked at him again, she would.

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What if I'm a toothless leopard?

What if I'm a sheepless shepherd?

What if I'm an angel

Without wings to take me home?

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