Just Keep Moving
Title: Just Keep Moving
Author: fortunata13
Pairing: Cara/Kahlan
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word Count: 1880
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Most certainly, I do not own these characters.
Summary: No summary really, just a request that you keep an open mind. This is a bit different than some of the other things I've written. Feedback is most welcomed.
A/N1: As always gratitude to statuepup. I'd be lost without her.
Two cots, one on each side of the 8X10 cell, both with gray sheets, and gray blankets, and gray pillow cases. The floor is gray, too, and so are the walls and the ceiling. The entire fucking place is gray. The suicide rate in this joint is probably through the roof. Fuck. The food’ll probably be gray, too.
“That’s your cot over there,” the guard barks out to my new roommate. “You two watch yourselves, any trouble and you can forget about getting out of here any time soon.” The new girl smiles politely; I don’t even bother to look at her. She’s probably just as gray as the walls.
The new girl though, she’s hot as hell -- reeks of money, too. Flawless manicure, $150 haircut at least, and shoes that would probably cover my rent for a month -- if I actually had a place to live. ‘So what’d you do, college girl?’
The sound of my voice startled her but she didn’t even blink. College girl was badass, I like that. “Chained myself to a tree,” she said with a resigned shrug.
‘So you’re a tree hugger. Thankless work, I’ll bet.’
She chuckled. “Not really, I just happen to like that particular tree.”
‘Were you naked? If you’re gonna do shit like that, you gotta go all Lady Godiva, otherwise it’s a waste of time. Besides, with those boobs they’d probably elect you for office. Boobs like that open doors.’
She laughed and shook her head. “It’s twenty degrees outside; no, I wasn’t naked”
‘Good call; frostbitten nipples must be a bitch.’
She laughed again. “Oh my god, you’re hilarious. I won the cellmate lottery.”
‘So what’s so great about that tree?’
She tilted her head to one side, and looked at me through her lashes. “I probably shouldn’t show weakness in prison,” she said.
‘We’re in lockup, not prison. Besides, I haven’t eaten today so you can probably kick my ass anyway.’
She nodded. “Probably, I’m a seventh degree black belt. Here,” she said, and handed me a chocolate bar she had in her pocket. “I had a big lunch before chaining myself to the tree.”
‘You’re all right, college girl. So tell me about your tree.’
“Well, for one thing, it’s the oldest tree in Aydindril, 313 years old and they want to chop it down to build an oil rig.” She got a look on her face that made me want to punch every oil executive on the planet.
‘Yeah, but that’s not the reason you chained yourself to the tree, is it?’
“Funny and insightful,” she said. “No, that’s not the real reason. My mom loved that tree. When my sister and I were little, she’d pack a picnic basket filled with all our favorite treats and we’d sit there for hours. Sometimes we’d fly kites or chase squirrels around that tree. I was only five when she died, but when I go there, I close my eyes and I can still hear the sound of her laughter.”
She wiped away a couple of tears and rubbed her nose, but college girl was still badass. Not a single thing about her was weak. “What did you do?” she asked.
‘Hit some asshole over the head with a beer bottle.’
“Why?” She rushed out of her cot and sat next to me, all filled with concern as if I were a kitten with a broken leg or something. “Did he attack you?”
‘He was just being an asshole.’ It was cool though, she totally got that I didn’t want to talk about it. We just sat there for a while without saying anything. It wasn’t awkward or anything, just sort of nice.
“Amnell,” the guard said, banging on the bars with her night stick for no fucking reason. It’s not like we weren’t like five feet away from her. “Your bail was posted. Get out of my sight.”
“But what about her?” she asked.
“Apparently no one gives a shit about her so she’ll be here for a few days.”
College girl turned around and looked at me with those pretty blue eyes. ‘No worries, free accommodations and gray food suit me just fine in this cold-ass weather.’
She swallowed hard and nodded. ‘Hey college girl,’ I said to her as she was walking out, ‘you’re all right.’ She gave me a sad smile and looked back at me as she disappeared around the corner.
I crawled back onto my cot and for whatever fucked up reason, I cried. I cried like a fucking little kid cries when she’s lost in the grocery store, running through the aisles in a panic, trying to find her mother. I hadn’t cried in years but watching college girl walk away felt like fucking Mike Tyson punched me in the gut. After a while, I crawled under my dingy gray blanket and put my head on my dingy gray pillow hoping to God I wasn’t lousy by the time they let me out of this joint.
“Mason, wake the fuck up.” I rubbed my eyes for a second. I swear, that bitch looked like a cross between a pit-bull and poodle. “Someone gives two shits about you after all.”
I walked down the gray corridor, and when I turned the corner, there was college girl looking all gorgeous and smiling that million dollar smile. “Here, put this on,” she said, handing me a black peacoat. “A wise person once told me that frostbitten nipples are a bitch.”
‘You really didn’t have to do this,’ I said.
“I know I didn’t,” she said, “but you made me laugh in there. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that I landed you as a cellmate. Come on, I have a car waiting. I’ll drive you home. Oh and my name is Kahlan, but you can call me college girl.”
‘Thanks, college girl, but it’s cool, I’ll just walk.’
She grabbed my arm and practically dragged me into the car. “It’s not cool. It’s freezing.”
‘Look, I’m…sort of between pads right now so I’ll just hang out at the station until morning.’
“No, you won’t. It’s okay, you can crash with me. My boyfriend is out of town and I have a pervy neighbor that creeps me out. You’d be doing me a favor. Really.”
Before I knew it, we were sitting in front of her fireplace eating Chinese takeout right out of the box. “About that beer bottle,” she said, “there’s no way you’re old enough to buy alcohol.”
‘Yeah, well, I wasn’t buying, I was serving. My asshole boss was letting me crash in the storage room until school starts but he got out of hand.’
“Did he hurt you?” I didn’t answer and she didn’t ask again. That’s how cool she is.
‘I turned eighteen three weeks ago so my foster parents kicked me to the curb once the checks stopped coming in. I’ll be fine once school starts.’
“Aydindril U?” she asked.
‘Yeah, it’s my first semester. It turns out I’m a genius of all things SAT, or maybe I’m just a good guesser. I’m not sure which.’
“Well, you’re staying with me until school starts. I’m a junior at AU so I’m sure we’ll hang out.”
‘So you’d hang with a lowly freshman?’
“Of course. We did time together, that means something.”
That absolutely killed me. ‘You’re a dork, college girl, but you’re cool as hell. I’m glad I met you.’
“So am I,” she said, and I could tell she meant it. “Prison was exhausting. I’m going to bed.”
She tossed me a pillow and a blanket. They both smelled like spring -- kind of like she does. I’ve never met a girl like her before -- probably because there aren’t any girls like her in the system. Foster kids are all fucked up in one way or another. You’ve got the crack babies -- those all grow up craving something. For some of them it’s food, for others it’s drugs, but for most of them it’s love. They’re a black hole of neediness those crack babies -- even when they’re grown up. They just can’t reach beyond that emptiness, not ever.
Then you’ve got the angry ones, only they’re not angry at all, they’re just scared as hell. They’re scared because they know that no matter what they do, they’ll never be good enough. Only they probably are good enough but no one ever told them they were, and even if someone had told them, they probably wouldn’t believe them anyway.
Me, I’m different, see. I’m what you would call philosophical about all the bullshit. It happened, I survived it, I moved on. Fuck what anyone else did to me; that shit has nothing to do with me. At the end of the day, I’ll keep moving. That’s the trick, just keep moving. You’re bound to end up somewhere. Hell, in a matter of hours, I went from some asshole trying to rape me, to getting tossed into lockup, to hanging out with a really cool college girl. That’s how it is when you keep moving. But if you’re going to live that way, you can’t be a coward. I learned that from my mom. She died of cancer when I was nine but she never complained and she never cried, not ever. “Be brave.” That’s the last thing she ever said to me. Good fucking advice, if you ask me.
“Hey, you’re still up,” college girl, said. She was in her pajamas looking all cute, with her hair all messed up and her nose crinkled up.
‘Yeah, I’m protecting you from your pervy neighbor. What’s your excuse?’
She reached out her hand and pulled me off the sofa. “Nightmares,” she said, “you can protect me better in the bedroom.” We got under the covers all squished together kind of like kittens do -- rolled up into a tiny ball, so close you can’t tell where one ends and the other one starts.
That was thirteen years ago. We’re married now -- we have two little girls and a cat. College girl is a college professor these days and she’s still hot as hell. As it turns out, she saved the big tree, so now we take our girls out there every weekend. Kahlan closes her eyes when she thinks no one’s looking, and she pictures her mom sitting beside us with our girls running around, filling the air with the sound of their laughter.
Me, I write all these stories about life and people and the things that happen to them. I’ve seen more than most people have in this life, some of it good, some of it bad. It gives me perspective -- something which most people lack. I still remember my own mom’s last words, ‘be brave’ she said to me. Great advice, since every day, I get out of bed and come face to face with a blank page -- that’s what it’s like, being a writer; scary as hell. I tell my little girls to be brave all the time, too. Because I know that’s what got me through the tough times. But at the end of the day, the trick is still to just keep moving. Only these days I don’t have to do it alone.
Author: fortunata13
Pairing: Cara/Kahlan
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Word Count: 1880
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Most certainly, I do not own these characters.
Summary: No summary really, just a request that you keep an open mind. This is a bit different than some of the other things I've written. Feedback is most welcomed.
A/N1: As always gratitude to statuepup. I'd be lost without her.
Two cots, one on each side of the 8X10 cell, both with gray sheets, and gray blankets, and gray pillow cases. The floor is gray, too, and so are the walls and the ceiling. The entire fucking place is gray. The suicide rate in this joint is probably through the roof. Fuck. The food’ll probably be gray, too.
“That’s your cot over there,” the guard barks out to my new roommate. “You two watch yourselves, any trouble and you can forget about getting out of here any time soon.” The new girl smiles politely; I don’t even bother to look at her. She’s probably just as gray as the walls.
The new girl though, she’s hot as hell -- reeks of money, too. Flawless manicure, $150 haircut at least, and shoes that would probably cover my rent for a month -- if I actually had a place to live. ‘So what’d you do, college girl?’
The sound of my voice startled her but she didn’t even blink. College girl was badass, I like that. “Chained myself to a tree,” she said with a resigned shrug.
‘So you’re a tree hugger. Thankless work, I’ll bet.’
She chuckled. “Not really, I just happen to like that particular tree.”
‘Were you naked? If you’re gonna do shit like that, you gotta go all Lady Godiva, otherwise it’s a waste of time. Besides, with those boobs they’d probably elect you for office. Boobs like that open doors.’
She laughed and shook her head. “It’s twenty degrees outside; no, I wasn’t naked”
‘Good call; frostbitten nipples must be a bitch.’
She laughed again. “Oh my god, you’re hilarious. I won the cellmate lottery.”
‘So what’s so great about that tree?’
She tilted her head to one side, and looked at me through her lashes. “I probably shouldn’t show weakness in prison,” she said.
‘We’re in lockup, not prison. Besides, I haven’t eaten today so you can probably kick my ass anyway.’
She nodded. “Probably, I’m a seventh degree black belt. Here,” she said, and handed me a chocolate bar she had in her pocket. “I had a big lunch before chaining myself to the tree.”
‘You’re all right, college girl. So tell me about your tree.’
“Well, for one thing, it’s the oldest tree in Aydindril, 313 years old and they want to chop it down to build an oil rig.” She got a look on her face that made me want to punch every oil executive on the planet.
‘Yeah, but that’s not the reason you chained yourself to the tree, is it?’
“Funny and insightful,” she said. “No, that’s not the real reason. My mom loved that tree. When my sister and I were little, she’d pack a picnic basket filled with all our favorite treats and we’d sit there for hours. Sometimes we’d fly kites or chase squirrels around that tree. I was only five when she died, but when I go there, I close my eyes and I can still hear the sound of her laughter.”
She wiped away a couple of tears and rubbed her nose, but college girl was still badass. Not a single thing about her was weak. “What did you do?” she asked.
‘Hit some asshole over the head with a beer bottle.’
“Why?” She rushed out of her cot and sat next to me, all filled with concern as if I were a kitten with a broken leg or something. “Did he attack you?”
‘He was just being an asshole.’ It was cool though, she totally got that I didn’t want to talk about it. We just sat there for a while without saying anything. It wasn’t awkward or anything, just sort of nice.
“Amnell,” the guard said, banging on the bars with her night stick for no fucking reason. It’s not like we weren’t like five feet away from her. “Your bail was posted. Get out of my sight.”
“But what about her?” she asked.
“Apparently no one gives a shit about her so she’ll be here for a few days.”
College girl turned around and looked at me with those pretty blue eyes. ‘No worries, free accommodations and gray food suit me just fine in this cold-ass weather.’
She swallowed hard and nodded. ‘Hey college girl,’ I said to her as she was walking out, ‘you’re all right.’ She gave me a sad smile and looked back at me as she disappeared around the corner.
I crawled back onto my cot and for whatever fucked up reason, I cried. I cried like a fucking little kid cries when she’s lost in the grocery store, running through the aisles in a panic, trying to find her mother. I hadn’t cried in years but watching college girl walk away felt like fucking Mike Tyson punched me in the gut. After a while, I crawled under my dingy gray blanket and put my head on my dingy gray pillow hoping to God I wasn’t lousy by the time they let me out of this joint.
“Mason, wake the fuck up.” I rubbed my eyes for a second. I swear, that bitch looked like a cross between a pit-bull and poodle. “Someone gives two shits about you after all.”
I walked down the gray corridor, and when I turned the corner, there was college girl looking all gorgeous and smiling that million dollar smile. “Here, put this on,” she said, handing me a black peacoat. “A wise person once told me that frostbitten nipples are a bitch.”
‘You really didn’t have to do this,’ I said.
“I know I didn’t,” she said, “but you made me laugh in there. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that I landed you as a cellmate. Come on, I have a car waiting. I’ll drive you home. Oh and my name is Kahlan, but you can call me college girl.”
‘Thanks, college girl, but it’s cool, I’ll just walk.’
She grabbed my arm and practically dragged me into the car. “It’s not cool. It’s freezing.”
‘Look, I’m…sort of between pads right now so I’ll just hang out at the station until morning.’
“No, you won’t. It’s okay, you can crash with me. My boyfriend is out of town and I have a pervy neighbor that creeps me out. You’d be doing me a favor. Really.”
Before I knew it, we were sitting in front of her fireplace eating Chinese takeout right out of the box. “About that beer bottle,” she said, “there’s no way you’re old enough to buy alcohol.”
‘Yeah, well, I wasn’t buying, I was serving. My asshole boss was letting me crash in the storage room until school starts but he got out of hand.’
“Did he hurt you?” I didn’t answer and she didn’t ask again. That’s how cool she is.
‘I turned eighteen three weeks ago so my foster parents kicked me to the curb once the checks stopped coming in. I’ll be fine once school starts.’
“Aydindril U?” she asked.
‘Yeah, it’s my first semester. It turns out I’m a genius of all things SAT, or maybe I’m just a good guesser. I’m not sure which.’
“Well, you’re staying with me until school starts. I’m a junior at AU so I’m sure we’ll hang out.”
‘So you’d hang with a lowly freshman?’
“Of course. We did time together, that means something.”
That absolutely killed me. ‘You’re a dork, college girl, but you’re cool as hell. I’m glad I met you.’
“So am I,” she said, and I could tell she meant it. “Prison was exhausting. I’m going to bed.”
She tossed me a pillow and a blanket. They both smelled like spring -- kind of like she does. I’ve never met a girl like her before -- probably because there aren’t any girls like her in the system. Foster kids are all fucked up in one way or another. You’ve got the crack babies -- those all grow up craving something. For some of them it’s food, for others it’s drugs, but for most of them it’s love. They’re a black hole of neediness those crack babies -- even when they’re grown up. They just can’t reach beyond that emptiness, not ever.
Then you’ve got the angry ones, only they’re not angry at all, they’re just scared as hell. They’re scared because they know that no matter what they do, they’ll never be good enough. Only they probably are good enough but no one ever told them they were, and even if someone had told them, they probably wouldn’t believe them anyway.
Me, I’m different, see. I’m what you would call philosophical about all the bullshit. It happened, I survived it, I moved on. Fuck what anyone else did to me; that shit has nothing to do with me. At the end of the day, I’ll keep moving. That’s the trick, just keep moving. You’re bound to end up somewhere. Hell, in a matter of hours, I went from some asshole trying to rape me, to getting tossed into lockup, to hanging out with a really cool college girl. That’s how it is when you keep moving. But if you’re going to live that way, you can’t be a coward. I learned that from my mom. She died of cancer when I was nine but she never complained and she never cried, not ever. “Be brave.” That’s the last thing she ever said to me. Good fucking advice, if you ask me.
“Hey, you’re still up,” college girl, said. She was in her pajamas looking all cute, with her hair all messed up and her nose crinkled up.
‘Yeah, I’m protecting you from your pervy neighbor. What’s your excuse?’
She reached out her hand and pulled me off the sofa. “Nightmares,” she said, “you can protect me better in the bedroom.” We got under the covers all squished together kind of like kittens do -- rolled up into a tiny ball, so close you can’t tell where one ends and the other one starts.
That was thirteen years ago. We’re married now -- we have two little girls and a cat. College girl is a college professor these days and she’s still hot as hell. As it turns out, she saved the big tree, so now we take our girls out there every weekend. Kahlan closes her eyes when she thinks no one’s looking, and she pictures her mom sitting beside us with our girls running around, filling the air with the sound of their laughter.
Me, I write all these stories about life and people and the things that happen to them. I’ve seen more than most people have in this life, some of it good, some of it bad. It gives me perspective -- something which most people lack. I still remember my own mom’s last words, ‘be brave’ she said to me. Great advice, since every day, I get out of bed and come face to face with a blank page -- that’s what it’s like, being a writer; scary as hell. I tell my little girls to be brave all the time, too. Because I know that’s what got me through the tough times. But at the end of the day, the trick is still to just keep moving. Only these days I don’t have to do it alone.