The X-Project

In which Jamie is a true saint among men: a twitchy-from-Thermopylae Alison throws him halfway across the garage, and he still lets her drive his car. Also, they share worries about the vehicle's previous owner.



Lurking about the garage like that was probably silly, but Alison wanted to see the new paintjob on Betsy - no, Jamie's now... on the Shelby. It had been a while since she'd seen the car, for well, obvious reasons. And as silly as it was, or perhaps not, Alison found herself yearning for a peek at it, one of the small reminders of Betsy left behind.

Huh. A lurking Alison. Very much lurking, in fact. Jamie had to give her eight out of ten on stance alone. He grinned and tiptoed up behind her. "Whatcha doooin'?" he stage-whispered in he ear.

"GYAH!" It was reflex that had hands snap out for the right grip and the surge of adrenaline which gave her more than enough momentum and strength as she twisted her body just so - recognizing who had snuck up on her just a touch too late. Another twist near the end of the motion at least softened the landing enough, or so she hoped, even as she relocated one hand to the front of Jamie's shirt to try and keep him from flopping on the pavement too sharply. "Don't do that!"

Unfortunately, the impact with the garage floor was more than enough for Jamie to dupe, especially as surprised as he was. The dupe slid into a nearby stack of tires, which spilled everywhere, and the original looked up at Alison and tried to get his wind back. "Hngh," he said intelligently. The dupe picked himself up off the floor. "Er. Yeah. Because of the . . . thing, with the being gone all weekend saving the world, and the being twitchy because of the thing. That was really kind of dumb of me, when I think about it. Sorry about that." The upright Jamie gave the Jamie on the floor a long-suffering look, and nudged him with a toe, reabsorbing him. "Er. Really, I didn't mean to set you off. You okay?"

Having tracked the progress of the dupe, Alison blinked, lips quirking just a touch. Once there was only one Jamie, she took a deep breath, and tried to answer. And looked down, shoulders starting to shake steadily, hands rising to hide her face. "So... sorry..." The giggles were getting away from her and she couldn't stop them, no matter how hard she tried. "Sorry! Surprised! Hee! Look on face!" It was such a relief to have something utterly mundane happen, even if she'd nearly knocked him out, that Alison found herself laughing out loud, one hand pressed to her stomach in the face of the uncontrollable laughter.

There was only one possible response to that, and Jamie made it, treating Alison to a stentorian raspberry before breaking into laughter of his own. "OK, so I probably looked pretty dumb there. Help me pick these tires up? And what are you doing here anyway, other than frightening poor unsuspecting students out of ten years of their lives?"

"Ha!" She managed that much, between the giggles, even as she moved to help with the tires. "You're the one who crept on me first, young man, and don't you think I forgot that." It felt good to laugh that way - lightening a load from her shoulders, for some reason or so it seemed. "And you looked very surprised is what you looked." He'd been headed for a nice breakfall though, she'd noticed. Probably something he'd picked up in Asgard - dwarves had a thing about flipping the Tall Ones to the ground, from what Miles had told her.

"You were very creep-up-onable!" Jamie protested. "It would've taken a much better man than me to resist! And you didn't answer my question. I'm gonna be forced to make up reasons of my own in a couple minutes, and I really don't think you want to be accused of setting traps for the socket-wrench gnomes."

"Wanted to see the Shelby," she answered easily, grunting a bit as they balanced a tire on the steadily regrowing stack. "Fancy new duds and all." A slightly wistful smile followed, and then she poked a tired with a suspicious look. "Socket-wrench gnomes, huh? Betcha Catseye keeps 'em too busy for any tomfoolery."

"Tomfoolery, sure. But while she's keeping a lid on the tomfoolery, they're getting up to shenanigans somewhere else. They're sneaky, the socket-wrench gnomes." Jamie noted the wistful look and added dryly "And you know there's an easier way to go about that than skulking around and going all Michelle Yeoh on innocent passers-by, don't you? Wanna go for a drive?"

"But I have to practice my skulking around skills any chance I get can we go down the highway with the really straight lines and go vroom?" The segue from one topic to the other was somehow accomplished without a single skip of beat or change of expression.

"It's a Shelby," Jamie said. "I think we're actually required by law. C'mon."

He would, he supposed as he led Alison over to the car, have to eventually let somebody else park in the spot where the overhead lights were spaced just right to give a showroom effect. Eventually.

"Vroom," Alison replied pleasantly, having heard only about a bazillion times how Jamie himself had said that in answer to a question at one point in one of Nathan's classes, after she'd given him the keys. "Keeping her nice and showed off, aren't you?" She couldn't help but ask the question, noticing how even the tired had been angled just so to give the car a rakish air. "Paintjob is very nice."

"I just park her," Jamie said innocently. "She shows herself off. And yeah, they did an amazing job. Can't wait to see her in a real sunny day, this summer--I bet that green will just glow."

Well then, that required a little something special. Alison rocked on her heels with an innocent expression, and light suddenly sparked around the Shelby, dancing merrily about before settling into place to show the car off even more. The natural golden glow brought out the deep green highlights to the paintjob perfectly, and a spark of light danced near the edge of the hood, a perfect gleaming spark.

"Yeah, about like that," Jamie managed weakly. "Oh, wow. Have I told you lately that you're awesome? Because you're awesome. C'mon, it's pretty on the inside too."

"Actually, you hadn't." Alison smirked at that and added just a bit of variance to the glow to bring the depth of the green to life even further, the hood looking as though it might leave green on your hands from the fresh paint. The inside was still the same, a more neutral shade of leather which worked perfectly with the green paint job. "You get to show her off," she stated, walking around to the passenger's side.

Jamie got into the car and leaned over to push the passenger door open. "I think somebody requested vroom?" He grinned, started the engine, and couldn't resist revving it just a tiny bit. "Vroom."

Sliding into the car, Alison held the smile even as she felt the vribrations of the engine echoing in her bones, a distant reminder of something else which still haunted her at the most unexpected moments. "Vrooom," she repeated softly, the smile fading a bit - but not entirely. "Let's go... thataway," she added then, even as the garage doors opened slowly for them.

"I like the way you pick directions," Jamie said, pulling the car out of the garage and cruising down the driveway. "Although the licensed and bonded smartass in me is compelled by his union contract to point out that until we hit the actual road, there's only one 'thataway' to go."

A slow sideways look, that went from Jamie to the straight line through the lawn and heading towads the forest Alison, which Alison had taken in a Jeep not so long ago. "Ooh. I don't know about that one." She smiled just a bit, before looking ahead with an innocent expression.

Jamie followed her glance, then treated her to a look so dry it might have come straight out of the Sahara. "This is," he pronounced, letting the words roll majestically off his tongue, "a 1968 Shelby Mustang, one of the loveliest works of art ever to grace the Ford production lines. What it is not is an off-road vehicle. I stand by my previously-declared number of thataways."

A sparkle of light shone on the hood, dancing along the edge in a way which had nothing to do with the sunlight, even as Alison flicked out a pair of sunglasses retrieved from somewhere in her coat, grinning. "Aye aye, captain!" Putting the glasses on, she chuckled as she leaned back in the seat, the sound of the engine purring cheerfully at her, reminding her of similar outings before, with someone else at the wheel.

"That's right," Jamie said a little smugly. "Just you remember who's in charge here, missy." He sped up as they turned onto the regular streets, aiming vaguely for the highway but with no particular destination in mind. "Day like this I could just drive around forever."

"Enjoying life for the pure sake of it is a good thing." She was sounding wistful again, though she didn't have the desire to be upset about that. Wistful was all right, really. She missed Betsy, still - but at least her friend was alive and working on finding herself. Even if Alison had no link with her anymore, to try and check up on her

"We always need to make time to have fun," Jamie agreed. "Don't always get the chance around here, so I figure we have to grab on with both hands when we do." He looked at Alison sidelong. ". . . You okay?"

"Grabbing on with both hands," she murmured, after a moment. "It comes and goes. I'll be okay, if that's any help." Turning her head, Alison gave him a small smile, before looking ahead once more. There were so many things, really, though none of them were mixing up - each was clear and distinct, neatly ordered even though the emotions themselves sometimes piled up over one another. "Car rides are of the goodness, though. Always." Even if this was no longer Betsy's car, the hood gleaming a dark green under the sun clear proof of this.

"It helps. And you know if there's anything you ever need me to do, you get as many of me as I need to get it done." Jamie fell quiet for a little while, concentrating on the road. "Y'know," he said finally, "I thought . . . I'd miss her, more than I do. Ms. Braddock, I mean. Especially with this car, I mean, my God, this car. And I do miss her, it's just . . . I guess, for so long it's been, even when she was here she wasn't here, you know? She hasn't been around to say hi to, or come up with off-the-wall-but-justifiable interpretations of poems and stuff in class to see if I can make her laugh, or . . . so I got most of my missing done already, I guess." He brooded at the dashboard. "I just . . . hope she finds what she needs, wherever she went."

"So do I, Jamie. So do I." The words were soft, though still overheard over the purr of the engine, Alison leaning back in the leather of the seats with a small smile - the color and smells of the car might have changed, but the feel and sound of it hadn't. "I think she left a while ago, really. It just... took a while for the rest of her to catch up to it, and to get down to going out there to find what was missing, and to sort out what needed to be sorted out."

"Do you think she'll come back? I mean, after the sorting out? Because, I dunno. This . . ." Jamie tapped the dashboard. "I can't get away from feeling like this was kind of . . . final, you know?"

"I won't know." There was a world of wistfullness in those simple words, followed by a soft sigh. "I just figure as long as she finds what she needs, it doesn't matter where it happens, does it? Or who ends up helping. So long as someone does. And if being okay means not coming back for her, then so be it." Alison smiled at that, a touch of hope in her eyes. "So long as she's okay."

"I still wish it could've happened here, is all." Jamie shrugged. "Feels a little like, I dunno, like we let her down, not being what she needed."

"How can we do anything if we don't even get to be told about it?" Alison shook her head. "No. Not that. I'm not going down that line. Hell, Jamie, I had a link with her and it still wasn't enough. She was blocking us out. Not the other way around..."

"I guess so. I just . . . miss the way she used to be. Involved, and fun, and--" Jamie smiled "You remember that poetry experiment thing she had us do on the journals that one time? That was really cool, seeing what everybody came up with."

"Yeah, I remember." It hadn't been that long since after she'd arrived too, and had still been struggling with the loss of her career. Funny how things changed. "Maybe she'll be able to find some of that back, while she's out there." Alison wasn't sure on that, though. She hoped - but she wasn't sure.

"Hope so." Jamie paused, trying to think of a change of subject. "So . . . is the car a lot different now, do you think? Did Ms. Braddock drive you around in it much?" Well, okay, not much of a change of subject, really.

Alison turned to look at him, and smiled - even without the change of subject. "She used to. Even let me drive it now and then. When she was in a good mood. That was a while ago though," she added, a touch wistfully. "The engine used to be louder," she added, innocently. Well - it was when one went faster.

"Louder, huh?" Jamie grinned and eased to a stop at the side of the road. "Show me?"

With a grin, Alison slipped out of the car and walked to the other side, leaning on it lightly as he got out, one hand outstretched to accept the keys. Sliding into the driver's seat, she closed her eyes for a moment, remembering. Opening her eyes, she fastened her seatbelt, and then grinned wickedly at Jamie.

"Well then. Let's see how much noise this engine can make, huh?"