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This is stupid.
Could be fun, Bill kept saying. And it’s not that he was against fun, in general, but this right here? Stupid.
These people were, 90% of them, tripping their balls off. And, again, he’s no angel, but this is a situation that could, so easily, go to shit.
They had to leave in two days. The guys wanted to blow off steam, they were in this little town in Vermont, there was a college party, Billy knew a guy, here they were, here he is.
And then, suddenly, there she is.
It’s not the first time he’s seen girls going wild. Really, not even close. He has run this circuit before, he knows the drills, the parties, the booze, the drugs, the music, the guys, the girls.
He doesn’t remember a girl quite like this one, though.
She’s dancing on top of a table, she’s pouring liquor down this ice sculpture thing, she’s sort of making out with this girl, she’s barely wearing anything.
Frank has seen this picture before, he’s done this before.
Still, he can’t look away, the beer sweating in his hand, eyes accompanying the sway of her scantily clad hips. The scene was not new to him, but this? Her? Someone just like her? No, not even close.
He’s looking at her and she’s dancing, but then she’s looking somewhere right over his shoulder. To his left, Frank sees a guy motioning her over with his chin, and sees the sigh she barely represses.
The girl - barely a woman, what is she, 19, 20 tops? - bends to pick up something, a backpack from behind the table she had been dancing on, and makes her way to the guy.
On her way, she brushes her shoulder against Frank’s, but doesn’t really acknowledges him.
“Lighten up, Frankie”, Billy is saying, suddenly, on his right, arm over someone’s shoulders. “Don’t have to look so glum all the time, y’know?”
“Yeah, yeah”, he says, suddenly aware of the people around him, swaying to this god awful music, this blue light, the low ceilings making him feel like he might suffocate on air any second, now. “Don’t overdo it, Bill.”
“Only way I know how to do anything, my friend”, he says, pulling the girl on his arm closer to him, and she smiles big, her face pressed right against his neck. “Hey. I’m serious. Have some fun.”
“Yeah, man”, the girl interjects, making a mock grumpy face at him. “Turn that frown upside down.”
“I’m gonna turn you upside down”, Billy tells her, and Frank has to laugh, because how does this shit actually works?
If he had his face, he muses, he would be able to get away with ridiculous lines like this, too.
They leave, and Frank looks over to where the table girl had disappeared to. Of course, she’s not standing there anymore.
He walks to the spot he had gotten his beer, to maybe get a fresh one, and someone directs him outside, which is a relief.
“I don’t know what to tell you”, he hears while his hand is inside the bucket full of ice and beer bottles.
There she is, this time wearing jeans and a shirt, putting her hair up in a knot.
“That’s very easy”, says the person she’s been talking to, a different guy than the one who had called her before. “Tell me you got something for me.”
“I just told you, I don’t have it. Very sorry.”
“What am I supposed to do, then?”
“I don’t know. Take it up with Todd, he might have it.”
“Usually you have it.”
“Well, today I don’t.”
There’s a beat, and the guy sighs.
“You not holding out on me?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Don’t know. Maybe you’re still mad about that other time.”
“Hmm. Yeah. But, as it is, I don’t have anything for you. Go see Todd.”
“I don’t wanna see Todd, that dude’s a douche. I rather deal with you.”
That’s when Frank turns around and, with a look to her face just to make sure, steps in.
“Hey”, he says to her, and the guy, that has been taking a step towards her, stops and turns to look at him. “Ready to go?” Frank asks her, and she looks confused for half a second before realizing what he’s doing.
“Yeah.” To the guy, she says again. “Sorry, man. I’ll see you later.”
And then she walks past him, towards Frank, and they walk towards the back entrance of the frat house - only Billy would ever be able to drag him to a fucking frat house party, really.
“Thanks”, she says, looking over at him. “He can be persistent.”
She smiles at him, pleasantly and politely, and Frank tries not to stare too hard at her.
She’s a looker, this one.
“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you before”, she says after his “you’re welcome”.
“Just passing through”, he says, taking a sip of his beer. “That happen a lot? With the guy?”
She shrugs, not trying to change the leisure pace they had set. “You know. Yeah. Frat guys, not much to expect there.”
They end up sitting on this bench on the front porch, sipping beer and talking. For hours and hours, they talk. About being from a small town, in her case, and from Queens, in his, and a big sister and an only child, about on and off boyfriends and being “tragically detached” - her words for his situation. They talk and he doesn’t lie to her. Not once. And she doesn’t lie to him, he can tell. Their truths coming out as easily and organically as breathing.
Her name is Karen, but he calls her Blue Eyes. She laughs, but doesn’t protest. She is not really, actually, a student here. She tells him, vaguely, about not having decided what she actually wanted to do for a major, about taking a break, and asks him what he’s doing there.
“We’re flying out two days from now”, he tells her. “My buddy knows someone here, kinda dragged me along with him.”
“Flying out where?”
He tells her, casually, about the Marines, and the way her eyebrows shoot up in surprise, her lips barely-almost-imperceptibly curving up, make him feel proud, like it’s something to boast about.
“So, it’s your last night of unrestrained fun before you go out to protect and save us all?”
She’s sitting really close, and he’s kinda turned towards her, and they’re sharing a beer. It’s dark out, so they’re sitting close, and he feels… Good. Relaxed. The party is raging behind them, but he has forgotten all about the crappy music, infuriating lighting and stoned people.
“Pretty much.”
“Well, then, Mr. Marine.” Getting up, she picks the beer from him with one hand and, while taking a swig, reaches out for him with the other.
“We going somewhere?” He asks, taking it and getting up.
“It is my duty, as an American, to make sure our troops get to work feeling good. Relaxed. Come on.”
They end up smoking a pretty amazing joint while walking towards somewhere he doesn’t know, but doesn’t really care. Honestly, she could just walk him round and round the block in the cold, he’d be fine with it.
But they end up in front of a big building, not too distant from the first one, he could still hear the beat of the music.
It’s big and dark, and pretty obviously the campus’ gym.
“Last year’s elections were pretty competitive, so we got a lot of improvements around town. This right here was pretty much abandoned, and the athletes had to share the high school gym, all the way across town. The mayor really went for it, and now there is state of the art equipment, a soccer field over there, basketball court, and… A heated pool.”
“And how do you suppose we get in there?”
“Small town, Marine”, she says, turning to look at him over her shoulder, and he can almost feel his knees giving out. “More often than not, things are just left… Unlocked.”
Amazingly, she turns the doorknob and pushes, and the big door moves, and she steps in.
“Come on.”
Soon, she was in her underwear again, shedding her clothes like it’s nothing, and soon he is, too, and she’s pulling him to the water, and he’s almost moaning, because, shit, it feels good.
Frank doesn’t know how long they stay there, with only their heads above the water, circling each other, and she comes close, sometimes, right up to his face, and he catches her hand in his, and she runs hers over his arms, fingertips tracing the dips and swells of muscles, and then she swims away, whole body floating in the surface, and they talk, and he watches her, and she comes close again. Time goes by and Frank forgets it, forgets himself, suddenly there’s only blonde long hair floating in warm water, blue eyes looking up at the domed ceiling, fingertips against his.
“I wrote a book, once”, she tells him, floating, belly up, arms stretched out, grasping his hand, letting go, grasping it again. “When I was eleven.”
“What was it about?” He asks, watching the water twist and swirl around her skin.
“A girl that went to sleep wishing she could see more than what she sees everyday, and, on her way to school the next day, she finds a portal that will take her to different dimensions and realities.”
“Wow. Were you published? How many copies? Translations?”
With a side smile, she splashes water towards him.
“Three copies. My mom had the original, my grandma asked for a second one, and I took one to school. Got a prize, you know?”
“It sounds like a good story”, he muses, taking a step closer to her, and her hand closes around his wrist, sliding further along his arm as he reaches to touch her back underwater. “A bit biographical, maybe?”
“Oh, for sure.”
He’s standing behind her, now, her head on his shoulder, and the water is steaming around them.
“Ever since I was old enough to understand anything, I wanted to get out of here. The book was just… the closest I ever got to actually doing anything about it.”
“At the tender age of eleven.”
They fall silent for a bit, and Frank runs his fingers over hers while she floats there with her head on his shoulder, legs stretched out in front of them.
“Your brother might have a point there.”
She had told him how her younger brother kept saying she needed to go away, make a life for herself, and she kept saying she couldn’t, there are too many things here, her father would not make one day without her.
“Yeah?” She asks, moving to stand in front of him, her hair slick back, face wet, such blue eyes shining against the pool lights. “We could trade, you and I. You stay and manage the business, keep an eye on old Paxton and Kev while I go on adventures around the world.”
“Adventures?” He asks, advancing against her, and her smile is cheeky and almost daring. “Is that what you think I do?”
“I guarantee it’s more exciting than serving coffee to the sheriff.”
“Maybe. Coffee is safer, though.”
“Safety is overrated.”
“You say that now”. He’s so close, and she doesn’t back away, so he reaches for her hands again, and then places his on her waist. “Splashing around a heated pool in the middle of the winter, dancing on top of tables in your underwear…”
“Smoking pot with a mysterious grumpy Marine.”
“Am I mysterious?”
Pressing her lips together and running her eyes over his face, she nods.
“Probably the most mysterious person to ever walk the streets of our little town.”
“Hmm. What about this girl?” Here, Frank pulls her to him by her hand, and she lifts the other one to his face when he puts his arm around her waist. “With blue fire in her eyes and something wild, sweet and special about her?”
The way she looks at him, honestly. He just might get on his knees and say yes to whatever she asks and demands, just because of that look.
“Isn’t she full of mystery and everything grand?”
He has both arms around her, now, and watches as drops of water run from her hairline to her chin, dripping back to the pool one by one. One of her hands on his shoulder, the other one caressing his face absent mindedly, but he feels as if she’s seeping magic into him.
“There’s nothing special about me, Marine.”
“But there is.”
She’s warm and tasting of chlorine when he kisses her, slow and soft, full of something that he doesn’t know what it means, it can’t really mean anything, can it, he knows this girl for five minutes, but he knows it does, he feels it does, it means something huge, it makes something inside him stir when her tongue slides against his and he hears the little sigh she lets out.
His hand is raising from her waist to the back of her head, she’s kissing him deliciously for less than a minute when the door bursts open and she flinches, and Frank sighs when he recognizes the voice that echoes on the high ceilings.
“You in here, Frankie?”
She giggles silently against him when he mutters a curse under his breath, and puts both hands on his face, placing a kiss on the corner of his mouth while Billy and the girl from before make their way inside.
“Been looking for you, man. We gotta go.”
Frank looks at him from inside the pool, and Karen is already swimming towards the pool ladder.
“What d’you mean we gotta go?” He asks Billy from inside the water. “Now?”
“Yeah, man. They called, we lift in three hours.”
“Shit.”
Climbing out of the pool, he steps to where Karen is putting her clothes back on, and she gives him a soft smile.
“Let me drive you home”, he offers, because, now that he’s paying attention, the sun is already out, the blue of the sky getting lighter and lighter as morning advances.
“I’m actually late, so I’m gonna accept.”
They put their clothes on quickly, and, a strange feeling inside him, he reaches out for her hand when they’re ready to go.
With a contemplating look about her, she takes it, and they walk out towards where he had parked the car, Billy and the girl making noise while leading the way, and Frank, with the heat of her hand against his, wishes they never find the truck.
She rides shotgun with him, and he doesn’t let go of her hand the entire way to Billy’s date’s place, she draws simple patterns over his knuckles.
They don’t say anything while Billy walks the girl to her door and makes a show of trying to suck her lips off her face.
When it’s her turn, Karen guides him through the streets until they arrive at a diner.
“Ma’am”, Billy says to her when she descends the car and he moves to take her place. “Pleasure to meet you.”
She offers him a short, polite smile, and looks at Frank, walking around the car to go with her to the entrance.
“It was nice to meet you, Frank”, she offers, and he feels as if he’s losing something. Something amazing he never got the chance to have, only a glimpse, but he feels its loss nonetheless.
“Send me a copy of your next book”, he tries, a lame joke to delay his departure, and she smiles, bright and conformed. “And don’t forget to sign it.”
“Tell you what”. She takes a step towards him and tugs on the lapel of his coat. “I’ll dedicate it to you, how does that sound?”
There’s a side smile on his face when he pulls her to a hug, pressing a kiss to her temple, and she breathes in deep against his shoulder.
“You’re fucking special, Blue Eyes.”
It’s not longing, that he feels. Not quite. But something pulls and tugs on his heartstrings, and it’s a nagging feeling and he wishes, for his own sake, that it would go away.
Karen moves, letting go of him with a sigh.
“I’m gonna miss you, Marine.”
She walks backwards towards the entrance of the diner, looking at him.
“Try not to forget me too quickly.”
He shakes his head at her, telling her without words that he won’t, and she smiles before turning and climbing the four or five steps, opening the door, taking one last glance at him before walking in, and Frank walks back towards the car, where Billy is waiting for him.
“Ready to go, Romeo?”
“Shut up, Bill.”
.:.
Karen hears his name and something lights up in the back of her mind.
She reads it on the files Tower slips her and it bugs her.
His hospital records, his military history, the x-ray of his bullet wound, close range, right side of his head.
And then, the photographs in his home. The smell of the place, the medal on the mantel, pictures of his family and pictures of official ceremonies.
It’s so far away, but it’s there. Like a tiny stone lodged in the recesses of her conscience, too small to pick up, but solid enough to make her shift her weight around it.
She tells herself it’s because there are too many holes to the story. Tells it to Matt, to Foggy, and even to the nurse that saw him coming back to life after one minute of being officially dead. Tells it to herself when she breaks into his house.
The stone is there. All along. Tiny and solid.
Until she walks into his hospital room and sees him strapped and cuffed to a bed, red tape on the floor marking him as dangerous, and she has to let go of Matt’s hand, tries to get a hold of herself while he walks to the bed and starts talking, memories of a night, so long ago, flooding back, making her lose her breath.
Here, standing not so far away, she recognizes him at last.
He won’t remember. Over ten years, now, almost fifteen, there’s no way he can… No way he has kept that locked inside, like she has, a glimpse of maybe something, the promise of something grand, too fleeting to actually be something.
There’s no way.
But he does. Not right away, he’s a mess of wounds and scrapes and injuries, there’s trauma so evident, covering every inch of his skin and coating every word that leaves his mouth, and even she forgets herself, because he has already given up. So she gets to his face, shoves a picture of his family under his nose, and holy Christ in heaven, it is him, she can practically taste the one quick kiss from ages ago, beer and pot and chlorine, just like she had then, when it lingered on her tongue even after she got back together with Todd, disappearing only when the taste of her own blood suffocated her, when it had dripped into her mouth while she screamed in an upside down car, in the worst night of her life.
When she shows him that picture, he really looks at her, and she can see recognition in his eyes. Far away and slow, like it had been for her, and then Matt is pulling her away, Reyes is kicking them out, and she’s actually glad, because she can lean against a wall and breathe, time swirling around her, shifting, rearranging, old memories and buried emotions flaring back up, fighting against experiences that left no place for them.
There’s a case, there are crimes, death and destruction, there is Matt. Matt smiling and being sweet and kissing her in front of an elevator, Matt lodging himself into her heart, faster and faster.
But then the elevator door closes, he’s gone and she has work to do, she goes back in with Foggy, and Frank is staring at her, and she knows he knows. She knows he remembers, she remembers too, like it was yesterday, warm water and warm hands against her skin, soft lips of a young, good man against hers.
He asks to be alone with her, and Foggy is quick to say no, but she says yes, and then her friend is walking out.
The room is silent and full of tension, she has his legal case in her hands, a barely cooked strategy his only hope of… something.
And then he sighs, and his eyes soften, and she lets out a long, slow breath, and lifts her eyes to his.
There’s too much. Way too much to say, way too much to unpack, a thousand things and none, over ten years since a night that happened so quick that it could barely count as happening, but it had, it did, a fixed point in her life that had changed nothing, or maybe it had changed everything.
He recognizes her. And she knows what he’s gonna say before he says it.
“Hi, Marine”, she starts.
There’s a beat, and maybe one layer of air is lifted out of the sterile hospital room.
“Hey, Blue Eyes.”