Nothing's Changed.

[ten]

[W] for language, a bit.
Tagged; For the Brody <3

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GOD, how bloody long could it take to travel a couple hundred miles? Ok ok, like 800. But still. They were meant to be going like 200 an hour, right? So....

Mentally, she tried to figure out the math. The numbers refused to stay in place in the little columns where she tried to total them, eventually ringing a frustrated snarl from her lips that had the older man beside her casting a rather disturbed look in her direction before scooting almost imperceptibly closer to the aisle. She should have known the 2 and a half hour flight would be the death of her. She had a hard enough time sitting still for that long in the best of circumstances... and, well, considering she was on her way out of the country for the first time to see her best friend (who she hadn’t set eyes on in years), this was hardly the best of circumstances. Over an hour and a half into the flight now, Ten had the worst of it behind her... and she’d managed to keep at least a modicum of her sanity, though it was certainly at the expense of others’.

She’d only gotten up and walked to the bathroom a handful of times. OK, 6. But it was that or dive headfirst out the little plastic, double plated peephole that masqueraded as a window. As it was, she was probably driving the 50 year old man who sat beside her nuts, but Ten couldn’t quite manage to keep her foot from jiggling absentmindedly as she watched the French countryside pass, ridiculously slowly considering the speed at which the plane was meant to be moving. Then again, her reluctant traveling companion’s comfort wasn’t exactly forefront in her mind, after the leering glance he’d given her backside as she’d slid over in front of him after her last trip to the lavatory to take the window seat.

Scowling at the thought, restless dark gray eyes scanned the cabin. For the 20th time, Ten picked up the fashion magazine a previous traveler had accidentally left behind in the pocket of the seat in front of her and, for the 20th time, flipped quickly through a couple of pages before remembering it was both French and fashion; neither of which being things she was particularly interested or well versed enough in to even understand. Again her eyes went to the window, where she could just make out the striped bits of farm land and the hazy blue of rivers as they made their way unerringly closer to the southern end of the country. To Brody.

She wouldn’t admit, even to herself, that that was the actual reason for her irrational anxiety. She’d blamed it on everything from her inability to sit still, to the fact that the seats were hardly large enough for a 6 year old midget to stretch out in, even going so far as to convince herself of a fear of heights that she’d never been aware of. But if she’d been honest, just for a moment, she’d have realized her nervous energy had nothing whatsoever to do with the 3000 miles they were currently hovering over the countryside at, and everything to do with the impending meeting with the one person in the world she wanted to impress.

What would it be like? She could hardly expect for them to just pick up where they’d left off, with the easy conversation and the bickering that was almost as second nature as the friendly jabs and playful smirks. He wasn’t the same snotty, sharp tongued little prat he’d been when he’d left her. Sure he was still those things, buried deep down, but if their conversations over the years had been any indication, he’d shifted into something entirely different. He was... smoother now. Even his voice had changed, deepening and mellowing until he hardly sounded like her Brody at all, especially once he started losing the lyrical accent from home and started adopting the ridiculous, phlegm-y French one she so liked to tease him about. Things would be... different. As much as she didn’t want them to be. And she couldn’t quite stifle the chill of fear that raced down her spine as she pondered what his reaction to her might be.

As much as Brody Hathaway seemed to have changed over the long years, Ten knew she had done as well. The awkwardly gawky, gangly girl he’d left behind that had once been mostly elbows and knobby knees had grown nearly 6 inches over the course of a summer, filling out (she had to admit) rather nicely in places she’d never really thought twice about before. She was still the same Ten, under it all, and she couldn’t name a reason why it mattered so much what he thought about how she’d changed. But matter it did, to the point that her stomach was now tied up in knots the size of bowling balls as the plane’s nose dipped down and the tiny voice of the captain announced on the intercom that they were beginning their descent into Marseilles.

Shit.

She was out of time to worry about it, completely out of the precious minutes she’d promised herself she would use to compose herself so that when she finally saw her best friend for the first time in 4 years, it wouldn’t be disappointing. As the plane touched down and rolled to a stop at the terminal, she sat, twisting her fingers nervously and watched as the rest of the passengers (her irritated elderly neighbor included) gathered their belongings and headed out the exit door. As the flight attendants started towards her and she realized she couldn’t linger any longer, Ten grabbed the bag that held what she considered the ‘necessities’ (namely her iPod, laptop and a bag of wine gums sweets that she was utterly addicted to) and finally made her way out of the plane and into the overcrowded hallways that lead towards customs.

There was a moment of panic as she paused to realize that not only was she completely unsure of where she was and how in God’s name she was going to find Brody, but she couldn’t read a word of the French in the signs and posters that colored the walls and seemed to point in a thousand different directions. Her fellow passengers, handily enough, seemed to know where they were going well enough, however, and she followed the press of the crowd as they jostled their way through the winding queue that slowly edged towards a set of small desks where customs officers sat interrogating the visitors as if they might actually want to stay in France. By choice.

Scoffing out loud even as her fingers tightened on the strap of the bag she had flung over one shoulder, Ten stepped up to bat. No, she wasn’t intending to stay for longer than 6 months. Yes, she had enough money to last her. She was just visiting a FRIEND, not some random French guy she’d found online to marry...

Rolling her eyes as the officer finally stamped an illegible blue mark in her passport and allowed her to pass, Ten walked into the open area of the airport with a fresh wave of foreboding nerves. Thin fingers plucked nervously at the frayed edge of the overlarge gray sweatshirt that had once belonged to Brody that hung off one shoulder, the logo long since faded and chipped at in places from the front. She’d worn it for a week straight after he’d left, needed that small sense of closeness as she battled the feelings of abandonment and loneliness. She probably would have worn it even longer had her mother not threatened to cut it off while she slept unless she handed it over to have it washed. The memory of it still brought a scowl to Ten’s face.

How in the world was she going to find Brody? There were easily a thousand people crammed into the large open area, pushing and elbowing their way past one another on their way to this terminal or that, speaking in a rush of fluid French that had Ten’s ear’s ringing as she struggled to pick up on a single word that might help her figure out where to go. Frustrated and nearly at her wit’s end, she gathered her mane of thick, dark hair and held it up off her neck in exasperation as she scanned the crowd for a familiar pair of icy eyes, feeling strangely uncouth and out of place in the sea of urban, sophisticated French strangers.

“God damn it, Brody,” she muttered under her breath, glancing down at the watch on her wrist that read half past 9 in the morning as she shuffled one Converse-clad foot anxiously. She should have known better than to schedule such an early flight. He was never on time. At least, the Brody she remembered wasn’t. And for the 20th time in 2 hours, Ten reminded herself that this wasn’t the same Brody. She needed to remember that things wouldn’t be the same, that he was surely not-

The thought broke off as she looked up and finally, at long last, met a pair of sky blue eyes that had haunted her memory for the past several years. And even that hadn’t done them justice. Shock came first, freezing her in place as they both merely stared at one another. Then the grin began to slide slowly across her face as every last nerve seemed to flee at the same time and she dropped her bag with an echoing thud. The handful of feet that separated them were crossed in an instant as she launched herself into his arms with a happy shriek, arms clinging tightly to his neck as she buried her face into his shoulder.

“It took you long enough, Hathaway,” she muttered, her voice muffled into his shirt as she tried not to think about the actual meaning behind the words. After several minutes spent clutching him tightly, she pulled away to look up (damn it, he really was still that little bit taller) at his face, her eyes scanning his features like she was committing it to memory.

“So,” she said lightly, trying for a tone of playful inquisition though the tension she felt as her nerves returned as evident in the tightening of her voice. She took a cautious step backwards and bent to pick up the bag she’d dropped carelessly on the floor, her right hand clutching the strap nervously once again as she felt his unreadable gaze on her. “Do we need to go get my bag, or are you ready to leave this God forsaken country and come back with me?”

[brody]

There’s a time and a place for everything, and its call University.

It was about two weeks since Ten decided that she was going to try and come to Marseille, again, and had told him she was really going to manage it this time. He didn’t immediately believe her, because she had tried and failed to see him as often as he had tried to see her over the last 4 years. It wasn’t until at dinner time yesterday, sitting at home in the zoo of Hathaway’s that he received a text message telling him she had packed, was waiting, and so far no one had stopped her. That was when the nerves really started. Nerves that quickly developed to near panic in a matter of moments to the point that he excused himself from his family’s company and headed into Marseille. He didn’t really know where he was going until he got there. ‘There’ being the dorm room of a girl called Kristin Prince.

His girlfriend, Jessica, had gone to visit her parents for the weekend and Brody couldn’t go with her, so his feet led him to Kris; possibly the closest thing to a ‘best’ friend he had in the city. Earlier in the day she had told him that there was a party on the neighbouring apartment block’s fourth floor and that she was going, and it was that more than Kristin’s company right then that he wanted for a distraction. He wasn’t going to drink, because the chances of him sleeping were slim, and the chances of him not killing himself if he drove to the airport tanked up first thing in the morning were even slimmer. So he went with Kristin, sans Jessica, to some rich kid’s party for the sole reason of killing a few hours of nerves.

It worked for the most part, because the nerves were something he had to hide from everyone, even Kris. That in itself helped to ignore it. The evening passed in innocence, him spending most of the time talking (yes, just talking) to Kristin and their friends about who was shagging who and which poor student Professor Klum had gotten his fifty year old perverted hands on this semester. As joyful as those conversations were, there was only so much of it he could deal with. At 3am he took Kristin home, back to her dorm, and by 3:30 he was back in the now deathly quiet Hathaway house.

Apparently, that night, university wasn’t a place for anything.

He went to bed, willing sleep to come and ease his mind for another few hours, but the amount of adrenalin rushing through his body could keep an elephant awake for a week. So he got up again, five minutes after he lay down, and went downstairs to the den to watch TV. Shortly after 4am Morgan, with a tiny fist rubbing a sleepy eye, appeared in the half open door to den. It was only a few months ago that his parents felt brave enough to remove the safety gates from the stairs and since then the snotty little three year old had figured out she could get down the steps on her backside. She wasn’t in danger, but it still made people jump when the smallest Hathaway, barely, taller than your knee, who was meant to be on a different floor entirely suddenly appeared wrapped around your leg.

Lately she had been suffering from a cold, and instead of screaming and laughing as she usually did she had spent her hours being extremely quiet and deeply sad, as if the life of a three year old with a cold was beyond anything any adult had ever faced. “Bode,” she muttered, Brody raising an eyebrow in mild amusement at her barely understandable grasp of his name, “Morgan can’t sleep.”
“I can’t sleep, Mog,” he corrected her.
She frowned and looked at him, confused. “I know!”

Silence followed, Brody just as confused as his baby sister was, before he sighed and held out a hand to her. At least he wouldn’t be bored now. Morgan’s tiny feet dragged on the polished wood floor as she crossed the room towards him, her complete lack of energy seeming strange compared to her usually healthy self. He helped her onto the armchair where she curled into his side and fell asleep twenty minutes later. He left her there, hardly seeing a point in disturbing her just to take her upstairs where she’d only come back down again. And ten minutes after her, Brody fell asleep too.

He awoke to a slaming door, with a damp patch of drool and god knows what else on his shirt. He cringed, and was about to wake her up when the den door swung open and the tense face of his mother glared at him. Brody clamped his mouth shut and waited; he at least had sense. “You set a bad example, you know,” his mother snapped at him. Brody shook his head in defeat. He didn’t even do anything and still he gets the blame. Granted, sitting there in last night’s clothes probably wasn’t the best image to portray his responsible side. Morgan woke up at the sound of her mother’s voice, and Brody managed to pawn her off onto his mother before she left the room.

“I’m going to shower,” he offered as an excuse, “before Kynan wakes up and uses all the hot water on washing his hair. I’m going out.”

Again, another glare, but Brody was out the door and half way up the stairs before she could scold him again. It was already close to nine o’clock, so he showered at lightening speed. He didn’t even had the heart to leave the tap running to make sure there was no not water for his brothers; his nerves had come back to him tenfold. He hadn’t told anyone that Ten was arriving. Partly he meant to tell his mother when Glynn left a couple of days ago, but the right time hadn’t shown itself, so he decided to just wing it and see what happens. That was probably – possibly – the core of his nerves, but he knew that Ten would be welcomed with open arms. It was just going to be weird. And very unexpected. And he would probably get a smack on the ear for it from more than one source.

He was dressed and back downstairs before quarter past the hour, and as if timing couldn’t get any tighter his mother stopped him in his tracks. “Take one of your sisters with you,” she ordered as he headed for the door. He growled, a bit too forcibly, and turned a heated glare on the aging woman. That lasted about three seconds before she gave him ‘the look’ and he had his eyes abandoning the confrontation to look around the kitchen. Sian was still in her pyjamas at the end of the table and flicking through a sports and fitness magazine he could have sworn he had on his bedside cabinet the day before. At least it was sports. Isolde was dressed, but at that moment had spilled an entire glass of strawberry milk down her front and turned huge, watery eyes in his direction. He ignored her; he didn’t have time. Morgan was his only option. She was dressed, fed by the looks of it and clean to boot. He went straight to her and pulled her out of her high chair, the tiny girl’s huge blue eyes widening. Somehow he managed to find her coat among the forest that hung on the wall behind the back door, and one handed he squeezed her into it. The pale pink puffy bomber jacket made her look like a top-heavy marshmallow, but it was the warmest she had, and he wasn’t going to take her out with the risk of getting even more sick.

“I’ll be back in about an hour. I’m taking the Lexus.” The keys were in his pocket before he left through the back door, almost desperate to leave the bustling interior of his home. Now that silence hit him though he wished for the noise; it meant he couldn’t think all that much. Morgan, who’s only sound was a loud sniffle and then a “yay!” as he strapped her into her seat in the back of the car wasn’t going to be much company on the 20 mile drive to the airport.

“What do you say, Little Mog, to some music to get my mind off this impending doom?” he asked as he sat into the driver’s seat a minute later and slammed the door shut.
“Yay!” she answered again, “Barney!”
Brody wrinkled his nose as he raided through the glove-box and the door pocket door the emergency collection of CDs he had made months ago to live solely in his mother’s car. “What about Whitesnake?” he offered instead.
“Yeah! Whooshneck!”
Brody’s laughter didn’t die off until the sound born in the eighties filled the car. He checked the time again. 9:22. Shit. He presumed his mother didn’t appreciate the sound of the tyres spinning on the loose gravel of the driveway, but he didn’t stop to check the kitchen window for her glare.

Somehow, and we don’t ask how, Brody made it to the airport not too much later than he was meant to. He cut off the stereo with the engine in the short term car park, and could only smile as the music didn’t die down. Morgan had a better memory than he gave her credit for, and as he freed her from the car completely and carried her to the arrival gates she carried on singing, “Gimme all yuh love toniieee, gomme all yih luve tuniih…” Hysterical as it was, Brody couldn’t laugh. He felt like he’d pass out if he wasted so much breath and energy from his already slightly shaky body.

The terminal was packed with people, and he felt his chest tighten a fraction. How was he meant to find her in here? She didn’t know a word of French so if she got lost – or rather, if he didn’t find her – she couldn’t even ask any one of these pompous foreigners for help. For a few minutes his eyes searched the faces of those that he passed by, Morgan’s hot forehead pressing against his swiftly cooling cheek. Eventually he spotted the arrivals table, lit blue and white above the network of waiting areas. Flight BA175 – expected 9:33am. He checked his watch. She was just about landing. Shit. He had to remind himself to breathe. It was landing at terminal 12, not too far from where he entered the huge airport, so he made his way to the waiting area that encompassed it, and luckily found an empty stretch of seating at the front.

Morgan, who had felt heavy in his arms, had apparently fallen asleep. When he sat her down on the soft cushion of the chair she turned around and curled into the seat’s back, dead to the world. Brody didn’t mind. It meant he wasn’t going to have to chase her down every five seconds when she made a mad dash for something shiny or pink. Just to make sure though he positioned himself where he sat on the top edge of the chair she had curled up on, resting his heels on the edge of the seat, effectively building a cage around his baby sister. She wasn’t running anywhere.

Finally people started to arrive from the England flight (he checked the luggage tag of a woman who passed nearby), but he couldn’t see his Ten. Ten minutes or more passed and he still he couldn’t spot the dark auburn hair or chilling eyes of his best friend. He knew it; she was stopped. Someone caught her before she made the flight. Again. Brody fed his fingers through each other as he rested his elbows on his knees. People who spotted him – blonde young man with an unconscious blonde three year old under his legs – gave him the most peculiar looks. Some eyed him warily, as if he had stolen Mog or was about to sit on her, and he stared right back at them expectantly. Some of them realised that they were related with that hair, and smiled and cooed in their general direction. These ones Brody ignored. A difficult task when he was glancing into just about every face that came through the gates, almost afraid that Ten had changed so much he wouldn’t recognise her. Four years was a long time, especially to a teenager as they were when they had been split up. Ten hadn’t even laid eyes on the tyke beneath his guard yet. Four years was a very long time.

But four years can only change so much. And as his icy eyes glanced from one softening motherly gaze to another, something, or rather, someone, caught his attention. It was like someone smacked him hard across the back of the head with a rolling pin and screamed “THAT’S HER YOU IDIOT!” into his ear. He stared. How could he not? She hadn’t spotted him, but he couldn’t leave Mog to go and get her despite how much he wanted to. The dark hair drew his attention; it was longer, thicker, and actually had a style to it that the permanent ponytail she used to have never did. He watched her turning on the spot, pulling the hair from her neck as if she had heard what he was thinking. And then he felt a huge, stomach wrenching tug somewhere in the base of his abdomen. It made him wonder for a minute, before he shunned it faster than it crept up on him. That wasn’t something he felt before, but he really didn’t want to think about it either.

Careful not to tread on his sleeping sister he stood up, his eyes not leaving the concerned and exasperated expression of his friend which had a small smile tugging on the corner of his mouth as he waited, impatiently, for her to spot him. And then she turned finally, the steely silver eyes he hadn’t seen in almost 4 years piercing into him with a powerful but timid stare. His stomach clenched again, which wiped the smile from his face, and he had to force his tight lungs to work. Holy shit, where did that come from?

And then she smiled, slowly, and he could only grin back, chewing on his bottom lip to stop the ridiculous laugh that wanted to escape. The same couldn’t be said for her though, as she lunged at him with a shriek he couldn’t remember ever hearing from the voice of his best friend. At that he laughed, finally, and wrapped his arms around her back, holding her tight. He lifted her off the ground, her feet inches of the tiled floor.

“You’re still short,” he concluded, before following with “and you’re the late one this time, not me. But, you always have to have one up on me so I’ll give it to you.”

He released her, feet back on the ground, and took half a step backwards to look at her again. “You look… really good,” he offered before considering the consequences. If she only knew. “I mean, for a change.” Maybe things hadn’t changed too much over four years. “We’ll get your bag. I’d at least have to pack first, and there’s no way we’re going back to your mother. Besides, why go home when home comes to me?”

It was then that he remembered his own ‘baggage’ and turned full circle in a second to see a fully awake, wide-eyed Morgan staring shamelessly at the stranger. Brody, slightly thankful for the distraction from the boulder sized ball of nerves quickly growing in his stomach, lifted his sister from the seat. Her eyes didn’t leave Ten’s face as she clung to Brody’s side with her knees, one arm wrapped around his upper arm as the other rubbed at a tired eye again (the other eye still glued on Ten). Then it was like she remembered who she was and threw her head against her brother, her crown nesting close to his neck.

“This is Morgan,” Brody introduced his sister, his own eyes moving back to Ten’s face where they stayed for the most part. “And she’s determined to make me out to be a liar for saying she’s got more energy than you and I had put together. She’s sick. Here,” he peeled Morgan from him, who gave little resistance after spending her whole three years of life being pawned from one sibling to another, and handed her to Ten.

“Teenage pregnancies are really rare and really frowned upon around here,” he continued in a whisper as Morgan clung to Ten instead and stared at her again. “Turn some heads.” With that he put a hand on Ten’s Morgan-free shoulder and led her through the now thinning crowd towards baggage reclaim.

[ten]

It was as if the entire world slowed down, in those seconds when their eyes finally met for the first time in 4 years. All the noise of the passing strangers, their jumbled conversations and hurried footsteps seemed to fade from the background until all she could hear was the echoing thud of her madly beating heart as they stared at one another. And then the spell was broken as quickly as it had been cast, and the noisy backdrop of several hundred people making their way to destinations unknown flooded in, bringing her back to reality. The nerves that had seemed to vanish as she launched herself at him began settling back in inside her stomach, the fluttering of the butterflies turning into a churning mass of uncertainty as she shuffled her feet restlessly.

“I am not short,” she said in a tone that would normally have been considered rather defiant, if it wasn’t for the weak little tremor that undermined the heat. She had to look away as his icy blue eyes skimmed down her frame and then back up, stealing a fair bit of her breath as she felt a warm flush begin to seep across her cheeks at his words.

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

She almost shrieked it out loud, there in the middle of the busy terminal. This was Brody. Brody who had convinced her at 7 that mud pies really did taste like chocolate, who had laughed when she spat mud all over him after she’d fallen for it. And then helped her pull the same thing over on her older (and rather prissy, even then) sister Charlotte. Brody, who at the age of 10 had dared her to climb up to the top of the oak tree that stood at the edge of her yard... and had consequently carried her back to her house when she’d fallen out and broken her right arm in 3 places. He was her best friend in the world, the only person she didn’t have to be anything or anyone else around. A lot of things might have changed in their 4 years apart but she’d be damned if she’d suddenly turned into one of the silly, vapid females that always seemed to blush and stammer in his wake after one thoughtless glance.

Deciding an effective offense was the best defense in just such a situation, she punched him none too gently in the shoulder so he wouldn’t have time to see her pink-stained cheeks. “Careful, Hathaway. Any normal girl might take offense at that kind of statement. I’ll have you know I always look good. It’s hardly my fault that you don’t have good enough taste to notice.”

There. That was better. That little bit of bite and swagger Ten Everard was known for, along with a healthy dose of overconfident attitude, was much more comfortable than the nerves she’d faced before, and it was certainly preferable over the breathless bit of nonsense and blushing she’d almost fallen into. Luckily she didn’t have to maintain the illusion long before Brody was turning away and the breath Ten hadn’t even been aware that she was holding burst out with a nearly inaudible whoosh.

She just needed to get used to being around him again, was all. They’d spent 4 years apart, without seeing one another. It was only natural that things would be a little.... awkward, now that they were together again. Ten Everard was hardly the kind of girl to blush and trip over herself in front of a boy. And when that ‘boy’ was Brody Hathaway? No way in hell. She straightened her spine and lifted her chin that extra notch that seemed to challenge anyone that came across her, one hand adjusting the strap of her heavy bag on her shoulder before she looked over towards a row of chairs- and froze completely. There Brody stood, but rather than holding the bag she’d expected, he now held a wide-eyed, sniffling toddler who was staring back at her with the same sort of apprehensive uncertainty she felt on her own face.

Ten wasn’t exactly the maternal type. Ok, to be honest, she was about as far as you could get some being any kind of ‘little mother’. She’d done ok as a child, being around Brody’s multitude of younger siblings but being the youngest of her own family, she really didn’t have all that much experience when it came to children. And finding herself suddenly face to face with the newest addition to the Hathaway family (a family that used to feel like as much of her own as the Everards did. More, when it came to it), she was blatantly reminded of her own shortcomings in the area. She could do little more than sputter as Brody hoisted his sister off on her, Ten wrapping one arm gingerly around the tiny girl’s waist and praying that she wouldn’t choose that moment to scream. Or worse, prove herself sick with more than just a cold. To her amazement, Morgan settled comfortably on her hip and seemed content enough despite her holder’s obvious discomfort and Ten let out a slightly relieved sigh as Brody’s voice sounded in a whisper close by her ear.

Snorting in amusement, Ten turned to face him and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and everyone’s going to think she’s mine... with all that white blond hair.” Still, she didn’t hand the girl back, but instead snuggled her the tiniest bit closer and had to hold back a shudder as she felt her friend’s hand rest casually on her shoulder, guiding her through the maze-like crowd towards the baggage claim. There was a kind of comfort in the contact that she hadn’t even been aware she was missing... but now that it was back, Ten couldn’t quite imagine how she’d made it through 4 long years without it. Turning and sending a rare, slightly timid smile in Brody’s direction, she relished the sensation and tried not to groan in disappointment with the carousels full of revolving luggage came into sight and she felt his long fingers slide away from her skin.

“It’s just that green one, there,” she said, standing up on her toes to glimpse an atrociously ugly, bright green suitcase that was covered in black doodles and random stickers before stepping back and letting him reach down and pick it up for her. It was the least he could do really, seeing as she was currently playing baby sitter to his own ‘baggage’. At the eyebrow he raised in her direction before setting the rather large suitcase down on the ground beside her, Ten merely shrugged. “Well, at least I never have any trouble finding it in the sea of beige and gray,” she said, tongue in cheek as she reached down to grab the handle to wheel it out behind her. “Now... where the devil is the parking lot? And before you even comment on girls not being able to travel without bringing every article of clothing they own, let me just say I have absolutely no intention of going back to that hell hole (she cringed a bit, glancing down at the toddler currently sitting with her sleepy head resting on her shoulder). So I didn’t exactly have any choice but to bring everything.”

[brody]

At first he didn’t feel it. the hand that he placed on Ten’s shoulder was to guide her and his little sister through the thronging mass of people in a direction only signposted in French – he was helping as he knew he had to. But it was as they neared the carousel and he dropped his hand from the guiding push, that he realised the very tips of his fingers had been touching the bare skin of her neck above the folds of the hood of her (his) sweatshirt and now tingled with a warm sensitivity. He allowed himself to watch her for a questionably long moment before she pointed out which bag was hers.

Four years, he reminded himself with a decisive frown as he looked away from her. Four years was a hell of a long time to anyone, but for them it could easily be felt as a lifetime. Some days it had done. The last time he had laid eyes on her they were fifteen years old. Ten was five foot four and he wasn’t all that much taller. Things had changed. They were soul mates, or so Charlotte and Imogen had told them from a ridiculously early age; kindred spirits, peas in a pod, soul twins, and countless other terms they had heard over the years. Brody remarked on more than one occasion that maybe it wasn’t fate that brought them together, but their equal stubbornness even as a toddler to not be like everyone else and admit defeat in the presence of the other. Either way, Ten had always been around, the baby pictures of them sharing a bath tub was enough proof. She was Ten, and he was Brody, and there was nothing more reasonable than that. So having the tingling skin and the obnoxious little stomach flip before was entirely and completely understandable. It was to be expected, really, after four years.

He was so lost in thought that it wasn’t until he had the bag off the carousel that the hideous, garishness of the huge bag. He lifted sceptical eyes to examine her face, sure that there was some casual brush-off or smart remark to follow, but all he got was a pretty reasonable excuse. They had talked thousands of times about when she (or he) was able to escape the clutches of one overbearing parent or another, and how they’d never return for fear of penalty of death on both their parts. He just didn’t realise Ten owned that much stuff. Not that he ever noticed what jeans, t-shirts or sweaters of his she wore when they were fifteen, but he had sort of expected a change. Perhaps in his absence some of Charlotte’s whining or her mother’s lecturing actually sank in. He doubted it though.

“Stop,” he warned lightly, half way through Ten’s first step with her awful bag in tow. Before she could raise an eyebrow at him though he has in front of her and peeling the sleepy Morgan from her shoulder. For one, he didn’t forget his manners, and after all the years of his mother drumming it into him that Ten was a girl and he should be a gentleman even with her, something managed to sink in. Secondly, if just looked really bad if he walked out of the airport empty handed when Ten had two bags and a toddler, and there were enough eyes on them (for Morgan and for the lime green lapse-of-judgement) without Ten showing him up for that too. Morgan seemed to have barely noticed her change in carriers and settled again with a sorrowful sniffle. Brody slapped lightly at the hand that held the wheeled bag, and when she ignored him he grabbed it anyway, her hand and all.

Trying his damnedest to ignore the writhing fingers beneath his, he led them back the way they had come. Thankfully there was barely half the number of people hanging around now and he found the exit much more easily then he had found the arrivals gates. Outside, the air seemed warmer, the sun brighter, and Brody put it down to the time of day. The car was easily found – the walk from it to the main building seemed longer somehow. He pushed the tiny buttons on the key in his pocket (grudgingly letting Ten pull her own bag for those few moments) and with a loud beep the car unlocked.

“If you’re hungry we could stop and get some food on the way back,” he offered as the rumble of the plastic wheels of the bag against the rough tarmac ground came to a halt. “Otherwise it’ll only take us about twe-… fifteen minutes to get back. And, by the way, I still didn’t tell anyone you were coming.” Brave, or stupid, he wasn’t sure which he could be classes as, but he smiled somewhat daringly at Ten’s expression before opening the back door of the silver Lexus.

“WHOOSH-YAY!” Morgan’s high pitched call filled the roomy interior of the car as he put her back into her seat. Apparently the sunlight had given her a new lease of life after the glum, clinical interior of the airport, and he could hardly blame her. He laughed lowly and shook his head, an action that was obviously not accepted. “NO!” the tot yelped, “WHOOSHNECK!”

“Alright!” he growled, cutting her off before she could yelp again. “Just shut up for one minute.”

“’Kay.”

Her quiet answer was so tame in comparison to the squealing before that he had to laugh as he stood up again and closed the door on his baby sister.

“You sure you’re going to be able to handle ‘the zoo’? It’s been that long… I mean, Izzy doesn’t even remember you…” It was the cold truth, but at the time that the Hathaway family moved from Wales Isolde – then the youngest – was only two years old. Four years felt even longer when he put it into that context. He opened the boot with a press of another button and lifted the bag (with a comment of “holy shit, woman”) into the boot. Then he took the bag from her shoulder, uninvited, and tossed that in too. It wasn’t like she was going to need it, and he missed violating her personal space.

“So,” he started as he pushed yet another button and the motor to shut the boot again whirred into life. He turned back to her, idly twisting the ring of the keys around the index finger of his other hand as his icy blue eyes narrowed on hers, the faintest or smirks turning his lips. “Apart from going back to get the kitchen sink, what do you want to do?”