Idyllic... [Reserved for Chase & Mia]

Mia sat in her wheelchair, twiddling her fingers, the only limbs she could move without pain. She couldn't feel her legs, and she didn't want to. They'd hurt too much.

It was possibly the longest time she'd ever spent on the ground in one sitting, and it felt as if she'd been on some other planet for years, as if the rooftops were another world entirely. The rooftops where her moon, and her wheelchair anchored her to the Earth.

With a yawn, she blinked away the clouding lethargia. She was grateful she wasn't cooped up in that jail of a hospital, the warmth of Chase's hospitality was far better, by a landslide.

It just made her smile a little, hearing his footsteps as he attended his customers.

It was a rather slow business day, customers eking in as need be, only stopping by to pick up the barest of essentials that he offered. When one of the local housewives had her fill of both groceries and chit-chat, he sighed, watching her go, and then turned on the sole of his black sneaker. That left a smudge on the floor, but he didn't care - it wasn't a priority of his. "How are you doing, Mia?" he called as he walked through the back hallway, where she was sitting and hopefully keeping herself occupied. He knew she was probably bored out of her mind; she was hyperactive and full of life. He couldn't imagine what it was like to be confined to a wheelchair all of a sudden. He felt a familiar pang of guilt; it was his fault that she was hurt in the first place, after all. That's why he had offered to take her in in the first place, though he probably would've even if her injuries weren't of his doing.

He walked into the small room, sunlight pouring in through the open window, and smiled warmly at Mia. He sat down on a chair across from her and asked, "How are you doing?" He knew he was repeating himself. "Do you need anything?"

Mia looked up with a small smile.
"I'm bored." She pleaded with a coy tone, looking up to Chase with her best, long practiced puppy dog eyes.
"I can't even get up to mob a hug on you." She sniffed, adding her infamous air of tradgedy to the scene.


Really, she was glad that Chase had dropped in. Relieved, more rather, that the whole ordeal hadn't severed their tight friendship.

Chase smiled, reaching over to pat her shoulder quickly. "I have a little sister," he reminded her. "I'm immune to puppy-dog eyes." Laughing, he stood up, and rooted through a nearby cabinet. He opened a door, and pulled out an entire stack of books, papers, notepads, pencils, and DVDs. "I also have young cousins. Entertainment is a must." He spread them out on a small cot in the room, pulling out a couple of books and noteworthy movies. "There's a TV set over there," he pointed. "It's got a built-in DVD player. Cool, huh?" He had gotten a shipment not too long ago, and wanted one for himself. Technology was limited on the island.

"I can stay in here for a little while and watch one with you, if you want," he blurted out.

Mia rolled her eyes. Too bad the whole coy act didn't work on Chase, it was half of her arguments alot of the time.

Mia angled her head a little bit as Chase dug out several fun little things, a pile of movies, a surplus of paper and pens... It was enough to bait her interest.
She lightly bit her lip as she saw one movie in particular set in the pile.
'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'

"Could you?" She asked innocently, looking from the video to Chase, quite a potent combination.

"This entire stack might keep you occupied for...like, what? Three days?" he teased, gesturing to the pile of clutter on the cot. "I'll have to stop somewhere and pick some more odds and ends up. That's my specialty." He looked at the movie that Mia had spotted. "That's a good one," he nodded in approval, picking up the disc. He walked across the room, dragged the set out a little bit into the center of the room, or as long as the extension cord would allow, and popped the disc into the drive. The set flickered to life, and the opening credits of the movie began to roll. He pushed the clutter on the bed aside and sat down tentatively. "You want to lay down, or stay in your chair?"

"I'll stay in my chair." Mia said. Getting in and out her wheelchair was painful, and made her feel irritably immobile. Just a thorn in her side.

The two sat and watched the movie as scenes flew by, filled with sweet gourmet fantasies, whirling colours and orange Oompa-Loompas.
Come the end of the movie, Mia felt alot happier. Actually smiling, if not grinning.

"That was a good movie..." She giggled, briefly trying to lift her arms and stretch, but immediately feeling pain shoot through her.
"Oh yeah, I can't move, can I?" She laughed sheepishly.

Chase blinked, a little bleary. Movies made him tired. He looked over at Mia just in time to see her try to stretch. He opened his mouth to dissuade her just as she flinched in pain. "Mia, don't hurt yourself," he scolded, jumping up and half-jogging over to her. He frowned. "Are you okay?" He felt like a worried mother hen, which was actually a quite painful comparison to make, and an embarrassing one, too. He couldn't help but feel protective, though. He sat down on the floor next to her and picked up the case for the movie. "I worry about you sometimes," he said in all seriousness.

"I'm fine." Mia laughed. It was strangely reassuring when Chase did such things.
Maybe even a little cute... She thought momentarily, before quickly realising what she'd just thought and forced it to the back of her mind with a nervous giggle.

Mia thought for a moment.
"I suppose I cut it a little close to the edge sometimes..." She admitted. Upon further thought, sometimes more meant 'all the time'.
"Sorry." She apologised. Mia knew she'd have to be more careful in future, the wheelchair she sat in reminded her of that fact every second.

Chase sighed. "Don't do it again," he warned, only half serious this time. He splayed his body across the wooden floor, careful not to be an obstacle to Mia and her chair. "You're kind of reckless, and kind of wild, and kind of crazy," he noted. He was almost the exact opposite. "You like to have fun. I think I'm more cautious, at least in what I find fun." Case in point: he didn't run on roofs. "We're, like, polar opposites. We defy all laws of logic."

Mia laughed. Chase was quite right, the two couldn't be any more different.
"That's the fun of it." She grinned impishly.

"After all," She started, lowering her voice to imitate a crotchety old scholar, "Opposites attract, as the old lores would say..."

"Cliches are no fun," Chase scoffed. "So trite. So unoriginal. It's much more fun to come up with your own witticisms." He grinned, and then picked himself up off of the floor. He caught a glance at the clock sitting on a nearby table. It was 5:00 p.m., closing time. "Time to close up shop," he muttered, running a hand through his hair. No customers had come in since he had settled down in the back with Mia.

Ignoring this, he decided it was time for both of them to get out of the store. "Let's go," he ordered, reaching over and grabbing the handles and pushing her chair out of the room, down the hallway, out the front door. He locked the door behind him and started pushing her through the town, feeling kind of spontaneous and almost...powerful. Huh.

Mia looked wistfully up to the rooftops, feeling a tingling sense of longing.
She belonged up there, in the skies, not bound to the ground...
It made her feel a little helpless, so dependant, a feeling she wasn't used to at all.

"Feels wierd, being stuck down here." She laughed dryly, feeling home-sick for the rooftops. Even though being on the ground was thousands of times safer than up on the roofs, she still felt... Exposed, vulnerable. It was strange.

"What, you've never taken the scenic route between buildings and on the sidewalk before?" Chase asked as he wheeled her down the road, small sprigs of weeds, grass, and flowers sprouting between the cracks of the pavement which he carefully maneuvered. "You'll get used to it. Believe me." He paused as he approached a building, stepping in front of Mia and her chair to carefully wedge open the door before pushing her inside. "Besides, nothing's going to hurt you down here." He inhaled deeply. "This is the Inn. They make great food here." He pushed her up to the counter and nodded at the shopkeeper. "I figured you might be hungry. Order what you want; it's on me."

Mia looked around, unable to recognise plenty of the buildings from, well, on the ground. She never really paid attention to the surroundings on the ground, but on the rooftops, she knew every pipe and vent.

Mia pretended the kind looking Innkeeper wasn't looking at her with a confused smile, probably remembering her from the previous incident.
She suddenly felt ashamed again, and ducked her head a little.

"I might just have a drink... I'm not that hungry." She lied with a smile.

Chase shook his head. "Liar," he called her out. "Just get something. Get some food, and a drink, too. Add a snack. We're not going to add malnutrition to your long list of medical problems at the moment. Don't worry about it. They're not going to poison you." For himself, he looked at the menu and ordered a simple sandwich, along with a water. It was his "usual," so to speak. He wasn't a very complicated man when it came to food.

Mia sighed and smiled. She was starting to learn that she could never hide anything from Chase, he always had his way of blowing her out of the water.
"Am I that easy to read?" She asked with a smile.

Ummmm...
Mia looked at the list of meals and picked out the second-smallest thing to appease both her stomach and Chase, grinning as honestly as she could.

He chuckled. "It's not that hard, no," he admitted. "Girls like to think that they're mysterious and complicated, but smart guys have a clue, contrary to popular belief." He picked up the plate that the shopkeeper handed him, piled high with both his and Mia's orders. Chase scanned the house for a place to sit with an accesible table for Mia and her chair, and spotted one in the corner. "Hold this, will you," he asked, handing the tray to Mia before remembering about her arm. "Oh. Sorry." He balanced the tray in his free hand, instead, wheeling Mia shakily with the other. He positioned her carefully, put her food in front of her, and sat down himself.

Picking up his sandwich and taking a bite, he asked in between chewing, "Mia, are you doing okay?"

Mia struggled to eat, with only the mobility of the wrong arm, and even then, it was still painful enough to force her to use only her forearm and down.
Still, she took small bites at her food.

"I don't like eating anymore." She declared with a smile, rolling her eyes.
"I'm starting to regret jumping off that building." She added nonchalantly.
She couldn't imagine what it would have done to the poor cafe's business either.

"Am I going to have to spoon-feed you?" Chase teased. He felt guilty about eating in front of her, especially because she looked so pitiful and frustrated at the same time. "I'm sorry. This was a bad idea." He looked down at his plate and frowned. "You want your drink?" His pathetic attempt at changing the subject was poorly veiled, even with the smile that accompanied it.

"I'm glad you're regretting it, though. Maybe that means you won't do it again."

Mia stuck her tongue out at chase and took a voracious bite of her food.

She'd certainly learned a lesson from the whole ordeal. For so long, it never mattered how close she cut it, the only person who would care would be her, and perhaps her family if word got 'round.
She didn't know why, but since Chase came around, she felt she had a friend to live for. It suddenly mattered if she did something like this again.

"I learned my lesson." She pouted, looking innocently to Chase like a child.

"Good." He took another bite, but found it hard to swallow with guilt clouding his head. "But...it wasn't your fault. Not entirely." He suddenly found himself talking, and fast. "I was the one who made you angry. I was angry, too. But I provoked it. I shouldn't have said the things I did, and I shouldn't have told you to leave. If you hadn't, maybe you wouldn't have fallen." He took a breath. "But don't think I took you in out of guilt. That's not it. I'm not being nice to you because I feel sorry for you, so don't start in on me about that. I want to take care of you until you get better because you're my friend. At least, I hope you are. Friends don't treat each other the way I treated you that day. And, what I'm getting at, I guess, is that I'm really sorry." Color flooded his cheeks; he didn't ever talk that much. He took an embarrassed bite of his sandwich and chewed slowly.

Mia mulled over Chase's words for a minute, feeling a quiet happy warmth spread through her. She couldn't help but smile.
She didn't know what to say with words, so she simply hoped she could convey her meaning with her eyes. She was just happy Chase was even there, being the friend he was. Even if she had broken every bone in her body in that fall, she would have felt happy anyway, just because of Chase.

She took another small bite of her food.
The silence wasn't awkward, wasn't sad.
Just... Warm.

Chase cleared his throat, not exactly sure what to say after that. He felt a little strange- outbursts like that were not like him. But he was also glad that he had finally said what was on his mind. He watched Mia smile, and a light turned on behind her eyes. Maybe, just maybe, he was forgiven?

"Are you mad at me?" He had to know. She didn't look mad, not in the slightest, but he was one of those people who just had to know those things. It made him sound a little desperate and reaching, but he didn't really care at that moment.

Mia rested her head on her one mobile palm with a content sigh.
"No, I'm not mad." She said, truthfully.
She should have been mad, at herself, but in all honesty, she was glad. It brought the two somehow closer, made the friendship even tighter, at least to Mia it felt like it.

She smiled faintly, but smiled nonetheless.
"Are you mad?" She asked, the smile quickly falling from her face.