Between Time

Juliet sighed as she walked across the field towards the water. There was always just something about it that attracted her. She remembered it being the first thing that had enchanted her, those first weeks of her first year.

Out of everythign that could bring her attention, the lake, perhaps the most normal thing about the area (if you ignored the rumors of what lurked inside it) but it was what always drew her in, drew her back to it like a serens call.

Frowning softly, her robe drifing around her, she settled herself on to the bank, moving to curl her knees up into her chest when she changed her mind.

Soon her shoes were gone and she was swirlign her feet in the water. Humming softly to herself, she looked out over the water and couldn't help but feel....

Well, the same as she had every other year, when she had sat in the exact same place, looking out at the exact same water, wondering what was going to change.

You could say that Thor was feeling pissed. Yeah, that was the right word, he was completely set off by some guy at some class and there was no point in trying to calm down, cause when he was like this, and that was on rare occasions, nothing could help him, he was so stubborn tempered.

Juliet drifted from him, again, and he ran to catch up with her, not even bothering to stay undercover. It was pretty obvious to most of the people that he was a kind of bodyguard to her and Karma, looking after them in all situations, and he was pleased about it, that meant that at least he left a good impression on people.

Some of them feared him, he knew that as well, but he couldn't care less. The girls were another story, to be honest, most of them liked him, they all wanted that illusion of safety, secured by a handsome dark haired vampire, but he mostly ignored the rest.

"There you are", the boy said, looking away from Juliet.

"Here I am," she said softly with a slight smile as she heard the boy approach. "You know, for a vampire, it is oddly easy for me to slip away from you, and I'm not even trying."

She turned and flashed him a teasing grin before going back to looking at the water.

Juliet swirled her feet slowly, watching the way the water rippled around them. Her gaze was soft, almost distance as her mind continued to ponder and roam. Of all the things to change the boy beside her seemed to be always one big change... and not at the same time, as she easily drifted from noticing him, to not.

"Are you going to sit down? Or just hover there all grumpy like all day?"

He managed to push out a smile for her, a gentle, honest, light and very small chuckle, but one way or another, the girl brought joy to him. "Not even trying, please", he grinned, looking straight in her eyes. "but in fact, you are a mischievous mastermind hiding behind an innocent face. I don't know how you do it, but it's harder to track you, than for example, another vampire."

As she shifted her gaze back to the water, he didn't know what to do. She looked sad, and never before in his life did he have to comfort someone, especially not a teenage girl, who were, at least these days, really hard to understand.

Without a word, he took a seat, and waited patiently for her to open up. He decided that it was the best if he waited, even if that meant sitting here for the rest of the day. Thor was determined to let things go their way.

"And I'm telling you how I do it," she responded easily, her lips curving upward, "I don't try."

"You think I have an innocent face?" Her tone was still joking, though she had stopped looking at him, her gaze trained out at the water, as it had been before he arrived, before they had begun talking.

The sky above them was still a clear blue, sun shinning down from behind them, but a quick glance at the horrizan proved to show the clouds threatening to come in. The girl tilted her head as she looked at them; it was storming across the lake.

"Don't you ever get.... tired of everything? I mean... how many years have you been wandering about? Everything must be changing on you constantly. Don't you ever just get... tired?"

He kept smiling even after his friend finished her line. She always surprised him with her accidental sense of humor, it seemed to him like she didn't have to try at all, she did everything perfectly without any effort.

Thor hated how she couldn't even look at him now. He wondered if he made Juliet angry at him for some reason, he couldn't remember what he did, but it must have been quite bad. The vampire was completely sure that he must have done something wrong, and that the reason why he didn't know what was it, was the time and space difference between him and the rest of the world.

"It's hard", the boy pointed out. "I was born in a completely different era, and when I woke up from this really long dream, everyone that I knew was dead."

"That must have been..." Juliet couldn't even imagine everyone she had known just... gone. And yet she would still be there. Her world didn't work like that - her world didn't seem to work at all sometimes. So many people jumping into and, then jumping out again.

"Do you ever just wish... I mean, if you could go back and do everything over again, would you still want to be like this?"

He was about to answer her when a sudden image of his sister appeared before his eyes. Regina was always the pretty one in the family, exciting even their mother in her beauty. She was also lovely at everything she did and kind to others. It was hard not to feel a certain pain in his chest. Months after his waking up from a coma, that familiar pain in his chest, right around his cold heart, appeared every time he was remembering someone.

Yesterday it was the little boy from next door, with red curls and a nose full of giant freckles. Last week it was their village's minister. Before that, his wife and children. But mostly it was Reg.

"I never chose this", Thor started, looking away, "so yeah, I keep thinking that this will ruin me, but I will be regretting everything for the rest of my life, I suppose. That's just my bad karma."

Juliet listened to him in silence, an odd feeling coming across her as he spoke. It was...

Well... sympathy she supposed, but for some reason it struck deeper than that. More personal.

Without even really thinking about what she was doing she slide herself over slightly before leaning, resting her head softly on his shoulder. Part of her was still tired from her recent string of no sleep. It felt nice to just... not to have to bother with holding her head up.

"I've met Karma," she joked softly, "She's not all bad... just mostly."

She paused again, her brain moving on another tanget. "Hey Thor... how much do you know about me... about... anything before you showed up to pull my frozen butt out of a frozen lake?"

You could say that Thor was shocked when Juliet threw herself around him. Well, she actually did that just to comfort him, but still, it surprised him and the only thing he could do was to awkwardly pat her on the back, and accept the hug as graceful as he could.

To be honest, he was happy she did that. For a small moment, he felt calmer, as if she relaxed him with that small gesture of kindness.

"Thank you", was all he could say as he continued the touch. "Thank you." It was only a bit louder than a whisper, but he gave a great meaning to those two little words. Like she was his salvation, and he wanted her to know that.

She smiled slightly, still not moving her head from where she rested it. It was nice there - not complicated, this wasn't a show of anything more than friendship.

And she felt as if that made it simpler.

"No problem," she said, and added nothing more that that. Nothing more needed to be said.