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York is such a dork.
Oh sure he plays the part of the tough soldier with the war wounds, but the only people who actually believe that are the people who haven’t known him for longer than ten minutes. Some of the rookies are still scared of him but Carolina knows better.
Take today for example.
The sun is shining, a soft wind is blowing gently through the trees on the west side of the Circus and the Director has, uncharacteristically given them all the day off from rehearsals. That doesn’t mean Carolina has the day off however. She is sat in her tent, buried under paperwork, trying to bring some sort of order to it all. She’s about half way through the pile when she finds the medical form that York was supposed to have come to sign a week ago. Heaving a sigh, she decides she can take a break, just long enough to find him and drag him back to sign the form. She walks through the Circus, looking for artfully tousled brown hair and an irreverent grin. He’s not in his tent but then why would he be, in such beautiful weather? She asks 479er if she’s seen him. She grins and points Carolina in towards the western edge of the field, but won’t explain why. Carolina walks through the tents until she hears something, carried on the breeze.
It sounds suspiciously like an acoustic guitar.
She follows the sounds until she emerges from between two tents into the bright sunlight, looking towards where a small crowd has gathered beneath the shade of the trees. She can hear the soft sounds of someone plucking at an acoustic guitar, and as she moves closer she can hear someone talking over it.
She’s not surprised when she recognises the voice as belonging to York.
She carefully moves around the group until she steps into his line of sight. His eye is focussed on the ground but the second he looks up he sees her and his fingers still on the guitar strings. He clears his throat quickly and says,
“Anyway, here’s Wonderwall.”
Carolina rolls her eyes.
He grins as he begins the play the opening chords, but she can see the nerves in him that weren’t there before. She hates that she does this to him sometimes, that she sets him on edge, but she can’t seem to fix it. She considers walking away, letting him go back to his easy, relaxed performance, but there’s a selfishness in her that keeps her there. And, despite herself, she finds herself swaying slightly to the song, enjoying the tone of his voice, the skill of his fingers as they dance across the strings. They have danced across her skin, but not since he joined the Circus.
She tells herself she doesn’t miss it.
As the song goes on the assembled crowd sings along with him. She resists the urge to join in but can’t quite keep the small smile off her face. He doesn’t look at her though, he mostly keeps his eyes closed, and if it weren’t for the scar he’d look like a senior in college, relaxing when he should be studying for finals. He looks happy and at ease in a way she doesn’t think she’s ever been, and she can’t help but feel a little jealous. He finishes his song to scattered applause, and he stands and passes his guitar to Tucker, who immediately starts singing a love song, staring soulfully at Wash, much to the blond’s dismay. He walks up to her, and she half expects him to stop smiling, but the opposite happens. He grins, looking genuinely happy to see her.
“I’m surprised to see you outside,” he says, “I was beginning to think all that paperwork had developed a consciousness and eaten you.”
“I’m not sure that’s scientifically possible,” she says, determinedly not smiling. He laughs and asks,
“What’s up?”
“You didn’t sign your medical form,” she says, trying to sound disapproving, but his smile indicates that she doesn’t quite manage it.
“Well then,” he says, “we should fix that immediately.” They walk together across the Circus, him chatting about pointless things, her listening with far more attention than the subjects deserved. It had been like this in those two weeks before he joined the Circus, they had gone to the local park, spending hours sat in the sun, him talking a mile a minute, her listening, interjecting occasionally but happy to let him fill the air with words. He had this look in his eyes sometimes, this relief at finally being able to break the damn that had been holding all these words inside him, at being able to talk to someone who would listen to stories of blood on sand as calmly as stories of being drunk and stupid. So she let him talk, and he looked right at her, and held her close, and made her feel real again.
She invited him to join the Circus on a whim.
She didn’t think he would say yes.
Once her father had agreed he could join with a knowing look in his eyes she panicked a little. She walked up to York and said that, if he was going to stay, they would have to stop sleeping together.
He didn’t argue (though there was sadness in his eye).
She still doesn’t know whether she’s disappointed or grateful for that.
She had thought that he would stay away from her, now they weren’t having sex, but the first night he showed up outside her tent, dragged her away from her paperwork and walked with her to dinner, chatting all the way. When they get there he greets Tucker and Grif as if he’s known them forever and before she knows what’s happened she sat at a table with the Reds and Blues, ignoring Church’s sarcastic surprise at her presence and trying to hide her laughter at York’s dumb jokes. Afterwards York drags her to a poker game with Sarge, Wyoming, Maine and 479er.
She doesn’t get any work done that night.
She’s not sure that’s a bad thing.
They reach her tent and he signs the paper with a wink that looks really strange on his scarred face, but the way he smiles when she laughs makes her think he is fully aware of that fact.
“Thanks,” she says, filing the form away with all of his other paperwork.
“Anything for you,” he says, “now, come on, you’re coming with me.”
“Where,” she asks suspiciously.
“Anywhere there’s sun,” he says, spreading his arms, “anywhere that’s not this tent.” She shakes her head,
“I’ve got paperwork to do.”
“Paperwork which will still be there tomorrow,” he says, “the sun might not be.”
“I don’t think the apocalypse is going to happen overnight,” she says.
“You never know.” He sounds deadly serious, she can’t quite tell if he’s joking, if he is there’s something beneath it. “So let’s enjoy the sun while we can.”
So she lets him take her hand and drag her outside, and they spend the rest of the afternoon beneath a tree. He retrieves his guitar from Tucker and starts playing every cheesy love song he knows, and then he starts making a few up. She lies on the grass beside him, her hand resting on his leg, enjoying the warmth. Her father walks past after a couple of hours, pausing to look at her with disapproval on her face. She tenses up but doesn’t move her hand from York’s leg, and the Director carries on without saying a word. York keeps singing, but the smile he wears as he looks down at her is full of warmth. She knows she’ll probably regret this later, when she feels her father’s disapproving stare in the Dinning Tent, but she doesn’t have the energy to care now. And when the time for regret does come she’ll have York sat beside her, laughing and joking, a hand resting on her leg, and she’ll let her father’s disapproval slip away like water through her fingers.
She shuts her eyes and listens to York sing, voice loud against the soft rustling of the wind in the trees. She smiles.
For once, she doesn’t try to hide it.