"Pleeeeeeeease, Khal? It's only a ten minute drive, I promise."

The orangette stood there, blindfold dangling from her hands as her eyes pleaded with the taller boy.

Khaldun had begun to return to his figurative turtle shell ever since the wedding, but when she'd gone Beryl during his promotion, he'd buried himself deep inside and seemed to refuse to come out. He wouldn't talk, hell, he wouldn't even look at her these days. His visits to the office were surprisingly few and far between, and when he was in there, he was silent and nonresponsive until the Principal arrived. It wasn't good. It wasn't good at all.

So Ursula was determined to yank him out of that shell, and she'd yank him out any way she could.

Leaning against the borrowed car, she sighed and reached out to offer the blindfold to him once more. He had never seen the car before. Ursula had never even driven before to his knowledge. Had she offered the blindfold and the mystery car ride a year ago, perhaps he'd have leaped in without a second thought, but this screamed of stranger danger like any cliche safety video. Granted, it was Ursula, but still. Principle of the situation. Or whatever.

"C'mon Little Dreads. Do it for me?"

Pout. Wide eyes. Quivering lip.

She was putting on all the works for this performance.

He didn't know what to think. So he didn't. Every day he went through the motions, zip-tied backpacks to desks, talked back to teachers, shoved freshman into lockers. But something was missing now, some assurance to his actions, and despite being the nuisance he always was, his visits to the office were significantly fewer of late. And when the consequences caught up to him, it wasn't so simple as just a stern talking-to by a principal who could barely understand teenagers. It would end in a so-called 'Killingworth detention', as always. But even before he had to suffer through the principal's condescension, it would all begin with an 'Ursula detention'. They were bad in every way that a Killingworth detention couldn't manage to be, and when combined they rivaled an extended tour of the nine circles of hell. How did she sit there and act like nothing had happened? There was nothing he could say that wouldn't betray how confused, distrustful, disturbed he was by - by everything. So he stared at the carpet, at his shoes, and managed to take a deep appreciation of the detail of carpet fibers. Some of the secretary's words breached his mental wall, plagued him long after he'd earned his freedom for the day, but he did his best not to react, not to talk, not even to look at her. She wasn't going to stand for that, apparently.

Khaldun stared down at Ursula as though she were offering him a live octopus, and at the blindfold as though it were the offending cephalopod. Once again, he realized he simply did not understand her. Of course he suspected a trap. Charonite's strange behavior in regards to Ursula - the queen - whoever - had been proven to be completely justified. She always did these things, these surprises, and while he used to be completely open to them, something had changed. They'd become more dangerous lately. Dragging him to the Negaverse by teleportation was easily the fastest way to spike his heart rate, and she was behind two of the most recent trips he'd had to take there. But the last time, just after he'd recovered from life-threatening injuries and what should have been a fatal crack in his head, he'd stumbled right back into a dangerous situation when Beryl had reappeared to nearly kill him herself. And now she was standing here by a car (whose car?) telling him to do something that even a kindergartner knew better than to go along with. What kind of an idiot, then, would deliberately play into her hand again?

The guilty kind.

"Fine," he finally sighed, after he was convinced Ursula couldn't stick her bottom lip out any farther. Oh boy, an entire word for an answer. Grudgingly, he picked the blindfold out of her hand and wrapped it over his eyes. After a second thought, he pushed it up to give himself a chance to see his way over to the passenger side of her suspiciously-acquired car. His eyes darted over to meet Nealite's, but only for a second, and then he returned his idle gaze to the brick building that was Hillworth penitentiary.

She said nothing, but she didn't have to. The triumphant smile stretched wide across her face said it all for her, and she happily made her way around to the other side of the car and swung open the driver's door. Sliding into the seat, she leaned over and yanked down the blindfold, ensuring it was covering his eyes.

"Move it again, and I'll teleport out and leave you with a runaway car."

The threat was idle, especially seeing as Khaldun now had the ability to teleport, but she said it anyways out of habit for threatening the teenager. Some things never changed.

Turning the key in the ignition, she paused for a moment to buckle her seat belt. She never normally buckled up, but she was all-too aware of the impressionable kid sitting next to her, so rules needed to be followed. She simply wouldn't tell him of the fact that her license was currently suspended due to several other driving violations in years past. It didn't matter, though. If they were pulled over, she could put on the perfect sob performance to get away from any male cop. Should it be a female one, though, she'd probably break Khal's arm and then use it as her excuse for 'needing to get her step-son to the ER in a hurry'.

But Khal didn't need to know that.

Pulling out of the parking spot, it only took twenty feet or so before he began to b***h about her sharp turns and sudden stops. A slap on the back of the head sent another remark her way, but he quieted down significantly after that.

It took about ten minutes of driving, and it only took the first two for Khaldun shut up entirely. She tried holding conversation but he went without response, and it took her turning up the radio and singing along to Lady Gaga to get him to say anything (that 'anything' being how his ears would start bleeding all over the car seat if she didn't stop yowling like a dying cat).

Finally, at long last, the car came to a complete stop. How in the world he had managed to keep the blindfold on, even Ursula was not sure, but he'd managed. Darting around to the other side, she opened his door and leaned in to remove the fabric blinding him, revealing their location.

They were in a parking lot, for certain, but it wasn't until he climbed out of the car that he saw the enormous store sign before them.

"Music Town".


.... a music store?

Ten minutes later, Khaldun was surprised to discover Usrula had managed to drive from Hillworth to wherever without hitting so much as a utility pole or a grandmother (as far as he could tell). It had been a long ten minutes being tortured by something about 'bad romance' or maybe 'blackjack face'. Girl things, he could tell by the way Ursula sang along. She'd talked at him a few times. Unfortunately, he couldn't seem to get past how he was being spoken to by his stepmother, and stayed silent as he grappled with the reality behind his blindfold. This was a terrible idea. He should have rejected the blindfold and whatever was in store for him now, turned around and walked away, maybe if he swore off everything fun like Charonite wanted him to anyway, he'd never end up in her office again for the rest of the semester. And then he'd 'graduate', and he could find some dead-end job and a nice cheap cardboard box to live out of on the exact opposite side of the city. It wasn't running away - he'd tried that before, but Charonite's ability to summon him to the Negaverse on a whim cut that one short and earned him two black eyes for his troubles. No, it was just avoidance as a solution to his problems. Even with them sitting together in a car, he could still build a sturdy wall between them if he wanted to. Khaldun had learned how to work with the bare minimum when he was so inclined.

The teen slid out of the car once Ursula removed the blindfold, deliberately avoiding looking at her as he did. His expression was stoic, tight-lipped. Khaldun glanced at the sign, read along it inexorably slowly. 'Music Town'? A store? Like he could afford to buy s**t. He was broke as hell at all times. Well, except the times he managed to pilfer a ten or twenty out of Ursula's purse, or blackmail some pocket money out of some spoiled rich kid who wanted to circumvent being punched in the gut. He'd lamented about his money problems enough times to her in the office over the past year, albeit never mentioning the specific reason he was penniless. It had a lot to do with his guardian. It had a lot to do with how approaching his guardian about free handouts was about as clever a plan as standing on train tracks to catch a free train ride.

The awkward silence couldn't seem to get more awkward as he stared off in all directions but the one that pointed his attention at Ursula, so he was forced to say something. It turned out not to help. "So, what, does your husband need to burn some CDs as an offering to his pantheon of technologically-backward gods today? There was a full moon last night and everything; I think those are supposed to be a big deal for people who light lamps with whale oil."

"You know, there is more to life than Charonite."

Her comment was dry but her expression never wavered from the smile that consumed her face. She knew he was upset. She couldn't honestly blame him for being upset. He hadn't wanted her to get involved with Khalid, and now he was stuck with his best friend as his pseudo-mother. It was pretty twisted.

She straightened up her coat, loosened the scarf around her neck and made her way indoors, leaving Khaldun to dawdle along after her, having no other choice.

Ursula was well aware that Khaldun had never been in the store before; in fact, she had been counting on it. Khal wasn't the type to get out much; before Ursula had met him, he rarely left the school campus, save for star seed hunting. He wasn't a social creature, he kept to himself, and therefore had little experience out in the big bad world and was clearly missing out on several ways to have a good time.

As they entered the store, it became clear very quickly that this was not the kind of music store Khaldun was expecting to enter. Instead of aisles and rows of CDs filled with pop culture and cases covered with heavy metal symbols and scantily clad women, there were only two aisles, one carrying books and papers, the other holding records. The majority of the space in the large room was taken up by various instruments on a variety of different holders. The teenager could only stand there in awe, jaw slacked, so his older companion gently took hold of his wrist and began to lead him further into the room. What was Ursula doing in a place like this? How in the world did she even know her way around a place like this? It didn't make any sense!

They passed by an entire area dedicated to drum sets and sticks, with cymbals and chairs and pedals. There was a side room for keyboards, some long, some short, some decorated with all sorts of frivolous options, others as simple as a regular piano keyboard. They passed by saxophones and speakers, and all sorts of instruments... until they entered the realm of the most magical instrument of all: the guitar.

The wall was filled with a seemingly endless number of guitars. Different shapes, styles, and colors, they scattered the wall like a form of New Age art. He had never seen so many guitars in his life. She probably had never seen that many before, herself.

She let go of his wrist, and turned to stare at the boy. Her grin looked as though it was about to reach her ears, it was so large, and her eyes gleamed with excitement.

"Well, Little Dreads, tell me....which one do you like?"

Khaldun gave the back of Ursula's head a scathing look. She was one to talk, wasn't she? It wasn't like fate permitted him a lot of avoidance when he had P.E. almost every day anyway. Plus it was her stupid idea to drive all the way here! He'd been perfectly happy to not talk to her. Or deliberately get within about thirty feet of her for, well, so far as he'd been thinking, the rest of his life. What the ********, man, what the ********. Khaldun just wanted to find his real parents at this point, whoever or whatever they were, even if they were buried six feet below headstones, if only to provide an escape of sorts from the madness of his legal guardian and the wife he was creepily over a decade apart from. That, or get a ******** emancipation and drop out of Hillworth for good, and see how much weight their lecturing carried then. After seething for a few seconds longer, he shoved his hands into the front pockets of his sweatshirt to ward off the onset of frostbite and stalked after Ursula.

He'd been expecting some generic independent music store, full of CDs and movie posters. Ursula could see him staring, had to pull him along or he'd have stood in the doorway for an hour just trying to guess what the hell all the instruments were. He barely realized that people sold musical instruments to any person who wanted to try their hand at them. It always seemed like such an exclusive thing, since he saw so few of them outside the battered school-owned junk Hillworth kept in the orchestra room. Guys in a band, Khaldun had decided, just had a thing, a presence. If they passed each other on the street they'd give a nod or do a secret handshake on the fly. They were as cool, bordering on '******** badass', and having a guitar or a drum set was totally a free pass into this veritable fight club.

There was a twinge of unrealistic ambition, though any ambition at all was already more desire for something than he had for anything else in his life except digging up his past. So he'd spent a fair amount of time contemplating life as a rock star. Hadn't every teenage boy come across this out-of-reach dream? The moment Khaldun had discovered (or rediscovered, as he hoped was the case) Iron Maiden and Pink Floyd and all the old-school rock and metal that he could get his hands on, he was hooked. And these - electric guitars, rows of them hanging from the walls or hooked along stands - were signature instrument in all rock and metal. They were fascinating up close, from the frets to the bridges to the signature shapes of the headstocks, and of course his immediate instinct was telling him to walk up and start poking and prodding and getting fingerprints all over everything. Todd Bailey down the hall had an electric guitar last year that he used to show off, till his drug-addicted roommate had broken it trying to fend off hallucinated giant insects. It was the only time Khaldun had had a chance to really see a guitar up close, though that was still a far cry from being able to play one.

And then he glanced back at Ursula's beaming expression, and a paranoid realization slowly dawned on him. Before he had the chance to reach out and begin inspecting the closest guitar, he dug both hands deeper into his pockets. The teen was instead staring at its strings with the confidence of a person who had just put the last piece of the puzzle in place and was now admiring their handiwork. His expression and tone were tired and distant; he hardly seemed surprised by what he thought he'd figured out. "I'm not falling for this."

One eyebrow rose as her smile faltered. She had clearly not expected this sort of reaction.

"You're not falling for....?"

Her head tilted as she stared at him, almost as if he'd just grown a third eye or a second nose. It was a stare that said what in the world are you talking about, but then slowly, surely, the realization dawned on her face.

"How did you... I mean I...."

Silence fell upon the duo for a few minutes before she finally shook her head. "I mean, I don't know how you could have known I was coming here, that I was talking to Phil." Who Phil was remained a mystery, as it was apparent that Ursula had no intentions of divulging such information. "But there's a catch, yeah, I mean, if you're still interested in one."

Catch. There was always a catch.

"You have to take lessons first."

.... what?

One hand moved out and fingers gently strummed across the strings of the closest guitar. It was a red one. That was about as much knowledge as Ursula had of guitars. It was funny shaped, and red. Eyes glanced at the guitar she'd just tampered with, then moved back to Khaldun. "I paid for lessons. Six weeks. You'll get a guitar, but you can't bring it back with you to the dorms until you've gone to at least three weeks of lessons. You'd meet with Phil twice a week."

The hand moved, and motioned behind Khaldun, towards a young man who was busy helping another young woman behind the counter who was glancing at the various cleaning and maintenance supplies. She continued, "Gunn doesn't know about any of this. He'll assume you're chasing star seeds or slacking off on the Tuesdays and Thursdays during practice. I'd take you, unless you know of another way to get here on your own. If he finds out, I'll tell him - it won't fall on you, I promise."

Eyes moved back from Phil towards the teenager in front of her, the smile having left her face, replaced with what appeared to be a slightly disappointed look. "You'd get it taken away from you if you took it home now. The world doesn't need another Scheelite, and like hell you know any more about guitars than I do, being the shut in that you are."

Feet shifted, weight moving from one leg to the other as her arms crossed. "But it's your call. If you want to make the commitment and come out of it with a guitar and the knowledge of how to play it, you're welcome to the opportunity. Miss the lessons though and you can kiss your new toy goodbye."

Khaldun followed her gestures with his eyes, but his face was still set in a wary expression. He didn't like this. Suspicion and paranoia were constant factors in his life. They were quite justified in Hillworth or the Negaverse, where he spent the majority of his time. But once he was pulled out of the familiar environment, that defense mechanism was useless. It didn't stop a creature of habit like himself from hanging onto it, though. He'd been furious about the wedding. Furious he had to stand there as best man, when anyone in the room could have stood in. It was almost like condoning it, though for his own sake he maintained that non-volunteer status let him oppose the whole thing still. Too little, too late. But he couldn't be as spiteful of it all as he used to be, which in turn just seemed to infuriate him more. They'd been there for him when he'd unknowingly been on the brink of death. It probably meant something. It meant more than either of them leaving him to die, he supposed. So even if Ursula had a devious plan here, it couldn't be worse than the one from last week where she'd made him along with Tanzanite stand next to the couple while they made out in public (he just shielded his eyes - he'd seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, after all).

"That's not the catch I'm talking about," he said quietly. Finally, he was talking to her again, though it was starting to sound a little omnious. It was taking Khaldun an incredible amount of concentration to stay where he was standing and not just cast his argument aside and go silent again. His glance slid toward the woman in front of him questioningly. "You want something. You wanted something that time you tried to buy me prom clothes, too. And when you brought the hats. So what is it?"

He did like Ursula. As a friend. As an equal. But that wasn't really how it worked any more, was it? When he was civilian she was his stepmother now; when he was Negaverse she was the queen of the whole organization. And to say that Khaldun had a problem with authority was like saying the Spartans had a problem with the Persians - the phrasing left a lot to be desired in both cases. To his own detriment, Khaldun was willing to stand up against people telling him what to do. That was, until the serious threats on his life were made. Then he'd comply. But angrily.

She stood there quietly, arms folded across her chest as she stared at him, listening to his accusation. Her expression gave away nothing - at least, not until the hats or prom clothes comment, in which the solemn line of her mouth turned down into a larger frown.

It hadn't really occurred to Ursula just how much she'd always used the boy. She never kept around friends or people that weren't useful to her in one way or another, but she'd never stopped to think about how often she had abused her friendships to get what she desired. It just wasn't natural, to think about those things. She simply did it and never looked back. Survival of the fittest. Looking out for Number One. So now, with this realization out in the open, Number One was having a few thoughts about the people that had been stepped on during her journey to the top.

At least, briefly.

She was defensive. The fiery haired woman hated when flaws were pointed out; Ursula did not do anything wrong. Taking a step forward, her voice was even softer than the young man's.

"Khal. Think about it. What could I possibly want from you that I couldn't obtain for myself?"

She was choosing her words carefully, though she knew the message was sure to sting, "I married Gunn. I rule the Negaverse and have over twenty subordinates who would give up their lives to ensure my happiness. So what could I possibly want from a seventeen year old that I couldn't have an easier time obtaining elsewhere?"

One hand moved out and rested on the boy's shoulder. She was looking at him, moving her head to keep the stare, refusing to let his eyes wander away as she spoke to him.

"Look. We all have our ways of getting by. You blackmail and bully. I.... well, I've always bribed and bargained. It's just been my way of survival, I can't help it sometimes. We do what we have to do."

She paused, collecting her thoughts as her other hand rose, two fingers pointing up.

"I put this offer on the table for two reasons. The first is purely selfish. I want you to be happy." Another awkward shift of the feet, another attempt to keep the stare going between the two of them, "You don't give a s**t about me, I get that. But you are my friend, Khaldun, and while you'll probably remain pissy for years to come over what I've done to you, you'll always be a friend to me. Like a brother, really."

She saw his look of yeah right and her grip on his shoulder tightened. "That's it. Having a name change hasn't changed a damn thing, and you're a twit if you think it has. He was never your father, I will never be your mother. I don't want to be your mother - ********, this isn't even the point, look. I'm not going to be around for much longer, so I wanted to do something, I don't know. Do something nice for a kid that's had a ******** up life? I know about ******** up lives, okay? I was a waitress at your age, Little Dreads, and in two years I would have run away from home entirely. You didn't get a choice - I get that. But that doesn't mean you can't have something to enjoy while you're being forced to run around as Captain. You're a kid too."

Silence befell them once more and it was apparent that Ursula was hesitant to make her second point. But down went the other finger, and she finally broke away from the stare to glance over at one of the instruments to their side. "Second, I was maybe hoping you'd learn something from this. I don't know. Accountability. Responsibility. Something-bility. I'm terrible with lessons, but it sounded like a good idea at the time, and sitting there, drilling lessons in your head won't work out for either of us. So I figured I'd throw out something tempting. I guess, yeah, a bribe, if you want to call it that."

The hand let go and she took a step back. Her voice grew even quieter, almost inaudible. "This wasn't meant to use you, Little Dreads. I just wanted to surprise you. Can't you get that?"

He was ready for a fight. A shouting match. Throwing down. People always got that way when he accused them of being duplicitous, even when he knew he was right about them. But the violent outburst did not come. Instead of a slew of accusations back, she'd become quiet and open, only serving to confuse him more. He had no idea what to do in this kind of situation, which was enough to completely take the wind out of his sails. When Ursula put a hand on his shoulder, he flinched, trying to look away rather than finish what he started. She wouldn't let him - she must have known from experience how to defuse his temper, because the confusion left him paralyzed.

"Eighteen-year-old," he grunted as some form of correction. His self-appointed birthday had come and gone in the hospital while he was still comatose, and from there he'd completely lost his sense of 'when'. It took till the semester was back in session for him to find out what day and month it even was. Still, another year gone, another year closer to semi-freedom. But the handful of words were just a halfhearted distraction - her actual question left him dumbstruck. He didn't think like she did, about exchanging one thing for another, or trying to size someone up for what they could do. He simply put his fists or blackmail notes on a collision course with peoples' faces unless they paid up in the universal currency that was American dollars. He was desperate, always desperate, for money and for a reputation that could keep him safe. People would pay not to be terrorized or humiliated, not to have their dark secrets revealed. There was nothing he could offer others but a temporary lack of suffering at his own hands, and it was beyond his ability to try and put a positive spin on that. It wasn't glorious, but it worked, and because of that he always kept an eye out for the next person who would try to force his hand the way he forced others. He knew he had nothing to offer her - some disappointment or frustration maybe, but.... there was always an ulterior motive, wasn't there? At least she was going to save him a guessing game, and told him instead.

It was clear from the way she dug her fingernails into his shoulder that she did not appreciate his subtle eyeroll. His feelings about Ursula changed on a whim lately, hovering in the gray areas between 'owed his life to' and 'never going to forgive for marrying Charonite; I mean, what the ********?' Actually, as of the wedding, those feelings were severely in the direction of the latter. Khaldun felt betrayed, and felt that he had the right to feel betrayed. She claimed to be his friend, but fell for his batshit-crazy guardian? At least she sounded aware of the message he'd been sending with his silent treatment. It was a relief that she wasn't going to take up some twisted mantle of parenthood like Charonite selectively did. His apprehensive expression grew less tense (he even almost said something), but his thoughts skipped nervously as she hinted toward her fate and he closed his mouth. The only thing he knew how to do was immediately blame Charonite for all of his problems and get annoyed about that instead. He wanted to argue that yes, actually, the last couple of times he'd checked, he really wasn't allowed to enjoy anything as per sudden secret selective Negaverse code of conduct. But Ursula had heard Khaldun's diatribe on this only a million times already. There wasn't much more left to be said - especially not to the woman who was now Killingworth's wife.

There was a long pause while she drew back with a final whisper, and he continued to stand there tight-lipped with nothing to say, eyes downcast. There was no secret conspiracy behind her actions, then. Why she would do all of this simply because she felt he was a friend, he did not understand, but then, she was the only person he really considered a friend so he didn't have a whole lot of experience with what friends were supposed to do for other friends. But it wasn't a buy-off. It wasn't a twist of his arm. And she was promising him that the wedding changed nothing between them. The most sinister thing she was trying to get out of him was to make him pretend to act responsibly for a few weeks. He could... he could live with this. It was still another minute before he spoke.

"Alright. I'll do it, but only because I don't know how I'd live with myself if I didn't have any 'something-bility'. Just don't make me write an essay about it; I have to draw the line somewhere." He cast a look over at Ursula, like he was trying to look bored and uninterested (and failing at it), then turned his attention back toward the guitars for a couple of minutes. Even if he still didn't quite grasp why Ursula was doing this, he felt better with her motives out in the open than hidden. The teen leaned down and picked one of the instruments up by the neck. It was a red, white, and black guitar, arrow-shaped, and outlandish enough to come as no surprise whatsoever. She wasn't going to get a 'thank you'; those were two words Khaldun never used together outside of sarcasm, given he had no manners to speak of. But she did finally get a smile out of him for the first time in weeks as he turned to face her and finally take advantage of her kindness. "So: awesome guitar, or the awesomest guitar?"

]Eyebrows rose as he teased her wording. She nearly commented on the fact he probably couldn't have managed an essay if he tried, but somehow, despite that sudden, rocky moment, things had made a turn for the better. She wasn't going to push her luck.

"Most awesome, you mean," she corrected with a smirk, her arms returning to fold themselves across her chest, "And... it's a guitar. That's as much as you're going to get out of me. It looks better than an air guitar, for sure, but other than that, you've lost me on the differences."

She knew of 'guitar' and 'base guitar', but that was the extent of her vast knowledge of the world of guitars, and the only reason she knew that was thanks to her fangirl following of bands and the handsome singers that played them. Which didn't amount to much, but once again, that was information Khaldun did not need to know.

Smiling, she watched him play with the instrument, taking caution as he allowed his fingers to strum along the strings. Sound came out, but far from musical. Expected, but still unpleasant.

Letting off a wince, though her smile never left, she shook her head. "And this is why your new pretty gets to stay in the store until you've learned a note or two. Or, hopefully, a song. You know, to serenade all those Crystal girls with?"

Her feet began to move and she reached out to tug gently on a dreadlock. It was nice to see him smile. It was really nice, and she had a feeling there wouldn't be many opportunities in the future to see that smile light up his face. Regardless of the unexpected argument, her mission was accomplished here.

Reaching into her purse, she retrieved her credit card, the shining new Mrs. Ursula Killingworth gleaming back from the plastic surface, bringing a smile to her own lips. Handing it over, she gave him The Look.

"Here. You take it up there to Phil and tell him who you are. You'll need to set up what time you guys are meeting and whatnot - I'm sure he'll have to figure out what kind of guitar it is you just picked out. Or something. And whatever silly things that come with guitars, though please just get the bare minimum? I'm sure I can... find what you need, later, as far as accessories go."

Find with five fingers and an innocent smile, perhaps. Ursula was willing to be generous this afternoon, but her kind of generosity, Khaldun knew, could only go so far when it came to her spending her own money.

"I'll be out in the car, just come out when you're done."

Her hand waved nonchalantly towards Phil as the young man finally noticed the duo standing there, but she moved towards the door. A few steps forward, and she paused. Turning, she looked back at her companion. "And Khaldun, if you come out of this store with that in your hand, you will be marching right back inside to return it to the store. Don't push your luck with me, buddy."

With that, she was out the door and on her way back to the mysteriously-obtained car.

About fifteen minutes later, Khaldun came out of the store, a plastic bag swinging from one hand. There was no guitar in sight, lucky for Ursula - he didn't need to be reminded twice not to push his luck with her. But what she said seemed to have helped, a lot, because he was no longer brooding or glaring or acting like she was the last person he wanted to spend ten minutes in a car with. With all the grace he lacked elsewhere, he slid into the passenger side of the mysterious car and slammed the door after him. Lazily, he picked a pack of cinnamon gum out of his sweatshirt pocket (presumably stolen, as he had a good role model for this) and he popped a piece into his mouth. On second thought, he waved a piece in Ursula's direction, still wrapped in shiny foil, along with her credit card. He avoided commenting on the back of it, whether by failing to see it or simply not bothering to read it closely. "Gum?"

This was more like the carefree teenager Ursula knew. A pair of horribly worn black boots were now propped up above the glove compartment, and he hadn't reached for his seatbelt even after she'd started the engine. He had reached for the radio buttons though, without any preamble, swapping it from Ursula's coveted girly music station to something a little heavier on the rock and metal and unintelligible singing and guitar solos. Satisfied with the sounds of Jimi Hendrix buzzing from the speakers, he leaned back into his seat again. His hand reached around inside the bag, rustling an assortment of mystery objects, resurfacing with a booklet of beginner sheet music that presumably he was supposed to look over before the first lesson. Flip, flip, flip. Flip. "Wow, ok, so, music? Really looks dumb on paper. It's like morse code from a zombie apocalypse or something, and now all the dots and dashes rose from the grave and are like. Trying to hunt down all the letters and numbers and stuff. Actually, even that's a lot cooler than it really is. I mean what the hell does this mean? Like which of these stands for 'bite the head off a bat'?"

Khaldun was either too proud or distracted to come out and say it, but he was excited, and it was a rare enough thing to see him excited about anything. Happy, maybe, gloating, yes, he'd done his fair share of that, but ninety-nine percent of the time he seemed to have no interest in doing something so much as avoiding things he was supposed to do. Plus, up until then he didn't have anything to his name cooler than a beaten-up CD player. But a guitar? This was awesome! He didn't even think Ursula knew how awesome guitars were, from what she said in the store, but it was ok. He'd show her. She needed some serious help with her taste in music, anyhow, before it was too late.

"Hey, Ursula," he asked, still staring at the contents of the music booklet like it was the inscription of the Rosetta Stone, "I've seriously got to learn at least one cool song to balance out all the stupid practice ones. I was thinking Stairway to Heaven, but maybe you know a better one?"

"Unless you want to strum to Oops I Did It Again or Poker Face, you're on your own, kid."

Eyebrows rose as she watched the large boots prop themselves up, tips touching the windshield, but she said nothing as she accepted both credit card and gum. Unwrapping the foil, she popped it in her mouth, then deposited the wrapper in her purse as the young man was busy tinkering with the radio. She should have told him to bug off. Should have told him that unless he was in charge, driving, or over the age of eighteen, he had no say in what was going to be played. But she didn't.

Instead, fingers wrapped around the wheel and she turned around, her free hand moving to the back of the passenger's chair as the car slowly began to back out of its spot. Khaldun continued to prattle on about music and guitars, about what he wanted to play and how she had absolutely no taste whatsoever in her song choice but that it'd be okay, that he'd teach her the basics. All she could do was smile as she remained quiet, listening to him chatter on with more words than he'd uttered in her direction over the course of the entire week prior. In fact, she hadn't heard him this thrilled over anything since years before, when he was just some sixteen year old punk waiting for punishment while she filed her nails at her desk.

Glancing over, she met his gaze briefly and they exchanged grins before she turned her attention back to the road ahead of her.

It was good to have him back, even if it was only for the moment.