Leave Me Your Wake to Remember You By [John]

[L.C. Milliner]

--outfit

sen•ti•men•tal•i•ty
   [sen-tuh-men-tal-i-tee]
–noun, plural -ties.
1. the quality or state of being sentimental or excessively sentimental.
2. an instance of being sentimental.
3. a sentimental act, gesture, expression, etc.

L.C. was not a sentimental person, and she didn’t do emotional things that required her to be sentimental. She didn’t cry during sad movies (Casablanca being the exception, and that was only once, thank you), she didn’t give hugs and tell people how much she loved them on a regular basis, and she certainly did not buy flowers or cards or stupid useless things like that. She didn’t like showing her emotions; she quit doing that once Magda died. When she was little she would act how she felt, but now that she was older she just acted apathetic toward everything that didn’t make her angry.

So the sight of L.C. trying to pick out a card in the local CVS had been a sight to behold, along with her fit when she finally gave up and retreated to the hair dye section. Grabbing the familiar twelve dollar box of ash blonde hair dye, she stalked back to the counter, paid, and took off with her teeth still grinding as she stomped up the street.

Bending over her bathroom sink later as she applied the light blue chemical dye, she wondered idly if she should have just picked out a card or something at random, then snorted. She hated cards. She hated giving them and she hated getting them (unless there was money inside, of course) so what was the point of her buying one? She had twenty minutes to think on that before she washed the bleach out in the sink, coming back up as ash blonde once again. She brushed out her hair and started razoring her bangs with her fingers. The spikes between them were tiny enough to cut the hair, but not tiny enough to get in-between the others and prick her skin. Once she was satisfied with the result, she dried her hair and headed out, pausing to toss the box in the trash downstairs.

The walk from the town to school was long, as always. She wandered the building, noting that the building was pretty empty for a Friday afternoon. She was expecting a lot of hustle and bustle, for setting up graduation tomorrow, but it seemed like the setting up was already taken care of. Her locker was cleared out, her old binders and notebooks dumped in a trashcan, save for her sketchbook, which was packed in a box up in Sean’s guest room. (Not her room. She was moving out, now that she had gotten her paycheck.) She finally settled in the cafeteria, setting her head down on a table before looking down, noting two perfectly round holes in the table top. She bit her lip and remembered the incident over a year ago when Vincent had come in on roller skates and scared the hell out of her. It seemed so long ago.

L.C. pulled her knees up to her chest and sighed, leaning her head on her knees. She didn’t want to go. She wasn’t ready to live in the real world. She wanted to stay here, be called L.C. forever, and never have to worry about taxes and jobs and all that mess. She didn’t want to send a card to Sean or Thornton or any of her teachers saying ‘thanks for putting up with me, have a nice life until you die’ and all that. She wanted to live in her Neverland forever and stay young. She didn’t want to grow up and grow old.

But she didn’t want to stay in this town, either. There was a world out there, waiting for her. There were rocks to climb and beaches to sit on. God forbid she ever leave America of course- that idea was terrifying. But she still wanted to explore it, every inch of it.

Her head hurt now.

Sighing and looking at the ceiling, L.C. vainly wished for something to eat- but they had packed up lunch and the dinner hour wasn’t due until an hour later. “Auuugh. So hungry.” She grumbled, realizing that the walk to the CVS, the hair dying slash chemical inhaling and the subsequent walk to the school had been fueled by her meager school lunch.

[John Thornton]

There was a very small window of time where the school cafeteria was at all bearable to be in. That is, relatively student free. Relishing the relative quiet and empty space, Thornton had made himself a cup of good, strong tea (with tea bags he’d brought with him, because Americans didn’t get it right) and a biography on some of the more prominent figures during the industrial revolution. He had had forefathers involved, in Milton so it had some resonance with his own life, and it seemed that they had had the same attitude he was still in hold of; if you wanted to get something in life, you had to work for it and work hard. People who cut corners were doomed to fail.

At least, if the world was fair.

Sipping on his still hot tea (the trick was to avoid adding milk), Thornton absently tugged at his shirt cuffs and flicked an invisible amount of lint off one cufflink. Given the heat, or at least the conception of heat he had, his derby hat had been left at home, along with the overcoat and scarf, and even his usual jacket was in the staff room. He was just in a shirt, though it was properly done up under his chin, and his grey tie was kept in place flat against his blue shirt with a silver clip.

Looking up from his book, John Thornton looked up idly to watch the passersby with a distracted scowl, which was much less intense and disapproving then his displeased scowl. Still, it was enough to have one girl shoot him a worried look and pick up her pace. With a slight sigh the gentleman looked down into his tea cup then up, and heard a familiar whine, and saw a familiar face... under very unfamiliar hair.

”Miss Milliner,” he said somewhat sternly, one eyebrow rising. She was only a few feet away, at the table closes. ”You have either suffered a serious shock, or you have dyed your hair,” his tone was not entirely disapproving; blonde suited the small statured student. Soon to be ex student.

[L.C. Milliner]

Having been so wrapped up in herself, L.C. had not even noticed John sitting right there. She could’ve sworn she looked around the cafeteria, but there he was, plain as the obvious clip on he was wearing, sitting there drinking his tea like the Brit he was. She almost jumped out of her skin at the sound of his voice, looking down the table and blinking at him before frowning slightly. She stood and switched tables, opting to sit across from him rather than down the way. As she sat in the new chair, she responded. “Yeah, I guess you haven’t seen me blonde yet.” She realized, noting that he was new. She was so used to him being around that she hadn’t realized he’d only been there a few months.

“It’s usually this color, but I dyed it brown for Christmas.” Her hair color was naturally brown of course- one could tell from the color of her brilliantly contrasting dark brown eyebrows. “It stained Sean’s sink.” And she had to clean the mess up, of course, but there were still a few odd colored spots in the basin that she was satisfied with. Some things just never came off- at least that was the excuse she had given Sean. In reality, she wanted to leave something behind to show that she had been there. It was a quirk she had.

Leaning forward slightly, L.C. eyed the cover of the book her power trainer was reading and knitted her eyebrows together and wrinkled her nose at it, not even having to comment to show what she thought about it. Only he would read something so boring. She read fiction, of course- nothing gigantic or dark like Stephen King’s novels, but nothing girly like Meg Cabot and her ‘Princess Diaries’ series. She wasn’t smart enough to understand Dickens, but she did well enough and stayed away from stupid books like Twilight. She finally finished Lord of The Rings around December; it was an experience that was enjoyable but certainly not worth repeating. All in all, she considered herself literate enough to know boring reading when she saw it.

“Why in the hell would you read that?” She had to ask- otherwise it would bother her. Granted, he probably thought reading biographies to be fun- another trait, in her eyes, that made him the most boring person on Earth.

[John Thornton]

Why on earth would you change your hair colour for christmas? Thornton thought, but did not say. Teenage girls defied logic on a hourly basis; no doubt if she explained her reason he’d still be in the dark, and while the englishman resented being made to feel ignorant most of the time there were some things he really just felt he was better off not knowing.

With a slight frown at the mention of the school psychologist, Thornton realized that attempting to read anymore would be in vain. He had only himself to blame; if he’d wanted quiet reading time he could have just kept his mouth shut. Still, at her expression he raised his eyebrows in disapproval at her obvious passing of judgement. ”Kindly wipe that expression off your face, Lyra” . It wasn’t exactly a new turn in their relationship as student and mentor; Thornton had had to deal with her constantly making remarks about his choice in clothes, ties, hats, coats.... the way he did his hair. His accent, and how to pronounce tomato. She was an insufferable girl, he had no idea why he put up with her.

Still, he made no move to leave as she continued to voice her disapproval of his chosen reading material, merely sighed and shook his head. ”The industrial revolution was the beginnings of mechanized industry and production,” he explained patiently. ”Mass production, Lyra. What we all rely on now. It was also the first time the working class and middle classes began to breach the financial gap between them and the upper classes. These men were responsible for that.” He doubted she would listen to all the details, but she had asked. ”I enjoy finding out how the middle and working classes bettered themselves. There are still morals and lessons here that should be applied today.”


With a thump he placed the book on the table and sipped at his tea, glancing from the cover to his student. Soon to be ex student. He should ask her about that, he supposed. That seemed like the proper thing to do. ”Are you looking forward to graduating?” he asked, a little awkwardly. ”Ready to face the real world?”

[L.C. Milliner]

If there was one remarkable thing about Jonathon Fitzgerald Thornton, it was his ability to make L.C. to do what he asked the first time she was told. Don’t ask how he did it, but somehow he had managed to gain her respect, a hard thing to do. (Even harder, considering he was a male over the age of thirty.) She blinked and sat back, her facial expression back to normal. Of course, she had to remark about the last part. “I keep telling you, it’s L.C., not that.” She didn’t even like saying her own name anymore. Every time he did it dredged up memories of when she was little- memories she liked to keep under lock and key.

But she still listened to his rant, flinching slightly at the mention of her name again and glaring. She blinked as she looked at the book as he went on, talking about modern society, a topic he seemed to enjoy yet despise at the same time. Okay, so they were important people. They made today possible. Middle class and lower class got more money. Morals back then should be applied today. She wasn’t stupid, she understood everything he was saying. It wasn’t like he was speaking in a totally different language.

“Well yeah, it’s important. But what’s the point in reading about it? You could get the same lessons out of a bible, just a bit less technical.” Not that she was going to crack open a Holy Bible anytime soon to read it through, of course. She knew verses, she knew the important lessons, but she wasn’t that Christian. She had a bit too liberal of a view when it came to God sometimes; it was something the local Catholic priest liked to remind her of. Then again, she also had met him while rearranging the nativity, so he knew better than most what she went through.

When he sat the book down, she took the opportunity to look at it better, looking at the cover as he did, then to his tea. She liked tea as much as the average person, but only with ice and sugar and lemon. Despite evidence proving otherwise, she was from the south. She just didn’t have an accent. At least, not a noticeable one. If you listened really hard, it occasionally weaved its way through her speech. She wasn’t a typical southern child. That was the problem. Her mother was from the deep (deep) south, but that didn’t mean much when one listened to a Polish gypsy and a Boston native on a regular basis as a child. It was a feat that, with all her time around Magda, she didn’t have a Polish accent.

Like now, if you listened, you could barely hear it. “Kind of?” Her inflection at the end of an uncertain question showed the southern accent better than anything else she said. “I mean, I want to. But I’ll miss my friends. And my teachers.” See, it slipped away again. She’d spent too much time in the north. “I don’t know.” She muttered, eyes cast down to the table. There was one thing L.C. hated more than the unknown, and that was admitting she didn’t like it.

[John Thornton]

It was an old argument. "Lyra's a nice name, it's your name, and I will call you by it," he frowned. "I don't suppose you feel like telling me why you insist on the nickname?"
He had honestly never thought to ask, putting it down to youthful stubbornness and general Lyra-behaviour. Still, she was leaving, graduating, and if he didn't ask now he might never know.

Besides, he was curious.

John Thornton did not facepalm, however, when his student compared the industrial revolution to the Bible he was tempted. Instead, he did the english gentleman's verison of a facepalm by closeing his eyes and sighing heavily. "No, it's really not," he started, then shook his head. "I am not going to start comparing the bible to my book, Lyra. Just..." He rubbed two fingers over the bridge of his nose, "Turst me on that. They're not the same." He didn't even know where to start, and so did not.

Thankfully, she was not pushing the issue too much, or he feared his head might have popped like an overripe fruit. Thornton had a strong connection to God and to the church and really did not think he could have coped.

"Kind of?" He raised both eyebrows, looking down his rather long nose in mild suprise. "I thought you'd be happy." They rose even higher when she went on, and then he looked down awkwardly. "Well, yes, of course," he said slowly,blue eyes staying on his now tepid tea, "I hope you're not planning on just cutting us, your teachers I mean, off completely, Lyra. I'm sure," he cleared his throat, and looked up, "Dr Neville for one would appreciate you staying in contact. How long have you been living with him again?"

[L.C. Milliner]

There were many reasons why L.C. didn’t like her name, and she tossed varying theories out at random whenever asked about it. There were some lies mixed in, of course, but she was never one to tell the entire truth, even when she was in trouble. She often would just point fingers at her mother and leave it at that, or say that she just liked the nickname better. Obviously it went a bit deeper than that, like most things, but she wasn’t going to spill her guts out to anyone, not even John. “My Mother named me that, and I hate my Mother. So, I hate the name.” Maybe one day she’d finally sit down and straighten out all the facts about it for someone, but until then she’d stick with the easy way out.

Sinking back in her chair, L.C. tried not to look annoyed as he pinched his nose and told her off. It was very rare for her and John to see eye to eye, and it was taking its toll on their already shaky teacher-student relationship. If he wasn’t invincible, she probably would’ve scared him off by now. As it was, she could only destroy his shirts on a regular basis, and even that was getting old. But, despite her thinking otherwise, things had gotten better. She raged a lot less and now her moods now shifted toward mildly annoyed instead. At present, she just huffed and ran a hand through her hair, catching a whiff of the chemical smell it was still putting off. She let go and it fall back into place. She finally just shrugged at him. It wasn’t worth the effort to get into an argument with him. He was too damn stubborn. (No, she was not the pot calling the kettle black.)

Biting her lip, L.C. closed here eyes and tried to find a way to explain. “I am happy. Just not... Bursting with joy.” Not she ever bursted with joy these days. “I won’t cut you all off. I’ll still be living in Pilot Ridge.”

[/b] Now that she had a job at Kali’s, she could afford a small flat downtown- someone had moved out from the one over the bakery, and it was right in her price range. “You could actually come by where I work and buy a cup of coffee once in a while. We have tea too.” She yawned and laid her head down on the table, not bothering to ask permission first or think about whether or not it was rude. She’d had a long couple of weeks. “A while. But I’m moving out graduation day.” That much she was certain of. She was paying two month’s rent in advance- that would set her back but she’d lived on less before.

“Who are you going to teach now that I’m gone though? I’m your best student.” She joked, blowing her bangs out of her face as she shifted to put her head on her arms instead of on the table itself. [/blockquote][/blockquote]