Just call me Mr Fix-It! (Mia)

[Jonah King]

It had taken Jonah a whole week of solid work to finish something which was – to be quite frank – a masterpiece.

When Jonah was fixing things, he always felt as if he had found his niche in life. Some people were destined to become teachers, some to become doctors – Jonah was going make his living out of taking something broken, and making it work again. And this time he had excelled himself. If you looked at the laptop in front of him, you would never know that it had been broken.

Well, there were a couple of cracks here and there, but you would only notice those if you were looking particularly closely. Otherwise the grey casing had been polished to perfection, and fused seamlessly with all the new parts Jonah had managed to attach. It had been easier than he had expected – once he had all the parts he needed (and he had most of them already, due to the fact that he salvaged every discarded piece of electrical equipment he could find), putting them together had been like solving a jigsaw puzzle. Everything just needed to go into the right place. Jonah looked down at Kaylee and gave a small, proud smile.

Of course, it wasn’t really Kaylee. The hard drive was a different one (although Jonah was pretty certain he could hook up the old one, if Mia ever got it back), and most of the parts were new, not to mention the screen – but it had most of the same casing, so it at least looked right. Jonah had even managed to make the wallpaper the same when it was turned on.

He hadn’t seen Mia during the whole week he had been fixing the laptop. It had been easier for them to avoid one another, after the words they had exchanged the last time they had seen each other. It had been a short argument, but Jonah argued with people so infrequently that, to him, it had been pretty major. In fact, he would go so far as to say that it had been the biggest argument of his life. Usually Jonah was the mediator, or he just walked away. Fighting was not his style. But both of them had managed to be poisonous to the other, and Jonah had been unable to face Mia – because of the way he had been to her, and because he still stung a little from realising that she had been keeping an eye on his private communication. It shouldn’t have been such a shock to him, really – after all, Mia was obsessed by finding things out, so it was natural that she would want to know everything about him – but he couldn’t quite forgive her for it. Not yet.

So what do you do when you aren’t talking to your best friend? Make yourself useful. Jonah had done just that, and he looked down at the half-old, half-new laptop in satisfaction. But at the thought of actually taking it to Mia, his stomach twisted. I should have gone to her before. Nosy or not, she was still his best friend – and she needed him more than usual. He had left her. If it had been a lonely week for him, what had it been like for Mia?

There was no more time for being a coward. Jonah got to his feet and carefully picked up his creation, carrying it under his arm.

They had repaired her door. Mia had hooked up the keypad again, but when Jonah tried it he discovered that she had changed the lock code. This made him pause, and he looked at the door for a moment. She had changed it without telling him the new number. She changed it every six months – sometimes more – and she had never done so without instantly telling him what the new code was. Exactly why this upset him so much, Jonah couldn’t guess. But it did, and he bit his lip. He could sense her behind the door, she was definitely there. Bending, Jonah gently placed the laptop on the floor in front of her door. He opened it up, turned it on – she would hear it soon – and knocked on the door.

Then he turned away, and began to walk back down the corridor.

[Mia Keystone]

Form your hand into an ‘a’ or an ‘s’ and rotate it over your chest clockwise.

Mia scowled at the tiny screen of her notebook and starched her head in frustration. It made no sense, at all, and the diagram just infuriated her further. That was clearly a fist, not an a or an s. Where did these people learn the alphabet, Fight Club? She groaned and tapped the plastic of her midget computer restlessly, straight brows knotted together.

Mia Keystone did not say sorry. Ever. To anyone. Saying sorry implied that she regretted her actions and Mia never regretted anything she did because she was always right. Always.

Still waiting on the stuff Ollie had promised to sell her, Mia was effectively blind as to who was outside her door and was mightily suspicious of opening it. Ever. Since she and Jonah weren’t talking she couldn’t think who else in this fascist hole of a school would want to visit except teachers and she wasn’t exactly going to let any of them in. So while the rapping against the wood earned a backward glance, Mia didn’t think to open the door.

Then she heard something else very different. Closing her eyes, the technopath titled her head slightly, the frown on her face more curious then angry. A computer outside, unplugged but in standby, it felt... familiar.

She stood up so quickly her chair overturned, but it didn’t bother her as she yanked open the door, looked down and saw....

Not quite. It looked the same, but the parts weren’t...

Who was she kidding, it was amazing. Still, what was more unbelievable was that the person responsible thought he could just walk away. Sliding the shiny new laptop inside with one foot and shutting the door tightly, Mia barreled after Jonah, stopping just behind him. She could do this. It wasn't that big a deal, right? She'd been a proper bitch and sure, the circumstances had made that understandable but the point was she'd made Jonah actually mad. She'd set this right. The last week had been craptastic and she wanted her best friend back. With a determined expression, the short girl reached up and and tapped the telepath's shoulder.

Hand over chest, fist, clockwise.

Her eyes looked off to the side as her hand moved clumsily and maybe she was blushing, because Mia Keystone did not say sorry, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Still, after a moment of her first ever apology in ASL, Mia decided that was enough and grabbed Jonah’s shirt so she could butt her head against his chest in some strange, sort of violent form of a hug. It meant no eye contact anyway and Mia was going to avoid that for a few moments.

Missed you, you big eared lug.

[Jonah King]

Jonah didn’t even have time to register the fact that he could tell that Mia was standing behind him before he felt the tap on his shoulder. He turned swiftly, and looked down at her. For a moment, as he watched her use ASL coherently for the firs time in his life, he felt something rise up in his chest – something which threatened to make his throat catch. He bit his lip. It was another first, as well: while Jonah had seen Mia apologise a handful of times in his life, they had always strictly been apologies of necessity. The sort of “I’m sorry” which teachers had to prompt, the kind she said when apologising was the only possible way she could get out of further punishment.

This, though. This was new. Jonah had never seen Mia make a genuine apology. He could tell it was real because she wouldn’t meet his eyes – the other times, she had always looked dead into the gaze of the person in question, and said ‘I’m sorry’ in a way that was so sickly-sweet that it would make them fear for their life. This time she was looking away, plainly embarrassed that he had made her admit a weakness.

When she butted her head against his chest, Jonah grinned – and wrapped his arms around her. It seemed the natural thing to do. They stayed like that for a moment, he holding her gently, she with her head against his torso. He’d never truly realised how small she was, before. He stepped away slightly, and looked down at his best friend.

‘I’m sorry, too,’ he told her, signing the words as he spoke them aloud. He let his hands rest by his sides. ‘I shouldn’t have been so angry with you.’ Mia had known Jonah when he had been a frustrated boy, continually angered by his inability to communicate – but he hadn’t been angry like that in a good year or so. That had been the first time he had felt that angry in a very long time. He gave her a quick smile. ‘I missed you.’

It was only then that Jonah realised something: he hadn’t ‘spazzed out’ at her touch. There had been an increase in volume, but the wall still remained – with her voice on the other side of it. He hadn’t been able to make out any words. A slow smile started at the corner of his mouth, and before he knew it he was grinning delightedly down at Mia. ‘I didn’t hear you!’ he said, body tense with excitement. His control was clearly getting better, and that could only be a good thing. ‘Just then, when you touched me – I didn’t hear you!’ Mia of all people would know what that meant. Beaming broadly, he gave one of his silent laughs. Bending down, he picked Mia up by the waist as if she weighed no more than a cat and spun her around.

Then he realised what he was doing, and have an embarrassed smile as he put her back down on her feet. ‘Sorry…’

[Mia Keystone]

One of the things Mia and Jonah had bonded over, all those years ago (four, which is a long time when you’re not even 20), was that physical contact was not necessary. Jonah had obvious reasons for it, but Mia’s reasons weren’t so... well, they made less sense. As it was, when Jonah hugged her it was unusual enough that the technopath stiffened for a moment before wrapping her relatively shorter arms around him and pressing her face to his chest. It was as high as she could reach.

He’d grown upward so quickly, like a tree. He was just so... so tall. And sometimes she felt so tiny next to him, so small. Like an ant in a celery patch.

It was easier to watch his hands when he signed, even if Mia still had no idea what he was doing with his hands. Still, she recognized what he meant when he circled around his chest with a fist and tentatively shrugged and scratched at the back of her head. ”Yeah...” she said slowly, brows furrowed. That was all. Nothing else to say. She’d lost her temper too, but that was something that happened so often it was not worth voicing. For Jonah, it was as rare as rocking horse shit. Her cheeks grew hot and with a non committal shrug Mia pursed her lips, but finally gave a small smile back.

Her smile began to fade as Jonah started grinning like a loon. One eyebrow raised and she tilted her head expectantly. What?! It took a moment for Mia to understand what Jonah was on about; of course he didn’t hear her. He was deaf. But when she realized exactly what he was getting at her own mouth stretched into a smile, then a grin as wide as Jonah’s himself. When he lifted her, she shrieked and was very thankful he couldn’t hear. Still, she looped an around around his neck and laughed into her arm until he put her down.

He couldn’t hear her. He wouldn’t be able to tell. It could be a secret. Forever.

The smile slipped a little, but she caught herself and shrugged again. ”Hey, no problem,” she said and then glanced behind her before looking back up (so tall) at King. ”That’s fan-fucking-tastic, King. But don’t start swinging me around again without asking first.”

Who are you kidding

”So, want to, ah, come in? I don’t have an xbox right now but...”

[Jonah King]

Jonah had frequently argued that it wasn’t that he was unusually tall (he was a common enough height, as far as he was concerned), it was just that Mia was shorter than any other fully-grown adult either of them knew. It wasn’t his fault that he towered over her. If he didn’t know any better, he would say she was jealous – but no matter how often Mia complained about her height, she would never admit to wanting to be different.

He couldn’t hear her, but Jonah could tell from Mia’s breathing that she was laughing. He was relieved to see her still smiling when he placed her back down on her feet – he had never previously been known for sudden physical gestures, after all. For a moment, when he saw her smile falter, he wondered if he had gone too far – but then she was grinning again, and he smiled back at her. It wasn’t until now that he realised how much he had actually missed her – soppy to think it, he knew, but that was just the way things were. The strange, twisting feeling in his stomach every time he had remembered that he couldn’t just text her about something he had just seen or thought of had been something he hoped he wouldn’t ever feel again. Mia was the one person whom he could tell everything to, and he knew that he was the same for her. It must have been even stranger for her when they were apart – she hadn’t even had a decent Internet connection to keep herself amused.

Jonah had done a lot of thinking while he had been fixing Kaylee, and he had made up his mind on one subject, at least: whatever had been happening between him and Mia recently, whatever changes to their friendship had been slowly taking place, they had to stop.

His reasoning was simple: missing Mia had been appalling. If things kept changing (Jonah wasn’t blind – he could tell that there was something different between them nowadays, something neither of them wanted to admit), they would only become more difficult. A year ago – even six months ago – they would never have had that argument. She wouldn’t have been able to upset him like that. But Jonah wasn’t the same as he had been, six months ago. And neither was Mia. If the choice was between them remaining friends, and them getting into something so complicated that the next argument would be even more fraught, then he wanted to stick with the first option.

‘I’ll do my best,’ he said with a grin, in reply to her comment about swinging her around. As she turned and started to head back to her room, he kept pace beside her. ‘I hope Kaylee works OK,’ he offered, even though he was pretty sure he hadn’t made any mistakes. Wiring was something which seemed to come naturally to him. ‘Any luck getting your stuff back from the security department?’

[Mia Keystone]

”Ha, no,” Mia shook her head, giving the order for death as she pointed her thumb at the ground. ”Fat chance too, apparently. Given my record.” she shrugged, and shook her head again. Thinking about it made her unhappy, and she didn’t want to feel unhappy right now. She’d just gotten her best friend back so her stuff could wait.

Yes, some people were more important then her computers. Not many, not many at all, but some. She fell into her chair and glared at her empty desk, then set her new Kaylee on it with a small smile. Looked less empty. Having a bare desk was like having a naked person just standing in her room, waiting for clothes.

Spinning like an arch villain in her chair, the short technopath turned back to Jonah and steepled her fingers, peering over them. She had a pretty important question to ask, but a part of her knew bringing up the very reason they’d fought might not be wise. Mia didn’t need many people but once she had them, she hated loosing them. Her little tiff with Moe-Moe had just driven that home; Ginny was never at Hammel much, Jordan was a kid, but Jonah was special.

Still, while she was acting a little out of character, Mia was not suddenly going to become a master tactician. ”So,” she said finally, one eyebrow rising. Her courage failed her for a moment and she scratched at her head and twisted her mouth to one side, chewing on her lip rings. ”So, is there a reason you didn’t want to stay with me and stuff over easter?” She made sure she was facing him, so he could see, but again, her eyes stayed off to the side. He couldn’t read her mind by accident, there was no fear he’d get the hurt she still felt. ”I mean, I sort of was waiting for you to ask. Olly was gonna be staying at his new boyfriend’s so there would have been room...” She grinned slightly, ”You know mom likes having you around. Calming influence on her juvenile delinquent of a daughter.”

There, it was said. With a little shrug Mia pulled open Kayee 2.0’s top and began examining her new machine.

[Jonah King]

When Mia asked the first part of her question, Jonah wanted nothing more than to close his eyes so that he didn’t have to see the rest of what she was going to say. He didn’t need telepathy to work out what Mia was feeling – he’d known that long ago. All he had to do was watch her face, the set of her shoulders, her eyes. That would tell him everything he needed to know. And all he could see when she looked away while speaking to him was that he had hurt her feelings more than he had imagined that he could. As she turned away to examine Kaylee, Jonah bit his lip, trying to work out how he could reply to her.

Pride.[/i] He said the word into her mind after a long pause. He tried to work out how to explain it. I didn’t want you to know how bad things are getting, with my family. I didn’t want anyone to know. He hadn’t wanted the pitying looks, the sympathetic smiles. Even though Jonah knew Mia wasn’t one for pity, he still hadn’t wanted her to know. Once again, words seemed to desert him. Explanations had never been something he was good at, but he knew that he needed to make more of an effort than he had ever done before. What he had already said went some way, but it wasn’t going to cut it.

‘Do you remember the first time I came to your room?’ he asked aloud, suddenly, looking up at her with earnest eyes. ‘I was so nervous. I wanted you to like me. And you offered me a Reese cup, and I took it.’ He paused for a moment, a sudden smile breaking through. ‘I don’t like chocolate. I never have. But I didn’t want to refuse, because I could tell that you didn’t often offer things to people. So I ate it.’ Jonah shook his head at the folly of his younger self. ‘And after that, I couldn’t exactly say ‘actually, I don’t like them’. So I kept eating them. Now, I like them. But I took that first one because I wanted you to think well of me.’

Jonah gave an awkward shrug, suddenly self-conscious and wishing that he was somewhere else. That could very possibly have been the longest speech he had ever given, in his entire life. He was sitting on Mia’s bed, in his usual place, and he resolutely avoided her gaze as he continued: ‘It’s like that, I guess,’ he said after a moment. ‘I didn’t want you to know how Mom feels about me, because I didn’t want you to think badly of me.’ He offered a weak smile. ‘And I know how much you hate people who complain.’

[Mia Keystone]

But it’s me.

Mia didn’t interrupt (if you could even interrupt thought speak) but she spun around again. Behind her, Kaylee 2.0’s screen was starting to flash as scrolls of text began; Mia was installing some serious security software. Crossing her arms, the uncrossing them, then folding them again the short girl fidgeted as she listened. It made her so angry, thinking about Jonah’s parents.

She’d met them three times now, when they made the trip up to meet the staff that were shaping their son’s life. The first time, she’d made as much as an effort as she was able to; she’d found a shirt without profanities, and she’d only put on half as much eyeliner as she was used to. Hadn’t helped. The next time, Mia didn’t bother trying. No one could out hostile Mia. But she didn’t mind Mrs King being rude or snubbing her, the technopath was used to that sort of reaction from anyone over 30. What really got under her case and messed with her wires was that this woman treated her son; like he was some sort of half wit moron who she was gracing with a visit out of the goodness of her heart.

The slight pain of her chewed nails digging into her palm alerted Mia to the fists her hands had formed, and she relaxed them quickly. He was speaking again, but with his voice this time. Her eyes widening as he went on, the technopath cursed that she’d lost her recorder; this was the longest speech Jonah had made. In his hoarse and slightly slurred voice, he talked about Reece cups of all things. And how he’d been able to read her like a book even then.

Geeze, King,

It was all she could do not to just cover her ears as things started to get so personal. He didn’t understand; he always knew how she felt but this one thing, this one thing that was poisoning their friendship with stupid bullshit things, he didn’t understand. With a roll of her eyes she stood up and propped her hands on her hips.
”You’re an idiot, King,” she said flatly, then wrapped her arms around his neck. With her standing and him sitting, they weren’t so unmatched for height and she buried her face in his neck. Two hugs in one day was a new record but these were special circumstances. And even though he said he didn’t hear her any more, and even though her mind worked like a computer processor and not like a cerebral cortex, and even thought the one person who could read her as easily as she read code couldn’t see it, she let the thought slip into her head.

Mia hadn’t let it cement before, and she’d rather tear out her toenails then even breath it out loud but the thought still crept in.

Couldn’t think badly of you, you moron. Could never hate you. Love you.

[Jonah King]

Jonah knew exactly how his parents felt about Mia – he had tried to call his mother out on it, once, but he had been unsuccessful. She was very good at completely ignoring anything that didn’t fit with her view of the world, and the idea of Mia being a good person definitely didn’t fit into her philosophy. On Mia’s advice, Jonah had given up on trying to make his mother see sense. It was much easier to just look away and not have to see what she was saying.

One day, though, he was going to talk to her about it. Really talk to her about it. And he had the feeling it was going to be sooner rather than later. If his lessons with Honor had taught him one thing, it was that he was more powerful than he knew. And he didn’t have to put up with the kind of treatment he got from his family.

When Mia stood up, Jonah looked up at her (when she was on her feet, she was a little taller than him), a little nervous of what she was going to say next. Although he usually had an instinct for Mia, the ability to know what was going on in her head, this time it felt as if she were out of his range. Those two weeks of separation had been stranger than he had imagined. For the first time in years, he looked up into her eyes and waited for her verdict on the matter, uncertain as to what she was going to come out with.

Her statement of his idiocy, when it came, made him grin. ‘I know,’ he replied, feeling a weight lift from his chest. But then she stepped closer, and her arms were around his neck, her head nestled in the curve of his shoulder, and Jonah froze. This was exactly the kind of thing he had promised himself that he would not allow to happen again. This was the kind of thing that made things complicated. But, slowly, almost against his own will, Jonah felt himself relax. He closed his eyes and leaned his cheek against Mia’s warm hair, hands reaching up to rest on the small of her back. He could hear the fast, comforting traffic of her thoughts behind the ‘wall’ in his head, haphazard as ever. But then one seemed to press up against his barriers, almost as if Mia wanted him to hear it. As if she were trying to say something she couldn’t put into words.

Couldn’t think badly of you, you moron. Could never hate you. Love you.

He smiled against her ear, and replied: Love you, too. It was the easiest thing in the world.

Then Jonah realised what he had said, and his mouth went dry. There are always moments where something can go either way, can change or stay the same, and he had the feeling that things had just changed. This wasn’t something they would be able to brush off. Not that it was something they would necessarily want to brush off. I missed you a lot, he told Mia, still holding her gently. I don’t want us to…[/b] he paused, pulling back slightly so that he could look into her eyes. I don’t want us to fall out again,[/i] he said, and felt a smile grow as he realised the strangeness of the situation. ‘What happened to us, Keystone?’ he asked aloud, smile brightening with humour. Slowly, he leaned forward until their foreheads were touching. ‘When did we get so soppy?’ he murmured softly, still smiling.

[Mia Keystone]

Mia had used the L word seriously a total of four times in her life; when she was given Kaylee, when she was asked how she felt about Firefly, when her brother had turned 21 and she had been very drunk, and when per parents had their 25th wedding anniversary... and she had been very drunk. People had said the L word seriously to Mia a little more then that, but that had always been her mom, or her dad, or her brother, or a few faceless nameless automatons who thought it was appropriate to say in bed.

It had never scared her before.

Her fingers dug into the jacket covering Jonah’s back and her breath hissed between her teeth as she inhaled. It had slipped out, she hadn’t meant it like that... but she had, she had, and now it was like standing on a high wire; one wrong step and it was very much over. This wasn’t a tipsy suggestion to be laughed off. This was some new, adult, secret thing that made her heart flail like a beached fish.

Pull yourself together, for fucks sakes. This isn’t The Bold and the Beautiful. You’re not blond, he’s not rugged, you’re not rich and he’s a virgin.

She met his eyes steadly, none of the usual flickers that meant she was distracted or jacked into the ebb and flow of the interwebs. His nose was almost touching hers. Then he smiled and her own lips stretched into a crooked smirk, one eyebrow raising. We grew up, duh, but that was a lie. Mia wasn’t growing up, or at least, needed to grow up more as she was often told by her teachers. ”Skynet went online and the terminators came,” she said seriously, falling back onto flippancy. ”It’s a conspiracy, King. I suspect they drugged the water.”

Without thought, her fingers tightened their hold on his coat as if she could anchor him in place. "I can take 'em," she went on, because the other topic to talk about was hard, too hard, caught in her throat. "If Sarah Conner can, I can."

What do we do now? What changes? What stays the same? I don't know how this works!

And worst of all...

Did he mean it like I did? Fuck, god, buddha, allah, whatever, don't let me be getting this wrong.

It wasn't like she could just offer to do a coffee run and disappear now, was it?

[Jonah King]

Now that he thought about it, Jonah couldn’t remember a time he had used the word ‘love’ in a serious context at all. His family were not the kind of people who would say it – Jonah didn’t think he had ever seen it used by any of his family members to any of his other family members, except when his father’s brother was newly married to his wife. Jonah’s parents didn’t say it to any of their children, who didn’t say it to each other. It was just a family quirk. Jonah himself had never said it to another person, and there were few enough anyway to whom he could use it and really mean it.

More than that, this was coming up to being the longest period of time he had spent in any kind of physical contact with anyone. Even before he was thirteen and his telepathy had manifested, he had never been very physically affectionate – not that there had been anyone to be physically affectionate to, being as his family were also very much not the kind of family who hugged one another. He’d never even seen his Mom hug Rachel more than about three times, and Rachel was her favourite. At parents’ evenings in school, they had made an effort to pat him on the shoulder or put an arm around him, because that was what the other parents were doing.

Even if his telepathy hadn’t been what it was, Jonah would not have been very keen on physical contact. Over the past few weeks he had been more so than usual, but when you consider that touching someone’s shoulder, shaking hands, and a couple of hugs was about 100% more than the norm, it probably explained a lot about him.

Mia’s Terminator talk made him smile, but he didn’t miss the way her hands twisted the fabric of his clothes. She was nervous about this, nervous in a way he had never experienced from her before. This wasn’t the buzzing, fidgeting mood she usually took on before something serious, and nor was it the still, serious worrying that she did her best to hide when something bad was going on. ‘’Course you can,’ he agreed solemnly. ‘Just adapt Operation: Dressing Gown.’

He paused, and looked up at her in contrition. ‘I’m sorry about the Easter thing,’ he said quietly, determined to properly apologise. ‘I should have told you.’ His other rationale had been that this would not be the last holiday where he wasn’t asked home. After he graduated, of course, he wouldn’t have the long holidays he did now, but even so – he would probably be invited home for Christmas dinner, but other than that Jonah had the feeling that he would be spending a lot of holidays elsewhere. He didn’t want to get used to having somewhere to go. But that wasn’t something he wanted to tell Mia, yet. It would only make her take some terrible revenge on his family, and their computers would be mysteriously insulting them for years to come.

Jonah’s smile returned – one of his bright, boyish grins. ‘Next time I don’t tell you something, you have full permission to hit me.’