Summary: Blossom, orderly and uptight, is taking a summer road trip to "relax". But relaxing has never come easy to her. Besides, it's pretty hard to relax with a mysterious hitchhiker right next to you. BlossomXBrick. AU.

---

"Beyond the door there's peace I'm sure,
And I know there'll be no more tears in heaven.…"

Eric Clapton's voice drifted out of the radio and melted into the hot air as I drove my old green station wagon down the road. My bare feet stuck to the plastic gas pedal and the hot air hit my face as it came in from the open window.

"Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven?

Would it be the same if I saw you in heaven?"

My voice mixed with the smooth melody. I tried to match the slow beat by tapping my fingers on the steering wheel but multi-tasking while driving had never been my strong suit and the beat came out more scattered then it should.

I sighed and looked sideways out the window to see the Arizona desert go by. The sky was turning a deep blue and purple and the stars filled the vast emptiness that seemed to go on forever. Never before had I seen such nothingness.

Growing up in Townsville didn't exactly give me the best views. Sure, there were "sights" and monuments but after seeing the same thing over and over again it all seemed so boring. So routine.

Not that I minded routine. No, in fact, I loved routine. I strived for order. I liked rules and regulations as well as procedures and structure.

But as I got older I found the city to be…suffocating.

It had been my mom's idea for me to take a road trip. She hadn't wanted me to go alone and my father hadn't wanted me to go at all but I was an only child and in the end they always seemed to let me do as I pleased. And leaving the city pleased me very much.

And so I left.

But unlike the spontaneous, free-spirited road-trip my mother had had in mind, I sat down and mapped out everywhere I wanted to go, which roads to take, when I could stop, how much gas it should take, and how much money I would need.

Responsible, my dad had complimented.

Too thought-out, my mom had complained.

Perfect, I had thought.

And it was perfect…at least written out.

I mean, I had it all planned perfectly. I would be traveling, seeing new, exciting things, right? That's what I needed. That was what I wanted.

But as I sat in the car, the music drowning out the sound of the engine and my voice soft and mimicking, I realized I wasn't having fun. The suffocating feeling I'd always had was still there and didn't seem to be leaving anytime soon.

Maybe if I did some of my school work for next year (I had hid it underneath my seat when my mom wasn't looking) I'd cool off. School was something I was good at unlike relaxing and traveling which obviously didn't come as naturally to me as most things did. But my next rest stop wasn't until another two hours, which meant I had to keep traveling to keep on schedule. So summer work wasn't really an option.

I sighed again and gripped the steering wheel a bit harder than necessary.

Relax, I told myself. This is supposed to be the time I loosen up, unwind.

But my fingers still gripped the wheel forcefully and despite the glorious desert around me and the vast open land, I knew I wouldn't be relaxing anytime soon. And more than likely I wouldn't be relaxing at all.

---

"Here you go young lady," An older woman, half asleep but still smiling slurred as she handed me my key for the night. I took it quickly, gave her a quick smile, and retreated back outside.

I found my room easily, the motel not being very big (or nice looking either). I unlocked my door and stepped inside. The lights, once turned on, were dim and slightly flickering. Both of the beds seemed dingy and dirty and hardly suitable for sleeping on.

Somehow I hadn't pictured my sleeping quarters to be so…inadequate. The last stop had been a bit nicer and a lot more sterile.

I wrinkled my nose in disgust and dropped my bag and purse onto the bed. I walked to what I could only assume, and hope, was the bathroom, and let myself in. And if I thought the room was grimy the bathroom put it to shame. I could practically see the bacteria on the slightly moldy tile.

"Well gross," I muttered. I decided, as I looked around, that my toothbrush was not touching any surface of this room, not even the sink. I'd hold it the whole time.

I reached and turned on the faucet (ew) and cupped my hands to get some water. Once my hands were full I splashed the water up onto my face and let the daylong drive be rinsed from my skin. Dust and sand from the desert still stained my face (no more open window for me) and I pouted at the mess I was.

My long red hair, flaming and soft, was now tangled due to the wind and dull thanks to the dirt. A shower, despite how gross it might be inside the tub, was a must. The heat, which had thankfully died down at night, still left my pale cheeks flushed and my throat dry. I licked my parched lips and tried to unknot my hair from the ponytail it was in.

"This is hardly 'fun and free spirited'" I said darkly, mocking my mother's words. I felt even more annoyed and peeved at the disorder around me then I had been before I left Townsville. I had thought leaving the city would be my big change but obviously some changes weren't necessarily good.

Oh well, no turning back now. That wasn't in the plans.

I was going to see this through, no matter how crappy it might turn out.

I grimaced slightly at that thought as I stared dully into my muddy brown eyes. Out of all my features (my pale skin, my ruby red hair, my dark lashes, my dainty chin) my eyes were the thing that always made me feel…wrong.

In a world where all I wanted to do was live my boring life, blend in, and go to school, brown eyes seemed perfect. They were the last thing people usually noticed, they weren't outstanding or gorgeous but they weren't ugly. They were average. Ordinary.

So why did I feel like they didn't look right on my face?

Ever since I was a little girl I had always thought I had the wrong eye color…but that was stupid. Wrong eye color? That's not possible. Brown is what my genetics had picked out for me. So, why then did they not look right? Why, when I pictured myself, did my eyes not look brown?

I sighed, feeling foolish. Brown eyes were fine. They were normal. I was normal. See? No problem. It all went together. It all fit. Just like everything in my life, it fit and worked out perfectly.

Besides, if not brown, what color were my eyes supposed to be?

----

After showering and brushing my teeth (and taking care of other bathroom needs) I climbed into one of the beds. The mattress was stiff and the covers were thin. I tried to get comfortable but even the pillow felt too lumpy and I let out a frustrated sound.

This was annoying.

I closed my eyes and imagined myself in my room at home…but my imagination had never really been that good and within seconds I was flipping and twisting as I fought to find a comfortable position.

"Blossom, honey, I worry about you," My mother had told me before I left. She was the only one who called me by my real name (she had picked it for me) and she was the only one I let get by with it. When she was young she had been a hippie (hence her excitement for my traveling and the bizarre name) and it killed her that I hadn't picked up on any of her relaxed tendencies. But despite how I had turned out, no matter what, I still had that funky name, a little memory of the carefree girl and personality I was intended to have.

"Don't worry about me mom," I had insisted, not understanding what there was to worry about. I was a great student, had lots of friends, and never missed curfew. I was a parent's dream. But unfortunately one of my parents had different dreams than the rest.

She just sighed and shook her head. Her eyes, vibrant and dark blue, got a far off look in them. I always called that look her "regret look" because she always got it when she thought of her past. Her exciting days of flowers and peace signs would fill her brain and then in an instant she'd remember she wasn't young anymore and she'd get sad. She'd look around and see the same old house in the busy city with bills on the table and dinner on the stove and then she'd realize her glory days were gone.

I had never really been sure what to do when she got that look, even after years of seeing it.

"I just don't want you to waste your childhood by trying to be an adult," She finally said once the 'regret look' had cleared from her eyes and she smiled sadly at me. I didn't say anything because I technically thought I wasn't living in my childhood anymore. I was grown up, seventeen, and no longer a kid, but I knew better than to say so. "I just want you to enjoy it while you can."

"That's what this trip is about, remember?" I reminded her, indicating to the list I had made of stuff I needed for my journey that was sitting in front of me on the table. "To get away from the city and relax."

"But I worry it's not the city that stresses you," She whispered, looking out the apartment window at the buildings around us. "I worry that no matter where you go you'll be stressed."

We'd had this discussion before. The one where we talked about how I spent too much time with school and work and mapping out my future. My mom thought all of that was the cause of my suffocating feeling but I knew it was the city. I knew I wasn't creating my own stress.

"Relax mom," I said and rolled my eyes. "If you relax, I'll relax."

"Just…take a chance Blossom," She said with a small smile. "Not everything important in life is in your plans." She smiled at me again and then the regret look was back on her face and I knew the conversation was over.

----

Arizona was…hot. And pretty. But mostly hot. The towns I drove through were nice but average and the "scenes" I had read about on the internet weren't that memorable. What I liked the most, of all of it, was the desert.

Despite the heat and the dust, I liked the emptiness surrounding me. Even though I just looked at it through the window it was still like nothing I'd ever seen before. But even in all its glory it was still just a desert. Nothing too special. Nothing in it screamed freedom and adventure or key to relaxation.

And so I kept driving. My CD's were familiar and calming as I listened to them and I shifted every so often when the bottom of my legs stuck to the seat. But all the while I just kept driving, keeping to the schedule.

"Moon River, wider than a mile,
I'm crossing you in style some day."

The car, despite the air freshener, smelled like sunscreen and I glared down at my traitorous pale skin. I had always burned so easily that I had to buy sun block in the bulk to keep from turning as red as my hair all over. Over the years I had grown used to the smell but I still hated for the old car to smell bad.

Did that make me a neat freak?

Probably.

It's not like I hadn't ever been called that before.

In fact, I'm usually called that on a daily basis.

"Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker,
wherever you're going I'm going your way."

I frowned and squinted when I saw a weird shape up ahead. A cactus maybe? Or maybe something that had fallen off of someone's car? I wasn't sure but I was soon approaching it.

The figure, I noticed, seemed to be moving. Swaying, or rocking, back and forth as it….walked? I squinted again? An animal, of course. It had to be.

I hadn't seen another person (or car) on this road for hours and it'd been forever since I'd passed a town. No human would be this far out in the middle of nowhere unless they were built like a camel or had a death wish.

But as I got closer (when had I started to ease my foot off the gas?) I realized it was no animal. It was, in fact, a person. A person, in the middle of the desert, walking on the side of the road.

Despite the hazy heat and my dusty windshield I could make out broad shoulders (male?), covered by a wet, probably with sweat, t-shirt. The person was wearing a white baseball cap backwards but I could still see hair coming out from underneath it. I couldn't know, however, if it was the dust from the desert or his natural color that gave his hair a rusty, brown-ish, red-ish, tint.

"Two drifters off to see the world.
There's such a lot of world to see"

I was suddenly beside the (suicidal?) man and my heart….stopped. Because as I stared out my window at the person on the side of the road…he turned his head and was starring directly back at me. A spark of fear raced through me, all of me, and I wasn't sure why. But it didn't really matter why either.

I took no time to assess his looks or try to evaluate his age before my foot found the pedal (that I still couldn't remember stepping off of) again and slamming it down hard. The car lurched at the sudden change in momentum and before I could catch my breath or still my now racing heart I was speeding away.

"We're after the same rainbow's end--
waiting 'round the bend,"

I refused to look back at the man in my rear-view mirror, not even sure if he'd be there or not. After all, it could've been a mirage. A figment of my imagination. A result of too much sun.

Yes, that had to be it. That would explain the dizziness I had felt and the queer beat of my heart.

Yes, yes. That was it.

A mere trick of my mind.

That had to be it, because, if not, I could've sworn for a second, due to the eye contact we'd briefly made…that the man on the road had red eyes.

Red eyes?

I shook my head and laughed dryly at my foolishness. People don't have red eyes. People don't walk in the middle of the dessert. And people definitely couldn't survive in this heat.

No, not possible.

It wasn't real.

Just a mirage.

Just my imagination.

'But,' I thought, biting my lip and refusing to look back because looking back might make it real, '…since when had I had an imagination?'

"My huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me."

-----

No, I'm not giving up on But We're Different! And hopefully you won't either.

I just had this in my mind (and it's not done yet) and I'm hoping that writing something else will help me continue BWD!

So I'm sorry for the long wait on the other story, but I hope you'll like this too.

Review and tell me what you think so far.