Change of Hart

A/N: See what I did there? :p Anyway, just a quick little drabble that got away from me and evolved. Ultimately, Zoe returns to New York, and finds something not quite as it was when she left.

Bluebell had a heartbeat. It wasn't something you could hear, but something you felt- soft, slow and steady in your blood. The way waves lap gently against a boat, the way branches sway lightly in the breeze.

It was like taking a breath.

New York had a heartbeat, too, underneath the hustle and bustle of thousands of people. It was faster, harder, vibrating in your veins and fueling your adrenaline.

And she couldn't feel it anymore.

Before, she'd always felt it in her blood, the rising and falling of her own heart pulsing in tandem with that of the city, perfectly synchronized.

For the first time, she felt out of place. The city spun around her, chaotic frenzied and wild, and she couldn't slow it down, couldn't find that balance, that harmony. No matter the effort, it eluded her at every turn.

She wondered if it had been lost, drowned amid the constant roar. But the city was at it always was- as she remembered it, even, and a thought struck her. Maybe it wasn't lost- maybe the people in the crowd swirling around her could still feel its rhythm.

Maybe she'd changed, her heartbeat softening, slowing, steadying. Maybe she'd grown used to a breeze off the water lifting her hair, to the sun warming her skin.

Maybe New York was no longer home.