Crying's not for me

Two days before Baby comes back, her sister calls to ask if Debora wants to move in. There's not even a minimum of subtext for an apology. Nothing about the six years she hasn't called, nothing about leaving the care of their mother in Debora's hands alone, and nothing about Debora's near dabble with death and appearance on Georgia's hottest trial of the last decade. Or at least nothing about Debora's well-being in concern to that last part.

No, Mary calls at the beginning of her early morning shift to shovel doubts and distaste about getting involved with an (albeit to be) ex-con. Something about her already being corrupted enough to pull a trigger, and something about her being stuck in a second-rate job and rickety apartment even before this Baby character came into her life, and "really Debbie I know you're looking for some freedom after all that time you wasted away taking care of mom, but we both know what happened the last time you thought some guy was different."

Debora slams the phone over the receiver before her sister finishes half the syllable of her last word. It's enough force that Bo yells through the kitchen to keep down the racket.

Later, after Debora finishes her final double shift at the diner without a single complaint – even when a sharp-tongued woman with her shrieking drink-hurling four year old refused to pay the bill fifteen minutes after the new sixteen year old cook spilled hot oil on her boots – she mindlessly trudges her way on foot to the local coffee shop to check the box of her second job before finding a damp bus station bench where she can dig her elbows into her thighs and let any rage go. But, by the time she does so every tight-lipped curse and sneer about the judgments of her sister has dissolved with the exhaustion of her usual workday.

The one she's been living for five years.

Instead of clenching fingers into trembling fists she lets them soften with swirls around the wooden spirals of the faded seat. And instead of lighting any remaining embers of anger, Debora surrenders and let's herself teeter on the edge of tears.

Back in her second-rate rickety apartment, Debora throws down her purse before grabbing a thick yellow marker and crossing out the next empty white box on her calendar. The new yellow X sits well with the twenty or so identical ones she's made over the month. As well as those made over the years. However, this time, it's now the only X that sits exactly one space away from the only box she's outlined and labeled with various colors.

Debora kicks off her boots and tosses her worn denim jacket to the only piece of furniture left in the main sitting room. The jacket doesn't reach the chair and instead plops uselessly by its warped legs. She grabs the sandwich that is waiting alone in the empty fridge, spins around the white door as it closes, and then strides away to click on the radio.

"-ne less man to pick up after. I should be happy, but all I do is cry..."

The radio isn't silenced, despite its choice, and the denim jacket is picked up to hang on the chair's back. Debora takes a seat so her back, still in a barista polo shirt, folds into the rough wood. The music dances around the room in a way that would usually fill the lonely spaces she was left with. Today, however, the rhythm finds itself getting lost in the years Debora wishes to fill.

The turkey and wheat feel soggy in her mouth. Her feet stretch out over the floorboards where they pound from ankle to toe, and maybe she should be using the moment for memory's sake and give her apartment one last meaningful glance before she turns in tonight for the very last time in its walls.

Instead, her gaze centers around the crooked calendar tacked to the wall along with the words written in the rainbow of markers she had available at the beginning of the year – red, yellow, blue, black…

'Baby Comes Back.'

Her smile shakes around the final bread crust. It's warm and real even as her tears pitter-patter onto the styrofoam plate.

One day before Baby comes back, Debora leaves her apartment for the last time. She turns in the rusted key to the landlord and takes back her safety deposit with a few brisk nods about how the funds diminished over the years from some obvious and not so obvious damage. With money in hand Debora gives an honest handshake and thank you before walking out the door and into brisk early morning August sun.

Over her eyes are a pair of blue tinted aviators and over her right shoulder is a bulky tote bag carrying the only things that now belong to her name. One of those things being her wallet – which she pulls out when her window on the city bus shows a side street clustered with familiar landmarks letting her know she's halfway to her destination – and the second being her cheap, slightly cracked, iPod nano. Despite the damage, it still does its job to play Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head in her left ear on repeat.

The ukulele begins its third steady strums as the soles of her feet skip two beats off the bus and onto the blacktop path. The sun is dipping behind a cloud and Debora starts an easy pace, deliberately bouncing with each movement so her loosely tied ponytail sways against her back as her fingers tap along the strap of her straining bag. Two white pillars come into view along with the expected smile of a man she already knows is waiting in the rocking chair nearby.

As Debora reaches the first brick step of the outside porch area her earphones are pulled out, wrapped around the back of her neck letting the white buds dangle above her chest, so the bleating cheery tune she decided would narrate the entire day can still play.

Two men, she recognizes from her regular visits, give her bright greetings from the other side of the sitting area while one elderly woman stands to give Debora a not quite reaching kiss on the cheek before announcing she needs to grab someone else to let them know Debora is here. The bustling group brings a curled grin, which bunches the skin under her eyes, but it's nothing compared to the full blown smile that spreads up to her ears when she catches the flurry of a hello behind her.

Debora places her bag down by the wheel of the empty wheelchair nearby to free her hands for a two fingered motion of a returned "Hi!" Although it's cut short when her shoulder is grabbed by a worn but friendly hand and pulled down into a back splitting hug.

"Joseph! How are you?" She exclaims after pulling back, following it with the hand folding sign to ask.

Joseph splits an incredibly knowing grin.

Tomorrow my boy is free and your life can finally begin. I'm wonderful.

Debora lays a hand on the older man's knee, attempting to steady herself and dislodge the lump settling in her throat. Joseph raises a finger to give her pause.

Sorry, he signs over his chest. Your life, together.

Her sign language this time is sloppy, full of trembling hands, but never inexperience. If there's one positive about the length of five years, it's enough time to become proficient in communicating with Baby's only family.

(And with her mother gone, her sister runoff, and Baby pulled from her reach, Joe had become her only family too)

The relief that their half a decade of hardship is nearing an end is palpable and the excitement is brimming just above the surface. If she doesn't slow her signs for Joseph's sake then she needs to for her own so she doesn't whack herself in the face.

Miles, you, me, she lists downwards on her fingers. In less than 24 hours we all will be together. And such a prospect leaves Debora shaking, desperate to skip over time in a way she hasn't felt in years. Not since a hammer slammed Baby's sentence into life.

Joseph dismisses his inclusion with a wave of his hand and a good laugh. He continues with a don't worry about me, before suggestively persuading her to make up for lost time, before footsteps are approaching her side.

Debora uses them as a cover for her slight embarrassment, especially since Joe has begun to sign grandchildren in her peripheral, and turns to greet another familiar face, and the second reason she came to the assisted living center today.

Mr. Dai, an older gent who'd decided to trade the rocky west coast for a state with a southern breeze and cheaper real estate, gives Debora an open armed hug before shuffling with his cane to take a seat next to Joseph. Not many words need to be exchanged considering the two men and herself have been planning this trade since Christmas dinner of the first year, but Mr. Dai, as usual, can't help but launch into the specs of the car Debora is about to be gifted.

The same car that Baby had described in his rare one paged letter – usually he saved his earnings for two pages at least – which she had received just before the holidays. He wrote about a soft glowing dream he had, brought on after rereading her earliest postcards, of her standing in the summer light with a 1958 Chevy impala convertible they couldn't afford. By the time she read how he walked out to her without a plan except the thought that they'd go west forever and the certainty that they'd always be together she was left a blubbering mess. She was forced to reapply her light mascara before heading to Joe for their annual holiday dinner.

And maybe it was the one glass of wine she allowed herself, or because she hadn't felt so open with another person since her mother or Baby that she lamented to Joe how wonderful it would be to make Baby's dream come true. A dream that was not just Baby's but her own, and one she had shared with Joe so easily after seeing his smile and safe eyes.

But never in her entire life did she expect Joe to excitedly pull Mr. Dai into their private conversation by the glow of the fireplace so both men could announce with excited words and hands that Dai was a proud owner of her very same unattainable dream car.

Debora may have enjoyed a few more celebratory glasses of wine with them that night.

She collects the envelope that has been sandwiched in her wallet to offer Dai the wad of money for the shiny set of car keys he has been dangling from his thumb as he laughs with Joe.

What Debora never anticipates is before she can fully assure the man that the total amount is sincere and accurate to what she promised, he is already grabbing the payment, flicking off a fraction of the stack, and slyly showing Joseph the decision to receive a curt nod.

When a quarter of her money is returned to her palm Debora finds herself trembling with a constant jingle that's falling in time to the strumming lull in her music

Along with the wad of cash Mr. Dai, had snuck in his pair of keys into her hand, and she can't possibly miss the addition of a small engraved label dangling on the side. Her thumb flicks it up for inspection, at which point Debora realizes the carved lettering spells out her name along with a small ampersand that separates it from another underneath.

"Debora & Miles" it writes.

"Mr. Dai," she works out attempting to keep her jaw from hitting her headphones that sway with her lightheaded shock.

"Oh no, you don't say a word Ms. Debbie!" He chuckles using his favorite nickname for her as he pats Joe on the back like this was a script they'd already rehearsed. "I'm an old man, and I don't need money to start up another life, but you and that boy certainly do!"

She's trying so desperately to steady herself so she can shake both their hands that Debora has to keep a palm settled over her thumping heart to hold her ground.

An early start for grandkids, Joseph signs with grandkids repeated for an embarrassing, almost infinite, plural. Her cheeks catch with flames but she can't deny that the idea of using the funds for her future – and really Baby's future with her – brings a swell of joy far beyond a fulfillment of a one day dream. When she pulls away from the embrace of the wrinkled and shaky hands of Joseph she hopes this amazing man will still be with them for every step towards that promising future.

And it's a thank you, for taking care of me, Joseph ends, giving no chance for her to ever try to argue about one day providing all the money to maintain her original deal.

Debora stays on the verge of grateful tears even after she's waved a long goodbye to Joseph and the other folks, and well into the probable tenth repeat of the song's final verse.

"Nothing's worrying me…"

Her eyes finally dry with her unbridled squeal when she roars the car (her car) to life for the first time.

Ten hours before Baby comes back, Debora pays half a mind to the stuttering image on her square antenna TV. She had flipped between the weather channel and a rerun of some black and white movie she didn't know before choosing a show at random and lowering the sound. She's also settled for just a white baggy t-shirt and a pair of comfortable plain underwear as her motel room has no fan or window box air conditioning. If it weren't for the jumping beans in her stomach the melting soup of the southern summer night would have kept her an insomniac – not to mention her inability to detach from the diner's nightshift.

But, admittedly, staying up and preparing herself for her hectic tomorrow is probably for the best.

She flips her thumb over the bundle of maybe hundreds of papers.

Every letter Baby sent.

Just smoothing fingers over the inked words – the words she knows by heart because sometimes his letters were rare and sparse between each other that she'd have to make do with the same one for a month or more – it puts her at ease. Even if it's the superficial sentiments helping her ignore the butterflies flapping from gut to throat whenever her eyes cross the blue dress she's laid out for tomorrow, well… she'll take it.

It's not the reunion or catching up she feels her mind twisting back with an obsession toward. Rather it's the part of moving on.

Debora pulls the tissue paper thin blanket to her chin, places the letters safely on the floor, and flicks the TV silent and the dimming side table light black. As she lies back in the mattress with her legs crossed uncomfortably, slowly digging them up towards her chin, she knows they can move on, move forward, and heal. She believes in them, she always has.

It's just…her, or when it was just her.

She hadn't believed in herself then and in the end she hadn't healed.

The memory is a nauseating reminder that she's still trying to tune out. Debora pulls her iPod out from the pillow to slip the start of God, only knows into her ear – the first song he wrote to her.

She thinks of all the music she'll be able to share with him.

She thinks of how nice having a home with more than one soul will be again.

She thinks of the letter she'd steeled herself to send months ago, promising him he'd hear it from her, rather than reading it.

She thinks of moving on from everything she's been running from, and even with the veil of sleep creeping in she's coherent enough to think it's all not a borderline dream.

Because this time she won't have to do it alone.

It's the day Baby comes back.

Debora slips her blue buttoned down dress on, throws her bag in the back, settles into the red velvet seat, and hits the gas.

After an hour drive when she's finally parked parallel to the opposing prison gates Debora skips around the hood to lean back and wait.

The sun is shining with a brilliant glow yet when those gates open, his eyes meet hers, and her life restarts, it can't compare to the beaming smile that spreads across her face.

"Two hours, now."

"Hmm?" Debora hums around a piece of over easy egg that's been sprinkled with salt.

"It's already been two hours," Miles repeats as his shoulder presses against her own and his thumb runs rings around the porcelain coffee cup holding his fourth refill.

"Since you've been back," Debora finishes, to which he leans heavily against her side and only the small jut of his head let's her know he's nodding in return. She tilts her head against his own wondering when they both decided to shuffle into the same side of the booth yet also can't consider sitting alone on the opposite side. He stays there, forehead grazing her own, long enough for her to snicker around another slice of egg white as she chews, but then she swallows and he's rolling his head down to her shoulder and turning his nose into the crook of her neck.

The move swells from her shoulder to her soul and Debora abandons her fork to make better use of her hand – even though one is already firmly clasped in his own – and although the action is undecided, she's beginning to settle on running fingers through his hair. Which is the exact time he decides to ruin the moment with a stream of hot air he blows against her pulse. It has her squealing and nearly teetering out of the plush diner seat, as well as catching the rolling eyes of the waitress wiping down a table nearby.

"Baby! I'm gonna fall outta my seat!" But not really, not with a weighted arm wrapped around her waist pulling her back into a firm chest vibrating with laughter. She feels slightly bad for making a fuss – she knows the woes of an obnoxious diner crowd – but she'll make it up with a generous tip instead of stopping themselves from having a little fun.

"I'm not letting you fall Debs, just distracting you," he smirks before taking a bite from the fork he's dared to remove from her plate.

"Hey, now, mister," she says with breaks for breathy laughter. "You already finished yours, you've got no right to pick from mine."

Miles keeps the endearing smile plastered on his face – Debora wonders if he knows how charming it is or if he's completely naive to his own boyish flare – while he dives into the side of hash browns on her plate. She's only slightly startled when he offers the warm potato for her to begrudgingly take a bite before he goes back for another piece of her remaining sunnyside egg.

"Truce?" he drawls swaying the fork between them as if it's a baton keeping the Bee Gees song playing in the diner jukebox. The movements continue and Debora realizes he's started listening to the beat more intently. His head begins bobbing along too.

He meets her eyes and asks a question she already predicted was coming, "Do you know the name of this one?"

Debora finds her head is teetering side to side in rhythm too.

"How deep is your love?" She says and watches his eyes sparkle as they file the title away forever. "You know Night Fever – it was on your blue Thursday iPod," Miles' eyebrows slightly raise, "the same guys sing this one."

She's slightly set off balance when his limbs tighten, no longer tapping to the slowing music, and curl to his sides. His hand returns to spinning circles around his mug.

He releases a laugh that's more like a startled cough. "You didn't have to do all that," he gestures to the overstuffed hardback notebook she had splurged on years ago. "I don't mind finding all the songs again, I remember most of them."

Definitely an understatement; Baby remembered every song.

"I know," she replies sliding the book towards them with a single finger. "And I know you wanted to start over, but it was just... so sad. All that music was a part of you for so long."

Baby begins spinning his coffee cup by the handle but eventually slows when she flips the book open, revealing almost 800 pages filled to the brim with her ant-sized writing.

Every line was a song and every page was a glossary for a single iPod and its collection. When Debora had stepped up to take responsibility for Baby and Joe's belongings after the trial she found herself fondly remembering his dismissive note about his devices for different days and moods. Her fondness folded into amused shock when she uncovered one hundred iPods organized by color and playlist in Baby's room. His passion for music was so endearing.

So when Debora had gotten his letter, a week into her sorting and organizing mission, asking to sell off his belongings to use for her own finances – he was always so desperate to help her even while he was stuck behind bars – and trash the invaluable stuff that was weighing him down to the past, as he had said, she felt herself hesitate with the task.

She had tried to stay true to her word, packing every iPod into a box before she was shedding a tear at the worn and well-loved treasures and suddenly allowing her sentimental hesitation festered into new motivation. Within the hour Debora had run out to buy a heavy duty notebook and fine print pen to create "Miles' Music Memorabilia", as she titled it. Only then – after every song on every iPod had been written down – did she find an old street shop to sell them all away.

Well, all except one.

One with a cracked and unstable screen that now sits close by Baby's coffee cup along with the golden tape Debora kept safe over the years. The only pieces remaining of his late mother have now returned to his side.

"I know," he mumbles softly, indirectly, yet still turns to glance her way and keep his eyes locked to her own. He's not putting up a wall. "Thank you..."

Her face crinkles in delight although she feels a bit of dread that he may follow the appreciation with a bit of self-deprecation when his lip quivers. His own fear of not deserving her.

Instead she finds herself pleasantly surprised when he leans in to press his lips to the corner of her mouth as the Jukebox flips to a new track. With The Four Tops singing along to an upbeat piano cue they decide it's an appropriate theme to tap their feet to as they leave their tip and head outside.

Baby spins from the door to her side with exaggerated show after she steps through and ducks down to sneak another kiss before they've reached the car.

She laughs, "You know that one?" And finds she can't help humming along to where the song left off when the diner door closed.

A shy grin flashes over his face before he replies to her singing.

"I can't help myself," he sings and it ripples her voice with giggles that keep bubbling from her throat until the sound is left echoing in the off-road diner parking lot as they drive away.

Ten hours since Baby's been back and he still hasn't touched the wheel. Debora didn't question it and certainly didn't press. While his parole didn't restrict his driving privileges that didn't mean the past wouldn't. She had offered him the wheel after they were left breathless, flushed, and red eyed in their reunion and he had replied "I'm good… if that's okay," with a guilty pull at his swollen lips. Debora had answered "No problem, Baby," squeezed his hand, and led him to his seat. "Besides," she had sung, "I was hoping to be your chauffeur for the day."

And in a day's time, she was fairly certain she'd done a fine job at chauffeuring.

Besides their extended stop at a Not-Bo's-Diner-Diner (because she was never stepping into that place by choice again – not after she'd begged Bo on her knees with eyeliner dripping from her cheeks to keep her job despite her involvement with the criminal blowout in his dining room) they had first made a mandatory stop at Miles' parole officer.

Over the years Debora had begged at every chance for visiting time with Miles, as it was their only chance to talk besides their long and regular letter writing. Thus, a few months before his release, Debora had fought tooth and nail at the chance to see him in person. It would be their final chance to finalizing their future together and something that important needed more than long distance writing.

Baby served time and while Debora was serving tables she took every chance to educate herself too. Educate herself on every rule, regulation, and fine print underneath. For his sake, Debora had made herself an expert of parole. Enough so that if someone tried to spark a battle to take Baby from her again, she would win. And unsurprisingly, within a minute when she'd sat across from him for their last prison buffered visit (which she had successfully earned), the thin transparent glass between them had vanished when Baby held the phone to his ear and read her fear. She was not going to be fighting alone.

"I'm not leaving you again," he'd said, eyes tight and fingers curled around the black phone cord.

So they'd put their dreams of music and the road in a law abiding frame and agreed they'd cross their t's and dot their i's starting from day one. And they'd do it together because they were a team. Together there'd be no slip ups and thus, no separation.

Which was why, Debora was eternally thankful when Miles' parole officer had let her follow into the meeting room and stay by his side. The woman, Jane, had even cracked a smile when she heard Baby recall the Jefferson Starship song that held the same name. While Debora had expected every bit of information (specifically his restriction to a 50 miles radius) that came their way after Jane had exchanged pleasantries with them, never did she expect their assigned watchful eye for the next twenty years to be someone who actually wanted to root for their team.

She also hadn't expected Jane's soft jawline and curly brown hair to look so much like her sister, yet have the support from the woman feel so unbelievably foreign.

Kindness was a commodity she rarely had access to. Not after her mother died.

In the end they left with a weight lifted from Baby's shoulders, approval for their new address in Roswell together, and a song to re-experience, all courtesy of Jane, whom Baby promised a phone call to when he settled in and found a job.

The whole affair was so unexpectedly optimistic that it had left her exhausted.

Soon enough after their diner stop and contained freedom riding down any and every road they chose – more than once she'd ask him to " pick a road," and speed off with his given direction – as they slowly made their way to their waiting apartment, Debora feels herself falter at the wheel.

Or rather she realizes she has faltered when Miles yelps and leaps from his seat to pull the car out of the lane of oncoming traffic. It's the first time he's touched the wheel.

As the jeep, which she nearly smashed into, zooms off, its horn blaring in a single unrelenting note, Debora's ears ring, barely registering the stern voice next to her.

"Debora, pull over."

There's no room for argument. Debora pulls over.

The sun is spreading an orange haze over the sky as it tilts lower along the horizon. They'd been driving for hours and singing for what felt like days, yet the first day with Miles is hardly over. In fact, the incoming twilight is slowing time that when Debora stares at the digital side clock for a minute it doesn't seem to change.

"Debora."

She jumps at the hand on her shoulder, noticing that he's standing outside the car on her side, waiting with the door open.

"I'll drive." He reaches over to unbuckle her, and when she tries to work her throat to protest he looks directly at her to say it again. "No. I'll drive. I'm driving."

When she's settled in the passenger seat with her seatbelt clicked in Debora tries to formulate an apology of some kind for forcing him to drive but stops short when he reaches forward to silence the radio playing My Prayer.

The behavior is so different from Baby, and so similar to something she stopped thinking about a long time ago. She starts pulling a string that's frayed at the bottom of her dress and tries not to think about how off-kilter everything with the wonderful parole officer made her feel or how the echoing words of her sister from two days before are once again cluttering her head. "-we both know what happened the last time you thought some guy was different."

Debora really wants to cry, or try to say something as Baby buckles himself in and turns the engine back on. The last thing she wants is a one hour drive of nothingness between them when they should be spending every moment fitting themselves back together and not festering separately in the veil of their individual hurt.

She hears a click and the convertible's headlights flash on followed by a soft "hey."

Debora faces him and she knows her eyes must be watering even though he's the one with every right to be shedding frustrated tears for being forced to take up the wheel so soon. But instead of anything close to distress he offers her a gentle look that throws her back in time to when he'd taken the highroad five years ago, stepped out of a stolen car with hands held high, and forced himself to part from her.

It breaks her carefully constructed wall apart.

One look and she remembers how badly she wants to be done running, and how desperately she's trying to remember that she doesn't have to run from him. How much she wants to share everything she's burying inside.

"Mary called me," she chokes and the tears are definitely falling now with the chipping pieces of her overflowing five year and maybe lifelong dam. "I'm sorry," he looks heartbroken as she sobs it.

Miles places his hand over her fingers that are ripping the string of her dress into a larger thread and then brings her iPod from the center console to unravel the headphones in his free hand.

"How far's the apartment?"

She sniffles and takes a moment to collect herself. "An hour from here." Because they had gone down i-75 just to drive, past the town they were moving which wasn't Atlanta because he didn't want to go back there, yet. He didn't want to see the places he wasn't ready for, didn't want to be a corner turn away from the places those people had painted in blood. It was still too soon.

He'd told her that. Wrote her that. She completely understood and agreed to that.

Which was why she knew he still wasn't ready to drive yet.

Debora tries to smother a hiccup as another tear streaks down into her open mouth.

"There was a hotel back down the road, we should stop there, then go home in the morning." She feels him turn over her palm to place the cords of her earphones in it. "It's been a long day…"

Logically, somewhere, she knows that he's been gone for several years. That even with letters and sporadic visits in between there was still a long stretch of her life Miles hadn't been there for, and such a small part that he originally had. Like she had told people years ago when the case was fresh and the judgment was not yet served, logically, yes, everything she knew told her she should have hightailed it from a guy with luggage that carried ties to the criminal underworld.

But when he's staring at her like he so easily knows her heart and soul, and wants to let them flutter free and safe along with his own…

Like the moment he'd lifted his eyes from the newspaper during her very first shift at Bo's.

Like how he'd bore his focus into her seconds after he'd shot a man that'd threatened and promised to color every inch of her beautiful pale skin red - " I see why he likes you," he whispered and she quaked as if it was the screaming boom she was once accustomed to.

When he's staring at her, like he is right now… she can't possibly think logically.

She wonders if she even should. The one time she tried, her being was nearly shattered beyond thought.

He calls to her and she's reigned back.

"I think we should talk. We've done the music and the road but maybe we need a chance where it's just us."

It's everything she should be terrified of, everything she's been dreading, everything she's been waiting for, but the way he says it so easily makes her deflate from her immediate anxiety at the idea.

"I'd like that," she slips out sincerely. Miles releases a sigh, cementing her answer with his own "okay."

There's a note of quiet between them that lets the eastern sky phase into a nightly blue before her hand holding the iPod and earphones is brought to rest in front of them. Miles spins the circle dial through her library.

"Quiet might be better for now," he explains. "The top's down so the wind will help drown it out," he gestures to his ear and she recalls that from a letter he'd written when she'd asked about his tinnitus in prison. She'd done quite a bit of research on his condition too.

She feels her back curl out of its tense state as the silence starts feeling less like aggression or anger at her, and more like simple pain and nervousness for him.

He stops on a song, which she can't make out with the iPod screen flipped towards him, and gently places the headphones in her ears.

"Raindrops are fallin' on my head…"

"Better?" He asks in the same hush of tone she'd used hours ago when she promised to keep him safely away from the wheel. He doesn't know the details of every scar decorating her life, just the mention that they exist, but he's still there trying to soothe their flare as if he already knows all he needs.

It's all she needs to remember that things are different this time because he's home, he's Miles, her Baby, and she's not alone.

"Better."

She's not sure how long it's been since he's been back. The music is lowered a bar above disappearing. Her pajama shirt is joined by a pair of checkered shorts that strangling her hips when she shifts against the mattress while the outside murmur of the other motel patrons suffocates her as it bleeds through the walls. She would turn up the music but that would hinder her from listening in on the stream of water in the small adjacent bathroom. She wonders how she possibly slept alone in a place like this the night before, or how she'll ever sleep alone again once Miles joins her.

Her hair is damp against the crumbly pillows and her legs bristle with the rough texture of the blankets. The luke-warm shower was a comfort for her eyes to lose their swelling and her clumps of mascara to wash away any evidence of her unattractive breakdown in their expensive dream car. Although it hadn't done much to loosen her tense muscles or aching feet from her yearlong hellish work shifts, and the hours of driving she'd done since morning, it made do for the night. She'll have to wait until tomorrow for a stress reducing hot shower when they arrive at their new apartment.

A few minutes of whining from the pipes drag by as she clicks of her thumb to shuffle through her music collection and soon Debora is simply flopping around in bed without real purpose. It was as if there should've been a weighted feeling of anticipation in her stomach from the whole situation.

The double bed, the bland interior full of striped wallpaper, and a floral patterned armchair resting in the corner by the single curtained window, it's all very cliché, but not exactly intimidating. Perhaps it's the other pressing detail. That she's alone with the man she loves in this very cliché and classically decorated motel room. Debora rolls to the right side of the mattress and stares holes into the center rose of the dusty corner chair. Her bag lays upon the cushioned seat with Miles' only belongings from prison stored in a plastic bag they'd provided him. She hadn't been surprised to know that it held every postcard and letter she ever sent him.

She's definitely not afraid of being in this room with him.

She's just afraid. And she's afraid to even say.

Baby remembers everything by heart and she knows his mind must be sitting on the last letter she'd sent him. The one she's been dreading to address and also desperate to tear off like a scab from her flesh.

The letter that was about her. Not the overview narrative of her story, which he already knew, but rather, the finer details. The ones you didn't display in a written biography. The ones you shared with a person you love and who really, truly, loved you.

Five years wrapped neatly with their triumph in trust and devotion, Debora knows Miles is that person.

She just wishes she could stick to her usual heart-on-her sleeve mentality and open up to him because really, she's ready to move on with him.

She's just afraid.

The shower whistles to a stop and the squeal of curtains dragging on a metal rod lift Debora to her elbows.

Something tugs low in her chest as she recalls the way his eyes had lingered over her figure when she'd left the bathroom with her hair dripping and shirt sticking so he could slip in. Franticly, using the crooked mirror hanging across the room, Debora starts fixing her hair like a schoolgirl before he arrives.

The beige door cracks open and Miles slips into the room wearing a loose pair of grey boxer shorts with his torso exposed as he tugs down his white t-shirt.

It's probably the years catching up to the realization of how badly she's missed him that helps brush her nerves away to let her take in how beautiful he looks in the dim side-table lamp light.

Miles steps carefully to the bed until his knees are just touching the edge. "Hi," he says smugly, giving her a boyish grin along with a quirk of a single brow. "You come here often?"

Debora melts and crawls under the blankets to his side. "Can't say I do," she smiles trying to play along without breaking into laughter at his over eager posture. "I don't usually meet with handsome strangers in romantic hotel rooms."

"Oh, why's that?" He asks, bringing his knees onto the bed.

A laugh escapes her, and she loses the train of thought for her next line. She settles on something simple.

"I'm in love," she shrugs.

Miles' playful gleam falls to what she could only call adoration, something so pure and vulnerable that it has his jaw shuttering.

Debora breathes through her nose and moves closer to rub a finger over his wrist. "Come here, Baby."

She lifts the blankets for him to join her under them but he catches her wrist and cheek with his hands. The blanket floats above the bed as time freezes and Baby seals his mouth to her own. His skin is radiating warmth from the shower and when she curls her fingers around his neck, pulling him as close as she can, she feels it heat her palm as his wet hair slips around her nails. He pulls back, leaving her breathless and reaching for more before he tilts forward tickling her lips with words.

"I love you too," he sighs, like he's been waiting all day to finally tell her.

They start slow, tangling themselves close together under the scratchy floral duvet so they can each share a headphone to hear Baby's suggestion of a Paul Anka song. They enjoy a few more slow kisses once the lamp has been shut off and soon enough Debora feels herself slowly but surely relaxing as his palm draws circles over her back. She finds herself with her head flat against his chest, and him, with his head molded by the pillows and an arm under her shoulders.

Debora plays with his t-shirt between her finger and thumb, content to lie and listen to the thump of his heart and rise of his chest as he inhales. In...out...in...out...in...out...

Her head is sinking further into his chest as it lowers with a long breath. She's losing to the exhaustion of the day and probably minutes from falling asleep by his side, but Miles is apparently very much awake, and already voicing what's on his mind.

"I missed you."

Debora doesn't look up towards him but does spread her palm to run it up and down his arm. "I missed you too, I always do," she replies.

"You're amazing, you know that? You're really the best thing that's ever happened to me, everything you've done for me…"

"You're sweet, but you're the best thing that's happened to me too." Debora tightens her grip around him.

"I just wish I could give you more. You deserve more," he breathes, running fingers down her scalp to her knotted split ends. "Everything you did for me today, Debora, no one's ever done something like that for me."

This time Debora turns to him.

"I did all that because I love you, Miles, and because you deserve something wonderful. Don't feel guilty, I know it's hard, but making you happy makes me happy too," she says, before smiling. "Besides, I had some help from Joe and his friend with the car." Baby perks up at the name.

"Joe did? How did he..?" Whatever the question, he decides against asking. "I swear, he's always been a step ahead of me, as soon as he met you during the trial he sent me a letter approving you to marry." She giggles to his embarrassed cringe.

"I promised him that we'd visit after we finished settling in, he's really missed you, I think a little more than me sometimes."

"Oh definitely not," he shakes his head. "You've been Joe's favorite from day one. My only redeeming quality is that I can marry you into the family. You're the one who's been taking care of him all these years for me."

Debora shifts closer to him, his hot breath sending a shiver down her back that tickles her face. "And I did that because I love Joseph and because he's your family. You and I are a team, Baby, your life is a part of mine now. Taking care of Joe all these years wasn't a chore," she finishes quick enough to catch his awestruck expression become shadowed.

"What's wrong?" Debora presses, giving his arm a comforting squeeze. "You can tell me."

"Sorry, I just… got thrown back…" He mumbles, glancing past her ear into the dark.

Eventually it will bring the opportunity for her own pain to be unearthed, but if the two of them, " Debora & Miles," if they're going to be forever like she hopes they'll be, then they both need to start bearing themselves to the other, sooner, rather than later.

And yes she's afraid, but even more so, she's afraid of losing him.

"Miles, look at me. Please." He does. "I wrote to you that I wanted to talk when you came back and you said we came here to do just that. So let's talk. I wanna talk. I'm ready."

A pause follows in the dark allowing for the rumble of the nearby interstate road to fill their room. Baby collects himself, steadies his breathing and pulls her back against his chest, before he begins.

"I used to spit that at Doc." Debora feels his chest rumble with the words but stays quiet for him to continue. "'You and I are a team, nothing is more important to me than our friendship…'"

She lays her forearm over his sternum and places her chin on it to face him.

"I remember. That night when we went to him for help, I heard you," she confirms.

He brushes back a strand of hair that has fallen by her eyelashes. "I'd just spit back what he'd want to hear, I'd just say what would move things on, I did it there too." Debora thinks of his letters when she'd ask him about a normal day in prison, how'd he keep to himself, do his work and end the day reading over her letters and postcards in his room, always hoping for more.

She nods.

"I never really meant it, I hated them, I couldn't mean it," he seals his eyes so tightly that if she didn't know better she'd think he was in honest-to-god pain. "I hated them, I hated being with them, and I hate that I started thinking that..." his voices trails off and now Debora doesn't simply nod, despite knowing where his words want to go. She flips them both onto their sides and runs a finger along his cheek.

"Go on," she says.

His forehead creases with hurt and gratitude.

"I thought maybe I should hate driving too."

Debora pushes back the wet tresses resting against his brow line.

"After my mom... and then the ringing started... but I didn't hate anybody," he says, darting his eyes down. "Not my dad, not social services, not Joe, I didn't even hate driving. I just kept going and thought it was working."

"But you never really moved on. You never healed, Miles," she insists, with a note of fever pressed with his real name. "I did the same after-" the words mush her tongue to the bottom of her mouth. "After everything."

"I know, and I want to move on," he begs in a heavy whisper. "I don't want to hate any of it, driving, music, the city - I can't afford to hate it."

Her neck cranes at that note. "...what'd you mean?"

He twists up to let their foreheads graze each other.

"You're a much better chauffeur than me, Debora," the joke short-circuits the serious air so she can chuckle. "But I can't let you do that. Drive until you pass out." He drags his fingers into her curls. "Work until you pass out. Take care of me until you pass out," he says slowly, evenly, completely aware of every hardship she was trying to hide just a little longer for his sake.

"I love you, so when you can't, I want to – need to – step up and drive. I can't afford not to because I hate it... because I'm scared."

"Baby," her voice drips and she feels something ugly tearing out of her chest.

"I want to be on this team with you, it's different, not like anything I've had. You help me. I don't need music to drown anything out with you. It's like there's nothing to run from and I can heal, like you said, but-"

Her lungs tighten when he stops to brush his lips just shy of her own by her cheek.

"I want to help you heal too, if you'll let me."

"Put your head on my shoulder, whisper in my ear, Baby…"

She tells him then.

Under the comfort of his thumb pushing her loose curls against her crown, his legs tangling tightly between her own, and his warm breath trickling down to graze her chin, Debora opens her soul, and tells him. No longer does she have to carry anything alone.

The pressing and suffocating memories. Her mother wasting away. The forgotten number of phone calls that caught dead lines after her sister ran off, after her father had, and left every burden that should have belonged to the two of them. How desperate she was for love, comfort, warmth – everything he gives her now.

Her cheeks feel wet and she hopes her throat chokes out a thank you for his steady hand as he brings her head gently into the corner of his neck while she digs deeper and deeper. Ripping the festering memories out, until finally, she pulls out the beast.

"I'm afraid of getting hurt, again."

Baby's different, so completely wonderfully different, but there's still a faint siren in her system that blares over her music, in-between conversation, and before a gentle touch comes her way. It sometimes reared its head when Bo slammed a cracked plate and tore his vocal cords out, or when she brushed too close to a man she didn't know in the dark of night when she walked home alone.

And while she knew it wasn't her fault – not the lying, the hitting, the screaming, the time she was shoved tightly against a wall with her mind whirling over anyone who could come save her – sometimes she blamed herself.

Blamed her loneliness after her mother. Blamed her nervousness to reconnect with her sister. Blamed her young naivety for being so easily taken by an older charm and the first smile she'd seen in weeks. Blamed herself for following that smile to hang onto its warmth. Blamed herself for getting fired when she missed work when it was all over because she couldn't stop crying and didn't know how to hide the heavy marks on her face and for ever leaving Mary a voicemail in a moment of weakness.

Sometimes she blames herself for getting hurt.

It was so easy to be at fault when she was the only one who fought and clawed her way back into one messily stitched up piece. And she knows Baby's different, but there's fragments of her mind that aren't always willing to comply, and really, she blames herself for not being strong enough to fix them before he came into her life.

"I hate it," she cries on a loop, muffled slightly when firm arms wrap around her back and squeeze her against the line of a collarbone.

"I hate that this happened to you that you feel like this" and she can't tell because it's the ear holding the lulling music but she thinks he's crying too. "I love you," he promises and it becomes his own mantra that doesn't stop until she's wrung out, throat sore, and face still searing hot from the paths of her tears, after every thought and feeling she's ever has been shared into the soft skin of his neck.

She's never felt so miserable in her entire life.

She's never felt so relieved in her entire life.

"...love you," she croaks around the salty stain of her lips that he rubs with his thumb while carefully pressing a kiss to the crown of her head.

"We'll get through this and we'll be okay." She believes him.

They drift off together with the song stuck on repeat, entangled in each other's arms, face's sticking together with sweat and tears, and all the while Debora's entire being hums in content as it's taken the first steps to heal.

Five years after they've been married, Miles speeds for the first time. Debora is surprisingly calm all things considered and keeps a hand gently wrapped around his wrist as it stutters from her thigh, to the radio, and then back to the wheel. If anything, she's appreciating the ten miles above the speed limit, considering how heavy each contraction has been hitting. She puffs her breathing with deep regulation, clenches fingers around his wrist, but keeps her voice level when she speaks.

"Hospital's the next right. And you can turn it up, Baby," she sighs, the last of her lower tension fading away. The music raises. Don't Worry Baby from their self-crafted playlist for the day sings. Their fingers twirl and tap against each other while the tune carries them the rest of the way.

Nine months had been an unexpectedly eternal like wait despite Debora's experience, but so soon it would be just the three of them, their music, and the road.

Author's Note:

Baby Driver throws you a full happy ending with a predictably classic song so I had to do the same.
Anyway thank you so much for taking the time to read this! It became a bigger project than expected when compared to my starting idea. (Also, no doubt the hardest challenge of this was trying to figure out the darn car at the end of the movie. My dad and I sat googling at 1 am, and it felt like Christmas when I found a matching picture).
Hopefully you enjoyed this! I'd love to know what you think and hear some feedback on the depiction of the characters and the story! Who knows, maybe I'll write some more Baby Driver!