The Universe's Mixer

Jono had scoured the entire city several times over looking for her. It seemed cruel to give him something and then take it away like that, but apparently, that's what had happened. Maybe he'd been foolish to think he could have anything like her in his life. Something to make him happy like she had.

Their time together had been painfully short, and Jono wasn't sure that he could bring himself to be glad that they'd had any time at all. Laura had been the only one to understand what it was like, to feel like he had. Isolated and alone, they'd found one another and built a friendship, and it had become something more.

After his unsuccessful search, Jono had holed up in the apartment that the damnedable place had provided for him. Refusing to come out. If he didn't have Laura, there was nothing for him out there in that place.

Of course, fate would see to it that he needed to leave. After so many days of being plucked at, one of his guitar strings snapped. Jono waited for the City to throw him another one, or repair the instrument itself, but it did not. Frustrated, lonely, heartbroken, Jono set out and found a music store. He'd brought the guitar not wanting to leave it behind. At the store, Jono threw down for a whole set of new strings, and a backup. He also threw down for a tuner and a mini amp. All the money in his wallet was gone when he left the store, yet he knew it would be full again later.


His errand done, Jono wandered until he found a bridge overlooking water. There was a small patch of grass nearby and a bench. He plopped himself down there and set up the guitar and amp. The music that came from it was melancholy at best, discordant and spontaneous.

Kitty couldn't stay in the apartment for very long. It felt like home, and having a ready made home was both wonderful and disturbing. There were small things that made it feel familiar, a brush, a book, a huge Russian and a deceptively small dragon. She had a job, and she had shown up to the Institute and wanted to get right to work on the gizmos and gadgets that awaited her. The City was trying to seduce her, and that bothered her too. She'd been seduced and twisted by that seduction; she wanted to be able to accept and trust like Piotr did, but it was harder for her.

After getting to know the lab she'd been given, she decided to go for a walk. The walk led her to a bad part of town, which she was somewhat surprised existed. Only somewhat. How could a place so shiny happy have the dark and dirty? Then she remembered there were people who loved the dark, dirty, and shady. Pete was almost one of those, almost.

She didn't realize she'd wanted to find some place dangerous or potentially dangerous until she heard the catcall. The wolf whistle followed.

"Smart, Kitty. Walk right into it." Lockheed was nowhere to be seen; doing whatever dragons did when they could do whatever they wanted - most dragons did not suffer from restrictions. She turned to see a couple seedy types, and were they actually leering at her? She looked down to see that, no, she was not wearing anything that was leer worthy - jeans, tee, and a blazer.

"Okay, fellas. I really didn't mean to..." Had she meant to walk here? To find trouble? "Yeah."

The weather in the City was pretty much always perfect. There were days with rain, but they were still mostly warm. But there were still seasons. In fall the leaves fell (the trees were never bare, though), in winter there might be some snowflakes (never anything like the one great storm where the City had gotten carried away), and summers were warm and sunny and nobody had school.

Still, this year, the City felt like celebrating spring. Not any particular holiday. Just spring in general. There were new people around, there were couples in love, and it wanted to have a great big party for everyone.

Overnight, it set up the great festival. Streets all around the park were closed off so that people could walk around without issue. The park itself was expanded to over twice the normal size. A great clearing was made in the center, stretching from one side to the other. There needed to be lots of room.

Through this clearing the City placed tents, stands, and tables. These were filled with food and wares of all types. There were representatives for all the popular shops, as well as some that nobody had ever seen there before. There were stands for balloons for the kids, too, free of charge. And flowers absolutely everywhere. Woven into the stands themselves, laying on tables, set up in vases, growing in every patch that the City was sure nobody would accidentally step on them. Colorful ribbons, some as large as crepe streamers, also decorated everything. The City wanted as much color as it could possibly get.

At one end of the clearing the City placed a small carnival. Rides, games, everything it could think of. Even a petting zoo, though some of the animals within weren't typical farm animals that usually went in petting zoos. At the other it placed a few stages for performances. Concerts, plays, musicians. The stages were all contained within their own invisible sound barriers, as to not disturb one another, but the noise from all could be heard on the main promenade.

It put signs up all over, put notices in mailboxes, ads on the radio, commercials on television, and even made Candy and Frank talk about it on the morning news.

The celebration would go from sunrise to midnight. At sunset, the City would have a bonfire, complete with a pig roast and s'mores. At that time, it would move the park closer to the water, creating a beach between for the bonfire to settle on.

Jono woke up to white walls and the sensation of over cleanliness. It was not his room in the blue police call box named TARDIS. These weren't his worn sheets, these were starched white monstrosities of the sort that he'd hoped he'd never experience again.

When he bolted out of the bed, though, Jono realized that he was wearing his regular clothes, and not the hospital scrubs he'd gotten used to when he'd been staying in his old burn unit room. His stuff was sitting in a corner, too. Not just the sword he'd found on the beach on the island, but his guitar, his duffle bag. His phone was plugged into the wall.

Oh, thank fuck for that.

There was a tray with a meal sitting on it, which made him frown unhappily. Before he took a moment to try to figure out what the situation was, Jono opened the door and pushed the rolling tray into the hallway. He paused a moment and looked around, there was activity, people doing hospital things. People. Odd. Jono's eyes narrowed.

His stuff, that he hadn't seen since the transport to the dinosaur island, his phone plugged into a wall, his fucking GUITAR. Jono rifled through the bag, seeing black clothes that weren't faded, or dirty. He wished he could smell them.

Jono moved to the bed and found the call button. He pressed it and sat down to wait. It wasn't long before a nurse appeared, smiling.

"Oh, Mr Starsmore." She smiled. There was something off about her. "You're awake. Good. Well. Your stuff is right there. You can go anytime you like. We have your release papers all ready, just waiting for you to be. Or you can stay here. Whichever you would like. Did you not want your supper?"

He shook his head, would have frowned if he could. Before she could say anything more, he was up, gathering his things, unplugging his phone, and heading toward the door. The bag was heavy, in a pleasant way.

There was no hesitations in his steps. This was not the first time he'd ventured out into the unknown on his own. He didn't know where he was, he didn't know how he'd gotten here, but he hoped he would find Laura.