Chapter 27

Three songs later, Shawna's smile was growing wider and wider as Hope waited for something she could join in with. Elspeth, reluctantly perched behind the keyboard, just seemed relieved.

"Is he likely to play anything lighter?" Hope finally asked, as 'Runaway' began to wind down to a halt.

"Maybe." Shawna offered. A deep, scaled bass started up, and she laughed. "Maybe not." Hope, though, didn't seem quite so disappointed, and lifted her violin to her shoulder ready.

"What's this one?" Elspeth asked.

"For Whom The Bell Tolls." She frowned. "Shh." Lifting the bow she stood ready, then started sawing back and forth with an obviously practiced grace. Marcus' door flew open a few bars in, and she smiled sweetly at his deep frown. "You don't mind if we join in, do you?"

"What?"

"Join in... Elspeth and I." He stood for a moment, staring at them, and Shawna tensed, seeing his frown deepening further, but he finally shrugged, reached into his room to tug his amplifier out behind him, and started up again.

Briana got up to turn the speaker down — which he just seemed to ignore — and Hope joined in again, and it seemed to fit. Tune flowed, slowly at first, but gradually converging on a subset of tunes that they both knew, and Elspeth struggled manfully to keep up for a while before slipping out of the seat in the middle of a song when no-one was looking. Hope put the violin down after an hour or so and started on the keyboard, about the same time Shawna and Elspeth started singing, and by the time they'd all finished it was dark.

"Thanks." Marcus finally spoke, slipping the guitar over his head.

"You looked like you needed cheering up." Hope shrugged, turning off the keyboard.

"I'll go put this lot away." He turned back to his amp, heaving it back into his room, and Shawna wrapped her arms about Hope in a hug that took her breath away.

"Thank you... I didn't have a clue how to get him out of that funk."

"Any idea why he's in one in the first place?" Elspeth asked, just grateful that she'd been able to get out of playing reasonably quickly. Shawna just shrugged.

"I'd ask him, but I'm not sure it wouldn't send him back... he'll work it out soon." Marcus reappeared and settled onto the couch beside Shawna, leaving Hope with the stool they'd brought through to put in front of the keyboard.

"Well, my work here is done." Hope smiled, seeing them snuggling together. "Now I just have to get this lot home."

"I'll help." Marcus offered, immediately. Shawna mock pouted.

"Abandoned already... my man stolen away by a hussy with a fiddle."

"Hussy!" Hope laughed. Marcus paused, briefly, until they both laughed, shook his head and carried on packing up the keyboard in its case.

"Hussy, we all heard you 'crooning'." Shawna carried on. Briana nodded her agreement.

"Hit me baby one more time? If that's not a come-on, I don't know what is.

"And then you wanted to get him drunk." Shawna kept the pace up as Hope packed away her violin. "Whiskey in the Jar-o... terrible. Hussy."

"Hussy." Elspeth concurred, a broad grin on her face.

"Hussy." Briana added, distractedly.

"What is a jaro, anyway?" Shawna asked as Marcus finished packing away the keyboard and stood up.

"Oh, right..." Hope finally finished the clasps on the case. "Jar-o gives you a problem, but you'll quite happily sit through 'musharing-ummadoo-dummada'? If that's your final answer, then I shall leave." Nose in the air, she spun on her heel dramatically, case swinging behind her and marched for the door. "Bring the bags, Jeeves."

Smirking gently, kissing Shawna's cheek on the way, Marcus followed with the keyboard in hand.

"You look knackered." Elspeth observed, after a few moments, staring over at Shawna.

"It's been a long day." She admitted, stretching her arms out with an audible click of her shoulder, which she rolled a few times. "He won't notice, of course — he'll be up early tomorrow and on his way."

"Any idea what was bugging him?" Briana asked, quietly.

"No... it's... sometimes I can just look at him and know exactly what he's thinking, but other times he's as alien to me as he is to you guys, I think."

"Is it going to be a problem?" Elspeth asked.

"I don't know, I've never been able to bring him out of a funk as quickly as that. I've always had to wait for him to work it out for himself..."

"Jealous?" Elspeth asked, with half a grin.

"Of Hope?" Elspeth shrugged and nodded. "No... everyone reacts differently to different people, Marcus is no different there. He comes out of a funk for her, but he'll come back here to go to bed." She cackled a dirty laugh, but Elspeth's eyes narrowed a little.

"And he'll just sleep, won't he?" It wasn't an accusation, but Shawna turned away anyway.

"Probably." She admitted, in a whisper.

"I'm getting a little tired myself." Briana cut in, trying to change the subject, which got a grateful smile from Shawna.

"Well, we can head off then." Elspeth acknowledged, with a smile for Shawna.

"I'm... I'm just going to head for bed." Briana pointed out, gesturing towards 'her' room behind the kitchen.

"Oh." Elspeth and Shawna stopped, abruptly as Briana stood up and walked away, subdued and quiet.

"What the hell was that?" Shawna asked, but Elspeth was obviously as bereft of ideas as she was.

"So..." Hope finally asked, after a few minutes walking.

"So what?"

"What was all that about?" she clarified, pointing back the way they'd come.

"Me?"

"Yes, you..."

"It's... I've got a criminal record."

"It was just a caution, wasn't it?"

"It's still a record, held in a police station. They think I did something wrong."

"And you don't?"

"He swung at me, both times. He hurt Shawna... I... I thought I did the right thing. Maybe I didn't."

"I think you did." She confirmed, pulling on his arm to get him to stop. "The world isn't a perfect place, you know. You can do the right thing and still end up losing out... sometimes there aren't any good choices, just some that are worse than others."