Re-Wishing

Who: Ethan and Maddy
Where: Hill Street Theater
When: Afternoon

Maddy had felt pretty crummy the day before and she'd taken the advice and stayed in bed, sleeping most of the day away. She had a bit of a sore throat but so far her nose wasn't stuffy and she wasn't getting the shakes, so Maddy felt safe in the hunch that it was a weather-related issue, not her actually getting properly sick. So that morning, Maddy had no problem with heading out to the bakery to get herself some birthday cupcakes.. that was, until she'd gotten caught up in a squabble between a couple of younger boys that rolled out onto the sidewalk. She'd gotten whacked in the nose and furious and bleeding, she laid into the pair, yelling at them about being idiots and they better run before she kicked their little behinds.

She was bleeding too much to go into the bakery, so she ended up going back to the theater and hiding out in her room. The weather left a lot to be desired anyway.

Ethan had left his second day of work feeling bewildered by the havoc that was going on in the streets. He'd heard some of the rumblings of chaos the day before, but seeing all of the brawls going on among the street kids, right there in broad daylight, was strange. It made sense, though, and was evidence enough that maybe Dodge did own the streets like he'd always said. The loss of the gang had left an obvious void in the streets and now there were all too many squabbling with each other to climb to the top. But Ethan wasn't interested in that, narrowly avoiding getting into a few fights by looking as mean and intimidating as possible, even with his still-bandaged hand. He knew enough about brawls that just a few cold looks weren't going to keep him unscathed forever, so he hurried about his business as quickly as possible.

He'd asked for an advance on his pay with some reluctance--if it weren't for Maddy's birthday, he would have just waited, but he wanted to make sure that it was a good day for her, especially if she was still feeling sick. With a wad of bills in his pocket and the fights breaking out all across the city, he hurried across town and back, knocking on the attic door with his elbow, his arms full.

Maddy looked up from wear she was working on cleaning the rivults of blood from around her nose. It was red and swollen and she hoped that whomever was at the door was friendly and had ice. "Who is it?" she called.

"It's me," Ethan called, juggling a package under an arm, a bag, and a box wrapped in a ribbon. "Open up before I drop something." It was hard to keep from smiling, knowing that dodging fights and asking for an advance would be worth it. He'd used every bit of his paycheck to pay for everything, which was supposed to have kept him going for the next month, but it didn't really matter. He'd lived on nothing for years, stealing what he could--another month wouldn't kill him.

Rolling her eyes, Maddy unlocked the door for the second time and opened it up. Seeing the bundles in his arms, her eyes widened and she reached out to unburden him. "What's all this?" she asked. Sure it was her birthday but all this? This couldn't possibly be for her. Ethan couldn't afford all this.

"Your birthday presents," Ethan said, nodding matter-of-factly at Maddy as she took the package from underneath his arm that had started to slip. Once he'd everything set down, he turned back to her with a smile, which rapidly fell when he saw her nose. "Fuck, Maddy! What the hell happened?" He'd stepped forward before he could second guess himself, tilting her chin up to look at her face.

"Little boys can't control flailing fists," she said. This time she didn't bat his hand away or anything. She knew how important this was for him and she knew there was no avoiding it. "I was going to get myself some birthday cupcakes and a stupid fist caught me. I kicked their asses."

"I bet you did," Ethan said, though he was frowning still as he examined her nose. "I don't think it will bruise." He gingerly ran his thumb along the side of her nose, feeling at the cartilage. If anyone knew a thing or two about injuries, it was Ethan. "Who hit you? I bet I could find them."

"Just some little kids. You don't have to find them," she assured and reached up to hold his wrist reassuringly. "I'm fine. I promise." She smiled up at him before wincing as it pulled on her throbbing nose. "I just wish you'd gotten me ice." She lifted the package she had under her arm and took a look. "So what did you get me instead?" Presents. She liked presents although how he managed to afford presents, she wasn't sure because this seemed too nice to be stolen.

Ethan frowned. He didn't like that Maddy had gotten hurt because of the fights, but he couldn't very well go hunt down and beat the crap out of a couple of little boys a quarter his size. If it was going to bruise, he'd have gone out there, but as it was it would likely only be red and sore for a little while. "No ice. Go ahead and open it." Inside the package was a warm wool coat, about thigh-length on Maddy. It was the first thing he'd bought and what he'd spent the majority of his money on--it wasn't the best coat, but it was the nicest thing he could afford with his advance.

She caught his frown but knew there was really no helping it. Ethan would worry and be concerned as much as he wanted. So instead of berating him about it, Maddy just smiled up at him and set the package on her vanity and started ripped the paper off. "Ooooh!" Her smile broadened into a full fledged grin as she unfolded the dark blue coat. It was thick and warm and absolutely perfect, especially as her pea coat was wearing thin in the elbows. "I love it!" She shrugged the coat on to see how well it fit. Expectantly, it was a little big, the sleeves coming down over her hands a little bit, but it was warm and nice and new and all hers. Maddy looked at herself in her mirror, tugging at it in different places to see how well it fit. At least, that's what she thought people were doing when they tugged on their clothes.

Ethan's smile couldn't help but creep through his worried frown, watching as Maddy tried on the coat and squealed over it. He went over to the mirror, standing a little ways behind her as she admired herself. "It fits okay? I think I got the size right." Ethan didn't have a coat, just a shabby long-sleeved shirt, even dirtier than usual from working at the mill that morning.

Maddy beamed at him through the mirror and brushed her fingers through her hair, admiring how nice her hair looked against the dark blue. She felt like a million dollars, that was for sure. "Fits juuuust fine!" she assured him and straightened up, twirling for him in a careful piroutte to show it off. "Whatcha think?"

"Looks good," Ethan said, smile growing into a grin as Maddy spun and tugged at her hair. It wasn't the nicest coat, but for poor street kids who had nothing, it probably might as well have been made of gold. He'd be living on absolutely nothing for the next month and still working almost every day at the mill, but it was worth it. For this moment right now, it was worth it. "I went to the pharmacy and got medicine for you too," he said, giving the paper bag with the bottle of thick, syrupy liquid inside a shake. "So take some whenever you get sick."

Maddy took the bag from him and pulled out the dark bottle and took a look at the label. She kept smiling. The good stuff to put you to sleep. So while Maddy would definitely benefit from it, perhaps it wasn't entirely a good idea to give a vaguely reckless girl a bottle of medicine. Setting the bottle on the vanity, she threw herself at him -- the only way to get her arms around his neck -- and kissed his cheek. "Thanks," she said quietly.

Ethan let out a little "oof" when she threw herself at him, bending slightly to better accommodate her. His face grew hot when she kissed his cheek, smiling behind her back. He'd known Maddy for about eight of her birthdays now, and he'd never been able to really get her anything, not things that he'd actually bought from a store. Maybe he hadn't actually earned the money he'd used to get her the coat, but he would. He'd promised Alec that he would--not that he'd told the man that the month's pay he was being given was going to be blown completely on a single purchase. "One more," he said, gently pulling away from her. He'd wanted to get her a real cake, but by then he'd had only enough for a single cupcake; thankfully, the baker had been kind enough to include a candle and pipe Maddy's name on top of the frosting for free. He lit the candle, then turned towards Maddy, dismantling the cardboard box so she could see.

When he pulled away, Maddy hopped up onto the piano bench so she was just a little taller than him. Her eyes got big again when he showed off the cupcake. "It says my name!" She hadn't expected that, but on close inspection there was her name. Or at least, there was 'Maddy' squeezed on in bright yellow icing. "I have to make a wish, don't I?" she said rhetorically, already trying to think of what to wish for.

"Yep," Ethan said, grinning as he held the cupcake up for her to see and blow out when she was ready. He wished that he could have gotten her a real cake but he'd just have to wait until next year, when hopefully he'd have his own apartment and some money to spare. "Make it a good one."

Maddy's smile was still on her face but the light in her eyes faded a bit as she looked at the flickering flame. A good wish. In years passed, she'd wish for Jack. She'd wish for Jack to come back so they could be a family again. Things have changed though. Changed a lot. Roy was spiraling out of control. Dodge faked his death and is starting over. Pepper was scraping through with a new job and Maddy worried about her. And Ethan. Her eyes flicked up to his for a moment and she was reminded again, seeing his grin, how badly she'd fucked up. How desperately she wanted things to be okay again. Looking back at the candle, Maddy shut her eyes and thought of her wish. Please make my friends okay, she wished. Make them okay even if it's without me because I mess everything up. She blew out the candle with one quick breath and opened her eyes to watch the little stream of smoke drift up between them. "Wish made."

"Good," he said, pulling the candle out of the cupcake and tossing it back into the box. "Now eat up." He pressed the cupcake into her hands and smiled, leaning back against the wall. He was more worried about having to go back out into the streets with all of the fighting than he was about how he was going to survive for a month with no money. He'd deal with both issues when it came time to it.

Maddy still stood on the piano bench and looked at the cupcake in her hand. She had to eat it to make her wishes come true, right? She wanted her wish to come true. She wanted everyone to be okay, but what if the only way for her friends to be okay would be without her in the picture. Could she even do that? "What if I want to take my wish back?" she said while she looked at her name squeezed on the top of the cupcake. "What if I want to make a different wish instead?"

"Gotta wait for next year," Ethan said, beginning to smirk, but letting it fall when he saw the look on Maddy's face. It wasn't the look of someone who'd wished for a pony but wanted a ferris wheel of her own instead. "Why, Maddy?" He started to reach up to brush her hair back but resisted, putting his hands into his pockets instead. "Why would you want to wish for something different?"

Maddy didn't meet his eyes, so she didn't see his halted movements. She sunk down so she was sitting and set the cupcake on her vanity and wrapped her arms around her knees. "Because I made a wish for other people, not for me."

Ethan looked at Maddy for a few moments, wondering what was going on in her head. What wish had she made? What did she want to change it to? He turned away from her, picking up the candle from where he'd discarded it and popping it back into the cupcake. Shaking a match out of his matchbox, he re-lit the candle. "Alright, then. Wish for yourself, Maddy."

"Now I feel selfish," Maddy sighed at the cupcake. I wish to never be lonely? That way her friends could still be better even if it meant without her but she'd find someone or something to make her feel not lonely. "I'm making things complicated, aren't I?" she asked him.

"Yes," Ethan said, with a little smile as Maddy stared at the cupcake like she was demanding it make the wish itself. "Just close your eyes and wish for the first thing that pops into your head. Makes sense that it'd be the thing you want the most, right?"

I want to be happy, she thought and went for it again, blowing out the candle once more. "Do you want half?" she asked Ethan, suspecting that he hadn't eaten and would probably refuse.

"Nope," Ethan said, plucking out the candle. He was smiling at Maddy, leaning his hip against the bedpost, glad that this time, she was apparently content with her wish. "It's not my birthday."

"So? Doesn't mean you can't have some of the cupcake," Maddy pointed out. "Last chance before I lick all the frosting off," she tempted, holding out the cupcake. She knew that with the coat and the cupcake and the medicine, Ethan probably didn't have much money -- if any -- left over and she really hated it when he gave all and took none.

"Going, going, gone," he said, holding his hands up as if in a stick-up. He was hungry, but he was used to going without so others could have something. There had been times in the apartment when he's given up his share for the smaller kids whose portions weren't quite big enough for them. One way or another, he'd find a way to survive for the next month.

Maddy looked at him in disapproval. She knew how he was and she held out the cupcake to him. "Have some," she ordered. "I was going to get some doughnuts today but there was the fighting so I don't get doughnuts to share so have some cupcake. Please?"

"I had lunch today," Ethan said, which was... sort of true. During his shopping, it had been easy to snag an apple off of the fruit sands in front of the grocer's, with the grocer himself being so busy fending off the fighting street kids. "I got it for you, for your birthday. Just go ahead and eat it. I want you to."

Maddy made a 'hmming' sound and started licking the icing off. God, icing. How long had it been since she had some? "How was work?" she asked around a mouthful of sugar, seeming to have perked up now that she was devouring the confection.

Ethan smiled when Maddy finally gave in and started in on the cupcake herself. Good. She looked happy about it, too, which was what he'd wanted all along. "It's good. Hard, with my hand still messed up, but it'll get easier later on. Everything goes by so fast--gotta be careful you don't get caught in the machinery. Heard a guy got his arm ripped off that way." Ethan grinned, shrugging shoulders sore from working in the mill all morning. "I'll be okay, though. I'm gettin' the hang of the place."

She got up off the bench and went over to her bed, tucking her feet under the quilt and started nibbling on the cake itself. "I'm very proud of you and your 'respectable' job. I know it took me awhile to get used to working at the Kitten after never working before. Do you feel good 'bout it?"

"Yeah," Ethan said, after a few moments of quiet. He was especially glad that Maddy had stopped licking the icing off--like he didn't have enough keeping him up at night as it was. "It was kinda weird at first, you know... hard. Listenin' to the foreman and all that... guy can be a real dick sometimes, pissed me off. But you can't not listen to him; you fuck up and the machines break and it's everybody's head, or maybe somebody else loses a finger. I learned that real quick." He shrugged, looking over at Maddy with his usual crooked smile. "With the gang, you could always steal enough for yourself and book it. Kids would always come and go, thinking they could do better by themselves. At the mill... you're nothin' without the guy down the line from you."

Maddy giggled a little bit. "Awwww, Ethan's got to learn to be a team player." She poked her blue tinged tongue out at him. It wasn't that Ethan wasn't a team player per se, but he certainly had a problem with authority. She vaguely remembered her father warning her about being careful or she'd lose a limb, her mother scolding him for scaring her. "Are you happy?" she finally asked. "That's the most important. Are you happy?"

Ethan looked at Maddy and shrugged. Was he happy? Well, he was working, doing a real job, doing something really useful for once. Not that what he'd done with Dodge's gang wasn't useful, but it was... different. Beating people up and wandering around the city looking threatening wasn't anything like working at the mill. Nobody there cared if he could throw a punch or how badly he could fuck up someone's face, just as long as he did his part on the line. Working was hard, and he was glad that he was making money, that he could start his own life, but happy? "Are you happy, right now? Right this moment. Are you happy?"

"That's not what I asked," Maddy said simply. Was she happy? A little bit, maybe. Mostly she wanted to just sleep and never wake up but she didn't say it. She knew better than to worry him.

"I know," Ethan said. "But I need your answer first. Because if you're happy, I'm happy. I'm happy that I could work and buy you a coat, that I could do something for your birthday that I've never really been able to do before. So if you liked it, if you're happy about it... then I'm happy I could do that for you."

She swallowed and thought about that first birthday wish. For her friends to be happy regardless of her involved or not and how scared she felt at the idea of her friends being happier if she were gone from their lives. Here was a perfect example of it. Sort of. "Your happiness shouldn't be dependent on someone else. I'm not the most reliable person in the world. I shouldn't define your happiness. Not that I'm not happy for the gifts you got me. I am. And I'm happy you're here. But you should be happy without me too. That's a lot of pressure to put on someone, Ethan." Maddy frowned and lowered her hands and half-eaten cupcake in her lap. "I mean... I like that I make you happy, but your life has changed a lot. Are you happy or sad about it?"

Ethan let his head roll back, eyes on the ceiling. "The change in my life didn't start with you, Maddy," he said, not looking at her just yet. "Of course I'd rather that nothing changed, that my parents were still alive, that I'd be sitting in a classroom or something right now instead of just getting out of work at a steel mill and watching kids fight each other all day. But however my life is now, I'm glad you're in it." He looked over at her now, his brown eyes big and dark. "You don't define my happiness. But it makes me happy when I see that you're happy too. I'm pretty sure we could all use more things to make us happier."

Maddy watched him carefully as he spoke and her expression was guarded and unsure. When he explained, the idea of it seemed more manageable. She wasn't sure what to say or how she felt about it, except that it almost felt like there was more there that he wasn't saying. Like he was trying to say something else. "I frustrate people," she said slowly. "I do that more often than anything else so I'm glad I can help make you happy. You being happy makes me happy too." She didn't say that she was happy, but she also didn't say she was sad, either. She mostly felt confused. "You should get going. I'm sure you're tired from work." Her thoughts were running a mile a minute as that feeling that he meant more than what he said nagged at her.

Did Maddy frustrate him? Yeah, a little bit. But it wasn't really Maddy herself as much as it was the situation they found themselves in. Or rather, the situation Ethan was in himself, through no fault of Maddy's own, besides her being herself. He certainly couldn't blame her for that. He hesitated a few moments, then leaned over towards her, hooking one arm around her shoulders in a shy half-hug. "Enjoy the rest of your birthday, Maddy. And do me a favor and stay inside, okay?" Her nose wasn't as red as it had been when he'd first come in, but better safe than sorry. He smiled at her again, then made his way out of the attic.

She watched him go with a little nod and smile of her own and after a few moments got up to lock the door. She stared at the lock for a little while before she leaned her forehead against the wood and sighed. This was such a strange birthday.