Page 20 of Rough Night

Going back to Florida had been all that Mia had thought about while they had been in away. She had hardly eaten or managed to do much while they had been there. Fiona had given her strict instructions to wait it out and just be patient while she worked things out. She was the most patient person at most times, but she wanted to get involved. When Sage had gone out mysteriously she hoped it was because he knew something she didn’t, and as much as she tried not to get her hopes up she wished silently that he could come home with good news so when he finally came home and told her they could pack their things and go she was completely over the moon. She hadn’t been sure when Fiona would give them the go-ahead to go back. It could’ve been months, and she was thrilled it had only been a few days. It was her home, and she didn't want to leave it ever again.

She didn't know what they had found for Fiona to have given them the green light and as much as she wanted to know she decided not to ask. The Screaming Demons knew what they were doing and she trusted Fiona had given them the green light because they had cleaned up the mess the law enforcement caused. Mia hoped they were gone for good. It was almost terrifying thinking that people had been watching them as they had gone about their lives without even being aware of it at all. She shivered every time she thought about it.

"Let's go home," Sage said when they boarded their plane. Mia couldn't help but smile as he called it home. She was extremely overwhelmed with happiness at the thought of her and Sage being together. It felt like it could be possible after all. The fact that Sage had called it home meant something to Mia. It meant that he considered her to be family to him. In what way she wasn't sure but she didn't think about it too much. She was just excited to get back to where they belonged.

She boarded the plane with much impatience, her body constantly bouncing up and down as they flew across the sky. She tried to distract herself by looking out of the window and taking in the scene outside. She watched as the city became further and further away from her view. The excitement peaked inside her chest as Boston was almost out of view. It wouldn’t be long until she could walk into her house again. She knew she would want to make it look more homely at some point. She thought about adding paintings around the house, not her own but something she and Sage would like. She made a list in her head of all the things she could do if it was going to be their home. She wanted it to look more like a home than a place where two people just lived.

Once they had landed and arrived back at the house, Mia went through every room, taking it all in. She hadn’t been away from it for that long, but it definitely made her heart happy being there. She wanted to run around the entire house, but she held herself back. Instead, she breathed in with a flush of happiness that she felt so strongly since she had moved to Florida. She was relieved and extremely happy to be home. Pine Hill was the place of her past and a past that she wanted to put behind her. Florida was what she wanted, it was the place she saw herself building a new life, especially since most of the drama had been taken care of.

She wasn’t sure what would happen if things didn’t work out between her and Sage. She supposed one of them would have to move out eventually. She didn’t like the thought, so she tried not to linger on it too much. She knew she would be fine if that did happen, but with how she felt about him, she hoped it wouldn’t get to that. The thought of being without Sage had almost killed her once before, and she didn’t need to let herself think of it when the likelihood of it happening was slim.

She had given up on a lot of things in her life when she had been growing up, always thinking of whether or not it was worth it at all. She had made so many mistakes and had taken so many wrong turns, she found it almost hard to believe that everything had led her to where she was. She never would’ve thought for one moment that even when her life had gone terribly wrong, she could manage to bring it back onto the right path.

She had had a few suicidal thoughts when she had been stuck in her late teens. She had considered ending it all because she had allowed herself to go so far from her dream. She knew back then that the possibility of reaching her dreams was so far out of reach, but she was glad she had survived through it all. It led her to something greater. She shivered at the thought of what she would've missed out on if she hadn't stuck through some of the hardest parts of her life. She wouldn't have Sage and that thought made her a bit sad.

Mia had made so many mistakes; she had, after all, almost killed herself unintentionally when she got involved with drugs. The more she thought about it, the more apparent things became about why she did what she did. She had gotten involved with drugs because it had dulled the feeling of failure that had lived inside her for so long. She had failed herself and her family when she had run away, and she knew she hadn't taken drugs just because she had an addictive personality but because she wanted to run away from herself altogether. Obviously, that didn't work; it almost killed her. And then she had gotten involved with the Omens, fully aware of what might happen to her if she failed them, but she was on a path of self-destruction at that stage. Even though a part of her wanted a better life, she still knew getting involved with the Omens was not the right choice for that. After all, she had almost gotten killed then too.

She believed she could almost have it all now as things were looking up for her. She could have Sage, who was slowly warming up to her and showing her in his own way that he wanted her too. He wouldn’t say the words outright, but Mia knew that everything he had said and done to keep her away meant almost nothing. It still hurt her when she thought about how he had treated her not so long ago, but after everything they had been through together, she could see he was starting to change toward her.

When she had almost lost him, she decided to let go of all the things he had done. She couldn’t hold it against him because she knew that it wouldn’t be fair. Although he hadn’t said sorry for it, his actions spoke louder. He had been the one who had done what he could to get them back to Florida, and she was grateful for that.

She knew Sage was impacting her life, and he had started to make her life seem brighter than it had for a long time. Just being around him made her want to melt, but it was more than just physical, she just wanted him as a whole. She wanted to give herself to him in a way she had never given herself before. Something that was new and scary for her to think about. She wasn’t sure just how involved in her life Sage would get nor did she know if he would ever truly open up to her but regardless of that she wanted to make sure that he knew he could always rely on her. Being there for others had always been something Mia tried to do. She tried to give her best and always wanted to be someone people could go to when they needed a friend and in the end if all things failed she would still try to be a friend to Sage.

Mia made her way to her painting room. She had been looking forward to picking up her brushes the most. She had an overload of emotions that she wanted to release. She wanted to paint the excitement she felt that now filled her life again. She knew her life was changing, changing so that she felt as if light and happiness would ooze out of her pores so everyone could see. She felt more like herself now that she had somewhere to call her own. It had been something she had wished for for a long time.

The demons from her past had always seemed to follow her, casting a shadow over almost everything she did. She constantly tried to better her life, making things right with the universe, so to speak. She knew she had fucked up a lot of things, and a part of her regretted the fact that she had let her family go. They were all she had for sixteen years of her life, and she knew that although they hadn’t gotten on that well, there was so much of her current life that she wished she could share with them. Whenever she would get married, she would have no one to walk her down the aisle, and she knew that it was her fault. She was always hard on herself, never wanting anyone to really see how much she had hurt the life she could’ve had, but now with everything getting better by the day, Mia had to realize that everything had worked out perfectly in the long run. Of course, she knew it wouldn’t be easy but she would do whatever it took to make sure her life continued on the right path.

She had run away from most things in her life, fearing her destiny and never fully being able to commit to achieving the goals she had set out for herself but with the Hell Kats and the Screaming Demons in her life, she felt like she could do anything and for the most part, she would also do anything for those she cared about most. Fiona seemed to trust her again, making her feel like she was part of the Screaming Demons. Mia believed she had proved herself a few times, pushing herself to do things she had never done before, but she knew she would do it over again in a heartbeat, especially if it meant having Sage at her side.

With Fiona back on her side, she knew she was almost unstoppable. She could also see that Fiona trusted her with more, and she would prove herself worthy every day if she had to.

She picked up a blank canvas and began to paint. In her mind, all she could see was Sage, and so she decided she would paint him in all his glory. The love she had for him continued to grow in her chest the more she thought of him, and the more he spent time with her, she was dying to say those three words to him, but she held it back knowing that only when the time was right, she would tell him.

She started with a dark setting, black clouds looming over the city. In her mind's eye, she could see the view of the city from where Sage had taken her after she had confessed to working with the Omens. She knew that it was then that her life had started to turn around, and with the involvement of Sage, it had made things better for her. With Sage by her side, she knew she could do just about anything. He had only been in her life for a few days when she felt like she could trust him with her life. It was a huge thing letting someone in, especially for Mia because she had been so dependent on herself for so long.

She painted the skyscrapers covered in a dark cloud with the warnings of a thunderstorm, slightly blurring the edges with yellow to indicate the storm was coming. Mia let herself go as she painted. It shocked her when she stepped back and took a closer look at the painting. She had been so close to losing it altogether when she looked at how dark she had made the painting.

Mia knew she was drawing her life and how it had always seemed to be covered in darkness, threatening to crumble around her at any moment, but she placed Sage right at the corner of the painting. Although he was not the main focus of the picture, she covered him with light representing the light he had brought into her life. She didn’t want to admit that it was all thanks to Sage that her life had finally turned around, but she knew deep down that if he hadn’t made her come clean, she wouldn’t have become a proper part of the Screaming Demons. She could’ve been dead if it wasn’t for him, which is why she would constantly make sure he was safe too. She owed him her life.

She smiled to herself as she painted him to life. His broad shoulders and messy hair, she thought about how much he could carry on them and how much he already had. She wished she could help him lessen the load he carried with him from his past but knew that unless he was willing to let her in completely, that would never happen. She could almost see the weight he carried on his shoulders every time he moved. He walked tall and proud, but she could always see a slight slumped-ness to his shoulders, and she longed to change that. Mia knew that whatever he had gone through while in the army couldn’t have been easy. It wouldn’t be easy for anyone and although Sage was strong she felt that he would probably feel a lot better if he opened up more about his experiences.

She knew a lot of what had happened to him was the reason behind why he acted the way he did, why he seemed to shut her out sometimes. It wasn't because he didn't care about her and she knew that it was more because he had kept everything in for so long he didn't want to let anyone else in, but she noticed that he had started to change toward her.

It gave her hope for the future, of her future and most importantly, their future. She wasn't sure if anything would happen between them, but the possibility seemed promising.

She wanted him to know that she would be by his side no matter what happened and that she was someone he could rely on.

Mia stepped back to look at her painting, admiring her work and admiring Sage at the same time. She didn't want to paint him anymore, she wanted to be with him. She placed her brushes back in the jar she had set aside for them and headed to her shower. As usual, she had gotten paint all over herself in the process; she never had been a clean painter.

She walked to her room and headed for her shower, grabbing a towel on the way. She switched the water on and quickly cleaned herself up, wanting to be with Sage as soon as she possibly could. Her mind drifted to Sage while she was in the shower. Her mind seemed to drift to him almost every time she didn't concentrate on something else. He was back with her, in her arms and occasionally in her bed too. It was more than she had longed for and she was extremely happy about it. She felt a sense of happiness and belonging she hadn't felt before.

She finished in the shower so she could be with Sage. Thinking about him had made the need for him that much stronger. She wanted to be with him as quickly as possible. Once out of the shower and dressed in clean pajamas, Mia made her way to Sage. The lights in the house were off, so she assumed he was already in bed. She entered his room and saw him asleep, cuddled up under his blankets like a child. He seemed so different when he slept, so vulnerable, so childlike, it made her heart melt a little more. Getting into his bed, Mia shifted his arms and wrapped them around her.

"Are you joining me tonight?" Sage asked in a sleepy voice, obviously waking up from her moving him.

"Shh, go back to sleep," she replied in a hushed voice. She hadn't meant to wake him up.

"Sweet dreams," he said softly before drifting back to sleep. He pulled her closer to him, and within no time they were both fast asleep in each other's arms.