She watched it through the cloudy pane, the rain falling like crystals from a vast arc of gray. People bustled through it, determined like little ants to make their way back to warm homes and television, stomping through puddles and sloshing the wet to any territory it had not yet covered. And, undaunted by them, the rain continued on, gently but surely, caught in its own way of things. It was so blissful, so absolutely radiant, she almost wanted to freeze it all and step through it in her own little carefully preserved world of wet. Almost. But not quite.
She turned her body a certain way, and suddenly her features were visible, reflected back at her through the pane. A tall, slender fifteen year old girl, with pale, flawless skin and gorgeous red waves of hair, carefully contrasting pale, almost white, icey blue eyes. Too pretty, some said. Her features were almost perfectly proportioned - slim red eyebrows, full pink lips, heart shaped face, rosy, healthy pink cheeks...but even despite all this, in the standardized teenage female way, she doubted her looks. But then of course, her looks were not her biggest problem. In fact, it was far from it.
Behind her, her house was warm and soothing. Her adoptive mother was vaccuming the cream carpet, her brown curls bouncing up and down around her shoulders as she did so. The room was carefully matched, with cream walls with dark cherry wood lining, dark cherry wood furniture, and cream sofas. It looked like a house that belonged to an affleunt master, however, theirs was just the result of careful planning.
Across the wet street outside, a young girl began to scream and holler, thrashing in her mother's arms as a beloved doll slipped and fell into the street. It swirled, preparing for entrance into the omionous grated drains. The woman had not stopped early enough to her daughter's screams; they were a good while away from the ill-fated doll.
The girl watched through the window, biting her lip. The temptation was too great. The air licked around her, teasing her, urging her to just this one time, put a halt to it all. So, with one simple thought, clear and direct in her head, she did.
The air around her became thick, it's appearance like a clear gelatin, the world frozen and suspended inside of it. Nothing moved, but as she walked through it, towards the door and out onto the gray street, the jelly air rippled slightly, like water. To her, it was like she was Moses parting the Red Sea - the world carefully maneuvered itself to fit her, without crashing down onto her with all its inert weight. Oh, what a beautiful thing it was, to be the Heart of time! She was able to move between both worlds, the eternally continous one, and the freeze frame, with a magnificent sort of ease.
There was only one thing that could ruin this feeling for her. And he did, as he always did.
He didn't speak, didn't even move. In fact, as he was, he could only see him in her peripheral vision. She din't make an effort to turn to him, nor to call for him. He knew she was there. He was staring right at her, his green eyes boring into her.
She continued on her way to the doll. She picked it up tentatively, wiped its grubby, rain-streaked face on her white blouse, and dried off its dress on her blue jeans. She studied it, its big round, blue eyes, it's blonde curls of hair. It was absolutely winsome.
Caine crossed his strong, tan arms, smirked, and shook his head. "You can do so much better than this, Weaver," he said.
"That's Jillian Rachelle Weaver, to you," Jillian answered back curtly, still looking at the doll.
Caine's sly smirk grew wider. "Alright then: you can do so much better than this, Jillian Rachelle Weaver. I mean, bringing dolls to screaming little brats? Honestly, all that wasted power."
Caine was her age, and - as much as she wanted to deny it - handsome. He was tall, lean with muscle, and tan, with green eyes and black hair, which now hung wet, frozen raindrops carefully arranged atop it. Jillian didn't quite understand how he could get wet here, in a world which never moved. His white t-shirt was also wet, and his jeans were splattered with raindrops.
"She's not a screaming little brat. She's autistic. She goes to my church. This doll calms her down," Jillian said, turning to face him, her voice gentler than she believed she was capable of with Caine. He had a tendency to irk her.
Caine waved one hand out in front of him, dismissing the subject. "I'll take your word for that, I guess. I mean, I wouldn't know anything about good deeds would I?"
Jillian grimaced. "By the way, what do you propose I do, if I'm too good for this? Become a rifter like you?"
Caine flinched, just for half an instant, then carefully composed himself. "Oh yes," he said sarcastically, his tone biting. "Stuck frozen forever, keeping watch to see if any rifts break out in the fabric of time. Eternally bored. I would suggest that to anyone, wouldn't I, Weaver?"
"Jillian," she automatically corrected.
Caine rolled his eyes. "Get over it!" he snapped. "You'll always be Weaver."
He was right, of course. The government had created both her and Caine, years ago, when the government had created a rift in time with one of their experiments. She was named Weaver, because she was created to weave through time - her job had been to fix it and keep it together. Time wove through her, to be more accurate. She was the Heart. Caine had been created to keep watch in time, to see if they were any other rifts. They were not robots, or anything of the such, simply artificial humans. They were able to learn and grow, dream and believe.
Sometimes she felt bad for Caine. Because the only places he could exist were time and the lab, he was forever incarcerated. She, at a young age, had escaped. She was adopted by Marianne - to whom she was eternally grateful for opening her doors to a screaming ice-eyed child - and brought up with love, family, and friends. Caine had been cared for by indifferent government scientists. They didn't care about him. They never held him when he cried, or read him good night stories as a child. Caine was jealous of the oppurtunities Weaver had been given. He hated her for it, and he always would. As much as she longed to make peace with him, end the seemingly never-ending fued between them, Weaver knew she couldn't.
"Weaver's not my name anymore. I'm Jillian. Jillian. Rachelle. Weaver. TimeWeaver, Heart of time, Weaver - but always Jillian," she snaped back. "So maybe you need to get over it."
"So then what am I?" Caine said, smirking. He was trying to make his voice sound tough, sarcastic, but it broke brittly with envy. "I'm just Caine, right? Guess that's the only name I deserve, eh?"
Weaver - Jillian - shrugged her shoulders. "I suppose that's up to you, Caine. You make your own decisions. Not I, nor the lab, can make them for you. We aren't you. No one else has the power to control you."
Caine just stared at her for a bit, thinking.
He could sense she was about to leave. Jillian knew he was going to try to say something to make her stay. As much as he insulted and ridiculed her, she knew he wanted her to stay. They were the only two of their kind: once she left he would be alone in a world of slowly moving freeze frames of the world, each one to be checked carefully for rifts. His world and her world were different: his frozen world moved, at a minimal pace, hers was stuck in whatever time she had frozen it in.
Caine, however, didn't stop Jillian as she placed the doll carefully back in the screaming child's hands. He didn't stop her as she waved goodbye and unfroze the world she lived in. He didn't stop her as his world slowly was revealed unto him, the world others could live in but he could not. Instead, he just thought - of names and people and Weaver and the government and himself.
Just thought.