Somewhere on Knowhere: Book Three

2

Winter was great in New York City, Stephen thought to himself as he took a walk down Central Park one day in the middle of December.

He was having a day off sorcery today and was just enjoying the day as a normal person for a change. He'd swapped the wizard robes for simple human clothes – dark jeans and a coat – and was enjoying a nice stroll through New York (he'd always enjoyed walking for some reason). A light flurry of snow fell from the grey sky, covering the ground lightly, blades of grass and weeds sticking up through it. Everyone was out enjoying the not-too-cold temperatures, kids trying to make snowballs out of the minimal snow and adults standing around, chatting and laughing with each other. It was still a couple of weeks until Christmas, but Stephen could see the fairy lights twinkling dimly in the weak winter sun, strung from lamppost to lamppost.

Stephen liked the peace. It was different to the urgency of Kamar-Taj, and for some reason, listening to Slipknot whilst reading and practising new spells didn't have the same calming effect.

To be fair, things hadn't been... crazy or life-and-civilisation-threatening recently. Not for a good five months or so. They'd been ordinary Kamar-Taj stressful. Helping out with new wizards, joining in with Wong's "fun" annual library resort (FYI: not fun) which took three straight days, and perfecting the spell where he configured the mirror dimension to turn badguys into butterflies. That was fun.

Turning out of the festive Central Park, Stephen headed off around the block, down the mostly empty icy pavements. Christmas decorations glittered in mostly every window: some subtle, some absolutely bananas. Stephen used magic to decorate the Sanctum, so naturally, no one else had anything near as bananas as his decorations.

Stephen passed by the bar he remembered visiting back in July, closed as it was only the morning. He slowed down, eventually stopping right outside Domino's, remembering it.

See, that was the last place he, Scott, Wanda and Loki had all been together. It was after their second life-and-civilisation-threatening disaster in that week – taking down hell. (Which was still there, but he hadn't been anxious to go back.)

It filled him with wistfulness (was that a word?) because since they had parted on that day – Scott way overdosing on nachos – he hadn't really seen them since.

He'd seen Scott a couple of times, but he lived all the way over in San Francisco, which was way over the other side of the continent. The only times had been either over a Skype chat, or the occasional Avengers meet-up (which really weren't the same anymore: everyone just sat there awkwardly). At least he'd been introduced to Hank, Janet, Hope and Cassie finally, on the time Scott invited him to visit.

Loki he hadn't seen for a very good reason. The only time after the bar session he'd seen him was when he came over to say goodbye (in a strangely... un-Loki-like way, he'd seemed quite reluctant to leave) and set off for space. Naturally they didn't have Wi-Fi up in space, nor did Loki have a phone.

But Wanda...

Wanda was a completely different story. They had each other's phone numbers, had a pretty solid friendship and everything, but Strange hadn't seen her once since the ominous goodbye from the bar five months ago. There hadn't been a word from her at all.

"I suppose I'll see you all around," Scott had said.

Wanda had looked shifty. "Oh, I, er, don't know if we will. I've got some... business to attend to and er, yeah, bye."

She'd walked off quickly as though anxious to get away. That had puzzled Stephen because she'd seemed fine before. That and her eyes seemed to have a sadness but also emptiness to them that didn't jibe with her (obviously forced) smile.

"You OK, mister?" someone to his right asked, bringing him back to reality suddenly and making him jump.

Stephen wheeled around the face the speaker. There were a couple of teenage girls sitting on the wall outside Domino's, probably just out for a walk and pizza together. It appeared to be them who'd spoken.

"Hm?"

"I said, you OK, mister?" the blonde one asked, sounding concerned. "You've been standing staring over there for ages, like."

"Oh, um," Stephen said, forgetting how to talk for a moment, his brain still thinking about Wanda. "Uh..."

"Yeah, I don't think he's much of a talker, Jess," the other girl said.

"Oh, I am a talker," Stephen reassured her, remembering how to speak again. "I was just... daydreaming, I guess."

The blonde one pulled a face. "About going to the bar? Not open yet, you know."

"I know," Stephen said, trying not to be impatient. "Just about other stuff that happened there once."

"Kay," the girl said, nodding slowly. "Well don't daydream too much because, no offence, you did look like a damn idiot standing there."

Damn. "I'll, uh, keep that in mind," Stephen said.

The girl's friend nudged her. "Jess, leave the poor man alone."

The blonde girl looked ashamed of herself. "Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, happy holidays."

"You too," Stephen smiled, nodding at them and setting off again.

It wasn't that he disliked people like that – everyone had a right to be curious – but he'd already forgotten what he'd been thinking about now.