Light Em Up (oc x oc)

IX - Madison

The train pulls into the station in Chicago. Nova's been drifting in and out of sleep since we left New York, and I wake her up gently, careful not to touch her. I don't think she will appreciate being woken up like that.

"Morning, sunshine."

"Please don't call me sunshine," she mumbles. "It's what Nico calls Will, and it confuses me."

"Okay," I smile. "We haven't got another train to catch, at least not for a while. Four hundred bucks gets us all the way to California, but I want to look for my cousins."

"I'm not going anywhere near Vegas. I've been warned to stay well away."

"We won't do anything weird." I flash puppy-dog eyes. "Please, Nova? I don't trust I won't get myself assaulted or something."

Nova frowns. "He was really clear. Nico, I mean."

"It can't be that bad... Rachel told us to go west, not necessarily straight to L.A."

"You're a nightmare," she sighs. "Fine. But we're not staying. I would rather die."

"See? Compromise," I smile as we disembark from the train.

Nova's face lights up. "Come on. I have somewhere I want to show you. I saw it on a movie."

She leads me blocks and blocks away, and after twenty minutes, I start seeing signs for Millennium park. "The Bean?" I chuckle.

"Yeah," she grins. "Come on!"

I have to run to keep up with her as she threads between the tourists. Soon enough, we're trying to find our own reflections in the mass. "This is fun."

"I know," I say. "Now I feel the need to go zip lining."

"No. We are not. This might feel awesome, but we shouldn't stick around for too long."

I grumble. "Nova-"

"No more compromising," she smiles. "Hotdogs, then train? It'll cost a small fortune but I think I can find something."

"Did we get any money with us?"

"I don't think so. The good news is, I think I might still have some savings."

"You can't spend everything you have."

"I can. Watch me. If you're gonna get a wish, I'll be damned if you don't get there. You look young, I can always blag you as an under sixteen if you want."

"Absolutely not. We don't even look related."

"A bottle of bleach will fix that."

An hour or so later, Nova's eating a hotdog while her blonde hair dyes blue. She's filled in her eyebrows black already, but the blue will come o it. We're hoping the darker colours will make us look a little more similar and fool the Amtrak people.

"Don't we need ID for a train?"

"Mine's fake, full make-up," she says. "Connor and Travis made it for me a year or so ago. They said if I ever ended up questing, I'd need one to get younger kids across the country."

The blue dye comes out in the public bathroom sink, and she washes it like it's been done a few times. Soon enough, it looks like she's been attacked with a bottle of antifreeze, and it suits her terribly well.

"You look pretty," I say as she dries her hair under the hand dryer and secures it back up with her pencil.

"Thanks, darlin'," she blushes. "It's a terrible dye job, but it should hold up."