Seras Victoria: Problem Child

Neko: I know, I know another story for me to slack on updating. But my competition with JuJu gives me an excuse to bust out more stories so my muse can cram it and stop throwing hissy fits. I've neen slowly rereading WCHB to get it back on its original track with an update soon, but we'll see how "soon" soon is. UNTIL THEN! Here's two chapters. Need one more to catch up~

01: Runaway

Seras Victoria stared coldly at the orphanage building and her lip curled. The ten year old had her backpack stuffed with snack food and a few water bottles, a blanket, her spare changes of clothes, and the last picture she owned of her parents before their death. She was running away from this hellish place before she went mad.

The blonde absolutely refused to go back to the mad house they sent her to right from her hospital bed four years ago. Cringing at the thought, Seras turned and began walking south towards the park and the nearby bus depot. She had to get moving before they noticed she was missing.

About an hour of walking later, the blonde reached the park, shoulders drooping and feet tired. Rummaging in her pocket to check her emergency money was still there, she started to turn towards the bus station across the street when a voice called her name. A familiar one.

"Seras!"

She pivoted on her heel and was blinded by the light of the setting sun as a body plowed into her and sent her tumbling to the grass below, and the pair rolled down the small hill, laughing. "Ally! What're you doing here?"

"I should be the one asking you that question, Seras." The older girl replied, sitting in the grass to the blonde's left. Seras' old and badly abused backpack unzipped at the side to spill out her collection of snack bags and a hint of one of her shirts. "…Are you running away?" The ravenette's eyes seemed to glow cherry red, but the blonde dismissed it as a trick of the light as she cursed and shoved the items back into her bag.

"So what if I am?" She snapped defensively, tugging the zipper down with a grunt to redo the gaping hole and close it. "So you missed the last bus leaving town for the next two hours." Ally replied calmly. "So let's go hang out on the swings to kill some time."

"Oh… okay." Seras conceded, her built up agitation deflating at Ally's calm tone. Since her friend wasn't trying to change her mind, the blonde relaxed and joined the white clad teenager at the playground. Swings are awesome.

"Sooo…" The older girl drawled, "What made you decide to leave?" She was swinging higher and higher until the swing set was rocking each time gravity let go and then grabbed the girl again to pull her back from her freefall into her seat.

Seras stared at her feet, a stony look on her face as she pushed on the sand to just inch back and forth. Images flashed through her head painfully; the other girls ganging up on her with looks of hatred and swinging their pillowcases full of shoes at her to leave purple bruises along her ribs and arms. Being locked in the closet and unable to move. The adults turning a blind eye. The boys… Shuddering violently, Seras began to attack the air with her feet to push herself higher to escape her memories. "it doesn't matter. What matters is I'm not going back." That same steely conviction in her voice from the first time they met and she told Ally she'd become a police woman to make her dad proud colored her tone heavily.

If she had glanced at Ally then, she would have seen the strangest expression on her face; calculating, angry, pleased, almost… perverse. The ravenette inhaled sharply and breathed a single word, the sound lost to the growing wind. "Glorious."

"Hey, Police Girl, want to see a trick?" Ally teased, and as soon as Seras turned her head to look, the young teen let go of the chains to fly from her seat and land in the tree ten feet off, hanging upside down and grinning like a loon.

Seras boggled, "How… how did you do that, Ally?!" Her troubles temporarily forgotten, ten year old Seras Victoria's attention was drawn solely to the red eyed girl dangling from the tree branch with a cocky grin.

"I'm amazing, that's how." Ally purred, and wiggled her gloved fingers enticingly. "If you jump, I'll catch you, Seras."

The blonde hesitated.

"Don't you trust me, Seras?" Something about the older girl's tone sent shivers down her spine and she frowned, fidgeting in her seat. Legs still pumping to keep up her momentum. "Of course I do, Ally."

The blonde wasn't even sure why she trusted Ally, though. They'd only known each other for a month and their meetings were sporadic at best. But she did, she was drawn to the older girl, felt… safe? No, not quite, but that was the closest word she could name for what she felt around the girl.

With that thought in mind, she squinched her eyes shut and allowed herself to fly free of the seat and towards the tree, Ally, and quite possibly the ground. At the last second her arms shot straight up and her wrists were grabbed by what felt like cold irons and the world tilted sickeningly as her momentum was used to swing the pair up and over the branch to sit on it properly. "Oooh…" Seras moaned, feeling sick, "Never do that again."

Ally laughed in her ear and brought her arms up around the blonde's shoulders to cradle the smaller body to hers, "But wasn't it fun, little Police Girl, to fly through the air and be caught?"

Seras reply was muffed into Ally's white coat, noncommittal and bland. Then she blinked and leaned back to eye her friend curiously. "Hey, Ally, why're you calling me Police Girl?"

"That's what you want to be when you grow up, isn't it?"

"Well yeah…"

"Then what's the problem?"

Furrowing her brows, the ten year old stared into those bright red eyes, looking for something… Unsure if she found it or not with all the things she saw in those strangely alluring orbs, she simply rested her cheek on the older girl's shoulder and sighed.

"Nothing, I guess."

"Well, if you want to catch your bus, we should get down. I'll wait with you." Seras blinked in shock, and noticed then that the sun was completely gone. How long had she spent zoning out on her only friend? Feeling a little embarrassed, Seras squeaked when the girl showed off again by dropping forward abruptly and holding onto the branch with her ivory pant clad legs to set the blonde down by a careful grip on her wrists. And then she showed off even more by letting go and landing in a hand stand!

"Doesn't that hurt?" Seras couldn't help but ask as she scurried over to the swings to retrieve her backpack and swing the straps up over her shoulders.

"Pfff, naw. I told you, I'm amazing." A too-wide grin showed nearly all the teeth in Ally's head as she grabbed Seras' hand and tugged her close. "C'mon, let's go."

Feeling rather cold, even though she was shielded from most of the wind by the taller ravenette, Seras shivered and decided that once they sat down she'd get her coat out of her bag and put it on. The pair crossed the street carefully and sat on the bench under the brightest light in the small depot. Seras wiggled into her rather worn and obviously hand-me-down coat and shoved a hand into her pants pocket to assure herself she still had her money. She did.

They received some odd looks from others waiting for their own buses, adults mostly, but no one approached to question them and Seras relaxed against her friend's side. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Twenty. At thirty minutes finally the right bus arrived for the last ride out of town until tomorrow morning.

Seras got up and Ally followed behind her as she made her way to the bus and started plonking coins into the ticket machine next to the driver. When she had a full fare paid for, she turned and realized the other was still standing outside the bus. "Aren't you coming with me?" She asked, a little confused.

The ravenette smiled, and opened her mouth, her tone soothing. "Not this time, Seras. But I'll see you soon, I promise."

"Bu-…"

"'ey, kid, we're running late." The driver butted in and with a glance at the white clad teenager – she stepped back obligingly in answer – he swung the lever and closed the door, "Take your seat girly. It's a long ride."

Seras nodded and took a seat near the front to watch her surroundings easier through the glow from the headlights.

"So, kid, you going to a relatives?" The driver asked after a while, she was the youngest passenger on the bus and it was getting late.

"Mm, yeah, my aunt's." Seras replied with the same ease she used to lie to the nuns at the orphanage. The driver grunted and decided to mind his own business, he wasn't paid enough to pry anyways.

"Hey kid, last stop. You sure your aunt's gonna pick you up?" The driver asked, lightly shaking the blonde's shoulder. She'd fallen asleep.

Seras shook her head, yawned, blinked, and then nodded. "Yeah, she's waiting for me." She replied with that same honest-seeming ease. The driver gave her a look, and she grinned at him before scampering out the open door and into the streets of the new city.

Bee lining it to the right, Seras ran for about five blocks before her feet hurt and she spotted a nice plain looking house with an excess of hedges. Crawling under one of the thicker ones and huddling against the gnarled trunk, the blonde pulled her blanket out, one of her chip bags, and used the still full bag as a pillow.