Slow Dance in Purgatory

"You have to stop popping up out of nowhere and scaring me!" Maggie grabbed the ballet barre over her head and pulled herself to her feet, hands clutching at the barre to keep from shaking.

"I wasn't trying to scare you. I just couldn't think of a way to approach you without scaring you," Johnny confessed softly. "I was almost afraid to try. I was worried you wouldn't be able to see me again, that it had all been some cruel cosmic joke." The thought that Johnny might be as unsure of himself as she was made Maggie feel a little better.

They regarded each other warily. Maggie couldn't seem to take her eyes from him. Maybe it was because she was afraid he would dissolve into thin air. She was sure it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that his skin was golden and his eyes were a piercing blue, or that his shirt clung to his muscled shoulders and arms like a sculpture in a museum.

"Your skin is darker than mine. How is that possible?" Maggie blurted out, and then almost groaned out loud at how silly she sounded. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who was a little rusty at conversation with the opposite sex.

"It was August when I was.... changed. Now nothing changes. My hair doesn't grow, my skin color doesn't lighten, I don't age." Johnny shrugged as if it was no big deal. "My clothes don't even wear out." Johnny pulled his t-shirt away from his beautiful chest and let it go again, sliding his hands down to shove them in his jean pockets and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. His eyes met hers, considering.

"Are you still afraid?" He asked bluntly.

Maggie brought her hands to her heart. It was pounding. "No," she lied.

"Why aren't you dancing?"

"I was afr..." Maggie cut off abruptly, caught admitting something she had just denied. She tried again. "I was nervous ... um, I guess I felt…self-conscious." Maggie finished in a jumbled rush and looked down at her feet.

"I'll leave."

"But... can't you still see me, I mean, can't you watch me without me knowing it?"

"Yes. But I won't."

Maggie considered it for a moment. The thought of him leaving made her feel bereft, though she didn’t want to examine those feelings too closely.

"Don't leave. Just.... can we talk some more? I don't think I want to dance today."

"Do you want to walk?"

Maggie remembered that she had promised Gus she wouldn't go wandering around. Of course, he had said don't go wandering around alone. She wouldn't be alone.

"Okay. But Shad is here..."

"I'll keep my eye on him," Johnny said, as if that weren't humanly impossible.

Maggie walked toward him, and Johnny moved from the doorway, letting her pass him into the hallway. As she did, the ends of her hair rose and reached for him, and her skirts clung to her legs as if she had rolled for an hour on thick carpet.

"What the..?!" Maggie's hands shot to her skirt, trying to maintain her modesty.

Johnny reached out and ran his hand along her hair from crown to tips. Immediately, the locks fell in heavy relief, and her skirt swooshed back down around her legs. Maggie's heart pounded, and her skin practically hummed with awareness.

"What did you do?" Maggie gasped.

"It was static electricity. I just reversed the charge."

"How?"

Johnny shrugged again. "As a man thinketh, so does he."

"That's from the Bible, right?"

"It is. But I can't give you a better explanation. I seem to be made up of energy. I attract it, and then I'm able to release it and use it. I don't know how."

"Is that how you control the music?"

Johnny nodded, looking down at her as she walked beside him, hands clasped behind her back.

"You scared me that time up in the hallway when I saw you, and then again in the dance room the other day. Why did you do that?" Maggie wasn't sure she had forgiven him yet. Nor did she understand him at all. Scare her one day, save her the next. To say Johnny Kinross was an enigma was putting it mildly.

"You scared me, too." Johnny stopped and turned toward her. "I didn't know you could see me, and when you called out to me it startled me, and I reacted. The music reacted with me. I didn't mean for it to happen."

"Oh.” Maggie supposed that made sense. “But what about the day I came early to dance? How did you know I had dreamed about that song?"

Johnny raised his eyebrows in question. "What song?"

"That ‘Johnny’ song. That was very mean of you." Maggie stuck out her chin, challenging him to disagree. His lips twitched a little at her stony expression.

"I don't have any way of knowing what you dream, Maggie. I… felt… you walk in to the school and I was…. excited… to see you. Then you said that I wasn't real. It made me angry. I guess I wanted to show you that I was....real, if that's what I am." Johnny's mouth quirked cynically.

"But that song?" Maggie countered, incredulous.