Title: The Whisper of a Heartbeat
Fandom: Gangsta
Rating: PG
Length: 716
Notes: N/A
Summary: It’s a slow day at the office for Alex.

Alex lays her head on the desk and stares at the silent phone. Maybe if she watches long enough, hard enough, it'll ring. Like her desire for something, anything, to do will be enough to conjure a task for the Handymen—one that she can write down and deliver to Worick and Nicolas when they get back.

It's not like she can occupy her time another way either. There's nothing to do around the apartment. Worick insists it's enough that she answer the phone. It's a big help to him since he’s not always around to do it, and Nicolas can't for obvious reasons.

Which is nice and all, but it's not enough. It's not enough for her. She needs to find things to do, to occupy her time, to capture her attention. Anything is better than being idle and left to her own thoughts.

Barry's dead. Worick and Nicolas are kind. Safe. Well, as safe as men like them can be. And that's safer than she's known for a long time. She knows this. She knows.

But it doesn’t stop her thoughts from straying. From wondering. From worrying.

The phone doesn’t care about her feelings. It's been silent all morning and it's making her anxious.

Alex looks away. To the window, slightly cracked open. To the couch, with its cushions nearly arranged and recently beat into a semblance of plushness instead of the lumpy mess that leaves knots and kinks in her back. Her gaze even drifts toward the door.

But silence greets her there too. Worick and Nicolas left some time ago. To run errands, Worick had said, but Alex doesn't know that that means. Whether it's errands as in "There's another gang we need to take out" or errands as in "We have no Perrier." They hadn't told her. They didn't see a reason to.
Alex inhales slowly, feels her heart beating in her chest. Somehow, some way, she'll find a way to earn their trust.

Eventually the silence overwhelms her. She sits up, hands pressed flat against the desk. With a sigh, she flips the radio on and waits as it crackles to life. A woman's voice greets her, brusque and clipped as it recites the daily news. Today, it's about the violence at South Gate and how many casualties the conflict has resulted in so far.

Alex grimaces. This isn't what she needs to hear right now.

Spinning the dial yields faint signals that come in and out. Crackling noise, static, and something that, maybe to someone with more alcohol in them, could pass for music. The grimace on her face only deepens.

She needs something other than this.

Her searching eventually comes to a radio station. She passed it at first, but her ears catch the sweet crooning tones before the signal fades into static. The promise of a full voice has her spinning the dial back. Back and forth, back and forth, until she lands on the station.

The ballad is beautiful. A woman's low voice swells through the held notes, easing the tension from her muscles. Here, Alex thinks. Here is something to fill the silence.

After a moment, she tilts her head. She knows this song, doesn't she?

Doesn't she?

Her heart skips a beat. Everything before Barry is foggy. She hasn't been able to figure out if that's because it was bad and she wanted to forget or if it was good and she needed to forget to survive.

Alex sucks in a breath. Maybe somewhere in the past she can't remember, she loved music. Maybe she lived it. Maybe she breathed it.

Yes, she thinks as her heart settles in her chest with certainty, that feels right. She loves music.

And maybe music loves her back.

Alex closes her eyes and leans back in the creaking chair. She lets the song wash over her, lets the melody sink into her bones. The lyrics are simple, the chorus easy to memorize.

Inhale. Exhale.

Her lungs expand as the woman's voice envelopes her.

Alex smiles. She knows this song. Knows this song well, like her breath. Like her heartbeat. Then, she opens her mouth and begins to sing.

And for the first time, in a while, in as long as she could remember, her heart fills full.