JONATHAN

Evelyn probably would have returned with him to River District sooner. She kept insisting they seek medical help, but Jonathan was adamant that he needed some time to recuperate. It wasn't a lie, the journey back to River District would be rough in the shape he was in but mostly he was just not looking forward to returning. He didn't want to explain where he had been and what had happened. He didn't share that with Evelyn. She didn't need to know.

The next few days passed by in a blur, perhaps because Jonathan spent most of them nursing the awful hangover that had Evelyn making the sweeping proclamation that she would never touch the stuff and Jonathan nearly agreeing. Evelyn, Jonathan soon realized, was nothing if not organized. After assessing his injuries she'd assured him that his knee and ribs could be fully healed in a minimum of six weeks and then proceeded to create a whole routine of physio exercises for him to do. She even went through his food stash and rationed out meals. To pass the time, he ended up agreeing to a game of 21 questions. At first, Jonathan had been annoyed. In fact, when Evelyn first suggested the game, he was so cranky and hungover, he claimed that he was fluent in only two languages: silence and music, but Evelyn proved to be annoyingly persistent.

"So, are you from here, originally? Pre-blackout, I mean."

Jonathan had just shrugged and offered her a non-committal answer, "I've been here and there."

"We had jobs at SFU's bunker, I was a medic obviously, what do you do at River District?"

"This and that."

"Well, aren't you just full of information," She'd harrumphed, which he had tried hard not to enjoy when she pulled a frustrated pout. She eventually managed to persuade him to play by abiding by his rule: no deep questions and nothing too personal. She complied by focussing her questions on how he was feeling and the music he played. He didn't intend on becoming familiar with her but with his injuries preventing him from being able to move on his own and her inability to handle just sitting in silence, he figured it would be easier if he just relented.

Evelyn showed a surprising interest in his record collection, though Jonathan had to continuously remind himself that her interest was not actually all that surprising considering she had been the only active listener of his broadcast. Evelyn was strangely unfamiliar with most music, claiming she didn't really listen to music much and when she did, her tastes tended to fall into Taylor Swift's discography, showtunes and the K-pop realm. The latter, she claimed, was courtesy of her sister, Beth, who was a BlackPink fan. On the positive side, it meant that almost every song she heard was a new experience and it was strange but, Jonathan felt like he was almost rediscovering his record collection through sharing it with her. On days when he'd woken before her or pain made it difficult to fall asleep, he found himself lying in the darkness making mental lists of the songs he needed to add to her musical repertoire.

"What is your favourite song?" Evelyn asked one day while they were sprawled out on the floor, passing the time by playing a game of Star Wars themed monopoly. Jonathan had been doing his mandated "Dr. Evie" rehabilitation exercises but paused what he was doing to consider her question.

"Now that is an impossible question," He informed her, "I can't answer that."

"You have to answer," She said in a teasing reminder of the rules of their game, "you already used up both of your passes."

Jonathan shook his head, remembering the hard hitters he'd dodged the night before. As they'd surpassed 21 questions, Evelyn's questioning had gotten increasingly more personal, "That last one didn't count! I still answered!"

Evelyn looked up from organizing her monopoly money into colour coded piles, "You didn't answer the full question!" she said with a laugh.

Jonathan held back a smile. "Well, what kind of question is 'what is the story of your life?" I gave you the TL;DR version."

Evelyn rolled her eyes, "was born, the world ended, was struck by lightning, and died but lived anyway?"

"That sums it up pretty good, doesn't it?"

Evelyn looked unimpressed, so Jonathan added, "Hey! If you expand the game beyond 21 questions, I think youowe me another pass."

"I haven't used mine up yet!" Evelyn said.

Jonathan heaved a sigh, "That's because my questions have been easy, and you keep picking hard ones. What happened to nothing deep and nothing personal?"

"You could at least try to answer."

"How can I? It's a ridiculous question!" Jonathan protested, "Music has been around since time immemorial! It predates history, I mean, in a way, it IS history! It's one of the universal cultural aspects of society, of humanity! You cannot limit it to one, you just can't."

Evelyn raised her hands innocently, "okay, okay, how about like top three?"

"Top three? You can't be serious,"

"Top three artists?" Evelyn asked, hopefully.

Jonathan shook his head, "impossible."

"Genres?"

It was Jonathan's turn to roll his eyes. "It is a ridiculous question. It is just one of those questions that can never be answered. It's just like 'Why do we call buildings, buildings, if buildings are already built?' or 'where do missing socks go?'" Jonathan could tell Evelyn was starting to get annoyed at his avoidance, but he continued, "what is the meaning of life? I mean, are we living or are we all just slowly dying?"

Evelyn threw up her hands in frustration. A smirk found its way across Jonathan's lips; it was just too easy and too much fun getting her riled up.

"Okay," she said taking a deep breath and splaying her hands in front of her like a sprinter at the beginning of a race. A smile was spreading across her face and there was a mischievous glint in her eye, "if this is how you're going to play it Johnson, let's play hard ball. It's called a building because the suffix 'ing' in the English language is added to some verbs to make them nouns. The word 'building' is a gerund, basically a noun made from a verb. Your missing socks are just behind or stuck in the washing machine or dryer OR if you've read Harry Potter—"

"I've seen the movies,"

"Fine, I'll count it— they're in the room of hidden things or being used to free house elves. I like to think that we are living, not just slowly dying and that the meaning of life is to live."

"But what does it mean to live?" Jonathan tried to ask but Evelyn was on a roll, "Top 3 genres are pop, that includes K-pop, okay? And country, and showtunes."

"Show tunes aren't a genre, they represent many genres and styles," Jonathan interjected. The sudden warmth that filled Jonathan's chest took him by surprise and he started to wonder when he began to enjoy those moments when he could make her smile especially when she was trying hard not to.

"Okay, for my third: I guess you've now introduced me to a lot of classic rock, and I think I like it, so there. Top 3 artists are Taylor Swift, Black Pink and um... I think it's... Billy Joe? I don't know you played a lot of him on the radio so I guess I've listened to him a lot—"

"Wait!" Jonathan stopped her before she could start listing her favourite songs in rapid succession, "Billy Joel?" He raised an arm triumphantly above his head, the action triggered a sharp pain to shoot through his chest, but he was too excited to care about his broken ribs. "Finally! You finally said something I can get on board with!"

Evelyn looked at him incredulously, "So what? Are you blind to the immortal genius of Taylor Swift and Black Pink?" Evelyn held up her hands to make air quotations as she imitated him.

"No, no. They're great, I'll be the first to admit that they really are, but I only have them on CD. This is the first artist you've mentioned you know that I actually have on vinyl!" He pulled himself to his feet, moved across the store and started digging through his collection of records.

"It'll be in 'J' for 'Joel'." Evelyn supplied helpfully and within moments Jonathan held Joel's seventh studio album, Glass Houses, in his hand and was setting it to play on one of the record players.

"You'll know this one," he said turning on one of Joel's most popular tunes. The sounds of "It's still Rock and Roll to Me" filled the air.

"I'm surprised you didn't put on 'Piano Man', it's a classic." Evelyn said doing another poor imitation of Jonathan, "or knowing your sense of humor, I thought you'd turn on 'Only the Good Die Young'."

"Both are good, for sure, but this one was one of my mom's favourites." The ghost of a smile drifted across his face, and he changed the subject, "Now it's my turn to ask a terribly difficult question: What is your favourite colour?"

Evelyn tapped her chin thoughtfully and scrunched her eyebrows together for dramatic effect, "There's a whole rainbow of colours! How could you even begin to choose?"

"Evie!" Jonathan jokingly begged.

"Purple," Evelyn smiled, "My favourite colour is purple. What's yours?"

A small smile tugged at the corners of his lips, "you know what? I shouldn't have asked you because I don't really have one."

"Are you holding out on me, Johnson?"

"On you? Never." Despite himself, Jonathan laughed, "Would you believe me if I said, mine's actually purple too?"