By Chance

Title: By Chance
Author: St. Jean
Disclaimer: The characters are mine. If any of this reflects real life, then it was just coincidence. Ultimately, this wasn\'t written for profit.

In life, there are always certain kinds of people. The type that are born to win and those that are born to be lose. It was cosmically written in the stars that Joe Victor Dean was meant to be life’s punching bag. But, unlike all of life’s other punching bags, he was destined to fight back.

In the system. Out of the system. It was like being on a never-ending carousel of life. His parents dumped him off on the steps a local church when he was just three years old. Basically, too young to remember his parents and then around just long enough to be unwanted. Joe Vic, as he was called by those that knew him, was raised by the streets. Hard and tough like the other poor scrapping boys in the neighborhood.

It didn’t help that he was one of those kids; the kind without a mother or father. The type that easily became a target on the childhood pecking order. Defective by lack of essentials- parents.

He grew up in the slums. Where, you ask? It doesn’t matter, because ultimately all slums are the same no matter where you try to hide. He started getting in trouble before he was thirteen and was already kicked out of three homes by the time he was sixteen. At seventeen, he was living in one of those troubled youth boot camps. Joe Vic was hard, tough, unrelenting and capable of taking all that they threw at him. Everyone figured prison would be his next step, until Old Bill offered him a job in his garage. Well, it wasn’t an offer straight out of nowhere, but after Old Bill saw Joe Vic fix install a carburetor, then hot wire a car just to steal it, he decided Joe Vic would be more useful to everyone, especially his clients, if he were a mechanic.

So at eighteen, Joe Vic had essentially his first real taste at family, Old Bill and the other guys at Rolling Wheels Garage. Sometimes, he went over to Old Bill’s to have dinner. Old Bill’s wife, Mary, decided to adopt Joe Vic the first time she meet him. Not blessed with kids of their own, Joe Vic became her favorite person to bake and cook for.

So now at 23, Joe Vic was still a frequent to the drunk-tank. The fastest and second most reliable mechanic in all the slums and the frequent starter and general finisher of bar brawls and the supreme mower of Mary Braggsford’s grass.

Sometimes, he had dreams of putting his gigantic size to good use like being a defensive lineman. All of those dreams of football, baseball or all standard conventions of happiness were for another life.

The lock clicked in place as he finally closed up for the night. He pulled the collar of his jacket closer to his face. The summer rain has just started and its appearance wasn’t welcomed on Joe Vic’s six block walk home. He was caught in his thoughts of the engine he’d work on tomorrow, the beer waiting for him in his fridge and possibly the basketball game he’d catch on the tube by later that night.

So into his thoughts, he barely heard the muffled noise and the sound of a scuffle from the garage’s side. He eased slowly along the building’s wall until he could see around the corner.

He could easily see two guys surrounding someone crouching against the chain link fence. Their words muffled, but he heard the hiss of pain when the third person was slapped hard in the face. The person slid to the ground, one of the men backed away preventing the body from landing on his feet. The movement gave fallen person just enough space to make a run for it. Joe watched as the woman began to run then tripped and fell back to the ground. The men followed, yanking her up hard, then resorting to slapping and punching her.

Playing the hero had never been his strong point, but watching this woman get beat up was too much. When one of the men made a move to unbuckle his belt, Joe Vic stepped into the alley.

“Hey! You fuckers wanna rumble, I’m game.” He shouted.

The two men stopped their assault on the fallen woman. She lay still and silent. One, the taller of the two but not as tall as Joe Vic, called out, “Bro, we ain’t got a problem with you, okay? Just go back to your business. She knows what this is about.”

Joe Vic shook his head, laughing. “Naw, man. I can’t leave a lady to get treated like this. Come on you, wanna settle her score with me. I’ll gladly met ya.”

As Joe approached, the two men backed away hesitantly, more quickly once they got an accurate view of his gigantic size.

Joe Vic reached the woman, who was obviously a girl. His anger flared. “Get the fuck out here. If I ever catch you around here, I’ll fucking rip your goddamn balls off and make you fucking eat them!” He growled. The men took off in the opposite direction leaving Joe Vic with the unconscious bleeding girl with the rain now heavily pouring down on them.

He lifted her lanky form easily. Her head rolled to the side, showing him another set of bruises beginning to swell along her jaw line. He carried her easily for six blocks to his apartment. He decided to bring her back to his place, because ultimately the good Samaritan act could possibly backfire and get him tossed into lock-up for suspicion of domestic violence or assault, so he decided to let her stay the night.

Her eyes cracked open as pushed his door open with his foot. Even in the dim hall lighting, Joe Vic could see the hauntingly crystal blue of her partially swollen eyes.

Suddenly, the need to say something made Joe Vic babble out something that he hoped she could comprehend. “Um, I-I um brought you back to my place. I think I can patch you up…um, yeah.”

She was pretty, bruised and a little bloody but still pretty and young. Too young to be on the streets like this. “Rue.” Joe Vic looked at her slit lips as they moved again. “My name…is …Rue. Th-thank you.” She passed out.

The next morning Joe Vic woke up wondering what he’d gotten into. He brought an injured girl back to his place. In possible reality, she probably had a pimp and one or both of those guys were sent to collect. Joe Vic passed a hand over his face. Well, he didn’t have a problem with her choice of career; he just had a problem with other trying to knock people smaller than them around for fun.

He’d been there and done that. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t cool.

“Bastard.” He growled then headed to take a shower.

Cleaned and dressed for work, he opened his bedroom door and found her still lying on the couch. The ratty blanket he tossed over her was clutched in one of her hands as he assumed she’d had a nightmare.

As Joe Vic thought the night before in the shadows of the evening, she was pretty. A long lanky body hidden beneath baggie clothes. Her hair was like half shade from being midnight black; it reached her shoulders in small waves of curls. All in all, she was pretty, angelic, even beneath the swelling and bruises darkening her cheek, eyes, and lip.

Should she stay?

Should he make her go?

Joe Vic looked down on her, before turning his back to his fridge. There was orange juice and a few other items that could possibly fill her up for one meal, but not much else. He continued to watch her sleep, not just a generic her anymore, but Rue.

When the carton touched his lips, he pulled it back. Having the piece of mind to realize, Rue may get thirsty when she woke up. He slipped the carton back into the fridge and pulled a bottle of aspirin off the top of the refrigerator. He always kept one on hand after his previous night brawls. He placed the bottle and decided to not leave a note.

Joe Vic needed to get to work. As he closed, the door in the back of his mind he hoped his meager apartment still had stuff in it by the time he came back.

TBC/?
This is my first original fic. Please give me feedback and let me know if I should continue.