When the Journey Ends - A Gypsy (Netflix) fan fic

Marfa

The long desert road stretched out endlessly in front of them, they were heading west into the sunset and irrevocably towards Marfa. They had picked the old Mustang up at a rather bedraggled car dealership just outside the airport at Austin – of course Sidney had insisted upon the Mustang and so the bedraggled car place it had to be – a Toyota from Hertz was never going to work for Sidney.

"See, Mildrid is doing us proud" laughed Sidney as she lit a cigarette and handed it to Jean who was driving. Jean took the cigarette and they both laughed at the memory. The old guy who had sold them the car was even more bedraggled than his dealership and it had taken him and consequently them an eternity to firstly walk around the car to look at all its wondrous features (which he had pointed out in great detail) then walk back to his desk only to realise that the paperwork they needed was actually somewhere else altogether. Life on Mars could have been located quicker than this paperwork but it was eventually retrieved from a desk with an impressive collection of empty beer and whisky bottles and an Elvis calendar from 1967. The old man then informed them that his spectacles had now to be located and in a search that a Navy SEAL team would have been proud of, Jean eventually uncovered the specs on top of a dusty old filing cabinet. When the man finally announced that he was going to take "the little ladies" through the mechanics of the car "one more time" in case they were to break down in the desert – it was they who broke down simultaneously engulfed in helpless laughter.

Jean said "we would have been in and out in 20 minutes at Hertz" "ah" interrupted Sidney "we wouldn't have Mildrid though". Sidney turned the radio up, Fleetwood Mac's Silver Springs was playing, she closed her eyes and lent back into the seat. Jean looked over and thought she had never seen anyone or anything quite as beautiful as Sidney – especially today. Earlier they had stopped to get petrol, Jean was pumping petrol into the Mustang and looked up to see Sidney on the desert road, leaning against a fence with the sunset behind her, just staring past Jean into the distance. The intensity of Sidney's gaze was something else, when you were the subject of that gaze, those eyes - the effect was intoxicating. Right then Jean knew that image of Sidney with her back to the sunset with the Texan desert wind howling around her, was an image that would be seared upon her brain for the rest of her days.

Sidney was sleeping now – the sky had turned from vermilion to indigo blue. Jean thought of the conversation in the coffee shop a few weeks ago when Sidney had complemented her on her indigo nails and had explained in such a captivating way why indigo was her favourite colour – that was the moment when Jean understood with blinding clarity just how much trouble she was now in with this beautiful and bewitching young woman from London. It had only been a few weeks ago yet to Jean it seemed like a lifetime. So much had happened in such a short space of time. But here they were on the road to Marfa and on the run from the past. It was impossible to know what the future had in store, what the unintended consequences of this break for freedom would be - as Sidney herself had once said so presciently "the only thing that's real is what's happening now" and right now as the light faded into darkness and Marfa twinkled into view, Jean knew that this reality was what she wanted. There were complications to sort out of course, but they would be for tomorrow. For now all Jean could think about was Sidney and Marfa. The last mile marker said 10 miles.