It is a kind of maybe date (Liz)

Elizabeth scratched away in her diary. Well, it wasn’t really a diary--she considered herself much too old for those things. And it had started out its life as a sketch book. It was bound, hardbacked, and filled with blank pages that could be used for pencils, ink, or paints. All of which she’d used on it. Water-colored images danced across some of the pages, chased by penned lines of script and surrounded by penciled in ideas and thoughts. It was more like a journal of expression: whatever Liz was thinking or feeling at the moment, she attempted to write or illustrate in the book.

At the moment, though, she was writing down the hey highlights of her day, alternating between a blue and a purple pen. Occasional floral designs blossomed and bloomed around her words as idle fantasy periodically obstructed her organized thoughts. Normally, the blonde would’ve just talked to Nico and told him everything, but Liz had the feeling that Nico didn’t really enjoy that kind of thing. Excessive words bored him. He never tried to hide his feelings about it. Besides, she didn’t want him repeating some of the stuff at the wrong times.

It was just easier to put it all in a book. Besides, Nico was asleep, his head tucked under his wing, a silent and still form in his cage on top of her dresser. She didn’t want to wake him: it annoyed him and he’d lately began showing a propensity for saying some very naughty things that she was pretty sure was either Irish or some other type of Gaelic language.

She returned to penning down more events of the day, sitting as she was with the book against her drawn-up knees and with her back to her headboard and her socked feet pushing underneath the covers of her bed. It wasn’t that she was cold, per se, but her bed was really comfortable as a chair and blankets just made things cozy.

But suddenly came a knocking, knocking at her chamber’s window. And a familiar voice rang out, despite some muffling by the wind outside and the glass composition of said window.

Suddenly smiling and particularly happy, Liz pushed the diary and pen to the side and swung her feet off the bed before approaching the window. She unconsciously pulled down the hem of her shirt and ran her hands over it to push it back into place, a location it frequently escaped when she sat. Finding herself as acceptable as she could make herself in a moment, Liz appeared in front of her window and opened it to the flying lad outside.

“Hey, Carrick,” she greeted him warmly. “Would you like to come in?” She stepped away from the window. It would most likely allow him to climb in, if he wished. Although she really just wanted to close the window as soon as possible before the nippy outside air leached away all the heat from her room.

Elizabeth made her move once Carrick had acrobatically entered her room. She slid up to the window and pulled it shut, latching it with a slick motion. She pulled the deep purple curtains shut, striving to fend off the winter’s breath as much as possible with barriers of cotton. Once finished, she somewhat danced around her guest before plopping on the edge of her bed. And struggling to maintain a poker face when he began beating himself.

Politely overlooking his obviously-misspoken outburst, Liz pretended that Carrick had only complimented her room. “Why thanks,” she exclaimed with pride, beaming as if the emotion was completely sincere. But part of it was a facade. There wasn’t much difficulty in cleaning a room when half of it, the unoccupied half, was still bare of anyone else’s belongings. And the lack of company irrationally brought back the loneliness of the year before.

Meanwhile, as Liz sneakily kicked a bit of trash underneath her bed, Carrick seemed to be intent on pestering her parrot. Grumpily disturbed out of his light sleep, Nico lifted his head up from its resting spot just long enough to fix Carrick with a single, angry eye, bestowed upon the bird-boy a very malevolent glare, promising to devour his firstborn and crush everything of worth within the Irish guy’s life before ripping out his heart and feasting upon it during a bloody dance of flying feathers. Once his threat was delivered, he pointedly ignored the annoyance, turned around on his perch, and shoved his head under his wing again.

Liz unashamedly grinned in joy over her pet’s reaction. Fortunately, he seemed to be on some pretty good behavior. It would’ve terrible for him to start slandering her visitor! Her visitor, that is, who seemed to have actual plans for visiting, as opposed to just a social call. She folded her hands upon her lap before responding. “Uh, nope. I wasn’t planning on doing anything really.” She spread her hands and have a dazzling smile. “I’m as free as the plague, but much better company.” She leaned back on her bed, now mostly supporting herself by her elbows. “Did you have something in particular in mind?”

Huh. A mysterious summons to trek off to some unknown location for a variable amount of time in order to engage in a secret activity? Well, Elizabeth had quite a few different thoughts on that matter. First off, there was a rather obvious “activity” that Carrick could be angling for, but Liz didn’t really consider that a possibility. Not that she’d go along with that kind of thing, anyways. It would just be the last thing she could ever imagine Carrick suggesting and so it was dismissed with immediate haste.

Other ideas popped up to fill in the gap. A location outside, for which she’d need to dress warmly. Well, that cut out the Caribbean cruise possibility, or the Hawaiian excursion. Kinda disappointing, actually. Hopefully she’d get over it. Anyways, Liz didn’t have a clue as to what Carrick was thinking of, but she would trust him. And it was going to be a surprise, too....

“How fortunate you are, good sir,” she addressed Carrick dramatically. “That the prospects of fun, in which you are suggesting, just so happens to be my favorite kind of entertainment.” The blonde pulled herself off of her bed and whirled a hand at him. “Just give me a moment to throw something else on.” She twirled her finger in a “turn around” gesture and then proceeded to head to her dresser. It wasn’t like she was planning to undress or anything (just through a sweatshirt over her t-shirt and grab a coat and additional winter paraphernalia) but that wasn’t the point. She didn’t want a guy watching her while she put clothes on.

Very quickly Liz finished getting ready. Dressed in tennis shoes (since she didn’t want to spend a minute or so searching for her boots and figuring they’d be flying, anyways) Liz completed her outfit with a white, crocheted scarf covering her neck and blending in beautifully with her fur-lined brown coat. Brown leather gloves covered her fingers. She figured she was as ready for winter as possible.

“Ready when you are!” she said cheerfully.

And Carrick seemed to be ready to hit the road sky. Grinning, Elizabeth followed Carrick to the window. She enjoyed the slight comfort of being virtually immune to the cold at the moment. Winter was not going to pierce her coaty defenses. As her male friend clambered out the once-again opened window, allowing fresh layers of ice to form in her room, Liz gave her room a quick once-over, unnecessarily checking to make sure that she could leave her room. Well, it isn’t like anyone will just come in.

As her winged transport alighted himself by the exterior of her window, Liz meandered on over and stuck a booted foot up on the sill before eventually getting into a sitting position. At Carrick’s side note, Liz affected a diva’s pout and stuck out a lip. “And I really wanted to see the new Sunset movie.” Hopefully Carrick would be fully aware that she did not, indeed, wish to ever watch that movie. The books and the first movie had been terrible enough.

With a devil-may-care smile on her face and mischief in her eyes, Liz gave herself up to the care of her angelic escort. “Engage, Mr. O’Connor!”

Practically melting in the warm of Carrick’s embrace, the heat of their close proximity fending off the icy suitors of the chilled, November winds, Elizabeth could just sigh of happiness as long as--Wait, wha? Did Carrick say something?

Liz blinked and her daydream vanished. Frantically trying to figure out what her angel said in order to pretend that she’d been paying attention the whole time, Liz could only recall something about the weather. Babbling to make up an answer, Liz spit out, “Oh, uh, it’s pretty cool.” Well, duh! Liz, what on Earth are you thinking? “No pun intended of course.” Cue awkward laughter. “But I think it’s a bit nippy out.” Maybe you should hold me closer--

Danger! Danger Will Robinson! Liz cut that train of thought into mincemeat. No, that wasn’t she meant! And that wasn’t what she felt....right?

Her inner Thoughts & Feelings did not feel inclined to respond.

But, fortunately for her, not much else was said for the rest of the flight and soon Carrick took them down, landing in Central Park, right by-- “Ice skating?!” she exclaimed, almost with a shriek. Happiness galore raced through her when she heard Carrick’s surprised and without another thought, the blonde whirled around and hugged the winged lad. “Carrick, you’re the greatest!”

Liz hadn’t gone ice skating in years! Not since eighth grade. But, man oh man, did she love it! And then she realized she was still hugging Carrick.

Quickly pulling away and (lamely attempting to make it look like she was still overjoyed by the thought of Carrick’s evening plans) whirled back to face the ice-skating rink, glad that her cheeks were already ruddy from the wind. After all, it was the perfect camouflage for a blush.

“C’mon, let’s go!” Elizabeth turned back to motion at Carrick before heading off.

After dealing with all the preliminaries of getting skates and getting in (and after making sure that Carrick would pass along her gratitude to Mr. Cervantes for all of it), Elizabeth finally managed to slide her feet into her own skates, lacing them up with the ease and skill of won who’d done such things so often in her life.

She smiled fondly at Carrick’s question, happy memories bubbling up. “My dad taught my sister and I how to ice skate when I was eight. We’d visit our grandparents over the Christmas break from school and go skating around on their pond on their farm. But we stopped skating a few years back and I haven’t been back on the ice since, so forgive me if I make a total klutz out of myself.” Liz laughed at herself, already picturing embarrassing falls but figuring they’d be worth it.

“What about you?” she asked Carrick, returning the favor. “How long have you been hitting the ice?” She figured he could skate, since he was the one who’d asked her out. Wait. Hold the phone. Get the license plate number of that vehicle. Did Carrick ask me out? That thought only led to the next logical one. Is this a date? Are we on a date?! With lightning speed she retraced their evening. Hadn’t he literally asked her if she’d go out with him? Oh my God! Her smile broadened even further at that point, cramping her cheek muscles just a bit as a gurgling, bubbly feeling welled up in her stomach. They were on a date!

Or were they? Carrick didn’t specially say they were on a date. And what he said wasn’t exactly a rare thing to say. Like he could say it to a buddy or something. And he’d only been wondering if she had any plans for the evening, so it could easily be just a casual thing. Don’t read too much into this, girl. Don’t make it something it’s not. Reluctantly following her own advice, Liz tried shutting down those ideas of a date.

This was just something to do with a friend. Yeah. Even if he was paying for everything. and it was a surprise for her. Just friends. Yeah. She blinked away those thoughts and stood up, getting ready to skate.

If Carrick had indeed misspoke about his true origins in learning to skate, Elizabeth never caught it. Instead, she was quickly enthralled by his explanations of how it all happened. Despite its shortness, it was very much sweet in the manner it was presented. Although Liz didn’t really know much about Mr. Johnson and she’d only met him once under not-so-great circumstances, she found it easily to laugh at Carrick’s reccountings. A merry little laugh trickled out at Carrick’s impersonation of his father, whom she’d heard him speak of on a few occassions.

But then as they began moving away (a slow feat indeed, on skates) Carrick naturally brought up a question. It was simple, really, but there were so many ways she could answer it. She paused for a moment to collect her thoughts before striving to reply in a casual tone. “Oh, well, she was in a car wreck about five years ago and....” she trailed off, shrugging in a “you know” kind of way. It was good that she was in front. It allowed her to surreptitiously brush a nonexistent strand of hair out of her face and slyly remove the bit of dampness in her eyes.

Struggling to push back all those accompanying thoughts and the feelings that went along with them, Liz was pleasantly (in a twisted sort of way) surprised when Carrick tumbled. Forcing herself into a huge grin (because sadness would be too easy) Liz pretended that the situation was more humorous than it really wasn’t. Even his barely-heard mumbling.

“Here, let me help you,” she said, forcing good cheer into her voice while still attempting to make it sound natural, as if birds had suddenly infused their voices into her words. She put out a hand, in case he needed her aid, and when he was upright, she latched onto his arm. “Maybe neither one of us will fall if we walk together,” she said, only slight hints echoing in her tone. Like, maybe we can just walk together just because. Close together. Like, together, together, er-- Stop that, Errant Train!