Voicemail. Great. Noel tried to inject some sincere sounding cheer into her voice when that beep told her it was time to say her piece.

"Hey, Stephen, it's been a while and I just wanted to catch up, but yeah! I've got some... news...! Uhm, I just wanted to tell you in person so... yeah."

Wait... did that come out too cheerful? What if she called back? Why did she say it like that? Her news wasn't news, news. It was just... regular... maybe she could call again?

Re-dial.

"Hey. I'm not pregnant. I just miss your face. You. Me. Gelato. Same Bat-place, same Bat-time?"

Perfect.

It had been a while since their last heart-to-heart, but Noel wanted to brag at how strong she'd been. She hadn't given Aedus a single inch.

To celebrate, she decided to get the flavor of the day, no matter how strange.

She ended up outside at the same table they had last time with a cup of Blood Orange Honey. It came with a ginger biscuit and was supremely divine. Noel swept her long braid aside and put her feet up on the railing to wait.

Nate heard his phone ringing, but he was in too much of a whiskey-induced fog to deal with conversation or people in general. It was not until the next morning that he fought his way through the haze to check his voice mail.

It was Noel, and thank God it was Noel. The first message was short and vague, but he could have accepted that. The second message put a grin on his face. She was the right person for him to go see, clearly. She was, in a weird way, the closest thing Nate had to an "old friend," and she was goofy enough to cheer him up.

Nate left Noel a message of his own, confirming a time for their meeting later in the day. He gave himself time to shower away the booze-smell, clean up his scruffy beard, and find where he left his glasses.

By the time he left the apartment, he looked put together enough to pass as a real person. He took the walk through the autumn day to the gelato shop Nate knew Noel meant. She had beat him to the shop, waiting for him at their table. "Hey hun, gimme a minute."

He entered the shop and approached the counter. After brief deliberation, he settled on kiwi-mango. A little tropical would offset the cool day well.

Returning to the table, Nate took a look at Noel, who had barely changed since their last hangout. "Holy Christmas Crackers, Batman!" He had to grin; he was not going to let those phone calls go ignored. "You really aren't pregnant!"

Pleased with his level of snark, he took the seat across from her. "How have you been, Noel?"

Nobody ever called her hun except Stephen. The fact that he did was like a hug when he wasn't yet in hugging range. And Christmas crackers? Noel grinned like a dope in response to his interjection, but didn't bombard him... yet. Not 'till he had his sugar of choice.

> "How have you been, Noel?"

"Oh, you know. The same. Nothing really big in my world." She pat her tummy and took her feet down off the railing. Stephen wouldn't care, but it still seemed a bit rude.

"My swordmaster is still my swordmaster, still taking action around town and thankfully no deaths. Took Aedus to the shooting range and nobody shot themselves."

Instead, Noel put her feet firmly on the ground. If they were in a completely secure location, she might curl up in her chair. Since they were entirely exposed, there was still the possibility that a fight might break out. A slim possibility, but it still existed. She was ever-ready.

"You?"

Noel was a goofball. He was not sure if her silly persona was just exclusive to him, but if it was, he would be okay with it. It was nice to be around someone who acted so comfortably around him, especially knowing that there was no big secret to parade around with her.

It was probably for the best that she was not preggers, though; one careless erased memory later and she could end up accidentally erasing the kids name.

>> "My swordmaster is still my swordmaster, still taking action around town and thankfully no deaths. Took Aedus to the shooting range and nobody shot themselves."

It was a nice, compact summary of how Noel had been, which he would ask her to elaborate upon. She was leaving many questions on the table for Na-- Stephen. If she was going to call him Stephen, he'd relax and go back to the old name, at least for the afternoon.

Before he could ask her to fill him in on the details of her life, she turned the tables on him, asking him how he had been. He did not want to interrupt her oncoming news, but he could not lie. Literally; she would taste it. "I've... been better."

Nate took a bite of his gelato, trying to share his news as though it was not a big deal with worrying about. "Quin and I... well, I ended things." It was hard to make that sound casual. "I'm handling it." Would that taste like a lie? Technically, handling it with alcohol abuse was still "handling it," right?

Noel inserted her spoon into her mouth to keep her foot out of it. Hm. Nate and Quin had "ended." The memorymancer inspected her friend with new insight. Was that why he flinched slightly before he spoke? Did that explain the minute hesitations and the extra humor guard? She could read into his actions all she wanted now that she knew why...

Enough time had passed that Noel knew she was expected to say something.

"I never liked her anyway." Because that was what friends did, right? Take your friend's side. The enemy of a friend was an enemy. "I mean... she was a good influence. You're not...?" Noel waffled her hand in mid-air rather than asking Stephen straight out if he was going to go back to stealing. It wouldn't be karmic revenge to go back to a life of crime. It would just be stupid. "Because, you know... I'd hate to have to kick your butt."

Noel was the epitome of a good friend: taking Stephen's side for no other reason than knowing she was supposed to. It was hard not to appreciate blind, biased loyalty.

Her next question was obvious: she wanted to be sure that, with the encouraging presence of a law enforcing girlfriend gone from his life, Stephen was not going to fall into old habits. "Considering you'd easily kick my butt, I guess I'll have to postpone my heist plans," he joked. Obviously he had no intention of returning to crime; the act had lost some of its luster, and there was a beautiful policewoman who would be keeping a close eye on him now.

"Actually..." Stephen decided that Noel was as good a person as any to run his intentions by. "I've been thinking of getting on the other side of crime. Maybe looking into the X-Men." Stephen had no idea what Noel's opinions regarding the X Team were, so now he would be finding out.

Darn straight he'd better shelve those heist plans. Or at least let her in on them so she could watch his back.

"The other side of crime." She sat back in her chair and repeated his words as if testing the truth out for herself. If asked, she would consider herself on the other side of crime even though technically her work with the church was vigilante-ism and that was technically illegal.

"I mean, assuming you can actually do stuff and they don't hold you back, I don't see the harm in it. And you might have unique insight to offer." Noel's opinion of the X-men wasn't sterling, but there were worse alternatives. "I can't help but think that they're all stuffy and unimaginative people, though. I mean, you don't have to be a genius to fight crime, but you don't need people to hold your hand, either." That wasn't the existential "you" that was the Stephen "you." He could do it on his own. Or with the church. Or with the X-men. Whatever made him happiest.

"So uh... are you at the stage where you want to talk about things? 'Cause I'd be out of my league, but I would tread water with you if want." She definitely couldn't speak to the triumphant power of love or lasting feelings or whatever, but she had ears and she could hear him out. Sometimes that's all anybody ever needed.

Noel's opinion seemed... lukewarm. Stephen noticed that she really did not say much one way or the other for the X-Men, but she was at least on board with Stephen working to oppose crime. There were options, but the X Option was the one he probably had the most research ready for. He chuckled. "To be honest, I can't help but think of how Quin'd react. No one is less of a fan of the X-Men than her." That was what Stephen needed: another reason to piss Quin off.

The topic of Quin was still a touchy one for him, which he probably did not deserve since the break-up was his fault. "I dunno. I'm still kinda shaky, I guess?" He was not sure if he was hurting or numb anymore, thanks to his amateur anesthetic. "Still trying to figure out if it was a mistake." Stephen was not accustomed to "new problems," and this was indeed new to him.

"Maybe I'll reach the talking step after I leave the problem drinking step," he settled on, feeling a degree of shame in admitting it out loud.

Oh well if Quin disliked the X's, maybe they weren't all that bad. Of course, it depended on if her dislike was personal or professional.

"I would like to think that we can learn from every experience, mistake or not." Noel still didn't know any of the circumstances, either. She was betting it was Quin that stomped all over Nate's heart since he was all shook up about it. The memorymancer took tiny bites of her gelato to keep from having to go back and get more.

"And you really shouldn't drink." She took a shallow swipe at his head, more to mess up his hair than to really damage his skull. "If you really wanted to destroy brain cells, you know I'd erase her for you in a heart beat." But, erasing Quin wouldn't likely erase the hurt. Then he would just be hurt and confused about why he was hurt. If he wanted to make that mistake, she wouldn't deny him the opportunity to keep learning.

Noel was not a fan of nate's self-destruction agenda, illustrated with he whapping his head lightly. Even if he was being scolded, it was hard not to grin just a little. Obviously Stephen knew it was not a healthy choice, but no one intelligent ever deceived themselves into thinking it was.

She was joking, but Noel could easily remove Quin from his memories. The idea was morbidly tempting in a way, but doing so would remove far too much personal growth he could not afford to lose. "Nah, no thanks. I'm not looking to erase her. Just... wallow for bit and regret not telling her the truth sooner." It was actually not until that point that Stephen gave Noel a better idea of why the couple broke up.

Nate held his palm out with a smirk. "You're more than welcome to catch up with the story if you want." If Noel had the desire to know more about his social tragedy, she had an efficient method of cutting out the middleman.

He either didn't want to explain it to her and therefore re-visit the tragedy or maybe he just wanted to get it over with. Noel accepted his hand in hers, felt the calluses and dry weight of it before he laid a kiss on his knuckles. Sure the kiss was a little more than polite with the tip of her tongue flicking over the finger joint, but it was pretty damn chaste and it only took a second.

Noel closed her eyes and settled in to let the memory play itself out. She could only get it from his point of view, but still... The awkward tension. The guilt. The gifts... it was pretty uncomfortable to experience. Only when she came to something she didn't understand did she stop and look up for her question.

"What's fubar?" Stephen had said it, but he wasn't really thinking in definitions. Thankfully there wasn't too much more. She ran through it while she waited for an explanation. Yeah, context meant it was bad, but she wanted to know.

There hadn't been any shouting or crying... maybe that was the worst part. They had both just... let go.

Since she had neglected to release his hand, Noel used his hand to steer his arm out into plain view. There was a watch there. She searched her memory, but this wasn't the watch. And since it wasn't, she let him go.

"So it boiled down to Nathan versus Stephen." He'd based their relationship on a lie and so the foundation was rotten. "You couldn't be yourself because you started as Nate." Which was crap, in a way, since he was always Stephen. Double crap since he had changed so much... Still... it had to do with his perception of the situation and how he felt.

"I don't get how you can feel this... conflicted..." It sucked.

A shiver ran up Stephen's spine when he felt the press of lips and a flick of the tongue on his knuckle. Noel's lips were now officially the first non-Quin lips to touch his skin in over a year.

He watched as Noel gathered the whole scene. Her facial expressions gave Stephen a better idea of what a third-person might have felt watching his relationship's final deterioration.

>> "What's fubar?"

Stephen was caught off guard by the word. It took a while before he realized he had used the military phrase on the night in question. Grinning, he was going to answer her, but a parent and her two children decided it was a good time to enter the shop. Electing to answer quietly, he leaned in over the table, calling her over so he could whisper into her ear.

"Whisper, whisper."[/size] He pulled away, chuckling. "That's fubar."

The mood of the conversation returned to what he expected as Noel tried to understand Stephen's problem with the relationship. He shook his head; she was close, but it was something different. "It's more like... Nate is the person I want to be, and the person I'm happiest as." A name was just a name, but Nate was the title of hide "ideal him."

"But I wasn't honest with Quin, and I was caught in a lie, and because of that, I would never go back to being Nate." He took a bite of his icy treat. "I made a mistake, so now I just have to hope that I get it right next time."

The mood had taken a turn for the upsetting thanks to him, and he wanted to enjoy his time with his friend. "That's enough of that for now, I think." He sighed, forcing a change of topic. "So did you and Aedus... well, has anything happened?" He was content with learning about Noel's love life or lack there of.

Noel started to protest when Stephen leaned in close. "I... oh." Oh was right. Fubar. She would have to remember that one.

And apparently she had it all wrong. He hadn't been attached to a persona. He'd been attached to the ideal of perfection. "Since when has perfection been the minimum bar for a relationship?" If it was, she was so screwed.

Finished with her gelato and started to crumple her cup when Stephen turned the focus on her own non-relationship. "Eh... anything? No. Strictly in the friend zone. I don't want to be... distracted all the time." Point in case, see one self-anesthetized friend who was trying not to think about a certain someone all the time.

Nate was not looking for his relationship to be "perfect," but he wanted to have a relationship without an asterisk. His past would come up again, and it would always have a "you lied to me" tag tacked onto it. Noel was honest, and he liked that, but he was not looking for reasons to question a decision he was already overanalyzing. "Moving on..." he muttered flatly. He was ready for a full topic change.

Noel's update on Aedus was that there was no real update on Aedus. Well, that was not fair. The update was that she came to the choice not to move forward. Looking at his own situation, she had plenty of evidence to believe that she was better off without the interference of love as a fickle, greedy master. "Good for you, hun."

He lifted his gelato as though he was proposing a toast. "You're a strong, independent lie-tasting woman who don't need no man!"

Well, she did not need a man, but she did keep several in her life, and there was one more important one he had not yet asked about. "And what about your swordmaster? Still living with him?" The living situation always hit Nate as sketchy, but Noel was a big girl who could take care of herself.

"Still mixing swordplay and kissing lessons?" Well, she could take care of herself, but Nate was free to tease her anyway.

"Don't need no man!" She echoed the toast with her crumpled up gelato cup. Of course, not needing a man didn't mean there weren't some still in her life. They were a little unavoidable.

"Still living with Sebastian, yes. I took care of him when he needed a place to go and now he is taking care of me." Because they both had been evicted from the small room above the gym and that was mostly Sebastian's fault. Also, both of them spent more time at the church than at home.

"I do not mix swordplay and kissing lessons." He had earned a hurrumph for that assumption. "I don't need lessons in kissing thankyouverymuch." She'd had plenty secondhand (and some firsthand) lessons from Aedus and Sebastian, both. "And I certainly don't give them." Because... yeah. That would make her something low and base that she did not approve of in a general way.

"Kissing lessons, that is. Sword lessons are going just fine, thanks for asking." As the unicorn's shadow her place was unofficially to train the troops.