My first fic! Yay! We all love AWL, so I hope you enjoy! Please do review!

Those Dear Ice Eyes

Chapter 1: Chances

People never take me seriously. I've thought about this a lot, this problem, wondering and trying to figure it out. Is it my clothes? Maybe just my attitude? And it's not my fault I think women are amazing creatures and I fall for so many of them. But for whatever reason, no one ever takes me, Rock, seriously.

Pretty annoying at times.

Most of time I ignore it. I go along with this "image" I've made for myself and go with the flow. I know I could show them if I wanted to…but that would take too much effort. Every once in awhile I'll try to break my little mold. I'll try to open up a little. But most of the time it just gets shot down. Like the time I told the new farmer guy, Jack, about how I wanted to write a book.

He was visiting the Inn, and he had come up to my room for a chat. He visited the Inn a lot back then, and I hadn't been really sure why, but he could hold a conversation so I let him. Jack was the quiet type and I always did most of the talking when we were together. So I started going into about how I dreamed of being an author. I started going on about how perhaps I could write something about clothes and fashion…but the truth was I was just playing it safe. How could I really tell someone like Jack, hard working farmer and serious minded man, that my real dream was to write a romance novel? The idea had been swimming in my head for ages, and it had been eating at me. But even as I played it safe when I told Jack about my dream…he downright smirked. That sort of smile that said, "Yeah, right. You? An author? Give me a break." I could tell he was trying to hide it, but he could have tried harder.

It goes without saying, I never confided in him again.

But for some reason, this meeting made me hungry. Hungry for a close friend. Someone who I could tell about how I could be serious when I wanted to, how I dreamed of publishing that novel, and how I so wanted to just find a lovely, understanding, pretty lady to settle down with.

That friend came in the form of Nami.

Yes, dear Nami. The young lady staying at my own family's Inn. With her beaten up traveling clothes, flaming red hair, and blue eyes that sparkled with smarts, she was probably the brainiest person in the Valley behind perhaps Carter. Why hadn't I seen it before? She lived under the same dang roof as me and she was always so calm and collected… So together and true to herself. Some saw her as a cold, distant, and rough personality, but I just saw her bluntness as the real thing. Nami didn't water down anything when you talked to her. She called it as she saw it. Pure emotion.

The idea fascinated me.

I started talking to her a lot more often. She wasn't home much (being the wanderer that she was) but when she was in her room I would visit. I can still remember the first visit in which she really captured me. A windy Spring night, light sprinkle distorting the view though the glass windows. It was deep and dark by then, and the streetlight's glow webbed and warped on the wet panes. But it all started with a soft knock on the door to her rented room upstairs. Her room across from mine.

"Hello? Can I come in?," I called, tapping on that old wood that loved to echo. "Nami? It's me, Rock." After a few silent moments, the way creaked open slowly, a mess of red and blue filling the little gap that came to. Ruby of her hair, ice of her eyes, she peeked at me though the crack in the doorway. All I could see was that colorful sliver on her pale face.

"You," she said with an absentminded nod, that sliver shifting up and down on the other side. Her voice was hoarse but consistent, rough but steady like a well loved rucksack. "For a sec I thought you were him again." The creak of the ancient door opening drowned out what sounded like a sigh. Nami came into full view as she gave me access. She was dressed as usual. Casual. Plain white tee under a plaid overshirt, left unbuttoned. Her shorts were old and worn with many stains. Her black toed, Converse sneakers looked to be once white, but where now a dulled grey and brown from dirt roads. As I nodded in acknowledgement at the red head, I saw that her eyes were as tired looking as her clothes. She gave no gesture back. She simply stared at me briefly. As I walked in, she backed off, turning to go back to her desk on the other side of the room. She let me let myself in. I gave a cheeky smile at her unhostess-ness, but she had already busied herself back at her waiting chair.

Nami didn't really seem to care about being "proper".

As I closed the door behind myself with a thump and a click, the girl was already sitting again. The back of her light blue patterned overshirt was turned to me as she scribbled on a sheet of paper with an old fountain pen. I was at first a bit taken back at her lack of interest. But in the end it just made me smile all the larger. She surprised me and amused me in an unusual way.

"So who did you think I was? When I first knocked?" I asked, smiling at the back of her thin frame, hoping that she'd turn around. I crossed my arms across my chest loosely. "All I know is that you didn't sound very excited!"

A few more rapid scribbles, flaming head still bent over assignment. That sound like nervous fingernails tapping impatiently on a windowsill. My smile turned empty, and slowly faded away altogether. Soon my expression was a blank as the silence. The near silence at least. She was still scribbling and the rain was still pattering. It was an awkward moment; me waiting for her to turn back around and her still writing. But soon she seemed to finish whatever sentence she was on or perhaps just decided she could ignore me no longer. Nami set her pen down, raised her arms above her head, and stretched. A quick jerk of her arms and a twirl of her wrists seemed to be enough, and she shifted around in her chair. "My notebook's almost out of paper…" she muttered to the room. She draped on arm over the back of the seat. Cocking her head to the side slightly, she seemed to examine me. Her eyes ran me over, head to toe, in a slow and calculating way. With ice eyes squinted, in the end I guess I passed the "test"…whatever it was.

"I thought you were Jack at first," Nami said slowly, each word seeming to leave her tongue with care. A crease of a frown grew on her mouth at the mention of his name. "He's practically a stalker nowadays. Always hovering over…always gift in hand…always wanting to talk…" The same sigh I thought I heard when Nami opened the door sounded. A wisp of a sigh, floating off her chapped lips as she ran slim fingers though her hair. "He knows what items I like. I'll give him that. But he doesn't know what I like…" She stressed the last "like" while thumping her chest with her thumb. Thumping it over the place where her heart was.

"What do you like then?" I asked with a smirk. "What's a tough chick like you want in a 'true man'…?" I gave a toothy grin while pretending to flex.

A lot of girls would glare at me after a comment like that. But Nami just smirked right back. "One that has a light behind their eyes," she replied smoothly.

"Meaning?"

"I'll leave you to figure that out…" she challenged, ruby hair glowing in the dim light of the room. She rose from her chair, quickly and fluidly, and sauntered over to me. Before I knew it, she was inches from my face. The smell of wet grass and peppermint suddenly filled my nose as she whispered calmly, "That is…if you even can…" She raised an eyebrow mockingly, smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

My brain, for whatever reason, shut down for a second at these words. Everything seemed to click to a stop, time turning to a consistency like my mother's pudding. Suddenly she filled everything. Nami was all there was. She was there, so very close, filling my eyes with her presence, and her and her words made my head spin. My head throb. It suddenly hit me then.

She was simply more. More what, I couldn't say. But she was. She just was. Nami had a vibe I couldn't explain, a special something that I hadn't met in another person before.

I was desperately searching for words, some clever comeback. Franticly snatching at whatever flew though my mind. I was babbling slightly, fragments just spewing out. "I, uh…of course…what you think I'd…no… I know what you mean!" I near shouted at the end, some energy peaking, rising up in me. I felt on the defensive. I felt stupid in that moment, to put it bluntly.

"What do I mean then? Enlighten me…" she chuckled, still oh so oddly close. I could tell this was all just amusement to her. It hurt a bit. Feeling like just a show.

But I just shook my head, once again without words. I at first was blushing with awkwardness, but soon started to laugh aloud. At myself. "A guy with a brain? A guy that's happy? I got no real clue…" I smiled weakly at her, rubbing the back of my head with embarrassment.

"Well…tell me when you got that." Nami finished with a little flash of a grin. A puny thing that barely lived before it quietly died where it was born. "Tell me when you've figured me out." She began to push me gently to the door, my feet going along without resistance. I was still oddly dizzy. Before I knew it, I was in the hallway once again. The hallway with its wood that loved to echo. With the windows with the rain that warped the light on the panes. That hallway that seemed to look so lonely now compared with staying in the red head's presence.

With one last flick of the wrist, Nami pushed me all the way though the doorway. After stumbling a few steps, I flung myself back around to face her. Words suddenly filled my head, my little trance broken and my mouth now full of things needed to be said. Desperate words. Asking to stay just a bit longer. That I wasn't talking with her yet. I wasn't done.

"Nami! Wait…I have to go so soon? I just got here! But I wan-…"

But she didn't want any of it. Raising a hand to silence my babbling, she shook her head slowly side to side. "You save all that for some other time, alright? I got to go to bed now." She rose her head to look at me, her eyes grabbing mine with surprising intensity and force. Eyes of ice. Ice that sparkled. Sparkled with those smarts of hers. "I'll talk to you later, Rock." She closed the door to her room slowly, and for a brief while I could still see that little sliver of her. Her ruby hair beaming though. But soon even that disappeared, and I heard the familiar thump and click of the door closing and being locked for the night.

With a weak smile I shook my own head, wondering what the hell had just happened. But the pattering of rain on the rooftop was poor company, and I soon retired to my own room as well. But as I lay in bed that night, the Spring rain still falling and singing away, I was thinking many things. Many thoughts flew though my mind…but one concept stood out. What had happened to me when Nami had been so close? What was that feeling, that vibe I had felt? And how could I get her to stop underestimating me? I was suddenly determined to figure out what that feeling was. And to prove her wrong. I needed someone to know. To know that I was more that what people thought I was. …And some odd little part of me wanted to feel that vibe of hers, when she stood so close, again.

I think it was then Nami captured my imagination.