Disclaimer: I do not own Sky High or its characters, settings etc, all of which belong to Disney.
Chapter 2: Icebreaker
Layla woke slowly. The first thing she was aware of was not being cold anymore. Then she realized she was lying in some sort of hospital bed with an IV in her left arm and someone was holding her other hand, and she was pretty sure it was too warm to be her mother's. She opened her eyes, and sure enough, the hand that was holding hers was connected to a wrist tattooed with flames.
Suddenly she remembered why she had been so cold and how Warren had defrosted her with his body heat, and then he'd kissed her and it had been her suggestion … okay this was embarrassing.
He was busy reading a book so he hadn't noticed that she was awake yet. She had a few moments to try and think of some sort of plausible excuse for her behavior. What had possessed her to actually ask him to kiss her?
She'd been right about one thing, though. That kiss had warmed her up…
Warren released her hand to turn the page, and saw her looking up at him.
"Hey, Sleeping Beauty." He put his book aside. "Or is it, Snow White?"
"Hey, Warren," she said quietly. Snow White? What? Oh, yes…
"How are you feeling?"
"Warm. Which is a real plus," she replied with a smile. "Uh, thanks for saving me." He shrugged it off, like usual. "So, what did I miss? Did Will and Kate get Weatherman?"
Warren shook his head.
She sighed. It was all her –
"Not your fault, Layla." He interrupted her thoughts. How did he know she was thinking that?
"But what about the Mayor and the ransom demand?"
Warren gave a slight smirk. "Seems Weatherman got a good scare and ran for it. So, no need to worry about that either."
"Um, anything else interesting happen?" she asked, trying to avoid the awkward issue on her mind.
He thought for a moment. "Sparky found out that she can play with more than one construct at a time as long as she doesn't try to control them all at once. Bad news is Stronghold was grounded by getting too cold."
"He can't fly anymore?" Layla asked anxiously.
"He's fine now. It took him a while to warm up enough to get airborne, though." He suddenly looked at her intensely. "You know, Layla, we can spend hours skirting round the issue, or we can just get this conversation over."
"Or we can just forget about it," she suggested with false brightness.
"Or not," he replied. "Look, I've had some time to plan this discussion. If you like, I'll fill in your lines of dialogue so you don't feel too embarrassed."
Okay, whatever you think makes it easier, she thought. And maybe, just maybe, they'd be able to put this awkward moment behind them and still be friends.
He seemed to be waiting for a response, so she glanced at him briefly and nodded before fixing her gaze on her feet under the bed sheets again.
Warren took a deep breath and spoke quickly, probably to get it over faster. "Okay, I say 'Layla, we need to talk about that kiss,' and you say 'Look Warren, no offense, it was a nice kiss, but I just don't feel that way about you,' and then I say 'Yes, I'm really sorry and don't worry, I won't cross the line like that again' and then you – "
"No, wait, stop." Layla held up a hand as she cut him off. This was completely not what she had anticipated and she needed a moment to work this one out. If he thought he'd crossed the line because he thought she didn't feel that way about him, then that meant he …
"What?" he prompted softly.
"I think you're reading from the wrong script," she looked at him with a slight smile.
He took a moment to review what he'd just said. "It wasn't a nice kiss?" he asked, throwing in some wry humor with his concern.
Her smile grew. "It was a very nice kiss, and there is no 'but'."
It didn't take him long to figure out what she meant.
He gave her a rare smile and took her hand again.
The south elevator at Maxville Hospital didn't stop at every floor. Fortunately, people didn't seem to notice that the gap between the fourth and fifth floors was twice as long as any of the other intervals. Of course, there were always some wackos who posted theories on internet discussion boards that there was a top secret UFO study center complete with alien dissection labs etc., but thankfully nobody takes those guys seriously.
Will, Kate, Zach and Maj got into the elevator, and Will brushed his thumb over the hidden biometric scanner. Floor numbers 4 and 5 lit up simultaneously and the elevator rose without stopping at any other floors (which no doubt annoyed people waiting for the elevator) until it reached 4a, the level for people with superpowers.
Ethan met them when they got out and led them down the corridor past the Super Metabolism Lab and the Toxic Waste Recovery Room to the normal rooms. The Guardians were fortunate that none of them had spent much time in the hospital, except to visit Ethan at work.
When they were almost at Layla's room, Ethan cautioned them to silence because she might still be sleeping. They peeked in the window through the blinds, and what they saw caused their collective jaws to drop, literally.
Warren and Layla were holding hands. Not only that, but judging from the way they were looking at each other and how close their faces were, they were about three seconds away from a kiss.
Well, what do you know. Will had often wondered, very privately to himself, about the possibility of deeper feelings there, but it was still quite a surprise actually seeing them like that.
Kate was the first to recover. She quietly took out her camera and aimed it carefully between the window blinds just as Warren's lips met Layla's. Quickly she snapped three shots, just in case in the first didn't come out, and then beckoned the others away back up the corridor.
"Come on!" she whispered when they just stood there. After a moment of sharing puzzled looks, they joined her.
"Where are we going?" asked Will, but his girlfriend just smiled impishly.
"Man, he's gonna kill you," said Zach as they got back into the elevator.
Kate hit the button for the ground floor. "Good thing I'm fireproof, huh?"
"Lucky you," muttered Zach, evidently afraid of getting caught in the crossfire.
The others followed her in confusion as she led them quickly to the hospital gift shop near the main entrance, up to a Print-Your-Own-Digital-Photos machine.
"I could never figure out why they would have one of these at a hospital," she said, carefully taking the memory stick out of her camera and sliding it into the machine, "But now I'm seeing the point." She held out the newly developed photo of Warren and Layla caught in the act.
"What, because you never know when you might need to develop blackmail photos?" asked Magenta with a smirk, admiring the picture.
Will caught on. "Not blackmail, Maj. Forfeit."
When they entered the room, both Warren and Layla greeted them with an expression that was almost challenging, as if they expected some sort of opposition from their friends.
Quite the opposite. "Well, it's about time!" exclaimed Will with a grin as he clapped Warren on the shoulder.
The new couple shared a glance, a little embarrassed.
"How are you feeling?" asked Magenta while Ethan checked Layla's medical chart even though she wasn't actually his patient.
"Much better, thanks," replied the redhead, and then she turned to Will and Kate, "I'm sorry you guys lost Weatherman, though."
Will smiled reassuringly. "We'll get another chance, I'm sure."
Warren, who had been watching Kate almost since the group had arrived, asked her suddenly, "All right, what are you looking so smug about?"
In response she just kept smiling and Will handed him an envelope.
"What's this?"
"Your forfeit from the other day," replied Will who was trying to keep a straight face, and failing miserably.
"Damn. I was hoping you'd forget about that."
"No such luck, dude." Zach was very brave from his position of relative safety hiding behind Kate (not that he really could hide behind someone a foot shorter than himself).
Warren opened the envelope and slid the photo out enough to see what it was and then fixed Will and Kate, the obvious guilty parties, with a dirty look each. "Okay, that's it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more letting you win at Uno, no more – "
"Hey!" Layla cut him off as she grabbed the envelope from him and looked at the picture. "I'm in the photo too. Why should I have to pay a forfeit as well?"
"Uh, you went and got yourself frozen." Will knew he was grabbing at straws.
Zach added, "Yeah. That was real careless of you."
Layla stared at herself in the mirror and sighed, "Why am I so nervous?"
Zach had once gone for some conspiracy theory that the government (or whoever) was watching everybody through their mirrors which were actually one-way glass with hidden cameras, and so he'd urged them all repeatedly, for three very long weeks, not to talk to their reflections.
At this point, Layla was prepared to talk to anyone who could help her to calm down, even a secret government (or whoever) agent.
It was her first date with Warren – despite the fact that they'd already shared their first kiss, or two – and she knew she was acting like a silly teenager with a crush. She couldn't believe she hadn't grown out of constantly changing her mind about what to wear, but the state of her bedroom, carpeted in rejected outfits, showed how frazzled she was.
As her mother had said a few minutes ago, what was there to worry about? It wasn't like this was a blind date or some cute guy that she barely knew and she'd have to spend half the evening trying to make awkward conversation. He was her best friend, for goodness sake! Everything was going to be fine.
Layla sighed again and dropped her head into her hands. The peptalk-to-self just wasn't working.
So she might as well admit it. She was terrified.
Fortunately he arrived just then, which pretty much made up her mind what to wear by default. She was forced to stay clad in her most recent decision, a long silk dress in jade that was one of her favorites. She picked her way across the clothing covered floor and went downstairs.
"Uh, wow," she said as she opened the door, "You didn't have to dress up just for me."
He was wearing dark charcoal trousers and a black dress shirt, both of which she'd had a large hand in nagging, uh, helping him to buy. Dressing up for Warren didn't quite entail a tie or abandoning his trademark leather jacket, but hey, this was impressive enough for her.
"Well, it is traditional to dress up for a date, especially the first one," he replied lightly.
And since when do you go by what's traditional? thought Layla.
She was about to say something on that score, but he continued, "Just like it's traditional to bring a girl flowers…" And with that he handed her a small packet with a brightly colored picture.
"Summer Wildflower Selection?" Layla read the seed packet incredulously.
Warren gave her his most innocent look (apart from the humor shining in his dark eyes) and then, making all her nervousness evaporate into laughter the way only he could, he made his point.
"Well, in your hands, they're practically flowers already, right?"
