Sorry for the late updates everyone! I was so swamped last week... phew, glad that's over! I want to thank everyone again for your support! I especially wanted to thank the guests who commented, since I can't privately thank them. You guys are awesome! Your reviews make me laugh and fill me with such happiness! I know, it sounds lame, but it's true! You guys are the best! I hope you like this chapter as much as I do!

Flying

When I reached for the door, all I was thinking about was the hurt inside of me, the squeezing of my ribs around my heart. When I opened the door and heard the little bell ring, I remembered my tears and the smeared make-up, my scrunched up face. Did I really want anyone to see my like this? Too late. The door was open, and my bare feet touched the tile, walking inside.

There was a slight gasp from behind the cashier's counter. I looked up, and was shocked to see Sugar Brooklyn in a light green apron; she ducked beneath the counter and wrapped her arms around me. "Oh sweetheart, what happened?"

Her warmth made me cry harder, and she handed me some napkins to wipe my face and nose. Smears of dark make-up came off and I left them there; it had to be all gone by then. One look at Sugar's pitying face, and I wanted to clam up, but she somehow brought the story out of me. We sat at one of the tables, my head in my hands as the soft light from the wall sconces mixed with the shadows of the night.

"Is the café closed?" I asked, suddenly.

"We don't close until midnight, so we have a little while left," she said. Her brow scrunched up a little bit. "Though maybe I should-"

"What do you need to do?"

"Oh nothing."

The little bell rang, along with a squishing sound, and both of our heads turned to the door. "Sorry I'm a little bit late for cleanup, Sugar, but I had to run to Reese's and-" He saw us, and more specifically me. I flushed, though it couldn't possibly be seen in the dim light. Maybe the make-up hadn't been completely washed off. I grabbed a napkin and scrubbed at my face.

"Hiro," Sugar said cheerfully. "It's fine, in fact, if you could just step in for me while I clean up…" She stood up and patted her chair, "I took a midnight shift for a friend tonight, so I've gotta scoot."

Hiro turned to look at me again, a frown on his face. He sat down. Baymax, and not the mini one, came and walked over to us, looking at me with unblinking eyes. "Are you- are you hungry?" Hiro offered.

I smiled and noticed for the first time my gnawing stomach. "Starving." There had been more beer than food at Sophie's party.

He stood up and bent over the counter, grabbing a couple of doughnuts. He passed one to me, a chocolate-filled chocolate-glazed doughnut. Mmmmm.

"So I take it the party didn't go well," he said quietly.

I nodded. I felt completely burned out since my sob session. I could fall asleep right now, except I wasn't in bed, and didn't really want to be. "It did not."

"You want to tell me about it?"

I thought about brushing him off, but he seemed genuine. Sugar had places to be, and Sophie was definitely unavailable. Who else could I talk to? "I went to the party, finding my ex-best friend completely changed. She pushed me in a table and told me she never wanted to see me again."

"You're not drunk or anything, are you? I smell-"

"That would be the beer; but no, I didn't have a single thing to drink tonight. Wouldn't risk it."

"Why not?"

"In case someone decided to spice up the soda. I have a policy, a rule for myself: I'm never going to drink a single drop of alcohol. I've seen what it does to people, and it's not pretty. It ruins relationships." My brother's especially.

"Where were you?"

"Some place in Gordan's Valley. I'm not even sure how I found it. Or how I ended up here," I said. My throat was tight, I didn't want to talk. That was going to be the hardest part. "I walked in, and instantly realized what kind of party it was, and didn't want to be a part of it. But it was Sophie's party and I had to stay. For her, anyway.

"She completely blew me off. That was the start. Then I told her I was leaving, and she yelled at me. End of story." But it wasn't. I felt the tears start again, but I wouldn't let them fall.

Hiro hadn't taken his eyes off of me from the beginning. "How long have you been friends?"

"Since eighth grade," I said immediately. "We were paired up for a lab assignment in science, and became fast friends. We haven't separated since."

Until Anaheim. Until now. That internship seemed to have done her a lot of good, and me… nada. We sat there in silence until I spoke up again. "I'd never had a real friend until her. I moved from New York for a couple of years, before going back for a year, and coming back again.

"I don't know if the moving affected our relationship, but I always felt like I'd stuck with her, even if she didn't stick with me. She had a lot of problems with her siblings, she's a baby, like I am, so we had that in common. Other than that… she was rich, popular, fun. The exact opposite of me." I saw him about to protest and I shook my head for silence. "Eighth grade was hard for everyone. Thirteen isn't a fun age. We had our problems, but nothing we couldn't fix."

"Until she moved away?"

"It might have started before then," I said quietly. "Since our junior year, she hasn't been there for me as often. We both go to Ivison College, but I had a scholarship, and I dorm on campus, while she still lives with her family. There have been a lot of times when she hasn't been there for me, and then she went to Anaheim, and it was as if she disappeared. One phone call a week, sometimes not even that. She just didn't seem to care about me when we talked.

"It hurt, but I ignored it. She was having fun, who was I to judge? She was finally getting an opportunity; she's always been rich, and a little spoiled, but her parents were always pushing her towards independence, even if she pushed back." I didn't really know where to go from there. I leaned my head on my folded arms. "Maybe she wasn't the perfect friend, but she was the only one I had."

"Maybe it's not my place," Hiro started, "but you have friends, good ones. Maybe it's time to move on?"

I sighed, feeling so empty. "Sugar showed me a lot of love today; she helped a lot with my outfit, and for nothing! I haven't felt such selflessness directed towards me in… so long. It felt like real friendship. I never got that from Sophie. I don't know why." I caught his brown eyes. "And you've been listening to me this entire time without interruption, not interjecting stupid or hurtful comments. Sophie was always interrupting, trying to make me feel better with experiences from her own life. It just made me feel stupid. You don't make me feel stupid, Hiro."

He smiled softly at me. "Good. You told me that you would always listen to me; I need to return the favor." He stood up, and Baymax squeaked backward a step. "I have an idea, something I want to show you."

I finished up my doughnut and wiped my fingers on a napkin. "Do you mind if I wash up before?"

He shook his head and I ducked into the bathroom. Ugh. How could he even look at me? I grabbed a paper towel, wetted it, and rubbed off the rest of my make-up. I undid my hair and fluffed up my skirt a little bit. The dress was so pretty; it was a bummer that the occasion ended up being a waste of time.

When I came out of the bathroom, Hiro looked up with a smile on his face. We left through the front door, locking it behind us, and we went around the corner into an alleyway. The darkness made me nervous and I inched closer to Hiro. Baymax was making an absurd amount of noise. There was a faint swishing sound and a garage opened up in front of us. "Welcome to my at-home lab," Hiro said cheerfully. "Now come on, it's about time I took you flying."

My breath caught in my throat, excitement washing through me. "Flying?" I squeaked. A little bit of the stress from my day melted away as Hiro beckoned me to help him stuff Baymax into a red and purple suit. It definitely made him more intimidating, and I didn't need to ask if this was what he wore when Hiro went on his superhero 'missions.'

I was quickly introduced to Baymax, and then I was stuffed into a flying suit. It was mostly purple, the measurements just slightly off. "I was working off of Honey Lemon's measurements," Hiro explained. "You are a bit shorter than her, but I think it works." It did work; she must have been a lot skinnier than me though, because the suit was tight.

He led me over to the armored Baymax who started lecturing Hiro about flying, when he brought my hand onto the handhold. It clicked into place with my armor, creating a satisfying snick. My leg went up, then my other arm, and my other leg. "Are you feeling okay?" Hiro asked; I felt kind of silly straddling Baymax's back, the Baymax's back. If Sophie knew, she would blow a gasket or something.

"I'm good," I said.

"Awesome, then have some fun. I'll be up there once Baymax drops you off, okay?"

I nodded, and the thrusters shot us out of the garage. I screamed in delight as we flew through the air, faster than anything I'd ever known. Soon enough, we were high above San Fransokyo, dodging the edges of buildings and the infinite number of advertisements floating in the air.

"Can you hear me?" Hiro asked, his voice coming in through the speakers in the helmet I was wearing.

"Loud and clear," I said. "This is amazing!"

"Baymax already has the coordinates, so you should be fine," he said. "Almost there…"

We landed on top of a building, one that was higher than most, though not the tallest. I scrambled off, the magnets (or whatever they were) powering off as Baymax landed. He waited until I was safely clinging onto the railing of the building until he rocketed off, down into the streets of the city.

It took a few minutes, but Hiro came back with his robot and smiled at me when he took off his helmet. "How's the view?" He asked.

I could see for miles. The Sokyo bay was just beneath us and the water sparkled under the shining moonlight. I couldn't hear the waves lapping at the beach, empty in the late night, but I could see the white froth of foam. The city itself was never silent; cars rushed through traffic lights, beeping and horning at each other. Lights illuminated every surface, or shined off of every sheet of glass. I could feel the bright red neon lighting up my face as the colors went from one to the other. "It's nothing I've ever seen before," I said. "Nothing." I looked up at the sky and to my delight, I could see the stars. The light pollution didn't reach all the way up here, it seemed. "They make me feel so small," I sighed. "So insignificant, but in a good way."

Hiro stood by my side, hands clenching the railing as he leaned out to see the city. "No one knows we're up here except us and the birds."

"And the stars," I said. "And the moon. But no one else."

"You are happy feeling so small?" Came a robotic voice behind us. I turned around and saw Baymax's slightly confused expression through his helmet.

I laughed, an action I wasn't sure I could really be capable of, but it bubbled out of me. "Yes. If I'm that small, it means my worries and problems are even smaller."

"You should not push away sorrow," he reminded me.

I leaned back against the railing and caught Hiro's amused expression. "I'm not. Not tonight. I'm just letting them go."

The empty feeling wasn't gone, but it wasn't eating me up anymore. Sophie might think that I'm perfect, or that I act perfect, but I knew who I was. Hiro knew who I was even. If she didn't see me, the real me, then who was she to judge? Who was she to make me feel bad about myself?

She was drunk, I reminded myself. Guilt still chewed at my insides, but it wasn't so insistent. I would forgive her, and maybe, she'd forgive me. In the meantime…

I looked at the handsome man across from me. He had walked up to Baymax and had started spouting off nonsense about computer chips and algorithms, and I had accidentally zoned him out. He caught my gaze and smiled. "You didn't hear a word I just said did you?" He put on a mock-hurt face, "What happened to listening to each other?"

I laughed, the sound loud in my ears, but real. Oh so real. "I'm sorry; I give you full permission to never zone out if I start going off about analysis and English-y stuff. Fair?"

He drew closer, an unreadable expression on his face. "Sounds fair to me."

I wanted more than anything to cross the distance between us and wrap my arms around him. But I didn't want to ruin anything and I was late alr-

"What time is it?" I asked. "Crap, Dad's going to kill me."

"A little bit past one."

I sighed in relief. "Good, not past curfew yet."

"When do you need to be home?"

"By two. I should be able to get home in forty-five minutes or so," I mused.

"Why don't I just take you home now?" Hiro asked. "I can drop your car off in the morning."

"How?"

He raised an eyebrow, then glanced meaningfully at Baymax. "I have my ways."

If I thought looking out at the city was breathtaking, the country was even more so. The full moon lit up the hills, creating more peace, and adding light to more stars than I'd seen in a long time. I breathed in the fresh, unpolluted air as I clung to Baymax's arm, only one foot and hand connected to Baymax. Hiro took the other two. "This is amazing," I breathed. I heard an affirmation from Hiro's end of the line.

Getting a bird's eye view of my town was amazing, and kind of confusing. I couldn't tell what roads led to where, but Baymax seemed to have an excellent sense of direction because before I knew it, we had landed on my doorstep with a barely audible clunk.

I pulled off my helmet and shook my hair out. "I'll get this back to you," I promised.

"Thanks," Hiro said.

I nodded, and turned to the door, key in hand, ready to open it. "My keys are in my purse, remember?" I tested him.

"Yep. You won't even know it was gone," he said warmly.

I didn't want to leave him there; I'd just had a night to remember, and I felt as if I was leaving without a proper good bye.

"Hiro?" I asked timidly.

He turned away from Baymax for a second and held my gaze. "Yeah?"

Now or never, I breathed, and stepped forward, putting my arms around his waist. "Thank you for listening, and for being there for me," I said. My voice hitched in my throat, but I kept on. "It means a lot to me, more than you will ever know."

"I will always listen," he said, his arms tightening around me. "You're welcome, anytime."

Tears pricked my eyes, and I let him go. He hopped on Baymax's back with more grace and practice than I could ever pull off, and they flew off into the night.

This was the first time I really recognized the feelings I had for Hiro. This was the night I first fell for him. It was also the night when I realized that if I wanted to keep his friendship, I couldn't make another move. I cared about him, a lot. I didn't want to lose a good thing.

But oh how I wanted him to sweep me off of my feet, tell me he cared about me.

It never happens like that, at least, not in my experience. So, I was content with what I had. –Melinda Hastings.

O.o What's going to happen in the next chapter? I will update as soon as possible! Love you all, and please review!