I wrap my arm around her shoulders to reassure her, picking up both our tiny packs with my other hand, and we walked down the grassy hill to the pavement. The digital clock in the distance dinged a couple times, signaling on the hour. Our express shuttle was waiting for us… and by waiting for us; I really mean it will leave if we don't get there in 10 minutes. I wouldn't call us procrastinators; we get pleasure from living on the edge a little. Plus, we were enjoying each other's company. Nothing wrong with that! We still have to make it back to Earth from L2. We might be a little late getting to the base, but that wouldn't be so out of character for us, now would it? I hear Julie sigh, almost as if she could read my mind.

"We're gonna be late aren't we?" I flashed my winning grin at her as she raised her brow at me. I relaxed my arm around her shoulder and let it drift to her hand.

"Not if we run!" Knowing she wouldn't protest, I held her hand tightly and started at a run. Thankfully the shuttle station wasn't far from where we were and we arrived with time to spare! That is, about 2 minutes. The man by the shuttle door looked less than pleased.

"Tickets?" He asked with a stern look. He was getting ready to point toward the metal detector.

"Here you are good sir!" I say with a big grin, handing him our tickets, "and that won't be necessary!" I motioned toward the metal detector and retrieved my preventer badge from out of my pocket, "Have a look at this, if you will." The man stared at the badge for a few moments, then back to me, to which I smiled brightly, trying my best to match the big grin on my picture. He looked back at the badge and then looked Julie up and down. Julie smiled sweetly and flashed her eyelashes, her badge in hand as well. He did the same stare with Julie, except exaggerating his gaze for quite some time…

"I see…" The man said with a not-so-pleasant smile. Julie looked as if she would grab her gun out of her pocket, as to show this man exactly why we weren't going through the detector. I, however, would rather not have a confrontation. We're already late as it is!

"Well, then!" I open my arms and allow Julie to walk in front of me onto the shuttle, "Best we let the pilot get this shuttle going, shall we?" Julie shook her head, giving a slight laugh, as she walked through the door. I wave my hand at the man with a slight bow, I am a gentleman after all, and I head aboard the shuttle.

We had the first two seats in first class and I throw our bags into the overhead compartment before plopping down next to Julie, sinking into my seat.

"Pretty comfortable, huh?" I say, turning my head to look at her. She giggled with her hand balled into a fist over her mouth and nodded. I'm never sure if she's giggling because she thinks I'm being stupid or because I'm being adorable. I'd like to go with the later!

"That's what our badges get us," She said waving her badge in my face, "First class and no questions asked! Gotta love Jane for these!" I grab her badge from her hand and inspect it, while she gives me a questioning look.

"It says you have blue eyes…" I look from her badge to her face and back, "Huh? Who'd have known!"

"Ha, ha, ha!" She sarcastically laughs at me and grabs her badge out of my hand. Even if you were legally blind, you'd still be able to see her gorgeous eyes. They shine the brightest blue I've ever seen. She wrinkles her nose at me as I kept staring at her face. It's hard to take my eyes off of her sometimes. She's just perfect. She tilts her head and smiles sweetly at me since I was still staring at her, "What?" she questions and all I can muster is a big stupid grin. She drives me crazy with her looks. She has a sort of power over me, but saying that makes me sound mushy.

"…nothing!" I say closing my eyes and shaking my head, while I lift my hands up in surrender. I feel a light tap on my nose and quickly open my eyes. She had poked my nose. I was ready to stare at her beauty again, but the voice of the captain broke me out of my 'Julie' world.

"This is your captain speaking abroad Colony L2 flight 27 to New York, United States, Earth..."

Earth... It's been a while. I glanced at Julie and she has her head down, fiddling with her fingers. She's nervous, about something. I reach my hand and grab hers tightly, squeezing for a moment before relaxing. She doesn't look up, just smiles. I turn my gaze to the individual TVs before us flashing safe precautions, etcetera, etcetera... Things we don't need to hear anymore. Once you go through war, precautions are droning and rather pointless.

"Do you think anyone has changed?" Julie's voice takes me out of my thoughts and I turn to face her again. She has a bit of a stern look on her face, yet she's smiling back at me.

"Changed? Nah... probably not. It's not even been a year!" I squeeze her hand again since I feel her still twitching. What has got her so anxious?

"Shiris was a little distant in her messages… and Steph, unsurprisingly, seemed like a nervous reck!" Her face showed her mix of emotions in that one sentence.

"I guess we'll see how they really are when we arrive." I said with less confidence than I should have.

"Do you think we have changed?" She asks, still keep her gaze down. I worry but I still tease her.

"Probably, we are pretty weird." I say with a chuckle, she cracked a smile and looked at me. She giggled... Oh that giggle.

"Yeah, we are, aren't we?" Her eyes got really big for a moment. I settle into my seat more, enjoying the moment.

"I can't wait to see the guys to be honest." I say out loud. Not sure if I meant to say that, not very manly like... but it is true. She giggles again.

"Oh? You miss your boy talk?" She exclaimed with a sarcastic tone. I pondered her words for a moment, watching my hand on hers.

"Yeah… I guess I do!" I said, oh-so-matter-of-factly. I imagined her thinking, 'You're so mindless!' as she giggled again.

"You mentioned before that Quatre sounded good on the phone?" She tilted her head, I wasn't sure if she was stretching her neck or trying to look at me better. Let's go with the later.

"Yeah, you know how he is! Always willing to please. I mean, hell, I don't think I could thank him enough for his help with the new Church! He calls it nothing more than 'atonement', but he's really just a nice guy a heart." I say slightly shaking my head. Quatre, he really does blame himself for everything.

"He's sweet. I guess with his installment of 'atonement', he helped us with ours…" Julie smiled sadly.

"Yeah…" I trailed off in agreement. I know she was thinking about the past. At least we can call those memories as the 'old' Maxwell church. It's nice to bring back the name without the word tragedy behind it.

"I miss all the girls." Julie said suddenly as she leaned back into her seat, "I'm upset we had to separate after how close we all got during the last war." She happily smiled when saying this, but her eyes look a bit distressed when those words escaped her lips. I want to say I know Julie very well, like I know myself, but when her eyes get that way… I often wonder what she's hiding behind. She rarely let's that smile fade from her face. I guess I do the same. I turn toward the window of the shuttle and realize we had already taken off. How time goes by unknowingly when I'm with her.

She'll be the death of me, that's for sure.