A/N: Sorry this is somewhat late; it wound up quite a bit longer than the others and also I don't post anything without the approval of my beta, who is rather busy with finals at the moment (thank you for taking the time to read this, dear).
Also, fair warning: it is entirely possible that tomorrow's fic will either be very very late or will not be posted until Thursday. There are a couple reasons for this. 1) I am a college student, and I have a final tomorrow afternoon and then immediately after said final I have to start a three+ hour trek back home to see my family. I haven't seen them in months, so I'm not even sure how much I'll be online tomorrow night, if at all. 2) Tomorrow's fic will also be long, possibly even longer than this as I'm wrapping this particular arc that I'm on. It's also for the prompt that everyone's been waiting for (I think you can guess), so I don't want to half-ass it. I'll make an attempt to do it tonight so I can post it before I leave tomorrow, but I also have to study tonight, so we'll see. On the chance that I DO have to postpone it until Thursday, I promise I'll try to make it worth the wait.

snowed in

Getting to the airport goes smoothly (for the most part), but it's the last thing that does.

The line through security is way longer than they anticipated. Somehow, it hadn't really occurred to either of them that everyone else would be going home for Christmas, too. When they finally make it through to the end, Zander sets off the metal detector about ten times before they pull him off to the side to do a pat-down. (It turns out there was some weird metal embedded in his designer jeans and Stevie has to stop herself from throttling him.) With only a few minutes until their flight is supposed to start boarding, they rush to their gate…

…only to find that their flight's been delayed due to the snow.

Stevie groans and sinks into the nearest chair, dropping her carry-on unceremoniously on the ground. Zander sits down next to her, and she immediately turns and buries her face in his shoulder. She feels him tense, for just a moment, but before she can think much about it he relaxes and wraps his arms around her.

"It's just a delay, Stevie," he says.

"I know," she mumbles against his collarbone, "but I want to go home."

He shifts a little and grabs her arms, pushing her back gently so that she's sitting up. "Look, why don't you call your parents and let them know we'll be a bit late, and I'll go get us some coffee?"

"You know what I want?" she asks as she digs her cell phone out of her pocket.

Zander pulls a look of mock offense. "Of course I do. I can't believe you would doubt me." Despite herself, she laughs, and he winks. "Be right back," he tells her as he heads off (she hopes he's going the right direction).

Her mom pitches a fit, of course; not at her, but at the airline, the weather, New York City – everything she can think of. Stevie can hear her father in the background, trying to calm her, but it's futile and eventually he just takes the phone. "Just give us another call before you board, okay, Steves?" he says.

Zander comes back with coffee right as she's hanging up. "The board says the flight's only delayed an hour," he tells her, jerking his head toward a big electronic display.

"Good." She takes the cup he hands her and sips, letting the familiar taste and warmth work its way through her body and unwind her a little.

"Not like you to get worked up like that." He sits back down next to her, nudging her gently.

Sighing, she runs her free hand through her hair. "I'm just ready to be home for a while. It's been a long week." They shudder in unison at the thought of their chemistry final. "And I miss everyone. I'm ready to see them all again. Even Molly." She laughs as she says it. Their enmity had faded into frienmity and then into something almost resembling a friendship by the time they graduated. Stevie hadn't quite kept in contact with her after graduation the way she had with everyone else (even Grace had called her up a couple times; phone calls with Grace were an… interesting experience), but she knew Kacey was planning a party once they were all back in California, and she knew Molly would show up even though she'd loudly be telling anyone who would listen that she was only there to make the party less lame.

"Let's not get crazy," Zander jokes.

"Hey, you have to admit she grew up a lot. Besides," she says, raising an eyebrow at him. "you dated her."

"For like a week, okay? You're never going to let that go, are you?"

Stevie laughs. "Nope." She starts to lean into him, but then a thought hits her and she sits up again. "You know, I don't think you dated a girl all quarter." Zander lets out a strangled sound and splutters something incoherent while she thinks back. Nope, not a single girlfriend; he'd barely even noticed that girl from their chem class that had been practically throwing herself at him. Zander Robbins, going a whole three months without dating a girl. That probably hadn't happened since he hit puberty. "What happened to 'man, there's going to be so many cute girls in New York?'"

"Maybe I decided it wasn't as important as I thought," he says, and she's sure he's avoiding looking at her. "Dating the wrong girls, over and over. Didn't seem worth it, I guess."

"But how do you know they're the wrong girls if you haven't dated them?" she presses.

He does look at her then, and after a few seconds she's the one who has to avoid his gaze because she's pretty sure she's seen that look a hundred times but it's never been directed at her before. "I just know," he tells her.