Chapter 12: Love is in the air

A/N: Sorry I was too busy dying each strand of my hair a different color. I moved to Africa and got mauled by a polar bear. Also, my ideas didn't flow like a chocolate waterfall. I have a few bunnies hopping through this chapter. Many twisters in this chapter that you will chomp down. Enjoy. : ) My beta reader got a hold of my chapter and held it hostage.

Wincing as I get up from my chair, my cut is irritating me. It hasn't opened, but it's still really painful.

"Are you alright?" Tommy asks.

"Fine, just my cut bothering me," I respond.

"Here let me get your stuff for you. I'll have Lily help you get ready for bed tonight," RJ states, grabbing the plate from me.

"Thanks, but I can do it myself," I say, grabbing the plate from him, turning so I don't see the shock on his face.

Placing my plate in the sink and washing my plate. A sigh escapes me as I put my stuff away. I slightly limp to the couch and turn on the television, start flipping through the channels. I notice 1000 ways to die and start getting excited.

"Aww man that's so gross," Rocky exclaims as he sees a head roll onto the pavement on the show.

"I wonder how that happened," I mutter.

"You like this?" Lily inquires, looking half disgusted and half intrigued

"Yes, my brother got me into it," I answer as they explain what happened with the guys head.

"This is awesome," Casey says as he watches a guy gets blown up.

"Come join me if you want. I don't mind." Casey lifts my legs and sits down. He places a pillow under my legs so the cut isn't jostled, without thinking about it. I give him a small smile.

We watch it for a couple hours and then decide to turn it off. We were all getting tired and head off to bed. I limp my way to my bed. I hope that my leg feels better in the morning.

"Good night," I say to the group.

As I sleep that night, many thoughts go through my head as I find myself sleeping restlessly. I shoot up in bed when I feel like someone is in my room. I look around the room I see eyes in the door way.

"Turn on the lights now," I demand, not letting the small quiver in my voice show.

I see a hand turn on the light and see Theo standing there.

"What do you want, Theo?" I ask in a nasty tone because he woke me up.

"I wanted to talk to you," he responses.

"Now at all times when I'm trying to sleep? Fine, get your furry ass in here," I order him.

"Liz, are you really okay after today's battle?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Leg hurts if I move it improperly, but other than that I know I battled hard and it was expected that I would get hurt. Even ask the veteran rangers about getting hurt in battle. They got hurt often. I really need to get some sleep Theo. We will talk in the morning."

"Alright night," he calmly says as he walks out of the room and switches off the light. Falling back to sleep was a bit of a challenge because of the pain in my leg. I could hear voices as well. I would have to tune them out but that's not a problem.

"I can't believe her leg is still sore," Theo states as I hear him talking to other people.

"It will be sore for a while, Theo," Tommy explains.

"She had a pretty deep cut," Casey explains, "she'll be out for a while. At least we don't need her right now."

"That's right. You don't need me at the moment. You have six other rangers to help you out," I mutter under my breath. Finally letting sleep over come me, I drift off to sleep. The battle replayed in my mind as I slept through the night. There was nothing that I could have done differently to prevent injury. They were so concerned for my safety it was crazy. The voices continued outside. They finally died after an hour after I went to bed.

Morning seemed to come too quickly for me. I stretched as I got out of bed. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I grabbed my glasses. I checked my bed for blood in case my cut opened up. Sighing, I noticed there was no blood to be seen. Something enters my nostril that smells absolutely fabulous. I almost dash out of my room, but as soon as I started into a sprint, pain shot through my leg.

"Fine, you stupid leg," I mutter, irritated because my leg is in pain. Slowing down my pace, I walked to the kitchen. I see the pancakes sitting on the kitchen table.

"Yum, my favorite," I mutter.

"I would wait if I were you," RJ states as I sit down and try to grab a few pancakes.

"I said, 'wait,'" he states again as he smacks my hand.

"Bug off," I snarl.

"No, you wait for everyone else," RJ growls.

"Fine," I say irritated. I crossed my arms across my chest as I wait for the rest of the team to get up. Tommy is the second one to get up.

"Morning," I greet him.

"Morning," he grumbles to me, going straight for the coffee pot. He pours the black sludge into a coffee cup.

I shake my head at him as he gulps the black stuff. Slowly everyone starts waking up, wobbling into the kitchen. Slowly everyone starts grabbing the pancakes and starts stuffing their faces.

"And you wanted me to wait?" I sneer at RJ.

"Eat then," RJ states.

I finally dig into my pancakes as I glare at the purple wolf master. The purple wolf master puts a look on his face like, "what happened to earn the angry glare?" I give him a look saying you know what you did. He shakes his head at me. I just shrug my shoulders at him.

"Happy Valentine's Day, everyone," Kim announces as she finally wakes up.

"Is that really today?" I inquire.

"Yep," she answers.

"Let me make something for you tonight," I tell the group.

"What do you mean?"

"I want to cook dinner tonight and I'm a pretty good cook. My brother can vouch for that."

"What do you want to make?" RJ inquires.

"I'll think of something. Considering I broke it up with my boyfriend, I'm single this Valentine's Day. So might as well treat everyone else to something special."

"Awwww Liz. I'm sorry to hear that," Aisha states.

"No big deal it was long distance. Also I didn't love him as much as I thought I did," I explain.

Walking over to my computer I look up different recipes for dinners. I wanted to find a good one for the group. I typed in romantic dinners. Someone started rubbing my shoulders, my eyes start to close and I lean into the relaxing massage. A voice whispers in my ear.

"I'm going to take you out for dinner tonight. You deserve to be treated special tonight. You gave up your life to be here with us. You broke up with your boyfriend and you've been a rock for so long. It's time for someone to take care of you," the deep voice states, "Kim is going to have to take you shopping since I noticed you don't bring anything nice to wear. But, be warned Kim is evil when it comes to shopping."

"Alright," I say, a little irritated that he releases my shoulders. He walks away as I sigh. I quickly go throw on some proper clothes for shopping.

"You ready?" Kim inquires, as the petite brown haired woman pokes her head in through the door.

"Just have to put my shoes on," I say as I tie up my shoe.

"Great." She flashes me one of her smiles and I can hear her footsteps heading towards the kitchen.

We walk into the mall and everyone has beautiful dresses out for Valentine's Day. My color obsession hasn't started yet. Although it was starting when I saw a sparkling v-neck knee length copper dress that was absolutely stunning, I just hoped they had my size.

"What's your size?"

"14," I answer.

Flipping through the dresses to find my size, I found it but I wanted to keep looking. I wanted to find another. I grabbed the dress anyway.

"So Billy is taking you out tonight?" Kim inquires.

"Yeah, it surprised me as well. He doesn't know me that well and he wants to take me out," I exclaim.

"Billy has a good heart and he's liked you for a while, Liz," Kim informs me.

"I didn't know for sure if he did or not so, I let him make the first move. I think my older brother would approve. I just hope Billy isn't too shy. I can decipher tech lingo pretty well."

"Oh how about this dress?" Kim articulates, as she pulls out a baby blue floor length dress with a heart shape neckline.

"Kim, that's lovely. I think Billy would be shocked if I wore something that was his color."

We hunt for a few more dresses and decide to try them on. I don't know why I was drawn to the copper colored dress but I was. It fit me nicely. Coming out of the dressing room, I showed Kim the first dress I picked out.

"Looks great, but let's try on another one."

I try on a few more but still liked the copper one best.

"I have some black leather boots that I can wear tonight."

"Perfect. Lily, Aisha, and I will do your hair and makeup."

"Cool," I state, "we better get going."

Driving back to JKP was really quiet. The music played softly in the background. I was wondering what Billy had planned for me. I hope he was taking me out to a nice restaurant and not just JKP done nicely. I could picture many things that Billy might do, but I know he's sometimes shy so I might have to make a first move which I was willing to do.

I've made the first move for four years straight. My first boyfriend was shier than Billy that I had to ask him for the first date. Placing my elbow onto the arm rest on the door, sighing I think about how Billy and Robert, first boyfriend, were similar yet different at the same time. Billy is a genius, technology literate, martial artist, and a little buff. Robert was an artist, school oriented, blew me off every chance he got, and I couldn't talk technology with him. I had to hide the true me with him. I watch the landscape pass me by. As I arrived, I grabbed my shopping bags and head up to the room. Everything would have been perfect except the fact that I have a bad feeling about tonight. Is everything going to go according to plan? Am I ready to date again? Am I going to have to hide my true self? Am I going to have to make the first move? I lay my hands on the dresser and look in the mirror.

"Liz, you can do this," I tell myself, "You've gone on dates before it won't be that big of a deal. Also you know Billy. You've known him since you were 5 years old."

To Be Continued…..

Will Billy and Liz's date go well? What does Billy have planned for Liz?