A/N: Merry Christmas everyone.
I hope you´re having a wonderful time with your loved ones
Adrians POV
We walked to the car and she handed me the keys.
I arched an eyebrow "Seriously?" I asked "You want me to drive?"
"You can drive a stick, right?" she asked.
I laughed "Yes".
"What´s so funny?" she asked
"Nothing, just something I remembered" I said "So seriously. You don´t want to drive?" I asked.
"I do, but I don´t want you to miss out on the fun" she said shrugging.
"Ok" I said taking the keys from her.
She got into the car and watched me carefully.
"I know how to do this. I drove yesterday, too, remember?" I asked.
She smiled "Okay. Just wanted to make sure" she said.
About half an hour later Sydney was sitting next to me with a huge cup of Skinny Vanilla Latte.
"Happy?" I asked, watching her taking a sip with closed eyes.
"It´s coffee, of course I am" she said chuckling.
She opened the window and her hair fluttered in the wind.
Seeing her like this made me smile. Her hair looked like flames dancing in the wind.
My flame in the dark.
Sydneys POV
I enjoyed the wind on my face, my coffee in my hand and Adrian sitting right next to me.
For a moment I completely forgot our mission and imagined us just going on a trip, like normal people would go on.
Every once in a while I peeked at him. The car suited him.
I was thinking about last night and this morning. The closeness and the feeling I had, whenever he touched me.
My gaze fell on his lips. Those lips I knew where soft and warm and gentle. I wondered what else they could be.
God I wanted to kiss him. Why hadn´t he kissed me since the whole chaos?
"What are you thinking about?" Adrian interrupted my thoughts.
I tried hard not to blush and wasn´t sure if I´d succeeded.
"So it was worth blushing? Now you have to tell me" he said, his smile growing bigger.
"Your friend, Jackie? How can she help?" I asked, trying to change the subject.
He smirked "I know you´re hiding something, but ok, I´ll play along" he said.
"I´m not sure how she´s able to help. She just told me that it was important for you to be there and..." he stopped.
"And what?" I asked. What was he not telling me?
"You´re in such a good mood. I don´t want to ruin it" he said.
"What aren´t you telling me? What could make such an impact on my mood?" I asked carefully.
He sighed.
"Adrian, tell me!" I demanded.
"Remember I told you Jackie is a witch?" he asked.
"Well yea, how could I forget that little detail?" I asked.
He took my hand that was resting next to him on the seat.
"She needs your help with something" he said cryptically.
I looked at him, waiting for any kind of elaboration.
"I guess for a spell or something. Like I said, she wasn´t exactly a chatterbox" he said.
"She needs my help for a spell? How can I help her with that?" I asked dumbfounded.
He studied me and than looked back on the road.
"Sage, there is no easy way to tell you, so I´m just going to say it" he said in a serious voice.
"She taught you magic. Well I guess you always had the ability to do magic, but she was the one who kind of encouraged you. I know it doesn´t sound like something you would do. And believe me, it was kind of a process, but in the end, you made peace with it and you are pretty awesome doing it, by the way" he ended his speech.
Ok, vampires I could handle. Falling for one was kind of growing on me, Adrian was making that pretty easy. I had still a hard time with my dad being involved with the whole kidnapping slash memory erasing issue but me doing magic? No, I wasn´t prepared for that. And to be honest, I wasn´t sure if I could handle it at that moment.
Adrian squeezed my hand "Hey, still with me?" he asked, looking at me worried.
Was I?
"I might need a moment to process that" I said.
He nodded "It´s nothing bad. No voodoo, human sacrifice kind of magic. You did good with it" he went on.
Voodoo? Human sacrifice? I hadn´t even thought about that kind of magic.
What exactly did I do?
"Did good how? And could you please stop putting those disturbing pictures in my head?"
I noticed a small smile on his lips as he went on "You saved lives. I would say that´s a good deed" he said looking at me.
"I did?" I asked with wide eyes. How?
He told me about a woman called Sonya, who nearly got killed by some Warrior group. According to him, I was the one finding her before anything could happen to her.
"Well and you kind of saved us both from being killed by two strigoi" he said.
"Strigoi?" I asked.
"The bad kind of vampire" he elaborated.
"Bad like killing people?" I asked.
"Sums it up pretty good, yes" he said.
I shuddered at this image "What did I do?" I asked.
"I didn´t know it than, but you used a fire amulet to distract them. It was pretty badass" he said.
I noticed an admiring spark in his eyes as he was telling me about it.
I was still kind of freaking out about the thought, that I was actually practicing magic, but seeing him talking about it made me think, that it couldn´t be so bad, or could it?
To be honest, I kind of liked the way he spoke about me.
Adrians POV
She didn´t say anything after that, but she didn´t look that upset either, what made me feel a little unburdened.
It was just astonishing, how much she could handle.
After everything I´d told her the past couple of days, it seemed like everyone's normal reaction would be running for the hills or at least freak out.
Her level of freaking out seemed to be rather low.
She looked out the window and seemed to be deep in thoughts.
My hand was still holding hers and after a while she looked at me.
She shifted over and rested her head on my shoulder and I wrapped my arm around her.
God how I´d missed her.
Five hours later we arrived in Columbus, Ohio. Our next stop.
We checked in in a small hotel outside the city. It looked more modern than the last one in Newville.
"That´s an improvement" Sydney said when we entered the room.
"That´s for sure" I said taking a look around.
The interior of the room was modern, everything was held in bright colors.
We went to a little bistro around the block we´d passed before and had dinner.
To my surprise, Sydney showed more appetite than normally and I was glad to see, that her food issues weren´t as big as they used to be. At least it looked like that.
When we finished dinner, we walked back to our hotel.
"I´m kind of nervous" Sydney said on our way back to the hotel.
"About what exactly?" I asked.
"You know... everything. Meeting people I should know, facing magic and hopefully getting my memories back" she said.
"I´m here with you" I said putting my arm around her.
"I know. And I´m happy you are" she said looking up at me.
"Am I different?" she asked after a few moments"I mean... was I different before... before all of that?" she asked.
I thought about that for a moment.
"No. You are still Sydney. The girl I fell in love with. Stubborn, smart and beautiful" I said.
She nudged me and I noticed a smile on her lips.
"Sweet talker" she said.