Upon his return from the store, Toshi found Shayera not only finished with her embroidery, but passed out on the bed and snorted in a mixture of frustration and bemusement as he shook his head at the sight of her lying there practically spread eagle on his bed with her mother's finished funeral kimono lightly grasped in the fingers of one hand and the other extended as if it were reaching out for him.

Silly girl. He thought as he silently slipped his sneakers off of his feet and nudged them with his foot instead of simply kicking then, out of the doorway and then moved to the side of the bed and quietly placed her bag of crackers and ginger ale on the floor next to the bedside table and then climbed onto the bed beside her.

Grasping her arm so that he wouldn't wind up lying on it at some point, he slid his body close to her own and then slipped his arms around her and pulled her back against his front and wrapped her smaller form tightly in his arms and sighed as he tucked her head underneath his chin and closed his eyes for a bit.

He must have somehow managed to doze off for about an hour or two, because when he next opened his eyes, he was lying on his back with his covers pulled up to his chin, there was evidence that Shay had eaten some crackers and drank some of the ginger ale, and...he could hear the shower going and made a small annoyed huffing sound as he slowly sat up and looked over to the other side of the bed to confirm what he already knew was true.

Yup, there was no trace of Shayera nor her soon to be late mother's kimono.

So she must be in the shower then. He surmised as he wondered if she was feeling any better. He doubted that she was still feeling all that great since she hadn't had any actual decent sleep yet.

But he supposed that he could let that slide for now as long as she was up and moving around instead of acting like a zombie. Though the moment she started to shuffle her feet again, she was going straight back to bed and staying there even if he had to sit on her.

Deciding to see what happened next, he propped himself up with a few pillows and waited for her to come out of the bathroom.

Apparently he had slept longer than he had thought, because barely five minutes later Shayera walked out of the bathroom dressed in a nice white silk button up blouse with a pastel pink ribbon tied in a bow around her throat, with a matching knee length pleated skirt on. And her long hair tied up in an elegant looking ponytail with only small wisps falling around her face and shoulders here and there.

Turning her head to look at him, he felt his mouth go dry as he slowly clenched his hands at his sides in an effort to resist getting up and grabbing her and kissing her senseless. "You look divine," He finally said after a length of time before asking, "You're feeling better now then?"

She had the grace to flush with embarrassment and slowly nod her head and mutter, "Yeah, thanks..."

He nodded and slipped off of the bed and walked over to her and gently captured her chin in his fist and took a moment to steal a kiss from her since he hadn't been getting much affection from her in the past few days and he found himself missing her more and more as the moments passed.

Finally pulling away to come up for air, he made a thoughtful sound as he tried to think of what to do now. Sure they kind of needed to have a talk about her ability. He found that he was more than a little bit curious as to how it worked. Plus the information could be useful down the line if the two of them managed to have a daughter with the ability.

But there was also the issue of her mom's impending death and Shayera's depression. And to be honest, he didn't know how to deal with either one. He didn't know her mother enough to be of any real help to her. Though he could give her the comfort that she needed to draw strength from.

Brushing the pad of his thumb along her lower lip, he licked his own to wet them before saying softly, "I'm glad that your feeling a bit better. And I know that things are...difficult at the moment. And weighing heavily on your heart and mind, but I'd like to do something for you to distract you for a little bit. If your game, that is."

"What do you have in mind?"

"How about I take you out? We could have a nice-" Turning his head, he looked at the small digital clock on his side of the bed and almost rolled his eyes when he realized that it was too damned early for a candle lit dinner. So a nice candle lit lunch would have to do. "Lunch...and maybe talk about a few things."

"Like my ability?" She asked, the fear in her voice tearing at his heart.

"No. We don't have to speak of it if you don't want too. We can speak of other things if you like." Toshi said as he pressed a kiss to her forehead and then stepped away to grab a change of clothing since he was still wearing his lazy-day clothing. Which consisted mainly of a baggy wife beater and some slightly baggy sweatpants.

"So we're basically going to go out on a date under the guise of pumping me for some sort of info," Shay said slowly as he paused for a moment to grin in amusement as she finally said. "Alright. I guess I'm up for that."

"If you're worried then don't be. I'm just going to ask some stuff to help me understand how your mind works a little bit more. Nothing too over the top or upsetting. Besides, the sooner I know what kind of stuff you have going on in that head of yours and how it works- the easier it will be to protect and help you."

Shay hummed and then muttered something under her breath that he just barely managed to catch a little bit of and looked at her oddly as he caught some of the words.

"You're words, though I couldn't completely hear them. Just remember that I'm not doing this for fun. I'm doing it because I need to know." He said with a small hint of disapproval in his soft tone as she sighed and waved him off and walked out of the room so that he could have some privacy while getting dressed.

Ten minutes later he and Shayera were on their way to his favorite restaurant. It was a nice niche in the wall kind of place that he'd discovered around the time he'd been given Nana's power and begun his training with her.

The food was mostly freshly caught seafood. One of both their favorites.

And some people who went there were given the option of paying for a big bucket of assorted stuff ranging from mussels, oysters, clams, large nd small shrimp, king crabs, five or six lobsters and depending on one's taste, either a nice chunk of salmon, tuna, or swordfish.

If one chose to cook their own meal, they were also given an assortment of spices and sauces, vegetables, two bottles of white wine and freshly made up, buttered bread to make the spread complete.

Toshi had thought that by taking Shayera to such a place it might coax her out of her shell a little bit and distract her a little bit since she seemed reluctant to speak to him of everything that was bothering her. Not just what was happening with her mother.

Easily navigating the streets in his sleek, cherry red Acura NSX, to their destination- they finally reached the restaurant located by the beach, forty five minutes later. Parking in his usual spot, he did a quick car count to see how crowded the place was, and grinned when he saw that there were only four other cars in the small-ish size parking lot and slowly turned off the ignition and looked over at Shay and felt his lips curve up in a small smile when he noted her leaning partially against the door, with her head resting against the window with her eyes closed.

The poor thing must have temporarily dozed off during the ride over instead of enjoying the nice scenery like he often did. No matter, he'd wake her and then the two of them would eat and talk about stuff and then he'd take her home to prepare for the, harrowing, next few days.

Getting out of the car quietly, he walked around it to the passenger side and very carefully opened the door, making sure to quickly wedge one of his legs between Shay, and the door so that once he unbuckled her, she wouldn't fall out onto the ground.

Something told him that he doubted that she would appreciate it if he ruined her clothes by letting her topple out of the car. Absently reaching out with a hand, he gently laid it on her shoulder and watched as she twitched almost violently, the action waking her automatically as her sleep bleary turquoise eyes snapped to his face.

"Wha?"

"We're here angel." Was all that he said as he removed his hand from her and gave her a moment to collect herself and look around before she finally sighed and muttered.

"Oh. Okay then..." She said as she let him slowly pull her to her feet and maneuver her away from the car as he used his free hand to close the car door and then ushered towards the front door of the restaurant.

Once inside the door, Toshi made sure to keep an arm around Shayera's slender shoulders just in case she decided to fall asleep on him again. This way when her legs buckled, she wouldn't fall and get injured. The floor of the restaurant was seriously hard enough to crack one's skull open.

He'd found that out once the hard way after drinking eight beers too much.

Needless to say he now stuck to his three beers and four glasses of wine rule to prevent that particular level of intoxication again.

Since there was no host or hostess to seat the patrons that liked to frequent the eatery, Toshi grabbed the usual necessities from a bamboo basket hanging on the wall. Once he had their menu's and eating utensils, he quickly spotted a nice empty table over by the waterfall built into the corner of the far side of the room and quickly led Shay over to it and seated her.

Once that was done, he quickly grabbed his seat and handed her her menu and utensils before asking, "Would you like it for the cooks here to prepare our food for us, or would you rather we cook it ourselves?"

Shay looked at him questioningly for a moment, her mind not quite fully awake just yet as she muttered. "Surprise me."

"Very well." Toshi said as he lifted a hand to get someone's attention and smiled as one of the server's came running over to take their order.