Disclaimer: I own nothing.
"Layla?" Emilie asked, having to do a double take down the horticultural aisle in the library on her Tuesday shift.
"Hi, Emilie," she answered and walked toward her.
"Can I help you look for something?" Emilie asked her. It had been almost a week since that fateful date with Warren, and have neither seen nor heard hide or hair of him, Emilie was more than a little startled by Layla's sudden appearance.
"Yes, actually," Layla started, and gave Emilie a small heartfelt smile. "But not with a book."
"Oh."
"What happened on Wednesday, Emilie? Warren is a mess."
Layla looked at her imploringly, and Emilie signed, knowing that talking it through with Layla might actually help her make sense of Warren's irrational anger. Smiling back at her, Emilie walked a few steps into the aisle and sat down, motioning for Layla to join her.
"Wednesday was a disaster," Emilie laughed dryly. "Literally. How much has Warren told you?"
Layla composed herself, knowing that she was going to have to tread carefully to get the full story out of Emilie.
"Almost nothing, he changes the subject any time someone brings a topic even remotely related to it up. But I know he's torn up about something because he's even more irritable than usual, so I came to you."
"That's where the problem started, his stupid temper." Emilie related the story of their date, from its awful start up to the return of the kids to their mother. Layla listened quietly, and finally responded.
"You guys were at the attack? He didn't say a thing about it, not a word. Why wouldn't he tell us that?" Layla turned back to Emilie, who was squirming a little under her gaze.
"Because of what happened afterwards." Layla just kept looking at her.
"He… um, well he showed me his powers."
"He told you?"
"Yes, but don't worry, I won't breath a word about you all to anyone, I swear." Emilie rushed out. She'd wondered all week about the people she'd eaten with at the Paper Lantern, coming to the conclusion that they also had to be Supers. She just hoped that they would trust her to keep their secret.
Her worries were assuaged when Layla smiled back at her. "Oh, I'm not worried about that at all, I don't think Warren would have told you if he didn't believe he could trust you."
"I don't know about that," Emilie said, unconvinced by Layla's reasoning. "He was so mad; he might not have meant to show me. He was just such an ass all day. First he was grumpy and rude, and then afterward, in the alley, he was fuming, unreasonably mad. It would be one thing if he'd have told me what was going on, at least I would have known if I was the reason he was angry. And I know this isn't fair, and that all of your secrets are kept hidden for a reason, it just feels a little like betrayal that he never told me in the past four months." Emilie sagged against the shelves, most of the pent up frustration gone from her system.
Layla patted Emilie's knee, silently concurring with Emilie's sentiment that Warren could definitely be an…, well a butt, sometimes.
"Well, as far as his being cranky on your date, well, you should know that life isn't particularly easy for Warren at school right now. In fact, you know the whole group of villains who are terrorizing Maxville, now? Well, our school, Sky High, is a little on edge because of it, and for Warren it's particularly bad." Layla didn't how much was hers to reveal, but knew that the more Emilie understood, the more she'd be able to forgive.
"Warren has a fairly infamous supervillain in his family history, and the majority of the school is betting on his following in his relative's footsteps. He does kind of have a dangerous reputation at school, not that it's really deserved any more, but some people just see what they want to."
"Why couldn't he have just told me that?" Emilie asked, things slowly falling into place.
"Who can decipher the puzzle that is Warren Peace?" Layla just smiled back, her joke evoking a meager grin from Emilie. But her smile was quickly replaced by a more somber look.
"Sorry for dumping all of this on you. It just feels a little bit like Warren and I were finished before we even got a chance to try. But thanks for clearing some things up." Emilie apologized to Layla, and pushed her self up so she was standing.
"No worries," Layla took Emilie's offered hand and pulled herself up. "Warren's just sensitive about things, but I wouldn't write him off so quickly- you never really know what he's going to do next." With that, Layla headed out, leaving Emilie to her books and thoughts.
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"Warren!"
Warren looked up from the book he was reading while waiting for class to start on Wednesday to see an angry Layla marching toward him. Fantastic, he thought to himself. What now?
He looked up at her, waiting for the dam to break.
"You were at the attack on the apartments?" Layla cornered him.
"What? How did you-"
"Emilie." She crossed her arms as she dropped that bomb on him.
"Oh." He wanted to ask about her, but his pride and Layla's voice stopped him.
"Yeah, but the attack isn't why I wanted to talk to you. You can tell all of us about it later. No, I wanted to tell you that you are being stupid. You really like her Warren, and I know because you wouldn't have revealed your powers otherwise, not to mention that you haven't been able to concentrate on anything since Wednesday, and you know what- she likes you too. So you have two options here. One, you can continue to be stupid and mope around when we both know you'll just keep thinking about her, or two, you can grow a pair and go talk to her!" Layla felt a little out of breath from her outburst but kept all the ferocity she could muster in the gaze held on him.
Stunned a little by the strength of the hippie's accusation and the fact that she'd just said "grow a pair," it took Warren a minute to take it all in.
Layla took his silence for confusion and helped him out a little bit more. "She really does like you, you know. And I tried to explain why you were in such a foul mood to begin the date with, even though you really shouldn't have acted like such a baby. But if you'd just go talk to her, I think you two can make up." She smiled at him encouragingly.
"Thanks." Warren managed.
"No thanks needed. Consider this my payback for your helping me with Will freshman year." She smiled at him and flounced off toward the front doors of the school, knowing she'd already done a good thing today.
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Emilie had been running her last encounter with Warren and the conversation with Layla over and over again in her mind for almost forty-eight hours. It had only brought her to one frustrated conclusion: she needed to talk to Warren. Having made up her mind to storm down to the Paper Lantern at the end of her shift at the library, Emilie was having a hard time finding any meaning in the task at hand.
She picked up the next book on her cart, Gone with the Wind. Emilie groaned, she was in the S's, so Margaret Mitchell's novel was woefully out of order.
Emilie eyed the romantic portrayal of Scarlett and Rhett on the cover spitefully, and then shoved the novel in between the author's Steven and Stevenson. Noting how her small act of rebellion made her feel a little better, Emilie grabbed the next book on her cart and purposefully put it in the wrong spot, enjoying every minute of breaking the rules. Getting caught up in her destruction of the annoyingly perfect order of the library, Emilie nearly jumped a foot when she heard a familiar "Hey."
Clutching the novel in her hand, Emilie turned around to find Warren standing on the other side of her cart.
"Hey." Emilie replied, feeling both happiness and aggravation filling her. He looks good, she thought, noting the leather jacket pulled tight across his shoulders because of his crossed arms. If I wasn't so pissed off/ confused as hell/ and just generally upset by him, I'd have a hard time keeping my hands to myself. He'd better have a damn good apology.
"I thought we should talk," he stated, eyes locked onto hers.
"I'm listening," Emilie responded, mimicking his stance.
"Sorry I was rude on the date, I had a lot on my mind."
"And?" Emilie raised her eyebrows at him.
"And what?" Warren said, his voice teetering on the edge of impatience.
"You're kidding, right? Warren, I get that you were an ass at the start of the date because some stuff at school, but you didn't have to take it out on me. I get it, life's tough, get a blog. But you yelled at me for helping people out! Then you punched a brick wall near my head. Do you have anything to say about that?" Emilie fired back in her loudest whisper; they were in a library after all.
Warren just looked at her and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Women. Trying to control his vitriolic objection he answered her.
"You ran into a burning building. How the hell was I supposed to react? You could have been hurt, or killed! What would have happened if you had been hurt? What would I have said to your father? What would your little brother do?" What would I have done? Warren added silently, surprised at the involuntary question.
He saw her biting her lip in thought, but white-knuckled grip on the book still in her hands betrayed her tense inner turmoil. Warren sighed and leaned against the shelves, not sure if he could look at her when he brought up the next part.
"And then I told you. I told you about my powers and you just walked off. What the hell does that mean?" He glanced back at her at the end.
Emilie wondered how he could be so calm while she was frantically trying to form sentences to match her thoughts. He yelled because he was worried? Right? That's what it sounded like. And maybe he's right about his powers. I've been keeping things from him to.
Emilie leaned one shoulder against the same shelf as Warren so she was facing him, and took a deep breath.
"You know how I told you that my mom died? I don't know if you remember but about five, almost six years ago, there was an attack at the Maxville Elementary School. My mom was a kindergarten teacher there," Emilie felt her eyes start to water, but her voice remained tranquil. She couldn't remember the number of times her dad had recited this story, pride and pain reflected in every retelling.
Emilie caught Warren looking back at her intently, and gave him a wan smile. "While they were evacuating the school, a couple of my mom's students got caught in the crossfire. There were two villains." Warren felt his body tense, anticipating the worst. He really didn't want to address that problem at this particular point in time. He relaxed when she continued.
"One controlled the winds and caused tornados and such while the other could make things spontaneously explode. The heroes were trying to fight back, but caused some destruction, albeit unintentional, of their own. After she'd gotten all but the two kids to safety my mom went back for them. When it was all over, they found the three of them, all alive, but my mom just barely. She'd covered the two kids with her body, trying to block them from the flying damage. She died on the way to the hospital.
"All that to say, I walked away because… well, it is kind of a lot to throw on a girl, especially on the first date." Emilie smiled up at Warren, trying to lighten the mood.
"I guess I was just shocked," she tried to explain. "It was about the last thing I was expecting. Then I kept wondering why you hadn't told me before, but that's dumb because it's a huge deal, and you had to be careful about keeping it a secret. And then the whole thing with my mom, I just freaked a little. I don't think you really even wanted to know all that. I should just stop talking. You came here, you talk." Emilie let out a deep breath and leaned her head against the books dejectedly.
"Do you want to come to Homecoming with me?" He watched as her eyes flew open and looked at him in utter confusion.
"What?"
"Do you, Emilie, want to attend the Homecoming Dance, on Halloween, at Sky High, the school I attend for people with superpowers, with me, the person standing in front of you?" Warren said slowly his gaze trained steadily on hers.
Emilie's eyes narrowed. "You really suck at apologies."
"So is that a yes?" Warren gave her a small smile.
"On two conditions, if something is up just tell me, and Warren-the-jerk-from-Wednesday never shows his ugly mug again."
Warren shrugged, "Never heard of him." He caught her grin, and felt a huge weight lifted from him.
"Want me to help you shelve?"
"Don't you have to work tonight?" Emilie asked just glad to have her old Warren back.
"No, the Cho's are having some family party there so the restaurant's closed for the evening." Warren picked up the next book on the cart, and noting the author began looking for the right spot to put it in.
Emilie smiled at Warren hunched over shelving books with her like it was the most important thing he'd done all day. She blushed a little when he pulled out a book from the shelf and turned to catch her staring.
"Why is there an M in with the S's?" Warren asked and help up Gone with the Wind.
Emilie stepped closer so she could grab the book out of his hand, and grinned sheepishly up at him. "Some people are such slobs."
Warren caught the guilty wrinkling of Emilie's nose and knew there was more to that story, but frankly at the moment he didn't care. He pushed a flyaway red curl behind her ear, then tilted her chin up towards him.
As his lips brushed against hers, Emilie pulled her body against his and marveled again at the sudden warmth she felt whenever she touched him. A new thought crossed her mind; I wonder if the heat is part of his power. Warren nibbled her bottom lip, causing her to gasp. He took advantage of her parted lips and covered them again with his. I'll ask later, Emilie conceded and gave into the kiss.
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So happy together. I love Layla in this chapter. The next chapter is actually almost done, and it is one of my favorites because it's mostly happy! Please review, I want to know what you think about the story and it generally makes me want to write more. So the more reviews the faster I update, promise. Thanks for reading.
