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Ava smiled, a genuine smile this time, and said, "Oh, that sounds absolutely amazing! Ohh, I wish I could go to Coldice. I miss fighting off those villains at the museums and going to that bank." She crossed her arms over her chest and sighed. She felt the goosebumps on her arms disappear. They had risen when he had mentioned tornadoes. For some reason they had always frightened her. Good thing Java could control the weather. "And you're a great superhero, Java. You should get out there more often..." Her voice trailed off as she shrugged her shoulders. "I don't think I need your help. I mean, Bethan has been around. We've been planning Harri's funeral."

Ethan watched with his hands placed in the pockets of his rugged jeans. His face showed no signs of amusement from Java's 'superhero adventures'. He brushed his stubbly chin and raised an eyebrow at the other man. "Oh, you must feel soo important, mate. Saving people with just the wave of your hand. Ah, and you must feel so good, but really, you're not doing a thing. Sure, it was a tornado. But what about world hunger? Can you solve that crisis?" Ethan was just jealous because Java had some pretty awesome powers. And what did Ethan have? Magical kisses.

Ava's head snapped in Ethan's direction. She felt her face grow red with anger. She could feel her body temperature increase by at least ten degrees. "How much longer must I yell at you until you shut up?!" Ava screamed across the kitchen at him. Her hands tightened into fists and she was fighting the urge to punch him in the face. She wanted to break his already crooked nose. But all Ava did was put her hands down and sucked in a large breath. Her face faded from bright red to white in seconds. All she could think of was how embarassed she felt. Usually, she was in check with her emotions, but right now she was all over the place. "What was that Bethan? You need help with Evie? Be right there." There really wasn't any call from Bethan, but she wanted to get out of that kitchen and away from Ethan, so she turned her back and left.

Anya grinned, unconsciously mirroring Alex, and took the flower.
"Real roses never wither and die if I can help it." she said, almost without thinking, in a quiet voice, before looking up at him, eyes wide and shining. "But this is much nicer anyway. Thanks."
She paused for a second, deliberating, then hugged him with one arm, the other holding the paper rose out of the way.

Bethan looked up at Ava as she walked in, recognising the look on Ava's face as the one she'd been wearing herself a few minutes ago.
"You want this?" she said, indicating Evie, who was now fast asleep in her arms. "She'd sleep through a war now, I think. Well, she slept through that helicopter noise, so I think she'd pretty out of it." She paused, knowing that a helicopter round here meant either her or Java. "Do you want me to go mediate between Java and Ethan." She passed Evie over, and stood up. "Or do you maybe want to... talk?"

Java frowned at Ethan as he stood up and went into the kitchen, putting the kettle on. He figured Ethan was just jealous or something about the tornado thing, and he could just ignore Ethan if he was rude to him, but if he'd been upsetting Ava...
"How long have you been here, then? I thought you'd gone back to Australia or something. Coffee?" He began making coffee for Ethan anyway; he smelled like he needed it. Not that Java blamed him for getting hammered - hell, no amount of coffee in the world could've sobered him up if he lost Ava - but if he had been making things worse for Ava (or even Bethan, which he had, by the looks of it), then there was no excuse.

[[... and that's all we have time for today, folks! stressed Halfway through AS-level exams, (which are the results they look at when you apply to university, for you American people), and the worst ones are next week. Wish me luck!
@Rachel: I know! I'll be catching up in a week's time but I have no time until then.]]

Freddie Creevy, a first year affectionately called 'NPC' or 'Red-shirt' by his 'friends', stared up at the hot girl who had just spoken. His eyes travelled upward from her shiny leather-clad toes, taking in the her boots, the flash of leg above them, then more leather, then her tiny shirt - his eyes widened and hastily moved up to her face. Her eyes scared him, despite her smokin' hot body.
"Umm..." his voice cracked, going all high and squeaky. He cleared his throat, fidgeting. "Is that the Australian guy? I think he went to Mrs Storm's house. He looked kind of..." another word followed, spoken so softly it could only just be heard. "Drunk".

Ava greeted Evie with open arms. She rocked the baby gently in her arms and smiled. "Oh my baby..." She whispered and hummed to her softly. Ava shrugged her shoulders, making sure not to disrupt the baby's slumber. "I'm not sure...talking is so much harder now." She clicked her tongue and continued, "Ethan's just...I don't know....lost without Harri. I guess he wanted to marry her. Seeing him so hurt makes me sad. I still love him, like a brother. And I wish him and Java could get along better. I know Java tries his best, but Ethan can be so stubborn. Everything's just tiring that's all."

Ethan rubbed his chin and said, "Uh, I think almost a year? I really haven't been keeping track..." He looked up and said, "Coffee would be great." He really didn't want the coffee, for coffee just made him sneeze randomly. But he didn't really care. Suddenly he didn't feel like fighting Java on that one.

Alex graciously accepted Anya's gift, and ran off to go find a pot to put the plant in, he returned with a plain gardening pot he had found on the grounds. "Thanks." Once Alex had put the plant in the pot, having gotten some dirt when he found the pot, and whispered to himself. "There we go, i'll probably end up having to move it to something else after a while."

((No problem, I fixed it, and i'll see what I can pull off the top of my head. lol ))

Alex cradled the pot in his hands after he finished putting the plant in it. "No, I wasn't doing anything, what did you have in mind?" Alex had to force himself not wrap Anya in a bear-hug, gifts were just something he had gotten used to missing out on after his parents died, plus there was just something about Anya that put Alex in a great mood. He couldn't figure it out, it at first felt like she was a sister to him, but that wasn't it. There was something else, he just couldn't put his finger on it. He only stopped this particular train of thought when he realized he had been staring at Anya for about a minute and a half. "Sorry about that, what were we talking about?" His voice sounded like Alex had just woken up in the middle of the night, or had just come out of a hypnotic trance.

Alex was at a loss for words, the closest thing to speaking he could get at first was incoherent stuttering. He had no idea why Anya did that, but you wouldn't hear him complaining about it, even if he was capable of speaking at that point. Instead of attemtping to speak again, Alex silently held Anya in a gentle hug, smiling peacefully as he did so. This hadn't given him the answers he had been trying to find, but it certainly got him closer to getting. Time seemed to be standing still for him while they were like this, nothing else was on his mind, and this was the happiest he had been in years.

Once Anya pulled away, Alex's inner peace was shattered, causing him to look around in a slight panic. "I uh...sort of. I wasn't thinking of hugging you, but I was thinking about you." His sleepy, silver-blue eyes widened after he realized how that would sound. "Not like that, I meant..." He sighed and tried to collect his thoughts. "I was trying to figure you out, after we started hanging out more, I started to care about you, like you were my sister. But...wait, why would it matter what I was thinking? Is there something going on?"