A blast from the past

Zoe smiled and covered her mouth with a hand; her toast was already finished, trying the hardest she could not to laugh at the battle of the toast. There was quite a gallant effort by amber and when she turned the kitty eyes on Sam, Zoe thought he was a goner. But he just munched on his toast and the cat walked off sulking.

Zoe drew her knees to her chest and looked at Sam thoughtfully for a moment, “I don’t ever really miss a place… they all seem to repeat. I find a decent place… settle down… some disaster happens, so I move on. It is a rather depressing roll on things.” Her eyes seemed to focus on nothing, going vacant is if remembering something, her brow crinkling. Zoe jolted out of her reverie when she realized Sam was watching her, “As far as normal… it is quite over rated.”
She said this with a small smile.

Zoe was right, it is over rated. Some normal people wish to be special and some special people wish they were normal, that's just the way the world works. When Sam compared the life he has now compared to one without his powers, it would be much less exciting, Sam would stand on the roof of his apartment complex and stare down at the men and women in suits heading to work to do their 9-5 work day like some kind of robots at would arrive perfectly on time, he would pity them regularly because their life must be the same day to day routine where nothing changes, they must do the same things every day, is Sam was like that he would be in a depressing spiral. Sam held his plate over to Zoe who placed her plate on top, "You're right, tell me how many normal people could go from their couch to their sink in a second?" with that said, he dissapeared into smog and reappeared in the kitchen, placing the two plates in the sink so that they could be washed up later on, he then walked back into the living area, he imagined Zoe would have been spooked by his sudden disappearance so he didn't want to do it again. He sat down in his old spot and put his arms across the back of the couch to be more comfortable, the sun was now coming in through the window at a different angle, a small beam came across his leg and warmed it up slightly. "So how long do you think it will take before you will have to move on from here? " he asked curiously.

Zoe jumped slightly before tilting her head back and grinning, guess there was no breaking Sam's le poofing habit anytime soon. Her red hair falling into her face as she chuckled to her self, "Not very many," She responded in an amused tone. "Maybe just the ones who are in a hurry all the time."

Zoe pushed her hair out of her face again before considering his question, "It depends on what happens... I am happy so far... if that changes I guess I will leave..."
She stated this hesitantly as if she were unsure about the whole idea of being happy. Zoe couldn't honestly remember the last time she truly had been...

"Well its nice to have you around" he said, reassuring her that there was no reason yet for her to leave. "I don't know what you plan on doing today, but I am going to head to the gym, feel free to join me." with the invitation sent, he stood up and went to his room, giving Zoe some time to think about it if she needed to, Sam pulled his empty gym bag out of the bottom of his wardrobe and began stuffing the things he needed in there, tape for his hands, a different set of clothes, deodorant, a couple of towels and some water, he zipped the bag up and walked into the living room, seeing Zoe still sitting on the couch. Amber waltzed over to him and she walked around his feet, her way of saying goodbye, Sam could feel her around his feet as he scooped up the keys he had left on his table, he turned back around to Zoe and said "So do you wanna come?"

Zoe considered it, stretching and popping her back again as she did so. In one of the locker rooms they generally had things in there that could be of use, hairbrush, towel, shampoo, and other things. She decided she would go; Zoe did need to get cleaned up.

So when he walked back into the room, Zoe bounded to her feet, “Yeah. I need to pick up some things too. I imagine I could do it while you’re in there playing with whatever mortal weapons of choice.” The end of the sentence held some sort of lilting tease.

Zoe grabbed the door for Sam, seeing that he was carrying a bunch of items over his shoulder in a bag of some kind with all of his stuff. “Come on human, why are you so slow.”
She was teasing him again.

Sam and Zoe headed out to the nearby gym, it was quite up to date and modern, one of the reasons why Sam liked it. Zoe opened the door for him and they both bundled down the stairs, she was moving considerably faster, mainly because she wasn't carrying anything with her, she then had the cheek to ask him why he was moving so slowly, it sounded sarcastic and Sam hoped it was, it was quite obvious he was being slowed down by the bag he was carrying. "My apologize miss, please feel free to go on ahead to the gym and I'll meet you there, that is if you know where we are going..." he said as if it was a question, but he already knew the answer. If Sam wasn't walking in public with her he would have just teleported near to the gym and saved the whole journey, but Sam knew she wouldn't have been able to keep up.

Sam walked into the gym with some confidence, he saw a lot of familiar faces who also recognized him, he greeted them all individually, some more formal than others whilst Zoe was of doing whatever it was she was doing, some of his friends asked him who she was, the pair hadn't really talked about it that much yet, so he simply called her a friend. Zoe had wandered off somewhere and was possibly lost, but there was nothing much Sam could do, he would just have to hope that they found each other in the future, he placed his bag in his locker and moved onto some of the machines in his bid to make himself fitter.

Zoe grinned and bumped him slightly with her hip before letting him continue forward. She followed him until she figured out where he was going. She could hear his friends whispering about her behind their hands causing her to stifle a growl… mortals and their gossip… Zoe didn’t like it. Then Zoe left to go grab some things at the store, a change of clothing and some other things mainly.

Then Zoe vanished into the girl’s locker room where they had showers, built in blow dries, and of course lockers. Zoe cleaned herself up and ran her fingers through her long red hair before adding a brush to help with the detanglement process. When her hair was dry from the showers and she had put on the new change of clothes, devoid of tags, Zoe stuffed all of the extra clothing in a locker before going to hunt down Sam.

He appeared to be playing with some sort of mortal work out machine so she moved over to a different room. They looked like they were fencing in white suits.
Before long Zoe had managed to borrow a protective white suit and a foil. They were light unlike the swords Zoe was use to, with that. She and her opponent began to spar.
It was clear Zoe had the upper hand, she did swordfight all the time when she was younger… before she knew what she was.

Sam had just finished his fight with a punching bag for the past half an hour or so, luckily he had brought his tape with him to tie up his fists so he did not hurt himself. He wiped himself down as he turned into the locker room, he swung his door open and pulled out a bottle of water before slamming it shut. Sam was taking several sips as he strolled throughout the gym, watching the other people around him work out for their own personal reasons, Sam walked past a large window leading to another room, he took a quick glance in and continued walking before realizing something, he took a step back and looked again, there were around 10 people in the room with 2 of them fencing at a time, he caught the face of one of them before they put on their masks for another bout, it seemed he had found Zoe. He watched as she danced around the person she was facing and defeated her with ease, the other people who looked like they were waiting for their turn started to back away slowly, as if now they wanted nothing to do with this new challenger. Sam was impressed that Zoe could pick it up this quickly and beat people that have probably been training it their whole lives. It was frowned upon, but Sam sat down on one of the machines that were not being used and watched Zoe fence elegantly.

Zoe pulled her mask of and shook hands with her opponent who had lost fantastically. Another man, looking to be around the same age as Sam walked up, looking determined and very insistent on sparring with her. Zoe bowed at her waist.

“As you wish,” She placed the protective head gear back on her head, shielding her freckled face. With that they began, it was mixed with parries and other swords like movements but in a matter of moments the young man had lost.
Zoe waved off another challenger, spotting Sam. She pulled off the head gear and protective suit before wandering over to him.

“I thought you were playing with your man toys?” She teased him, before sitting down next to him, arching a red eyebrow. A few of Sam’s friends were eyeing her suspiciously but she ignored them.

Sam watched as Zoe came over to him, he scooted over slightly to allow her to take a seat next to him. He laughed at the little joke that Zoe said before replying "And I see you have been busy making friends and poking them with sticks" he verbally jabbed back before taking a sip of his drink, almost spitting it back out when he saw the face that Zoe was pulling. He could hear mumbling behind the pair of them, he peaked over Zoe's shoulder to see several of his friends standing in a group and watching them, Sam sighed as he turned back around so he was sitting normally "I swear it's like I'm back at school with these people sometimes, if they are making you uncomfortable I can go and have a chat with them, or give them a couple of punches, it's up to you really."

Sam noticed that Zoe was looking a lot more refreshed now than when he saw her a short while ago, it looked she had cleaned herself and what not, why she didn't do it in his home baffled him, perhaps she didn't quite feel comfortable doing it yet, which was quite understandable.

Zoe chuckled, “I have been fighting with swords for as long as I can remember, those are just shiny skewers.”

Or rather, silver tooth picks that are not dangerous at all… it rather took all the fun out of fencing.
She crossed her legs and tilted her head towards him, “I wouldn’t know. I have never been to school. Yet I can speak over a dozen languages and blend into about every culture. But one thing I have learned, I don’t care about what people think.”

With that she gave him a kiss. Zoe’s sensitive ears picked up tiny gasps of protest from the female population of friends and she smiled to herself. “It appears,” She said with her mouth close to his ear. “You have a fan club.”

With that she bounded to her feet and offered a hand to pull him up wanting to go investigate this place’s pool. It had been quite a long time since she had been swimming and being wet was appealing to her soul at this moment in time.

Sam was not expecting a kiss with so many eyes watching the two of them, although it did provoke a reaction from some of his friends. Sam assumed the fan club in question was his group of friends behind him, he was quite popular in the group and no doubt would that kiss provoke some kind of gossip to go around. Zoe shot to her feet and offered Sam a hand, he clasped it and pushed himself up. Sam did not have much time to relax as Zoe was already pulling him to where she wanted to go, with his other hand he tossed his plastic bottle of water at his friends, sending them a message before he would be able to tell it to them personally. He watched the signs as he was dragged by, it did not take long until he realized where they were going, all arrows pointed to the swimming pool, literally.

The pool area was completely empty, there was no one in it, in the jacuzzi or anyone walking around in general, it was completely abandoned. Zoe walked forward and stared at the pool, Sam quickly poked his head out of the door to make sure none of his friends had decided to follow him and see what happens. He stepped beside her and looked at his reflection before looking at Zoe, he wasn't planning on jumping into the pool so he did not bring any extra swimwear or a towel to dry himself, the shorts that he was currently wearing would have to take one for the team. He pulled off his shirt, shoes and socks and tossed them onto a bench beside him before lowering himself into the pool, it was quite warm due to the sun beaming in through several of the skylights, he span around and looked to Zoe, waiting for her to get in.

Zoe had been wearing a swim suit underneath so she just pulled off her shirt, shoes, and jeans before cannonballing in.  She came up soaked in her pale blue two piece swim suit, her red hair clinging to her face.

Her back was to Sam while she shook the hair out of her face, treading water.
“Well…” She stated, gliding towards him. “This is wet.”
She managed to keep a straight face for a few seconds before she dissolved into a fit of giggles at the horrible joke.  “I’m sorry… that’s not even funny…”

She settled down on the underwater bench beside him, relaxing against the wall and letting her muscles uncoil from being so tense. Zoe tilted her head back and sighed, exposing the hollow of her throat, which was surprisingly freckle-less. Just white skin.  This was one of the few moments were she could be completely relaxed.

Sam was stationary at the side of the pool, he watched as Zoe stripped down to her swimsuit and jumped right in, closing his eyes as small water droplets splattered against his face. Zoe re appeared out of the water and was completely drenched from head to toe, she shook her head and scattered water in all manner of directions before nearing Sam. Sam got the joke in his head but chose not to laugh at it, he could see by the look on Zoe's face that she wanted to, and it didn't take too long for her to, her laughter caused Sam to laugh and shake his head, disappointed that Zoe couldn't keep a straight face about it all, she apologized for it later but Sam was not fussed.

It had been a while since Sam was in a pool, he was generally too focused on working out and remaining fit to relax in the pool, he was all for it though. The water was just the right temperature to relax in, Sam had his arms along the edge of the pool just like he would do at home, the only difference was that there was no TV and a lot more water. Sam held his breath and quickly dunked his head underwater before rising back up, he ran his hand through his hair to keep it spiked it up, "If only it was this quiet all of the time, I would spend more time here, it's mostly filled with kids and I'm not a very kid person, always running around screaming, and when they learn what "No" means you won't hear the end of it... Don't get me wrong, I would love to have kids in the future and I've always thought I would be an alright father and I just realized this is quite an awkward topic to talk about at this point in time..."

Zoe’s eyes had closed and she could feel Sam shifting around next to her, vanishing under the water and coming back up. She guessed this due to the signs of splashing water and the noise of bubbles. Then he started rambling about kids and her eyes snapped open, watching him with a neutral expression. It was one of those moments were she seemed to be considering him as well as formulating a response. But, Zoe seemed strangely closed off on this topic.

“Life is filled with awkward topics,” She stated finally, her eyes drifting back closed. “Children are just one of those things that naturally happen… I never expected to have Josh. I had just been feeling sick for a while and finally went to an underworld doctor. Hey! Guess what Zoe! You pregnant with a half human kid! That went over great with the council.”

She said the last sentence sarcastically before opening her eyes and looking at Sam, “But I guess if a person’s heart is in the right place and you want that kid to be even better than you ever were, it’s all good.”

Zoe’s eyes seemed sad for a fraction of a second as she dwelled on what was lost before she forced herself to cheer up. “Anyway… you don’t know awkward until you’ve seen a knight trip over his own sword while trying to woo a girl, now that’s awkward.”

Sam laughed before saying "Yeah that does sound pretty awkward... Having kids is something that a lot of people want to live with, its a once in a lifetime opportunity and I would like to have at least one... but perhaps this a discussion for another time." Sam pushed his chin underwater and started to make some bubbles, he then pushed himself away from the wall and tread some water in the centre of the pool, with a quick flick of a wrist Sam sent some water droplets towards Zoe, most of them splashing around her, but the thought was still there.

In the interest of not giving Zoe the satisfaction of splashing him back, he sunk under the water and swam around for a short while, wondering if Zoe was planning anything on the surface to get him back.