Out of all of the Cafe's in LA... [Closed to Ani]

Sam's makeshift home gym was decent enough, but it was no where near as efficient as the gym that he visited frequently just down the street. It was Wednesday noon and Sam had just finished his gym routine, after having a relaxing shower and packaging all of his personal equipment back up into a gym bag, he headed out in a hope to find a place to stop off and eat or drink, but mostly relax. The Los Angeles sun was beating down upon him as he donned a pair of shades and slung his bag over his shoulder before venturing out towards his home. This whole place seemed much more boring now that he had visited the Abyss a couple of times, all people would do is leave their houses to work and then return home later that day, there was no much excitement around and Sam was itching to get involved in something. He stopped by a small newspaper stand and purchased some chewing gum, he paid for it and tossed a piece into his mouth, giving it a nice refreshing feel to it. Sam turned a corner, one that he would take every time he would come home from the gym, but this time he looked across the street and noticed something, he had looked over there plenty of times, but this was the first time his mind had acknowledged the existence of a book store and cafe, it reminded him of the cafe he attended regularly back at home in England, besides the literacy part. He stopped and looked both ways before jogging across the street and pulling open the glass door to the sound of a light bell.

He peeled his sunglasses off as he looked around the cafe area to see a group of 4 girls chatting and a few couples spread throughout the rest of the seats, it almost made him feel quite sad to be coming in here alone. He approached the front desk that was surprisingly free and tugged his wallet out of his back pocket before asking for a regular coffee and a cheese and ham sandwich, the woman complied and poured out his coffee and reminded him that she would bring over his sandwich when it was ready, he scanned the floor to find any free seats and he noticed one tucked away in the corner, away from the general chatter. Sam took a seat and slipped a newspaper out of a stand before laying it out across the table and started to faintly scan through it, something on the first few pages caught his eye and made him feel cold inside, he quickly folded it back up and put it where he found it before accepting his sandwich and trying his best to relax.

Salone entered the shop, wearing a light black jacket and her long blonde hair pulled back into a half pony tail. She sighed as she glanced around the shop. The woman working the tiller greeted her, offering a smile and inquiring how she was doing.

“I’m good, fat if anything.” Salone responded with a flicker of her old humor. “I finished my book; do you have any new ones to recommend?”  

The girl smiled at Salone again, “Yeah, I get a break in about fifteen minutes. Anything you’re craving at the moment?”

“Hmm,” She responded thoughtfully, her fingers drumming lightly on the counter.  “What about one of those white mint hot chocolates,” Salone asked.

The server nodded, ringing up the order. Within a few minutes Salone had her white hot chocolate. The stuff was addictive like no other but that wasn’t why she loved it. She had first learned about the fantastic substance in high school and her best friend had told it was as close to heaven as a person could get.  Strangely enough she had not received any strong cravings for the stuff throughout her pregnancy, the cravings generally limited themselves to Nuttella, cupcakes, and fruit loops.

While her friend finished up her shift, Salone slid into a chair as she had recently discovered it was easy to get stuck in a booth at six months pregnant. After she had plopped herself down in a chair, Salone pulled a news paper towards her. Skimming the headlines and looking for anything interesting; not even bothering to look at the people around her.

Sam was preoccupied with finding the right music to listen to from his iPod, he had several different playlists to choose from all ranging from reason to reason, unfortunately he did not have a Cafe playlist to listen to so he had it set on random for now. Sam could feel how important technology was in this day and age, he had music blaring out into his earphones from one device and he was checking his text messages on another, he was completely cut off from the outside world. He managed to pull his gaze away from his small screen for just a second to locate his mug of coffee as he took a sip of it without causing any spillages, as he put the mug back down he took a quick look at the pregnant woman leaving the counter and it caused him to start thinking of children of his own, it was far too soon to be thinking about it as a couple yet, but there was nothing wrong with him and Zoe thinking about it on their own separately. He found himself to be staring at the woman far longer than he expected to as possible child names flowed through his brain, he saw the woman turn beside her and snag a newspaper, Sam only saw the face of the woman for less than two seconds, but he felt like he knew her although as far as he could remember, he didn't have any pregnant friends.

Sam looked through all of the people that he knew in his mind and matched faces all around until he figured out who it was that had just walked in. "Uh oh..." he thought as he slowly slumped down in his chair slightly in a hope that he was somehow completely invisible, "I should say something right?... It's been a while since we've last seen each other, and it clearly looks like she's moved on from our little situation we had a while ago... Time to act like an adult, go over there and say hello" he thought, as if he was having an argument with himself, he was reluctant to say anything, but it would look more embarrassing for the pair to be in such close proximity with one another and neither of them say anything. Sam took another swig of his coffee before he pushed himself up from his seat and he ventured over to this woman who he hoped was who he was thinking of. He drew closer and lightly placed his hand on the back of her shoulder as he leaned around into her view, "Salone?" he half asked, he was fairly confident it was her, but if he was wrong then it was less embarrassing than outright assuming.

Turning the page of the news paper Salone yawned before jumping at a hand on her shoulder. She swiveled around to the best of her ability and looked up into Sam’s face, his brow uncharacteristically crinkled.

She smiled slightly, as her face still didn’t seem to be working properly due to Jake’s death that lingered in the front of her mind. But her voice was warm and welcoming rather than cool, “Hey.”
Salone looked pretty much the same facial wise, same freckles on the bridge of her nose and same old scar, tiny and by the corner of her mouth. Stomach wise she was much wider and occasionally Salone could feel the baby move around. It was strange to be at such a point in time.
“How have you been?” She asked, her voice still sounding genuinely happy to see him.

From a first glance Salone had not changed all that much, beside the other human growing inside of her. "I've been doing fine I guess, things have happened, I've met new people, I'm still healthy, can't ask for much else to be honest, do you mind if I take a seat?" Salone seemed to be happy to see him and was ok with letting him sit with her until they were finished talking, he wasn't quite sure whether he should bring over his things from the other table because he wasn't actually quite sure how long the conversation would last, would they talk for long or was it just a strange occurrence to see each other?

Sam grabbed the chair across from her and span it around, sitting down on it backwards. "So what have you been up to? I see your body has changed quite significantly and congratulations on that, do you know a lot of information about the little one yet? Are they coming soon?" he asked, he was genuinely interested in knowing more, he didn't get very close to many people in this city but Salone was one of those people that he was close to, their friendship may have been quite rocky, but he hoped that the time they had spent away from each other had cleared things up a bit, it certainly did on Sam's end.

Salone shook her head, showing she didn't mind. In response Sam did his usual thing of sitting on his chair backwards, this caused a look of amusement to cross the woman's face.

"Well that hasn't changed," Salone stated, sipping her drink."You and your flair for sitting down on chairs, I mean." She clarified, her dark brown gold eyes watching him from over the rim of her cup. Then Sam looked pointedly down at her swollen stomach and questioned her. Salone made a small noise, it was another one of amusement. She was constantly asked these questions and people assumed she was further along than she actually was because she was huge.

"Recovering mostly," Salone stated, looking at her drink again, debating about how much to share.

"Saying that my body has changed is a nice way of saying my six pack is shot and I look like I swallowed a deflated basketball." She adjusted her position on her seat before answering his other two questions, "I'm having a girl and no I don't have a name picked out. I am rather stumped on this, I guess I will just have to see her first. I'm about six months along so she is due in three months. If she keeps growing like this I wont be able to fit through the door of my house." Salone sighed, rubbing the top of her stomach absent mindedly.

Sam looked down as she commented on his choice of seating, he did not think he sat like this very often, but apparently he did it more than he realized. Sam assumed Salone had been asked these questions before, he was waiting for some kind of rehearsed statement that she had told over and over again. He was indeed trying to sugar coat Salone's change in size, but that wasn't a bad thing, he was just trying to be polite, but seems that Salone was willing to insult herself to a certain extent, it certainly made the topic easier to talk about.

Sam stared at Salone's face for a few seconds and remembered back to the times before they dissapeared from each others lives, the thoughts and feelings that he had in the past came back to him, but not enough for him to feel any different about their relationship, Sam was happy with Zoe now and he didn't want to ruin it, she was actually the woman that helped him move past Salone which he found slightly amusing. "A girl huh? Hopefully she'll be easier to take care of than having a son and at least you are into the second half of pregnancy, the worst of it should be behind you now. I'm sure you will think of a perfect name when the time comes, just going to slip it in now that Sam is a unisex name..." he said jokingly, he saw no chance of Salone naming her child after him, but it was worth a try.

"The beginning was horrible," Salone agreed. "I became fantastic friends with the bathroom and my bed." She sighed before rolling her eyes at Sam's very obvious hint. "Sorry, but this child is a little to violent to be a Samantha. Ouch!"
As if waiting to be addressed, the baby lashed out with a hand or a foot (she couldn't tell) causing Salone to wince. Her fingers drifted down to the spot to feel for any more activity. Finding none she reached over for her drink again, "See what I mean?"

She took a drink, thinking to herself that this child was going to have her father's temper. It took quite a bit to get Salone mad and Jake was the only person she had known that could get her worked up in such a short period of time.

"The bad thing about sharing a home with Penny is that she constantly dotes, apparently being pregnant gives everyone permission to touch your belly or let you be coddled. I had enough coddling when I was in the hospital." Salone had gone off on her own tangent and she jolted herself back to the real world.
"So what about you? Anything exciting going on? How is the kitten?"

Sam was sitting calmly until Salone seemed to wince in slight pain, he was almost out of his seat when Salone was suddenly uncomfortable. "Names can be based on a level of violence now? So something like War Machine must be in the running right now then right?" he asked sarcastically, his mind then wandered onto what Salone had said, the name Sam to her seemed like not a very violent name, the events that transpired a few nights ago rang into his brain, the time when he killed a criminal in cold blood and let a woman die on the ground for his own benefit, he was staring at the same spot on the table for some time, the sound all around him had drowned out as he felt like he could hear the criminal beg for his life as if he was there again.

Sam shook his head slightly as he tried his hardest to concentrate back onto the conversation, unfortunately he missed a small piece and he returned to it as Salone was explaining how she had been coddled enough in hospital, Sam just tried to nod as if he had been listening the whole time.

"Me? hmm..." There was so much more that he could tell Salone, but he simply couldn't.

"The kitten certainly has... grown up quickly I suppose you could say." he said with a smile to himself. "Still doing what I do at night for now, I'm thinking about giving that stuff up though... Still trying to look for a job I would like to do so I can get enough money for any further education, but it's kind of a vicious cycle right now... Oh, I met a girl, Zoe, we're living together now which is quite exciting, she moved in a short while ago... Little things here and there, nothing really too crazy, how about you? Who's the lucky man?" The little things in question were certainly not little, these things were life changing, but for Salone's benefit he would keep his mouth shut about it, she has plenty of things to be worrying about anyway.

Salone rolled her eyes, "Samantha sounds like a name for a princess, someone dainty and proper. If she is anything like what I feel, she is so far from that."
It was slightly amusing that the time collector would make such an assumption. Salone listened with undivided attention, "Really? That's great!" Salone stated at Sam having a girlfriend who he was possibly getting serious with. She was happy for him and her voice reflected her emotions. However, her face darkened at Sam's questions.
"Jake, he died the same day I found out." Salone swallowed, suddenly becoming very interested in her drink. "Killed by a titan named Sean."
Her voice was filled with sorrow and loss not hatred towards the creature that had killed Jake. She cleared her throat and took another swallow of her drink.
"Ever since then I learned that fruit loops and nuttella are weird cravings to have and after a certain point when I look down I cant see my toes."
Sliding back slightly in her chair, Salone closed her eyes for a brief moment as she rubbed her dragon knight medallion between her fourth finger and thumb.

Sam was surprised at the level of enthusiasm that Salone shared when he explained how he was in a relationship, to be honest he didn't know what to expect as a reply to that, but he was happy that she was happy for him. That excitement was shattered in a matter of seconds as Sam realized he had asked a question that he really shouldn't have "Oh..." he said as his chin fell onto his arms that were covering the top of the chair, he was sad to hear the bad news, it was sad to hear anyone talk about a deceased loved one.

"Oh?..." he said slightly differently, as if it was a question on the second part. It appeared his Titan buddy Sean had been getting up to no good, Sam couldn't say anything about knowing the man that killed the father of Salone's kid and he definitely couldn't say anything about him being of the same species of the murderer. "That's a real shame, I'm sorry to hear that" he said genuinely. Sam wasn't really sure how to feel about this, he was upset for Salone that this had happened to her, he was also angry at Sean for doing this, but there was nothing he could do about it, maybe he could bring it up to Sean at some point in the future, but right now he would have to keep quiet about it.

"Well... If you ever need someone to talk to, I still live in the same place so feel free to come over, if you even live here still, I haven't seen you since... well you know..."

Salone gave him a sharp look at his reaction to Jake's death, as if questioning Sam on something that neither of them were sure on. But she didn't comment. Then at Sam's offer Salone smiled slightly.
"Sam, don't worry about it." She reached over and ruffled his hair in a familiar fashion. "That was almost a year ago. Oh, speaking of which."
Salone reached into her pocket and pulled out her keys and removed Sam's apartment key.
"Your girlfriend might want that."
The key glinted were it sat on the oak wood table while Salone finished her drink. "As for talking, dont promise that to a pregnant woman, we are a psychotic bunch."
That they were... at least Salone hadn't done anything major... yet...

Sam flinched slightly as Salone leaned over to ruffle his hair, he wasn't used to it anymore although Zoe had a habit of running her fingers through it, there must just be something about it that makes people want to touch it. He raised his eyebrows in surprise as he watched Salone pull his apartment key off of her chain before placing it on the table in front of him, he was more shocked at the fact that she had held onto that key for so long, if it was Sam in this situation, he probably wouldn't even remember what the key was for after not using it for so long, "She seems perfectly happy to pick the lock and break into my apartment whenever she needs to right now, but I'm sure she will appreciate it." he said, it sounded like he was joking... but he really wasn't.

"I don't know, I've met some characters over the past year and they have been quite eye opening to talk to, I'm sure you would be ok" Sam said as he unzipped his black and red hoodie and shimmied it off of his shoulders, he whipped it around the chair he was seated on before placing it over the back and leaning on it for comfort. Sam slid the key off of the table and placed it into his pocket, as he looked down to his pocket to direct the keys trajectory, he noticed that his tattoos were coming through his shirt and were clearly noticeable, "Oh yeah, these are new too" he said as he pulled his collar down slightly, allowing Salone to get a better look at the tattoos that now covered most of his body.

Salone let out a breathless sound that sounded like a shadow of a laugh. Another thing that had changed about her, she wasn't as happy as she once had been.
"Sounds like quite a fiery handfull you have there. But, I think you can manage."
True Zoe could be quite feisty when she wanted to be. But around Sam she attempted to relax and if she wasnt... generally it meant she was busy using up all the duct tape, but Salone didn't know that.

"As interesting as the people I know?" The retired bounty hunter asked, a faint line of teasing in her voice. "Or people beyond what I usually deal with?"
Salone sounded amused again. She remained silent as he showed that tattoos. They reminded Salone of the ones the titan Sean had. Strange and coiling like another language as well as symbols. The time collector kept her face neutral, Sam would tell her if he wanted to. A cold feeling however settled in the pit of her stomach.
"Huh," Was all she said. "I never picked you out as a tattoo kind of person."

"Yeah, she's definitely... something" he said, that could have meant an all manner of different things, but he was mainly edging towards the fact that he could have tried to date any girl he wanted, and he ended up with a woman from the underworld who was a hunter of demons, she's not exactly the easiest person to deal with, she has a tendency to worry.

"Well I don't quite know who you have had to deal with, but I've met some interesting people, not very interesting to talk to them though, I must say I have missed out shenanigans" he said as he leaned back on his chair, but was still grasped onto the front with his hands. Sam noticed Salone was quite quiet when he showed off his tattoo's, there was a possibility that she had already seen this type of tattoo before on Sean and Salone was probably smart enough to put it all together and figure out what Sam was now, he gulped slightly before trying to play it cool and not blurt it out loud to her in the small chance that she hadn't quite figured it out yet. "Well a lot has changed over the past year Salone, I'm a new man!" he said as he raised his arms out by his side, causing a small piece of his shoulder tattoo to peak through the sleeve of his shirt. "Getting over you was the first step, from there it was it all looking up, I met a girl, got some new friends, got a hobby, my life can't really get much better for me... hell these tattoo's have been a big help too, really made me feel more independent you know? I'm one guy in this world and I can do whatever I want with no limitations" Sam stopped as he realized he was getting off topic, he had not seen this woman in over a year and he was going into a monologue about his life, he did not want to bore her with that.

Sam excused himself for just a moment as he brought over his food and drink from the other table, he also picked up his gym bag and set it down just beside the table the two were sitting at.