Welcome to Gaia! ::

Of all the myriad of holidays to be had throughout the year, at least in Abbi's mind, the worst of them all was Halloween. There was never anything on TV that wasn't spooky, she was never invited to parties so all her cool costumes ideas were wasted on little kids at the door who didn't know what a Quarian was, and to top it all off, tourism is her hometown exploded for the entire month what with all the haunted houses and old bed and breakfasts. She spent a month giving directions to random people who stopped their cars while she walked to and from school. The only good thing that came out of the whole holiday was the insane amount of candy her father felt it necessary to buy and pumpkin spice everything. Otherwise Abbi would have been perfectly happy to avoid it all.
But at Deus there were no trick or treaters, or scary TV shows, or stupid tourists, but there was honest Halloween a portal hop and golem rental away.
And that's what made Deus at once better, and much worse.

This all probably explained why she was so antsy, more so than usual, this year as she worked alongside Jack. She didn't dance so much as tip toe around and jump at any loud noise. Totally knowing that there was nothing to be frightened of here on Deus, Abbi had heard stories of all the crazy things that had happened in previous years from the Infirmary Oldies and might have put herself on edge.
And, well, there was that whole thing of she had something very important to tell Jack and he was working beside her this afternoon...

"O-oh! Yeah! Jogging is great!" She chirped as she scrubbed down next to him, congratulating herself on making it through their entire shift without spilling the beans. "Can I come too? I mean, I probably won't be able to keep with your mile long grand-daddy-long-legs, but I can try!"
Quickly she peeked out the window only to frown at the dark sky a moment later.
"I hate dark and stormy nights. I hate rain." No rain please.

Perhaps the startled jump into the air and then point of a soapy, accusatory finger was a little bit of an overreaction.
"Hey! Don't hate on a girl for hatin' on the rain!" Abbi pouted and scrubbed her hands together in a very frustrated manner. "Not all of us are Manic Pixie Dream Girls who wanna play in the puddles." Really it was just that he mentioned Chel that had her so suddenly more on edge.
"I'm guessing Mr. Scorpio over here loves himself a good storm." It was incredibly hard for Abbi not to make a joke about Stormy at this juncture. But figuring she really didn't want to incite Jack's wrath, she kept that one to herself and reveled in Viveca's laughter on the matter.

"Good glob Jack, and you call yourself educated?" The girl scoffed and puffed all the while she toweled off her hands, though she finally gave up on that and started in on explaining to him what it was, sparing no amount of detail when it came to examples and reasons why it was a bad stereotype.
With that done she made at face about rain, but looked somewhat wistful for snow and eventually settled on a peppy nod for agreement to head out.

Man ok... How was she going to do this? Wait until they got down to the beach? Spring it on him now? Uh um er...
"So you doing anything special for your birthday?"

There was an unspoken appreciation for Jack's patience in the matter, as she felt it very important to thoroughly explain herself. But more than that, there was a form of adoration expressed through her enthusiasm and then once again by the lopsided grin she gave when he simply took everything she had to say and filed it away. It did mean a lot to her that he had come around to thinking of her as more than just a hyperactive kid, which was why Abbi had her plans for today.
And failure wasn't an option.

She listened to what he had to say, but it was all so... Well, kind of boring actually. Jack wasn't going to throw his own party or even doing anything special with his girlfriend? Bleck!
"Look at me, I'm taller than thou Jack and I have a million blind dates, boo-hoo to be so popular!" The words are jokingly said and Abbi sticks out a tongue at him. Hopefully he doesn't remember her asking about finding someone during their drunken outing...
"Not going to spend it with anyone special?"

"Wait, what?" Totally confused, Abbi pulled back from her previous canter that was more a mix of hop-skips and attempts at normal walking to keep up with Jack, and tried to raise one eyebrow. Since that was not a skill she possessed, she just looked very confused. "I'll believe that when I see it." He would probably have to bribe guys to go on a date with her.

As for the mention of Hanna, that's when Abbi refuses to keep walking. Except wait no, they're not at the beach yet and she has to have the perfect lighting and scene and grrrrr this otome game noise was difficult.
Quick to pick back up the pace and push them in the direction of the beach's better jogging trails, Abbi shot Jack a pout over her shoulder.
"I've read a lot of fanfiction, I'm sure you couldn't think of anything worse than a nerd high on unused lipido and a keyboard." Not that she wanted to make this a competition, of course...

"Uhhh... I was thinking of going to a party? I-D-K whose, usually one is thrown... Right? There was one last year..." Oh man, what if everyone decided parties were passe? She had bought such a hot costume what the heck!? "If not I guess I'll uh... Go trick or treating in the dorms. Show off my costume, yanno?"

Crapbaskets, he had remembered!
Conflicted only momentarily over the subject, Abbi flushed a bit but hurried after him all the same. The closer they got to the beach the more her stomach began to turn knots, the more she started to worry if this was really the right thing to do. There was a lot of doubt pouring in from Viveca, that traitor, but the girl nodded along to what Jack had to say.
No, she had to do this. She'd stuck herself in this mess, she was going to get herself back out of guilt free. It was just... Getting out of it with only loosing her guilt, that would be the trickiest part.

Having grown quiet, Abbi continued on after Jack as she pulled off the pastel colored scrubs and folded them carefully. Her eyes kept darting to her friend, horrified to find he wasn't going to waste any time about their run.
OK, OK. You can do this... OK, OK... Important... Winning love by daylight... Cloud light... Storm light?
Psyching herself out was going to be her undoing, probably already was, but Abbi rushed in front of Jack to awkwardly tap dance in front him in an effort to pause their run, her hands passing over her forehead, the back of her neck, nervous.
"Maybe? I-D-K." Not relevant.

"OK, look. I um... I have something for you. Its not from me, I'm actually- ha!- Not supposed to uh to tell you that... Its not from me. I mean, someone else bought it. OBVI. Um..." Crapcrapcrapcrap. "But its... Really important you know its A) Not from me and B) meant for you birthday! Which is tomorrow I know but I mean... I just... Oh glob I didn't think through why I was giving it to you today oH WAIT YES I DID! SO AS NOT TO RUIN YOUR BIRTHDAY whew A+ Abbi."
{ This is when you say... Ah... Wot's the phrase... Abort mission? }

"YES!" Noooooooooo. "NO?" Blarghaodgjkas'dg';asd. Abbi was not high enough level for this.
What if she wasn't high enough heart event for this? In her delusion musings she liked to assume Jack's heart was a happy little yellow color and when they reached their final level of ultimate friendship it would turn a lovely green color, just likes his eyes used to be. Ought to be. And today would be the event it either went green, or all black.
"OK, just B-T-W. AK is the best nickname I've acquired so far. I mean, 'Thigh Highs' is pretty boss too but AK is by far my favorite." Don't tell Chel. Oh sweet, she hadn't managed to say that out loud.

The teen took a few deep breaths before she reached into the pocket of her shorts and produced a very small box. It was wrapped in what looked like normal printer paper that had been stamped with alternating green, white, and black stripes. A very pretty dark green bow had been carefully wrapped around it, wrinkled in places to indicate a few attempts at the perfect tie.
"This is..." This is not how she expects this to go. This is not how she wants to do this, but Abbi isn't used to confrontation, she isn't to having to deal with emotions like this. Normally it something like fear or worry or intense regret that she hasn't tried hard enough, that she cannot save someone. But this strange, shifting selfish attempt at selflessness? She doesn't know how to handle it gracefully. "This is from Chel."

Another breathe is taken.
"She told me not to tell you... After we uh... After you and I went drinking in Prague... Super fun, B-T-W... I went to visit her in Quarantine. Funny story, actually." She laughs and passed a hand over her forehead again, stops it there and poses the other hand against her hip. "I uh... I made out with one of the Lifer techs there... The one with the nice hair? Like, really nice hair."