Tate was an impatient girl sometimes, especially when wearing her Meadowview-assigned gym uniform in the park after school. In most civilized areas of the States, high schoolers didn't have uniforms. She had heard tell of counties in New Jersey laughing when parents brought petitions for uniforms to them. And then there was Destiny City. And she had to be sectioned into one of five uniformed schools in the city.

At least the girl's uniform wasn't so bad as the guy's. Poor Ladon. It did save teasing in the subject of gym clothes, it was just...

Orange was not Tate's color. She picked unhappily at the sleeves of her cream-colored shirt, frowned at the orange shorts and then at her white sneakers.

Sigh.

It wasn't even like Ladon was late. She had gotten here early, just in case. It was just, well. One guy asking if her legs 'went all the way up' was enough.

Since Ladon was use to shorts, the school uniform didn’t bother him. In fact, he liked the idea that no one could tease him for wearing shorts since all the boys had to. It pretty meant that as long as you didn’t go wearing rainbow bangles on your arms and bunny earrings, no one could poke fun at your clothes. Still, it really didn’t do some boys to wear shorts when most of them were becoming harrier, lankier, and making everyone wish that the uniform provided more coverage. Some speculated that’s why Hillworth boys were more attractive simply because most guys looked better in a nice shirt and pants. When it came to orange to plaid, most people picked plaid.

A runner before he even went into track, Ladon was both comfortable in shorts and had more than the standard set of gym clothes. Since he had no idea if he should bring backpack, he just decided to walk, and tucked his house keys in his pocket with his cellphone, put on a watch to measure his heart rate, and grabbed a bottle of water before he left. He thought about bringing two water bottles, but he didn’t know if Tate brought one, and if she didn’t, would she mind sharing? There was a fountain if she didn’t.

Arriving a little later, Ladon spotted Tate in her gym clothes. Waving, he came over and smiled. Tate, him, and the park. It was great! “Hi! Didn’t expect you to be here before me.” He looked around, seeing that there weren’t a lot of people out. “Seems we’ll have the park pretty much to ourselves.” Which could be because it was rather gloomy outside. Still, there was a cool, fast wind moving through the trees and he felt a electricity in the air that made him glad to be outside. “Well, I guess we should start, right? Did you stretch first?”


She slid off the bench onto the grass as he approached, smiling a little bit shyly. As he approached, she reached for her toes--might as well pretend she'd been doing something. "I didn't want to be late," Tate said, climbing back to her feet. She looked around and scowled. "It's a good thing, too, the other people who were here were dou-- ah, jerks."

Being around Ladon made her want to watch her mouth. It wasn't that she thought he was a kid--but--It was kind of sad, but she felt like she shouldn't curse around him. She brushed off her shorts, though there was nothing on them. "I guess so," she said, and then, "sort of."

Honestly, Mr. Collins' gym class drove her nuts with all the stretching. And then the running. She sighed. "As much as I do in gym class, anyway." Tate shrugged and reached towards her feet again. Almost, but not quite...

Moving over, he started to do his own stretches with more flexibility, enthusiasm, and seriousness than Tate. As he bent low, touching his toes, he looked over at her. “It’s really good to stretch just a little. Even jogging can pull something and the last thing you want to do is get a stitch in your side to stop you before you start. That or sprain an ankle. Now that hurts.” Ladon spoke from experience, weaving his fingers together before stretching them out. “It also makes you more flexible and starts your heart rate.” His words came out to suggest his coach gave a similar speech to the track team countless times. “It’s good to just do it for a few minutes. Kay?” It took them only a few minutes before Ladon deemed they were ready to start. He was just more aware that Tate wasn’t use to running, which mean she could pull a muscle or even throw up. He didn’t want that to happen, and wanted to be safe.

Turning, they went to the jogging trail that started, a small sign indicating the way to take. “I’m sorry some guys were hassling you. If we see them, we can just slow down or take another way. I usually don’t like jogging near strangers. It’s kind of weird.” It was like you were stalking them or being stalked.

With that, they started to slowly jog. Since they were taking it easy, he decided to talk just a little. If he saw Tate strain or have a hard time breathing, he’d shut up. “Have you been to the park a lot?”


After the pep talk, she actually put her mind into stretching. With effort--and grumbles--she could wrap her fingertips around her toes. Barely, and it hurt. Ouch. She flopped back and examined the toes of her sneakers. Was it really worth it to get more fit? Man, she couldn't outrun them...

Then she scrambled up and joined Ladon at the trail. "No," she said, by which she meant 'if you want to'. She filed away the little tidbit of information as they started to move. The pace was easy, which she appreciated. It wasn't hard to imagine someone like her not actually engaging in much physical activity beyond the requirements for gym, which she had very predictably left until her senior year. Sigh.

"No," she said again; after a bit of a wait, she remembered the promise she made to be more open, and she continued: "I don't like the bugs. I don't mind seeing them but they crawl on me, and... yes."

Sigh. Exercise wasn't really her thing, but they were only a little ways in--Tate would be good for a while yet.

It seemed the enjoyment of the run was only one-sided, and he hoped he could make Tate see exercise as something more fun, exciting, and beneficial than what most people saw it as; A pain in the a**. Still, it was hard to force your passion and enthusiasm on someone else, but with a bit of pep and his company, maybe he could get her up to the point to see that it wasn't too bad. And hey, he just learned that Tate didn't like bugs. At least not ones that crawled on you, but who did?

"Well, there are plenty of bug sprays for that." It was almost brutal how upbeat he was trying to be. "I love being outside. Being inside all day, you miss out on the seasons and even the weather." Not that today's weather was any good. "It's great during spring. Just you, in the woods, and you see and hear all the trees around you. You can't put that on a cd. Nope." Even though they tried. It was more like the world's weirdest jungle meshing animals, bugs, and every manner of babbling brook together on one disc. If people wanted to listen to nature, they should go camping.

"Do you ever go out camping?" They turned a corner, finding the trail clear. Dark shadows moved through the trees from the sky above, and a pleasant wind rushed through to cool them.

His enthusiasm irritated her for a long, long minute. Then she shrugged it off (or tried to). She liked his enthusiasm for most things, for things that she liked too--she could appreciate this too, right? And she had asked him to let her join him. Her smile pulled a bit at the corner of her mouth, and then she settled back into a sort of unhappy, dogged concentration.

Ugh. She was really bad at this jogging thing.

"I guess so," she said, drawing a comparison to her love of the ocean. Or the beach, anyway; she'd never been on a boat, had no idea if she got seasick or not, but remembered very clearly feeling joy even when falling off flood walls.

Tate smiled at Ladon again, then nodded. "Yeah. Girl scout camp. With Giselle. Fourth to eighth grades. Then we were too old. And I didn't-- didn't care anymore." She blew her hair out of her eyes. Didn't it sting now, huh. She hadn't cared, had blown her best friend off, and now they barely saw each other.

It didn’t seem his technique was working, and he looked on ahead, thinking of some other way he could approach this. Thinking back to his coach, he doubted that inspiring them with ideas of winning a race was going to help. Tate was only here to get fast enough to be safe, and while he knew that this method wouldn’t work, he did like the fact he could spend more and more time with her. Still, he didn’t want her to be miserable in his company, which only had the complete opposite effect of what he wanted. He wanted her to see him as something to have fun with, and most importantly, to come to when she needed to talk.

The mention of Giselle made part of his enthusiasm died down, not liking the idea of other friends, especially childhood ones. There was little way he could compete with someone who knew Tate when she was young. “You mentioned her before. Giselle. She seems like your best friend. You knew each other since how long?” If she told him about their parents sharing the same hospital room at birth, he was going to run into a tree.


"Since I was five," she said. "Ballet classes--we fought over the same place on the barre." Tate had the height and the build to be a good dancer. She just didn't have the motivation, or, well, the attitude. Things got hard, Tate tended to get going unless she was incredibly attached to something. She seemed to be incredibly attached to Giselle. Also to life, but who wasn't? Most people loved living.

She slowed down a little, convinced there was a stitch in her side or something. They had gone a good distance, she thought--or, well, a good distance for someone whose sum total of recent exercise came from fleeing the ******** away from that stupid blue-haired midget and also gym class. "We don't talk much, anymore." Absently, she came to a stop, reached out to curl her fingers around Ladon's elbow. "Give me a minute," she asked, sounding amused. "I am two whole years older than you are, I am practically a relic."

If he agreed, she'd hit him upside the head. She put her hands on her knees and hung her own head. The brunette locks formed a lovely curtain between them as she caught her breath.

Ever since the dance, Ladon knew that Tate had grace. She’d been a great partner for Howl, dressed in rich greens as she moved, which didn’t make it hard for him to imagine her as a young girl, bickering with some faceless girl for the prime spot on the bar. While he could see that, he could not picture Tate in a tutu now. His imagination refused. What he couldn’t get was that with the stamina for dance with it rigorous practicing and routines, Tate wasn’t in shape anymore and didn’t seem to enjoy exercise. From ballet to girl scouts, she now showed now that she didn’t get out much anymore. At least not in the way of dancing and hiking. The Tate he saw liked reading and snuggling inside to play video games and watch movies. Did something happen or did she just grow up? He didn’t think bugs would have been the major cause.

He slowed when asked, and stood beside her, breathing deep, but shook his head. “For a relic, you still made it pretty far.” This gave him a good smack to the head, and he gripped it, surprised. It wasn’t something she usually did, and then he realized that she was just playing with him. “Heeeyyy!”

Rubbing the back of his head (Tate was pretty strong), he dropped his hands and watched her. “It’s not good to just stop. It’s bad on the heart. It spikes up higher.” He took her hand, softly, and gripped is fingers around two of her own, taking them up to press against his neck. “See. Can’t you feel how hard my heart is beating?” He craned to look into her eyes, then smiled, releasing her hand. Then, slowly, he reached through her hair and pressed his small fingers against her neck. “You’re heart is beating fast, too.”


"It's okay," she said at his 'heyyyy'. "Sorry, Ladon." She lifted her head a little to meet his gaze, her lips tugged into a miniscule smile. As he lectured, she straightened up a little bit, her arms swinging by her sides. It was a credit to his friendship that he let go of her fingers; it was a testament to it that she hadn't yanked them away wholesale in the first place.

Blushing, she mumbled, "Yeah." She had, of course, learned how to take her own pulse during physical education, but never had she really felt someone else's. Heartbeats were associated with closeness, or else impending doom, and she glanced left and right as if looking for someone. A stalker, she was thinking, imagining a giant inbred monster--but nothing. It was just the two of them.

She was not romantically interested in Ladon. Right?

"Y-yeah," she repeated, red to the roots of her hair. "So--do we walk for a bit or something?"

Tate seemed distracted, and he noticed his hands against hers, and the way she was looking about. Was she…embarrassed he was touching her? The thought struck him hard, and he looked around, seeing that everyone was gone. Slowly, he withdrew his hand, feeling the thudding of his heart grow painful and cold. While Tate had told Wolframite she liked the attention, kissed him a while back, even held his hand, these had been private moments. Wolframite was someone she didn’t think would ever see Ladon and talk to him. There had been no one on that cold day on the beach, and in her apartment, there hadn’t even been Parker to notice them. What if she was embarrassed to be around him in that way? What if she just liked him as a friend and was being friendly?

What if he was putting too much into nothing?

A pulling pain dragged his stomach down, and he held his hands on the side, rubbing his fingertips together as if he could still feel her thudding against them. Touch of flushed skin. Soft hair.

“Yeah, we should walk.” Side by side, they walked again, and he noticed how Tate didn’t seem to be having any fun and wasn’t saying much. She wasn’t enjoying herself at all. “Sorry it’s not fun. I’m not a good teacher.” He looked on ahead and watched as dried leaves brushed against the path. “

For a moment, he looked at her, and felt an unnaturally bitterness. She was embarrassed because it was him, wasn’t it? He wasn’t anything special at all. There was no way anyone fell for a boy who was shorter than they were, acted like a child, was younger, and who didn’t even act like a man. A familiar loathing washed over him. Girls went after tall, older, cool guys who knew all the right moves, had cars, and had plenty of experience. Just thinking of Zachary, Tate’s ex, he knew this boy had these qualities. The ‘bad’ boy from Hillworth, who had fun with girls.

What chance did he have?

“You know, if you don’t want to run anymore, I won’t mind. I know I’m not the best partner.” A raindrop fell on the path, slowly followed by another.


"Huh, what?" She looked down at him, surprise in her dark eyes. It wasn't fun, but that was because she wasn't good at it yet. Probably she wouldn't be good at it, in almost never. For a long moment, she walked in silence, puzzling over this development. Ladon thought he wasn't a good teacher--she didn't have a lot of experience with good teachers. Mr. Collins was a ******** sadist, Doc Wes lost fights with the projector, and Mr. Gordon was a d**k as far as she was concerned.

(The indignity of 'Tater Tot' would never, ever be forgotten, ever.)

As they went, though, Ladon wasn't so bad. She missed the bitter look he gave--she had looked away the second he turned towards her. "Don't sell yourself short, you're doing fine." Tate smiled and reached out to run a hand, hesitantly, over his hair. She smoothed a lock of black hair back into place, and her hand jerked as a raindrop fell on the back of it.

"It's starting to rain," she said, looking up. The brunette blinked as a raindrop landed right in the middle of her forehead. "Do you think we should head in?"

Usually when anyone said he was selling himself short, it was a pun, and he would have glared dead at them for making such a joke. Short jokes did not a happy Ladon make, and he usually wrote you down on his hate list in permanent marker. Tate, however, was except from this rule as he knew she didn’t mean to make a joke out of it, but in his current mindset, he wasn’t liking the mention of his height. It just went down as a factor that might give reason for Tate to dislike him. Not wanting to show his feelings that easily, he gave a smile as she brushed his hair, and then looked up as he noticed the wind picking up, giving warming of the storm that was right at their heels. Little cold droplets dotted his arms and cheeks, and he held his hands out to further confirm the weather. Rain was on it’s way, fast, and a lot of it.

“Yeah, we should have back. It looks like it’s going to pour.” Turning, they started to head back, and Tate directed him to her car. By now the rain was falling down in thick sheets, soaking their clothes through and through and sticking their shirts to their backs as they made a nearly blind dash through the rain to her car.

The doors slammed as they got inside and breathed deep, runner and rookie both panting the same as the windows fogged up, hair sticking to their faces. “Well, that was good enough for once day, and hey, you ran to the car pretty fast.” He patted her on the arm, which made a wet sound as he touched it. “Maybe we’ll check the weather beforehand.” He breathed out as the rain beat hard on the car’s roof. A good cool rain was what he needed right now, but already he felt himself shiver.


She was laughing self-consciously as she sat in her car and turned the heat up. "We are checking the weather beforehand next time," she said, grinning over at his soaked hair. "Or, hey, jogging around a city block. That sounds like fun to me."

Tate fell silent for a moment, staring out the windshield. "Let's do this again sometime. Okay?" With his agreement, she finally pulled on her seatbelt and pulled out of the parking spot.