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Should I? Should I not? Daphne chewed on her bottom lip as she tapped her phone with an idle finger, swiping it back and forth to watch the icons blur in front of her unseeing gaze. Half of the deed had already been done; Kess had gotten a text about three hours ago mentioning there was going to be an awesome meteor shower around one am, asking if she'd wanna go a ways out of town to watch it with her.

Zac probably would have been invited but the bluenette knew for a fact that not only did he have a shift in the morning, he wasn't exactly comfortable when she and Kess were together. Maybe it was the flirting but there was something else...well. Zac was pretty weird sometimes. Maybe it was just the flirting, who the heck even knew.

It was her job to find a place to watch the shower and the problem was really that she already knew the perfect place. The real problem was not that she knew a place, or that it was secluded, that wasn't an issue at all. Oh no, it had everything to do with the place Daphne knew about was the place that Elzo had always taken her, their special place that only the two of them ever seemed to use.

But he was gone, she was still here, and why shouldn't she take a friend? It wasn't like there was some rule or betrayal by taking someone there. Just the potential for negative energy. Would she see him there? Remember them happy there together? Did it really matter? Wasn't this the kind of thing she had to do to reclaim her life?

Yes. Yes it was.

So instead of waiting inside Daphne simply swung on the porch until the Judge roared up, not allowing Kess to even kill the engine as she hopped on. "Hey! If we hurry I know the best place." Directions were simple, the ride was thrilling, it was all wonderfully familiar and not at the same time. Clambering up the small hill they emerged from the trees in that perfect, lovely spot that overlooked the city; they'd come up into the low foothills that cradled Destiny City.

"Isn't it great? I've known about this place for a long time, you can really see everything. I love it here and I thought you'd appreciate it." Nervous. She was definitely nervous.

Daphne was the epitome of grace and elegance as she flopped down like a fish at Kess' side. Anywhere less familiar she might've exercised a little more caution but the ground was never rock-hard here, plus there wasn't really anything to drop stray branches. Plus, you know, Kess wouldn't have been lounging her own comfort-interested a** down there if there had been.

Logic. What a winner.

Looking up she thought about the question. How long? Well that was a bit of a fuzzy, muddled mess. Had she come here with Elzo first or with Castor? Audrey had definitely been here because one of their first real serious dates had involved falling asleep in a comfortable tangle so that she'd missed curfew. A pang in her chest thinking of her mother had honey eyes turning to the sky, blowing out a breath that was almost faintly visible in the January air.

"Probably a year and a half or so? Person I used to come out here with moved outta town and I don't really have a ride to get out here alone. If you were asking about when is this shindig getting underway, well they said..." She checked the phone tucked in the pocket of her jeans. "Eh. Half an hour or so. Think you can handle my company for that long?" That settled the bluenette enough to turn her head slightly to the side, beaming over at Kess like an idiot.

Daphne loved the outdoors and no matter who she was here with, or what the circumstances were, the place calmed her.

The mention of seeing Kess' house from here had the bluenette tipping her head back to the sky again, looking up towards the sky and thinking. If she could have brought out her Lina scanner she very probably could have pointed out Mercury where she had lived part of her previous life as well as Castor, the Gemini star where she'd died. But that wasn't really something Kess needed to know about, would ever know about, and Daphne was ridiculously relieved that the blonde hadn't pried into who had come before.

In fact that was one of the best things about hanging with Kess. There were no pressures, no questions that she couldn't answer, and ******** magical storytime wasn't even a consideration. Really the carefree dealer couldn't have cared less that Daphne was technically magically married to a man who...ugh. Never mind. The point was that if she had to get up and leave right now she could and there would be no questions asked.

That simple, sheer luxury endeared her more than normally possible under such circumstances. Maybe it was why the teen was so easy in the older girl's company, added on that well, it wasn't a bad thing to be found attractive.

"I used to bring binoculars up here to see how much of the city you could pick out, but that was really intrusive. I realized then that I come up here to get away from all that noise and jazz. I mean...how many stars can you see there compared to here? It's just something else to enjoy." Sitting up a bit the thermos was unscrewed, quietly sipped, as the first meteor shot across the sky.

"Oh! It's starting!"

The tug had surprised her so that Daphne watched the meteor shower lightly curled against Kess' side. Her head had been turned at an odd angle but not painful, just an interestingly tentative tangle of two bodies that weren't entirely sure how they were supposed to work together yet. The comment about crazy whole worlds had her laughing just a bit ironically.

"Not so crazy yanno. I mean people live here, on our planet, and have for awhile now. What's to say that like...there's no people living somewhere else. I mean Star Wars was a whole galaxy farther away than we can really imagine." Knowing the argument she sighed. "Yeah, I know, it's just a movie but the possibility is still there." Plus she could close her eyes, recite a few words, and be on the surface of Mercury, close enough that the sun was a giant dominating force in the sky. She'd been to Castor, seen the flowers spring out of the ground at her feet, been on the ring of the Surrounding just outside of the Solar System while fighting off giant monsters.

Yeah, totally insane.

Changing the topic Daphne propped herself back up on one arm again, looking down at her freckled companion. "Did you remember to make a wish? That's important."

A finger poked at Kess' side lightly before Daphne turned her nose up in an imitation of offended snobbery. "As if I would ever be so crass as to do such a thing! I know you're not supposed to ask what it is!" A grin spread wide across her face, eyes twinkling in the dim moonlight with sly mirth. "That doesn't meant that they don't slip up and tell you sometimes. Me, for example."

She was leaning down a bit more in the hush of the night, adjusting her weight so that her arm didn't fall out from under her. Yeah. That was the rationale her mind was giving off even as the girl knew she was trying almost desperately to be a little smooth. Just a little bit, please God.

"I usually wish for courage."

"You're pretty simple. I like that about you." Truer words never spoken. Kess just didn't give a s**t about much of anything, preferring to go with the flow and take what came passing her way. The idea of her friend being a lazy river appealed quite a lot to the water-loving nymph namesake, warming her expression to the point that if the blonde didn't know what was coming her way, she was a total idiot.

"So we just...keep it simple..." She felt like such an idiot doing this, getting involved, but it was really relatively harmless. Her heart wasn't up for the taking but her time, her affection? Why not. Plus Kess hadn't expressed more than a light interest and Daphne missed the whole silly dance involved with flirting, not knowing what was coming next, having to give and take. She was desperately lonely yet she did like Kess.

Too much maybe, but that was okay for now.

Leaning down so that her free hand supported her weight on the other side of the sprawled girl's head, Daphne very lightly, testingly, put the ball back in her court. There had been a few hangouts, that really nice lunch, and nothing more than friendly bonding had come out of it. Had she come here tonight pretty much intending to take that interested step forward herself?

Oh yeah.

Chemistry hadn't exactly been her strong suit in school. Physics had made more sense but it didn't really take anything more than a basic understanding of how chemicals reacted with each other to know that the two of them could have a pretty good time. And by pretty good it was understood that this could be a monumental pile of awesome by the pure simplicity of it. Could they keep it simple though? Time would tell.

Well the ball was in Kess' side of the court but really, if she had to be honest with herself, she'd never been all that great at sports. Daphne made her own rules, played her own game, and came out on top as often as possible because of it. "Maybe too simple? I hear this gets better with practice. Hang on." Bending, she did it all over again, less hesitant this time.

Now she knew that Kess wasn't going to laugh, wasn't going to be disappointed, or at least wasn't going to show it if she was. It was okay to be a bit more confident, harnessing that courage she knew she had...somewhere. It was time to live again.

What? Had Kess said something? The word belatedly smacked Daphne in the brain so that she started back about an inch from a moment ago when they had been fused together. Somehow she had ended up all but crawling into the blonde's lap without much realizing it, or maybe she'd been half-pulled? She'd never really been one for keeping her head all together once things moved from 'simple' to 'oh god that feels ********? What? Now? Isn't it cold out here?" Yes, she'd taken it just a bit literally rather than any dazed exclamation that Kess was potentially making. She'd taken the girl for her word and was considering her options, despite the fact that previous to this singular moment she hadn't really just jumped for the brass ring with anyone. Ever.

Now confused, obviously interested but not sure how far she was willing to go, the bluenette just stayed sprawled out against Kess to wait and see what the hell was going on. Maybe her brain would catch up somewhere along the way.