Hello everybody, welcome to another part to this probably mediocre story written by me! I hope you enjoy it! I'm going to start writing author's notes at the beginning and end of the chapter.

Initial Start Date: Thursday, October 6th, 2020 9:35 PM

Date Finished: Tuesday, November 23, 2021 9:54 AM

          Callum woke up with a start, memories rushing back to him like a raging river. He looked around, to see if Rayla had somehow gotten better overnight by miracle. Runaan and Ethari weren't there. Harrow had tapped him on the shoulder, a concerned look on the older man's usually happy features.

"Hey, we need to get back home, you have work to do. I have a feeling you aren't too welcome here either, gesturing towards a doorway. He guessed that Runaan was in there, because there was loud elvish swearing coming from behind the door.

He sat up, rubbing his eyes, then getting up to stretch, not fully hearing what Harrow said in his state of semi hibernation.

His eyes finally snapped open.

"Rayla! Is she okay?", he exclaimed.

"Quiet Callum! Your friend is fine. Relax a little. She broke her leg, that's all. You need to sit down. Your friend was injured, now take a deep breath."

Callum stopped his pacing, and slumped against the wall

"It was my fault," He said, "I pushed her to do DDR. If we had just done another shooting game we wouldn't be here right now."

"It isn't your fault. You didn't do anything wrong. You were trying to show her a good time. You were just trying to have fun with her and hang out," He sighed, "I have to go, but Ethari agreed to take you home."

          With that, Harrow left. Ezran was strangely quiet. Callum thought for a second, and formed a sort of facsimile of Rayla in his head. In a poor imitation of her, he began to think of what she would say.

"Callum you idiot why are you mad at yourself you fucking dunce."

Ok. Fairly accurate.

"Callum. Why are you blaming yourself? I love you so much! Let go of the pain so we can run off to the sunset together!"

Definitely no.

"S-sorry Callum. I-I didn't mean to trip. It isn't your fault."

Too shy.

"Callum. He-hey twinkle toes. HEY. TWINKLE TOES."

That was coming from outside of his head.

          He blinked twice. It was Rayla, snapping her fingers in front of his face. Callum jumped back in surprise, taking in her appearance before standing up straight again. She was in a wheelchair, being driven along by Ethari. A large cast was over her left leg. It was almost like a plastic shell boot, not like what he had seen in movies. She tilted her head a bit, and smirked.

"Still off in the clouds ah see twinkle toes. That's yer worryin' face. Stop blamin' yerself an' put a smile on 'at mug", she said.

Now that was what she would say. He smiled, then patted her on the head. She swatted his hand away. Then he realized something. At that moment, for the first time ever, he was taller than her. A wide grin split across his face. Rayla looked confused. He took the time to elaborate.

"Hey Rayla. Guess what?" He said.

"Whit is it?" She replied.

"I'm finally taller than you!" He crowed victoriously.

          Rayla's expression morphed into one of horror. He began dancing around her, pumping at the air excitedly with an air of smugness secreting from every pore in his body. She lunged at him with fury in her eyes, before remembering that her leg was broken.

          She fell on top of him with a crash, eyes widening in surprise. He became suddenly aware of her all too close chest, and Callum swore to this day that he could feel her heart beating. Then Runaan cleared his throat. The moment was gone.

          Ethari smirked before whispering into Rayla's ear. Her pointy ears grew bright red, and Runaan promptly lifted her off of him, settling her back into her wheelchair. Callum let out a breath he hadn't known that he had been holding, before getting back on his feet, dusting off his pants in the process.

"So uh, Rayla, how are you uh, doing?" He said awkwardly.

"I'm fine ah guess." She replied, shifting uneasily.

Runaan was the first to talk after a couple of minutes. Well, at least try to.

"Human boy you've-". He stopped short. He didn't know what to say. The awkwardness was impregnable. They all stood in silence for a few more minutes. Callum sat down in a chair.

"So what happened?" He said, "What did the doctors say about your leg?"

Rayla straightened up, and said, "Oh yeah it's busted alright. Ah can't do track an' field fur a guid bit. Ah dunnae what aam gonna do with my time now."

Callum thought for a second. Then he said, "Well what about schoolwork? I could ask around each day and take the work here myself. We can have study sessions as well!"

"Thanks Callum. You're too kin'. 'At sounds like a good idea. Ethari, ye good with 'at?" She replied.

"Oh I'm fine with it. I don't know about this grumpy monster here," He paused for a second, grabbed Runaan and noogied him, with the latter letting out an indignant hiss quite similar to a cat. "She has to stay here for a couple days, and after that she's supposed to take it easy for a while. You can come after school with her, as well as help her around, but she needs to be productive, so I expect you to keep her grades up."

          Callum tried to keep track of everything he was saying, and did relatively well. He understood the basic points of helping Rayla around the school, and helping her study as well. He would be coming over to her house every day. Wait a second. He'd be coming over to her house every day, and since Runaan and Ethari were working, he and Rayla would be alone.

He would be at her house. Alone. That did not make him think of weird things. No it did not. He was not being impure. Not in the slightest.

          Rayla tilted her head again, confused about his odd expression. After sitting down to talk with her a bit more, albeit in clunky Q&A style, he took a look at the time. It was 6 PM. He probably should have gone home by now. Callum said goodbye, and informed Ethari that he needed to get home. Ethari politely agreed, and Runaan had to go as well.

          2 minutes later, he was sitting in a small Toyota Corolla, with Runaan driving, and Ethari in the passenger seat. Callum shrunk inward, not willing to risk incurring Runaan's wrath. The 3 started to get a sense of deja vu as silence fell over the car for another few minutes.

Eventually, Ethari spoke up, saying, "So... Callum, we know Rayla knows you well, but we don't know you well. Tell us about yourself. You seem like a smart young man."

Stammering, Callum began talking.

"W-well, my name is Callum for starters," Ethari let out a chuckle at that. "I like reading, sketching-"

Ethari raised a brow and interrupted, "Sketching you say? Mind if I take a look at some of the drawings?"

"Oh, uh, sure? I have my notebook with me, so I'll just find you a nice page to look at." Callum said, opening his book up to the most recent page, before reaching out with it in hand. Runaan stopped at a traffic light abruptly, and the book flew forward onto the dashboard, now on a different page.

          It was a page covered in sketches of Rayla. Ethari began grinning and laughing like a maniac. Runaan wanted to find out what was so funny, and twisted his head to get a look at the offending object. Ethari winked at him, then tossed it back. Runaan sensed that something was up and said,

"What's so funny?"

Ethari kept up his smug grin, smiling all the while, saying, "Oh, nothing dear! Callum just had a funny little comic in his notebook."

          Runaan, not content with the response, quickly turned his attention back to the road, but not before stealing another glare. Callum shuddered, thinking of the things that Runaan would do to him if he saw the drawings of Rayla he had in his book. The car ride once again settled into silence, with the 3 of them growing more comfortable.

          Rayla, back at the hospital, sat in silence. She had her dinner, which was unpleasant, but not horrible. There was nothing to do. Growing up, she had the luxury of the Xadian Wilds, where she could run, jump, climb and clamber her way around the entire forest. The city felt constrictive, suffocating. She still found ways to get moving, and joined Nyx and Soren often for parkour, or jogs, or skateboarding.

          Over time, the city became less and less cold, and it got more and more friendly. She noticed that the statues in the town square, looking like stoic, terrifying bastions of war, had graffiti on the podiums. The swarming pigeons were quite friendly, and the rooftops felt freeing. The feeling of immobility and claustrophobia intensified once again in her hospital room. There was nobody there.

          She wondered what Callum was doing. Rayla imagined that he was scared stiff sitting in the car with her dads. When he fell on her, she didn't know what to think. It felt odd. It felt warm. She felt free. Rayla didn't know what to think. There was an odd pounding when she thought of him. It was unfamiliar, otherworldly. The feeling was foreign to her, yet so familiar.

"You know, that friend of yours seems like a nice guy," a voice said.

          She jumped, head whirling around. She let out a sigh, seeing that it was her nurse. It felt odd to dive in her head. She admitted that she never really thought things too thoroughly, almost being overconfident in her actions, diving headfirst in, even when she didn't truly understand.

          Rayla wondered if this was what Callum was doing when he was spacing out. He did it quite often around her, often looking at things right past her face. If she didn't know better, she'd think that he was staring at her. Maybe she had something on her face? Or her shirt wasn't tucked in.

          Maybe she forgot to wear a bra? She cringed at the thought of that. She rushed her mornings, hopping around then rushing off to school, and she never really thought about everything, so that was a possibility. From then on she decided to check if she caught him staring.

          She hugged her extra pillow. It felt quiet, silent. She didn't like it. The lack of noise reminded her of being underwater. It felt like she was drowning. It folded in on her, flooding above her head. Rayla jumped for her phone to clear her head before she dove in too deep.

"I need to talk to somebody. Anybody. Callum's probably still up." she thought.

          And so she called him. However he was still on the way home. Sitting behind Ethari and Runaan. Really convenient right? Callum jumped, his phone vibrating and letting out a familiar ringtone, to which Runaan grunted angrily, and Ethari chuckled. He picked it up.

"Hey, Rayla, what's up?" He said, preparing to jump out of the window if Runaan deemed him to be unworthy of speaking to Rayla at all.

"Not much," she replied, "Just wanted to talk to somebody is all." she replied.

"Oh, well, okay then. What do you want to talk about?" Callum said.

          And so began their talking. It was quiet at first, flitting from place to place, chuckles and verbal smirks sent back and forth. There was a comfortable feel, and it seeped through everything. Ethari looked back again and smiled. He whispered to Runaan, "Hey, our future son in law is having fun." Runaan jerked in surprise and swerved.

          Callum's phone flew out of his hand, and Rayla laughed when he explained that Runaan had swerved. It was funny, but her brow furrowed in concern. It was raining outside, pouring in fact. That was worrying. Runaan should have been paying attention. She'd seen enough on the news about car crashes, and the pouring rain made visibility and road conditioning worse.

She picked up her phone, a little jittery and nervous, saying,                                                                  "Hey dad, focus! Ah don't wont Callum to end up in the hospital next to me."

          Runaan gave a grunt of acknowledgement and hunched over the steering wheel a bit. Ethari's brow rose, and he refocused, raising his brow slightly at the concern that was for Callum and not him or Ethari.

          Callum interrupts, saying, "We'll be fine Rayla. Your dad just jumped a little. You know him. He's a little jittery around me for some reason. Can't help but think the guy's scared of me." He says while shaking as Runaan's back of the head eyes pierced through his skull.

Rayla gives a chuckle, replying, "Ye sure ye aren't shaking th' car yourself Twinkle Toes?"

          Callum smiled through the phone. She sounded almost back to her old self, albeit a bit more tired. He was honestly returning the favor. It was his gentlemanly duty to cheer her up. She'd kept his chin up, so he'd do it for her. It felt nice to give back in a friendship that always kept him on his toes, laughing, crying, sometimes yelling.

          A jolt alerted him to the stopping of the car. Ezran waved at him from the door, a bright smile on his face, despite the raging rainstorm around him. He put his jacket over his head, slipping his backpack on, still talking to Rayla.

          Ethari smiled at him. "Take care", he said to Callum. Runaan grunted, tossing the notebook at him. Rayla stayed silent for half a minute. Suddenly, she spoke softly. "Thanks Cal." The call ended. As he stepped out into the rain, he began a mad dash towards the front door.

          His smile was bright even as the rain turned his hair into a wet mop. He had made her happy. That was what mattered most. It didn't matter if Ezran and Harrow teased him into oblivion. He would regret that statement very much.