"Is this the apartment building you used to live in?" Azmus asked, as the three of them waited from across the street for the hand to turn into a walk signal, in New York, you never had to wait long for that to happen.

It was a big building, and a fancy on at that. The establisment itself was a rich apartment building down TriBeCa, Manhattan. Personally Dylan hated it, he had liked their apartment in Queens better, then they had moved for his dad's work.

"Yeah." Dylan replied, staring up at the looming monster. Maybe it was for the better, because this apartment was bigger, he didn't think he would have been able to get his chair up into his old apartment.

    "Oh can I press the buttons?" Icie asked, one they were inside, seeing how this was one of the first few times she had traveled on an elevator, the airport had been a rather amusing time for the three of them.

    "You can press them to your heart's content." Azmus promised her.

    Dylan watched as she pressed the button, and lit up, and she gasped (just like all the other times) and smiled a bit. Most people probably would have found it annoying but Dylan just thought it was adorable. It was also slightly comforting because he didn't really want to go back to his old home, or at least he didn't want to face the memories that had been made there. Gifted was heaven compared to living alone with his dad.

    The elevator door opened, and Dylan pushed himself inside. It went up and he started to feel less sure about this decision.

    "You okay?" Icie asked, turning away from amazement over elevator buttons to check on him.

    Dylan shrugged. "Yeah I'm fine."

    She gave him a look. She knew every time he said that he was lying, but he just kept saying it anyway.

    "Do you have the key?" Azmus, asked again.

    "Yeah, I put on a lanyard thingy." He replied, reaching back to the small fanny-pack-resembling bag that hung of the back of his chair, it was already hanging out so he wouldn't have to work for it.

    "See? I actually managed to hang on to it despite despite going through Lab." He joked wryly, swinging it around nearly whacking himself in the face.

    The door unlocked as smoothly as it had always had and Azmus pushed it open as Dylan rolled through.

    It was just as he had remember it. The living room, kitchen and dining room were all one large space with two door. One was his dad's room and the other was his. There were no pictures of his mom in the entire apartment. There weren't many pictures at all really. Maybe some of the awards his dad had received or one or two school pictures of Dylan, just enough to seem normal. The color pallet of the main room was black, white, and red. Dylan's room was blue, he remembered that. It felt like years ago, even though it had only been a few months since he had last been here. He had walked though the door the last time he was he too.

    "You guy's can explore if you want. My dad works all day so he won't catch us, especially not on weekdays. If you accidently break something don't worry about it, I think the decor's ugly anyway and I'm never coming back so have at it." He added the last bit with some spite, then pointed over at the door on the left. "I'll just be getting some stuff in my room."

    "Holler if you need any help." Icie made eye contact saying this, she knew he was stubborn.

    "Yeah." He promised, turning around and maneuvering around various furniture.

    His door was closed, and when Dylan opened it he discovered his room was exactly as he had left it the day he was kidnapped.

    Even his messy bedsheets hadn't been straightened. Knowing everything was untouched was somewhat comforting, and his bed was in a corner so that just made getting around the room easier.

    Dylan pushed himself up to he clothes drawer and took a few of his favorite shirts and stuffed them into the bottom of the backpack he had brought with him for the occasion. The clothes didn't really matter that much to him, just that going out clothes shopping with Mr. Wales, as nice as he had been to Dylan, was downright painful. Then he looked around the room for anything else he wanted to keep with him.

    You know what you want. His thoughts encouraged him. Dylan just didn't want to ask for help obtaining it, but if was far to important to leave behind.

    "Hey guys?" He called out.

    It was almost like Icie had been waiting outside the door. She opened it so fast Dylan had a miniature heart attack. Azmus lazily followed behind her, sticking his raven-colored messy mop of hair in the doorframe after Icie had already entered the vicinity.

    "This was your room?" She chirped, bouncing back on the bed "I love it!"

    "Thanks." Dylan replied, surprisingly pleased with her acceptance of his taste in roomage.

    Azmus shrugged and put a hand on his chin. "Yeah, yeah. It's pretty nice. I mean if you're into the whole room thing."

    "Did you need anything? Or did you just want us to see your room?" Icie asked, swinging her legs a bit.

    "I mean as much as I like to show off my room, there's a cardboard box under my bed that I want." Dylan smiled, point. "I would be ever so grateful if you could help me out."

    Icie leaned over the edge of the bed, hair white broad flopping to the floor, and stared. Then she started her grand underground search of Dylan's bed.

    "Oh I see it! Wow, this is a heavy box, ugh." She grunted. "What do you have in here? Oh!"

    "What is it?" Azmus asked, peeking under to see what she had discovered.

    She let out another huge gasp, which only made Dylan more curious. She backed out from under the bed pulling a large box of what looked like encyclopedias along with a small packet of glow-in-dark stars.

"I love these!" She smiled, holding the stars up. "I have some too!"

She brought out a small silver pouch from around her waste and pulled out a similar bag of the stars.

"We have to put these up when we get back to Gifted, I've never had the chance before since I didn't have like, and actual room, and completely forgot about them until now!" She persisted.

"Oh." Dylan had completely forgotten those were under there. "Yeah, I would love to."

Honestly seeing so her excited about something just made him happy and tingly.

"Aren't those like, for kids though?" Azmus asked, raising a eyebrow, even though he was joking and would probably join in with the star sticking.

Icie shoved him. "None of us got to be real kids anyway, I think it would great."

Azmus shrugged, and decided to roll with it.

"What's in the box?" Azmus asked, pointing to the encyclopedias. "I mean we can't have come all this way for the paper version of the Internet, right?"

Dylan snorted. "No, I've never used them. It's what's under them that I want."

He leaned over, and lifted one of the huge book out, and let it slam into the floor. After lifting another up and out, you could see below them was another book, laying on the floor of the cardboard box. It was a small cerulean book, with the small picture of the Empire State Building on it.

"Okay I'll bite." Azmus gestured to the book. "What is it?"

Icie stared him dead in the eye. "Was that a fish pun?"

Azmus shrugged again. "I mean not ofishally-"

She wacked him with one of the pillows before he could continue with more. Then he took the pillow and threw it right back at her, only with a lot less force. It bounced off her face and she snorted. Dylan had gotten lost in his own thoughts as he pulled open the cover and stared at the first page. To the ordinary eye, it looked like a photo album, and a small one at that.

    Icie stopped her pillow fight with Azmus and looked at Dylan face, as if she was suddenly sensing a change in atmosphere. She frowned and brushed the loose hair out of her face, sliding off the bed to stare over Dylan's shoulder.

    She remained quiet for a moment, as he flipped to the next page. "Is that your mom?"

    He nodded, his eyes glassy. Azmus appeared at his other shoulder, respectively quieter now. He glanced back and forth between the picture and Dylan for a bit, looking inquisitive.

    "You look just like her." He commented, his voice steady and honest.

    The pictures were a woman with rosy skin and smiling amber eyes. There wasn't a single picture where she didn't have a wide toothy smile on her lips, the moment before bursting into a fit of giggles. A tangled mane of curly blonde hair seemed to almost float out her. The woman was beautiful, she practically glowed, but there was also something simply humane about her, a humbleness that made her seem approachable.

    Dylan stiffened. "N-no, not really. I mean we kinda do-ish."

    "You do." Icie realized. "The same smile."

    Dylan grinned softly at her comment and Icie nodded. "Right there."

    Azmus put his finger on one of the pictures. "Who's that?"

    It was a picture of two teenage girls on a swing. One was clearly Dylan's mom, the other was a Hispanic girl with frizzy black hair, they had matching bracelets. There was a little scribble in pen on the picture too. It said, to Queenie, my best friend ever Faithful.

    "Oh that's one of my mom's old friends. They knew each other since they were toddlers. I haven't seen her in a long time." Dylan explained.

    "That's so sweet." Icie sighed, leaning into Dylan's shoulder.

    "Is you mom's name Queenie?" Azmus asked in a curious manner.

    Dylan's smile reappeared again for a second. "No her name was Regina, which means queen. That's how they would address each other Queenie and Ever Faithful, because her friend's name was Faith. They even had special signs for their names, and nicknames, because my mom was deaf, one the effects of cancer. I just always called her Mrs. Santos though."

    He turned the next page and started to get to picture with him in to, a squealing little toddler with a head full of bushy blonder hair just like his mother, when he stopped and closed the book. Tapping his fingers along the cover nervously.

    "I didn't want to leave this behind, and uh, I think we're good." His voice cracked slightly and he placed the book securely in the backpack and looped it around the back of his chair.

    "I'm glad we came here." Icie thanked him.

    Dylan nodded, wiping his face with his sleeve. "Y-yeah, me too."

    Azmus put his hands on his hips and stared at the two of them. "You know what I think we all need, a fish hug," then he made little air quotes with his fingers, "trademark."

     "Come on, come on." He grabbed Icie and squeezed Dylan into a big mush.

    Icie tripped and fell over, but she got up laughing, and then Dylan giggled.

    "Where to now? Back the hotel where we can continue being useless while the smart people do all the work?" Azmus asked, regaining his balance.

    Dylan suddenly glanced at Icie who was smoothing out her hair.

    "I, uh, was actually thinking on fulfilling a promise I made a while ago." He nodded, rolling out of the old partner and levying his key in the door.

    Icie's furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "Wait..."

    He stopped pushing his chair and reached behind in the back pack and pulled out two tickets to the Empire State Building. He gave one to Icie and watched her eyes widen in surprise.

    "Back when I first talked to you..." She realized.

    Dylan nodded. "I'm sorry I couldn't get you a ticket Azmus-"

The black haired fish boy waved it off. "Oh that's fine, besides I can obviously see you want to go with Icie. I'll make up some story for Mr. Wales, you guys have fun."

Icie smiled and hugged Azmus, while Dylan blushed lightly. He had some pretty nice friends.

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Mmm dylcie I mean what