A faint buzzing pulled Elliot from her sleep and she stirred in her bed. When she opened her eyes the room still lay in semi darkness. She frowned at nothing and reached for her phone. She shut off the alarm and stared at the time, as the darkness contradicted the hour. Eventually, when her mind cleared itself from the fog of dreams, understanding dawned on her. She flung her blanket aside and stumbled out of bed, rushing to her window. She yanked the blinds open, revealing the city street.

Above the tops of the houses was an endless sea of gray. The clouds curled and expanded, growing heavy with the weight of rain. Mist slicked the window pane. In the distance she caught the faint sound of thunder, as if the sky were clearing its throat in preparation. A smile cut across her face. She turned from the window and raced about her room, grabbing clothes and avoiding near death experiences with her tangled blankets.

Showered, with her hair pulled back, she raced down the stairs. Milo raised his head from the couch and scowled at her and the amount of noise she was making. She pulled the door open.

"Your fault for not sleeping at your own place," she called out to him as she slipped out the doorway.

The air sagged under the humidity and the heat. Even with rain on the tips of the clouds, summer still held dominion over the city. Streetlights still burned yellow, unaware the clock said it was day time. Elliot trotted down the steps and onto the sidewalk. Her ponytail wiped around her as the wind kicked up. Men and women moved about, glaring up at the sky as if it were personally offending them. Umbrellas stuck out of bags while the owners still dressed as if the sun was beating down on them.

A faint rumble echoed through the sky as she crossed the Common and bounded up the stairs to the office. Compared to the humid day outside the cool room felt refreshing and almost chilly. The long row of windows displayed a perfect view of the dark sky and roiling clouds. Trees swayed under the wind, the leaves shivering in the forcefully gusts. She carelessly tossed her purse onto the couch and moved over to Beck's couch. Gripping one side, she pulled on it, trying to rotate it. She grunted as it didn't have a mind to budge. The door opened and Beck stepped inside. He paused, looking at her.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

She managed to shoot him a flat look.

"Taming a baby hippo," she muttered.

"Right, stupid question," he said, "Do you need help?"

She straightened and put her hands on her hips.

"Did you drop your brains on the way here? Or has your brawn slowly taken away from your brains?"

He chuckled and lifted his satchel over his head, dropping it on the couch.

"If it has then you are in luck because it's my brawn that is needed here."

He moved over to where Elliot stood.

"We're just rotating it," she said.

He nodded and they both gripped the end of the couch, their arms brushing. With his assistance, the couch was persuaded to shift. After three muttered exclamations and one stubbed toe, the couch faced the wall of windows. With a dramatic sigh, Elliot flopped back onto the cushions, her head resting back. Beck settled himself on the other side, looking as if nothing had happened.

"Was there a reason for the change in decor? Or have you taken after your sister and this is how you will spend the time while you're not writing?" he asked.

She chuckled. "No, I have not fallen that low yet. I wanted to watch the rain and the lightening."

A faint smile slid onto her lips. He glanced over at her, noticing the smile. Before he could ask what lay behind the look, she jumped up. He twisted around as she moved to the kitchenette.

"Tea or coffee?" he asked.

"Hot chocolate."

He laughed and walked over to her, resting against the desk.

"Any specific reason why?" he asked.

"It's a summer storm and hot chocolate is the only thing to have."

He smiled but made no comment.

Hot chocolate in hand, they settled back on the couch. Elliot tucked her legs beneath her and cradled her mug, the heat contrasting the air conditioned room. The sky was a canvas of gray colors, whitish tones melting into darker hues. A low rumble raced through the clouds followed by a distance flash of blue lightening. On the street, pedestrians hurried to find cover, their concerns focused more on the rain to come than the possibility of getting struck. Another flash lit up the sky and sent a smile onto Elliot's face.

"There is something wonderful and terrifying about lightning. There is absolutely nothing you can do to stop or change it. All you can do it sit back and let it be."

"Kind of like life," Beck said.

"Or love," she said, as if it were an afterthought.

He looked over at her, but she didn't look at him, her gaze glued on the windows and the heavens' display of power. More cracks of lightening coursed through the sky as the thunder argued with the clouds. The trees quivered beneath it all.

The time ticked on, as the mugs were emptied. Eventually the lightening exhausted itself and the rain swept over the city, sounding like the rushing off a train as it came racing in. The office filled with the plop plop sound as rain drops dashed against the glass.

Elliot sank further into the cushions, her arms crossed and her legs pulled close to her. Beck sat with his head resting on his fist. When all they could see beyond the windows were sheets of rain, he turned his attention to her. She sat perfectly still as if the scene before her held her mesmerized.

"I've never seen you this quiet," he said. "Unless you're writing. And even then you mutter words under your breath."

A slow smile curled her lips, and he found himself staring at her profile for no good reason other than he couldn't stop.

"I mutter?" she asked, finally looking over at him.

"Yes, it's both amusing and irritating."

Her head went back as she laughed, the sound dancing around the room.

"I can understand that. I'm amazed you've put up with it. Or maybe that's why you're writing so fast; so you can leave and not be annoyed by my slow progression through the dictionary in my head."

"It's easy to put up with. And I write fast because I don't know how to write any other way."

She looked at him, smirking.

"Is that why you use a typewriter? It helps you slow down?"

He smiled and looked towards the window.
"I like the typewriter because so many authors used it, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, Orson Welles, Tennessee Williams, Agatha Christie. Even P.G. Wodehouse. I don't know what it is, I just like it. It's really inconvenient, but I still use it."

Elliot smiled.

"I like that," she said. "Makes sense."

"How so?"

She shrugged. "You're going to be the next great American author so why not use the machine the other greats used?"

He said nothing, his face suddenly serious. In the silence the storm grew louder, the wind wrestling with the tree branches while the rain body slammed ever surface in sight. When it felt as if it had been silent for hours, He spoke.

"El, I have a question for you."

She found her eyes transfixed on the window and couldn't look away.

"Hmmmm?" she said.

He was silent for so long, she turned to him. He met her gaze.

"Were you ever scared?" he asked.

Her mouth twitched and her eyes took on a distant look as memories bobbed to the front of her mind.

"Not in the beginning," she said, focusing back on him. "Mostly because I didn't know what was going to happen." She chuckled. "When I came to my second book, I was terrified." She twisted on the couch, facing him. She glanced down at her hands, then back up at him. "I still have this tiny fear that one day someone is going to tell me there has been a mistake, I'm not actually a writer. That's depressing on its own, but the really terrifying part is I'll have to go find an office job where I'm stuck in a cubicle. I'd rather die than be in a cubicle. I mean seriously someone would literally have put me in a box. I could try to think out of it but would end up just falling into the next cubicle over."

Beck laughed, and she smiled. After a moment the laughter was absorbed by the sound of rain.

"You really weren't scared in the beginning?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Like I said, I didn't know what would happen. I was writing because it made me happy. Besides, my mom followed her art no matter what and that's all I knew to do. It's what I love about my mom, nothing can stop her. Not even a herd of rhinos. Even if she did run into a herd of rhinos she would probably have them singing Avicii in a week."

Beck frowned. "Don't you mean Puccini?"

"Oh no, she's really into EDM."

He grinned and looked away.

"Are you scared?" she asked, her voice low.

He didn't answer right away, instead he let out a soft, wry chuckle. He shifted forward and leaned over his knees, staring into his hands. She watched him, trying to read the thoughts behind his mask. He looked back at her.

"Have you ever had that feeling that you know you will be amazing at something and there is so many people looking at you to be great that you're afraid you'll fail no matter what you do?"

She nodded thoughtfully.

"Great expectations. It's a dickens of a problem." He chuckled but it didn't lighten up his expression. She shifted forward. "Beck, I can say with all honesty I have never had that problem...but I'm not you and I don't have your talent. I don't know what it's like to know I could write something world changing. What I do know is you will regret it more if you never do write than if you were to write and fail."

Beck nodded, his gaze trailing away once more.

"Hey," she said, pulling his attention back. "One thing you can count on is, no matter what you write, you will have a reader in me." She smiled. "I would read your grocery store list if you published it."

He gave her a cocky smile. "They have been known to be the most riveting lists in existence."

"Of that I have no doubt, because I know you."

He held her gaze for a long moment.

"Thanks, El."

She shrugged. "Just dedicate one of your books to me and we'll call it even."

He laughed and leaned back on the couch. After a quiet moment, he looked at her.

"Are we planning to write today?" he asked.

Elliot sank back on the arm rest and made a careless face.

"I see no point," she said. "The rain is more interesting and I leave the day after tomorrow for California. Why waste a rainy day? All I get there is sun. It's disgusting."

Beck looked at her in surprise. "You leave that soon?"

"I know. I thought if I never talked about it would go away too. But it seems time is determined to keep passing despite my avid protests and petitions." She shrugged. "What can you do? Beside find Doc Brown or The Doctor and go back in time. But even that isn't the best solution, we saw how it worked out for The Flash."

"How are you feeling about going back?"

Elliot looked at him.  "Are you asking as a psychology student or my friend?"

"I'm asking as someone who cares about you and knows that you don't want to go."

She smiled despite herself, then the thoughts of the encroaching wedding landed and she sighed. As she fiddled her fingers each other, a frown creased her forehead. She looked up at Beck, finding a soft, understanding look in his eyes.

"Do you know what it's like to be related to someone and be completely baffled by everything they do and everything they are?"

Beck didn't reply, sensing she didn't want an actual answer.

"That's what it's like with them. We don't understand each other. They dislike us because we're abnormal and we dislike them because they chose to side with my father, despite all that he did."

Elliot stared down at her fingers as they fiddled with each other, a frown creasing her forehead.

"For that reason alone we will never understand each other. I don't understand how they can condone what he has done, but they do." She looked up at Beck, finding a soft, understanding look in his eyes. She gave him a weak smile. "So how do I feel? I honestly don't know."

"El, I'm sorry," he said.

"It is what it is. We'll go, get it over with and hopefully avoid a mass murder."

"Always good to look on the bright side."

She smiled and he returned the look. As she shifted, her smile turned to something more subdued and bashful.

"Thanks," she said.

"For what?"

"Just listening and not analyzing me."

He gave her a teasing grin. "Who says I wasn't?"

"Because I could see your face and I know the look that says you are analyzing something."

Beck laughed. "Do I wear it that often?"

She nodded. "Sometimes when you write you have it." She reached forward and touched the space right between his eyebrows lightly with her finger. "You get this tiny crease, right here." She retracted her hand. "It's not a scowl or frown. Something in the middle."

When she shifted back, Beck was looking at her, a smirk barely concealed in the corner of his mouth. She scowled.

"What?"

He gave a careless shrug. "Nothing. I guess I find you noticing my face amusing."

"You notice my mutterings."

"They are hard to ignore."

"And so is your face."

The smirk stepped out from the shadows and settled smugly on Beck's lips. Elliot buried her face in her hands, trying to ignore his infectious laugh.

"I walked right into that one," she said, her voice muffled in her hands.

"I don't know how?" he said. "I saw it coming a mile away."

She lifted her head, her cheeks still tinted pink. "I'm near sighted, I guess."

"Explains the ugly glasses then."

"Hey! I thought you liked the glasses?"

"On you, yes, but alone they are awful."

She gave him a teasing grin.

"You think I look good in them?"

"I never said that and I'm not walking into a trap. I'm not near sighted," he said, with a taunting smile.

She smiled back and turned her attention to the windows. The rain drops continued their battle with the glass, charging forward with a relentlessness that only nature knows. The lightening had traveled on, taking with it its blustering thunder. Minutes slipped by in a peaceful silence that only true companions know.

Beck slowly slouched lower, his legs outstretched and his ankles crossed, completely at ease with life. Elliot shifted, tucking on leg beneath her, while she pulled her bent leg closer to her.

"I've been thinking," she said. She glanced over at him and scowled at his mocking look of surprise. "Don't act so shocked, it happens from time to time. Especially if I'm not thinking about it."

He chuckled and gestured to her with a lazy wave of his hand.

"What have you been thinking?" he asked.

She didn't respond right away, her tongue suddenly frozen against her words. He turned his head, studying her. She pivoted, so she was facing him.

"Do you think Tess and Weston would make it?" she asked.

He cocked his head, amused and puzzled by the question.

"What do you mean? At the end of the book they get together," he said.

"Yes, but what about after the last chapter? After we no longer follow their story, what about then? When they both go back to normal lives and summer is over, do they make it? Does he find time in his busy life to see her? Would they even last with their different personalities?" She shrugged like the answer wasn't important and neither had the question been. She stared down at the couch, playing with the end of the cushion. Beck looked at her with a serious expression.

"Yes," he said. "I think they would." She looked up at him. "It would be hard but what relationship isn't?"

Elliot gave a solemn nod. "That's good to know. I always wondered."

He smiled. "Me too. I mean the real question lies with Tess." She frowned. "Could she really put up with a guy like Weston, who is a cocky, know-it-all?"

"What about Tess?" she asked. "She is kind of crazy at times. Can Weston really put up with that?"

He shrugged. "I think he could. He's more durable than he looks."

"Well, if that's the case, then Tess can definitely endure Weston's cocky, know-it-all personality."

Beck smiled and nodded, looking away. "Good to know."

The rest of the day passed without a thought to the time or what the rest of the world was doing. Lunch came and went. Conversations ebbed and flowed like the rain showers, while jokes were carelessly tossed about like the leaves taken from the trees.

The sky had taken on a darker shade and the office had become too dim to see much of anything, by the time they returned to normal thoughts. Beck stretched and stood, sliding his hands into his pockets as he continued to stare out the window. Elliot uncurled herself from the corner of the couch, wincing as her sleeping foot remained asleep. He glanced at his watch.

"I should get home," he said.

"Yeah, probably, or else the world will come looking for us."

"Too bad, I kind of liked ignoring the world with you."

He looked at her and smiled.

"Same," she said.

They eventually broke eye contact and glanced around, looking for light switches and bags. When the remains of their day were cleared away as if it had never happened, they moved to the door. Beck pulled it open. Elliot took a step forward, but stopped and looked back at him. He met her gaze with a quirked eyebrow.

"Beck," she said.

"Yes, El?"

She shifted and took a breath, her heart suddenly taking up Zumba in her chest.

"Do you want to go to my sister's wedding with me?"

**********************************************************************

Oh butternuts!

Well, that just happened? What do you think his response will be?

I have a strong feeling he will sweep her into her arms and kiss her. Well, that's at least what I'm praying will happen. *Sighs* I guess if he just simply says yes that will be fine too. Oh what if he runs and jumps out the window to avoid answering! That would be something! What if he doesn't say anything dies of shock!! Oh my gosh the anticipation is killing me!!!

Vote, comment, follow! Feel free to hate me while I giggle with glee at the annoyance you feel at this cliffhanger!