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But no, she just saw, only me, the very moment I came into view, it was like she instantly thawed out from an entire millennium of just sitting frozen at the bus stop.

“Why… did he… call you…? What did he… want…?”

As straight and blunt as a solid full-knuckle punch with the pressing questions. Seriously, not even a ‘welcome back’ first?

“Nothing much,” I said all the while feeling the lie bulging and poking at my waist jangling around in my coat pocket.

Alas, my attempt at sincerity left much to be desired. I was already a bad enough liar even without the smile painted on my lips.

She noticed, of course. Both the bulge and my smile. Got those all-seeing eyes, after all.

“What did he… give you…?” She asked.

All-seeing, indeed.

.....

“Later. Promise,” I then pulled her up to her feet, entwining hands, her murky gray eyes still patiently waiting for an answer. “One thing at a time, alright? I want to get to where we’re going before I say anything else.”

“Oh…” She came up with a new guess. “A… surprise…?”

I chuckled. “Yes, a surprise. Now c’mon… still got a long walk back to the bike before we get there.”

From block to block, crossing snow-soaked streets reaching snow-paved sidewalks. Frosted, fogged lamps dimly illuminated the path forward, at times, we’d passed bright neon signs adorned and tangled in the glittering spheres of festive bulbs.

In the far distance of every direction, the echoes of a variety of Christmas music could be heard playing, melodies usually drowned in a drunken, dissonant mix of jovial, merry voices. And the few cars that came whooshing past in a blur of tail lights would overpower everything else for but a moment, before all the lights, all the sounds, gradually faded in again.

It was by far perhaps the noisiest piece of peace and quiet I’ve ever enjoyed. The city at night, especially tonight, really was something else to behold.

Eventually, we made it back to the place where the day and this date truly started. A dim yellow fluorescent tinting the wide window panes of my favorite local joint just across the road, and my poor bike buried alive beneath mounds and clumps of powdered white.

Got concerned for a moment that the bike wouldn’t start due to the engine turning into nothing more than a useless chunk of metal and ice – mostly ice.

Thankfully, there wasn’t any need for impromptu fire-bending lessons for me just yet. I fired the ignition and felt my heart soar hearing and feeling the ol’ girl roar and rumble.

“We won’t be riding for long,” I assured Adalia, helping her onboard and feeling her strain atop the roaring, rumbling beast beneath us. “Just a quick turn here and there. Trust me, we’ll be there before you know it.”

Without a word, she entrusted my well-being into my hands, or onto my hips and back specifically – throwing her arms around me as tightly as she could, and squandering no chance for comfort resting her head against the back of my neck.

I set us off down blazing across a long stretch of empty road, splitting the snow from the asphalt and forming a patterned trail of tires that rounded the turn at the end of the block, turned right at a junction, funneled down into a narrow alley as a shortcut, before coming out onto deserted stretch… only this time the streets were quieter, the buildings plainer, and the turns more familiar.

Behind me, in the slightest of sensation, I felt Adalia lift her head, the winnowing stream of her silver locks fluttering stronger than ever in the edges of my rearview mirror.

Adalia didn’t say a word, but the glimpse of her face I caught before she slumped back in place was enough of a tell of her receiving an answer to one of her pressing questions.

She finally knew where we were heading.

A final turn skidding us up the curb in the sidewalk and slowly rolling on through the wide open premises of an empty, decrepit tower of concrete and bricks, coming to a gradual stop with the beam of my bike’s headlight painting a spotlight onto the gaping entranceway, fractured pieces of glass and dented aluminum frames glimmering back at us almost in greeting… a jagged, distorted ‘welcome back home’.

I killed the engine, hopped off my bike, fastened my helmet onto the bike, and without skipping a beat, raised a helping hand out towards Adalia, who seemed to be stuck frozen onto her seat.

“Why are… we here…?”

I let my hand fall back down to my side, its offer for aid going unanswered, and once again played folly to her round of questions and answers.

“Told you before, remember? I wanted a better view of the fireworks.”

“Yes… you did…” Adalia stated matter-of-factly, recalling distinctly. She then lifted her eyes to the soaring heights of the building before us, and blinked, realization swirling amidst. “This is… the… surprise…?”

“One part of it, anyway. A pretty shitty surprise it’d be if this was just it.”

“There is… more…?”

“I’m hoping so,” I said.

“In.. side…?”

“Of course inside.”

“Do we… have to… go in… side…?”

And it was here I finally understood the very core, the outsourcing catalyst for all her inquiries. I raised my hand, not in offer, but this time in comfort, letting it fall atop of hers and giving a gentle squeeze.

The last time I was here when Adalia was too, it was a night full of terror and agony. The things that were said, the things that have happened, I’m not too sure exactly just how faded the scars were of that night for her and I.

The first few days after then, were probably, arguably even worse… the awkward conversations, the stiff interactions. How I’d break into a sweat at just the mere sight of anything jagged, and there she would be silently doing all she could trying not to be.

It’s really a miracle how far we’ve moved past that to where we were now.

Now I didn’t care how close my fingers got to the edges of her claws stroking the back of her hand. The sight, the feel of her presence, once enough to get my heart rate pumping… still does, except only now for all the right reasons.

So being here probably felt to her as if a blanket of the past had been cast over the present, and suddenly we were back all the way to back then.

“Bad memories?” I asked.

Adalia slowly drifted her eyes back over toward me, her vacant expression no longer as empty. “For you…”

I shook my head at once. “I’m over it.”

“You will… still… remember…”

“Of course, I remember. I didn’t forget what happened here. I’ll never forget it. I just said I was over it, and I am, really.” I told her. “There’s nothing about what happened then that would affect what happens now.”

Silently, for seconds that felt more than plenty, Adalia let my words simmer in her thoughts, the heavy swirl of her gaze growing vigorous… like a blizzard in the skies coalescing into more.

Then she blinked, and she asked once more.

“And… what does… happen… now?”

“Now?” I smiled at her, lifting my hand from hers, and extending it toward her again. “We go inside.”

If she was still reluctant, she didn’t show. If she had more grievances, she didn’t voice them. If we were the same people we were in those first few weeks, she probably would, and I’d probably relent as well.

But we weren’t.

And she definitely wasn’t.

Slowly, Adalia grabbed hold of my hand, and trusted.

“O… kay…”