9:29 am

The next day, Azura set out a little later.

While she had left at dawn the day before, she decided to take her time that day. Dressing up properly, and eating a hearty breakfast, around nine in the morning, she walked out of her house to find Jordan.

But before she could step on to the street, she was stopped by her brother Xandar.

"Where are you off to?" he asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. "I haven't seen you go out so often since god knows when. And as a loving big brother, it's my job to make sure that my precious little sister doesn't get herself in trouble."

The day before, after she pointed out the first reason, all was more or less silent. Both Azura and Jordan were content to simply sit and revel in each other's company. Despite him not talking much, she still felt they had made considerable progress, and went home vowing to meet him again the next day.

"Calm down, I'm only going to meet a friend," she assured him, starting to walk off.

"But I called Jess up yesterday to ask about you, and she said you weren't with her," Xandar stated, cocking his head to the side a little.

Azura felt her face warm. In anger or embarrassment, she couldn't tell.

"You know, I have other friends besides Jess. And I'm going to meet one of them right now," she said haughtily, walking further and further away from her brother.

"At least tell me her name!" he shouted at her.

"Who says its a 'her'? she retorted.

Xandar froze for a second before roaring, "What?!"

But before he could get an answer, Azura sprinted out of sight, turning the corner as fast as she could. Only when she was almost at the end of the alley could she let out a sigh of relief.

Putting her hands on her knees and panting, trying to catch her breath, she suddenly heard a small whine and a bark from her right.

She perked up, and tried following the sounds to its source.

She finally found it when she spotted a small cardboard box placed against the wall. Upon opening it, a figure leaped on her and tackled her to the ground.

A small white puppy was attacking her face with wild licks as she struggled to get up, getting pushed back down every time she got close.

"Well this is vaguely reminiscent, isn't it?" a voice called out.

Jordan walked up to Azura, and crouching down, gently picked the puppy up and away from her.

Sputtering, she sat up, looking exasperatedly at the little bundle of fur now nestled in Jordan's lap. Her back was wet from laying in the snow and her hair was a wild mess of tangles.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked him, narrowing her eyes.

"Well, our first meeting did involve you leaping onto me and attacking me," he said calmly, stroking the dogs head deep in thought.

"I did not attack you! In fact, if my memory serves me right, I actually saved your life!" she exclaimed indignantly.

Jordan waved it off with a dismissive gesture. "Minor details."

Azura sighed, and let it be. No point in arguing with someone so...so...

"Irritating? Annoying? Immature?" he supplied.

"Yes! I...I mean no! I mean...what?" she stuttered in confusion.

"You're pretty easy to read," he shrugged.

Rolling her eyes at him, Azura shifted her attention to the puppy in Jordan's lap. It was perfectly adorable, with furry ears, a waggy tail, and sweet little eyes that played close to attention to her every move. In fact, it looked surprisingly similar to Jordan.

"It looks like you," Azura declared after a moment of thought.

"What?" he asked, and after a moment of thought, held the dog up next to his face. "Does it?"

"Yes," she giggled, comparing the two in her head. "You two are practically twins."

Jordan set it back down on his lap, where it promptly curled up and fell asleep, soft snores sounding from the little pup.

"Hey!" Azura pouted. "How come he attacks me, but he falls asleep on your lap?"

Jordan chuckled lightly, the first real laugh Azura got out of him. She smiled widely at the minor accomplishment, and stared at him.

"Are you going to keep him?" he asked her, genuine curiosity in his tone.

"As much as I want to, no," Azura sighed. "My mom's not a huge fan of dogs and my dad's allergic to fur, so my house is a no can do. Can you possibly keep him? I don't want to leave him here all alone."

"Maybe..." he mused. "I suppose he could stay with me. Provided you're willing to take turns taking care of him."

"Of course!" Azura squealed, excited at the prospect of having a pet of her own. In the small time she knew it, she had already gotten rather attached to the little pup. Her and Jordan both.

"So, what do you want to call him?" she asked Jordan, scratching the little dog's ears.

"Hmm.." After a few moments of consideration, Jordan spoke.

"How about.. 'Sky'?" he asked, looking straight into Azura eyes instead of at the dog, actually interested to hear her opinion.

"Sky," she rolled the name on her tongue a couple of times. "I like it."

She looked up to meet his intense gaze. "But why Sky? if you don't mind me asking that is."

Jordan didn't answer for a long time, long enough to make Azura feel extremely uncomfortable.

"Never mind," she mumbled, embarrassed with herself for being so curious.

Jordan sighed.

"It's because, well, when I was younger and I still had my parents, I was... free. That probably sounds a little silly, but I knew that even if I got into trouble, my parents would always be there to protect me. I never really understood how precious the feeling was until I lost it."

He looked back at Sky, who was now whining gently in his lap. He stroked him, as if to calm him down.

"I guess I want Sky to have the same liberty. To be as free as the skies above."

Upon recovering from her initial astonishment, she smiled at Jordan. A soft, fond smile.

"There's your second reason."

His gaze snapped to hers, and it was as intensely curious as Azura imagined it would be.

"Little Sky here is depending on you, so he can live up to his namesake. Your parents were always good to you, so you should do the same, starting now. But there's no way to do that if you're dead. So stay alive, so you can be a good parent to Sky, for his sake, if not for yours."

His eyes never left hers through the speech. A smile grew on his face. First soft, but soon turned rather mischievous as he looked at her.

"So if I'm Sky's dad, and you're his mom, does that mean we're married?" he asked slyly.

"Hey!" Azura laughed, chucking some snow his way. He dodged easily. Which soon turned into a rather playful argument.

And with that, all was happy and laughter again. And you could almost see the blue skies up above, as endless and free as ever, laughing with them.