April 26, 33 AE

Fortunately, it seemed like Camilla actually did heed Elsie's request because she was her calm and stoic self when they left for the airport early Saturday morning. Since the Org didn't want Elsie's car to be left in a public parking lot where anyone could tamper with it, they organized a ride for her and Camilla to and from LAX airport, and Elsie's family would be picking them up in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Like in Tokyo, the Org had her use a private screening and waiting area in LAX, but had advised her there would be no such accommodations in the small airport in Flagstaff, and Elsie was more than fine with that. She knew all of the precautions were for her safety, but she was getting tired of it.

While the early morning flight should've been perfect for Elsie to fall asleep quickly, she found herself jittering in her seat with nerves. Half of her anxiety was easily attributed to the impending flight, but the other half was because she was going to see her family again.

She didn't have a reason to be nervous, really; Elsie loved her family, and she knew they would also love her no matter what she did with her life, as long as it was legal and not morally ambiguous. Still, Elsie didn't want to disappoint them, and she didn't know what they thought about whatever they heard about her from the news or their neighbors.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Camilla blatantly and calmly watching her and her knee that was bouncing up and down.

"I'm just nervous," Elsie admitted, forcing her leg to still.

"About the flight?" Camilla guessed.

"Yes." Elsie answered, then added, "and because I'm seeing my family."

Camilla nodded once in acknowledgement, but Elsie wasn't sure if she actually understood.

"It's not like I'm worried that one day I'll do something and they suddenly won't love me anymore," Elsie clarified, and her assumptions about Camilla proved to be true when she got a slightly confused look in response. "Actually, I know they wouldn't be disappointed in me unless I'm sent to jail or something. But..." Elsie sighed. "I would just hate to give them a reason to be disappointed in me."

Camilla was silent for a while, but it wasn't like Elsie was expecting a reply; she just needed to get that off her chest, and Camilla was the only ear available. So Elsie was surprised when Camilla eventually did respond.

"They would be happy you're alive," was all Camilla said.

It was such a simple statement, but something about the way she said it, while looking directly into her eyes, made Elsie almost stop breathing for a second. Flustered, Elsie quickly cleared her throat and turned to the window on her other side. She usually didn't like looking outside while they took off, but it was better than the alternative view and her mind was too distracted to realize what was going on anyway.

They landed in Flagstaff several hours later. Elsie had managed to get about an hour's worth of sleep, but it wasn't enough to make up for her early start. Hopefully, if her family had ever met her before, they would know to bring her coffee.

Flagstaff's airport was about half the size of LAX's smallest terminal, so it didn't take them long to go from their gate to the pick-up area. Elsie was looking down at her phone while they walked to text her family about their arrival, so she didn't see what was waiting for her right outside the airport's glass doors.

"That's not very subtle," Camilla commented grimly, and Elsie didn't even need to look to know who she was talking about.

On the curb, her family was waiting with an eyesore of a welcome party. Each of them had a hand holding up a long banner that looked to be a white tablecloth with a large "Welcome Home Elsie!" handwritten in bold, orange paint. Her parents stood in the middle and used their free hands to make an obnoxious amount of noise with cheap, plastic clappers. At either end were her brother and sister, each with a bundle of balloons. The balloons were sagging, probably blown up with regular air instead of helium, so the siblings waved them above their heads to give the illusion that they were floating at the appropriate height.

When Elsie and Camilla finally stepped outside, her parents and sister cheered loudly enough that Elsie was sure the entire terminal could hear them. Her brother cringed at the scene until their mom whacked him lightly on the head and he started unenthusiastically cheering along with them.

Before Elsie could say anything herself, her family mobbed her in a frenzy of hugs and hair ruffling, and it took her a few minutes to squeeze out of their grasp. She actually tolerated it longer than she would've liked, but only because someone shoved a cup of coffee into one of her hands at some point.

"I thought I asked you guys to keep it subtle?" Elsie said, but she couldn't help but smile before she hid it behind her newly acquired coffee cup.

"Why do you think it's only the four of us?" her mom replied.

"I had to keep her from inviting the rest of the street at the last minute, so consider yourself lucky," her sister Bev explained. "Dad was no help, after all."

Their dad shrugged helplessly from between them.

"You know I can't do anything," he said, then nodded at Camilla. "You going to introduce us, El?"

"Right, sorry," Elsie apologized to Camilla, who was staring at her family in slight shock. "So these crazy people are my family."

"Don't lump me in with them," her brother Nate said grumpily. Like Elsie, he too was not a morning person, and he had flown in earlier on a red eye from Sacramento.

Elsie rolled her eyes. "That's my brother, Nate." She ignored her brother's bitter muttering to call him Nathan. "You can call him Nate Bates, if you want. He's crazy in a different way, like the kind that enjoys being a lawyer in California. Then there's my mom and dad, Kat and Jacob, and then my baby sister Bev."

"I'm the smartest baby ever, then," Bev said bitterly.

"She's in med school," Elsie explained before turning to her family. "Everyone, this is Camilla."

Her last statement was probably unnecessary since everyone in the country knew who Camilla was. They also knew that Elsie and her had been friends at one point, but Elsie never told her family more than that. She wasn't sure of what they actually thought of Camilla, but they welcomed her with open arms regardless. Literally, in her mom's case, as she immediately wrapped Camilla in a tight hug that could rival one of Mack's.

"We are so excited to have you here!" Kat exclaimed in Camilla's ear.

"Th—thank you," Camilla said warily, looking extremely unsure of what she was supposed to do.

"Dear, we should probably get going," Jacob said in an attempt to redirect his wife's attention.

"Yeah, you're suffocating her," Bev said.

"And I will not be your lawyer if the Org sues you," Nate added.

Eventually, Kat let Camilla go, but only to get another look at her from afar.

"You're so..." Kat sighed, "tiny."

All of her children groaned simultaneously.

"Oh my god."

"Mom, you can't just say that to people."

"Can we leave already?"

Throughout this, Camilla remained silent and bewildered. But after a few more seconds of chatter, she seemed to compose herself and she cleared her throat just loud enough to get their attention.

 "With all due respect," she said, her voice serious and business-like. "It would be best if we moved to a more secure location."

Camilla's tone must've reminded her family why she was there and about the possible threat to Elsie's life. Within minutes, the six of them were packed into two cars and on the road. Since Elsie's parents weren't going to let their oldest daughter out of their sight for the weekend, they packed her and Camilla into their old three-seater truck with them, and Nate caught a ride with Bev. It wasn't the most comfortable arrangement, but they would only have to endure for a few minutes.

 The Bates family's home was on the small size for five people, but Elsie liked to think of it as cozy. When they were younger, the three children shared one bedroom and their parents shared the other. As they got older, they temporarily sectioned off part of the living room with shelving and curtains to serve as another room, and Nate was more than happy to claim the makeshift space to get away from his noisy sisters.

In more recent years, Elsie had gifted her parents with the finances to expand their home. They only accepted it once Elsie promised it would make her visit more often, and they added two permanent bedrooms and renovated their tool shed to serve as a separate unit, complete with a small bathroom and wet bar. Elsie assumed that Camilla would be offered the modern separate unit, so when they arrived, she immediately headed to the main house with her belongings.

"Wait, Elsie, I forgot to mention," Kat stopped her. "You and Camilla have to stay in the guest house together."

Elsie spun around to her mom. There was no way she could've heard that correctly. "Wait, what?"

"Your dad and I are using your room as a gym." Kat clapped excitedly. "You should see it! It looks amazing. And don't worry, we also turned Nate's room into an art studio, so he'll be sleeping on the couch."

"Bev and Nate can share a room and I'll take the couch." Elsie waved a hand at her siblings that just arrived.

"No way, I need space to study," Bev said.

"She farts in her sleep," Nate said simultaneously.

"Their schedules aren't compatible," Kat compromised.

"Then I'll share with Bev," Elsie offered.

"I just said I need my own room to study," Bev said with a frustrated sigh.

"It's one weekend," Elsie pointed out.

"Finals are coming up," Bev argued. "Are you going to pay for another semester if I have to retake my classes?"

"Sure, I will," Elsie snapped back. "But we all know you would never fail a class if you could help it."

"I can show you to the guest house," Nate offered to Camilla. "They might be at it for a while. It's best to just let them duke it out in the driveway where the neighbors can act as witnesses."

"Hang on," Elsie intervened, instinctively taking Camilla's arm to hold her back. Camilla looked at Elsie's hand, surprised, but it was too late for Elsie to take it back now. "Camilla's our guest, right? Why are you making her share a room?"

"You can sleep on the living room floor, if you want," Nate offered.

Elsie was very willing to take him up on that, but doing so would've made it too obvious that she wanted to keep her distance from Camilla. But before she could make up her mind, Camilla stepped in.

"I'm fine with sharing," she assured, still as business-like as before. "Thank you for your hospitality."

Resigned to her fate, Elsie was forced to show Camilla to the guest house. It was easily big enough for the two of them, even if Elsie did have to sleep on the couch, but it still felt stifling. Camilla must have noticed something was off because she spoke up first.

"I can take the couch," she said.

"It's fine," Elsie said. It wasn't the couch that was the problem. "Besides, my mom would probably kill me if she found out I let you do that, and that would kinda defeat the purpose of you being here to protect me."

Camilla apparently didn't have an argument for that because she began placing her bags by the bed shortly after.

As soon as she was settled in, Camilla went outside to scope the area, advising Elsie to yell if she was needed. It sounded like a primitive method of communicating an emergency, but Camilla assured that she could use her abilities to sense the sound waves reverberating against the molecules in the air. With that, she left Elsie to worry if her conversation with Jordan earlier in the week actually had been overheard by the guardian.

At some point, Elsie must've fallen asleep because she woke up on the couch a few hours later. Camilla was nowhere in sight, but the sounds of children's excited voices coming from the street was probably a clue.

Outside, it looked like Camilla's presence had started a block party for children, and about two dozen of them were scattered on the sidewalk in front of Elsie's house. The main focus was Camilla, along with two children on bicycles right in front of her. As they pedaled down the sidewalk with thrilled shrieks, she followed close behind with a hand placed about a foot behind each of their backs.

"She's teaching them how to ride their bikes," Kat said excitedly when Elsie approached her. She had her phone out and was recording the scene as if they were all her own children. Or if Camilla was her own daughter. "She's doing something like controlling the air around them to help them keep their balance. Isn't it adorable?"

Elsie almost laughed. "I'm sure Camilla is thrilled about using her powers for that."

"She was the one who offered," Kat said.

"Wait, what?"

At first, Elsie didn't believe it. But after getting a closer look at Camilla's face, she was surprised to see a small smile where there usually was a stoic frown or a shit-eating grin. It was an expression that Elsie never thought she would see on Camilla's face, and the sight caught her off-guard.

"I guess I missed a lot," Elsie said, her eyes following Camilla and her smile as she helped the next pair of kids sans training wheels.

"Oh, you have no idea," Kat said.

According to Kat, while Elsie was asleep, Camilla had been mulling about in the yard when one of the neighborhood kids started calling for help. They had been trying to learn how to ride their two-wheeler on their own, because they wanted to show their parents they were big kids, but had fallen and gotten stuck in the neighbor's shrubbery. Being the hero that she was, Camilla helped them out and offered to help them practice. Her only condition was that she had to stay in front of the Bates's house, so all of the other neighborhood kids ended up coming to her.

"Is it true you can fly?" one of the kids shouted.

"Yes, I can," Camilla replied with a small chuckle.

"Can you make us fly?" another kid asked.

"No, I can only do that for people who need help," Camilla answered without missing a beat.

Surprisingly, the kids didn't question it and moved on with their interview, their bicycles forgotten.

"Can you really shake the ground?"

"My sister said she saw you catch an airplane once!"

"Can you fly into space?"

"Can you catch an airplane for us?"

Camilla seemed momentarily overwhelmed by the questions before gaining her bearings again.

"Who wants to have a snow day?" she asked, changing the subject completely.

Of course, all the kids raised their hands. Only one was suspicious enough to mention the fact that it was almost summer.

"Are you saying you don't want a snow day?" Camilla asked.

"I do!"

Camilla grinned mischievously, as if she was about to let them in on a secret. "I can make it snow, but you have to promise not to tell anyone, okay?"

"Okay!"

"Pinky promise?"

After hooking a pinky with two dozen children individually, Camilla stood up straight with her arms extended in front of her and her palms facing outwards, and then she closed her eyes. For a moment, nothing happened, and the kids were watching her with wide eyes and bated breath. Even Elsie, Kat, and the neighbors that had come out to watch their kids from a distance fell silent.

Suddenly, the air in front of her hands began to visibly swirl, and small clouds seemed to appear from nowhere. Seconds later, the clouds had raised to about ten feet high, and they expanded to the size of two cars. As the kids oohed and aahed from beneath them, their parents began shifting nervously from the sidelines.

And then, it began to snow. It was actually snowing in Arizona at the tail end of spring.

Unsurprisingly, the kids went nuts. Most of them began making snowballs immediately, and within a few minutes, they were able to start making snowmen. While more kids, and even some adults, ran over to join in on the fun, Elsie found that she couldn't take her eyes off of Camilla. Her smile, this smile in particular, grabbed Elsie's attention and held onto it like it would disappear if Elsie looked away. It was captivating, and Elsie found herself smiling before she even realized it.

The snow ended around lunchtime when the last snowball fight finally tired out the remaining kids or made their fingers too numb to do anything else. After the kids said their goodbyes to Camilla and expressed their hopes to do it again, Camilla worked on cleaning up after them. If it had been Elsie, she would've just left the snow to melt on its own—it was just water after all. But apparently, Camilla had higher standards, and it took seconds for the snow to melt and evaporate back into the air, leaving the sidewalk just how it looked a couple hours earlier.

"Show off," Elsie muttered.

"You should bring her by during the summer," Kat said excitedly, then raised her voice so Camilla could hear. "You like hot dogs and hamburgers, dear?"

Camilla was still standing on the sidewalk, her gaze fixed on the ground where the snow just was. She looked to be zoned out, but snapped back to attention at Kat's question.

"Yes, ma'am," she hurriedly answered.

Kat nodded. "I'll go fire up the grill."

As her mom headed back into the house, yelling at Nate to get his ass out of bed as soon as she opened the front door, Elsie headed for the sidewalk. Camilla hadn't moved from her spot, and her expression was indiscernible as she watched Elsie's approach.

"You do that a lot?" Elsie asked. She knew that Camilla attended many charity events that benefitted children, but she had never held an impromptu snow day for them.

"No," Camilla answered, then looked back at the ground. "It didn't use a lot of my energy though, if that's what you're worried about."

"Why would I be worried?"

Camilla looked back at Elsie, trying to tell if she was being serious. "Because I'm supposed to be using my abilities to protect you, not..." she waved at the empty sidewalk, "playing around."

Elsie shrugged. "I have no problem with it. Do you?"

Camilla hesitated before answering. "No..."

"Then no one has to know. Was it fun though?"

"It was alright...?" Camilla replied as she gave Elsie a weird look, probably wondering where the conversation was headed.

"What? I'm just wondering. It looked fun."

"You could've joined if you wanted. Some of the kids could have used you as a snow fort."

Elsie couldn't believe her ears. Had Camilla just teased her?

"Someone's in a good mood," Elsie said. "Maybe you should make snow days more often."

Camilla frowned slightly at Elsie's own light teasing. "Are you only suggesting that because you want your own snow day?"

Elsie played along and raised her hands in surrender. "You got me. I admit it. I'm insanely jealous of a bunch of ten-year-olds."

Her words earned her the most subtle eye roll from Camilla as she walked past Elsie and led the way back inside.

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