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Saturday John calls Sammy.  He conveys a desire to have lunch, his treat, and go flying.  He will leave a message if she doesn't answer.  Let me know if she doesn't get back to him before like 4PM that day.

Sammy calls him back shortly after receiving the message.

"I thought I could buy you lunch for taking me flying.  I just need to get used to the whole not being on the ground thing."  there is a pause, "I would understand if you'd rather not though."

"Nah, it's okay.  It's just stress, and I get all weird when I get stressed.  I'll be fine as soon as I figure out how to get out of my own way.  When do you want to go?"

"Whenever is good for you.  I don't have much to do, sometime before dark I guess so we don't crash into anything."  he laughs and Sammy can tell it's got that nervous edge he has when he has to deal with heights.  "I get quiet when I'm stressed.  I guess I just sort of close down.  Not a good thing, but it's just how I managed."

"So when we're airborne, you'll be quiet and I'll be trying to shake off my paranoia.  Good times."  Sammy lays a pencil in her textbook to mark the page.  "I can be ready in 10 minutes.  Come on over to my house, and we'll go from here.  My parents are downstairs, just knock and somebody will let you in."

"Sounds good."

John is downstairs ten minutes later.  He wears a jacket, but it's obvious that it's not nearly heavy enough for the weather, but Sammy knows it's more of a disguise than anything else.  Dad lets him in and calls up to Sammy.  "Sam, John is here."

Sammy scoots down the stairs.  She's dressed for warmth and comfort, with hiking boots, jeans, and a flannel shirt over a waffle weaved Henley.  She gives her dad a quick kiss on the cheek.  "I'm going out for a while see you later bye".  She throws on a warm coat, a hat, and mittens, and she's ready to go.

"Where to?"

"What are you hungry for?"  Once they're out of earshot of the house, "And how fast can you fly?  I was thinking I could take us somewhere a little removed if you'd like, and we could fly back.  Give you a chance to pour on the speed."

"I don't know.  I've never tried to push my speed," she says.  "You can pick where we eat, since you're the one paying for it.  Do I need to change clothes for where you want to go?  I can sneak back in pretty easily."

John shakes his head.  "Nah.  we can just go somewhere cold."  John picks Sammy up, cradling her in his arms.  "Hang on."  John takes a deep breath and Sammy can feel a wave of heat roll off of him, and then they're off.  About twenty minutes later john stops and they're in the parking lot of the Ponderosa Steak house in Sheboygan, WI.  "I know buffets probably get boring, but I'll try to make it up to you some time."  he says, setting her down.  "I always wanted to say I've been to Sheboygan.  It's about a hundred and fifty miles north, so not too bad."  The steam rising off of John is spectacular, like he just stepped out of a sauna.

Sammy shakes her head and laughs.  "You're funny.  Sheboygan.  Next stop, Kalamazoo?  Here, let me help you."  She channels a particularly cold layer of air directly onto him to cool him down faster.  "You're gonna make it rain inside if you go in all hot and steamy.  They probably wouldn't like that too much."

John laughs and the chill air saps away the heat until he seems almost normal.  "Kalamazoo huh?"  he says with a grin.  "Maybe next time."

John buys lunch, and eats like a horse.  It seems less noticed here, and everything seems to be going along ok until the waitress makes a simple comment, "Your boyfriend sure can eat."  John knocks over both drinks and almost coughs up a lung.  The waitress gets the idea and apologizes, cleaning up the spill.  "sorry."  she says, replacing the drinks and going back to her routine.

John is obviously embarrassed.  "That was one of those moments when you hope you can save your dignity, and you fail."  he says, taking a drink.

Sammy is embarrassed too, but tries to brush it off.  "S'all right.  I'm not standing by the table drenched in ice water like Carrie at the penguin prom.  You'll still be able to show your face again in Sheboygan."  Then she shoves a big chunk of steak into her mouth so that she is too busy chewing to say any more about it.

After John has eaten his fill, and it's a considerable amount to be sure, the pair head outside and start to look for a park.  John uses his phone to get some directions, and then they look for a fairly secluded spot to take off from.  "The weather should be clear but cold.  If it gets too cold let me know and I can run us back."  John takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly and gets ready.  It's obvious that he's still somewhat nervous about flying.

Sammy looks at him with some concern.  She doesn't want him freaking out in mid-air.  Trying to break the tension, she answers with a slightly flippant "If I get too cold, I'll just burrow under your shirt like a pet ferret and won't come out till you take me to Cancun."

Taking her own deep breath first, she steps right up next to him and wraps her arms around his torso.  "Do you trust me? I won't let you fall.  Hold on as tight as you need to, and we'll be on our way."  As she's saying this, she very slowly floats both of them up to about a foot off the ground.

"If I didn't trust you I wouldn't be doing this."  he says, seeming to relax as she lifts them off the ground.  "I don't think you'd let me fall.  They don't call it an irrational fear because it makes sense.'  he says forcing a smile.

"Cool."  She starts slowly rotating them around the edge of a big imaginary circle to get him used to the sensation of movement over the ground.  She says lightly, "Now if you want, I can go all Disney Princess on you and sing some kind of song to get you to forget your troubles as I gently escort you up to higher heights, or we can just zip up fast and get it over with all at once.  I'm good either way.  Make your desires known, oh Master, so that this humble djinn may bring them to reality."

John chuckles.  "This is the speed test.  And as great a singing voice as you have, I don't think an in-flight concert will be needed.  So let's see how fast you can go, shall we?"

"OK, you asked for it.  Hold on!"  She gets some altitude then heads south along Lake Michigan's coastline, pushing her speed as hard as she can.

Sammy discovers that she can keep John aloft with more ease than she remembers, it might be the density of the air, or her powers improving with use.  She finds herself hurtling south along the coast, following it's contours with ease in the clear light of a winter's day.  She finds also that it would be viciously cold if she weren't keeping the majority of the chill off of the pair, and John's body heat fills the space where she's protected them inside her own forcefield.  Up here, away from the hindrance of trees, buildings and light posts she finds she can fly at considerable speeds.

OOC: How hard does she push it?

OOC:  Wide open

Sammy laughs with glee, grabs John a little tighter before she does a little spin, and kicks it into overdrive.

John lets out a nervous laugh when Sammy pours on the speed.  They arrive back over Oak Park in about twenty five minutes.  "Whooooo, That was fast."  John says to her as they can see the familiar structures of Oak Park.

"Must have been, if even you think it was," Sammy replies.  "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine."  John says with a smile.  "I appreciate this.  The flying, lunch, everything."

Sammy shrugs and smiles.  "You don't have to thank me.  I'm having fun, you paid for lunch, you found a way to get me out of the mopes; I probably ought to thank you."  She stops and hovers.  "That park is nice and empty.  You want to try to fly on your own yet?"

"Ah.  I think it I fly, taking off would be the first task.  Starting from up here would probably not work out well.  And whatelse are friends for?  You helped me out when I was in the dumps."

"True."   Sammy takes John down to the ground.  She lets go of him, then wanders over to a spot with a lot of untouched snow.  She started flying when she was thinking of something else.  Maybe it'll work for him too.  She makes a snowball and lobs it at him, not hard enough to hurt but enough to get his attention.  "Ha!"  She starts working on the next snowball.
'

John has a comical lok on his face as the snow melts and falls off him.  "Ok, I have to ask.  What are you doing?"

Sammy has a guilty caught-with-her-hand-in-the-cookie-jar expression on her face.  "Um, throwing snowballs?"  The half formed snowball in her mitten is allowed to drop to the ground.  "So you'd be so busy lobbing snowballs back at me that when I went airborne to get fast enough to stuff some snow down your neck, you'd go airborne to get even and you wouldn't even think about flying, you'd just be doing it?"

"Oh."  John says, a smile crossing his lips.  And then a snowball hits Sammy.  She knows he moved, from the little swirl of snow he disturbed, but he's standing there trying to look innocent.

She laughs.  "Creep!"  She knows that he can dodge anything she throws at him, but she scoops up a big handful and ostentatiously shapes it, vocalizing outrageously ridiculous threats about what she's going to do with it as she surreptitiously causes a breeze to shake the snow off the branches of a big fir tree just behind him.  If she does it right, he gets a cold surprise.

The snow rains down in clumps on John.  If her were anyone else the shock might have given a physical reaction, but instead it just makes him smile.  "Cute.  So that's how it's gonna be huh?"  He nods and looks around.  He shakes some to get the excess snow off of him and out of his jacket, shirt, and even the legs of his pants.  There is a blur, and Sammy starts to get hit by clumps of snow from multiple angles as John circles her.

She starts laughing again, teasing and taunting, and zips up off the ground.  Snow starts coming down from all the trees right around them (statistically, some of it has to hit him, right?) and it looks like they're inside of a snow globe.  She grabs a fistful of snow from somewhere and prepares to move in for the down the neck maneuver.

The trees begin to drop their load of snow downward, and a flurry of snow flies around until John stops, watching Sammy fly up.

She extends a mittened hand in his direction, palm up and open.  "Well, come on!" she says.  "Or will it come down to a handful of snow and an open collar?" She attempts to arch her eyebrows menacingly and probably fails miserably because she's not feeling particularly menacing.

John takes a breath, and squats slightly.  Sammy can see the snow around him begin to blow outward, and then he springs into the air.  He comes up to about her altitude, and almost seems to hang for a second, before plummeting back to the and landing with a heavy thud that disturbs the snow.  John seems amused, as he begins to laugh and falls over onto his back to make a snow angel.  "Does that count as flying?"  he says through his laughter.

Sammy glides down to stand in the snow next to him.  "It's a start," she says with a grin.  She lays down to make her own snow angel.  "You have the take off and landing parts down pat."

John laughs.  "I've had that part down pretty good since I was about nine or ten I guess."  He lays looking into the sky for a moment, "My strength developed faster than my invulnerability for a while.  That's how I got my fear of heights.  I made this really crazy jump from a railroad bridge and hit some trees.  Well the trees were in a gulch, so it was farther to the ground then I could safely land back then."  He works on his snow angel some more.  "That was the last time I remember getting really hurt bad."  He eases up to look at his snow angel, "I'd show you the scar, but they don't stay."  He lifts his shirt to point at a spot in his side.  "My mom was so terrified.  Her and dad laid with me in the living room that whole night after they got the re-bar out.  Back then they couldn't take me to the doctors, too much was a secret back then.  And then in the morning I woke up and she yelled at me for being careless."  He laughs, "Moms."

Sammy lifts herself up so she's kind of leaning back on her elbows and regards John.  She has an expression of shock and horror on her face as she says the word "Re-bar?  In your side?  and they couldn't take you to a doctor? That's horrible!  No wonder she yelled; it probably scared the crap out of her!  It's years later, you don't even have a scar there, and I'm scared by that story!"  She rolls over enough to punch him on the arm.  "Tell your mom that I've got her back."

She flops back on her own back and works on her wings some more.  "Note to self:  keep John away from re-bar."

John rubs his arm where Sammy punched him.  She knows it's an act, one he's practiced most of his life, "After that I stopped playing around mostly.  She was so scared, and I was so ashamed of it that I somehow managed to become afraid of heights."  He shrugs, "I'm pretty sure that there's no height I'm likely to fall from that would hurt me.  But I still get a little nervous when I look down from somewhere high up."

"Maybe all you need to do is to talk to her about it.  Tell her you've found some training wheels and a safety net, and you want her permission to fly.  Once you figure out that she forgave you a long time ago, you might forgive yourself and *poof* no more fear."  She carefully stands up and admires her angel.

John seems to think about it before replying.  "Might work.  I'll talk to her tonight maybe."  John moves to look at both angels.  "Thanks again for the flight.  I had a great time, and you learned something about how fast you can go."

"It was fun.  We can do it again anytime you want."  She steps around the angels and draws eyes and smiling mouths on both of them.  "That's better."

John takes out his phone and takes a picture of the snow angels.  "Much better."  he says slipping the phone back into his pocket.  "I should walk you home and then head home myself.  It'll be getting dark soon, and colder."

"Yeah, you're right.  My cheeks are going numb." She grins. "Both sets."

John laughs and walks with Sammy until they get to her place.  "I'll see you Monday.  I'm heading down south with the folks tomorrow to visit grandparents, so I'm skipping the farm trip.  Take care."


After the good byes are said John zips home.