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Amanda was right, it really was just dinner. No smoke and mirrors, no tricks up her sleeves… didn\'t lace the drinks with some kind of narcotic that makes me go goo-goo ga-ga all over her. 

Hell, even if she did, didn\'t think I\'d mind it much… on top of being the Da Vinci of our time, it seems she was also gunning to beat out Gordon Ramsay when it came to culinary delights. 

She decided on Italian tonight, plates of spaghetti and slices of lasagna a swirling enticing aroma that could Irene a run for her money, and though I was no Luigi or Giovanni or some shit, I could still safely say she knocked it out of the ballpark with this one.

Now I already knew she could cook good, she was the one that taught Ash how to handle the pan and spatula during the time when I was still rehabilitating, but I just don\'t know, man… something about tonight\'s meal had me asking for seconds, thirds, and even fourths.

"Well someone\'s a glut, aren\'t they?" Amanda remarked, only too happy to oblige, filling my plate with as much as it could possibly hold. "I\'m very happy you like it." 

"Well, I\'m very happy I met you," I replied back, chewing fast, smacking my lips, and relishing the taste. "You\'re gonna make a certain husband of yours real happy, let me tell you."

She giggled, her expression half in a grimace, the other half in delight. "Let that be the last time you mention that drawing, and I\'ll be more than happy to cook for you anytime you want, alright?"

"Alternatively, I could just marry you and achieve the same thing." 

Amanda played it cool here, looking up and pretending to mull over the thought. "Mmm, pretty presumptuous to think I\'d say yes just because you asked, don\'t you think?"

"Perhaps," I said, inclining a nod in agreement. "But I\'m not hearing a \'no\' just yet, am I? Is that a yes?" 

A mysterious little smile appeared on her face, matching that same mysterious little leer in her hazel eyes. "Finish your food, sweetie."

There were plenty more conversations we had over the course of dinner, general joking, teasing, just general bantering all around. It wasn\'t much, but you can bet it was plenty of fun… even after we long finished with our meals, we still just sat there across from one another, just talking… and what we talked about, it was anything, really… it didn\'t matter to me, the future, our careers, life in general, it was just nice talking to her.

With her, I could somewhat forget the way my life tipsy-turvy had flipped upside-down Australia style. In a way, she was like an anchor to what life was prior to everything that\'s happened.

Don\'t get me wrong, It wasn\'t as if I disliked how my life was now, in fact, I thought the total opposite, but… just once in a while, just sometimes… it was okay to feel nostalgic for the past, y\'know? 

Besides, I don\'t see anybody else I know boasting they could kick my ass all the way to humbletown in a fighting game, and I also don\'t see myself rebutting to anybody else that I could kick their asses just as bad. It was only Amanda. You\'re on, Amanda. You\'ve been warned.

"Loser washes the dishes," She proclaimed with a snigger, booting up her console and digging out a spare controller from the box. "I haven\'t played in a while, so I think ten minutes is a good estimation for the time it\'ll take you to start cleaning all the dishes. I counted at least ten things that need scrubbing." 

"Excuse you, don\'t you mean six minutes?" I plopped myself on the couch, gripping the controller, hunching over in my tryhard gamer stance. "I suggest you best get your washing gloves ready, Amanda. Might have beaten Ash, but you can\'t win \'em all, y\'know?"

Anyway four minutes later, I was calling out to her over the sound of the running faucet where she keeps her extra dishwashing soap as I was kinda running on low here. 

"Top shelf, cabinet above her head," She said, coming up from behind, sipping the last of her drink, before adding it to the pile, all the while locking a high and mighty gaze with mine. "Eleven." 

In my defense, how was I to bloody know that that gold joystick prop she had displayed on a shelf was for winning grand champion in a tournament held by her college colleagues? She practically cheated. She\'s a cheater, she\'s a fraud. No, I\'m not a sore loser, I\'ll put some soap in your eyes, you want that? 

Then, going amiss by both our ears, it started to thunder from the outside. Light pellets of rain a faint patter at first, before gradually battering down heavier on her window. A flash of lightning, a brief explosion of white. 

I remembered looking out at the now blurred view of the cityscape, remarking out loud, "My phone didn\'t say it was gonna rain tonight." overall, I didn\'t think too much about it, I didn\'t think to, until to the side, I saw Amanda\'s haughty smile quickly fade. 

She was staring out at the sudden downpour of rain too. She continued to stare, even when I\'d already moved on to something else. I don\'t think she even realized that she still even was. When I slowed the gushing faucet down to a trickle, she didn\'t notice that, and neither did she notice my presence when I turned to look at her. 

"Amanda?" At the sound of her name, she flinched back to her senses, and I continued to ask, "You okay there?" 

Anybody could see that she clearly wasn\'t. Anybody but her, apparently… smiling there, shaking her head, saying, "Yeah, I\'m fine. Thunder just… caught me off-guard is all." 

Divine timing had the skies above flashing and rumbling tumultuously again - shattering her pretense, her smile… turning her open palms into trembling balls of fists. 

A stranger would think and surmise that she was just simply easily startled by the sound of thunder. But knowing the things she\'s gone through, the things we\'ve gone through, I knew more than to think things simple as that. 

I turned the faucet to a complete stop, drying my hands on my jeans, slowly walking towards her. "It\'s just rain, Amanda." 

She nodded quickly. "Yeah, I know," spoke quickly. "I know." and yet she wouldn\'t stop staring at the many droplets dribbling down her window pane. She knows and yet… she just couldn\'t help it, not that I can blame her for it.

"It won\'t happen again, y\'know?" I told her, taking hold of her hand, unclenching it, and feeling her tension slightly loosen in my grip. "And even if it does, which it won\'t, we have Sera now. You saw how easily she got rid of it, she can do it again." 

"Mmm…" yet even then, she didn\'t sound too assured by it. "It\'s okay, I know. I\'m getting used to it… it\'s just… it hasn\'t thundered like this in a while, not since… yeah." 

I took her other hand. "Nothing\'s going to happen." 

"I\'m sorry, I know you\'re trying to make me feel better, but," She paused, her eyes contemplating briefly on her words, her lips narrowed, before she spoke, "You don\'t know that." 

Yeah.

"True," I nodded my head. "I guess I shouldn\'t say that." 

She shook hers in return, gripping my hand tighter. "No, I\'m sorry, I appreciate what you\'re doing, and it\'s helping, really…" She flashed a quick tender smile. "It\'s only… the Blightfall was the worst experience I\'ve ever gone through in my life, right next to getting kidnapped by vampires, and really I don\'t think anything can top that… but then sometimes, not many times, but, there\'s this thought in my head, a little voice asking me… what if things can get worse than that? I think this, and then the question becomes… what if it does?" 

To me, it was immediately clear from the sound of her voice that she\'s asked this question more times than she was letting on, she let it build, let it eat away at her for so long, not telling anyone. She shouldn\'t have done that.

"Then if it does somehow indeed get worse," I said. "You already know who\'ll be there to make things better, don\'t you?"

Her eyes looked up at me, and I couldn\'t help but smile. 

"We\'ll make it better," I told her plainly. "And that I know for sure." 

It was comfort like nothing else, and it was working… slowly, gradually, I watched the intensity in her gaze slowly fade away. I got close, so very close… and then it had to happen.

Lightning flashed through the window.

Thunder resonated within the walls.

And her apartment was swiftly plunged into an instant darkness. The lights went out, her television flickered shut, and the hum of the ceiling fan whirred to a dead silence - the continuous rumble from above the only noise resounding. A blackout.

I admit, I too got startled by the abruptness of it all, but it was nothing compared to Amanda. One second, in the darkness I heard her loudly gasp, and then the next, I felt a pressing weight against my entire body, a warmness - and her arms wrapped my neck.

"Hey, hey, relax," I said in a soft whisper, stroking her hair in comfort. "Don\'t tell me you\'re scared of the dark too. You have candles? We\'ll light some, it\'s no big deal."

"Stay with me," She said, her voice muffled against my chest. "Just for the night, stay… please?" 

Hearing her like this, so frightened,  so vulnerable… the usual cheery, springy her… I didn\'t think there was anything in the world that could have convinced me otherwise to turn her down. 

I continued to stroke her hair, holding her close in our impromptu awkward crushing embrace. 

"I\'ll look for the candles."