Declassified: Avatar Next Generation

Chapter 42.1: "Grocery Shopping"

March marched away to April with more training of both sorts. Sam was happy that Josh was finally making more progress with firebending, enough that she felt that Mella didn't need to always stick around as a paramedic. Mella took that as an invitation to sleep in and read some more.

Nate spent most of the time either working on his car, just general upkeep. Or working out, training. Anything to stay busy when either he or Mella wasn't training Josh in combat. He was doing better. Nate was throwing Josh to the ground a lot less. He was even able to block or dodge some moves. They still had a hard time finding Mella when she wanted to be alone, though, although they managed to narrow it down to her room or the library.

Which was where she was found around the second week of April, hiding out in the library. She was trying to read a exceedingly boring book for what felt like the fifth time, but she was just staring at the same line over and over again. What broke her out of imagining a gif of someone introducing themselves was her phone, buzzing. Who would be calling me? Mella knew she was hard to find around the manor sometimes, but they always managed to find her in the end.

Mella pulled her phone out of her pocket and checked the number. It wasn't the guys or Sam. It was Mrs. Drake. "Hello?"

"Hi, hon. I was just calling to tell you about Josh's birthday. Now, he's not the one to make a big deal about his birthday, but I figure with all that's been happening it wouldn't hurt. Mr. Drake and I would love to make it up there with you kids, but we just aren't able to come. We've started helping Carlisle at the base. Cameron suggested that we needed something to do. Unfortunately we just can't get away." Plus there was the fact Josh would probably love celebrating with his friends.

Crap. Mella had completely forgotten about Josh's birthday. She had punched it into her old phone, but she had lost it when the Enforcers kidnapped her. I hope I haven't forgotten anything else...

"Okay, so no super huge surprises. And that's too bad. It's nice over here." It was true. Once the snow had melted, everything had turned green and bloomed. And after the one really bad allergy attack, where Mella just stayed inside for most of a week, it was really nice and enjoyable.

"Oh I know. My husband and I had one of our anniversaries up there." Back when Josh was still a baby.

Mella put the book away, still holding the phone to her ear. "Does he have any preferences to stuff? Like, cake and presents-wise?"

"Preferences. His favorite is white cake. Icing doesn't matter. He's a fairly easy person to shop for. He loves his comic books though. Honestly you kids could wrap up a can of beans and he'd still love it. "

Mella laughed. "I wouldn't put it past Nate to do that. Alright, I think I know what I'm doing for him now. I'll call you back if I need help. Tell Cameron hi for me."

"Will do, hon. Talk to you all later."

Mella said her goodbyes to Mrs. Drake and went to her room to grab a couple things before going to find the only housemate she knew had a license and a car.

♢ ♢ ♢ ♢ ♢ ♢

Said person happened to be sprawled across the couch, sleeping for once. At this point Nate had already replaced everything that could be replaced, checked and changed every possible part of his Camaro. It was at top working condition. He'd already spent half the day training, and since then he showered and run out if things to do.

Unless he wanted to watch more training sessions, which would have just been another excuse to fall asleep. Those things got boring after a while.

Mella was walking towards the stairs to the first floor when she heard snoring from the living room. She stuck her head in the room to see someone's feet and the edge of a blonde head sticking out over the ends of the couch. It could only be Nate. The saying that airbenders were the second loudest snorers (only to be topped by the sky bison, of course), was definitely true.