Rain or Shine | Soulmate AU 1.5 |

14

I spend a few days on my own to piece myself back together. It's not like before when I shut myself away after returning from the facility, though. The team doesn't let me disappear for a week without checking in. Nick comes by and drags me out of bed Monday afternoon. She shoves breakfast down my throat and practically tosses my ass in the shower. Lake brings Bella by Tuesday evening and I get myself wrangled into playing dress up with the kid within twenty minutes. Lake sits back with a small smirk, sipping at a soda and watching the scene play out before him.

By Wednesday I'm feeling better than I have in a long time. I leave my suite and take the elevator to the common floor. A decent amount of the team usually gets together to have breakfast in the mornings. It's nothing official but it tends to just happen like that quite often. Lake is sitting on ones of the stools at the island when I get there, which is not exactly what I was expecting. He normally spends his mornings with Rowan and Bella in their suite. It's one of the many reasons the team and I have taken to jokingly calling the couple a "parental unit."

Lake is chatting quietly to Nick while Flint flips pancakes at the stove across from them. The chatter dies down when the pair realizes that I've joined them. Lake smiles softly and offers a quiet greeting but Cecelia downright grins. It's strange, and the fact that they're the pair on the team that tends to conspire to surprise one of us sets me a bit on edge. It's my birthday, sure, but planning a party shouldn't be so much of a big secret.

"There's the birthday boy," JD exclaims from where he's sitting, shirtless, on the couch with a plate of scrambled eggs in his hands.

"Birthday man," I correct jokingly.

I give the conspiring pair the side eye as I slide into a stool nearby and accept the cup of coffee Flint hands me. That's normal behavior. The schoolgirl whispering that Nick and Lake just exchanged while I was momentarily distracted is not.

"Alright," I say finally after taking a long sip of the coffee. "What are you two planning?"

Lake at least has the decency to pretend to be confused. His hands disappear under the counter so they're out of view, and I can only imagine that the kid is wringing them together. He's nervous about whatever it is.

"We're going on a little trip," Nick replies. "For your present."

I sigh a bit.

"I told you guys no presents," I complain. I tell the team every year and, even though it doesn't stop them from getting me any gifts, none of them ever get too crazy. This one clearly has required some prior planning and thought, though, so it must be something big.

"Yeah, well." Nick shrugs, takes a sip of her orange juice, and rolls her eyes.

"Please tell me it's not a puppy or something, Nick," I plead. "I spend enough time trying to keep all of you from dropping dead as it is."

Lake snorts. Flint flips another pancake high into the air and misses when he tries to catch it with the pan.

"Not a puppy," Lake reassures me. His expression becomes more serious before he continues, "Nothing permanent, either."

"Oh? So that's also a no on an excruciating rib tattoo?"

Nick reaches across Lake just to smack me on the shoulder.

We eat breakfast and the topic of my "present" doesn't come up again until the two of them are herding me towards the elevator. Nick stops the doors from closing and dashes off to retrieve something at the last minute in typical Nick fashion. The elevator moves down to the garage without Nick. She'll catch the next one.

Lake turns to me as we descend with the same shy, nervous look I've been seeing on him since he started hanging around the team.

"Listen, it's...not a normal present, okay? Just...I just hope you like it. You might not. It might just piss you off."