Morning found Tommy's flat even more messy than usual, remnants of the night before scattered here and here about the small space - dirty dishes piled in the sink, along with a few empty beer bottles, leftover pizza shoved in the fridge, a trail of discarded clothing scattered here and there leading to the bedroom. The morning sun rose bright and golden to warm and light the room, though the view from the bedroom was seaside and blocked that of the sunrise. It was a quiet, peaceful, lazy kind of morning, the kind where you either wanted to get up early to enjoy the quiet or stay in bed and languish in it. Unfortunately for Lena, she wasn't going to be given a choice as the choice was going to be made for her. A muffled banging was heard coming from somewhere outside the bedroom, along with the sound of a voice, too muffled to understand what it was saying.

She'd been deep in sleep before the banging began, warm beneath the blankets, unaware that her companion wasn't there. As the noise filtered through to her, she frowned, pouting as she began to wake, flailing an arm toward where she thought Tommy was. When that hand found nothing but cool sheets, she rolled onto her back, blinking her eyes open to frown up at the ceiling. What the hell ..." Oh, dawn. He was probably surfing, though she was a little rattled that he hadn't at least woken her to tell her where he was going. That banging was getting on her nerves, though. "All right, all right!" she yelled from the bed, forcing herself to sit up. "Don't get your panties in a twist, I'm coming!" One hand found one of Tommy's bright shirts at random as she pushed herself out of the bed, pulling it on to cover her nudity as she picked her way across the bedroom to find out what - or who - the source of the noise was.

As she got closer to the source of the noise, it would become obvious that the person banging on the door and calling to her was a man, but the voice did not sound like it belonged to Tommy, but rather to his friend Jack. Proof came when just before Lena reached the door, it flew open and Jack came stumbling into the room, looking either frantic or excited - it was hard to tell which. "Oh, there you are!" he exclaimed, as if she was exactly who he'd been looking for. He lunged to make a grab for her hand and tug her toward the door without so much as a good morning. "Come on. Tommy's surfing!" he exclaimed, as if this was a rare occurrence.

To say Lena was surprised was a bit of an understatement. She actually had to swallow a scream when the door burst open, and Jack was only saved from being hit with the nearest blunt instrument to hand because she recognized him in the split second it took for him to grab her hand and start pulling. "What?" Tugged along without much choice but to hurry with him or be dragged - despite her distinct lack of clothing - she followed Jack, hurried toward the door without much thought for what was wrong with this scene. "Is that a big thing?"

Jack paused, turning to look at her incredulously as he pushed the rim of his glasses up higher onto his nose. "Are you kidding?" He gasped as he only seemed to just notice she was barely dressed, her hair a mess. She must have been sleeping, in Tommy's bed, naturally. "Oh, were you....Never mind. Get dressed and hurry before he's finished!"

Fired up by the urgency in Jack's voice, Lena didn't even argue. She simply whirled back toward the bedroom and hurriedly dragged on the clothes she had been wearing the night before, returning to Jack's side just under two minutes later. The excitement was infectious, her smile rising as she joined him. "Let's go, then!"

As for Jack, he was wearing an ugly blue and gray checkered print shirt and blue jeans, his long hair a tangled mess from the wind. He looked even more scruffy than Tommy, if that was possible, but there was a hint of a handsome guy somewhere underneath all the scruff if anyone ever dared to look for it. She was only gone two minutes, but it was enough to make Jack look like he was about to crawl the walls with impatience. He stopped his pacing and grabbed her hand again to tug her toward the door behind him. "There's a crowd gathering on the beach to watch," he exclaimed as the two of them made their way down the stairs.

Pattering barefoot down the stairs behind him, Lena couldn't quite work out what the big deal was. Tommy was surfing - she'd seen him surf before, at dusk and at dawn. Why was it such an amazingly exciting thing now" "This is a big deal, is it?" she asked Jack as they reached the lower floor, heedless of any danger to her feet. She'd crossed this floor in the dark barefoot, she felt pretty safe.

"Tommy hasn't surfed in two years!" Jack explained, obviously assuming she knew that already. Everyone knew that. Of course, she wasn't from around here, so maybe she didn't know, maybe Tommy hadn't told her. He still wasn't quite sure who she was or how she knew Tommy, but Tommy seemed to like her, so who was he to question it' He hadn't seen Tommy this happy in a long time, and the simple fact that he was on a surfboard was proof that something had changed. As they stepped outside into the morning sun, it appeared Jack had not been exaggerating as a small crowd of mostly locals and a few tourists had gathered to watch the lone black speck that had paddled out to sea.

"What?" Her eyes widened as he offered up the explanation. Two years" Why hadn't he told her that, in either incarnation' More importantly, what had she done both times to get him back on a surfboard? Tugged out onto the sand by Jack, her eyes were drawn straightaway to the lone surfer out there on the waves, a bright smile lighting her face as she watched. It was impossible to see this and not smile, especially now she knew how rare it was.

The waves weren't huge by any means - maybe cresting to five feet in height. Certainly not difficult by any means for a skilled surfer, nowhere near as dangerous as the Mavericks where Robby had been killed, and yet, if one didn't know what they were doing, one could still suffer serious injuries and even drown. Jack didn't seem too concerned about that; if anything, he seemed exuberantly excitedly happy, not worried in any way. "There he is!" Jack exclaimed, beaming a smile through his scruffily-bearded face, blue eyes alight with excitement. It was obvious from that look on his face the affection and admiration he held for that lone surfer out there on the water. And just as Jack said, there was a lone surfer bobbing along before disappearing behind a wave and then reappearing as he crouched on the board and road the crest of that wave, skimming along, twisting and turning in ways that looked nearly impossible to master.

"Yeah," Jack replied, his eyes still on Tommy who appeared to be having the time of his life, despite the fact that he had wiped out at least once. He just got back up onto the board and tried again. As far as anyone knew, it had been two years since he'd surfed, after all, and he was a little out of practice. "Tommy went nuts. He swam out and hauled him back. I dunno how he managed to find him, but it was too late. Said he was done with competing after that. It wasn't worth dying over. It was getting too dangerous. Twenty-five foot waves. That's not just crazy, it's suicidal."

"That's why he stopped competing, then," Lena murmured, her own eyes also on Tommy, understanding him more and more as Jack spoke with her. "Competing killed Robby. I don't think it's got anything to do with corporations. Competitions took something away from him he couldn't ever get back. He's lucky he had you." She glanced at Jack, her smile warming for him. "You're a good friend, Jack."

"Oh, it's got everything to do with corporations," Jack interrupted. "Who you think sponsors the meets" Puts up the prize money' Tommy surfed because it was in his blood. It made him feel alive, but when Robby died..." Jack shrugged. "It wasn't fun anymore." She was mostly right, except for a minor detail or two. He glanced over at the compliment, arching a single brow. No one had ever told him that before, not even Tommy. "I love him," he said, matter-of-factly and unashamedly. "He's like the brother I never had." He thought that was explanation enough. How could you leave someone like that behind"

But there it was again. The all corporations are bad mentality that was likely to get her at the very least berated for several hours by someone at some point, as soon as they found out that not only did she come from money, but that money was made by a corporation. Lena's ease faded once again in the face of Jack's interruption, her gaze snapping away from him to watch Tommy riding the waves once more. "For what it's worth, I think you should come with us," she offered in a soft voice. "But it's really up to Tommy whether he goes at all."

"Why wouldn't he?" Jack asked, slightly distracted by that bobbing figured out on the water, turning to face her momentarily before looking back. "Unless one of us gets rich in a hurry, the bank's foreclosing on the shop in a few weeks. Neither of us wants to work for someone else. There's nothing left here. Tommy was talking about going home, working is his dad's butcher shop." Jack frowned, obviously not liking that idea. "That would kill him." He didn't bother to mention what he had in mind for himself.

"He said something about owning up and taking the draft," she murmured, unable to imagine Tommy doing that, or in a butcher's shop. "He needs so much more than just a regular job. He needs the surf and the sand, and ....well, there's a beach outside Rhy'Din that is almost perfect. Several beaches, actually. There are options, for both of you. It just takes a little leap of faith to reach out and grab them."

Jack turned quiet, as he mulled this over, thinking more about Tommy right now than himself. He felt as though their fates were linked; he always had, but he wasn't quite sure how Tommy felt about it. He'd always been a little bit envious of how close he and Robby had been, and he'd always thought he'd been the better friend. "If Tommy goes back to Detroit, it'll kill him," Jack said quietly as he watched his friend out on the waves hanging ten. The crowd was enjoying the show as well, enthusiastically shouting encouragement, oohing and ahing at every successfully-executed stunt. Tommy was in his element; there was no doubt about it. But what about Jack"

Her thoughts were very much in line with his, though she had the privilege of knowing that Tommy thought far more warmly of Jack than the man might have realized. "What do you want to do, Jack?" she asked curiously. "I know you want to stay with Tommy, that's clear. But what do you want to do with your life?"

Thankfully, Jack's expression was partially hidden behind a pair of sunglasses, his face turned toward the surf, so that Lena couldn't see the range of emotions that were all too apparent on his face. He shrugged at her question. No one had ever really bothered to ask him that before, except maybe Tommy late at night when they were both too drunk to hold back. "I dunno. I've lived here all my life. I grew up on the beach. It's all I've ever known."

"Rhy'Din's a good place to work it out," she offered with a half-smile, gently nudging her arm against his. "Like I said ....options." She grinned suddenly, flashing a bright glimpse of the girl that had enchanted his friend as she turned her eyes back to the surf, letting herself absorb the exhilaration that was radiating not just from the crowd around them, but from Tommy himself, so in his element out there on the waves.

"I can see why he loves you," Jack remarked as he glanced over at Lena in time to see that smile light her face up like a light-bulb. There was no hesitation in his remark. Whether Tommy knew it or not yet, Jack could see the bond that was forming or had already formed between the other couple as clear as day. "I'm happy for you," he said, though he sounded a little sad. He loved Tommy like a brother, and he didn't mind sharing, but there was that little bit of envy prickling at his chest again, and he didn't like the feeling. "Maybe you're right. A fresh start would be good for both of us. There's nothing left here."

Her smile gentled, touched by his comment but disbelieving it for now. "He doesn't love me yet," she said softly. "But thank you." Without thinking, she reached over to hug Jack, some part of her knowing that he needed to feel a part of this something that was growing for his friend. "Take the best parts with you, leave the bad behind. He's being a little stubborn about taking some help, so I might need you to help me talk him into it. Because I really don't know the first thing about running a surf shop." She giggled as she drew back.

Jack accepted the hug that was offered, a soft heart hidden behind all that hippie hair. He smiled, a little amused at her comment. "He needs me. He needs us both. He just doesn't know it yet." Jack drew his sunglasses from his face and turned to look back out on the figure of his friend who was riding a wave toward the shore. It appeared the show was coming to an end and along with it, this little conversation. With the glasses off, one could see the blueness of Jack's eyes and the hint at a boyishly handsome face hidden behind the beard that made him look years older than he actually was. "Tommy King, the King of California," Jack muttered to himself.

"But I thought you bromance types shared everything!" Lena teased Tommy even as she laughed along with him. As they approached the shop, she caught movement out of the corner of her eye - a pair of women not much older or younger than herself, eying her with intense dislike. It appeared that Tommy had a bit of a fan-club, even if he'd never noticed it. And for the first time in her life, Lena didn't feel the urge to step out of the way, or to try and hide that she had something someone else wanted. She just ignored the jealousy as they passed it by, her attention stolen by Jack's find. "How long have you been hiding that?" she asked with a chuckle. "More importantly ....where have you been hiding it' Because if your underwear drawer is that dusty, I don't want to know what you're wearing under those pants."

"Bromance?" Tommy echoed, chuckling. That was a word he'd never heard before, but he caught its meaning right away. "I can assure you there's nothing going on between me and Jumpin' Jack Flash." Tommy never even noticed the pair of women who were eying them both up. If there were women who were interested in him, he wasn't aware of it, and he didn't want someone who was only attracted to him because of who he was and what he could do on a surfboard. He wanted someone who was willing to dig a little deeper than the surface.

Jack laughed at Lena's remark. "Two years, and I can't tell you or I'd have to kill you." He grinned madly back at them both and blew some of the dust off the bottle, wiping the rest off with his fingers. "Under these pants?" Jack asked, looking down at himself as if to double-check what he'd put on that morning. "Not a thing," he replied with a teasing smirk, though there was a good chance he was lying. He muttered a sudden expletive as he noticed a few customers drifting into the shop. Apparently, Tommy's exhibition had drawn some interest. "I gotta go." He handed the bottle to Lena, since she had at least one free hand, backing up toward the shop once again. "Bonfire on the beach tonight!" he declared, pointing at them both. "Don't start without me!" "I would've never stayed in business this long without him," Tommy remarked as Jack wandered off to take care of business.

The by-play and banter was warming. She hadn't realized it until this moment, but Lena had been missing the feeling of being a part of something just as much as Jack had. Here and now, with Tommy and Jack, she was a third of a whole that might, someday, become a quartet. But for now, she chuckled as Jack handed the champagne off to her and hurried away to deal with their customers. "He should keep his lack of underwear to himself for a while on Rhy'Din," she commented to Tommy. "If he shaves, he'll have girls falling over themselves to make sure he isn't lonely." She grinned up at her surfboarding lover, untucking herself from under his arm to brush his wet hair back from his face. "You're good for each other," she told him fondly. "It wouldn't be right to start over without Jack." Rising onto her toes, she kissed the tip of his nose. "You should take a shower before you start shivering."

"Jack?" Tommy queried again, not really seeing him in the same light as one of the female persuasion might. Jack was a buddy, a bro, a kindred spirit. He didn't see him that way and found it hard to imagine it, but now that she had mentioned it, he had always wondered why Jack didn't have a girlfriend, but then neither had Tommy. Not since Red anyway, but he didn't want to think about that. All of that was best left in the past. Live for today, and don't worry about tomorrow.

He might have asked why Jack - or anyone, for that matter - should have to change to please anyone, but she distracted him from the question with a kiss. Maybe it was better that way. Philosophical debates were more the kind of thing discussed while under the influence of copious amounts of alcoholic beverages. "I'll be okay once I get out of this suit and get dry," he assured her. Catching his death of cold was the least of his worries. He hadn't gone out to surf without being properly dressed for it this time, clad in a form-fitting black wetsuit that left little to the imagination despite the fact that it covered him from neck to ankles.

"Okay." She smiled, easing back from him, bottle still in hand. "I will ....put this away again, because there's no way we're drinking Jack's alcohol without him, and get changed myself, since you've got me all wet." Grinning, she tweaked the end of his nose, backing into the shop. "If you ask really nicely, I'll help you get dried off."

"We won't get any eating done that way," he warned, as she tweaked his nose, reaching for her hand to pull her back toward him before she could get away. "Thank you, Helena," he told her, turning serious as he held her there just outside the shop entrance. "I know this sounds silly, but....I think I love you." He followed that up with a proper kiss, right there on the beach, in front of anyone who might be watching.

Tugged back, she couldn't have predicted that he was going to say that, expecting something sweet but noncommittal. And there it was. I love you. She didn't have a chance to answer before his lips were on hers, leaning into him, pouring her heart into that kiss to reply to that unexpected, wonderful statement the best way she could. It was the first time he'd said it, and she hoped it would not be the last.

It hadn't taken long, not even twenty-four hours, before he was proclaiming his love for her, and while it wasn't the same kind of love he felt for Jack, it was just as sincere, just as genuine and heartfelt. He wasn't sure what it was about her, but he was falling, and falling hard, for the first time in forever. He couldn't deny that it felt good to know she loved him for him and for no other reason than that. He couldn't quite put all that into words, but he hoped the kiss he offered would tell her something of what he was feeling - his kiss spoke not only of love, but of hope. He hadn't felt this hopeful in a long time.

Slowly, gently, she drew back from his kiss, showing him sparkling eyes wet with happy tears, her smile as bright as before, as tender as it had always been whenever he had seen it just for him. Her fingers stroked against the scruff that covered his jaw lovingly. "I never thought you'd say it so soon," she admitted softly. "I love you, Tommy." Pressing a soft kiss of her own to his lips, she embraced him, arms around his neck, cheek to cheek, eyes closed as she laughed happily. Now all she had to do was get him - and Jack - to Rhy'Din safely, and there was a whole world of maybes out there for them to explore.

((One quick celebration to go, and then Rhy'Din, here they come! ::grins:: Huge thanks to Tommy and Jack's players!))