xp_logs | Callie and Fred: Airport Pickup

After Julian flakes out on his picking Callie up from JFK duties she finds that he sent Fred in his stead.

Customs had taken longer than usual. Well, probably not, but it felt longer than usual. Especially after having been in the air pretty much all day. Oh and it was still morning here. It was like traveling back in time, which in theory sounded cool, but in reality was the worst bit about flying. All Callie wanted to do was to put her things in Julian's car and sleep until they got to Westchester, and then spend the rest of the day in a jet lagged coma.

The only problem with this plan, insofar as she saw it, was that Julian Keller was nowhere to be seen. Did he forget she was landing today? Well, she had sent him an e-mail before she left that morning, so hopefully he had seen it. Was he having trouble finding parking? She had no idea. All she knew was that JFK was full of people meeting people and she wasn't. Sighing, she pulled the jacket and sat down on the top of her luggage. She probably looked silly. A girl in an oversized army type jacket sitting in the middle of the waiting area, but she didn't care. Callie pulled out her phone, and seeing that Julian had not made any attempt to contact her, went about dialing his number.

Hopefully he wasn't still sleeping.

Julian was still sleeping, actually, but that was because he wasn't to come pick her up.

Fred, after finally mastering how to get his now longer hair into a ponytail, had thrown on one of the white sleeveless shirts he'd worn as a patient at Muir and, after discovering most of his old clothes didn't fit, borrowed a pair of dark green corduroy pants from Doctor McCoy. He would've thought he stuck out like a sore thumb, before he realized Callie might not recognize him to begin with.

After spending most of his holiday in and out of airports, Callie was about the only thing that could get him to step foot in one again. With a smile on his face no less. Looking about the terminal, Fred finally caught a flash of pink. Callie was sitting, fiddling with her phone.

In his jacket .

The grin on his face threatened to jump right off as Fred moved towards Callie, until a squadron of unruly children, flanked on either side by very tired looking parents, impeded him. Fred hardly stopped in time to not trample them, given that he couldn't take his eyes of the small pink girl in the large jacket.

Great. Voicemail. "Julian Keller," she said into the phone, her voice conveying the annoyance she felt at her friend at the moment. "I am a little upset at you right now. If you didn't want to pick me up you could have replied to my e-mail, or sent me a text, or left me a voicemail, or not agreed to come to the airport in the first place. Seriously I could have caught a taxi. Which is what I'll do right now. I'll see you later." With the press of a button, the call was ended and the phone found its way back into the pocket of a jacket. Callie groaned as she stood up, she didn't want to take a taxi, and fiddled with the handle of her suitcase before heading off in the direction of the taxi stand.

Fred noticed Callie moving away after what looked like a curt phone call. Hoping to get her attention, Fred dodged the gaggle of children and a tambourine playing woman to move closer. Unfortunately, a long baggage car moved across his path. Noticing her moving quickly towards the exit, Fred cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted, " Nice Jacket!!!" across the terminal.

Okay that voice was really familiar, and Callie couldn't help but to stop and look around for its source. It likely wasn't who she thought it was, so it was more of a instinctual reaction than anything else. Like when someone calls your name in a crowded room and you look up, even though you know there must be others with your name. Even though her head told her otherwise, Callie remained glued to her spot, searching the crowd for someone she wasn't sure even existed.

When the baggage cart finally moved from in front of him, Fred managed to make eye contact with Callie and smiled at her, hoping she'd figure out it was him. He moved closer, so as to not keep yelling, but almost felt flat on his face into a pile of collected baggage. -Is this airport trying to kill me?- Fred thought, as he did his best to carefully maneuver his ungainly feet through the bags.

Wait a second, she knew that smile. And that walk. "Holy... FRED!" Callie didn't see him go down, she was too busy running at a breakneck speed (or rather as fast as one could with a backpack, a purse, and a large suitcase) toward where she had last seen him. The only problem was, when she looked up, she lost him, and found herself barreling straight into a group of Japanese tourists. Who were far less annoyed about having a pink girl run into them than she might of been.

As the dust cleared and the group headed off, however, Callie realized that she had no idea where the person she thought was Fred was.

"Merda!" She seriously hoped her brain wasn't playing some sleep deprived illusions on her.

Having heard Callie shout out his name, Fred stood up and extricated himself from the pile of baggage. He looked to where he'd heard Callie's voice, seeing only a gaggle of Asian tourists. Narrowing his eyes, he spotted a frustrated pink face in the crowd and smiled, trying to wave his arm to get the girls attention.

It was generally hard to miss someone of Fred's height, and soon Callie caught sight of him once more and continued her pursuit. Although he looked different from the last time she had seen him, she could tell it was the same Fred. Either that or a really good impersonator. But she highly doubted that.

Fred tried to close the distance between himself and Callie, but was stopped by several young people, with robes and shaved heads, asking him if he wanted to read their literature. In all honesty, Fred wanted nothing more than to throw the interlopers for impeding his progress towards Callie, but instead opted for simply trying to tell them very politely (but very firmly) that he wasn't interested.

She was only a few yards away now, but somehow found herself trailing two very slow, and very loud Italian businessmen. Callie groaned, recognizing them from her flight. They had talked the entire time, which was worse than a screaming baby. And every time she tried to get around them they would move slightly to block her. Seriously. It's like some force in the universe was trying to keep her from reach Fred.

"Permesso!" She said, impatiently as she tried to sneak past them. No luck. They were too focused on their conversation to notice the young, soft-spoken girl. So she tried again, louder, and more irritated.

Fred had finally convinced the Krishna group to move on, after he cracked his knuckles loud enough to convince them he wasn't interested and looked to find Callie...

Nowhere. Looking about, Fred only saw a young couple with their child, an older man and woman, and two obnoxious businessmen chortling at one another. Where had Callie gotten off to...?

She didn't like being rude and annoying, it went against her very nature. But sometimes, like now, if you didn't make your voice heard it would continued being ignored. Especially in this madhouse. So Callie threw her shoulder to squeeze by, and said a few choice words about how the men were being rude and blocking her way and not letting anyone through. And at last, like Moses parting the Red Sea, the two men separated.

Callie let out a squeal so loud she was sure they could have heard it all the way to Vermont as she surged forward and launched herself at Fred like a cannonball being shot out of a canon.

It might have been because she'd caught him unaware, or it could've been because he was still fairly weak from his stay at Muir, or even because his powers hadn't been working right since he'd woken up.

But for whatever reason, when Callie leapt onto Fred, it sent the both of them tumbling back into the pile of luggage Fred had spent so long traversing. Fred, for his part, was all smiles and chuckles; he didn't seem to mind being nigh-buried in someone else's luggage one bit.

The figures in the background began to slant as the floor rose up to meet them, landing on the pile of luggage. Callie yelped in surprise. "Oh my gosh," she pushed herself up, "Fred are you okay?!"

Fred smiled and kissed Callie on the tip of her nose. "Yea. I'm better'n okay, Calliope. How're you?" he asked, not really making any move to extricate either of them from the luggage...

"You're alive?" She asked. Yes the answer was obvious, but she was still having trouble wrapping her mind around it. Her face darkened into a slight pout. "I'm going to kill Julian."

Fred chuckled and, scooting some of the luggage away, managed to heft both himself and Callie, still in his arms, up off the floor, "Don't do that. It was my idea to come get you. Wanted it to be a surprise so, uh...surprise?" he said, chuckling again.

Callie stood there, mouth gaping then closing one more, like a fish. She honestly had no idea what to say or do except to squeal loudly and hug him tighter.

Fred hugged back, smiling and just enjoying the act of holding her. Finally, after a long silence, without letting her go, he spoke up. "...be my girlfriend, Calliope. No more just hanging out and not calling it anything. I like you a lot. I think you like me a lot to. Let's...I wanna be yours, Callie, if you'll have me." He had pulled away from her a little to look her in the eye, but Fred kept his arms around her midsection as he spoke.

Maybe it was the fact that she had just deplaned after an eight hour flight and it felt like it was later than it was, or maybe it was the fact that she was seeing Fred after his scare with death and that was emotional itself. Whatever the reason, Callie found herself fighting back tears and drowning out the sounds around her with laughter. "Fred," she said through the smile. "I think I already am."
There wasn't much left to say after that. Fred just smiled and lifted Callie at her hips and pulled her in close, kissing her deeply, completely uncaring for the crowd moving around the both of them.