Hope_

"Hm..." Hope considered, smiling happily. "How about New Orleans? I've always heard it's such a nice place to visit with a lot of great food and music but I've never really been there." She watched him a moment. "That seemed right." She said, of the kiss. With most girls he was probably used to such a kiss would have potentially felt less meaningful, something given out on a second date but for Hope it meant much more, it was why it had taken this long to get there.

@archivist:

Hope embraced him warmly, the soft skin of her body pressed neatly against his own. She held him for as long as he needed it. Eventually she stepped back, though only enough to allow air between the two of them. "What would life be without a little hope?" She asked softly with a little smile. She slid her hands down his arms and took both of his hands in hers. "Why don't we go somewhere for awhile? Away from here, somewhere you can clear your head and then we can talk about what we need to do next."

Maybe we can find a good way to deal with those people that will help him and not send him down a bad road. It's so hard if all you feel is that the world is negative and you don't have anything good to latch onto, I need to keep reminding him of what he has and just be here for him.

Hope looked at him for a moment. Their relationship had been going on for some months now and although her values hadn't changed, she did believe it was acceptable to allow for more than a pick on the lips by this point. She brought her lips to his and gave him another kiss, except this time she let it linger for considerably longer than the previous one.

Hope considered him for a moment. "I wish I could say I understand how you feel, but I've never been in a position like yours. I won't pretend to have been there so I can tell you some sort of story to make you feel better. I will tell what you do now, what you do in response to the people that hurt you, could do a lot more damage to your future than they ever did. You tell me they took away your future...but I don't see that. You had plenty of time ahead after whatever they did to you originally and I know you have at least some good things in your life."

She smiled a little again. "You don't have to apologize to me. People get angry and they respond to their anger, I won't hold it against you because you lost control for a little bit. You had enough control to let that man go."

Hope listened with a sympathetic expression and gently squeezed his arm a little as he grew clearly angrier and sadder. She didn't look towards the door, she trusted him and felt no need to do such a thing. Instead she focused her energy on him and listened to his words and read his eyes. She smile a little though when he was done, it wasn't a sad smile but a genuine one, the smile of someone who always have firm belief in the future. "I'm sorry." She offered first, it was genuine as every other word she ever spoke, but there was more to come. "That ship meant a lot to you and no one can ever replace it."

She gestured to the city around them. "But so long as you breath and so long as you don't close your heart to anger, the world is out there, the future is out there and you can make something of what has happened. You can build yourself up from the loss of your ship and maybe you'll never replace Percival, but you don't need to define yourself by his loss either."

She breathed and continued to offer her honest smile. "I will walk with you every step of the way if you want to build a new future. If there's still people that need to be brought to justice I will help you with that too."

@archivist:

Hope frowned briefly. Something's really gotten to him.

She watched the rest of the exchange and then once the other man was gone turned her attention to Daniel again. "What's going on? I've never seen you that angry before, not even when we got attacked by those random bounty hunters in space. Tell me what's bothering you? I want to help you if I can...and I really want to help you if it's bothering you so much that you're threatening people and acting this angry."

She walked to the rooftop door the other man had gone through and gently pushed it closed to help ensure they had privacy and also to prevent the man from coming back, possibly with friends and weapons. "You know I'm here for you if you need it." She added and turned around to face him again. I just hope I can help with whatever it is. I hate to see him this way, looks like something is really tearing him up inside.

@archivist:

Hope was casually cruising the skies of Metro City when she spotted and heard the sounds of struggle. She immediately shifted her flight path to find her boyfriend threatening some random guy on a roof. What is he doing?! That's not like him at all...something must be wrong. Maybe he needs help, he certainly needs to calm down before he does something he'll regret.

Ever the optimist and ever blind to her boyfriend's darker side the Paragon of Optimism alighted atop the roof, floating down to land gently beside him. "Hey...everything ok here?" She asked, putting a hand on his arm to both draw his attention and keep him from filling his promise to the stranger. She shifted her gaze to the terrified stranger. "Please, stay where you are so we can resolve this."

She looked at Daniel's clearly enraged figure, her soft blue eyes a stark contrast to his rage hardened ones. She offered him a gentle smile. "Whatever's going on, I'm sure we can work it out together, just think before you act, you can't take back a killing shot, once a person's life is over, it's gone forever." She said gently. Usually.

@dawnpool:

Hope remained blissfully unaware of his inner conversation or the fact he'd not done what he'd told her he would. "Solitude is nice." She agreed. Her soft blue eyes reflected the scenes that passed them by, a never ending sense of wonder and beauty revealed within her gaze. "I think constant solitude would get to me eventually though, but I've always been something of a people person, you know?"

She smiled beautifully. "But neither one of us has to fear that right now." Since the ship was steady and smooth she slipped out of her chair and stood up, gazing out of the view screens. She leaned forward a little to get a better look, carefully placing her elbows on an area of the ship where they wouldn't bother the controls and resting her chin in her hands, smiling a little to herself, enjoying both his company and the views going by, delightfully ignorant of the view she was providing. "You can take me to such wonderful places, I don't think I'll ever grow tired of it."

Hope grinned and giggled at his jovial attitude and leaned back in her seat a little, watching the stars go by. "Star Trek is a TV series, or it was, now it's movies I think. In the original series that came out in the 1960s they had a lot of switches and flippy things and buttons, I guess the vision of the future was a little less shiny and touch screeny back then." Her eyes shifted away from the stars for a moment, landing on him. "There is a lot of I've had to adjust to...my dad would have just killed me if I went out to with some incredibly attractive guy all on my own. He'd tell me that the guy probably had less than honorable intentions and that as a girl I needed someone there to make sure everything was on the up and up. I don't know if it showed or not, but I was nervous as everything that first date."

She smiled and turned to look at the stars again. "Something about being out here though, it seems so...calming."

"I could see how autopilot would be easy to get used to." Hope said with a mirrored grin. "I'm sorry to hear that. The future can change though, so maybe you can do things to make it better. " Hope's eyes scanned the controls, both amused and impressed by the retro feel the of console. She'd seen more than enough smart phones to know that knobs and switches weren't necessary anymore, let alone in the future. "Oh so now the cars resemble your ship and not the other way around? You know...the control panel kind of reminds me of Star Trek, the old series where they had all the buttons and flippy things."

@dreadstroke:

"Oh, you're flying manually today huh?" She asked with a smile and slipped into the co-pilot's seat. It was a little easier to sit down without a cape to worry about all the time. "Oh...I think the times passed them by a little." She said, answering his question. "I guess they just weren't what people wanted anymore, so things changed and everyone moved forward. I guess that's kind of a weird summary for society in general huh? People don't like the way things are anymore, so they change and move forward...or at least on anyway." She said, indicating she didn't think every social change since 1950 was for the better.