Author's Note:

So... Its been forever since I updated this fic. Which is terrible of me. Especially since I don't plan on dropping it. I suppose the only thing I can say is that this past year has been extremely busy. You all have lives so you all know what it is like. I ask only for your forgiveness and patience. I love this story and don't plan on dropping it! I hope you all enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it!

Quick house keeping note: Not as big of a fan of this chapter as I was with previous chapters. I thought it would be fun to take things out of the coffee shop but it turns out, it is much harder to write Ivy + Hellboy outside of La Foret than in it, would you believe. So in the end, this meeting between the two of them is a bit more brief and the chapter has a lot of Ivy and her friends-whom I love. I hope you do as well!

One last thing before I let you off to enjoy this long overdo update. I am in need of a beta. I need a motivator and someone willing to edit my story. I sort of had one but she is busy with her own life and I can barely sit down to write this never mind edit and tweak-which is my least favorite part. So. If anyone is interested, I need someone with a good grasp on grammar and all that technical stuff. I'd also love if that someone was familiar with the comics as I would like to work some stuff from the comics into this baby. That isn't necessary though. Any way, if you are interested, send me a PM!

Any way! On to the show!

Brick and Ivy

"True Friends like ivy and the wall, both stand together, and together fall."

Chapter 3: 1992 – Birthday and the Beast

Through Young Eyes

"So stick up ivy and the bays, and then restore the heathen ways, green will remind you of the Spring, though this great day denies the thing, and mortifies the earth, and all, but your wild revels, and loose hall."

-Henry Vaughan

It was madness. The line had reached out the door and wrapped around the front of the building. People rustled papers at the tables and crunched on cookies and breakfast treats as Ivy rushed around La Foret. Napkins needed reloading. A little boy spilled hot cocoa all over the floor. It did not help that two of their staff had called in sick, leaving Samantha, her young part timer, at the register frantically taking orders while Bill, her male counterpart, made drinks and packaged treats.

Ivy escaped into the kitchen and paused, taking a breath and giving herself a moment to think. There were four batches of cookies in the ovens (one tray of pistachio biscotti, one lot of hazelnut chocolate, and two oatmeal chocolate chip) that would be ready to come out in—Ivy looked at the ovens—eight minutes. She'd have to make up a few more batches of something soon, the way things were flying out of the display case.

Outside the window over the sink, looking out onto the dumpster, snow fell, softly, carpeting the world. At least, Ivy's immediate world. The neighborhood. Possibly the whole city.

She wondered, smiling wryly, if he could see the snow. It was beautiful and so clean and pure, not yet tainted with the dirt and muck of the earth—Kind of like young love. Pure and sweet before life makes it painful and messy.

She sighed. No reason to be thinking like that, she thought. It was much too busy. Steeling herself for the craziness, she walked back out into the shop and saw Samantha wiping up a mess under one of the tables. Bill was left at the register on his own and clearly about to panic. Swooping in, Ivy put a hand on his shoulder and smiled.

"I'll take the register.

Bill gazed up at her gratefully and nodded before taking his place next to her. She took orders and credit cards and handed back receipts in a blur of motion. People passed by and suddenly a young mother stood before her with a small baby on her hip and a little girl attached to her skirt. The mother was in the middle of ordering when the girl exclaimed loudly:

"Mommy!" Her hair was done up in two French braids going down her back and she wore a simple pink dress. On her back was a purple little backpack and she held a small lunch box.

"Yes, Lili?" her mother asked, handing Ivy a card.

"Look! Its Hellboy!"

Her mother looked around, slightly startled before the little girl pointed up at the register. In between the register and the specials of the day sign sat a red plushie. She smiled. "Oh, I see."

"Can I have it, Mommy?!" the little girl squealed.

The mother looked apologetically at Ivy. "Can we get that as well?"

Ivy grinned. She was obviously new to La Foret.

"Sorry. Its not for sale."

A Winter Birthday – 1992

The cold bit Ivy's nose and she felt her skin tighten against it, knowing her cheeks were probably cherry-apple red at this point. Pulling her light blue coat tighter around herself, she hurried along the crowded street looking for Sara. They were supposed to meet twenty minutes ago at CJs Pizza so they could grab a bite to eat before the show but, as usual, Sara had not appeared. Ivy waited just inside CJs for a good fifteen minutes (relishing the heated air and dying from the smell of simmering, garlic-filled tomato sauce) before she decided it would be more prudent to go to the theater house and hope Sara would show up there before the show started.

Looking around again, she saw no Sara but did see the front of the theater coming up on her left. At the next intersection she stood behind several people, waiting for the lights to signal her across the road when a huge (rather unusually so) garbage truck slowed to a stop to the right of her. That was odd, she thought vaguely, staring back at the theater house. She didn't know garbage got picked up at night in this area.

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of her neck prickled as a strange sense of nostalgia washed over her. Weird happenings with garbage trucks? She had had one back in November, come to think of it! That huge truck that raced down La Foret's street that day with Hellboy. The thought stopped her. He had fled right after she had seen the truck. Were they connected? Staring back at the body of the garbage truck, she noticed no familiar smell of mold and rot. Was it empty? Was the cold tampering with her senses?

There was something else though. Something she wasn't sure she liked. In the back of her mind, she couldn't help feeling as if she was being watched.

She shook her head. That was silly. She was in a crowd of people trying to cross the street. Of course someone could be looking at her, she reasoned. But it felt… Different. Something was off and she wasn't sure what it was.

She gave the garbage truck a sidelong glance. It was big but it wasn't like they were usually small. It was a dark green compared to the bright green ones she had seen in her neighborhood and by La Foret. Except for that weird one that day with Hellboy. That one had been dark green. She felt the hairs on her arm stand up on end and shook her head. It was not the same garbage truck! What would the odds of that be? AND! Even if it was the same truck, so what? It was just a garbage truck. It wasn't some high-tech form of transportation that would be secretly hiding Hellboy and other BPRD agents inside. She nodded her head. Yes, it was just a garbage truck and that was the end of that.

She tore her gaze away from the truck and looked forward. The sooner she got away from the weird truck and its weird vibes, she'd feel much better about her world. Weird vibes. She paused and opened her red leather purse and reached inside. At the bottom, beneath her wallet and her keys, she felt the ridges of circular coins. Letting her fingers close around them, she pulled out the Six Coin Remedy Hellboy had given her back in November. She smiled at it before slipping it into her coat pocket.

Take that, garbage truck, she thought before quickly sticking her tongue out at it.

The light changed and suddenly the truck was moving and so was the crowd of people she was one of. She crossed the street and walked up the steps of the Sly Fox Theater and returned to her previous mission of looking for Sara in the crowd. Nothing yet. Ivy tried not to be surprised. Sara was notorious for being late. Why should Ivy's birth—

"Happy Birthday!" cried a high-pitched voice as she was tackled from behind.

"Sara!" Ivy screamed, surprise and having the air knocked out of her stealing her ability to reprimand the girl for the moment.

"Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday dear Ivy!" Sara sang, squeezing Ivy tightly.

"Happy Birthday to you," finished two young men, slightly older than Ivy and Sara.

"Michael!" Ivy said, her jaw dropping before a smile stole her features. "Adam!"

Sara let go of her and she rushed forward to hug the two boys. "Oh my gosh! What are you two doing here?!"

"Surprise!" said Sara, obviously feeling overly pleased with herself. "I called the boys and told them we were doing something special for your 18th and—"

"Of course we said we had to come and celebrate," the tallest of the two said, while smothering Ivy in a hug.

Ivy smacked him lightly on the shoulder. "Michael! I can't breath!" she said, laughing and pushing herself away from the boy.

"Its so good to see you!" she breathed before turning and walking into Adam's open arms. "Oh my God! Did you get taller?" she cried, looking up at the boy.

He stared down at her with matching green eyes and laughed. "Not unless you got shorter."

Sara sidled up to her, resting an arm on Ivy's shoulder. "So, you surprised?"

Ivy nodded and laughed, "Very, very surprised."

Michael and Adam were the only two guy friends Ivy had developed in highschool. They had been Juniors when Ivy joined the school's drama club as a Sophomore. Ivy had been stunned by Michael. His voice had blown her away and between his lightly curled black hair, blue eyes and alabaster skin, he had been a vision out of one of her fantasies. She would have developed the world's biggest crush on him if it wasn't for the fact that he—

"How's Mitch?" Sara asked, poking Michael in the side.

He sighed and threw his hands into the air dramatically. "Don't even mention his name to me right now!"

"Had a fight again?" she said, nodding knowingly.

"He wanted to go visit his sister this weekend (she is still the only person in his family he will tell about us. Still!) and I told him I had plans. I wasn't going to miss Ivy's birthday and then it was "But this is family!" and "She just had her baby" and all the dramatics. If I didn't think he was so cute I'd have smacked him," he said, his tenor voice, thick and chocolaty, being abused as he whined.

"Poor baby," Ivy said, smacking him in the arm. "How long have you two been together? A year? Happily? Stop complaining."

"Yeah!" Sara added, slapping him slightly harder than Ivy had, "Don't complain to the two girls who have no one to speak of!"

"You guys shouldn't complain," Adam said, smiling. "I've been hearing it the entire trip up."

Adam had always been the quieter of the two boys. Ivy and Sara hadn't noticed him at first when they join the club. He wasn't an actor and didn't sing, and for awhile Ivy wasn't even sure what he did. But Adam was a talented director. The first time Ivy had stepped onto the stage for a rehearsal, Adam had transformed from his normal, easy going, boy next door attitude to an intensely serious and quick thinking director. He was also, by far, the plainer of the two. His brown hair always worn shaggy around his face and his features were neither fine nor particularly strong. College hadn't changed much except he cut his hair short now for his job teaching at a children's theater near their college.

Ivy watched him as Sara and Michael fell back into the habit of teasing each other.

"Your hair is big enough to land a plane on," Michael said, touching Sara's very hair-sprayed locks. "Is it even real?!"

"Better than you and your limp curly mop, pansy boy!" she said, swatting his hand away and caressing her hair. "Its beautiful."

Michael snorted and the two went on for round two. Adam, Ivy noticed, was staring singularly at Sara, his green eyes soft and Ivy sighed. He really hadn't changed. He still had the world's biggest crush on Sara who was the only person thick enough on the planet not to see it. He was such a good guy, Ivy thought, putting her hand's in her pockets, against the cold. She'd been hoping he'd loose his crush in college but evidently, half a year away hadn't done enough to shake his feelings.

Aw well. It was still nice to have the gang all together again.

"Crap!" she cried, noticing all the people rushing into the theater. The group turned and looked at her, Michael and Sara in mid-comeback. "Its starting!"

The four rushed into the theater, finding a place in line as Sara handed out all the tickets. The line to get in was to the door filled with countless other people who had decided being early or even on time was not important. Then again, it wasn't Broad Way. Not even close to Broad Way. It was an off off off Broad Way little theater that generally housed quirky independent plays from the local universities and theater companies. Which is exactly what they were here to see.

As they finally made it into the theater, the lights were already beginning to fade and they had to climb over thirty people to finally get to their seats. Which, thankfully, were fantastic. Sara had bought the tickets earlier in the week and picked seats six rows back—close enough to get all the details but not to close as to give Ivy a neck ache later on.

The play was hysterical. It was more of a series of short one acts that all had to do with waiting in a coffee shop. Waiting for their order. Waiting in line. Waiting for their date. Waiting for a call. Most of them were funny and had the quartet laughing and giggling but a few were thoughtful. One was sad. Which was lovely, actually. It was possibly her favorite of the evening—next to all of Michael's smart-alick comments about certain dress and makeup choices that the actors and actresses were sporting. The boy had a quick wit and between him and the play itself, Ivy never stopped laughing.

Which all changed during the last scene—a woman waiting for her latte. They'd been sitting, enthralled, Sara gripping Ivy's hand while Ivy smacked her leg she was laughing so hard, when the building shook and a bang like a canon the size of an elephant had gone off. The actors on stage froze as their set fell around them and suddenly laughter was replaced by screaming as everyone leapt from their seats and ran for the door. Suddenly their seats weren't ideal. They had to wait for the people on either side of them to clear out before they could even get into the ailse and then there was no way to even see the doors, there were so many people trying to cram through them.

It was Adam who decided to jump the stage and follow the actors. Michael helped Ivy and Sara get a leg up onto the lip of the stage and the four of them ran into the wings. The backstage looked like a bomb had hit it. Sets that had been propped up in the hallways had fallen over and props made an obstacle course as they ran after the actors and stage hands who ran towards the staff emergency exists of the building.

"Ah fuck me," Michael cried as there was another tremor in the building. "If I die I'm going to be really pissed."

"Shut up!" Sara cried, gripping Ivy's hand as they pushed their way through the door.

The air outside was cold and smelt faintly of smoke as the burst out into the alley way on the side of the theater. Behind them, more bodies pushed to get through and suddenly they were running towards the main road, which was filled with people. As they joined the throng, Ivy looked around. It didn't look like any buildings had collapsed but she could hear sirens in the distance and wondered what in the world had happened. Was it a freak earthquake? A bomb? She shuddered. Suddenly, her hand was in her coat pocket and she fingered the Six Coin Remedy and hoped it would be help against real harm.

"Over there!" cried Adam, pointing down the road that Ivy had seen the garbage truck go down. "Look!"

A block or two down, a cloud of what initially seemed like smoke was blooming in the air.

"Smoke," Sara said, gripping Ivy's arm.

"No… its heavier," Adam said, shaking his head. "It looks like ash… or dust."

"Which is just so much better," Sara snapped. "Either way it sucks.

Suddenly the crowd was moving, pushing itself in the opposite direction of the smoke-ash-dust cloud. Michael cleared the way for them while Adam grabbed Sara's other hand, pulling her along.

Something was niggling Ivy. The garbage truck. The dark green-weird-weird-vibe garbage truck niggled at her mind. The gas leak at the mall back in November that Ivy knew hadn't been a gas leak niggled at her. God, maybe it had been a gas leak but it was also somehow connected to Hellboy and his tattered up self that had shown up by the dumpster asking for cookies. Which happened on the same day that the dark green garbage truck drove down the street and scared the red guy away. It all niggled at her and suddenly she knew that what ever was happening down that road, Hellboy was involved. She wasn't sure how she was so certain. All her facts were mere coincidences that honestly she could be making up. Perhaps the two garbage trucks had been totally different colors. Maybe the weird vibes she had were because some slezzy guy had been ogling her in the crowd. Shit happened all the time in the city. Things did-though not often-blow up and had nothing to do with Hellboy. And yet she knew. Or thought she knew. Or wanted to believe that Hellboy was down that road.

A man to her side knocked into her, startling her out of her thoughts and causing her to loose her footing in the crowd. She stumbled forward and suddenly she wasn't holding Sara's hand anymore. Before she could reach out and grab onto her friend, people rushed between them and Ivy was alone in a panicked crowd.

She made a decision then. No, actually, she couldn't remember making the actual decision but suddenly she was turning around and pushing in the opposite direction. The crowd, somehow, seemed to part around her like she was a knife slicing through water. She found herself yelling internally. What was she doing? Really? Turning back? Pushing her way through a crowd to get to the place it was running way from? Being an idiot was what she was doing. She felt her mind rebel and felt her pulse beating rapidly in her neck and wrists. Her heart she could barely even feel, funnily enough, as if it was beating so fast it wasn't beating at all. Her chest was just tight as if someone had blown up a balloon in her ribcage and it had run out of room to expand.

The crowd grew thinner as she pushed and after a few more steps she found herself practically at the end of it. Around her there were only a few more people and once she was clear of them she could dash down the street and hide behind the buildings. She was about to make a run for it when a woman grabbed her arm.

"Honey! You are going the wrong way," the woman said. She looked like a mother. Her hair was in a sloppy bun and she had wisps of it sticking out by her ears like wings. She wore a simple gold chain and her eyes were wide as she gripped Ivy's arm. "Its okay, just come with me."

Ah. The woman thought she was panicking. Panicking and running in the wrong direction. Ivy tried to look like she had all her marbles and shook her head. "I'm fine," she said, pulling the woman's hand off. The woman looked at her stunned and Ivy took the moment to dash across the street. Behind her the woman looked as if she was fighting the urge to run after her but soon she turned and joined the crowd.

"Well," Ivy said, breathlessly as she pushed herself up against the side of what she expected to be a burger joint, judging by the garbage cans to her left. "Now what?"

She felt her knees go weak. This was crazy. Honestly, what was she doing? She looked back at the crowd to her right, receding into the night, then looked to her left. That was where the smoke cloud was. She pushed herself off the wall and slowly started walking down the street.

Maybe she was feeling adult and invincible now that she was eighteen. Maybe that was why she was walking toward a potentially dangerous situation. Up ahead of her, she could see ruble covering the path. She gulped. Ivy was getting closer. It was brick, she realized as she got closer. Chuncks of a brick wall. Faded with age but still a deep red. It reminded her of the brick wall at La Foret which reminded her of someone who was red. The crumbled bricks before her made her pause.

She felt like Hellboy was somewhere in front of her, involved with this whole mess, but what if he wasn't on the winning side?

Nope, she thought, not going to think like this. Not going to think about it at all.

So she pushed the thought out of her mind just like she kept pushing the nagging voice that told her she was being a complete idiot. Which she was, she thought. But it was her birthday, right? It would be so wrong to be killed on her birthday—she hoped.

She picked her way through the ruble, which was slow goings as she had to keep an eye on her feet and the ground to make sure she didn't trip over anything and kill herself on a chunk of brick.

She heard a crash to her left and jumped. It wasn't sharp and high pitched, like glass breaking but like someone hitting a wall and the wall loosing. Suddenly the brick wall that had lined her walk shuddered and half of it fell forward. Ivy screamed and jumped out of the way, pushing herself up against what remained of the brick structure and pressed her hand to her chest. This was indeed the stupidest idea she had ever had.

She had nearly been killed by a tumbling wall.

"Who's there?" a familiar voice drawled from the other side.

Ivy's heart leapt to her throat and she fought back a sob of relief. Calming herself down, she tried to speak but found her voice was stuck somewhere bellow her collar bone.

"Hellboy?" she said, after a moment, so softly, she barely heard it.

There was silence and she heard shuffling.

"Hellboy," she said again, realizing that it was the first (oh alright, the second) time she had ever said his name.

"Kid?!" asked his voice from the other side of the wall, surprise filling the air.

"Yeah… I mean… unless you call other people that…" she said, letting her head fall back against the wall.

Suddenly she heard grunting and shuffling on the other side.

"Um…" she said, wondering what was going on when she heard a thwack like stone against flesh. "Are you okay?"

"Never been better, kid," he said as she heard another sharp thwack and then something large and heavy hit the ground.

"It doesn't sound like it."

"Don't worry about it." She heard him dusting off what she imagined to be his coat. "Kid?"

"Yeah?" she said.

"Don't look." She opened her mouth, a question ready when he continued. "Just don't. If your reaction to me was any sort of clue, if you saw this guy you'd probably want to take him home. Or scream. I wasn't planning on either tonight, thanks."

"I… I wasn't planning too, actually. To look I mean. I can't promise I wouldn't scream."

She heard him laugh and wanted to thank him. She had been fighting the urge to look back and see what the heck was going on behind the broken wall but was slightly relieved that the choice had been taken from her.

"What the hell are you doing here, Kid?"

"Ah—um… Well," she started, finding it hard to put into words the stupid decisions that lead her to this spot. "Its my birthday," she started.

"January 5th huh?" he interrupted. "Pretty close to Christmas. You still get presents for both?"

"Yes, actually," she said, trying hard not to be surprised at the turn of the conversation. "My mother firmly believes in the idea that you get presents for each…and not just the one lot of presents spread over two days. She always buys my birthday presents in August."

"My father's the same."

She heard the familiar sound of a match being lit followed by a deep inhaling.

"What?"

"My father's like that. Don't know about August but he always used to get my birthday presents ahead of time. Always came in with a wrapped gift and cakes. Lots of cakes. One for every year."

Ignoring comment about a cake for every year (that would mean Ivy would get 18 cakes, right?) she tilted her head. "Your birthday is close to Christmas?"

"Yep." She heard him exhale and the familiar (how odd that was) scent of cigar smoke filled the air around her. "December 23rd. TV's got nothing but Christmas specials and romantic comedies."

She laughed. "Yeah, it is always the worst that close to Christmas. I suppose that's the good thing about having mine after Christmas—and New Years for that matter. It's a new year but its already five days old so no one cares anymore."

God this was weird.

She was having this light hearted, soft, and slightly thoughtful conversation with Hellboy surrounded by rubble in the midst of what was probably him pounding on something.

"Your eighteen now, right?" he asked. Behind the wall, she could hear something moving—scraping against the concrete of the ground and then heard something like a boot coming down on someone—something hard. There was a low hiss and then nothing.

"Uh…" she lost her train of thought for a second. "Yeah. My friends took me to the theater down the road to celebrate."

"Musical?"

"No. An independent play."

"Any good?"

"Yeah," she said, smiling, thinking about how wonderful the evening had been—and was, for that matter. "We didn't get to finish it because of the shaking and the smoke cloud and I nearly got trampled by a crowd but its been pretty interesting."

She heard him rumble in what sounded like realization.

"Sorry 'bout that."

She shook her head, then stopped, realizing he couldn't see her.

"Its fine. I'm sure it was…unavoidable?"

She heard him laugh slightly—a low, vibrating laugh. "Unavoidable. I'd have called it annoying but yeah." He paused. "Happy Birthday, Kid."

"Thanks!" she said, her voice raising an octave.

"Kid."

"Yeah?"

"You never finished. Why the hell are you here?"

She paused realizing they'd gone off on an odd tangent and put her hand in her pocket and gripped the coin charm. "After the tremors…when everyone was running and the smoke cloud appeared… I thought about the gas leak at the mall down the street from La Forret—"

"Gas leak. Stupidest cover story," he interjected.

"And then there was the weird garbage truck that gave me weird vibes which made me remember the other garbage truck the day of the gas leak and…"

She realized she was rambling. "And, well, I don't know. I thought maybe you were involved with what ever was happening and somehow…" She gestured around her. "Here I am.

"That's fucking crazy, Kid." She heard him exhale a breath of smoke. "You make a habit of following garbage trucks into danger?"

"I—well…" She sighed. No matter how she spun this she sounded like a fool.

"Guess we got more in common than near-Christmas birthdays, Kid," she heard him say.

"Yeah?" she asked, perking up.

"Except, I'm in the garbage truck heading into danger. Nothing like taking out the trash."

Ivy felt her heart stop for a moment. In the garbage truck?! In the garbage truck?! Questions fought their way up her mouth and she couldn't decide what to ask. Why are you in a garbage truck? What do you actually do? What is behind this wall with you? Really, the garbage truck?! None of them sounded like something he'd give a straight answer to so she just sat their silent.

"What? No trash jokes?" he said, "Kid, I'm disappointed."

Ivy laughed softly. "I can't really make any trash jokes. Every time we've met I've been taking out the trash or hanging out by dumpsters."

"Another thing we have in common. An affinity for trash," he said, his voice laughing. "Speaking of which, my ride should be heading back any minute now. I've got my own trash to get into the dumpster."

Aaaah. The exist line. The end of the Fourth Encounter. She knew it had to come but somehow she was still disappointed. Suddenly, a thought leapt to her mind.

"Um!" she called.

"Yeah?" his voice was farther away now. Harder to hear.

"Happy belated Birthday!" she said, turning and cupping her hands around her mouth.

She heard him laugh.

"Thanks, kid."

"How old are you," she asked playfully.

"Just turned forty eight," he said. She heard him grunt and then heard the thud of something being tossed. "See ya, Kid."

Ivy's jaw dropped. Hellboy was older than... her mother! Hellboy was two years younger than her father would have been this year. Hellboy was…younger than Cherie but then again—everyone was younger than Cherie. Forty-eight?! As her surprise overwhelmed her, she realized she couldn't hear anything. No shuffling. No movement. And then she heard it. The wheez of a garbage truck, the squeak of its breaks as it came to a stop and then the whirring of it moving again.

Climbing over the ruble, she poked her head around the cracked wall and saw what looked like a destroyed garbage area. There was a dumpster in the corner that looked as if something large had been thrown against it and several areas where bricks were missing. She could hear the truck moving and tore her eyes away from the spot where Hellboy had been during their entire encounter and ran, jumping over bricks and plaster, towards the street. As she burst out of the alley way onto the main road, she a saw the back of the garbage truck turning a corner to the right.

She let herself stop and breathed deeply as the truck disappeared from sight. Bizarre. Still bizarre. Her face broke out in a smile now that she was out of potential danger and could look back on what just happened. The Fourth Encounter! The briefest one yet but also the craziest—most bizarre—most exciting one so far! Laughter bubbled up inside her and hiccupped trying to keep it down. It had to be some sort of fate. Some sort of divine intervention. Only a deity's humor could explain it. On her birthday. Two blocks down from the theater she was in. Hellboy. Jeez.

"Ivy!" a voice shouted, high pitched and strained.

Ivy turned to see Sara barreling towards her. Behind her were the guys, running in the lopping way that came with long legs.

"Ivy!" Sara cried again before throwing her arms around Ivy's shoulders. "God! Ivy!"

Ivy felt Sara's chest shudder and suddenly there was sobbing. "Sara!" she said, throwing her arms around her friend. "Why are you crying. What's the matter, honey?"

Her friend picked up her head and the black eyeliner she wore was running down her cheeks. She opened her mouth as if to speak but a loud sob escaped and all she could do was hug Ivy tighter.

"She'd thought you'd died," Adam said as he came to a stop before the two girls. He was panting, his hands on his knees. "When we lost you in the crowd she got some crazy notion that you had turned around and were running into the smoke cloud or that you got trampled by all the people."

Ice filled Ivy's chest. She'd been so stupid. Wrapping her arms tighter around Sara, she rubbed her friends back. "God, Sara, I'm so sorry. I just got lost in the crowd. I'm alright. Really."

She couldn't tell them that she had turned around and walked herself into a potentially dangerous situation. She couldn't tell them that she had been close to getting herself killed. That she had been an idiot who had barely thought of her own safety never mind what getting hurt would do to her friends or her family.

"We've been looking for you this whole time. Every minute that you didn't appear, Ms. Drama Queen got more hysterical," Michael said, shaking his head. His shirt was sweat stained and his curls were heavy and damp. "I told her you just got turned around but she worked herself up into a blind panic."

"I thought…" Sara started between sobs. "I thought I lost you!"

"No, Sara. I'm fine. Really."

"But I should have held your hand tighter!"

The girl continued to sob and Ivy just stood there, rubbing her friends back and smoothing down her hair. She babbled in Sara's ear about things. About how she got lost in the crowd and some lady had mistaken her for her son and tried to take her home. About the time they'd gotten lost in China Town when they where fourteen. She started talking about the movies they had seen together recently and how annoying their math teacher was. Sara would laugh briefly before breaking down into more sobs. Eventually, Ivy decided to bring out the most ridiculous thing she had to tell her friend. Something that could only be told in this sort of situation and with the right spin on the facts. Ivy told Sara that she had found Hellboy hiding behind La Forret one day and fed him cookies and that he came back for more.

"No way, you bull shitter," Sara said between hiccupping sobs.

"Yes way! You don't believe me? Well it happened. He was as tall as an elephant and he ate every cookie in the shop. Cherie and him are best friends. She says she wants to know how his skin is so red so she can make her hair redder."

Sara laughed and behind her, the boys smiled, seeing what Ivy was doing.

"He has a thing for the oatmeal chocolate chip but I'm pretty sure he'd eat the dumpster if it was covered in chocolate."

"No way," Sara said, her tears drying on her cheeks and only sniffles between her words.

"Yes way."

She carried on like that for awhile. Mixing her truth with the gossip she had seen in the trash tabloids. While she carried on the boys shuffled the girls along, Adam holding out an arm for Ivy which she took while Michael argued with Sara on how much of baby she as that she couldn't let Ivy go. Eventually, the four of them were walking down the street. Michael holding Sara's hand. Sara holding Ivy's hand. Ivy gripping Adam's. While the walked, Ivy told them stories about Hellboy. She told them how he had defeated an ancient Chinese dragon with nothing more than a Six Coin Remedy charm and a rock. How he traveled in a garbage truck ("Really Ives?" Michael had groaned, "A garbage truck? That's the best you can do?") and that the BPRD made terrible cookies.

"His birthday is two days before Christmas," she said at one point. "And he just turned forty-eight and his father gave him a gift he bought for him in August and forty-eight birthday cakes which he finished in two hours."

"You aren't getting eighteen-birthday cakes, missy," Sara said. They were close to Sara's house. "I could barely bake and decorate one, never mind seventeen more."

"You call that decorated?" Michael said.

The two of them bickered as Ivy took a break from her story telling. The night was dark and only street lamps and the moon and a few struggling stars got through the cities haze. Sara's home loomed in the distance with Ivy's birthday cake waiting to be eaten. No doubt her mother had called Sara's parents nine hundred times by now wondering where they were and if they had gotten injured.

Ivy sighed. It was, with out a doubt, the strangest birthday of Ivy's life.

"You know," Adam said, "I didn't know you were a Hellboy fan."

Ivy paused. Was that what she was?

"Neither did I," she said after a moment. She liked it actually. Fan. She was a Hellboy fan.

"I read some of the comics based off him. I could let you borrow them some times. They're pretty good."

"I'd like that."

She smiled at Adam. Happy again that Sara had surprised her by bringing the boys down to se her. Happy over all for her friends and being with them.

Later that night, when they'd talked shit for a few more hours and laughed themselves into oblivion, Sara would turn off the lights, sit Ivy down at her kitchen table, and they would sing Happy Birthday to Ivy in low voices so as to not wake Sara's parents. They'd sing and Ivy would blow out the candles with thirty seconds to spare before her birthday ended and the sixth of January began. She would close her eyes and make a wish in the face of the white and pink frosted monstrosity of a cake Sara had made her. She would wish for her next year to be a happy one. She'd wish for her mother and friends to be happy. She'd wish for a million dollars so her mother wouldn't have to work and she could paint the ceiling of her bedroom like the ballroom from Beauty and the Beast. And, a small part, mainly drowned out by her other wishes, would make a wish that this Fourth Encounter with Hellboy would not be her last.

Closing Author's Note:

Soooo! What did we think? Do we like Ivy's friends? Did we like the Fourth Encounter? Can I say that I totally picked Ivy's birthday before realizing it was so close to Hellboy's? Really. AT the time I picked January 5th I was using the movie's October birthday for HB. It was only yesterday that I realized his birthday in the comic is December 23rd-WHICH! was after I had already written the scene about "did you get presents for both" thing. So that was fun. I got to go back and rewrite it which was nice.