#i mean ignoring whatever the hell happened just before the race with charles's floor and the plank 😭😭😭

[leqclerc]

I hold my tongue during the race to not jonx charles but that sainz radio made me 😡😡

Aajsdkfg yeah could've been dicey but the team actually did their job for once!!!! 🎉

Honestly I get why Charles was so upset after qualy yesterday, this was probably the best race they've had since Baku and that's starting from 10th and 11th... if they'd only had a better qualifying result... ahh!

But yeah, a positive day on the whole, obviously finishing P4 and P5 lacks the excitement of fighting for podiums but given how messy and difficult the past few weekends have been it's a relief to, 1. see Ferrari execute the pit stops without issues, 2. see Ferrari not make any strategic mistakes, 3. not hear Charles complaining about the tyres or the car not performing the way he wants them/it to. Is this what it feels like to know peace 😭

Quick news recap: rumour has it that whatever info Ferrari got out of the tyre test run seems to have helped them. Remains to be seen if this is a track-dependent thing or if we're actually making progress.

Also, apparently Yuki gave a shout-out on the radio to Josh, a member of the team who's leaving for Ferrari? So we might be getting a new social media admin/content creator. Potentially no more PR Pedro posting 😭😭😭 (I'm assuming they're going to assign him to be Carlos's press officer full-time then?)

[thatfanficstuff]

Can’t You See - Erik Lensherr

Pairing: Erik Lensherr x Reader

Warning: shy reader

A/N: This was a request from AO3 for an Erik hurt/comfort fic. 

***

It was late morning and you were sitting at the table with your hands wrapped around your coffee mug. Various others that lived in the mansion were in various stages of rousing themselves or quietly laughing at the ones that couldn’t hold their liquor quite as well as the others. You sensed a gaze on you and lifted your eyes to find Erik watching you over the rim of his own mug.

Your face heated as you quickly shifted your attention back to the table. Though your eyes were no longer on him, you knew he was smirking. You’d been crushing on Erik pretty much from the moment you’d met him and you were very well aware that you weren’t as subtle about it as you could be. You were hopeless, awkward, and shy. So, you watched him and daydreamed while he flirted and smiled and teased but it never went beyond that. At least not when you were awake. In your dreams, well that was your business, wasn’t it?

A part of you hoped he meant all the things he said and did, but you knew better. Why would he? Look at him. He could have anyone he wanted, he certainly didn’t need to be wasting his time on you. You were being too harsh on yourself and you knew it. But you were also a realist. Girls like you didn’t get the guy.

“Are you all right, Y/N?” Erik asked.

You leaned back in your chair and sighed as you turned your gaze to him. “Would you believe I’m just thinking?”

He chuckled. God, you loved that sound. Especially when you’d caused it.

You were infamous for overthinking everything. Charles said that was part of the reason that you had so many problems mastering your powers. He told you feel more, think less. Easy for him to say. Of course, they didn’t know you’d had your powers mastered for ages. If you let that slip, Erik wouldn’t need to spend all the time with you that he had been to try to teach you control.

A groan came from beside you. Raven rolled her eyes when you glanced at her. She was one of those that didn’t handle her liquor as well as the others. “Could you quit eye fucking Erik for like five minutes? I’m nauseous enough, thanks.”

Three things happened at that moment. First, your chest grew tight as you struggled to remember how to breathe. Not only were you humiliated but she was supposed to be your friend. One of the few you’d managed in your life. Tears immediately flooded your eyes and you didn’t dare turn to look at Erik, afraid of his reaction. Second, Charles and Erik yelled Raven’s name simultaneously. Third, you pushed to your feet. “If you’ll excuse me,” you said before heading toward the stairs.

You paused briefly when Erik called your name before shaking your head and hurrying off. Once you were out of sight, you used your power to become invisible. There was a corner you preferred in the living room that allowed you a view of everyone coming and going, but no one but you ever sat there. You grabbed a blanket as you walked past the sofa, extending your power to make it invisible as well.

After wrapping the blanket around your shoulders, you settled in the corner. You leaned your head against the wall and let the hot tears run down your cheeks. Charles pushed lightly against your mind, wanting to find you, to make sure you were okay. Let me be, Charles.

She didn’t mean anything by it. She’s just being a bitch because she’s hung over. Erik is still telling her off.

That drew a laugh from you, albeit a small one. Don’t make excuses for her. She’s a big girl. And so am I. I’ll get over it.

There was a stretch of silence and you relaxed thinking Charles had decided to leave you alone for now. You should have known better.

Listen, Erik—

No. With that, you pushed him from your mind and locked it down. He could still read you if he put forth the effort but he was too polite for that.

You tilted your head back so you were looking at the ceiling and did your best to keep your tears silent. You could have fled to your room, but that was the first place they’d look for you and you didn’t particularly want to be found. They’d only attempt to placate you with empty words they didn’t mean and you’d had enough of those to last a lifetime.

“She’s not in her room.”

You shifted your position to watch the two men that walked into the room. Erik was the one that had spoken. Charles merely nodded and darted a glance to your corner.

You’re an ass, Charles.

He laughed but quickly covered it with a cough. “Are you certain she’s not in her room? She could be invisible. In fact, she could be most anywhere.”

Erik glared at him as he hooked a hand around the back of his neck and paced the floor. “And you have no idea where that might be? You can’t pinpoint her at all?”

Charles sat on the arm of the couch. “I told you, she shut me down. Calm down, would you?”

“I am calm.”

“Yes, you look it,” he said with more than a hint of laughter in his voice. You were so glad to know he was amused by all this.

“I swear, I could wring Raven’s neck.”

“I believe you mentioned that.”

“How are you not more upset about this?” Erik asked after a moment.

“Perhaps, because I’m not the one in love with her.”

You sucked in a breath at Charles’s words and your eyes searched Erik, looking for the truth. He scowled at his friend, but he didn’t correct him. Is it possible all that flirting actually meant something to him?

“Damn it, Charles. You know I find Raven’s antics amusing most of the time, but Y/N is so damned shy. It’s taken me forever to get her to be comfortable with me and now, because of one bitchy comment from your sister, it may all be for naught. She’ll probably never look me in the eye again.”

Charles laughed and glanced in your direction again.

“Why the bloody hell are you laughing?”

You made yourself visible and cleared your throat. “Because he thinks he’s funny. And he knows I’m hiding in the corner.”

Erik spun with wide eyes. They softened when his gaze fell on you. The two of you looked at each other in silence until he said, “Give us a moment, Charles.”

Your friend hummed his agreement before making himself scarce, that annoying grin still flirting with his lips. Erik approached slowly as though he feared his mere presence would run you off. To be fair, it had on more than one occasion. “May I?” he gestured to a chair near you.

“You don’t need my permission to sit down, Erik.” You tore your gaze from him and looked around the room you’d been in hundreds of times, still too embarrassed to hold eye contact for long.

He moved the chair so he could sit directly in front of you. “Look at me.”

You glanced at him briefly and quickly moved your eyes away again.

He sighed. “Look at me, Y/N.”

His voice was that familiar low rumble, but this time it held a thread of sadness that you couldn’t ignore. So, you shoved down all your fears and met his gaze.

When you held it, he smiled. “There’s my girl.”

Your face heated, but you didn’t look away.

His tongue darted out to lick his lips. “I’m sorry about Raven.”

“Why do you and Charles always insist on apologizing for her? She’s old enough to deal with the consequences of her actions, don’t you think?” Realizing you sounded a little bitter, you bit your lip to stem any further comment.

Erik’s eyes flashed with amusement. “Okay. I’m sorry you felt the need to leave. Is that better?”

You shrugged. “That wasn’t your fault either, but thank you.”

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. His hands were clasped together and you could tell he was stewing over what to say next.

“Why didn’t you correct him?”

His brow furrowed. “Who?”

“Charles.”

He tilted his head, obviously still confused.

“When he said you loved me.”

A slow smile covered his face. “You misheard. He didn’t say I loved you.”

You frowned and ran the conversation back through your head. “Yes, he did. I remember.”

He shook his head and lifted a brow. “No, he said I was in love with you. There’s a difference.”

“Oh.” Your heart raced and you forced yourself to keep your eyes on him. This conversation was important and you didn’t want to miss any of it.

He leaned forward a bit. “And I didn’t correct him because he spoke the truth.”

You swallowed past the lump in your throat. “Why didn’t you say something?”

He chuckled and leaned back. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, sweetheart, but you’re a bit skittish.”

“Yeah, but it had to be obvious I liked you too. I wasn’t exactly subtle about staring at you.”

His smile faded just enough to tug at your heart. “Being attracted to someone and having real feelings for them are two very different things. I was willing to take whatever you gave me.”

You shook your head as you laughed. “You must think I’m completely hopeless.”

“Of course not. Why would you say that?” He sounded so offended you couldn’t help but laugh again.

You waved a hand through the air when he tried to protest again. With a touch and a thought, you made his chair invisible. He glanced down in surprise. He looked back up with a frown but said nothing. He appeared more confused than anything.

This time when you reached out, you wrapped a hand around his wrist. Two seconds later, he was invisible as well. “This is…unsettling,” he said after a moment.

With a thought him and the chair were both visible once more. “As you can see, I don’t exactly need help controlling my powers.”

“Since when?”

You shrugged and stared at your hands in your lap. “Before the two of you ever found me. I couldn’t pass up the chance to spend more time with you.”

“Well, then I guess I can quit feeling guilty for not teaching you anything.”

You jerked your head up to find him grinning. He grabbed one of your hands and tugged you forward. You stumbled from your seat only for him to catch you and pull you into his lap. His hand cupped the side of your face as he leaned forward and pressed his lips to yours. You didn’t even hesitate before kissing him back.

You became vaguely aware of footsteps and voices heading your way. You smiled against his mouth as you pushed your power through the both of you. When he chuckled, you silenced him with another kiss.

“She’s not in here, Charles. How do you expect me to apologize if she’s not where you said?” Raven grumbled.

“What are you talking about? Her and Erik…” His voice trailed off as he peered into the room to find it empty. Or at least it appeared so. He grinned and steered Raven from the room. “My mistake. You can find her later.”

Erik hummed against your lips as you made the two of you visible once more. “That’s a handy trick.”

“Isn’t it though?”

He lifted you off his lap so he could stand then swept you up into his arms. “How about you show it to me once more time? Just until we make it to my bedroom.”

You grinned again. “It would be my pleasure.”

[marvelous-heroimagines]

Running Out Of Hope

High School / No Powers AU

Requested by: Anonymous (Here are the specifics)

Pairing: Reader x Charles Xavier (Platonic?) Word Count: 1.5K Warnings: Angst, fluff, attempted assault?, swearing

A/N: Based off of Terracotta Heart by Blur

I haven’t specifically written this fic with a romantic or platonic pairing between the reader and Charles, so it’s up to you how you want to interpret it!

Your sister had told you how things changed when you transitioned from middle school to high school; but you had refused to believe her. You had sworn to everyone that doubted you, that you and Charles would remain best friends for life. But the pressure of high school and puberty proved your sister right. You didn’t mean to get swept up in the popularity contest that was high school, but before you knew it, you were seeing Charles less and less.

~~Charles’ POV~~

From the beginning of Freshman year, Charles could feel you pulling further and further away from the friendship the two of you had shared for as long as he can remember - but he still tried to be in your life.

He knew that your new ‘popular’ friends didn’t like him - well, they thought he was uncool and a dork - but he was still determined to tag along to the parties you’d been to. He could feel you slipping away, but that only made him hold on tighter.

The parties were never his kind of scene; he wasn’t a big fan of drinking and definitely didn’t like doing drugs, but he stuck around for you - partly to make an attempt at keeping the friendship, and partly to make sure you were never in danger.

That was until you did something that severed the fraying ties between the two of you. Charles had tagged along to a party, just like any other, in Junior year, and nothing was out of the regular - until one of the jocks decided that he’d had enough of Charles inserting himself in the ‘popular’ kids lives. Charles can hardly remember how it even came about - it was months ago now - but all he did remember that the entire football team started to tease him and push him around. He tried to make them stop, but could barely fend off one, let alone the whole team.

He’d looked up, locked eyes with you and even called for help. The team stopped, all turning to glance expectantly at you. Charles thought that you would speak up and tell the jocks to stop - but you didn’t. You just stared back silently before your eyes fell to the floor, you turned on your heel and exited the room again.

Using the momentary distraction, Charles escaped and left the party all together - disheartened and annoyed that you had chosen the ‘popular’ kids over him; your lifelong best friend. As he left the party, he decided right there and then that whatever kind of friendship you and he still had, was over now. You were dead to him, and he was never going to talk to you again.

It’d been almost 6 months since Charles left that party; and even though he was resigned to never speaking to you again, he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about you. He always found himself pondering how you were, if you were still in the whole party and drug scene, and if you were actually happy.

His phone buzzes from across his bedroom, pulling his attention away from his homework. Pushing off from his desk, his chair rolls across the floor and he grabs his phone to see that you had texted him.

His heart starts to race - you hadn’t contacted him since that night. But he ignores your text, not even bothering to glance at what you had said.

Charles tried to get back to studying, but your text pulls at his thoughts - and then his phone started buzzing with a call. Deciding to find out what you want, he answers.

“Hello,” he says into the phone, making sure to keep his voice monotone and disinterested,

“Charles,” your voice is weak and strangled. Charles doesn’t need to see you to realise that something isn’t right - he’s never heard you like this. He’d wanted to remain cold and unfriendly, but the moment he hears you start to sob, his resolve melts away.

“Y/N,” his voice is now frantic and scared, “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t feel so good,” you force out, “I don’t know where I am, an-”

“I’m coming to get you,” Charles says before he’d even thought about his words, “Stay where you are,”

“T-Thank you,” you reply through a sob.

A second after the line clicks, Charles jumps up and grabs his parent’s car keys - not even bothering to ask for permission - and uses Find My Friends to get your location; luckily you weren’t too far away.

Charles glances at his phone to make sure he has the correct address - the blaring music should have been the dead give away, but he wanted to be sure. Taking a deep breath, Charles tries to find courage as he nears the house. The front door is wide open, and there are a few people littered across the front lawn.

Charles attempts to ask a few people where you are, but none of them are sober enough to even listen to him properly. He ventures through the house, feeling uncomfortable and growing more worried by the second.

Charles’ ears pick up a few shouting voices from a room to his right. He freezes for a moment - as if being still will help him hear better - but the second he hears your voice, he jumps into action.

Bursting into the room, Charles’ stomach jumps into his throat when he sees you struggling against two jocks who are fighting to restrain you.

“Hey!” Charles bellows, surprising even himself with how brave he sounded. The two jocks glance over their shoulders and snicker when they see it’s him who’s attempting to stop them.

With adrenaline coursing through his veins, Charles finds himself tearing the guys away from you before he can even register what he’s doing. Almost as if he’s on autopilot, Charles delivers shift punches to each jock, successfully stunning the drunk and drugged boys long enough to rush forward, scoop you up and escape.

You were in and out of consciousness on the drive back to Charles’ - he didn’t know where else to take you. He tries to let you walk yourself up the stairs to his bedroom, but you were too fucked up and kept almost falling over; not wanting to wake his parents, Charles pulls your arm over his shoulders and helps you up the stairs.

It isn’t until Charles set you down on his bed that you finally, completely come to and realise what’s going on.

“You alright?” Charles asks as you recognise his room and look confused as to how you got there.

“W-What happened?” your voice low, embarrassed and wavering,

“You’re in bad shape, Y/N,” Charles says, not sure how much you remembered of what happened before he showed up.

You’re silent for a little bit, your brows furrowed as you stare at nothing in particular; then you turn to Charles - you’re trying to look into his eyes but yours can’t really focus right, “You saved me,”

Charles’ stomach knots as your words make him realise what he’d actually done, “I’m so going to get beat up on Monday,” he sighs,

“Nah,” you reply, “Those guys won’t be able to remember anything in the morning... The shit we took was crazy,”

“Y/N, what you’re-” Charles wanted to talk to you about your drinking and drug habits, but you cut him off,

“Charles, I’m so sorry,” you admit, your eyes dropping to your hands as you wring them uncomfortably, “I got swept up in the allure of popularity - or whatever - and it’s all just bullshit,” your voice begins to grow stronger as you get riled up, “Like we pretended that we were better than everyone else... Than you,” your voice cracks just a touch when you admit that, “But really, we’re all fucking losers who think getting so drunk and high we can’t fucking see is cool,”

Charles stares at you, unsure what he was supposed to say. He didn’t want to be an arsehole and admit that he’d known that all along, but that’s all he could think of as a reply. Before the silence stretches on too long, you start to dry heave.

Charles barely gets his bedroom bin under your face before you’re throwing up. Luckily, you didn’t miss the bin, but you still mumble apologises through hurling.

“It’s okay,” Charles coos, holding your hair back and rubbing your back, “Get it all out.”

Charles comforts you for a while as your body forces all the alcohol and drugs out of your system. Once you’re both sure you won’t throw up in Charles’ bed, you both lay back and try to get some sleep.

Charles definitely can’t sleep, but you pass out almost instantly; even curling up to Charles’ side in your sleep, and he can’t help but smile to himself in the dark. He hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself, but he’d missed you - the real you - ever since high school started; and he felt like he finally had a chance to help you get yourself back - and the friendship the two of you used to share.

Tags: @redstarstan, @rosyfluffyprincess, @heismyhunter, @coffeeismylife28, @klutzly, @leahhavoc, @invisible2niall, @addictwithafandomblog, @hantu369mc, @thegreatestpilotinthegalaxy, @impala-moose, @stratmoxphere, @bearded-bucky, @meep-meep22, @caitsymichelle13, @pleasefixthepain, @strangermarvelthings, @specs15, @sebstanwassup, @wunnywho, @thedarknesswarrior, @girlwith100names, @melconnor2007, @ipaintmelodies, @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked, @spookydoritos, @fanboyswhereare-you, @yoinkpeter, @tcmhollnd, @providence-impoverished, @lilya-petrichor, @hells-princess, @sarahp879, @indecorousthoughts, @geeksareunique, @courtneychicken, @peter-spider-parker-man, @mizzzpink, @lovely-geek, @httpmcrvel, @sebstanismylife, @glitteringsarah, @stardustandbucky, @lena-stan-xavier, @princess76179

Tags that didn’t work: @hesitant-poison, @spn-worm, @yoyolovesbucky, @mrs-stan-barnes, @xplumsceptrequeenx, @addictionmarvel, @mo320, @janellexox0, @impossiblyteenagestudent96400

[welllpthisishappening]

Caught in Your Light (2/4)

Forever. It’s been forever. Or, possibly, longer.

It might honestly be longer.

Killian can’t remember a moment when he wasn’t hopelessly, head over heels in love with Emma. And it’s kind of becoming a problem. Because it’s been forever and they’ve always been friends, but now things are changing and traditions are ending and there’s just one more weekend.

This is it. So it’s time to do something about it. In Boston. With all their friends watching. It’ll be fine.

Rating: Mature. Swearing. Kissing. Rinse and repeat. Word Count: Just. Like a lot. And 9.1 this chapter AN: I’d like to apologize in advance to any Red Sox fans because there is some friendly trash talk in this chapter and Emma and Killian totally made that list of baseball-type insults. BUT! There are also other things and backstory and a lot of thoughts about Susan Pevensie. Naturally. As always, I am blown away by all of you and your nice’ness and I’m just, like, a constant mess of gratitude.  This is still for @idristardis​ who really wanted bed sharing. Ask and ye shall receive with a side of mutual pining and denial. 

It is, all things considered, kind of annoying.

This whole being in love with Emma Swan thing Killian is doing gets in the way of...everything. And, really, it’s not entirely fair, mostly because he can’t remember when it started and just saying always seems way too melodramatic even for the almost ridiculous amount of pining he’s been doing over the last decade.

Plus, always isn’t entirely accurate.

They bickered and fought and pushed several different buttons their freshman year, but Killian would be lying if he said he hadn’t let his eyes hold her gaze a few minutes longer and the first time they’d gone to the swan boats – after they’d both completely bombed some freshman marketing exam neither one of them was particularly interested in taking – was some kind of game-changer on a lifetime scale.

And it just keeps going from there.

They still bicker and fight, but there are fewer buttons to press because they get to know each other and it’s not easy, but it’s them and their friends stop sending separate text messages to each of them.

“There’s no point,” Mulan reasons one day, sitting cross-legged in the corner of Bapst Library with a small mountain of books around her.

Killian arches an eyebrow, but Mulan doesn’t blink – barely looks away from the one book she’s been staring at for the better part of the last forty-five minutes and they probably should have gotten a table. But it’s late April and there are way too many kids in Bapst and both of them have three exams in succession next week.

“What?” he asks. “Are you talking? That’s against the rules.”

She flips him off. “I’m just saying. There’s no point in texting both you and Emma anymore. You’re like one collective unit.” “I don’t think that’s true.” “No?” “No,” Killian says, waving his hand through the otherwise deserted aisle and Mulan, finally, looks up at him. “Case in point. Or whatever.” “Save your law jokes for Merida.” “I don’t know how to make a broadcasting joke.” “Well, then, clearly you’re not much of a comedian are you?” she asks, leveling him with a state he’s come to regard as bored and slightly exhausted. He’s definitely exhausted. He’s going to drink so much Sangria at Final Jam.

“Ah, but you’re still kind of charmed by it, admit it.” “I’m not. And you’re avoiding the question.” “Were there any questions?”

Mulan flips him off again – with her other hand – working a not-so-quiet laugh out of Killian, but that’s mostly a deflection and he’s definitely avoiding the unspoken question. “I’m just saying,” she continues. “There’s no point. Current situation aside, you two are like..I don’t know.” “You don’t know.” “Why are you being like this?”

“Probably because I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.” She clicks her tongue, frustration obvious in the sound and the shift of her shoulders and this is not doing anything to help his current stress level. Or how goddamn annoying his emotions constantly are. “I’m serious, Jones,” Mulan says. “A collective unit. That everyone and several other people have an opinion on.” And, just like that, it’s as if he’s been thrown into the Charles River and forgotten how to swim.

Killian can feel his eyes widen, tension running down his spine and in between his shoulder blades and it kind of feels like his tongue is growing, which, really is pretty gross.

Mulan doesn’t notice – or ignores it completely, it’s probably the second one – eyes back on her books and whatever kind of knowledge she has to learn for exams about broadcast journalism. Killian, however, can’t focus on a single word, every date and point in American history swimming in front of him and his legs wobble when he stands up. “I’m going to go get some coffee,” he announces, barely working a hum out of Mulan. “You want anything?” “That’s a stupid question.” It is – she wants a double espresso, always and forever and especially while studying for three straight finals – but Killian’s not sure what his mind or legs are doing so he feels like he’s got an excuse. He leaves his books on the floor.

And, eventually, he thinks, that’s the moment or, at least, one of the moments.

Because the whole goddamn Final Jam weekend feels like several different big, important moments and a copious amount of Sangria, and he’s sitting on a bench in the middle of Boston Common with Emma half an inch away.

“It’s weird, right?” Emma asks, holding her hand out expectantly for the bottle in the paper bag that’s only slightly illegal.

Killian hums in confusion, tilting his head and barely keeping his balance, which is only a little troubling because he’s sitting down. “What is?”

“I don’t know. Everything?” “Everything? That’s awfully broad, love.”

He has no idea when that started meaning a bit more than before, but it seems to happen without Killian’s explicit permission and maybe Mulan had more of a point than even she realized.

Emma sighs, taking a far-too-long drink of shitty Sangria and shivering slightly as she swallows. “It is a little broad,” she admits. “But...it’s also, I don’t know, I’m not an English major I can’t come up with another word for it.” “You’re losing me.” “I realize that,” she laughs, soft and simple and her smile does something absurd to his slightly inebriated brain.

They’re alone again – a color-coordinated schedule completed and far too much alcohol consumed and there are only two weeks until graduation and he’s still a little worried about those final exams. His phone is on silent.

He’s fairly positive Emma’s phone is in her apartment.

That feels important too.

“So try again,” Killian suggests, fingers brushing over hers when he tries to take back the alcohol. “You’ve got to share, Swan. Those are the rules.” “Final Jam is over.” “Our rules then.”

She scoffs, but there’s still a bit of laughter clinging to it and her fingers are always freezing cold. He’s a little worried about that as well. “Just us?” Emma asks. “Seems kind of specific.” “It might be,” Killian shrugs. “You didn’t put the swan boats on your list of activity suggestions.” It doesn’t sound like an accusation – and it’s not really, more a curious observation and Killian hopes she can’t hear the way his pulse speeds up at the words. Emma’s eyebrows twist, lips pressed together tightly and it’s going to take forever to get back to campus.

“Yeah,” she whispers, but she doesn’t blink when she speaks and that feels more important than anything to do with their phones. “But that kind of felt like an our thing too. And I kind of had a hunch.” “About?” “Ending up here eventually.”

She can absolutely hear his pulse thudding in his veins – there’s no way she can’t, it’s so goddamn loud Killian is half convinced it’s the only noise he’ll ever hear again. His mind is racing, running several different Marathons and that was a few weeks ago, so the joke doesn’t even make sense, but his lungs might be shrinking and he’s clearly not getting the oxygen he needs to come up with appropriate humor.

“Yeah?” Killian asks and Emma’s smile is obvious even in the dim light of the park.

She nods. “Yeah. I mean...like I said, a hunch and some...possible optimism.” “Possible optimism.” “Why do you just keep repeating me?” “Because you keep coming up with phrases never before uttered by native English speakers,” Killian laughs. “I think the colloquialism you’re looking for is cautious optimism.”

“You clearly haven’t celebrated Final Jam enough if you can still say the word colloquialism without laughing.”

“Is that usually a funny word?” “Isn’t it? It’s weird. It’s a weird word.” “Ask Mary Margaret about the origins of it tomorrow,” Killian says and Emma makes a noise when she sticks her tongue out at him. “That’s a no then?”

“That’s a no,” Emma mutters. “And Mary Margaret’s got great, big plans to stay with David tonight and then probably volunteer while being super hungover tomorrow. It’s disgusting.” “That’s awfully judgmental, Swan.” She groans or growls and it’s good that he’s already a little, a lot, drunk because the muscles in his face would probably ache from overuse otherwise. “It’s not,” Emma promises. “It’s a fact. Mary Margaret wakes up and sings to birds and then organizes everyone’s life with a gusto that does not make sense in the real world and then she kisses David and doesn’t need coffee and goes out and saves the world.”

There’s a bitterness to the last few words that Killian doesn’t entirely expect, blinking through the haze of alcohol around them and he can’t really move closer to her, but he tries anyway. It takes a moment and some quiet encouragement to tug the bottle out of Emma’s hands, widening his eyes in the way that usually gets her agree to anything and he has to bite the side of his tongue to stop himself from doing something absurd when she licks her lips.

“Stop that,” she mumbles, resting one hand on the front of his jacket and the other on his thigh and he might burst into flames.

It feels that way.

“What?” “The mind reading, open book thing is stupid and unfair,” Emma says. She glances up at him from underneath her eyelashes, hair covering half her face and it’s not cold out, but she shivers anyway. “I’m fine, really.” “The fact that you need to tell me you’re fine suggests you aren’t fine, love.” “God, you need to be more drunk. Drunker? Drunkest?” “That last one’s definitely not a word.” “Yeah, probably not.” Emma takes a deep breath and he needs her to stop doing whatever it is she’s doing with her lips, twisting and tugging them behind her teeth, because it’s distracting. “You want to tell me what’s going on now?” Killian asks, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear and he’s not sure either one of them are breathing. “Or should I really try and guess?”

“You don’t have to guess,” she mutters. “I mean you probably could at this point, but it’s just...Final Jam is over.” “Yeah, that’s kind of how the weekend works, Swan.” “No, no, that’s not what I mean. I...” She exhales, blinking too quickly and she’s going to do permanent damage to her lower lip if she keeps biting on it. “Final Jam is over,” Emma repeats. “And everyone’s got some kind of plan and all these exams and I’ve got...a business degree.” “That’s not a bad thing. You can do a lot of things with a business degree.”

“God, don’t give me that. That’s exactly what Mary Margaret and David told me and I'm pretty certain they were half a second away from singing it too, just to make sure I understood the positive implications of it all.” “Are we not looking for positive implications, then?” Killian asks, not prepared for the way Emma’s eyebrows jump at his choice of preposition.

He should have taken more English classes.

“Not when the future's so goddamn terrifying,” she grumbles. “They’ve all got plans.” “You’ve got a plan, Swan.” She glares at him. “Ok, ok,” Killian says, flashing her a grin and working one out of her in return and they definitely don’t bicker or fight nearly as much as they used to. Maybe they just flirt. Constantly. Indefinitely?

That’s definitely the wrong word.

“What are you worried about, Emma?” he asks and they both flinch at that word because he never calls her Emma, isn’t sure he actually ever has. And there’s another big, important moment for the last Final Jam of undergrad.

She closes her eyes lightly, letting her head fall forward until it’s resting on his shoulder and Killian’s tongue is bleeding from all the damage he’s doing to it. “I already told you,” she mutters. “Everything. It’s all...it’s over. Isn’t it?” Killian smiles at the question, which probably isn’t the right response, but there’s something cautiously optimistic about the way she asks, pressing the words into his shirt. “No, it’s not, love,” he answers. “It’s just another weekend and another tradition and Mary Margaret will probably keep making color-coded schedules for the rest of our lives whether we want it or not.”

“They’re really good schedules. Don’t tell her I told you that.” “They are. Don’t tell her I agreed with you.” “I promise,” Emma says, lifting her head to meet his smile with one of her own. “Ruby told me that they’ve all stopped texting both of us because it’s unnecessary.” It’s still not cold, but Killian feels something like ice landing in the pit of his stomach and Emma’s suddenly preoccupied with her feet. “Mulan mentioned that to me when we were in the classics section yesterday.” “The classics section?” “It’s quieter there. No one else goes in that aisle and there’s more room than getting an actual table and--” He doesn’t get the rest of the words out.

Emma’s right hand finds the front of his shirt as well, tugging him forward and nearly ripping the thing in the process. Their knees knock, matching winces on their faces which, really, when he imagined this happening is not at all how he expected it to go.

That kind of makes it better.

Because Emma Swan is kissing him.

And he is kissing Emma Swan.

And it’s like watching the sunrise or drinking an entire bottle of incredibly shitting Sangria without getting hungover and it’s so much better than he ever thought it could be.

He’s thought about this moment a lot.

Emma keeps her fingers in his shirt, holding on like it’s an anchor and they’re not in the perfect position. They’re twisted awkwardly around each other, bent at the waist until Killian’s half looming over her and that doesn’t feel right either.

She fixes it. And that’s the least surprising thing that’s happened in the last ten minutes because if there’s one thing Emma Swan is, it’s incredibly stubborn and even more certain and he wishes there was more oxygen in the world so his gasp doesn’t sound quite as strangled when she swings a leg over his.

They don’t stop, Emma sitting on top of his thighs with her hands in his hair and his palm flat on her back, trying to keep her there for the rest of his life and several different versions of the afterlife. They break apart and breathe and dive back in, lips slanting over lips and tongues moving quickly and there aren’t enough adverbs or adjectives in the English language to describe the moment.

He might groan at some point, but he’s lost control of his limbs and his brain and several different critical systems of the human body, moving without thinking or considering the implications of how goddamn long he’s been waiting for this.

One of them moves, rocking up or down and it’s like the Earth has lost its center of gravity, everything shifting and rearranging and nothing is ever going to be as good as this – Emma’s hair in between his fingers and her shirt riding up slightly and it almost feels like his lips are bruised at this point.

It’s impossible to keep track of time in a moment like this, everything seeming too long and too quick and Killian tilts his head, trying to keep his lips on Emma’s because he’s not entirely sure what he’ll do when she pulls away.

She pulls away.

Of course.

They’re both breathing heavily, eyes wide and mouths hanging open and Emma’s still got her fingers in his hair. She’s still sitting on top of him.

“Swan,” Killian starts slowly, but she’s already shaking her head and it would be more comfortable to be sitting at the bottom of the Charles River than that bench with a slightly altered Earth and the sudden, complete realization that he is impossibly and irrevocably in love with her.

“I’ve got to…” Emma says. It takes her a moment to disentangle their limbs, but then she’s stumbling backwards and that muscle in her jaw is working overtime. “Don’t tell Mary Margaret about that either, ok?” He’s not sure what he does, he might nod or actually say words, but there’s this rushing in Killian’s ears that makes it difficult to notice anything else and Emma’s already a few hundred feet away.

He doesn’t tell Mary Margaret.

He doesn’t tell anyone.

And, presumably, neither does Emma.

They just keep...being. He stays in Boston and Emma moves to Portland and then four other cities and a tiny little town that she absolutely hates before landing in Chicago and a job at a bail bonds company that only makes him worry, like, a slightly ridiculous amount.

It’s the whole being in love with her thing.

They don’t talk about that either.

They talk about everything else and it’s enough because it’s still them and there are still Final Jam schedules and he didn’t put the swan boats on his itinerary e-mail to Mary Margaret.

He’s got a hunch Emma might have. 

“Jones!” Killian blinks, jerking back hard enough that the seat he’s sitting in digs into his spine and he’s got no idea what inning it is. He runs a hand over his face, trying to remember what goddamn day it is, but he’s been so wrapped up in memories and feelings and that question from the night before that they could be playing basketball at Fenway and he probably wouldn't have noticed.

Ruby grins.

Maybe she’s the mind reader in the group.

“Present, Lucas,” he grumbles, but she doesn’t look convinced.

“Yuh huh. You hear any of the last conversation?” “Absolutely.”

“Oh my God,” she laughs. “That was an almost insulting lie. You’ve got to practice better if you’re going to lie to my face like that.”

“You’re missing another round of what do we want to name Mini-Nolan,” Emma mutters, widening her eyes meaningfully. She’s sitting next to him, always it seems in events like this, hair brushing against his shoulder whenever a particularly strong gust of wind works its way out of left field.

“I thought we agreed we were going to name her Luthien,” Killian says. Mary Margaret groans. Loudly. “Alright, well, I guess we’re not doing that.” “I have no idea what a Luthien is,” Mary Margaret says. She’s keeping score, a pencil stuck behind her ear and the whole thing looks very official. She’s even counting pitches.

“Where’d you get the scorebook, Nolan?” Killian asks knowingly. She groans again.

“That’s none of your business.” “Did you leave Locksley money on his desk for stealing his empty scorebook? Is it even empty? Are there already games in there?” “There are no games in here already,” Mary Margaret seethes, but that only gets Killian to smile wider and it is, he reasons, easier to sit in Fenway’s far too small seats if his arm is around Emma's shoulders.

Whatever.

She doesn’t argue it.

“She wouldn’t steal a pre-used book, get with it, Jones,” David mutters, not taking his eyes off the field and Mary Margaret probably shouldn’t be groaning that often.

“I didn’t steal it,” Mary Margaret says. “And I left Locksley ten bucks because I google’d how much it cost to buy one of these.” “And you didn’t just, I don’t know, want to buy one?” Emma asks. Mary Margaret doesn’t blink. “I’ll take that as a no then.” “No, I didn’t have time.” “Too busy color coding schedules,” Ruby chuckles, not bothering to whisper. “Whatever, can we all agree that Jones was ignoring everyone for a questionable amount of time and that Jean is a pretty adorable name?” “Jean?” Killian echoes. “And we were totally against Luthien?” “Luthien is a depressing story,” David reasons, but the words get lumped into a rather pointed insult at the Rays distinct lack of starting pitching. “And we’ve moved out of Middle Earth and into Harry Potter, so I really need you to keep up.” “Where is there a Jean in Harry Potter?” “That’s Hermione’s middle name,” Emma answers. “Seriously, pay attention to the conversation.”

Killian hums, a smirk settling on his face – but that’s almost more obvious than the lie he tried to feed Ruby. “Better than naming her Hermione straight up.” “That’s what I’m saying. Hermione is way too obvious. Although I did vote for Angelina.” “Johnson?” “How did you know that and not that Hermione's middle name is Jean?”

“Because you and Merida are the only ones who actually signed up for Pottermore,” Ruby mutters archly. “And I still think people are going to think Jolie before a Quidditch player.” “I signed up for Pottermore for the background information,” Emma says and Killian barely keeps his laugh from becoming some kind of guffaw.

“I’m sorry, Swan, that’s the single worst lie anyone in the history of the world has told.” “How do you figure?” “Are you going to tell me right now that you weren’t desperate to find out what your Patronus was? Don’t insult my knowledge of you like that.”

She makes a face – tongue sticking out and eyes rolling towards a perfectly blue sky that’s probably the textbook definition of baseball weather and Killian squeezes his hand on the curve of her shoulder.

He doesn’t notice Ruby’s expression.

Mary Margaret is still desperately trying to keep score. “What was that last pitch?” “A strike,” Killian answers. “That wasn’t a good question, aren’t there are only two options?” Merida asks, her hair barely staying contained under the baseball hats they were all told they had to wear. David is wearing a Garciaparra jersey.

“Not true,” Mulan argues. “And Jones wasn’t right either.” “What?” he asks, eyes darting towards Emma’s out of instinct and several other words that he’s been trying to ignore for the last six years. “Ok, that is just fundamentally wrong. Balls and strikes. That’s how baseball works.”

“Nope. Try again.” “What the hell are you talking about?”

Mulan opens her mouth to answer, but their attention is collectively diverted by a crack of the bat and David’s already jumping up and down, drawing a few curious stares from the people around them and maybe the J.D. Martinez trade was worth it if he keeps hitting like that.

“Run, Mookie, run,” David yells, waving his hands like he’s the third-base coach. “God, wave him home, idiots! He’s got the speed for it!”

Mary Margaret has her face in her hands.

“David, you are embarrassing your wife and your unborn child,” Emma says. “Sit down. Mookie can’t hear you.” David shakes his head. “No, I refuse to believe that. He’s right there.” He points towards the runner still standing on third, which, really, was a bad call because Mookie does have the speed to beat out the relay home, but Killian will be damned before he agrees with any of David’s baseball opinions. Emma had to get him to change out of Yankees gear four different times that morning. “He can definitely hear me,” David continues. “We paid way too much money for these seats, give me this, Emma.” “I will not do that. This is weird. You are being weird.” “Welcome to David’s Final Jam moment,” Ruby chuckles. Merida is taking pictures again. “M’s, tell me something honestly, how long did he spend trying to decide which Sox great he wanted to honor with a jersey this afternoon?”

“If it’s any less than twenty-seven I’m going to be really disappointed,” Killian mutters and Emma’s eyes flash his direction.

“Oh that wasn’t even clever.” “Swan, that was easily the most clever thing I've said all day.” “And you don’t think that’s problematic?” He shakes his head, tightening his arm and there’s far too much seat in between them, but that might be some kind of metaphor and Killian isn’t prepared to deal with that before a copious amount of Sangria.

“You’re impossible,” Emma accuses, stabbing her finger into his chest and it takes some kind of Herculean effort not to catch her around the wrist and kiss along the line of her knuckles and being in love really shouldn’t be this annoying.

He wants to talk about it.

He’s dangerously close to needing to talk about it.

He can’t.

Or won’t.

The second one is way more depressing.

“Does anyone have any idea what the hell they’re talking about?” Mulan asks and David groans when Mookie gets stranded on third to end the fourth.

“Not usually when Emma and Killian are speaking their own language,” Ruby says. “But I think it was mostly a baseball insult.” “It was all a baseball insult,” David grumbles. He has to lean around Mary Margaret to kick at Killian’s ankles, not a particularly easy feat considering the pretzel in his hand. “Question. Who has won more World Series since 2004?” “Three Series titles is not impressive,” Killian says and he’s not sure who groans more, Emma or David. They’re for completely different reasons. He grins at her. “You were just making up for lost time. And we won one.” “He says like he was part of the team,” Emma mumbles.

“Was I not, Swan? That’s disappointing.” “Now batting, the captain…” she intones and maybe the exceptionally blue sky above them is a sign. That be sort of nice.

“Speak English,” Ruby demands, swatting at Merida’s arm when her phone shutter clicks. “Mer, I am going to throw that stupid thing on the field, I swear to God.” Merida doesn’t look impressed. “You’ll get kicked out if you do that and then you won’t get to Faneuil Hall for your Final Jam moment, so come back to me when you’ve got a more threatening threat.” Ruby’s getting very good at glaring at all of them.

“The Yankees have won the World Series twenty-seven times,” Emma explains. “The Sox were, you know, cursed and awful, but then they broke said curse in 2004 and have since won two more times and David’s trying to pretend that’s impressive or like Curt Schilling isn’t an actually terrible person.” Mary Margaret groans again, slumping in her chair and she practically hisses when Killian and David both ask if she’s alright. And the jab about Curt Schilling was point seventeen on the list still sitting on Killian’s coffee table.

He loves Emma Swan an absolutely ridiculous amount.

“Now you’ve done it,” Mary Margaret sighs and the Red Sox are already back up. “Is that a new pitcher? Again?” “It’s bullpen day for the Rays,” Emma reasons. “Do they have another pitcher besides Chris Archer?” “You’re asking me like that’s a question I know the answer to.”

“Can a baseball team actually be cursed?” Ruby asks and they’re going to get banned from Fenway for being the most obnoxious fans in the history of the game. “That seems unlikely.”

“Please stop talking about this,” David begs. “It’s over now. We don’t have to rehash. Also Curt Schilling is an absolutely awful person, Emma, so don’t act like that’s something that’s up for debate. Come up with another insult.” “I’ve got a list.” “Excuse me?” Emma nods. “Buckner, Buckner, Buckner. David Ortiz took steroids too. The aforementioned Curt Schilling insult. Aaron Boone. Buckner again, just for kicks, and the Pesky Pole is a stupid attempt at alliteration that I find, honestly, insulting.”

Killian nearly dislocates his neck when he throws his head back to laugh, tugging Emma tighter against his side and they’re both going to have bruises from the goddamn seats. David scowls, but he can’t hold the expression for too long because Christian Vázquez just hit a leadoff double to the triangle in the corner of the outfield.

“The Pesky Pole is a tradition unlike any other,” David says.

“No,” Emma argues. “That’s the Masters.” “Oh my God.” “C’mon, that was funny!” “That was not funny. Are we done? Have you gotten all your insults out? Emma shrugs, twisting to glance at Killian and Mary Margaret’s pencil sounds impossibly loud, like the rest of the world has fallen away or paused or something equally impossible and he tries not to blink.

Ruby coughs loudly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Emma says quickly, shaking her head like she’s trying to work her way through cobwebs or a dream and Killian doesn’t realize he’s been holding his breath until his lungs start to ache. “Totally done. Oh, there was something about Nomar wasn’t there?” “Who are you asking?” “Killian.” David freezes. “Did you two come up with a list of insults together? Are you kidding me?” Ruby is barely staying in her seat, arm thrown over her face and several different people have started whispering about them. It’s only a matter of time before they get kicked out of their seats. Mulan isn’t much better, eyes wide and lips pressed together tightly and she tugs Merida’s phone out of her hand before she can take a photo of Killian’s face.

He assumes he looks a little stunned too.

And they’d never exactly mentioned that Emma was staying with him.

At least not in so many words.

No words, actually, there were no words about that.

There’s a blush in Emma’s cheeks, staring straight at Killian like she’s waiting for him to talk them out of this, but his throat might be shrinking and he can’t really feel his lungs anymore. He’s not sure he’s ever supposed to, but it seems important to, at least, be aware that they’re there. The air in his body feels like it’s on fire.

“If you guys insulted Nomar together last night, I’m going to be really pissed off,” David warns and, just like that, it’s normal again. Killian’s not sure how, but it might have something to do with David’s far too serious expression and the clipped tone he uses or, possibly, Mary Margaret’s put-upon sigh because her husband has always been a little in love with Nomar Garciaparra.

“It actually wasn’t that bad,” Killian says. “We mostly just agreed that of the two adults in that marriage, Nomar was the lesser athlete.” “What?” “Mia Hamm won a World Cup, David,” Emma reasons. “More than once. And a shit ton of Olympic medals. Nomar was the second-best shortstop in the division when he played.”

“Ok, that is absolutely not true!” “Eh.” “Jeter was a defensive liability!” “As he got older,” Killian admits. “Not in his prime. But, wait, there is a compliment in here. This list was not just made to ruin your life.” David blinks. “We’ve decided to allow you the one fact that Nomar might have aged better than Jeter.” “Might have?” “Definitely,” Emma promises. “Again, the general consensus is because he’s trying to keep up with Mia Hamm and all those kids they have, but we’re willing to give you this.” “How generous of you. I paid for these seats!” “Yeah, well, that’s because you picked this as your last Final Jam event. Them’s the rules, Detective.”

David rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling too and the Nomar thing was a good idea. It probably helps that the Sox are absolutely destroying the Rays too – not having a starting rotation is a horrible baseball plan.

“Maybe that’s the name you should go with,” Mulan suggests. “What’s the female version of Nomar? Nomara?” “That’s even worse than Luthien,” May Margaret says. “Plus that’s worse alliteration than Peksy Pole. Nomara Nolan? C’mon.”

“Babe,” David groans, sounding a little like he’s been betrayed by every single member of the Fellowship and all the elves in Middle Earth. And, like, several prominent wizards in the Ministry of Magic. “Seriously?” “Nomara Nolan is not an option. Now, was that last pitch a strike or a ball or a foul ball because that’s what Mulan was talking about before.”

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense,” Emma says, letting her head fall to the side and Killian smiles as soon as it lands on his shoulder. “Ball three, up and in by the way.”

The Red Sox win and Mookie does, eventually, score – David screaming and jumping and Killian hopes Mac is as endlessly entertained by Merida’s constant photographic updates as he is. They ask some stranger to take a picture of them, Emma mumbling they’re only agreeing because they’re scared David will yell at them too under her breath and Killian’s arm is still around her shoulders when the shutter snaps.

She’s got her right arm around his waist.

But he barely gets a moment to linger on that before Mary Margaret is directing them out of the stadium and they have to split up in two cabs to get wherever they’re going next.

“You’re up, Jones,” Mary Margaret says, trying to lean around Emma in the backseat while David gives direction to a slightly frustrated driver.

“I thought the game was over,” Emma grins. She’s far too close to him – every inch of her arm and leg pressed up against Killian and he can’t remember what the hell he picked as his Final Jam event. Mary Margaret sighs again. “Aw, c’mon, M’s,” Emma continues. “I need you to take, like, forty-seven deep breaths and tell me your thoughts on The Chronicles of Narnia. ”

“Narnia?” “I mean ignore A Horse and His Boy, but, yeah, everything else.” “Doesn’t everyone ignore A Horse and His Boy ?” David asks, twisting to look at the three of them. “And your sense of humor is almost worse than Jones’, Em.” “Please, my sense of humor is exponentially better than Killian’s. The fact that he was making twenty-seven World Series championship jokes before is proof of that.” David nods in understanding and Emma has to move her arm to turn on Killian, fingers brushing over the back of the back of his neck and maybe the world has the biggest sense of humor of all. “That’s rude, Swan,” Killian mumbles, thanking several different deities that his voice doesn’t shake in the process. “I thought we were on the same team here.” “Again, with the sports puns. You and M’s are clearly spending far too much time together.” Killian nods, certain that’s safer than giving voice to the complete certainty that he and Mary Margaret are spending far too much time together because he’s, apparently, become some kind of pining romantic at some point, but he can’t say anything with David sitting in the front seat.

Or, like, ever.

That was the agreement. Right?

God.

“Huh,” David says, an obvious change of subject that makes Emma groan. “Well, that was weird. So are we going to talk about it?”

Killian wishes he’d been hit by a foul ball. Or passed out during Sweet Caroline. Maybe he did. That would explain whatever the hell is happening in the backseat of that cab.

Emma tenses next to him. “Talk about what?”

“Ruby and Mulan.”

She exhales, head lolling forward and Killian’s eyes fall closed before he can begin to imagine how guilty that makes both of them look. Which, again, is absurd. There’s nothing to feel guilty about. He and Emma are friends.

They’re good.

They’re fine.

He thinks about the swan boats like...three times a week. Four, maybe. Five at most.

It might be a problem.

Sustaining a concussion from an errant foul ball during Sweet Caroline would probably be easier to deal with.

“What is there to talk about?” Emma asks and Killian’s positive he’s the only who notices the change in tone, the way she takes her time on every letter and he moves his hand on that same instinct from before, twisting his wrist to wrap his fingers around hers.

She doesn’t pull away.

“They’re dating,” David says, like it’s another obvious fact in the conversation. “We think Mulan’s going to move up there soon.” “You’re not making any sense at all. Up where? In the sky?” “Storybrooke,” Mary Margaret answers. “Neither one of them have said anything, but it’s not like Mulan has to be in New York for work. She can home base wherever she wants as long as she can get to an international airport for work.” “And there’s one of those in middle of nowhere Maine?” “It’s not really that far from Portland.”

“We don’t know for sure,” David adds, clearly missing the signs of how absolutely painful this conversation has become. Killian’s arm is starting to cramp. “It’s just a hunch. And that’s been a thing since forever.” “What?” Emma balks. “Forever when?” “Like senior year?” “Another hunch,” Mary Margaret corrects. “But, yeah, we think they’re going to mention it tonight when we’re at the restaurant.” Emma shifts, rolling her shoulders and it isn’t easy to keep their hands hidden, but Killian tries to make sure he doesn’t inadvertently dislocate his wrist when she laces her fingers through his. “Restaurant?” she asks, clicking her teeth together when Mary Margaret’s shoulders sag. “Ok, so I didn’t look at the schedule in detail yesterday, but in my defense I was exhausted and you guys have clearly spent way longer thinking about all of this and our secret relationships than I ever have.”

“Our?” David repeats.

“What?” “You said our secret relationships. What does that mean?” Emma nearly breaks Killian’s hand, fingers gripping his with enough strength that he briefly wonders if she’s been bitten by several different radioactive spiders and that’s another universe of name options they should probably consider.

“Nothing,” she says quickly. “Nothing, just...are you analyzing my sentence structure, Detective?”

“It’s in my job description to be curious.” “And annoying, apparently.” “I think you’re the only one who thinks that, actually, Em.” “Eh,” Killian objects. “If you try and corner Lucas and Mulan about their so-called secret relationship at dinner tonight, it might be a whole table of people and Mac.” “Why Mac?” “Because I’m ninety-nine percent positive Merida is going to start FaceTiming him and it’s Saturday so he’s probably not saving New York on the weekends.” “What does he do again?” Mary Margaret asks, a slightly more subtle attempt at a subject change and Killian smiles appreciatively. He’ll have to buy her lunch on Monday.

“I think he works for the City Council.”

“Is that a real thing?” Emma asks. “I thought just happened in Pawnee.” “I believe that’s a real thing, Swan,” Killian grins, squeezing her hand slightly. “But you can ask Merida if you want to. Or probably Mac when she inevitably FaceTimes him at dinner. Where is dinner?” “It was in the schedule,” Mary Margaret yells, earning a sound of displeasure from the driver and they’ve gone from one tourist trap to another. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. They’re just...it was in the schedule, really.” “I believe you, ma’am,” the driver answers. The laughter seems to echo off the doors of the cab and Emma’s entire body shakes against Killian, her hair finding its way into his face in the process. “I’m sure it was a very good schedule.”

“It was, honestly.”

“Oh my God, M’s,” Emma mumbles. “It’s somewhere in the North End, isn’t it? The restaurant?” “Obviously.” “Obviously.”

“Are we all in agreement that Ruby and Mulan are totally dating, though?” David asks and Killian tries to shoot lasers out of his eyes. He wasn’t, however, bitten by a radioactive spider and he doesn’t possess that kind of power yet. And David is oblivious. “Because that was kind of the crux of the conversation here.” “No,” Killian argues. “The crux of the conversation was the possibility of you guys naming future Nolan after a character in Narnia, right, Swan?” She doesn’t exactly beam at him, but his mind drifts towards several metaphors about the sun and the start of everything, which is odd considering the weekend, and maybe she’ll keep her hand in his when they walk the Freedom Trail to Faneuil Hall and the North End.

He picked the Freedom Trail for his event.

“Yeah,” she mutters. “But seriously, we’ve got to ignore A Horse and His Boy. It’s the worst.”

“Naturally. Lucy and Susan are too obvious though.”

“Didn’t Susan abandon Narnia?” David asks and the driver is desperately trying to get them out of the cab.

“That’s not how it worked,” Emma dismisses and Killian can’t hide his smile because she’s so certain and so goddamn stubborn and she’s going to demand they get Italian pastries after dinner.

“Swan thinks C.S. Lewis was unfairly prejudiced against Susan,” Killian says. He tugs on her hand, swinging open the door and Mary Margaret mumbles something that sounds like Lucy isn’t all that bad under her breath.

“He was,” Emma continues. “He tries to marry her off in A Horse and His Boy and then gets mad when she’s interested in boys in the real world. It’s stupid and patriarchal.”

“I’m not disagreeing with you, Swan. This is why Luthien’s clearly the better choice.” “Oh my God.”

“Are you guys done speaking in tongues?” Ruby yells, waving her arms and nearly hitting an entire family trying to take a photo in front of the State House. She’s, somehow, holding a drink. “Took you long enough!” “Bad driver,” David explains at the same time Emma mutters bad directions and Merida nearly drops her phone when Killian kisses the top of her head.

There were magnets involved or something.

Probably.

Radioactive spiders.

And a little bit of cautious optimism.

“Can we focus, please?” Mary Margaret asks and both Ruby and Mulan salute in response. “Maybe we’ll learn something while we walk.” “It’s not like the history has changed,” Merida points out. “Jones picks the same thing every Final Jam.” “And it’s still just as important,” Killian says, but his eyes flicker to Emma like he’s looking for confirmation or support. She nods.

And learning something suddenly has a much bigger meaning.

“Alright, troops,” Mary Margaret continues. “Let’s move out.”

“Tell me something absolutely fascinating about this one,” Emma says. She’s standing next to him, hands back on her sides and that’s only kind of disappointing, but they’ve also drifted into their own two-person group at some point and Ruby keeps shouting the British are coming at unsuspecting tourists, so maybe it’s not really all bad.

“It’s the site of the Boston Massacre, love, I’m not sure there’s a lot of positive things about this one.” “I never said positive, I said fascinating. C’mon, Jones. This is a teachable moment or something.”

“The name is all Paul Revere’s fault.” “Yeah?” Killian hums, tugging her against his side for no reason other than how much he wants to. He wants to quite a bit. “Yup,” he says, popping his lips on the letter, like that’ll make the entire thing more normal. “The Sons of Liberty at this point were a bunch of assholes and the whole thing was a mess, British soldiers and pissed off colonists and they threw snowballs, did you know that part?” “I did actually. At some guy named Montgomery, right?”

“That was impressive, Swan.” “We’ve done the Freedom Trail before. But keep telling your story, it’s almost interesting.”

“Almost,” Killian mutters, working a laugh out of Emma and she’s got both her arms wrapped around his middle. The rest of the group is probably halfway to the North End by now. “Anyway, it was a disaster. The British were furious, John Adams was furious--” “John Adams?” “He defended the British soldiers.” “No shit, the same John Adams? Sit down John and all that?” “One and the same, although your reference is six years later. And in Philadelphia.” “Impressive though, right?” Emma asks, grinning up at him and Killian's mind races back to his apartment and questions and wants until he’s practically bursting with it. There’s no room for romance at the Boston Massacre site.

“Definitely impressive,” he says instead. “But you’re distracting me, love. Anyway, the Sons of Liberty staged this whole propaganda campaign to try and downplay the colonist’s involvement and prove how horrible the British army was and Paul Revere printed a visual of the event. History says he called it a “bloody massacre” and here we are.” “Totally Paul Revere’s fault.” “Totally.” “Paul Revere kind of sounds like a dick.” “He kind of was actually. And he got caught on his ride before Lexington and Concord.” “Why do we pretend like he was some great guy, then?” Emma asks, twisting to stand in in front of him and Killian’s heart flies into his throat. “I feel like I’ve been lied to by Liberty’s Kids.” “The cartoon?” “Yeah. So we probably shouldn’t suggest Paul Revere as a name for soon-to-arrive Nolan, right? Or, like, his wife?” Killian barks out a laugh – not entirely sure what he expected from the moment, but certain it’s not a Liberty’s Kids reference – Emma blinking at him expectantly and they’re definitely going to be late to their own dinner reservation.

“I’m really glad you’re here, Swan,” he says, more unexpected words and unexpected feelings and she’s going to set a record for blinking in one emotionally-charged moment.

It seems to take forever for her to respond, but her voice doesn’t shake when she does and he can’t even hear Ruby anymore. “Yeah, me too,” Emma says. “Exponentially.” “Good word.”

“Got to impress you with my English knowledge, since I’ve clearly been lied to about American history.” “Ah, well, stick around for a little while, love and we’ll get you up to speed.”

Emma doesn’t blink again, but her tongue darts between her lips and he’ll probably think about that for all of dinner and possibly every other hour for the rest of his life. “Is that an offer?” she asks, Killian nodding slowly. “You’ll probably have to deal with more ridiculous 1776 references though. That’s one of Mary Margaret’s favorites. She had a crush on the Thomas Jefferson in that movie.” “I’m willing to deal with that and I’m going to bring that up at dinner so I can make fun of her because Jefferson was even worse than Revere.” He doesn’t, in fact, bring it up at dinner.  

He doesn’t get a chance.

Ruby actually stands up to announce “Mulan and I have been dating for two years, all of you are incredibly unobservant, we’re going to Seoul next month.”

Mary Margaret drops her fork. Mac makes a disbelieving noise from New York – David widening his eyes meaningfully because they were right about the FaceTime thing – but Killian doesn’t say anything, is far too preoccupied with the right hand hanging at his side and the brush of Emma’s fingers on his wrist.

He twists it, the realization that her fingers fit in between his with an almost alarming perfection lingering in every corner of his brain.

“So that’s happening,” Ruby continues, calm as ever. “We’ll take requests for souvenirs within reason and in writing before the end of Final Jam.” “They do not have to be in writing,” Mulan amends. “But we’re not spending more than twenty bucks on any of you, so take that into consideration.” “That’s fair,” Mac says from New York and the entire table groans in unison.

Killian doesn’t mention anything about Thomas Jefferson – or his actor counterpart – at dinner, but he does keep holding Emma’s hand, so really, it feels like kind of a wash. And they do, of course, get lobster tails – from Mike’s and Bova’s because we have to compare and contrast, Killian, obviously – splitting one on the walk back to his apartment.

They never actually decide to walk, it just kind of happens and Killian tries to remind himself of all the reasons that’s not a sign too.

That cautious optimism is starting to become a little annoying as well though and there’s powdered sugar on the corner Emma’s lips when she closes his front door.

“Hey,” she says suddenly, leaning back and it’s probably difficult to talk when she’s trying to bite her lower lip in half. “Did I make it weird yesterday?”

“What do you mean?” “Well, at the risk of making it weird again, you kind of...froze up when I asked about your lack of kid-type planning.” “That’s because I’m not trying to actively procreate at the moment.” Emma sighs, but it’s not quite annoyed and might be a bit more like she was expecting it and is, maybe, a little endeared by it. “That’s not what I mean and you know it,” she mutters. “And we really need to be drinking more if that’s how you’re talking still.” “I think you’re trying to get me drunk, Swan.” “Yes.”

Killian laughs, dropping the boxes of baked goods on the closest flat surface and it only takes a moment to pull a bottle out of his cabinet. Emma doesn’t ask where the glasses are, which is almost unfair, honestly, but then they’re drinking and sitting on the couch and the very expensive rum he picked is doing its job.

“I’m sorry I made it weird,” she whispers, barely lifting her lips away from the glass she’s got both of her hands wrapped around.

Killian narrows his eyes. “You didn’t, Swan.” “I mean, that’s a great, big enormous lie, but I appreciate the effort you’re putting into it. I was just...curious, I guess.” “About my lack of kids?” She shrugs and nods at the same time, a move that nearly makes her lose her grip on the glass. “I mean, not just that, it’s...everything.” “You’re not making any sense, love.” Emma’s eyes flash and they’re both painfully aware of the change in endearment. Killian’s sip of rum is more like a shot. It makes his eyes water. “It’s just…” she starts again, only to cut herself off and the qualifiers are slowly killing him. “You know what? It doesn’t matter.” “Swan.” “No, no, it’s fine. Really.” “That’s another great, big enormous lie,” Killian says. “I’d be insulted if it weren’t so obvious.” “Did you know Ruby and Mulan were going to Seoul?” He has to blink at the abrupt change, the way her entire being shifts as if she’s been replaced by a very convincing alien version of herself in the corner of his couch. Her knuckles are white around her glass though, so it’s obvious it’s still her.

“I didn’t know Ruby and Mulan were dating until about an hour ago.” “But you had suspicions?” “Yeah,” he says slowly. “A few. Where are you going with this, Swan?” She shrugs again, making a noise in the back of her throat, but it might be mostly because of the alcohol she’s only just finished. “A hunch, I guess.” “Yuh huh.” “Something to add?” “No,” Killian shakes his head. “Mostly because I have no idea where this conversation is going and you’re doing a pretty awful job at lying about it.” “Yeah, that’s kind of true,” she admits. “I guess I’m just kind of wondering what your plan for your entire life is?” “My whole life?” “At least the next...ten years, I guess.” “Are you picking numbers out of thin air?” Emma groans, holding her hand out expectantly when he doesn’t immediately refill her glass. “That’s a normal amount of time, right? A decade of adulthood. So c’mon, picture it or something. And then update me. Please.”

Killian considers his answer for a moment – but it’s an almost easy answer and, maybe, the same it’s been for the last decade which is, probably, why all those other set-ups didn’t work out. He kind of wishes they were eating Chinese food again.

It’s the same thing it’s always been, since she walked out of Boston Common and none of them said anything and he wants to kiss her again so badly he’s half certain it’s the only emotion he’ll ever feel again.

“Killian,” Emma whispers and he’s the one who ends up dropping his glass. That’s almost embarrassing. “Super weird, overstepping question, huh?” Yes. And no. And several other lengthy explanations that mostly just boil down to it’s always been you, Emma, but that seems kind of melodramatic to say out loud and there’s rum all over his carpet.

She’s halfway to the kitchen, muttering about water and towels and he catches her around the wrist before she makes it another foot.

“Not overstepping,” Killian says and one of them probably decides to move first, but it absolutely, positively does not matter because he’s ducking his head and Emma’s pushing up on her toes and kissing her is better than he remembers.

He remembers every single moment of it.

Emma’s fingers find their way back into his hair, nails scraping lightly and he can feel her smile when he groans at the movement. He has to bend his knees to reach her, but it’s easier when her feet aren’t touching the floor anymore and they’re moving, somehow, stumbling backwards and towards the couch and oxygen is severally overrated.

They fall back against cushions and a couch arm that is definitely going to leave a bruise on Killian’s hip, Emma’s laughter echoing in the air around them, like it’s trying to work its way into his soul or something equally absurd.

He’s not sure how they don’t sustain any more injuries, a twist of limbs that wouldn’t be possible if they weren’t both so preoccupied with making out like teenagers. And it seems to last forever, kisses and laughter and his fingers brushing over her skin, her back arching enough that he groans again, hips meeting each other and it’s everything he’s ever even considered and then some.

Like some kind of ridiculously sentimental dream.

He feels far more drunk than he is.

But oxygen is, actually, a human necessity and they can’t spend the entire night making out on his couch and Killian’s cautious optimism tries to remain just that when Emma leans back.

Her eyes scan his face and he hopes she finds what she’s looking for.

“You’re going to break several ribs if you sleep out here again,” Emma says, which is only a slightly surprising turn of events, but his heart is still in his throat and he’s definitely, at least, buzzed.

“I’ll be fine, Swan.”

“Great, big enormous liar.” She licks her lips, clicking her teeth the way she does when she gets nervous and her hands are warm when they wrap around his neck. “I was just thinking...there’s space and…”

“And?” “You really can’t figure it out?” “I’d really like to hear you say it,” Killian mutters, appreciating the way Emma’s breath hitches when he brushes his lips over the curve of her jaw. “For posterity or something.”

She laughs, shaking against him and it’s the greatest thing he’s ever heard until the next few words out of her mouth. “I really don’t want to be by myself.”

Killian nods, another kiss and another smile and he’s just on the cusp of falling asleep in the bed down the hall when he feels fingers reaching for his, tugging his arm around her waist. It’s the best he’s slept in...ever.

Tagging @followbatb. Let me know if you guys want to be tag’ed or updated or any of those verbs. 

[riverofmemoriesft]

. Between the Lines . 163

It was late afternoon before Lucy was finally able to text Sting and Rogue about what had happened and why they'd missed the meeting time that had been decided on. Sting had told her to have them stay at the hospital and that they'd pick them up.

Her arm had been casted and she grimaced at the thought of what Natsu would do. It hadn't been a bad break, but it had hurt like hell when they'd set the arm. She felt a little out of it thanks to medication, and Cobra would start laughing every now and then as various thoughts filtered through her head because of it.

"Stop laughing at me, you one-eyed freak," Lucy mumbled finally.

He only snickered and retorted, "Says the one who couldn't reach their weapon in time - shit, woman, that hurt!"

She pretended she hadn't attacked his shin as he hopped up and down. Instead, she lifted a hand when she caught sight of familiar faces. "Over here!"

Sting and Rogue jogged over, cats in tow. "What happened?" Rogue questioned, his red eyes gleaming seriously. "We saw that there had been attack…"

"They're after my keys." Lucy touched the ring at her hip. "Zodiacs, likely." She scowled and showed them the blindingly white cast she'd been given. "One of them snapped my arm like a goddamn twig."

Sting made a face at the thought of how it might have sounded - to which Cobra muttered it had been disgusting - and then spoke. "We may need to bring in some help for this…even with the amount you guys took care of, there's so many…"

"Unison Raid, perhaps?" Lucy suggested. "You two can do it, I've heard."

They exchanged looks and Lector piped in helpfully. "They can, Lucy. It knocks them out afterwards though. It tires them out a lot."

Lucy sighed in disappointment. "That's out of the question then. We'll have to do our ambush tomorrow, it's too late in the day and I can't see where I'm putting my feet because of this stupid medication-"

She'd barely finished speaking when her phone started ringing.

"Natsu," she muttered at the same time that Cobra moaned the fire mage's name in frustration and annoyance. Sting beamed at the mention of his friend and Rogue only shook his head when Frosch giggled hysterically.

"What?" she answered tiredly, holding the phone to her ear. "What could you possibly need right now, Natsu? Please, enlighten me. I'm not in the mood for your normal gibberish, either, so spit it out."

A pause, and then a muttered, "Well, if that's how you're gonna say hello, I'll just call later."

"Don't you dare hang up on me," she growled. "What?"

"Just checkin' in before we get started. Ready to go?"

Lucy squinted at nothing, kicking Cobra again when he snickered and cackled like some kind of movie witch. "What the hell are you talking about?" She refused to tell him about her arm; he'd panic and try to convince Happy to fly him there. "Actually, I'm not even going to ask."

There was a moment of confused silence, and then he swore under his breath. "Uh, sorry, Luce." Lucy became suspicious, recognizing that his voice was abnormally high-pitched. "Shit, I gotta go. Something...came up, and-"

"You're a terrible liar. What's wrong?" Lucy furrowed her brow when the line crackled for a moment. "Natsu? What's going on? Is everything okay with Lamia Scale? Did you burn something down again?"

There was a surprisingly bitter laugh. "I gotta go," he repeated, voice gentler. Lucy felt a flash of worry for her boyfriend. "I'll call ya back later, okay?"

Without another word, he hung up.

Frustrated, Lucy scowled.

"Tomorrow then?" Rogue said, amusement written in his clear crimson eyes.

"Tomorrow," Lucy agreed, raking her hand through her hair.

Tomorrow for sure.

Something's wrong!

Natsu snapped awake, his heart racing and his hand fisted on his naked chest. His nails dug into the skin there and he snapped upright, breathing heavily. Wordlessly ignoring Happy, who groaned his protest, he stumbled out of bed. There was a yelp when he stepped on someone, but he ignored it.

"Lucy!" he gasped, blindly searching for her. "Where's Lucy?!"

"Natsu?" Wendy's timid voice called from the second bed of the hotel room. A light turned on and Jellal blinked up at the ceiling, rubbing his stepped-on stomach.

"Where's Lucy?!" Natsu repeated, voice rising in panic.

"Not here!" Jellal said cautiously. "Lucy's with Cobra on a job, Natsu-"

"Shit!" Natsu lunged for his clothes. "Something's wrong, really wrong-"

"Is he okay?" Happy whispered, watching nervously.

Charle grumbled, opening her eyes with a tired expression. "He's fine. There's nothing wrong, you pink-haired idiot. I would have seen it."

But he didn't seem to notice. Natsu grabbed his sandals and yanked them on, pulling his scarf around his neck. "Something's wrong, we have to get to them," he muttered. "They're up to something-"

Jellal groaned. He'd commented to Erza via text that something was wrong with the dragon slayer. She had reassured him that it was normal when Lucy wasn't around. "Call her," he suggested patiently.

Natsu paused, and then muttered that it would be smart. He darted over to his phone and dialed her number, not seeming to care that it was two in the morning and that she'd be sleeping. No one picked up, and he began to panic more.

"Calm yourself," Charle snapped. "She's fine!"

"She's not fine!" he cried, "Something's wrong!"

"Jeez," Happy muttered, "I think you're losing it, Natsu."

Jellal climbed to his feet, still rubbing his stomach. He suspected it would bruise, to be honest. Gently, he approached the distressed and flaming dragon slayer, and then lightly touched his arm. "Natsu," he soothed quietly. "Lucy is a strong mage. Cobra is just as powerful, and you said that Sabertooth joined them. She'll be fine. She's protected. You need to stop this. It'll scare her and give her bad feelings about having you as her boyfriend, alright? She won't want you hanging on and looking over her shoulder as if she can't handle anything."

Natsu searched his gaze. "I know that," he said after a moment, deflating. "But something wrong. I can feel it! There's this...pain, right here." He touched the left side of his chest, where his heart rested. "Since a few nights ago."

Wendy climbed out of her bed and immediately took a look at him. Resting her ear over his heart to listen to the rhythm, she told him, "You're just incredibly worried. Okay?"

His eyes seared into hers when she met his gaze. "...whatever," he said with a bitter tone, furious that no one was listening to him. He lightly pushed her away - even angry with her, he'd never hurt Wendy. Natsu touched the scar on his arm and went over to the window as Jellal shut the light off. Everyone else went to bed again, ready to sleep and prepare for the next day.

Natsu was still there when the sun rose, his forehead pressed against the glass and onyx eyes darting this way and that as his heart raced.

Something was wrong.

And he had to tell Lucy.

"Ready?"

Lucy glanced up, blinking when she discovered that Loke was beside her. "I didn't-"

"No, but your emotions are a mess and your arm hurts, so I thought I'd pop in." Loke looked amused as she checked the choker at her throat. "You're like Layla in that prospect. You don't like to ask for support. I better be one of the Spirits you summon mid-battle."

"I'll summon you and I was thinking Aquarius or maybe even Aries to help put shields up around me."

"Smart choices," he complimented. "Natsu called, did he not?"

Lucy paused at the mention of the phone call from the day before. She strapped on the strange gauntlet that Sting had presented her when he'd stopped by the previous evening. "Yukino likes to use things like this to protect her arms while she's fighting," he'd explained. "It won't fit over your cast, but it'll keep you from breaking your other limb."

"Yeah," she admitted. "It was a weird call though. Really weird."

"Natsu's an idiot. Ignore it." Loke nudged her gently with his elbow. "Don't worry. You'll be back with Fairy Tail soon, Lucy." He rolled his shoulders and glanced at the clock. "Remember. You can call on me for anything." His shaded eyes took on a serious glint that she couldn't see. "And I mean anything. I'd give up my presence as a Spirit for you."

"I know, and thank you for that." Lucy gave him a warm smile with endless amounts of gratitude interwoven and then watched as he disappeared.

A moment later, there was a knock on the door, and Cobra shouted, "Oi! Stop jabbering with your lion guy and let's go, Blondie!"

"Coming!" Lucy shot to her feet. She grabbed her whip and keys and then darted out of the door. Cobra had already started for the elevator that would get them to the ground floor. Lucy took a deep breath and then stepped into it when it arrived. The venom dragon slayer kept close.

Within the room she'd left behind, her phone rang, the screen blinking with four words: Missed Call: Natsu Dragneel.

Foot tapping impatiently, she searched the street from her hiding spot. Her companions should have arrived, but...none of them had. Not even the one she was most worried about, who had far more to deal with than even she.

It seemed like eons before the first made an appearance. She called her name, and the young woman's only female companion came sprinting over, cloak fluttering around her. The tallest of the four appeared not far behind and slid in beside her. The petite third companion lightly gripped his arm. "Sorry," she apologized. "Someone was distracted by the fountain's statue."

"Looked tasty," he mumbled.

She giggled and then asked, "Any sign of-"

"Sorry!"

The familiar voice made her moan in relief, and he smiled sheepishly at her as he slid into view. His face held a few scrapes, eyes sharp with concern. "Something came up. I couldn't call you or find you. Did anyone get what we needed?"

"From the information gathered," she began, "They don't have the Spirits' keys."

"They don't?" the third companion demanded.

The second grinned. "That's great! We got here in time! We just need to keep them from getting them and we'll be good to go! Crisis averted!"

"The seventh of July will be here before we know it, stupid," the fourth said suddenly. They all sobered. "Everything has to happen the same way. That's what we were told."

"He's right," she admitted. She pressed her lips together, touching her shoulder awkwardly, and the second companion leaned into her side, shoving her hand away. She rolled her eyes. "That's the day we need to change. We have to close those damn doors."

"He knows we're here," the third said slowly. "We have to be wary."

"Yes," she agreed. "We do. You'll be in charge of strategy. You're the best at it out of the four of us. Keep in contact with-"

"She sent word last night. She's keeping in touch."

Turning to the fourth, she said, "You need to keep an eye on the situation with the government and the army around here."

"Got it."

"I'll watch over the guild," her second companion stated suddenly. His gaze darkened. "I won't let what happened to my girlfriend happen again, goddammit."

There was a moment of silence in which they awkwardly remembered.

A lack of reaction had brought about a death, one they hadn't gone through. Instead, someone else had died, leaving the pair of them an odd match that was fiercely close with one another yet incredibly distant.

"I'll watch the princess," she said finally.

"Be careful," the third companion murmured. "He'll be near her."

"I know. I'll be cautious." She took a deep breath. "Ready guys?"

Her second companion grinned and threw his hand into the air, making an odd gesture. They copied, and she watched the couple before them kiss quickly before going their separate ways.

"I'd kiss you," the second told her, "But it'd be weird." He wrinkled his nose.

"Weird," she agreed. "Be safe." She touched his arm and then whirled and stalked off into the night.

His haunted eyes watched her go.

Something told his aged and grieving soul that the end of all of his suffering was near.

[networkingdefinition]

America Quotes

Official Website: America Quotes

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push(); • A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won’t cross the street to vote in a national election. – Bill Vaughan • A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader. – Samuel Adams • A lawyer’s either a social engineer or … a parasite on society … A social engineer [is] a highly skilled, perceptive, sensitive lawyer who [understands] the Constitution of the United States and [knows] how to explore its uses in the solving of problems of local communities and in bettering conditions of the underprivileged citizens. – Charles Hamilton Houston • A man of abilities and character, of any sect whatever, may be admitted to any office of public trust under the United States. – Edmund Randolph • After the period of sex-attraction has passed, women have no power in America. – Elizabeth Bisland • Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, brain and spinal cord disorders, diabetes, cancer, at least 58 diseases could potentially be cured through stem cell research, diseases that touch every family in America and in the world. – Rosa DeLauro • Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC [Project for the New American Century] Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by George [W.] Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11. – Cindy Sheehan • America – it is a fabulous country, the only fabulous country; it is the only place where miracles not only happen, but where they happen all the time. – Thomas Wolfe • America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. – Barack Obama • America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. – John Quincy Adams • America does to me what I knew it would do: it just bumps me. The people charge at you like trucks coming down on you — no awareness. But one tries to dodge aside in time. Bump! bump! go the trucks. And that is human contact. – D. H. Lawrence • America doesn’t reward people of my age, either in day-to-day life or for their performances. – Meryl Streep • America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up. – Oscar Wilde • America has never been an empire. We may be the only great power in history that had the chance, and refused – preferring greatness to power and justice to glory. – George W. Bush • America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. – George W. Bush • America is a great country, but you can’t live in it for nothing. – Will Rogers • America is a large country and its people have so far not shown much interest in great international problems, among which the problem of disarmament occupies first place today. This must be changed, if only in America’s own interest. The last war has shown that there are no longer any barriers between the continents and that the destinies of all countries are closely interwoven. The people of this country must realize that they have a great responsibility in the sphere of international politics. The part of passive spectator is unworthy of this country and is bound in the end to lead to disaster all round. – Albert Einstein • America is a large friendly dog in a small room. Every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair. – Arnold J. Toynbee • America is a mistake, a giant mistake. – Sigmund Freud • America is a Nation with a mission – and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace – a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman. – George W. Bush • America is a nation with many flaws, but hopes so vast that only the cowardly would refuse to acknowledge them. – James A. Michener • America is a passionate idea or it is nothing. America is a human brotherhood or it is chaos. – Max Lerner • America is a tune. It must be sung together. – Gerald Stanley Lee • America is a young country with an old mentality. – George Santayana • America is another name for opportunity. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • America is becoming so educated that ignorance will be a novelty. I will belong to a select few. – Will Rogers • America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. – Frederick Douglass • America is God’s Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! – Israel Zangwill • America is great, because America is free. – Dan Quayle • America is just downright mean. – Michelle Obama • America is my country and Paris is my hometown. – Gertrude Stein • America is the country where you can buy a lifetime supply of aspirin For one dollar and use it up in two weeks. – John Barrymore • America is the most grandiose experiment the world has seen, but, I am afraid, it is not going to be a success. – Sigmund Freud • America is the only country ever founded on the printed word. – Marshall McLuhan • America is the only idealistic nation in the world. – Woodrow Wilson • America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization. – Georges Clemenceau • America is the sum of all our journeys as we search for our national community and our national culture. – Paul Tsongas • America is therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World’s History shall reveal itself. – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel • America is too great for small dreams. – Ronald Reagan • America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: America is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn’t standing still. – e. e. cummings • America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. – George W. Bush • America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand. – Harry S. Truman • America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. – Abraham Lincoln • America will never run… And we will always be grateful that liberty has found such brave defenders. – George W. Bush • America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people. – George W. Bush • America would be a better place if leaders would do more long-term thinking. – Wilma Mankiller • America! America! God shed His grace on thee. – Katharine Lee Bates • America, how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood? – Allen Ginsberg • America, I don’t think you can change history.” All the same, his expression looked hopeful. “Sure we can. Besides, who’d ever know about it but you and me? – Kiera Cass • America, thou half-brother of the world; with something good and bad of every land. – Philip James Bailey • America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this. – Barack Obama • America… just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable. – Hunter S. Thompson • America’s one of the finest countries anyone ever stole. – Bobcat Goldthwait • American consumers have no problem with carcinogens, but they will not purchase any product, including floor wax, that has fat in it. – Dave Barry • American Education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education. Who will Stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so? – Diane Ravitch • American soldiers in battle don’t fight for what some president says on T.V., they don’t fight for mom, apple pie, the American flag…they fight for one another. – Hal Moore • American style is about confidence, independence, diversity and free expression. – Tommy Hilfiger • Americans need to understand that they have lost their country. The rest of the world needs to recognize that Washington is not merely the most complete police state since Stalinism, but also a threat to the entire world. The hubris and arrogance of Washington, combined with Washington’s huge supply of weapons of mass destruction, make Washington the greatest threat that has ever existed to all life on the planet. Washington is the enemy of all humanity. – Paul Craig Roberts • Americans never quit. – Douglas MacArthur • Americans usually believe that nothing is impossible. – Lawrence Eagleburger • Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn’t block traffic. – Dan Rather • Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the field of battle. – James A. Baldwin • America’s abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America’s industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way. – Ayn Rand • An asylum for the sane would be empty in America. – George Bernard Shaw • Anti-Americanism from abroad would not be such a problem if Americans were united in standing up for their own country. – Dinesh D’Souza • Any politician who can be elected only by turning Americans against other Americans is too dangerous to be elected. – Thomas Sowell • Any unarmed people are slaves, or are subject to slavery at any given moment. If the guns are taken out of the hands of the people and only the pigs have guns, then it’s off to the concentration camps, the gas chambers, or whatever the fascists in America come up with. One of the democratic rights of the United States, the Second Amendment to the Constitution, gives the people the right to bear arms. However, there is a greater right; the right of human dignity that gives all men the right to defend themselves. – Huey Newton • As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality. – George Washington

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'America', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '20', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_america').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_america img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'USA', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '20', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_usa').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_usa img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'United+States', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '20', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_united-states').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_united-states img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Be proud to be a decent American rather than a wanker whipping up fear. – Michael D. Higgins • By heritage and by choice, the United States of America will make that stand. – George W. Bush • Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honored by posterity because he was the last to discover America. – James Joyce • Democracy — rule by the people — sounds like a fine thing; we should try it sometime in America. – Edward Abbey • England and America are two countries separated by the same language. – George Bernard Shaw • Everyday, day & night, we hear the lies that September 11th is the worst tragedy, worst accident, and worst crime to ever been committed on American soil. We bear witness that the worst crime, the worst tragedy, that has ever taken place on American soil is not September 11th. It’s not the twin towers. It’s the holocaust that black folks been dealing with for 400 years. – Malik Zulu Shabazz • Everyone should be proud of who they are and where they come from because America is a big melting pot of diverse ethnicities. It’s great to be part of this wonderful country. – Rima Fakih • Fascism will come to America wrapped in a flag. – Sinclair Lewis • From where many of us in the U.K. sit, American politics is hopelessly polarized. All kinds of issues get bundled up into two great heaps. The rest of the world, today and across the centuries, simply doesn’t see things in this horribly oversimplified way. – N. T. Wright • God created war so that Americans would learn geography. – Mark Twain • Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society. – James Madison • I always like to go to Washington D.C. It gives me a chance to visit my money. – Bob Hope • I believe in America. I’m one of those silly flag wavers. – Paul Prudhomme • I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people. If America shows uncertainty and weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch. – George W. Bush • I have never been able to look upon America as young and vital but rather as prematurely old, as a fruit which rotted before it had a chance to ripen. – Henry Miller • I have no further use for America. I wouldn’t go back there if Jesus Christ was President. – Charlie Chaplin • I know my own deficiencies, one of which is that I had lived away from America for such a long time. It’s called expatriate – James Hillman • I like America, just as everybody else does. I love America, I gotta say that. But America will be judged. – Bob Dylan • I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. – James A. Baldwin • I never thought I’d live to see the day that an American administration would denounce the state of Israel for rebuilding Jerusalem. – Mike Pence • I read in the newspapers they are going to have 30 minutes of intellectual stuff on television every Monday from 7:30 to 8. to educate America. They couldn’t educate America if they started at 6:30. – Groucho Marx • I really want Congress to do its job, the constitutional power that they have, to halt an imperial presidency, to halt this fundamental transformation of America that is making us an unrecognizable mess of a nation at this time. – Sarah Palin • I see America spreading disaster. I see America as a black curse upon the world. I see a long night settling in and that mushroom which has poisoned the world withering at the roots. – Henry Miller • I see America, not in the setting sun of a black night of despair ahead of us, I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning, creative hand of God. I see great days ahead, great days possible to men and women of will and vision. – Carl Sandburg • I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to the whole diseased concept of the revered image and gave the American virtue of irreverence and skepticism back to the people. – William S. Burroughs • I will make such a wonderful India that all Americans will stand in line to get a visa for India – Narendra Modi • I will never relent in defending America – whatever it takes. – George W. Bush • I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court. – Rand Paul • I would rather have a nod from an American, than a snuff- box from an emperor. – Lord Byron • If America ever passes out as a great nation, we ought to put on our tombstone: America died from a delusion she had Moral Leadership. – Will Rogers • If America is to be run by the people, it is the people who must think. And we do not need to put on sackcloth and ashes to think. Nor should our minds work like a sundial which records only sunshine. Our thinking must square against some lessons of history, some principles of government and morals, if we would preserve the rights and dignity of men to which this nation is dedicated. – Herbert Hoover • If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under. – Ronald Reagan • If you say ‘Good Morning’ in America and it’s five past twelve you end up with a lawsuit. – Bernie Ecclestone • If you take advantage of everything that America has to offer, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish. – Geraldine Ferraro • I’m convinced that today the majority of Americans want what those first Americans wanted: A better life for themselves and their children; a minimum of government authority. – Ronald Reagan • Imagine a political system so radical as to promise to move more of the poorest 20% of the population into the richest 20% than remain in the poorest bracket within the decade? You don’t need to imagine it. It’s called the United States of America. – Thomas Sowell • In all their wars against the French they [the Americans] never showed such conduct, attention and perseverance as they do now. – Thomas Gage • In America all too few blows are struck into flesh. We kill the spirit here, we are experts at that. We use psychic bullets and kill each other cell by cell. – Norman Mailer • In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever. – Oscar Wilde • In America, sex is an obsession, in other parts of the world it’s a fact. – Marlene Dietrich • In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from. – Peter Ustinov • In the past week it has become clear that the vote on the final healthcare bill will be very close. I take this vote with the utmost seriousness. I am quite aware of the historic fight that has lasted the better part of the last century to bring America in line with other modern democracies in providing single payer health care. – Dennis Kucinich • In this springtime of hope, some lights seem eternal; America’s is. – Ronald Reagan • Individualism, the love of enterprise, and the pride in personal freedom, have been deemed by Americans not only as their choicest, but their peculiar and exclusive possessions. – James Bryce • Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country. – Sinclair Lewis • It is impossible for a stranger traveling through the United States to tell from the appearance of the people or the country whether he is in Toledo, Ohio, or Portland, Oregon. Ninety million Americans cut their hair in the same way, eat each morning exactly the same breakfast, tie up the small girls curls with precisely the same kind of ribbon fashioned into bows exactly alike; and in every way all try to look and act as much like all the others as they can. – Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe • It remains an astonishing, disturbing fact that in America – a nation where nearly every new drug is subjected to rigorous scrutiny as a potential carcinogen, and even the bare hint of a substance’s link to cancer ignites a firestorm of public hysteria and media anxiety – one of the most potent and common carcinogens known to humans can be freely bought and sold at every corner store for a few dollars. – Siddhartha Mukherjee • It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it. – Mark Twain • It’s just the way it is. The sky is blue, the sun is bright, and Aspen endlessly loves America. It’s how the world was designed to be. – Kiera Cass • It’s like, how did Columbus discover America when the Indians were already here? What kind of s– is that, but white people’s s–? – Miles Davis • It’s the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it. – Andy Warhol • Let’s withdraw from Afghanistan and have the army invade America – that’s the only way we’ll get new schools and roads. – Andy Borowitz • Likewise, I see no shame in writing Captain America or Wolverine. – Mark Millar • Make no mistake about it. These are not ‘kookie’ birds. Right now the greatest player, the big tent on the political scene in America, is called the Tea Party movement. – Dick Armey • May we think of freedom, not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right. – Peter Marshall • My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth. – Abraham Lincoln • My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. – John F. Kennedy • My understanding is that espionage means giving secret or classified information to the enemy. Since Snowden shared information with the American people, his indictment for espionage could reveal (or confirm) that the US Government views you and me as the enemy. – Ron Paul • No white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the white man’s clothes, eats the white man’s food, speaks the white man’s language, and professes the white man’s religion. – Booker T. Washington • Now we Democrats believe that America is still the country of fair play, that we can come out of a small town or a poor neighborhood and have the same chance as anyone else, and it doesn’t matter whether we are black or Hispanic, or disabled or women. – Ann Richards • October is a fine and dangerous season in America. a wonderful time to begin anything at all. You go to college, and every course in the catalogue looks wonderful. – Thomas Merton • Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain, For strip-mined mountain’s majesty above the asphalt plain. America, America, man sheds his waste on thee, And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea. – George Carlin • On that terrible day, a nation became a neighborhood. All Americans became New Yorkers. – George Pataki • Only Americans can hurt America. – Dwight D. Eisenhower • Our country, the United States of America, may be the worlds largest economy and the worlds only superpower, but we stretch ourselves dangerously thin by taking on commitments like Iraq with only a motley band of allies to share the burden. – John Spratt • Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines and Populace; and America is just ourselves with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly. – Matthew Arnold • Sad will be the day when the American people forget their traditions and their history, and so longer remember that the country they love, the institutions they cherish, and the freedom they hope to preserve, were born from the throes of armed resistance to tyranny, and nursed in the rugged arms of fearless men. – Roger Sherman • She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm. – Oscar Wilde • Since the conception of our country, America has held that parents, not schools, teachers, and certainly not courts, hold the primary responsibility of educating their children. – John Doolittle • Sitting at the table doesn’t make you a diner, unless you eat some of what’s on that plate. Being here in America doesn’t make you an American. Being born here in America doesn’t make you an American. – Malcolm X • Social media has taken over in America to such an extreme that to get my own kids to look back a week in their history is a miracle, let alone 100 years. – Steven Spielberg • Some Americans need hyphens in their names, because only part of them has come over; but when the whole man has come over, heart and thought and all, the hyphen drops of its own weight out of his name. – Woodrow Wilson • Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world. – Woodrow Wilson • Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. – George W. Bush • That is the American story. People, just like you, following their passions, determined to meet the times on their own terms. They weren’t doing it for the money. Their titles weren’t fancy. But they changed the course of history and so can you. – Barack Obama • The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. – Henry A. Wallace • The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money. – Alexis de Tocqueville • The Americans are violently oral. That’s why in America the mother is all-important and the father has no position at all — isn’t respected in the least. Even the American passion for laxatives can be explained as an oral manifestation. They want to get rid of any unpleasantness taken in through the mouth. – W. H. Auden • The average American may not know who his grandfather was. But the American was, however, one degree better off than the average Frenchman who, as a rule, was in considerable doubt as to who his father was. – Mark Twain • The best kept secret in America today is that people would rather work hard for something they believe in than live a life of aimless diversion. – John W. Gardner • The best way to improve the American workforce in the 21st century is to invest in early childhood education, to ensure that even the most disadvantaged children have the opportunity to succeed along side their more advantaged peers – James Heckman • The business of America is business. – Calvin Coolidge • The chief contribution made by white men of the Americas to the folk songs of the world ——- the cowboy songs of Texas and the West ——- are rhythmed to the walk, the trot, and the gallop of horses. – J. Frank Dobie • The Civil War was fought in 10,000 places, from Valverde, New Mexico, and Tullahoma, Tennessee, to St. Albans, Vermont, and Fernandina on the Florida coast. More than 3 million Americans fought in it, and over 600,000 men, 2 percent of the population, died in it. – Bruce Catton • The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots. – Elbridge Gerry • The great social adventure of America is no longer the conquest of the wilderness but the absorption of fifty different peoples. – Walter Lippmann • The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults. – Alexis de Tocqueville • The interesting and inspiring thing about America is that she asks nothing for herself except what she has a right to ask for humanity itself. – Woodrow Wilson • The Jews might have had Uganda, Madagascar, and other places for the establishment of a Jewish Fatherland, but they wanted absolutely nothing except Palestine, not because the Dead Sea water by evaporation can produce five trillion dollars of metaloids and powdered metals; not because the sub-soil of Palestine contains twenty times more petroleum than all the combined reserves of the two Americas; but because Palestine is the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa, because Palestine constitutes the veritable center of world political power, the strategic center for world control. – Nahum Goldmann • The men who have guided the destiny of the United States have found the strength for their tasks by going to their knees. This private unity of public men and their God is an enduring source of reassurance for the people of America. – Lyndon B. Johnson • The only foes that threaten America are the enemies at home, and these are ignorance, superstition and incompetence. – Elbert Hubbard • The rivalry is huge between South Carolina and Clemson. It’s major bragging rights; one of the most intense things I’ve been a part of. – William Perry • The things that have made America great are being subverted for the things that make Americans rich. – Louise Erickson • The United States of America does not have friends; it has interests. – John Foster Dulles • The voice of America has no undertones or overtones in it. It repeats its optimistic catchwords in a tireless monologue that has the slightly metallic sound of a gramophone. – Vance Palmer • The war is coming to the streets of America and if you are not keeping and bearing and practicing with your arms then you will be helpless and you will be the victim of evil. – Ted Nugent • Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall. – John Dickinson • There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America. – Otto von Bismarck • There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America – there’s the United States of America. – Barack Obama • There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right in America. – William J. Clinton • There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure. – Dwight D. Eisenhower • There will be over 3,500 killed in USA today from abortion. No flags lowered, no presidents crying. No media hyperventilating. Normal day. – Matt Drudge • Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism, are all too frequently those who . . . ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism-the right to criticize, the right to hold unpopular beliefs, the right to protest, the right of independent thought. – Margaret Chase Smith • To maintain the ascendancy of the Constitution over the lawmaking majority is the great and essential point on which the success of the [American] system must depend; unless that ascendancy can be preserved, the necessary consequence must be that the laws will supersede the Constitution; and, finally, the will of the Executive, by influence of its patronage, will supersede the laws . . . – John C. Calhoun • Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved. – Alexis de Tocqueville • Unemployment is down, confidence is up, DOW 5,000 above Bush – or as Republicans put it, let’s talk about gay people and abortion! – Bill Maher • We can dream of an America, and a world, in which love and not money are civilization’s bottom line. – Martin Luther King, Jr. • We don’t want an America that is closed to the world. What we want is a world that is open to America. – George H. W. Bush • We have no desire to be the world’s policeman. But America does want to be the world’s peacemaker. – Jimmy Carter • We need an America with the wisdom of experience. But we must not let America grow old in spirit. – Hubert H. Humphrey • We will send ships and Marines as soon as possible for the protection of American life and property. – Theodore Roosevelt • Well, the way things are going, aside from wheat and auto parts, America’s biggest export is now the Oscar. – Billy Crystal • Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy. – George F. Kennan • What is the essence of America? The essence of America is finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom “to” and freedom “from.” – Marilyn vos Savant • What the people want is very simple – they want an America as good as its promise. – Barbara Jordan • What we need are critical lovers of America – patriots who express their faith in their country by working to improve it. – Hubert H. Humphrey • What you have to do is enter the fiction of America, enter America as fiction. It is, indeed, on this fictive basis that it dominates the world. – Jean Baudrillard • What, then, is this new man, the American? They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race, now called Americans, have arisen. – J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur • Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America. – Dwight D. Eisenhower • What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. – Andy Warhol • What’s right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity – intellect and resources – to do some thing about them. – Henry Ford • When fascism comes to the United States it will be wrapped in the American flag and will claim the name of 100-percent Americanism – Sinclair Lewis • When politicians start talking about large groups of their fellow Americans as ‘enemies,’ it’s time for a quiet stir of alertness. Polarizing people is a good way to win an election, and also a good way to wreck a country. – Molly Ivins • When did it become something of shame or ridicule to be a self-made man in America? – Glenn Beck • With few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries. What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual. As an Asian of Chinese cultural backround, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient. – Lee Kuan Yew • Workers come to America to fill jobs unwanted by Americans, but they are staying and they are not going home. – Christopher Bond • Yesterday, December 7, 1941 a date which will live in infamy the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan… We will gain the inevitable triumph so help us God. – Franklin D. Roosevelt • Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • You know there are very few Marxists left in the world… they’re all in American universities. – Milton Friedman • You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination. – Charles de Gaulle • You, the Spirit of the Settlement! … Not understand that America is God’s crucible, the great melting-pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here, you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. – Israel Zangwill

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[equitiesstocks]

America Quotes

Official Website: America Quotes

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push(); • A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won’t cross the street to vote in a national election. – Bill Vaughan • A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader. – Samuel Adams • A lawyer’s either a social engineer or … a parasite on society … A social engineer [is] a highly skilled, perceptive, sensitive lawyer who [understands] the Constitution of the United States and [knows] how to explore its uses in the solving of problems of local communities and in bettering conditions of the underprivileged citizens. – Charles Hamilton Houston • A man of abilities and character, of any sect whatever, may be admitted to any office of public trust under the United States. – Edmund Randolph • After the period of sex-attraction has passed, women have no power in America. – Elizabeth Bisland • Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, brain and spinal cord disorders, diabetes, cancer, at least 58 diseases could potentially be cured through stem cell research, diseases that touch every family in America and in the world. – Rosa DeLauro • Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC [Project for the New American Century] Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by George [W.] Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11. – Cindy Sheehan • America – it is a fabulous country, the only fabulous country; it is the only place where miracles not only happen, but where they happen all the time. – Thomas Wolfe • America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. – Barack Obama • America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. – John Quincy Adams • America does to me what I knew it would do: it just bumps me. The people charge at you like trucks coming down on you — no awareness. But one tries to dodge aside in time. Bump! bump! go the trucks. And that is human contact. – D. H. Lawrence • America doesn’t reward people of my age, either in day-to-day life or for their performances. – Meryl Streep • America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up. – Oscar Wilde • America has never been an empire. We may be the only great power in history that had the chance, and refused – preferring greatness to power and justice to glory. – George W. Bush • America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. – George W. Bush • America is a great country, but you can’t live in it for nothing. – Will Rogers • America is a large country and its people have so far not shown much interest in great international problems, among which the problem of disarmament occupies first place today. This must be changed, if only in America’s own interest. The last war has shown that there are no longer any barriers between the continents and that the destinies of all countries are closely interwoven. The people of this country must realize that they have a great responsibility in the sphere of international politics. The part of passive spectator is unworthy of this country and is bound in the end to lead to disaster all round. – Albert Einstein • America is a large friendly dog in a small room. Every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair. – Arnold J. Toynbee • America is a mistake, a giant mistake. – Sigmund Freud • America is a Nation with a mission – and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace – a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman. – George W. Bush • America is a nation with many flaws, but hopes so vast that only the cowardly would refuse to acknowledge them. – James A. Michener • America is a passionate idea or it is nothing. America is a human brotherhood or it is chaos. – Max Lerner • America is a tune. It must be sung together. – Gerald Stanley Lee • America is a young country with an old mentality. – George Santayana • America is another name for opportunity. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • America is becoming so educated that ignorance will be a novelty. I will belong to a select few. – Will Rogers • America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. – Frederick Douglass • America is God’s Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! – Israel Zangwill • America is great, because America is free. – Dan Quayle • America is just downright mean. – Michelle Obama • America is my country and Paris is my hometown. – Gertrude Stein • America is the country where you can buy a lifetime supply of aspirin For one dollar and use it up in two weeks. – John Barrymore • America is the most grandiose experiment the world has seen, but, I am afraid, it is not going to be a success. – Sigmund Freud • America is the only country ever founded on the printed word. – Marshall McLuhan • America is the only idealistic nation in the world. – Woodrow Wilson • America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization. – Georges Clemenceau • America is the sum of all our journeys as we search for our national community and our national culture. – Paul Tsongas • America is therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World’s History shall reveal itself. – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel • America is too great for small dreams. – Ronald Reagan • America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: America is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn’t standing still. – e. e. cummings • America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. – George W. Bush • America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand. – Harry S. Truman • America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. – Abraham Lincoln • America will never run… And we will always be grateful that liberty has found such brave defenders. – George W. Bush • America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people. – George W. Bush • America would be a better place if leaders would do more long-term thinking. – Wilma Mankiller • America! America! God shed His grace on thee. – Katharine Lee Bates • America, how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood? – Allen Ginsberg • America, I don’t think you can change history.” All the same, his expression looked hopeful. “Sure we can. Besides, who’d ever know about it but you and me? – Kiera Cass • America, thou half-brother of the world; with something good and bad of every land. – Philip James Bailey • America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this. – Barack Obama • America… just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable. – Hunter S. Thompson • America’s one of the finest countries anyone ever stole. – Bobcat Goldthwait • American consumers have no problem with carcinogens, but they will not purchase any product, including floor wax, that has fat in it. – Dave Barry • American Education has a long history of infatuation with fads and ill-considered ideas. The current obsession with making our schools work like a business may be the worst of them, for it threatens to destroy public education. Who will Stand up to the tycoons and politicians and tell them so? – Diane Ravitch • American soldiers in battle don’t fight for what some president says on T.V., they don’t fight for mom, apple pie, the American flag…they fight for one another. – Hal Moore • American style is about confidence, independence, diversity and free expression. – Tommy Hilfiger • Americans need to understand that they have lost their country. The rest of the world needs to recognize that Washington is not merely the most complete police state since Stalinism, but also a threat to the entire world. The hubris and arrogance of Washington, combined with Washington’s huge supply of weapons of mass destruction, make Washington the greatest threat that has ever existed to all life on the planet. Washington is the enemy of all humanity. – Paul Craig Roberts • Americans never quit. – Douglas MacArthur • Americans usually believe that nothing is impossible. – Lawrence Eagleburger • Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn’t block traffic. – Dan Rather • Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the field of battle. – James A. Baldwin • America’s abundance was created not by public sacrifices to the common good, but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America’s industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages, and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way. – Ayn Rand • An asylum for the sane would be empty in America. – George Bernard Shaw • Anti-Americanism from abroad would not be such a problem if Americans were united in standing up for their own country. – Dinesh D’Souza • Any politician who can be elected only by turning Americans against other Americans is too dangerous to be elected. – Thomas Sowell • Any unarmed people are slaves, or are subject to slavery at any given moment. If the guns are taken out of the hands of the people and only the pigs have guns, then it’s off to the concentration camps, the gas chambers, or whatever the fascists in America come up with. One of the democratic rights of the United States, the Second Amendment to the Constitution, gives the people the right to bear arms. However, there is a greater right; the right of human dignity that gives all men the right to defend themselves. – Huey Newton • As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality. – George Washington

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'America', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '20', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_america').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_america img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'USA', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '20', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_usa').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_usa img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'United+States', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '20', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_united-states').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_united-states img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Be proud to be a decent American rather than a wanker whipping up fear. – Michael D. Higgins • By heritage and by choice, the United States of America will make that stand. – George W. Bush • Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honored by posterity because he was the last to discover America. – James Joyce • Democracy — rule by the people — sounds like a fine thing; we should try it sometime in America. – Edward Abbey • England and America are two countries separated by the same language. – George Bernard Shaw • Everyday, day & night, we hear the lies that September 11th is the worst tragedy, worst accident, and worst crime to ever been committed on American soil. We bear witness that the worst crime, the worst tragedy, that has ever taken place on American soil is not September 11th. It’s not the twin towers. It’s the holocaust that black folks been dealing with for 400 years. – Malik Zulu Shabazz • Everyone should be proud of who they are and where they come from because America is a big melting pot of diverse ethnicities. It’s great to be part of this wonderful country. – Rima Fakih • Fascism will come to America wrapped in a flag. – Sinclair Lewis • From where many of us in the U.K. sit, American politics is hopelessly polarized. All kinds of issues get bundled up into two great heaps. The rest of the world, today and across the centuries, simply doesn’t see things in this horribly oversimplified way. – N. T. Wright • God created war so that Americans would learn geography. – Mark Twain • Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society. – James Madison • I always like to go to Washington D.C. It gives me a chance to visit my money. – Bob Hope • I believe in America. I’m one of those silly flag wavers. – Paul Prudhomme • I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people. If America shows uncertainty and weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch. – George W. Bush • I have never been able to look upon America as young and vital but rather as prematurely old, as a fruit which rotted before it had a chance to ripen. – Henry Miller • I have no further use for America. I wouldn’t go back there if Jesus Christ was President. – Charlie Chaplin • I know my own deficiencies, one of which is that I had lived away from America for such a long time. It’s called expatriate – James Hillman • I like America, just as everybody else does. I love America, I gotta say that. But America will be judged. – Bob Dylan • I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. – James A. Baldwin • I never thought I’d live to see the day that an American administration would denounce the state of Israel for rebuilding Jerusalem. – Mike Pence • I read in the newspapers they are going to have 30 minutes of intellectual stuff on television every Monday from 7:30 to 8. to educate America. They couldn’t educate America if they started at 6:30. – Groucho Marx • I really want Congress to do its job, the constitutional power that they have, to halt an imperial presidency, to halt this fundamental transformation of America that is making us an unrecognizable mess of a nation at this time. – Sarah Palin • I see America spreading disaster. I see America as a black curse upon the world. I see a long night settling in and that mushroom which has poisoned the world withering at the roots. – Henry Miller • I see America, not in the setting sun of a black night of despair ahead of us, I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning, creative hand of God. I see great days ahead, great days possible to men and women of will and vision. – Carl Sandburg • I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to the whole diseased concept of the revered image and gave the American virtue of irreverence and skepticism back to the people. – William S. Burroughs • I will make such a wonderful India that all Americans will stand in line to get a visa for India – Narendra Modi • I will never relent in defending America – whatever it takes. – George W. Bush • I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important, that your rights to trial by jury are precious, that no American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found to be guilty by a court. – Rand Paul • I would rather have a nod from an American, than a snuff- box from an emperor. – Lord Byron • If America ever passes out as a great nation, we ought to put on our tombstone: America died from a delusion she had Moral Leadership. – Will Rogers • If America is to be run by the people, it is the people who must think. And we do not need to put on sackcloth and ashes to think. Nor should our minds work like a sundial which records only sunshine. Our thinking must square against some lessons of history, some principles of government and morals, if we would preserve the rights and dignity of men to which this nation is dedicated. – Herbert Hoover • If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under. – Ronald Reagan • If you say ‘Good Morning’ in America and it’s five past twelve you end up with a lawsuit. – Bernie Ecclestone • If you take advantage of everything that America has to offer, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish. – Geraldine Ferraro • I’m convinced that today the majority of Americans want what those first Americans wanted: A better life for themselves and their children; a minimum of government authority. – Ronald Reagan • Imagine a political system so radical as to promise to move more of the poorest 20% of the population into the richest 20% than remain in the poorest bracket within the decade? You don’t need to imagine it. It’s called the United States of America. – Thomas Sowell • In all their wars against the French they [the Americans] never showed such conduct, attention and perseverance as they do now. – Thomas Gage • In America all too few blows are struck into flesh. We kill the spirit here, we are experts at that. We use psychic bullets and kill each other cell by cell. – Norman Mailer • In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever. – Oscar Wilde • In America, sex is an obsession, in other parts of the world it’s a fact. – Marlene Dietrich • In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from. – Peter Ustinov • In the past week it has become clear that the vote on the final healthcare bill will be very close. I take this vote with the utmost seriousness. I am quite aware of the historic fight that has lasted the better part of the last century to bring America in line with other modern democracies in providing single payer health care. – Dennis Kucinich • In this springtime of hope, some lights seem eternal; America’s is. – Ronald Reagan • Individualism, the love of enterprise, and the pride in personal freedom, have been deemed by Americans not only as their choicest, but their peculiar and exclusive possessions. – James Bryce • Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country. – Sinclair Lewis • It is impossible for a stranger traveling through the United States to tell from the appearance of the people or the country whether he is in Toledo, Ohio, or Portland, Oregon. Ninety million Americans cut their hair in the same way, eat each morning exactly the same breakfast, tie up the small girls curls with precisely the same kind of ribbon fashioned into bows exactly alike; and in every way all try to look and act as much like all the others as they can. – Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe • It remains an astonishing, disturbing fact that in America – a nation where nearly every new drug is subjected to rigorous scrutiny as a potential carcinogen, and even the bare hint of a substance’s link to cancer ignites a firestorm of public hysteria and media anxiety – one of the most potent and common carcinogens known to humans can be freely bought and sold at every corner store for a few dollars. – Siddhartha Mukherjee • It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it. – Mark Twain • It’s just the way it is. The sky is blue, the sun is bright, and Aspen endlessly loves America. It’s how the world was designed to be. – Kiera Cass • It’s like, how did Columbus discover America when the Indians were already here? What kind of s– is that, but white people’s s–? – Miles Davis • It’s the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it. – Andy Warhol • Let’s withdraw from Afghanistan and have the army invade America – that’s the only way we’ll get new schools and roads. – Andy Borowitz • Likewise, I see no shame in writing Captain America or Wolverine. – Mark Millar • Make no mistake about it. These are not ‘kookie’ birds. Right now the greatest player, the big tent on the political scene in America, is called the Tea Party movement. – Dick Armey • May we think of freedom, not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right. – Peter Marshall • My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth. – Abraham Lincoln • My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. – John F. Kennedy • My understanding is that espionage means giving secret or classified information to the enemy. Since Snowden shared information with the American people, his indictment for espionage could reveal (or confirm) that the US Government views you and me as the enemy. – Ron Paul • No white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the white man’s clothes, eats the white man’s food, speaks the white man’s language, and professes the white man’s religion. – Booker T. Washington • Now we Democrats believe that America is still the country of fair play, that we can come out of a small town or a poor neighborhood and have the same chance as anyone else, and it doesn’t matter whether we are black or Hispanic, or disabled or women. – Ann Richards • October is a fine and dangerous season in America. a wonderful time to begin anything at all. You go to college, and every course in the catalogue looks wonderful. – Thomas Merton • Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticided grain, For strip-mined mountain’s majesty above the asphalt plain. America, America, man sheds his waste on thee, And hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea. – George Carlin • On that terrible day, a nation became a neighborhood. All Americans became New Yorkers. – George Pataki • Only Americans can hurt America. – Dwight D. Eisenhower • Our country, the United States of America, may be the worlds largest economy and the worlds only superpower, but we stretch ourselves dangerously thin by taking on commitments like Iraq with only a motley band of allies to share the burden. – John Spratt • Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines and Populace; and America is just ourselves with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly. – Matthew Arnold • Sad will be the day when the American people forget their traditions and their history, and so longer remember that the country they love, the institutions they cherish, and the freedom they hope to preserve, were born from the throes of armed resistance to tyranny, and nursed in the rugged arms of fearless men. – Roger Sherman • She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm. – Oscar Wilde • Since the conception of our country, America has held that parents, not schools, teachers, and certainly not courts, hold the primary responsibility of educating their children. – John Doolittle • Sitting at the table doesn’t make you a diner, unless you eat some of what’s on that plate. Being here in America doesn’t make you an American. Being born here in America doesn’t make you an American. – Malcolm X • Social media has taken over in America to such an extreme that to get my own kids to look back a week in their history is a miracle, let alone 100 years. – Steven Spielberg • Some Americans need hyphens in their names, because only part of them has come over; but when the whole man has come over, heart and thought and all, the hyphen drops of its own weight out of his name. – Woodrow Wilson • Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world. – Woodrow Wilson • Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. – George W. Bush • That is the American story. People, just like you, following their passions, determined to meet the times on their own terms. They weren’t doing it for the money. Their titles weren’t fancy. But they changed the course of history and so can you. – Barack Obama • The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. – Henry A. Wallace • The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money. – Alexis de Tocqueville • The Americans are violently oral. That’s why in America the mother is all-important and the father has no position at all — isn’t respected in the least. Even the American passion for laxatives can be explained as an oral manifestation. They want to get rid of any unpleasantness taken in through the mouth. – W. H. Auden • The average American may not know who his grandfather was. But the American was, however, one degree better off than the average Frenchman who, as a rule, was in considerable doubt as to who his father was. – Mark Twain • The best kept secret in America today is that people would rather work hard for something they believe in than live a life of aimless diversion. – John W. Gardner • The best way to improve the American workforce in the 21st century is to invest in early childhood education, to ensure that even the most disadvantaged children have the opportunity to succeed along side their more advantaged peers – James Heckman • The business of America is business. – Calvin Coolidge • The chief contribution made by white men of the Americas to the folk songs of the world ——- the cowboy songs of Texas and the West ——- are rhythmed to the walk, the trot, and the gallop of horses. – J. Frank Dobie • The Civil War was fought in 10,000 places, from Valverde, New Mexico, and Tullahoma, Tennessee, to St. Albans, Vermont, and Fernandina on the Florida coast. More than 3 million Americans fought in it, and over 600,000 men, 2 percent of the population, died in it. – Bruce Catton • The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots. – Elbridge Gerry • The great social adventure of America is no longer the conquest of the wilderness but the absorption of fifty different peoples. – Walter Lippmann • The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults. – Alexis de Tocqueville • The interesting and inspiring thing about America is that she asks nothing for herself except what she has a right to ask for humanity itself. – Woodrow Wilson • The Jews might have had Uganda, Madagascar, and other places for the establishment of a Jewish Fatherland, but they wanted absolutely nothing except Palestine, not because the Dead Sea water by evaporation can produce five trillion dollars of metaloids and powdered metals; not because the sub-soil of Palestine contains twenty times more petroleum than all the combined reserves of the two Americas; but because Palestine is the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa, because Palestine constitutes the veritable center of world political power, the strategic center for world control. – Nahum Goldmann • The men who have guided the destiny of the United States have found the strength for their tasks by going to their knees. This private unity of public men and their God is an enduring source of reassurance for the people of America. – Lyndon B. Johnson • The only foes that threaten America are the enemies at home, and these are ignorance, superstition and incompetence. – Elbert Hubbard • The rivalry is huge between South Carolina and Clemson. It’s major bragging rights; one of the most intense things I’ve been a part of. – William Perry • The things that have made America great are being subverted for the things that make Americans rich. – Louise Erickson • The United States of America does not have friends; it has interests. – John Foster Dulles • The voice of America has no undertones or overtones in it. It repeats its optimistic catchwords in a tireless monologue that has the slightly metallic sound of a gramophone. – Vance Palmer • The war is coming to the streets of America and if you are not keeping and bearing and practicing with your arms then you will be helpless and you will be the victim of evil. – Ted Nugent • Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall. – John Dickinson • There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America. – Otto von Bismarck • There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America – there’s the United States of America. – Barack Obama • There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong. – Gilbert K. Chesterton • There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right in America. – William J. Clinton • There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure. – Dwight D. Eisenhower • There will be over 3,500 killed in USA today from abortion. No flags lowered, no presidents crying. No media hyperventilating. Normal day. – Matt Drudge • Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism, are all too frequently those who . . . ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism-the right to criticize, the right to hold unpopular beliefs, the right to protest, the right of independent thought. – Margaret Chase Smith • To maintain the ascendancy of the Constitution over the lawmaking majority is the great and essential point on which the success of the [American] system must depend; unless that ascendancy can be preserved, the necessary consequence must be that the laws will supersede the Constitution; and, finally, the will of the Executive, by influence of its patronage, will supersede the laws . . . – John C. Calhoun • Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved. – Alexis de Tocqueville • Unemployment is down, confidence is up, DOW 5,000 above Bush – or as Republicans put it, let’s talk about gay people and abortion! – Bill Maher • We can dream of an America, and a world, in which love and not money are civilization’s bottom line. – Martin Luther King, Jr. • We don’t want an America that is closed to the world. What we want is a world that is open to America. – George H. W. Bush • We have no desire to be the world’s policeman. But America does want to be the world’s peacemaker. – Jimmy Carter • We need an America with the wisdom of experience. But we must not let America grow old in spirit. – Hubert H. Humphrey • We will send ships and Marines as soon as possible for the protection of American life and property. – Theodore Roosevelt • Well, the way things are going, aside from wheat and auto parts, America’s biggest export is now the Oscar. – Billy Crystal • Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy. – George F. Kennan • What is the essence of America? The essence of America is finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom “to” and freedom “from.” – Marilyn vos Savant • What the people want is very simple – they want an America as good as its promise. – Barbara Jordan • What we need are critical lovers of America – patriots who express their faith in their country by working to improve it. – Hubert H. Humphrey • What you have to do is enter the fiction of America, enter America as fiction. It is, indeed, on this fictive basis that it dominates the world. – Jean Baudrillard • What, then, is this new man, the American? They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race, now called Americans, have arisen. – J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur • Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America. – Dwight D. Eisenhower • What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. – Andy Warhol • What’s right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity – intellect and resources – to do some thing about them. – Henry Ford • When fascism comes to the United States it will be wrapped in the American flag and will claim the name of 100-percent Americanism – Sinclair Lewis • When politicians start talking about large groups of their fellow Americans as ‘enemies,’ it’s time for a quiet stir of alertness. Polarizing people is a good way to win an election, and also a good way to wreck a country. – Molly Ivins • When did it become something of shame or ridicule to be a self-made man in America? – Glenn Beck • With few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to new developing countries. What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans or Europeans value. Westerners value the freedoms and liberties of the individual. As an Asian of Chinese cultural backround, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient. – Lee Kuan Yew • Workers come to America to fill jobs unwanted by Americans, but they are staying and they are not going home. – Christopher Bond • Yesterday, December 7, 1941 a date which will live in infamy the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan… We will gain the inevitable triumph so help us God. – Franklin D. Roosevelt • Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • You know there are very few Marxists left in the world… they’re all in American universities. – Milton Friedman • You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination. – Charles de Gaulle • You, the Spirit of the Settlement! … Not understand that America is God’s crucible, the great melting-pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here, you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. – Israel Zangwill

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );