[PRIVATE] First Date

"If you say so... Just let me know if you want to find somewhere warmer." Jimmy said, skeptically. It didn't take a master observationalist to tell Ellie wasn't doing too well with the cold. Not that he was in a position to talk.

"Oh, no, I'm sorry. I'm sure that wasn't what you meant. I just didn't know how to react to that really. Plus, comparisons have usually been levelled at me as some kind of benchmark ever since the aneurysm. It's just a bit of a sore spot sometimes. I'm sure you didn't mean it like that, I just can't help but jump to that conclusion initially. Really, thank you. I'm glad I can make you feel looked after, and hopefully comfortable. That's really the best I can possibly do for you, I think. And I hope I can keep it that way." He said. He thought very carefully about what he was about to do, before he planted a kiss on her cheek softly. He then turned bright red as he awaited his date's reaction far too nervously for his own good. It was just a little peck on the cheek, after all, but it felt like a lot more to Jimmy.

"I can see that, I reckon. Sort-of... But then that sparks a whole debate about how those near-identical genetics were raised in their environment, how closely could they possibly be to us if our theoretical twins' lives didn't exactly mirror ours? Some people believe that there are multiple universes, some of which go so far as to believe that new parallel universes form with every single decision or action that's made in our current one. Isn't that insane? An infinite number of parallel universes with an infinite number of possibilities for how we might have met, if we did at all in some of them. Ones where things go worse for us, ones where things go better for us. Hell, there might even be ones where we're all dragons or something crazy like that. It's a kind of cool theory to think about. I don't know how it would work, but I guess it would have to include some universes of total nonsense that are as far away from our reality as you could imagine, as well as ones that are almost totally identical to ours in every single noticeable aspect. Kind of trippy to think about, isn't it?"

"Well, I'm thinking... Why is our universe special? Shouldn't a decision in every universe lead to a different universe? Imagine that... Every action of every single living creature on every single planet in every single galaxy on every single universe creating an entirely different universe, and then the next second those universes also join in and create even more universes! A truly infinite number of universes being born every second, and that has been going on since the Big Bang! Are we ever going to run out of space? I mean, these universes need to be stored somewhere, right? Just like our universe is finite, maybe eventually the continuum holding that infinite number of universes will also fill up. What happens then? It's scary to think about!" Ellie chuckled. "I'm personally rooting for gladiatorial combat. Give the biggest badass of each universe a giant robot and have them duke it out somewhere. Loser gets annihilated. It's foolproof!" she stated, wanting to lighten up the mood a bit after catching herself going philosophical. One was never supposed to go philosophical on a first date!

The kiss most certainly startled Ellie, but only because she hadn't seen it coming, for obvious reasons. She yelped out, her face instantly turning red, but a moment later a huge grin spread across her lips. He'd made the first move! Now it was her turn to nudge him just a little bit... "Y-you know... If you'd like to kiss me properly... T-that might be, like... Let's call it acceptable?" she tried to find the right words to scream 'OMG KISS ME NOW' without sounding desperate.

"Well, that's probably what happens. But we can only perceive the universe we're in, relative to us, it's the decisions and actions taken in our world that create the others, but ours could just as easily be a spin-off from a different one. But we don't see it as such, do we? This all we've known, and it'll probably be all we ever know. There might not even be any other universes, or maybe they form after the previous one collapses? Our universe is finite, right? But it had to come from somewhere, didn't it? Who's to say this is the first universe to ever exist, or the last, even if there aren't parallel ones? If there's an infinite number of universes, wouldn't we have to assume that there's an infinite continuum to fill? Otherwise there wouldn't be infinite universes in the first place. You couldn't have an infinite number of spaces packed into a finite space, however large." Jimmy ruminated. He was good at that. Too good. His mind had a tendency to wander around a lot, sometimes it was deep things like that, sometimes it was probably the most inane crap imaginable. But he spaced out like that a lot, got deep on trains of thought and jumped off onto something either equally complex or opposingly nonsensical. If there was a rule about never going philosophical on a first date, Jimmy had clearly and flagrantly broken it, and he probably wasn't the type who could easily adhere to it. But a situation where he was on a date with a girl like Ellie was probably an exception to the rule anyway.

"Oh, it would be, would it? Well, if it's only 'acceptable' to you, maybe I shouldn't bother..." He teased, knowing exactly what Ellie was trying to get at.
"Hmm... I don't know, should I? Eh, probably not, you're clearly not that interested." He said, continuing to verbally prod his date.

Knowing not to push any further, Jimmy gently guided his date's head towards his with a hand placed on her cheek and moved in, placing a lingering kiss on her lips.

"Well, you've got to keep in mind that 'infinite' doesn't really mean 'infinite', it just means 'way too big for us to comprehend'. There can never be such a thing as infinite, that would break the universe... Or the multiverse, in our case! So if there is a limit, even if it's so large that it's literally going to take billions of years to fill up, maybe we'll reach it eventually. Remember that with every single second the number of new Earths created rises exponentially, so the longer we continue to exist, the closer we are to destruction. But then again, that's true for everything, isn't it?" she chuckled. "Still, maybe we shouldn't be talking about the universe's inevitable demise on our first date!"

By the time it was clear that Jimmy was, in fact, going to kiss her, all thought about multiverse theory had left Ellie's head. She quickly saw through the teasing, muttering a "Just kiss me already, geez!" and chuckling, perfectly aware that he was about to do just that. Her heart was racing, her palms were sweating, her knees felt weak... Yep, definitely symptoms of an impending first kiss. She barely resisted the urge to grin as she felt Jimmy's hand on her cheek. A moment later, she felt his lips on hers. It was a brief moment, but it was certainly memorable. As soon as the kiss was broken off, Ellie giggled like... Well, like a teenage girl after her first kiss. "Does that mean I'm not a virgin anymore?" she asked playfully with a chuckle, not once ceasing her grinning.

Jimmy laughed loudly at Ellie's question, her joke had caught him completely off-guard.
"Yeah, something like that." He deadpanned.

His head was whirling a little bit. It wasn't technically his first kiss, but it was the first one he'd had since his aneurysm. It was the first he would remember, and it was the only one he cared to remember. It was strange to think, but looking back on that aneurysm, it felt like it was an almost death and rebirth for him. He still had a lot of moulding of himself that he wanted to do, to give himself purpose, autonomy and a good grip on his life. It was a daunting task, but with a girl as special as Ellie at his side, he felt confident.

While none of the people around her knew it, Ellie suffered from chronic depression - a side effect from her blindness, her status as an orphan and the abuse she sustained in foster care. It was the type of depression that had to be medicated in order to be kept in bay... except it wasn't, which meant that the young girl felt depressed almost constantly. She barely had a day in which she didn't consider self-harm, and barely had a night when she didn't sleep without crying first. In order to get by socially, she had to wear the facade of this cheerful, overly enthusiastic little girl who could never be brought down by anything. It worked, with her friends being none the wiser about her true feelings, and yet deep down the little girl remained miserable. Still, there were some moments in which she still felt true happiness, without the awful shadow of depression looming over her. These moments were extremely rare, almost non-existent, but they happened.

This was one of those moments.

Ellie's aura visibly changed soon after her lips parted from Jimmy's. Her wide smile was genuine, her eyes were filled with delight, and her face had a light shade of red from the embarrassment. She just wanted to scream to everyone that she'd just had her first kiss, and looked like she was barely containing herself. Throwing her arms around Jimmy with little warning, the young girl pressed her head into his chest, tears of joy staining his shirt.

"Thank you...", she whispered. "For giving me the best first date I could've possibly asked for", the girl said, her voice trembling.

Jimmy was somewhat taken aback by Ellie's sudden switch in demeanour. A reserved, but undoubtedly happy reaction slipping into a blast of overwhelming... Joy? Sorrow? Some bittersweet combination of the two? He couldn't tell. But this, whatever it was, seemed like a highly concentrated dose of something real, that much was certain.

He took her in his arms too, returning her embrace right back and holding her tightly, but not painfully.
"You deserve nothing less." He spoke, in the perfectly honed tone of voice he used to use to calm his mother during her anxiety attacks. Soothing and gentle, but not patronising, and soft enough to round off the many abrasive edges to his strange, harsh accent. He didn't know why he used this voice, but it seemed appropriate. A way to let the moment just linger, for it to be whatever Ellie needed it to be, and for as long as she needed it to be that way.

Ellie held the hug for what seemed like forever. This was just a first date, and the second time she'd ever met this boy. There were no feelings here. Attraction, maybe, but nothing more. It would've been rather unnatural if there was anything more than that going on... And yet, for a single instant, Ellie felt loved. Maybe it was the warm embrace, or Jimmy's words, but the young girl found precisely what she was looking for in that moment.

Finally pulling away, the young girl wiped the tears that had streamed down her cheeks with the back of her hand, forgetting that she had brought napkins with her in her purse. "I'm sorry... I'm being weird again, aren't I?" she sobbed with a smile on her face. "These are from joy, don't worry... Yeah, I'm so desperate that I cry when someone likes me, so sue me", she tried to joke, her voice trembling.

Jimmy didn't really have any particular strong feelings towards Ellie, save for some vague, nebulous draw she seemed to have pulled him in with in the first place. How could he? They'd only just met not too long ago... Perhaps it was just attraction, but it felt ever so slightly more than just that. It was certainly most of it, but there was a little extra. Attraction was easy to identify, this wasn't. Was it a selfish desire for a romantic companion? Probably, but he felt as though he was pretty genuinely invested in Ellie's happiness. Besides, all he really needed to do was cast his crooked smile at the same cute girl a few times and ask for her number to get an awful, meaningless date with someone he didn't care about in the slightest. If he could have remembered their face, at least... Was it wooing for the sake of it? He doubted it. Was he selfishly testing his limits by dating a blind girl, who couldn't appreciate the only thing Jimmy ever occassionally held confidence in? That being his physical appearance, of course. He hoped not. And the fact that he felt disgusted at himself that his own mind would bring that up when questioning his own motives told him all he needed to know. He didn't really know Ellie yet, so there wasn't any strong, tangible or meaningful element to it, but did there need to be? His... girlfriend... he thought with a smile, seemed to be happy, and wasn't that what mattered? With that thought, he realised that it was that he was able to make somebody overjoyed to the point of tears, that he was capable of bringing that into somebody else's life that satisfied him this much. He did 'like' Ellie, whatever that stupid turn of phrase meant when it translated into a kind of vaguely romantic feeling that hormonal teenagers didn't have a handle on. He 'liked' her in that he felt that she was special, he had enjoyed sharing a kiss with her, he had enjoyed making her happy, and that he wanted to know her more and go on more dates like this with her. And wasn't that what mattered above anything else?


"We all have our quirks. Although, as I'm learning, some of us are more quirky than others." He teased playfully with a laugh. Hopefully not in a way that hurt her feelings though, and he tried to make sure his tone of voice conveyed that. It took him a moment to realise that he'd just teased his date by terribly paraphrasing Animal Farm so poorly that it probably couldn't even be seen unless he directly said that was what he was trying to do, and that he was in absolutely no position to talk.
"Come here." Jimmy said, guiding the blind girl's face towards him.
"Your makeup's running all over your face now. Let me get that for you." He said, gently wiping away the streaks of uneven makeup from around her eyes.
"You shouldn't be desperate, I'm surprised you don't have to fight the boys off with that red cane of yours." Jimmy responded, only half-joking.

"Well, great. There go four hours of work. Thanks a lot, Jimmy", Ellie chuckled, letting his hand guide her face towards him so he could clean the mess that her face had turned into. It wasn't something that many would do for her, and it made her feel nice. She like the attention, like most girls her age. While her body was slowly turning into that of an adult, her spirit remained eternally child-like.

When her date joked about her having to fight boys off, Ellie sighed. "You'd be surprised... Blind girls like me need to be cared for a lot, and that's just not something a lot of guys want to get involved with. If I was a guy, girls would be all over me, we just love taking care of anything and anyone! But most guys aren't really willing to put up with that... And then there's also the fact that I can be really, really annoying, and come with emotional baggage most wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole... Yeah, I'm about as desirable as a single mom", she chuckled. "This one time, a few months back, my friend tried to set me up with a friend of hers, and at the end he ended up being way more into her than into me. But on the bright side, that allowed me to meet you, so... H-hey, I don't mean that in a clingy way! There's no strings attached yet, so if you're having second thoughts you're free to back out! Wow, that sounded super clingy, didn't it?" Ellie laughed.

Jimmy was shocked for a moment.
"This actually took you four hours?! I mean, you sure looked the part, but I really thought you were kidding. How can getting ready possibly even take that long? I just can't fathom that..."

"I don't think you're entirely right there. Your needs don't make you undesirable, it's the fault of the others if they aren't prepared to cater to those needs. They're the ones missing out, not you. You're fantastic in every way. If they don't have what it takes to be good to you, what are you really missing out on? Being poorly treated and having your heart broken? Hell, if it's between that or waiting years until the right person comes along, I'd rather wait for as long as it takes." Jimmy reasoned. He didn't like how Ellie was presenting herself as undesireable, because to him she wasn't, at all.

Jimmy shook his head and laughed hearing her story, and the awkward verbal stumbling that followed it.
"Why would I ever be having second thoughts? I've not had this much of a good time before with anyone. I'm glad I went on this date with you, it's made me very happy, and I want to do it again as soon as possible. We'll be going on more dates, and that's a promise I'll keep for as long as you want it to be kept."

"Hey, tell you what - next time we meet, I'm gonna come to your house and let you put on some make-up with your eyes closed, and you're not allowed to go until it's perfect! I'm willing to bet it'll take you more than four hours!" Ellie laughed. In reality, it was a bit more complicated than that, since she also had to pick out a dress (which included trying several out) and get her hair done, but regardless, make-up did take a looooong time, especially since Ellie didn't trust anyone but herself with it.

Jimmy's words made the young girl think. What was better - to have temporary happiness with people who would inevitably break her heart, or to be alone for years until 'the one' showed up? Honestly, she didn't know. Having your heart broken sucked, but then again, so did being alone. The young girl was too tired to think about such hypotheticals, so she merely put it in the back of her head and focused on her date's words, which made her smile. He really hadn't had this much fun with anyone? Throughout their date, Jimmy had showered Ellie with compliments, but for some reason they always felt sincere, and not just something you'd tell to a girl grenade-fishing for them the way she was. "Hey, that sounds good to me! Just say when and I'm there!" she exclaimed. This date had been pretty much perfect, so she was certainly excited to have more of them with her boyfriend.

"For now, though, let's call it a day. I'm getting pretty cold, and it's not like I'm gonna be doing a lot of walking now that those are garbage", she sighed, standing up and grabbing her shoes by the laces. "Can you walk me back to the dorms?"

"That's a kind offer but I think I'll pass, thanks." Jimmy joked.
"Next time could be maybe the same time next weekend, if that works for you? I'd like to take you to that nice restaurant I told you about. I'll probably have to book us a table for a specific time though, so no lateness this time around! But I'd definitely like to see you around school in a more casual setting again before that. Just hang around, you know? Do something laidback. I don't have any particulars in mind yet, though. What do you think?"

"Nah, I was thinking I'd just leave you here and hope you made your way back. Of course I'll walk you!" Jimmy said, taking Ellie's hand in his as they both stood and got ready to head back.

Ellie grinned when she heard the word 'restaurant'. She could think of no better place for a date! "That sounds awesome... If you think it'd work out", she spoke, not finding a kinder way to say 'if you think you can afford it'. The young girl didn't particularly believe in chivalry. She liked being taken care of, sure, but not because she was a woman or because she was blind, but simply because it made her feel cared for. As such, she really didn't mind paying half of the dinner, but the problem was that she couldn't really afford that. Her budget was even more limited than Jimmy's, as the overwhelming majority of her government-granted scholarship went to cover her education, and the rest was spent on books and food, in that order. As much as she didn't like it, she was going to have to rely on her boyfriend for taking care of the expenses during their dates.

With a smile on her face, the young girl hopped up on her feet, grabbing her shoes in her left hand and squeezing Jimmy back with his right one. "Thanks!" she smiled. "You know, I'm still not sure if you live in the dorms or somewhere else"

Jimmy had a feeling that he understood Ellie's inference. Both of their budgets were thin, but Jimmy knew he could make it work. And if all else failed, his stepdad would be willing to contribute to Jimmy's efforts were he to know that it was with the aim of taking a girl on a date. It was something Rick had been encouraging him to do for a while, ever since he'd split from Jenni. Jimmy thought he might ring home and tell them all about his date when he got back, as he hadn't told them about it yet. Either way, he knew he could make it work if he was careful.

"Yeah, I live in the dorms. I don't know where else I could live around here, honestly."

"Wait a minute! You live in the dorms too? What is going on here?!" Ellie exclaimed with a chuckle. Surely their shared postal address was a sign from Cupid himself! Or just a sign that they both attended the same school. Either way, it made visiting each other quite easy. Not that visiting Ellie's blank, mostly empty room was a sight to behold, but still. The young girl kind of hoped that Jimmy had a TV in their room that they could use to watch something sometime. Sure, going to the cinema with her was a bad idea, but as long as one was prepared to answer the question 'What's going on?' during literally every single silent moment, it wasn't really all that bad. The young girl still hadn't seen the new Avengers movie, so she was sort of hoping to be able to rent it from somewhere and extort Jimmy into seeing it with her. But first things first.

"Maybe in the future we can rent an apartment together! I'm thinking that this would be a step after 'steady relationship' and a step before 'marriage', but the plan of our lives together is still a rough draft", she laughed.

Jimmy laughed at Ellie's joke.
"Yeah, shocker, I know. I wonder why that could be. Perhaps you've been stalking me all this time and I just never knew because I couldn't recognise you." He teased.

In fairness to Ellie, Jimmy's room wasn't much more visually striking than hers presumably was. He had a few posters up for his favourite bands to give a little personal flair, but other than a laptop, a small closet full of clothes, an old TV his parents had given him the money to buy second-hand and his bed, there was little else to marvel at. Jimmy was caught completely off guard by Ellie's subsequent comment, but then he thought about it a little and found himself smiling.

"Yeah, maybe some day. That'd be awesome. We'll see how that rough draft goes, eh? I mean, I'm more of a live for the present kinda guy right now, y'know?"

"Yes, I was tracking you down by your smell in my search for the ultimate boyfriend! I'm like a hound! Rawr!" Ellie laughed, nuzzling her head briefly against Jimmy's shoulder to complete the metaphor. She liked being silly, and while she rarely allowed herself to do it around most people, the girl felt that Jimmy in particular was a good comedic foil to her. When he seemed to take her suggestion seriously, though, the girl couldn't help but break her persona just a little bit. "Dude, I was kidding on that last part. I'm clingy, but I'm not that clingy!" she chuckled. "And trust me, living with me is not as fun as it might sound. You gotta blind-proof your entire house, which is a bit like babyproofing, except the baby keeps finding new ways to hurt itself and/or be inconvenienced"

"Well if you're looking for the ultimate boyfriend, I think your tracking could do with some work. He must live next-door or something. You're stuck with me now, though." Jimmy said, smiling. He enjoyed that little glimpse into Ellie's goofy side, he always liked a girl who could take and dish out a good joke. Self-deprecation had always been a large part of his repertoire. If he always believed that if he couldn't make fun of himself, he had no right to do so to anyone else. He sometimes worried if he came off as too harsh on himself, though, as way too many people would start to compliment him profusely, despite that not being what he was looking for at all.

"Hey, I didn't know for sure, and I'd look a right arse if I laughed that down if you were being serious, wouldn't I?! I don't know exactly what those girls in your foster homes got into your head yet." Jimmy protested.

"We'll worry about that when we get to it. I think we should give it a week or two first, though." He joked.

"Aww, an entire week before we move in? Next you'll tell me you want to wait for an entire month before marriage!" Ellie laughed, her hand wrapping around Jimmy's arm a bit more tightly. Despite her exaggerated predictions, she did genuinely like Jimmy. He seemed like someone who was really fun to be around, and a real gentleman to boot. And most importantly, for a single instant, he'd made her forget about just how lonely and sad she truly felt. That wasn't something a whole lot of people could do, so the few who could achieve it had to be kept close by.

The young girl sniffed the air a few times, calling into question whether she was truly joking about being a blood hound earlier, then smiled at Jimmy. "We're approaching the dorms, aren't we? Judging by the smell, I'd say we're only about a hundred or so meters from them", she spoke. "Man, tonight has been exhausting! I can't wait to just take a shower and go to bed. That may or may not involve occasional giggling about the fact that I was on the most awesome date ever!"

Jimmy chuckled.
"A whole month before marriage?! What do you take me for, some kind of monster? I mean, give me some credit here. Three-and-a-half weeks maximum, I promise." He responded sarcastically. And while Jimmy had been joking, he really could see a good future with Ellie. At least for a while. He wasn't going to pretend he knew where things would go, but he knew he didn't want to see the end of them together any time soon. Maybe they could get to where they'd been joking about, maybe it would span several years and gradually fizzle out. That second thought hit him with a momentary feeling of guilt, he didn't want to think of circumstances in which he and Ellie would no longer be where they were currently. Really, the future wasn't where Jimmy wanted his head to be at all, he had a present, a moment with this wonderful girl; one that felt like it could go on forever for the time being. Clinging to that was the only thing that mattered. He'd felt almost completely alone since his aneurysm, but this night with Ellie reminded him that people could care about him if they wanted to. That wasn't a lesson Jimmy would soon forget.

"You're good, I usually can't smell the instant noodles and excessive Netflix usage until I'm about 50 metres out. You sure you don't have some kind of superpowers?" Jimmy joked

"Sounds like a plan. Be warned: my shower session may contain some bad overjoyed singing for similar reasons. If you catch wind of it, I suggest you find some earplugs and duck for cover."

Ellie grinned when asked if she had any superpowers. "Wanna know a secret? I'm actually genderbent Daredevil", she admitted. "I protect the innocent in a courtroom by day and on the street at night! I moved to Canada because Hell's Kitchen is no proper place for a lady", the girl chuckled. "Seriously though, you know how they say that when you go blind your other senses go Super Saiyan to compensate? Well, since I went blind when I was very little, my other senses got supercharged early on, and I did manage to train myself to use them. I may not have a radar sense, but my hearing's the next best thing!"

As the two of them approached the dormitories, Ellie's cheerful expression suddenly turned sour. Gasping as if she'd suddenly remembered something, the girl let go of Jimmy's arm and first felt the object in her left hand, which turned out to be her shoes, then touched her waist. When the realization hit her, her cheeks turned red. "My bag! I forgot my bag!" she exclaimed, struggling with the sudden influx of emotions. She had her favorite red cane in that bag, and also half of her monthly allowance, not to mention her dorm key. It was getting dark, and the park was crowded, so the chances of her finding that bag were next to none. "No..." the girl cried out as tears began welling up in her eyes. How could she have been such an idiot?! And more importantly, how was she even supposed to get home now?

Jimmy laughed at Ellie's confession.
"You know, I wouldn't be surprised if you were, honestly. Although I hope you're not actually out there fighting crime, I don't want to have to worry about your safety all the time."

"Either way, that's pretty damn cool, I reckon."

Jimmy's eyes widened as Ellie explained her predicament.
"Shit. Uh... Ok..." Jimmy sighed, as he ruminated on how to approach this, wrapping his arms around her in an attempt to comfort her slightly.

"Tell ya what, you come into my room, I'll get a torch and we'll scour the park nice and quickly. If we can't find it, we'll have to figure out how to replace and work around what was in there as best we can and we'll search again first thing tomorrow. You can sleep in my room if you need to." He said, calmly.

"No matter what happens, we'll make this work, yeah?"

It was getting late, and Jimmy knew that looking for it would pretty much be a lost cause at this point, that it could be anywhere amongst the gigantic crowd of the fair, but he felt like he had to try at the very least.

Ellie appreciated the embrace, pressing her face against Jimmy's chest in an attempt to hide her face. She wanted to cry, as that was probably the worst situation she could've possibly found herself in, with her red cane, keys, money and even ID, not to mention the purse itself, all missing without a trace. The best case scenario currently would've been for them to find it thrown in a garbage bin with only the money missing, but even that would've hurt her. It was just going to be less than the alternative, which was to not find the purse at all. And considering just how many people there were, that seemed like the most probable scenario.

"No, it's okay... I can't bother you with this any more. I'm going to talk to the security guard, maybe he'll be able to let me in my room", Ellie said, sniffing. Of course, that was going to be pretty difficult, considering the fact that all three pieces of ID she owned - her student ID, her Canadian ID and her proof of blindness, were inside that bag. Would the security guard even agree to let her in if she couldn't prove who she was? She thought she could call someone, but... Who? The police? If she reported her bag as stolen, they were probably going to help her get new documents. Still, the prospect that she would need to spend the night on the street seemed increasingly likely.

"Do you think..." she sniffed once again, desperately trying to control herself. "Do you think you can take me to the guard? Maybe if you..." another sniff. "Maybe if you told him who I was he'd take me to my room without asking for my ID?"

Jimmy sighed.
"Ellie, you're not bothering me. Despite how much you want to believe it, you're not a burden. I'm just happy to be around you. Anything and everything I can do for you, you can be damn sure that I'll do it. So yes, I'll take you to the security guard. I don't know if he'll let you in or not, but if it doesn't work, it's not the end of the world. I'm not letting you go a night without a roof over your head, that's for sure."

"Come on, then, let's go." Jimmy said, taking Ellie's arm and leading her to the poorly-lit figure of the security guard. Jimmy cleared his throat as he approached the guard.

"Excuse me sir, Ellie here's lost her bag, which had her ID and room key in it. I don't suppose you could let her into her room on the basis of me vouching for her identity, could you?" Jimmy asked tentatively.