THE IMMORTAL AND THE BAKER14

Zelda stood listening to the presentation on a new VR game that had just come out. She was one of the most intelligent of the Rossi children. Not that all of her parents children weren't intelligent just that she was even more so than most.

Much like her brother Ambrose she was into technology, but while he concentrated on security security systems for businesses and homes mainly, she was into gaming.

Zelda was a beautiful woman with her parents, dark hair and her father's brown eyes. She had a pert nose and her skin was black with cream added, so she was mixed race since her father was completely white. Really she was only about 1/4 black as one of her mother's parents had also been white. She was also fairly tall at 6'1' as she had inherited her father's height. She also had sharply defined cheekbones that made her look like a model. She was also slim and it was clear she worked out as the muscles in her arms were well defined, so she had good muscle tone.

Zelda listened with one ear to the presentation as she looked around where the convention was being held in New Orleans, which is where she was living, at least at the moment.

As she was looking around the big space where the presentation was being held, she noticed a man also paying attention to the presentation. He had brown hair, which was really all she could tell from her position other than that he was fairly tall and slim certainly not as broad of shoulder as her father or her Uncle Aaron. He had a swimmer's body rather than that of a football player.

There was something about him that intrigued her, and she wasn't entirely sure what she had sensed that had. She kept one ear on the presentation that was coming to an end.

Zelda forgot about the strange man as the demonstration ended and they were told to get in line and come up to get a demo copy of the newest game that could be played five times in a holodeck before having to buy the program.

Zelda loved to test out demo games and usually ended up buying them once she had seen if she liked it and that's why gaming conventions were so great, as she could keep up on the advances and get the newest games to try for free.

Zelda got her copy, though it took over an hour, as the line was long as everybody from the demonstration was interested in getting their free copy and no wonder.

Zelda was just heading to get her some food when she nearly ran into the man she had seen a side view of doing the speech. She had completely forgotten about him and that had intrigued her doing the demonstration.

"Excuse me," the man spoke and Zelda looked up at the soft voice and her eyes, widened in astonishment. She stood like a statue, unable to move.

"Are you OK ma'am?" The man asked when Zelda had spoken for several minutes nor moved a muscle. Zelda brain felt like it was scrambling and didn't feel is if it was firing on all cylinders at the moment, as this man that she had bumped into was her mate. Zelda tried her best to pull herself together as she was frozen in astonishment and amazement. She had never expected to meet her mate, even though it has happened to numerous members of her family.

"It's OK, this place is really crowded and I'm fine I promise," Zelda offered finally finding her voice, even though her mind was still reeling from meeting her mate just like so many of her family had. She was surprised she could manage a coherent sentence, since her brain still felt stunned.

"If you say so," Tim said to polite to inquire further, although the curiosity was clear in his green eyes.

"I was just heading to get me a bite to eat if you would care to join me," Zelda offered. "You'd be welcome, as I'd enjoy intelligent conversation before we get back for the rest of the convention."

"I don't want to impose," the man said sounding shy and a little nervous. "I mean, we don't even know each other's names."

"That's true, we don't, but we can correct that by introducing ourselves. I'm Zelda Rossi," Zelda introduced herself.

"Timothy McGee," the man said. "You can call me, Tim though."

"I'm Zel," Zelda said. "See, now, we are no longer strangers, so why don't we have lunch together to get to know each other?"

"Well, OK," Tim said somewhat shyly trying not to stutter, as he always got incredibly nervous around women particularly beautiful ones other than his sister that is.

Zelda immediately picked up on Tim's shyness and knew that he was likely nervous around women in general, though probably more so, if they were interested in him romantically and not just as a friend.

"So it's your choice on where we eat, as I'll eat about anything," Zelda told him gently.

"Well, I know a pad thai place close to here," Tim suggested.

"That sounds fine. I love pad thai," Zelda agreed.

"It's close enough we can walk to it or we can drive if you like," Tim offered.

"Walking sounds good, as I need the exercise anyway," Zelda said.

"You look great, so you don't need to lose any weight if you're worried," Tim blurted out without thinking about it then went silent afraid he had offended her, but Zelda simply smiled at him, making him let out the breath he had been holding.

"I like to walk a lot of places unless they were a great distance away from wherever I am, but a few blocks is nothing. By the way, thank you for the compliment," Zelda said and Tim nodded looking relieved that Zelda didn't think he was being to forward at his unintended compliment. Parking was hard enough to find in a busy city like New Orleans, so it was good to walk a lot of places within distance so you didn't lose your spot on the street or in an overpriced parking lot.

Restaurants didn't let you park in their lots unless you were actually going to eat there and as for other places of business that was different. Of course, that didn't mean you couldn't get towed if your car was still there a day or two later and somebody happened to notice it just wasn't as likely.

A lot of businesses only had limited parking, so Tim could understand the policy not that that didn't mean it wasn't annoying.

"If you're ready, I'm ready," Tim said. "While that presentation was rather interesting and I'm looking forward to trying the demo copy they gave me it ran over and it is after 2 o'clock, so it's no surprise we're both hungry."

"Let's go then and we can come back afterwards if we want," Zelda agreed.

Zelda couldn't wait to tell her parents and godparents the good news, but that could wait until Tim wasn't so shy that he assumed lunch would be the only contact he had with her. Tim likely assumed that he'd never see her again after lunch was over. He probably thought that they'd go their separate ways and that she was just being nice to him because she was a nice person. He was that type that was shy about relationships, as she could just tell.

Tim would soon learn that he was wrong about never seeing her again, but she'd have to be careful, as she didn't want to scare him away, as that would be bad.

The two walked side-by-side out of the convention center where the convention was being held, and Tim led the way to one of his favorite pad thai places.

They didn't get much time for talking as there were too many people and too much noise and it wasn't exactly the time for private conversations. They had to cross a couple of narrow side streets in order to reach the restaurant that they had chosen for lunch.

Once they reached the pad thai place they got a table immediately, as it was after regular lunchtime for most people so the place wasn't that busy.

Both Zelda and Tim ordered their drinks when the waitress appeared at their table, and as soon as she had left, the two of them just sat across from each other, and it was clear that Tim was rather uncomfortable and didn't know where to start a conversation.

She was a stranger to him after all, even though she's been kind to him so far, Zelda suspected that Tim didn't expect that to continue.

"So what do you think of Pixie Games presentation?"

Pixie Games was the name of the gaming company that the had listening to the speech for and they'd been around for a very long time, which meant that they hired young people that had original ideas to keep the company relevant in this advanced time. It was a large company that had offices in multiple cities in the United States, including here in New Orleans.

"I thought it was very good," Tim answered honestly seeming relieved that Zelda had started the conversation.

"Yeah, it was," Zelda agreed as the waitress delivered their drinks.

Zelda slowly drew Tim into further conversation by discussing all kinds of computer games and then surged into electronics, which surged into how electronics had been improved up on over the last hundred years alone.

They both ordered and kept talking, Tim seeming to lose a lot of his nervousness as the discussion continued, and before either knew it a couple hours had passed, and the food was a distant memory having been consumed as they talked.

"So why don't we just change phone numbers?" Zelda suggested after she had paid the check with Tim protesting as he hadn't told the waitress to bring two checks and Zelda snatched it up before he did then refused to split it down the middle simply saying, lunch is on me.

Tim looked rather surprised at the request, and Zelda figured he'd been thinking that he would never hear from her again, so of course she wouldn't want his link number. He'd probably been rejected a lot just because he was so shy at least when it came to women. But a lot of people with a high IQ were like that so it's not like it wasn't unusual, and Zelda suspected that Tim was one of those really intelligent people, especially when it came to technology in general and gaming in particular. Much like her sister-in-law, Penelope Rossi, formally Garcia, Tim was good with electronics as she got that from their conversation. Unlike her sister-in-law, though, Tim had very little confidence when it came to relationships, but that hadn't been Penny's problem.

Zelda could easily see the nerves, even though Tim tried his best to hide them.

"I would like us to be friends," Zelda told him and Tim brightened at that. "That doesn't mean that I wouldn't like to try a date at some point, but that can wait for awhile."

There was no way in hell Zelda would ever give up on one Timothy McGee since he was her mate after all, but she would have to take things slowly until he was comfortable with her.

The two of them walked out of the restaurant and headed back to the convention center talking as they went and Tim had relaxed a great deal by the time they got there.

By the time they parted ways, it was several hours later and they agreed to meet up again, Zelda promising to call tomorrow.

~~~Tim and Zelda~~~

Zelda entered her house after separating from Tim, only to be greeted by her two dogs who wagged their tails at her and barked in greeting.

"Yes, sweeties, I'm home again," Zelda told the dogs, even as she picked each one of them up and let them lick her face.

"Mommy, mommy, you were gone a long time," said the voice of one dog in her head. The voice was decidedly female.

"We're hungry mommy," said the other with a pleading, hungry look on his adorable face.

Zelda simply laughed at the two puppies antics and gave them extra cuddles. Remington was after a character in her favorite show and the other was Lily because it was her favorite flower. Lily was also a literary character and was in numerous books, which was what made it a good name for her female puppy.

She had gotten the two puppies from a rescue just recently and they were brother and sister. She had fostered dogs in the past and even ended up adopting a few. While the rescue had named them, they hadn't liked their names and so Zelda had been happy to change them.

The rescue that had named them hadn't exactly been original and called them Blackie and Brownie. While both of them had black and brown patches all over their bodies the names were hardly original. The name Blackie at least could be considered racist if a black person happened to hear you call your dog or cat by that name, so it was wise to change it. The puppies had been young enough that they had adopted well to the name change and being able to communicate with them by her thoughts had been quite an advantage that most people didn't have.

The dogs had been $300 each, as that paid for their shots the medium bag of food, a few inexpensive toys and the cheap water and food bowls they'd been sent home with. There was also a pamphlet on how to care for your new pet.

She had donated another thousand dollars to the rescue as she could more than afford it and the man that ran it had been grateful for the donation.

This was not the first time that she had adopted animals. Sometimes it was cats, other times it was dogs. Thanks to her gift she loved all animals, though she hoped she never encountered a crocodile or an alligator or a poisonous snake or anything else that could do her serious amount of damage and even kill her permanently dead. There were predators out there that could kill even an immortal with no trouble at all, though she would have to lose her head or have her heart removed or be burned to ashes to stay permanently dead. She much preferred cats or dogs or even the birds in the trees and also squirrels and raccoons. Anything with fur basically, as animals with scales weren't her thing.

Yes, raccoons could carry diseases and were called trash pandas for a reason, but she couldn't get any disease a raccoon had, and that was one of many advantages of being immortal.

"Alright, my babies," Zelda said, as she put them down after kissing each one on the nose and then filled their food bowls and their shared water dish. Their food bowls were more expensive than the ones the rescue had given her, and also had their names inscribed on the sides, and the water bowl was shared by both of them.

Remington and Lily immediately chomped down on they're now filled bowls and their food was gone in a matter of minutes.

Zelda let them out the back door of the house she owned as she didn't have a doggie door and waited for them to do their business before calling them back inside.

Zelda cooked herself a quick meal before she set on the couch in order to eat it with the puppies on either side of her, their heads sharing her lap.

Zelda felt contentment, happiness, and love for the dogs on her lap and turned on the big screen and started to watch a romantic flick on one of the movie channels. She couldn't help imagining what her relationship with Timothy McGee would be like, although they were a long way from her telling him exactly what she was, not only immortal but magical.

Hopefully, he would accept the news when the time came, but she supposed she'd see.

Finally, she went to bed and she knew she'd have to be up early tomorrow in order to open the shelter she ran, as she hadn't gotten her mother's bakery magic like most of her siblings and while she loved to go to conventions about gaming or technology, it wasn't what she did for a living.

She fell asleep quickly, and immediately started to dream about her mate, one Timothy McGee.

~~~Tim and Zelda~~~