vzpomínám si.

[Lukas] Chinatown is a bit closer to the University of Chicago than the Brotherhood, and at any rate, Lukas suspects Danicka would prefer to be farther from the prying eyes and ears of all the werewolves in the BroHo.

So there's a message on her iPhone when she gets out of class. Not mechanical engineering class, which is probably what Lukas thinks she's in, but yoga, or self-defense, or something of the sort. The message reads: coffee?

And there's an address under it.


It's not a coffeehouse after all. It's a teahouse, with a small tea garden in the back that's a confused mishmash of japanese and chinese architecture and decor. Enough to fool the average tourist, anyway. The teas are quite decent, though. Lukas sits in the back, next to a vast, latticed full-moon window. Appropriately enough, one might say. Outside the window is a spray of bamboo, brilliantly green with summer.

On the small, square table in front of him is a clear glass, tea leaves turning slowly within. A plate of light pastries, baked, sesame-scattered, filled with sweet lotus paste. Where he sits, he has a clear view of the door, which is at most ten or fifteen feet away. When he sees Danicka he smiles, standing.

[Danicka] These tiny hole-in-the-wall places with mix-and-match ethnicities and menus like minefields remind Danicka of New York. Make her miss New York, actually, especially having been there so recently, and for more than a couple of lonely nights. It had been her goal to make her neices and nephews try at least two new styles of cuisine a week, always at lunchtime. They got through Chinese, Greek, Japanese, Polish, Brazilian and Scottish before she came back to Chicago.

If they tried something new and ate a hearty portion of it without whining, and if they were willing to help in the kitchen, she made koláče when they got home again.

In any case: he suspects she would prefer to be away from the Brotherhood, and he thinks she's probably coming from the University, and he picks a place based on those two things, when Danicka would -- as ever -- gently chide him that he worries too much. Thinks too much. Plans, or tries to plan, everything as much as possible. And it isn't that she's incapable or unwilling to plan, or that she never worries, herself. But his overwhelming tendency towards it is a source of amusement to her. And fondness.

Which means, of course, it also bothers her on occasion. Just like her wildness, her unpredictability, her risk-taking, both fascinate him and stir his protective instincts and arouse him and delight him and drive him utterly fucking batshit.

On occasion.

He has no concrete knowledge of where Danicka is when she picks up her iPhone and gets his text. Her affirmative, which is equally simple -- they seldom speak more over texts or calls than strictly necessary -- does not give him any clues, just an estimated time of arrival. When she comes through the door she isn't wearing the jeans or khakis that usually goes along with days spent at the U of C, nor is she in that ludicrously expensive gym gear she likes so much.

It's just Danicka, and she's probably sat down before he notices what she's wearing. Which, in point of fact, is a bit out of her norm. The dusty green dress is more of a shift, with some slight, soft rouching along the cap sleeves and scooped neckline. It does not follow her form closely but just sways down to an understated ruffle along the hemline. The only thing truly alluring about it is the shortness of said hemline, and the confident ease with which she wears what on many women would be a shapeless sack.

Her silver bracelet is on her wrist, nestled quietly above a wider cuff made of copper and kept company by a few thin bangles of some other, less meaningful metal. She has sandals on her feet and there are miniscule shells strung together and dangling from her lobes.

"Coffee?" she teases, setting her purse down under her chair and looking from his tea to him.

[Lukas] There's something instinctive, classical, about the way he rises from his chair. He doesn't come around the table to immediately sweep her up and spin her around, which he has done before, though only in the privacy of homes and hotel rooms. There's a note of restraint to him, though -- their last meeting still vivid in his mind.

He holds his hand out to her. And if she takes it, he holds her hand for a quiet moment, then lets go.

They sit. She teases him about his 'coffee'. He looks down, a small bemused smile crossing his face. "I hadn't been here before," he explains. "It was listed under Coffee & Tea on Yelp. I made assumptions."

He nudges the pastries at her; the small ceramic teapot as well. His eyes rest quietly on her for a moment; then, "You aren't coming from school?"

[Danicka] His hand is given, and taken, but briefly. And that's her own restraint, though he can attach his own reasons for it if he likes. He might. For awhile after it she flinched from his touch and kept her distance. She stayed outside, covered in blood, scrubbing away at that bracelet on her wrist to make sure none of the tiny engraved leaves or vines would dry with some reddish-black shadow caked inside. She cleaned herself completely before she let herself move into his arms, and it was some time even then before she relaxed.

Maybe the reason she takes his hand and curls her own into it and around his fingers is just that: last time they were together in public, their 'last date', as you will, he lost almost all restraint. He lost his mind. It is something of a miracle Danicka is alive right now, smiling with summer and sliding into her chair after letting his hand go. It may be out of respect for that miracle that she doesn't stand on her toes and kiss his cheek, or hug him, or any of that.

Or it may be out of respect for her hemline.

Or it may be a lifelong habit of restraint that is motivated entirely differently than his own.

She leans over and smells the tea, holding her hair against her shoulders so it doesn't brush over the table or into the plate. There's a small, empty, clean plate that she takes and puts a pastry on it, but she doesn't bite into it just yet. Nor does she pour just yet. Could steep a bit longer. She meets his eyes, and does so without fear, which perhaps neither of them ever thought she'd do.

"School's out," she says, with the quiet cheer of someone who is so new to school still that not being in the daily grind of it is still rather refreshing to reflect upon. "I was shopping." Lifting the pastry, she tears off a small bite. "What about you?"

[Lukas] The tea, if she knows of such things, is a pleasant Bi Luo Chun green. Or what's being sold as one, anyway. And Lukas suspects Danicka may indeed know of such things, just as she knows about sports, and cars, and fine art, other things which may come up in the course of civil discourse but do not, ultimately, hold her true interest.

Not the way computers, numbers, and those matte-black cylinders of death she scavenged off dark, deep-earth things do, anyway.

Lukas takes another pastry himself. It's a little past dusk, and the sky is a deep blue a shade away from black. There are crickets. Frogs. All the sounds and warmth of summer, which may be Lukas's favorite season, though he -- with his black hair, icy eyes, with his hulking form cloaked in thick fur in another shape -- was so undeniably made for winter.

"I just had a talk with the Grand Elder's packmate and one of the new Fianna in town. A lot of them recently. You'll probably run into them if you go to the Brotherhood. Anyway -- it was about the company supplying the Church community center with tainted food. The kin have more or less zeroed in on production and distribution centers. Ruarc -- the Fianna -- was part of the assault team that shut down a shipping center last week."

There's a small pause, not so much for effect but because he's uncertain, for just a second, whether or not to tell her this.

Then he does, "I'll be leading the strike on the factory myself."

[Danicka] Shopping, for Danicka, is an excellent if stereotypical way for her to pass her time. She has neither job nor need of one, her rent and car payments no longer make any noticable dent in her bank account, and her expendable income is, quite frankly, disgusting. One would think she'd have her apartment -- as well as their home -- cluttered with unnecessaries, with whatever trinkets caught her eye and convinced her on a bad day that they could make her feel better about the state of her life.

The truth is, Danicka does go shopping often, but she retains so much of her upbringing that she often goes home emptyhanded, or with something small, or something she intended to buy and compared prices on. She does not throw her money around. What she spends it on is luxurious, whether it's a meal or a dress, but just as often

it's some random pair of sunglasses that she saw at a gas station of all things and thought might look good on her mate. Or a book from the bargain bin that has three hundred recipes for tapas, two hundred and forty-six of which she will never even attempt to cook. Danicka buys books for herself now. The cookbooks go to the den, like the nice knives from Williams Sonoma and the pans that are a hundred dollars a pop on sale.

And all that is well and good. Books for the avid reader who was punished by having her books destroyed in the most disturbing ways possible. Clothes for the almost always well-dressed, well-composed young woman from Manhattan. New music here and there, when something strikes her fancy. Gifts for her mate. All well and good, and simple, and expected, and not at all what she was shopping for today.

If he goes home with her and helps her unload the trunk of her car, Lukas might be surprised. Or just amused. And pleased.

The topic changes from what she was up to before heading over to have an early-evening casual date with her boyfriend, lover, partner. Her heart. It goes to the war. Danicka reaches over and pours tea. Not with the perfect, artistic ritual of a geisha -- hardly -- but just a simple, graceful movement that is also quite familiar. She pours for Lukas first. Maybe, since they are alone, he does not find himself uncomfortable with it. She pours her own second, listening to him.

"We've met," is her only interruption, a slight nod with the interjection, when he mentions Ruarc. He goes on. Danicka sets the teapot down and takes another torn-off bite from her pastry. She tips her head slightly as she chews, and when she's done, asks him: "Why did you hesitate, just now?"

[Lukas] His eyes still flick to her hands when she pours for him. He doesn't stop her, though. He doesn't -- god forbid -- grab his cup and yank it backward. There's just that moment of attention in the middle of what he's saying, there and then past.

Tea leaves dance in the clear, narrow glass. When she puts the teapot down, he reaches to cover her hand with his, gently. It's a sort of unspoken thank-you.

"Because," he says, a little later, "I didn't want you to worry."

[Danicka] Now might be a good time for a lecture. Or if not that, a few reminders. She could pick apart her pastry and tell him about how old she was when she first realized what it was her mother was doing, and what memory most vividly brought it home for her that her mother -- that terrifying beast who was also, nonetheless, the first thought to her mind when she wanted comfort, when she wanted to feel loved and safe, and talk about conflicting emotions -- was a warrior among warriors, their first and last line, etcetera, and so on.

Danicka could tell him what it's like being his mate. She doesn't know what it means to be an Ahroun or what, really, being the Ahroun elder means. But she can guess at a lot. She's a bright woman, smarter than she ever gave herself credit for and smarter than she wants most people to know, and she can guess that when you're the leader of the most rage-filled and violent of all Garou, it means you direct the movements of the war, and because these are not generals sending orders to soldiers they will never see

it means he goes into that war himself. And if there are lives to be lost, he is responsible. Either it is his neck on the chopping block or the blood of his allies cupped in his hands. Whether he washes it off or not.

Danicka's hand is covered. She smiles gently at him. There's a warmth and tenderness in him she doubts even his packmates see fully. Which is not to say she thinks him cold all the time, unknowable even to those he's bound to, but she knows the difference. Between what you can show to the world entire, to friends and to partners and to all the rest

and what you can show to the one you go home with. Who sees you in sleep, and knows you at your most undignified.

You're the worrywart, she could tease. And doesn't. "Should I be?" she asks instead, reaching for her cup.

[Lukas] Danicka would be right to think that he shows her a warmth and tenderness that he doesn't reveal entirely even to his packmate. It's not that he's cold -- though he can be -- or that he's paranoid, wary of revealing emotion; any of that. She knows the difference. And there is one, between what the world can see, and what friends and allies can see, and --

this. What they have between them, in quiet moments, in secluded little corners of this mighty city, where they have the time and the space to share a pot of tea. A cup of coffee. Some pastries; dinner; drinks. A movie. One another.

Worrywart, she's called him more than once, fondly. In some strange way, he likes it, because he hears the tenderness and the warmth beneath the teasing, and because she's the only one who calls him that. Who can. Who is allowed to.

And Lukas shakes his head, once or twice, with certainty. "No," he says quietly. And then, irony of ironies: "I don't think worrying serves much purpose unless your mate happens to be reckless and cocksure. I'm neither. I'm careful, and I fight to win, not for glory."

The corner of his mouth turns quietly upward. He adds, "I'm just telling you because it's what's going on in my life right now. And you share my life."

[Danicka] No one else may take food from Lukas's plate without it being offered to them first. No one else may call him by that childhood nickname that even his parents don't use anymore. No one else may argue with him with the freedom that she does. No one else may demand of him -- expect of him -- that he apologize, that he give as much as he takes, that he behave as though someone vastly below him on the food chain is his equal.

Perhaps the fact that Danicka excercises these freedoms with a sort of iron restraint rather than willful impunity is a large part of why she has them. No longer do the words since when do Shadow Lords... spring to the tip of his tongue. And he has never had to tell her not to flaunt his status and power as though it were her own. He has never had to scold her not to stir up trouble and then try to hide behind their relationship to protect herself from the natural fallout of her actions.

That she is special to him, and precious, is no secret, and needs no explanation among his kind. But what they have is private, deeply so. It does not even find full expression when they are away from the prying eyes of other werewolves, when they are alone together and amongst mortals with no connection to the war. It is theirs. No other's.


Her smile as she does, now, start tearing off more small bites of pastry to eat it in chunks anyone would consider minute, is a little amused as he explains what he is not, and what is. How he fights. Danicka eats a bite, and picks up her cup to take a sip of tea. It's set down again with delicacy, making little noise against the saucer underneath it. There is a whole mound of pastries between them. She's about halfway through one. He hasn't bitten into the one he's taken for himself.

She quietly goes about breaking her pastry up, tasting the small bites with an attention to detail that he may have noticed affects everything from her choice of fabrics when she shops to how loud she wants her stereo. "In that case: I bought a microscope."

[Lukas] Let's be honest here. When Danicka said I was shopping, Lukas immediately thought of clothes. Sundresses for summer, perhaps. Sweaters for fall. Whimsical pieces of jewelry. If he was very, very lucky: new lingerie.

Which only he would ever see now, besides her. Or at least: which she would only wear for him now, besides herself. And that gives him a curious sense of happiness too, of pleasure and joy. Because: she is his. Because: they are one another's, and no one else's.

But, no. It's not clothing; it's not jewelry; it's not some shred of eroticism literally more expensive than its weight in gold or platinum. It's a microscope. And Lukas's eyebrows hop up on his face. He blurts a laugh.

"Baby, I know I left that loaf of bread out on the counter and let it get moldy," he says, "but don't tell me you're going to culture penicillin."

[Danicka] They are past the topic of what is going on in his life, the war and the battle he'll be leading and talk of worrying or not worrying. Danicka smiles as he does, her lips together and her eyes glinting like light coming through leaves.

He's right to feel happy, albeit curiously so, thinking of Danicka buying new items for that surprisingly well-stocked closet -- the size of a closet some people keep their entire wardrobes in -- of silk and lace and, yes, leather. Among other things. When she shops now and buys some new flimsy piece of lingerie, an odd and unfamiliar -- but not unpleasant -- sensation comes over her. Some things she still buys solely for herself. But there is a figure in the back of her mind that she considers.

Sometimes, she buys things that she knows he will like. That she knows will appeal directly to him, that will send currents of electricity through his spine and make him all but claw off his own clothes on his way to her.

Not always. But the knowledge is there, even when she simply buys something because it's pretty, that if anyone else is going to see her wearing it, it will be him. And that whether she was thinking of his preferences when she bought it or not, he will still lose his mind a little at the sight of it on her. It is still, after all this time, a somewhat new sensation.

There are other parts of being with him, and being his, that are far older, and more familiar

and less enjoyable to contemplate.


In any case. She didn't buy any new lingerie today. She bought a microscope.

Danicka rolls her eyes, but she's still smiling. Amused, though her lips stay close to each other and her eyes are as unfathomable as ever, as deep as the summer woods where they mated. "It's just useful to have," she says, like one might excuse spending a little extra money on a decent blender for the kitchen or a new dryer to replace the one that doesn't work so well anymore. Like one might justify the purchase of something around the house that will be used on a daily or weekly basis. "Also, if you want to buy three different kinds of bread because they all sound good, then we can go to an actual bakery and buy half-loaves. They'll probably be better tasting, anyway."

[Danicka] [subterfuge]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 6, 7, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 8 at target 6) Re-rolls: 3

[Lukas] His humor subsides gently. She's serious. He knew she was serious. Whatever he once thought of her, this beautiful golden woman who seemed have no job and yet lived in one of the most exclusive buildings in the city; whatever unpleasant reasons and jobs and titles he assigned to her in his mind, Lukas very quickly realized the woman he could not for the life of him just forget about was, in fact, not a courtesan, not a mafia princess, not someone's trophy or ornament, not even quite the manhattan socialite she seemed, but instead,

a geek. Someone who played World of Warcraft while he slept, the morning after he'd asked her to -- and she did -- stay the night for the first time. Somehow who gave the Brotherhood their first and, to date, only common-use computer. Someone who still goes by on occasion to upgrade that system. Someone who got him Rome: Total War for his birthday and, even sick, even drowsy and mostly-asleep, murmured a laugh when he whispered that he'd conquered the known world.

So. Yes. She bought a microscope. And this is entirely possible, entirely unsurprising, even. And now he's genuinely, quietly curious -- "Useful for what?"


There are things in this exchange that are not quite as they seem. There's something she's hiding, but whatever it is is buried so deeply that Lukas doesn't even have the faintest inkling of an idea that it exists.

It's been a long time since she's masked anything from him. It's been a long time since she began telling him the truth -- not because he demanded it, or asked for it, but because she wanted to. Besides that; he's gotten better at reading her. He's been able to discern the traceries of emotion that sometimes wisp across her face. He's been able to understand her better.

And none of that, not a single bit of all that, makes any difference at all in the fundamental truth: that if she wanted to, Danicka could be utterly opaque to her mate. If she wanted to, she could close herself off entirely. And he would not only be unable to see into her, he wouldn't even be aware of it.

If he knew that, perhaps that would hurt. But then, that's the point: he doesn't know.

[Danicka] From the very beginning -- yes, the very beginning, the first handshake, the first flicker of eye contact before she dropped her gaze -- Danicka has been more honest with Lukas than, truthfully, anyone she has ever met. At the time, she didn't know that he was the grown figure of a little boy who had visited her house a few times in childhood. She might have lied. She might have told him that she did not speak Czech, could have looked at him in confusion when he asked if her name was Danička and not Danicka.

Even then she was calculating, though. She knew before he sat down who he was, that he was a Shadow Lord and that for that reason alone she might end up beholden to him, reliant on him. Controlled by him. She knew that he might possibly have the motivation and the ability to look into her family and her past. So she was honest.

When he made some glib, out-of-character comment about her propositioning him, he wasn't drunk. He likely couldn't explain to himself, later, as he threw a condom in the trash and pulled his pants back up while the redhead he'd just fucked in the bathroom put herself back together again, why the hell he'd said something like that. Possibly he hadn't even questioned himself on it. Didn't think about it. Didn't lie awake analyzing it.

Though her answer, he might have given thought to. Her answer was truthful, and yet still calculated, still so careful that it rested on the edge of a razor. To intimate that she would submit if he demanded her, without disgracing herself -- and therefore angering him -- by outright flirting. To show restraint without rejection. Her answer was delicate, and indirect, and ...honest. Thought not as honest as she could have been.


And in his car, driving to her apartment at dawn. She thought about turning his offer, which was irritated and perfunctory, down out of hand. She thought about not letting him know where she lived until he went out of his way to find it, or asked her directly. She thought about not putting herself in a situation where she was within arm's reach of an Ahroun on a full moon, sun rising or not. She was exhausted and felt rather physically filthy and wanted to be in her own bed before Sam woke up alone in Room 1.

She was honest with Lukas that morning, too. About not wanting his packmate. About not seeing it going anywhere. About the fact that, whether she had no intention of following up with Sam or not, she had enjoyed herself, and she did not regret her decision, and she did not do it out of fear of retribution. She told him she would have called for him if Sam had taken her to bed against her will.

Lukas asked her if she would accept Sam as a mate, if it came to that. He told her to pretend the choice was hers, then asked her what sort of world she lived in, that she would speak of making a mate happy or not.

The same world where the choice is mine.


She's lied to him. Over and over and over again since he met her, she's lied to him. Danicka lied to him when they were children. She pretended to be as normal as she could be, and though her subterfuge was more unstable then, Lukas's ability or inclination to see through it back then was nil. Because of necessity, he started learning how to look at her, how to see her through her veils. Because he came to know her better, he started seeing through her without trying as hard. And Danicka,

because she did end up choosing him, claiming him, and making him happier than any Garou, any Ahroun, any Shadow Lord has ever expected to be,

learned how not to lie. How not to be so afraid of him that deceit came more naturally in his presence than anything else. How to just tell him how she was feeling, what she was thinking, without concealing it as best she could, as long as she could. They learned how to see each other, for what they really are, and in ways forbidden to any other.


What she hides this evening is not worth getting into. She cannot understand the experience of being in a pack. Of physically changing into another shape as naturally as breathing. Of fighting with her bare claws and fangs for her life and the lives of her allies. She cannot understand, not entirely or completely, their politics and their instincts and the very state of being what they are. She is not Garou.

And Lukas is not Kin. He had a handful of years of actual awareness before everyone knew he could not possibly be Kin. He can understand, to a degree, why his parents treat him the way they do now. He can understand enough that he doesn't want his sister to be mated to a Garou unless she absolutely and entirely desires it. He can try to put himself in Danicka's shoes and ask himself how it would feel to wash someone else's bloodstains off the floor, or the rug, or their clothes. He understands enough to not tell her how a bloody bandage is made, because he -- like he said just moments ago -- doesn't want her to worry.

But Lukas can never, and will never, know what it is like to Kinfolk. Kin to Lords and Ahrouns. To swallow the things she has swallowed not to uphold etiquette but to literally save her own neck. To accept things no one, no one should be asked to accept, not once or twice in a lifetime but on a regular basis, because

this is the life, and the male, she has chosen.

So he can't look at her small smiles and know the thoughts in her head or the feelings in her heart that set her pulse a bit higher than natural when he talks of leading battles, or about worrying and not worrying, or about what a careful fighter he is, how he fights to win and not for glory, as though it makes any fucking difference to her. As though it changes anything during the nights when she hasn't heard from him in awhile and tonight could be the night.

Tonight could always be the night.

Lukas doesn't know. Lukas can't understand. And Danicka does not want to ruin a perfectly nice tea-and-pastry date by talking about the repercussions of being what she is: his mate. So she smiles a certain way and talks about her microscrope, and Lukas doesn't even know. There is nothing he could do.


She leans over the table, suddenly, and kisses him high on the cheek, not too far beneath his eye. She's laughing softly when she sits back down. "For seeing clearly that which is hidden," she says, with a tone that mocks crypticism more than contains it. Then she shrugs her slim shoulders and chooses another pastry from the plate. "I may look at things like moldy bread and whatever else," she admits. "But I'm also wanting to learn more about those cylinders. I'm trying to figure out a way to suspend it in an activated state without wearing it on my arm or allowing it to go dormant again, but that's just for analysis of the components and whatever reaction begins once it is activated."

A beat. She tears the pastry in two. A few sesame seeds drop onto the plate. "I mean I want to know what they're made of. And whether or not it's actually an electrical charge or something else. And if it is electrical, what and where the power source is, how much power they can hold, and ..."

Danicka trails off. She gestures aimlessly with her hand, like sweeping crumbs off the table. "Needless to say, I bought more than a microscope."

[Lukas] She means it as a joke when she says seeing clearly that which is hidden, but the smile that ghosts across Lukas's face is faint, wry, fond. Because she is good at that. Because while she never saw him quite so clearly, quite so perfectly, as he once thought, the truth is she's still one of the most perceptive people he knows.

And, the truth is he looks at her and he thinks: absolute clarity.

Then she goes on, and his smile turns into something half-amazed, his clear eyes blinking once when she says suspend it in an activated state; again when she says analysis of the components. What he knows of physics and mathematics stops at college-freshman level. What she's thinking of is ... quite possibly well beyond graduate level.

He does catch the gist of it though. She wants to play with those 'cylinders'. She wants to learn to use them.

There are Garou who would, put plainly, freak out now. Rant and rail about the power of the Wyrm, how dangerous such things are, so on, so forth. Then again, if Lukas were one of them, he would've never let her pick up one of those things, much less take it home. If he's worried, it's only in the flicker of his eyebrows together, the short thoughtful silence.

Then, "If you don't mind, I'd like to do a Rite of Cleansing on those things before you start really handling them. Just in case. After that -- well. Just be careful."

[Danicka] Nothing she says is jargon. Nothing she says is beyond the comprehension of a layman. To someone reasonably intelligent and educated who has seen those weapons in action, it makes perfect sense. But the idea of not only managing to turn one on -- which Danicka did underground in a split second the first time she picked one up -- but somehow keeping it that way without it swirling and arcing and lighting up around one's very arm is...

how would she even do that?

But the look on her face as she talks about it is thoughtful, not fantastical. She is not considering failure. Maybe some difficulty. It is, after all, very strange technology. Still, no one has told Danicka that even other minions of the Wyrm, that Presidents at Pentex and even certain nasty spirits haven't got the faintest clue where the Vhujunka come from or what the fuck they're really up to. No one has told her that the technology she possesses now is beyond 'alien'. No one has mentioned to her that what she wants to do with them is, quite frankly, fucking insane and probably impossible.

So she doesn't really consider it. They're just abandoned toys of the Wyrm.

That makes Danicka's eyebrows hop up a bit. Not with perturbation, but a little bit of surprise. "Baby," she says softly, "I've had the first one since October. And you're only now thinking of cleansing?"

It could come off as chastisement. It may, even, be that: Danicka never thinks about things like that. Cleansing. Taint. And now he's bringing it up and she's realizing how many months she's had the first one and how many times she's taken it out and turned it over in her hands and doodled the glyphs that cover it and now he wants to Cleanse it?

[Lukas] A grimace flickers across his face. He picks up his tea, merely warm now instead of steaming hot; sips.

"I should have thought of it earlier," he admits. "It just totally slipped my mind. I suppose I didn't realize you'd even kept them. Though, looking back, I can't imagine why I might've thought you didn't."

He sets his glass down, clicking softly on the lacquered tabletop. Looking across at her, he studies his mate for a moment, then adds, "I don't think it's anything to worry about, though." His smile is ironic, "If it had some deleterious effect, I think one of us would have noticed by now."

[Danicka] "Unbelievably useful," she says, lifting up her tea and bringing it to her lips to take a sip, as he does. She sets it back down again. She doesn't seem bothered by whether the rods are dangerous -- to her -- or not. "I think I could get one through airport security if necessary --" and this part is said quieter, though no one is nearby and no one is paying attention, it is still not the sort of thing one wants to get caught saying, no matter how white you are.

"Lightweight, very powerful... I just need to figure out how to load one, so to speak." She doesn't yet know that this means they need to be charged. And as there are no plugs or outlets or ports on the things... that's going to take some research.

And playing.

"So what are your plans for the night?" she asks, and takes a bite of another of the pastries. It's like they're dating. Like they don't live together (sometimes), aren't mated (for life). It's as though their lives are lived, mostly, apart.

Which they are.

[Lukas] This time it's Lukas that refills their cups. His hand is large enough to palm the teapot, his thumb resting over the lid to keep it from slipping off as he pours for his mate, and then himself.

"You," he replies simply -- and yes, honestly. "I just wanted to spend some time with you."

He picks up his pastry, finally, eating it in a bite. All this while he's sat relaxed in his chair, leaning back and slid down slightly, his feet apart and straying well into her half of the table. Lukas shifts a little now, sitting up a bit, picking up his glass, sipping.

"If you're going to be playing with your cylinders," he adds, "I don't mind just hanging out and reading nearby."

It's left unspoken, reverberant in the space between the words: he just wants to be near her. It doesn't matter if they're speaking to each other; if they're touching, if they're loving each other. It's enough, and satisfies some bone-deep instinct in him, just to be in the same room. Just to be in her vicinity,

where she would hear him if he howled.

[Danicka] There is something to be said for how little they see one another: it is not easy to take each other for granted. Neither of them expect the other to be there when they go back to room or apartment or house for the night. Neither of them expect the other to even be awake and available to talk if they want to call. True, Danicka has fewer obligations. But perhaps even now Lukas is mindful of the fact that her life is finally her own, and does not want to impinge on that.

Then again, Lukas is not an idiot. And only an idiot would think that she would not drop everything to talk to him. To see him. To be with him for a night.

It makes her smile to herself as he pours her tea and admits that his plans are her. That tonight he's hers, because he believes he has some time, and wants to spend it with her. She lets her feet rest under the table next to his, her ankles framing one of his. And she understands, intuitively, what he means even before he says that if she's going to be playing with her toys -- as it were -- that he's happy to just be near.

She understands because it is often so, when they manage more than a single night together. He gets to play a computer game while she sits in a bean bag dragged from the bedroom into the study and writes on her laptop or reads a book. Lukas gets up at odd hours to rifle through the fridge for food while she goes on sleeping in their bed. It's unspeakably rare that they have enough time with each other that they spend it thus, but it's happened. And it gives them both an unfamiliar yet deeply satisfying comfort.

"Alright," she says softly, still smiling. "You can help me put together my new toys."

She said she bought more than just a microscope.

[Lukas] Toys, she calls them. The word makes a grin break suddenly across his face. He imagines that's not the first time she's said something like that to him. He supposes when they were children, when she was a too-thin little girl with blonde hair that was always long because her mother didn't like her to cut it, and when he was a too-loud little boy with hair too long because he didn't like to have it cut, she might have said something like that in the foyer of her father's house.

You can play with my toys.
You can help me color.
You can share what is mine.

Which probably wasn't a lot, in truth. Danicka's family was not fabulously wealthy; not even close. Her father was a craftsman; a skilled worker, but a man who worked with his hands nonetheless. Still, compared to the secondhand toys and cramped spaces he and his sister shared, the things the Musils had must have seemed great luxuries indeed, and that invitation to share a great and anticipated honor.

It's different now. But when she says that, his mind flashes back through memories or imaginations -- hard to say which now, it's been so long -- and humor warms his eyes, softens the hard angles of his face.

"Okay," he says quietly. And then he takes another pastry, and nudges the plate toward her. "I'll be back," he says. Standing, he abruptly dwarfs the small table, the young bamboo outside the latticed portal in the tea-garden wall. Lukas goes to take care of the check -- and probably to get a small box for the remaining pastries, too.

[Danicka] No, not wealthy. If they'd lived off of her father's income alone they would have been in straits barely less dire than the Kvasnicka's, all told. Her mother's inheritance was the house. Her father's income let there be food, but they did not cook lamb and turkey and steaks. There is a reason Danicka actually likes sauerkraut: they ate it often, in part because it was often cheaper than fresh fruits and yet still provided loads of vitamin C. Her books were often from bargain bins and library sales. She wore her crayons down to nubs.

The toys she had were precious things, saved up for and received as gifts on her birthday, her name day, Christmas, or made by her father's own two hands. She took very good care of them. Lukas and Anezka were not allowed to play with her toys the first time they came over, and she was scolded for her failure of hospitality and generosity when they left.

Not that the Kvasnicka children minded, or even noticed. They had been plenty delighted by the sheer space and by the fenced-in yard where they could play even after nightfall because the back porch light gave off enough illumination to make hide-and-seek not too scary. Danicka, who was not really the sort of child given to running around making noise, was terribly worn out by them. Exhilirated. Overwhelmed. Sad, for reasons her young mind could not wrap around.

Still: it was indeed an honor when she let her new friends Anezka and Lukas open up her toy box with her and start pulling things out. It was like a treasure hunt, the second visit. Lucky, because it was raining outside and they had been told unequivocably that they were not to go out and get saturated and muddy. They were her friends then, though. Distant ones, but for children it is easy.

For adults it takes longer. To share. To smile. To invite.

Danicka finishes her tea while Lukas is up -- a nod is all she gives him when he goes to pay -- and finishes the pastry she was working on. She licks her fingertips with demure care, and when he comes back to put the remainders in the box, she lights up a bit. "Oh. Good idea." And she helps, and on a whim leans forward and kisses his wrist as he's closing the box. Touches his hand lightly as though to still it, and nuzzles his forearm gently for a moment.

They leave together, Danicka's bag looped over her wrist and the pastry box in hand, her other hand laced with Lukas's. He's getting his keys out, but they walk to her car, first. Which is where she asks him: "Did you drive here, or do you want to ride with me?"

Knowing, of course, the answer to both questions might be yes.

[Lukas] Earlier, Danicka had leaned over to kiss Lukas on the cheek. It was a sudden gesture; spontaneous. A little over a year ago, it would not have been possible. She would not have done it. He might not have allowed her -- too cautious, too careful, too self-protective for such dangerous shows of affection.

Now: he'd closed his eyes when she leaned across like that. Her lips touched the high plane of his cheek just beneath his eye. When she drew back he was smiling, as much at what she'd said as at the kiss.

A little later, as he's bringing the box back for the baked lotus-paste desserts, she kisses his wrist. It's such a warm gesture, so mammalian, so animal, that he pauses for a moment just to watch. When she nuzzles the pulse-point there, his skin startlingly soft beneath the scattering of hairs on the back of his arm, the bolts of tendons across his wrist, Lukas draws a soft breath.

It's perhaps not a coincidence that almost all gestures of affection tonight beyond a touch of the hand, a linking of the fingers, have been initiated by her. Some part of Lukas is -- and may be for a while yet -- cautious.

And yet: yearning. He's glad to have tonight. He's glad he'll be helping her put together her new toys. He's glad she asks if he wants to ride with her, because --

"Yes," he drove here. And, "Yes," he wants to ride with her.

He smiles then, a little self-conscious. "I can take the metro back here tomorrow." And his keys go back into his pocket.

[Danicka] [y u self-konshus?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 6, 7, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Danicka] It's been -- god, how long now?

Since those two days and couple of nights they spent at the den together when she came back to Chicago. The last time they made love was in their bed there, the morning after dinner at Jesmond's, Lukas pushed up on his arms to give himself more leverage to thrust into her, harder, watching her arch to meet him and seeing her face pull with pleasure behind every moan, after every slam of his hips forward. And her hand was so gentle on his back, all the same, and gentle when she stroked him through his sweat as he came down over her again, after everything, their breathing coming in hard, uneven pants.

And then they were back to their separate lives again, taking the perishable foods with them just in case and making sure the garage was locked and, in general, going through the motions they always go through to make sure the house is safe and secure and clean, whether they'll be gone for a few days or a few weeks. She hasn't gone back there yet. She's been to the Brotherhood to give the laptop there its own wireless router and she's gone through the park after yoga class to tell a Bone Gnawer she was being immature, and

she's gone to the movies with her only werewolf boyfriend ever. Toy Story 3.

She kisses his wrist and he breathes in like that and Danicka hesitates a moment before they get up, and box up the pastries, and walk out to the sidewalk, away from the little teahouse he found on Yelp. Where he seems so pleased, and oddly enough a little hopeful, when she asks him if he wants to ride with her.

Danicka tips her head slightly, looking at him, and her brows draw together a bit. It makes a tiny wrinkle between her eyebrows, and then she just smiles, and squeezes his hand, leaning over to kiss him. This time on the mouth, standing on her toes and the soles of her sandals falling away from the soles of her feet and her body stretched upwards to reach him.

"I'll give you a ride whenever you're ready to come get your car," she says when they part, like this should have been a given from the start. Though it isn't, and they both know that.

[Lukas] Lukas is significantly taller than his mate. When she wears heels, they come very close to the ideal proportion -- the top of her head, the level of his lips. When she doesn't, she has to rise on her tiptoes to kiss him, or

he has to bend, just like this, to catch her kiss gently on his mouth.

His eyes close. Her sandals fall away from her feet. His hand touches her tenderly, gently at the waist; a point of contact, a grounding for himself. His mouth parts slightly to hers before they draw apart, and when they do his eyes are a little darker, his pupils a little wider.

"Okay," he says quietly: pleased. And a little hopeful, somehow, his eyes clear and quiet as he looks at her.

They've left the little teahouse with its confused decor and its rather excellent tea a half-block, a block behind now. The little box of goodies rustles in its bag at her side. They pass his car where it's parked, and he checks to make sure there aren't any hidden towaway signs. When they get to her car, he holds her hand a moment longer as they part -- long enough that their arms stretch between them before their fingers disentangle.

A moment later he's joining her inside the cabin, which seems a little smaller for his size, his rage, his sheer presence.

"I love you," he says. It's almost abrupt; quite out of nowhere. He looks at her and smiles.

[Danicka] Even when it seems they try, it's never just a peck on the lips, or a glancing blow of one mouth across a cheek. Just as he told her once in a dimly lit bathroom at some nightclub over a year ago: it's never just a fuck.

That Lukas is hopeful is now not just an inkling, a guess, but a certainty when she looks in his eyes or sees him smiling at her like that. It's a tone in his voice and a light in his eyes. She looks comfortable seated behind the wheel of the -- frankly -- gorgeous vehicle she replaced her convertible with. She twists a bit before he gets in to set the bag of pastries down behind his seat. Normally her bag would go in the passenger seat, but instead she puts it on the tiny backseat. There are shopping bags back there. They are not from lingerie stores or clothing designers.

But he knew they wouldn't be.

Danicka is buckling in and turning the engine over when he gets in and says what he says, which makes her turn her head towards him and then smile. It's that awkward, lopsided little smile that always used to look uncertain, like it wasn't okay for her to feel happy. It's been awhile since she's been afraid to tell him if she is, though. Still, sometimes that comes through, that sense that she's not used to this. She's pleased, and it is as though even her face doesn't quite know how to give it full expression.

"I know," she says gently, as though he needs to hear this as much as he needed to tell her just now that he loves her. The engine thrums. It purrs. It is so very pleased to be running. Danicka takes her hand off the keys in the ignition and reaches over to put her hand on his leg. "Baby, are you okay?"

[Lukas] Even relaxed like that, his thigh is solid, a slab of muscle and bone. There's a heat to him that easily penetrates the light fabric of his slacks tonight. He looks at her hand for a moment, then covers it with his, his fingers and thumb curving over opposite sides of her palm.

"I'm okay," he replies quietly. "I'm just ... amazed that you are, I think. After what happened last time."

[Danicka] At this, she doesn't carefully withdraw her hand. She just holds it there, the car idling, and a flicker of expression crosses her face like a fleeting shadow before it smooths away. "I'm trying to be," she says quietly, and squeezes his thigh before -- now -- drawing back and taking the wheel. They can't just sit there forever, and they don't.

Danicka drives them to her place. The LCD screen of her stereo face tells him that the music they're listening to is something called Blood Red Shoes. He's been through her music collection. There's a lot of the music that is so frequently referred to as 'indie', whether the band is on an independent label in reality or a major one. It's a pretty broad genre, and more than a little gets lumped in there because not every song is loud enough for the purists to say it's allowed to be called 'rock'. Hell. A lot gets called 'indie' just because it isn't made in America.

In any case. For someone who dances the way she does at clubs, her musical tastes for her iPhone and her home stereo are a little surprising. There's a lot of piano music on her CD shelf, too, by a variety of composers and performers.

Her fingers tap slightly on the wheel to the beat when she's stopped at a red light along with a song called Colours Fade. Oh. So the band is British. How nice for them.


Kingsbury Plaza isn't too far. They get there soon enough, and park in the garage underground. Most of what they're saying to each other now is about which packages from the backseat and trunk are the heaviest, and which are the most fragile, and thank god there's an elevator. Danicka carries the lotus-paste-filled pastries and her purse and the bags from the backseat. Lukas gets to carry a few boxes from the trunk. It isn't that they're heavy.

It's just. They're an awkward shape, all together.

The elevator, the hallway with its plush carpeting and wall sconces, the door to her place, and the entryway where -- the last time he entered -- he was covered in blood and wearing next to nothing. Was shaken, to his very core, by what he had almost done. This time it's not quite perfectly dark outside and Danicka is not, also, bloody and trembling. She's stepping out of her shoes and setting down bags and humming a little.

Only he knows now: she's trying. And it may hurt that she has to.

"We should set all that up in the study" -- that used to be Martin's room, used to be Lee's, used to be Paul's, is now her study -- "but I have to buy another desk, really." A beat. She thinks, and looks at him. "I was thinking of a reading chair for the study at home." The den. The den is home. It has been since the first day he called her there, and brought her inside. "We should go furniture shopping. July is actually the best month to buy furniture, did you know that?"

[Lukas] It does hurt to know she has to try to be okay. It hurts to know whatever scars he might have left on his own psyche, the ones he carved into hers are likely to be far deeper; slower to heal. It hurts to know she has to expend an effort now to act like this, to be easy and loving around him, to not think of the moment on the street when he looked at her

and saw nothing but prey.

It hurts -- and at the same time, there's a strange sort of relief in it. A sense that he's not alone in that discombobulation hovering under the surface. That he's not the only one trying. Reaching. Holding on.

To this: their quietness, their privacy behind closed doors. Their right to one another. Lukas carries boxes, and Danicka carries bags, and neither of them are the walking wounded or even the walking bloodied. He peers around his load when she says to set it up in the study, and nods agreement, and steps out of his shoes blindly to go that way.

She speaks of home -- and he looks at her, as though her words had struck a resonant chord in him. Home, he thinks, as though it's the first time he's heard her use the word. It's not. They're not there now; a part of him is glad. Glad to keep that place sanctified, safe, apart from what almost happened, apart from needing to try. It is very possible that by some unspoken, undiscussed consensus, they will not go there, at least not together, until things have mended a little more. Until scars have healed a little more.

"I didn't know that," he replies, then, setting down boxes, at least one of which is sturdy and hefty, strong enough to protect the delicate optical equipment of her microscope. "Why is it the best month?"

He holds his hands out for her bags, and sets those on the desk beside the boxes. Then he loosens another button on his shirt, as though readying himself for intensive labor.

"Where do we begin?"

[Danicka] He worries. He wonders. He aches because she has to try, is comforted by the fact that he's not alone, but he worries. He wonders. He looks at her and hears her talk of home and doesn't ask why they don't set up the third bedroom as her laboratory, or put it in the basement where temperature control might be a bit easier. He feels glad, for whatever reason, that they didn't go there today.

Danicka, on the other hand, is starting to unpack bags and put various pieces of equipment, different components, out on the coffee table and the couch and so on. "I don't know," she muses, when he asks about why July is the best month, opening a box to take out an instruction booklet. Her brow furrows and her eyes narrow at it.

"Where did I put the screwdrivers?"

Of course she would have several. Probably tiny ones. Probably a decent-sized one as well. Various types. The computer in her study may be a Mac and her others may be laptops, but there's also the gamebox at the den that she built. Danicka is no stranger to a few tools. She murmurs to herself, and then looks over at him, quirking a brow at his treatment of his button.

That shadow comes over her eyes again. She just looks at him, for a few moments at least, til she says: "I don't know if I can." Quietly.

[Lukas] [empathy!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 4 (Botch x 3 at target 6)

[Lukas] [D:]

[Lukas] Lukas turns, nearly at the door to the study suite now. He props the boxes against his side. It takes him a moment to read her. When he does -- when he thinks he does -- he exhales a surprised little laugh.

"Baby, of course you can." There's a warm amusement in his voice, touched with a hint of disbelief. "I've seen you hack a computer that wasn't even written in a human language. And I'm sure there are instruction manuals."

[Danicka] Danicka has wandered back from the coffee table, up the small step to the front hallway. She leans against the kitchen counter that faces the windows just like he leans against the wall with the boxes at his side. She looks at Lukas, standing at the opening to the hall leading to the once-room, now-study, and her brow is wrinkled with a moment of utter confusion.

And then: "No... I didn't mean that. I just --"

Now that it isn't stirring from her lips, now that they've already had a misunderstanding, it should be easier to get the rest out. It should be easier to explain herself. But it isn't. It's harder now. She's wishing, visibly so, that she hadn't said anything at all. Because it was just him loosening a button on his shirt. It was just him getting ready to work.

And it was the way he breathed in when she kissed his wrist. The way he kept his eyes on her as they had tea. The way she didn't want to talk to him about worry and about the war. The way he touched her waist when she kissed him on the sidewalk and the way he looked excited, even a little abashedly so, that she wanted him to go back to her place with her.

So it isn't easy. She falters. And because it is Danicka, her voice gets quieter when she's uncertain, or when she's afraid, or worried. She seems to be smaller, if not physically than in every other way. She seems afraid.

Though not of him. Not right now. Not in this.

"I don't know if I can... handle making love to you tonight." All but whispered, that. And she's never said anything like that before that she can remember. Not to Lukas.

[Lukas] Her faltering sketches a frown on his face. Danicka is not shy; no matter what she pretends sometimes, she's not a shrinking violet, not a passive, submissive, empty little vessel of pure breeding and obedience. It's unlike her to pause like that, to hesitate, to search for words.

When she says what she meant, his face changes again. The frown fades. It's replaced by comprehension, and by ache. Lukas is silent and still for a moment. Then he bends, setting the boxes down in the doorway.

He comes back into the living room. The wall of glass is to his left, and then behind him. There are lights on. The dim glow of the city is almost lost in the spaciousness of her living room. He does not come very close to her; arms-reach, no more.

"I didn't expect you to," he says quietly. There's a pause of his own, a hesitation, a debate. Then, "I want to. And when you kissed me, I wanted you. But I don't expect it. And I'm willing to wait as long as you need me to wait.

"Baby..."

His head bows for a moment. He looks at the carpet, and then to her again. There's a sense that he wants to be closer -- that he wants to touch her, put his hand on her arm, gather her to his chest. He doesn't. He stays where he is, space between them, room.

"I'm just happy to be with you tonight. If I seemed eager or hopeful, it was only that I was looking forward to being here." He smiles again, "Playing with your new toys."

[Danicka] So many times, she wants to just tell him I know. She does know: that he's never expected her to bed him, that he never seeks her out solely for the sake of satisfying his hunger for her. Danicka never thought he expected to, even though she knew he wanted to, and even though she could tell when he put his hand on her waist out in Chinatown that he wanted her. Hell. She knew when she kissed his wrist that he wanted her.

He's always wanted her. Danicka can't think of a time since she met him in SmartBar that it's escaped her notice how badly he's wanted to take her. In point of fact, there is one glaring moment when he was on the verge of grabbing her and slamming her on a table to mount her when Danicka had no idea, whatsoever, that one of the things glittering in his eyes was lust. She read it as hate. After all. He took his liquor and went upstairs and left her in the kitchen with Sam.

Later that night he eviscerated Sam on the common room floor. The events were at least ostensibly unrelated.

Other than that, though, Danicka has always been able to tell when Lukas is wanting her. Which is almost always. Which is viscerally, painfully deep sometimes, how badly he aches to be close to her. Inside of her. And she has known, longer than she quite realizes, how much of that is wanting to be near her spirit and her heart, too. That he wanted, from the start, to hold her and watch her go over the edge, as though only then would he be able to see who she really is.

Danicka wants to tell him she knows, too, that he's willing to wait. But this is the one she actually says, watching him. She turns her back to the counter, to the kitchen. He stands in the hallway to her, the windows curving outward across the expanse of the oversized living room, and they are within arm's reach of each other. Even her arms. She looks up at him, head tilted, brow wrinkled.

"I know you wouldn't --"

She can't even get the words out, in the end. Force me. Push me. Hate me. So she quiets. "I just didn't want to get into a situation where I might have to tell you no," she adds. And: "Because I want to be close to you. I just honestly don't know how much I can handle."

[Lukas] "Chápu," Lukas replies. And this too is quiet. And this too is inexplicably, inexorably tender.

Because he does understand. Because he does intuit on a basic, primitive level, that tug of war between needing to be close and needing to be apart. Distant enough to see clearly. Distant enough to breathe. It's not a dichotomy he feels, but he's seen it again and again; in a shower, in his room, the night on the street with the hounds and the vhujunka and

the red death that took hold of him.

He holds his hand out to her after a moment. Just his hand, warm and strong, the lines on his palm tracing out some unknown future that she knows he will try to entwine with hers, somehow, always. She is his mate. He wants to be close to her. Somehow. Always.

He will not kiss her again tonight unless she kisses him first. He will not touch her beyond the link of their hands, or an occasional brush to her shoulder, her arm, to get her attention. He will try not to watch her so keenly, and he will try to maintain some distance, some space between them as they work on her microscope, her soldering iron, her hex wrenches and her toolkits, her breadboards, bolts, posts, rails.

Her laboratory. Where she'll take tools of the wyrm and shape them into weapons for herself, to make herself stronger, because she is not, and was never, weak.

Later, Lukas might think to himself that he loves this about her, too. He loves that she is resourceful and clever. That she will not settle for being weak; that she will not be coddled and protected and helpless. He loves that she's so fucking smart. And that she's setting up shop to reverse-engineer something that most humans wouldn't even understand.

"Let's go build a microscope," he offers quietly.

[Danicka] [perception: 'apprehensive' + empathy]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 6, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) Re-rolls: 2

[Danicka] Shopping took all day. Danicka did not know at first where to go. She didn't know if what she wanted could even be found in certain stores. She, frankly, did not know what she wanted. It took quite the verbal tarantella to get around explaining to clerks -- and then to managers, and then to owners called on the phone once it became clear just how much money this woman was willing to spend and just how precise her desires were -- what she was ultimately going to be doing with the various measuring instruments she wanted.

One of her favorite new 'toys' is a digital non-contact tachometer. The microscope -- easily the heaviest thing she bought, and something she not only paid for but paid to have delivered to the store because she did not want to wait and order it online -- has an adjustable arm and cost more than even her glossy, well-marketed Macs. She bought a soldering iron, which she says she's been meaning to get forever and she's not sure she's going to even need it but better to buy it now than be in the middle of something and wish she had it.

Danicka will not be clothes shopping or picking up any new classes for some time now. Even for her, her purchases today were... noticable. Tomorrow morning Mr. Fujii, that friendly financial advisor who let her in on the fact that she's actually very fucking rich, will call her to make sure her credit card was not stolen by some sort of mad scientist. After suffering through a brief explanation from the polite, lovely blonde -- who he can't set up with his brother-in-law because of that time she asked him if there was a way to insure a tree she and her 'boyfriend' were going to plant at 'their' house, yes a tree -- he will make some crack about not losing her as a client if she invents cold fusion and hang up, feeling vaguely rattled.

Danicka is going to enjoy herself. She delights in this the way she used to delight in the simple programming she taught herself in junior high and high school. Only this is more like going from riding on a sled down a gently sloping hill to trying skijumping for the first time. This is the difference between sticking her face in a creek while wearing goggles to look at the minnows and attempting to break a record at constant-weight apnea without fins. To say that the very thought of getting started makes her all but tremble with anticipation and exhiliration is putting it mildly.

This is the woman who, literal seconds after watching her mate turn on her and thinking oh no. oh god, what will become of him? in the face of her own death, walked past the corpse of a monster and took its weapon for herself. Abused its body with the rod. So exhausted and so traumatized that she could not even speak to Lukas or look at him for more than a moment, Danicka saw that thing and took it home without a second consideration. Deep down, apart from a near-decade of work as a governess, apart from making a life with the man she loves when she thought she was incapable of loving anyone, apart from New Orleans and the abuse at home and her mother's death and everything else that crashed together to make her the way she is, Danicka is a scientist.

Nothing but Lukas makes her happier.


Lukas, who will not touch her tonight unless she touches him first or he is certain that a brush of their hands would be invited, welcomed, okay. Who will not kiss her again unless she kisses him first. Who will hold himself back from her, not stare at her, keep distance between them because he does not want to push her. Force her.

Scare her.

Hurt her.

He offers her his hand, though, because he needs to be close to her. Not because he ever feels that need to be apart for the sake of clarity and breath -- in fact, the closer he is to Danicka, sometimes, the more clearly he can see everything: himself, her, his life, the war, everything -- but because he knows that what he is sets off some ancient reaction in her that is normally only seen in humans. Mortals. Weakwilled, collectively terrified mortals who could not love a Garou if they tried. It sets her apart from most Kin, this... weakness of hers. Sometimes, it sets her apart from her mate, who over time will only grow more and more frightening to her.

And Danicka, who sometimes seems to see the way people are and the way they act so clearly it is almost as if she sees what they are thinking before they themselves realize it, looks at his hands and somehow she knows. She knows like the way she knew he longed for her before he admitted it to himself. She knows like the way she knew a part of him was absolutely and a bit viciously thrilled to hear that she did not want to be with Sam, that she didn't see it going anywhere, that he had a chance. She looks at him and his open palm and his brilliantly colored, gemlike eyes and

she fucking knows how carefully he intends to hold himself back from her tonight.

The shadow across her features darkens, and she takes his hand without hesitation or trepidation. She's stronger than she used to be. Sometimes he can even feel the growing definition in her arms, the hardiness she used to lack. She's better fed now. She's used to firing a gun off at a range and has become startlingly good at it. It won't be long before she's a master at yoga, and it won't be long before she can throw a nasty punch. She'll never be as strong as he is, probably never stronger than she is now, truth be told, but

she's grown. In so many ways, in just a year and a half, she's all but become a different person right before his eyes. She's become her own person, and her hand clasps his like the idea that they are not equals really is just a farce for the sake of the Nation and the rest of the tribe. She meets his eyes, which she never used to do.

"Ty jsi můj lodní důstojník, a patříte sem. Ty patří tu mnou," she says firmly. Though what he can also hear is

you have a right to be here.

you have a right to be near me.

[Lukas] The first grip of his hand on hers is, in truth, careful. Even a little ginger, as though he were afraid that too firm a grasp might frighten her, push her, force her, hurt her.

But she takes his hand without fear; without hesitation. And her eyes meet his solidly, which is a rare thing even amongst kin unscarred by Rage. Even amongst Garou, these days.

His eyes are not hard, though; do not dominate and flash. He looks at her with something a little like confusion, or anticipation, which resolves into a shadowed, deep warmth when she says,

well. What she says.

Lukas brings her hand to his mouth. He kisses her knuckles firmly, his eyes never leaving hers. And what he says is not I know, or I understand, but --

"Vzpomínám si."

[Danicka] It was with Lukas that Danicka sat in a warm bath in the dark and whispered about her family, about love and pain, about wondering if you could love someone and be willing to hurt them, want to crush them. It was with Lukas that she realized that there was a chance, and a strong one, that her brother could not have ever really loved her. It was with Lukas that Danicka started to understand that love did not have to hurt her. Damage her.

And that it was something she could have. Feel. Give.

Long before she could bear to say that, though, she could tell him that he belonged right where he was, when where he was was lying in a bed with her, the city dark outside and their bodies intertwined, naked, warm from lovemaking when it was still half-unspoken to call it that. He belonged there, she said, and he knew intuitively she did not mean that hotel, or even wrapped in her legs.

He remembers. And so does she, thinking of that night. And others like it. The time he told her not to think about the moon, that it was alright. It's the first time she can recall Lukas ever trying to comfort her. She thinks of the way he looked when he thought he'd hurt her -- when he had hurt her -- that second full moon, her dress only half off and a storm outside the windows behind him. The way he looked half-mad for a moment at the thought that he'd harmed her.

Danicka exhales softly as his lips leave her knuckles, and steps closer to him again, the way she did in the shower after all the blood was gone. She wraps her arms around his waist, and holds him the same way she did that night. Holds onto him, and rests her head on his chest.

[Lukas] Lukas loves it when she does this. When she steps into him like this, like he is not a monster at all but something familiar, warm, beloved. A shelter. A home for her, in and of his own right.

He loves how she wraps her arms around his waist, too, slender against the trim, agile muscle there; how she holds onto him. Like he's an oak, and could protect her.

Like she's protecting him.

His arms fold around her. After a moment, he bends to him, closing his eyes, tucking his head against the top of hers. They stay like this for a while, his heart a deep thunder in the center of his chest.

He would be happy to stay like this all night. He would be happy to hold her all night, nothing more or less: lie in her bed with her in his arms, and hold her.

[Danicka] Her hands do not bury themselves on either side of him, seeking a place to hide, but lay flat on his back as though she is holding him into himself. And into her. He's felt the way she's held him before in sleep, wrapping around him from behind and covering his heart as though to shield it from the fear of her leaving. And even with his arms around her shoulders and her body nestled against his, there is a strong sense that Danicka is -- yes -- seeking her own home,

but offering one to him in return, and making sure he knows it is a safe one.

For awhile they just stay silent, until Danicka stirs a bit and smiles up at him, drawing back only far enough to tip her head. It means nothing now for her to bare her throat to him, to be exposed and vulnerable with him. He is invited. He belongs here.

"Okay," she says quietly. "Now we can go put together my microscope."

[Lukas] Lukas is a little quieter when they part; a little more centered and settled. He smiles, and he puts his hand gently to her cheek.

They go to the study. He picks up the boxes on the way, and she directs him to the desk, or the shelves, or wherever they should go. They unpack the microscope first, of course -- no cheap child's science toy, this, but a hefty state-of-the-art beast of a Leica, heavy enough that even Lukas huffs a breath out to set it on the table. He asks her what she would have done if he wasn't here. Perhaps the answer would have been, ask the doorman.

Who she's friendly with, if only passingly. Whose name she knows. Who probably thinks she's a nice girl, a lovely young lady, someone who says good morning and good evening with sincerity. Danicka makes friends easily, everywhere she goes. Few of them ever see beyond whatever veneer she wears for them. Lukas has seen her all but become someone else; he's followed her around New York City and see how they call her different names, different diminutives of Daniela that seem to subtly define her as a separate individual each time.

And -- Lukas sees beyond that veneer. He sees, sometimes, to the core of her. He is allowed to.

He loves that, too.

So: they put the microscope together. They set it up, and adjust it, and screw the lenses in, and calibrate the electronic micromanipulators and actuators; they test it by looking at a strand of his hair beside hers. Under the microscope, her blonde hair is crystalline and all but clear. His black hair, magnified a hundredfold or more, reveals in itself a deep, resonant brown, like hardwood. They laugh about this, and while Danicka finishes tweaking the minor things, Lukas unpacks the rest of the boxes.

Out comes the soldering iron. Out comes the tachometer. Out comes boxes and boxes of spare parts large and small; of wires and resistors and capacitors and inductors. Her study begins to look more and more like some engineering lab, some fabrication center.

When they're finished it's well into the night. The last thing Lukas does is Cleanse the pair of cylinders -- just to be sure. Perhaps her brother showed her this rite long ago. Even if not, she might recognize it as one of the most common rites of the Garou. The slow ritual circle, the scattering of water droplets.


As they leave her study, he turns the desk lamp off. She flips the light switch at the door. He wraps his arm around her shoulders as they come out the short hall, kissing her hair.

They go to bed quietly that night, as though this is a luxury they share often. He showers and brushes his teeth in front of her mirror, and she can see how quietly pleased he is to take his things out of her medicine cabinet, to replace them afterward.

In her bedroom, he leaves his towel drying over the back of a chair, or perhaps hung on a hook in the closet. Comfortable in his own skin and nothing else, he lingers in front of her nightstand, finally picking out Taran Wanderer to take to bed.

He does not make love to her tonight. He does not try to convince her, or wheedle or cajole or pressure her into it. She knew he would not. He stretches out in her bed instead, comfortable and warm, holding his arm out for her to curl against his side.

And then he reads, breathing quietly and evenly, the pages turning softly. Perhaps she reads with him for a while. Perhaps she simply sleeps. Either way, when her breathing has gone even, when she's resting softly against him, he stretches his arm out to lay down his book; turn off the light. Gently, very careful not to wake her, he turns toward her. He gathers his mate in his arms, thinking of love, thinking of protection --

and not the raw, physical imperfect sort, but a deeper sense of it that comes closer to concepts like warmth, like home, like belonging

-- and closes his eyes.


In the morning, while she starts fiddling with her new toys, he tries to make kolaches. It probably doesn't go well; but that's all right. It makes him happy nonetheless: to be in his mate's den, baking what his mate taught him.