ready.

Lukas

Morning on the eve of the new year, and the truth is things are still slowly returning to normal. The 27th was spent ferrying their families to the airport, and even though everyone insisted they could just call a cab or a shuttle or something Lukas insisted, he insisted on seeing them all off. And by nightfall the tiny house was all but empty, and quiet, and it was sort of a relief to have their own space back but Danicka could see that Lukas missed the warmth and the noise and the kids underfoot already.
He didn't say anything about it. They were both tired, a little worn out from days of festivities. They turn in early, and in bed that night she holds him, her arms wrapped around his much larger torso from behind, her bro to the center of his back.

The next day they clean up. They throw out the trash, the loose packaging and bags that were left behind when they couldn't fit into so-and-so's suitcase, the garbage from various rooms and bathrooms. They eat the leftovers that they can, throw out the ones that are about to spoil. They find some ice cream cake left in the freezer and demolish it. Or well: Lukas demolishes it. Danicka helps.

They vacuum, too. And mop the floors, and vacuum the carpet, and Lukas finds some child-sized handprints on a wall and mock-grouses about little brats while he scrubs it off. They decide to leave the tree up a little longer.

And that's why, waking on the 31st, there's a slightly-worse-for-wear Christmas tree in the bedroom. And the winter sunshine is bright and clear, and there's a purring warm thing nestled between their feet, and

Lukas is rolling onto his side, propping his head up, smiling.

"I hired a chef for the night," he whispers, "and booked a room at the W. He's arriving there at eight. Until then, we should just loll around. Play checkers or something. I'll make you breakfast." He tugs the comforters down from her shoulders; nuzzles her breasts shamelessly, affectionately. "I'll dance with you this time if you play that Africa song again."

Danicka

That last day was chaotic. A dozen last run-throughs of the house to make sure no one left anything behind, a few last trips to the bathroom, some sudden and frantic repacking. Then: one last trip in that gargantuan passenger van, during which Danicka looked over and saw that Lukas was already aching. All his family -- because it seems that it isn't just a cliche, isn't just a greeting card, but Mr. Musil and Sarka and all the children are his now, too -- going away, flying away from him, scattering across the country once more. At least all but two of them are in the same city, even if that city is a sprawling mass.

There were all the staggered flights, the coffee at airport shops, the last tearful and clinging goodbyes at security. It was hard not to justify buying tickets just to follow them past that boundary, see them off properly. It was even harder, hours later, to walk back to the huge van, empty now, and drive it back to drop it off. They took a cab home. They ate leftovers, and they slept with the house messy and smelling of their families. She holds him. Protects him from that ache she saw in his eyes as they pulled out of the driveway.

Cleaned on the 28th. Scrubbed handprints off, found a pair of small and dried-stiff socks downstairs that had to be Irena's or Emanek's, pulled off after playing in the snow. Watered the tree and deflated the air mattresses and laundred all the bedding, all the towels, the whole mess of it. Shared some of his birthday cake at the corner of their table, which for a few days had held five times their number. Kandovany rubs against Danicka's leg, purring, and she absently reaches down to scritch the animal, taking a bite that Lukas offers her on his own fork because it is his cake, and he is sharing it, and it is a very good cake and this makes them both happy.

He wants to move the tree to her apartment because if they leave it there, it will die. Danicka looks at him, half-startled. "I wasn't planning on going back to my apartment til school starts again," she tells him, and this

makes them both happy, too.

The truth is, the tree is dying anyway, was dead as soon as it was chopped down in fact, but not yet rotting. It takes awhile. It has all the ornaments on it except for the ones that Danicka gave everyone in the family, all the various moon phases that represent them. Milos's, which is just like Danicka's, and Irena's, which is just like Lukas's -- those, of course, went with them. But her crescent and his full are still hanging on the tree, along with all the lights and baubles and so on. The tree is, however, wilting.

And Kandovany has snuck up on the bed to sleep at their feet, even though Lukas sometimes kicks her when he rolls over. The light comes in clear through the uncurtained windows, and Danicka has rolled onto her back mid-sleep, her head turned to one side, her chest rising and falling under the comforter with each breath. It takes awhile before the gradually-awakened Lukas sees her stir. She sleeps as though she's making up for all the nights they stayed up late with family or got up sickeningly early because of the kids. She sniffs first, and moves her head, then flops it right back where it was. She turns, curling, tugging the blankets around her as she is wont to do, wiggling her feet until they are cocooned in the sheets.

Slowly, slowly, she ends up on her stomach, sprawled. Eventually props herself up, waking or half-waking, and yawns, looking over at Lukaz, realizing he is awake and... not caring. She rolls again, closes her eyes again, and drowses until he is smiling, nuzzling her tits, because she's awake now, he knows, even if she keeps acting like she's just going to sleep forever. His nose lifts her breast, makes it bob slightly as it falls. She huffs a laugh. Lukas is talking.

Her eyes close and open blearily, but fondly. "Hmm?" is all she says, and he has to repeat himself. 'Breakfast', actually, is the first thing that processes. Her eyes glint for a moment, hungry and feral, but settle gently into sleepiness again as she rolls her mind backwards over his words. Checkers, lolling around, 8pm, there will be a chef, and they will be at the W. "Ooh," she says softly, the sound light but raspy, her lips pursed around it. She leans over, smooching him -- it is not a kiss, really, but a smooch on his face, which is scruffy, high on his cheek and close to the bridge of his nose and just missing his eyeball.

Then she flops again, scooting over in bed until she inhabits, entirely, the space against his chest and under his chin and within his arms, creating a hollow where there is none and then conquering it. She grumbles happily and comfortably as she does all this work, and then simply goes back to sleep.

Or tries to. Or pretends to.

Lukas

Lukas closes his eyes for the smooch. It makes him smile, and smiling, eyes closed, he settles back down under her insistent scooting and nuzzling and tucking and grumbling. She goes still again. She goes back to sleep, or tries to, or pretends to, and

he lets her. He opens his eyes, looking at the ceiling. The little house seems bigger without their families here. It seems quieter without small feet tiptoeing up and down the stairs, small hands moving chairs and opening cupboards and taking down cereal or sugar or milk or bowls. He thinks again of the night everyone arrived, and how the house filled up with children, and everyone was tired and hyperactive and worn out and even though the kids were going to be up at the crack of dawn he couldn't help it; he had to have her, his mate, right then. Let's get started.

They have been married a year. Mated a little longer. And they've known each other longer still. Lukas wonders if it's too soon to be having these thoughts. He wonders if it's not soon enough.

And then he closes his eyes. He wraps an arm around Danicka; tugs the blankets up over her shoulder. He doesn't pretend; he sleeps. They sleep a little more.

Not a lot more, though. It was already nearly eleven when they first woke. Half an hour, forty-five minutes: now it's close to noon, and Lukas, waking a second time, pries his sizable body into an enormous, joint-popping stretch.

"So as I was saying," he murmurs, relaxing, "I'm going to make you breakfast."

Danicka

It isn't hard to convince Lukas that all this silliness about 'waking up' and 'moving' aren't worth their attention at the current moment. It isn't hard to find herself not pretending but actually drifting off, rolling over one more time til her back is against his chest, til his arms are folding around her, til she is falling asleep again. They have both tasted life with children, life with early mornings, life with other people. Today they take a vacation from that. They are not parents yet.

Yet drowsily, contentedly perhaps, he thinks of if. It's been just short of three years since they met. By all rights they have gone neck-breakingly fast in their relationship. Mates in spirit within 5 months. Mates by law within 7. Buying a house within a year. Married within 2 years. But they know many Garou who find and choose a mate, challenge for them and win, within a matter of weeks. They begin having children almost immediately. It is as though time has not changed them at all, as though they live primordially, caring only if the scent is right and if the female is receptive. Or maybe it is just that time is rushing headlong forward, towards destruction, towards Apocalypse.

And here he is. Adren. A strong pack. A safe den. A healthy female. And yet he waits.

Danicka is sprawled beside him the next time Lukas wakes. Kando has gone mousing in the basement. Danicka smiles against her pillow, grins in fact, and rubs her foot on his shin. "Omelette?" she asks. "Coffee?" Her toes tickle his calf, leg crossing his. "Fruuuit?"

Lukas

Lukas smiles too. Then, as she draws her requests out longer and longer, he grins. He reaches out under the covers, his arm crossing her stomach, his hand grasping her far hip before giving her flank a muffled thwap.

"I was thinking cereal," he lies. She knows he's lying. He's not very good at it. At least, not with her.

Then he reaches down further, finding that mischievous leg of hers. He can't reach her foot or her shin, but he can reach her thigh. And he does: wrapping his hand under it, drawing it up under the covers, curling up himself to pretend to nomf her knee through the covers. He play-growls. Then he lets go, flops over, wraps his arms around her middle, drags her against him where he stretches out beside her.

"Omelette," he agrees. "Coffee. Fruit. Sausage. And maybe some toast."

Danicka

Cereal, he says. Danicka wails "Nooo," and flails with her foot at his leg, batting at him. He spanks her. And then, basically, rolls her around and around in bed til she yelps and he's nomfing her knee and wrestling with her though she stays quite limp through it all, just saying noooo and bapping ineffectually and half-heartedly at his shoulders. "You are a bad man," she insists, when he finally glomps her close and goes still again. "You move around so much."

So she bites his shoulder, her hair spread all over his arm and his chest, setting her teeth in him like she owns him, like he's hers, because he is. She wears one thing to bed most nights and he gave it to her, he insisted on it, even though she did it mostly to make him happy

before she realized how happy it made her.

"I am Lookasch," she grunts, in a big, booming, low voice. She's still biting his shoulder, so it's muffled. "I will add meat and complex carbohydrates to ALL the things!"

Lukas

Well. There were a few nights when there were cubs in the house, that Danicka wore a little more than that one bit of rose gold around her finger. He didn't mind; there was something sweet and comforting about his mate snuggled up in something warm. He just -- well. Likes her even better like this.

Playful. Not rushing out of bed. Biting his shoulder like he's nothing to fear, nothing to run from. Something to want, and hold onto, and keep. Hers. "Ow," he deadpans, but he doesn't mean it. She flops on him; she does the worst impression of him he's ever heard.

"Oh, come on," he protests. "What's egg without sausage or bacon? It's practically a required ingredient. Besides, if I didn't add meat and complex carbohydrates to everything, you'd still be the skinny little thing you were three years ago."

Danicka

Cubs in the house, Danicka wore a t-shirt and shorts. Underwear at the very least. Even after he fucked her that first night, even after they pulled and gasped at each other because some drive in them was aching for children of their own, she got something and put it on. Christmas morning, in particular, she was dressed. Kando and Irena and Emanek all crowded around her and nearly shoved Lukas out of the bed, a stunningly accurate precursor for what Children Of Their Own will do. Mother is god. Daddy is just daddy and he is very nice but, see, he's not mom, thankyouverymuch.

But the only one in his bed now is Danicka, and it is her bed as well, her den, the one he found and made clean and safe for her, the one she made warm to welcome him back. And she is naked in his arms, lazy and warm and smiling. She unhooks her teeth from his skin and thwaps him, though. "Hey," she says, frowning at the skinny comment.

Lukas

Instantly that sends a shadow across Lukas's face as well. He touches her face: his palm to her cheek, his fingers threading her hair. It's a sort of thoughtless, gentle gesture. Animal biologists would recognize it: grooming behavior. Simplistic, animal expressions of adoration, apology.

"I was kidding, láska," he says softly. "About being the reason, anyway. You were slight when I met you though." His hand cups her shoulder, smooths down her arm. Up again. "It worried me sometimes."

Danicka

The frown doesn't leave her. It deepens, though it doesn't sharpen. She's still so soft to him. He could frenzy on her, come at her, and she wouldn't shoot him. They've been there; it's the truth. She can't help it, though it is a sorrow and a fright to know it. What he does is physical and verbal, everything he can do to show her he is sorry and he means it. Yet she frowns, still, even though she lets him touch her like this, move closer, accepts that physical apology and thus, perhaps, the verbal one as well.

"Don't tease me for being skinny," she says, quiet, firm. "It's just as hurtful as if you teased me for being fat."

Lukas

Lukas can hardly stand it. It's frightening, how easily she can demolish him: with a word, a gesture, a glance, a single rebuke. They are the children of wolves. They are the heirs to a long and bloody history; scions of a tribe that values nothing more than strength and victory at any cost. He should be terrified of this sort of power. This sort of hold she has over him.

He's not. He opens himself to whatever hurt she might give him because he believes, he knows, she would never willingly hurt him. He has no proof of this, though it is there: there on that raining night when he lost his mind, there when she put a bullet into the thing that was trying to hurt him,

which was also the one thing that might have distracted him from tearing her apart.

Their love is a complex, terrifying thing. But it's the very best thing in his life. He knows this, too.

Right now, though, he loves her so much he can't stand it. Can't stand to know he's hurt her; can't stand to know he's been carelessly, thoughtlessly cruel. He wraps his arms around her. He pulls her to his chest, roughly, kissing her wherever he can reach her.

"Je mi to líto. I won't again, baby. I'm sorry."

Danicka

What he knows of that night he has had to remember in red hazes, snatches of fury and hunger and bloodlust. What he knows of that night, she has told him. And Danicka lies. Danicka tells half truths. Danicka holds back things like: I would have rather died than hurt you. I would have rather died than let something else harm you.

They never joke about the gun he gave her. They never joke about dying fighting and screaming. Especially not now.

He is devastated when she says those words to him. It's simple: a directive, not even phrased as a request, followed by an explanation. And it destroys him inside. He hurt her. If he were in another form he might be pacing, whining, his tail low and twitching with distress. He hurt her feelings and it's his fault oh it's his fault he did a bad thing and she's frowning now, oh. It hurts. It cuts like a knife so much sharper, so much more lethal, than any he could have cut her with. That's what love does.

I hurt you. I've never felt so much pain.

If Danicka could argue with his thoughts, she'd argue that he's never been thoughtlessly cruel -- cruely requires some element of calculation, even if it is lightning-fast and so ingrained as to be second nature. It's the carelessness and thoughtlessness that can sometimes be appalling, but is often -- as in this case -- just simple ignorance. He didn't know. He just didn't think of it. And he pulls at her, holds her, moments after understanding dawns in his eyes and blazes up as pain. Danicka saw that understanding. She holds him back, her arms slipping around his waist. And he kisses her, needing to be close, needing to be accepted, needing to touch.

So she accepts. And she presses closer, rubs her face along his jaw. "It's okay, baby," she says gently. "It is. You didn't know. You do now. It's okay. It isn't the end of the world."

Then her arms slide up, wrap around his shoulders. She lets him protect her, heal her. Then she does the same.

Lukas

His arms go all the way around her when he holds her like this. He nuzzles the side of her face, the curve of her neck: a continent of warmth beneath her, so large and protective and ferocious and adoring that it takes a certain amount of strength, of will, for her not to simply be swallowed by him.

"I know," he murmurs, nuzzling, kissing the side of her neck. "But I'm sorry anyway."

A little later his arms relent a little. He relaxes a little, his hands warm at her back, over the dip of her waist. His thumbs stroke thoughtless little sweeps there. He should get up, he thinks, but it's so hard to move.

"Don't ever stop doing that, all right?" -- this, a little later still. Quiet, thoughtful. He shifts on the pillow; looks at her if she meets his eyes. "Telling me if I say something to upset you."

Danicka

It scares her a little sometimes how much power she has over his heart, too. His spine could be broken in half tomorrow and he would be healed by sundown. Faster, with a talen. He could be set on fire and shake it off. Yet she tells him don't tease me like that, it hurts my feelings and he almost seems to shatter in her palms. So she cups them together and holds on to every shard until he takes that deep breath, inhales her scent, feels her sink back into his heart, and then he's okay again. Lukas heals fast from this, too. But still, it frightens her. There have been other hearts broken by her hand. She would not like to see another.

Though he relents, Danicka goes on holding him quite tightly for awhile. Or close, at least. He lets his hands rest at the small of her back; she cradles hers around his shoulders, stroking his hair idly with her fingertips, the rounded ends of her nails. They touch each other in much the same way, and still do not leave bed.

She is watching his eyes, smiling, her hair a mess, and just nods. "I promise," she says. "If you promise to try not to take it so hard." Her eyebrows tug together a little on that request; she leans over and kisses his mouth quick and soft. "Miluji t . Musíte v Å™it, že jsem vám odpustí."

Danicka

[Czech: I love you. You have to believe that I will forgive you.]

Lukas

"V Å™ím, že to," he replies, unhesitatingly.

Her hair is a mess. He loves it like this, though. He loves her hair, period; he loves her mouth, he loves her voice, he loves her. Still, he raises his hair. He's so careful when he does this, those big swordsman's hands shockingly delicate: he combs his fingers through her hair, undoes the tangles and snarls that have risen in the night. It's not always like this. His hands aren't always gentle on her. Sometimes he pushes his fingers heavily, draggingly through her hair. Sometimes he turns her over and bears her down, moves inside her like a beast.

Those thoughts flicker and burn and die in his eyes. He lifts his head, returns that kiss of hers, quick, soft. "I'm not taking it hard," he adds, a sort of gentle arguing of that point. "I'm just taking it seriously. And I want to take it seriously."

Lukas

[SIGH. Czech: "I believe it."]

Danicka

There will never be a day when Danicka forgets what her mate really is. As gentle as he can be, as soft, he's... a werewolf. And no matter how fearful she can be, no matter how much she loves his gentleness, some part of her craves the roughness, the animalism, the part of him that growls and hungers and is driven by need and instinct. She ran from that for a very long time. Even when she was drawn to it. Especially when she was drawn to it.

Quick and sweet, though, she kisses his mouth again. Because there is this, too, and it's something she's not found with anyone, ever. No one has made her laugh like Lukas does. She fell in love with him a little just at the sight of him laughing, covered in feathers from a pillowfight, pretending to be Very Serious. She is in love with the part of him that mists up a little to see his entire family-pack gathered around a birthday cake for him. She is in love with the part of him that has to ask for pastries to be removed from his sight entirely lest he gorge himself and throw up.

That's different. That, she's never known before. And she saw that, she realizes, even before they made love for the first time. That smile. The way he could make her laugh as much as flinch.

So she gives him that quick little kiss and just smiles at him. "Pedant," she gentle-argues back. Teases. She says it the way she says he's a worrywart: it's nothing she would change about him. Not really. He worries over her when she pushes herself so very hard, when he sees that Danicka -- who gets bored halfway through doing dishes and does something else and complains constantly when having to put away laundry and asks if they can't just have a maid come here, seriously even if she doesn't mean it -- becomes a rabid perfectionist who has to be reminded to eat (something more than protein bars) and sleep (for more than four hours) when it comes to her schoolwork. And Danicka fusses at him for being a worrywart, for arguing minute points, for being so specific and so careful.

These are things they love about each other. Things they admire. Things that they would not change and yet want to protect each other from. Naturally.

"Thank you," she says, and leaves it at that. He didn't always take her seriously. More than once at the start, he would outright scoff at her if she called him on some bullshit or another. He would ask her if she was really mad about something so stupid. He dismissed it. He hasn't done that in a very, very long time. She's almost forgotten that side of him. But he hasn't. And he won't. And he can't.

So she doesn't ask him to.

She rubs her face on his chest, though. "I'm hungry," she complains, and bites his chest softly. "Make me breakfast," she adds, after her teeth have scraped him a little. "Feed mate."

Lukas

Curious, the things they remember and forget about each other. She never forgets that he is an animal. She never forgets, even, that he is a monster. A creature out of myth and legend and horror. And yet she does forget -- forgive, at least, and sometimes forget -- that he used to be cruel to her. He used to do that, not because he didn't care, not because his soul didn't keen at the smell of her, remember her from the life before and the life before that and all the ones before those,

but because he was young, and foolish, and unsure of what true honor was, and frightened of what true love is.

She forgives him that. He doesn't forget that, though, and doesn't want to. It's a painful memory full of regret; it stays with him. It teaches him. He's like that: serious, determined, driven to do better. And sometimes, she has to protect him from that, too. He can be such a worrywart.

For the second time this morning, Danicka sets her teeth in her mate. He laughs at the sensation, the meat of his pectoralis contracting reflexively for an instant. Feed mate, she demands. He takes her face between his hands, gently, and kisses her on the mouth.

"Okay," he agrees, and sits up. And changes his mind, at least momentarily: wraps his arms around her waist again, glomps her, buries his face against her neck. "Mám te rád," he says. They don't say it very often: they rarely say those words lightly enough, casually enough, that the phrase seems appropriate. It does right now, though. He is affectionate, warm. A little playful: the storm past, the sun returning.

Somewhat unceremoniously, he tumbles her aside then and clambers off the bed. "Stay upstairs," he says. "I'll be right back."

Danicka

They rarely say that they love one another, period. It isn't that they shy from it; when it comes, it comes naturally and smoothly. But it is a private, deep thing. They say it when they are alone or when it matters, when it matters a great deal. They are Czech; you just don't need to prattle on and on about feelings like that. This lighter, sweeter, more-appropriate-for-company phrase, however, they also don't say very much. Even less, perhaps, that the fact that they love each other.

It's not because they don't feel happy and tender. It's because both of them, every time, opt for the kiss, the hug, the teasing swat on the flank, the yelp of delight, the fond laugh. They say it like that, with body and scent and gifts. Words are, and have always been, the source of misunderstanding.

So he kisses her mouth, too, and tumbles her off of him, and she flops on their bed, which rebounds under her when his weight leaves it. She grins after him. "Nooo," she says weakly, without in any sense trying to stop him. When he leaves, she yawns. She stretches, half under the tangled covers and half out of them. Her nipples are hard in the winter chill of the house, the heater turned down while they sleep. She drowses, looking at the window nearest the bed, the cold sunlight outside. Eventually she bundles herself in the comforter and climbs off of bed. Goes to the bathroom. Washes up, splashes water on her face. And goes into the study to sit on the floor, wrapped in their enormous, fluffy bedding, and read a Calvin & Hobbes book.

Lukas

For his part, Lukas grabs a robe from the bathroom, gives his teeth a quick brush, and -- leaving that bathroom as his mate is entering -- grins at Danicka before heading out.

They turn the heat down at night. They close the vents downstairs, too, leaving most of the warmth to make its way to their little bedroom. The hallway outside is colder, making Lukas shiver as he exits. He closes the door behind him to keep the warmth in. Through the windows Danicka can see the frost on the sere grass; their young oak braving the weather. Not a lot of snow, this year, but enough still to whiten most of the yard. There are still footprints from the kids wandering around the back.

Danicka can hear Lukas thumping around downstairs. Eventually, the smell of cooking eggs and sausage drifts upstairs. A knife on a chopping block; a toaster popping up. Then footsteps on the stairs, the faint rattle of utensils on a tray. She hears him open the bedroom door first; a faint questioning sound when he doesn't see her. Then the bathroom door opening. Then the other bathroom door opening, and he finds her, and he breaks into that smile of his, and if he were in another form his ears would be perked, his tail would wag.

"There you are," he says. He sets the tray on the floor. A big plate of eggs and sausage. A big plate of fruit. Four slices of toast with butter on a dish. Two big glasses of juice. He sits beside her, snuggling under the comforter. Spotting the book: "Is that one of mine?"

Danicka

That's the way he looks when he used to find her at her apartment, or the library at her college, or here. So excited, so pleased, so proud of himself because he found her. Yes he did. She grins up at him when he enters. Wasn't grinning at first but then he walked in and his eyes lit up like that and she all but laughs. He puts the food down before he works himself under, into the blanket with her, and she laughs as they readjust.

"Yeah," she says, tenderly. It isn't a new book by any means; the edges are dulled, a little grey from use and touch. The spine is cracked. His name is scrawled somewhere at the beginning. The Days Are Just Packed, it says. She eyes the spread, finds the cup of coffee amidst the juice, and a fork, and allows her arm out of the comforter to dig in. She wasn't kidding. And that is how he knows how she feels, in a way: Danicka never eats to comfort herself. Danicka eats because she is comforted.

She eats a bite of sausage. She tries to feed him a slice of strawberry, grinning as politely as possible while chewing.

Lukas

Lukas, needless to say, digs right in alongside Danicka. He makes little sandwiches: egg and sausage on toast, open-faced, creased a little so things didn't spill all over their bedding. For a while there's a comfortable silence between them. He's close enough that sometimes his arm brushes hers when he leans forward for a bite. His knee rests easily against hers.

And there's coffee, and juice, but Danicka mostly drinks the coffee and Lukas mostly drinks the juice. There's one big plate for the main courses, which they share the same way they've shared pierogi platters, sausage platters, pizza pies, the rest. He demolishes most of the sausage. She eats like she's hungry, though, which prevents him from pushing food too avidly at her; he's satisfied with what she's doing by herself. Eventually, as breakfast winds down, Lukas sets his fork down, nabs another bit of melon from the fruit plate, and then wipes his fingers on a paper towel and drags the book over.

"I wanted Calvin and Hobbes so much when I was little," he says. "I'd go to the bookstore and sit in the kids' section and read and read. I didn't think my parents would buy it though. Ten dollars seemed like a lot of money back then. Then one Christmas I woke up and all three of the Treasuries were under the tree, plus this. It had just come out that year. I was so happy." He thinks a moment; the smile fades. "I think I wanted to bring them to your house, but ... that was around the time we stopped visiting."

Danicka

Those were odd times. Right around the time the Kvasnickas stopped visiting was right around the time they started seeing rage flicker in their son's eyes. Right around the time the rage began to burn in him, the tribe began to take notice of their wayward, disgraced little family. Two kin, both very well-bred, producing a full-blooded Garou? And one born under a full moon, no less. Of course they were interested. And then things began to get better for his family. Easier. And he began to grow harder.

Danicka is smiling as he tells her this, having settled down from ravenous eating to nibbling on fruit and toast, sipping her coffee as it cools. She thinks of the frozen foods and the pantry items that they, even with the family, never got around to eating. She wonders if they can cook it all before it goes bad, but this is a fairly sizable neighborhood -- there are places to drop off extra food, places where it will be used.

Books are such a strangely poignant thing between them. All the ones he had, all the ones he longed for, all the ones he lovingly put his name into, claimed as his own. All the ones she forsook after her brother punished her for one thing or another, some stupid reason, some horrific trial he decided to put her through because he could, and because she was vulnerable.

"I bet you did," she says softly, smiling at him. She's just looking at him, smiling at him, and then,

not quite out of nowhere,

Danicka sighs: "I want to have a baby."

Lukas

Lukas is not so stupid, nor so buffoonish, not to instantly understand what she's saying. He's known -- they've both known for some time -- that they want children. Two, they might've thought once. Then three, his subconscious whispered. And now: four. Four cubs in their den. Four cubs growing strong.

That's not what she's saying, though. She's not saying someday this time, or senior year, or even soon. She just says it:

she wants to have a baby.

He's very still beside her. He's thinking very hard, thoughts spinning behind his eyes, which are still sort of just staring at the book. Then he closes Calvin and Hobbes very gently, sets it aside. When his hand returns, it seeks hers out. His fingers lace through hers.

Softly: "Now?"

Danicka

They both come from families with two children. One a piece. Boy, girl. But then there's Danicka's extended family: six children to one half-sister, one child to another. She doesn't care if they are Garou or kin. She doesn't care if they're dark haired or fair or male or female or striped or have a stigmatism or loud voices or sticky hands. Four, she said, when he said a billion, pulling her up onto his body with a desire that she couldn't believe she felt, a desire she'd never seen in him before or really heard voiced, but a desire she somehow knew had always been there.

And then they fucked, eager and playful and a little tender-rough, trying not to laugh aloud, trying not to moan except into the pillows, stifling it all. They knew, they knew logically, that they weren't going to get pregnant. And the truth is: Danicka was disappointed.

Lukas doesn't recoil. He doesn't panic. He doesn't get that half-laughing, nervous sound to his voice like the last time they truly, seriously talked about children, confirming that yeah, she wasn't graduating til 2013 and that's when she wanted to have kids, nice and tidy in between college and grad school, just perfect and everything neat and wrapped up in a bow. Only now -- and let's be fair, they are both still caught in the wake of a house full of family, rooms full of children, everyone noisy and piled together and literally crowding into their bed on Christmas morning like a goddamn televised special, and emotions may indeed be running a bit high -- she's saying:

I want. Not 'I want to have kids someday' or even 'yes I want to be a mother' or 'perhaps we should have four'. She's saying something she hasn't said quite so specifically: she wants to have a baby.

And he asks, and she says -- her hand holding his, her eyes watching his profile -- "Yeah. Or... you know. Forty weeks after you knock me up, which might take awhile. I've been on the pill for like... ten years or something."

Lukas

He looks at her then. Even in profile the color of his irises is visible; straight-on, they are shocking, unbelievable. He studies her for a long moment. Then he leans in, his eyes closing, his brow touching hers a moment before he kisses her. Catches her lip very, very gently between his teeth -- an odd, tender, strange little nip.

"You're still in school," he says softly. He's not trying to dissuade her. It's not that. But he is doing what he thinks he should: laying out the facts, the cons when the pros seem so instinctively right. "You could end up having a baby right as senior year starts. Or right in the middle of finals. Or right before graduation.

"And no more lazy mornings. Not often, anyway. No more fucking in the living room yowling like banshees, unless we get rid of the kids somehow." He's smiling a little now, but he schools it; he gets serious again. "I just want you to be sure. I want us both to be sure. It was great having the kids here over Christmas, but ... this would be real. They'd be ours."

Danicka

For a brief but shockingly real moment, Danicka thinks that kiss means he's saying yes. Now. Okay. She puts her hand on his jaw and is leaning into that kiss, but he means it to be soft. Soft, at least, til he catches her lip in his teeth. It feels like a claim to her in that moment; she takes that as a yes. His mate. Their cubs. Now. But that's just one second, perhaps two, before he pulls back, speaks again.

Her eyes stay on his. There is, truth be told, a flicker of lust in her eyes. In that second that she thought he was saying yes, she was saying -- her body and her spirit long before her mind -- were saying let's get started right now, just as he did.

But it sounds, then, like he's trying to dissuade her. He isn't. She looks saddened, almost, perhaps even defensive. And starts to insist something, something, before he can even finish his thoughts. She claps her mouth shut and the unfair truth is that she's not listening to him so much as waiting for her turn to rebutt:

"So if I get a due date that's any of those times I can take a semester off. It's not ideal but it's not an impossibility by any stretch. I'm not going to make myself sit through finals while I'm staving off labor or something like that. And if fewer lazy mornings or having to be creative about sex and hiring babysitters are the only other reasons you have for waiting then... those aren't even reasons. They're stalling."

Danicka reaches down, taking his hand in both of hers this time, holding it. "Baby, you know I'm sure. For awhile now it hasn't been a question of whether, it's just been a question of when. And I really don't think either of us are imagining it being like Christmas all the time." She goes quiet a moment, and her brow wrinkles. "Lukáš...I remember when you came back from that rite and told me about what you saw. I wasn't ready then, and it hurt to hear you talk about it. But you came back and even though you knew they weren't real, they weren't really yours, you looked and sounded like it broke your heart to leave them. Just like it broke your heart when all the kids were here and you had to remember that they weren't yours."

She means Irena. All of them, sure, but... Irena most of all. They both know that. Irena who is, in a way, his. Or will be, when he has to be cold to her to teach her to be strong. When he has to bruise her love for him so that she will not worship false idols. When he has to break her down so that she will rise, rebuilding herself, all the more savage and controlled. Still she would not be really his. Not his daughter. Not his cub.

But this would be theirs.

Lifting his hand, Danicka gives it a kiss. "I'm not trying to argue you, and I'm not going to just stop taking birth control and spring parenthood on you. I just want you to know..." she takes a breath, exhales shortly, her shoulders dropping: "I'm ready. And this is what I want. I've been thinking about this longer than the past few days, baby," Danicka adds in a whisper. "I'm sure. And if you are, too, then I don't want to wait for anything."

Lukas

When she lifts his hand, he discovers his fingers are still laced with hers. He's almost forgotten. Sometimes being close to her is like that: he forgets what it was like before they were close. He forgets what it was like to not have this.

She kisses the back of his hand. He uncurls one finger, strokes her cheek. When their hands come back down, he takes hers, brings it into the hammock of fabric created by the comforter draping across his knees. His answer doesn't come immediately; this can't be a surprise to her after so long. She knows him. Her mate is an animal at heart, but he tries so hard to layer thought upon instinct. He is deeply deliberate. Sometimes he calculates, but rarely with her. With her, he's simply ... careful, sometimes. He is sometimes afraid of what will happen if he's not.

"When I was in the Rite," he says finally, "I loved those kids so much. I can still see them. Hear their voices. Sometimes it makes me sad that even when we do have children, it won't be them.

"But even when I was being shown what I really wanted in my heart, and being not just allowed but encouraged to reach out, take it -- even then, I was afraid that maybe you weren't really happy like that. Being a mother. Being busy all the time. Having to be responsible for so many other dependent lives. Having to do so much of it alone, because the kids could only handle being around me for so long.

"I'm afraid you'll come to regret it. Or resent it. Resent me."

Another pause. Then:

"But I know fear of something that may or may not happen isn't a reason to never even try."

Danicka

This time, he tells her things he hasn't before: how much he loved those children, how much they have stayed with him, and that he is sad sometimes that he will never see them again. That his children, his real cubs, won't be the ones he saw. Danicka is curled against him and with him in that cocoon of down and cotton, and it smells faintly like them and their sleeping from the last few days. She can smell Lukas, too. He's so warm, even when he isn't sweating from exertion or sex. The scent of him makes her want him sometimes. And this startles but does not surprise her: the thought of him being the father of her children makes her want him, too.

She kisses his knuckles; he touches her face. He admits truths he hasn't been able to voice yet, after a long silence. He tells her one thing he told her before, too: he was so afraid that she didn't want it, too. That she would resent him, regret their children, that it would be too much, that she would be giving up everything, that it would ruin her life. He loved them. He wanted them. But his fear was that she didn't. Wouldn't. That he'd gain them, but lose her. Unthinkable. Unbearable.

Danicka's brow furrows. "Baby, no." She shakes her head gently. "I... know what it means. I was raised by the mate of an Ahroun. My sister was the mate of an Ahroun and he left her with a grave and six children. I know what this life looks like, and it isn't as bad as you're afraid it is." She pauses there. She's thinking of Sarka; he's thinking of what Danicka endured as a child. "It doesn't have to be," she corrects.

This time, she touches his face, stroking his hair back, watching his eyes. "Baby... this is what I want. And if we have to get a nanny so I can keep going to school and going to work, that's okay. If you and I get strained by it, I don't think it will be any worse than some of what we've already been through. We have family and they're not so far away that they won't be able to help."

Danicka shakes her head. "I am not thinking it's going to be perfect or even happy all the time. But this is what I want. I want to have children. I want to have a lot of them. I want to be their mother. And even if you're gone, I'll still be their mother. And even if I'm gone, you'll always be their father."

She leans forward, leans up, and kisses the corner of his mouth, the crest of his cheek. "We both want this, laska," she whispers. "As much as we wanted each other."

Lukas

There's always this: when she kisses him, when she draws close to him, he responds. His eyes grow sleepy, hooded; they close. He tilts his head toward her touch, leans into the kiss. When she strokes his hair a certain way, he wants her so quickly, hardens for her so quickly that she wants to laugh. She does laugh, sometimes. It doesn't offend him.

She doesn't laugh today, though. And he aches a little inside, thinking of the future, thinking of the what-ifs, thinking of one or the other raising those cubs alone; how devastating that would be, to care for those last reminders of a mate they've lost and will never ever find again in this life; what a good job they would do of it, regardless.

"Okay," he whispers. His hand squeezes hers once; he nuzzles her face to face, eyes closed. Then open, looking at her seriously, solemnly. "Let's have kids. How do we ... do you need to go see a doctor?"

Danicka

It isn't the way he responds to her then that makes Danicka laugh. She kisses him, and he leans into it like an animal being stroked. She touches his hair above his ear and it's just a little different from when she moves a sweat-dampened curl off his brow; it changes how he reacts to her. She knows these things. She doesn't laugh right now.

It's is solemnity that does her in this time. She laughs at the serious way he says Let's have kids, and it isn't mockery, it's pure happiness. She beams at him, smiles even while he's nuzzling her, her hand opening over his cheek. "Oh, baby," she murmurs, an undertone of a purr to her voice.

Danicka nuzzles him back, kisses his temple. "I don't suppose I need to, but I'll set up an appointment with my ob/gyn. Just to ask some questions and get a check-up, start some vitamins. She'll probably do some lab tests and exams, especially since I've miscarried previously." She smiles, breathing in deep, exhaling quietly through her nose. It's a sad thing for her to mention. But it's also the truth. Leaning up -- as though they've ever separated far, even to talk -- she nuzzles him heavily along his jaw. She smells him. She tucks herself under his chin and holds him within the blanket.

"And then you'll start cleaning out Kando's litterbox for the rest of the year," she adds brightly.

Lukas

"I suppose I'll be cooking you breakfast in bed every day too," Lukas mock-grumbles. She tucks closer. He puts his arms around her, hauls her wholesale into his lap, his chin resting on or over her shoulder. Sometimes, Danicka must feel a little like Kandovany: prone to being randomly moved about by the large warm male-thing. "But you have to tell my mother the good news when the time comes. She'll probably cry, and I can't deal with that.

"Oh, no," a horrified realization of sorts, "she's going to think this is all because of the hints she dropped at Christmas. She's never going to stop giving us marital and childrearing advice now."

Danicka

Danicka nips him for the grumbling. "I'm serious. Cat poop is really bad for pregnant women!" she insists, and he's wrapping her up and hauling her into his lap and she's muttering: "I'm going to get you books so you know how all this works." As though books could, with the two of them, be considered a punishment somehow. She snuggles closer, and shivers until his arms cross over her back, staving off the cool air upon skin that's been bared.

Secretly, she smiles. Not that her other smiles needed to be hidden, but now she has her own. His chin on her shoulder, her chin on his, she smiles to herself, curling into his warmth. It's hers. Her very own. Just like he is. And this home. And whatever children they have.

"You are a coward," she tells him, teasingly, because she would never call him such a thing seriously. He never hesitates. He never holds back. Not in battle. But he is afraid of his mother crying. "We'll do it on speakerphone." And then he realizes: his mother is going to never stop giving advice! Onoz!

Danicka outright laughs, pulling back to see him. "Lukáš... you're living in a dream world if you think she'd ever stop, regardless. We told her at least twice when she'd hint-drop that no, we didn't need to be convinced, we wanted to have children and plenty of them, thankyouverymuch. If she thinks it's her doing, let her." She rubs her nose on his. It's vomitously cute. "And if she gets too nosy with the advice-giving, we'll sic your dad on her."

She grins at him, beaming all over again. Danicka gives a little bounce in his lap. "Wanna get started?"

Lukas

"Cat poop is just bad, period," Lukas opines.

They discuss his mother. Or well. He expresses his fear; she laughs at him. She rubs her nose against his. She offers a solution: sic his dad on her! Lukas, meanwhile

has sort of forgotten about his parents. He has a lap full of mate. Who would want to think of their parents then? So he doesn't: he nuzzles her; he's never really stopped nuzzling her. She gives that little bounce of hers and he draws a quickened breath. Gives her a lazy sort of half-smile.

"You're still on the pill," he points out. His hands find her hip in their cocoon of blankets, which are starting to slip awry. Her shoulder is bared. He kisses it. Shifts her closer. "So I think we should just call this an undressed rehearsal."

Ha, ha. He's quite punny, her mate.

Danicka

"Haven't taken it yet today," she corrects him brightly, though

they both know how this works. They've talked about it. It could take months for her system to normalize again after so many years on birth control. He makes a joke about an undressed rehearsal; Danicka, who is naked as she was in sleep, tilts her head back and rolls her eyes. She's sort of tangled in his lap, sitting half-sideways, but when he takes that quick little breath at the way she bounces, Danicka turns to him, opens her legs over him, straddles him. All of her cuddling with him has disheveled his bathrobe a bit, at least from his shoulders.

A shrug, and the blanket slips from her torso utterly, falling to her hips as he holds them, pulls her closer. Danicka's arms loop lazily around his neck.

"It is our anniversary," she murmurs, even as her hips roll slowly, slowly on top of him. "Maybe I should make you wait til tonight."

Lukas

There's something relaxed, warm, a little bit roguish about the tilt of Lukas's mouth. They are shifting against one another. She rolls her hips. He tugs that blanket as it begins to slip, helps it all the way down. It's chillier in the study than it was in the bedroom, and the same primal instinct that had him covering her shoulder that very first night makes him open his hand over her back

even as the other hand starts to tug the knot of his bathrobe apart.

"That," he opines, "makes very little sense at all. It's our anniversary. That means we shouldn't have to wait."

His knuckles brush her abdomen. He tugs the sash open, shrugs out of the top half of his bathrobe. Even paled with winter his skin is a contrast to hers, olive to golden. His head dips. He growls in his throat, playfully, as he bites at her shoulder; licks her collarbone.

"At any rate," he adds, "I doubt you really want to."

Danicka

This is how it was the last time they talked about getting started, starting right now. Playful. Eager. Danicka lifts up her hips a bit as he undoes the tie of his bathrobe's belt. She doesn't like it when he wears bathrobes. Covers up some of the best parts of him. She likes his bare arms, his naked chest, the ridges of his abdomen

and the scar crossing it, just like another Ahroun she once met,

and all of him open to her, touchable. It's coming off, though. She touches. She helps it off his arms, pushing the soft terry away and coming back to him, laying her forearm along the back of his neck, cradling his head in her palm. She kisses him, heady but not rushed, all but insisting with the tip of her tongue that his mouth open to hers.

It's like opening a lock with a key.

The truth is, seduction is Danicka's game. Making him want her. The spots on his body to touch, the tone of her voice to affect, a certain way she looks at him. A slight arch to her back, a tremor in a sigh -- she knows how quickly she can make his heart pound, make his blood rush, make him hard for her, panting for her. When Danicka wants Lukas she can run her hands over him and ignite every thing in him she could want.

But she knows this, even if Lukas does not: after that, it's in his hands: not just taking what he wants, but pleasing her. He knows -- he learned, quickly and studiously and with an element of perfectionism -- the spot on her neck where, if he licks her, she will shudder all the way down to her toes. He knows the exact change in her breathing that signals that she wants him to be soft, to be slow, to be decadent with her body. He knows what timbre of moan means she wants him to mount her, fuck her, wreck her. He plays her like a harp, then. Makes her lose her mind -- Danicka, who so rarely loses control, even at her most emotional, even at her most exhausted. Danicka, who for all her life only feigned surrender. He knows how to make her his.

And he does. He has. She unlocks him like she has a key, and those kisses grow more heated, more insistent, until he's leaning back and watching and she's wrapping her hand around his cock and guiding him into her, gasping at the first, firm push. Danicka's hands tighten on his shoulders as she sinks down, let him go when he falls back onto the cloud of bedding they've created, his hands holding her thighs, her cunt starting to work on him.

For all their playfulness, they make love in that deep, grinding way they sometimes have, slow and torturous. She puts her hands on his chest and rides him, hair falling down her back, gasps lifted up like offerings. Her exposed throat makes him come up to her again, as though he can't bear not to lick her there, kiss her, move his mouth to the flow of neck into shoulder and hold her in his teeth.

A low, plaintive moan then. Maybe it's just lust. Maybe it's just need. But it triggers something in him, protective and aroused at once, and in one sudden, unbroken motion he lays her on her back, bends himself over her, fucks himself into her that much harder. That's when she starts to moan aloud, clutching at his back, riding him just as earnestly even when she's under him. That's when she starts -- as he might put it -- yowling like a banshee.

It's Danicka who grabs him at the end. Puts her hands on his face and pulls him near, kisses him hard, loosing all of her groans into his mouth when she comes. It's so fucking tight, the squeeze and clench of her cunt burning through him like a line of gasoline set on fire. She's shuddering in the middle of it, her head falling back as she pants for air, scraping his shoulders with her nails, swearing -- but not in English this time -- the filthiest things. At one point she sounds like she's telling him not to stop, threatening him with god knows what if he does. He doesn't.

That smile, that little bounce on his lap -- that's how it started. Sweet. Cute. Playful. It ends roughly, with scratching and groaning and Danicka swearing at him and Lukas pounding his own orgasm out into her, filling her, losing his mind in her.

Afterward she barely moves. She's limp under him, eyes closed because the room took a twirl around her, opening them a few moments later to look for him. Sweat sticks her hair to her brow and cheeks. She looks flushed, pink and disheveled. Her eyes, green as moss, find him and hold him as securely as her arms.

Even moreso.

Mindlessly, foolishly, she wonders if a baby born in winter will have his glacial eyes, his charcoal hair. She wonders about the shape of his mouth and the line of his profile -- what will pass on and what will blend with hers. She wonders if any of his genes have a chance against hers, which seem so vibrant and strong: look at all the slew of Musil children they just sent back to New York and how similar they are to Danicka, how much they favor their mother's side of the family. Danicka smiles at him, thinking amorphous thoughts about these things, and kisses that shapely, curving, rogueish mouth of his. She runs her fingers through his hair and groans when he responds, lifting up on his elbows and pushing more deeply into her for a second, the two of them shaken apart by the aftermath of their own lust.

"Více," she whispers, whimpers, and now it isn't about making a child, and it isn't play, it's simply

that this is her mate. And they have been married for a year. They have survived for longer than that. There is not a day since she met him that she hasn't wanted him, longed for him, dreamt of him. She can't get enough of him. She will never leave him. More, she says, and holds him in her arms and legs until he can stand it, or until he can't, and he starts to move in her again. And again.

Lukas

It used to be that they were not capable of playfulness at all. Even now, what begins as a sweet, playful fuck rarely stays that way. It's as though their passion simply burns too strongly. Is too primal, too elemental, not to collapse into a white-hot core of need.

That's where they end up: weals on his back from her fingernails, the large muscles of his flank and thigh shuddering from exertion and release as he pounds himself into her. That's where they start again, Danicka moaning, whimpering, demanding more; Lukas gasping with his eyes closed, kissing her mouth before he's even quite ready,

pushing up on his hands with sweat rivuleting between the broad sweeps of his pectorals, sliding down his abdomen.

More, she says. More, he gives her: his fingers grasping the rumpled comforters this time, his eyes on the arch and rise of her body, the bounce of her tits, the way she wraps her legs around him and rides every stroke of his body into hers. What they have is extraordinary. What they have burns him up.
They're sweaty and a little filthy. They're collapsed in their nest of bedding, their legs crossed over one another's, hands drifting. He eats the last of the sausages, nibbles a grape or two. She curls against his side, kisses the side of his chest.

He muses aloud that it would be neat if their girls had his coloration, their boys hers. Or perhaps their genes would intermingle, producing children with black hair and green eyes; blonde and blue. He wonders if they'll be mistaken for Fangs, for Fenrir. They'll need to name them something unmistakably Shadow Lord if they come out blonde and blue, he jokes. Something with a lot of Vs and Ks in it, harsh and strong.

Kando scratches on the door. Lukas gets up to feed her, but he's downstairs for a long time, and when Danicka comes to see what he's doing she finds him sliding a frozen pizza into the oven, but when he turns to look at her there's a certain look in his eyes, a certain way he looks at her and smiles at her and puts his hands around her waist to pull her close when she comes to him, and

this is how her ankles end up by his ears as he rails her, this is how he ends up climbing onto the kitchen table at the end to wrap his arms around her and clutch her close because he can't bear to be so far from her, this is how they nearly wreck their kitchen table, collapse it with the weight and force of their lovemaking.

This is also how they end up eating slightly burnt pizza standing in the kitchen, because now they'll need to wipe that table down. Just, y'know. In case.

Afternoon starts to slide toward evening. It's winter; the days are short. But they're getting longer. Past solstice now. Past christmas. The last day of the year begins to wind to a close. They watch the pale sunset from their study. Lukas checks his email, and then it's time to hop in the shower, get clean, get dressed.

A room at the W. Not the room, the one with so much resonance for them, but one like it. West-facing, the lake dark under a darkening sky by the time they get there. Their personal chef for the evening arrives an hour later, on the stroke of eight. They have dinner by the window, where if they turn the lights down low they can see the stars, the glint of ships' lights far out on the lake. The chef leaves them be for the most part. Serves them soup and salad, oysters and scallops, herbed rack of lamb and seared petit filet. Lukas brought wine. He also brought Wyborowa. They start with one and move on to the next, and by the time the chef is serving them dessert and retiring from their presence they're no longer sitting across from each other; Lukas has dragged the couch over to the window and they're lounging side by side, refilling one another's glasses, getting tipsy

and then a little more than tipsy

and then laughing and stumbling their way through the dark, spilling that last shot of vodka that he's trying to down while she undoes his tie. All the way to the bedroom, where they fumble and tear at one another's clothes, where she slithers backwards up the bed, where follows on his knees with his cock in his hand, where she lays back and touches herself and tells him to stroke it, jerk it, show her how much he wants her, where he fairly faceplants between her legs and devours her like a sixth course to their meal. She laughs at his hunger. And then she's not laughing at all but gasping, clutching at his hair, writhing under him, and he

is making her come with that perfectionist's focus of his, with that excellent muscle memory of his, with that tongue of his that learned on her body just how to move.

Later on, replete from fucking, her legs sliding down the outside of his, she traces the dip of his lumbar spine with the tips of her fingers. He kisses the side of her neck. The drapes are open. The moon hangs outside their window. He is quiet now, breathing gently and deeply in her arms, relaxed, heavy, warm.

He thinks of cubs by the time winter comes again. Maybe before. Or one cub, at least. A tiny, helpless thing that they will both love more than life itself. Will protect, will teach, will nurture. Somewhere out in the dark fireworks begin to light up the sky. It's midnight. It's the first moment of the new year. He shifts, he rolls off her and brings her with him, they tangle together in bed and he

loves her more than life itself.