He furrowed his brows again, wondering if there was something she wasn't telling him, but he wasn't sure if he should ask. She had always been pretty honest with him before, but that was before Sol. "You do like him, right?" he asked, purposely not using the Big L Word, so as not to scare her.

"I think it goes a bit further than ..." She caught herself before she completed that sentence, but Ed wasn't stupid. "He's very good in the sack," she finished instead, knowing perfectly well that her brother didn't need to know that.

"Yes, well, that's all well and good, but it takes more than just that to build a relationship on," Edward pointed out, hoping she got his drift without coming right out and saying it. Okay, so she liked Sol a lot and they had great sex and they'd been seeing each other for about four months. Just how serious were things getting, he wondered.

"I know, all right?" Brynne raised a hand, rubbing her fingers through her hair agitatedly. "Look, I know what you're saying. I know. Okay' And yes, I ....feel that way about him. I just ....I don't want to make another mistake."

"Life is full of mistakes, Brynne," Edward reminded her with a sympathetic smile. "But hopefully, we learn from them." He knew she was afraid of getting into another relationship that might go bad, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

"Oh yeah, 'cos I learn really well," she drawled, but the light was back in her eyes as she smiled. "Thanks, Teddy." She reached up, hugging her brother close. "You put up with a hell of a lot from me."

He didn't think one failed relationship was any reason to think they'd all fail. "Do me a favor, Bree," he ventured gently. "Just try to have fun and enjoy it, okay?"

"Anything for my big brother," she smiled, easing back. "Okay, I gotta go and remove every hair from my body that isn't on my head. The things we do for the men in our lives ..." She flashed him a wink, calling out her goodbye to Lila, who answered enthusiastically from somewhere inside the house.

He chuckled, thinking that sounded painful, but daring not argue that it was the women who choose to put themselves through such torment due to their own sense of vanity than because they were trying to please their men. "Leave the eyebrows intact," he warned her, assuming she wasn't planning on shaving or waxing those.

"Hey, I'm proud of my uni-brow," she laughed, blowing him a kiss as she headed back to her car. "I'll see you tomorrow. Have fun!"

He chuckled again at her reply as he waved back at her. "You, too!" He just hoped she would take a little of her own advice and relax enough to have some fun of her own.

It was always a little difficult to leave Lila with anyone for the night, but if there was anyone she trusted, it was Ed and Lis. Brynne knew her daughter would have fun, and likely not miss her at all, and despite the faint sense of resentment at that latter knowledge, she was glad of it. After all, she did deserve some time that belonged just to her every now and then. And she did enjoy spending that time with Sol. She'd grown more and more comfortable with him as the weeks turned into months, more at ease with his company and his habit of asking oddly uncomfortable questions. She looked forward to spending time with him, and today was no different, for all her nerves. The ritual of getting ready for a date still didn't come entirely easily to her, but she managed to get everything done in time, studying herself in the mirror as the clock ticked closer to zero hour. Hopefully, she wouldn't let him down with her appearance, anyway.

Solomon Spencer had been doing his best to play it cool for the last four months. He'd dropped a few hints here and there about his feeling for Brynne, but he hadn't pushed her any faster than she'd wanted to go. He couldn't deny that the sex had been, well, incredible, but that wasn't all there was about their relationship - at least, he hoped so. There was a lot Sol hadn't told her yet, afraid she either wouldn't believe him or that it might scare her enough to push her away, but he'd decided that four months was enough. Tonight was the night to tell her the truth and put all of his cards on the table, despite the knowledge that he might lose her. Being a warlock had its advantages, and he'd spared no expense. The car that drove up to pick her up was still electric blue, but it was no Mini-Cooper. This thing had four doors and an engine that that roared, promising she could go.

Brynne was out of the door before he killed the engine, locking the front behind her before turning to make her way down the porch steps. She paused as she registered the car; the only thing familiar was the color. "New car?" she asked with a wide smile, one hand nervously smoothing down the powder blue silk of her dress as she moved closer.

Sol was already out of the car and meeting her halfway, admiring the view that was Brynne, all dressed up for an evening out. He smiled in approval and offered her a hand, dressed as impeccably as ever and looking ageless and timeless. "Something like that," he replied, without much of an explanation. "I must say, you look lovely tonight." Not that she didn't look lovely every night, but especially so tonight.

She actually blushed a little at his compliment, finally allowing herself to enjoy the way he looked at her. "Well, you did say to dress up nice," she shrugged, sliding her hand into his. "Besides, you always look good enough to eat. I can't let you down, can I?"

"Thank you, but tonight, I'm not the main course," he teased, an amused smile on his face, but with just a hint of nervousness. He wrapped his fingers around hers to lead her to the car, opening the door like a perfect gentleman to help her inside. He could have just as easily snapped his fingers and brought them to their destination, but sometimes it was better to do things the mortal way.

"So ....I didn't need to spend all that time de-foresting myself?" she asked innocently, smiling her thanks as he helped her into the car. She was grateful for the help, too; heels on gravel was not the best combination for anything close to dignity.

"I'm sorry?" he asked, not quite understanding what she meant by that. Though he prided himself on trying to keep up with the modern world, including slang, every now and then, something eluded him.

Brynne looked up at him, and chickened out of being totally honest. "It doesn't matter," she laughed, shaking her head. "Things women do when they're out on a date with a fantastic guy, that's all."

If he thought about that hard enough, he might be able to figure it out, but he wasn't sure he wanted to know, just now. "All settled?" he asked, once she was inside the car, before moving around to the driver's seat. He fastened his seatbelt, waiting to make sure hers was fastened as well, before revving the engine and starting off toward their destination.

"So ....what do you mean, something like a new car?" she asked curiously as he pulled away, wrapping her fingers around her clutch to keep herself from fidgeting. He seemed oddly ill at ease, though not obviously so. It wasn't doing much for her own case of nerves.

Where they were was Luks Condos, where Jon had once had an apartment before moving with Vicki to Maple Grove Manor. It had been empty for a while before he'd offered it to Sol, who had jumped at the offer and made the place home.

She smiled, taking his hand as he helped her out of the car. "All the perks working for the Grangers, huh?" she teased lightly. "How do you like Luks, then" It's pretty upmarket, from what I hear."

"I like it. It's far enough away from Maple Grove to offer some privacy but close enough that I can get there quickly," Sol replied, closing the door behind her and locking the door with a beep and a tap on the car's keypad. He could just have easily snapped his fingers and accomplished the same thing, but why bother"

"No noisy neighbors?" Brynne's grin was just a little cheeky - he'd been at her house often enough to know that, despite the distance between houses on the Grove, you could often hear someone else's good night in on a still night.

"Not really, and when they are ..." He snapped his fingers, just to indicate there was an easy fix to that, at least, for him. It didn't hurt that the walls were soundproofed, but even that didn't muffle every sound.

"Oh, I see." She slid her arm through his, like a real lady, letting him lead the way into his apartment building. "So you mojo your neighbors a lot, then, or is it only when things are a little out of hand?"

"There are some, let's say, interesting people living in the building," Sol explained in that vague way of his. He hadn't quite figured them all out yet, and he wasn't sure he wanted to, but then he wasn't exactly your run of the mill normal mortal either.

"Of course there are," she smiled, tilting her head to look up at him. "You live here." She squeezed his arm, shivering a little as her hair slid over her back and shoulder. That wasn't a feeling she was accustomed to.

"I will take that as a compliment," he told her with a smile as he led her toward the building. He had to swipe a keycard to get in and then they were heading for an elevator that would take them to the third floor.

"Oh, it's definitely a compliment," she promised. "You are, without a doubt, the most interesting person I have ever met." There was a soft pause before she added, "And the best man I have ever known, too."

"Except for your brother," he pointed out, knowing how fond she was of Edward, though not in the same way she was fond of him. As far as interesting was concerned, well, he'd have to see if she still thought him interesting once she knew all about him. The elevator took them up three flights before stopping, the doors swishing open. He led her down the hall to a door marked with the numbers 303. "Here we are," he said as they arrived in front of the door to the condo.

"Teddy's not a man, he's my brother," Brynne shrugged, dismissing the comparison easily. She let her eyes scan over the door he drew her to with a faint smile. "Do I need to speak a special password to get in?"

Sol chuckled at the description of her brother. "Teddy might have something to say about that, " he murmured. "No, but you can if you like," he added with another chuckle at her question.

She snorted with laughter, tilting her head thoughtfully. "Let's see ....you didn't go to Hogwarts, so it's not alohomora," she mused. "What about ....nopantius sexibeddum?"

"Don't try 'Open Sesame', though. It never works," he added with a grin. Laughing, he snapped his fingers and the door creaked open, like magic. Well, he was a warlock, after all. "That must be it!"

"Darn, that was going to be my next guess," she snickered. His casual use of magic no longer startled her, but she still felt a sweetly innocent thrill whenever he did it in front of her, the child inside always delighted by the proof that magic really did exist.

"After you," he said, with a wave of his hand. Inside, the apartment looked different than it had when Jon and Vicki had been living there. It was open and airy and modern and all done in shades of white and beige and gray, which gave a clean, calm look to the place. The focal point of the room, though, were large glass doors that opened onto a veranda and overlooked the city at large, the spaceport twinkling in the distance.

Stepping inside, Brynne let her gaze wander even as she automatically set her clutch down, surprised and impressed by the apartment she had walked into. Her eyes were drawn easily to the wide glass doors, and the view beyond, her face lighting up with a soft smile as she took a couple of steps in that direction. "What a view ..."

"Amazing, isn't it?" he asked, as he followed her, stepping ahead of her to open the doors which led onto the veranda, where a table and chairs were set up, all set for dinner and complete with crisp white tablecloth and candles. There was a bottle of wine chilling in a bucket of ice nearby, ready for pouring. It seemed he'd spared no expense, though it also seemed there was no one there but them.

She followed him out there, bypassing the table to lay her hands on the railing as she looked out over the city. "You know, I grew up in this city," she said softly. "Just down there." She pointed to a cramped block not so very far away. "I've never seen it like this before."

"You didn't grow up at the Grove?" he asked, one arm going around her waist as he joined her at the rail. He'd thought he knew everything about her, but it seemed she was still able to surprise him.

Leaning into him, she laid a gentle hand over his at her waist. "No, Mom and Dad ....they never liked being rich," she explained. "They liked to get by on what they could earn honestly. They raised all three of us in this poky little house that had two bedrooms, and about four feet of garden space, and ....I never wanted for anything. I was a nightmare teenager, though."

That explained a few things about her and her family - like why Madion might have gone off the rails and why Edward had gone off to Africa to do humanitarian work. "Why's that?" he asked, curiously. The more he found out about her, it seemed, the less he knew.

"I really don't know," she admitted. "I was an angry teenager. The whole world was out to get me, and make up rules that I didn't think made any sense. I rebelled against everyone who cared what happened to me." She shrugged. "That's how I ended up married at nineteen."

"We all make mistakes, love," Sol sympathized quietly, the term of endearment just slipping out. He quieted for a moment, as though he was considering his own, but he wasn't quite willing to share that just yet. "What would you like to drink?" he asked, though there was a bottle of wine clearly chilling in an ice bucket. Nothing was set in stone that he couldn't change with a snap of his fingers.

She smiled at the endearment that slipped from him, touching her temple to his as they stood together. It was a very comfortable quiet, this, but she had a feeling that comfort might well flee when he decided to begin his confession. "Do you have any ros??" she asked curiously. "I had this one once ...Mirabeau, I think it was called. It was delicious."

She felt the difference in that kiss; no less passionate, no less tender, but somehow softer, more enduring, more an expression of what had finally been shared than any kiss that had gone before it. Her eyes stayed closed as they drew apart, her forehead touching his as she breathed him in, needing that moment to compose herself again. "Gods, I must be the most obstinate person ever to have lived."

"Four months does not make one obstinate," Sol remarked with a chuckle as he drew back from the kiss but only far enough to be able to see her, forehead to forehead, close enough to share each other's breath. Four months was nothing in the grand scheme of things when one had been searching for the other for centuries.

Her lips curved in a flicker of a smile as she opened her eyes to meet his gaze. "And I bet I look like a panda now," she added, feeling the stickiness of mascara-laden tears drying on her cheeks. "So much for looking nice for you, huh?"

Sol smiled the kind of smile that was seen by few, the kind of smile that was reserved for that special someone, and for Sol, that special someone was Brynne and always had been Brynne, though he'd known her by a different name once. "You always look nice to me, Brynne," he assured her. Though he appreciated the fact that she'd dolled herself up for him, in his eyes, she was always beautiful, whether she was dressed up or dressed down or not dressed at all.

She laughed softly, drawing her palm against his cheek with a tender touch. "I love you, Sol," she said again, needing him to know that she wasn't just saying the words because she thought he was expecting them. She hadn't felt this way for anyone before him. "I doubt there's anything you can tell me that will change that."

The smile faded a little, his fears creeping in at the reminder of what he'd brought her here to tell her. "I hope that's true," he said with a sigh. "You should probably eat something first. It's a long story," he suggested, which meant it was going to take some time in the telling of it.

"Or you could tell me while we eat," she suggested quietly, determined not to be a coward and not to pressure him. Brynne really wasn't very patient when it came to wanting things, but she'd learned how to put her impatience on hold. That was coming in handy here.

"Very well," he replied and with a wave of his hand, the empty plates on the table were suddenly full, as if by magic because, of course, it was magic. "Grilled shrimp with garlic and ginger," he told her, the smell of it wafting over to where they stood nearby. "Unless you don't like shrimp," he added, just in case. He could, theoretically, produce anything she wanted within reason, after all.

Just the scent was enough to make her mouth water, reminding her that she hadn't actually eaten since breakfast. "I do like shrimp," she promised with a smile, moving over to the table at the sole behest of her stomach, which chose that moment to make its excitement known with a deep growl.

Sol smirked at her stomach's betrayal as he pulled out a chair to offer her a seat. There were only two of them, each with an equally breathtaking view of the city spread out before them. Even at four hundred or so years old, he was still a gentleman. Besides shrimp, there was a colorful salad full of fresh veggies and lightly sprinkled with a vinaigrette dressing, and of course, the wine. "I can cook when I want to, but there's not much point in cooking for one," he explained as he took a seat across from her.

"No, it's definitely official, you're spoiling me," Brynne announced as she sat down, her smile soft in thanks for his manners. She took another sip of wine, fingers twitching to start eating, but managed to restrain herself long enough for him to sit down as well. "You're teaching me how to cook," she reminded him cheerfully. "When you move in with us, there will be no mojo on the food side unless some major disaster makes it impossible to actually cook."

"Teaching you to cook?" he echoed. "Do you mean things like pasta and grilled cheese or are we talking gourmet?" he asked curiously as he reached over to refill the wine in their glasses.

"Sweetheart, I can't even make toast without burning it," she pointed out warmly. "Maybe we should start with the basics and work our way up. Lila would be amazed if I ever managed to make anything more complex than a sandwich."

"Shall we start at boiling water, then?" he asked with a smirk. Telling his story was going to be a little bit like that, starting with the basics and working his way up to the big reveal, so to speak. Was he procrastinating a little with small talk about cooking" Maybe, but they still had the whole night ahead of them.

"Hey, I can make tea and coffee," she protested laughingly. "Boiling water is fine. Everything else ....a disaster. Why else do you think I have a housekeeper?" And took Lila to dinner at her brother's house pretty much every day.

"A housekeeper is not the same as a cook," Sol pointed out, though he was splitting hairs a little. "Try it," he said, as he took up a fork and skewered a single shrimp. Not only did it smell divine, but it tasted even better than it smelled. And why shouldn't it' He'd "borrowed" it from a famous gourmet restaurant back on Earth that he favored.

Given permission to eat - because, despite her acerbic nature, she also had pretty good manners - Brynne impaled a shrimp on her fork and rammed it into her mouth. The sound she emitted was pretty familiar to him by now, but not in this context. "Marry me. Seriously."

"So, the way to a woman's heart is through her stomach, then," he teased, though maybe more accurately through her taste-buds. "I wish I could take the credit, but not even I am that good at cooking."

She laughed again, tucking her hair back behind her ear. "You make fantastic mac and cheese, I know that much," she pointed out. Lila had thoroughly enjoyed the one and only cooking lesson she'd had from Sol; she was eager to try it again sometime.

"Mac and cheese is easy," Sol remarked. "This takes some real skill," he said before skewering and ingesting yet another of the garlic and ginger flavored crustaceans.

"I have no doubt you have that kind of skill," she told him confidently. As much as she would have loved to savor the food in front of her, she was just too hungry. At least he was used to seeing her inhale the food on her plate. For a working mother, she had a terrible habit of not actually remembering to eat regularly.

Unlike her, he took his time with the meal, savoring each tasty morsel. At least, four hundred years hadn't ruined either his appetite or his ability to enjoy a good meal. They both turned quiet for a moment, Sol debating how to start his story, while Brynne wolfed down her dinner. After a moment, he chuckled. "Slow down, love. It's not going anywhere."

"Sorry." Cringing a little, she forced herself to slow down, making a point of putting her fork down before picking up her wine glass to take a slow sip. "Bad habit, I know. Even Bear tells me to slow down at dinner."

"Bad habits can be broken," he told her, taking up another piece of shrimp. He didn't really mind that she had a bad habit of rushing through her dinner, but he knew she'd enjoy eating a lot more if she learned to slow down.

She knew that well enough. Her worst habit - where she kept the whole world at arm's length - had been broken by the man sitting opposite her. What other bad habits of hers could he train her out of, she wondered. "True enough," she agreed, making an effort to chew slowly this time. "Tums might go out of business if I start eating like a normal adult, though."

She didn't want to disbelieve him. She desperately wanted to believe that he loved her, but after everything he'd said ...."What was she like?" she asked, reaching to hold onto something, anything, that might take this crushing sense of loss away from her.

The answer to that question was a simple one, and he smiled as he answered. "She was like you, Brynne." What had she expected to hear" That Jennet had been more beautiful than her, kinder, sweeter, gentler" A soul was a soul, and though Brynne was different from Jennet, she was very much the same, too. He moved to his feet, drawing her up with him. "I want to show you something."

He couldn't possibly know how much that simple answer comforted her. Like me. The woman he had loved so long ago, the woman who had asked him to find her soul after her death ....she was like the woman he believed she had been reincarnated as. It made sense, in a way. Brynne had always been the half-way point between Madion and Edward, despite sharing a womb with Mads. She'd never gone quite so far in her rebellion as her twin; never been quite so obsessive with her interests as her older brother. Without her, they would have been opposite sides of a coin; with her, they were bread in a sandwich. Was this why'

Drawn up onto her feet, she gripped his hand tighter, biting her lip hard. "Wh-what is it?"

"Something that once belonged to you," he told her as he drew her back inside the apartment. It was to his credit that he wasn't calling her Jennet or referring to that woman as someone else. A rose by any other name, after all, was still a rose, and the same went for Brynne. No matter what name she went by or what she looked like, she was possessed of the very same life essence as the woman who had once lived before her.

He drew her into the privacy of his bedroom, decorated as simply and tastefully as the rest of the apartment in clean and cool shades of tan and white. Atop a chest, stood a small intricately-carved box. It was to this he drew her closer. "I bought this for you a long time ago to hold your treasures," he told her, letting go of her hand so that he could pick the box up and hand it to her. "I be-spelled it so that no one can open it but you. Not even I can open it. You can take it home, if you like, and put it to the test, but I think you will find I am right." He knew it sounded like an unbelievable story, but unbelievable or not, it was the truth.

Feeling a little as though she had been cut loose from a stable mooring, Brynne took the little box from his hand, stroking her fingers over the intricate carvings. It was ....familiar, somehow, though she knew she had never seen it before. There was no lock; indeed, there didn't seem to be any way to open it. Yet when she brushed her fingers along the edge of the lid, it lifted fractionally, allowing her to raise that lid with only the faintest crackle of magic to betray the spell in effect. It wasn't proof, not really ....but what lay inside almost shocked the breath from her body. A small, desiccated rose, so old, so dry, that the color had leeched from the petals, leaving them as brown as a leaf in autumn.

"My gods ..." she breathed, gently lifting the delicate thing from where it lay with trembling fingers, feeling memories that weren't hers and yet were flooding her mind. "You ....you gave this to me. I'd always wanted a rose from the duke's garden, and you ....you stole one, just for me." A small furrow knitted her brows as she looked up at him in wonder. "How ...?"

She had never seen tears in Sol's eyes before, not until this very moment. He looked down at her with a mingled look of hope and sorrow and affection. The sorrow was for all the years that had been lost to them, and all the years it had taken him to find her. The hope was for what might yet be, if she chose to believe him, and the affection was all the love he was feeling for her now in this moment and from the very first time he'd met her all those years ago. His heart felt as though it might burst any moment, having carried the weight of all those memories and feelings alone for so long, and now, it all rested on her. He'd put his trust and his faith in this woman who held his fate and his heart in the palm of her hand.

"How did I steal it or how is it possible?" he asked, his voice hoarse with emotion.

"How is it possible?" she whispered, delicately putting the rose back into the box, setting the box back onto his bedside table. She turned to him, wonder and confusion in her own gaze as she touched her hand to his chest. "I remember, but ....I didn't live that. I remember you, and the rose, and the box ....but it happened so long before I was born. How is any of this happening?"

He covered her hand with one of his own, pressing her hand against his chest, close to his heart. "It was a long time ago, but your soul remembers, Brynne. Now you know why I could not tell you this, until now. You would have never believed me. You would have thought me mad and never wanted to see me again. I didn't want to frighten you and chase you away. I still don't, but I want you to know the truth. You deserve to know the truth."

She held his gaze for a long time, needing a moment of pause to let the strange, half-formed memories from another life settle into her mind. It felt too real for him to have somehow planted them there, and what reason did he have to do that' What reason did he have to tell her any of this, if it wasn't true" Which meant he'd been searching for her for a very long time.

The Brynne he knew and loved surfaced, suspicion flaring in blue eyes that were suddenly amused. "Did you deflate my tire?"

He could have taken the easy route. She was already in love with him, as she had told him. He could have kept the truth of the past to himself and it might have changed nothing, but he didn't only want to win her love. That would have been a simple enough task that he'd already accomplished. He wanted her to know the truth and thereby understand just how deeply he'd loved her and how much it had cost him to find her. It was a small price to pay for her love, and one he'd happily pay again.

He brushed a hand across his face, even as his gaze met hers, smiling only when she broke the silence with the inevitable question. "Yes," he replied honestly, unable to hide even that small untruth from her anymore.

"Why, you conniving, duplicitous ..." She laughed, rising up to kiss him softly. "I'm glad you did," she murmured. "I'm still going to be difficult, and stubborn, and hard work. I don't know how she fits into me, and I don't know how long it'll take to make that seamless. But I believe you. I love you. And I think it's time you came to live with us."

He held his breath a moment, waiting for her to berate him. It had been such a small thing to deflate her tire. No harm had come from it really, except that it had given them a chance to meet without it seeming like anything more than luck or chance. Relieved that she wasn't angry with him, and that she had even reiterated the fact that she loved him, he swept her up into his arms and swung her around, laughing with happiness like he hadn't felt in over two hundred years. He was so happy, in fact, that he didn't quite grasp that she was asking him to move in with her just yet. "You don't know how happy it makes me to hear you say that."