Tip toes, heel slam. Tip toes, heel slam. He repeated the warm up exercise, designed to strengthen and loosen up his achilles tendon as well as the muscles, ligaments and other tendons around his ankles. "And reach," Nate stretched his arms over his head and went to his toes once again. "Then down," and he rocked back onto his heels. "Okay then, your turn, what?s your favorite warm up?" Dressed in a t-shirt, jeans and his taps, he turned a grin upon his new partner.

"I don't need it now, do I?" Tali asked with a chuckle. She'd been following him through the warm up so far, their stretches done together beforehand. A few days of rehearsing together had given both of them a chance to get to know one another a little better, which was probably why she did this next. "My favorite would have to be this one." Standing on one leg, she drew her other leg upward until the ankle lay on the barre and lowered her torso down to touch her forehead to her own shin.

His eyes narrowed slightly. It'd been years since he'd done anything on a barre. When he was six, he held on for balance. He hadn't been in a ballet class since. He knew what he was going to be from the time they strapped those taps to his feet. Pursing his lips, he brought his foot up to his knee, then grabbed the hem of his trousers. Lifting up, he planted his foot upon the bar. "There, tada!"

She grinned, lifting her head to applaud him. "Oh, very well done, Mr Kelley," she laughed teasingly. "Who'd have thought you'd have that much give in you?" With a flourish, she lowered her foot from the barre and lifted the other, stretching once again.

"Be quiet, you," he grinned and somehow managed to lower his foot from the bar without falling over. "Ok, warm up's over, let's dance!" He sprinted across the room and, a few feet from the CD changer, he put his right foot out, toes pointing to the ceiling as he slid along on his left foot. "What'll it be today, kiddies?" He laughed in the best maniac clown voice that he could.

With exposure to his confidence, Tali was becoming more confident as the days went by. Her heels and toes were raw, admittedly, but that hadn't stopped her from insisting on dancing as long and as hard as Nate did every day. "Today?" Tali's eyes twinkled with laughter for a moment, and she threw herself backward into a flip, turning to tap herself in a spin. "I say we get choreographing, don't you?"

"Need music to choreograph to, babes," he pulled the CD from the changer and bent to pick up the folder that had his mixed CD's in them. "We could do classic movie numbers, Singing in the Rain, that kind of thing." He glanced over at her, curious for her input.

Well, this was it. Tali was very glad her brother had chosen not to come along today, or she would never have had the courage to come out with this suggestion. Hands behind her back, she dragged her toe around her in a circle, biting her lower lip for a moment. "I was thinking ....well, Fever has a good beat, and it can either tell a story or begin one. What do you think?"

Nate lifted his head and gave her a surprised look. His eyes narrowed slightly and his head canted. "Fever" You sure?" Then the smile took over and he nodded. "I do like that. It's one of my favorite songs. So, show me what you got. I'll just find it and pop it on in."

And there was the inevitable blush. "Seriously' You want me to solo in front of you?" Tali couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. Nate was the professional tapper here, not her. Until a few days ago, she couldn't have strung an entire stanza together, much less performed it.

"Sure, you can do it. I want to see what ideas you have floating around in that little brain of yours." He snickered and turned to the changer once he had the desired disc in his hand. "Are you ready?" Into the changer, a few buttons pushed and the slinky, sexy strains of the song filled the room. "Go!"

Closing her eyes, Tali moved to the back centre of the room, forcing her mind away from the fact that she was going to have to dance in front of her superior, not to mention freestyle it at the same time. As the heady, regular beat of the music made itself known, she advanced slowly from back to mid-floor, somehow managing to put a fair amount of sexy into a simple walk before succumbing to the need to tap. And of course, once she started to tap, she lost all the attitude in deference to not slurring any sound from her feet.

Nathan walked slowly around the room, keeping his eyes on her. He neither smiled, nor frowned. Concentrating on her movements, noting her technique; what could be improved and what seemed to work. She had started with a rhumba walk, and eased into the taps. It worked well with the music and he found himself nodding.

"I'm not entirely comfortable with it, though," she admitted as the music went on. "I think it would work better if I went soft-soled and you tapped - contrasts, you know?" Her head tilted to one side as she watched him walk around, hands on her hips.

"Like this?" Nathan moved behind her, his hands moving to her hips. As he tapped a slow and sultry pace, his hands guided her hips into undulating rotations. "Move your feet as if you've got the wood taps on. Let me see." His own body was moving naturally to the music as his hand slid around to rest on her stomach. Pulling her back to him, he reached for her hand with his free one. Over her head, he pulled her arm and stretched back, then forward, their hands moving in a slow figure eight as he backed them around in a circle.

She wasn't used to feeling a rhythm the way he was, startled as he came close behind her, but not so startled as to blush when he moved her with him. Her eyes rose to watch their reflection, approving of what she saw. The movement of her own feet was clumsy in the heavy taps, making her shake her head. "Hang on a minute." Stepping away, Tali dropped to unlace her taps and set them aside, wriggling her abused toes for a moment before resuming her place. "Now try it."

He had been pretty into it so when she pulled away, he frowned and nearly stumbled over his own feet. As the music continued to play, he wandered in a circle, moving his arms this way and that, flutter stepping every few steps. When she was ready, he stepped behind her and attempted to repeat the earlier movement. "Watch my feet and just let me guide you through the upper body."

This time, she relaxed into the motion, lifting her head to watch his feet in their reflection as he guided her to slow sensuality with the music, surprised by the way her body was moving with his. Slowly, she stopped watching the steps, following each nuance of movement from Nate's hips and hands. Her face turned toward his, caught up in the music as her free hand rose to curl to the back of his head, stroking through his hair and along the line of his jaw.

Straightening up, she smiled at him. "We're okay," she agreed, bouncing on her toes. "So ....how do we want to play Fever" What story are we telling there?"

"Well, you picked the song, I think you have an idea of what you want to do. So show me?" He was having a hard time keeping still, but it was her turn to shine.

"I was thinking maybe ....girl walks into a bar, guy walks into the same bar, they meet, they dance, they go their separate ways?" Tali suggested, declining to put her taps on this time. "Soft versus taps, female versus male, that sort of thing. If I can pull it off." She chuckled at the thought of trying to hold an audience with her underused sexuality, moving to turn the CD back and skipping to the center-back of the room.

"Show me?" He was impressed with the idea and liked it. "I'll come in on the fourth bar?" He pushed off of the bar and bounced on the balls of his feet.

"Try the eighth," she suggested. Focusing herself, Tali eased into the cat-walk once again, the fourth bar slowing her down so each step forward was accompanied by a roll of her hip, a provocative gesture of hand or arm. The sixth bar saw a graceful spin on the balls of her feet, followed by a slide down into the splits which became a draping sprawl with her head propped on her hand as her head turned toward Nate.

Where did that come from" Nate's eyes popped wide and he very nearly missed his cue. Snapping his fingers, he regained his composure and strolled, hips rolling and taps lightly clicking on the floor. He waved his arm as if opening the door to the bar, moving so that he gave the image of a man on the prowl. When he turned his head to her, he stopped dead and snapped to his toes, hands going to his heart and his eyes going wide.

A stage smirk touched her lips, nicely disguising the satisfied grin that wanted to make itself known at the sight of his surprise, and Tali turned her head away, drawing her foot along the line of her leg and up, one hand stroking down her thigh before she rolled into another full split, her hands held up in expectation of being pulled to her feet.

Nate circled around her, smiling proudly at her as he watched her flirtations. His smile faded though, turning serious as his finger circled the ankle that was held in the air until she dropped it back down. Reaching down with both hands, he grasped her wrists tightly and pulled her up, to his chest.

Her feet snapped together as she was pulled to his chest, taking charge just enough to draw her hands out of his grasp. The character she had taken on to match the music urged her away from him, a sultry female playing hard to get with gracefully sharp movements as she spun away, pushing herself into that spin with a shove of one hand to his chest.

His head went back and his arms behind him as she pushed herself away. Always, he kept an eye on her ankles and feet, just to make sure she wasn't hurting. She seemed to be doing fantastically and for that he was happy. Trying to find that character of a lovestruck puppy, he dropped to his knees and slid behind her, his hands going to his hips as his head bowed to her greatness.

If she'd been paying attention to their reflection in the mirror, Tali would have been surprised at the way she had settled so easily into the persona of a seducer, her sway and slink of her body giving the suggestion of curves she was woefully lacking. The expression on Nate's face, however, was a little too good, cracking her haughty smirk into a playful giggle.

Her giggle made him look up and laugh out loud. "Grrr!" He grabbed her hips and shook, making her shake her behind. "I really like this idea. You're making it work!"

It wasn't just her behind that shook, it was all of her. She was rather small in comparison to him, after all. "I was until you pulled out the Puss In Boots eyes!" she protested, laying her hands on his shoulders. "Brace a minute." With that warning in place, she laid her head upside down against the front of his shoulder, lifting her leg high behind her and using the momentum to flip herself with slow grace right over him and onto her feet behind him.

"Puss In Boots?" He snorted and remained as still as he could. When she finished her move, he turned, still on his knees, and applauded. "That move definitely goes in. Where did you come up with that?"

"I saw it done on Cirque Du Soleil a few years back," she admitted, chuckling. "It was part of the contortionists' act, but they had some nifty travelling sequences that really stuck in my head. We should be making a note of these, really."

"By all means, show me!" He sat back on his bum, sticking his feet straight out in front of him. He leaned back, but his legs were constantly in motion. "I'm open to all sorts of suggestions. And if we can pull them off, then we'll add them."

"I'll find the DVD, rather than breaking your back trying them out cold," she chuckled, reaching down to ruffle his hair. "C'mon, let's run that through again and see if we get it the same second time through."

"Oooh, a whip cracker!" He popped to his feet and saluted her smartly. "Yes ma'am! Right away, ma'am!" He jogged over to the cd player and restarted the music. "You're on!"

She stuck her tongue out at him laughingly, resuming her start position with a cheeky flick of her hip toward him. "And you said you were going to be hard on me," she snickered, dropping back into the beat more easily this time.

"Oh, eventually." He grinned the promise. He waited his turn, then stepped through the imaginary door and strutted better than John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. He spotted the vixen and between his own sultry moves and facial expressions, he could easily mistaken for a man who just lost his heart.

The second run was better than the first, both of them a little more aware of what was coming, and this time, Tali didn't giggle when she met his eyes. The rehearsal was spent sketching out this routine, and no doubt in the days to come, it would be polished to death until they could both do it in their sleep. It was dark outside when Tali stumbled on the last landing, wincing as her left ankle protested. "Wow ....okay, I think I'm done for the day."