Piper ran through the darkened streets, whimpering with fear. Only an hour ago, she had thought that the worst she would have to deal with here in Rhy'Din were strange reactions from people she didn't know. Now she knew better, and it did not fill her with any kind of confidence.

What had happened" There had been dragons, and an old man who acted as though he knew her; threats against her baby; magic ....oh God, the magic. The memory of the pain that had ripped through her when the baby chose to take direct action made her sob harder. She never wanted to feel such agony again. She hadn't known what it had been, not until Yeardley had said she had been glowing, not until she felt the same pain and saw the crackle of blue energy spark from her to the old man.

It wasn't fair! It was bad enough that she was stuck here; now she was supposed to contend with dragons and wizards" Just the thought of it filled her with fear, fear for herself and for her unborn child, fear of what could be done when the baby was born. It was such a powerful feeling, it clouded everything, blinding her to where her feet were taking her in the dark city.

It was only when her feet came to a halt that she took note of her surroundings. The riverside ....a familiar apartment block ....Her eyes lifted higher, to the loft at the very top of the building. A low sob of relief left her throat. A light was burning in the window - someone was still awake up there.

Without another thought, she sped for the door, forcing her aching legs to carry her up the many flights of stairs until she reached the door. Gasping for breath, terrified tears streaking her face, windswept and rain-beaten, with wild eyes, she was not a sight anyone would wish to see at such a time of night. Yet here she was, at the door of the person to whom she had run on instinct, needing comfort and protection ....Oliver Granger.

Shivering with an excess of adrenaline as much as with the chill in the air, she knocked without rhythm or consistent strength, wrapping her arms about herself tightly as she waited for someone to answer the door. Even if all he did was take her back to the Inn, Piper needed to see Ollie, needed to hear his voice. He was more than a friend in her mind; here, in Rhy'Din, he was the stable rock to which she was holding in an increasingly turbulent sea.

"Please be in, Ollie, please."

He'd never quite understood - until that very moment - why men never minded lending their clothing to their wives and girlfriends. Seeing Piper in his t-shirt and sweats - things he wore when working out in the mornings - was quite possibly the single most loveliest thing he had ever seen. More beautiful than a Chagall, or a Cezanne, or yes, even a Monet. He stared at her, dumbfounded, awestruck, and mutely, his jaw slightly slack.

She blinked slowly in the face of his awestruck gaze, biting her lip in pleased embarrassment. Clearly he was pleased with what he was seeing, but she could have wished for better circumstances for it to happen in. Basking in his expression would have been taking advantage of the moment, however, and she reluctantly spoke up, her smile audible as much as visible. "I don't think I used all the hot water. Is there somewhere I can hang these to dry?" Gesturing with her bundle of clothing, nonetheless her eyes never left his as she spoke.

He recovered with more grace than he thought possible and nodded to a set of spiral stairs that went up to an open room - a loft within the loft. "We just toss stuff over the bannister upstairs." Help her, you idiot. He found himself propelled forward, almost without thought, his arms out for her things. "I'll do it. There's tea. Chamomile and...erm...mint. Steeping. On the pot. In the kitchen. Over there." Please stop talking now. He shut his mouth and smiled sheepishly.

"That sounds lovely." Piper couldn't help smiling a little wider at his stop-start explanation. "I don't mind hanging them myself, if you'd prefer to stay down here," she offered softly, glancing up to the little open loft above them. "Or if you'd rather I stayed down here, I don't mind either ....I'm not shy of doing things for myself, I ....Oh God, I'm babbling again." She closed her eyes, cringing at her own nerves.

He barked out a startled laugh that went a long way to alleviating the tense awkwardness he was obviously feeling. "No, you need to rest, Piper. I'll do it. I don't mind." He reached out once more for her things.

She giggled softly when he laughed, shrugging her shoulders and ducking her head to let the damp strands of wayward sable hair fall forward. "Alright, I'll check the tea then," she agreed, handing him her little bundle. She was, though, grateful that she had decided to put her underwear back on after the shower. She didn't think she could have coped with his reaction to her smalls.

His head might have exploded. He headed up the stairs and took care laying her things out over the railing, smoothing out any wrinkles distractedly as he watched her. He felt like an idiot. 30 years old and he was carrying on as if he was a 12 year old in the throes of his first crush. God.

Bad Piper. Bad, bad Piper. But no matter how she berated herself, she didn't actually stop admiring the view as he walked upward until she was in danger of being caught. Then she turned away, moving over to the kitchen to check the steeping of the tea. Unaware of his eyes on her, she investigated the cupboards until she discovered the mugs, making a guess as to which was Ollie's habitual beverage holder and which was reserved for guests.

His mug was probably very obvious. There were paint splatters all over it, both inside and out. The guest things were also very obvious, by dint of being immaculately clean. He sighed softly and then descended from the loft, going to lean against the counter opposite her, still watching her intently. "Are you feeling better now?" he asked, eyes brazenly tracing the lines of her face, memorising every expression and filing it away in his frightening memory.

It should have been a little alarming, to look up and find him staring so intently at her from such a short distance away. But Piper didn't think anything of it, relaxed enough to smile as he questioned her. "I am, yes," she nodded. "But then I wouldn't expect to feel anything but safe when I'm with you." Where had that come from"

He blushed, a rather alarming shade of cinnabar, and blinked. "Oh. Well...That's...That's good. Isn't it?" He smiled, rather touched at her trust in him. He cleared his throat awkwardly and glanced down at the scarred surface of the counter. "Would you...um....Would you like to stay here tonight?"

The last little knot of tension unravelled itself at his offer. "Oh, thank you, that would be ....wonderful," she sighed with relief, reaching across to touch his hand. "The thought of going back to the Inn tonight is a little unsettling."

He nodded, curled his fingers around her hand and held it briefly. "I don't think Kay will be back tonight, so you can have her bed or...um...mine. I'll sleep on the couch, of course," he rushed to add.

Piper was equally as rushed, hurrying to shake her head. "Oh, you don't have to give up your bed," she told him quickly, her fingertips stroking his palm as he released her. "I don't mind curling up on the couch, I wouldn't dream of putting you out any more than I have already."

He frowned, giving her a look as if that was possibly the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard. "Don't be silly. You will not be comfortable on that thing. There's springs that jab you in the most unexpected places and at the most inopportune times."

Her brow rose. "And that description is supposed to make me feel better about you sleeping there tonight?" she asked in some amusement. "You need to work on your persuasion skills, Ollie." Still, she couldn't help smiling again, even as a blush rose with her next words. "Is there some reason why we couldn't, maybe, share your bed?" Again ....what had happened to her sense of propriety tonight"

The phrase "like a deer in headlights" was an overused one. It was a horrible cliche used by writers to describe someone with huge, wide-open eyes, either caused by fright or surprise. Oliver wasn't quite sure at the present moment which of those two emotions he was feeling as he stood there, jaw hanging down to his chin, eyes just as wide as they could possibly go. Close your mouth, Oliver. You're letting in flies. He swallowed, blushed so brightly that it could no doubt be seen from orbiting spaceships and attempted to say something. What came out was a strangled squeak, rather like the sound one makes when slowly letting air out of a balloon.

"Oh ....God ..." Piper shook her head in the face of his shock, her cheeks flushing deeper crimson as she shook her head, averting her gaze. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to ....I'm not suggesting that we, you know ..." Her hands moved in a truly unhelpful gesture that did not describe the act she was referring to in the slightest. "Just, just sleep, and ....Well, it's wrong of me to push you out of your bed, and you don't know if Kaylee will be back tonight or not, and I'm really not happy with you sleeping on a couch that by your own admission likes to attack you with springs, so ..."

Her smile turned somewhat wary as he drew her out from behind the counter, her fingers tightening trustingly about his as she padded barefoot across his floor. "Remedy it?" she asked with a slightly suspicious tilt of her head. "You want me to draw something in front of you?"

"Do you trust me?" he asked, and he moved behind her, wrapped one arm around her waist and put his mouth right next to her ear. He led her across the room, to one of his easels, one that contained an empty canvas that was just itching for the touch of a brush against it.

Close enough to feel the faint tremble that rippled down her spine at his unexpected closeness, and perhaps to witness the way her eyes closed with the exhalation of a breath she hadn't realised she was holding. Blinking them open once again, she swallowed, laying her hand over his at her waist, trying to keep herself from leaning into him as they came to a halt before the easel. Her reply was barely a whisper, felt more than heard. "Yes."

He smiled and slipped his hand from her waist to cast about for a pencil, his questing fingers finally closing on one. He picked it up and inspected it for a moment, making sure it was sharp enough. "Rightie or leftie?" he asked, his mouth still intimately close to her ear.

"Right." Her voice was stronger now, but still tenderly soft as her face half-turned toward his. She would never have thought that Ollie could turn on a seduction so easily, nor so fast, if that was, indeed, what this was. Not that she was complaining at all.

He slid the pencil into her hand and then gently cupped her hand in his own. "Learning to see is where we'll start." He straightened a bit, looking around for an appropriate sill life and found one in the shape of a stack of books atop a shelf on a window. "There," he said, leaning down once more, his mouth next to her ear, voice warm and intimate. "Look at those books there in front of the window. Tell me what you see."

Her gaze flickered slowly to the stack he indicated, blinking to clear her vision of the less than PG images floating across it. She had a feeling "books" wasn't the answer here, fighting to contain a smile at the thought of simply blurting that out instead of thinking about it. "Straight lines," she murmured slowly, "broken with light and shadow."

He smiled, whispered, "Good girl. Now draw it." He took the hand that was holding the pencil and pressed the tip of the instrument against the canvas. "Fill the entire white space, but don't look at it. Use your eyes to trace the lines and use your hand to trace what you see."

"Don't look at what I'm doing?" she asked uncertainly, unable to help glancing at the canvas as the pencil brushed softly against it, creating the barest of lines to begin her study. "How can I get it right if ...?" She didn't finish, biting off a quiet sigh as his breath caressed against her ear.

"Don't look at what you're doing. Don't worry about getting it right. Draw what you see, Piper. Trust your eyes." He let go of her hand and wrapped his arms around her waist, his own hands splayed out against the tiny bump he found there.

Unbeknownst to Ollie, the baby reacted to his touch, the quickening flutter making itself known to Piper as she drew in a slow breath, trying to centre herself enough to not disappoint him with her scrawlings. Perhaps she should have paid a little closer attention to the entire scene he'd chosen, but slowly the image of just three of the stacked tomes began to form on the canvas before them.

He watched her hand, smiling to himself as the still life began to take shape. "Good, Piper," he said softly, encouragingly, but didn't offer any rebuke or corrections.

She couldn't quite keep herself from looking at the work as it appeared beneath the pencil she held, gradually shifting her focus from the feel of him at her back to the task he had set her. Her lines were not the best one could hope to see, nor was her attention to detail, but she did have a surprising grasp of shading for someone untutored. His praise made her smile, glancing back to look at him with innocent pleasure.

He met her smile with one of his own. It wore shades of pride and happiness. "Now, stop and look at what you've done. Really look at it, too. Don't shy away from it because you think it's not well done. You'll never learn if you do that."

She did as she was told, turning her gaze onto the pencilled canvas, and just about managed not to wince. In her mind, she could have done better when she was twelve and still in standard art lessons at school. But she didn't want to disappoint Ollie, forcing herself to mentally step back and actually look at the piece. "It's ....not actually that bad," she said, with no small amount of shock.

"Amazing, isn't it' See what happens when you let your heart control your head" Now comes the tricky part. What can you add" What elements are missing" Look at the still life first, then draw what you see."

She almost groaned at that. "Details, hmm?" With a faint smile touching her lips, she sighed softly, flicking her gaze from the sketch to the reality and back again. Her hand shifted, revealing easily an obsessive tendency to overwork a tiny area of the canvas.

He chuckled softly. "Don't obsess over one part. Spread the obsession around. Find the balance."

"So sayeth the voice of experience," she intoned playfully, obediently shifting her focus away from the binding of the lowest book to the closed pages of the uppermost.

"And who better to speak, yes?" He unwound his hands from her waist, darted a kiss against her temple and prowled around the loft, picking up stray objects before examining them closely and putting most of them down. Finally, with his hands filled with a seashell, a small crystal box, and a porcelain bird, he returned to the still life and added these, arranging them just so before returning to her side.

It took a certain amount of effort, but she managed to force herself not to turn as he moved away, swallowing her curiosity at his retreat in favour of playing along with his teaching session. When he arranged new objects around the stack of books, she laughed indignantly. "That's not fair!"

"Too late," he said and stood. "Get back to your drawing while I hunt it down." He made a little flicking motion with his wrist, as if cracking a whip.

"Slave driver," she muttered laughingly, pushing herself up from her lean to return to the easel. Letting out a long-suffering sigh - exaggerated for his enjoyment, of course - she lifted the pencil, setting it to the canvas once more.

He chuckled softly and went into his bedroom for a moment. The sound of rummaging followed shortly thereafter.

More rummaging. Piper bit back a little laugh as she listened, trying without much success not to feel excited about the thought of a present, especially one that Ollie had decided to give her. It was exciting, and touching, like the flowers he had presented her with so unexpectedly. She smiled, thinking of the irises now settled on her bedside table at the Inn.

He came back out, cltuching a brown-paper-wrapped package in his hand. He presented it to her with a solemn formality. "I....Well, I saw it the last time I went to Vanima, in a little stall by the exit to the Marketplace, and I knew it was for you."

Taking the package from his hands, Piper smiled again, that tiny soft smile that was his alone. "You really didn't have to," she assured him, taking a lean against the back of the couch once again to carefully pick the package open. "Thank you, though. I'm very touched."

"I didn't have to, Piper. I wanted to." Inside the plain wrapping was nestled a leather-bound book, the leather smooth and well-tanned, stained with a deep forest green. There was an impression of ivy leaves stamped into the surface. It was held closed with a bit of matching ribbon that had been looped around a brass button that had the face of a Greenman stamped into it.

"Oh ....oh, my goodness." It was an exquisite piece of workmanship. She stared at the book with wondering eyes, doubly touched with the knowledge that not only had he seen it and thought of her, he had spent an obscene amount of money to procure leather-bound treasure. "Ollie, this is ....this is beautiful." Her eyes lifted to his in almost mute awe. "I don't know what to say."

He gave her a soft, solemn smile and ducked his head shyly. "You can use it to draw in, or journal, or maybe a scrapbook for the baby."

Watching his reaction to her stunned enjoyment of his gift was the icing on the cake. "Thank you," she murmured, her voice full enough to crack just a little as she rose to her feet. "Thank you so much." Gently laying the book down on the back of the couch, she touched her hands to his jaw, leaning close to brush a kiss to his lips.

He gathered her into his body, wrapping his arms around her gently and returning her kiss with a great deal more desire and passion than he'd expected to.

There was no resistance from her at the sudden rise in heat between them. Indeed, she met that passion with her own, trembling tenderly in his grasp as her lips parted to play and suckle his.

He backed off on the intensity of the kiss, remembering her state and wanting to take it slowly, carefully with her...and not just because of the baby, either. If...when...they were married, it would be forever and that was a very long time to explore a lot of things.

Somewhat breathless, she, too, backed off in the same moment, for almost precisely the same reasons, not quite able to keep from licking her lips as she gazed up at him. "Goodness," she breathed through a sweet smile, lit up from the inside with a warmth that wasn't purely lust.

He laughed self-consciously and ran a hand through his hair, clasping the back of his neck and fighting with a blush. "I'm sorry, Piper. I...don't mean to wind you up just to let you down. Believe me," he said desperately, with no small amount of chagrin. Whatever she was feeling was echoed in his own blood.

"Oh, no, I know that," she rushed to reassure him, her half-step forward almost immediately taken back, in case she forgot to behave herself again. "I don't mean to be a tease. I just ..." She swallowed, showing an almost shy smile as she combed her fingers through her own hair. "I do really like you, Ollie. More than like, but ....I don't want to rush you."

He gave her a helpless chuckle. "I don't want to rush you. I don't want to...to...force you to feel anything more than...well..." He trailed off, completely unable to finish his sentence. He frowned softly and headed to a stack of canvasses that were leaning against the wall. He shuffled through them until he found what he was looking for and brought it out, putting it on the back of the couch and holding it out for her inspection.

It was a complicated painting. At first glance, it appeared to be just a mish-mash of colours, randomly applied in seemingly unconnected ways. Different shapes, different textures, pure chaos on the canvas. If one took a step back, however, a face slowly began to take shape. His face, in fact.

Her head tilted, studying the canvas too closely for a long moment as she frowned, attempting to make sense of what she saw. Memories of her studies of Picasso nudged her mind, prompting her to unfocus her gaze until she saw the whole of the separate parts. "This is how you feel?" she asked tentatively, lifting her gaze to his curiously.

He nodded. "Yes. I feel disjointed, unconnected until...well...until you look at me."

It was a statement that begged a question, one which she was not too shy to ask. Keeping her eyes fixed on his hawkish gaze, she spoke very softly. "And then?"

"I'm put together," he offered simply.