He didn't bother to mention how much the ring cost or where he had bought it. He wasn't sure if she'd like it, but from her reaction, it seemed he didn't have to worry about that. "Is it too much?" he asked, uncertainly. "Too big" Too fancy' I wasn't sure what you'd like. I know my tastes are a little outdated. The jeweler said if you didn't like it, we could bring it in and exchange it for something else." It was more than George usually said at one time, a flurry of words that showed just how nervous he was.

Dropping her shoes, she took his face between her hands, unused to being the confident one in their relationship when there hadn't been a nightmare to disturb him. "It's beautiful," she told him again, drawing him down into a soft kiss. "I love it. And I love you." It was as simple as that.

Drawn down into the kiss, he didn't have a chance to reply, though the kiss said it all, soft and tender and full of all the love he felt for her in his heart and soul. He had said the words once already, but he had learned long ago that actions spoke louder than words, and it was his actions that proved the words he was about to say yet again. "I love you, Gabrielle," he told her quietly as he drew back from her kiss to touch his nose to hers.

She smiled at him once more, slipping her arms about his waist to lean into his tall frame, uncaring that they were out in the open where any stray glance from a family house could spy them. For the first time in a very long time, Gabi felt anchored. She had someone to hold onto, someone she loved deeply, someone her boys were growing to love as well. "Is a year an appropriate time for an engagement?" she asked him softly, almost playful in her quietness.

He smiled, knowing that in Rhy'Din, it really didn't matter how long or short their engagement might be, but he was a creature of his upbringing, and he wanted to give her a wedding fit for a princess. A wedding like that would take time planning. He could only hope that a year would be enough, and he wanted plenty of time for the boys to get to know him and get used to the idea. "I think so," he told her. "If we can wait that long," he added with a teasing grin.

She giggled at his tease, brushing a kiss to his chin before cuddling into his arms, squeezing tenderly as she sighed with almost blissful content. "Nothing I've ever agreed to, or set in place, has ever felt so right before," she told him, a little shy of admitting it but unafraid of such admissions when it came to George. "I really should get the boys something special. Without them, we might never have run into each other."

"We'll get them ice cream cones," he promised as he wrapped his arms around her. What better reward could a child ask for than ice cream' "Perhaps they knew something we didn't," he said, touching a kiss to her forehead. There was no real hurry getting home tonight - no one waiting up to be tucked in or to make sure she got home safely.

"Perhaps they did." It was a plausible thought - until that day, Theo had been her escape artist, and Jake the well-behaved one, but for some reason, it had been Jake who had run away from her and straight into George. "Stranger things have happened." Feeling his lips against her forehead, she raised her head, sharing her happy smile with him. "We're going to have to get a move on with teaching you to drive and getting you a car."

He chuckled a little at her remark. "It's not like I've never driven a vehicle, Gabi," he reminded her, though the automobiles of his era were far different than they were today. Here in Rhy'Din, one was as likely to find someone driving a horse and carriage as a souped-up sports car. He was hoping for something somewhere in the middle.

"I want to be confident in you handling a large blunt instrument daily," she told him, though her smile never faded. "If you're going to be living out here, you'll need it." She didn't mention that she needed to be confident in his driving if he was ever going to have the boys in a car when he was behind the wheel, feeling certain that it wouldn't take long for that confidence to rise anyway. George was an easy man to have faith in.

He wove his fingers between hers to continue on their way back to Beecham House. "You wouldn't happen to be anxious to have me move to the Grove, would you?" he asked, knowing she was and unable to stop himself from teasing her about it a little.

Thank goodness the moonlight hid her blush, but there was no hiding the giggle that betrayed the fact that the blush was there. Pausing to pick up her shoes, she wound her fingers through his once again, shaking her head in an attempt to appear innocent. "Not anxious," she disagreed through her laughter. "Eager, perhaps, but not anxious."

"Eager, then," he agreed. He was the one who was anxious about it, for some reason, though he was making some progress. Rhy'Din was a much different world than the one he had come from. He paused to wait for her to snag her shoes before walking on. He assumed she wanted him to stay the night, though she had yet to mention it.

"I'll only get anxious if it starts to feel as though you don't want me any more," Gabi added, flicking a faintly teasing smile to him. She'd never had her heart broken, unafraid of teasing like that. She'd always been too shy to do more than talk to anyone she liked, until a few years before, and even then, it had only been one man. Laying her cheek against his arm as they walked into the coolness under the trees that surrounded Beecham House, she sighed softly once again. "What do you fancy for breakfast?"

George came to a halt again, turning to face her with an almost wounded look on his face. He ignored the thought of breakfast for now, feeling the need to address the remark he had not realized had been meant for teasing. "Do you really think I would propose to you if I thought I might change my mind?" he asked, lifting her chin to face him. "I am only reluctant to move in with you because of the world in which I was raised, because I do not want to bring you shame or humiliation. I love you, Gabrielle, and I am never going to change my mind about that."

A spasm of pain crossed her face as she realized he had taken her teasing remark seriously, hating the fact that she had hurt him at all. "Sweetheart, I didn't mean that you would," she promised him fervently. "It was a stupid thing to say. I love you, and I trust you. I want to marry you, I want to spend the rest of my life with you and our children. I do understand your reluctance, of course I do. And I know you must get frustrated with me so often suggesting that perhaps it is time you moved in. Truth be told, I don't care about my reputation. I love you. That isn't going to change."

It wasn't often that they had these little moments of misunderstanding, but they were two different people from two very different worlds and they had only known each other a short while. Even so, there was no doubt they loved each other and were determined to conquer every challenge that stood in their way, no matter how big or how small. "I don't want you to worry about such things, Gabi. I don't want anyone but you, do you see?"

"I do see." Anxious now to convince him of something she had thought he understood, Gabi let her hand creep to his chest, clinging to the lapel of his blazer as she looked into his eyes, her expression taut with concern. "Please, George, it was a thoughtless thing to say. I don't worry about anything like that. I do trust you, deeply. Please don't be angry with me for not thinking before I spoke."

His gaze softened, almost wishing he hadn't said anything about it, but he needed her to understand that she never needed to fear that from him. "I'm not angry, love. I have never loved anyone the way I love you. I have never wanted anything so badly in my whole life. I want to be with you, Gabi. I want us to get married and raise a family - your boys and whatever children God chooses to give us - together. I want to grow old with you. I know we haven't known each other very long, but I know I feel in my heart, and I know I won't change my mind. Not about you. Not ever."

"I don't doubt you," she promised him, her pretty face still twisted with worry. How could she have said such a thoughtless thing, only minutes after he had proposed to her" It was appalling. "I haven't doubted you since the moment we met. I won't ever doubt you. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. It was supposed to be a joke, but obviously it isn't a funny one and I shouldn't have said anything at all. I am sorry, George."

Gabi's brows rose, surprised but amused and intrigued by this little insight into his glorious past. "Dare I ask?" she teased him fondly. "Were you a naughty captain, Dr. Bradford?" The giggling, admittedly, took a lot of the sensual out of what she was attempting to do, but she was definitely relaxed in his company.

He snorted. "Only when there was time for it, which wasn't often." He did not expound on how naughty or what he might have done once he was out from under his mother's wing. "Do you want to sit outside for a while?" he asked. It was a lovely night for it, after all, and they had all night.

She looked up at the night sky, bright with stars speckling the deep blue around the twin moons, her smile deepening. "Yes, I think so," she agreed, and quite suddenly drew back, her eyes lighting up as an idea came to her. "Just a second!" Releasing him, she ran over to the house, unlocking the back door to disappear inside. Just a few moments later, she emerged, a pair of blankets over her arm, and a bottle of wine with two glasses in her hands.

She left him so abruptly he didn't really have a chance to argue, and then she was back with blankets and wine and it looked like they were going to be outside for a while yet. He smiled at that. It was a lovely night - too lovely to waste curled up in a bed with only a ceiling above one's head. "Gabrielle Granger, you're a genius," he said with a grin.

"Hardly," she laughed to him, handing over the wine and glasses to pick a spot where they could lie comfortably on the blanket she laid out for them. "I'm an opportunist. And I have you all to myself for the first time in almost a month. You should be prepared to protect your virtue, you know."

He chuckled at that remark, knowing she knew better. "What virtue?" he asked. He hadn't been a virgin for a very long time, though there had never been anyone special until he'd met her. "I lost what little virtue I had a long time ago, I'm afraid to say," he took the wine and glasses from her and watched while she spread out the blankets on the grass.

"Well, I was thorough," she teased him fondly. An odd juxtaposition, perhaps - this shy, sweet woman who blushed at almost anything was surprisingly confident in the bedroom. Settling down onto the blanket she'd laid out, she patted it beside her in invitation. "Are you going to join me, love" Or do you want to pour the wine all over me and lick it off?"

He laughed at her question, not as surprised as he would have been a few months ago, but still a little surprised at the boldness of her teasing. He assumed teasing was all it was, though he didn't know for sure. "No, I thought I'd stand here and watch you all night," he replied with a smirk that proved he did have at least a small sense of humor, as dry as it was. He was English, after all. He joined her on the blanket, and handed her a glass before going to work on the cork.

"I'm not that fascinating to watch," she giggled, taking the glasses from him as he set to work on removing the cork from the bottle she'd brought out with her. Of course, she'd never watched herself doing the various things that she did over the course of a single day, but she was fairly certain that watching her was a little like watching paint dry.

On the contrary, he could have watched her all day and never grown bored, and at times, he did just that - especially when she was sleeping. He didn't always get to see her that way, not when the boys were around anyway, but when he did, those were moments to treasure. "I have to disagree. I'd be perfectly happy to watch you all night." Pop went the cork and he filled both their glasses, hers first.

Holding the glasses steady as he filled them, she smiled through her blush, vaguely aware that he had a tendency to wake before she did. She'd woken up often enough to find him looking down at her to know that he watched her sleeping. "Just watch?" she asked, almost innocently. "It doesn't seem very fulfilling, to look and not touch."

"You'd be surprised," he replied with a soft smile as he re-corked the bottle and set it down before taking one of the glasses from her. "You look peaceful when you're sleeping. Sometimes I wonder what you're dreaming about." Most of the time anyway. They were both prone to nightmares on occasion - his were mostly about the war. "We should be proud of ourselves for sitting through the fireworks tonight."

"These days" I mostly dream about you." Her glass made a musical sound as she touched it to his, raising the rim to her lips for a slow, smiling sip. The mention of the fireworks made her roll her eyes. "They could have given us a little warning," she sighed in a wry tone. "I very nearly embarrassed myself when they started up."

He touched his glass to hers, in a silent toast to something - perhaps to being together, the quiet of the evening, or maybe even just to being alive. He chuckled a little at her confession, feeling about the same way. "But you didn't. We're both making progress," he said. He wasn't sure what he would have done if she hadn't been there with him, but somehow he held it together.

"I still like hiding under the covers with you during storms," she assured him softly. And it was true - though thunderstorms scared her, they didn't scare her even half as much when George was there to wrap her up and remind her that it was just nature. "To us," she toasted him, "and a long life together."

"I'll drink to that," he said, lifting his glass to return the toast, though they'd already clinked glasses. He took a sip of the wine before turning his gaze skyward. "When I first arrived here, the first thing that struck me as odd was the sky." With Rhy'Din's twin moons that wasn't too hard to believe, but the entire sky was different, foreign and unfamiliar with star patterns he'd never known on Earth. He chuckled a little at the memory of it. "I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I'm still not completely sure that's not true."

Lowering her glass from her lips, Gabi looked up with him, resting her head against his shoulder as she took in the constellations that were so familiar to her. "I've never been to another world," she admitted thoughtfully. "Is it true that on Earth there is only one moon in the sky?"

"One moon, one sun," he confirmed. "The pattern of stars is different. Back home, we have what call constellations. Somewhere in history, people used to look at the stars and form pictures from the patterns they saw there. They used to believe that the stars, in part, determined your destiny."

"There are cultures everywhere that look to the sky for inspiration or explanation," she mused, leaning comfortably against his side. "I see patterns in our stars, but I was never taught their names, or whether the patterns I see are the ones accepted by professionals. We used to sit out here and make up stories about the stars, me and my brothers, usually when we were supposed to be in bed. Like that one, up there?" She pointed to a tight cluster of stars in a vague shape. "Frank told me that one was called the Pig-Sticker, because it looks like a man poking an angry pig with a stick."

"Mmm," George mused as his gaze followed her fingers. It took a moment for him to make out the vague shape she was describing, but he thought he could see it. "I can see that," he replied, pausing a moment before continuing. "You miss him, don't you?" he asked. It wasn't a difficult assumption to make, since he was her brother. He missed his own brothers, as well, but there was no going back, not without risks he was unwilling to take.

Gabi sighed softly as she lowered her hand. "It's difficult to explain," she said quietly. "I miss the boy he was, and the man he could be, on occasion. He went very dark after our mother died, and he just couldn't seem to be able to come back from it. I mean, he never hurt anyone, not physically, but ....he could be very unpleasant at times. But then he'd flip a switch, and he'd be my brother, he'd be there for me when I needed him. He was there for Cian. He didn't even stop to think about it; he would have been on a trolley with a knife to cut his own kidney out if he could have been." She bit her lip, looking down at the glass in her hands. "I miss the potential that was there for him to come back to us. But I can't be sorry that he's gone. He was suffering so much, and he couldn't hide it, and he hated that. I would rather he was with Mom and at peace, than still here and still suffering."