Avalon was always so quiet after dark. No busy sounds of a modern day city, no steady light from artificial street lamps. Just the quietness of a community settling into a long night before the dawn of the next day. Dinner had been an awkward affair, both Rhys and Nat attempting to be their usual selves for Rachel and Zachariel's sakes, and by all accounts, not failing too badly. But the air needed to be cleared, and as such, Rachel had summarily sent them to their own tower house without their daughter, citing their need to be themselves with each other for one more night. Frost crunched beneath Nat's boots as they walked in silence from the little house under the hill, neither knowing what to say or even where to start.

One of them had to break the silence, and somehow Rhys knew it had to be him, though he wasn't quite sure what to say. Just apologize, Rachel had told him, but that seemed almost too simple, too easy. "They'll have Ana eating porridge and stew before long," he said, in an attempt to break the awkwardness that had grown between them. He couldn't remember when he'd felt so strange with her, not since that day when he'd returned from the dead.

She smiled a little, taking the words for what they were - a peace offering, of sorts. "It seems as though Rachel knows better what to do than all the books we have read together," she commented mildly. It had taken her a long time to return to him after visiting the Treasury - long enough, she hoped, for the signs of her tears to have faded. The Grand Master had been left with a large damp patch on his tunic when the time had come for Natalya to find her husband and daughter once again.

"At least we don't have to worry about her being allergic to peanut butter here," he said, feeling immediately foolish for saying it. They were making small talk, and he knew it. He'd never felt this uncomfortable with her, not even when he'd first met her that fateful day on the flight to Paris. The trouble was he felt ashamed of himself and had no idea how to go about making it up to her short of begging her forgiveness. He didn't want to consider how many people on Avalon must know what had happened. At the very least, she must have told Lionel. As much as she might think she lacked family, he knew Lionel was like a father to her. The last thing Rhys wanted was a lecture from Lionel. He turned silent and somber again, the snow crunching beneath his boots.

As talk turned to silence once again, Natalya sighed. She didn't know how to make this right, taking the blame for the awkwardness between them entirely onto herself. If she hadn't reacted so badly ....if she hadn't walked away ....So many ifs. Unlocking the door to their tower house, she let them both inside, locking the door behind them once again. And all of a sudden, the words were there. "I love you. Even when I am angry, I love you. Nothing will ever change that, Rhys."

He frowned at her sudden admission, the words tumbling out of her. He knew he'd hurt her, though it hadn't been his intent, and he knew she'd likely spent the afternoon crying on the Grand Master's shoulder, just as he had on Rachel's. Alone at last, it seemed it was finally time for his apology, if only she chose to forgive him. "I'm not sure I deserve your love," he admitted sourly, taking the blame on himself. "Rachel says I should just apologize and be done with it. No explanations, no excuses, but a simple I'm sorry doesn't seem like enough."

She sighed, moving further into the main room. "I do not understand why you would make such a joke," she confessed herself. "I am too sensitive, I shouldn't have taken it to heart so deeply. I am the one who should be apologizing. You do not deserve to be holding the burden of my insecurities."

"No," he disagreed, following her inside. "It's my fault. I'm an idiot. A selfish, insensitive idiot. I didn't think. That's the problem. I never think. I just say whatever pops into my head without thinking about anyone else's feelings but my own." It might sound harsh, but he truly believed it. He knew this whole thing was his fault, not hers. She had done nothing wrong, and he wasn't quite sure how to make it right again. "I'm sorry, Nat. I never meant to hurt you. I never want to hurt you. If I could take it back, I would. I swear."

"Do not say such things about yourself." She was frowning at him now, advancing across the room to lay her hands against his chest, looking up into his eyes. "Never say such things. They are not true. You have moments, yes, when perhaps what you say is not right for that moment in time, but that does not make you insensitive, it does not make you an idiot, and I will not allow you to think such things about yourself."

He met her gaze, unable to hide the guilt and the sadness from his eyes, knowing he had caused her pain. It wasn't the first time he'd done something stupid, and it wasn't likely to be his last, but if there was one person in the world he never wanted to hurt, it was her. "I'm so sorry, Nat. I don't know what made me say it. I wasn't thinking." That much was clear enough. "Can you ever forgive me?" He was looking at her with that lost and forlorn look again, like he was begging he with his eyes to forgive him, though he didn't believe himself worthy of redemption. He hadn't teased her to be cruel, only realizing the cruelty of it after the fact and regretting it.

"Rhys ..." Her hand curled gently to his cheek, drawing him down until his forehead touched hers. "I know you did not mean to cause harm. How can I not forgive you, when I love you so much' You are everything to me, all that I have. At another time, I would not have been so angry, so hurt. But today we faced a great power, we ran for our lives, all I wanted in that moment was to know that you were safe and well, and that I had done you no harm with the Rod. To be teased like that, even without intention ....it reminded me of what I did to my father. It pushed me away from you, when I needed to be with you. I do not know how to explain it."

His arms went around her, like they always did when they were so close, relieved that she'd forgiven him, but puzzled by her explanation. "I don't understand," he told her quietly, foreheads touching, intimately close. It was only the two of them, without even Ana or overhear or interrupt. He felt as though they were on the brink of something, of some deeper understanding of each other, if only they could make each other understand. "Please tell me, Nat. I need to understand," he implored her as gently as he could.

She sighed once again, the breath shaking as it left her lips, leaning into him. This was not something they had ever truly discussed. "I told you what happened when I used the Cintamani Stone," she said quietly, her voice thick with the effort of holding back tears. "I wished for freedom, but it granted my desire of that moment. My father was torn to pieces, because I did not heed what I had learned of what I held. With that action, I destroyed my father's living form, and I secured forever the hatred of my sister. Today, I used the Rod of Asclepius on you, to wipe away the memory of the test that was hurting you so much, and ....when you asked me who I was, I thought I had done to you what I did to my father. Rhys, I have no one but you, and for many years, I was content with that. But now ....if I lose you now, I will not survive. I need you to love me, because without you, no one will."

He searched her eyes, sensing this deeper pain that had come to the surface all because of a thoughtless and childish prank. Who was he anyway, a man or a boy that he could say something so stupid to the one person he loved more than live itself" It wasn't only guilt he felt but shame that he had needlessly caused her such heartache. "That's not true, Nat," he told her, pulling her close to wrap her in a warm embrace. He understood what it felt like to be alone, but so long as they were together, neither of them would ever be alone again. "You're not alone. You have Ana and all of our family and friends. Everyone here in Avalon and everyone back home in New York. They all love you, Nat. You never have to be alone again."

Drawn back to her, he didn't bother to argue. It wasn't very often that they had time to themselves without a certain little miss demanding attention. "Am I still your little dumpling, then?" he asked, circling his arms around her waist again and smiling impishly. His moods were as changeable as the weather, it seemed, but maybe that, too, had something to do with this being his first life as a mortal. She hadn't asked what it was he'd been thinking or what he it was that had made him want to go searching out the Lady at this time of night, but it could wait.

Reassured by how easily he was persuaded to set his sudden mission aside and return to her, Nat curled her arms about his neck as he smiled at her. "You have always been dusha moya," she promised him. "Even from the moment we met. Have you forgotten what it means?" He had seemed so shocked in Paris when she had told him what that endearment translated to, and yet he had never protested it.

"I haven't forgotten," he admitted, his voice softening as her arms went around his neck, his arms about her waist. "It's means my heart or something like that, doesn't it?" he asked, touching his forehead to hers. If there was only music, they might be dancing. "I still kind of like my dumpling," he teased her, green eyes dancing, his good humor returned and why not' She loved him, despite all his many flaws.

"My soul," she whispered to him, fingertips teasing in and out of his hair as she swayed in his arms, the anger and upset of the afternoon forgotten in the warmth of knowing he loved her. "You have always been my soul, milaya. I gave it to you the day we met, and you have never treated it with anything but love and respect."

"Except for today," he murmured with an ache in his heart, though the bad mood had mostly passed now, like a storm that had raged for a while and blown over at last. "Nat, what if there was a way we could always be together" I mean, not just in this lifetime?" It seemed an absurd question, but he had long since learned that nothing was impossible.

"One moment," she reminded him. "And it is gone, past. It has no bearing on my heart, and it should not have on yours." Her touch gently swept over his lips as they lingered together, relaxed in his embrace for the first time all day. "If there was a way, I would take it. Would you?"

"Yes, I would," he replied without hesitation. He didn't need any time to think about it. They'd been together long enough and he'd been with other women enough to know that he wanted no one else but her. "There's a corny line from a movie I once saw where Tom Cruise says to Renee Zellweger, 'You complete me'. That's how I feel about you, Nat. You're my other half, my soul mate, whatever you want to call it. You're it. And if there's a way I can spend the rest of forever with you, I'd take it in a heartbeat."

Her smile rose, soft on her face, every nuance of her expression tenderly gentled by this open promise of just how much he loved her. "Then we will find a way, milaya," she promised him, rising onto her toes to seal that promise with a kiss. "I swear to you, we will find a way."

He smiled that impish smile of his again, even as his lips touched hers. "You said something about taking you on the counter, but would you mind so much if we used the bedroom?" he asked, anxious to touch her, kiss her, show her just how much he loved her - especially now that they were alone for a while.

For the first time since Ana had been born, they had a night that belonged entirely to themselves, with no need to worry over their daughter's safety. This was Avalon, after all. Natalya laughed quietly, drawing him into a tender kiss that warmed her to the heart. "Think you can get there without getting distracted?"

"I can if you can," he countered with a grin. It seemed all the heartache of earlier in the day was forgotten, his idiotic mistake forgiven. His heart swelled with happiness, not only because she'd forgiven him, but because she still loved him as much as before, perhaps even more. "I really don't deserve you," he said, sweeping her up into his arms without warning. "But I'm not complaining. I'm afraid you're stuck with me, Mrs. Bristol, and I'm not letting you get away."

"I am a very willing captive," she grinned, laughing as he hiked her up into his arms, her slippers dropping away to slap against the hard floor. "And you, my darling, have just put yourself at a distinct disadvantage." She gave him a chance to feel her grin against his neck before proving just how great a disadvantage he had given himself with tender kisses and caresses, secure in the knowledge that he would rather impale himself on a kitchen knife than let her fall.

Their lovemaking could be anything from tender to fierce and everything in between, but neither had ever complained. What had started as a simple flirtation perhaps to stave off boredom on a flight from New York to Paris had somehow become something he could only describe as the truest, deepest, most passionate love he'd ever known. He laughed with joyous delight as she teased him with her kisses, even as he took her to the bedroom where he intended to made certain she was duly satisfied before he at last let her sleep. "You, my darling, haven't seen anything yet."

"Mm, and I thought I had seen it all," she teased, hooking her hands into his belt the moment her feet were on the floor to pull him down onto the bed with her. "Did you, perhaps, get a tattoo while your sister was cooking this afternoon?"

"A tattoo?" he asked, a little confused as he tumbled down onto the bed with her. "I didn't get a tattoo. Should I?" While it might seem perfectly obvious that she was teasing him in return, it seemed to go right over his head with him taking her literally.

She laughed, taking advantage of his confusion to knock him onto his back and gain the upper hand for the few seconds it would last. He was very good at melting her until she found herself underneath again. "Only if it was very small and somewhere you'd be able to live without being kissed for a couple of months."

"Oh," he said, a mischievous thought popping into his head. "Maybe you should check, just in case," he teased back, as he found himself on his back and her hovering over him. He tugged at the strings that held her dress closed, slowly and deliberately unwrapping the packaging that covered the loveliness that was his wife.

Stretching, catlike, over him, she eased down, not making it particularly easy for him to get those laces undone as her lips found his in a slow, languid press that promised far more than a single night. She promised a lifetime and beyond. "Should I inspect every inch of you?" she murmured, tugging his own laces loose as her lips brushed his. "Just to be certain?"

"Every inch," he replied with a smile, fingers tenderly grazing her cheek. "And I'll inspect you, too, just in case," he countered, before drawing her down to kiss her again, answering that languid press of lips with a promise of his own - to love her not only today, not only for the rest of his life, but for all time.

Even as he kissed her, she laughed as a thought occurred to her. "We haven't taken your boots off," she pointed out, remembering their struggle with the first pair of boots he'd worn that had been made here on Avalon. That encounter had culminated in his loving embrace, too, remembered with teasing laughter for the fuss he had made about needing help to take his boots off in the first place.

"To hell with the boots," he told her between kisses. "I don't need my feet to make love to you," he pointed out, turning her onto her back and tugging the laces of her dress loose before pushing the fabric back to expose a bare shoulder. The caress of his lips followed the line of her neck down to that shoulder, wandering further to touch a trail of soft kisses against her throat and beyond that. Another hand bunched the fabric of her dress, until he found her leg hidden beneath, fingers skimming her thigh. Like a good book, there was no telling where he might go with this, but the conclusion was all too obvious.

He swallowed her laughter with kisses, her smaller frame offering no resistance as he turned her onto her back. As his lips trailed to her bared skin, his hand beneath the folds of her skirt, she reached for him, throwing his belt aside to push her own palms up beneath the layers of tunic and shirt to touch his back, gripping, caressing, breathing her pleasure in the man she loved above any other against his ear.

The first time he took her was wild and passionate, as though he was unable to hold himself back any longer, impatient to claim her and make her his own, as if she could ever belong to anyone else. The second time he took her almost agonizingly slowly, proving that it wasn't just about him, but that he wanted her to know pleasure, too. He knew her so well, and yet, each time was like the first time all over again, learning new things about each other, new ways to make her sigh and groan and call his name in the darkness. By the third time, they were both breathless and weary, and yet, still their passion flared and burned, like a fire that was never quite extinguished. It was only when at last they were both fully sated and lying together in the warmth of their love, he let his eyes drift closed, feeling blissfully content, as if nothing in the world could ever touch them or come between them again. "I love you," he whispered, three little words that meant so much, his heart beating only for her.

Achingly blissful, Natalya lolled in Rhys' arms, just barely skirting the borders of sleep. This was where their connection was the purest, in these tender moments after fire and ice, when they were most vulnerable to one another and unafraid to be so. She nestled close to him, more grateful than she could ever have imagined she would be to know that their argument had been resolved. "Ya lyublyu tebya, moye serdtse," she whispered back to him, words that echoed his as her arms curled about him once again.

Russian or English, it didn't matter which language was spoken, the meaning of the words was the same. What could have ended in disaster only seemed to have ended in a deeper understanding of each other, a deeper connection. It had never occurred to Rhys before, but maybe this was what being true love was all about, each misunderstanding bringing them to a greater understanding of each other. Whether their souls were linked or not, it was certain their hearts and their lives were connected in such a way that neither could deny. If two souls who'd been lost could find each other and bind themselves together so deeply and tenderly as this, then perhaps they didn't need the Lady's blessing at all to have each of their hearts' dreams come true. Perhaps that bond they so envied in friends and family ....was already theirs.

((No matter how they argue, they always seem to bounce back stronger than ever! Huge thanks to Rhys' player!))