My third PATEOD fic, and I haven't read all of the books, but this is picking up right after End of Days ends. Also, I don't know what Raffe named Pooky Bear originally, so I'm making it up.

"Mom!" I jog back to see if I can keep the peace. "Stop it!"

I grab her arm and she whirls around to face me with a glare. Her eyes are wild and for a second I think she's about to hit me. Raffe does too, because I see him stop out of the corner of my eye. But then Mom relaxes.

"Of course, Penryn. I was just telling this man to not steal."

She gives him one last dirty look, turns around, and starts yelling at people to come out. I wince before I remember that the apocolypse is over. I stick my hands in my pockets and stare out at the beautiful sunset, streaking the sky with oranges, reds and pinks.

Ironically, it looks just like the one on the day Raffe and I met.

As if he could read my mind (what a horrifying thought), he glances down at me and shoots me a rare Raffe smile. The kind that turns my heart into a puddle of muscle and blood (somehow that doesn't seem appropriate) and sends every butterfly in the universe to my stomach.

I try for my most dazzling Penryn smile and am rewarded by a faint dusting of pink across his caramel cheeks.

He swoops closer to the ground until he is hovering just beside me, blocking my body from anyone behind us seeing. No one in front has the energy to turn around, so we're about as private as we'll get. He presses a chaste kiss against my hair and leans in-

Paige lands beside us and hops off a locust, wrinkling her nose. It distorts her entire face and I can't help but pull my head back and laugh. Raffe stops, looking confused, and the expression on his face sends me into more laughter.

Howler lands beside Paige and observes me. Immediately I stop.

"No, go on. I just didn't know you had emotions besides love for the Commander and anger, maggot slayer, but it seems you can laugh."

I punch him in the face and Raffe laughs. Beside him, Paige giggles in an unbelievably Paige way that sets me off. Howler emerges from my fist scowling.

"Sure, Commander, Squirt, just laugh at my pain like a couple of sadists, will you?"

We're climbing a hill now, that hill leading to a nearby cliff. Raffe points to it as his wings flutter, keeping him above ground and moving forward but not taking him up in any way.

"You wanna stop there for a break later?"

I nod as a pin my seventy-fourth flyer to a crumbling wall.

"Yeah. I'm dying over here."

Cyclone appears out of nowhere.

"Can't you just stab Katherine-sorry, Pooky Bear into death like you do all your enemies?"

I roll my eyes. "With someone like you in my life, Cyclone, sometimes I wonder if death is really my enemy."

Howler guwaffs while Paige giggles again. Raffe just gives me a proud expression.

We stop beside the cliff and I gaze down below into the dark, churning waters. Raffe wraps an arm around me and squeezes me. I lean into his warm chest.

Howler comes to stand beside me, pretending to have an intense make-out session with himself. My cheeks burn and I'm considering stabbing him when he starts bucking his hips into air and moaning me and Raffe's names really loudly.

That does it.

I step forward and push him off the cliff. Paige gasps and looks over the edge while Cyclone falls out of the air laughing. Raffe says nothing, just hugs me.

"I know." I say. "I'm proud of me too."