a/n: This one takes place after Puppet Strings. The countdown in the title refers to the six months mentioned in 'Til It's Gone and is the specific period of time at the end of this fic. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this one.

3 Weeks 1 Day 5 Hours

'Can you see anything?' Adalind asked from somewhere near his feet. She didn't sound expectant or even particularly hopeful, just curious.

What he could see was wet grass and the bottom of trees. It was dark outside so he wasn't really expecting much but he'd kind of been hoping for a way to get out or at least a sign to tell him where the hell they were. Instead all he could see was the grass growing over the small basement window and the trees that were encroaching on what he thought might be a yard of some sort. He couldn't see any vehicles or people and when he strained his hearing he couldn't hear anything.

As far as he could tell they were completely alone.

He shifted his feet slightly on the metal rung he was standing on and held a hand down to Adalind. He had no idea why the metal rungs had been embedded in the wall to form a ladder, as far as he could tell it didn't, and never had, gone anywhere. Its only purpose appeared to be letting the people locked away in the basement get a tiny look at the outside world.

They'd already wasted an hour searching every inch of the room for a way out and hadn't found one. Adalind had tried to unlock the door but there didn't seem to be a lock on the door. Whoever had thrown them in the room and shut the door behind them had sealed it in a way that didn't involve locks. They'd had no luck trying to break it down or loosen the hinges either.

'Let me see if I can get a signal,' Nick suggested. A moment later Adalind placed her phone in his hand. He held it up to the window as close as he could while still keeping a grip on it. 'Nothing.' He passed her phone back and she handed him his own. They were the same make and model but given how annoying technology could be there was no reason not to check both.

'Anything?'

'No.' He was trying not to sound annoyed but really this was a bit ridiculous. 'Do you remember anything about how we got here?' He handed back his phone and then carefully climbed down. He had no idea why the basement had been dug down so deep or what it had once been used for.

'Still nothing,' Adalind reported. 'You're sure Kelly will be okay?'

Nick nodded. 'I told May to take him to the Spice Shop.'

Adalind nodded but she didn't seem relieved by the reassurance. 'The one friend I made and she's probably never going to want to see me again.'

Nick frowned. 'Why wouldn't she want to see you?'

'I didn't exactly go quietly.'

'You fought back?'

Adalind frowned. 'I don't think so. I'm pretty sure someone shot me with a tranquilizer from behind but I'm sure I woged when it hit me. I remember a really sharp pain.'

Nick nodded, that sounded pretty much like his own experience. He'd been leaving work and on his way to his car when something sharp had hit him in the back of the neck. Before he'd had time to react a second sting had hit him in the arm and a third had got him in the chest when he spun around to see if he could see who was attacking him. He had to assume that May would explain what had happened to Rosalee and Monroe when she got there and that they would come looking when Nick didn't turn up.

If she even understood what had happened. Although, it wasn't every day your friend got drugged and stuffed into the back of a van so he doubted she would think it was normal. She'd certainly sounded panicked enough on the phone when she'd called him. Actually, he wondered why she'd called him first and not 911. Maybe she'd just assumed that because he was a cop he would know what to do.

'She seemed really worried about you,' Nick assured Adalind. 'I don't think she was worried about what your face did when she'd just watched you being stuffed into a van.'

'They stuffed me into a van?' Adalind sounded offended. 'Why do these people keep kidnapping me?'

'It wasn't just you this time,' Nick pointed out.

'Yes,' Adalind agreed. 'What do you think Black Claw doesn't want us to see this time?'

'You think it was Black Claw?'

'Who else is going to drug us and lock us up?'

'Why not kill us?'

'Maybe they need something from us?'

That wasn't exactly a comforting thought but Nick couldn't dismiss it. It was really the only reason to leave them both alive. Taking them both didn't bode well either. It brought up the alarming concern that they were only together so they could be used to make the other talk. It was weird but the idea that someone was planning to hurt Adalind to make him talk didn't worry him. It infuriated him and he was absolutely certain that whoever had taken them would not want to be dealing with a pissed off and protective Grimm.

And it worked in reverse. Anyone aiming to hurt him to get information out of Adalind was going to find themselves with a pissed off and powerful hexenbiest on their hands. Depending on how annoyed he was at the time that might be worth seeing.

But for the moment he and Adalind were stuck in the very deep basement of a house in an unknown location, completely alone and with nothing to do. He looked at Adalind. She'd been taking more interest in her appearance lately – since she'd started going out more often and meeting new people – and despite the drugging and manhandling she looked really good. Really good.

She saw his look and rolled her eyes. 'We are not having sex in here.'

Nick grinned, he couldn't help it. 'I didn't say anything.'

'You didn't have to.'

They ended up sitting beneath the overgrown window beside the ladder. Nick laced the fingers of his left hand through her right and she snuggled into his side, bending her legs so that her knees rested against his legs which were stretched out before him. He turned his head to press a kiss to her head.

After a moment, Adalind asked, 'Did you ask Monroe about Rosalee?'

'I can't ask him,' Nick replied. 'They'll tell us when they're ready.'

Adalind pouted. 'How am I supposed to know if I'm right?'

Nick rolled his eyes. 'Do you think you're wrong?'

'Well no,' Adalind admitted.

'Then why do you need them to tell us?'

'Sometimes,' Adalind sighed, 'you're such a man.'

'You weren't complaining about my manliness last night.'

'We're still not having sex.'

'I wasn't asking.'

'Though if you want to repeat that when we get home I won't complain.'

Nick smirked. 'You know I'm going to take you up on that.'

Adalind returned his smirk with a sexy one of her own. 'I'm going to hold you to that.'

An hour later they were bored of sitting around and had started exploring the room again. 'I felt a breeze,' Nick insisted.

'You were imagining it,' Adalind contradicted but that didn't stop her from helping him look. 'Maybe we missed something in the ceiling?'

Nick considered that, it was a possibility. They hadn't searched the ceiling as thoroughly as they probably could have because it was difficult to carefully comb every inch of the thing when it was so far away.

'You'll have to stand on my shoulders.'

Adalind looked sceptical. 'I don't know that you'll be able to hold me.'

Nick raised his eyebrows. 'Are you fishing for a compliment?' he asked suspiciously.

'What?'

'Because I just offered to have sex with you. Twice.'

It was Adalind's turn to raise her eyebrows. 'I thought you weren't suggesting anything?'

'I lied,' Nick replied. 'Now come on, climb up.'

'Nick,' Adalind protested. 'It's not -'

'Adalind 99% of the time I'm around you I'm thinking about you naked so trust me when I tell you lifting you is going to be easy.'

Adalind rolled her eyes but finally stepped up close enough that she could step onto his hands when he linked them together. He thought there might have been a little more force than necessary when she pushed against his head for balance but after a little bit of wobbly and a lot less effort than she was expecting, Adalind managed to stand on his shoulders while he slowly moved into a standing position. Adalind's head didn't even hit the ceiling. But she could reach up and steady herself by resting her hands against it.

'This would be so much more fun if you were wearing a dress.'

She ignored him but he expected as much. 'Start in the corner and go from there?'

'Which corner?'

'The one with the ladder.'

Nick took slow steady steps toward the window trying really hard not to drop Adalind. He'd been telling the truth when he told her she didn't need to worry about being hard to lift, she really didn't weigh all that much but balancing her was definitely not easy. He imagined if he dropped her he'd be hearing about it for the next decade.

'I love you,' he reminded her, just in case he did drop her. It paid to remind her of these things.

'You better not drop me,' she told him in return. He'd have preferred and "I love you too" but he couldn't argue with the fact that she clearly knew him well enough to know what he was thinking.

'Find anything?'

'The ceiling feels weird,' she reported.

'What do you mean weird?'

'Kind of spongy,' Adalind reported. There was a beat in which she considered her words and then said, 'Or that could be some sort of mould.'

Nick really hoped that wasn't the case. He took another step and another and another as Adalind carefully felt her way along the roof. They'd gone most of the way around the room when Adalind told him to stop and take three steps back.

'What is it?'

'Go back to the corner by the ladder.'

He did as he was told, walking carefully back to the corner by the ladder. 'What is it?'

'Hang on, I need to get my phone, I need more light.'

He felt the balance of her weight shift and tried not to overcompensate as he shifted slightly to keep her steady. There wasn't much light in the basement, it was just that the little bit of natural light coming in through the little bit of window had been enough for them to make out the features of the basement once their eyes had adjusted. The sudden light from the torch in her phone felt extraordinarily bright in the gloom.

'I think there used to be a trapdoor here,' she eventually told him after she'd made him walk back and forth for a few minutes.

'Used to be?'

'The ceiling is different here,' she told him. 'I can't feel or see any hinges or a handle.'

'I don't suppose you can push it open?'

He couldn't see it but he was pretty sure she pulled a face at him. 'I'm going to try something, brace yourself and catch me if I fall.'

He spread his feet wider to give him a little more stability and then gave her the go ahead. The sudden pressure on his shoulders hurt but he'd been braced for it and so he only let out a small grunt of pain. Above him Adalind lent out a grunt of her own as she pushed hard against the different feeling ceiling. After a moment she gave up and the sudden lax in pressure on his shoulders almost made him stumble.

'I think I need to try and move it with my powers.'

'You want to come down and try it?'

Adalind considered her options before she declined his offer. 'I think I've got a better view of it from here.'

He gathered by view she actually meant that she had a better idea of what shape and size the old trapdoor was. 'Is this going to hurt?'

'It depends on whether or not there's something above the floor.'

'I like your brain,' he told her. 'Please don't give yourself an aneurism.'

'I like my brain too,' she assured him. 'Ready?'

'Yeah.' He really hoped the fact that he was starting to feel every single pound resting on his shoulders didn't show in his voice.

He couldn't see what she was doing and he was glad for it, it was bad enough listening as she grunted with the strain of trying to – he gathered – push a hole in the ceiling. There was a crack, Adalind yelped and then she swayed alarmingly above him. He felt her reach out and grab something and then hiss with pain.

'What?' he asked in alarm.

'Splinter,' she answered. 'Giant splinter.'

'Did you get through?'

'Yeah,' she said. 'It looks like they tried to replace the trapdoor with ordinary floor. I kind of just blew part of the floor away.'

'Can you pull yourself up?' He tilted his head back to try and see what she'd done but all he could see was her ass. It wasn't a bad view, quite the opposite, it just didn't tell him anything useful.

'Not yet,' she explained. 'The hole isn't big enough.'

By the sound of it, she started hammering away at the planks surrounding the hole with her bare hands. It took her a good half hour but finally she declared the hole big enough for her to get through. Which was great in theory but he didn't exactly like the idea of pushing her up through a hole into a room they knew nothing about.

'Well we can't stay down here,' she pointed out reasonably.

'Oh, I don't know,' Nick disagree simply because he felt sarcasm fit the moment. 'It's quite nice really.'

'If I didn't think I'd fall flat on my face I'd kick you right now.'

'Please don't,' Nick hastily responded. 'I really don't want you falling.'

'Well I'm hardly planning on it,' she snarked. 'You're going to have to give me a boost.'

'Can you reach your hand through?' he asked.

'Not easily, why?'

'Stick your phone through and record the room.'

'Oh.'

He resisted the desire to tell her to hurry up because he thought she might take that the wrong way. Adalind had never been sensitive about her weight before but then again she hadn't been socialising with a bunch of women before she started going to her baby group. As much as she seemed to like the women in her group it was obvious she felt the need to impress them in some way. Why that should include a sudden worry about baby weight (that she'd lost months and months ago) he didn't know.

May, thank god, seemed to be the exception.

'I think it must be the living room,' she announced. 'I don't see anyone, nothing but a couch and a really old television in the corner.'

'Okay then.' Nick conceded then that pushing her through the freshly created hole was their only option. She hadn't exactly been quiet while making the hole. If someone had heard her pushing through they'd surely have come to investigate already. 'Are you ready?'

'Am I ready to be thrown up through the ceiling into the unknown?' Adalind asked sarcastically.

'Not helping,' Nick grunted, gripping her ankles and preparing to change his grip. 'Ready?'

'As I'll ever be.'

It wasn't easy and there were definitely a few seconds where he feared she'd end up falling flat on her face but somehow he managed to shift her weight from his shoulders, to his hands until he was pushing as best her could to give her a boost through the hole. He imagined it was the most ungraceful looking movement, probably she looked like a fish out of water flapping about on her belly but eventually she managed to pull herself up and through the hole with his help.

There was a rather indelicate sounding thud and some wriggling before her head appeared in the hole looking down on him. 'I'm going to see if I can find the stairs.'

'Be careful.'

He was perfectly aware that Adalind was more than capable of looking after herself. He'd seen her fight – he'd fought her – but that didn't mean he didn't worry. Being alone in the basement while she went in search of a way to get to him was not a pleasant way to pass the time.

Thankfully, it didn't take her very long to find the stairs and soon there was a scraping at the door, more grunts of effort and some banging that sounded suspiciously like it was set a soundtrack of swearing before Adalind was dragging the door open. She didn't get it very far, just far enough that he could slip out into the hallway beyond. When he did he saw why they'd had such trouble getting the door open.

Instead of an ordinary heavy duty lock there was a steel bar across the door and four heavy beams wedged between the door and the wall opposite. As if that weren't enough sand bags had been stacked up against the door.

'Are we supposed to be flattered?' Nick asked, motioning to the lengths their captors had gone to in order to keep them in the basement cell.

Adalind shrugged. 'Probably. I guess they didn't want to underestimate us.'

'We still go out,' Nick pointed out.

'We're just that good.'

Adalind led him up the stairs, into the little house and out into the night. They stopped to take in their surroundings and Adalind lifted her hands to get a better look at the damage she'd done trying to dig through floorboards. Her hands were scratched a bloody and he imagined she'd broken a few fingernails but aside from the giant splinter (which she carefully pulled free) her hands were in pretty good shape considering the abuse.

Nick pulled his phone out to check for a signal. There wasn't one. Beside him Adalind checked her own phone. 'Nothing.'

As far as they could tell there was nothing on the property that would be of any use to them. If it had been Black Claw that took them, there was no sign of them ever occupying the house. There weren't any helpfully left behind vehicles and the house had a landline but when Adalind picked it up there was no dial tone.

'I'm really not wearing the right shoes for a hike through the woods,' Adalind grumbled. 'You'd think by now I'd have learnt that being with you required decent shoes.'

Nick looked down with a frown. 'Well, it could be worse, you could be wearing heels instead of flats.'

Adalind looked down at her own feet. 'Next time I'm wearing my boots.'

With a smile, he took her hand, lacing his fingers tightly with her own and gently tugged her down the drive. 'It's a nice night for a romantic walk.'

'When have we ever taken a romantic walk?' Adalind demanded. 'Actually I don't think I've ever taken a romantic walk. What's so romantic about a walk?'

'Spending time with someone you love?' Nick suggested. 'Actually, mostly I think it's just an excuse to show off to random strangers.'

'That I'd believe.'

'Well,' Nick murmured reassuringly, 'you're very show offable.'

'I don't think that's a word.'

'Don't poke holes, it was a compliment.'

'And as soon as we're home I will fully appreciate your compliment.'

'I thought that was when we were going to appreciate my manliness?'

'We're not having sex in the woods.'

Nick laughed. After forty-five minutes of walking down what felt like the world's longest driveway they reached a gate and a proper road. There was a metal mailbox fixed to the gate with a faded number on it that Nick could barely make out in the dark. He thought it might have said 142 but without a street name or even a zip code that number was pretty pointless.

Mind you, he was pretty sure they were still in or at least outside of Portland. He really didn't think he'd been out that long and Adalind had only woken a few minutes before he had.

'Finally,' Adalind delighted. 'I have a signal.' She started calling Rosalee as she was speaking. Her happiness didn't last and she pulled the phone away from her ear a moment later. 'Lost it.'

'Left or right?'

Adalind carefully studied the road in both directions and then looked up at the starry sky as though that could tell her which direction to go in. Nick was pretty sure navigating by the stars wasn't in her skill set.

'I guess right?'

'Right it is.'

It seemed as good a direction to go in as any, sooner or later a car had to pass them and then they could get a better idea of where the hell they were. An hour later Adalind suggested they may have been better off going left.

'I don't know that it would have mattered.'

'I hate not knowing where we are,' she complained. 'Poor Kelly.'

'Kelly is warm and safe and probably being spoiled,' Nick pointed out. 'We're walking on the road in the dark in the middle of nowhere.'

'Do you think we should move him into his room?'

'Probably,' Nick admitted. 'He's mostly sleeping through the night now.'

'And we have finished his room.'

'Finally.'

'Hey, you were the one that wouldn't agree on a paint colour.'

'No,' Nick said with considerable exasperation. 'I just couldn't see the difference between the three colours you chose.'

'They were very similar.'

'You should have just asked Rosalee.'

'I did,' Adalind reminded him. 'That was when she told me the smell of the paint was making her feel sick.'

Nick remembered that but only because of what happened afterward. 'I'm still not asking Monroe.'

'Oh come on!' Adalind whined. 'Please? For me?'

'I don't understand why you don't just ask her yourself.'

'What if I'm wrong?'

'I thought we'd already established you were pretty sure you were right?'

'Okay, yes, we did but I still can't just ask her.'

'But I can ask Monroe?'

'Yes!'

'No.'

'Come on, Nick.'

'No.'

'Please?'

'No.'

'But -'

'No.'

'Just -'

'No.'

'Car.'

'No – wait what?'

'Car!' Adalind repeated excitedly. 'Thank god.'

It wasn't a car so much as an ancient minivan full of preteen kids on their way home after some sort of competition. On the upside they'd been heading in the right direction back toward Portland and the driver, a middle aged woman who looked a bit frazzled (five preteens in one car, Nick didn't blame her) was happy to give them a ride back to town.

'How did you even get out here?' she asked once he and Adalind were squished into the front seat.

'Kidnapping,' Adalind said with a great deal of annoyance and none of the fear she probably should have been expressing. 'Do you have a phone that works?'

The woman turned wide eyes on the both of them but Nick could tell she didn't know whether to take Adalind seriously or not. 'There's no service for another ten miles.'

The ten miles passed quickly enough. The girls in back were happy to chat with Nick (later Adalind told him it was because they thought he was handsome) and they asked him all sorts of questions when they found out he was a detective. It wasn't hard to tell when they got back into range of a tower because both Nick and Adalind's phones started going crazy with messages and missed call alerts.

Wanting to know that Kelly was safe, Adalind called Rosalee first. She didn't have to wait long before the fuchsbau picked up, Nick wasn't sure the phone had even finished the first ring.

'Adalind!' Rosalee cried. 'Are you okay? Where are you? Is Nick with you?'

'I'm here,' Nick assured her. 'We're fine.'

'How's Kelly?' Adalind demanded.

Thoughtfully, all of the girls in back were being quiet. Nick suspected this was actually because they wanted to hear every word he and Adalind exchanged with their friends. Not because they were being polite and respectful.

'He's fine, he's asleep.'

Disgruntled, Adalind muttered, 'Well, it's nice to know we were missed.'

Nick snorted. 'Where are you?'

'We're still at the Spice Shop. Hank and Wu are out trying to look for you, Monroe and I are here with May.'

'Alright,' Nick replied. 'We're coming to you.'

'You're sure you're okay?'

After assuring Rosalee again that they were fine and that they'd explain when they saw her, Adalind hung up. They travelled a few more miles in silence before Nick broke it when he saw a sign welcoming them to Portland. 'You don't need to take us all the way home,' he told their rescuer. 'We can catch a cab the rest of the way.'

'It's no trouble,' she assured them which turned out, ten minutes later, to be a lie. They'd barely passed the first gas station before a black, unmarked SUV pulled out behind them.

Nick didn't notice it at first but after it followed them through four different turns and a lane change he realised they were being followed. 'You need to let us out,' Nick told the woman calmly in a low voice because he didn't want to alarm the girls in back.

'What?'

'We're being followed,' he told her in the same steady low voice. 'I don't want to put you in danger.'

The woman didn't need to be told twice. She pulled over in the parking lot of a Walmart and practically shoved them out of the car. 'Thank you,' Adalind managed to say before the minivan was nothing but taillights in the distance.

They didn't have time to hide, didn't have time to do much more than stand and wait to see what the SUV tailing them would do. All the same, Adalind yanked him behind a car to give them some time to come up with a better plan than to just go with it and see what happened.

Nick peered over the hood of the car they were crouched behind and watched the SUV roll to a stop, high beams on to flood the already well-lit parking lot with light. All four doors opened and men spilled out. All of them were dressed in black but they looked more like your everyday thug than a well-trained group. That would work to their advantage.

'Four of them,' Nick told Adalind in a whisper. 'Can't tell what they are.'

'Weapons?'

Nick squinted against the light but the men were standing behind the light and so he couldn't make out much more than their darkened figures. 'Can't tell.'

'Well, this should be fun then.'

Nick nodded. 'Can you circle around while I draw their attention?'

Adalind nodded and slipped away without another word. She barely made a sound as she weaved through the few cars in the lot and he knew she'd be okay. He wasn't all that sure he'd be the same. He didn't know what weapons they were carrying and couldn't even really make out what kind of wesen he was dealing with. Still, if they were going to get out of this he needed to make some noise and draw their attention.

Standing up seemed to do the trick. He timed it carefully, waiting until the men had fanned out a little more and then he rose from behind the car and made a very visible run for the next one. The thwack of bullets impacting pavement told him they had guns and he hastily ducked behind another car. Breathing heavily, he waited for the hail of bullets to stop and then he peeked around the back of the Mini he was hiding behind.

There was a yelp, a crunch, three quick shots and then silence.

Nick stood up and patted himself down to check for injuries. He seemed to be perfectly unharmed, not even a graze from sliding across the ground to get behind the car.

'Nick?' Adalind called. 'Are you okay?'

'I'm good,' he assured her. Adalind must have reached into the SUV because the high beams suddenly switched off and he had to blink rapidly to clear the spots from his vision. 'Are you okay?'

'Oh, I'm fine,' she assured him. 'They never even saw me coming.'

'Sometimes you're kind of scary,' he informed her. 'Is it weird I find that sexy?'

'No weirder than my finding your being a Grimm sexy.'

'Fair point.' He approached the SUV and closed the passenger door behind the driver's seat while Adalind did the same on the passenger side. Then they climbed in front and Nick turned the keys in the ignition. 'Let's go home.'

They didn't go straight home, of course, not only did they need to collect Kelly and assure their friends they were okay but they needed to ditch the SUV as well. They left it in the parking lot of a grocery store and walked the three blocks to the Spice Shop. Adalind was quite pleased to see her own SUV parked out front.

'Rosalee and Monroe must have collected it,' Nick murmured.

'I don't see May's car,' Adalind noted.

'It's three in the morning,' Nick pointed out. 'She's probably gone home and put Leda to bed.'

'After her friend was kidnapped right in front of her?'

Nick gave Adalind a bemused look. 'Was she supposed to wait at the shop all night worrying?'

'No,' Adalind admitted. 'But it doesn't look like anyone waited for us.'

Their captors hadn't bothered to take Nick's keys when they jumped him so they let themselves into the shop with the spare key Rosalee had given him years ago. There was a note on the counter informing them that as they were alive and well, Monroe and Rosalee had taken Kelly home with them for some sleep and that they could collect him in the morning. Adalind's bag and keys were sitting beside the note.

'They could have called us,' Adalind complained.

'We had to come here anyway,' Nick pointed out.

Adalind didn't seem impressed by his observation but she collected up her bag and keys and they left, making sure to lock the store behind them. Nick drove again and Adalind let out a contented sigh when they reached the loft and the garage door slid up so Nick could drive on in.

As they stepped out of the elevator and into the loft Adalind said, 'I need a shower and some sleep.'

'Shower, sex, then sleep?' Nick suggested.

Adalind gave him a counter offer of, 'Sex, shower, sleep?'

Nick shrugged. 'Works for me.' And he swung her up into his arms and made a beeline for the bedroom.

Later, after the sex (it was spectacular as predicted) and a shower, Nick found himself in bed watching Adalind who had fallen asleep the moment her head hit the pillow. To be fair, she'd done most of the work, getting them out of the basement and taking down all four of the men in the SUV. Not to mention he'd given her quite a workout when they'd gotten home. He grinned.

Adalind was lying on her side facing him and her left hand was splayed on the mattress while her right hand was probably going numb under her head. Now that her hands were properly cleaned the scratches and bruises showed clearly against her creamy skin. He didn't like that she'd gotten hurt getting them out but he could appreciate that she hadn't once complained about it. She'd just gone ahead and done what was necessary, whether that was hammering her way through a poorly laid floor with fist and powers or killing four members of Black Claw.

Careful not to wake her, Nick slipped out of bed. He was gone and back without her noticing and he easily slid down until he was lying beside her. Still watching her, he traced each of the scratches on her hand, amused when her nose twitched. He did it again until she murmured at him in annoyance.

'What are you doing?' she complained, without opening her eyes.

'I love you.'

'I know,' Adalind whispered. 'Go to sleep.'

He kept playing with her fingers. 'Not yet.'

'We're not having sex again,' she informed him.

He laughed quietly and stopped playing with her fingers long enough to slide the ring he'd purchased months ago onto her finger. The feel of cool metal definitely woke her up and her eyes shot open in surprise. She let out a strangled sound he really hoped meant good things and kissed her.

'Nick-'

He kissed her again. 'Marry me.'

'Maybe we can revisit that whole sex idea,' she whispered breathlessly.

Nick laughed again. 'Is that a yes?'

'Oh,' Adalind answered distractedly, she hadn't taken her eyes off the ring since he'd stopped kissing her. 'Yes.'

'So sex?' Nick prompted.

'Sex,' Adalind agreed with a delighted laugh.