Author's Note:

Ok, so I've decided that I don't like plot bunnies anymore. they're evil little things that bite if you don't write them out and please them. Anyways enough of me being dramatic. This is going to be fully in Nate's point of view, the whole thing. It's an outline of their Europe trip through my eyes, and well, I guess his? So we've got a little bit of jealousy, passion, hurt, all typical Nate. Hope you enjoy it! leave me your thoughts! I think it's going to come out pretty well. besides what to do you think of scruffy Nate by the end of the summer, a sudden pro at backbacking and being so not a UES, for some reason I still see him as a chicken to it all... but, you'll see what I mean shortly. Goodness, the things a boy will do in the name of love and proving himself!

-Manda


She'd worn pajamas on the plane, her favorite ones to be exact. The blue plaid with a rip in the knee, he'd gotten them off of her to many times to count. The thought of it made him feel like he needed to go splash some cool water on his face, it was going to be a very long vacation if he had to look at the pajama bottoms covering her body night after night. The black tank top was one she'd always worn to bed, one he'd discarded to the floor in both of their bedrooms along with numerous other rooms in both of their houses. He was going to get himself in serious trouble if he kept thinking about it. Shutting his eyes he couldn't get the images or feelings out of his head. They weren't images she'd said were allowed on their trip. They were going as friends and nothing more. She didn't want anything more out of him, she'd been down that road with him far too many times for comfort in her opinion. He had a determination to break her of that opinion as soon as he could. It was either that or he'd be up to his neck in cold water after she went to bed every night.

He was lucky she was asleep or else he could have anticipated the shove on the arm he would have relieved from what he'd let his hands do. The divider in the middle of them was up making it possible for her to sit the way she'd been sitting for the past five hours. She'd demanded the window seat soon as they'd boarded. So loud and so anxiously as she'd thrown herself across him to grab it she'd disturbed the guy in front of them. That was the Vanessa he loved, never afraid to be who she was or demand what she wanted. Thinking about it he did it again, the thing he would have been slapped for. Running his fingers through her messy curly hair had to have been against the rules. It had always been one of their intimate things. Besides, in the past even the simplest of touches had led to clothes coming off and hungry kisses being exchanged. With the way she'd angled herself in the chair and laid her head in his lap Nate was having a very hard time controlling himself from kissing her forehead. He'd been itching to touch her, to kiss her since she'd sleepy allowed her head to sleep into his lap. He controlled himself, he was there to learn how to be her friend.

"Your girls beautiful"

Hearing the voice of the guy in front of him Nate looked up, it was the tenth time in the hour he'd turned around to look at Vanessa. Nate felt his jealously flair as he accidently slipped an arm around Vanessa for his own male ego and dominance sake. It was going to be a seriously long nine weeks if she had people falling all over her already. With his arm tightly around the top half of her as she slept peacefully and comfortably in his lap Nate looked back up at the blonde in front of him. The kid couldn't have been more than a college student himself, from the accent he guessed a native New Yorker on the same adventure as them. A means of getting away and seeing the world. Nate only cared about one thing, that was being with her and seeing the world with her. Not to mention keeping her safe from the creeps that would have given anything for a piece of her. Under that category Nate already knew would fall anyone who made a single comment or move on her.

"Yea, she is"

Nate nodded his head in agreement, a certain arrogance stuck deep in his throat. It was like Nate felt like he needed some way to mark his territory, as if he had some right to claim her as his. All things that he didn't have, she wasn't his and he was going to suck it up till he figured some way to make her see that they were right for each other and that there wasn't a way for them to be apart. He'd have a lot to work for and a lot to prove to her but that was what the trip was for him. A chance for him to prove himself worthy of her, Dan had warned him before they'd left that it was going to take a while. He'd destroyed every ounce of trust she'd had in him with the last time he'd hurt her. Something he deeply regretted every time he looked at her.

When they'd first planned the trip he'd snuck in some things other than her strict course of backpacking. Things such as throwing coins into the Trevi Fountain in Italy, Everyman Cinema in Hampstead London, and the Musee du Louvre in Paris we're a few of the things he'd planned out before he'd lost his mind. Things that would make her eyes sparkle so that he could take it all in. the way she got all childlike and anxious when something she wanted was right in front of her, at one point in time he'd been the one to make that happen. Looking down at her again his hands pulled their way through her hair again gently, that was something he needed again, to see her lit smile.

Looking up from her again the guy in front of them was still turned around looking at her, or, as Nate would have described more so as gazing at her. He sighed to himself, it was going to be some very long days if he had to deal with guys doing the same thing while she was awake and he couldn't stop them. Who would have thought Nate would have become such a masochist over a girl. The more he looked down at her watching her sleep the more he knew that she was worth it. She was worth it and she'd always been worth it. this was the summer for him to do something for himself, fighting for her was something he was doing for himself. The first thing he was as a matter of fact. He'd seen life without her and it was just more of the lies and rules he'd grown up with. That wasn't something he wanted the rest of his life to be like.

Her shift of movement caused his eyes to jolt open and his hand to stop the rubbing movement on the back of her neck that was slowly lulling him to sleep. His problems were slowly coming back, the problems of him needing to touch her to sleep. It was something they'd both gotten used to, it was nice to for the first time in a few months not need a sleeping pill. The comfort of feeling her there was enough for him. Peaking out of one eye he finally noticed her movement wasn't very much and she was still sound asleep with her head in his lap. The only change was her hand. Her hand was now in a grasping fist holding onto his shirt as she slept. The light smirk came back to his face again as he leaned his head back against the back of the seat and his hand resumed rubbing it's back and forth pattern on her neck as he let himself drift off.

As long as he got to touch her and be with her the vacation wouldn't be so bad, one way or another he'd work it back out to everything being like it was before family expectations had once again taken his life for their own. He'd prove it to her, one way or another he'd show her that she was the one he wanted, no lies or fake shows this time.