A/N: Just a Rosie/Crane story set right after she and Briar and Evvy return from Yanjing. To clarify, Tris and Daja and respective teachers are not yet back. I like it. Enjoy!

It was an absolutely gorgeous spring day, and Dedicate Rosethorn was depressed.

Briar knew she was depressed as soon as he saw her that morning. He'd chirped his usual morning greeting and she, instead of growling back as he was used to, only greeted him listlessly. He knew that Lark was worried too, and Sandry, because he'd asked.

Lark doesn't know what it could be, Sandry reported. She'd been interrogating Lark for possible causes. She says there's no reason.

Maybe she misses traveling? Even as he said it, Briar knew it was rot. Rosethorn had spoken of nothing besides her garden, all the way home from Yanjing, and she'd been ecstatic for the first few days home. At least, as ecstatic as he'd ever seen her. But now…she was depressed. It made no sense.

Briar, that's bunk and you know it.

Yeah, I know. He chewed his lip. What could be wrong?

*******

Rosethorn walked in the sunshine, greeting the plants along the road and trying to convince herself that there was no reason for her to be depressed. She was home, Lark and Briar and Sandry were safe, everyone she didn't terrify was happy to see her.

Well, all except Crane. But he was away from Winding Circle, so he couldn't be happy to see her. He'd probably greet me with an argument, she thought, wryly.

She got the chance to test her theory as she wandered around a corner and ran smack into him.

"I'm sorry, I…" He got a good look at her and froze. "You're back."

"I'm back." She grinned. He looked as if she'd smacked him with a wet haddock. "So are you, apparently."

"You let your hair grow."

Absently, she swatted at a strand that had escaped the tie. "Yes, I let my hair grow. If you're going to continue making inane observations, I'm off."

Now he grinned. "You sound like Briar."

"Oh, Mila, anything but that." She rolled her eyes. "Did you hear? You've another thief to contend with. The boy has a student, named Evvy."

"I heard," Crane said, using his driest voice. "Sandry made a habit of sharing her letters with Lark, and Lark made a habit of sharing them with us."

"'Us?'" she asked,, suppressing another smile.

"Me, Gorse, Moonstream, Osprey. Interested parties."

"Ah." They were drawing near that glass monstrosity he called a greenhouse now. Rosethorn almost turned away, but the plants rioted and pressed themselves against the glass. Relenting, she came up and brushed her fingers against the glass, sending her magic out and calming them.

"They missed you," Crane said softly from behind her. She turned to look at him, not taking her fingers from the glass.

"Why would they miss me? I'm never in your greenhouse if I can help it."

"You're in Winding Circle and that's close enough for them." He shaded his eyes to peer inside. "Oh dear. They're rioting."

"I noticed," she said tartly, then told them a bit more sternly to calm down. They reluctantly agreed.

"Thank you. Ah…the jasmine is doing better."

"Which one?" Rosethorn asked. She knew he had a number of jasmines, and also knew that one had been ailing, since she'd sneaked into the greenhouse two days ago to heal it. Not that she was going to tell Crane that.

"The one from Sotat." He frowned then, closed his eyes, then opened them and fixed her with a look. "Have you been in my greenhouse recently?"

Rosethorn, about to lie, thought better of it. She crossed her arms and scowled at him. "Yes. Want to make something of it?"

"No. It seems I have something else to thank you for." A wry smile twisted his mouth. "What did I ever do without you?"

That tugged an answering, if reluctant, smile from her own mouth. "Terrify your students and order people around in a lordly voice. Where were you anyway?"

He sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. "Home, making the Obligatory Family Visit."

Rosethorn winced. Having once gone home with him for moral support, she felt his pain. "Ouch. You have my sympathy."

"Thank you." He half-smiled again. "It actually wasn't that bad this time. The plants at least were happy to see me—mother is a totally inept gardener."

"She's taken up gardening?" Rosethorn asked, incredulously. Crane's mother, as she remembered her, was an ineffectual woman given to swoons.

"No, she's taken up puttering around in the gardens, squealing when her feet get dirty and doing more harm then good. The gardeners were at their wits' end."

"I feel for them," she murmured, knowing a few women like that herself. "Have they given up on the marriage tangent yet?"

"No." He grimaced yet again. "Every time I turned around it was, 'Isas, darling, when are you going to settle down with a nice girl?' As if I could."

Rosethorn hid a smile. That particular aspect of Crane's family visits always amused her. "Did you explain about a dedicate's vows?"

"For at least the thirtieth time. No luck. I swear, my family is brainless."

"Aristocrats often are. They have other people to do their thinking for them."

For once, Crane didn't take exception when she quoted Briar. He merely nodded. "I find myself agreeing. Was that Briar?"

She grinned. "You caught me. Yes, it was. Never spend a year with that boy unless you want to pick up some of his mannerisms. He actually had the gall to teach me how to pick a lock."

Crane was hiding a smile now. "And you let him."

"It might be useful." She ignored the look on his face. "So what have you been doing here? Keeping yourself out of trouble after that mix-up with nothing-magic?"

********

Briar looked up at the sound of rising voices. Crane and Rosethorn were approaching, fighting about something. Neither, however, looked as if they were taking it seriously. Both looked as if they were enjoying themselves immensely.

They are so flirting. Sandry's voice echoed in his mind.

That they are, he agreed, grinning. Any moment now she'd yell for him to get down and start weeding. And when he asked her why she didn't do it…

"Boy!" Right on schedule.

"What?" he yelled back.

"Get down here, there's weeding to be done!"

"Aww, why ain't you weeding then?"

"Why aren't I, and because I have an argument to win. Now go!"

Briar, grinning like a maniac, ran down to the garden. He began to weed, then turned his mind towards the girls.

Now, he began, we have some matchmaking to do…

A/N: The Rogue Rosethorn/Crane shipper strikes again! Muahahahaha!

[subliminal messaging] You will review. You loved this story. You will tell me so in glowing terms. You will forget that you read this but its message will remain in your mind. [/subliminal messaging]