Magnus shut the door and locked it, hearing Emilia pace in the living room. He moved into the space and looked at her.
"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I thought if I told Kurt I wanted this detail he wouldn't give it to me, and-"
"I understand," Emilia cut in, then stopped pacing and looked at him. "And I'm thankful that it's you. I don't think I could have stayed here with anyone else. It's just..." she trailed off and started pacing again.
"Look," Magnus tried. "I don't want what might have happened between us to make you uncomfortable in your own home."
"Tonight was supposed to be our first date," she replied. She stopped pacing again and her eyes turned up to meet his gaze. She had teared up but would not let herself cry.
Magnus looked at her, resisting the urge to pull her into his arms. "Mia," he whispered.
Emilia rubbed her hands over her eyes and sniffed, then took a deep breath. When she looked at him again, her mask of calm dissatisfaction had returned. "We can't always get what we want."
"Don't," Magnus said, taking a step toward her. "Don't shut me out. Not now."
"What am I supposed to do, Magnus? You're my guard, my babysitter, as you so eloquently told Kurt."
"I didn't mean -"
"I know you didn't, and I know why you put up that fight with him. And I mean it when I say I don't think I could stay here with anyone else watching over me. But I can't have this tension between us. I can't tiptoe around my house and pretend like you being here to protect me isn't a way to get closer to me. I want you to get closer - I want us to get closer. But you have a job to do, a job you could lose in an instant if Kurt or anyone knew."
She shook her head. "I can't be responsible for that."
"Then we don't hide," Magnus said. "Not here. This is your home. We just don't... act."
"And out there we have to hide. Always."
Magnus nodded. "I wish we didn't."
"So do I," she replied with a sad smile. "I guess maybe we should try and put this in a better light."
"How do you mean?"
"So... we can't push any physical boundaries that would go beyond close friends, but we can use this time to get to know one another better. That is, if you're interested in me for more than a good shag." She winked at him and he chuckled before growing serious.
Taking another step to her, he bent his head down so their foreheads almost touched. "I'm interested in far more than that."
She put a finger to his lips. "And that's the last time you can say that until this is over."
They stood like that for a moment before Magnus nodded slowly. Emilia moved her finger away.
"You hungry?" She asked.
Magnus shrugged. "Sure. You want to order something?"
"Hell no. I'm cooking, and you're choosing the wine."
He smiled. "Whatever you say."
"My house, my rules?"
"If that's what you want to tell yourself," Magnus chuckled.
Emilia gave a mock salute. "Of course, detective."
She moved toward the kitchen. "There's room in the hall closet for your stuff, and you can put whatever you want in the loo down here."
Magnus picked up his bags and moved into the hall. "Thanks."
Emilia opened the fridge and started pulling some items out and placing them on the counter.
"So what's on the menu?" Magnus called from the hall.
"Well, you were going to take me to Volare, yes?"
Magnus peaked out around the corner. "Italian?"
Emilia shifted from behind the fridge door and nodded.
"Marvellous," Magnus grinned and popped back around the corner to unpack more of his stuff.
"There's wine in the cellar," Emilia said as she began pulling out pots and pans. "White would probably work best, but go with whatever you feel like."
Ten minutes later Magnus emerged from the basement with two bottles of wine, a pinot noir and a viognier. Kicking the cellar door closed, he sauntered into the kitchen. Emilia was busy chopping tomatoes and carrots. A pile of onions and garlic already lay to the side of the cutting board.
"Remind me why we didn't just do this in the first place," Magnus said as he set the red wine on the counter and put the white in the freezer.
"For one, you didn't ask," Emilia said as she continued chopping. "For two, I assumed you were being traditional and asking a lady out to dinner for which you would pay."
Magnus fumbled in the drawers searching for a bottle opener.
"I can be gentlemanly," he defended.
Emilia spun to face him, knife in hand, and playfully brandished it. "Well, I guess I'll find out."
Magnus finally locate a bottle opener and turned to face her, starting back at the sight. "I promise," he said, holding up his hands. "All gentleman."
Smiling, Emilia turned back to her chopping. "If you're going to be this jumpy, I'm going to have a lot of fun with you."
Magnus clicked his teeth and set to work opening the wine bottle. Once it was open, he reached above Emilia to the cabinets near her head. She finished chopping and set the knife down. As she shifted to move the cutting board toward the stove, Magnus gave her hair a playful tug.
She glared up at him and he grinned.
"Gentleman indeed," she snickered. "More like playground man."
He chuckled as he opened the cabinet and pulled out to goblets. "Alright, I admit it. You either get the gentleman or the five year old with a crush."
"You had crushes at five?" Emilia asked as she moved the cutting board and turned on the stove, drizzling olive oil in a large pan. "When did you go through the girls have cooties phase?"
"Four," Magnus said nonchalantly. "And again around ten, but that didn't last long."
"Who was she?"
"Selene Harper. She was a tomboy, but had these huge, dark brown eyes and her hair was curlier than mine. She wore it braided in pigtails and all the boys pulled on it."
"Except you, I suppose."
"Oh no, I did too," he continued as he started pouring the wine. "Until one day when I saw her hiding behind the gymnasium. She was re-braiding her hair and her hands were shaking. I just moved toward her... I couldn't have explained why, but I knew she was really sad and I suddenly felt guilty for all the times I'd pulled her hair. I walked up to her and asked if she was OK. She didn't want to talk to me. Understandable. So I just sat beside her, leaned against the wall and watched her. She kept tugging out the braid and redoing it, and after a couple minutes she started to cry. I didn't know what to do, but I reached up and took one of her hands and as soon as I did she sank down next to me and put her head on my shoulder and just cried. When the bell rang she sprinted away, but I just sat there."
He handed a glass to Emilia who had turned away from the sizzling garlic and onions in the pan to listen to him. She took it and held it, not drinking.
"I went back to class late, and after school I tried to find her, but I couldn't. The next day I went back to the same place and she was there again, sitting on the ground. I sat down next to her. She had one of her hands on her knee and I put mine over it. We just sat like that for a couple minutes. Then she told me that the day before when she went home her father yelled at her for the state of her hair, like he did every time she came home and her braids were uneven or messy from when she left in the morning. He was a single father and she was an only child, and he spent time carefully braiding her hair every night hoping it would last a couple days, but the boys at school pulling it always messed it up. Sometimes the others put sticks and rocks in it, or threw dirt on it. Her father didn't know how to do anything else with her hair and was trying to keep it clean and presentable, but he also didn't know how to communicate with his daughter. So she had her father on the one hand, and all the boys at school on the other... and after she told me that I lit into anyone who tried to mess up her hair. I got into a couple fights, but they soon stopped tormenting her, and my parents had her and her father over for dinner one night and after that we were really good friends. Her father became close with my parents and learned how to talk to his daughter, and I never thought girls had cooties again after that first day."
He gave a small, sad smile as Emilia gazed at him.
"Do you still keep in touch?"
Magnus shook his head. "Her father got a new job when we were fourteen and they moved to Prague. We just, you know."
Emilia nodded. "I take back what I said about the playground man. I know men our age who wouldn't have been that kind, or even remember doing something like that at ten." She raised her glass to him and he lightly clinked his on hers. They both took sips before Emilia set her glass down and continued cooking.
Magnus stepped back to the frame at the entrance to the kitchen and leaned against it, watching her. "Anything I can do?"
"You can find something good on the satellite radio stations," she replied while adding in the carrots and tomatoes to the pan.
"WIll do," Magnus said as he shifted from the frame and walked into the living room.
"And then you can dance for my amusement," Emilia said.
"Ummm..."
"It's the price you pay for me cooking and you not taking me out for dinner," she said, turning around to smile at him. "And for complaining to Kurt that you have to babysit me."
Magnus opened his mouth to object, then closed it and nodded. "If it will make you happy."
"Exceedingly," she beamed.
"Very well."
Magnus moved into the living room and flicked on the television. He scanned for the music channels and initially turned to a dance mix channel. Lady Gaga began piping out of the speakers and Emilia turned her head from the stove, looked at Magnus, and nodded.
"Please, no," he said, and the fear in his expression made Emilia start laughing.
"My house, my rules," Emilia grinned. "And you have to admit the beat is easy to hear."
Magnus shuffled uneasily and she kept giggling.
"Fine," she relented. "We'll ease into Gaga. See if there's something on one of the retro stations."
Magnus flipped through several stations and finally landed on the forties station where smooth horns cooed.
"This alright?" He called into the kitchen.
"It's fine," she called back, now swirling tomato paste and crushed tomatoes into the pan.
"Smells good already," Magnus said, coming back toward the kitchen with his glass of wine. He leaned in the doorframe and watch Emilia cook for a few minutes, casually taking sips here and there.
"I don't hear dancing," Emilia finally said, making a half turn to get pasta out of the cabinet.
Magnus set down his wine glass and backed away a few paces, doing a little poorly improvised soft shoe. Emilia looked back at him and giggled.
"You didn't say it had to be good dancing," Magnus said, sheepish yet smiling.
Emilia turned back and dumped the pasta into the pot of boiling water. After salting and couple stirs, she turned back to Magnus. "I'd be willing to bet you're better than that."
"Not without a partner," he said as he slinked toward her.
Emilia held a hand out toward him. "No. I'm cooking. And you're supposed to be my entertainment."
Magnus swiped her hand away and wrapped an arm around her waist. "You can be entertained up close," he said softly, beginning to sway with her.
"Inspector Martinsson, is this how you protect all your charges?"
"No," he smiled. "Only you."
He took her other hand in his and moved them toward the living room, easily maneuvering to the music.
"The pasta-" she started.
"Has a few minutes, doesn't it?"
Emilia glared at him, then softened her look as he smiled down at her.
"This is going all to be much easier if you relax around me," he said.
"I am relaxed," she gritted.
"Convincing."
Emilia sighed, but after a second she shifted a bit closer to him and pressed her forehead to his chest. "I'm trying," she said.
"I can't imagine what you're going through right now," he said, keeping her swaying to the music with him. "If any of this, with us, is too much-"
"Shhhhh. I have to stir the pasta in a minute. Let's just... have a minute."
"Whatever you need," he replied, moving the hand around her waist up higher on her back as they swayed gently to the music.
When Emilia pulled away, she squeezed the hand that held hers, then sauntered back into the kitchen. She took a sip of wine, then lifted the lid on the sauce, poured in the rest of the wine, gave it a quick stir and replaced the lid. When Magnus moved into the kitchen, he took the empty wine glass and refilled it, as well as his own. Emilia stirred the pasta, then turned toward Magnus who handed her the glass. They clinked and took a few sips.
After a tense pause, Emilia chuckled. "Well, I sure know how to bring the room down."
"I could dance on my own some more," Magnus smiled and they both started laughing.