Duncan leads Courtney into a clearing with lush, knee-high grass growing around an abandoned barn. The wooden walls used to be painted a bright red color, but now the paint was chipping off and the wood was starting to rot. The tin roof was stained with flaking rust. Duncan walked over to the door and grabbed the rusty handle, pulling the door open, though it got stuck on rocks and clumps of weeds several times. When he let go of the handle, he brushed off the little chips of rust that had stuck to his hands on his pants.

"It might not be much, but I've always loved coming here when I just needed a little privacy," he tells her, walking into the half-collapsed building. Courtney follows closely behind in the darkness. Haybales were stacked in piles here and there, wafting a fragrant scent of dried grass into the damp air. Mysterious black stains were permanently stuck to the floorboards, probably ancient horse feces. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling and rusty farm equipment sat against the wall.

"Up here," he tells her, beginning to climb up a wooden ladder that looks relatively new compared to the other wood around the barn, which was starting to rot. She climbs up the ladder through a square opening to the second floor of the barn, which was barely a whole floor. The tin roof had collapsed, blocking half of the rest of the second floor, but revealing a bright orange sky full of the sunset. A few birds fly away from their nests in the rafters and through the hole in the roof.

"Wow… it's beautiful," Courtney breathes, letting it all soak in. The pink-orange tint to the sky, the fluffy white clouds stained from the sun, the navy blue sky rising in the opposite direction, the warm smell of golden straw, everything. Duncan takes her hand and slowly leads her across the room. They duck under the rafters and climb over collapsed support beams until they get to the tin roof that ran in a slope from the hay-covered floor to the colorful sky.

"Trust me, it gets even more beautiful the closer we get," he promises. He climbs up the rusty tin roof with Courtney right behind him. They get to the edge of the top of the tin slope to the flat part of the roof that hadn't collapsed yet. Courtney wobbles, looking down at the far distance to the ground, and sits down next to Duncan. She follows his gaze and looks at the setting sun, and the sight practically takes her breath away.

The forest stretched in rolling green hills up to a vast mountain range. The sun was hovering half-behind a range of purple, snow-capped mountains. The white cumulus clouds hovered above the horizon, a jumble of orange, amethyst, and gold colors from the setting sun.

"It's gorgeous," Courtney gasps.

"I know," Duncan replies. She feels his gaze on her in her peripheral vision, and she turns to face him. He whips his eyes back to the sunset and innocently scratches his thumb.

"So, uh, how'd you find this place?"

"Just a walk through the woods. Sometimes, those gypsies…," he drifts off, shaking his head and chuckling softly to himself. Courtney cocks her head at an angle and lifts an eyebrow.

"What about the gypsies?"

"Aw, nothing. It's just that they can get a little, I don't know, too energetic sometimes." Courtney accidentally lets out a giggle at his statement and she slaps her hand over her mouth. "You know what I mean?" Duncan asks.

"Exactly what you mean. Like, Katia especially. She's extremely perky," she tells him. Just saying Katia's name brought back a huge rush of feelings back. Did Katia like Duncan?, she can't help but wondering. And… does Duncan like her back? She lets out a sigh and studies the rusty metal roof.

"You okay? You sound upset," Duncan comments.

She takes a deep breath and blurts, "I think Katia likes you." Courtney shyly picked a flaking chip of rust with her fingernail, waiting for his response. Once she hears his loud, hearty laugh, though, she whips her head up. "What's so funny?" she demands, embarrassment burning her cheeks.

"You… think I like… Katia?" Duncan asks through gasps of air. He wipes the tears from his eyes that had collected from all the laughing.

"Yeah, that's what I said," Courtney snaps, "Now what's so funny about it? After all, she was flirting with you during my belly-dancing lessons." She can't help but cringe thinking of the unfortunate lesson.

"Me? No way. She was flirting with my friend, Thomas. He was standing right next to me while she was teaching you how dance like you do. But you haven't met him yet… You really should, though. He's a great guy," Duncan rambles.

"But you left me alone, might I mention, during the wolf attack to go save Katia. You must like her back," Courtney insists. But once the words were out of her mouth, she couldn't help but hear how selfish they sounded. She blushes again and looks at the setting sun, which only a sliver was left of.

Duncan nudges her shoulder with his arm and smirks at her. "Princess! Is that jealously in your voice I detect?" he asks jokingly.

Courtney slaps his arm. "Of course not!" she exclaims, but couldn't think up an excuse. Duncan just looks at her, still smirking. He raises an eyebrow disbelievingly and Courtney blurts, "Well I'm not!"

"Sure you're not, sweetheart." Duncan turns back to the sunset, and so does Courtney. But she turns back to him and studies his profile in the fading daylight. A dark bruise had turned the area around the left side of his jaw a painful blue-violet color. She reaches up and gently runs her thumb over the swollen bruise.

"Is that from the fight from those guys at the well?" she murmurs, afraid to break the silence.

Duncan's fingers trace the outline of the bruise, as if he were trying to remember where it came from. Finally, he softly answered, "Yeah." He turned back to face her just as the last rays of sunlight filtered over the mountains. His eyes flashed in the reflection of the poor light. "But I don't want to talk about that."

Courtney slightly parted her lips to say something else, but Duncan had already leaned in. Without giving her a warning, he pressed his lips against hers softly but firmly. Just as she registered the fact he was kissing her, he suddenly pulls away.

"Sorry. I just… really wanted to do that," he explains, running his hands through his hair and standing up. "Come on, we should go inside. It's getting dark out."

Courtney, shell-shocked, just stares up at him from her place on the roof. She still could hardly believe he had just kissed her, yet the proof was there: her lips her tingling like crazy and her heart was beating to a rhythm of its own. She stands up, legs a bit wobbly. Duncan leads her back into the second floor of the barn.

He sits down in a pile of golden straw and Courtney falls into the straw next to him. "I don't think we should try to walk back at this time of night. The nocturnal animals are probably already awake," he calmly comments. Courtney is shocked how Duncan is acting so normally, especially after he just kissed her.

"So are we… staying here? For the whole night?" she whispers, not trusting her voice to talk any louder than that without cracking.

"Looks like it." Duncan leans forward and brushes straw off the floor, making the dirt-covered floorboards appear. "I've been meaning to teach you Romanian, since you might be here for a while. Or at least just a few words. Is that okay?"

"Sure," Courtney says, but her throat just omits an embarrassing squeak. She clears her throat and tries again, "Sure."

Duncan smirks and begins drawing symbols in the dirt with his finger. "Alright, then. We'll start with the alphabet." Courtney leans forward to watch him write the letters, which just looked like a random jumble of doodles. Duncan purses his lips and looks through the gaping hole in the roof. "Damn. I didn't think it was this late already."

He stands up and walks to a corner of the room, reaching a hand deep into a pile of straw. He comes back with a handful of small candles, which he started lining up on the rafters barely above them. "Wow, you must have spent a lot of time here," Courtney comments. She was starting to regain her bearings, but every few seconds she'd have to reach up and feel her lips.

"Yeah, I have," Duncan mumbles through his lips. He was holding several matches he had dug out of his pocket in his lips, while his hands were busy lighting the burnt wicks. Whenever a candle had burned too close to his fingers, he'd toss them in a small puddle a few yards away.

"What if the straw catches on fire?" Courtney suddenly asks, concerned.

"You worry too much, Princess," Duncan replies with a chuckle. After the last candle was lit, he sits next to Courtney again and continues, "Besides, there's no straw on the rafters."

Courtney just shrugs and studies the Romanian alphabet. It was quite similar to the English alphabet, except the letters had small squiggles, curly-cues, or dashes through them in random places. "So… how are you expecting me to learn all this in one night?" she asks.

"You look like a smart girl."

"Um… thanks."

They stare at the alphabet for a minute, waiting for the other person to say something. Eventually, Duncan just begins listing the pronunciations of the letters. Courtney was baffled at how different a foreign language could be from her own (she had learned Spanish from her nanny growing up, so it was already like a second language to her). She knew that there were over 500 different languages in the world, and if every language had a completely different alphabet…? It was beyond confusing.

"Now list them back to me," Duncan commands.

"Wait… what? List the letters?" she asks. Duncan nods and Courtney just stares at the alphabet in front of her. "Um… a is ah, ă is uh, â is eh… and that's all I remember."

Duncan nods, and for the next fifteen minutes he leads her through the entire alphabet. The next time around, Courtney rambles through the whole alphabet until she gets to w. "Um… double v?" she questions.

"Close," Duncan coaxes, "It's dublu ve."

"Dublu ve," Courtney repeats, then rattles off x, y, and z.

"Great!" he exclaims. He reaches out and wipes his hand through the dirt, erasing the alphabet he had written. "Now you write the letters. In order."

"I can't!" she exclaims.

"That's what you said about learning the pronunciations, and you did. Now try this. Come on, it's not that hard if you know how to say them. You already know the order they're in," Duncan points out.

"Fine," Courtney mumbles. She struggles through half of the alphabet, and ten minutes later, she gets to ș which sounds like sh. She hovers her finger right above the dirt and tries to picture the letter in her head. Then she draws an s with a comma-looking shape above it.

Duncan reaches over her arm and wipes the comma away with his thumb. "Almost," he instructs, "But the comma goes like this." He puts his hand over hers and brings her finger below the s. He gently presses down on her hand so her finger draws a comma. "There. Like that."

Courtney smiles and looks up at Duncan. The tiny flames from all the candles were reflected in his eyes. "You're a good teacher," she whispers. A slow grin creeps across Duncan's face and she reaches her hand up to his jaw. She pulls his face towards hers and kisses him. Duncan tenderly squeezes her hand as he pulls apart.

"And you're a good student," he teases with a smirk. His hand cradles the back of her head as he pulls her towards him for another kiss.

After a few solid minutes of kissing, Courtney finally puts a hand on Duncan's chest and softly pushes him away. She lifts her hand to her mouth as she tries to smother a yawn. "Sorry," she murmurs when the yawn finally leaves.

"Too tired?" he asks, rubbing his palm up and down her back.

Too tired for what? For kissing, or learning the alphabet? She was probably too tired for learning any more Romanian, but she could definitely stay awake to kiss him longer. So instead of making any assumptions, Courtney just shrugs.

Duncan stands up and Courtney shivers with the sudden lack of his body heat. The cool night air has definitely arrived. He blows out the candles one by one, and the smoky acrid smell floats in the air. Courtney's eyes widen in the darkness, struggling to see in the pitch black. Unfortunately, there was no moon in the sky and the small pin-point stars cast little to no light.

Suddenly, she feels Duncan's presence next to her. He slides his arm around her waist and tugs her under a deep stack of straw. She curls up next to him and he whispers, "Goodnight, Princess."

"Night, Duncan." She falls asleep so quickly after that, so she couldn't tell whether he had kissed her goodnight on her forehead or if that was a dream… a really, really good dream.

(Author's Note: Aww. I loved this chapter. Sorry it took me so long, though. We had, like, four snow days in a row and I was busy sledding. Haha. But the next chapter, I promise, will be in Duncan's POV. I think it's about time to see what he really thinks of her *wink, wink* Lol.)