Author's Note: Is it becoming apparent yet that I don't know how to write kisses?

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When her eyes fluttered open, they were greeted by the muted sunlight filtering in through small, dirty windows. The beams of light revealed particles of dust dancing on some draft of air. It was still rather dark. And empty. Wooden beams and stone walls. Plenty of cobwebs too, draped in corners and across crates. Where the hell was she? Even though mercenaries like her slept in different beds all the time, it was unusual for her not to recall where she'd stopped to rest for the night. As she drew a deep breath to focus her thoughts, she caught a faint whiff of flowers among the damp, earthy smells of the room. A building with flowers? Wait, this place seemed familiar…

Finally, she threw the covers off of herself, prepared to get up and investigate. That was when she finally noticed the bandage wrapped snugly around her left thigh, and her unanticipated lack of pants. An injury… And with that realization, it came back all at once: Dwemer spiders, gangrene, being brought to Windhelm in a cart designed to carry firewood. Fever, fear, and gentle hands comforting her. The faintest hint of the tangy cure disease potion on her lips. And speaking of lips… She inhaled sharply and pressed a hand to her mouth. Had his lips on hers been real, or a dream?

More determined than ever, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and struggled to her feet while gritting her teeth and putting most of her weight on her right side. It wasn't painful as much as it was sore, nothing she couldn't bear as long as she took it easy. Her long tunic covered most of what it needed to, but she was grateful to see someone had thought to leave a new pair of trousers for her on the end table. If only putting them on didn't prove to be such a challenge with her less than limber left leg!

Finally satisfied after winning the struggle with the pants, she limped to the doorway of the room, verifying as she looked around that she was indeed in the store room of the White Phial. She'd eaten dinner here that one time, though it had been much darker then. So where were Quintus and Lydia? It was hard to imagine either leaving her alone. Stepping through the doorway, she found herself behind the counter of the shop. It was so much brighter out there, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Even then, it wasn't until she hobbled around the corner of the counter that she realized with a start his silent presence in the room.

He was seated at the table near the window, on the side closest to the store room wall where he was particularly hard to spot. The young man was slumped over so his head was resting on his folded arms on the tabletop, facing the center of the room. His breathing was heavy, but quiet, and the only motion of his body was the gentle rise and fall of his shoulders with each inhale and exhale. His eyelids were closed, framed by light red lashes. He was fast asleep. At this time of day?

At that moment, her stomach growled loudly. Though it probably wasn't true, it felt as though it echoed in the stillness, and she clutched her midsection as if to quiet it down. She was relieved to notice it hadn't so much as stirred him from his deep slumber. She was so relieved, in fact, that she forgot about her injured leg with her next step.

"Augh!" Her leg collapsed underneath her as she put too much weight on it. In a desperate bid to brace herself on the counter, she only managed to knock over a few display bottles, sending them crashing and shattering, spilt contents pooling on the wooden floor. She followed with a loud 'thud'.

That was enough to jolt the shopkeeper awake with a rush of adrenaline. "MASTER! I'M AWAKE!" he blurted as he jumped, banging his knee hard against the table. "Owwwww!" Just as soon as his head had bolted up, it was back down on the table as he recoiled from the pain, clutching his knee and groaning. "I stayed up all night again, I'm sorry…"

"Quintus!" He summoned his strength and pried one eye open to find the source of the distinctly feminine voice which was definitely not Nurelion. He gasped when he realized it was Fjori, and that she was lying on the floor amid a mess of glass shards and liquid. Disorientation quickly evaporated.

"Fjori! Are you all right?" He attempted to get up and rush to her side, but nearly hit the ground as well when the throbbing bump on his knee screamed in protest.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to scare you or cause this mess or…" she began to apologize profusely with wide eyes.

"Just don't move, I don't want you to cut yourself on the glass. I'll get a broom and sweep this up first." With as much dignity as he could muster with an uneven gait, he scurried past her to the area under the stairs where he kept most of his cleaning supplies. "I'm the one who should be sorry. I must have fallen asleep. I was supposed to be keeping an eye on you while you are recovering." He began to sweep the shards onto a scrap of cloth so they could be picked up safely. "How long have you been up?"

"Not very long. I just got up to look for you and Lydia, but I guess I should have just stayed in bed instead of causing trouble…" The look on her face was unsettling, as if she were a disobedient child deserving of reprimand. Where in the world did she get such an idea?

"No, I'm the one who's supposed to be taking care of you. Your leg isn't fully healed yet." With the glass safely packed up, he grabbed another rag to mop up the puddles. "I just got so into my work last night, I didn't sleep at all. Nurelion used to catch me doing that all the time, and I'd gotten a good smack upside the head for it more than once. You see, that's why I jumped the way I did when I heard the crash." He flashed a sad smile, and it reminded her that all her problems aside, he was still struggling to cope with Nurelion's death. It really hadn't been that long at all.

Fjori pushed herself up. "I suppose if you wouldn't have hurt yourself, it would have been pretty funny," she supplied. "You were out cold."

"Hmph. Good thing Lydia wasn't here to see it then, right? She'd never let me forget it! Do you know she's started teasing ME now?" Rising and tossing the rag away, he held out his hand. "Come on Fjori, let's get you back on your feet."

"You might need two hands," she muttered bashfully. "I surely weigh more than you."

"All in muscle mass, I'm certain," he remarked, extending his other hand and looking on expectantly. Swallowing, she braced herself on her good leg and offered her own hands. To be fair, it did take quite an effort on Quintus's part and a clever application of physics to haul her up, but before long she standing once more, looking down those few inches at him.

Because they were so close together, it was all the more embarrassing when her stomach growled again, even louder and angrier this time. Before she could decide how to react, he tapped his forehead with his palm. "Of course, you must be starving! You probably haven't eaten in 24 hours. Come sit over here. I have some horker stew warming on the coals upstairs; I'll fetch you a bowl." Positioning himself on her weaker side, he linked his arm in hers and escorted her to the chair opposite where he had been sitting. Then, like a perfect gentleman, he moved the chair out so she could sit, and pushed it back in. Or, at least attempted to. It really only moved an inch or so. "I'll be right back."

As he turned to go, she grabbed his arm. "Please serve yourself some as well. I bet if you were working all night you haven't eaten anything in a long while either."

The edge of concern in her voice and eyes made his stomach do flips. After all, this was one of the reasons he'd fallen for her to begin with: the fact that she always noticed him even when he was no one. All he could do was nod and rush upstairs.

A few minutes later, he returned balancing two steaming bowls of soup garnished with thick slices of bread. Despite herself, her mouth watered as the smell of savory cooked meat wafted in her direction. "You didn't make this, did you?"

"Well, yes. Last night. Sometimes when I'm thinking of a solution to a problem it helps to do chores or something. I knew we'd need to eat sooner or later," he admitted as he placed the bowls on the table.

"It smells amazing. I guess you can work magic with food ingredients just as well as alchemical ingredients, huh?"

He blushed at the compliment. "I'm sure it's not that great. You're just hungry."

"Definitely." She smiled and looked down at the soup. There was a long pause. Was it just him, or was she trying not to crack a smile?

Finally, it occurred to him. "Come on, Fjori, when were you going to mention you wanted a spoon with that?" he groaned. "You just like watching me stand here like a fool!"

"It was an experiment," she admitted playfully.

He gave an exasperated sigh as he marched back to the stairs. "I'll bring something to drink with the spoons. Anything else I'm forgetting?"

But Fjori's mouth was already full with bread seeped in broth, and she shrugged nonchalantly. He had to chuckle as he turned and went back up. Strange, he used to feel so inadequate when making scatter-brained mistakes. Something about her made him feel like it was the most natural thing in the world and put him at ease.

Little was said as both devoured the stew. Quintus may not have had a rumbling stomach, but he had been plenty hungry. When he thought about it, he had missed dinner last night due to Fjori's unexpected arrival in addition to skipping breakfast. Was hunger what made the stew taste even better, or the fact that there was company to eat it with?

She finished first, and as he took the last few spoonfuls, he noticed her watching him curiously. When he tried to meet her eyes, she looked away shyly. She was thinking of something, and if he had to guess, it had to do with his stunt last night. He'd put that conversation off long enough. Finally, he patted his mouth clean with his napkin while considering his words carefully. "Now that you've eaten, perhaps it's time to talk. I know we left some things unsaid last night."

Talk. Oh. She felt her stomach plummet, and hoped that her nerves would not make lunch come right back out. "I…don't remember exactly what was said last night…"

"What do you remember?" he pressed patiently, leaning against the table.

Fjori licked her lips nervously. "I remember you kissed me. Like, really kissed me."

"Ah." He flushed. "I hope that's a good memory at least. It really wasn't very well done."

"I remember liking it. Or maybe it's just that I like the thought of it." She traced some imaginary design on the table with her index finger. "But I also remember wondering why you did it."

He exhaled long and slow. "You were very upset last night. You said a lot of disparaging things about yourself that were absolutely not true. When I talked to Lydia about it, she said she'd noticed you were worked up even before everything happened, but she didn't know why. Fjori, would you tell me what was going on? I'm worried about you." There was a pause. "Actually, to be fair, we both are."

She felt her dry throat constrict. What a moron she had been, enjoying the sense of domesticity as he cared for her instead of accepting that things would never be that way in the long run. The breath she drew was shaky. "I went to the college to get information, right?"

"Yeah. You mentioned you were hesitant to go."

"Because I have a hard time trusting mages. But that really wasn't the problem. The problem was that… Well, for starters they never would have let me in if that dragon wouldn't have attacked so I could demonstrate my shouts and prove myself Dragonborn. Only people who know spells can enter, and I didn't know any."

"So your shouts count as magic?"

"That's what the court wizard in Whiterun told me. It must be true, because they made an exception for me. So, when they did let me in, I didn't belong there are all; I've never cast a spell in my life. Everyone looked at me funny. I could hear the whispers. I tried to ignore it, to just get the information and get out, but they insisted on showing me around like I was going to be a member of their college or something. That made it worse, because then people thought I was serious about joining. They had a nice alchemy lab, so I tried to take my mind off things by doing experiments, but a lot of them didn't work. People were annoyed with me for wasting supplies and being careless…"

"Not going to lie, that doesn't surprise me. In fact, that sounds just like how Nurelion would have reacted!" He said this with a gentle smile, completely accepting of this deficiency in the woman across from him, but Fjori just ducked her head.

"But then it got worse. The next evening they dragged me to the lecture hall for a class. All the other new students were gung-ho to start crazy new tricks, and I was the only one who wanted to focus on safety first. They glared at me. I heard them mutter under their breaths how I was a wimp. And when we started working on wards, the teacher tried to teach me a spell so he could test it out, only I couldn't maintain it long enough for him to zap me with anything at all. I could feel their angry eyes on me the whole time. It was awful…" Her vision was becoming blurry. Fantastic. Crying again.

"So you were doing something new that you've never done before. I don't understand why that makes you 'stupid', Fjori. I understand why you feel frustrated, and it sounds like they didn't treat you very kindly, but you're not…"

"I HAD NO IDEA WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT!" she exclaimed, a hot tear rolling down her cheek. "I got these huge long lectures about these Elder Scrolls I need and the only thing I got out of the entire explanation was the name of a ruin to find one in. I don't understand what they are, what they do, how to use them, or anything else, but they kept talking at me like I was supposed to get it. It was all complete gibberish! I've never felt so stupid! Like I'm the Dragonborn, it's supposed to magically make sense to me!"

When she glanced up, fully expecting thinly-veiled disgust, all she saw was the way his features softened from puzzled to concerned. "Okay, I think I'm starting to see. But now explain to me why feeling unintelligent means I can't possibly care about you."

Hearing those words from his mouth, even though not at all in the right context, made another string of tears fall to the table. She responded with a tiny voice. "You're so smart. You were able to fix an ancient relic no one has ever been able to recreate! You devour books and run experiments and study other disciplines and I'm just…me. I can't even get a potion that works half the time, and that's an improvement! I can't get through even one page of an academic text. All those things you are passionate about, I'll never be able to understand. I'd be a horrible companion for you, don't you see? It was fine before, when you didn't really know much about me, but now you must understand that I'd never be good enough for you." While not nearly dramatic as last night, she began to sniffle once more, turning her head away so he wouldn't look at her.

And again, things started to click in his mind. "Fjori, look at me." It seemed to take all her strength to obey his command, decidedly grey eyes looking in his general direction but never focusing on his face. "Someone sometime told you you were stupid, and somehow you came to believe them. You, Fjori, grew up in one of the smallest, poorest towns in Skyrim, and yet you blame your lack of interest in spells and books and science on a lack of brain capacity? That's not at all true. No 'idiot' would survive all the crypts and tombs you have; there are traps and puzzles to solve that would kill lesser adventurers. And an idiot wouldn't be able to pick up the basic tenets of enchanting in one short afternoon of practice. An idiot certainly wouldn't have been able to stop a serial killer. Your intelligence lies in different areas, but that doesn't make it any less."

When she couldn't get any words to come out in response, he just continued. "You know what else? I could see you and me sitting here over dinner with me babbling about something I discovered and you frowning in concentration trying to keep up as my mind goes a million miles a minute until I finally realize, stop, and laugh that I'm getting carried away again. You'd smile, roll your eyes, and sum it up in a short sentence, then tell me to get eating before it gets cold. I can't presume to know how you feel about a future like that, Fjori, but I imagine I'd be very happy having you with me even if my academic jargon means little to nothing to you. Could you be happy like that?"

Could she? Loving a man whose interests and background were vastly different than her own? Honestly, she'd known that wide gap existed from the day she'd first laid eyes on him, and clearly it hadn't stopped the progression of any feelings whatsoever. The things that mattered she'd found he possessed in large quantities. She wiped her eyes roughly. "Only if I can get revenge by telling you the gruesome gory details of my latest raid on a bandit camp."

He chuckled. "Maybe not 'gory' while we're eating, but I do love your stories. It's another talent of yours, the way you can draw the listener in. In fact, I bet the Bard's college would be a much better fit for you than the College of Winterhold."

"So…you really don't mind that I have no academic abilities?" she persisted dubiously. "It's fine that I won't be able to understand everything you talk about?"

Quintus frowned. "Do you remember what you asked of me before you fell asleep last night?"

She swallowed hard. Could she dare even repeat her absurd request? "I had the nerve to ask you to kiss me again."

She jumped when his chair slid back. "I think you're more a woman of actions than of words, and I'm usually the opposite. But if it means winning you, I'm willing to change my habits to a degree. Tell me, Fjori, does it matter to me?" And with two strides so he was standing before her, he leaned down and met her mouth again. This time, his hands threaded through her messy hair, holding her head there possessively. He didn't move tongue, lips, or teeth; he didn't know how to. All the same, he felt her sigh into his mouth and melt into his body. Despite her physical response, however, she broke away, causing a wave of anxiety to flood his system. Had he played it wrong?

"No." She licked her lips and shook her head shyly.

"Oh… I'm sorry, I…" He let go instantly, feeling mortified.

"Wait, what are you doing?" she questioned anxiously. When she didn't see the spark of understanding in his features, she continued. "You asked me if I thought it mattered to you! I said 'no'!"

Realization washed over him, leaving him embarrassed for a completely different reason. "I…umm…I guess I forgot I asked that question…or maybe I didn't think you were actually going to answer that…" he scratched his head awkwardly.

Her smile in response was radiant. "I love you, Quintus Navale." His eyes widened in shock, but before he could process those precious words, she was on him this time, and she wasn't nearly as clueless as he was.

The blissful moment of sparks and vibrant emotions was short lived. A sharp rap on glass startled the couple apart, and when they jerked their heads in the direction of the window, they saw a very smug Lydia grinning at them.

"Shit."