A/N: This chapter is basically really pointless. All of its contents are basically transitioning from one house to another, so it's a bit boring. There was also an extremely awkward bit of pre-smut in the middle that I cut out, again to keep the rating T. It's so hard not to write smut for this AU; it's driving me crazy. But anyway, the uncensored version will be on AO3 and Tumblr (assuming I ever get Tumblr up-to-date with my updates.)

The following days were a blur of paperwork, familiarizing themselves with their new town, and of course moving. They sold most of their furniture in a mass yard sale. Diaval took care to gather all of the awards that Maleficent had tacked up in the barn where Nikita once resided. He blew the dust off of trophies and scraps of newspaper articles, and he reread the words that he'd once memorized. Maleficent Moors, queen of cross country. The next youngest gold medal Olympian in eventing? Another win for Maleficent Moors and her mount, Sterling Silver. Some trophies, the older ones, were clearly fake plastic from competitions when she was young, while others were heftier with real metal. Then, burrowed behind all of them, he found a sheet of newspaper that he hadn't seen before. Near-paralysis of prospective Olympian—Accident? With a ruffled brow, he scanned over it. The picture showed her limp form trapped beneath a huge white stallion, lying at the base of a several jumping steps.

He read the article quickly. It included details that she had never told him. He couldn't explain his interest in it except that curiosity was an innate aspect of his life, and he had many questions he wanted to ask but didn't to keep from hurting her. Father Lysander Moors has accused twenty-one year old Stefan Kingsmith of placing the needle under the saddle pad. Mother Hermia denies this, stating that "her daughter trusts Stefan and so does she." His lips curled downward. Of course the press would have spoken to her parents, rather than going to her to get the answers. He sighed and looked away. It was grief a thousand years gone. He was hers now, and he hoped that she was his. He folded the paper neatly among the others and went to put them away in a box he had prepared for them. They were in the past. He and Maleficent had a future to look forward to.

He found her standing over Nikita's small marking stone. Quietly approaching, he touched her elbow. She turned to him with a small smile despite the tear that rolled down her cheek. He kissed it away. "Are you ready to go?" he asked quietly. The final trip. When they left the place they'd become neighbors this time, they would never return. "Or do you also need to say goodbye to your tomato plants?" he teased.

She nuzzled his jawline. "Let's go." She headed toward her truck, both the bed and the horse trailer behind it laden with the stuff they'd decided to keep.

He touched her cheek. "I have to stop somewhere." Her eyes immediately questioned him. "It's a surprise."

She deadpanned, "It better be a hell of a lot better than your last surprise."

He cringed. "It is. This I know with certainty." He was still waiting for her to come up with some creative revenge to pay him back. "We have conversed about this surprise and ordained that we are both okay with it, okay? So it's not like an actual surprise." He bent to kiss her, and she accepted the touch of his lips graciously. "It's a house-warming gift."

"Alright," she agreed half-heartedly. Perhaps, if it was pleasant, it would make up for the hand grenade that had been her last birthday. If it wasn't, she could resign herself to never accepting one of his well-intentioned surprises again. "I'll get the small stuff unloaded when I get there so we can trip over it when we move your bookshelves." Most of the small stuff was really just boxes of their books.

He pecked her lips once more. "Let's go home." It really would be home, wouldn't it? It would be home of the best sort.

Maleficent had never before in her life been stuck. Horse people were notoriously good at getting out of tight spots; it was never a good idea to be stuck somewhere with a creature that weighed more than half a ton. Yet here she was, pinned to the wall by the bookshelf that her independence complex had encouraged her to move by herself. The wood, while light, was as tall as she was, and it had conveniently fallen across the entrance where the living room converged into the wide hallway. Giving up on righting it, she sighed and stumbled away from it. She had two options—calling Diaval and telling him that she'd managed to get stuck in their house, or waiting for him to arrive with his damned surprise. She decided on the latter. She would not be subject to the shame of calling him and hearing his amusement.

She headed back to the room that would soon be theirs and sat down with her back to the wall. The bathroom connected to their bedroom was much larger than the one in her old home; the tub was as big as a hot tub she might have used in a hotel swimming pool. She considered running a bath, but her clean clothes were still in the truck, and she was trapped in her own home.

Blessedly, only a few minutes passed before Diaval entered. "Millie?" he called out hesitantly. "Where are you?"

She pulled herself up with her cane and staggered into the hallway. She could already feel her back aching from the strain of trying to do something she was incapable of. She should have known better. She couldn't've moved that bookcase by herself if she was still fit. "I've been trapped by your massive bookshelf." She limped to where the huge wood structure separated them.

He reached across it with open arms. "Are you hurt?" He touched her shoulders, scanning over her quickly.

"I'm fine." A white lie never hurt anyone. She bent forward to kiss him.

He brushed a lock of dark hair behind her ear. "Alright." He bent to lift the huge creation that he guiltily had enough to books to fill. She helped him right it. "Let's get this to the library, shall we?" She nodded. Her left hand took her cane while her right struggled to find a good hold. She was not going to be the passive one in moving their stuff around. But her back ached even more furiously at the thought that he had two more of these book-holding monsters. They pushed the shelf into the back of the room. "Do you think my loveseat would look good in front of the window?" he asked, mentally trying to plot out where he was going to put everything.

She shrugged. "This is your room. I still haven't decided what to do with the other one." She tilted her head. "Now what was that about a surprise?" Her eyes regarded him warily.

"Oh!" He clapped his hands. "C'mon." He took her hand and pulled her to the living room, where their sofa was already situated against the wall. He pulled up a box and placed it in her lap. It was about the size of a shoe box, but double the height, and holes were poked in all sides. She tentatively slid open the lid. A tiny bundle of gray fur peered up at her. And then it meowed. "Isn't she adorable?" Diaval looked like he was about to vomit glitter.

Maleficent lifted the kitten from the box. The creature fit easily in her hand. "I suppose," she grated. Tiny claws pawed at her. Her fluff extended. She stood. And that was when Maleficent noticed her deformed forelegs. They were bowed in at the knees, buckling whenever the kitten tried to walk. "You got me a crippled cat," she deadpanned.

Diaval's face fell in displeasure. He took the kitten and promptly began to coo at it. "Don't listen to her, Pebble, you're not crippled. You're special." Meow! "I like you just the way you are."

Maleficent could have groaned. "You're pep-talking a cat."

"Don't talk about our child that way!"

"It's a cat!"

"She's a she, thank you very much!" He rubbed the tiny head with two fingers. A loud purr—too loud for such a small creation—burbled up from her chest. "She's precious," he cooed. "Love her or I'll make you," he threatened.

She reluctantly took the fluff ball away from him and placed her on her bosom. The soft green-gray eyes blinked at her. A pink, wet nose touched hers, and Pebble began to purr the instant her fingernails combed through her fluff. "Where did you find a crippled cat?" she asked softly, almost reverently, as the kitten appeared to situate herself for a nap.

Diaval glared at her for the use of the C-word, but he didn't reprimand her, instead scooting closer. "The humane society, of course. Do you like her?" His arm slid around her shoulders.

Maleficent couldn't say she particularly did, but she nodded anyway. He clearly liked her, and that was enough for the smallest blooms of affection to plant themselves in her heart. "I'm sure she will grow on me," she replied drily.

He kissed her cheek. "I love you." He got up. "I'm going to try to get the rest of our stuff in here, in case it rains tonight. You make sure I don't drop something on her." It was his badly concealed way of keeping her from straining her back too much. She rolled her eyes, but she didn't resist; if she was going to be any good for moving stuff around the next day, it was stupid to keep straining herself.

The front door was almost barricaded by bookshelves and other furniture by the end of the day. Diaval struggled around it and took their suitcases full of clothes back to their bedroom. He hadn't yet set up the frame for the bed, but instead tossed the covers on the bare mattress. She found a large cardboard box and put little bowls of food and water as well as litter in it for the kitten. Then she turned to him and kissed him. Using strength he thought he'd already spent, he lifted her off of the ground. Her cane fell unceremoniously from her hand. He carried her to the bathroom and sat her down on the toilet seat. "What do you think you're doing?" she queried while he tugged her shirt up over her head.

"I'm taking a bath with you," he smartly replied. He unclasped her bra while she began to unbutton his shirt. Their garments all fell free, and he ran the bath a little too warm for their needs. He settled himself behind her. The lights were dim and sleepy in the room. Her scarred back pressed against his scarred chest, and he reached around to kiss the corner of her lips. "I've waited to do this since I first saw this place," he commented. His arms traveled up and down her torso.

She opened her mouth to reply, but a gasp erupted instead from where one hand massaged her breast. "Oh," was all she could weakly manage. She squirmed against him as he repeated the motion. "Diaval! We're taking a bath!" she snapped.

He kissed her neck and then, remembering his promise to her, dragged his teeth downward sharply in a way that made her breath hitch. "Yes, we are." His hand left her breast to grab the cup that they'd placed on the edge of the tub. He shielded her eyes and spilled water over her thick brown hair. It went black with water. Again and again he repeated the motion until her hair was sodden, and he massaged her lilac shampoo into it. "Is this how you're supposed to do it?" he asked her. She gave a jerky nod. He gently scraped his nails over her scalp. She let a soft humming sound.

He covered her eyes with one hand and washed away the soap with the other. It ran down her back and into the water, and it took her troubles with it. Soft hands massaged her back. Then a soapy rag dragged across her flesh. "Oh, Diaval," she whispered at the way he rubbed her. He kneaded her sensitive spots with the washcloth. It felt so good.

She trembled against him. Her back was starting to coil with tension. He washed it away. "You're a little eager," he murmured into her ear. "We need to get you clean, first, my dear." The rugged voice, the voice of an oncoming storm, made her yearn and itch. It was the voice she had fallen in love with. He slid the washcloth into her hand to get the spots he couldn't reach, and then she turned to wash him.

He shivered under her touch. His hands supported the base of her spine while she lifted each of his arms to wash the small tufts of hair beneath them. She rubbed his chest with the flats of her palms and kissed his lips. She did his hair last, carefully rinsing the suds off of him while shielding his closed eyes.

At morn, Diaval spotted the bruises that dotted her neck and collarbones. She was still asleep. He gathered her into his arms and kissed the marks tenderly while she wrapped her arms about him and crushed her breasts against his chest. "Good morning, my love," he murmured. He stroked her bare, silky flesh. She was beautiful and wholesome beside him. "We need to get out of this bed so I can put the frame together."

She pressed her lips to his voice box and felt his vibrations. "Not right this second. We've got years to get settled in." She sleepily clung to him. It felt so surreal, to be in this place that was their house. It wasn't her house. It wasn't her parents' house. It wasn't his house. It was their house. She thought they'd picked a pretty damn good house.

"Right, right," he agreed. Meow. Meow. Meow. Their kitten had awoken. And she wanted someone's attention. They groaned in unison. Maleficent sat up and shoveled her hand through hair. Her cane was across the room where it had so aptly been discarded before their bath. Her Advil was in her suitcase, also conveniently across the room. Diaval seemed to pick up on her wandering gaze. "Yeah, I got it." Only after successfully tangling his legs in the blankets and falling down, though, did he reach her things. He tossed the Advil at her and picked up her assortment of items, carrying them to her. She grunted a thank you and looked away. "Okay! Today's agenda is…well, first getting our bedroom fixed up the way we like it."

Maleficent yawned. "I want to get the cases into the library before I'm too sore to move." She fiddled around in the suitcase, searching for two items that matched. "Is this acceptable for housework?" she finally asked him, pulling out a pair of black shorts and a muted green t-shirt with a few ravioli sauce stains on the front.

He shrugged. "I would think so." He put on his boxers and staggered out of bed. "I go to seek a great perhaps, and perhaps there will be coffee there."

"Wait for me." She didn't comment on his reference to one of the books she'd read. He'd recommended it, and she couldn't even remember the title, though she knew it was boxed up with the rest of the books and ready to be shelved. He took her arm and pulled her close, only to promptly lose his balance so they thumped against the wall. Their kitten trotted after them with a high tail. "Your cat wants fed," she told him.

"Our cat," he corrected. "Our house, our sofa, our room, our bed. We're sharing the cat." He kissed her temple. "Once we get the cases in the library, you are solely responsible for getting the books on the shelves and making sure my literary OCD doesn't lose its mind. Do you understand the power that you currently wield?"

She dramatically bowed her head. "I do. With an ingestion of coffee, I will certainly wield it well, my love." She planted a kiss on his lips to silence the befuddled blathering that was sure to follow her term of endearment. "First by author's last name, then by author's first name, then by title?"

"I love you," he confirmed. He quickly brewed their coffee, and when he neglected to put the third teaspoon of sugar in it, she waited patiently with a raised eyebrow until he put it in with a sigh. Hunger curled in his belly, but their eating utensils and cooking supplies hadn't yet been unloaded. She never minded skipping breakfast. He always minded skipping breakfast. He resigned himself to a big lunch and proceeded toward the second bookcase. She helped him lift it with the meager strength she could manage, and they struggled into the room. The third seemed only heavier. Then, she was left alone in the room with ten huge boxes of books.

Organization was not an attribute of Maleficent; having spent most of her life as a loner, she could live as long as she knew where her things were. But patience was one of her finer qualities, and she began to sort the books by author as she came across them. She wondered where he had kept all of his books in his old house; she had never seen them.

She started with making a stack three feet high of Stephen King books. It appeared that, between them, they had almost any book he'd ever written and sundry—they each had a copy of several of his more popular ones. She alphabetized them quickly and pushed them into the corner of the room. To her surprise, he also had quite a few Nicholas Sparks books, despite his claim to hate the recycled storylines and lack of character depth. However, his collection of Danielle Steel was larger. He also had some Nora Roberts works, as well as the classic romances like Gone with the Wind and Pride and Prejudice. "Hopeless romantic," she murmured while she alphabetized each small stack of books.

But he wasn't just a hopeless romantic. He clearly loved horror (why else would he own all those Stephen King books as well as Bentley Little and Dean Koontz?) and fantasy (as evidenced by his boxed sets of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings). Popular young adult titles popped out at her, things such as Twilight and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and he owned a small multitude of poetry books. She realized that he didn't read because he liked a story to be told a certain way, but he instead read just because he enjoyed reading. The copies of books that he'd recommended to her were well-worn and loved, while others weren't so destroyed but instead had notes scrawled in the margins pointing out little plot holes and missing details.

Thus she began her task of shelving their books while Pebbles batted at dust bunnies that floated from the boxes. The cat wasn't as crippled as she thought, she mused while she sorted the books out carefully and tried to remember her alphabet. He peeked in on her. "Everything going good in here?"

She nodded absently while she shuffled around Steel and Sparks. Curse her mind that got scrambled with anything regarding organization. "Yeah, it's great." She met the end of the first case in the middle of John Green. "Shit." With a sigh, she placed two more books on the next case. "It's as peachy as grapes. What about you?"

He strode over to her and lifted half of the massive Stephen King stack. "I got the living room set up; it needs your expert opinion. All of the kitchen stuff is unloaded and our table is set up, and our bed is put together but I haven't been able to get all the end tables put where you want them yet. The darker one won't fit in the—"

She pressed a finger to his lips. "An okay would have sufficed."

He smiled. "Okay." He kissed the birthmark on her brow. "We have a house."

"We have a house," she repeated, letting it soak in once again. The cat pawed at their feet. "We have a cat."

"We have a house where we can have our cat, and we can live here happily ever after."

She traced the scars on his collarbones. "You don't have any fairytale books," she pointed out after a long moment. She watched the goose bumps erupt under her touch, and she smiled softly.

He kissed her brow once again. "I don't need to read fairytales. I'm living in one."