Over the course of her relationship with Nikolas, Nadine had kept a careful checklist in her head of firsts. There was the first time he held her gaze across a crowded room – at the hospital after one of his appointments when he was dealing with the brain tumor. There was the first time he took her hand in his – when she followed him to the abandoned warehouse when he was still going through the blackouts. There was the first time she knew she felt more for him than friendship – when she saw him with his son at Wyndamere. There was the first time they kissed – in his sitting room when he grabbed her with such abandon. There was the first time they danced – a waltz on the terrace after that very memorable dinner.

One by one, she had marked these important milestones off in her mind, reminding her that each represented a step closer to a future with them. There were still many left for them to cross – the first declaration of love, the first time they made love, introducing him to her friends back in Texas. Some of them were still a ways off while others she hoped were just around the corner. There were some that she would love to check off this instance if she was able to, but in the mean time, she was determined to make at least one of them happen on this cold, rainy morning.

Lighting streaked across the dark sky as Nikolas made his way upstairs. Spencer was off with Lucky and Cameron on some great adventure, leaving him without much to do that day. He had tried to work for awhile but quickly found himself distracted by the emptiness of Wyndamere. After trying fruitlessly to focus on paperwork for some new deal his financial advisors worked up, he had decided to go upstairs and see if Nadine wanted to watch movies in the screening room. He knew that she had a weakness for sappy chick flicks on rainy days, and he had a weakness for holding her in the dark. However, all of his plans soon went to the wayside when he found her in her bedroom.

Nadine was sitting in the middle of her floor, barefoot and completely surrounded by compact discs. Her head was bent over in deep thought. He took in the incredible cute sight of her in the midst of determined concentration, with a messy topknot on top of her head held in place securely with a yellow pencil. A spiral steno pad was in her lap as she looked at the stacks on all sides of her. She picked up one CD and scanned her finger over the track listing for a moment. Shaking her head slightly, she quickly discarded it off to the side with another tall stack of plastic cases. She selected another disc and read over the songs. She seemed happier this time as she sat it atop a shorter tower of cases.

He watched her repeat the process a few more times before clearing his throat to announce his presence. She glanced up at him briefly before looking back down at the notepad in front of her. "What in the world are you doing?" he asked as she pondered yet another plastic case.

A slight blush spread over the apples of her cheeks. She smiled up at him as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear thoughtfully. "We need a song," she declared, holding up a CD as evidence. The blank look on his face emphasized his clear confusion. "Every couple should have a song. I'm trying to find ours."

"Okay," he drawled slowly, clearly not understanding the importance of her selection process. Nikolas was a romantic in nearly every way, but he really didn't get the significance of having a song. It was never something he had done with Emily, so it didn't really occur to him that he should have a song with Nadine. She, on the other hand, needed to have a melodic representation of their feelings for each other. "Where did you get all these CDs? I mean, they're clearly not mine. I don't think I even have a collection half this size."

"I convinced Alfred to send someone over to my apartment yesterday," she admitted as he sat down beside her. "I hope you don't mind. I thought it would be a good project for me this morning while you were working."

Sitting cross-legged, he began to inspect her various stacks of discs. There were some artists that he recognized and others that he had never heard of. As a true aficionado of classical music, he had never taken the time to understand the significance of popular music. He'd heard songs here and there during their teenaged years when Elizabeth and Emily used to gossip about the latest videos on MTV. Lucky had convinced him to listen to some blues and jazz once. Still, he had never taken to anything other than the classical stylings of Beethoven, Vivaldi and Mozart. Nadine apparently was very much the opposite, with eclectic taste that encompassed nearly every genre of music.

There were artists that one would expect to be included in the pursuit of the perfect romantic song, those old standbys that had been played at nearly every Port Charles wedding over the years. Al Green, REO Speedwagon and Mariah Carey seemed to fit those criteria. Others represented a more classic taste in music – artists like Journey, Percy Sledge and a cheesy Aerosmith ballad from some movie Elizabeth and Emily had convinced Nikolas and Lucky to see with them when they were still in high school. There were some that he knew nothing about. He'd never heard of people like Imogen Heap, Jason Mraz or Colbie Caillat.

"Wow, there is a lot to look at," he mused as he sat down an album from some band named Rose Royce. He could see that some song from the CD had made her short list. He wanted to ask why this was important to her but knew that it didn't matter. If it made her happy to have a song that reminded her of him, he was all for it. Anything that made her smile at him the way she was now had to be a good thing. "What are the criteria for choosing a song exactly? I mean, what goes into this?"

Setting down the steno book, she looked at him seriously. "There are a number of factors that go into picking the perfect song to define your relationship," she explained to him slowly, much like Lucky used to speak to him when they talked about the everyday normal things he had missed out on growing up. "There is the tone of the song, is it upbeat or melancholy? Then, you have to think about whether any songs have had any significance in the relationship. Like, I had a boyfriend in seventh grade, and our song was the first one that we ever held hands during. I always hated that Celine Dion had to be playing then. There's also melody, genre and just overall opinion of a song. But those things aren't the most important."

"Oh, really?" he teased with a raised eyebrow. She grimaced at him playfully in return. "Tell me, Ms. Crowell, what is the most important thing about picking a song?"

"The lyrics!" she exclaimed in disbelief. It was so obvious to her, but such a thing would never occur to a guy like Nikolas. "The meaning of a song is everything. There are just songs that take you back to a certain place or place or person. That's what a good couple song should do. It should remind you of that person. It can be the entire song that means something, but it's usually different for me. I tend to react to very specific musical moments – a single lyric that embodies how I feel about that person."

He seemed to consider this for a moment as he flipped over a Ben Folds album to look at the song titles. "I can see why that would be important," he conceded. "I obviously don't know a lot about pop music or songs with any words at all actually. I'll trust you to find exactly the ring song. I only ask one thing. You better pick a good song that we can slow dance to. That's what music is really for – holding someone so close to you that you feel like you are the only two people in the world, even in the midst of a crowded dance floor."

Nadine held his gaze for a moment, another round of crimson working its way up her neck. Just the thought of Nikolas holding her was enough to set off waves of desire in her hormonal body. "Dancing is important," she agreed. She flipped through a few more CDs before coming across one of her favorite albums. She has listened to it constantly when she had first moved to Port Charles. As soon as she looked at the listing of tracks, she knew that she had found their song. It was so clear to her in that moment that she couldn't help but wonder why she hadn't thought of it sooner. "This is it. This is our song." Nikolas started to ask her which song when she handed him over the disc. "Put it on track three."

Walking over to the stereo system housed in the mahogany armoire, he didn't recognize the label on the disc. However, he recognized the glowing look in her cobalt blue eyes. Whatever this song was, it clearly meant something to her. He popped in the CD and returned to her side on the floor as the acoustic melody filled the airy room. "This is nice," he commented as he listened to the instrumental opening. "Who is it?"

"Shhh!" she commanded as she closed her eyes. "Just listen to the words."

The dawn is breaking, a light shining through. You're barely waking, and I'm tangled up in you, yeah.

Wrapping his arm around her waist, he moved closer to her as he watched her sway slowly in time with the music. Nikolas closed his own eyes and trying to listen to every single word. He wanted to understand what made this song so important to her and why it personified their relationship. Verse by verse, line by line, word by word, he took in the meaning of each separate thought and the song as a whole. The harmony was hauntingly romantic, the lyrics soulful. It was clearly a beautiful song, but there were many beautiful songs. What made this their song? When the song finished and the album flipped to the next track, he sought the answer to this question. "Now will you explain it to me?"

"Like I said, there is a very specific musical moment," she answered. Standing up, she went back to the stereo and restarted the song. He sat through the first verse and chorus patiently for her explanation. "Listen to this part."

I'm quiet, you know. You make a first impression. I found I'm scared to know I'm always on your mind.

Nadine paused the song and looked up at him expectantly. "I guess that is how I think of us or at least how I thought of us in the beginning," she told him. "You were this quiet, studious guy. We both know that I have a way of making a first impression. We didn't really seem perfect for each other, you know? It scared you to know that I felt something more for you than friendship."

"I didn't want to be the man on your mind," he nodded, remembering those days not too long ago when he had been so adamantly against a relationship with Nadine. Her feelings for him had been so powerful and frightening. They were the first thing that had been real to him in months. "But it didn't matter what I wanted because we were inevitable. Like the song said, we just collided."

"Exactly," she grinned. "It's Howie Day's song, 'Collide.' I could find parts of you and me in nearly every word of that song, but it was that little verse that stuck out in my mind. That song is us, Nik. It has all the elements of the perfect couple song and we can dance to it. What do you think?"

"I think it's perfect," he assured her before kissing the tip of her nose. She looked proud of herself as she held up the plastic case triumphantly. Just then, he had a flash back of some John Cusack movie he had watched once on cable. In the film, the main character had gone through the criteria of making the perfect mixed tape. Seeing how happy she was almost made him want to do something as pedestrian as that for Nadine. But that would never be his style. "What do you say we listen to it again? I think we should test your dancing theory."

The song started over again as Nikolas slid his arms around her slender waist. Her hands threaded behind his neck as they began to move together in time to the acoustic melody. Closing her eyes, she leaned her face against his chest as his chin found its home on the crown of her head. Nikolas could feel the fluttering vibration against his rib cage as she hummed along to the song. "See?" she murmured. "Perfection."

"Perfection," he repeated softly into her ear. The intimate tone of his low voice sent chills up her arms. Nikolas lifted her slightly off the ground so that she was at his eye level and spun her around in a circle. She giggled as he sat her back on the ground carefully and resumed their dance. "Thank you."

"For?"

"For caring about me and our relationship enough to want us to have a song," he answered quietly. "You think of all these little things to show me how much you care. I've always been more overt in my declarations of feelings, but you find small ways to remind me every single day. I don't think you get how much that means to me. It makes me feel so…" His voice trailed off because he couldn't find the right word to define how he felt. Instead, he simply took his hand and pressed it over his heart. It was the only thing he could come up with that would convey it to her.

"I never want you to doubt how I feel about you, even for one minute," she professed as his chocolate eyes locked with hers. The heat radiating between them was scorching and dangerously bordering on another round of breathless chastity. It took everything in her not to destroy the column of buttons on the front of his pristine dress shirt just so that she could brush her fingertips over his sculpted chest and toned abs. "Four days."

Nikolas bit down on his bottom lip hard, trying to chase away thoughts of how she would look beneath his body as he hovered over her. Her body just fit too well in his arms not to conjure up inappropriate thoughts of all the dirty deeds they could commit on this hardwood floor…and the arm chair in the corner…and the bed on the opposite wall…and the oversized tub in the next room…and the terrace just outside the double doors. He felt familiar warmth surging just below his belt and silently cursed Patrick Drake for the millionth time that week. "Four days."