'Mike.'

'Nuh.'

'Michelangelo!'

'Win, go-bah-bed.'

Spike wasn't entirely sure he'd said the words aloud, or even if they made any sense at all, until he felt Winnie shake his shoulder, her short fingernails digging into his bare shoulder. He groaned, lifted his head a millimetre from his pillow. 'What?'

'This says there are snow squalls approaching from Buffalo right into Toronto over Pearson.'

'What this?'

'Weather Network.'

'Winnie.' Spike didn't have the patience for this right now - he just wanted to sleep the extra twenty minutes he had coming. 'I love you dearly, so take this kindly - shut your gob and go to back to bed.'

'Can't. Too wired up.'

'For the love of fuck...' Spike mumbled; realizing he wasn't going to get any more sleep, he rolled over on his back. His irritation subsided to weariness when he saw Winnie wasn't just laying in bed passing the time with her phone - she was sitting up, eyes wide and slightly glazed. 'Baby, what's wrong?'

'Snow squalls. The pilot will lose visibility and then wrap the plane around a telecom tower, or smash us into another plane or nose first into the ocean or a corn-field, or-'

'Okay, okay.' Spike sat up with her, wrapped his arms around her shoulders. He shouldn't have been surprised to find tension there; it seemed her brother and father hadn't been entirely joking when they said she was an awful flyer. 'Wanna have sex? That's usually a good way to sleep.'

'Oh, Mike.' Winnie kissed his cheek, looked at the bedside clock. 'If we make it quick we take around twenty minutes, and that's when we'd have to get up.'

'Good timing then.'

Spike pulled her close, his fingers roaming under her sleep shirt to find her naked breasts. He cupped one, squeezing gently so Winnie moaned delicately. He knew what she needed when she made a sound like that, so he made his moves just a little rough to jar her senses into distraction. Nothing would get through while he was inside her, nor anything to him when she was wrapped around him like an angel.

By the time they were done, locked together in an intimate tangle of arms and legs, Spike tried to convince her to take a few more minutes - they had plenty of time before their flight anyways, but Winnie was steadfast as she shook her head. He shook his head at her in concern.

'Will you be okay? You've only had like three hours of sleep.'

'I'll sleep on the plane. I got a prescription.'

'For what, Valium?'

'Inderal, it's a beta-blocker used to calm the physical reactions of general anxiety. My doctor gave me enough to get through the flight there and back.'

'What's the alternative?'

'Drink enough Jack Daniels to make Keith Richards cry quits.'

'Thank Doctor Beta-Blocker,' Spike teased her, then furrowed his brow as he eased back from her body. 'Huh.'

'What?'

'Just realized that's not the first time that's happened.'

'Skipping the condom? Yeah, I know.' Winnie smiled, pressed her palm to his cheek. 'Don't worry, I've got one of those implants for birth control. Much more effective than the pill.'

'Okay.' Spike paused, gently combed his fingers through her hair. 'You know if something happened and we did make a baby ahead of time, you have nothing to worry about, right?'

'Why do you think I let it happen?'

She couldn't have given him a better answer, he thought with a smile as he kissed her, gave her a tight embrace. 'Come on my little night-owl, let's go shower up and hit the road.'


An hour later, Ed was knocking on the door and offering to take their bags to the car, yawning the whole time but never once complaining. What did surprise Spike was to see Wordy riding shotgun with him.

'Dude, what are you doing here?' he asked his friend, giving him a knuckle-bump in greeting. 'Meds making you twitchy and Shelley said get out?'

'I was working overnights and had a long one so I didn't feel like going home just yet,' Wordy explained. 'I was running tech for a raid on a deal in the Distillery District.'

'Guess working with me rubbed off a little, huh?'

'A little,' Wordy said with a small quirk of his lips; he wasn't meaning to ignore Spike but he couldn't stop staring at Winnie - the girl was like Wiarton Willie looking for his shadow, on alert and looking around as though she'd been abducted by aliens and was trying to get her bearings. 'Winnie, you feeling okay?'

'I'm a nervous flyer,' was all she said. Winnie felt her stomach pitching and rolling with nerves as the nibbles of toast she'd eaten to make her man happy threatened to reappear. They weren't even at Pearson yet and she was wanting to reach for the prescription bottle in her carry-on.

'Oh, that sucks. If it helps neither is Shelley.'

'Really?' Ed braked at the red light at Spadina, looked at Shelley. 'She loves the rides at Wonderland though.'

'Yep, because she knows it's controlled. A lot can go wrong in an airplane.'

'Wordy, shut up now,' Spike told him when he saw the pale shade of olive green Winnie's face had turned. 'Or I'm going have Eddie put you in the boot of the car with our luggage.'

'But-'

'Pull over,' Winnie demanded; she held it together until Ed had parked in front of a Kinko's copy centre. To Spike's utter lack of shock, Winnie simply opened the door, leaned over, and hurled her guts out onto the sidewalk. So forceful was the violent eruption of her digestive system that fat teardrops rolled down her cheeks until she was down to dry heaves. 'Sorry, Eddie.'

'Quite alright, honey,' Ed replied as he shot daggers at Wordy, who looked appropriately bashful.

'Winnie, I'm so sorry, I didn't think it'd be that bad.'

'My doctor gave me a prescription for symptoms of anxiety,' Winnie started, but Spike was already retrieving them from her tote. He found the water-bottle she'd packed, unscrewed the cap.

'Slow sips, baby, nice and gentle,' he murmured to her, rubbing her back in the soothing circles she favoured when she was ill. It didn't happen much anymore since she was on that new birth control, thank god, but it still ripped at him to see such a beautiful and strong woman look so vulnerable.

'Winnie, I'm so, so sorry.' Wordy, whose face had gone from ashen to bright red with embarrassment, chewed his lower lip as he shook his head. 'I just thought it was one of those things like the Boss, you know how he jokes around about not liking open heights.'

'I know. It's not your fault Wordy but...' Winnie trailed off, gave an ominous hiccup.

'Should I stop again?' Ed asked warily.

'No, no, I'm okay. I just really wanna get on the damn plane so it'll be that much sooner to getting off it.'

'Your wish is my command.'


Winnie moaned a little as she felt a hand gently squeeze her shoulder, but the drugs had made her too zoned out to really put much effort into batting it away. Instead, she tilted her cheek against it to nuzzle like a kitten seeking a loving stroke.

'Winnie.'

'Mmm, tired.'

'I'm sure you are, sweetheart,' Spike agreed, 'but the plane has landed and we need to get ready for when it's our turn to go through customs.'

'We're here?'

Had he not known the root cause, Spike would have found the bleariness question adorable. 'Yes, we're here. I snagged some iced for you, help get those cobwebs out.'

'Oh-kay.' Winnie yawned - the pill bottle hadn't lied, she was definitely feeling the fatigue from the meds - and accepted the bottle from him. The tea was clean and cool in her mouth, something she desperately needed as she felt like she'd spent an hour sucking on cotton balls. A quick glance around showed her the very first rows of their portion of the plane were emptier than she remembered. 'Where'd everyone go?'

'We connected in Paris for an hour. You were drooling on my shoulder.'

'I was?'

'I asked you if you were sleeping, you told me dolphin like blue jello. I thought it was cute because you don't eat jello.'

Winnie laughed, stood up slowly. When she stumbled a little, Spike was there to steady her. 'They're gonna think I'm a drunk.'

'They're not.' Spike paused. 'Do you even know the they we're meeting after baggage claim?'

'Your fam'ly.'

'My mother and cousin Monica. The ones that Skype us all the time and ask not so subtle questions to me in Italian about marriage and houses and French-speaking grandbabies.'

'N'aww.'

Spike grinned - she was loopy as hell, something he was certain Monica would find hilarious and his mother would cluck her tongue sympathetically at. For a moment he wondered how Winnie would react when his mother treated her like a daughter in law already, but it was shoved to the side when Winnie let go of his hand to reach for the overhead luggage bin.

'Easy, killer, I got that part.'

'Need my pass-a-port, so they know I'm not crazy.'

'Okay, I'll grab it.'

He nudged her gently out of the way, retrieved her bag and was glad to see she was with it enough that she found her purse with her passport and no issues of balance cropped up. Once he had his own things, he took her hand and gave her cheek a little kiss. 'You ready for this?'

'Yes,' Winnie said without a moment's hesitation; her answer made Spike smile - all the crap the team had given him was completely brushed aside because they didn't matter in this moment. Just Winnie did, and when she looked at him with her slightly glazed eyes, he saw the nerves but more, he saw the love and that counted for everything.

Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed her knuckles and gave her arm a little shake. 'Let's rock this joint.'

It didn't take them too long to get through customs, as their connection in Paris had put them past the rush of tourists and families taking the early morning flights. By the time they were through and collecting their luggage, the worst of Winnie's medication had worn off and she was herself again, albeit very sleepy.

She slipped her hands into his, and as they walked through the sliding doors of the Arrivals gate, she drew in a deep breath as she looked around for the faces familiar from the Skype screen.

The first thing she noticed were the flags - Canadian flags being so distinctive made it easy - that both Spike's cousin Monica and his mother Michelina were waving to get their attention. As they approached, the second thing Winnie noticed was the height difference. Even as she saw Monica in her stylish Rome street wear, Winnie knew that she had at least four inches on the woman. Probably more given the fact Monica was wearing heeled boots. It just made the fact that Monica was waving her Canadian flag like a maniac all the more adorable.

The moment they were in arm's reach, Winnie found herself locked tightly in an embrace as Monica threw herself into the greeting. Before Winnie had time to react her boyfriend's cousin was grabbing her cheeks, and planting kisses on each one like they were long-parted besties.

'Winnie! You made it!' she crowed in her flowing English, 'Oh I'm so happy to see you finally in person and not pixie-lated.'

'You too,' was the only answer Winnie could muster up; without missing a beat, Monica reached for Winnie's luggage.

'I have this, you say hi to Mikey's mama.'

'Oh-'

She was cut off once more when Michelina grabbed her in for a second python-esque hug and planted even more kisses on Winnie's cheeks. She gave them each a little pat and to Spike's surprise began speaking in her very stilted English.

'I am so happy to be seeing you now, bellissima,' Michelina told her, still not letting go. 'Mikey, he make a nice choice in your face.'

'That's her way of saying Mikey picked a pretty one,' Monica explained. 'I love your complexion, it's just as nice as on the screen!'

'You're making me feeling like a movie star or something,' Winnie laughed, noting the way Spike hung back with his phone, taking photos or video or something.

'You could be in movies, have you ever thought of it?'

'Well, I was close friends with some theatre and film majors, and I...' Winnie trailed off a little, thinking of when she'd appeared nude for a genuinely sweet love scene in his student film. 'I helped them if they needed an extra body.'

'My brother-in-law, he is a photographer he does a bunch of models' pictures on the run-away and for the fashion magazines. I'm sure once he sees you he'll offer you the world to pose for him.'

Winnie smiled, shook her head. 'I'm not a model.'

'But what if you wanted some pictures for Mikey, perhaps some very tasteful black and white nudes for your bedroom? Maybe photos to remind of being beautiful once you have babies?'

'Christ Almighty,' Spike muttered in Italian, earning a slap from his mother on the arm. 'Ma, Monica doesn't need to put any pressure on Winnie about a family, she's nervous enough flying and meeting everyone.'

'Mikey...' Michelina trailed off, shook her heard before turning to Winnie and Monica. 'We-no-na, is you better?'

'I'm fine-'

'Winnie, you are sweaty like a footballer,' Monica chided her, reaching up to put her palm to Winnie's forehead. 'Are you sick?'

'Planes make me very nervous, so my doctor gave me some medicine to help ease the nerves. I think it's still wearing off.'

'Oh, okay, okay. We will find a taxi and be home in no time.'

'Soup,' Michelina added. 'Rest and soup, and some wine.'

'Wine cures all ails in my mother's eyes,' Spike told Winnie, which only had her smiling.

'I believe all the homemade wine I could drink was part of the deal,' she replied, then saw Monica's grin turn slightly goofy, a fact she'd have believed impossible for so beautiful a woman.

'You two, it's...oh it's so good to see you so happy,' she all but trilled. 'And wait until you meet my brothers and more cousins, Mike will propose to you just to keep them away!'

For Spike, it was already too much - he shot his cousin and his mother a look, began to speak in Italian to them both. 'Listen you two, Winnie and I have only been together for six months. When I propose to her, believe me you will be the first family members I call, so give it a rest right now, si?'

'Whatever you say Mikey.' Monica's brown eyes twinkled like dark stars before she looked at Winnie. 'No manners on that one, why do you love him when he's such a rude boy?'

'Because he's my rude boy,' Winnie replied, loving how Spike visibly began to steam. 'I know the first thing I'll want when we get to the house is that glass of wine.


A short car ride later and they were at the main farmhouse of the family Scarlatti, with nothing but acres and acres of vineyards to be seen. The house itself was beautiful, a boxy structure of wood and stone with sharp angled roofs and soft arching windows. It stood white against the clear blue December sky. Winnie almost expected to hear lazy trumpets and accordions as she left the car. Before she could even retrieve her bag, Monica was there ushering her inside.

'No, no, you go rest, you need to be refreshed for supper time. I show you the room.'

Still clutching her hand like they were schoolgirls, she tugged Winnie along so fast she hardly had time to admire the artwork and appointments of the place. They stopped at a spacious room under the slanted slate roof; it was painted a pale misty blue-grey, with reprints of Il Raffaello gracing the walls. The bed was wide as a lake, and when Winnie gave it a testing squish, she wanted to cry. It felt so soft and inviting, so much what she craved right now.

'Take off your boots and jacket, and just rest now,' Monica assured her.

'But our luggage, and Mike's mom, I can't be that rude,' Winnie protested.

'Winnie, you're already trying to keep your eyes open. Don't make me fight you anymore, I do that enough with my husband and three sons.'

'Three?' Winnie's tired eyes popped wide. 'But...wow...you look so good for having had three babies.'

'Tell that to the demons that tell me my ass is too wide,' Monica laughed. She gently prodded at Winnie to lie down, tucked up the cozy quilt around her cousin's lady. 'Rest now and you'll join us for wine and supper in a little while.'