Absence makes the heart grow fonder, or does it?

"Um, Hi Kel, Neal." Cleon nodded to them each in turn. His gaze only flickered to Neal then returned steadily to Kel. There was a long and painful awkward silence. Kel skin prickled with gooseflesh, it was suddenly cold in the water. She wrapped her arms around herself feeling more naked.

Neal broke the uncomfortableness first. He jumped out of the water and dressed quickly. Smiling but not to his eyes, he said, "Water gets a little chilly if you stand around in it Kel. Nice to see you Cleon, I'll leave you two alone now." And he left swiftly.

Kel slowly climbed out of the water and dressed (somewhat quickly) before looking up at Cleon. Her dreamy eyes were wide and her heart felt like it would burst. The redhead turned somewhat hurt eyes to her.

"You and Neal good friends? When did he get here anyway…"

"Yes, friends… He arrived yesterday..." She answered breathily, "When… how… I though you weren't coming back for a long time…" he smiled and his eyes softened.

"My ray of eternal light, pearl, dewdrop, I had to come to see you." The silliness faded away. "We're just in restocking some supplies… I leave again in week."

"But… such a short amount of time?" she couldn't keep the disappointment from her voice. "I haven't seen you since-"

"Since you became a knight… I wish I could have been there to see you, to catch you when you came out and to see you be knighted…"

"Me too…" Kel replied a bit of the hurt surfacing again. He closed the distance between them in two quick steps and pulled her into a warm kiss. She felt the heat rush through her the way a warm drink did in winter. It was nice to feel his lips pressed to her mouth and his tongue intertwined with hers. But she was still the one that pulled away first. There was a question in his eyes, he wanted to know if something was wrong and she let him know with a gentle look that all was fine. Only… she wasn't really sure it was. Seeing him again had brought up all the feelings that had seeped away but it also alerted her of his, er, plans for her.

"Come inside Cleon, my nieces and nephews have missed you." She took his hand and started towards the keep. "You and Neal can stay for dinner, my parents would love that."

"So why is Neal here?" He asked as though he didn't care.

"He was driven out by his ex-knight mistress and came around here to see me. I haven't seen him in a while, I caught him trying to pull of joke, a kind one, on me last night." She smiled reassuringly at him. He didn't seem that reassured though.

"What kind of joke? In the middle of the night?"

"Oh he was going to fix Peachblossom up with some clean new tack and shoes… surprise me I guess." Though Kel now wondered why Neal had chosen that and not something more humorous or embarrassing like they used to do as pages.

"Hmm… I still don't really see why he had to do it in the middle of the night…" Cleon whispered as though thinking very hard about it. He slung his arm around her shoulders as they walked.

"You're dragging this out. Neal is my friend, he's like an older brother or something." She felt a little guilty saying it. He was her first crush and still a very attractive man.

"I'm sorry sweet." He said, his eyes kind and a slight blush appearing on his cheeks. He kissed her cheek softly and stepped a bit away from her as they neared the gate. "I'd gladly accept your offer of dinner and apologise for any misbehaviour."

"Come let's go inside then, everyone will want to see you."

And so they did.

AN: I'm not sure where I stand in this battle of Neal or Cleon…. But I am trying to keep to their characters so I won't make Cleon into anything jealous and evil ^_^;; oh and thank you very much for the compliments about my writing like Tamora, that was very flattering, (hehe) …. Ah yes… next chapter… coming sooon…. hehe