Domino awoke slowly, enjoying the luxury of a soft, warm, and clean bed after several months on the road. The warm haze cleared from her mind as she suddenly realized in whose bed she was in. Afraid to open her eyes, she felt around the bed, but there was no other bodies, nor any warm spots where Nathan could have previously been. When she was satisfied that he was not there she opened her eyes and looked about the room. Still no Nathan. Good, she thought. It freaks me out when he just sits there and watches me sleep. The only sign of his presence was a breakfast tray on the nightstand. It contained French Toast, bacon, coffee, orange juice and small light blue box tied with a white ribbon. She leaned over to inspect the box more closely. Tiffany &Co.? "NATE!" she bellowed.
Nathan flung open the door and came running into the room with a gun drawn, ready for trouble. A quick glance around the room reveal that she was alone and completely uninjured. He lowered his gun. "What?"
Domino pointed to the blue box. "What is that?"
"It's Christmas present," he said keeping his tone as expressionless as his face.
"Tell me you just didn't teleport out and get that."
"No, I've actually had it a couple of years." He looked down and began to examine the gun in his hand intently. He seemed embarrassed. "Irene made me go shopping with her one day and we walked by Tiffany's and it made me think of you. So I went in and decided to get you a Christmas present."
"Hold on a sec, buster. Tiffany's made you think of me? What are they selling now? Sterling silver grenades or something?"
"Not that I'm aware of." He looked up to meet her gaze and she was shocked by the intensity of his gaze and looked away down at her hands. Nathan sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Listen, Dom, I know you're not the tough heartless merc babe you want everyone to believe you are. "
"And what does that have to do with Tiffany's?" she asked leaning back against the pillows and folding her arms over her chest, quickly putting on her defiant façade. She was determined not to let her nervousness show. "Domino and expensive jewelry just aren't two things people relate to one another. I'm confused here, Nate, or perhaps you were confusing me with someone else."
"Will you just shut up for a second, I'm trying to explain," he said sharply and the immediately regretted it. "Oath, Dom, you know I'm not good at this heart to heart shit."
"Well, neither am I."
"Irene made me watch "Breakfast at Tiffany's" -"
"She was a bossy little thing, wasn't she?" Domino interrupted.
"Anyway," Nathan continued, ignoring her comment. "I watched the movie and Audrey Hepburn's character reminded me of you. The weird sense of humor, like not naming your cat. I can see you doing that. More than anything she made me think of you how you throw away happiness with both hands because you were afraid of being caged, even by someone who loved you. And how you were both scared little girls trying to act tough. In all the years I've known you, Dom, I don't think I realized that was why you were always running until that sappy movie. I know it sounds stupid."
"Nathan-" She started but she didn't really know what to say. She lost her hardened skeptical glare and looked questioning up at him. "Is that really how you see me? A scared little girl?"
"Dom, you are one of the strongest people I've ever known. I can't count the number of times you been to hell and back and all the while keeping up the witty dialogue, but in the things that I've come to realize really matter, you are a scared little girl. Wars and once and future evil are all important things but they aren't the things that really make or break a man- or a woman. And I can't think of another person I'd rather have my back whether it be in the valley of the shadow of death or in love."
Domino looked uncomfortable. She hadn't been expecting such an eloquent speech out of him. "Nate, I don't know what to say. "
"Just open the damn box. It's not worth all this build up." Nathan he said gruffly and turned his back to her. He sat with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands massaging his temples as if his admission had given him a headache or was the start of a new one.
She grabbed the box and began to untie the ribbon. She lifted the lid to reveal a platinum bracelet made like connected dominos with black diamonds as the dots. "Well, this certainly isn't a prize ring from a Cracker Jacks box," she said wryly.
"When I saw it in the case," he said without looking up, his head still in his hands. "I thought it was a sign. A sign that you would be coming back to me. And you did, but I acted like an ass. And you took off and ran into Blockade. "
"Nate, I need to tell you something."
"What?" Nathan said looking up at her at last.
"I've been in love you since I first joined the Wild Pack."
"And I was blind then and stupid and self sacrificing later. I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, too. You were right I was scared, but I'm not now."
"What exactly are you trying to say?"
"That you should have showered me with expensive jewelry a long time ago. Diamonds are a girl's best friend you know," she said with a quirky grin and a mischievous wink.
Nathan looked shocked for a second and then laughed suddenly. And then continued laughing until he fell back on the bed and tears streamed down his face.
"Geez, Nate. It wasn't that funny," Domino said but she couldn't help but laugh herself. Nathan's laughter, when it was true, not bitter or sarcastic or many other things, was contagious.
Nathan finally caught his breath . "Oh, Dom, I've missed you. I haven't really laughed in so long I don't remember when the last time was."
"So that's all I'm good for? A laugh?" She asked playing at being offended.
"Among many other things," he said with a slightly lecherous gleam in his eye. He reached out and gently took her hand and then he placed the shining bracelet around her slender wrist. He brought her hand up and gently pressed it to his lips. "If jewels are what you want, my lady, you shall have them. I'll give you any thing you want."
"All I want is your love."
"You have it. Always." He pulled her across the short distance separating them.
************************************************************************
Domino lay tangled in Nathan's arms as her mind was still tangled in his. She had missed the sensation of the mind touch more than she cared to admit. When their link was severed she felt adrift, cut off from her moorings. That was when she had really realized how much Nathan meant to her and how much she had come to rely on his steadying presence, strange, though, that such a time tossed man with an overly complicated family tree should be steadying. It was when he was no longer there that she had to truly admit to herself how much she loved him and how in all likelihood he was gone forever from her life. But she should have realized that among these X-types that forever isn't so very long. With that in mind she wanted to make the most of their time, because forever could end tomorrow.
She allowed her mind to be pulled with the current further into Nathan's mind reveling in his afterglow as well as her own. He was content. That was a good feeling. It was something she knew he hadn't experienced often enough and neither had she.
"I've never made love to a woman in nothing but platinum and diamonds," Nathan said fingering the bracelet on the pale arm stretched across this chest. She could feel him smiling. It was a strange and wonderful thing to feel another person smiling.
"And we've made love in a lot different places over the years. On the bed, beside the bed, hell, even under the bed, but never over the bed. That was a new one, Nate."
"What?" he asked. She felt the smile fall from his face and a chill run down his spine.
"Over the bed. Don't you remember? You levitated us about three feet over the bed. It was… different."
"Yeah, sure. It just kind of blurs together." She could feel him trying to pull out of her mind, but he seemed to have trouble. He was blocking her out but she could still barely feel him in the back of her mind.
"Nate-" Domino began, but he pulled out of her arms.
"I need a shower. Eat your breakfast. It'll be cold," he mumbled as he crawled out of bed and headed to the bathroom. He shut the door soundly behind him. Domino began to nibble on her now cold breakfast and experimentally test out the newly re-established link, but he was shutting her out. She noted in grim amusement how the original psi-link was established between them after their first night of passionate sex and he'd shut her out after that that too. This time it was different though. She refused to let Nathan shut her out and she refused to let him run away from his problems, namely his out of control powers. If she was honest with herself they scared her. And she remembered what happened to Nate Grey.
When Nathan emerged from the bathroom, Domino was no longer in his bed. He sensed her in the living room and walked in to face her sitting on the couch with his packed suitcase at her feet. He raised an eyebrow quizzically. "Taking a trip, am I?"
She glared determinedly at him, daring him to defy her. "Yes, we're going Westchester."
"Oh, joy."
