Normal

by Trisana McGraw

Author's Note: Written for the livejournal community tammydrabbles, prompt 10: normal. Alanna/George fluff set during WWRLAM, after his infamous "This fish loves you with all of his crooked heart" line.

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"You're quiet," Alanna commented, though she hadn't spoken either in the last five minutes.

George idly traced a finger over the carved bedpost. "You'll have to give me a minute, darlin'. Achieving is chief desire of the last year gives a man pause."

Alanna turned over onto her side to face him, a smile spreading over her face. He returned the grin and, with a murmured "C'mere," tugged her over so that her head leaned against his shoulder. She pressed a soft kiss to one of his scars; his fingers continued their tracing, this time along her desert-tanned skin. "You're right; this should have happened between us a long time ago. But you were more . . . more normal than I expected."

She shoved hard against his chest so that she could look him in the eye; her own eyes blazed. In her time with Jonathan, she'd suffered the constant fear that she wasn't as lovely, as graceful, as skilled as Lady Delia or the other beauties he'd bedded prior to her – now George had someone she had to measure up to?

"Whoa, there, lass," he said, grabbing her hand before she could climb out of his bed. "I didn't mean for it to come out that way. Alanna – Alanna, look at me. There are those that look at everything you've done and think that you're not only god-touched but maybe part-god. I m'self thought for a moment that you were the Goddess herself – that you might smite me in the midst of our carryin'-on here. t's a great comfort for a mortal like me to know that the legendary Alanna of Trebond is actually one too."

"I'm not a legend yet," Alanna retorted, somewhat mollified, her words muffled against his skin as she resettled her head. A few moments of silence, then, "Besides, you should know."

"Hm?"

She smiled. "You're the one who made me normal."

"What d'you mean by that, lass?" he asked, twining his thick fingers in her smaller but equally calloused ones.

She gazed up at the ceiling as she slowly rubbed her thumb against his. "When you first kissed me, on Jon's birthday –"

"I remember."

"—I felt like any other girl. Hear me out," she warned, sensing the beginnings of a chuckle from deep within his chest. "I wasn't some boy, or the Prince's squire; I didn't have to hide my sex for you to kiss me. You just did . . . you kissed me like you would any girl. You made me normal."

"For a moment," George put in. "Then you threatened stabbing and all other manner of gruesome death for me." Chuckling, Alanna pressed her face into his shoulder.

As their laughter subsided, he tilted her head up, his expression serious. "And now?"

"You make me feel like a woman," she answered honestly. "I feel like I'm home."

He nodded, his smile warm. "Then that's enough."