Power of Six spoilers- stay back!

So for the record, I know that Sam is with the Mogadorians who are doing bad things to him (O_O) but for the sake of this story, please let me be. No idea where the idea of these two characters came out of, sorry if they're out of character, and... First ever Lorien Legacies fic. Woohoo!

Disclaimer: My name isn't half as cool as 'Pittacus Lore'.

Sam climbed out of the window and sat on the roof.

"The roof?" He asked her, propping his feet in the gutter. "There's no other place in this whole house you rather be? Like the hot tub, one of the leather couches in front of a flat-screen, or inside where there's shelter and warmth?"

They were only 'borrowing' this house. A luxurious summer home in the country with a dock and a boat, plenty of open place, food in the fridge, owners that were working for the next week, and four wheelers that Nine had nearly exploded from joy about. He was out doing that with John and Six right now, although Sam wasn't sure how long until Nine got ditched by the loverbird aliens.

She wasn't even startled; she just pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. It instantly fell back.

He wasn't sure whether she even noticed it or not, but she could go with pushing a strand of hair behind her ear all day long. It fell, she pushed it back. About three seconds later it fell, two seconds later she pushed it back again. The others seemed to tune the habit out as the days passed, but Sam couldn't. Every time she moved he looked at her, just to catch a glimpse. He'd stopped noticing he did that too.

"Yes," she said. "I've always needed my own spot to be. It used to be a cave around the convent. Now it's here."

Her eyes suddenly got sorrowful. That was another habit of the gardes- or at least one that Sam had noticed. If you mentioned something, there was always a dark memory hidden there for one of them. And sometimes that was enough to cut up a wound and it hurt. Marina hurt a lot- but then again, she had a lot of wounds.

"There's a nice view," Sam commentated. "Sunset must be pretty sweet, looking out on the lake and all."

"It does… But I could live without the view."

"The lake? Why? What's wrong with lakes?"

"It's just be, I'm being a bit dramatic." Her tongue rolled on the 'r' when she spoke English and a dozen other little things like that- a massif Spanish accent. "I lost a friend in a lake, and, well… I keep imagining Héctor disappearing under the surface, or, or…"

"You don't have to tell me," he interrupted her. Her brown eyes were tortured and he didn't want to see them in tears. He'd seen Six and John like this before, but it'd never bothered him as much as it did now. "It's okay Marina. It really is. A lot of people have gotten hurt because of this, but it's not our faults. Nobody asked for this, it's like they throw it around the Garde and it always piles on your shoulders. It's not your fault."

"I wish it weren't," Marina said. "But Héctor was way too close to me. He told me one little story about my name when I was little, and then I kept going to him when I was in town. I put him in danger and knew it. Do you go to bed at night and sleep well when you know you did that? I don't think anybody has. How do you go back to being around people after that?"

"I don't know," Sam said. She looked back at the lake.

"What was the story?" He asked.

"My name means 'queen of the sea'. He called me that always."

"That's cool. Mine is like Samwise from Lord of the Rings and it means 'half wise'."

Sam felt like slapping himself. Why the heck would she care about Lord of the Rings? Did she even now what that was? Now he just looked like a total nerd- which he, granted, was. But still! She didn't have to know that he had memorised most of the hobbit language.

"But, umm, I know a story about the Queen of the sea." He said clumsily. She looked up at him and tilted her hair to the side, sending the lock of hair back in her face. She pushed it back.

"Really?" She asked.

"Yeah. For sure. The real Queen of the Sea, although you're pretty good with the water and all... She was called Amphitrite."

"Amphitrite?"

"Yeah," he said. "If you know your Greek gods, Poseidon's the god of the sea. Amphitrite was his wife."

"I don't know Greek gods." Marina said. The way she looked at him was like 'tell me'.

"Well, he was in love with her before she wanted anything to do with his world. She knew he was going to come for her and ask for her hand in marriage, and she fled to the bottom of the sea, to its very deepest point. So he searched the sea for her. He sent his messenger Delphin to help him find her as well. Finally he found her and asked her to marry him and she was so impressed that he kept coming back, that she said yes."

"And they all lived happily ever after," Marina said quietly.

"Well, yeah, if you want the pretty ending."

"I think I do. Thank you for telling me Sam. It was a good one. I should get some sleep, I'm still a bit jet-lagged."

"Oh okay. Goonight. Sleep tight."

"You too."

He watched her get up and with agility that was Loric only, climb back into the house threw the window.

Yeah, talking to her didn't work… Good job Sam, there she goes…

Marina ducked into the master bedroom that Nine had called when he'd seen the flat screen TV and the mountain of billows on the Queen-sized bed.

She was smiling to herself. Marina wasn't a smiling-to-herself kind of person.

She looked back out the window. She could tell by the way his arm was moving that he was readjusting his glasses. He leaned back and stared at the sun- frozen in perfection like the statue of those Greek gods. Marina had lied; she did know Greek gods. She just wanted to hear him tell her a story and make it sound okay when everything wasn't.

I wonder if he'll keep coming back until I say yes.