A/N: So really fluffy chapter here, even though it's really short compared to my other stuff. I guess I just needed a break from Find My Way Back To You or at least to break up the angst there. For the words in other languages I spelled them how they sound phonetically and in English, so I apologize for any inaccuracies and will fix them if there are some that are glaringly wrong. Happy reading!

C is for Constellations

"Jennifer?" Duke asked, looking up at her from her stomach as her fingers ran through his hair, tucking some of it behind his ear and twining it around her fingers alternatively.

She smiled at the sound of her name, but continued reading her book and playing with his hair as she replied, "Yes, Duke?"

"Why are you reading?" he asked, reminding Jennifer of a four year old asking why they were doing one thing when they could be doing something else.

She giggled lightly as his goatee tickled the skin of her stomach and shifted her legs under the sheet, "Because I want to."

Duke sighed through his nose, looking at her in weak agitation, "I meant, why are you reading when we could be doing something else."

She looked at him around the back cover of her book, arching an eyebrow at him.

He smiled at her, scooting closer to her and kissing her ribcage, "I mean, we are already naked."

Not a four-year-old then. More like any boyfriend she'd had in college. Well, and high school, if she was being honest.

"Hey, I'm just following the 'sleep naked' protocol you set up; sex was not implicit in it." She replied, smirking knowingly at him as shifted to her left towards him, and went back to reading.

Duke sighed again, mockingly glaring at her through the covers her book before trying a different tactic. He propped himself up on his elbows, looking down at her torso. After a moment, he reached over her towards the nightstand table that had become "hers" and grabbed one of her pens from it. She glanced at him as he hovered over her momentarily, catching his eye, and he grinned at her.

"What'cha doin', Sailor?" She asked him as he returned to his previous position next to her and looking down at her torso.

He uncapped the purple pen with his teeth before grabbing the cap in his left hand and shrugging at her, "I'm bored."

She arched an eyebrow at him, "Do I bore you?"

He pointed at her, "Trap. That's a trap."

She giggled at him, conceding, "Okay, okay. You caught me."

"I see right through you, Short Stack," he grinned at her, focusing back on her torso.

A silence fell over them as she studied him and he poised the pen above her skin.

"When I was kid," he said, voice rumbling like it did when he was talking about something that was important to him, "before Mom left and Dad got…bad, he'd take us out back and show us the stars. He'd tell us about what stars made up the constellations, and about what the constellations represented."

He pressed the tip of the pen next to a freckle she had on her stomach, and then drew a diagonal line from it to another freckle, just below her right breast. From there, he connected that freckle to one just below her sternum and then to another one on the left side of her ribcage.

"He used to tell us that no matter where we were, the stars would lead us home." He laughed halfheartedly, "You know, even when I ran away and I did everything I could to forget about him and Haven, that would still pop up."

She let the book fall onto her chest, reaching up to run her fingers through his hair again. He closed his eyes and leaned into the touch, before turning his head and kissing her palm as her hand came to rest on his cheek. She stroked his cheek with her thumb as he looked at her, "You okay?"

He smirked at her, shifting the pen to his left hand as he took her wrist carefully in his right hand and connected the freckles on her wrist together, and continued, "What probably didn't help was that when I'd be awake at night, I'd chart them. Just remembering what my dad said and wondering if I'd…if I'd ever…"

He paused, sighing, before he moved to lean over her, letting her wrist go and connecting the freckles on her neck and collarbone. As he finished he smiled at her, "You've got stars on your skin."

She blushed at him, suddenly self-conscious, and moved to cover herself but Duke stilled her hands, mumbling, "Don't."

She blushed harder at him as he kissed her lips, mumbling against them, "I want to see your stars."

She giggled nervously, moving the book from her chest to the nightstand and wrapping her arms around his neck and twining her fingers into his hair, "No one…no one else has called them that."

Duke smirked at her, "Yeah, sure."

She shook her head, "No, I mean it. I don't…I don't think anyone else noticed."

He stared at her in disbelief, "How?"

How didn't anyone else, even one of her past lovers, notice or think that her skin had stars on it? How could they not be mesmerized by her freckles? By how they formed constellations, by how incredible they were?

She blushed, biting her lip and shrugging at him, "I guess because they weren't you."

She shifted nervously under him, unsure what to do under his gaze and after saying that, but he knew. He kissed her, deeply, pressing his body against hers. She placed a hand on his chest, pushing him back slightly. At his dismayed look, she suppressed another nervous giggle and said, "I want you to tell me about the constellations. Before they go away."

"They won't go away," he husked, kissing her neck, "I'll remember them."

"Duke."

He sighed, bowing his head so that his forehead rested in the crook of her neck, before shifting so that his body wasn't on top of her and grabbing her wrist to point at the five freckles he'd connected there; it looked like a crude "Y."

"This one?" he asked, pointing to it, "This is iva, it's Russian, it means 'willow.' And it's why you're so kind to everyone around you, and why you can jump into any situation and just thrive."

She looked at him, waiting for him to expand on it.

He chuckled, "In Celtic practices; well, from what I understand of Celtic practices, the willow trees were highly regarded because of their adaptability—like, a branch could fall into a bog and it'd become it's own tree—and was used to try to enhance love in people's lives; exactly like you do."

She blushed at him as he touched the three freckles he'd connected on the left side of her neck, fingertips just barely brushing it, "This one is yumi, Japanese, and it means 'bow.' In some cultures, bows symbolize axioms of truth, which is why you wanted to be a journalist; to find the truth."

He let his fingers trail down to stomach, fingertips just barely touching her and resulting in goose pimples to rise on her skin. He smiled to himself as he touched the freckle on her stomach that he'd started at, "This one, though, this one's for me."

"Really? Because it looks like it's still on my body." She quipped, giving him a cheeky smile.

He scrunched his nose at her, "Do you want me to tell you why or do you just want to keep being cheeky?"

She scrunched her nose back at him but stayed quiet as he splayed his fingers within the confines of the connected freckles.

"This one," he said, keeping his eyes on his hand on her stomach, "This one is parivāra. Hindi—,"

"I didn't know you spoke Hindi." She interrupted faintly.

Duke just smiled coyly at her, "I'm sure there are a lot of things you don't know about me."

He looked back at his hand on her stomach, "Now, if we're quite done interrupting me; this one is parivāra. It's Hindi and it means 'family' or 'home.'"

He pulled his fingers together, dragging them across her skin, before tapping his middle finger on her stomach, "And this one is for me, because it…it's the one constellation that I've found, that finally led me home."

Duke looked up at her, anxiety etched into his face.

She smiled at him, running her fingers through his hair again, face warm and inviting, before she pulled him down to kiss him, mumbling, "Welcome home."