Disclaimer: Still own nothing, everything belongs to Karen Lynch

I didn't wake up until the next morning. I was still snuggled into Nikolas. There were not enough words to express how my entire being felt waking up next to him. I needed this every day, for the rest of forever. I popped my head up suddenly and startled Nikolas awake. I giggled at his expression. "Good morning."

Good Morning. I loved the sound of his voice in my head.

"So I was thinking..." I felt suddenly unsure. These mori emotions were throwing me for a loop. A second ago i was adamant, thrilled, sure. Now I was less so. He cocked an eyebrow at me.

"Yes..? you were thinking...?"

"Uh, never mind. its not a big deal."

Nice try, moy malen'kiy voin. I sighed. "I was thinking that...I want to wake up with you every day..." My voice trailed off and Nikolaus caught my face before I could turn away.

"I think that I want you to wake up with me everyday. And go to sleep with me every night."

I looked at him sideways, trying to make sure we were on the same page. "I'm talking about how I want to move in with you."

He laughed at me. "Yes, Sara, I know. I'm talking about how i want you to move in with me."

I relaxed. "Really?" I smiled at him. "Because I have a lot of stuff. Okay, not really. But you will be sharing your house with Oscar. And a few imps."

He leaned back and stared at me. "I don't know why I'm surprised right now. You have Imps." I nodded. "In your room?" I nodded again. "At the Institute?" I nodded again. "Of coarse you do. And prey tell why you have imps in your room?"

"Well, that's a long story. But they caught a ride with me from home. And I couldn't turn them away. And now...now I kind of you know, feed them and stuff."

He closed his eyes. "All right, but the first time something goes missing I'm shipping them back to Maine." I could live with that.

I thought for a minute. "I think I'm still processing this forever thing. I mean, this is a real forever. This is an insane amount of time to build a life with someone. What are we going to do?"

"Well..we could start by visiting my parents."

I sat up, "In Russia?" He studied my reaction. "For real, you want me to meet your parents?" He smiled at me.

"I want to show you off, yes."

I settled back against him. " Oh, in that case of coarse, I always wanted to be shown off." His chest rumbled against my back. "Are we always going to live at the Institute?"

"We don't have to. Would you like to live somewhere else?"

"Id love to be somewhere where Hugo and Woolf could run. Maybe I'd like to have an animal shelter or something someday. A place that i own and nobody could get suspicious of the miraculously healed animals."

"I think we can do that." he chuckled. "If anyone had told me that my Warrior mate would be an animal lover with the intention of running an animal shelter, I don't know what i would've said. I cant believe Ill be cohabiting with a cat."

"Just wait till we have a house, then we can have lots of pets." I grinned as he stilled, considering that very real possibility.

"I love you, and within reason. Perhaps if you have a shelter than you will take less home."

I thought for a minute, weighing my next words. "Hey, Nikolas? What about kids?"

He stiffened beneath me, then pulled me around so we were facing each other. "Sara, you just turned 18." I laughed and smacked his chest.

"Not now! But someday. Is that something that you want?"

He studied me. "I don't know. I've never thought about it."

"Me neither."

"Really? I find that hard to believe. You are so...nurturing."

"Towards animals, yes. But I never considered myself mother material. Probably because I didn't have the best example. or any example, really."

He continued to watch me. "I think, that with you, I do want children. Very far from now. When I'm ready to share you." He brought a hand up to my face and caressed my cheek. "I cant imagine anybody who would be a better mother to a child." His words settled somewhere deep inside, where i had been harboring fear over ever having children, and being the same as Madeline. Knowing that he saw that potential in me healed a wound I hadn't even been aware of. "But in the meantime..." He looked at me meaningfully. I stared blankly back, unaware of what he was getting at. "Birth control."

"Oh! oh." I had never been through this with anyone, and wasn't really sure how this worked with me being half fairy. He had apparently come to the same conclusion and we both kind of laughed at our cluelessness. "Is there...like mohiri birth control?"

"We use human methods pf birth control."

"So the other night..." I had been so, um, caught up i hadn't even asked at the time.

"I pulled out, Sara." he told me gently.

"Oh. Huh." This was all very new territory. "I, um...don't think I like that you have to do that. It makes me feel like I'm...I don't know...Kind of missing out?" He raised his eyes to the ceiling.

"Sara. You are killing me here." I wasn't really sure how to respond. Nikolas took a breath and faced me again. "For now, we pull out. Until we figure out what kind of contraceptive a half faery would need. And please, for both of our sake, don't tell me how you are missing out again until we do figure it out." I wondered if his body was starting to warm at even the thought of us having sex again. Mine was. I sighed.

"Nikolaus...we need to talk about it, I think." His eyes turned to steel and his jaw clenched.

"Were you hurt? Did she or any of them do..anything to you?"

"NO! No, I was in the cell the whole time before I first saw you, and then again after. I cleaned and dressed myself. Nobody hurt me, nobody touched me. I'm worried about you."

His body sagged, knowing for sure that None of the vamps had touched me like they had him, that nobody had beat me, like they had him, that nobody had fed from me..." I'm afraid of the scars that the entire encounter may have left on you, considering who it was." He got up from the bed and turned to stare out the window. I was worried he was going to close himself off like this.

"I think..I think the worst part of it is knowing how she was tortured. How she became. That is what is weighing so heavily on me now. Knowing that she counted on me to save her. And I didn't. " I looked down at my hands. I needed to help Nikolas. But hearing him talk about her with such pain..it angered my mori. Knowing he held affection for her at one time, even brotherly affection, had me reeling. They were two pieces of two different puzzles for me, and I couldn't form a connection between them. "I love you so much, Sara. And I am beyond happy that you survived, and that I survived with you and that we can build a life together now. And I am so incredibly guilty that Elena had to die for that to happen."

I got off the bed then, needing to touch him to ease his pain. I hugged him from behind, with my chest to his back and wrapped my arms around him. "Her death wasn't your fault. She was killed by a demon, a long time ago. Our happiness and her death had nothing to do with one another." He grabbed my hands in one of his.

"I know that. On some level, I do. But it doesn't make it any easier."

"I know. I'm so confused over killing her. Even worse for doing it in front of Tristan. Don't get me wrong, after...you and seeing you..gone...I couldn't have stopped it. I wanted her dead. She has done so much wrong...But maybe..maybe I could've saved her. Maybe I was being selfish in that moment, and I mourned you so deeply that all I wanted was revenge. I could've done something else. And now you and Tristan are mourning a woman that I killed. Me. I killed her. Not you. Not Tristan. You guys are racked with guilt over something that I actually did." I cried a little then, all my conflicting emotions needing an outlet. "But I think the worst part is that I don't feel guilty, not really. She took you from me, and I got you back and I'm sorry that Tristan is hurting, but there is this huge part of me that is rejoicing in every moment i have with you. I shouldn't be this happy over killing someone, but i'm just so glad its over." Nikolas spun me around so my face was now pressed into his chest. "My guilt is in hurting you and Tristan, but to me, Elena deserved it, and I would do it again. To anyone that takes you from me." I cried harder, now that Nikolas could understand the true depth of my awfulness.

Nikolas let me cry for a few minutes and rubbed my back. "Sara, If anyone took you from me, the way i was taken from you, I would kill them without hesitation, without guilt. God, even my own parents. I could never lose you. I'm glad she's gone, she would've killed you if she had opportunity. She would've made me kill you, and that thought alone..." He struggled for a moment and i looked up to find his own eyes tearing up. "I can't lose you. Everything you did was right."

I needed to hear him say it, to alleviate my guilt. In an instant, his hand was in my hair and pulling my mouth to his. I needed this too. Kissing Nikolas was a salve to my very soul. The feeling of completion that being intimate, in any way, with him gave me was addictive. And I craved more. I needed more of him, and in the way he was pushing against me now, I think he needed more of me. He backed me up until the backs of my knees found the bed, then lowered me down gently beneath him. His kisses never ceased and I brought one leg up to hook it around his waist. He grabbed that leg and hitched it higher, grinding into me. My hands found the hem of his shirt and pushed it higher, trying to expose his skin. He pulled it off entirely and leaned back down to suck lightly on my neck. My fingers played against his abs and the fine tuned muscles there, then whispered their way to the top button of his jeans. I was working his zipper down when a knock on the door interrupted us and swung open, followed by Chris's voice in the doorway. "Khristu!" Nikolas shouted, glaring over his shoulder at the interruption. I hid my face against his chest. "Gah. I didn't..." I heard the door swing shut again and Chris's voice from the hall. "Sara, you have a visitor."

Nikolas's head fell in defeat and I laughed sympathetically. "Who?"

"Elderoin, he called and wants to meet you outside so as not to upset everyone." I groaned in my own frustration.

"Okay, I'll be down in a minute." Nikolas removed himself from me reluctantly and I got up before I changed my mind. He leaned in to kiss me after i had straightened my tank top, but i leaned away, "Nuh-uh buddy, if you do that i'll never leave." His eyebrow quirked up and i threw on a hoodie before he decided to keep me here.