Hey everyone. :) So sorry it's been so long, ive been pretty busy with exams and stuff, but Ive finally finished the next chapter. I think it's a little shorter than the last one, so I apologise for that, but I needed to post this one so I could get the next one up sooner. And next chapter is when it will start to get interesting.

Ive also posted a sort of one-shot up, but its set after Death Bringer, so if you havent read it yet, don't read my fic.

On other news I will also be starting up a fanfic for Skulduggery Pleasant drabbles, because I have lots of little ideas, and that means Ill be able to give you guys something more often, so keep an eye out for that.

I'd also like to put a mention in here for yapyap, her SP fics are amazing, and reading them always seems to encourage me to continue with my own, so if you havent read her stuff, then please do, you won't regret it.

Read, Enjoy and Please review.

Skulduggery was no stranger to looking after children, and although it had been a few hundred years it seemed to come back to him naturally, something he was both grateful for and resented. He smiled as he played with the little toddler, although inside he felt his heart ache a little for his own child he had lost. He never showed these feelings when the subject was brought up, and for the most part his casual attitude to the whole thing was real, he had forced himself to accept the loss and move on, although some times the feelings did sneak back in, as though to just remind him they were still there.

Valkyrie was in the shower for a while, and although he was worried Skulduggery left her to herself. There was nothing he could do about what she was feeling, and he didn't want to make it worse. He didn't think she'd do anything drastic, and it could be dangerous to leave her baby sister alone while she was so full of energy.

When Valkyrie finally emerged from the bathroom, dressed in her protective black clothing, jacket and all, his eyes carefully scanned her. Her hands were red, he noticed, and although her sleeves hid her arms he knew the skin there would look the same. He had to look away to hide the sad expression that crossed his face. Having only acquired the façade a few years ago, after so long of having just a skull, he was still very terrible at hiding his emotions from his face, as Valkyrie had had to remind him many times.

When she saw Skulduggery sitting on the ground, his legs crossed, and her little sister crawling over his shoulders laughing, she relaxed a little, moving to sit in front of him, pulling the small girl into her lap to tickle her. Although Sarah was two and already knew how to speak pretty well, she was pretty shy when it came to actually talking, so Skulduggery had only heard her speak a handful of times.

They played with the girl for a few hours, and Skulduggery did his best to let Valkyrie deal with this in her own way. Every now and then she would wince if she moved wrong, and then she would blank out for a few minutes, her mind obviously wondering. Whenever this happened Skulduggery would just distract Sarah, giving Valkyrie a chance to compose herself. After a few moments she would snap out of it and plaster a fake smile on her face and play with her sister again.

Skulduggery didn't ask her about the kiss, and she didn't mention it, although it did stay on his mind through most of the day. A kiss on the cheek was quite a general act, something that women just tended to do, so he knew he shouldn't be looking into it too much, but this was Valkyrie, and it just hadn't seemed like her. A part of him was surprised, he had expected her to be disgusted by the idea of kissing him on his check bone, he was dead after all, and to most the idea of kissing a skull was repulsive.

Of course Valkyrie had never shown any kind of disgust when it came to him, she treated him like she would any other person she knew, dead or not, and Skulduggery really appreciated that. She was always worried when he got hurt, even though she knew he wouldn't die, and she'd always defended him when fletcher had argued he was dead, nothing but a skeleton. A 'man' she had called him, he was a man just like Fletcher, and his being a skeleton didn't change that.

He didn't really agree, obviously, he was just a skeleton, and just because he could feel emotion didn't mean he was a man, but he still appreciated the thought.

"How are you feeling?" He asked her as she laid Sarah down on the lounge, placing a blanket over the girl.

"I feel fine." She answered simply.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes"

"Is this one of those moments where a girl says that she is fine but she's really not?"

"Yes again."

"Are you going to cry again?"

"No"

"Good."

She glanced sideways at him, and he could see the corner of her lips twitch slightly, as though she wanted to smile. She didn't smile, but it was close enough.

He reached out gently took her hands, being careful not to hurt her with his leather gloves. He held her hands in front of her for a moment before pulling away. He didn't need to tell her to leave them there, she knew him well enough to know what he wanted. He drew his hand close and started drawing the moisture from the air to her hands, and soon they were encased in two bubbles of water.

"Burning yourself isn't going to help Valkyrie. Your just hurting yourself more."

"I know."

He bent down so she had to look him in the eyes, and he was glad for the façade he was wearing, so she could see the concern on his face. "Don't do it again please. Now come with me." He lead her into the downstairs bathroom, still keeping the bubbles around her hands as he went through the cupboards and finally found what he was looking for, a small tube of burn cream. "If we took you to the sanctuary they could heal this straight away"

"No," She said straight away, as he thought she would, "This is fine."

He nodded and said nothing else, just manipulated the water away from her hands to fall into the sink. He didn't want to ruin his black gloves, so he slid them off and sat them on the side of the sink neatly before taking her hand in one of his own, his long, skeletal fingers holding the burnt skin gently.

He opened the tube and squeezed some onto her left hand before he started carefully massaging the cool cream into her skin. He knew his fingers were hard, and the bones weren't the best for spreading the cream, but he managed to do it quite efficiently, being even more gentle after she winced when he started. Soon he moved onto the next hand and did the same until they were both covered and the cream had sunk into the skin.

He cleared his throat. "Would you like me to do your arms and back, or do you think you can do it yourself." He and Valkyrie were quite close, and more than once he had accidentally seen her in her underwear, and in one exceedingly awkward situation, completely naked. Not that he looked of course, being the gentleman he was, but it had taken the first glimpse for him to realise before he looked away, so he knew that it wouldn't be too odd for her to turn around and stand in her bra while he helped the burns on her back.

She carefully undid the jacket and slid it off, so she was standing in her sleeveless shirt that Ghastly had made for her. It was tight and black, and fit her form nicely, which was what she had asked for. She was proud of her new muscles, and had wanted to show them off. By the way she held her burnt arms self-consciously around herself he knew showing off her body was the last thing on her mind.

Her arms were as red as her hands, and looked quite painful. He couldn't really remember what it felt like to burn skin, all he remembered was that it was very, very painful, and he knew that she would be hurting even more from the way her sleeves had been rubbing against her arms all day.

The bones of fingers were too thin to really do such a large area of skin, so he found a small make-up sponge in the cupboard and started using that to do her arms. They stayed silent through the whole ordeal, but it didn't feel awkward. Valkyrie was tense, and her cheeks turned pink every time one of his fingers brushed against her skin, but he assumed that she was still very embarrassed.

After he did her arms she turned and unzipped her shirt (because it was designed with a zipper at the front) and slid it off, her arms automatically moving to cover her bra and chest, despite the fact that he couldn't see because her back was turned. Not that he would look because, even if she was nicely built, he was a gentleman, and she was Valkyrie, not some woman to stare at.

He did her back as quickly as he could, covering the whole red surface, and when he was done he helped her get her shirt back on, holding it for her to put her arms through like he would a jacket. When she reached for her coat he snatched it up and shook his head, his brown hair falling onto his forehead.

"The sleeves will rub." He said simply, moving out of the way so she could walk past him back into the house. She paused in front of him, her bottom lip between her teeth, a habit she had had ever since he had met her. He couldn't help but think it was cute; she was always so easy to read. After a moment she grabbed his hand, which was once again gloved, and lead him past the lounge room quietly so they wouldn't wake Sarah, and into the kitchen.

She let go of his hand and he moved to sit on one of the stools by the counter while she went to the fridge and poured herself something to drink.

"You seem to be handling this pretty well." He said hesitantly.

She shrugged and sat down opposite him. "I guess so."

""It's okay to be upset, what happened to you…" He trailed off awkwardly, not wanting to make her cry again. "No one's going to judge you if do get upset." He rested his gloved hand over hers.

She stared at him for a moment. "I said I'm fine." She pulled her hand away and picked up her cup, taking a sip. Her face void of any real emotion, although Skulduggery had known her long enough to be able to tell she was holding back. "I'm not going to let him get to me, that's exactly what he wants. And I don't want to even think about… what he's taken from me."

She quickly looked down into her cup, away from him, but not quick enough to hide the tears growing in her eyes. "I can't even consider myself a virgin anymore."

Skulduggery felt the facades cheeks heat up, a feature China had added last year without telling him. "Valkyrie… I… I mean, just because… that happened, doesn't mean you're not a virgin. I mean, if you consider your virginity to be physical maybe, but it's not about you know, the physical… I think that you really stop being a virgin the first time you… make love… not with anything else." By the time he was finished his cheeks were red. He and Valkyrie had had a few conversation like this, when she had started dating Fletcher, and he'd felt the need to give her 'the talk', but this was definitely more awkward. She wasn't a girl anymore, she was a woman.

Of course back in his day that wasn't how it worked at all, a woman didn't have a sex with a man until they were married, and they certainly didn't do anything before then, because a lady was supposed to be a virgin for her wedding night, and any sexual activity before then would take away that title. But Skulduggery knew things were different these days, sex wasn't looked at as being as special, and for Valkyrie's sake, he knew this was the right thing to say.

"You're a good friend." She said with a small smile, obviously his words had made her feel a little better. "Even if I don't think you believe what you said."

"Of course I believe it, if I didn't that would make me a liar."

"But you are a liar."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are, you lie all the time."

"Oh I never lie, give me one example."

"Three weeks ago you told Tanith I'd been magically turned into a boy."

"Well it is hard to tell sometimes with the clothes you wear."

"Oh my god, I don't look like a boy!"

Skulduggery smiled; glad to see he'd got her to show some emotion. "Are you really sure about that?" He teased, flashing his facades white teeth in a wide grin.

"Yes I'm sure! I'd know if I looked like a boy. And I have long hair!"

"Maybe you look like a boy who's too lazy to cut his hair."

She opened her mouth to retort but stopped and shot him a glare. "You're trying to distract me!"

"I'm not trying to do anything."

"Yes you are, we were arguing about how you are a liar."

"No we weren't"

"See you just lied right then."

Skulduggery chuckled and reached over to pat her on the shoulder. "I don't lie, Valkyrie; I just distort the truth to suit the situation."

He stood from his stool and picked up her nearly empty cup, walking over to the sink to rinse it out. Once it was clean he walked back behind her and so quick she didn't notice he pushed against the air, sending a gust of air to blow all of her long black hair into her face.

"Hey!"

He laughed and ran out of the kitchen, dodging the gust of air she sent in his general direction while trying to fix her hair. He jumped at the bottom of the stairs and flew up to the second floor of the house. If she had seen she would tell him he was cheating, and obviously he would argue.

He landed gracefully at the top of the stairs and ran into her room, dropping to the ground behind her bed, laughter building in his chest. But he didn't let it out, he didn't want to give away his position. He missed this, having fun with his partner. He knew she wasn't a little girl anymore, and she was lady, it wasn't 'suitable' for her to play silly games, but he had missed it.

She had distanced herself over the past year, stopped getting involved in wrestling matches. Every now and then she'd forget herself and start to muck about, but after a few minutes she'd catch herself and blush, mumbling excuses about her hair and such. He'd found it odd at first, but he'd gotten used to it.

She had changed a lot over the past year, she acted completely different around him. Always blushing and stuttering. She was still Valkyrie, and their friendship was just as strong as ever, but there was something different, something that was causing her to treat him differently. He hadn't really paid it too much attention, he'd thought she would tell him eventually, but it had been a year and he still knew nothing.

He could hear her footsteps on the stairs now, running up, closer, closer, and then she was running past, obviously moving to check a different room.

He chuckled and stood, darting back to the door and running quietly through. He forgot to look up the hall, just ran for the stairs, and that was his mistake. He heard her laugh from behind him, and he didn't have a chance to react. She tackled him from behind, hitting him in the back. And very much unlike himself, he lost his balance, sending them tumbling together, over the banister and straight towards the hard floor below.

So, I know that someone will probably try and abuse me about Valkyrie being kind of happy at the end, but to be honest I feel it fit just right. Of course she is still very upset, and I will be showing how it has affected her more in the next chapter, but thats the thing about love, that special person can make you feel a little better no matter what, and Skulduggery is able to make her smile, even if it is for just a little while.

Hope your excited for the next chapter. I'm already almost finished it, so Ill update after I have a few replies ((Hint hint))

And suggestions are always welcome, and if you have any ideas you'd like to see me write in my drabbles fic, send me a message and I'll happily do that for you.