Author's Note: I'm so sorry I never got a chapter up last night! Yesterday evening I developed symptoms that are either indicative of a bizarre allergic reaction (to what, I have no idea), some sort of stress related illness, or worst case scenario a moderate yet annoying autoimmune disease called lupus (House M.D. fans who are going to say it's never lupus, I remind you that everybody lies, even cable television doctors). I went to bed early last night and have been fighting fatigue all day in spite of a full night's sleep. I'm writing this chapter, then taking a Benadryl and going back to bed. I tell you this to ask your forgiveness upfront if I don't wind up posting much quality work over the next few days until I can get to the doctor. Gotta love getting sick on the first day of a holiday weekend, right?

"Oh Erik, it's perfect!" Gaia exclaimed, walking into the little bed and breakfast for the first time. It had taken two years, but Erik finally finished remodeling the entire winery. The one bare-bones building now contained six bedrooms, each with a private bathroom, and a large kitchen and dining room. Erik would not allow Gaia inside until every last detail was in place, and he smiled with pride at her praise.

"I thought you would like it. All the rooms are furnished and everything," he told her as she wandered in to get a feel for it. "It still smells like paint, we ought to air it out a few days before advertising."

Gaia nodded. "It does, but it won't take long before it smells like the country," she grinned to him. "Thank you, Erik. It's even better than I imagined it would be."

"It's going to be a bother for you to have to walk over here every day. We might consider hiring help…"

"Oh, I don't know. We'll see how it works out for a year or two. Adrian will be three in another week, I'm sure you could watch him just fine while I clean up over here for a few hours a day," Gaia suggested. "Besides, you're so private. I wouldn't want to bring a stranger in."

Erik nodded his relent. "You have a point. But as soon as you feel overworked I want you to tell me and I'll hire someone from town. I won't have you getting sick just because-"

Gaia kissed her husband to quiet his fears. "If I start to get sick, I promise we can hire someone. But that's a very strong if! Erik it's been years since I've so much as coughed, will you ever stop fussing?"

"It's been years since you've been stressed!"

"Not terribly long. That time you went into the woods might have done it. Or when Adrian was born. Or the time you taught him how to play hide and seek a little too well."

Erik smirked some at the memory; he had schemed with his son to make Gaia think he really had vanished, Erik helping the two year old up into the loft of the stable and only telling his wife where the boy was when she started to panic. "You have to appreciate the artistry of that one."

"I have no appreciation for such a sick sense of humor," she scolded. "There's so much land here anything might have happened!"

"But it didn't," Erik reminded his wife as she wandered further into the building. "There's no need to get upset again. What are we going to do for his birthday this year?" He changed the subject gracefully, and Gaia immediately smiled.

"I'm going to bake the most delicious cake you've ever tasted. And I thought we might invite a couple of the village boys over to play this year," she suggested. "He really ought to start making friends…"

Erik said nothing, but Gaia could tell he was upset by the idea. She moved back to him from behind the polished wood reception desk and wrapped her arms around him. "What's wrong?"

"I don't think it's a good idea… but I think it might be a necessary evil," he frowned. Gaia quirked a brow at him in confusion, and Erik took a breath before explaining. "He doesn't understand that he's different. He needs to interact differently with the world than either you or I did, growing up; your world was softer than his, mine was harder… He needs to be exposed to how things really are in the world. How people are going to treat him beyond the safety of home."

Gaia frowned, remembering her trip into town two years prior during which she had been the victim of the cruelty over Adrian's looks… but other children would single out Adrian, and not her. Was he old enough to handle that? "I think you're right Erik. It's a bad idea."

"I think one day it will be necessary, but I wouldn't object to waiting a few more years to expose him to that. Besides, he's significantly more intelligent than most of his peers at three. He would probably get bored, don't you think?"

"I suppose," Gaia sighed, resting her head on her husband's shoulder as they began to walk hand in hand back to the house. "Why can't people see him like we do? He's just a little boy."

"The same reason people can't see me like you do," Erik explained, letting them inside. "Because humanity is vain. It takes time for people to begin to see past the surface. It did for you too, remember? You thought I was after your father's money at first."

She frowned quietly, realizing he was right; if she hadn't been forced to live with him and if she hadn't kept such a careful eye on him for her father's sake, even she might not have seen past his mask and the face beneath it. She had been just as vain as her contemporaries, only she had the opportunity to break through her vanity once she saw what was underneath. Where she had once felt so special so… superior than her peers for being able to see what a remarkable man really was, and for being the one lucky enough to earn his love, she now felt ordinary. Less than ordinary even. Who was she to be so self-righteous? Any other woman in her position surely would have fallen in love with Erik too.

"Erik? I know this seems like a strange question, and I'm sure we've talked about it before... but when was it you fell in love with me?"

"What a strange question indeed. I'm not sure I can pinpoint it. I know I didn't realize it was love until after I proposed, but it must have been sometime before then that I actually fell in love. The realization hit me like a sack of bricks, but falling in love was a much more subtle art, I think. Why do you ask?"

"Morbid curiosity I suppose," Gaia dismissed, wandering away from her husband to check on Adrian in his bed while he napped. "What a sound sleeper he is! Papa used to say he couldn't leave me alone in the house for two minutes. Apparently I used to wake up the moment he walked out the door," Gaia mused quietly. "We must have been out at the winery for ten minutes or more and he's still fast asleep."

Erik snaked his arms around his wife, kissing her neck tenderly; he knew there was something on her mind she was having trouble shaking, and if it was doubts about his love for her he had just the cure. "Do you think he'll sleep through the presents I bought for you?"

Gaia turned in his arms and wrapped her arms around his neck snugly. "It's not like the last present you got me, is it? Really I understand the false nose, but I still don't like-" Erik silenced his wife with a sound kiss.

"Not at all. I was going to wait until Adrian's birthday to give it to you, but I think now is a better time."

The woman smiled on his mouth. "Well, in that case you had better show me before I die of curiosity. There's more than one present?"

"There is indeed. Why don't you go on up to the bedroom and I will bring them up. They're hiding in the stable," He explained, and Gaia trotted upstairs to their bedroom with a grin. Erik was only absent a few minutes before slinking into the bedroom empty handed.

His wife pouted playfully. "You said you were bringing presents!"

"I brought them, don't fuss," Erik told her, amused. "Close your eyes."

Doing as she was told, Gaia leaned back against the pillows and closed her eyes. She felt her husband's long bony fingers deposit something small and furry in her hands, and immediately she opened her eyes. Cradled between her palms was a tiny kitten with long, silky white fur sleeping soundly. If the feline had any idea it was no longer in the barn, she made no sign of it. "Erik! She's precious! If I didn't no better I would have mistaken her for one of my powder puffs!" Gaia grinned to him. "Does she have a name?"

"I've been calling her Angel because of her coloring, but I think you ought to name her."

"Angel is what I was going to suggest, actually," Gaia grinned. Gently she freed one of her hands and stroked the tiny ball of fur with two fingers. The kitten blinked lazily revealing a pair of lovely, clear blue eyes so perfect Gaia couldn't help but gasp. Stretching out one paw, the little feline purred sweetly. "Where did you find her?"

"She was in a box in town last week, next to a box of puppies. I hope you don't mind, I got one of the dogs for Adrian for his birthday. She's still in the stable with the horses."

Gaia grinned. "I think that's a wonderful idea, Erik! It will certainly trump the new clothes I got him."

"You seem to have forgotten about your other presents, I suppose I should have given you the kitten last," Erik teased, and Gaia quickly moved out of bed to make a tiny bed for the kitten on the floor out of clean linens. She returned to the bed gaily, sitting cross legged in front of her husband and holding out her hands expectantly. Erik couldn't help but laugh. "Not so easily! Close your eyes again."

Gaia obeyed, closing her eyes before her husband reached around her neck, fastening something behind her head before pulling away his hands. Gaia opened her eyes and looked down at the small, delicately embellished gold locket between her breasts. Gingerly she picked it up and slipped a nail between the clasps to pry it open. Inside were two tiny sketches, one of her and one of two masks, a smaller one overlaying a much larger one. "Did you make these?" She asked, awestruck. "They're so small… but it looks just like me!"

"I borrowed the spectacles you used to use making your watches," Erik explained. "Do you like it?"

"Erik, it's beautiful. Simply beautiful," she breathed, inspecting the intricate patterns on the outside of the necklace and vowing privately never to take it off.

"There's still one more, but you don't have to close your eyes for this one." Erik pulled a thinly folded piece of fabric from his shirt and handed it to his wife. Gaia stood and shook out the fabric to discover its shape; a long robe made of blue silk in her favorite shade, with a neat little ribbon to tie under her breasts.

Erik raised a brow as she stood and stripped nude with her back to him, almost as if she were completely alone in the room. He couldn't help but admire her form as she did so, though he wanted to laugh at her complete and utter lack of shame around him. When she turned around again, she was dressed in nothing but the robe, which was only meant to cover her breasts over her night clothes and not to serve was a substitution for them. Her long legs slipped out one by one as she slinked back over to him, and Erik couldn't help but stare.

"Well, how does it look?" She asked with a knowing smirk, allowing herself to be pulled into bed by her hungry-eyed husband.

Neither of them noticed their son walk into the room until an involuntary moan from Gaia prompted the boy to act. Adrian jumped up onto the bed and shoved at his father, causing both Erik and Gaia to yelp in embarrassed panic. "Stop it, you're hurting her!"

If she weren't so mortified and a little pained by the deep thrust their son had caused by attacking his father, Gaia would have laughed at the look on Erik's face as he tried to cover the proof of his passion against Adrian's ferocious onslaught. The boy kicked and punched at Erik furiously until Erik was finally calm enough to restrain him. Gaia slipped out of bed and into the bathroom to change, desperate to avoid the awkward explanation that would surely follow.

She got the feeling the boy would be getting his puppy several days early.