"I don't think that's a decision you should make just for Hunter's sake," Angela Barclay told Quinn and I firmly.
She sat in my living room interrogating us both while Hunter played with his toys on the floor obliviously. She was trying to figure out whether we'd be good foster parents for him, and it had been going well for us... right up to the point when she figured out that this wasn't a family farmhouse with a young couple living in it, but instead a share house inhabited by two single young women with unstable love lives.
It didn't matter how much she liked us; it didn't matter that she was part-fae, just like Hunter and I; it didn't even matter that she knew we were both telepathic, so I was instantly more qualified to care for him than anyone else. She couldn't go back to her colleagues at Child Protective Services and recommend placing a child with two young single women and whatever boyfriends they had around that week.
Quinn had tried to swing it back in our favor by pointing out that Amelia's technically a Katrina refugee, but it hadn't helped us much... so he asked if marrying me would help.
My mind was still reeling. He wanted to marry me? I'd caught an idle thought or two before... but he said it aloud! To a government official! He wants to marry me! I had given up on this ever happening to me, and now he was saying... Wow, I thought, completely flabbergasted. I had always wanted a husband, kids, grand-kids, the whole deal, but thought I couldn't have that on account of my disability... but Quinn, I could marry. He was alive, and I could hear his thoughts most of the time, but it didn't freak him out, and we could still make love even. I loved him, and he loved me, and we wanted the same things in life, and we got along real well... and he was so darn hot and the sex was incredible... OK, if he was gonna ask me, I was gonna say yes. Yes yes yes yes yes.
"It's not like that," he assured her. "By the customs of fairies and shifters, we already are. It's only by human standards we're not yet."
"What does that mean? Fairies and shifters marry differently?" she asked.
"Yeah," he explained. "Shifters have fated mates, one person in the world who's perfectly compatible with us. We mate for life, and imprint to one another so strongly that if we're widowed, it's usually only people who look and sound and smell like our mate we can re-mate with... close relatives of our mate, mostly. Shifters don't divorce at all, and fairies... well, once they claim someone, it's permanent. Shifters mate for life, but fairies... the books imply that it goes beyond that, but they aren't exactly specific about it."
"So, what, you've had a ceremony or something?" She was trying to work out what 'married by shifter and fairy standards' actually meant.
"Two ceremonies. One that was done the shifter way, except without all the witnesses and stuff because fairies are more private about it, and one that was done the fairy way. I'm marked as hers," he traced the scar on his neck. "We're bound to one another by fairy magic, and we've imprinted to each other the way animals do. We're both wired to stay together now, to want only each other... it's a lot more permanent than human marriage, what we've done."
She was thinking how nice that sounded, to know your partner couldn't cheat, or leave you... how much she wished her marriage was done that way.
"It's good it wasn't," Hunter told her. "He's not your mate. Your mate's in Chicago. You'll get offered a job there next year. Then you'll mate."
She stared at the child for a moment, watching him demolish a tower of blocks with his fire truck for the fifth time in a row, oblivious to the fact that he'd just told her what the future held. He'd mostly told her things that had already happened until then, and she was quickly realizing he was more than 'just' a telepath. But she couldn't put any of that in her report, so she had to concentrate on the matter at hand: Quinn's and my relationship, and our fitness as potential foster parents for Hunter.
"Being de facto won't be a strike against you any more," she told Quinn, as I half-listened, still thinking weddingweddingwedding husbandhusbandhusband. "To be very frank, a hasty wedding's more likely to ring alarm bells these days."
As my mind finally caught up, I suddenly worried whether this was even about me. Quinn really wanted kids because he's a shifter and apparently most shifters do, and here's a kid he likes who he can raise as his own, and all he has to do is marry me... I was just about to ask him whether this was really about wanting to be with me, not just about caring for Hunter, when my nephew answered my question first.
"It is," he told me, not bothering to look up from his toys. "He bought a ring ages ago. Before he met me."
"Gee, thanks Hunter," Quinn grumbled as he turned to me, looking like he'd just been caught doing something he shouldn't. "I wasn't going to ask right away, I know it's too soon, I just saw something that made me think of you, and I figured the right moment would come along sooner or later..." He looked nervous, sure I was going to freak out about him being too serious about me, too quickly. "It's a thing with my kind," he kept rambling, "we know our mate the first time we see or hear or smell them, the same way you hear what trees say and they both know everyone's thoughts," he told Angela, trying not to look at me out of the corner of his eye, sure I was horrified. "A year's a really long courtship for shifters... hellishly long... but the human part of me couldn't deal with marrying a woman I barely knew, and she's too smart to agree to it anyway, and I couldn't even admit the tiger part of me was right until I thought I'd lost her... I'm not very bright, sometimes."
"You really bought her an engagement ring?" Angela asked incredulously.
She thought it was an off-the-cuff idea, him asking whether getting married would improve my chances of being allowed to look after Hunter. If he'd been considering it for a long time, it was a completely different matter, in her eyes. A couple who are practically engaged were seen as much more stable foster parents than a couple in a newish relationship who didn't even live together yet. In fact, she thought 'engaged but not living together yet' would looked even better in her report than 'de facto', oddly enough.
He nodded. "I'll show you if you need me to prove it," he offered, not sure whether he was supposed to do that.
When she agreed, he was back in about two seconds, showing it to her as discretely as he could, to prove he was serious about this. He seemed really embarrassed about the whole thing, and I 'heard' that this wasn't how it was meant to happen; that he knew human custom dictated he think up something really creative and romantic when he asked me. And that he had to wait a LOT longer to do it. I also caught how foreign the whole concept was to him; that shifters would simply say to someone, 'I think you might be my mate', and the matter would be agreed or disagreed upon quickly; that it wasn't unusual for the mating ceremony to happen within a week of finding one another, if they met as adults - and in more traditional packs, it practically always happened within a month.
My brother's wedding suddenly didn't seem quite so hasty, after all.
I tried really hard not to 'hear' anything about the ring he'd just shown her, but I wasn't sure I didn't want to know, and I peeked for just a second, and there it was... a diamond the color of a pale new lemon, round and cut so it glowed softly instead of flashing like a neon sign, and big enough that she was seriously impressed. That's no drugstore impulse buy, I heard her think, comparing it to the many tacky pieces of tin she'd seen on pregnant fifteen-year-olds' hands to get their much-older boyfriends out of trouble. She mentally rattled off a whole string of jewelry-store lingo, none of which I understood, but I could tell she was impressed by it - especially because he'd dropped that much cash and still managed to get something both understated and personal. It was a piece that symbolized a very serious commitment, to her, something that proved he wanted to be with me for a very long time, far more than his words had convinced her.
"It just made me think of sunshine," he rationalized, snapping the box closed and hiding it in a pocket as quickly as he could. I could 'hear' that he felt like he'd just messed up, big time; that he expected me to lecture him about this the same way his sister had. "I guess you just saw it in her thoughts," he apologized to me, "and I know it's meant to be a surprise, and I just screwed it all up, and I'm really sorry. The human stuff... god, it almost makes me wanna do this the shifter way. The traditional way, I mean. Do human males actually get all this right? I have so much more respect for their intelligence now..." He just stood there looking at me, waiting for me to blow up at him.
Of course, I didn't.
I stood up and kissed him instead, pulling him down to my height a little more forcefully than I probably ought to, in polite company.
"If doing all this the human way is causing you headaches," I murmured into his mouth, "I'm sure we can work something out."
"I think I've invaded your privacy enough already," Angela apologized, getting up to leave. "I'm sorry I had to ask so many questions... y'all should've had the chance to figure this out in your own time..."
She felt really awkward now, since we'd basically forgotten she was in the room and were still kissing. Enthusiastically.
When a small block of wood bounced off Quinn's head, we finally separated. Hunter was glaring at us, because he'd been mentally shouting at me to stop for a few seconds already, but I'd been too preoccupied to listen.
You'll mess it up, he chastised me. She'll think you get, um, carry way. And do stuff in front of me. Cos you forget I'm here.
I blushed bright red then, knowing full well it wouldn't have gone any further. Well, I was reasonably certain of that...
"Sorry," I apologized. "It's not every day a girl finds out the man she loves is gonna propose." I couldn't help beaming as I said it.
"So I didn't totally mess up?" Quinn asked.
"No, you really didn't," Angela answered for me. "And even if you had, a piece like that will earn you a lotta forgiveness."
"Dryads," Quinn chuckled, shaking his head. "It's all about the pretty rocks, isn't it?"
She just looked puzzled.
"Go talk to your Gran," Hunter offered. "She'll 'splain."
She nodded gratefully, realizing she was finally going to get some answers to all the questions she'd had, about why she was so different to most humans, why trees talked to her, why people would tell her anything she asked... she was thrilled to have met the three of us.
"Well, it's been real nice to meet y'all," she enthused. "I can tell that Hunter will be fine here, and the stuff you told me... I can put it all together in my report in a way that makes it clear you're good foster parent candidates, and that he doesn't have any other good family options right now. His Dad wants him to be here, rather than with his own parents, so that counts in your favor, too. Someone will come check on him from time to time - I'll try to do it myself, but they might assign someone local to you, as well - but for now, he's in your care."
Then she looked right at me, trying to focus her thoughts to make sure I heard them. She was trying to tell me I should adopt Hunter quickly; that Remy said he had no interest in caring for his son, and sounded like he would sign over custody willingly - especially if his parents got the money they wanted. Her instincts told her Hunter belonged with us, and his medical records told her he wasn't safe with his father, so he'd be far better off placed with people who didn't abuse children.
I nodded to tell her I'd heard, then said "thank you" softly.
Quinn gave me a questioning look, but I did a tiny head-shake so he let it go for the moment.
We said our goodbyes and Angela left, mentally writing her glowing assessment of us as potential foster parents as she drove away.
I could 'hear' that she genuinely believed we were Hunter's best option, and would do everything in her power - both supernatural and bureaucratic - to help him stay here. Like so many fae, she'd chosen a job that let her play fairy godmother sometimes, and she took those opportunities to change a child's life for the better very seriously. She delighted in placing a child with the perfect foster parents, and she believed Hunter had that with us. To be doubly sure, I took a quick peek in Hunter's mind and saw that she would indeed write a great report about us, which would convince her colleagues that my nephew should stay in our care.
As soon as she was out of sight, I turned around and kissed Quinn again. Hunter huffed and went back inside to play with his toys some more, so we could have a few minutes alone on the porch.
"You're not mad at me," he breathed, when I finally let up a little.
I shook my head. "Not hardly." I couldn't help but grin. "And you don't have to do anything elaborate, just wait for the right moment and ask."
"OK, I can do that."
"Any ideas for the rest of the day?" I pointedly changed the subject. "What time is it, anyway?"
He looked at the sky for a moment. "About two o'clock. Maybe quarter past."
"Wow, that was four hours of questions! No wonder I feel so beat."
"Take you out for lunch then?" he offered.
I agreed gratefully and we got on with our day, eating lunch together, then visiting the park so Hunter could play, shopping for groceries, cooking dinner... just like a normal couple and their kid. The comfortable, mundane happiness of it was bliss to me, and I hoped it would last.
But as always, come nightfall, there were vampires around to interrupt it.