The sunlight felt odd on her skin after six hundred years of darkness, odd enough that she had to stop and revel in the old and forgotten warmth of the early morning sun once they had exited the castle.

As she stood there she could feel Michael's eyes on her, and for a second she felt unsure about the future, at the realisation that he perhaps was waiting for her to say what to do next, as if she would somehow know herself. She sighed and turned to him. "Michael."

He simply flashed a gentle smile at her. "Yeah?"

She blinked, caught off guard. Surely he would've asked or expected something of what to come next. The sudden thought of him perhaps having checked her out instead did something to her she wasn't sure what to do with. Now that they had all this time...

"You must be cold, we should get back to civilisation."

It was a pleasant thing to view upon the city once again, the snow dwindling through the sky and the lights of the city illuminating the dark they had been enveloped in for hours.

"Are there any safehouses?" Michael asked next to her, wrapped in a thick coat they had found in an abandoned gas station. "You mentioned they were all connected to the same grid, if we use any we'll probably have to run once again." His breath fogged the air. "Maybe we could find an apartment somewhere to hide out in?"

She looked at him for a long moment, at his profile lit up by the lights in the vague distance, feeling the warmth of his hand against hers. She let out a breath. They had to focus on finding a safe place before they could think of any plans for the future. But before that- "So you're not going to run away?" Her voice was quiet and soft, brown eyes looking for something in his.

He blinked. "Where would I go?" He chuckled a bit awkwardly, raising his hand to run through his ash blond hair. "We already discussed this in the safehouse. I'm staying, where ever you go, I go. That's just how it is now. We're wanted by both sides, they'll kill either one of us without second thought. I'd much rather run away together with you than on my own."

"Right."

What else was there to say? She wasn't one who did well with many words, let alone the feelings that seemed to move within her undead body at his words. "I only know of the mansion and the safehouses, never needed anything else."

She directed them back to business, battle. Her safe and predictable environment.

The hybrid next to her huffed out a breath and nodded. "There are some abandoned buildings near my old place, we could check those out and see if any are suitable to live in for some while. Would be nice to have a roof above our heads at least."

The Death Dealer simply nodded and jumped down the vantage point.

"The odds are slim they're going to scour the city for us," she murmured as she fiddled with the lockpick, Michael leaned against the wall next to the door. "The coven is scattered with the Elders dead, I doubt they'll recover anytime soon." The lock clicked and then the door creaked open. "Same for the Lycans."

He could hear the leather of her outfit squeak as she got up, and he let her walk in first before closing the door behind them.

With the sun slowly coming up, Selene walked through the small apartment and checked all the rooms, Beretta in one of her hands.

"Clear."

Michael looked up from the pile of dusted books to Selene in the door frame. Somehow despite her ever stone-cold expression, she seemed uneasy and awkward. The monotony of a human apartment juxtaposed with a leather-clad vampiress was something odd to him as well, but, well, he turns into a blue crossing between a werewolf and vampire.

He let out a soft laugh and placed the book down.

"What?"

With a shrug of his shoulders he walked over to her and stopped right in her personal space. He heard the sharp intake of breath and sensed the blood rushing through her veins as her heart beat faster.

"What are you doing?" she asked quietly then, looking up into his eyes much the same as she had done in the shipping container back in the warehouse.

He raised a hand and gently cupped her cheek, the cold barely noticeable to him at this point. He felt the tension within her muscles, the rigid stance of her body answering what he was silently asking. With a gentle smile he leaned in to press a kiss to her cheek before pulling away and walking past her.

She just about managed to not look as bewildered as she felt, heart pounding in her throat as she watched Michael walk towards the bedroom. She had already seen there was only one bed in the apartment and realised they would either have to share it or one of them would have to suffer the quite uncomfortable couch.

Warm sun hit her hands, and reflexively she hissed and snapped them out of the light. Until she once again realised the lack of burns.

All of a sudden a wave of exhaustion came crashing down onto her. She had been up for days now, and normally that wasn't too big of a problem, but she had had multiple battles with serious injuries she'd had to heal. Not to mention the emotional turmoil of having believed Michael had died.

She wrapped her arms around herself and frowned. On their way back she'd had much time to think about him, them. And although she knew what her body was telling her, somewhere in the back of her mind she seriously wondered if perhaps all of that had simply been the pure adrenaline of nearly dying and the both of them needing a stress reliever. But then just now when he cupped her cheek so much like he had done at the warehouse, the look in his eyes... it had made her want to kiss him all the more.

In the other room the mattress creaked and Michael sighed out a contented breath. He must be as exhausted as she was.

She hesitated only a second more before she walked out the room and into the bedroom.

Michael had crashed and fallen in a deep and dreamless sleep as soon as his head had hit the pillow, so when he woke up to a cold body pressed against him he was only half surprised. Not as much as he could have been, as he too had realised the lack of beds. However, despite the short time of having known Selene, he had already learned she was stubborn as ever and he really hadn't expected her to join him after all.

In his sleep he had managed to wrap an arm around her slender waist, her presence having easily brought him back to when the other side of his bed used to be occupied. He rolled onto his back and let out a breath, staring at the broken white ceiling. His pale brown eyes glanced at the window, missing the sunlight from the morning only a bit before. Since he had become a hybrid his inner clock had been accurate down to the minute, so he knew enough to know that it was around midnight. He jumped when the woman beside him raised her head and reached for her pistols on the nightstand, ensuring they were still there.

Clearing his throat, he asked, "You okay?"

His morning voice surprised her with its gruffness. Selene turned back to look at him half naked. Brown eyes glided over his torso and then averted as she gave a quick nod. "We should find a supply of blood."

Unable to fight the grimace from contorting his face, Michael nonetheless nodded.

"They won't think about checking the safehouses right now. We should go to the ones in the city and take as much as we can carry." She whipped the blankets aside and got up, leather catsuit still with the hole in her abdomen where Marcus had stabbed her with his wing.

"We should fix that," Michael mumbled, eyeing the pale skin shown. "It'd be a shame not to."

"It can wait."

With another breath taken Michael got up as well, the mattress once again creaking.

The first safehouse they had gone to together had been blown up, undoubtedly by Corvinus' Cleaners. Selene had cursed and slammed her hand on the rubbled concrete, cracking it, before promptly swirling around and rushing to the next safehouse.

"It's fine, the other safehouses will be intact as long as no battles have been had. We'll get what we need." Michael comforted easily as he followed in her steps. "We have enough bags with us, we'll be fine for a while."

She looked back at him and for a moment her usual cold demeanour dropped and he saw the most beautiful woman with lively and lovely eyes hidden behind the mask. And then she turned and hopped onto a roof. It didn't deter him however, following after her and taking hold of her hand.

"What-"

He gently pressed his lips against hers and squeezed her hand. He felt her melt into the kiss and her tongue flicked against his lips and nudged them open. He allowed it and deepened the kiss, eliciting a quiet noise from her as the moonlight flooded down on them.

When they parted, her lips were well kissed and he would swear she had a faint blush on her cheeks. They stared at each other for a while, both slightly breathless. Then, Selene turned and continued walking.

Though, the speed of her strides had slowed.

They returned with more than enough blood for a month and then some, stacking the bags up in the fridge before they both went to relax in the living room.

Selene eyed through the apartment and its various trinkets left behind, sitting perfectly still. Michael could still tell her mood, though.

"Not used to downtime?" he inquired softly, even though he was fairly confident of her answer.

"Any I usually had were quickly followed with battle."

He glanced out the window to the dark night sky. "We could go out."

"And risk being seen?"

Her cold eyes settled on his, and usually he would simply freeze at that, but something about the look in them... It was clear she was unsure of the current situation and how she should act, completely out of her element. It reminded him of when he had first come to Budapest, a city whose language he didn't speak and a culture wildly different from his. He again glanced over to the hole in the tattered fabric of her catsuit. Her skin was impeccable as ever after the healing, but the fabric hadn't stood a chance. "Let's get that fixed. I'm sure we can find some black leather around."

"Michael. We can't go out any more than what we did. It's dangerous."

He sighed. "Then we sleep, and settle into a daily rhythm." He smiled at her. "You can walk in the sun now, we should take advantage of that. And get you new clothes." He got up from the chair and stretched, letting out a yawn.

Alarm crossed her face. "New clothes? Whatever for? I've seen what humans wear, it's highly impractical. I can't fight in that."

A gentle smile and shoulders relaxed. "That's the point, Selene. Let everybody else fight it out, it's not our battle anymore." He paused and chewed his lips, for a moment unsure. "We should relax and rest up. Maybe we could go back home..."

Her chair creaked as she got up. "Home? The mansion is burned down."

Calloused yet gentle hands slid around her waist and pulled the vampire close, pressing a gentle kiss to the corner of her mouth. "America, where nobody would look for us."

"There are other covens there," she murmured softly, voice for once quiet and almost vulnerable as they stood together in the dark. "Amelia's coven may not know what transpired. Somebody should tell them—"

"You'll be killed as soon as they know what happened."

Sighing, she leaned into him. "I know."

"There is nothing we can do, so let's go to bed and think of something later."

Yet they didn't quite yet move, and Michael couldn't help but marvel at Selene's acceptance of this intimate embrace. He was trying things out, testing the balance and her boundaries, and he really had expected her to simply push away. He had seen glimpses of her like this before—the quiet and almost shy woman beneath the hardened warrior exterior—but it had quickly vanished, and he had questioned its existence altogether. But now, here...

He cautiously moved a hand to card some hair behind her ear, her skin cold as ever. "Selene..."

Brown eyes looked up to him and he faltered, unsure of the glance in them.

Then she leaned up and caught his lips between hers, noses brushing together and hands cupping his stubbled cheeks. A noise of surprise escaped him before he eagerly returned the kiss.

Hands started moving to take off his coat and he let out a hot breath against her lips. "Selene—"

She halted, slender fingers keeping the coat from falling as she opened her eyes and looked into his. A blink, two, and then she closed her eyes with a frown. "I don't—" want to talk about this now. But when would be a good time? They would have to discuss it eventually, and she would rather do it sooner than later.

"Don't think I don't want this," he started, taking a breath and willing down the heat in his gut. "Obviously, a lot has happened these past few days." A blur of visions passed through his mind.—the car crash, the mansion, the underground war, Marcus, Alexander, dying. The sheer realisation of the events transpired within this short time was enough for him to let out a a disbelieving laugh and shake his head. "God knows I have a lot to process now that we can finally rest. My new powers, the whole vampire-lycan thing to begin with..." He chuckled softly and brushed through his hair before meeting Selene's brown eyes once again. "I am certain about you, I know that much. But I've gathered enough info to know you have your own fair share of things to process. I don't want to rush into anything, even if we..." He tried to find the right words. "That was probably adrenaline or whatever, and that's fine. I just want both of us to be able to look at this with a clear head, no rushed decisions."

She blinked at him, then averted her gaze in thought, staring at something between his neck and shoulders. Her hands dropped to her side and she nodded. "This... is indeed new to me," she acknowledged, meeting his eyes once again. "But I know what I want. I've spent six hundred years fighting a war, I do not know much of romance after all that time." She bit the inside of her cheek, allowing herself at last to show the vulnerability she felt so deeply. "I don't know when I realised I wanted you like this, but the kissing and the sex was... ecstatic. Keeping you with me all this time was to keep you safe, not to keep you hostage or whatever you may be thinking."

He blinked at the woman in front of him. In truth he hadn't expected this much honesty or openness from her. Then he scoffed. "Wait, you thought I thought you were keeping me hostage?"

"I can't see inside your head," she countered defensively.

Chuckling, he instinctively moved to touch her, wanting to be closer. "Selene, it may indeed have started out with you kidnapping me, over time I did learn what was going on and quite quickly it became obvious to me that you were trying to keep me safe. Especially after I'd been bitten by Lucian and you were still fighting for me. You may have a cold mask that's admittedly difficult to look through, but the kiss in the safehouse told me enough, even if it was a way to handcuff me to the chair." He took a breath. "I just didn't know your thoughts on any of this. Even back in the container, I thought it was adrenaline needing an out, I didn't think you were actually—"

"I sobbed over your dead body," she murmured softly, not meeting his eyes. "Cried my eyes out at the realisation you had died and promised myself I would shred Marcus to pieces for taking away the one man making me feel any kind of warmth."

A lump in his throat had him try and swallow it down, He had been completely unaware of Selene's reaction to his death. He himself could barely comprehend that it had happened—to him it had been as if he'd been in a deep sleep until he woke up in a helicopter, but for Selene...

"I did everything I could to try and resuscitate you. Gave you my blood, tried CPR, but nothing worked. Forced Alexander to bring your body with us on the helicopter, just so I could look at you for one last time as I was going into something I was quite sure would be my death. But it would be more than worth it to not only stop Marcus from freeing William, but to also avenge the hole he had ripped in my healing heart. And if I had died during, I was at peace with that. I didn't want to live without you anyway."

"I didn't—"

"So yes," Bright blue, defiant eyes looked into Michael's, "I am sure of what I want. The future may be uncertain, but I know you are here with me, and you and I together can handle anything."

The darkness of the apartment was slowly making way to the dim light of the rising sun, the sky outside colouring orange and pink.

Without any words able to match the emotions he was feeling, Michael instead leaned down and pressed their lips together.

Her arms wrapped around his neck and his hands pressed her slender frame against his warm body, feeling every bit of her against his own. Tongues found each other and breaths were shared until Selene pulled back ever so slightly and took a second to catch her breath. "So, now that that is all clear, can we please move this to the bedroom? We have no battles or anything else upon us, and I would like to take my good time with you now that we have it."

Breathlessly he nodded, stealing another kiss before taking her hand and guiding her to the bedroom.