A/N Thanks to meteorstorm for the beta help!

After Colin's first wish, things changed between them. Now that Penelope had hugged him, Colin seemed to find any excuse to touch her.

He was walking behind her? He would touch her upper back to indicate where he was.

They were sitting next to each other? He would rest his arm behind her back on the top of the seat back.

She was sitting on the floor in front of the couch resting while he was working? He would pause to play with the strands of her hair.

As the months went on, Colin never hesitated to ask her questions: places she visited, unique people she met, the wishes she granted. He must have learned quickly that she would answer any questions about her life as a genie, but she tried to avoid talking about the time before then. Though he mostly asked about her time as a genie, every now and then he would slip in a question about her personal background. He wins her last name by couching the question between others. Penelope had answered it before she realized what he was doing.

He was constantly trying to learn more about her. Penelope, admittedly, was doing the same to him. She learns how he loves his siblings. He once pulled Anthony out of a gutter when the man was hungover. She learns that he loves fruit, but has to be reminded to eat vegetables. He loves sweets and desserts - except for custards.

Colin had his heart broken a few years ago by a woman who faked a pregnancy and ran off with someone else. With how often he traveled, he sometimes felt isolated from his family. He still felt the grief of losing his father, even decades later.

When they were spending a lazy afternoon on his couch relaxing, Colin tried to get more out of her. He had his arm around her and finger curling around her hair. Penelope had her eyes closed and was resting.

"I know you don't like to talk about the time before you became a genie, but that was your last wish, right?"

Penelope simply hummed in confirmation, keeping her eyes closed.

Colin fiddled with a strand of Penelope's brown hair. Raising it to a sunbeam, it seemed to glow with red.

"What were your other two wishes?" He asked quietly.

"Oh you know, fortune and fame," Penelope said lightly. It had been a century since she'd even considered feeling insecure about her childhood desires. At 17, Penelope Anne Featherington had just been a child. At 227, she was over it.

"Really? I can't see that," Colin mused. He changed the piece of her hair that he was playing with.

"It was a different time. My father had thrown away our dowries through gambling and then died. I wanted to restore the Featherington fortune." Penelope's voice took on a mocking tone at the last two words.

Colin scoffed and muttered something about dowries under his breath.

"And the fame?" He asked after a moment.

"I fancied myself a writer. I tried to cover what was happening in the Ton's society. But no one cared what little Penelope Featherington wrote. I was a wallflower in those days. The genie removed my name from the piece and the famed 'Lady Whistledown' was born. She became the most-read scandal sheet for two seasons." Penelope let a small reminiscent smile across her lips.

"You're astonishing," Colin breathed out.

Penelope's eyes shot open and met Colin's. "How so?"

"You found a purpose in the bloody 1810s! That's extremely impressive. I have so many advantages in my life and I don't know what I'm doing." Colin untangled himself from where they were wrapped up on the couch. He stood up and began to pace.

"You don't need to have it all figured out. You're what, 33? That's nothing," Penelope protested. She missed his warmth against her side.

"You don't get it. I feel so … so … impotent. My siblings are off and thriving. Anthony, Daphne, Benedict, and Eloise are married. Francesca is already a widow! I literally have an all-powerful genie's help. I can't think of anything to wish for except 'Penelope I wish my lovesick sister Francesca and the love of her life, Michael Stirling can get over their hangups and be happy together,'" Colin said the last half sarcastically. He looked at the ground as he kept pacing.

"Oh, Colin," Penelope sighed. She spun her hands together to grant his unintentional wish. It was a gray area because it just dealt on the edge of the rule of love (in Penelope's mind at least, she knew most genies loved to grant these types of wishes).

Colin looked up at her and when he saw her hands spinning, he paled.

"No! I didn't mean it! Pen!" Colin argued.

"It's too late."

"But you said that you couldn't grant wishes about love."

Penelope shook her head. "You didn't wish for that. That wish wasn't about creating or taking away love. I wouldn't be able to grant it if it was."

"Wait, what does that mean? How did you grant my wish?"

"You wanted Francesca and Michael to have a chance to be together. I've put them both on a weeklong cruise around Scotland. They will have a chance to find love with each other. But Francesca and Michael have to be the ones to take the final step. Yes, they may have gotten there on their own in time. This will just give them a light push in the right direction if they do love each other."

"They do," Colin said, immediately.

"See. That's that then."

"Two wishes down, I guess." Colin looked upset.

"Be careful, Colin," Penelope warned.

"Why?"

"That's two wishes you've spent on other people. If all three of your wishes are to help others … you might not like the outcome." It was an extremely rare occurrence.

"What does that mean? What would the outcome be?" Colin, of course, had questions.

"I've only heard of it happening twice. Not twice with my wishers, twice ever, as in, in the history of geniekind."

Colin tried to ask more. Penelope would just shake her head.

He was two for two on selfless wishes.

A third wall came crumbling down. The last wall around Penelope's heart remained steadfast for the moment.