Over the crunching of gravel, Suzaku could hear a faint chuckle that he was starting to hear in his dreams. As he and Ban let themselves back into the kitchen after their traipse across the northwestern hills, he caught sight of Aurora, slowly pacing the kitchen floor in her moccasins, one hand tucked into the back pocket of her jeans, speaking into a slim turquoise phone he'd never seen her use before.

"No, I know. Of course. Oh, come on. I've handled worse. Wow. Wow! Way to be a jerk, Chan. Durai wasn't that bad," she argued with a chuckle. "No, he was not. You just didn't like him because he thought you were pretentious, and he said it to your face." She paused a moment before rolling her eyes, smiling wryly over at Suzaku as he bit into an apple, Ban leaning against his leg as they mutely watched her smoothly stride back and forth.

"You want to go there? Really? OK, I went out with him because he was smoking hot, and he was a panther in the sack, especially when – Yeah, I thought that'd shut you up. You started it, Senator." Her laugh was a little wicked.

"Bite me," she said with easy warmth. "Love you too, punk. Take care of the mama, alright? And give that ginger tea with cinnamon a try. I've heard from a very reliable source that it does wonders for an expecting mom. What other kind of source do I have?" she demanded with a laugh. After a few more murmured goodbyes, Aurora broke that connection, deftly catching the apple Suzaku tossed her way without really looking as she tucked her phone in a pocket.

"Chandler?" Suzaku asked around a bite of apple meat.

"Yup," Aurora confirmed, her canines flashing as they pierced the fruit's bright skin once she'd joined him where he leaned against the counter. "Kendra won't be coming out for your appointment this week. She's been hit by morning sickness like a freight train. Poor girl's puking at the slightest provocation. Hopefully she'll be back on her feet soon."

"But that's normal?" Suzaku nudged, vaguely aware of the prevalence of morning sickness but utterly lost when it came to gauging the severity of pregnancy symptoms. His stomach danced at the thought of Kendra ill and fragile. It didn't reconcile with the image he had of her, and her condition alone made an element of him primitively nervous. He could only imagine how Chandler felt.

Aurora nodded as she chewed. "Approximately seventy five percent of women have some form of morning sickness. Hers is hitting a little late, and pretty hard. But nothing out of the ordinary, and certainly nothing Kendra can't handle. And this gives Chandler practice spoiling her – he's always treated her like a princess, but carrying a baby warrants queen status. They'll be fine."

Suzaku nodded, relieved into relaxation. For a while, they munched in companionable quiet. Finally, though, his curiosity got the best of him.

"Who's Durai?"

Aurora froze, the apple raised to her mouth, lips glossy from the juice. Her eyes slowly tracked to him, gradually lowering the fruit to her side.

"Your manners die with the Lancelot?"

Suzaku looked away as warmth stole up over his throat and onto his ears – it had been years since he'd been asked to engage the rules of etiquette that had been ingrained in him since childhood. Apparently he'd all but forgotten how to use them, lacquered over by heartbreak and war. He cleared his throat before speaking.

"I'm sorry. That was rude. But, uh…"

"The question still stands?"

He nodded, quickly taking another bite before he could say anything else ill-mannered or ridiculous. Aurora slowly rotated the apple between her middle finger and thumb, watching the fruit spin with impressive focus. Finally, she spoke.

"Durai Kapoor and I were… involved, not long after I first came to England. His family was old Indian blood, displaced from the Federation after the protests. He was their only child, the apple of their eye," she murmured, ironically eyeing the fruit she had yet to take another bite out of.

"And they didn't approve of me in the slightest." Aurora grinned as she said it, chomping crisply into the white fruit, but something in her eyes seemed… disappointed. In herself, of all things. "I was all sorts of bad influence, mysterious and rootless and all but uncontrollable. His parents thought I was demon spawn. But Durai was intrigued. We pretty much only did three things: go on stupid, dangerous adventures, fight like cats and dogs, and have incredible make-up sex. He was swarthy and impish and all sorts of fun."

He knew she tagged on those little details to make him squirm, payback for the awkward question he'd posed in the first place.

"He was also ambitious," she added with a sigh. "He wanted to go into investigative journalism, but more than anything, Durai wanted to change the world. His parents begged him to the settle down with a nice Indian girl; nothing could have been farther from his mind. Built castles in the sky as we dodged grapeshot and started bar fights – honestly, what were we thinking? But it didn't last long."

Remembering what had happened to her first lover, Suzaku was almost afraid to ask what had befallen the second. But he couldn't quite resist.

"What happened?"

Aurora just shrugged, but her mouth twisted with pasts she almost regretted.

"Durai got an offer from some big international magazine – they'd read one of his articles, and wanted to take him on for an apprenticeship. He had to be in central Africa in two days, and he wanted me to go with him. We would have self-destructed within two months. Besides, I'd spent most of my life trying to change the world, and largely failing. Frankly, I was tired of it. I'd gotten shot for it. I was trying to figure out what I wanted from my life then, and I was pretty sure it was in England. In our usual fashion, we fought like jackals, and made up like rabbits. Durai was gone in the morning. He's somewhere in Eastern Europe now, reporting on the civil wars and genocide over there. His was one of the articles that prompted global action. So he got what he always wanted – a chance to save the world."

But it wasn't lost on Suzaku that Durai Kapoor didn't get something else he'd undoubtedly wanted – Aurora Sterling. If he had to personally pick someone to take with him into a warzone or wilderness, she'd be that person. But it seemed that with the two men she'd been intimate, Aurora had been the one to let go, the one to watch them walk away, even demand it. Suzaku wondered what that said about her, but couldn't quite hone in on a conclusion that felt right.

"Why be with him at all?" Suzaku mused. It hardly sounded like the healthiest, most productive relationship she could have pursued. Aurora shrugged as she swallowed her bite of apple.

"Because he was handsome, intelligent, and charming. He's one of the funniest bastards I've ever met, and phenomenal in bed. I was at an emotional bottom, even almost a year after the fiasco with Nikolai, and he made me feel gorgeous and wild and alive. He was bored and looking to rebel, and I was an excellent means to that end. And while we weren't meant to last, Durai taught me some very important lessons, both about myself and what I wanted from life."

"May I ask what lessons?" he managed politely. She grinned at him out of the corner of her eye, obviously aware of his attempt at contrition.

"Where I wanted to be. Who I wanted to be with. Maybe not yet where I wanted to go, but certainly where I didn't want to go. Durai forced me to evaluate my direction and purpose. For too long, survival had been all that mattered to me. But that can't be everything forever. You burn out, and can hardly recognize yourself as human. And I probably never would have figured it out if Durai hadn't insisted that I should go with him back into the fray. In a way, I owe him the life I have now – who knows if I would have pursued it if my choice hadn't been challenged."

"Were you tempted? To throw caution to the wind, and give life on the battlefield another chance?" Very rarely, Suzaku longed from the elemental simplicity of combat – right and wrong, kill or be killed. Surviving from one moment to the next, forced to give, and live, with every strand of himself. It was the aftermath that was complicated; when he'd been in the cockpit of the Lancelot, all of the answers had seemed so simple.

"I'd like to say not even for a moment, but Durai was very convinced that he could convince me. And I was still used to the grind and flash of the life I'd left behind – I couldn't be sure that the need to cause trouble with Durai would leave with him. But for pretty much the first time in my life, I wasn't willing to take the risk. Best gamble I ever made." With that, she tossed the skeleton of her apple in the trash and sauntered over to start a fresh batch of tea. Suzaku envied her courage to take that gamble, and privately thought that though Aurora would have no doubt excelled back in that world of risk and intrigue, it would have sheered away the best parts of her revealed during her time in England. For a moment, he was stupidly hostile towards a man he'd never met, for threatening even for a second the person Aurora had become, and the life she lived with such verve.

But that was silly, Suzaku reminded himself, throwing away the remnants of his apple, Ban's eager, opportunistic licking of his fingers drawing out a husky laugh.

Later that day, Aurora suddenly gained a wild hair to go through some old boxes in storage, culling out the things to be donated, thrown away, or saved. Apparently, the storage shed was getting a little cramped, and Aurora was bored. Suzaku was starting to realize that the B word was fair warning that Aurora was on the war path, and it was easier to let her undertake whatever insane project she was focused on than try to stop, or even deflect, her. Since he was curious and a little bored himself, Suzaku offered to help, at the very least with the mountain of boxes he'd glimpsed over her shoulder when she'd stood in the shed's doorway, her hands on her hips and her foot tapping as she laid out a battle plan.

At his offer, however, Aurora had just looked at him over her shoulder, her brow raised wryly and her mouth a little sardonic.

"Don't even think about it," she'd muttered, the playful edge to her tone softening the embarrassed heat that crawled over his neck. Suzaku was getting exceptionally sick of being an invalid, even if Aurora's fussing was occasionally… pleasant.

However, he wasn't the only one forced to submit to Aurora's cheerful caretaking. As the pair of them had eaten lunch, a high, solitary yelp outside had Aurora stiffening and straightening like a hound coming on point. She'd left her chair with astonishing speed, striding out of the house with a purposeful lope that looked like it could cover miles. When she called Bannock's name, it was in such a firm, no-nonsense tone, any male within a ten-mile radius would have been hard-pressed to disobey. Suzaku joined her outside in time to see Ban come limping over the crest of the hill, heavily favoring his left front foot with the severity that made Suzaku's guts pitch.

Under the blood and whimpers, however, it wasn't that bad. Aurora had immediately sheparded the dog into the kitchen, murmuring and soothing even as she deftly grabbed his paw in an implacable grip. Handing her the wet wad of paper towels she'd requested, Suzaku squatted down next to her as she cleaned away the blood and cooed to keep Ban still. Eventually, it was determined that he'd sliced between the pads of his paw, not the actual pads themselves. Although he was quietly vocal about his injury, Bannock was largely unresisting in Aurora's hold, resting his head on her shoulder as she worked, gazing at Suzaku with giant, pathetic eyes. He rubbed the dog's ears gently, impressed that he was such a good patient, especially when Aurora's other charge was pretty much a pain in the ass.

Eventually, Ban's foot was disinfected, which was pretty painful to endure for all parties, wrapped in gauze, and tucked into an old sock that was taped around his pastern. His limp was magnificently dramatic whenever he had to leave his bed, watching with soft, sad eyes as Suzaku helped Aurora clean the blood from the kitchen floor.

This all meant, of course, that Bannock had to be even more sedentary than Suzaku. So the pair of them settled at the patio table nestled among the flowers in the back yard to supervise Aurora's project. Armed with his sketchbook and a dock for Aurora's music, Suzaku settled in as best he could, keeping an eye out to be sure that Ban stayed on one of his countless beds dragged outside so he could be watched and watch in turn.

It was the first time Suzaku was working with his new colored pencils, an advancement that still slightly worried him. Focusing on the landscape, a largely forgiving subject, Suzaku started the music on shuffle, and they settled to their tasks.

It was so easy. So pleasant. They didn't really talk to each other, just focused on their separate pursuits and went along in a quiet proximity. Occasionally, Aurora softly hummed along with the music, or Ban grunted as he shifted during his nap, or Suzaku murmured to himself as he worked on a simple portrait. The only thing that spoke was the breeze, tossing fleecy clouds that had enough of a silver backbone to be a threat later on across the crisp blue bowl of sky. Suzaku didn't have a watch, and Aurora wasn't wearing one. They had no idea how much time passed. It was hours of a broad range of music and contentment bred from gentle proximity and simple success.

The music clicked to the next track. As the piano began and the soft lyrics spoke of thinking her father was asleep, Suzaku keyed into Aurora singing along, slightly louder than her previous contributions. Her hold on the box never faltered, her eyes swiftly tracking across the piles even as she easily sang along with the words in a low, quiet voice that held the notes easily. Once deposited, she hooked her hands on her hips, surveying the sections she'd divvied up so far, her foot bouncing along with the base rhythm pumping out from the dock's speakers.

The song, and Aurora, sang about losing control as her body gave in to the beat of her heart, his hand touching her skin, and Aurora kept pace, her head bobbing as her voice gradually gained volume. Suzaku started a new page, his pencil racing over paper as he glanced back over to her, and listened.

In the way of young romances, there was the question of love or sexual desire, and Aurora managed to dance even as she carried boxes back and forth. Her shoulders and hips moved in time with the rhythm, and her hands gestured whenever free as the singer's girl woke up dreaming, lying with him.

Even taking chances in the back of his car as the radio played "Rockin' in the Free World," Aurora never lost her place amongst her sorting. Even as the pair started a fire and began to burn, she still categorized and counted, easily keeping track of the song she now sang at full, resonant power and the project she had undertaken.

The only time she ever took her eyes off the boxes was when she belted out the repeated "Why's," her eyes closed and her fist raised in the air like a banner. As her voice dropped to a gentle murmur, Aurora opened her eyes and again returned to her filing. After three pounds of her fist in the air, matching the beats in the song, her voice leapt back up in strength without taking her attention away from the storage shed's contents.

As the song faded, Aurora plopped down across from him at the table to take a drink from the water bottle he'd thought she'd forgotten. Suzaku flipped to a new page, immediately settling into the outline of Euphemia as Aurora rubbed Ban's shoulder, taking her first break since tackling the storage shed. She quietly spoke as she took off the sock to check on Ban's bandage.

"I never had that."

"What?" Suzaku asked without looking up from the careful shaping of Euphemia's hair.

"What that song talked about. You know, that frantic kind of teen romance. I mean, I met Nikolai when I was sixteen, but not like that. Sneaking out, avoiding my dad because it's way past curfew to make out in his car. Holding hands and wearing his coat more because it smelled like him than because I was actually cold. Thinking that maybe this punk, wearing a leather jacket that he thinks make him look cool and driving a muscle car that he's fixing up, could be my husband someday. Feeling like the two of us are going to consume each other whole from the sheer want."

His mouth had slowly gone dry at her husky words, for it was all too easy to imagine.

Waiting after school for her to come out of class. To see her smile when she saw him, her eyes lighting like stars and her running towards him with an abandon she never showed anyone else. Mussing her gold hair with his fingers as they…

He blinked, the sight of his still hand holding the pencil coming back into focus. Wait. That didn't make any sense. Why was he thinking of-

"Did you?" Aurora's question broke Suzaku's train of thought. With an effort, he gathered himself as she reapplied Ban's sock.

"No. Not like that."

"But what about-"

"No," Suzaku repeated. His relationship with Euphemia had been much more complicated, much less free and young that what was described in the song. She looked back up at the mercurial sky, the curve to her lips considering. Then she glanced back over.

"Do you think there's something wrong with us?"

Suzaku couldn't help it when a brow lifted.

"You don't?"

She just looked at him for a moment before breaking into laughter. It was an easy chuckle at first, self-deprecating and a little sarcastic. But it quickly escalated into full-blown gales. He didn't know when he first joined in, but when he had to push away from the table so the tears from laughing so hard didn't drip onto the paper, Suzaku realized it had been years since he laughed so well like that, let alone at all.

As their giggles died away and Aurora took to her feet again with a wondering sort of vocal sigh, Suzaku turned back to his pad. As she returned to her organized chaos of boxes and before resuming the sketch of Euphemia, he flipped the page to the sketch he'd done during the song. He hadn't consciously decided to draw it, but it had all but erupted from the pencils.

It was Aurora, probably around sixteen years old. Her face was a little younger, but not much softer than it was now. She wore expensive trousers a little ragged at the hem, and her silk blouse, which probably cost as much as the sapphire necklace around her neck, was lightly splattered with the blood from her split lip. But it was the eyes that were starkly different. Cool, and terribly experienced. The horrors seen still too fresh to hide under the thin shield of knowledge and determination that she now carried. There was anger and aching sadness well hidden under a gloss of training and cunning.

She was stunning, and a little savage.

This was a woman who had a tasteful, brief affair with a man, not a girl who would, or could, indulge in a sweet summer romance with a boy.

It occurred to Suzaku that neither of them had had much of a chance at a normal youth – their training simply hadn't allowed for it.

This last bit has been written forever. I'm kind of stitching together some last minute development before a big plot point. Not terribly professional, but I want to hit these scenes before things shift. I want to get there, I know you readers want to get there, so I'm doing the best I can.

Two songs in this chapter, one painfully obvious and one so brief and hidden that I would be shocked and amazed if anyone guessed it, ever. Now I'm off to scoop horse poo before tackling Ch 28.

Review. You gorgeous buggers, you.

Hope you like it!

Love, Tango