Remember

He was weighed down, Thena half thrown over him, sleeping so deeply her mouth was hanging open a little. It was honestly a little cute. Her hair looked wild, but then his mind flashed to the way he had laid over her, skin to skin, hips pounding...

Fuck, it was so good, too.

Gil sighed. No matter how good it was, it was a lapse in judgement. He had always told himself he wouldn't give into this. It wasn't fair to Thena, it was taking advantage of his position of power, any number of reasons.

But then she had cocked her hip, and she had been a little bit of a stubborn brat, and she kept eyeing him like she wanted him to grab her and kiss her.

Fuck.

He groaned faintly, but Thena groaned in response. She pressed her face into his chest, her hand on his other pec balled up into a fist. Her other hand...well, her other hand moved from somewhere around his thigh up to her face.

"What...?"

He squeezed his eyes shut. What was he supposed to say? They both knocked right out after finishing last night. He shouldn't have stayed. Or he should have taken her back to her room.

"Gil?"

He inhaled, getting his elbows up so he could see her better. He did his best to prepare himself mentally for those wide green eyes. Would they be teary, angry, resentful? Would she consider this a huge breach of the trust they had fought to establish, slowly and surely?

He was a mob boss and a murderer, but he wasn't a monster, and he considered himself to be a pretty good lover. How had he gone from just barely kissing his wife to having a rough fuck on a weeknight without so much as a proper date in between?

God she was beautiful.

"Hey," he sighed. Before he could even stop himself his hand reached up, pushing some of her hair out of her face and behind her ear. This was not helping.

But Thena didn't burst into tears or demand to know what happened. She took in her surroundings, looked at him. She picked herself and the sheet up, preserving some modesty in the light of day. "Bloody hell."

Gil tried not to chuckle; her little 'Londonisms' as he called them, could come out when she let her guard down.

She rubbed her face a little, flipped her mussed - extra fluffy - blonde locks out of her face and over her shoulder again. She eyed him, "morning."

"Are you okay?" Gil asked outright. No use dancing around it now that they were up, and naked.

"Are you?" she asked, and his surprise was obvious enough that she picked up on it right away. "Are you worried you've sullied my innocence?"

He made a face. That was his wife that he knew. "You were surprisingly bratty."

Got her back; Thena seemed flustered for maybe a fraction of a second before recovering. "You're usually a very good listener, but last night I couldn't get through to you. I thought it required a more forceful approach."

He raised his brow at that, but he could accept it. He had kind of liked her stubbornness rising up to challenge his. Added to how hot things were.

Thena inhaled and then sighed, "don't you have work?"

He let out a loud groan, which made her laugh. "They can call me if they need me."

"That doesn't sound very boss-ly, Gilgamesh," Thena grinned, and he could hear it in her words. She leaned over him, putting her hand on his chest. "At least make a lady breakfast."

Flirting aside, he looked at her again. His beautiful wife, like a dear wandered into a dangerous part of the woods. He brought her hand to his lips. "I should be doing a lot more than that."

Thena leaned in to kiss him properly, no hand needed. The hand in question moved to cup the side of his neck. He tried not to flinch (he had a cut there that he hadn't told her about from a few weeks ago). "Don't go soft on me, Gilgamesh. You still need to be the big, scary mob boss your minions need you to be."

He smiled, and not even a smirk or a grin, just a genuine smile at the woman in his arms. "You're a good kisser."

"Speak for yourself," she smiled right into another kiss. "Kissed the hell out of me last night."

Did a lot, last night.

Gil ran his hands up her back, although he managed some of his usual restraint when he grasped the sheet around her. "We gotta find you some clothes, before I lose all ability to cook something."

He could feel Thena looking at him from the bed as he got up to do the same for himself. He didn't bother covering what she had already seen. Maybe he did take a quick peek to see if she was looking, but she seemed busy arranging her sheet around her as he walked into his closet.

"Shirt."

He snorted to himself as he found some sweatpants for himself. He liked her demanding side. "Of course, dear."

She accepted it as he tossed it at her. If anything, she held it up, examined the front and back. "I didn't pick this for you."

He tugged at the t-shirt he threw on, "it's old."

She looked at him from around the shirt. "I don't think it's the right cut for you. The sleeves look too long."

What would he do without her? He chuckled, coming over to the bed again. His palms gripped the edge of the mattress as he kissed her again. "You can take me shopping again."

Thena muttered to herself as she pulled it on, something about the fabric and the buttons and how the collar was too high. But no matter what she had to say about it, once she stood with it falling around her thighs, god it looked a million times better.

So much so that when Gil let her go ahead of him to the kitchen he couldn't take his eyes off her.

Thena went right to the coffee machine. She seemed awfully collected, and Gil felt a twinge of fear that last night hadn't been nearly as good for her as it had been for him. "Cup?"

He nodded, "uh, please."

He moved to the stove. He could get called into work. It had been a long time since he last showed up late anyway. But he pulled out eggs, bread, tomatoes, enough for a full feast. He needed the fuel.

Thena blew on her coffee and took a delicate sip. She seemed so...unfazed.

Gil turned on the burner, shifting between watching Thena and cooking. "I'm starving."

"Hm."

His coy little princess. He reached for the coffee she made for him. "You hungry?"

"Quite."

Gil cracked the eggs with one hand, almost completely filling the pan with the exception of enough room for some thick bacon. He needed the protein. Thena was perched on a stool across from him, looking down into her coffee cup like it had the same contents as her phone.

His shirt was hanging off her loosely, exposing her clavicle, a good amount of cleavage for his viewing pleasure. Didn't she know he was exercising restraint to not kiss her and throw her onto the table right now?

"Are you good?"

Thena looked up, and it made him realise he was the one who asked it in the first place. But he put his hands on the counter while the eggs started sizzling. "Are you?"

He might as well go for broke, bet it all. "I'm fuckin' fantastic, sweetie, and I wanna know if you are. Because last night is the best fuck I've had in ages but I have to know if it was good for you. Because if it wasn't, I need to - I don't know - join a fucking monastery or-"

Thena set her mug down on the counter. She gave him a look that he wouldn't say was amused, by any means. It looked a little like the way she had looked last night.

Gil tried not to grit his teeth as she slipped off her stool to walk around the kitchen island. It was too tall and too wide for her to just reach across it, after all. But he sagged faintly as she sidled right up to him, all sexy in his shirt, messy blonde hair. And he leaned in as she looped her arms around the back of his neck to kiss him again.

She pressed her nose into his black t-shirt. "Last night was amazing, Gil, thank you. It was probably the best night I've had."

Well, he would try not to let that get to his head.

Thena tilted her head at him, arms still wrapped around his neck. "I don't really know where this leaves us. But I've no regrets about last night, if that's your concern."

Well, that was the answer he was looking for. Of course last night hadn't made his wife the kind of coy creature to beat around the bush.

"Perhaps it'll even happen again."

His brows rose again, and he vaguely thought that the eggs would get more done than Thena usually liked. But he looked at her, unwilling to leave that proposal hanging between them.

Thena toyed with his shirt in the center of his chest. "If you need to...blow off some steam, again."

A pang in her heart made her turn around. It was true, she had the freedom of leaving this massive, crumbling edifice. She was staying here while its restoration work was being done, but she could still walk into the small town below, or board the ferry to the nearest city if she really needed to.

The figure in the mirror crossed his arms as she removed the sheet from in front of the glass. "Welcome back."

"Thank you," she murmured politely. He had exceptional manners, she had to admit. Surely aided by being hundreds of years old (possibly thousands, not that she had asked for a particular number).

"What was it like out there?"

Thena looked at the mail in her hands, mostly updates about the property or mail for her to cancel. "They'll start gutting the west wing next week."

"Gutting," Gilgamesh's eyes bulged. He put a finger to his chin, stroking his facial hair. "In my day the only things gutted were fish, and one's enemies on the battlefield."

Thena offered a dry expression. "Well, today, we can talk about gutting a house or property. Restorative work is tricky, but the west wing is the most degraded of the whole property. The original architecture will remain as in tact as possible, bu the wood, the stone, it needs to-"

"The west wing was never my favourite."

Thena pulled back on her description of the plans. She constantly had to remind herself that this was not just a historical building in her care, but was once this man's home. Trying not to seem like a chastised child, she toyed with the envelopes in her hand. "What did you use it for?"

"The west wing was mostly for visitors, which was seldom," Gilgamesh remarked, crossing his arms again. The armour in which he appeared clanked faintly, although she could see the width of his arms straining. "I think I had a room in which to withdraw, but my memory may be lacking after centuries stuck in this thing."

She had found the mirror almost as soon as she had arrived. It had been draped over, just like everything else. She had taken her time getting settled into the most sustainable room in the place, a modest little bed chamber at the top of one of the towers. Her architectural plans were organised in one of the drawing rooms, and of course everything was digitally archived for all involved.

The mirror she had uncovered accidentally one day. The sheet thrown over it had slipped continually in her rushing around to get moved in. The mirror was a beautiful, ornate thing, bigger than her whole body and she was guessing heavy, from the size of glass needed and the surely solid gold body.

Then Gilgamesh appeared.

Cursed to exist only in this mirror, day and night passing in one continuous stream. He couldn't remember why, and he had been in it so long surely a human mind would have deteriorated completely. She had once asked him what it was like in there. As he described it, it was just kind of...nothing. Just darkness, both far off and infinite, but also right on top of him. And when it was covered, it wasn't that he ceased to exist, but perhaps it was somewhat like going to sleep, for him. Thena had likened it to covering a pet's cage with a blanket to simulate nighttime, but she spared him the indignity of that explanation.

Thus her promise to only cover it when she was out. No risk of anyone else happening upon it and trying to move it. And she had told all the builders and demo crew that if she wasn't home then they weren't to disturb anything in the main foyer just yet.

If anything happened to the mirror, neither knew what would happen to Gilgamesh. It was possible it might free him, but it was also possible that he would simply cease to exist in any way.

"What is that one?"

"Hm?" Thena blinked. She had flicked through her mail until a small one emerged, previously tucked between larger ones. She flipped it a few times, "there's no return address."

"Address?"

"Where we are now," she muttered, frowning at the blank paper. "Every building or plot of land is an address, so governments can keep track of things."

Gilgamesh pursed his lips, "in the past we were capable of reigning over our land without this need for address-ment."

She made a face but opened the envelope anyway. "Anyone who knows me would just email or text, there wouldn't be any need to mail something here."

Gilgamesh had a growing understanding of the modern world. She had showed him what emails and texts were--little letters created without the need to waste paper and ink, for lack of better terms. He knew she left the house often, whether to convene with people for work on the estate or for humanly supplies from the town.

He had been particularly captivated by her pictures of the outside world, few as they were.

"Angle yourself."

She looked up from the letter just to frown at him. Perhaps the blunt and formal way he spoke reminded her a little too much of herself. Perhaps this was why no one exactly threw her a going away party at the firm when she took this remote - undetermined number of years long - job at an abandoned mansion.

And yet she did. She turned so Gilgamesh could see over her shoulder, in a sense of the word. He would move around inside the mirror to do so, too. She had seen him do it before to test if he would show up in her phone camera, which he didn't. It was a cute idea, though.

"Who is this person writing to you?" Gilgamesh asked seconds after looking at the letter. It was brief, and he stood to his full height again. "Thena?"

Her hands crinkled the paper of it. "It's my ex."

"What is this?--ex?" he repeated. She drifted away from the mirror a step, but his voice got louder, "hey!"

She shook her head, turning to face him again. "It's...complicated."

Gilgamesh's expression changed. He could be a hardheaded thing of the past, but she couldn't say he was as pigheaded as even most men in town. "Explain it to me."

Thena's sigh returned, and she let her shoulders sag a bit. "I...took this job to get away from someone. A man."

"A man?" Gilgamesh asked, and at least seemed to get the essence of what was making her so uncomfortable with the news. "Were you engaged to be married?"

She scoffed, looking down at the letter again. "Far from it. An ex is someone you were with...romantically."

The blank way he could stare at her sometimes could truly make her forget there was a pane of glass separating her from his very existence.

"But when it doesn't work for whatever reasons, you can go your separate ways. They become your ex--an ex-girlfriend, boyfriend, partner, even spouses can divorce, now."

"Huh," Gilgamesh remarked on her information. "Such advancements. But I suppose it's better than being stuck in an unsavory situation for the rest of your little lives."

She rolled her eyes at the idea of a human lifespan being so 'little' to him.

"If any of my people were unhappy in such a position, I would simply kill the guilty party."

He was nothing if not loyal, she had learned over time. Maybe it was a vampire thing, or maybe just a Gilgamesh thing.

"Thena," he said more softly, leaning closer to the nothing that separated them. "Would you wish me to kill this man for you?"

She had to smile, no matter how thinly. "It's nice of you to offer, Gil."

She had called him Gil a few times. He used to insist that only his full name and title (Gilgamesh, King Eternal of the Celestial Estates) was suitable. But what could he do?--reach out of that mirror and stop her?

"He has distressed you."

He had gotten better at reading her, too. She supposed she couldn't blame him; she was his only interaction in an eternity spent in a dark room, from what it seemed. It had to be lonely in that mirror.

"I don't know how he found out I was here," she admitted to him more solemnly. She kept staring at the words, as if she had missed something the first time that would change things. "I moved here as quickly as possible, the only people who know the address are people at the firm, and some of the associates here. Not even the friends I told I was moving know the actual address of this place."

"How would he find it?"

Gilgamesh had a point. It wasn't impossible that Kro could find it out somehow. She wasn't a forthcoming person, and people didn't really care to ask at work, either. They had no idea her breakup had been so bad as to send her literal countries away all but overnight. Maybe he had gone looking for her and the firm had given him the address of the estate.

Which had to be against some kind of HR code, but she would have to find that out later.

"Thena."

She inhaled, looking up at Gilgamesh in the mirror again. As much as she could feel annoyed by his constant need for attention, any presence at all was admittedly a relief. Even as solitary a creature as she was, no one could be completely alone all the time. It was like having a roommate, who she couldn't kick out even if she wanted to.

Gil's eyes followed her as she leaned her shoulder against the mirror itself. "Are you okay?"

She nodded, even resting her head against the glass. She wondered for a second what it would be like for him if she cleaned it. "I just didn't think I would have to deal with this."

Gilgamesh positioned himself as if it were possible for him to be supporting her physically. "Perhaps if he comes here I can suck his life force out through this mirror."

She laughed a little, more at the idea of Gilgamesh trying to feed on someone through a cursed mirror than the thought of her ex's demise. "No, then I'd have to deal with the body, and they'd probably just think I killed him."

"In my prime, a woman would be justified in killing a man causing her this level of dismay."

She looked up at him, in the only way she could. It really did feel like they could make eye contact at times like this. "Truly?"

He nodded, and she really did feel comforted, peeking around the bulk of his shoulder to the warmth of his brown eyes. "Vampires admire strength, no matter whose it is, and I believe we and humans alike used to wage wars to stop a woman's tears."

Thena groaned, angling herself to lean against the mirror more comfortably. "Not anymore."

"No?"

She shook her head against the edge where the glass met the frame. "They would rather be the prize, and women should consider themselves grateful, even if they turn out to be some beast."

"I am a beast," Gilgamesh interjected into her pity party. "How despicable can modern men be?"

Thena kept looking towards the front door, a healthy jog away from them. "I suppose there are ones worse than Kro. But the reason I couldn't stay with him was more about him wanting a certain kind of life for us--me, rather."

"I never considered getting married, and he had said the same, once upon a time," she continued without any real reason to, but without any real reason to stop either. "But the more contracts I took at the firm, the more he started to ask if he was going to play second fiddle to my job for the rest of our lives."

"He can play the fiddle?"

She smiled. "No, he meant that he felt I treated my architectural work more importantly than him, and our relationship. He started making comments about how I was dragging my feet about moving in together, even mentioned that marrying a workaholic didn't work for him. When I reminded him that we had both agreed we weren't looking for marriage--he didn't take it well, I suppose."

Gilgamesh took a long enough pause to make her look at him again. His expression reminded her that no matter how civil he could be, he was right, he wasn't human. "Did he ever harm you?"

It was sweet of him to ask, beast or not. She smiled again, "no, Gil. Modern men don't--well, maybe they do think like that, but they can get in more trouble for it, now. And I knew already to get as far away from him as possible."

"Are all exes so abhorrent?" Gilgamesh asked cut and dry, in an unwittingly funny way.

"Not all," she allowed, although Sersi certainly had her stories. "But Kro doesn't let things go. And I guess I should have known better than to think moving would solve this for me."

Gilgamesh crossed his arms again, angling himself in her line of sight as much as he could, "do invite him, actually. I want to test if my abilities could extend beyond the mirror."

The thought did bring her some levity. "You can't suck his blood through a mirror, Gilgamesh."

"We don't know that," he argued just as lightly. "We haven't tested it."

She pursed her lips, "why didn't you?"

He blinked at her.

"Test it," she tilted her head at him. "Once I uncovered you, you never even tried."

Gilgamesh adjusted his posture, and in some ways, seemed to lean on the edge of the mirror from within his prison. "I don't feed on frightened maidens. I am a beast, but I am not that kind of monster."

"You are not a beast," she chided him. Not to mention that she was not some innocent maiden, either. "And I was not frightened."

He grinned at her crossing her arms right back at him. "I do seem to recall you were aghast when you discovered me. Stumbled back in those clacky shoes of yours."

She pursed her lips. He always asked if she was going to wear 'clacky' or 'silent' shoes if she was going out. Supposedly that said something about her reason for leaving the house. "Anyone would be aghast to discover a man trapped in a mirror, human or not."

He chuckled, "think nothing of it. It was cute, considering who I know you to be, now."

Thena bristled, her spine straightening. "I should cover you up for the rest of the day."

For all their light banter, every time she even joked about it, he looked truly distressed at the idea. "You can't!"

In a way, he was right, she couldn't. It felt too cruel to just cover him up and go about her day, like leaving an innocent animal in a cage while she soaked up her freedom. "Fine, but the builders are coming tomorrow, you'll have to be covered up while they're here."

He pouted--the immortal vampire inside the cursed mirror pouted at her. "We don't even know if they can see me."

"Gil," she raised her brows, and he knew he wasn't exactly in the position to argue with her. "It's just while they're here. I'll take your sheet off as soon as I'm home alone."

He sighed heavily, "it's not 'my' sheet."

Yes, it was. She even kept it hung up on the corner of the vines decorating the top.

"But fine," he relented, waving off the offense of being covered like a dusty candelabra. "Put me out of sight, although if any of these 'builders' become a nuisance, you could always uncover me just to give them a scare."

She laughed, "I might take you up on that."

Gilgamesh extended his hand, in a way. He angled himself down to meet her eye, "deal."

She eyed the hand, pressing the back of her fingers to the glass, "deal."

"Hm."

"Hm?" she looked at him, her fingers still touching the pane.

Gilgamesh smiled at where their hands could somewhat appear to meet. "Maybe I'm finally losing it in here, but I could swear your hand is warm."

Thena looked at their hands with him. She wasn't sure if she could say she was feeling what he was feeling. But it was a nice idea. She pressed the back of her hand to the glass. "You can feel that?"

Gilgamesh moved his hand, gesturing for her to move it upward. Once it was at the level he wanted, he bent faintly, and she could see his lips pursing.

She snatched her hand away. It wasn't as if he could really kiss it. But she panicked, even just for a second. Something in her gut clenched and she pulled her eyes away from his. "Maybe you're right--about losing it."

He didn't take her barb for what it was, though. He stood to his full height again, although his smile had a hint of mischief to it. "I shall excuse the lady to take her leave, then."

The Elemental Eternal even looked out the window. If she really focused, she could imagine being able to see Tiamut emerging through the clouds. She laughed faintly to herself; they weren't even positioned to see it right now, she was just being nostalgic.

"Oh!"

Two heads turned to her as she just barely breached the threshold of the kitchen. They had never referred to it as a galley, even aboard their mothership. It felt like a kitchen--Gilgamesh made it feel like a kitchen, in a normal home.

Sersi blushed faintly, even at the completely nonplussed expressions on their faces. She cleared her throat faintly, "s-sorry."

Thena smiled, though, pulling away from being fed a bite of late night sweets. "Come."

The Alchemist shuffled forward in her slippers and grey robes. She tried not to duck her head and meet her sister's eye, no matter how intimidating. She couldn't help it, but she knew Thena couldn't either.

She was also in the standard grey robes, hers as a dress hugging her form. Gilgamesh was too. It was strange to see him in them again for the first time since they last lived on this ship together.

He smiled blithely, as if they weren't looking at a ghost, in a sense of the word. "We didn't wake you, did we?"

Sersi smiled. Gilgamesh was always so sweet, so warm and embracing of those around him. As if they could wake her when they were probably whispering sweet, mushy nothings to one another. "Not at all. Guess my mind is restless, despite the exhaustion."

She took a seat, one chair away from Thena, politely abiding by cinema seating rules. But she felt her sister eyeing her in a critical way, the way a shrike might eye its prey.

"You have been through an ordeal."

Sersi would argue the man facing them both had been through much more. She and Kingo and Phastos had faced down Arishem, but Thena had literally fought a God to save the life of her husband. Sersi couldn't fathom it.

Gil stirred the cup of tea in front of him happily, even humming a little. It rattled faintly as he pushed it across the table to Thena's seat.

She didn't say anything. She didn't need to. She picked up the cup and took a delicate sip, no need to blow on something already the perfect temperature for her.

Sersi felt a faint tug of envy in her heart.

"Have you been able to contact Dane?"

Sersi blinked. She didn't expect him to be asked about, let alone by Thena. But she shifted in her seat, holding her head up. "I should."

Sersi caught Thena and Gil sharing a look. Some look that communicated something to which she was not naturally privy. She pursed her lips (her sister's classic move). "Who am I, Druig?"

Thena grinned at that, almost humored into laughing. "Ajak asked us about everyone. I said you had much to tell her. I'm sure she will ask you everything when she wakes."

Sersi did look forward to that. Seeing their long time mother figure walk towards them again had been truly breathtaking. Sprite had run towards Ajak first, and she didn't think it was just because the girl was now of the human persuasion. She had done the same, all three of them tearful upon the reunion.

Phastos had moreso complained about what they had been through without her, but it couldn't be said that his arms weren't tight around the resurrected woman's petite form.

Sersi looked at Thena sipping her tea. The Warrior had been the one to bring both Gil and Ajak back. Of course, with Druig and Makkari in tow (as well as that odd interloper who had vanished once Gil was back).

"Sersi's right."

She almost jumped at Gil voicing a thought she hadn't even finished.

Thena just looked at him, serene as she always was. "I am fine."

Listening to these two could sometimes feel like hearing half of a conversation. They were two halves of a half and the other half was up to her as a listener to read between the lines. All those words would be a waste to Thena and unnecessary to Gil. They didn't need them.

Sersi did actually lean back in her seat as Gilgamesh felt free to lean over the table, Thena's chin in his fingers. Her horror turned into mortification as the words passed directly from his lips to hers.

"You need rest."

The Alchemist's jaw was practically bobbing as the two parted again. Gilgamesh fed his beloved another bite of a sweet as if nothing out of the ordinary had transpired. Thena picked up her tea again.

"E-E-Excuse me!"

The two looked at her again, just as unsurprised as they had been when she had first shown up. Sersi gripped the edges of her seat, shoulders drawn up in offense. Thena gave her a look, "you were married, once."

Sersi drew her brows together. Thena could be so...stubborn. "That's not the problem, and you know it!"

She did know it--it was easy to tell from the smile pulling at her lips. She was finding it funny, like a cat toying with a mouse between its paws. "Were you always this prudish?"

"I am not a prude!" Sersi protested to her sister again, who was enjoying herself immensely. "You have never done that around us before!"

"Sersi, people are trying to sleep," Gilgamesh said in a hushed tone.

She glared at him. He could be just as hard headed as Thena! And he was such a brother at the most inconvenient times. Never as bad as Kingo or Phastos, but that somehow made it worse when he did find the moments to lecture.

"Life is too short, Sersi."

That startled her--scared her. She looked at Thena again, eyes wide. There was no sign she had even said anything, but watching her body language, there was a sagging of her rigid shoulders in the statement.

Thena kept her eyes on the table before them, perhaps for Sersi's sake. "Call Dane. Live where you want to live. Love the way you want to love. Even if it means defying a Celestial."

Sersi tried not to seem shaken. Thena wasn't the type to expound advice. Give her most opinions, certainly, but she didn't say things just for the sake of it. And yet there was a bone chilling truth to what she had stated so simply. And she was right, life was too short, even for Eternals.

Watching Thena mourn and then regain her husband was a testament to that.

Sersi settled in her seat again, sobriety and maybe a little guilt weighing her down. "Thena-"

Thena's hand, slim and cold, just barely brushed her shoulder. "And never change."

Well, that was oddly sappy. Sersi looked at her again, but Thena had a shockingly human looking smile on. Sersi knew the difference. But maybe time on Earth had humanised them all to some extent. And domesticity became Thena. It was obvious they were bound for Australia again, eager for their modest little desert home.

"Where's the party?"

Sersi turned in her seat, already glaring at the voice even louder than her astonishment mere moments ago. "Do you mind?"

"No," Kingo grinned right back at her. He strode right over to the far counter, picking up a jar of something only for Gil to swipe it right out of his hands. "Can't sleep, right?"

Sersi tried not to give him the satisfaction.

"Me neither," he continued, no need for anyone else. He picked up something else, only to be denied that, too. Finally, he looked at Gil, "dude, come one, I'm withering away here."

Gilgamesh merely pointed to one of the shelves. "This is Thena's."

Kingo rolled his eyes, but the explanation was enough for him. "What's the hollering about anyway?"

"Nothing."

"Can't be nothing," he practically bounced on his toes at the idea of something being kept from him. Especially Thena, the most reclusive secret keeper among them. Although it had to be said, Kingo had gotten things from her before, much to the rest of their surprise.

Gil shrugged, picking up a mug of his own. "Can't a man hang out with his wife on the flight home?"

Sersi shook her head at the oversimplification. Kingo laughed as if they were buddies trading dad jokes over a pint.

"Don't you people sleep?"

Sersi rolled her eyes; another party, exactly what the increasingly loud kitchen needed. "We were going to."

"I dunno about that," Phastos argued with her, as he loved to do as the group know-it-all. "Seems to be an awful lot of hootin' happening."

"Well, you are asking the night owls," Kingo joked, and then almost immediately got punched right in the arm for it. "Ow!"

"You deserved that," Phastos shot right back at him. "You okay?"

Sersi tried to tell herself to be moved by his concern for her. He was looking out for her, as a teammate, as a brother, as a fellow Eternal. But all she managed was sagging in her chair dramatically and groaning, "I am not a child, Phastos."

"You're not my child, he's lightyears away. But are you basically an ancient child with several doctorates?--absolutely."

Sersi pouted at him. He could recognise her many, many degrees of study - just as many as him, thank you! - but he still acted as if she were the same height and new age Sprite was.

"Don't push yourself," Kingo added, some real concern underneath his loud and lyrical tone.

She swatted his hand away from her shoulder. "Thena doesn't think I'm pushing myself."

Kingo immediately looked at his fellow Fighter. Sersi also looked at her, trying to will her into saying what needed to be said.

The Warrior Eternal shrugged, clutching her teacup. "Somewhat."

"Thena!"

"We invited her," she added almost immediately, silencing any argument about being right. She turned slightly in her own seat, leaning against the edge of the table. "Are you not all here for the same reason?"

They had been through way too much to sleep it off. And they had lightyears of a journey left, even if it would only take a matter of hours.

Kingo and Phastos traded somewhat guilty looks, not that either of them would ever be admitting to it.

"Whoa, why so awkward?"

"Sprite," Sersi frowned. She could recognise that perhaps this was the way Kingo and Phastos and maybe even Gil and Thena felt upon seeing them filter into the kitchen. But she couldn't help it, watching the literal teenager rub her eyes. "You shouldn't be up."

Sprite gave her the finger.

"Okay," Sersi sighed. Humanity became Sprite, but it also made her even more cantankerous than eternal life had.

"Don't be like that," Ajak followed swiftly, tussling the teen's hair on her way in. The air in the room changed as she took in those around her. "Look at all of you."

Sersi tried not to let her emotions overtake her. It was bizarre to see the woman there in front of them, long, dark hair over her grey robes. Her smile was so different from what it used to be.

"Don't get sentimental on us," Sprite muttered, although it had to be said that she bumped into Ajak's seat at the table and didn't exactly try to push the chair back in.

The ex-Prime took the cue silently, seating herself and folding her hands onto her lap. "I can't imagine what you've all been through."

"That goes double for me," Gil added in a bright tone for such a dark joke. Thena must have given him a look, because he swallowed it and ducked his head down just as quickly, "sorry."

"Where are-"

"What're ye all yappin' about at this hour?!"

Makkari patted Druig's back as the last of their crew finally joined them. Y'all are loud.

"Sorry," Sersi apologised first, certain enough that it was she who had first awoken their noise-sensitive sibling.

Kari waved her off, though, after a fully open yawn of her own. We were kind of up anyway. What's happening in here?

Druig seated himself in the chair directly between Thena and Sersi, completely to the latter's irritation. He kept his eyes closed as he asked, "Gil, wassta eat?"

Gilgamesh rolled his eyes at his family, gathered in his domain like strays. He pushed the snacks he had been hoarding for Thena's sake directly in front of her, leaving no room for interpretation on the matter. "Well, since we're all up, I guess."

"Thank you, Gilgamesh," Ajak thanked him, apparently just soaking up having them all together again, no matter how exhausting.

"Yeah," Druig rubbed his eyes, "why are we all up, eh? Haven't we been through enough?"

"You're up," Phastos pointed at him blatantly. Druig swung and missed the pointing finger, but nothing could ever be fast enough to avoid a swatting hand from the Fastest Eternal.

"Takin' a break," Druig mumbled, seeming to still be on the cusp of slumber in his chair.

"From what?" Sersi crossed her arms at him, since he had decided to plant himself in the middle of her sisterly bonding.

"Sleepin'," he snickered (so clever, little shit).

Makkari moved towards the mind reader, seeming ready to slip into his lap, only to be apprehended by Kingo. She looked at him over her shoulder, grasped by the back of her robes like a kitten by the scruff. Do you mind?

Yes I do. He put his hands on his hips, "no canoodling in the kitchen--family rule."

"Who says you make the rules?" Sprite challenged.

"Aye," Druig seconded.

"If anything, you break the most rules," Phastos felt the need to add.

"Absolutely not," Kingo shot right back, "it's without question her."

Makkari faked some shock and awe, me?!

Sersi looked beside her, distracted by the faint laughter there. She turned her head, effectively drowning out the squabbling of the rest of her family.

Gil and Thena, finding a moment to themselves amidst and perhaps thanks to the chaos, were leaning close again. "We knew they'd come in here."

"It was bound to happen," he whispered back to her, their lips hovering appallingly close. "Probably won't even notice if we slip out."

Sersi couldn't really argue against that. And somehow Kingo and Phastos were too busy arguing to notice that the longest existing couple of all of them was 'canoodling' right under their noses.

Thena parted from the kiss, only to tap her husband's lips. "Save it."

Perhaps without the need to express her own distaste for it, Sersi could admit it was nice to see them in a natural state. They certainly deserved as much. And they were clearly happier than she had seen them in centuries (maybe ever).

Sersi stood from her seat, drawing in a breath before adding to the chaos. "You two are so bossy!"

Kingo and Phastos both looked aghast at the accusation, both arguing, "he's the bossy one!"

Sersi accepted her fate, letting them both argue at her why they both were not the overbearing one but that it was, in fact, the other brother. She would be here for hours. But it was the least she could do, really. Quite a small sacrifice to make to offer her sister a smokescreen.

Thena caught her eye on the way out of the room, waving in both jest and gratitude.

"Sorry, I gotta go," he muttered to the others in the kitchen. He wasn't on clean up duty tonight, and he was mostly just waiting for Thena to get back to take his meal and eat with her.

He rushed out the side door, forgetting both their meals for the moment. He was more focused on the woman barely even on her feet as she again failed to realise the line was moving.

Thena barely even blinked as he took her hand and guided her gently out of line. Her eyes dragged up to his slowly, her lids heavy, hair damp from her shower. "Gil?"

"Hey," he whispered to her, pulling her away from the masses. The line didn't mind at all, bunching up to take up her absence. He looked down at her, brushing some hair away from her cheek. "You okay?"

She inhaled and nodded, but even just that spoke to how exhausted she was. Her hands were in the pockets of the cream colored cardigan she had secured for herself. "Are you done for the night?"

"Yeah," he muttered with a frown. Thena was swaying again. He put his hand at her back, "I think you should go to right to bed."

"I'm fine," she did her best to excuse, not that it was all that effective when she could barely keep her eyes open. She lifted one foot and tilted right into his chest.

"Okay, come on," he grunted, swinging her legs up into the crook of his arm. "You're getting off your feet right now."

"Gil," Thena whispered to him with a bit of a hiss to it. Sure, she would let him cling to her after a run all he wanted, but she got embarrassed when it came to the act of actually carrying her to and fro. Her knees knocked together. "You don't have to carry me!"

He tried to give her a stern look, although the more people noticed them the more abashed Thena became. She eventually pressed her face right into his shoulder to ignore the gaze of onlookers.

He continued to carry her right out of the cafeteria, making their way to their room. He could get some food into her later, or cook up an extra big breakfast for them in the morning. Part of him still believed that the runners should get extra food rations given all that they did, but they hit the road with standard lunches, sandwiches and trail mix.

If it were up to him, Thena would get first pick of whatever she wanted.

He smiled at an older couple on their way for their own dinner. He chuckled while Thena groaned, the couple muttering about how 'you used to be romantic like that' just loud enough to be heard.

By the time they reached their room, she was almost dead weight in his arms. Not that it was really any weight at all. But he couldn't take it for granted--knowing where their next meal was coming from. Even the sandwiches she got to take with her was better than them digging up worms to eat at the worst of times.

Gil pulled one of the curtains. They had moved their little hospital beds together, leaving the curtains to be more decorative. Everyone had covers in their windows anyway, but it was the feeling of privacy that really mattered.

A thunk startled him, but he turned to see Thena just barely managing to lazily get her boots untied. One had already fallen to the ground, and she was blinking at the other one, unable to process how to un-knot it.

He smiled. It wasn't often he saw the apex predator in this state. He knelt down, standing up her other boot properly and pulling her sock off to rest her foot on his shoulder.

Thena let him take over for her, untying her other shoe and pulling it off for her. Her ankles were so slim, her feet so delicate. She squirmed as he ran his palm up her leg.

He smiled against her skin. She said she didn't like him touching her 'peach fuzz', as he called it. He thought it was cute.

Gil pressed his lips to the inside of her knee.

She looked down at him, still hanging onto consciousness for all she was worth. "You're in a mood tonight."

He rested his cheek on her knee for just a second. It was almost enough to imagine something different for them. A world in which he could do this for her and not have it be because she was exhausted from mowing down zombies all day. Would she just be tired after a day at the office? Would she still let him carry her to bed and braid her hair?

Would they even know each other?

Thena leaned back as he rose to his feet again. She swayed a little too far, but he caught her hands in his, weaving their fingers together. Her head tilted and he kissed her cheek. "Gil, really-"

"Let's get you out of those clothes," he whispered to her, still maintaining the gentle atmosphere within their little world of a hospital room. He moved around the side of the bed, more hearing the drawers open than watching. He pulled his shirt over his head while he heard the rustling of Thena's clothes as well.

He had once offered to step outside the curtain, and Thena had outright laughed. She thought it was so precious of him to care about her privacy. But it wasn't just the gesture of it, or trying to be a gentleman or whatever else she thought.

Thena had such a rare beauty in this decaying world. He just wanted to protect it. She could lack shyness about changing around him all she wanted. It was always she who would insist it was perfectly safe to bathe in whatever lakes or rivers they found.

Even if she would wade in with some clothing still on, Gil always stood watch. If anyone had been around they would know they would have to get through him - and one hell of a fight - to get to her, he always reasoned.

"You good?" he asked, turning just his head a little over his shoulder at first. He tugged at his t-shirt and sweatpants. "Thena?"

She was nodding off again, her arms in her sleeping shirt while her own t-shirt was still on. She didn't even jerk awake so much as straighten slightly as he woke her again. "Hm?"

"I'm gonna help you, sweetheart." He moved behind her and pulled the sleep shirt away from her. His hands landed at her waist, "put your arms up."

She barely managed that, and they mostly swayed back and landed around his shoulders.

Gil pressed his nose to the back of her neck as he pulled her shirt up and off her. He kept his eyes closed as he snapped the back of her bra open. "Get this off for me."

She complained faintly at how much she had to move her arms to do so. But he ran his hands from her wrists to her elbows, encouraging her to wrap them around herself.

He just barely cracked his eyes open, only catching the pale expanse of her bare back in the candlelight. Unable to resist, he bent to press a kiss to the top of her spine. That did make her twitch, and there was no hiding how she gasped with no other noise in the room to mask it. He chuckled at how the back of her neck turned pink.

Gil didn't bother moving her arms again, basically pulling the new shirt over her head and popping her head through the neck. "There we go."

Thena arranged her arms into the sleeves as need be for herself. Now that she was in some softer clothes she was just barely hanging on.

Gil braided her damp hair over her shoulder, mostly for routine's sake. She didn't like it getting her back wet while she was sleeping, and if it was over her shoulder, then it wasn't in the way of him holding her.

He knelt on the bed, and she leaned back into him completely in the same movement. It was easy to slide them both onto their sides. Although rather than let him spoon her right away, Thena fought to twist herself at the waist to look at him.

She was ethereal, soft in the haze of sleep, cheeks flushed.

They both inhaled as their noses touched. He pressed a kiss to her cheek first. Her head moved, encouraging and asking but leaving it up to him to cross that bridge. He obliged, taking her lips in his as gently as possible.

"Get some sleep," he whispered, and his breath made her eyelashes flutter.

He turned her around again, grasping her shoulders, pressing her back to his chest. She always sighed when he did that, he liked to think in relief. Her frame was so slight compared to his. Maybe he imagined that feeling him right there with her could help her feel safe.

His mind always went back to the early days of travelling together. Facing the world in the state it was in, facing whatever remained of it together. And the nights of campfires or sleeping in the odd vehicle. Really, what he treasured was remembering her snuggling up to him, quietly, silently, hoping he was asleep and wouldn't even know.

The quiet shyness of her slipping into the side of his arm or shimmying up to the middle of his back--those were his favourite memories.

"I love you."

He wasn't sure if she would remember saying it. She seemed pretty far gone, more exhausted than he had ever really seen her before. But he pressed his lips to her shoulder, curling around her in every way he could, from letting her press her much colder feet against his, to his knee in the bend of hers to his arm around her waist.

The world would have to go through him, and one hell of a fight, to get to her. "I love you too, Thena."

He chuckled, setting aside what he had been reading. He wasn't paying much attention to it anyway. It was easy to unclip her cloak, and then his own, laying them out. It was nice to have their warmth but the things were heavy.

Thena continued to try and burrow into him the less there was between them, securing herself in his embrace. It wasn't like her to seek him out so actively. As much as she would never admit it, his Thena was somewhat more coy of a creature; she had her shyness at times.

"Hey," he whispered, although she found his lips immediately. His legs parted for her and soon they were no longer even sitting, her crawling over him as if to fuse their skin together.

"Hm." That little sound could mean many things as far as she was concerned. But this felt like she had missed him, that she was glad to be out of the cold and in his embrace.

He couldn't agree more. He held her closer, letting her tongue push its way past his lips to meet his. He could practically taste the cold on her. His hands moved, determined to remedy that situation.

Thena was faster about it. She never peeled off his clothes with slow, tender reverence. His body was not a thing to revere, as far as the Strongest was concerned. A fine thing, sure, but her...her body was something divine.

Thena moaned as his lips moved from her cheek to her neck. She liked it there. Her hands could plant themselves on the width of his shoulders, assuring her that he was there to anchor her. She tilted her head, savoring the feeling of him suckling at her pulse while his hands worked on her dress.

Her hands were clawing at him. His tunic would be in tatters if it were made of lighter stock. But she rid him of it, tossing it as she pleased. They were lucky she didn't toss it directly into the fire, not that either of them cared about that in this very moment.

Gilgamesh flipped them, laying his precious Thena back on their pile of furs on the floor. The crackling of the fire underscored her soft sighs and moans as his hands travelled downward, and then upward. Her thighs were so strong and so soft; if he were a poet he would have written an entire epic about just them.

Thena gasped as the roughness on his cheek passed her thigh. "Gil."

He loved how she called him that. Sure, most did. But when she did it, it was special. She called him Gil not to shorten his name, but to endear it. Those three letters were a gift just for him. And he took great pleasure in worshipping her in return.

"Gil, yes," she whimpered as he latched onto her. She was feeling more talkative than normal.

His hands tugged, finally freeing her from her dress. Her breasts sprang and bounced, freed from the restraint. His hands shot up from her hips to grasp them in each palm. She let him hear her appreciation.

He moaned against her, allowing it to reverberate through her whole body, which shuddered in response. His tongue was buried in her as far as it could go. Every few strokes, he would emerge for air, and more importantly, to drag his tongue flatly over her pearl of nerves so in need of attention.

"Gil, that's it, almost," she urged him. She really was in desperate need. He wasn't sure what had riled his beloved so, but he would make good on it. "Yes, yes, yes!"

Gilgamesh held her as she came, trembling from head to toe. He extracted himself, gulping loudly and moaning as he cleaned up his mess. He was a chef, after all, able to appreciate a delicacy at its finest. "Sweet."

Her thighs squeezed his head, demanding he cease his narration.

He crawled up to her again, dragging the furs around, their bodies both cold from the air and flushed with heat from within. He kissed her cheek. "Better?"

"Hm," she purred in response, a clear smile on those amazing lips she had. She managed to roll her head forward again, looking at him with completely besotted eyes. "You."

He leaned down, kissing her properly again. This look was for him and him alone. And yet somehow some legend had started in Greece about "the face that could launch a thousand ships". Gilgamesh always had to laugh at that. Those idiots had no idea.

Thena pulled him closer to her, wrapping herself around him in all senses of the word. She kissed him like she was going to be dragged away any moment. But that wasn't right. He wouldn't be letting her go again any time soon.

Gilgamesh groaned as she pressured between his legs. Such an easy thing, he was--so easy was it to bring his arousal to its height. At least as long as Thena was involved. "You sure?"

She looked at him, those wide, green eyes pleading with him. Her lips pursed faintly, pouting at him. "I need you."

He huffed and puffed, his head feeling warm and feverish. He lowered himself to her, aligning himself between her legs. His lips trembled for hers, breathing the same air, "where?"

Thena gasped as they made even the lightest contact. Her arms tightened behind his neck, "inside me."

Fuck.

Gilgamesh pushed into her, both of them squeezing their eyes shut as the feeling enveloped them. His loins ached with pleasure as he was finally contained within her warmth. He nipped at her ear. She was still wet from her orgasm.

Thena hummed as he showered her with the smaller affections, their bodies adjusting. She was such a finely tuned machine, an apex predator made for the hunt--the kill. It was no small thing for her body to loosen enough to be malleable within his hands like this.

Gilgamesh grasped handfuls of his amazing Thena. Her soft skin, her strong muscles and amazingly tender curves. He pulled them until they could not be physically closer without becoming one entity. Sometimes he could worry about her delicate little form under the weight of him.

But Thena liked being under him. She seemed to relish the feeling of his weight over hers, the flat, broadness of his chest dwarfing her much more alluring bosom. Their breath came hot and heavy, rib cages expanding rapidly against one another.

They kissed hastily, messily, desperate for them between hot breaths.

"Fuck," he cursed, unable to keep himself from it. She felt extraordinary, and she ought to know it.

"Gil, please," she practically whined, wound too tight to luxuriate in their closeness. Her nails dug into him. "Fuck me."

That, he could do. He could make sweet, tender love to her any time, any place. But fucking her, he could manage. Gil rolled his spine, letting his hips meet hers gently, just at first.

She growled at him, moving her hips in reply.

He chuckled next to her ear, moving her hair, pressing his chest against hers in his laughter. He trailed his tongue along the shell of it, "Impatient."

"I am not made for - hng! - patience," she attempted to grouse. But her voice was thin and high from their activities.

He though she sounded cute like this. "No, you are made to be worshipped."

She moaned as he pressed them back, only the furs cushioning her back meeting the floor.

"We were made for each other," he cooed, picking up pace as he pleased. His hips moved on instinct, and they hadn't failed him yet. "We were made to make love."

"Gil," she panted, her voice coming louder, stronger. She was truly in a mood, and he wanted to gratify that.

"Fuck, Thena," he replied to her desire to voice her pleasure. He smacked their hips together, the sounds of their activities rising to combat the sounds of the fire. "You're incredible."

"I need...I need... "

Even more unusual of her to feel the need to voice what she needed to him. Because he knew--he always knew. And she knew that unwaveringly.

Gil looked at her, and his hips must have slowed as he forced himself to concentrate on her expression, which morphed into something tortured.

Thena moved her hips against him, although she possessed neither the strength nor the leverage that he did. She dragged him down to her, kissing him like she was drowning and he was the air she needed.

He moaned, and it travelled from within his chest through their tongues and directly into her. Her breasts jumped as she gulped in air. His hand slithered up the curve of her waist to grasp one for himself. Like a bear's paw on a beehive, he thought to himself.

See?--he was no poet.

Thena seemed to appreciate its presence, though, moving his hand with hers so he could press against the peak of her nipple more firmly. "Fuck me, harder, more."

Demanding tonight, he buried his grin against her breastbone. He dragged his lips around there, anywhere. What Thena wanted, Thena would get, as long as he was involved.

Gilgamesh leaned forward, lifting their joined hips, the floor creaking from the force it was taking. He curled around her, as if to protect her from being seen by the rafters above them. Maybe it was for the best; he couldn't break the bed on the floor like this.

"Gil, yes!" Thena responded to the new angle. Of course his force of nature liked feeling his strength at its fullest. They had times when they moved softly and sweetly. But she responded the strongest during times like this, as if they were sparring as only lovers could.

"Thena," he groaned, feeling himself tighten. He had to make sure she was there. If it were up to him, she would be coming over and over and over again before he even got a drop of her. There was something beautiful about even witnessing it, he thought.

She once called him perverse for it, but he thought there was nothing but honesty in witnessing a beautiful wonder of nature like her.

"Gil, please, I need you," she panted, whimpered, pleading and urging with her hands grabbing and clawing at him. If he had thinner skin she would have broken through, but he didn't. He didn't, and she was welcome to mark him any way she chose.

"Tell me," he growled. If she wanted to voice her wants and needs he would encourage her, all the while pushing them to that edge. "Tell me what you need."

"Come, I wanna come," she begged. She was such a masterpiece, Gil marveled. Her breasts bounced against his chest with every thrust, her skin was flushed pink and glistening. A single hair was stuck to her cheek from the moisture and there was a little drool threatening to surmount her plump lower lip. "Don't stop!"

He wouldn't dream of it. He pressed his forehead to hers, their hips moving like two ends of one lever. His hand moved to her cheek, his fingers in her hair, his thumb at her lip.

Her tongue emerged just to taste him, her eyes glazed over and glassy. "Yes, yes, yes, Gil, I'm-!!"

Gil squeezed his eyes shut. White filled his vision, and then an explosion, like fireworks. His hips moved their last few times, his back snapping as his finish met hers. He groaned up to the ceiling, feeling her enveloping warmth drink him up.

Thena writhed beneath him, her whole body jerking and shuddering as her pleasure encompassed her. Her finely trained muscles clenched and let go, and clenched and let go. Her heart was beating wildly and he could feel it from within, in a bizarre and revelatory sensation. She squeezed him, accepting his climax as a necessary step of her own.

And she was still making very cute sounds to go along with it.

Gilgamesh collapsed, barely leaning onto his shoulder. No matter how much Thena liked feeling him weigh down on her, he was not a lizard, and she was not a rock (as he put it). He was the rock, and she was the one meant to lounge and be dead weight upon him.

The room was a mess, they had worked up a sweat even in the frigid cold. Their bodies were slick with sweat and between their legs was an entirely different story. Gilgamesh laughed.

Thena accepted it as he kissed her exuberantly. She managed to open her eyes, blinking at him. "Hm?"

But he just gazed at her. How lucky a life he had to be with her, here and now, any time and any place, on all the planets in all the universes.

Thena laughed faintly, although it was clear she had little breath to spare. But she averted her eyes from his, as she was wont to do after the fact of their lovemaking.

He tipped her chin back to him, kissing her in his soft, sweet way.

She sighed. Her body was finally at a state of fluidity, her limbs moving slowly, little strength to them. She managed to barely lift a hand off his back and drag it up his chest.

Gil took his queue, rolling them over so she could lie within his embrace, cushioned more by his muscles than just the floor and a few furs. He held her to him, exactly where she was meant to be. "You good?"

She purred in response, completely without the need for words to affirm such. Her hand continued to trail around his chest, his shoulders.

He kissed her forehead, his eyes drawn to the fire. It was getting low, and it would need one more big log so it wouldn't burn down to embers in the night, he thought. But as soon as his muscles even twitched, he was anchored by a strong thigh slinging over his hips. He chuckled, "it'll go out."

"Let it," she sighed, unwilling to relinquish him and surrender her bed for the night. She nuzzled into his side, pressing her face into the bend of his bicep. "You'll keep me warm."

He would. He wasn't sure if he would be as good as a roaring fire for her, come the morning when they would awaken stark naked and a tangled mess of limbs on the floor.

But what Thena wanted, Thena would have. He pulled the furs around them, prioritising her smaller frame before curling himself around her. For both the sake of warmth and the fact that she would not take kindly to being found in such a state if someone were to come looking for her in his room.

"Gil," she sighed, snuggling into him and their little fur cocoon like it was better than any plush, luxurious bed of any king or queen's make.

Thena was in his office instead of the other way around. She didn't make herself at home in his office as often. Not like how he did at hers. Although he was usually the one leaving his work to others so he could spend more time with her.

But she had a rare clear afternoon before their weekend, so she had invited herself over to wait for his day to end before they would head home. That was the given explanation for her traipsing in and seating herself on his couch.

As if he weren't distracted enough from his reports already.

She had started off just reading quietly as he worked, him on his laptop, nothing but his aquarium pump to fill the noise. But her interest was waning and as time went on, she eventually caved and laid down.

That was unlike his Princess, but maybe she was still a little tired out from her recent run in with the ugly side of their work. He assumed she would just have a little nap and he would join her when he was done.

"Hm."

Gil glanced up again. She was sighing often, and now to even vocalise as she did it was extreme. But every time he looked at her, she wasn't giving him the eyes or anything. She wasn't asking for his attention. God forbid his wife actually ask him for something she wanted.

He looked down at the keyboard again, but even the last three sentences he had typed out weren't any good. He was typing reports for his quarterly, but then that had devolved into him noting how adorable his wife looked lying on her side, her hair tumbling about all wavy and pretty. He slammed his finger onto the backspace.

Thena sighed again.

"Sweetheart," he finally spoke up, and to silence, at that. He could have guessed she would be coy about it. Like he'd have her any other way? "Princess?"

Thena adjusted herself on his couch. She rested her chin on one of his throw pillows, blinking at him. "Hm."

Gil saved his document; it wasn't like he was getting any real work done at this rate anyway. He closed his laptop. "You doin' okay?"

"Of course," she purred, as if she weren't acting like a neglected house pet in need of attention. "Are you done your work already?"

Not even close. But the Tyrant King grinned, standing and stretching, "maybe it's time for a break."

Thena pouted at him as he came over to her, though. "So you're not done."

He chuckled. That was her way of complaining that they couldn't go home yet. Thena had her own way of being needy. It wasn't anything so overt. But she might cling to him a little extra in the morning, or clear her throat when his eyes would drift away from her in a meeting. He liked that even the Ice Queen needed some good old fashioned affection from time to time, no matter how much she refused to acknowledge it.

Thena allowed him to jostle her in the process of joining her on his long leather sofa. It wasn't as comfortable as the ones in her office, but they weren't meant to be. And they really didn't fuck in here nearly as often as they did in hers, so they didn't need to be.

Gil ran his fingers through her hair. "I seem to be a bit distracted."

"Well, that's not my fault," Thena huffed, even had the audacity to close her eyes and tilt her head to the side. She called him insufferable, but she had no idea how cute and sexy she could be while she was being an absolute pain in his ass.

"It's entirely your fault, Princess," he chided, not letting her get away with being so cute with no consequences. He wound a thick lock of hair around his finger. "I'm supposed to be able to work while you're here looking this gorgeous?"

Thena feigned a sigh, looking up at him in a funny reversal of how he usually had his head in her lap. "Flattery will get you nowhere, Tyrant. I suppose this is the reason we usually convene in my office."

"We 'convene' in your office because we have hot, freaky sex in there," he corrected her blatantly. She pursed her lips at him for the remark, but he seized his opportunity to lean down and steal a kiss from her.

She was receptive to it; she really was aching for his attention. "Wherever is the romantic Tyrant of a man who used to always call it 'making love'? Even when I expressly told him not to."

His grin only expanded. He loved calling it that, and he kind of loved how much she used to hate it. Because he had always seen it as a sign of denial from her--an insistence on not seeing what was right in front of her. He had never believed her, basically. "You think I'm not making sweet love to you every time we're together?"

Thena made half an attempt at rolling her eyes, although she was still feeling too lazy for it. Her hand slipped off her ribs from gravity but he snatched it up for himself, refusing to let it dangle. "Yes, I suppose you always made a point to make that clear."

Oh, he couldn't have been any clearer, he was pretty sure. He threaded his fingers through hers, twisting her hand so he could kiss the back of it. "Couldn't fool me, Ice. I knew you were feeling it, too."

Thena gave him a masterful eyebrow raise (god was she hot when she did that).

Gil continued to shower her with his affections. She wasn't always this receptive to them, so he might as well go for broke. He peppered more kisses on her hand and then up her wrist. "I mean, we did have plenty of tension before we finally popped that cork, right? Uh, no pun intended."

Thena laughed. He loved her laugh. It was so cute, it was unbelievable. She had such a placid facade, but then to see that smile break over her face, her light little giggle, the way her teeth got shown off when she grinned. This woman would be the death of him.

Gil revelled in the sound, even nuzzling the delicate skin below her elbow to tickle her into laughing more. "Even before I knew I was flirting with you, we both know I was."

"Hm, yes I do recall some rather unprofessional remarks from you in the very beginning," she murmured, although it had to be said that she let him kiss up her bicep until he could scoop her right up and kiss her cheek.

He adjusted her in his arms. Her body adjusted itself naturally. They fit together without even having to think about it, like it was the most natural thing in the world for them. He tucked his nose behind her ear, getting a whiff of that lily perfume he loved. "You call it unprofessional, but I was just being honest."

"I do not believe you would have said that Ajak should sit for a portrait because it would be a masterpiece," Thena argued, even as she settled into his embrace like a cat on a heating pad. He was kind of like her own personal heating pad, in a way. "Or Sersi."

"Well I didn't fall in love with either of them, so no."

Thena laughed again, and having the sound next to his ear was like music. He wanted to make it his ringtone. He loved the feeling of her ribs against his chest as she laughed. Thank fuck he was funny; his poor Princess might never laugh if he wasn't.

Not that he wanted her laughing at every Dick and John who tried cracking a joke around her anyway.

"You had me hook, line and sinker," he continued to expound what was actually a rather embarrassing perspective. But Thena would be happy to hear it, which meant he was happy to tell her. "You and those cute glasses."

She gave his side a pinch under his suit jacket. She didn't like that he called them cute, and she didn't like using them around him. Nor had she since that very first time she used them as a disguise of all things. He knew she used them sometimes in the office, but she always went to the trouble of taking them off before he got there.

"There's no use denying it, hon, they're super cute," he chuckled, already imagining the soft gold frames on his beautiful Ice Queen's beautiful face.

Those glasses, a soft white dress. Even better, a white dress shirt, those glasses, no need for anything else... Maybe he was getting a little ahead of himself.

Thena pulled him in for a kiss, less a reward for his flattery and more about shutting him up. Her hand hooked into the buttons of his shirt, tugging faintly but with no real force. He pulled away, giving her a look. She frowned, though, "you have work to finish, Gilgamesh."

He put on his saddest eyes for her, though. "While my wife is sitting all the way over here?--all alone?"

"Gil," Thena laughed again as he shifted their position so he could lie down with her. That was one thing that his office couches had over hers; they were deeper, allowing him to lie side by side with his lady-love.

He was the one to sigh this time. He liked looking at her like this. It reminded him of every night and morning when they could go to sleep and wake up like this. Well, Thena liked sleeping with her head on his chest. He would have to shimmy onto his side to look at her exactly like this.

She let him push some hair over her shoulder. He also pulled up the fallen strap of her dress. "I missed you."

"I love you too," he blurted right out as his response. It was honest, and she had basically said the same thing in admitting she had missed him. He knew the feeling, but it was rare when Thena was the one giving in to it.

Thena leaned in this time, stealing the softest, gentlest kiss they had shared in recent memory. Softer than any goodnight, or good morning, or even welcome home kiss. A true affection, quiet and gentle as it was.

Gil smiled as she pulled back, her cheeks blushed faintly. All this time and Thena could still get shy about the simplest little things on her part. It wasn't that she was embarrassed to be affectionate with him, well, not all the time at least. But he knew that these smaller little gestures were actually a much bigger deal to her than fucking in her office between meetings ever was.

He leaned in to kiss her just as lovingly. He really had meant it. Every time she told him to come over, he was already in way too deep. Every quickie, every date, every time she let him hang around her office even after she was done with him--they were all evidence to him that she loved him too. Even if she didn't know it at the time.

"You ready to get outta here?" he whispered to her. He was torn between lulling her into having a nap and scooping her up and walking right out with her. She wouldn't be happy if his staff caught them in the middle of either of those things, of course. But sometimes a man had to do what he had to do.

Thena gave him something of a smirk, patting his chest. "Someone is not done his paperwork."

He made a whining sound, not that he thought it would do him any good. He got another, firmer pat on the chest for it. He chuckled, "no gettin' past you, huh?"

Thena gave him a much deadlier eyebrow raise, and there she was, his lethal Ice Queen. "I am not the leading diamond mogul in the world for nothing, Gilgamesh."

"No, ma'am," he grinned at her, running his hand down her arm. "You know how sexy you are when you remind me who's boss, here."

She pawed and pushed against him though, subtly wrestling him to the outside of the couch so he could get up again. "You are also supposed to be a boss here, I'm afraid. Or am I mistaken?"

He sighed as she managed to basically kick him off his own couch. "No, hon, you definitely are not."

"Hm," she hummed in pure satisfaction, nothing but smugness in that cute little smirk of hers.

Gil looked at her as he, about to go and do as he was told, found his jacket being tugged. "Wha-"

Thena still had on quite an expression, but she was glaring at him upside down with his blazer clasped between her fingers. She gave it a tug again.

He held up the lapel with a look.

She tugged again, furrowing her brows. She was telling him to leave it.

He did his best not to burst into laughter. She was just being way too cute about it. He honestly wished he could get a picture of it or something. But he slid his jacket off and laid it over her like a dutiful husband. "Better?"

"Hm." Back to being coy, of course, his little feelings-denier. But she rolled over and immediately buried her face in it, nuzzling into the breast pocket that would be over his heart, were he to wear it.

Gil stretched again, more loudly this time. Anything to cover the sound of of him getting a picture of his amazing wife in all her adorable glory. She would kill him if he made it his background or god forbid his lock screen. But maybe he could make it the background of their text thread or something without her noticing.

"Work, Gilgamesh," she reminded him, as if she were so intimidating cuddling with his jacket on the couch. "So we can return home?"

He sighed, seating himself at his desk again. He could pretend to be put out by getting ordered around all he wanted, neither of them believed it. And the sooner he got his work done, the sooner they could go home and cuddle under comfier circumstances (win-win). "Of course, dear."

Thena sighed much more contently now that she had his jacket as a blanket for her little catnap, whether sleeping or not. "Good boy."

"You feelin' okay?" he asked gently, trying to assess his wife with some objectivity outside of how cute she was when she was grumpy. He extended a hand to touch her forehead.

Thena scrunched her nose and leaned away from him. "I'm fine. Maybe tired from how oddly crowded downtown was today."

Gilgamesh watched as she skirted around him. Her purse was barely hanging in the hook of her fingers, and he could guess it would be dropped on the ground any second now as well. "Okay, well, did you eat while you were out? I can make something."

"Hm." Her shoulders were sitting low and she was squinting a little, as if it were too bright. "Not all that hungry."

Okay, that was it. Gil pulled his hands from his pockets and moved beside her. He leaned into her down tilted field of view. "Well, let's get you off your feet then, huh?"

She just sighed again, but she allowed him to guide her away from the kitchen and towards the couch.

"Did you see anything you like?" Gil asked, although the answer was evidently no because she had come home empty handed. Although maybe she just hadn't wanted to carry anything other than her purse.

"Not particularly," she murmured, shuffling her stocking feet over the polished concrete flooring and up the steps to the couch. "Not the season for creativity I suppose."

"Right," he muttered in reply. This was why he usually went with her. She didn't always like him trying to buy everything she looked at, but he also thought that without his excitement then she would return home with nothing every time, even if she did see something she liked.

"You can't come with me every time," she huffed as if having read his mind. "You just buy everything we see. This house does not have unlimited space."

It did if he wanted it to. He could keep expanding it as much as he neeeded. But he kept his trap shut and eased Thena down to the couch. "Fine, fine, you got me."

"There were some nice jackets though..." she was thinking aloud at this point.

"For you?" Gil asked as he pulled a blanket over her legs.

"For you."

He blinked, not having expected that. But she blinked at him, and it really looked like even blinking was causing her some agony. "Me?"

"Some casual ones," she elaborated. She squirmed as he tugged at her cardigan sleeve. "So you can wear something without looking like such a mob boss."

"I am a mob boss, love," he couldn't help but chuckle.

Thena tried to look down her nose to her cardigan button, giving her some trouble. "Well, you're always worried about attracting attention. I'm simply trying to find a way for you to look a little more normal."

"Hey," he whispered. He lowered himself to his knees, making sure to move slowly. Thena allowed it, not flinching as he undid her button by her clavicle. He flipped the edges of it away from her, exposing the neckline of her plain white shirt under it. His eyes avoided even the hint of cleavage, travelling to her face instead.

Thena looked at him mildly, but he could tell there was some amusement there. "More forward than usual."

Was she...teasing him? Maybe she had more of a fever than he thought.

"Come on, you," he rolled his eyes, standing to help her out of its sleeves. Even though the shirt under it had sleeves past her elbows, she shivered once he had it off of her. "Thena, really, let me take your temperature."

She grumbled a little.

He wouldn't have guessed she would be a bad patient. But then again, maybe her previous life hadn't allowed her to be a patient at all, even when she really needed it. Maybe this was what he deserved for thinking she was cute when she was cranky.

She did curl up on the couch, pulling the blanket over her shoulders as well and leaning against the back of the couch. She was all but falling asleep, and yet he was crazy for asking if she was coming down with something?

Gil moved to the kitchen. His eyes went back to her a few times. He hadn't encountered this side of Thena yet. He had to admit that he was interested to see this new Thena, even if he would take this away from her in a second if he could.

He did have a thermometer, although he was pretty sure that all he would have to do is touch her forehead to know she was feverish. But since she had allowed him the freedom, he could also get some tea on the boil, maybe even a quick soup.

Thena was just sitting on the couch, not facing the tv, not on her phone, just leaning her side against the back cushions. If by the time he got back she was already asleep, he would just take her to bed. He actually hadn't been in her room since before she had even arrived.

That was her space, and she felt strongly about that.

Gil started up the gas range, and the sound of it igniting did nothing to alert her to what was happening. Maybe she was already asleep?

She had liked going out for coffee with Sersi. He thought it was great that she had a friend. Someone else who was a peer, who had a husband to complain about and who liked learning things the way Thena did.

Every time Thena came home from hanging out with Sersi she had such a lovely glow to her.

Gil had toyed with the idea of double dating, them and Sersi and her husband. He didn't know much about the guy. His name was Dane, he was a teacher like Sersi, that was about it. But Thena insisted it was a bit early to be suggesting that, and even if it weren't, they would have to agree on a story of how they met and other such things.

She was right about that, at least. Not terribly romantic to admit that they had met because he had a standing contract with her father in which she was collateral. Beautiful collateral.

Gil popped an anchovy broth tablet into the pot, turning over his shoulder again. Thena had slumped over. "Thena?"

No answer.

"Sweetheart?" he called again, only a little louder. He turned the stove to a simmer and made his way back to the living room. She wasn't asleep, but she was slumped over in an uncomfortable looking ball. "You okay?"

"Hm," she growled from the back of her throat. She swallowed, and he watched her throat flex as she did.

"Uncomfortable?" he asked, and she nodded. He knelt down to the couch again, running his hand over her hair. "You're coming down with something."

"Ugh," she scoffed freely at the idea.

But he took it as admitting defeat from the stubborn woman on the couch. He helped her sit up again, adding another blanket over her. "Have something to eat, then I'll take you to bed."

"You really are feeling more forward than usual."

Why was she choosing when she was sick to become a flirt? He shook his head at her little joke, kissing her forehead. "Very funny. I'm making some soup. You want tofu in it?"

She nodded silently, adjusting her blankets as she liked, or maybe just because she wanted to fuss. "And green onion."

"You got it," he promised his fussy, cranky wife. "And some barley tea."

"Thanks, honey," she warbled miserably from her couch nest.

And yet he was still living at the manor. He still had a room, came back to it after every day he went to the museum to do in-house work. And maybe every once in a while he and Thena would make out like they were drowning above water. And then she would pretend nothing had happened, yet again.

Gil put his hands on his hips. "I was looking for that."

"And yet here I am with it," Thena chirped back, swirling around in her hand an ancient and positively priceless statue. She held it like a paperweight from a decor shop. "Truly don't know what took you so long."

"Scaling the side of an ancient temple isn't easy for all of us," he glared at her. In truth, ropes were not exactly his most used gym equipment (although maybe that would need changing).

"Shame," Thena pursed her lips, still having way too much fun at his expense. She was practically jumping up and down and laughing at him.

He eyed her, particularly one of the legs she had stuck out in pride, her hip cocked, shorts tight and...short.

"And I'm the one with the injury."

"Exactly," he jumped at the opening eagerly, happy to excuse his staring on the leg that was only declared fit for exertion two short weeks ago. "I thought you were going to start with small jobs."

"Now, now, Gilgamesh," Thena tilted her head at him, her ponytail slipping off her shoulder. "Don't be bitter about losing yet another job to me."

"It's not as if I have bills to pay," he grumbled to her, the two of them circling inside the small chamber housing their artifact.

"Not rent, at least," she quipped. Although, her eyes narrowed at him, "have you?"

He had been dancing around letting go of his flat. Even after staying at Thena's ancestral home for almost half a year, he hadn't exactly given up his old space. It wasn't particularly sentimental, just a bachelor pad made for one. And it was collecting dust by now.

Thena's mood turned before his very eyes. Her playful cadence hardened and she stepped towards him more firmly. "Do you still have that miserable little flat uptown?"

"Easy," he muttered to her in a weak attempt to soften the blow of her insult. Sure, it was modest to a born and bred Lady such as herself. But it wasn't a dump by any means.

But it seemed she had some offense of her own. "Did you think we'd throw you out?"

He wasn't sure what she was so upset by. They weren't exactly friends in his mind when he had first gone home with her. Sure, he didn't think she'd evict him, but he hadn't ever thought he would stay more than a single month.

She got right up to him, toe to toe, glaring up at him. "If you think I have such little integrity you can say so."

"I never said that," he glared right back at her, because if he didn't deny it just as strongly, she would just keep picking at him. "I didn't know how long I would stay, and I hadn't gotten around to it."

She gave him such a look that Gil could imagine his balls shrivelling a little. And yet something was different. She didn't turn away so hard she could whip him in the face with that hair for hers. She didn't leave without him, she didn't swing her hips in a victory stride out the door.

She half turned, refusing to look at him as she said, "I meant it when I said you're welcome. No strings, no expiration. If you want to keep your flat then fine. But that room is yours if you get tired of paying a thousand pounds a month for a cardboard box."

"It is not that bad," he sighed at her, because even when she was trying to have a nice moment with him, she had to get in one little jab.

"A serviceable cardboard box," she corrected generously.

"How kind of you," he drawled in a flat tone. But he had to concede that it wasn't something she had wanted to admit to him so blatantly.

"There are no conditions to the offer," she concluded, deciding she was done talking about it. She returned to the pedestal on which the statue had been, opening up a bag just for her prize.

"Hey, we aren't done here," Gil held out a hand. "I promised to recover that."

Thena gave him a positively bored look, slowly and defiantly starting to slide the statue into her pack.

Gil launched forward, grabbing onto it. "I'm not leaving without it."

The Lady met his glare with her own. "And what do you intend to do about it?"

What did he intend? What would they have done before? Argued and then she would slip out of his grasp, like she always did, most likely. She was like a stunt woman in a bookworm's field of work. He had seen her dive off waterfalls, jump out of planes, scale sheer rock faces.

And he was even less equipped to fight her off now.

He kept his grip strong, though, at least able to cover more surface area on it than her more delicate hands could. "Let go, Thena."

"I don't think I'm quite there yet."

Minx. Gil refused to let her shake him, though. She was already too good at it before he'd had a taste of those perfect lips.

He stepped in closer, leaned in closer. He brought himself nose to nose with her, both of them clenching the statue like men refusing to shake hands less aggressively than the other. "Get your quarry elsewhere. This one's mine."

"Are we still talking about the artifact?" she whispered back, still trying to fluster him out of his victory.

But it wouldn't work this time, he was determined. "You tell me."

Thena was faster, but he was stronger. She reached for the front of his shirt, but he slid his hand around her back, pulling her into him. Their lips met so hard it kind of hurt in a delicious way.

Statue be damned, Gil moaned as they kissed with a breathless kind of desperation. It was like this every time. It was like they had never kissed at all, never taken in the delight of each other's bodies, never gripped the edge and fallen together.

He wasn't alone in it. Thena dragged her fingers up his chest and then through the hair at the back of his head. Her lips moved against his, fighting for the upper hand because she couldn't let him win at anything, even at something that took two to tango.

And yet the way her back arched into his touch, how her shoulders curved inward as if to beckon to his, the way her hips laid against his sturdier frame. It all told him that she liked it too--ached for it the way he did.

He wasn't the only one indulging in a forbidden fruit, and she was just as hooked on it as he was.

Gil grunted as she pushed forward, knocking his back against the wall of the enclosed space. "Play nice."

She dragged in a breath between kisses, as if their breaths weren't from the same exact air they were so close. "I thought you wanted me to play dirty."

Gil groaned even louder. It wasn't as if they could be overheard. He pulled one hand up her back to her jaw. Her hair was pulled so tight, he couldn't run his fingers through it like he could under the cover of dark in his room at the Manor.

His hand moved by itself, sufficing to toy with the braid within her ponytail, winding it around his finger.

Thena stretched up on her toes. His hand grasped her hip to steady her. He felt her shirt pull up and his palm met the heat of her slim little waist, toned with muscle under pale skin.

Thena was the one to moan this time, and he swallowed it greedily, stealing it off her tongue directly with his own. He encircled her in his arms, her whole body so small against his own. It made him want to throw them both down to the ground and seal their bodies even closer together.

He grunted as she slapped his chest, all but slamming him against the wall. That was certainly Thena: bossy, a bit of a control freak, always had to get the upperhand before anyone else had the chance.

And he let her.

She stared at him, although it wasn't quite her usual icy glare. Her eyes were hazy, face as flushed as his was, lips red and swollen from their aggression. Her shoulders were moving from how hard they were breathing.

He waited for her, letting her set the pace (as always).

"You make a good argument," she panted.

He chuckled, equally breathless. She wouldn't let him think he had made her laugh, but he did catch her smiling. He didn't dare do anything to spook her into remembering she wasn't happy with him at the moment. But he tugged her shirt down again, covering the slip of skin that was driving good sense from his mind. "Glad you think so."

She stepped away from him, swiping at her lips with the back of her hand. "Taking advantage of a lady to win an argument? Gilgamesh, I never would have thought."

He laughed, letting her slip away yet again. She was pulling her shield back in front of her, and he had no choice but to watch it happen. He tugged at his shirt; he also had some smoothing of his appearance needed. "You know very well I am not the one in control, here."

She surely didn't appreciate him insinuating that their makeout was her idea. But she couldn't resist her satisfaction that he had allowed her the victory in their little scuffle.

Gil looked at the statue again, completely forgotten as soon as her eyes had closed.

Thena blinked as he reached out, pulling her in to kiss her again. Her astonishment bordered on confusion. Confusion as to why he was breaking the rules--the rules of their intimacy existing in the shadows, for carnal need and not for simplicity of affection.

Gil just shrugged. He couldn't explain himself, and she wouldn't want to hear it even if he could. "Just wanted one more."

She pursed her lips at him, which made him want another 'one more', of course. But she smoothed over his wrinkled shirt for herself. "Don't be late, Darling."

He huffed faintly as Thena gave him a little shove, albeit in the direction of their prize. Her prize, which she seemed to have lost interest in, if he was taking her direction.

And indeed Thena didn't even retrieve her bag, as if leaving it for him to take his bounty back safely. She shook out her ponytail, tugged at those shorts.

Gil ran his fingers through his hair before slipping the statue securely into the backpack she was apparently leaving to him. "To dinner?"

Karun was an excellent cook, and thank god because Gil had seen both Thena and Druig eat a plain, untreated piece of bread when left to their own devices.

Thena picks up the one on top of the pile. It doesn't say anything on it, but she knows he bound it himself. They had all the time in the world out there; there was nary anything Gil didn't know how to do by the time...

She tosses the thing away again. She can't do it. No matter how much she feels she should, or even wants to in a painful kind of way, she can't. Because what will she find in them?

Are they everyday accounts of their time out there? Logs of their days in solitude? Convalescence of their many lifetimes spent on Earth, perhaps. Those would all be such pleasant things to read, she thinks.

What if it's not so kind, her mind will tell her. It reminds her that these little books could be filled to the brim of Gil's burdens. His great suffering, sequestered at the ends of the earth with a woman out to kill him. Does he complain how he never did get to see Fiji? Does he lament not agreeing to let Ajak erase her? Perhaps he confesses all the thoughts her nightmares would tell her in her sleep. Things he would urge her to believe weren't true when she awoke.

Thena picks up the book again, her stomach turning. She forces herself to open it, the same way she would face down the largest Deviant they had ever encountered. She cracks the old, weary spine and grips a page halfway through.

It's bright out today, but that's good. Thena likes sunlight, helps her feel better after a rough night I think. No wonder she likes lizards so much, she must really understand them.

That is...not what she was expecting. But the rest of the page is just as...normal. It's nothing sentimental, nor vitriolic. It is just a man writing about his day. She flips to another page.

Thena had a pretty bad nightmare last night. She couldn't tell me about it, but the drawing is helping her. She just sits out there for hours and then eventually there's something on the page. They all look terrifying. I wish I could help her.

Her eyes water. She can hear his voice as she reads his words, his messy scrawl in old ink. Her hands tremble, cradling the little journal. She flips the page to the very next entry.

She woke up! Usually it takes her a full day to recover after such a bad episode, but she woke up this morning. Kind of confused, but it's a good sign. She could sit up, stand, she even ate. I made her favourite just in case I needed to coax her out of bed, but she ate all on her own. She would say I'm worrying too much.

She would. Thena blinks, letting a few tears fall into her lap, as long as it's away from Gil's pages. She turns the page again. The small book only has so much room for his thoughts. She looks at the other stacks; there are so many of them, and as time goes on, he makes the pages bigger, the books thicker.

This one is a winner! Thena likes soups and stews but she ate a lot of this one. I think the onions make it a little sweeter for her. And I'll leave the wine out next time, she doesn't like the taste lingering.

I made bread to go with it. I hope she starts eating more again. I should go to the market to see if there's anything there I can get some milk and butter from.

Scrawled further down the page, as an afterthought: Build an oven outside for the bread!

Thena laughs faintly, swiping at her cheeks. He would do that all the time--remind himself of something in the moment, or if he had forgotten it. He would stop right in his tracks and hold up his finger to wag it at himself. She always found it charming.

Still perfecting the butter, but managed a half decent pie today. Thena wasn't really up to eating it. Maybe tomorrow.

It's brief, and Thena's heart wails inside her chest. It must have been a particularly upsetting day, perhaps even for the both of them. She can just imagine the look on Gil's face as he wrote it. She can remember that sad look in his eye.

Another nightmare. She keeps asking me not to leave her. It's insane!

Yes, she knows insanity well. She can feel his frustration. She flips through the next few pages. They're also short, she can see how firmly he's pressed the words into the paper, how heavy the ink sits from him pausing between words. Her poor Gilgamesh.

How she tortured him so. She wouldn't blame him if his words did turn sour. If he used the privacy of these little troves to keep his secrets.

It's working. I can see it, it's working. Telling her I'm here, with her. Holding her hand. I pulled her out of it today. It's the first time it's worked, but she didn't go under. We're getting better. It's working.

Thena inhales sharply, hoping to keep her voice quiet. She doesn't have to keep her tears away from this page. She can already see the splotches where her sweet, gentle giant has cried all over them. He always was so sentimental.

The immediate next page has a flower dried right into the fibers of the hand-pressed paper. Flowers were rare out in Australia. He must have found it on quite a walk.

Brought this home for her. I said it reminded me of her, and she asked if it was because it was yellow. I told her it's because it's pretty!

Thena blinks. She remembers this. She just barely touches the paper housing the precious bloom. She remembers the day in spring. Gil had gone to the nearest port for supplies, and when he returned nearly a day later, he had this with him. She recalls the feeling of its petals new against her fingertips. His voice is in her mind, telling her it's pretty and laughing when she asks what that has to do with anything. Then his lips press to her forehead, assuring that she's prettier than any flower he has ever found on all of Earth.

Her tears rise anew. But she must concede that she's grateful to the little flower; that memory had sunk down beneath the surface. She was unaware she could still see it so clearly.

Sleep is good. This month has been less windy. She sleeps in the hammock a lot. I should find a chaise for the house so she can nap indoors.

She cared not for the means by which she napped. If Gil was around, she would just crawl right onto him, regardless. It didn't matter if it was the dirt floor or the couch he dragged home at the turn of the century.

I don't know what happened. I came out into the garden and she was on her knees crying and screaming at the ground. It took hours to calm her down. I still don't know what caused it. I might never if she doesn't remember it when she wakes up. Have to take extra good care of her when she's up.

She didn't remember it.

She doesn't remember anything about it. That's good though. I don't want her remembering every nightmare, every episode, every fight. She doesn't need to have that on her. I just want to bring her some comfort.

Her sweet, sweet Gilgamesh. All he ever did was comfort her, and even after all she did was hurt him. After episodes when she lost herself and turned her weapons on him. When she would hack and slash at him and then awake with no memory of it and then all he had for her was kindness. How could she ever deserve the love of someone like that?

She likes baths.

Thena blushes.

I heated some water for us and she just laid in my arms for hours. I reheated the water a few times, but she was so comfortable and cute I didn't want to move her. I'll run a bath for us every night if she wants.

Thena pinches her lips closed. She knew he was using that unfairly to his advantage. She did like a hot bath, and it had been difficult to procure steady water in a desert so without. Never mind human technology, they had chosen their plot of land. She had chosen their grave plots, she used to joke rather darkly.

And yet he would wrap his arm around her waist, sink them both into that steaming hot water. And she would sigh, all her day's strife leaving her body in that breath. Her tired body would ache and then renew, her mind would still. And Gil would tip her chin up and kiss her...

Thena blinked, turning the page again, and then again. The next several pages were about their bathing, the temperature of the water, the kind of wood that smelled the least, herbs to add to nourish her skin when it was exceptionally hot and dry.

Gil was nothing if not a man devoted, and their baths together were one of his favourite devotions.

Finally some sugar! It has taken forever for it to make it here. These damned ships must be going down like flies. But finally some sugar is here so I can make Thena sweets again. Poor thing has been making do with pies and jams and preserves, but I know she's just dying for some cookies. I could make syrup for hotcakes!

She smiles as she reads his excitement. She also remembers his excitement over finding some refined sugar. Being on an island left Australia rather wanting in their early years there. But he was so excited he walked home with kilograms of it on his shoulder, like a baker with a town to feed. And he did make cakes and cookies and anything she desired. He always did.

Thena is looking at the water an awful lot. She keeps walking all the way to the cliffs, and I don't know if she's doing it awake or not. But she just stands there until I bring her home. When I ask about it she just says that she's thinking.

She remembers that, too. A setback had broken much of their hard earned hope. A truly terrible episode, an attack. It had dragged on and she had destroyed their watershed and even Gil's hand created oven. She had been devastated by it, learning she had shredded her precious Gil's hard work with her own hands.

She would go to the sea to look at it. She would wonder how they ended up here. What good was it doing when she could undo all their hard work in the blink of an eye? What good was she doing tethering Gilgamesh to her misery?

She had begun to think that the less time she spent around him, the better.

My poor, sweet Thena. I don't know what's going on in that head of hers. I usually can find out, but this...something is different. I have to find a way to talk to her.

She shakes her head. Her sweet Gilgamesh. How could she have done this to him?

All this progress. All this time out here, things looking better. And she says to me that I shouldn't have come with her. That I should have left her in that jungle all on her own. That I should have let Ajak erase her. I couldn't hear it.

Thena's stomach turns. This is the tragedy she expected. The anger and resentment she both expected and feared was plain on the page. She could remember saying these words, the anguish on Gil's face. Perhaps she had been trying to drive him away from her and her miseries. Perhaps she was trying to fulfill her own prophecy.

She asked me why. Why to all of this. And I told her plainly that when you love something, you protect it. You have to. What else is love? What could I possibly do but spend the rest of eternity together, with her, waiting for every tear and every smile? Every good day and bad, I can't be without her. And I told her that. I didn't think I had to, but I know she's going through...well, I can't imagine what she's going through. Maybe that's what bothers me the most. That no matter how well I know her, and understand her, better than anyone! And yet I can never understand what happens to cause her so much pain. And I can't protect her from it.

He did, though. He protected her all their lifetimes together. He protected her until the day he died, and she is still remembering it. She will until the day she follows him.

Pyroxis V is going to burn. I don't know what it means but she keeps saying it, over and over. I don't know what planet that is but she's scared. She's terrified, like she's seeing things that aren't there. She keeps insisting she watched me die.

Pyroxis V? No, it was Centauri VI in her memories. A planet split apart by a great monster with six eyes. That was what she remembered from her nightmares.

Something broke. I don't know what, but she just walked inside and collapsed. I just held her, and she cried like I've never seen her cry. Not when Babylon fell, not when old Socrates died, not even when we broke the oven.

We--Thena sighed; she broke the oven.

But she just kept sobbing. I held her. What else could I do? It took hours for me to get a word out of her. But when I asked all she could say was that she was tired. Of course she's tired.

Of course he would be tired, too, Thena frowned. She turned the page eagerly.

Of course she's tired, and there's nothing I can do to lighten her load. I picked her up, took her straight to bed, held her all night. She was breathing so quietly I couldn't sleep. I was afraid it would stop in the night.

Thena swiped at her tears more forcefully. She was frustrated with the version of herself in this journal. She was causing Gilgamesh - her Gilgamesh - an awful lot of strife.

But she woke up. She woke up and she rolled over and looked at me. And those eyes, those amazing eyes that are like the sea right at dawn. She looked at me and it was okay. I don't know how, or why, but that's my Thena. I saw her, maybe for the first time in a while. But that's her, my Thena, here with me. And I won't let her go again.

Thena blinks, her tears dropping onto the page again. She can't remember that morning. There are too many mornings, all so alike, all of them in their bed, him holding her, the hazy warmth of morning. The feeling of his hand in her hair, on her cheek, at her waist.

She remembers looking at him, though. The sight of him bringing all other thoughts in her head to a halt. The way his face was the only comfort she needed defied all logic. And yet even now, she can picture it clear as day. "Oh, Gil."

The journal reaches its end, as if it can hear her and brings this particular story to a close. She pats the back of it, thanking it for all it has shared with her.

She looks around. Every single one of these is just like it. They will have mundanity, simplicity, heartache and triumphs. And each of them will be written from cover to cover out of love. Her heart aches, but she welcomes it, this time.

Thena reaches for another book. She hasn't forgotten that she opened the last one not at the beginning. She will return to it. But she opens this one to some random page as she pleases. She was there for each day, after all. She may remember some, maybe not all. But she can read them as she likes. She sighs.

He had tried to find peace in the quiet life. He tried to disappear into human society, like Ajak wanted. But the more he looked at human development, the more disgusted with it he became. Everything they were doing--what was once new and enthralling and charming was now detestable.

Their economy was a pyramid trying to balance on a single point, their thirst for violence continued to grow, and plenty of other ugly facets of their nature that some might call 'sins'. Phastos thought it was just an excuse for them to not acknowledge that they were the same as any other animal native to this planet.

Designing a combustion engine - with his help, at that! - didn't make them so different from any other sapien mammal.

"What am I doing?" he muttered to himself, stomping only for the sand under him not to shake in the slightest. He slipped and slid a little on his way, eyes dead set on the only building for miles. "What am I doing?"

The little house was a nice thing. Small against the horizon, but comforting in its humility.

"What am I doing?" Phastos huffed as he picked up his pace. Now that he was so close, he was even more incensed, unsure if he wanted to be relieved or disappointed by what he found.

He hadn't spoken to any of the rest of their family in decades. Some he hadn't so much as heard from in hundreds of years, like Druig, or Ikaris. And Phastos wasn't exactly the one to say his door was always open, like Ajak.

Maybe that was what brought him here. There was actually an Eternal who enjoyed solitude the way he did. One who didn't feel the need to mingle with humans but also didn't want any control over what they did, either.

Not that he knew the status of that particular Eternal. Maybe that was more of an excuse for this trip. He could say he was checking in. Overdue but better late than never?

"Gil!" Phastos pounded on the door as soon as he reached it. He was hot, and sweaty, and tired from dragging his ass all the way out here. And he just wanted to see a familiar face right now, even if it had every right to be angry with him. "Open the damn d-!"

It whipped open, and while Phastos had half a mind to recoil and raise his fists, he only flinched.

Gilgamesh stared at him, head tilted, eyes squinting like he was seeing a mirage on his stoop. He was dressed like it was still the 19th century, but then again, Phastos didn't know how long he had been landed here. "Oh."

The Fabricator puffed through his nose, adjusting his glasses. "That's how you greet me after all this time?"

But Gil shrugged, like no time had passed at all since they last spoke. He dusted his hands off on his trousers. "Come in. Keep quiet. Thena's asleep."

Three statements, clear and simple. He sounded like the woman of the hour. Phastos followed him inside. It wasn't much of a structure considering they had all the time in the world. But it was certainly a home, with a tap, and a wash bucket, and of course Gil had gone and sought out a fridge just to carry it all the way out here for them.

Phastos looked around. Even more than before, he didn't know what he was doing here. Why did he come all this way? It wasn't like he was the closest with Gil of all their siblings. Sure, Gil had a warm smile for all of them, but Phastos didn't consider himself top of his list.

As much as they could squabble, when Phastos thought of someone he could actually talk with...it was Thena. He could complain about her lack of nuance or annoying propensity for bluntness, but he was actually more like her than he cared to admit. And Thena would allow him his blathering, for all her unvoiced annoyance. They annoyed each other, but it was fair and equal annoyance. And at least they were around to be annoyed together.

And then he had voted to erase her.

He thought about that night often, and more and more since parting with Ajak in despair. Was it in his nature to give up so easily? To decide that it was somehow his right to evaluate if the sacrifice of a few was worth saving many? When had he gone from gleefully creating ways to help humans develop to deciding they were unworthy of his gifts, like some kind of god?

Thena always hated being treated like a god. She was one of their strongest, only behind Ikaris and Gil. And yet she had confidence as well as humility. He had admired it, not that he could voice it to her.

Gil waved him in, looking over his shoulder at his pause. The Strongest Eternal weaved around a load bearing post to where he had procured a chaise, old but intact. Then, he crouched down to it.

Phastos averted his gaze as he heard Gil's voice, gentle and whispering sweetly. It wasn't as if it was new--Gil always had sweet whispers for his other half. But it had been so long, and the idea of that persisting out in this merciless desert made Phastos feel intrusive for even knowing about it.

A head of blonde rose slowly, and it was no surprise to see it revealed that Gil was holding her arms to do it. Was she so weak? Was she in poor health? Was she still Thena?

She turned. Her eyes were still green. She blinked at him. "Phastos."

She was still Thena. Stolid, quiet, unshakable Thena. Phastos blinked back at her. "Neither of you can muster some excitement after all this time?"

They looked at each other, and Phastos wished he could snatch his half-in-good-nature joke back into his mouth. But Thena looked at him again, no hostility under her perfect mask. "This is a surprise."

"Yeah, well," he paused, swaying somewhat on the spot with his jacket and singular travelling case in hand. "Figured as good a time as any."

Gil pulled over a chair for him, seating himself on the sofa with his partner.

Phastos tried not to eye the way his hand naturally rested on Thena's shoulder. He tried not to take it personally that Gil was feeling protective of her in the moment. Gil was always protective of her, Phastos attempted to remind himself. It wasn't personal.

"How did you get here?" Thena asked, because she would ask the logistical questions before asking why he had come all the way here.

That was what he wanted though, wasn't it? He longed for conversation with an immortal that wasn't emotionally charged. He didn't want Sersi's questions about how he was feeling, Kingo's boisterousness, even Sprite's distaste for conversation was a little sharper edged than he was really looking for.

Thena was easy. She simply accepted, and when she didn't, she often didn't care enough to inquire further.

"Flew," he sighed. "It wasn't easy to find a pilot willing to do it."

"How are things over there?" Gil asked about the young country developing north of where their last shared home was.

It was rocky, to say the least. Never had Phastos seen such a misguided beginning to a society in all their time on the planet, and only time would tell if it would crumble like every empire before it.

"Phastos."

He looked up, budging his glasses again. Thena was looking at him, urging him to go on in her quiet way. It was actually quite surprising; usually Thena would just sit and stare into the middle distance if it didn't involve her directly.

She was picking up on Gil's habits, too. Or maybe she really was happy to see him.

"I don't know," he sighed, and it came out heavier than he had really intended. Now that it was out, his shoulders sank. He took his glasses off completely to scrub his face with his hand. "It's getting ugly. I just wanted to get away from things for...a while."

"Are we your first stop?" Gil asked, still genially enough, but Phastos knew better. It was a more careful question than Gil would ask if he were truly at ease. "Or your last?"

He was asking how long he intended to stay. Again, Phastos tried not to take that personally.

"I don't know," he admitted honestly, because there was no use lying. Thena would catch it, and it wouldn't do him any favours with Gil at the moment, either. "I packed a bag and figured, if I go back--I go back."

"If not?" Thena prompted him. She was seeing something in him that he was trying to keep hidden.

Phastos squirmed. "Maybe I'll settle somewhere else for a little while. France seems to have stabilised a little."

Gil bobbed his head, but Phastos didn't know how recent Gil's knowledge would be of the world outside these walls.

Thena tilted her head at him, and Phastos was reminded that not even an Eternal was immune to the sharpness of the Warrior's eye. But she turned away, as if to give his own thoughts privacy.

Gil looked at her as she put her hand on his knee. His hand covered it reflexively, driven by sense memory.

"Perhaps our brother is thirsty?" she suggested, as if Thena had ever been the type to be aware of someone's small wants or needs.

Maybe she had, and Phastos had never taken notice, he corrected himself. He was trying to think of himself as less all-knowing.

"Yeah," Gil took in a breath before rising from his seat beside her. His hand drifted slowly, loath to part from hers. His eyes were on Phastos as he walked towards the kitchen. "Tea?"

Phastos attempted to say that just some water would be his poison of choice, but Gil continued on to convey that it wasn't really a question. Phastos looked back at Thena, who was staring at him again. He jabbed a thumb in Gil's direction. "He in a mood, or is it just me?"

"You seem haunted by something."

Leave it to Thena to strike right at a weak spot. The Goddess of War was not a creature of delicacy--mercy, rather. She could be plenty delicate when it was Gil holding her hand or carrying her sleeping form.

"Do I?' Phastos attempted to shoot back at her--go on the offense, as it were.

But she actually smiled at him. "I should know."

Phastos pointed his finger at her. "Did you just make a joke?"

She looked towards the kitchen automatically, even without Gil in her periphery. "It rubs off on you, over time."

Phastos couldn't help but laugh a little. If that were all it took, they all would have Gil's good humour and gift for mirth. It was being out here with him, in peace, just the two of them, clearly. It was being without the rest of them that was letting their natural togetherness truly thrive.

"What happened, Phastos?"

"Don't ask, T," he attempted to warn her. It had been a few decades, but he still wasn't ready to talk about the bombing. It was unfathomable, unspeakable, and as far as he was concerned, it was proof that he never should have given the humans anything.

It made him look back on giving them the simple plough and regret ever landing on this accursed planet.

"Hm."

He looked up at her again, half expecting a cold, judgemental look. Maybe he expected her to start interrogating him for some real answers.

She just sat there.

Phastos shifted in his chair. Why did he come here? There was no comfort to be found, here. He wasn't willing to share what he needed comfort for, in the first place. And in truth, he didn't deserve it. So why did he come here?

"Stay."

Leave it to Thena to let one word suffice for an entire conversation. She had always been like that. She would talk sometimes with Sersi, maybe more with Kari because she didn't need her actual voice for it.

Only Gil got gifted with more words than her standard few.

"Stay however long," she elaborated, truly in a generous mood. She stood from her seat, brushing off her dress. Phastos had to think about it, but it wasn't the one she had worn in Tenochtitlan, and he would have been truly shaken if it was.

He watched as she abandoned her comfort of sitting to drift into the kitchen. Gil was making tea, even though he wasn't much of a tea drinker himself. But Thena was, so of course they had an ample supply, and he would make it as skillfully as he made all his meals.

Thena came right up behind him. Their voices were so soft they were hard for even Phastos to hear, not that he was trying. She ran a hand down his back, soothing whatever it was in him that was making Gil so standoffish.

The gentle giant extended his arm, wrapping it around her without hesitation. They were still whispering between themselves. Thena smiled, and Gil leaned his head in to nuzzle her cheek and kiss her temple.

Phastos averted his eyes again. It wasn't like he didn't know. Well, they all knew, even if the evidence wasn't so in front of their faces. But to see it unabashedly was something else. Phastos never needed to see that.

It wasn't just about watching his sister getting kissed. It was a distaste for romance in general. Phastos was pretty sure he was like Kingo in that way--he wanted no part in it. Not in this lifetime.

Phastos nearly startled as a tray came rattling towards him. Gil had a gentle touch when it mattered, but clearly he wasn't going to be on the receiving end of it, no matter what Thena had said to him. He accepted a tin mug of tea, handed to him hastily but at least not spilling boiling liquid over the side. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Gil actually answered, and even had a smile for him this time, no matter how tepid. He sat down with a tin mug of his own.

Phastos raised the scratched, dented metal to his lips. "This is...nice."

Gil gestured with his own mug. "Soldiers come out here every once in a while, looking for trouble."

So, these were procured from some sorry suckers who had dared to sniff around Gil's desert home.

Thena raised her cup. It was no tin soldier's ration mug. It was a pretty thing, white porcelain and shiny, just like her.

Phastos glared mildly at Gil over his mug. "She gets the good stuff?"

Gil met his glare with an almost playful one of his own. "It's her cup."

Of course. Of course Gil would go looking for a small, pretty teacup for his small, pretty Thena. He would hunt for it and bring it back to her in devotion, just in the hopes it would make her smile.

"He found it in a shipwreck."

Phastos put his mug down, feeling at least a little more comfortable after a few sips of - begrudgingly - perfectly brewed tea. "Okay, you can't just say something like that. How the hell did he find that?"

Thena also put down her cup, while Gil leaned back in his seat to take a deeper sip. "Early on when we arrived, we needed supplies. Gilgamesh had the idea of scavenging a ship that had run ashore."

She hadn't expected Thena to be in a chatty mood. She had never been particularly talkative. Ajak turned and watched as she slid herself into the seat of the breakfast nook. "I'm surprised Gilgamesh didn't come down with you."

Thena's eyes were focused on the table in front of her, as if her were mind was slow to take in the world around her this early. "He is tired."

It wasn't said to be cold or dismissive. Ajak thought it sounded more like a plea, as if she could cure him of his fatigue. But that was never something she had the power to do.

Thena pulled just one of her knees up, folding her hands and resting her chin on them. "The journey was fine, but watching me...strains him."

Ajak wasn't sure if that was the word. After hundreds of years together, she doubted Gilgamesh considered it 'watching' her at all. "Travelling can tire anyone out. I'm sure he'll wake up when he's ready."

The Warrior Eternal finally looked up and locked eyes with her. They were both just as she always remembered, but also different. Their green colour was solid, there was no doubt in that. But Ajak saw something that wasn't there before--a calm that used to be constant vigilance against an unseen enemy.

Ajak took a seat across from Thena. "Do you want anything?"

She shook her head.

Ajak smiled. She could have guessed that she would rather wait for Gilgamesh--his food, even just his presence. "How did you sleep?"

Her daughter seemed to actually give it some thought. But Ajak dared not comment, lest she risk scaring the words straight from the Warrior's lips. "It is different here."

Again, Ajak waited. It was a statement of the obvious, but Thena never meant it that way. Gilgamesh was always the one best at deciphering her limited words. Ajak thought herself a decent interpreter but she would rather hear it from Thena herself.

Thena shifted her chin on her knee, the skirt of her dress swaying. Ajak had been somewhat worried when Thena had demonstrated that shoes were just not a concern of hers unless in the presence of humans. Gilgamesh had been the one to assure her that the Warrior would have no trouble, even with the different terrain here.

"The wind is louder, in some ways," Thena began. She must have been in a surprisingly good mood, or perhaps she was seeking understanding with Gilgamesh unable to provide it in his sleep. "Your house makes many sounds."

Ajak did laugh this time. Thena paid it no mind. "I'm sorry, my dear. I forget after all this time how much sound wood makes. It must be quite different from Australia."

"Hm," Thena defaulted, but then pursed her lips in preparation for more. She picked her head up. "Our house sounds quieter, but then I can hear more."

Always vigilant, the Warrior Eternal. Ajak always felt for her child in that sense. All Eternals but Thean especially had such sharp senses. It was impossible to miss something on or off the battlefield. Nothing ever escaped Thena, be it a prank of Sprite's or a jab of Ikaris'.

"Gil breathes heavily here."

Ajak smiled with her daughter. Breathing heavily was a sign that he was sleeping heavily, and Thena was clearly pleased with that. Ajak reminded herself that calling him 'Gilgamesh' was a formality, now. "That's good."

"He deserves the rest," Thena concluded before looking at Ajak again. Her question fought its way off the tip of her tongue. "You."

Ajak sat up straighter at the invitation. Thena wouldn't ask if she didn't want to know. And she knew what it was she was asking. "It took some time to get used to being out here. You're right, the wind is loud, the house creaks. You can hear the animals around. But all of that also makes it quiet, in a way."

Thena blinked, but it was as good as an agreement, in that light.

Ajak sighed, looking out her kitchen window again. "It's solitary, which I needed. And now I love looking out at the fields, the hills, seeing all this life around me. And it doesn't care about me at all."

Thena tilted her head fractionally, an invitation to continue if ever there was one.

Ajak grinned. "Everything here, from the livestock to the predators to the crops--it's all so in balance. Nature takes its course, here. Nothing cares that we're immortal, that we're inorganic. I can be...human."

Thena managed a faint smile. "You sound like Sersi."

"Sersi sounds like me," Ajak corrected, and it seemed to amuse her dry witted daughter. "There's something freeing in it."

"I can understand," Thena nearly whispered, even putting her hands on the table and letting her shoulders loosen. "Gil adores the human markets he goes to. He gets to be a human man, seeking food like any other. They know nothing of the burdens we've carried."

It was as far from the burdens of the Goddess Athena as one could get.

"The quiet life becomes him," Ajak surmised.

"It does," Thena smiled to herself, joining in Ajak's soft tones. "He excels in domesticity. Cooking, gardening, going to the markets. He loves it all."

It wasn't that human life had charmed him so, Ajak could gather. Rather it was the woman with whom he was sharing this quaint, quiet life.

"But he should be here."

Ajak shifted in her seat. That could mean plenty, and Thena was in a surprisingly candid mood.

"He should be out here, seeing more," she carried on, her smile somewhat lowering. "He worries too much for me. It traps him."

Ajak frowned. "I'm sure he doesn't see it that way."

"No," Thena sighed, more like admitting an annoyance than true agreement. "He has said many times that he does not think it so."

And yet Thena was still wrestling with it even now. Or perhaps it was just the fatigue of travel rattling old sore spots. "So...?"

Thena looked surprised that she was being prompted for more. But she didn't deny her just for the sake of it. "But...he misses this world, Ajak. I can see it."

Ajak knew a lot about watching love for the world pass over someone else's face. Especially when knowing she was the one who would bring that face such grief.

"He lights up, seeing it all," Thena lamented, even resorting to toying with a loose thread at her cuff. "It should not have taken us these centuries just to leave that island."

Well, they didn't exactly have a time limit. But Ajak moved closer to her child, even being so bold as to pat her shoulder. She wouldn't say Thena welcomed it, but she didn't flinch away either. "He lights up seeing you."

Thena gave her a look for the needless placation.

But Ajak put her hand up to cease her daughter's derision. "Yes, you're right. I saw him see the fields for the first time. You'd think he'd never seen a cow before."

Thena cracked half a smile at that.

"But I also see him seeing you seeing it all," Ajak corrected. "I see how he watches you. But I also see him looking at you every time I ask you both something. I see how he points things out to you and how he wouldn't be enjoying himself nearly as much without you."

Thena seemed to really consider that, maybe even for the first time. Ajak didn't think that was possible, but her daughter was of the obstinate variety, especially when it came to her own feelings.

"He didn't just want to see Fiji, he wanted to see it with you."

The Warrior took on an affronted expression. Her eyes were clearly burning with the question of how Ajak knew about that whole interaction.

Ajak rolled her eyes, though. "Boys are easy, my dear. None of my sons are all that subtle, and Gilgamesh would suggest somewhere with a beach positively everywhere we went. And it was not Kingo he wanted to see frolicking in the waves and enjoying the sun."

"I don't frolic."

"Neither does Kingo." Ajak shrugged, and she actually earned a laugh for efforts. She joined in her laughter. "But you always loved the sun. And you might not enjoy swimming, but you like the scent of the sea, my love."

Thena pouted faintly; an acceptance of defeat.

"When we first headed for colder climates, Gilgamesh tried everything to convince me to change our course," Ajak smiled at the memory. "He tried so hard to dissuade me. And every argument he had would come back to how poorly you did in the cold."

Thena sighed, tilting her head again, more freely this time. "He is too open hearted."

She feared someone could use that vulnerability against him.

"He wasn't happy with me when we finally did land in Kievan-Rus," Ajak grimaced, remembering the first time she had experienced the Strongest Eternal's cold shoulder. The first time any of them had really, truly experienced it, in earnest. "You poor thing."

Thena actually smiled, though. "It was not such a bad time in humanity's history. We adapted."

That was kind of her to say, given the many years it took Thena to truly adapt to their ways of life there. It took hot baths and the respite of spring, no matter how temporary. And of course extra furs on her bed and the heaviest of cloaks around her at all times.

And most of all, Gilgamesh's arms around her at every possible opportunity.

Ajak could remember them being somewhat more guarded about their physical closeness before. They would be mindful of those around to witness it, that was to say. But when Thena was constantly on the verge of freezing, the inhibitions were dropped, and suddenly one was not without the other. Perhaps that was when she truly saw the shape of the rest of their time on Earth unfolding before her. What had been taking shape was solidifying.

Ajak could also recall when their affections shifted from the occasional and secretive embrace to outright holding, cuddling, Gilgamesh touching the tip of his nose to Thena's. It was equally adorable and sickening to witness.

"Do you want me to pull out an extra blanket for you or not?"

"Ajak," Thena frowned, making her disapproval at the insinuation known.

Ajak rolled her eyes freely at her daughter. "Please, honey, you've been married for - what is it now - centuries? I don't expect you to become celibate the whole time you're here."

"Ajak!"

"Morning," Gilgamesh announced himself, although his mouth was wide open by the time his yawn was audible.

"Sleep well?" Ajak asked, although her answer was pushed to the back of the line.

Thena pulled him down by his shirt. She examined him first, her eyes tracing over him in scrutiny. He didn't seem to mind. "You should sleep more."

She was saying he still looked tired, in a somehow even more unfriendly way.

But Gilgamesh just beamed at her. "Not used to the timezone here. We can have a nap later."

Thena didn't question or protest to being included in that statement. She looked at Ajak. "Coffee."

That wasn't a question either, but Ajak allowed it. It wouldn't do anyone any good for her to try and drag a 'please' out of her daughter of thousands and thousands of years. She patted the table, "good thing I want some too."

"Thanks," Gilgamesh uttered more sheepishly, although Ajak could point out that he didn't hesitate to take over her seat at the table.

"Did you sleep?"

Ajak tried not to listen, but they were terrible at whispering.

"I did."

Ajak moved towards her coffee maker, ignoring the reflection in her window of the Strongest Eternal's form eclipsing his wife's entirely.

"Gil," Thena's light, airy voice fluttered. "Ajak's right there."

Yes, she was; she rolled her eyes with a smile.

"She's not looking."

Ajak made a point to put the pot on as loudly and clumsily as possible. By the time she turned back, Gilgamesh was in the bank seat next to Thena, his arm around her lithe shoulders. She crossed her arms at them. "I was going to go to town, bring back some ingredients for us. I only ask you keep it out of the kitchen--we need to eat in here."

"Ajak!"

Gil let out a roar as he tossed one assailant completely over his shoulder. Another ran at him, only to get his elbow snapped in the wrong direction. Gilgamesh could sometimes forget his own strength. That was her official statement as his supervisor.

As herself, Thena would have to say that Gilgamesh had a strong protective instinct, and it made him willing to go further than an Agent should in the line of duty if it was in the name of his comrades.

"Gil," Thena tried to choke out. Her throat was dry, and the air tasted like smoke. She coughed faintly, finally managing to get her hands and knees under her. "Gil?"

He landed a few more hits. He was lucky he wasn't getting swarmed by ten--twenty men at once. But he was keeping his back to her, fighting off anyone who got too close.

Thena winced as Gil snapped another's leg at the knee. "Gil!"

He chanced looking back at her, although he had to keep his eyes in front of him and his fists up. "You okay, Boss?"

Yes, that was good; she needed to be grounded in the knowledge that she was his boss, and they were still in the middle of an operation. She dragged herself to her feet against some crates. "How long was I out?"

"Five, maybe ten," Gil guessed, still keeping vigilant as he walked closer to her. "The deal got crashed by a third party ambush. Crashed a damn bus into the loading bay, there are fights and shootings and half the place is on fire. We've gotta get outta here."

"Dammit," Thena bit as she rubbed her eyes. The upper ranks would not be happy another infiltration mission had gone awry under their orders. And she had been under the microscope enough already, for her taste.

"You took a hell of a hit," he grumbled, rubbing his knuckles in a few short seconds of peace. "We should get you checked out."

They had to get out of here first. Thena looked around at what she could. Gil was right, half the place was full of smoke, there were casualties strewn all over the place. She put her hand at his back, both assuring she was at his 6 and also that they had to move. "Remember the exit?"

"Got a little turned around, but I think we need to head to our 4 o'clock and then two lefts," he replied to her. He left her grasp again, only to tackle another oncoming enemy. He charged with him, slamming him against the nearest wall like a bull.

"Gil, come on," Thena tried to coax him. She wasn't steady on her feet. She was a liability. But she wasn't going to leave him behind, and he wasn't going to leave her either. Not even if she begged, which she wasn't above doing if it looked like they wouldn't be getting out of here. "Gilgamesh!"

He turned to her, letting his victim drop to the ground. She must have looked even more unsteady than she felt, because he swept forward to help her walk.

"Focus," she ordered, leaning on his shoulder as he helped them start to make their way out.

"Just let me carry you," he muttered to her, keeping an eye out for anyone taking too much notice of them.

"Negative, you won't be able to fight," she ordered. And she had a point, Gil's hands were more useful than hers at the moment, and they needed him at his sharpest. "Keep your eyes up."

"Are you okay?"

It was unfair for him to whisper that to her so softly at a time like this. Her head was spinning. If she wasn't careful she would forget where they were and lean into his touch a little much, or lean on him a little too heavily.

"Thena," Gil tried again.

"There they are! They're feds!"

"Shit," Thena bit. She patted herself down for anything that could help. But civilian jeans - ones far too tight, for her taste - and a t-shirt weren't exactly her usual ensemble. The one knife she'd had strapped to her ankle was long gone in the scuffle.

"Here."

Gil leaned her against the wall. As soon as she could catch her breath, he turned. He had the posture of a proper fighter, having had training for it in his years before the Academy. He could dodge and swerve, and he could land a punch so strong that bones could be heard cracking in his wake.

Thena watched as another body hit the ground with a solid thud. "You could use some restraint."

"Write me up for it later." She could almost accuse him of being sassy with his superior officer, if she could string her thoughts together. But as soon as she did, he had her leaning against him, hobbling towards the exit again. "You're not in any shape."

She couldn't really argue with that. Concussed certainly, maybe even a cracked rib or two. She gripped the back of Gil's jacket. "Don't go killing anyone...again."

"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about," Gil chuckled in a strained kind of way. He eased her against the wall at the sign of the first corner. He put his hand on her shoulder behind him.

Thena tried to see ahead of them, but it looked like they were behind three corners instead of just one. She blinked hard, hoping her vision would straighten out again.

Gil ran ahead. He had seen someone standing in the way of their escape. He ran up behind the poor bastard, not giving him any time to register their presence. He ducked low, especially for how tall he was. He grasped the man's knees from behind and then stood to his full height.

Thena made a face at the sound of the stranger's head against the concrete. She dragged herself over to Gil, not that he let her before swooping in to support her weak side. "What did I just say?"

"He's not dead." He sounded like he was complaining about that.

"You just got back in the field, don't give them a reason to fire you," she scolded. She had a point; this time they wouldn't just demote him or give him to a different unit as punishment. They would take him away from her permanently if they continued to act as rogues.

"They'll have to court martial me if something happens to you."

Overprotective; it was the only weakness she could ever manage to list for her second in command. Thena pressed her face into Gil's arm as a wave of pain pounded within her skull. That was her excuse, at least. "Please, Gil."

"Okay."

It took time for them to find their way out. Gil had to fight off more potential obstacles. Thena was usually the one observing him from the safety of a base of operations, not usually so up close and personal. It was something to see the strongest of them in action.

Gil had a reputation for a reason. He was a monster in the field. No one was a match for him. And while he was being a little more brutal than he needed to be, Thena couldn't deny that he was dispatching everyone without showing any real signs of fatigue.

Not that anyone but she would be able to pick that up, anyway.

Thena gripped his sleeve. "Your leg hurts. I can see it."

He had been shot less than three months ago, of course it hurt.

Gil wrapped his arm around her waist, hurrying them along the closer they seemed to be to their escape. "We'll both get checked out--happy?"

"When we get out of here," she concluded. It was possible her ankle was in less than prime condition, too.

"There!" Gil lifted his head. The light of the outside, even if it was just the yellow floodlights of the parking lot. It still meant freedom.

Thena looked around and then craned her neck to behind them. She didn't dare speak anything into fruition. All she managed was to give his back a light pat. "Come on, Agent."

Gil looked behind them, also wary of all the progress they'd made. "Sorry, sir."

"Hm?"

Thena grunted as Gil swept her up, hoisting her onto his arm and essentially sprinting with her in just one arm. Her body wrapped around him reflexively, resting on his arm and against his shoulder. "Gilgamesh!"

He had no answer, apparently determined to make a break for it with her in hand. It was faster, if nothing else, and he managed to cross the threshold and run down the ramp of the warehouse back entrance before turning sharply. They couldn't run clean across an open space, they needed the cover of dark.

Thena pressed her hand to the brick wall, angling herself to dampen the sound of Gil's increased breathing. She kept her head up, determined to keep watch for him, this time. "Call it in."

Gil, panting, tried his com. "Anyone?"

All they got was static. His receiver had gotten crushed somewhere, somehow.

Thena put her hand on the other side of Gil's head, still watching to see if a flood of suspects would come out that door in pursuit of them. Gil was still crouched down against the wall, exhausted from all he'd done to get them out. She was basically curled up on his lap, like an injured animal he was rescuing. "Let's go."

Gil grunted, really having to make an effort to pick himself up, and her, again. His back scraped up the wall from his efforts.

"You don't have to keep carrying me," she whispered at him, really kind of hissed it in his ear. Not that she would prefer if he were to fireman carry her, or have her slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"Forget it, Thena," he growled back at her, once again marching them into the dark, determined that her feet could not so much as touch the ground as long as he could help it. "Just let me take care of you, for once."

He had no idea how much he took care of her, just by showing up to headquarters each day.

They both breathed a sigh of relief as they made it across the road and could see the sides of the trucks hiding backup within them. Kingo, seeing them with his eagle eyes, leapt out of the passenger's seat, already making orders now that they were in sight.

Thena was barely conscious as Gil nearly collapsed with her in tow. Kingo caught them both. She could faintly hear the rest of their team, SWAT, the medics trying to ask questions. It sounded like everything was underwater.

She looked at Gil. He was in agony, dragging in breath, on his knees as medics tried loading him into the truck to transport off the scene. She got yanked with him, taking a few minutes to realise it was because his hand had hers in an ironclad grip.

Neither were exactly in a position to argue, though. They got loaded into the bus, medics poking and prodding at them. She could barely hear, still only see if she concentrated. She hated to imagine the shape Gil was in. She couldn't hear the questions they were asking her and when fingers were held up in her face she just shook her head.

"Gil," Ajak hissed, elbowing him.

"Surprised you came," Gil sighed, dragging his eyes up to his father's. "I thought you'd be too busy running the business to bother showing your face to your family."

"Do not abhor me so openly, Gilgamesh." His voice was deep, almost unsettlingly so. "It distresses your mother."

"Don't say a word about my mother," Gilgamesh seethed back at him.

Arishem raised his shoulders even more. "You are betrothed."

Thena steeled her nerves. She couldn't be sure if Arishem would speak directly to her or prefer just to talk about her like she wasn't here. But she squared her shoulders reflexively.

"And I didn't want you anywhere near her," Gil nearly spat through his teeth. "Yet another reason I was hoping you wouldn't show your face."

Arishem turned before Gil was even done speaking. He looked down his nose at Thena. She had never felt like a short woman, but she could see how a man like this could make anyone feel a foot tall. "You."

"Sir," she greeted formally but not indulgently. Gil had warned her that Arishem would try to get under her skin. "I am Gil's...fiance."

Arishem raised a single eyebrow, as if she had tried and failed to tell some joke. "Gil?"

"Your son?" she snapped back at him before she could stop herself. She didn't exactly have any reason to fear; according to their own priorities, the more he disliked her the better.

"Gilgamesh," Arishem enunciated as opposed to corrected her outright, "did fail to mention his betrothal."

"We do prefer to keep our relationship private," Thena answered smoothly, her hands clasped neatly in front of her. "And it was hardly timely to announce any such thing considering Sersi."

"You would base your relationship around my daughter's failed-"

"Sersi has not failed anything," Thena cut him off, not even needing to turn her head to hear Sersi's faint tremble of breath. "I rather think someone was never suitable for her in the first place."

"Would you know who suits a person for marriage?"

"What?" Thena frowned. Something in the air changed, colder, pricklier, like static before lightning. Her brow furrowed but Arishem stepped aside.

"I have needed to find a new assistant since my previous protege was found," Arishem made some expression that was maybe, almost a smile, "lacking."

Thena's eyes widened as someone stepped in behind Arishem, also tall, also wiry, also as frightening as a ghoul. "Kro."

"Thena," he greeted with a smile, cold and slimy, just the way she remembered it.

"How the hell did he find you?" she glowered.

Arishem chuckled as Gil rushed down the hall, pushing past him. "Your affianced seems quick to anger, Gilgamesh."

Thena tried not to look like she was staring down a rotting corpse in front of her. Gil appeared next to her, putting his arm on her shoulder. She couldn't even look at him to assure him she wasn't going to start screaming on the spot. She was stuck staring at Kro.

"Been a long time, Thee," Kro grinned at her, baring his teeth as if they were fangs. "Imagine my surprise when some big-wig contacts me about a place with him to learn the business. And he knows the woman who ran out on me."

"That is not-" she tried to interject before he could air absolutely everything from their past to all present.

"Abandoned me for everyone to mock," Kro continued, though. He made to lean down right in her face, just like he used to. Until a hand on his chest pushed him back.

"You mind not getting so close to my fiance?"

Thena gulped, finally feeling the weight of Gil's hand on her shoulder. He was gripping her, trying to get any sign that she could hear him. She turned her head faintly, leaning into him as much as she could for the moment. "Gil, th-this is-"

"A childhood sweetheart," Arishem interjected, bringing his presence into the forefront again. "As one might say. You were betrothed, were you not?"

Thena gulped, trying not to squirm under his heavy handed microscope. She gripped the back of Gil's shirt with all her strength.

"You are such a drama queen!" Gil announced, twice as loudly as anything that had happened as of yet. He looked at Kingo.

Kingo who picked up on his brother's distress immediately. "Yeah, this is less believable than my last soap opera! And I was the evil twin who was also the father!"

The family followed his lead. Ajak dropped her attempts at being civil and let him know what she thought of his entrance. Makkari jumped and waved her hands in her father's face, no matter how little attention he paid her. Sersi was lurking halfway between her mother and sister, glaring at her father but reserving her words for now.

Thena shivered as Gil whispered into her ear, "let's get out of here."

She managed to nod, letting him pull her away. Her eyes found Kro's briefly on their way out, but Gil managed to steer her off the front porch and around the side of the house. She gasped in fresh air, hoping it would calm her nerves.

"Thena, look at me," Gil whispered, putting his hands on her cheeks.

"I-I'm sorry," she gasped. There was so much she had to explain--to apologise for.

"Hey, hey," he whispered to her, kissing her cheek. "Just start slow, it's okay."

Thena sighed, leaning her forehead onto his shoulder. "Kro is...I never thought I would see him again."

"Honey," he cooed, doing his best to comfort something he couldn't even understand yet. "I'm sorry. I mean my dad's a rat-bastard, but I never thought he would do anything like dig up some...ex-boyfriend?"

Thena looked at Gil, making a funny mix of a smile and a grimace. She laughed through her building tears, leaning forward to kiss him. It was a much more pleasant feeling than the fear that had gripped her moments ago.

"Kro and I...his family knew my family," she sufficed to say with a heavy sigh. "We were acquainted, I suppose. And as we grew older, we grew closer."

Gil was patient as she squirmed and grimaced her way through it.

"But that was how I learned that I couldn't be with him, and that the life we would be sharing together was intolerable to me." Thena leaned against the side of the house, Gil's hands on her back to protect her white cardigan from its natural wood slat siding. "I never said any farewells. I left for secondary education here all but overnight. That's what he means when he says I abandoned him."

Gil puffed through his nose. "Guy's pride was hurt, so now he tells everyone you left him at the altar."

"Apparently so," she grumbled. "And your father somehow unearthed him just to see me squirm."

Gil pulled her into his arms, holding her head to his shoulder. "I'm sorry--I'm so sorry, Thena. I never thought he would do something this low. Well, not to someone who's not one of us."

She pulled back, taking a good look at the man she would marry come hell or high water. This was, perhaps, both of those. "I am one of you now, though, aren't I?"

Gil's face changed from agony to a begrudging kind of smile. He touched his forehead to hers. "You're pretty badass, you know that?"

"I've been told."

He laughed, and her chest tightened and then released at the sound. She had been missing it ever since discussing Gil's father last night. "That's my girl."

"Your fiance," she reminded him, and it didn't hurt to remind herself, either.

"Betrothed," he continued, taking her hands into his. "And he's not going to come anywhere near you again. Or his ugly little dog."

She could only hope Kro would be kept at arm's length from her, if not farther. But who knew what could happen now, with Arishem and even Kro added into the mix of drama already unfolding.

Gil leaned in to kiss her again, hovering close. "His efforts to throw us off aren't going to matter. We're going to get married, and they both can go right to hell."

"Gil, you're killing it, yet again," Kingo strolls in, taking his scarf off with quite a flourish. He whips it out behind him, nearly smacking Druig right in the face with it. "I blew off some pretty A-list parties to come here, y'know."

"Thanks for remindin' us," Druig mutters, pushing right past him to get Makkari inside.

Thena grabs the back of her red hoodie before she can trot right over to the food table. She points at her feet. Shoes.

Makkari gives her a grin that definitely works on Druig every time. Sorry Mom.

Thena doesn't even roll her eyes, just releases her friend to kick off her running shoes (the only kind of shoes she owns). She kicks them aside faintly to remove her low heels as well. Very adorably, Gil keeps extra house slippers and sandals for each of them.

"I'm just glad you guys are here! Can't eat all this myself."

Thena pads into the kitchen while everyone else heads right for the food spread, already chatting and catching up about the last few weeks spent without each other. Work and life simply keep them too busy, but Gil's place is always a safe spot for them to reconvene.

"Hey," he murmurs as he stirs his tteokguk. He takes a taste and then salts the broth.

"Hey," she says gently to him. He's watching the broth as he stirs his rice cakes, but he doesn't look up at her even as she hovers. "Gil."

He finally does, and her suspicions are confirmed. He didn't seem himself when he welcomed them in. It wasn't that it was less enthusiastic than usual, or that he seemed in poor spirits. He was just...off.

Thena takes a seat at his kitchen island. "Tell me."

He sighs, ready to give it up now that she's asked him directly. He glances over to their friends, gleefully conversing and stuffing their faces. But when he looks at her, she can see right through him. "Sorry--I didn't wanna be a buzzkill right when you showed up."

"What happened?" she prompts him. It's not like Gil to keep anything to himself, which tells her that this is a rather delicate subject. And for Gil, that can only be so many things.

"My aunt called," he concedes, setting aside his ladle and leaning against the edge of his fancy induction stove. He got this apartment almost entirely because of its fancy kitchen.

"Imo?" Thena asks, not that he has another aunt. But what she knows of the woman, is that she doesn't call often, unless it's to bug Gil about either visiting home, coming home to get married, or a combination of both.

He nods. "I told her I was going to call tonight, which she didn't believe, of course."

"Hm," Thena agrees faintly. She hopes she never has to meet this woman, in a way. In another way, she does hope to meet her, only to tell her to stop making Gil feels so bad about just living his life.

"Then she started right in with the visiting, and I'm getting too old to live alone, and shouldn't I get married, and-"

Thena just listens as Gil launches into a rant, half laden with Korean tinged profanity simply because he needs a word English just doesn't have. Or sometimes it does, but he says they don't always have the same feel as, for example, shibal (his favourite).

"Sorry," he sighs again, deflating completely.

Thena shakes her head. She knows how heavily his aunt weighs on his mind. Gil is too sweet for his own good, so when his aunt burdens him with her old fashioned views of how he should be living his life, he feels guilt over it. No matter how much Thena wishes he would say that he doesn't have to do whatever Imo wants him to.

"It's nothing new from her," he laments, finally pulling off his apron now that he seems to be done with preparing new dishes. "I dunno why it really got under my skin so much this time."

"Hm," Thena muses as he tosses his apron on the counter and comes around to sit next to her. "You were quite worried about what to send her as a gift this year."

"Well," he fidgets on his kitchen stool. He looks towards their friends, who have graciously excused their absence. It's not like it's unusual for them to be off chatting between the two of them. He leans closer to whisper, "she keeps bringing up me being single."

Thena raises her eyebrows fractionally. Imo is old fashioned, as she understands, so she's not entirely surprised that she wants her nephew to settle down and get married in a proper house. No matter how much Gil is liking his life as a chef in a city high-rise.

"Like, it's not just her telling me to get married, I know I'm overdue for that in her eyes," he mutters. He doesn't detect her quietly sliding over a dish of nuts he left out for snacking, but he grabs a healthy handful nonetheless. "But she's brought up how I don't even have a girlfriend at least the last three times she's called."

Thena takes just one walnut for herself while Gil scarfs them down. "You need to eat more while you're cooking."

He shrugs, telling her with a full mouth, "I graze."

She shakes her head at him, swiping away some crumbs as if he's a child, or Druig. "You make all this wonderful food, and do you even get any for yourself? Or do you let the monsters eat you out of house and home just to eat your own leftovers?"

He doesn't even keep the leftovers, he sends as much as he can with them when they leave. No matter how politely they might try to refuse, Makkari and Druig always end up walking out with containers upon containers of stuff.

Gil leans his cheek against his fist as she stands to serve some of his soup. "Bowls are-"

She does not need the instruction. It is a gesture of honour, she thinks of it. Gil is particular about his kitchen. He doesn't invite them over to help because he hates cooking with others. He doesn't even let them help serve things. So when he has no complaints about her dishing out bowls for them both, she doesn't take it lightly.

"I guess I realised...she's kind of right."

"You being single?" Thena feels the need to ask as she sets down their bowls. At least Gil can get some of his delicious food before Makkari challenges him to a drinking contest. Ikaris sometimes challenges him to arm wrestling if he has enough beers, but it always ends the same way.

"Yeah," Gil sighs, seeming genuinely bummed about it. "I mean, I don't even remember when my last date was."

Thena does. Sersi set it up, with a coworker of hers. When asked about it, Gil said she was nice, but there just wasn't any spark there. When asking Sersi, Thena learned that Gil hadn't been able to talk about much except how bad the restaurant had been. Which didn't surprise her, as someone who knew Gil, but she supposed wouldn't have been fun for Sersi's colleague.

"Maybe she's right, maybe I do need to start thinking about it more."

Thena raises a brow at him. She puts her spoon down, while Gil tips his bowl up to inhale his serving. He's famished. "About getting married?"

"I dunno," he all but whines, and she lets him. "I'm not getting any younger. And I did always think I would get married--I dunno, someday."

Of course he would. Gil is nothing if not loyal and devoted as a person. He's sweet at heart, loves love, is pretty positive as a person. He would make a great partner/husband.

"Imo really got to you," Thena remarks, trying to get more of a feel for just how depressed Gil is. He's never been this bothered about such things before. Even that year Imo told him that his cousin had gotten married and was the new pride of the family.

"I guess." He pushes his bowl away, although he doesn't get up to get more until he looks at her bowl just starting to get low. "I don't know why it got to me this time. It doesn't really matter, right?"

Thena doesn't comment on that, just watches as he dishes them up more soup. He gives her more rice cakes because he knows she likes how chewy they are. "Does it?"

"Does it?" he asks her, and she can feel him pleading with her. He gives her those big, warm, sad eyes. Like a dog being denied a treat. "Is it...sad?"

"That you're single?"

"Not that," he at least smiles a little. And he uses a spoon this time instead of drinking his soup like a pint. "Or maybe--I mean, I did always think I'd get married. But I guess I have to date for that to happen, right?"

Thena watches his frown return. "And what's the problem?"

He makes a face. It's not usually Gil at a loss for words and her prompting him to continue. But he scrunches his mouth, "what if I'm un-dateable?"

"Gil."

He squeezes his eyes shut and scrubs his face. "I don't really like going out to eat, unless it's a place I know I like. And new places I can, uh, be a little hard on, I guess."

The only time Thena had ever heard Gil be negative or harsh in any way was when it was about a restaurant with lacklustre offerings.

"I don't really have a normal schedule," he continues to narrate the 'negatives' of his dating life. "And I don't even really wanna meet someone new right now."

"So don't."

He laughs, and at least he thinks she's funny. He's always saying she's funny, but Thena really doesn't know if anyone else could say that. "That's easy to say, I guess. I'm pretty good at it, it seems."

Thena isn't sure about that. She knows at least a few friends of Sersi's and Makkari's have asked about their 'hot chef friend'. They had told her, and Thena in turn had told Gil, which only ever made him laugh.

He looks at her point blank. "Do you think I'm unmarriable?"

"No, Gil, I don't think that."

He sighs, still forlorn, but with a faint smile. "That makes someone, at least."

"Gil, I'm serious."

"Tell that to Imo," he leans back in his stool, almost so far back she's worried he'll fall. But he leans forward just to down the rest of his second bowl.

"I will."

Finally, he looks at her. And Gil isn't the only one who needs some resolution tonight. But Thena makes herself hold his gaze. "Huh?"

"I would," she corrects, but stands her ground. "I'll happily tell your aunt that there's nothing wrong with your current track in life, married or not."

Gil's smile is so soft it always melts something inside of her without even trying. He puts an arm around her shoulder, giving her as much of a hug as she can usually tolerate from even her nearest and dearest. "Thanks, Thena."

Her eyes flutter as he presses his lips to her temple.

"I know you would, 'cause you're the best," he chuckles as he finally pulls out a plate for himself.

"And you're far from unmarriable."

He looks at her, curious as to what is prompting her to continue. It's still defiant of their usual dynamic, him curious as to what's causing her to trip over her words.

"You're more eligible than you think, Gil," Thena sighs, this time. Every year Imo gets Gil down about his relationship status, and for the last two years at least, Thena has wondered what would happen if she offered to rectify that, if only Gil could see the option in front of him.

"Huh?" he just blinks at her.

She puts her bowl down, too frustrated to just drop it this time. "Anyone would be lucky to have you. You're sweet, you're funny, you're such a good cook I can't go out to eat anymore because of you."

"Uh," he blinks as she clenches her fists, looking up at him more than usual in her bare feet. "S-Sorry-"

"And if she's going to give you a hard time about being single you're just going to have to tell her it's by choice," Thena huffs as she feels her face grow warmer and warmer. "Because I don't know how much more obvious I can be."

Gil is just staring at her with a totally open jaw.

Thena could roll her eyes if she didn't want to yell at him so much. But she grabs him by the t-shirt and yanks him down to her level. It's not exactly counting down to midnight yet, but she's been waiting for years now, she can't let this go on another year.

Gil leans into the kiss immediately, folding around her. For all his shock, he holds her like they've always been doing this, his arm at her waist and his hand finding its way into her hair.

The man is far too good a kisser to be whining about being single. Thena pushes against his chest to extract herself. She touches her lips to make sure she doesn't look like she's jumped him when she goes to get some food for herself.

"Call her back."