"Think we'll ever kiss like that?" Maurice said, as he and Holly slowly skated on the ice that hung in midair over the town. "What?" he said, when she laughed.
"When we kiss, I want to keep kissing. I don't want to blow out the entire power grid of the town and then pass out and lose the entire day." Her smile turned wistful. "Or night."
"True." He shifted his hold on her, unlinking their arms so he could wrap his arm around her waist and draw her closer against him. "It's just...the look in their eyes, in that split second when we were trying to pull them apart and it seemed like they were coming up for air. It was like 'Yeah, this is it, what I spent my whole life looking for.' Kind of made the misery worth it. And I'm messing up what we've got, right?"
"No. Not really. I think about how long we have to wait until we can be together for real. And I wonder sometimes if this is just a dream after all." Holly tipped her head to rest on his shoulder as they skated lazy circles above the town square, where children dressed in red and green built enormous snowmen almost tall enough to reach up to the ice hanging high above them. "Sometimes, when I'm awake...I get fragments of memories of...this."
"You think? Maybe the spell is wearing thin, or at least shifting a little bit?"
"Since you're the expert on magic, not me, I have no idea." She laughed when he groaned and looked away, his face burning with embarrassment.
"The thing is, Will was looking for answers for me, since I'm denied access to some major Fae information sources." He shook his head and tugged his arm free, catching hold of her hand and spinning her around in a pirouette that shot off sparks where her skates touched the ice.
Holly laughed. As the spin slowed, she grabbed hold of him, jolting to a stop, nearly pulling them both off their feet. Laughing, they kissed. Soft, quick, sweet kisses that sent rainbow-streaked sparks shooting off from them in all directions and pierced the ice below them.
"We better stop before we melt through," Maurice whispered, and kissed Holly again.
"In answer to your question." She sighed in contentment as he wrapped his arms around her and tucked her head under his chin. "I like every kind of way we kiss. And I kind of feel sorry for Will and Phill."
"How?" His voice cracked with incredulity.
"That kiss...it's kind of like a fuse finally broke. Or maybe it finally opened up. They've been coming to Neighborlee for years, best pals, but they never realized what I saw in that kiss--they're meant to be together. They won't be whole without each other. They have to fight against anything that comes at them, to stay together."
"That's exactly how I feel about you, Holly Berry, but I don't have a clue how we can get around this big problem," Maurice whispered, and pressed a kiss into the top of her head.
"I'm glad you have this problem."
"Huh?"
She laughed and snuggled even closer, if that were possible. "If you weren't under exile, if you weren't shrunk down and invisible to most people, would you even have come to Neighborlee, much less noticed me?"
"Hey, now that's not-- Well, yeah, I guess it's a fair question. And yeah, even though I thought I was a crusader for the little guy, I guess I was a little shallow." He oophed when she poked him in the ribs with two fingers. "Okay, a lot, mega-shallow. I probably wouldn't have, the way I was before."
"Just think of yourself as a world champion runner, the fastest man in the world. You broke your leg, and now you have to limp along with a cast, and you're finally seeing all the scenery you raced past without looking."
"You're more than scenery, Holly Berry."
"I just can't help wondering..." She sighed and shook her head, and pressed her face against the fuzzy front of his sweater.
"What?"
"Maybe...maybe you're not there when I'm awake because when you get free..."
"There's not enough magic in the entire world--both worlds, Human and Fae--to make me forget you when my exile is over and I'm back to normal. They could only change my body and limit my magic, but they couldn't change my head and my heart." He pushed her out to arm's length and lifted her so she stood on her toes and had to meet him eye-to-eye. "I had to change my own head and heart, Holly Berry, and nothing will make me forget you or walk away. I promise." He swallowed hard. "If I have to, I'll give up all my magic, I'll give up my long life and live a Human lifespan, so I can stay here with you. I swear."
"Really? You'd give all that up? For me?" Tears sparkled in her eyes, turned gold and silver and green, and didn't fall.
"Sweetheart, who says I'm giving up anything? Seems like I'm trading up, big time." Maurice shook her a little, and when she laughed, her voice a little broken, he drew her up tight against him. They kissed until streamers of light shot out from them in all directions and the icy fantasy version of Neighborlee melted away.
* * * *
Holly opened her eyes, curled up in her bed, and sighed, feeling Maurice's arms tight around her and his kiss warm and soft on her lips.
Her eyes popped open as she realized she did remember him, everything about their dream. Gasping, feeling her heart racing, she sat up and looked around. Her bedroom looked entirely too normal. It was Sunday morning, December twenty-third, and she remembered...
What did she remember? Sighing, she closed her eyes and lay back down. Whatever it had been, whatever she had been dreaming when she woke up, it must have been incredible. She could almost cry from the sense of tearing loss. And yet... She smiled and wrapped her arms around herself. Maybe she would have the same dream tonight, when she went to bed?
* * * *
"Lori? Are you there?" Brick pounded on the door of Lori's hotel room. He gave himself points for waiting until eight in the morning, so he wouldn't disturb the other guests in the Neighborlee Arms. Or rather, not disturb them too much.
He had haunted the hotel dozens of times each day since she vanished, hoping to catch sight of her. It had taken almost that much time begging, bribing, threatening, finally pleading on his hands and knees, before he found the one person on staff who pitied him, and had seen him with Lori and thought they made a good couple. That person had called last night and reported that Lori and another male guest had brought Will and Phill in and were holed up in their rooms, taking care of them.
Brick was reassured, knowing Lori was busy taking care of Will and Phill. He had heard about the light show and power outage and something strange happening at Jeri and Jon-Tom's wedding. He was also worried. Who was the other guest at the Neighborlee Arms, who knew Lori well enough to team up with her to take care of Will and Phill? He kicked himself a dozen times over for not attending the wedding. He could have caught up with Lori there.
Who was this man Lori had met up with? Brick imagined Lori being so hurt by his stupid jealousy, she had turned to someone else for comfort. He couldn't imagine her doing it just to punish him.
"Yeah, and how did you come to that conclusion after accusing her of only being after your money?" he snarled, even as he clung to that belief. He raised his fists and pounded them against her door again. "Lori? Please? Talk to me?"
She was there. She had been there all night. Brick's contact at the hotel assured him that she hadn't left.
Of course, that really wasn't much assurance, considering how Lori had vanished into thin air when he was with her.
"Do you mind?" Lori whispered loudly--from the room across the hall and one door down. She glared at him, when Brick could only whip around so fast he nearly fell off his feet, and stared at her. "There are people trying to sleep. I have sick people here."
"Lori. I've been worried sick about you. I'm sorry. I was a total jerk. I shouldn't have said it. I shouldn't even have been thinking what I was thinking." Brick stumbled down the hall and grabbed at the hand that held the door open.
He wasn't ashamed to admit that he looked over her shoulder, into the hotel room, and saw Phill sprawled across the bed, white-faced, with a green Neighborlee Arms monogrammed washcloth on her forehead. And no one else in the room.
"You're right, you shouldn't have." She sighed, and some of her sternness faded. "And I'm to blame for some of that."
"No--"
"I've been keeping secrets from you. Big secrets." Lori rubbed at her face with the hand Brick wasn't holding. He gave himself points that she didn't tug her hand free. Or worse, slap him with it. "We need to talk. But I'm busy with Phill."
"I heard a little about the wedding yesterday. How is she? How's Will?"
"If you could help Harry with Will, that would be great. I think they'll both be awake soon, and hopefully sitting up by lunchtime." She shook her head and glanced over her shoulder at Phill. "I've never seen anything like it before."
"What happened?" He offered an apologetic grin. "Or is that something I shouldn't ask?"
"You should be able to ask and get honest answers," she said softly. "If we're going to...to make anything of what we've built up between us these last few weeks, we have to talk. But later, okay?"
"Sure. You got it. Anything you want." He looked up and down the hall. "Umm, you said to take care of Will? Where is he?"
"I asked you to help Harry with Will. And he's in the next room." She pointed up the hall. A tiny spark shot off the tip of each finger of that hand. "Harry will be expecting you. In fact, I think he's kind of relieved. He has someone he needs to take care of."
"Can I ask who Harry is?" Brick took one step backwards, heading for Will's room.
"Harry is from the same place Will and Phill and I are from. And from what I've picked up, he's on the verge of being head-over-heels with someone who lives here in Neighborlee."
"If that's your diplomatic way of telling me I'm a moron for being jealous, thanks."
"I don't let anybody call the man I love a moron," she said, trying to be stern, but only managing a teary, trembling smile.
"Did you say--" Brick stepped back toward her. Lori stopped him with two fingers pressed against his lips.
"We'll talk tomorrow. All day. I promise. Now go help Will."
"Ma'am. Yes, Ma'am." Brick saluted, earning a giggle from her, and hurried down the hall.
The door opened when he was two steps away. He realized he had seen Harry before, when he was driving around with Lori. Harry looked up from where he bent over Will, pulling back one eyelid. He grinned and nodded to Brick.
"You're saving my life. Bethany's been waiting since last night, and I hate leaving poor Will alone like this. Thanks." The jacket that had been lying tossed across the other bed, and the shoes that had been on the floor on the other side of the room, suddenly appeared on Harry. He grinned when Brick's mouth dropped open. "Lori says you're getting the full truth treatment tomorrow, so I figure, save myself some time. Thanks!"
Harry vanished with a soft popping sound and a blip of green light, just at the moment Brick realized his ears had definite points.
"Okay, that explains a few things." He swallowed hard, wishing he hadn't braced himself with the lumberjack breakfast special at Hunky & Dory's. He sat down on the end of the bed where Will was a limp, pale lump. "Magic, right? Real magic. Or else I'm drugged." He swallowed hard again. "Hey, how did Lori tell him when there wasn't time for her to call..."
Will groaned, rolled over, and let out a long, rattling snore.
Brick decided to take that as a good sign.
* * * *
"Thank goodness this happened in Neighborlee, instead of somewhere else where we'd have the entire FBI, CIA, CTU, NCIS and real-life Mulders and Scullys come pouring down on us," Phill grumbled. She sat up in the bed, letting the damp cloth slide off her forehead. It hit the mattress and tumbled to the floor with a soft, sodden plop.
"Angela assured me that Neighborlee's resident mass amnesia field would smooth over memories and questions," Lori said. She held out her hand and a glass of fizzing magenta liquid popped into it. "Here. This will cure what ails you."
"What does ail me, exactly? And is Will okay?" Phill reached for the glass. Missed. Closed one eye and tried again.
"I haven't checked the Ether Lexicon, but I don't think I have to. Not with all the research I've done, bracing to fight against my relatives." Lori settled on the end of the bed and frowned, waiting until Phill tipped the glass back and drained it.
"Oh, that's awful."
"It is not. I made it your favorite flavor and twice as strong as necessary."
"Not the taste." Phill stuck her tongue out, then winced and pressed her hand against the back of her head while holding out her other hand with the glass. "The feeling of all those bubbles going to work inside my head." She sighed. "So, is Will okay?"
"The last I checked with Harry, he was pretty much progressing like you."
"So what's wrong with us?"
"My diagnosis is a massive case of Need denied."
"Huh?" She stuck her tongue out again when Lori giggled. "We don't have Need."
"Think about it, you dope. Need is there to draw two people together--you and Will have always been together. You want to be together. Right?"
"Absolutely."
"Need is to glue people together until they can make the soul bond, but you and Will are bound together already. My theory is that you never went into identifiable, physical Need because Will has always been there, and hasn't been resisting at all. So there was no Need to turn on the superconductor magnet, to use some Human terminology."
"And use it badly." Phill rubbed once more at the back of her head and sighed. "Considering what you did for my aching head, I'm willing to consider you a doctor and take the diagnosis. So, what about last night?"
"A long overdue linkage, to put it simply."
"To put it mildly, and understate it to the hundredth power. Wow. Did we really knock out all the lights?" A slow smile unfroze the aching muscles in her face.
Lori rolled her eyes and grimaced, and a moment later they both burst out laughing. Phill snuggled down in the blankets again, after plumping her pillow.
"Okay, then we get our happily ever after, despite all the dire predictions of both our relatives. Can you believe, that ninny was ready to walk away, because someone convinced him that since I hadn't gone into Need, he must be interfering, and that meant I might die?"
"True love?"
"I can accept that diagnosis, too." She stretched luxuriously. "I'm wiped, but feeling a thousand percent better already. So... Now that my problems are all solved, we need to concentrate on you."
"Hmm, maybe."
"Maybe?" She snatched at Lori's hand when her friend got up to walk away from the bed. "What's that smirk for?"
"Brick was here."
"You were making out with him while I was lying here, dying?"
"We did not make out, and there was no chance of you dying." Lori pouted, eyes sparkling with mischief, and sank down on the end of the bed again. "He came to apologize and beg me to forgive him and... I promised I'd tell him everything tomorrow."
"Everything? As in...everything?" Phill whistled softly and low. "You think he can handle it?"
"He has to, if we have any chance. At least the fact that he's from Neighborlee and he's kinda-sorta used to this kind of thing should... Well, not prepare him, but cushion the shock a little."
"A little." She sighed. "I hoped it works out for you two. Really. He's a great guy. And you need someone spectacular."
"As in... Need?" Lori giggled when Phill grimaced at her again, and squealed the next moment when the pillow slipped out from under Phill and swung at her. She ducked and called up a pillow three times bigger from her bedroom back home. In moments, a pillow fight reigned, augmented with swirls and sparks and streamers of magic in every color conceivable.
* * * *
"Take my advice. If you're as stuck on Lori as I am on Phill, you can't let anything get in the way. Grab the one who's right for you, no matter what, and hold on tight." Will levered himself upright, then slid out from under the blankets and tottered across the floor to the bathroom.
"I already figured that out," Brick said. He tapped the in-room coffeemaker, willing it to brew faster. He needed coffee just as much as Will seemed to. "So, Lori said she'd tell me everything tomorrow."
"Everything? As in...everything everything?" Will paused in the doorway of the bathroom. His color looked better, just getting upright.
"Everything that she's had to keep secret from me. Is that bad or good?"
"Good. Definitely. I think, living in Neighborlee, you might just be able to handle it."
"Handle what, exactly?" Brick thought back to what he had seen Harry do, what he had heard about the power outage last night. "Will, is magic real?"
"There's magic, and there's magic. What kind are you talking about?"
"Will!" He regretted making the light hanging from the ceiling vibrate, but didn't apologize, even when Will winced and bent over slightly, holding his head between his hands as if it would burst open.
"Okay, crash course. Give you something to think about." Will straightened and held out his hand. A giant Slurpee-sized glass filled with a fizzing, violent purple liquid appeared in his hand. He drank it down, though it took nearly two minutes to chug it all. Sparks spun out from his ears and the ends of his hair and Will turned that same violent shade of purple before a burst of steam exploded from seemingly every pore in his body.
He sagged, smiling in relief. "Yeah, that did the trick." He opened his eyes and his smile turned to a smirk. "And yeah, there's magic. Phill and Lori and me, we're magic. It's in our blood. We're Fae. And there's a lot of magic soaked into the ground and air here in Neighborlee, so that might just make things easier on the two of you. If you want to be together."
"Yeah. Together. Forever." Brick swallowed and finally let out the breath he had been holding since the glass appeared in Will's hand. "Tell me everything."
"Everything. Okay. Got all day?"
"I got all the time in the world, when it comes to making sure Lori and I are together, permanently."
"Is that your final answer?" He grinned, snapped his fingers, and the next moment appeared fully dressed and sitting at the table on the other side of the room, with plates full of every breakfast food imaginable covering the table. "Want to bring that coffee over and pull up a chair? We got a lot of talking to do, and you're gonna need all the energy you can get."
* * * *
"Anything?" Mr. Miller said, when Harry popped into the living room. The expectant look fell off his face a moment later. "Are you all right?"
"I've been up all night taking care of a sick friend." Harry shrugged. "How's Bethany?"
"I'm fine," Bethany said.
He narrowed her location down to somewhere in the far corner of the living room. Judging from the slight depression in the couch and the decimated bag of peanut butter M&Ms, Harry guessed she had curled up there to watch TV and drown her sorrows.
"The problem is," she continued, "I've run out of witty euphemisms for being invisible."
"I swear, honey, if it wasn't an emergency last night, I would have been here the whole time. I did get a lot of reading in while Will was unconscious. Which was a lot." Harry gave Mr. Miller a pleading look.
"Give the boy a break, Bethie." He got up and gestured at the kitchen. "I'm gonna whip us up some lunch, then I recommend you let him get a good chunk of sleep. I may not know much about magic, but it makes sense that he won't do you a lick of good if he's dead on his feet."
Harry thanked Mr. Miller with a nod and a grin and started across the room. It made his head ache to call up enough magic to find Bethany and throw his anti-invisibility spell around her. Then he thought of something before he did it.
"You are dressed, aren't you?" He halted just in front of the coffee table, with it between him and the couch where Bethany was sitting.
"What kind of a question is that?" She laughed, and the sound came from his right. So he was wrong--she had gotten up from the couch.
"I'm going to make you visible, and I don't want to embarrass you."
"No. Whatever this magic is, it's creating a field around me so everything I'm holding and wearing becomes invisible with me, but anything I let go of becomes visible again. Which could be convenient if I wanted to become a cat burglar, and when I couldn't care less about fashion."
"Bethany, I'm so sorry."
"You look awful, Harry. How much energy does it take up to make yourself visible?"
"I don't know. It's unconscious now--except when I'm actually unconscious, rather than sleeping. Then everything gets reversed and I'm visible until I wake up and think about being visible and then the invisibility sets in again."
"And when we kiss. Then that negates... Hmm." She grabbed hold of his arm.
Harry let her lead him to the couch. He was about to protest that she had shoved him down into her seat, but then Bethany settled herself on his lap.
"Is that better? You know exactly where I am, and I feel a little more real and... Ah ha!" She giggled as she became a transparent, Bethany-tinted and Bethany-shaped mist. "I thought so. If the invisibility wrapped around me when we were close, then I figured the anti-invisibility would work just as well."
"You're a genius. You do the thinking for both of us from now on." Harry wrapped his arms around her and sighed in complete contentment when Bethany rested her head on his shoulder. Snuggling together for the rest of their lives, just like this, suited him just fine.
"Just how much energy does it take up, fighting the invisibility?" she asked after a few minutes of blissful, restful quiet. The sounds of her father opening cupboards and the refrigerator and chopping something came clearly from the kitchen.
"I don't know. It is a drain, I know that. Why?"
"You could just let yourself become invisible while you're indoors. Turn it off completely when you go lie down after lunch."
"Uh huh. And you wouldn't feel so alone?"
"I'm not alone. You're here," she said in a very quiet, small voice.
"Bethany... Okay, I'm gonna have to back up a little and explain all about the emergency that dragged me away last night before I can say this right. I came to a realization last night. I'm probably moving too fast, but after I saw how miserable Will and Phill made themselves and what happened last night...Okay, here goes."
"Wait. Will and Phill? That emergency last night was them? Dad's been getting bits of gossip. Of course, the way things work in Neighborlee, whatever explanations people are coming up with aren't anywhere near the truth. What did they do? What happened to them? Are they okay?"
"They're fine. Or they will be, when they wake up." Harry pressed two fingers against her lips, stopping her when she opened her mouth to speak again. He could see dozens of questions in her eyes. "Just listen, okay?"
Bethany glared at him, teasing--he didn't realized until that moment how glad he was to be able to see her glare at him--but she nodded. Harry took a deep breath, scooched around on the couch to get a little more comfortable, and let spill the whole tale of Will and Phill's explosion at the wedding reception. Then he explained the theory he and Lori had batted back and forth while they tended their unconscious charges.
"So the thing is, I figured, no matter what people say, no matter what stands in the way, no matter how weird the circumstances--"
"And in Neighborlee, everything is pretty weird, at one time or another," Bethany interjected. She giggled when he pressed four fingers against her mouth this time.
"When you find the one and you can't imagine living life without her, you tell her and hope she's willing to put up with all the trouble and work, because it'll be worth it in the end. So I figure, you're the one for me, Bethany, and I'll spend the rest of my life proving I'm the one for you." Harry braced himself, took his fingers off her lips, and waited.
"So..." She tipped her head to one side. "Are you sneaking up on saying you love me?"
Harry groaned, closed his eyes, and let his head drop against the back of the couch. "This is why I've been in this mess all my life with the invisibility. I forget the simplest and most important part of everything. Yes, I love you. Forever and always. Even if you can't become a Changeling. Even if we have to use an anti-invisibility spell for the rest of our lives. I'll stay out here in the Human world with you, if you want. Or I'll take us to the Fae realms for the rest of our lives, if you want to get away from Hollywood and the paparazzi. Or we can settle here in Neighborlee. Whatever you want to do."
"What about what you want, Harry?" she whispered, pressing her little hands against both sides of his face and looking into his eyes.
"I want to make you happy." He laughed. "I want you all to myself until the end of time, but that's pretty selfish, so--"
"Not selfish. Because that's how I feel about you, too. Despite everything." She giggled as she tipped her head slightly to the left and brought her lips to within a sixteenth of an inch of his. "Oh, yeah. I love you, too."
Harry thought maybe he had a small taste of that magical sonic boom that shook Neighborlee yesterday when Will and Phill kissed for the first time. Bethany's taste and scent and the feel of her in his arms and the rhythm of her pulse sank into him. Waves of magical energy shot out of him, rolling through the ground and the atmosphere and making the slits into other dimensions rattle and leak for a few micron-bursts. He didn't care. All that mattered was Bethany safe in his arms and the sweetness of her spirit flooding into him, merging with his, tangling together, melting together.
If this is what happens with a true love kiss... I am a dead man when we get to the stronger stuff.
"I can hear what you're thinking," Bethany whispered, giggling softly, against his lips.
"You two want to wait until after there's a ring on her finger before you go any further?" Mr. Miller called from the kitchen.
"Sorry, Daddy!"
"Uh, sir, I should have probably--" Harry began.
"If you're asking my blessing, you have it." Mr. Miller laughed. "Lunch is ready. Why don't you two come up for air and come get something to eat? Bethie, go out to the spare fridge and get my homemade pickles and corn relish, okay?"
"Oh, that's a good sign." Bethany slid off Harry's lap. It took all his self-control to open his arms and let her go. "Daddy's homemade stuff is only saved for special occasions. He wouldn't feed it to you unless he approved."
She winked at him and scurried out through the kitchen. Harry couldn't quite lever himself up from the couch until he heard the door into the garage open and close. He felt good, but kind of hollow at the same time. He knew he was tired, but there was a buzzing tingle or a fizzing in his blood that made him think he could keep going for a few more hours before he collapsed into a coma. That was Bethany's own brand of magic, he was sure.
"Welcome to the family," Mr. Miller said, as Harry shuffled into the kitchen. He glanced over his shoulder at him and nodded toward the kitchen table. "Better sit down, son, before you're face-down."
Bethany screamed, and there was a crash of breaking glass and the splat of something liquid on cement. Harry and Mr. Miller nearly got jammed up in the garage doorway in their struggle to get out to her first.
She stood in the middle of a puddle of broken jars and dill pickles and yellow-and-green-and-red bits, holding out her arms and staring at them. She wore a ratty pair of blue sweatpants with holes in the knees, and a faded, bleach-spotted matching sweatshirt, and holey sneakers on her feet. Harry wasn't sure why he made note of what she was wearing. He was probably too exhausted to think clearly.
"Bethie--I can see you," Mr. Miller blurted.
Oh, yeah, that was it. She was visible, and she wasn't inside Harry's anti-invisibility field.
"The kiss," Harry said. "The kiss cured you."
"Uh, yeah." Bethany took several cautious steps out of the puddle of glass and spilled preserves, and let her father wrap his arms around her. "That kiss could raise the dead. I utterly believe it."
They found out some time later that his announcement wasn't quite accurate. By the time they got the corn chowder and pickles and broken glass picked up, and they sat down to eat lunch, Bethany grew transparent around the edges. The transparency had gained dominance by the time they finished eating. Harry realized that the same thing was happening to him. He gave himself a headache trying to give his anti-invisibility spell a boost.
"I think maybe we're in synch," Bethany said. "Let's see how visible we are after you've had your nap and you're back up to strength."
"If that's true." Harry wobbled a little as he got up from the table, and nearly dropped the dish he was trying to take to the sink.
"Off to bed with you, son," Mr. Miller said. "You're no good to me here. In fact, you're a hazard. Both of you. We'll be tripping all over each other with you two invisible."
"If that's true," Harry repeated, slower this time, because even his tongue felt thick and heavy and half-asleep, "then you gotta marry me."
"Marry you?" Bethany blushed. And interestingly enough, that fought the transparency, washing color through her from head to foot. "Are you--"
"Very serious. Marry me, Bethany Miller? I love you more than anything or anyone in the entire world. In both worlds. In the whole universe. In--"
"The boy's loopy with fatigue," Mr. Miller scolded, turning around from the sink, where he was up to his elbows in suds. "You've caught him, Bethie. Nice and secure. Now take care of him."
Harry liked the sound of that: Bethany taking care of him. He could barely stand up straight, but that was all right, because she wrapped an arm around him and led him to the guest bedroom. He collapsed like a house of cards in a stiff breeze when she pushed him onto the bed. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, just to be sure, but there were two, maybe three or four of her in the room now, and he wasn't sure which one he was talking to. Bethany leaned down to kiss him goodnight. He closed his eyes, sighed, and thought about complaining that there was only a fizzy tingle as their lips met. He fell asleep before the thought finished.
* * * *
"That's for you," Phill said, when Lori came out of the bathroom.
"What's for me?"
A knock came on the door. Phill patted her on the arm, winked, then the next moment changed her pajamas and robe into ski clothes.
"We're heading to the Alps. It's beautiful this time of year. Merry Christmas!" Phill added, and blinked out before Lori could say more than, "We?"
The knock came on the door again.
"Are you gonna get that?" Will said, his voice echoing slightly as it slid through several dimensional doorways.
Lori muffled a few choice words on interfering half-wits who couldn't see what was obvious to everyone else in the known universe. She stomped across the room to answer the door.
"I'm coming!" she shouted, when a third knock came, a little louder and faster this time. "What's the--" Her voice caught in her throat as she yanked the door open and found Brick standing there, looking a little frantic.
"Look, I know it's not tomorrow, and I know you can zap me into next week, literally, but--"
"How do you know?" Lori backed up. He followed her into the room and kicked the door closed behind him.
"Will spent the entire afternoon giving me an education on the Fae facts of life. I sure hope that's what you were going to explain to me tomorrow."
"Uh...yeah. Kind of slowly. Sort of take it one step at a time, to see how well you could take it."
"I think I took it okay." He caught hold of her hands, effectively stopping her from backing right into the bathroom. "A couple times I wanted to go running for the hills, but yeah, I get the whole picture."
"What stopped you?"
"From running?" Brick tugged hard, effectively yanking her off balance so she fell forward, right into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her. "You."
"Yeah?" Lori decided she'd be an idiot to struggle, even if it was a matter of pride. Caught in Brick's arms was exactly where she wanted to be. She and Phill had spent the afternoon talking about all the problems she would have, especially if Brick didn't have any Fae blood in his background, and how to resolve or at least work around those problems. Then the last hour, they had discussed how to break the news to Brick and what she should do if he proved hard to get.
Obviously he wasn't going to be hard to get at all--because judging by the tightness of his arms around her, he was 'got' already, and he was worried about 'getting' her.
Lori considered making him worry, just for a few seconds, then tossed the thought aside.
"Good. Because I'd chase you wherever you went. Even to other worlds."
"Let's talk about our travel plans later." Brick lifted her up against him, so she stood on her toes, and kissed her.
Lori was pretty sure she heard a few muffled magical sonic booms, but that could have been the thudding of her heart. She was definite about the buzzing of magic that shot out through her feet and sank down roots into the magic-soaked soil of Neighborlee, and then came up again to meet Brick's magic roots--yes, he definitely had some Fae blood. Faint to the point of being nearly invisible, but it was there. That solved a few problems--and any legitimate complaints and roadblocks her conniving, matchmaking, dynasty-building relatives might throw in her way.
"Stay here," Brick whispered, when they came up for air a good ten minutes later.
They were also hovering a good ten inches above the floor, more proof that he had some magic of his own, latent up until this point. Lori put that little lesson aside for later.
"Stay here in Neighborlee. Will explained all your problems back home. Stay here and be part of our magic. Please? Oh yeah." Brick grinned, but just for a second Lori saw panic flash in his eyes. "I love you, Angeloria."
"What a coincidence," she whispered, and tipped her head to the side for a better angle. "I love you too."
Stay? He flinched only a little when his thoughts slid up against hers.
Forever.
* * * *
"Someday," Maurice whispered, holding Holly close as they listened to the clock in the center of town make the first strike of midnight and reverberate through her dreams. "Someday we'll have forever."
"All I care about is making sure we do everything today that we planned," she said, and glanced up at the mistletoe and holly filling the roof of the gazebo in the center of town. "Add this to our list? We'll come back here tomorrow when I'm awake, and kiss for luck?"
"If you let me. After all, we've only met a couple times while you're awake. If I try to kiss you, you might punch my lights out."
"Then I'll kiss you right now," she said, and went up on her tiptoes to kiss Maurice as the clock hit the ninth stroke. She dug her fingers into his arms and kissed hard on strokes ten and eleven.
Maurice vanished, feeling her fingers still gripping his arms, on the stroke of midnight.