Steve knew the instant she fell asleep but he finished the movie anyway. He turned off the TV and briefly considered waking her up and sending her back to the main house. Then he remembered she didn't have any shoes, he didn't want to go out in the cold again. He considered easing out from under her, making sure she was covered and letting her spend the rest of the night on the couch, but it felt wrong. He thought for a moment, thinking about how much better he’d slept the night before, with her in his arms, than he had in longer than he could remember. He wondered how much better he might sleep somewhere comfortable, as he moved them both until he would be able to sleep, then closed his eyes.  

* * *

Steve eased out the front door, closing it as gently as he could. He was trying not to wake her. Stepping silently off the porch, he headed for the main house. He needed to talk to Nick. Knowing the Khan would be up already, he let himself inside. He fixed himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table without a word. 

"Well?" the clan leader asked. 

"Stupid teenagers fighting over a girl." Steve rolled his eyes.

"All ours?" 

"Yeah." 

"You break them up and tell their parents?"

"Took ‘em to speak to all three sets of parents then delivered ‘em to their homes." 

The clan leader nodded, "Any trouble?"

"Not really."

"What's that under your eye?" Nick motioned to Steve's face.

"Oh," Steve reached up and touched what remained of the wound from the night before. "I took a hit while breaking ‘em up. It's nothing." 

Nick lifted one brow and hit the light switch on the wall beside him, throwing light into the kitchen and making Steve duck away from the sudden glare. "I might believe it was nothing and you’d just been bruised, if it weren't for that nearly healed cut under your eye."

Steve looked down, knowing he was going to have to confess. It wasn't that he was hiding something, he just hadn't wanted to advertise it. There was no way to hide that he'd been near Jade recently. He could smell her scent on his skin and he knew that the Khan could too. 

He took a deep breath and explained, "It was after midnight by the time I got in. I knew you’d be asleep so I headed home. I was almost to my place when I heard Jade open the back door. I stopped to talk to her and she saw the cut. She wasn't dressed to be outside, especially as cold as it was last night, so I took her to my place. When we got there she took a good look at the cut and the next thing I knew, it felt different. When I checked, it had scabbed over, healed more than it would have in a couple days. When I asked her about it, she said she has some healing talent, it's not strong, but the more she uses it the more it grows." 

Nick looked at Steve a moment, his expression giving nothing away, then out the window into the darkness. "It would be nice to have a healer in the clan. How are things going otherwise, between the two of you?"

"I don't know." 

"You don't know?" Nick seemed amused.

"I don't know if I can do it," he clarified.

Nick was confused, "If you can do what?" 

"If I can let this continue," he sounded miserable, even to himself. 

"Why not? Is the instinct not there? Don't you like her?" 

"I like her, and yes," Steve nodded, "the instinct is there, but we're just too different." 

Nick looked confused, "Different how?" 

"We just are." 

"I hope you're not talking about the age thing."

"So what if I am?" Steve scowled.

"Man, I really don't think it's that big of deal." 

"Think of it this way," Steve took a different tack, "remember when you met Rebecca? What if when you met her, you were the same age you were then, but she wasn't. Consider how you would have felt if she was seventeen. How would you feel about it then?"

"I honestly can't say. But the fact remains, she's not seventeen anymore."

"She may not be seventeen anymore, but I'm still ten years older. That's never going to change. When she's fifty, I'll be sixty. By the time she's sixty-five, I'll be damn near eighty. Is it really fair to her to saddle her with someone she's going to have to take care of?" 

"Do you think she hasn't thought of that? Do you really think she came all this way, came hunting for you, without considering that? Is it fair to assume she hasn't?"

Steve sighed, "She probably has. She's not an idiot." 

"So, I'll ask again. How are things going between the two of you?" 

Steve took a deep breath and stared into his cup, "I haven't slept more than two hours in a stretch and four or five hours on a good night, in about fifteen years." He looked up, focusing out the window at the faint glow from his porch light as it twinkled through the trees. "And I haven't been able to sleep with someone else in the same house, much less room, for quite a while. With Jade it’s different. There's something about her that calms me. 

“It’s certainly not the reverent way she talks to me, I swear,” he scoffed, sarcasm heavy in his tone. “Everyone around here has always treated me with, I don’t know, an air of respect, almost fear, even the females, but not Jade.” The ghost of a smile curved his lips as he thought about the way she’d stood up to him about the pistol. 

“It’s like she has no fear. She stands there chewing me out or issuing orders and expecting me to listen,” the smile faded as he looked at the other man. “When she’s around, and not in my face about something, I’m more relaxed than I’ve been in a long time. Hell, I don’t even mind when she is in my face.” He grinned for a moment. 

“I can sleep with Jade in the house, and night before last, when we fell asleep on the sofa during the movie, I slept for five hours straight and I probably would have slept longer if we hadn’t been on the sofa."

"And last night?" 

"We fell asleep on the couch again, not entirely on accident this time." A slight smile formed at the memory, "She curled against me and was out in less than five minutes," he turned serious again, "but nothing's happened, not really."

"Hey, you're both adults. You've known her a hell of a lot longer than I knew Rebecca before we ended up in bed. Heck, she's been here longer than I knew Rebecca."

Steve looked down, embarrassed, "I wasn't nice about it either."

"I guess what really matters is, if you forget about the age difference and just focus on her, do you like her? Are you drawn to her? Can it go anywhere and do you want it to?"

Steve was silent for a moment, "I don't know." 

"You have some thinking to do then, don't you?" 

"I guess I do." 

"While we're on the subject, have you noticed the way she avoids me when I go to touch her?"

"I have," Steve scowled, "but she doesn't do it with me, it's strange. I'm not sure what's going on, I'm waiting for her to trust me enough tell me what it is."

"On another topic," the Khan said, "it's probably a good idea for you to stay away from the humans until that mess on your face is gone. There's no way we can explain why you were fine yesterday and today you have a bruise that's already green and yellow. It looks weeks old. I'll go make sure everything's taken care of, you go back to that girl you left asleep in your house."

"But-" Steve tried to protest.

"Nope." Nick stopped him. "It's settled. You can't be seen and there's no reason for us both to stay out in the cold, so go back to her and enjoy." 

Steve took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. He sat in silence, looking into his coffee. After a couple of minutes he picked up the cup and drained it in one swallow. "All right then. I'll go back to my place. Enjoy your morning in that cold white shit." He pulled his coat back on and headed home.