“Oh, by the way,” he shifted subjects suddenly, pulling out his hair tie and running his hands through his hair, trying to tame it again, “there’s a new restaurant opening up near the clinic soon.  They’re hyping the lead chefs, who apparently have won some awards or are minor celebrity chefs, I’m not sure exactly, but Benji swore the food will be awesome.”

“Sounds like a nice option for lunch, then, if it’s close by.”  I had started to gather up Claire’s toys – the ones that lived here – and put away the books, but I caught Sorrel’s pause at my response.  An odd sort of pause, like he wasn’t expecting me to say that, but he was talking about food close to his workplace that Benji was excited about – wasn’t lunch there the reason for the topic?

“Right, that’s true,” Sorrel seemed hesitant.  “It’s, just, well, I was wondering if you’d want to go with me sometime.”  He paused.  “Some evening.”

It was my turn to pause and slowly look at him.  The tips of his ears were red, and he was fidgeting while not quite looking at me.

That would suggest…together with the time of day he wanted to go…that he was asking me out on a date.  Maybe he really had been flirting with me.  But…maybe it was also best to make this perfectly clear, because I didn’t want to have any misunderstandings.

“That sounds like you’re asking me out on a date,” I informed him calmly.

Sorrel groaned a bit but finally brought his eyes back up to mine.  “Yes, okay, I am – or I’m trying to, at least.”

I took some time to consider this.  On the one hand, I was pretty delighted that he wanted to ask me out, even knowing how complicated a relationship with me could be – I mean, I assumed he was thinking through that part, that if things progressed and all, that I would never be able to express my feelings adequately, no matter how much I cared about it.  He should be aware of the issues, but…had he also considered the other part of the equation?  My eyes went to the sleeping Claire and I couldn’t help but feel troubled.

“Elizabeth,” Sorrel’s soft voice interrupted my thoughts, “if you’re not comfortable with the idea, it’s okay.  We don’t need to go down that road.”

When I looked back at him, he looked a little chagrinned now, and a little defeated.

Which was exactly the problem.  He’d taken my silence as not liking his question, and he couldn’t tell how I really felt about it.  And that would always be the problem.

I folded my hands in my lap and focused on trying to convey what needed to be said.  “I don’t have a problem with the idea,” I said slowly.  “I enjoy your company, you’re a good person, you’re attractive, and you’ve been very understanding of my…complications.”

His brow furrowed a bit.  “That all sounds good, but I’m sensing a ‘but.’”

My eyes flitted back to Claire for a moment before returning to Sorrel.  “I am somewhat concerned about how fair it would be to Claire.”

He was clearly lost at this idea.  “Fair?  Okay, I get that dating me is complicated itself, because you’d also basically have to be okay with becoming Claire’s mom if things got serious, but I thought you liked her?”

“I do,” I was quick to assure him.  “She is a sweet child and I am very fond of her.  But, for argument’s sake, if things did get serious, I don’t know how fair it is to ask Claire to have a mom who she might feel doesn’t love her.  I would never be able to express the kind of affection one would normally expect from a mother.  While an adult may understand better,” at least in theory, “young children probably cannot comprehend the idea of not being able to express one’s feelings and as a result, she would probably spend much of her younger years assuming I don’t care about her.  It is one thing to think that a family friend doesn’t care, but it could seriously affect her if she thought her mother didn’t care.”

Thankfully, Sorrel didn’t seem to be offended by the fact that I was jumping way down the line – to being her mother when he was just asking me out on a date – but I felt that the issue did need to be addressed.  Because if things did progress between him and me, this would be an issue and it was better to address it now than months or years down the road.

Sorrel thought about this for a minute, but I could tell he wasn’t exactly agreeing with me.  “I think you should take your own advice,” he answered at last.  “You told me that you thought Claire might learn to realize that appearances can be deceiving by growing up with me and learning that my gruff presentation – for most people – isn’t really who I am.  I know it’s not exactly the same situation, but I think the same idea applies.  I think Claire would actually learn that love isn’t always expressed the same way.

“See,” he placed the mug down on the coffee table, leaning forward with an intense expression on his face, “Nathan is ace – asexual.  I know,” he held up his hand before I could interrupt him, “it sounds unrelated, but I’m getting there.  I didn’t realize that about him until a few months ago, when I was curious as to why Miles moved in with Benji instead of with Nathan.  I figured it had to do with Miles’ ex, but Nathan admitted it also had to do with him.  He didn’t want to try moving in too soon before they both understood the form their relationship will take.  Because he’s ace, Nathan said his love language isn’t about sleeping together – it’s other things.  Just spending time with Miles, talking about stuff, watching a movie together, cuddling – whatever, I’m not sure what all it involves for him.  Point is, it got me thinking.  For some people, their love language is different.  That’s not to say they love any less, it’s just…expressed differently.

“I think Claire would learn that you express love differently.  That when you, I don’t know, make her supper or something, that’s a way you’re showing how much you care for her.  Or,” his eyes fell on the baby books, “when you read to her, stuff like that.  If we need to, we can set up some specific thing that when she’s really feeling like she needs to feel your love, she asks you to do that together with her.  Um, making cookies or something, I don’t know.  Point is, I think it’s something we can work with, and teach her that love isn’t just expressed in one single way.  Besides,” he added with a bit of a smile, “I think she already knows you care about her.  She gets super excited every time she realizes we’re coming here and seems to love spending time with you.  I think she already understands that you care for her just as much as some of the other people in her life.”

That was a bit to absorb.  I’d always assumed that romantic relationships were next to impossible for me but that a parental relationship would be extra impossible because it would leave a child feeling like their mother didn’t love them – and that wasn’t a trauma I wanted to inflict on a child.

Sorrel’s viewpoint, though, kind of shifted that idea on its head.  I would love Claire, I knew that – even if Sorrel and I never got involved that way, I’d still love her – so maybe what was really needed was to teach her about different languages.  Not foreign ones, but about how for some people, just taking time to spend with someone showed how much they cared, even if they weren’t good at hugging them or expressing the words and sounding like they meant it.

Sorrel let me process that for a few moments, and then scooted forward to the edge of the couch, hesitantly reaching his hand across the coffee table towards me.

Offering me the choice to take his hand if I wanted, but not forcing me to.

When I slid my fingers into his, Sorrel probably looked more delighted than a grown man had any justification to appear – at least for something that simple.

He closed his fingers around mine like he didn’t want to risk letting me pull my hand away.  “We can figure out ways to show your love to Claire together, okay?  There may be times she has questions, but I know you care for her, and I think she’ll learn that, too.  If she doesn’t know already.”

I nodded slowly, thoughtfully.  “I do care for her, very much, but I don’t know how to express that.  I can tell her, but sometimes words aren’t enough.”

“We’ll figure that out.”  He sounded a whole lot more confident than I felt.  “And my entire family knows you and likes you – they’ll back us up in telling her how much you care.  I’m not saying it’ll always be easy, but we’ll figure it out.”

I wasn’t used to having something that was so up in the air like this – something that I had to count on someone else to help me solve and I didn’t know how it would go.  Sure, in theory, a lot of my missions involved working with other people and variables I couldn’t fully account for, but this was different.  This was actually trying to partner with someone in predicting how to handle someone else’s thoughts and feelings.

I wasn’t used to something like this, but…I also wasn’t opposed to taking that gamble.  Listening to Sorrel, he made it sound like it was possible and I really didn’t need to worry so much about how I would come across.  Strange, really, that for so much of my life my inability to express my feelings had blocked almost every relationship I could have, yet here Sorrel was telling me it wasn’t a big deal.  And we could deal with it together.

“I like that idea,” I informed him out loud, “dealing with stuff together.  I’m not used to relying on someone quite like that, but…I like the idea.”

His eyes lit up some more.  “So you’re okay with the possibility of becoming Claire’s mom?  And you’re kind of interested in me?”

I nodded in answer to both of his questions, but said it out loud anyway, just to make sure there were no misunderstandings.  “Honestly, I’d be honored to be her mother someday, as long as it’s not putting her at risk of thinking her mother doesn’t love her, but you’re doing a pretty good job convincing me on that topic.  And yes, I am interested in you.  Like I said, I enjoy your company, you’re a nice person, and I find you attractive.”  I shrugged slightly.  “Plus you’re one of the rare people who can actually understand me, at least partially, which is no small thing for me.  I like you quite a lot, to be honest.”

“So,” Sorrel drew out the word a bit, his eyes searching my face, “does that mean you agree to go on a date with me?”

I was amused but happy that he was pushing specifically for an answer.  “Yes,” I informed him, wishing I could express my happiness but glad that he didn’t seem to need me to for him to understand.  “Yes, I would like to go on a date with you, Sorrel.”

Based on the smile I received in response, it was pretty clear how he felt about my answer.

I’d felt glad about my move to Avenglade in the past, but now I felt even happier about it.  I had friends now – more of them than I’d ever thought possible – and I had a very nice person interested in me.  I might someday have a family here, even a small fairy daughter whom I would love so much she would have to understand how I felt about her.

It was far more than I’d ever dreamed of.