And there was something more, now, that hadn’t been there when they were in college. Something between them, a kind of energy. It wasn’t passion—they’d had plenty of that, before. Probably too much. This was something that carried over into everything; made every touch of a fingertip seem doubly intense.

Whatever it was, it was wonderful.

And even when it was over, when they both collapsed in exhaustion, “it” wasn’t gone.

She listened to his heartbeat slow, with her ear against his chest, and fitted herself into the curve of his arm, trying to sort it all out.

“I suppose this means asking for a Christmas bonus is out of the question,” he said, conversationally.

She started to giggle; she couldn’t help it. “Where the hell did you get this sense of humor?” she demanded. “All of a sudden, you can laugh at yourself—you never did that before!”

He took a deep breath, and let it out, slowly. “I had it all along, I just didn’t think that—hell, I just didn’t think, period.” He ran a finger along the side of her face. “I don’t exactly know, Jennie. Kestrel. Maybe that’s it. I stopped posing with you—or when I do pose, we both know it. Does that seem logical?”

“As logical as anything,” she replied, thoughtfully. “Funny; all of a sudden I feel like I’m living with my skin off.”

He sighed. “So do I,” he replied, slowly, sleepily. “So do I. I—have to confess something though.”

“What, that your good behavior is temporary?”

He started to laugh, after a moment of silence. Quietly, but it was real laughter.

“How did you guess?” he asked. She snuggled a little closer.

“Because it happens to me, every time I have a profound Medicine experience,” she confessed in turn. “I go on really good behavior for a while, then, well, I start to slip back to being a bitch. Not as big a bitch as I was before, but—still, there it is. I’m human; so are you. I guess humans can only be perfect for so long.”

Her confession left him quiet for a moment.

“I’ll make a deal with you,” he said, finally, as she hoped he would. “If you give me a little slack when I’m being a bastard, I’ll cut you some when you’re being a bitch.”

She smiled, into the darkness. “It’s a deal,” she replied softly.

Mooncrow seemed neither surprised nor displeased when they both came out of the same room in the morning. He simply greeted them both in a very preoccupied way; Jennie sobered completely, forgetting her own faint embarrassment, when she caught his mood. Whatever he expected to learn today, it was far more important than who had slept in whose bed last night, or any other night for that matter.