A/N: Just a quick warning, things get a little smutty in the middle there – nothing X rated, but just so you know it's coming. Also, Caution says a swear. Hope you enjoy!

Caution smiled as she rolled over and put an arm around... a pillow. She sat up.

“Creep?”

There was no answer.

“Creep? Where the hell are you?”

Still, nothing.

Caution swung her legs over the side of the bed and grabbed her robe off the bedpost. She put it on and headed for the door. One of her maids accosted her as soon as she stepped into the hall.

“Your Majesty,” the maid said, curtsying and effectively stopping Caution from going down the hall. “Perhaps it has escaped your notice that you are not dressed.”

“I'm wearing a robe,” Caution said defensively.

The maid did not move.

“Alright, alright. I'll get dressed. It's not like you can see anything anyway. Have you seen Creep?”

“The sorcerer is preparing for the King's return, Majesty.”

“You're kidding.”

“Your Majesty?”

“Uh, nothing. Forget it. Where did you say Creep was?”

“In the central tower, Majesty.”

“And, uh, how long 'til And—the King gets here?”

“His rider arrived early this morning, Majesty. I was coming to inform you of his return. Your husband should be here by nightfall.”

“Oh... bugger.”

By the time Caution was dressed to her maid's satisfaction, she was starving and ready for breakfast. She stopped by the kitchen on the way to the tower and had Byers make her a sandwich. He informed her icily that it was chicken. He still hadn't quite forgiven her for the whole thing with the Karen Bird, and it was not a point she felt like arguing. Caution thanked him, and on the way out, stopped and asked for another sandwich for Creep. He made it, a coolly civil smile on his face.

Caution knocked lightly on the door before going in. “Creep?” she called as she closed the door behind her. “I brought breakfast. You in here?”

Creep appeared out of a shadow, failing entirely to startle Caution. “I am.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“Of the King's return?”

“Uh huh.”

“I thought it better to let you sleep.”

“You... Creep, this is kind of a big deal.”

Creep almost looked confused. “Did you not expect him to come back?”

Caution froze. “I... uh... I don't know. I guess just not so soon. I mean, that was kind of a short-ass military campaign, if you ask me.”

“He was gone two weeks.”

“It seemed shorter.”

“Yes.”

“They said you were preparing for his return. What're you doing, conjuring streamers?” Caution tried to laugh nervously, but it wasn't enough of a joke to bother.

“Thinking.”

“Thinking.”

“Thinking. If the King returns so soon, it means a retreat. That he is alive means the enemy did not expect an attack.”

“K...”

Creep did not give any further explanation.

“But, I mean—I just thought he'd be gone longer.”

“You had hoped he would die.”

“It had crossed my mind,” Caution admitted. “It probably crossed yours, too.”

Creep said nothing.

“So,” Caution said after an uncomfortable minute of silence. “That chamber pot thing got all sorted out, then?”

“Some time ago.”

“Good... Creep, are you mad at me or something? You're being terse..er than normal.”

“I am not mad at you.”

“Good, because... because... you know, right?”

“I know.”

“Good.”

“So, um. Yeah. I brought you a sandwich. It's chicken.”

“The cook was unhappy.”

Caution looked sideways at Creep before handing him his plate. “That didn't come out as a question.”

“It was not one.”

“Oh.”

Caution lit cigarette number five. If Creep had known which number it was, he probably would have regretted teaching her how to transform one everyday object into another (of the same approximate size and weight). The trick, as he had told her, was in believing they were the same thing. Or suspending disbelief long enough to rearrange things. Caution had been suspending disbelief since before she arrived in M'leo—since before she was attacked by the Abiku. She was getting good at it. So she had taken a one dollar bill from her wallet, and believed as hard as she could that one dollar equalled one hundred cents. Each penny was roughly the weight of a cigarette, and if Caution tried really hard, she could just believe that flattening a penny would stretch it to the same size as an unrolled cigarette. Each cigarette took about fifteen minutes to mentally roll, and Caution had only managed to make six before she felt entirely drained and had the worst headache of her life. She proceeded to chain smoke the first four, and was lighting up number five when there was a knock at her door.

“Come in,” she said, pulling it out of her mouth.

The door opened and Creep stepped in.

“Since when do you knock?” Caution asked, taking a quick drag.

“I thought you had run out,” Creep said, nodding to the cigarette.

“I found some more. You want one?”

“I do not. I have come to inform you that your husband—”

“You never call him that unless you're mad at me.”

“I knew he would return. I knew what it would mean.”

“But you're still mad at me.”

Creep's face didn't change, but his eyes began to mist. “I try not to be.”

Caution pulled the cigarette out of her mouth and flung her arms around him. Before she could stop herself, she was crying into his shoulder. “We'll get through it,” she sobbed into the rough fabric of his robes. “We... Christ, I don't know, but we'll get through it, okay?”

Creep wrapped his arms around Caution and squeezed. “We will,” he agreed.

Caution stepped back and looked at Creep's face. It looked unpleasantly impassive, like any moment he would go back to being silent, or worse, disappear into some hidden shadow.

He let go of her with one arm and used it to brush a tear off her cheek. Then he kissed her.

Hollywood's most glamorous, in-the-rain, someone's-about-to-die kisses had nothing on that kiss. They paled in comparison. They were pecks. Caution's lips were on fire as Creep pried them gently apart with his own paper-thin ones. The application of his hand on the small of her back caused her to tense in ways she hadn't thought possible, tense into him, into the heat that poured off him through the thickness of his robes. The hand on Caution's cheek trailed downward, and rested on her throat, Creep's bony index finger forcing her chin upward, as he touched his tongue to hers. Caution's arms moved of their own accord, her elbows resting just behind his shoulders, her forearms bent back so that his head was in her sole possession. The hand on Caution's back moved down as well, then slid forward and stopped, falling exquisitely short of its intended destination.

Caution couldn't take any more. She grabbed the hand that rested on her throat and steered it down, over her breast, allowing it to stop on her waist, then broke out of the kiss, and forced Creep's lips down to her neck. It had been a manoeuvre meant to give her air, but he kissed and sucked and chewed on her skin, causing her breath to catch in her throat. Her back arched, pressing her into him, into that lower hand which had not relinquished its place, into the the thumb, which no matter how constrained, found the freedom to glide smoothly back and forth over the fabric of her dress.

The bed was too far away. The floor had proved a worthy substitute, with the polished hardwood cool against Caution's bare back. The lack of sheets and pillows was oddly relieving, and Caution had found afterwards that perfect comfort could be achieved by lying half on her side, half on her front and allowing one arm and one leg to lye across Creep's body.

Then someone had rapped on the door.

“Where the fuck is my dress?”

“Ruined. Torn. Get another.”

Caution stumbled to her feet and through the series of rooms to the one with the wardrobes. She threw on the first thing found that she could get done up by herself. By the time she got back into the parlour, Creep was completely dressed, just doing up a button on the sleeve of his turtleneck thing.

He looked serene, not regretful, brave not jealous, like he finally understood that she was his.

“I'm in love with you,” she told him from the doorway. She hadn't exactly meant to say it, but it was true, and if she'd thought of it first, she would have meant to say it. So she added, “You know that, right?”

“Yes. And I with you.”

“Good.”

“An understatement,” he said, with one of his half-smiles.

“You're Highness,” an urgent voice called through the parlour door. She had barely heard it. “I'm coming,” she shouted back, heading toward the door.

She stopped as she passed Creep, grabbed him by the back of his head, and kissed him quickly and passionately. Then she whispered, “Go.”

Creep nodded, and vanished into the bedroom.

“Your Highness,” the voice—it belonged to a boy of about fifteen, if Caution was any judge—called, even louder.

“I said I'm coming,” Caution barked back, continuing toward the door and grabbing the handle.

“But the King—”

“ —will wait patiently for his Queen,” Caution concluded as she threw open the door.

“The King's orders, Highness,” the youth said nervously, “are that you be in the bridal suite by the time he arrives.”

“His orders?” Caution laughed momentarily, but she stopped when she saw the look on the messenger's face. “Alright. I guess I'd better get going. Do me a favour; make sure no one goes in this room—not to clean it or anything. Just make sure it stays locked.”

The kid bowed. “Your Highness.”

Caution nodded to him, before proceeding to the bridal chambers. Her own chambers were nowhere near as luxurious as the ones she shared with Andy. They were smaller, less finished, and infinitely more comfortable. She wondered idly as she wandered toward them why she and Andy were still in the bridal chambers—why they hadn't moved to the Royal Chambers, or whatever they were.

Caution breathed a sigh of relief as she reached the chambers, turned the door knob and went inside. At least she had made it there before—

“I am in here,” Andy called from the next room as the door clicked shut. He did not sound pleased.

Caution looked around the room she was in, taking a moment to plaster an I'm-so-glad-you're-back smile on her face. Not much had changed since the last time she was in there. There was a hideous fur coat draped over a chair, and that was about it. She wandered over and pushed at it, with the same disinterested disgust one uses when poking a dead animal with a stick to see if it's really dead. On the table beside the coat was a knife. Caution picked it up and examined it. There was something familiar—horribly familiar about it, but she couldn't place it. It was almost intoxicating, with its thick, heavy hilt and glinting blade. She noticed the blade had something on it—a black, sticky powder. Like Abiku blood. It was an Abiku knife, she realized. The same kind they were carrying when they came for her. Andy must have killed one, brought the knife back as a trophy.

“I said,” Andy's voice snapped her back into reality. “I' am in here.”

“Sorry,” Caution said, reapplying her smile and going into the next room. “Nice to see you back in one piece,” she beamed, moving to hug him. She stopped short.

Andy looked livid.

“Is something wrong?” Caution ventured, trying to look cute and sheepish.

“Is something wrong? Caution, I cannot count the things that are wrong.”

“Oh.”

“This is how you greet your husband, on his return from battle?”

“Huh?”

“Dirty and unkempt and casual beyond pardon? No reception in the great hall, no—”

Caution cut Andy off. “You're mad 'cause I didn't throw you a party?”

Andy's face went redder, which was quite a feat, given its state when Caution walked in. “I am mad because I expected to be greeted by a grateful queen and a happy court, and instead I have a bored peasant wench and a room full of advisers who have nothing but complaints.”

Caution giggled in spite of her self. “Did you seriously just call me a bored peasant wench? You're ridiculous.”

Andy's open hand smacked into Caution's face.

Caution gasped. Unexpected was not a strong enough word. Now it was her turn to be livid. Her face burned scarlet where his had had hit. She glanced down at the knife she still held and considered using it. But she couldn't. It wasn't worth it. Still, she had never been smacked by a guy. It was an insult beyond insult. She thought about slugging him, but in the end, she was too shocked to really even move.

“You will not speak to me like that again,” Andy said severely.

Caution said nothing. She was too mad to think.

“I had to end my tour early.”

She didn't answer.

“We were gaining ground. Then, then I learned that there are Chonti, ordered to fight, simply refusing. And I thought: they must be ill, they must be under a spell. But no. They are not under a spell, are they? They are under the delusion that they are free. And do you my Queen, know why?”

Caution put up her hand to stop him. She had to advocate for the Chonti, even if it meant speaking to Andy when she really didn't want to. “You're mad about that. I knew you would be, but if you just let me—”

Andy smacked her again.

“I am the King,” he told her. “I will not stand for opposition.”

“Do you really think,” Caution said slowly, trying to keep the anger out of her voice, “that they would have gone to all the trouble of prophecizing me, if I wasn't supposed to make some changes? I mean, if M'leo was just going to have a good little Queen who always did everything she was supposed to, don't you think whoever wrote the prophecies wasted a lot of time and energy?”

Andy was silent for a moment. “Changes, perhaps, but this is unbearable. You have given the Chonti license to take over my kingdom. What happens if they join the enemy forces?”

“They could have done that before. They didn't.”

“And now they say they will fight for neither side.”

“That's their choice, isn't it?”

Andy's open hand reached up, but this time Caution was ready. She delivered a punch to his gut with her free hand. He buckled slightly, and didn't hit her.

“Hit me again and I'll kill you,” she warned, all traces of irony completely gone from her voice.

“I am King—” Andy started to say.

Caution tried to hit him again, just on principal, but he grabbed her by the wrist and held her fast. Then he kissed her.

Caution was caught too much by surprise to do anything, and if she had been able to think, she would have seen the necessity of kissing him back. But his soft, full lips, were nothing compared to Creep's, and the touch of his strong, bold hands on her body nauseated her in ways previously unknown. And when his hair brushed against the top of her cheeks and his tongue went in her mouth, she nearly threw up.

She forced herself out of the embrace and took a few steps back. “It doesn't work like that,” she said firmly. “You don't get to hit me and then—no, scratch that. You don't get to hit me.”

To Caution's great surprise, Andy apologized.

“Huh?”

“I said you were right. The battles caused me immense distress. I am not myself. I should never have treated you like that.”

“No,” Caution agreed, not willing to part with her anger for anything. “You shouldn't have.”

“Please,” Andy said, taking a step toward her. “There must be some way I can make amends.” He brushed her cheek with the back of his index finger, before putting his hand on her shoulder then trying to slide it into her dress.

Caution took another step back. “What are you doing?”

Andy stepped to meet her again, and planted a warm kiss on her neck. “Apologizing.”

Caution took stepped sideways and dodged his next attempt.

“What are you doing?” Andy demanded.

“I'm... not... in the mood. Getting slapped tends to do that to a girl.”

“I said I was sorry,” Andy said, trying to look sweet. He took another step closer.

“If you were really sorry, you'd stop trying to apologize by doing something that you want and I don't.”

“You don't?”

“Not right now.”

“I do not understand. How could you not want—”

“You think you're that irresistible?”

“Any husband should be irresistible to his wife.”

“Yeah, well, maybe you should work on that.”

Andy looked hatefully at Caution, then smiled. “Then it is true what they say—that a woman's interests are elsewhere. Imagine, two weeks without the touch of a man, and still, your anger prevents you.” He laughed slightly, the pitying laugh people laugh at dumb kids who ask ridiculous questions at inopportune times. “Two weeks, without even the slightest touch...” Andy's face went pale. The smile disappeared. “You have not been alone.”

Caution tried to laugh. She couldn't tell if she was pulling it off or not. “Don't be stupid. Of course I've been alone. I mean, who—”

“The sorcerer!”

Caution nearly threw up for the second time that night. She felt horrified as she tried to fake another smile. “Creep? Don't be silly. We're just friends.”

“You do not fool me, whore! My advisers told me. I refused to believe it. They said you spent every waking moment with him. That you spent my absence in your old chambers, speaking to no one, taking no visitors—and when you weren't there, you were in the central tower with him or in the garden with him. I should have listened, but I thought it could not be, not my wife.”

Caution couldn't speak. She could see by the look on Andy's face that she had lost.

“I'll see him hanged for this,” Andy barked as he headed for the door.

“You can't,” Caution said, trying to get in his way.

“I'll see him hanged,” Andy repeated, pushing past her.

Caution ran in front of him once more. “And then what? What punishment for me, the adulterous wife?”

“Adulterous?” Andy smiled lightly, although it was more of a grimace than anything. “My dear, I won't have him hanged for adultery. Really, do you know how shameful that would be? To admit my wife's interests were won by a... creature like that? It is disgusting to even think about. No, no. Treason, I should think.”

“No,” Caution yelled, keeping in front of him. “Hang me. Punish me.”

“Oh, you'll be punished. Not hanging you will be your punishment. You, my Queen, will live forever in the knowledge that you are responsible for the death of your belov—” Andy gulped as he lurched forward.

Caution gave the knife a final twist.