Elliot's Apartment

[Raine Gregory]

Raine knew that hearing that she would have been a good mother and that their daughter could look like her was suppose to help somehow but it just reminded her of everything that she wasn't ever going to get. She felt a lump growing in her throat and she turned her head away from Elliot so he wouldn't see that she was crying; it didn't seem to make him happy when she was crying so she was trying to be careful to not let him see it. She never wanted him to be sad especially when she knew that it was kind of all her fault.

If he were to find someone else then he would have children if he wanted them and he wouldn't have to deal with the craziness of having a hysterical infertile girlfriend. "It's just not fair." She finally managed to squeak out as she wiped her eyes and snuggled her face into his neck again which kind of defeated the purpose of trying to hide that she was crying since he was going to feel that her face was all wet. "I just want a baby." Her words were muffled because her face was pressed against him but it wasn't too hard to understand what she was saying.

She was nuts, absolutely nuts. Why was she so upset about this now? She'd known for years that she couldn't have kids, she'd cried so many times and yet moments like this still happened. She still struggled with it and it never got easier like there was an empty void somewhere inside of her that not even yoga and feminist groups could fill. It was just something that she couldn't explain even if she wanted to. "Elliot... I'm not happy..." She realized how horrible that sounded and quickly added, "I don't mean that I'm not happy with you, I mean that I'm not happy just baby-sitting other peoples' kids, buying presents for baby showers knowing I'll never get one, feeling them kick and knowing that I won't ever experience that. I won't feel a baby growing inside of me and know that I'm the one it needs and you won't get to be the daddy that I know you can be." She had so much resentment towards everyone who had children.

[Elliot Gates]

As always, he comforted her tears with big, warm, open arms. Elliot wrapped her up and tried his best to understand her. "Oh, sweetheart, baby, please don't cry." He whispered in the quiet nothings of his room. The only sound was the busy street below and her sobbing in his chest. It damn well near killed him to see and feel her cry, her salty tears collecting on his skin.

He didn't want to be all 'hey, let's get married so we can get a surrogate and make babies!' because honestly, he didn't want that right now. He knew that Raine didn't either and was just feeling the pressure from her friends who were having or have had kids already. He just wanted her to move in so they could try to start their lives as a real couple. And he knew that someday soon, he would be asking for her to marry him, but that was still a big blurry cloud of fog.

"Listen, you'll move in with me, we'll have the puppies and each other, and we'll be happier. It.." He thought about saying it, "I hate that I don't get to see you as often as I'd like. I mean, I know you have a lot on your plate and you don't need me whining to you, but I think things will start looking up for you and I." It always seemed that when he was being serious, his accent was more prominent. The kids at his school said that he 'talked funny' but they always liked to hear him talk, especially during story time.

[Raine Gregory]

Raine finally pulled away from his chest after she'd sobbed so much that she felt like she physically couldn't cry anymore even if she wanted to which she really didn't, who likes crying? It left her feeling all light headed and her face was all puffy which couldn't be attractive, "You're the best, you know? You let me cry over something as stupid as not having kids at twenty-one and I don't want a baby immediately but I wish it were an option. I love that we save money on condoms and that I'm not worried about birth control or shots but that doesn't make up for the fact that it's just never an option for me or you to have kids. I don't want to adopt because it's hard and expensive and so is everything else. Why can't we just make a baby like everyone else?" She knew why but that didn't make it any easier, "You know... I was thinking about changing my major and dropping out of Julliard so I can get a better job and then I can afford to help more with bills." She nodded before wiping her eyes, ballet was her life! She loved it more than she loved breathing and it made her so incredibly happy but she didn't want it to screw up her relationship with Elliot.

She paused and reconsidered what she'd just said and let out a small laugh as if to lighten the mood, "I can't... I can't drop out of Julliard and work some dead end job because I want to be a ballerina and you like my dancing, right? I mean you go to all of my performances at school so I hope that you like it." It would be a serious blow if he said that he didn't like it.

[Elliot Gates]

"I know you do, and if you know.. we do get married, we have options." Elliot smiled as if that was going to comfort her. "I would spare no expense for you to be happy." He continued. She paused and then mentioned she as thinking about dropping out. "You can't do that, I won't let you do that. You've worked your ass off to get where you are and you're so close to becoming something brilliant." She followed that by saying that she couldn't do that.

And then she brought up her performances and how he went to every single one. He had missed his friend's wedding just so he could see her dance. She was so graceful and happy when she was dancing, like she didn't have a care in the world. Almost every show, he would send her a big bouquet of flowers that would be waiting at her place in the back, each one different from the last and a note that always read:

To one breathtaking ballerina,
You are perfection.
-E

"You should know that I love going to them. It's always the best part of my week and I'm so proud to be able to sit there knowing that you're mine and other people are envious of what we have." It was true, many of his friends and coworkers often commented on how much they wished that they had a relationship 'like that.'

[Raine Gregory]

"I can't believe that I got this lucky, Elliot." Raine was always surprised at what he was willing to do to make her happy. "You just..... you're my penguin." She still had the first stuffed penguin he'd ever given her which she thought was kind of cool considering how long it'd been. "James actually told me the other day that you're the reason he thinks he can handle marriage and babies and whatever else that Kathleen decides to throw at him." Why had she wanted to tell him that again?

There'd been a perfectly good reason that she just couldn't remember.... What was she even going to say? She let out a small sigh before leaning over to kiss Elliot, "You make me happier than I ever thought that someone else could make me and in a way, I'm glad Danielle Kensington stole my virginity because that's what brought you and I together." She honestly couldn't remember Dallas's name which was unacceptable since it was also the name of her young nephew.

But what reason did she have to remember his name? He was probably still an arrogant asshole.

[Elliot Gates]

"I am your penguin." He said, smiling and cocked his head, agreeing with her. He still hadn't found her a pebble, and the thought crossed his mind. "You know what I just realized?" He started, pinching his eye brows together. "We've been together for so long and you've never once been to Brentwood with me.." Camber Sands was a beach that was maybe an hour drive from his home town.

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He could finally find her pebble, and she could see where he came from. It was an eight hour flight from New York to London, and then an additional twenty minute drive to Brentwood. It was a quaint little town, full of history and culture.

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His parents owned a fairly large house near the outskirts of town. The estate sat on eight acres of mostly forest and field. There was a nice pond in the back yard with a bench that sat under a large shade tree. Thinking back on the place he grew up, nearly made him homesick. It had been almost a year and a half since he had made a trip back home. He didn't ask Raine to go because he knew she would be too busy. Elliot then asked, "How would you like to go with me when Spring rolls around? We could go when break hits." She had met his proper parents when they came to visit and do a little sight seeing. They were well-off, retired investors that knew how to work their game as it always paid off in the end. They offered to help Elliot and Raine whenever they could, forking over money here and there like it was nothing. Granted, he loved doing things for himself, so he often refused their generosity. "And I'm sure they'd love to see you, it's been what, eight months since you saw them last?"

[Raine Gregory]

Typically, it took days over careful consideration before Raine decided if she wanted to do something or not because she was typically so busy thinking about her responsibilities and money and the dogs but for some reason, she wasn't thinking about any of that as a smile spread across her lips. "I'd love that!" She wouldn't admit that it bothered her when he went alone like she wasn't worthy of going with him especially since she would have moved things around to make it possible for them to go together but at least he was letting her go now and she had met his parents so it wasn't like he was hiding her. "Is there a reason that you haven't....taken me there yet? Like, is it because you weren't ready to share that part of your past yet?" Ashley's name entered her mind and she fought to try and keep it from showing on her face.

What if he did something crazy like took her to her grave? What if they were sight seeing and suddenly he turned to her and said, 'this is where I first kissed my first love'? She'd never been in love really before him so she didn't have that experience which was probably why she didn't know how to handle the fact that he did. "You don't have to answer that if you don't want to." She wasn't the jealous type, she didn't mind him talking to other women or hanging out with them because she knew that he wouldn't cheat. She trusted him around the living more than she did around the memory of his dead girlfriend.

What if he answered wrong? What if he hadn't been ready to take her there because of something related to his last girlfriend? Or worse, if he'd been too ashamed and embarrassed to introduce her to the people he knew from there. She loved his parents though! And she thought that she'd made a good impression but she supposed that it was possible that she'd been wrong.

[Elliot Gates]

Ashley was the first thing that popped into his mind. It was weird remembering her so vividly even after not having thought about her since last February when her pull on him was always strongest. The pain in Elliot's chest had long since vanished when her memory came into play, now it was just bittersweet and nothing more than that, a memory. However, she was not the reason he had never taken her before, apart from her busy schedule that he didn't want to interfere with.

Time had passed since he originally moved to the U.S. but every time he returned home, which was not that often for one reason in particular, he still got agonizing stares and bad looks from some of the people in town; especially the one he went to school with. When Ashley died, Elliot went a little insane for a while. Things got better when he got to New York, mostly because there weren't everyday things that reminded him of her.

His peers, and even some of his friends made him the laughing stock for quite some time. They laughed and called him crazy because he couldn't let go of a dead girl. They were all shit, black, cold hearted jerk offs that he hated and still resented. He would talk to Ashley like she was standing next to him, which in his mind, she was. To the person looking, he was just talking to air, which always questioned his sanity. When he moved, rumors spread that his parents really sent him to an insane asylum in London, which weren't true. He had never even seen the front doors of such a building.

His mind wandered back to the present; Raine next to him. He had zoned out for just a moment before realizing he was supposed to answer. "What?" He asked, slightly confused. "Oh, no, it's not because of Ashley." He said it so bluntly and calm. There was no pain in his voice or any kind of sweetness. "I just.. never thought you could go with everything you were doing at the time." He lied.. and Elliot wasn't one to lie often, especially to Raine. But with this, the embarrassment of being labeled as the town loon, he had to hide from her. He was scared it might change her perspective of him. "But I'll call my mum tomorrow and see what she thinks about it." He continued the scheme in his head, working out little surprises and things to drop on her while they were there.

[Raine Gregory]

Raine was kind of relieved that this didn't have anything to do with Ashley though she kind of figured that he was thinking about her when he zoned out like that but she didn't feel like commenting on it. He'd accepted the fact that she was still not over her miscarriage! Wasn't that worse? Still being upset over losing a baby that was fathered by another man? She'd never given that much thought because she always assumed that whatever pain and jealousy that she felt towards Ashley's memory had to be worse than anything that he could feel towards the fact that she still got a little depressed towards Halloween which had actually been her due date.

She let out a small sigh and reluctantly got off of his bed to put her clothes back on, "It'll be so much easier when I have actual stuff here and not just random crap that I leave here on accident." She wouldn't admit that she left things here on purpose like thongs and bras because she wanted to make sure that any woman that he ever had over knew that he was taken so they needed to back the freak up! She wasn't even entirely sure if he ever had women over but whatever, men need to know that he was taken, too. She giggled when she remembered that there was a time when she believed that he was gay without a shadow of a doubt. Yeah, a gay man would not be that awesome in bed. Hell, he was even better than Dallas!

Which made sense since she and Elliot had been together for six years basically and she and Dallas had sex once which had also been her very first time. "I love you... I know that I say that a lot but it's only because it's really true and I think that you should hear it all the time so you never ever forget that we're soul mates." It was weird that they weren't having children or getting married, they were just moving in together and that was totally fine! She wasn't in a rush to get married just because everyone else was doing it, how petty would that be? Hell, she didn't even want him to propose! She just wanted to know that he could see them being married one day.

She knew that she only wanted to get married when she thought about all of the resentment that she felt towards Ashley, someone who she never met who had also died a horrible death, because she wanted to outdo her. She wasn't his first love, she wasn't his first time or any of those other major things so she wanted to be his first (and hopefully only) wife though he hadn't moved in with Ashley so she supposed that was something. If she were fertile then she would have stopped taking the pill behind his back to trap him with her and a baby when she felt insecure which was why she was kind of grateful for it. It was a blessing and a curse. How many children would they have if she just stopped using any form of protection whenever she got upset about him having a past? Probably like nine or ten, they'd have so many that they would have their own show like the Duggars except less insane because she wasn't crazy religious and she wasn't going to be.

[Elliot Gates]

"It will be," Elliot agreed, "And we'll get to see each other more often." That was what he was most happy about above everything else. It wasn't until she stood up that he realized there was only the bed sheet covering his very naked body. It wasn't like she'd never seen him fully nude before, I mean, he used to walk around his apartment naked as the day he was born, although he figured no one was home, but sneaky Raine was in the living room.

They had showered together in the past and his sight on nudity was that it was a beautiful thing. Well, his sights towards a lot of things were as such. He looked to the floor, his work clothes were all kinds of bunched up and wrinkled. Oh well. Honestly, he wasn't really sure where she flung his boxers either. He decided to stop lazing around and to get up and find some sweats or something. He dug around in his dresser drawer and pulled out a pair boxers and a pair of dark denim jeans and put them on.

Apart from the snow blanket outside, his place was pretty warm. The heater worked well, and that, he was thankful for. He would forget the rest of his clothes, like his shirt, until they had to go somewhere. He didn't have any kind of natural tan, but he wasn't ridiculously pale either. He was just.. normal, he guessed. Whatever that was. He also wasn't a hairy guy minus his wild and curly hair, the little bit of facial hair he had been working on, his arms and legs, of course, and a faint little trail that started just below his belly button and headed south. Everything else was nonexsistant.

He ran his fingers through his hair, almost wanting to straighten it. It had been a long time since he had done that, he just didn't find the time anymore and it was probably too long to do now anyways. He looked at the time on his alarm clock. It was almost 5 p.m, and he still hadn't eaten anything. He was reminded of this when his stomach growled at him in a desperate plea for food. He pushed it aside and turned to Raine.. and the mess she made on the floor. "I guess I need to get this cleaned up." He said, not really wanting to do it.

[Raine Gregory]

Raine glanced to the mess on the ground and couldn't help but feel a little okay a lot guilty. She really shouldn't have done that.... even if the sex that followed had been really hot... That totally didn't excuse her behavior so she bent down and started picking up the papers and organizing them into different piles and folders. She was pretty much OCD about that kind of thing so she figured that he wouldn't mind, "You shouldn't keep your stuff all over your desk like that anyway, your apartment needs me." She giggled to play it off as a joke but she was already reorganizing in her head. She glanced up at him when she heard his stomach growling, "Sweetie, go sit down and relax. I'll go make you something to eat and you just relax."

She liked taking care of him, was that such a terrible thing? She had so many maternal feelings and she didn't know what to do with it since she didn't have children. "I can make you whatever you have stuff for and then maybe I'll stop by the grocery store tomorrow and pick some stuff up." She kind of assumed that he didn't have many options.

She glanced around his room after carefully placing the papers and folders back on his wobbly desk - he was so going to need a new one. She adjusted everything so it was neatly aligned before walking over to his dresser and pulling out some satiny thing that she'd left here before. It was sexy and well that was always a perk. She slipped out of her current clothes and pulled the little piece of lingerie up, "Remember this? Do you still like it as much as you did the first time you saw this? I'm surprised you didn't rip it off." She smirked before waltzing out of his bedroom in hopes that he would watch her.

She wanted to dress sexy so she kept his attention while she made him something to eat, "Okay, what do you have and what do you want?"

[Elliot Gates]

"Oh, baby, you don't have-" He started as she began to pick up the mess. He knew she was an organized person, but he was impressed by her speed and skill to fix it that quickly, not to mention putting everything in folders that they were supposed to go in. Before he could really do anything about it, she was done.

His stomach had growled again, begging for something to be given to it. She insisted that he sit while she cooked.. well, if there was anything to cook in the first place. He was sure that there was some shucked corn from the local market, maybe some potatoes. She could throw that together right? He was really just happy that he didn't have to risk burning the place down. Elliot was a handy man, not a chef.

He sat on one of the bar stools, wondering what she was still doing in his room. When she walked out in a familiar outfit, the corners of his lips curved up. "I remember that.. I remember that /very/ well." He said, "If I remember right, you got mad at me because I did try to rip it off." He laughed, and was half tempted to shove her up on the kitchen counter right then, but refrained from doing so. She probably didn't want a round three at the moment and his stomach was already protesting.

[Raine Gregory]

Raine was actually a little surprised that Elliot didn't push her against the counter and try for another round despite the fact that she actually wasn't in the mood for another go even if the sex was simply fantastic. "Okay so you have potatoes and corn.... and seasoning that I bought." She raised a brow before trying to think up an interesting way to combine the two that would actually taste good - mashed potatoes? She shrugged as she started boiling the potatoes, "You need to buy more food, Elliot."

She knew that he was just living alone so he probably didn't think of it as a need but she worried about him. What if he wasn't eating like he was suppose to? She didn't realize how much that she mothered him. She kind of figured that it was normal to take on a nurturing role towards your partner after a few years together. She stepped over to his side and placed a hand over his forehead just to make absolutely sure that he didn't have a fever. "Are you okay, honey?" He didn't look sick and he wasn't acting sick but she was still concerned for his well being.

"I can take care of you.... for the rest of my life." She was trying to hint at something bigger, something special. She wasn't the kind of girl who dated a guy for six years and didn't expect a future of some sort with him.

[Elliot Gates]

"Yeah, I was planning on taking a trip to the store tomorrow." He really was, I meant he was running on the bare essentials at the moment. But potatoes were very filling, and he would take just about anything at the moment.

Was she okay? She was acting a bit strange, well, actually they always acted strange so it really wasn't anything to worry about. "I'm fine, sugar, why? Do I look like I'm coming down with the plague?" He asked, wrapping her in his arms and burying his face into the nook of her neck. He kissed her skin tenderly, not passionately and pulled away to look at her when she began dropping hints. Elliot wasn't clueless, he knew exactly what she meant. Is that what she wanted? Is that was she would need in order to be happier? He had actually thought about it a lot, how he would ask.. what he would do to make sure it was special.

He figured move in first. People change when they live together, and he was hopeful that wasn't the case here. He was almost certain it wouldn't be the case. "I love you so much, Raine." He took her back in a hug, "I really do. You are so good to me." He paused for a moment, "I've never loved anyone as much as I love you. And it's not just because you cook and check to see if I have a fever." He smiled, even though she couldn't see it. "We're perfect penguins."

[Raine Gregory]

"Well you kill the spiders and you take care of me when I'm sick and you help him bandage the sores I get from dancing." Raine felt like he needed to be reminded of the things that he did for her, "there's a bug going around though which really sucks because I think I'm getting it." She looked over to him with a small frown, "I've been feeling sick lately and getting horrible migraines which isn't fun at all." She was kind of glad that she didn't have to take a pregnancy test to know that it was just a bug.

"If I get sick then you'll have no excuse not to treat me like your poor sick penguin girlfriend." She turned her attention briefly to the pot of potatoes but they weren't boiling yet so she stayed by Elliot. She sat down in one of the chairs at the bar and crossed her arms over the cool top before resting her head on them as like a pillow. She still had schoolwork to do! She was never going to be able to do everything that she needed to do and she hadn't brought all of her assignments so what was she suppose to do?

"If I start randomly screaming then it's because I'm thinking about all the work I need to do if I have any plans of graduating college." She couldn't fail out! "Sorry.... I just realized that even getting sick won't save me from my responsibilities."