Amelie slipped out of bed the next morning without awaking Adrien. Her feelings about the previous night were too confusing to face him yet.

She padded around the kitchen in socks to muffle her footsteps, and slipped out the door. Once in the hallway, she put her shoes on and made her way out of the building, feeling pleased and incredibly ashamed of successfully thwarting Adrien.

She began to walk and silently thanked all the gods that the sun was out and she could comfortably walk to work and use the time and motion to clear her head. The Boston air was getting colder and she made a mental note to map out the subway schedule for when she eventually needed to take it to work to avoid the cold.

Amelie leaned back and looked at the crisp blue sky while she walked. How had last night escalated so badly? What had even happened?

Her skin felt itchy thinking about laying with him last night and she shuddered. Why would she shudder thinking about Adrien? She loved him. She understood that she had said no, but she was saying no to something they had done plenty of times before.

She couldn't even be that angry at him for not listening when she had said no, as technically she had been saying yes the entire night up until that point.

But, she also had felt his anger while they made love, and his jealousy towards Theo. Sex over anger meant something different than making love. But didn't he deserve to be angry? She had kept a monumental secret from him. He had explicitly told her to avoid Theo because he was dangerous. Even if she still believed him to be wrong, she should not have hidden her relationship with Theo from him.

He had only been trying to protect her. She should have tried to talk to him more before going to Theo. Maybe Adrien would have listened if she had just tried harder.

But every time they had tried to speak about it he had dismissed her. Could she really be faulted for finding other means to achieve her goals if he would not help her?

Amelie arrived at her office two minutes later, still confused about everything in her relationship.

The morning passed by uneventfully. She decided not to go to then gym during her lunch break that day. Being there would probably only confuse her feelings more.

That afternoon Jesse stopped by and they hung out for a bit while Cathy was out. When they heard her classic rushing pace down the hallway, he scattered from Amelie's office. She was beginning to like Jesse a lot. He was funny once he de-stressed a bit, and had been a nice distraction today from the distress that had been taking over her head.

The afternoon slowly rolled by, and around three pm, she received a text from Charlotte.

Charlotte: Hey Girlie! Any chance you're free for dinner tonight? I'm off for the weekend but going home to visit family tomorrow.

Relieved for the distraction, Amelie responded yes immediately. It was only after pressing send that she halted and realized that Adrien would worry. She had left without saying goodbye and was not coming home tonight. That was very out of character for their relationship. She had already received one check-in text from him that morning to which she had replied with a blasé answer about work taking up her energy that day.

At the same time, she was grateful to put off confronting her feelings about Adrien for a little longer.

At five pm she waved goodbye to Jesse, who was still at work at his desk and left to take a slow walk to the restaurant Charlotte had suggested. They were not meeting until six, so Amelie had some time to sort through her feelings on the walk.

Unfortunately, six pm arrived and she was still confused by all of her feelings and could not decide which should dominate.

"Am!" shouted a voice down the street. Amelie turned to see Charlotte scampering quickly towards her in towering heels. An involuntary grin broke out on Amelie's face upon seeing her friend. They had not actually met up in a month.

"Char!" Amelie squealed back and they quickly hugged.

"You have to tell me everything," Amelie said. "You're really adult-ing out there in Clevland working for a real company and wearing suits. What's the real world like?"

"What do you mean really adulating? I live out of a hotel rooms and room service food. I haven't cooked in weeks. The only adult part of my life is my business attire and my coworkers. Although most of them still feel like overgrown frat boys." Charlotte laughed at her own joke.

They walked inside and sat down at their table.

"Actually, I guess I am adulting more than you. At least in terms of my living situation. Adrien moved in last month," Amelie said, casually.

"What?" Charlotte shrieked. A wild smile broke out on her face and Amelie matched it. "That's amazing, Am. How is it going?"

Amelie looked away for a second. She should not have brought Adrien up right away. Charlotte was going to see right through anything she told her. Thankfully, the waiter came over at that moment and bought her two more minutes to pile together what she wanted to say.

When he walked away she turned back to her friend. "It's going well," she said. Smooth, simple. Maybe the simplicity would make Charlotte think they were boring and back off.

"Just well? Doesn't he do icky boy things like leave underwear on the floor?" Charlotte leaned forward and rested her head in her hands the were propped up on her elbows.

Amelie snorted. "Mags asked the exact same thing. Why are you so curious about how gross he is?"

"Obviously I'm planning on living with a boy too at some point. I'm asking so I can be prepared. Also so that you have an out to vent if you need to!"

Amelie smiled and told her exactly what she told Maggie about doorknobs and toothpaste. She felt a bit like a comedian recycling all the same jokes but there was honestly not that much else to tell. After years of boarding school Adrien kept a pretty clean space.

They laughed and caught up for the rest of the meal, and stayed until nine pm.

"Three hours! Am we have to see each other more than once a month I think this restaurant hates us now," Charlotte said as they walked out arm in arm. They both wobbled a bit from the four glasses of wine they had consumed.

Amelie was grinning like she had not been in a while and felt so much lighter than she had throughout the day. It was liberating to spend three hours completely removed from magic, Realm politics, and the ever present question of her birth parents.

"I know. I almost wish I could come with you this weekend to see your family just so we don't have to say goodbye," Amelie said wistfully.

"You obviously can. You know Karen loves you." Charlotte's mom had taken to Amelie immediately when they discovered they both had an unhealthy love for _______."

"Nah, I should stay home this weekend. As much as I'd love to I have some stuff to sort out with Adrien," Amelie replied.

"How long is the walk to your place? Let me walk you home and we can talk about it. Then we'll have three and a half uninterrupted friendship hours."

"It's about fifteen minutes," Amelie said.

"Sounds good, lead the way!"

"Okay, but it's not a fun conversation. Wipe your smile now."

Charlotte made a big show about the smile melting slowly off her face so much that Amelie laughed again. Then she sighed and looked up at the now black sky, wishing there were more stars that could shine through Boston's light pollution.

"Okay. So you've been in a long term relationship before, you and Tom dated for like two years, right?" Charlotte nodded, "So I guess you are an awesome person to ask about this....Did you ever," Amelie paused. She was so embarrassed to admit what had happened last night, let alone talk about it like she felt defeated. "Did you ever," she began again and paused once more, unsure how to phrase what had happened last night.

Charlotte waited patiently beside her. "It's okay, take your time with it, Am. I'm here for you."

Amelie looked straight ahead. "Did you ever have sex with Tom as a concession for something? Like as a way to make things up with him?" The words rushed out of her mouth so fast she wasn't sure that Charlotte could have even registered them as separate words. Amelie let out a chuckle and turned to look her friend in the eye.

"What I mean is, when you were in a committed relationship, did you ever end up having sex when you didn't really want to?"

"Hmm," Charlotte said. Amelie's breath hitched as she waited in fear. "I guess I sort of did. Yeah, yeah I definitely did. Sometimes I would do it because I knew it made him happy."

"Oh, okay. So it's not like it's something unhealthy in a relationship for that to happen sometimes?" Amelie was so new to all of this, she just wanted to be normal and handle this situation like a normal girl would.

"Seriously, it's normal," Charlotte nudged Amelie with her shoulder. "Boys always have a higher sexual appetite than us girls do."

"I felt weird solving a conflict with sex. Like that's not something that is okay to do in relationships."

"I've done it. Once Tom was so angry at me for something stupid in college that he had sex with me while I was asleep and told me about it the next day." Amelie gasped. Clearly her relationship was fine if even that was considered normal.

"You never told me that. Did he use protection and stuff?" she asked.

"Oh," Charlotte said, strongly quietly. "Yeah I was kind of embarrassed about it. I wouldn't have told you. He used protection. I get that it's not a big deal because we were in a relationship and had sex all the time, but at the time I felt really weird and upset about it."

"Oh. I'm so sorry, Charlotte. I wish you had told me."

"No worries. I'm past it."

"Hey, when are you home next? I would love for you and Maggie to properly meet Adrien and hang out with us," Amelie said.

"Ah yes please! I'll be back in two weekends. Let's all go out for drinks."

"That sounds wonderful." Amelie squealed.

"Excellent. Until then keep me updated on everything via text, okay?" Charlotte said.

"Of course, babe." They arrived at her apartment and Amelie waited outside with Charlotte until her Uber came. Then she turned around to finally see the man she loved.

As soon as she walked in the door Adrien shot up from his seat on the couch. "Hi," e said cautiously. He made no move to come near her. Smart man.

"Hey," she said. Amelie smelled something sweet and tilted her head to the side. "What's that smell?"

Adrien ducked his head and looked at the floor. "I made you brownies."

Her heart rose in her chest and Amelie smiled warmly at him as she beheld the shy boy that had first charmed her heart. He had not shown this sweet side of him in so long. She swayed her hips as she walked over to him.

"You made me brownies? But you don't cook."

"I know. I had to watch a lot of youtube videos, but I think I got them right." He looked up at her and his eyes glazed over appreciatively at her swaying hips. "Are you still mad at me? I'm so sorry for that fight last night. I woke up feeling terrible and then you were gone. When you texted me that you weren't going to come home I freaked out and assumed the worst." He sniffled. "I thought you left me."

She shook her head and reached out to grab his hands in hers.

"I'm so sorry, Amelie."

"It's okay," she said. "From now on, I won't keep secrets from you. But can you promise to try to give me some more independence in the Elven world? I want to go to the gym by myself and I want to visit the Realms someday, and I want to really start looking for my parents."

He nodded. "I promise. I really promise I'll try."

"Okay."

Adrien put a finger under her chin and tilted her head up to look at him. "Hey," he said, "I love you," and reached down and kissed her on the lips. She sighed contentedly, relieved that their fight was over and their easy little world of love could close around them again.

"I love you too."