A/N: Well, I don't really have anything to say here, so I'll just do this:

Disclaimer: Me no ownie.

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

He sighed, but refused to move from his decision. "It's a silly mortal tradition so the man can impress the woman. I see no reason for us to do such a thing."

"I want to." I pointed out. "Doesn't that count as a reason?"

He switched tactics, answering my question with a question of his own. "Don't you have a kingdom to run?"

"I already talked to Glitch." I said quickly "He said one night off would be fine." Not a total lie. Yes, I had talked to Glitch. And yes he said that I could take a night off. But because I led him to believe that I wasn't feeling well, not because I wanted to try and get Ash to come on a date with me.

He sighed again and raked a hand through his hair. He stared out the window of our bedroom at the Iron Realm, trying to come up with a way to weasel out of this.

"Why don't you want to?" I asked. I was genuinely curious.

"I just…" he seemed to be struggling to get the words out. "I'm just… we never really spend any time together and I have a feeling…" a flicker of glamour appeared around him before he covered it. But I had seen it.

"You're afraid? What are you afraid of?" I asked, looking at him with new eyes. If Ash was scared, then something was up.

He glanced at me before looking back at the window. "If there is one thing I miss about being fey, it's the ability to see glamour. You can see what I'm feeling, but I don't know what you are, and I feel like I should."

A response to that was right on the tip of my tongue. I opened my mouth to say it, but then changed it at the last minute when I realized what he was doing. "You're changing the subject."

He glanced at me again, a small amount of sorrow, of regret, in his eyes. "The old Meghan never would have noticed that." he said softly, barely audible.

I blinked, taken off guard. "What does that have to do with anything?"

He took a deep breath, then turned towards me, bright silver eyes searching mine. "You've changed so much, Meghan. It' s been only a few yearsi since you became the Iron Queen and you've changed… irrevocably. And I'm rarely with you, really with you, anymore, just talking, just being with you. And I feel like, if we have the chance to… I will find that you aren't Meghan Chase, the half human daughter of Oberon, the one I fell in love with only a short time ago. I'm afraid…. I won't know who you are at all." His admittance finally out in the open, he slumped against a wall.

I was well aware how much admitting something like that had probably cost him. Sure, he was human, with a soul, but he was raised Unseelie, and he would always continue to act like that.

"How about this," I offered. "You come with me, on a date, just one. And you can ask anything you want about me. No matter what it is, I'll answer it. And by the end of the night, I should be able to prove to you that I am the same Meghan and you're still Ash, the person that knows more about me than anyone else."

His eyes searched my face. Then he sighed, for the third time that night. "Where are we going?"

I grabbed his hand and all but skipped out the door, dragging him with me. I went outside the palace and found the trod I was looking for, then walked right through. We found ourselves in a small meadow, wildflowers carpeting the ground, a picnic basket set atop a blanket just a few yards away. I walked over to it with Ash beside me, then sat down, pulling him down with me. I was pulling food out of the picnic basket when the questions started.

"What's your favorite color?"

I glanced back at him. He was motionless, looking at the blanket which we were sitting on, his face showing nothing. "Green." I replied, turning back to the picnic basket.

"What shade?"

I turned around again, gazing at him. "Um… I don't know. What's the difference?"

" 'Neon' green. Grass green. Emerald green. Leaf green. Sea green."

"Um… emerald green I guess."

He was silent for a minute, apparently taking in this information. I kept my eyes down, afraid that if I looked at him, I wouldn't like the expression on his face. I began taking food out of the picnic basket, laying the food out on the blanket, though I had a feeling neither of us would be eating much tonight.

"What is your favorite type of flower?"

"Roses."

"What color?"

"White."

"Why?"

"I don't know…" I hadn't really thought about why I liked white roses. Who really thinks about that type of stuff? "I guess…. It's because it looks so… clean. Roses look so beautiful and delicate, and then the color white just makes them look… clean. And pure."

He went silent again, before saying "What's your favorite season?"

And that's how it continued. We stayed there, sitting on a picnic blanket for hours. I lost track of the time quickly, so it might've been longer than that. The entire time Ash asked me questions. After he exhausted the 'favorites' category, he began asking me other things: what my best memory was, what my worst memory was, if I could take three things with me in the event of an apocalyptic zombie invasion, what would they be?

This last one made me sit up a little straighter and widen my eyes. "What type of question is that?" He shrugged, looking nonchalant even as I gave him a WTF? look. "A question. You said that I could ask anything I wanted and you would answer it."

"I think you're just running out of questions to ask me, but you don't want to stop, so you're resorting to making up strange questions." I accused him, holding back my twentieth yawn.

"I don't admit to it." He said, the corners of his lips twitching upwards.

"But you don't deny it either." I pointed out with a smile, and his face broke out into a real smile. The first one I had seen since the first few months after he had gotten a soul and come back to me.

"You've found me out, my queen." He said, a small laugh escaping him.

Our eyes met, his expression so open and full of love and joy that my breath caught. And as if by a cue neither of us heard or saw, he opened his arms and I crawled onto his lap, curling up against his solid chest. My eyes closed on their own accord and I knew that if I was going to be moving tonight, it was going to be by Ash carrying me, because I had no strength left to walk. Just as I drifted off to sleep, I heard Ash whisper into my hair "I know you, Meghan Chase, my love. I know you very well."

A/N: It turned out a little differently than how I had originally planned, but I liked it all the same. Oh, let me also say that I don't know if Meghan's favorite color is emerald green and if she likes white roses better than any other type of flower. It was just my writer instincts deciding it for me, and you don't go against your writer instincts. So, what do you need to do now? Oh, that's right: Review, so I know that this wasn't a total piece of cr*p.

Queen of Air and Darkness