"Mum, Gollum's here, and we're going shopping!" Fiona called as she opened the door of the flat, and Gollum ran inside towards the kitchen from where a muffled reply reached her.

"All right, Bells. Just make sure you buy everything I put on that list!"

Fiona grabbed a couple of shopping bags from the clothes rack before she let the door shut again behind them.

"What?" She asked challengingly when she looked up at Peregrine, who stood waiting for her statue still, leaning against the wall, his arms folded across his chest, a smile tugging at his lips.

"Bells?" he asked, making her close her eyes in exasperation. She really had hoped he hadn't heard that.

Fiona preceded him down the gloomy staircase while she explained, not looking at him. "My name is Fiona Isabella. I much prefer Fiona, I'm not a Bella... However, my mum always preferred my second name, saying it was way more elegant and grand. So I grew up as Isabella, Issie, Bells... But no one ever called me that in my adult life except for her. I'm Fiona."

She narrowed her eyes at the dark man to stress her point as they exited the house and she led him in the opposite direction to the one they had taken before, past The Hobbit, dark and desolate this time of the day, and down the high road towards the supermarket barely visible in the distance. 

"But Bella suits you," Peregrine said seriously, looking in front of him despite feeling her eyes intent on his face as she tried to guess whether he was teasing her.

"No, it doesn't. It means beautiful, a quality I don't possess."

"You obviously don't see yourself clearly," he replied, quite without thinking his words through, just as seriously as before. This time, he looked at her, his eyes spilling into hers, making her heart skip a beat or two. "To me, yo..."

She didn't let him finish. "Don't. Please. You don't have to lie. And anyway, there is something else I want to talk about. I need to know what you see in Freddie that I don't, you must tell me before you leave. Please," she said, tearing her eyes off him. Botheration... She... would miss him. He was one intriguing man...

Shaking his head in desperation, Peregrine watched her turn away from him. She was so stubborn. She still believed that he would leave her here... Like he could. 

Apart from his promise to Alaric about bringing her home, he had his own, selfish reasons now, too. This small, intriguing redhead walking at his side, fighting her way through life like an ordinary human, ignorant of the magic running through her veins, so petite and pretty and generous and loving... had everything he had ever dreamed of finding within a woman. Inevitably, she, her essence seeped into his heart through a chink in the armour he had been building around it for years. He couldn't afford to nurture dreams of falling in love, couldn't allow himself to hope that she would fall for him because he could never stay around, in her life, as much as he wished; his presence in anyone else's existence was too dangerous. 

But there was no way he was going to leave her here, alone and unprotected. In Silmarea, he could watch over her and her son safely as their guard at least, he knew that Alaric would allow him that. No Higlander would attack him at court, and if he hid his feelings from everyone, he would pose no threat at all to her.

"It is Freddie's father we were supposed to talk about," he reminded her, finally banishing those thoughts, and looking away from her. There was a slight change in the air, a scent he had not perceived before carried towards them on the breeze... But he would think about it later, solve the problem if and when it occurred. Right now she was more important. "I need to know more about him before I tell you anything about your son."

Peregrine was incredibly curious about the Highlander who had entered her life before him and yet he didn't want to hear their story. What he wanted didn't matter though, his feelings were not important. He needed to know the truth for the boy's sake. And hers-- her son's safety was the only reason for her to come to Silmarea willingly, he was sure.

"I really, really, don't want to talk about him," she muttered, looking at the dragon shifter with pleading eyes. However, she motioned to a bench under a tree separated from the supermarket's entrance by a spacious parking lot, feeling that the talk was inevitable. 

"But I don't want you to tell me anything you consider too personal, just tell me what kind of a person he was, so I'm sure that what I'm thinking is correct." 

Peregrine knew that he was correct, but he needed time to decide how to tell her the truth. Maybe she would understand it herself once she started to talk... It would be easier to make her believe it that way. And he also wanted to know who the Higlander was exactly, there weren't too many of them left, he might know him... His breath caught when he realised yet again in what danger the boy had lived until now. If any other Highlander had found him before Peregrine, he would have been dead. He hoped that the boy's father was dead... otherwise he would have to punish him for what he had done to this woman.

She inhaled deeply, the sound filled with resignation scattering his train of thought. 

"Listen, then, and remember, it's all in the past. I don't care about him anymore, he doesn't deserve my feelings, neither love nor hatred, because he never cared about Freddie. The man's indifferent to me," she said, her face turned away from him, her eyes closed, the gap between their bodies seated on the bench filling fast with her memories, distancing her from him.

He dispised the feeling, couldn't wait for her to come back from wherever she was now, as she said, "Lagon was the first and only man who made me feel beautiful and love worthy. There were other boys around before him, of course, boys at school who stared but never approached, maybe because of my fiery hair, as if they were afraid I would bite..." she giggled. "Then, out of the blue, there was Lagon in my life. I don't know where he came from, but suddenly he was always there, in front of the school in the afternoons, sitting at the table of the café where I worked at the weekends. He spoke to me, and I found him incredibly intriguing. I fell for him almost instantly. He looked older than me, in his forties, I thought. But the age gap didn't matter to me, I never cared about things like age, looks, wealth... It was the way he treated me that mattered..." 

Her breath hitched, the sound so close to a sob that it made Peregrine close his hands in fists. She had loved the Highlander, loved him the way only a woman like her could love. And he had betrayed her, threw her love away. Peregrine really hoped he was dead. No other reason would excuse his behaviour. 

"He was around for a handful of months and then he was gone as if he never existed," she continued. "And then I was pregnant, and became a single mother at eighteen. It wasn't easy but... I'm here. And I don't regret anything. My life without Freddie... wouldn't be worth it. So I actually owe him," she forced a laugh, opened her eyes and looked at him carefully. 

A thought snaked into Peregrine's mind while she spoke. Had this Lagon known who she was? Could he have sensed the magic of her ring and approach her purposely, as Alaric's heir, leaving her with a child who would become a ruler of Silmarea, a Higland Dragon instead of half gods or elves? He shook the thought off quickly, he would ponder on it later, it didn't matter now. Right now he had to make her understand that she needed to leave with them.

"We, in Silmarea, are not as old as we look to you," he said, picking the least personal of the things she had said, in an attempt to make her relax. Her arms were wrapped around her chest as if she was afraid he would hurt her, and he would never do that. He wanted her to trust him. "I'm more than a hundred years old in human years, Leodhais and Gilderoy are a little younger. Your father is much older, even though he doesn't look so. Our king has the longest life span of all the creatures inhabiting Silmarea. You yourself will live much longer than you expect, despite being half human. And so will your son... and his lifespan will be even longer than yours because I'm convinced that his father is, was, a Highland Dragon like me."

He stopped talking and looked at her with bated breath, unable to predict her reaction. It felt like a lifetime later when she nodded slowly, seriously, only her wide eyes drowning him in their blueness, suggesting that he had just told her something perfectly unexpected and shocking. 

"I... just thought so, since we spoke in the park. But... how? Why? It feels like... such an impossible coincidence..." she stammered, accepting his words.

He was almost sure it hadn't been a coincidence; he could feel it... But he wasn't going to tell her now. She didn't deserve to feel used.

"How... can you be sure?" she asked even as he raised his head towards the wind. 

That scent... He shook the distraction off before he replied, turning to her again.

"I know that your son is a Highlander. I can sense it. He will start morphing into his dragon form in a few human years. Freddie will feel confused at first, it's never easy. He'll need to be trained. I'm happy that Alaric found you now, I can help him if you come with us." 

His eyes, silver, deep and earnest devoured her as he said it. She... trusted him. She really did, and yet she felt herself falling. Nothing was as she had believed, her life until now seemed to be an illusion, a lie. This day, this moment would mark a beginning of her new life. Her son was a dragon, like the man sitting next to her who now drew her close to him, allowing her head to rest on his chest as he wiped away a few tears she had not felt leaving her eyes. Like the man she had once loved. The sobering recollection made her pull away from Peregrine, despite wishing she could stay in his arms forever... it was a rather comfortable place to be.

"I... thank you," she said, standing up, looking at the busy entrance of the supermarket separated from them by rows of parked cars. "Let us just do the shopping now, so my mum can cook."

She didn't understand. The shopping didn't matter at all. He had to tell her more.

"There is something about the Highlanders you don't know yet. We hunt each other down. You must come home with us; your son is in mortal danger here!" he spoke without trying to filter his words. 

"Mortal danger?" she piped, her hands gripping his arms as she finally understood. 

"Yes," he said simply, wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her closer. "Come home with us. Let me watch over you..."

Her mind spinning with all the information he had given her, she found herself nodding, mesmerised, as he finally drew her as close as he could, locking his arms around her back, his eyes pouring into hers, his head dipping, ever so slowly, even as hers tilted up, pulled as if by some unresistable force, her mind blissfully blank except for one thought-- How would his lips feel upon hers...?

The ordinary world around them dissolved before she could find out, to be replaced by unimaginable chaos within seconds.