-Sophie yawned a little as she walked to telepathy. She had stayed up for half the night studying telepathy with Fitz, and was almost starting to regret it as she walked to one of their last sessions with Tiergan before their big test, which was coming up, and soon. Final exams were even earlier, and so Sophie would have to work that into her study schedule as well, minimizing her free time even more. Sigh, if only the Black Swan had given her the ability to manipulate time too.

Without thinking, she turned a corner, about to make a turn into the door when she bumped into her cognate, quite literally. Her forehead hit his chest while his chin smacked against the top of her head, and Sophie wondered when he had gotten so tall in these past few years.

"Sorry," smiled Fitz shamefacedly, "I was just thinking about stuff... and thinking too hard apparently." He laughed a little, "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry too. Let me guess, we're both thinking about the cognate trials?" Sophie asked, even though she already knew his answer- cognate's intuition you might call it.

"I'm nervous," he admitted, "I know we can do it, I just... We don't know what they're going to throw at us, I don't feel ready." With a short sigh, Fitz's eyes flicked away from hers, "Even after all this practicing..." He ran his fingers through his hair, "I'm sorry-"

"Don't be," Sophie cut him off, her hands up like she was surrendering, and in a way, she was, "I don't feel ready either, and I don't think we'll ever feel ready."

Fitz nodded, a smile growing on his face, "But when the time comes we'll rise up to the challenge."

"Exactly," she confirmed.

"Thanks, Sophie, I needed that-"

"Barf! You guys are so gross, I can't believe you're not cognates already," Biana sauntered up to them with a childish face of disgust.

Sophie's almost-cognate frowned a little, "Yet you pining over Dex isn't gross?"

Biana was stunned, and pointed at Sophie accusingly, hurt starting to well in her eyes, "I told you to keep it secret!"

"I didn't tell," Sophie swore, hands up in innocence.

"She didn't," Fitz promised, "Your eyes just scream it," he paused before adding in a slightly dull, serious tone, "constantly."

Red faced, Biana protested, "They do not!"

"Do too," Fitz countered juvenilely.

"Then you have the same eyes when you look at-" Biana started, but Tiergan arrived, cutting her off.

"What's all this about? Ms. Vacker, shouldn't you be getting to class? Shoo!"

Biana did the classic 'I'm-watching-you' gesture to Fitz before scurrying off, leaving Sophie curious as to who Fitz made those eyes to. Tiergan then ushered the two cognates to be inside, 
"I have something very important to talk to you both about today, about your cognate trials."

Suddenly very intrigued, the two cognates shared a glance before sitting next to each other in the seats in front of Tiergan's desk. Slowly, their teacher sat down at his desk, taking a deep breath, looking like he was about to deliver some bad news. Out of instinct, Sophie grabbed Fitz's hand and squeezed it tightly, feeling a little bit better to know they were on the same page. She looked at Tiergan expectedly, her eyes never leaving their mentor, even though she could feel Fitz glance at her, she needed answers to explain all these bad vibes.

"As you know, I send a report to the test administrators council of your progress every week until your test so they know what you've worked on and what you should be tested on. I've dutifully documented everything so far... except for the fact that you haven't told one another your biggest secret," Tiergan rubbed his temples slightly before propping his chin up on his hands. "If you don't tell each other before our last session, I'll have to put it in, and there's a chance it'll be one of the three trials you'll go through..." Noticing the distressed look on Sophie's face, he corrected, "I'm not saying now, I'm not saying here. I'm just saying you should probably prepare to do it soon, okay?"

Sophie nodded, and glanced at Fitz to see him nod as well. Tiergan smiled, and leaned back in his chair, "Good, now that that's out of the way, let's get started."

---

~After the session was over, Fitz sat next to his cognate in the grass of the school courtyard. Lunch was about to start, and afterwards they'd be in separate classes for the rest of the day. They had practiced for the first two periods non stop, so Tiergan had let them go to lunch ten minutes early, seeing as the two teens were exhausted. Laying together on the grounds of Foxfire in the warm spring air with Sophie Foster felt like heaven to Fitz, but there was a question itching at his brain, and he studied his cognate's face, wondering if he should ask it.

"What's wrong?" Sophie asked with a frown, and for a few seconds, he was so mesmerized that he could only blink.

When he could finally pull the words together in his mouth, he propped himself on his elbow, looking down at her, and asked, "Have you and Grady made up yet?"

Overhead, the clouds darkened, as did the mood of the moment. Sophie sighed a little, sounding annoyed, "No, not yet. I can't believe he mesmered me. I mean, I understand he just wants to protect me, but... I don't need to be. I've saved the world! I can take on some hard news and a bad experience."

"Of course you can," Fitz assured her, not wanting to get on her bad side, "and he definitely went too far."

Sophie gave him a pointed look, seeming to know what was coming next, "But..."

"But maybe you should talk to him, you know, hear him out, convey your feelings through words instead of through ignoring him so maybe it'll ease up on his reign of overprotection?" Fitz suggested playfully, trying to keep the conversation light while still getting his point across.

"Now you're nagging me about being more open," she rolled her eyes, "who's next? Bronte?"

"Oh come on, you know I'm right," he reminded her smugly, but that saturated confidence soon trailed off into something more serious, "besides, I know you miss him."

When she sighed, he knew he had gotten through to her. "You're right... This has gone on for too long. I'll talk to him soon, maybe after Biana drags me around from store to store later today."

"That's the spirit," he nudged her slightly and she smiled.

"Shut up, Wonderboy. Just because you were right this one time doesn't mean I won't get you the next time!"

Fitz quietly hoped that he was right for her before replying smugly, "Sure, sure, you can try..."

"Who whins at base quest?" She reminded him shamelessly, propping herself up on her elbows to be at his eye level.

"Well if we ever played on the same team..."

"Oh, shut it," grumbled Sophie.

He howled with laughter and fell back on the grass, his cognate jokingly smacking his arm, her lips pressed into a thin line as she tried not to laugh along with him. He didn't know why he found this so funny- maybe it was his cognate's expression, maybe he was drunk on the feeling of this moment, who could really say? All Fitz knew was that seconds later, they were laughing together, her face slowly colliding with his shoulder, like two ocean waves crashing together. It was perfect, how they always fell on the same page, how happy what they had made him feel, and he couldn't wait to spend the rest of his life like this with her.

---

~Of course, Fitz's work wasn't done yet. Though he had gotten one side to concede to the idea of a peace treaty, there was still Grady he had to convince. Once he had made sure that Sophie was going off with Biana, he light leaped to Havenfield where he found Grady wrangling a silver dragon- the latest rescue from the Forbidden Cities.

Grady seemed to be struggling, holding the reins tightly, and pulling them off to the side as he gripped the slippery scales of the thrashing beast. Quickly, seeing his cognate's father in such a predicament, he rushed over, trying to remember what Sophie had taught him about telepathically communicating with animals. Since he wasn't a polygot, he wouldn't be able to translate words properly, so images would have to do. At a respectful distance away from the grand creature, Fitz closed his eyes, focusing on sending his memories of animals being treated with care and other calm images- Sophie's face slipping among them more than he would like to admit.

The oversized lizard didn't really respond to anything other than the memories of nasty verminions being fed, and random memories of Sophie that Fitz just pulled out of the back of his mind, so he sent those over and over until Grady coaxed the great beast to sleep. Grady's eyes shone pridefully as they silently walked back towards the house.

Suddenly, Grady clapped him on the back, smiling widely, "Thanks for the help, Fitz. I was worried I was going to have to call Sophie... Where is she anyways?"

"Out shopping with Biana, I actually came to talk to you about her," Fitz said a little nervously. HIs crush's dad was clapping him on the back.

"It better not be asking for my permission to date her," Grady said a little sharply. "Not yet, at least, then I'd owe Edaline 5 verminion shifts and Alden two emissary shifts/cases."

Though Fitz's face was bright red, he couldn't help but ask, "You didn't bet against my mom too?"

"Your mother is brutal when it comes to betting, she always wins somehow... It's a little scary... I actually asked her if she thought which side of the bet I should take- She said you guys wouldn't get together until after you finish out the year, so I took the opposing side against your dad and my wife," Grady ran a hand through his hair frustratedly with a miserable sigh. "I just really hope I'm right, verminion shifts are the worst."

"You guys seem pretty set on this idea of Sophie and I getting together," pointed out Fitz, who was trying to be realistic. "I mean, I don't even know if she likes me."

Grady gave him a look before taking a deep breath and changing the topic, probably for the best, "Anyways, what'd you want to talk to me about?"

"I know it's not my place, but as your daughter's almost-cognate, I thought it was important to put in my two cents..." Fitz started off nervously.

"And...?"

"I think you and Sophie should make up. She misses you, and I know you miss her," stated Fitz, "I mean, Sophie's winnowing gala is coming up, she needs you for the first dance, and it would suck if you guys were fighting during that instead of making a good memory."

"I'm ready to talk whenever she is," Grady said quickly, "I've just been waiting... I didn't want to approach her and make things worse."

"We talked about it earlier actually, and she said she's willing to talk, but wait for her to initiate it. She said she was going to talk to you after shopping, but, knowing Sophie, who knows how long it could be?"

Grady chuckled in agreement, "That's true..." he looked off into the distance before continuing, "Thanks, Fitz, you're a good mediator, even though you don't have to play referee."

Shrugging, he replied, "It's alright, Sophie and I are a team. Her problems are my problems, and vice versa. Her family is my family, and vice versa."

Grady smiled wider at this and murmured something under her breath, something that Fitz couldn't catch while in movement, but afterwards, Grady invited him inside for tea. Fitz said yes, to keep in his good graces, though he didn't particularly like tea all that much. Together, they made small talk over tea dunked biscotti as they waited for Sophie to get home, looking back at this moment years later as one of the first father son-in-law bonding moments.