Lee had had a lot of time to think in the past day. Tarin had woken up, he was actually out of his coma, but was still out of it. The month of laying there in the bed, not moving, had done some damage to him. Not serious, but he was still sleeping a lot, still barely able to even sit on his own.

So he was still laying there, and Lee was still sitting at his bedside on her own, but it was different now. Very different.

Lee hadn't realized it before, but there was something very different between when Tarin actually slept compared with how he had been over the last month, but now that she was seeing him laying there on his side, Lee knew that there was a difference.

At least she had a lot to think about to keep herself occupied while Tarin slept. Like how he said he had been there with her the whole month, and how he had told her that she wasn't crazy. She hadn't actually told anyone that in so many words, she'd simply alluded to it with Sam, who had told her that he heard voices.

They hadn't really talked much the short times that Tarin had been awake, though. He'd been so tired, had only been awake for short amounts of time, so they had simply spent it together, not really discussing anything major.

But Tarin was awake now, and Lee was sitting on the bed beside him. And he seemed so much more awake, aware, than he had been any of the other times. Maybe this was her chance to find out about some of her questions.

"What did you mean I'm not crazy?" Lee asked softly, shifting on the bed, tucking her leg underneath herself. "That you were always there?"

He was awake. Tarin was actually awake. It had been over 24 hours since Slate had managed to reconnect his mind to his body, and Tarin was awake. Other points worth mentioning included the removal of the feeding tube which was accomplished with only a minimum of cursing, and Tarin discovering that his hospital bed was one of the fancy ones with a switch that helped him sit up.

That's what he was doing now, sitting up. Sitting up in his own bed, with his own arms and legs and fingers and toes at his command. Tarin had marveled at it for a while, how he could move the individual parts of his body on command. After a month of not being able to feel anything, just breathing felt awesome. Especially now that it didn't hurt so bad. There was something else too. Lee.

Those first 24 hours had been crazy, a haze of in and out and awake and asleep. Lee had been there the whole time though. Every time Tarin opened his eyes, Lee had been there. Lee was still there. Lee was talking to him.

Tarin's head jerked up and he tilted it to look at Lee as she asked him the questions that had probably been burning in her brain since his barely coherent ramblings the day before.

"I meant what I said." Tarin said quietly, as Lee sat down, reaching his hand out and laying it on her knee. "You weren't crazy when you were feeling things. You were feeling me."

She wanted more, and he was still a little tired, but Tarin could do this now. His brain was working much more in sync with his body and he thought for a few moments, then spoke. "Lee...I was here the whole time. I can probably walk you through what you did for entire days. I just wasn't here. Something happened to me that night in the graveyard Lee...I could see, I could hear..." Tarin stopped and shook his head, raising a hand to his forehead, rubbing his temple with his thumb. "It was unbelievable...but it happened...and sometimes when I was the most frustrated with not being able to do anything about it...you could feel me. So you weren't crazy. I just didn't have any way to make you realize it was me."

Lee looked down when she felt Tarin's hand on her knee as he began to speak. It was strange, really. She'd gone so long here without really touching anyone. Well, she'd touched Tarin a lot over the last month, but it didn't feel the same as when he actually touched her back, as when he reacted to her touch. And his hand on her knee like that...

Thankfully Tarin was saying more after that first comment, though. Since that first comment, what he had said to start with, was really nothing more than what he had said the day before when he had first woken up.

He could walk her through what she had done for days at a time? Lee's eyes shot up to Tarin's in surprise. Not that she had really done all that much other than sit here at his bedside for days at a time, well other than when DocProf had kicked her out of the room, but he'd been laying there in that bed...It was just hard to believe that he'd known what was going on all the time.

"That was really you?" Lee asked, her brow furrowed as she thought. "It was you I was feeling when no one else was there?"

As Lee thought, remembered a number of the times she'd turned after feeling energy only to see no one was there, it did seem to make a bit of sense with what Tarin had said. Quite a few of those times when she had felt it were when things had been the hardest for her, such as at night when she was crying or at the apartment packing her things up.

"I just wish I could have known that, could have found out somehow," Lee whispered. "Every time I touched you, I don't know, it was like...you weren't completely there...And then feeling energy when it seemed no one was there..." Lee shook her head, then leaned forward to hug Tarin. "You have no idea how glad I am that you're ok."

Lee was taking it well. At first Tarin had wondered if she'd think that he was the crazy one. If she'd been convinced that he'd just had some weird coma dream while he was out and that he'd made up everything he was telling her. While she didn't take it in stride, Lee didn't exactly take it out of stride either.

"It was really me. I was with you the first time you met Slate...right after he signed up for his first set of classes. I was with you when you were walking around outside talking to yourself about what was wrong with me...I was there when you were in the danger room with a shirtless Sam working on your people radar." Tarin stopped and raised an eyebrow at Lee, "Still wondering if I really know what I'm talking about?"

Lee was talking again though, saying how she wished that somehow she could have known that he was there. Then Lee leaned forward and hugged him and Tarin just hugged her back, breathing in the way her hair smelled and reveling in how warm her body was pressed against his. It was an amazing thing to be alive.

Tarin ran his hand through Lee's hair, holding her close still as she said how glad she was that he was okay. "God Lee...you have no idea how glad I am. It was absolute torture...watching you that first night. Not even the spirits would talk to me Lee...the only thing that kept me going was you."

Lee might not have fully believed, at least not completely. Until Tarin started listing off various things that she had done, not in this room. Cause really, how could he have known all that if he hadn't somehow been there with her?

"Still wondering if I really know what I'm talking about?"

Lee shook her head, unsure how she could not believe at this point. There was one little thing still bugging her about it, though. "I don't understand how, but yeah, I don't know how you'd know that otherwise..."

And then Tarin was hugging her back once she leaned forward, his hand running through her hair. As they hugged, Tarin mentioned how horrible that first night had been. That first night she had been here, still dressed and ready to go out for their Valentine's Day dinner, her make up smeared from her crying...

Lee bit her lip and squeezed her eyes closed as she hugged Tarin tightly. That had been one of the worst days she had ever had in her life.

But things were better now. So much better. Tarin was awake, Tarin was (mostly) sitting up on his own, and he was hugging her, kissing her back when she kissed him. After the last month, Lee couldn't think of anything that could be better at that moment.

Leaning back a bit, not completely, not all the way back to where she had been sitting before, but leaning back enough so that she could clearly see Tarin's face once more, Lee sat there just looking at him for a moment. "You were there when I was talking to Slate?" She asked. She had told him that she would think about what he had said, consider his offer, but hadn't exactly done that in the intervening weeks. She'd had a couple more important things to worry about, after all. But if Tarin had been listening to what he had said too...

"What did you think about him?" She asked, her head tilting to the side a bit.

"I don't exactly know either Lee..." Tarin said, shuddering as he thought about the graveyard, something he hadn't done since the night it had happened. "One minute my head was pounding, they were coming at me from all sides...you wouldn't believe the things I saw that night Lee. There's a reason I avoid those places..." Tarin was hardly talking to Lee at the moment, it was more like he was talking through her...trying to figure out what had happened himself, as well as trying to explain it to Lee.

"I was trying...trying so hard Lee..." he stopped and turned his head, looking at Lee from his peripheral vision, unable to look at her as he said it. "I couldn't get loose, and it was freezing cold, my head hurt...and all I could think was how I needed to get away...and I did. Only once I was out...I couldn't get back in. Then Ash was there...and when the stuff he did, didn't wake me up...I knew it was bad. All I could do was follow. Then I saw you..." That was it...there was nothing else to say. Lee hadn't understood how it had worked...now she knew as much as Tarin did about the situation. Maybe she could make more of it than he had.

Lee hadn't caught onto the bit that Tarin had brought up about her working on her powers with a half-naked Sam. Either that or she was skipping over what he'd said and latching on the much more innocent and safe topic of Slate. What had Tarin thought of him? What an odd question. Then Tarin remembered a day when Lee had taught the kid how to make a sandwich. Lee wanted to talk about that now?

"I think I owe him my life right now." Tarin said as Lee moved slightly away from him, she was still close enough...well Lee was never close enough, but she was still close. "He's the one that wouldn't give up and finally figured out what we needed to do. If you're talking about the political conversation you had over sandwiches in the kitchen...that's another story. I'd have to talk to the kid myself. He seems awful young...but awful old at the same time."

Tarin leaned back against his pillows and studied Lee for a few moments, "He must have really said some things that got through to you though. I'd like to talk to him if he wants to come back and visit. Let's not talk about politics though. I've had to watch you for a month without touching you and you keep on moving further away from me." Tarin patted the bed right next to him and scooted over to make room, "I'm not going to break...no matter how scrawny I've gotten." at that comment a brief look of concern crossed Tarin's features, "I hope my clothes still fit me..."

Lee felt and saw Tarin shudder as he started to explain about that night, about the graveyard. He hadn't explained anything like this before, but Lee had been right about why her husband had avoided graveyards at all costs; even at the expense of going to see his father's grave.

"And then Ash was there?" Lee asked, her brows furrowing. Lee had heard that Ash was the one who had found Tarin, but she hadn't gotten many answers from DocProf, or even Sam and Shin about it. And Ash had been refusing to answer the phone when she called, not calling her back... But if Tarin had actually seen what had gone on after his body fell unconscious, maybe she could get some answers now.

"What did Ash do to you?" Lee went on to ask. "How did he know to bring you here rather than a hospital? He won't talk to me about anything, never mind this..."

But even with what Tarin had said, it didn't seem like either of them really had any better an idea than the other of what had happened with Tarin. They did need to figure it out, though, Lee decided. If it had happened, as Tarin had said, because he had been trying to get away from the spirits in the graveyard, they really needed to figure it out. Yes, Slate had figured out how to fix it, but what if it didn't work the next time, or what if Slate wasn't around to try if it happened again?

And speaking of Slate, Lee nodded when Tarin said he just about owed him his life at that point. That did make sense, Slate had been the only one to figure anything out.

Then Tarin said that he'd have to talk to the 'kid' himself, and Lee couldn't stop the slight smile. He was still doing it. Lee didn't think that Slate was really that much younger than her, yet Tarin seemed to make it a habit of calling even people who were her age 'kid'. He always seemed to forget just how much younger than him she was.

"Yeah, he had some really interesting ideas," Lee told Tarin as she nodded her head. "But I haven't really had much chance to think about it, so maybe trying to talk to him again would be a good idea."

Though apparently Tarin didn't feel like that was a good time to even discuss what they remembered that Slate had said. Instead, he patted the bed beside him and wanted her to move over there, right beside him, claiming that he wouldn't break even if he was much thinner than he had been. Lee wasn't so sure of that fact, but she did miss sitting like that. So Lee shifted, turning on the bed so she could sit beside Tarin on the bed.

And then Lee frowned when she heard Tarin's concern about his clothing. She couldn't be sure about the jeans, all she had had him wear over the last month were pyjama pants and t-shirts. "I think things might be a little big," she told him softly, glancing sideways at him only after she had finished saying those words. Then she smiled a bit. "And if it's really that bad, we can always go shopping once you're feeling a bit better."

"Yeah..." Tarin said, frowning slightly again at the memory of the night in the graveyard. "If everything wasn't weird enough already...my brother, who I thought was in Texas, showed up to come to my rescue. As to what he did...." Tarin paused for a second and rubbed his face. "He un-taped me...then slapped me...then carried me...then finally drug me into this place."

How had he known to come here? Tarin frowned, wondering whether or not he should keep Ash's powers from Lee. The decision didn't take long, though, no secrets. "Well...from what I could tell...he's a mutant and he'd been here before. Apparently he knows Sam. He figured bringing me here would be better than a hospital."

It was still a surprise, the knowledge that his brother was every bit as much a mutant as he was, and Tarin shook his head at the knowledge. It made it even more confusing why Ash was so angry with him, so bitter. How could Ash feel that way when he knew what Tarin had gone through. It didn't matter, until he could track his brother down to talk, nothing would change.

Lee was still talking about Slate and his ideas, Tarin wasn't completely sold, but what the kid had said about using their powers for good was definitely tempting. Something that Tarin hadn't ever thought he'd really have the means to do. Having the opportunity might be awesome.

Lee hesitated to climb up next to him in the bed and it was long enough for Tarin to roll his eyes at her. "Oh for the love..." he said, then slipped an arm behind her back so he could rest his head against her shoulder. "This is way better for me than laying here all by myself, even if you do think I'm breakable."

Lee agreed about the clothes, cripes, did he look that bad? "Yay! Shopping." he said with mock enthusiasm. "My jacket will still fit, so that's all I really care about. Maybe I'll have to try those chaps on again...they might fit now." he added with a grin against Lee's shoulder.

They were sitting comfortably now and Tarin turned his head to kiss Lee on the cheek, "One question." he said against her ear, "Did you have to sleep in his bed and wear his clothes?" He'd done a good job...it had been over 24 hours and he hadn't said a word about the first night Lee had been in the mansion. The night that she'd slept in Sam's bed...in Sam's shirt. "I know nothing happened...but still...."

"He slapped you?" Lee asked in shock. She knew that for whatever reason, Ash didn't like Tarin, but she never thought that it was that bad, that'd he'd actually get physical about his feelings like that.

But then Tarin confirmed what Lee had been wondering about over the last month, or at least confirmed as much as he could without actually talking to Ash again, which was looking unlikely in the near future: that Ash was a mutant too. But if Ash was a mutant, why wouldn't he talk to her, why hadn't he told her and Tarin before now?

As she had started to move, shifting on the bed, Lee saw Tarin's eyes rolling at her, and she shook her head at him. He should know by this point that she worried, worried about having taken too much energy, and when she worried about that she worried about actually touching him. So why would it be surprise him that she was worrying now, worrying about possibly hurting him.

She was sitting there beside him, his arm wrapped around her. "Oh come on, Tarin, shopping isn't that bad, is it?" Lee asked after hearing the tone of his voice. But then she heard him mention the chaps, and Lee laughed slightly and shook her head. "You know what, they just might," Lee teased him back. "Maybe that's why they shrunk in the first place, so you'd have something to wear now."

Feeling Tarin turning his head, his lips pressing against her cheek, Lee smiled. And smiled even more happily when she felt his lips starting to brush against her ear as he spoke.

Only to have the smile immediately fall off her face as she heard the question that he asked. Lee blinked, her mouth moving for a moment as if to answer, but nothing came out. Then Tarin went on, saying that he knew nothing had happened, but still.

"I couldn't sleep in what I was wearing," Lee finally managed to say softly, her brow furrowed, not turning to look at Tarin. "What else should I have done?"

Tarin grinned at Lee's reaction to the knowledge that Ash had slapped him. She obviously hadn't grown up in the Brooks home. "He was just trying to wake me up Lee...after he pulled all that duct tape off and I didn't move or react or anything I think he was actually starting to get worried."

It was strange to think about that, that after all these years of hating him, Ash had managed to pull together enough humanity to take Tarin to the one place that could actually help him. It had been a stroke of luck he could barely hope for. "Don't be too hard on him. I don't know what his problem is, but if nothing else, this shows he's not completely lost. Something tells me that now that I'm in on his little secret he'll be at least a little more willing to talk to me than he was before."

Lee was hesitant still, to sit near him and Tarin suddenly worried that he was going to have to spend the next few weeks convincing Lee that no, she wasn't taking too much energy by being around him. That was the last thing he wanted, her keeping her distance. She just didn't have a clue how hard that month had been. All the watching, all the not being able to touch. More than ever, Tarin couldn't have cared less about the consequences of the touching, as long as it was happening.

Then Lee was teasing him, just a little bit and everything seemed a little better, he chuckled at her slight admonishment about the shopping and shrugged his shoulders, "As long as you'll go with me, I don't think I'll mind too much. My wardrobe has probably needed updating for a while now anyway." Then the chaps, she wasn't completely bellicose, that was a good thing, a very good thing.

"Well, maybe I'll have to try them on when we get home and you can tell me what you think." he whispered against her ear again. The fact that they were talking about a non-existant pair of assless chaps meant nothing. Absolutely nothing. They were talking about it, and if Tarin wasn't sure his already weak body would let him down before he had a chance to do anything worthwhile he'd have given the medical staff a show.

Lee stiffened against him ever so slightly when he brought up the few hours she'd spent in Sam's room the first night she'd been in the mansion. Her retort made sense, in a way, in the same way it didn't. Lee had been awful dressed up though, and exhausted by the time they'd managed to pull her away from his bedside. Tarin tightened his arms around her in a small hug, "Don't get to bent about it...I was just saying...you could have found some weasly kid to bunk up with. I was so mad when that screeching cow woke you up though...you were so tired."

Tarin stopped there, letting Lee digest what he'd said so far and going over other things he'd seen while Lee had thought he was unconscious. Those thoughts led back to earlier, and the chaps and Tarin laughed to himself, hoping to improve the mood a little after his silly comment about Sam. "You'd be creeped out if you knew just how much I watched you." he said, "I know how you feel when you can't sleep now. I couldn't bear to leave you for long periods of time...so I just followed you like a lost puppy where ever you went. It was like in the beginning when I had to watch you put on those damn boots. Torture...sweet...sweet...torture."

Ok,it was official. Lee did not understand the male species. ash had been worried, so he had slapped Tarin? Maybe it was a good thing that her brothers had had a gap of 8 years between them.

Yet Tarin thought that this would make Ash more receptive to actually talking to him. Lee really wasn't so sure about that, the man hadn't seemed very receptive to talking to her yet, at all.

"Oh, you won't mind too much if I'm there?" Lee asked, a teasing tone still in her voice. "Is that so? But yeah, your wardrobe does need a bit of updating. And you do still owe me a dinner, so something new for that wouldn't go wrong, either."

Then Tarin was offering to try on the chaps, and Lee couldn't stop the laugh the erupted from her. "You'll try them on for me, will you?" She asked. "Only if you'll wear your hat with them."

Turning her head, Lee looked over at Tarin and her breath caught in her throat. The look in his eyes...damn it, why did Tarin still have to be so tired, why did they still have to be in the infirmary? Even if they weren't back in their apartment, it would have been so much nicer if they were upstairs, in the room that had been hers for the past month. It wasn't home, but it was so much more private...

Tarin was trying to get her to calm down, though she wasn't all that upset about it, just feeling rather, well, uncomfortable about the whole situation. Thinking about it, Lee did kind of understand why Tarin was upset about, he hadn't liked Sam at all from the first time they had met. But at least Tarin shared her feelings about the woman who had woken her up that night, or at least what she would have been feeling if she hadn't been so tired.

"But I was tired, Tarin," Lee pointed out. "What was I supposed to do, wander around in the middle of the night trying to find somewhere else to sleep? I guess I could have found a chair somewhere, but DocProf kicked me out so I wouldn't be sleeping in a chair."

Then Lee heard Tarin laugh, and she turned her head to look over at him. Just in time to hear him saying how he had followed her around for the last month. And how he now knew how she felt staying up. "You didn't sleep at all?" Lee asked, blinking over at him. Lee couldn't imagine that. She'd been up for six days, but a whole month, she couldn't even comprehend what it would have been like to be awake for that long. "So you just followed me around the whole time?"

"It'll still be bad...even if you're there..." Tarin said, leaning his head back against the pillows for a minute and making a face, "but not as bad. There's a clear, and very important distinction there Lee."

Lee pointed out that a new outfit to take her to a dinner he still owed her wouldn't go awry either and Tarin grinned. "You're very right about that. I owe you a wining and dining." He left off the end of the rhyme. It was still too soon for that particular brand of perversity.

Yup, he needed to get better. Fast. Lee liked the idea of the non-existent chaps. With the cowboy hat. Tarin nearly groaned out loud at the image. Lee was never this forward...well...sometimes she was...a particular Halloween came to mind...but she was rarely that forward. Tarin wondered for a minute exactly how far that room that Lee'd been given was from the infirmary, then sighed in frustration and flopped back against the pillows. He'd tried to get up to pee earlier in the day and had nearly ended up on his ass in the middle of the floor. There was no way he was ready for a romp between the sheets.

"Okay..." he said, taking a deep breath and expelling it in frustration, "We're going to need to change the subject darlin'. No more talking about chaps and the like for a couple more days. I don't think I can handle it."

Lee still felt the need to explain about Sam and Tarin mentally cursed himself for feeling the need to bring it up in the first place. Lee hadn't done anything wrong, and neither had Sam...except running around in the danger room without a shirt on like the narcisistic bastard he was. Tarin still cringed at the feeling that he owed the man thanks for making sure Lee was taken care of.

"I know Lee..." Tarin said, then sighed and forced out the words, "I think part of the problem is that I don't want to admit that he did a nice job looking out for you. I was there just like you were when the Doc made you leave that night. I was there when you passed out in Sam's room, and I was still there when you finally got settled somewhere else. I'm just glad that someone thought to bring you coffee. Even if I can't stand him."

Tarin leaned forward again, that was getting easier, at least. His muscles were tight and sore from the lack of use they'd had over the last month. Thankfully Doc said that they hadn't regressed too far though, and that it shouldn't be difficult to get them back in working order. For his libido's sake, Tarin hoped it was sooner than later. Lee was curious about how he'd followed her, and Tarin propped his head on her shoulder again after nodding.

"Yeah. I followed you pretty much everywhere." he said, "I mean there's places that not even I wanted to follow you...but for the most part...if you were somewhere. I was right there too. I told you...I'm a bit of a masochist where you're concerned. Watching you get dressed and undressed every was like the highlight...and the lowlight of my days. Watching you sleep...sitting here day after day..."

Tarin thought about that for a minute after he'd said it then chuckled, "Good god I'm a creep..." he said, shaking his head against Lee's shoulder, "It wasn't like that...it really wasn't. I felt too weird being out of my body for it to be a sexual thing...I just needed to be by you. I hope you understand...though I doubt you could think I'm a bigger creep than you already do..."

After she had turned to look at him, Lee saw Tarin falling back against the pillow behind him. Sighing in frustration. And then he was telling her that she needed to change the subject, that they couldn't talk about things like that for at least another couple days.

Lee sighed too, closing her eyes, though for her it was more a sigh of disappointment than frustration. That had been one of Lee's main concerns, worries, when she and Tarin's relation had just started. Just the simple fact of how physically attracted she was to him, how there were times, even out in public, where they just couldn't seem to keep their hands off of each other.

It had been a month, and Tarin was the one who had brought up trying on the chaps in the first place. "Fine, I'll behave if you behave," Lee told Tarin in a whisper, looking back at him. "It's been a long month for me too, you know."

At least it made more sense why Tarin was so annoyed, frustrated, upset with Sam. Though it wasn't really that, more that he didn't want to feel in debt to someone he didn't like.

Lee really wasn't sure what to say to that, though. Everything she had said about Sam so far had just seemed to make things worse in some way, plus she didn't really want to be talking about Sam right then.

So when Tarin started talking, explaining, about how he had been following her around for the last month, virtually everywhere, Lee just sat there and listened, feeling Tarin's head on her shoulder. As he said that he was a creep for everything that he'd done.

Lee laughed softly, shaking her head as well. "I know you're a creep," Lee told him, the laughter still in her voice. "I've known that for a long time, hon."

But then Lee's face sobered, and she looked over at him. "What do you think I was doing?" She asked softly, a hint of sadness in her voice. "I was just sitting here day after day watching you, too."

Oh God... Tarin couldn't help but think it when Lee agreed that a subject change would be good and that she'd behave if he did. Did she have any idea how hot it was when she pointed out how long the last month had been for her? For someone who had had such a difficult time with the physical side of their relationship for such a long time, Lee was doing a really doing a good job making him want things that he had no business wanting 34 hours after waking up from a month long coma.

"Uh huh..." he said, then cleared his throat when his voice cracked slightly on the second syllable. It was going to be hard to think about anything else...or at least Tarin thought it would be until she commented on his self admonishment about being a creep.

Back against the pillows, Tarin went, his lips pressing into a thin like as he looked at the back of Lee's head. "I know you think that." he said tightly, "That doesn't mean that I have to like it...and I definitely don't want you to feel that way." Tarin sighed, then leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling, "I didn't tell you that to confirm all the bad things you've ever thought about me. I told you that so you'd know how much I missed you and that you weren't really as alone as you thought."

Lee pointed out that all she'd done was watch him for the month too and Tarin shrugged slightly, "You didn't have anything nearly as good to look at as I did." he said softly. "And I don't care how creepy that sounds."

Hearing Tarin's voice crack as he spoke again, Lee closed her eyes. Yeah, it was most definitely necessary that they stop talking like that. Stopping thinking about would be better, but Lee knew that that wasn't going to happen. Not with her, and certainly not for Tarin. She wasn't sure if there was a time he wasn't thinking along those lines.

But then Lee felt Tarin lean back again after she said she knew he was a creep. Taking a deep breath, Lee turned on the bed a bit so that she could look at him with how he was leaning back behind her, just as he was speaking.

And getting depressed, by the sound of it. Definitely not a good thing, not after just waking up. Sighing slightly, Lee leaned over and kissed Tarin softly, then sat there and stared straight into his eyes, mere inches away, giving him a serious look. "Really, Tarin," she said, and her voice was firm yet quiet. "How can you believe I really think you're a creep? A bit of a perv at times, but we wouldn't have even met if you weren't, but a creep? You've seen how I deal with creeps, haven't you? And when have I treated you like that?"