~ Party Central ~<br/><br/>The joyous hymn of praise that sang in her veins faltered and stuttered into silence as she started to doubt her every sense......<br/><br/>Hiss kiss had blown through her heart like a hurricane, his gentle lips seemed to answer her longing and answer it with the words she so longed to hear.  It was dizzying -  the climb, her heart racing and every bone in her body singing. The impact of his love blowing so strongly through her that she trembled in awe of it's power over her.<br/><br/>She had felt as if she was quite literally in the air, her feet no longer carrying her, full of heat and light and wonder.  Looking at him kneeling, hearing him ask............ she did hear him ask.. .she couldn't.. oh god.... it didn't matter whether she thought he should be given more time, given the chance to know her better, even given the life they'd have a way from here to cast in the balance, her lips were moving to form the soft 'y' of the yes in her heart.<br/><br/>But then, she'd bitten in back, her eyes filling with a mixture of bewilderment and longing........... she just didn't know, from what he said next if it was all meant to be a joke, a lighthearted way of him dealing with the situation, possibly even turning her words aside so he didn't have to refuse them..........<br/><br/>Could her heart have been that wrong?  Did her lips taste something that wasn't there?<br/><br/>She looked down at the finger he had kissed and then at his face, turned slightly in profile as he looked across the beach. She felt as if she was drowning in self-doubt, all the lessons of her past screaming at her to run, to protect herself, to cradle her heart and not give it into the keeping of any man, let alone one who may joke about her love........<br/><br/>She turned, swallowing hard, determined for neither of them to see the state she was in.  "We'll talk later darling," she said huskily to Elijah, as she roughly pulled the pan from the fire, using the t-shirt laying in the sand.  She rummaged in the bowls and by dint of some juggling poured the stock off, then dumped the bones and veggies in a pile to cool out of the way and then put the stock back in the pan on the heat and added the rice and the fresh mushrooms and sweet corn from the cans she'd left ready.<br/><br/>"Kira, why don't you look in the food tarp I left down, and choose all your fave sweet treats and find some chocolate, I thought perhaps we could melt some and dip fruit in it and get very chocolatey and messy later, and drink that fizzy bottle of wine in their too."<br/><br/>Calm enough now she turned and smiled at Elijah, "I hope you like licking drips of hot chocolate up, I warn I'm a very messy pup when it comes to things like that.."<br/><br/>She lifted the lid on the fish stew, breathing in the scented steam and feeling her tummy rumble in appreciation. She stirred it, leaving the lid off, and fed the fire, so it would reduce while the rice cooked.<br/><br/>"I think we are going to have a wonderful feast, and a great party, we need to let our hair down and forget all the crap, just look forward to the future and plan a banquet for when we get home..." She smiled at Kira, her parents had quite a reputation when it came to swish parties and she bet when Kira got home there'd be one hell of a bash.<br/><br/>"Do you think you ought to get Des, Elijah?  And let him know that party central is here, and then while you are gone us girls can dress up and do the finishing touches to the venue?" she smiled, thinking of the kind of music Des would prob have at a party back home, "And tell him to make sure he has his dancing feet on - we're going to run you two ragged!" she laughed.