“I do love you Adan” she went on after he had pulled her into another close hug there atop the bed. “And being with you was so, so perfect, and it was all I ever wanted. And I can’t stop thinking about how much I want to do that again, and again.” She blushed and took a shaky breath as he kissed her hair. “And I’m so sorry, I just...”

“Shh, you don’t need to apologize for a perfectly natural and reasonable fear. Like I said, I have that fear too. And if we have to, we’ll figure out how to deal with any of that. In the meantime” he smiled as he gave her another soft kiss, “pretty sure there are a few other ways we can still make each other feel pretty good.” He smiled again before going in for a more passionate kiss.

When he stopped the kiss to allow them both a breath, she gave him a wary smile. “I assume you’re talking about foreplay type things?” she dared.

“Now that I have my memory of that night back, I’m almost positive I gave you your first honest to goodness assisted orgasm without even taking off my pants” he teased as he leaned in for yet another kiss, his hands simultaneously finding their way under her shirt again.

She couldn’t help a small chuckle as his mouth moved to her neck while his fingers continued teasing her nipples into hardening. “Yeah, but you didn’t get to have yours until we did... the rest.”

Adan chuckled against her neck, “though it’s an unexplored theory between the two of us as of yet, I’m also pretty positive there are ways to make me have one of those that won’t lead to pregnancy. I’ve heard some things” he teased.

“Did you just ask me for a blowjob?” she couldn’t help another tiny laugh.

“That’s one idea” he teased back as he removed one of his hands from their previous task, and then guided hers to the front of his pants, where it seemed he was currently having a few ideas of his own.

The next day, Aura was once again putting off breakfast while Adan had gotten dressed and headed to the kitchen when his brain had decided he was done sleeping for the night. After quickly finishing his breakfast, he decided to go on a mission, of sorts. There may not be a lot of things that he could fix for Aura, but perhaps there was one. Which would also happen to fix something for him too. But that was beside the point.

When he had been watching the camera feeds their second day there, the internet had still been working on the computer in the living room. And as with all things his generation weren’t sure of, they would usually turn to the internet for answers. So he went about doing just that after he had finished eating.

As he conducted his search, Ilian also rose and made his way from the second bedroom. He was about to go try and find some sort of breakfast too, when he glanced through the glass doors of the living room and noted Adan there at the computer.

“What’s that?” he asked Adan as he pushed the doors open.

“What’s what?” Adan asked distractedly as he continued reading the screen.

“What you’re doing there” Ilian replied as he took a few steps closer.

“The internet hasn’t died yet, so I’m doing a search on it. That’s all” Adan answered with the same distraction.

“Oh” Ilian said quietly.

That’s when Adan turned to look back up at him. “Let me guess, no computers on the reservation?” he asked as he furrowed his brow.

“It was, different there” Ilian stated, after another of those long pauses any time one asked him a question.

“Still don’t even know how you managed to get into this place at all” Adan mumbled as he got up from the desk, gathering up a post-it note he had been scribbling things upon as he conducted his search.

Ilian swallowed as he watched Adan leave the room again. He then glanced down at the computer. He took another long moment as though attempting to translate the words on the screen. And once he did, he took another unsure breath, and looked after Adan as the doors closed behind him.

Ilian found Adan again a few moments later. Now he was in the small room between the pantry and freezer where the medical supplies were stored. After all, if one wanted to survive for years underground, one would need a rather vast medical supply.

“You lonely or something?” Adan asked with slight irritation as Ilian appeared in the doorway there too.

“Lonely?”

“Whatever” Adan mumbled as he continued to look through label after label of the supplies stored there.

Ilian watched him struggle to find what he was looking for; something from the list of medications he had written down. Though Adan honestly had no idea what they were even used for and whether or not any of them would have even been deemed necessary for surviving the apocalypse when this place had last been stocked.

“I was a sort of healer before...” Ilian spoke quietly.

“What, like a medicine man?” Adan looked back at him with a mix of curiosity and continued suspicion.

“Something like that” Ilian stated hesitantly, “maybe I can help.”

Adan gave him a look of doubt, “I’m just looking for certain medications. Only requires the ability to read, honest” he shook his head back at Ilian before returning to his search.

Ilian was quiet for a long moment as he continued to watch Adan search. Finally he spoke again. “Just tell her to start taking something you call Ibuprofen. It could do the same thing” he stated bluntly before turning and leaving the room once more.

Adan narrowed his eyes and watched Ilian leave the room once again. As soon as the other man was gone, Adan turned his attention to the huge supply of Ibuprofen that he had barely noted earlier, as that was something he fully expected to be there, and hadn’t even thought of, until now.

He took a bottle into his hand and started scanning the warning label, only to have his breath catch as he looked toward the door that Ilian had just left through again. He swallowed and shoved the bottle into his pants’ pocket before leaving the room himself then.

When he returned to their bedroom, Aura was just sliding into her pants for the day. “I may have found a solution, to at least one problem. And it’s a long way from ideal, but...” he sighed nervously.

“What solution to what problem?” she asked warily as she spread the bed again before turning back to him.

Adan tried to find the best way to even broach the subject before speaking. “You remember the million and one drug commercials we’d have to watch every time we tried to stream anything?”

“Yes?” she gave him a puzzled look.

“And you remember how all of them ended with the don’t take if such and such stuff?”

“Yes...” she returned, continuing to watch him warily.

“And what was the most popular warning?”

“What? Adan what are you even talking about drug commercials for?”

“Humor me.”

“I don’t know, most of them said do not take if you’re pregnant, nursing, or plan to be...” her voice trailed off then as she remembered the conversation they had just had last night before getting distracted by other activities.

“Like I said, it’s not an ideal solution, but...” he shrugged warily before reaching into his pocket. He took out the bottle of Ibuprofen and tossed it to her. “Care to read the warning label on that? I figured it would be the easiest one to find here, and the one with the least freaky side effects, right?” he asked her hopefully as she caught the bottle and gave him a shocked look.

“This could...” she asked as she scanned the label.

“I mean it isn’t the pill. It won’t keep you from getting pregnant at all, but if you were to...” he stated hesitantly, watching for her to take some great offense. “Like I said, not hardly ideal, but...”

Aura sat at the foot of the bed again, still looking down at the bottle in her hand. “Then I at least would only have to survive a miscarriage, instead of childbirth or watching a baby die cause it would be impossible to even raise it like this” she stated more to herself.

“I know, not ideal but, that’s kind of what I was thinking too.”

She finally allowed a tiny smile and a look up at him. “You’re right, not hardly ideal. I don’t really wanna deal with a miscarriage either, but I suppose lesser of three evils” she swallowed hard. “How did you even think of this?”

“It’s amazing the ideas a guy can come up with in order to keep getting laid” he teased.

“Shut up” she said as she tossed a pillow at him.

He smiled back, “Sorry,” he then sighed as he moved over to reach for her hands and help her to her feet. “Honestly, I just wanted to at least try and fix the one thing I could for you. That’s all.”

“Still going for perfect huh?” she smiled up at him as the two pulled each other into a tight hug.

“I am a perfectionist” he stated as he squeezed her close. He then looked down at her with another smile. “But I found out something else that might be construed as good news, possibly.”

“Really?” she gave him a questioning look.

“Our new friend was also apparently a healer, at his reservation or whatever. So I guess that might come in handy at some point, right? You always need a doctor in the apocalypse.”

“Not sure medicine man qualifies as doctor, but it’s a start” she agreed cautiously. She then added, “and he talks to you a hell of a lot more than me.”

Adan just chuckled, “well, you do normally hide from him and then get a little bit agitated every time you see him. Just a li’l bit” Adan smirked down at her.

“And when you see him, what? You take showers together and braid each other’s hair?”

Adan chuckled again, “not hardly. I’m kind of a little bitch to him, honestly.” He then added, “I have however seen him naked.”

“Excuse me?” she looked up at him with more interest than anger somehow.

“Shower shenanigans combined with his really significant boundary issues.”

“Yet you don’t seem that offended by the fact,” she told him with her own smirk.

“Yes, he’s fucking hot, but you think so too, so don’t even start,” he warned her playfully.

“We are the weirdest couple ever,” she smiled, then adopted a look of panic a second later. “You’re not gonna freak out now that I used the C word, are you?”

Adan allowed another chuckle, “I don’t know what we actually are anymore. But we love each other. And that’s a pretty damn good start, right?”