It came time for us to head to my apartment. As bad as it was, I had to face it and Kiara's reaction to it, as soon as possible.

"Vivi. Why are you so stressed out?" Kiwi asked me.

"It's not... clean. And I'm sorry about that." I said to her.

"It's ok." She said to me, running her fingers through my hair. It had become a hobby of hers to play with my hair.

It had been a few days since we finally came to terms with her beauty and the eating habits that needed changing. She had been doing pretty well since then, although we never got to bake that cake together.

I carried her through the hallways of the apartment building, letting her play with my hair and then setting her down by the door. I used my keycard to get in, and then I sighed at the sight before me. There were dirty clothes, empty soda cans, old boxes of pizza all over the floor. Not to mention papers, notebooks, mugs and plates, pens, even spilled coffee that I didn't bother cleaning.

There was a particular box of unfinished instant noodles sitting on the couch and I knew that after sitting there for a month the bacteria would've taken over the contents of it. The smell of the place was unpleasant, but I could always handle it until now when I was realizing how careless it was of me.

My apartment was always just the place I didn't actually have to go to, just a backup in case nowhere else was free. I see now why that showed how spoiled and irresponsible I was, and my mother was right to worry. But nothing like this would ever happen again, because I was determined to make sure Kiara was living her best life.

I stepped aside, allowing Kiara to come in, and dreading her horrified reaction. But when she walked in, she looked around with an expressionless face. Then she burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.

I shut the apartment door and I watched her double over, her hand over her stomach as she laughed her head off. I had never seen her this carefree and happy before.

"Vivi!" She exclaimed.

"What?" I asked, feeling the heat creep up my neck.

The woman I loved was laughing at me for the state of my apartment. I was embarrassed to say the least.

"It's so messy and gross!" She giggled, trying to calm her laughter but failing miserably.

"Stop it." I chuckled, feeling extra embarrassed but also loving the full fledged smile on Kiwi's face.

"I'm sorry. It's just too much." She laughed.

"I swear, I don't know how it got like this." I said to her.

"It's ok. I can clean it for you. No problem." She giggled.

"Absolutely not. It's my mess. I'll clean it, baby." I insisted.

"Nope. I have to help. Please, Vivi!" She begged me.

"Fine. We'll clean it together. This is our new home now." I said to her.

"B-but the cabin...!" She said in horror.

"We'll go back. But there's a lot we have to get through before that. Once things are more settled, we can go back. I plan on making that our permanent home eventually. Don't worry, baby." I told her, stroking her hair.

"Ok.... how bad is the bedroom?" She asked looking at the closed door.

"Uhm.... let's just say this is the least of our worries." I said, gesturing at the living room.

"Vivi!" She groaned.

"I'm sorry." I chuckled nervously.

"Ok. Let's get started." She said, picking up a few plates off the floor and taking them to the kitchen.

My girl had become so comfortable with me that I couldn't imagine her ever being that same scared little girl at the hospital.

We started with the dishes, collecting all of the dishes from everywhere around the apartment and washing them all, drying them and then putting them in the cupboards. I noticed how thoroughly Kiara cleaned everything. She went on to clean the counters and she familiarized herself with the kitchen and where things were. She cleaned the stove and then the oven and she mopped the kitchen floor.

After that we moved onto the living room. We established a laundry pile and then sorted my papers, keeping whatever might be useful and throwing the rest away. She grabbed all my pens and tested them, finding most dried out and the others she put on the coffee table which she had wiped down and cleaned. She vacuumed and then she made me mop because I insisted on helping.

Next she went into the bathroom and got very confused as to why it was very clean. I told her I didn't mess around with bathrooms. A dirty bathroom scares me. I would clean it only a little bit, but I didn't spend enough time in that apartment to even get the bathroom dirty enough for cleaning.

After her short trip to the bathroom in which she insisted there was some cleaning to do, we loaded some of my laundry and then we went to the bedroom. I collected all the laundry and sorted it like she showed me, then we vacuumed, wiped all the surfaces, cleaned the sheets and replaced the pillow cases, throwing the old ones in the laundry.

She organized my closet and then she put her clothes in there too. We hadn't brought many, just enough to keep her going while we settled down.

"Hey Kiara?" I asked.

"Kiwi." She corrected me.

"I love your name though, Sweetheart. Why can't I use it?" I asked her.

"Because you sound mad." She sighed.

"I'm not mad, Kiara is such a pretty name and sometimes I just like to use it." I told her, plopping onto the bed and watching her go into the other bathroom attached to the bedroom and begin cleaning it. It wasn't dirty, I never used it, it was just dusty.

We talked as she cleaned the bathroom and I helped her out with a few things as well.

"What were you going to say?" She asked me, forgetting the whole name thing for now.

"I just wondered how you know all this cleaning stuff. I've never seen anyone clean as well as you do." I said to her.

"Uhm... when I was at the facility. I didn't get tortured at the beginning." She told me.

"What happened then?" I asked her.

"I was trained to cook, clean, basically serve a man in all ways other than sexually until I was eighteen. They hit me and beat me if I messed up, but it wasn't like the torture that I went through after turning eighteen. That was just to break me, to make me submit to them." She explained.

"You still get in that weird kneeling position when I brush your hair." I mentioned.

"Do you like it?" She asked me, her face twisting in discomfort.

"I don't. I want you to stop actually." I said to her.

"It just... I feel like if I'm not in that position, I'm going to get hurt. But I don't like it either." She told me.

"I don't want you to submit to me." I said.

"I know. I've figured that out." She said with a nod.

"Do you still feel like you should sometimes?" I asked her.

"It's just that.... you're the only person in the world I wouldn't mind submitting to. Submission requires trust and you're the only one I trust deeply enough to let you do whatever you want with me." She said.

"I only want to do with you, what you want done to yourself." I said to her.

"Are you sure?" She asked me.

"Yes. I want you to get lazy and messy and just get comfortable. I don't want you to cook or clean or do anything for that matter. Just focus on yourself for a little while." I said to her.

"What does that mean?" She asked me.

"Is there something you enjoy doing?" I asked her.

"Uhm.... I don't know, I like animals." She shrugged.

"Alright. Well we can go visit the animals a lot more often now." I assured her, letting her come closer and lean her body against mine. "But you also have to try and settle down with me. Right now we're all over the place. You should try and figure out how you're going to get through all the things that still bug you about the past, and maybe tell me how I can help you be more comfortable."

"I'm already really comfortable." She said to me.

"But there must be something I could do to make your life easier? Like adapting to this new life..." I said.

"No. I think everything is perfect. It's hard to get through the mentality I used to have of needing to please you sometimes. But I'm getting better." She told me.

"What about when I ask you questions about your life before I came into it? Does that make you uncomfortable?" I asked her.

"No. I don't like remembering all that stuff, but it's not like I've forgotten it. It's constantly in my head every time I try to do something." She said.

"Can we talk about it now?" I asked her.

"Yeah." She nodded.

"I just wanted to know if you had rules or if it was like you had to figure things out on your own." I said to her.

"We had rules." She told me.

"So you always knew why you were being punished?" I asked her.

"Yup. But it was never fair. Like why did speaking have to get me a whole torture session? Like they would electrocute me and they'd whip me and beat me all because I said one word." She sighed.

"Did you feel like it was unfair?" I asked her.

"Yeah. I realized that they were being ridiculous, but I also sort of just accepted that life wasn't fair and I'd never have any kind of freedom." She told me, her eyes tearing up and her hands beginning to shake.

"It's ok. We don't have to talk about it, Sweetheart." I said to her.

"I want to tell you everything." She said to me.

"Then tell me whatever you want to tell me." I smiled, kissing her forehead as she came closer to me.

"I sometimes feel like I'm being too trusting. Like every once in a while I get angry at myself for not being more cautious. Like I wish I could just forget it and let myself be comfortable. But sometimes I get scared." She admitted to me.

"It's ok to be scared. If you need anything from me, just tell me. Is there something I can do that'll help you not get scared? Or maybe there's something I'm doing that might be causing it." I said to her.

"I guess I just don't know what you expect me to do. Like do you want me to clean for you, or cook for you or just keep doing nothing?" She asked me.

"I don't want you to cook or clean unless you feel like you want to. I want you to focus on doing the things you love to do. I've got a lot of time off. I have work at the wildlife park some days and others we can just spend time together. We can do whatever you want to do." I said to her.

"Well. I'd like it if we could talk. And I like visiting the animals, so I can do that while you work. I like to draw sometimes, so maybe if you're ok with it, I could draw sometimes. I don't have any materials but... any pencil or pen will do." She told me.

"Do you actually like to draw, or did you like it because it was the only thing you could do?" I asked her.

"Probably because it was one of the few things I could actually do." She said to me. "It seems kind of boring now, but it'll pass the time." She said.

"Well we could always talk, I could tell you about some of the things I like to do, and some of the things the girls in the family enjoy." I said to her. "Then if you think something is interesting, we can try that. It seems like your main concern now is boredom." I said to her.

"I guess so. I just don't like the idea of sitting around and not doing anything. It makes it easy for the memories to come back and haunt me and I don't like that." She explained.

"I get it, baby. We'll make sure to keep you busy." I smiled, rubbing her back.

"Vivi. Can I tell you something about myself that scares me?" She asked, her eyes welling up with tears as her breath became more and more shallow.

She was about to panic and I knew that, but somehow it seemed like she needed to get this out. She seemed to eager to get rid of this pent up feeling or thought.

"Of course. You can always tell me anything." I said to her.

"I like the idea of serving you. It's scary because that's the thing I hated most, serving people. But something about doing things for you makes me feel content and comfortable." She told me.

"Can I tell you something?" I smiled.

She nodded her head, beginning to panic as she cried over this revelation.

"I love the idea of serving you. I always want to do everything for you. I want to constantly live for you, do things to make you happy and please you. When you care about someone, Kiwi, it's normal to want to serve them. But don't say it like that. The things we do for each other, they're called acts of service." I said to her. "It's not like one person is the other persons slave, we're just doing it out of care for one another."

"Is it really normal?" She asked me.

"Yes, of course. But I assume you don't want to do certain things to please me, right? There are limits, as there should be... am I right?" I asked her.

"Yes. There are certain things I'm not prepared to do. But mainly because I'm scared of them after the facility." She said to me.

"Do you want to talk about that?" I asked her, my face turning red.

"I just don't know if.... if I'll ever be able to.... be so vulnerable with someone." She said, then she quickly got frustrated with herself. "I talk as if I'm this smart person who actually knows things... I'm so stupid. I don't know anything about that kind of thing. I just know it makes me feel too exposed to think about doing anything sexual with anyone.... I'm so childish all the time though. I'm just a stupid person. I don't know enough about the world, I cling to a stuffed animal for comfort and I can't even talk in front of other people. Sometimes when I'm with you, I feel like I might actually be smart, but I'm just not."

I let her get it all out, just waiting patiently and preparing how I was going to respond.

"I just feel so stupid. I.... why do I act like a child? It's almost like I use it as a shield and with you I don't feel the need to do it, although I'm always childish anyway." She cried.

"It's perfectly normal... can I tell you a secret that nobody knows?" I asked her.

She nodded, wiping away her tears angrily.

"I'm afraid of intimacy... there's something about being at your most vulnerable, with someone else who could crush your heart in just one moment. I don't like the idea, it scares me. But everything I've done with you, has changed me. I used to be tough and rough Vidal, barely every showing any kind of emotion with anyone, except my family of course. But anyways, I met you and now I'm so different. Emotions don't scare me. So it's perfectly normal for you to feel scared about being exposed and vulnerable in those situations." I told her.

She looked into my eyes as if searching for something and I continued.

"Don't ever say you're stupid, baby. Because you're so far from it. You're smart, you have this potential to do anything and everything you could ever think of. You just haven't been given the chance to shine in that aspect. And being childish doesn't make you stupid. Arabella is the most childish person I know and she's a successful author with a successful husband and two adorable children. Some people are just so incredibly sweet, like you and Arabella, that acting like a child is one of those things that they do to show that sweetness." I said, grabbing her and tickling her gently.

Her soft giggles filled the room and her tears were long forgotten. I tickled and tickled as she wiggled her way out of my grasp, falling with a thud to the ground in an attempt to escape.

My heart stopped when I heard her fall and I quickly scrambled up to see if she was ok and found her laughing her head off as she attempted to stand. She ran out of the room as soon as her legs could support her and I ran after her.

I found her with a cushion in her hand and when she saw me she hid behind the couch. I grabbed the softest, fluffiest cushion I could find and I circled the couch to get to her but she ran around it, giggling and squealing. Then she escaped to the bedroom and I followed her. We ran around throwing cushions at each other and having pillow fights and tickling each other.

It was an amazing way to start our stay in my apartment. I knew we were going to have lots of fun there together. I just needed to distract myself from those pretty lips for another few months because my feelings were uncontrollable. I sure was afraid of intimacy but I was beginning to get convinced that all my fears flew out the window when it came to Kiara.

Actually everything flew out the window with Kiara, all my self control, my fears, my insecurities, my strength, my emotional barrier. I just became a raw and very real version of myself in front of her and I wasn't complaining. I just really needed to gather all that self control back because I would really be needing it.