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He was grateful for her fairy side, and even moreso grateful for its curiosity. Because if she hadn't taken the bait he'd laid out, he had no idea how he would have goaded her into asking otherwise without seeming pushy.

"I was hoping you'd want to." he said, turning from her a moment to unzip the bag. Shifting aside bags of apple slices, bottles of water, and clean towels, he found it, nestled against the side of the bag's innards, just as he'd left it.

"It might not be the most interesting stuff..." he warned, drawing out a simple brown album and brushing a light dusting of animal cracker crumbs from its surface it had picked up from its temporary home. "I mean I'm pretty sure you HAVE seen most of it, but...."

He handed it over to her with a grin. "I'm new to this sort of thing, so go easy on me."

Inside, Nani would find, not the usual fare of his photography but something different.

On the front page of the album were two photos decidedly not taken by him -- how could they have been when one of them WAS him? Two photos of two different infants had been arranged, one with tiny fairy wings, the other with nubby horns and a haphazard mottling of blue-and-purple. Both were wide-eyed and curious about the new world they'd been presented with.

Zhane said nothing, looking to the pictures briefly, but mostly watching Nani, seeing how she'd react to its introduction.

"You can thank your mom for that..." he told her, feeling an inner tension loosen itself when she reacted favorably. "I got the idea about a week ago, and called to ask if she could help me out with it. She kinda flooded my inbox with scans." he laughed, watching as she turned to the next page, revealing a spread featuring pictures of either of them, always side-by-side, in their separate worlds, but growing up in the same way.

Here was a picture of Nani as a toddler, a grinning imp in a pretty linen dress. Here was a picture of Zhane, using the edge of the coffee table to keep his balance as he attempted to reach for a book just out of his grasp on the arm of the couch.

"I think we would've gotten along." he smiled, kissing the side of her head as she flipped through the pages. "I also think we would've driven our mothers crazy."

Each page told their separate stories as they blossomed from curious toddlers into rambunctious kids. And from kids into stormy and uncertain teenagers.

Some pictures were of them alone, others were of them with family and pets. All of them reflected different joys, uncertainties, and chapters long-since closed on their lives.

It was beyond there that the pictures stopped coming side-by-side. There was no need for it. It was the point their lives had merged into one. It began with a picture of the neon sign of the coffee shop where they had first met in person. And was followed by a candid photo he'd taken of her, her face half-covered with a hand and laughing as she'd tried to prevent his camera from capturing her.

There was another Nani had taken herself, of him holding a still-infant Seiji while the two of them watched TV on her couch.

"Yeah it is." he told her, leaning right back against her. Watching the spectrum of emotions play over her features as she looked through it was rewarding enough that he wished he'd had the time to make it longer than it was.

As the page turned, he tapped the photo of another building. "And there's the restaurant where we went to dinner." he smiled. "I got a weird look from one of the staff getting out of his car for that one. I think he thought I was from the press or something."

It was flanked by a picture of Seiji, Lexi and Ren getting a bath together, splashing bubbles and water everywhere as Nani and Zhane both still made the attempt to go after them with a washcloth, while at the same time dodging the torrents of soapy water. That one had been graciously provided by Rose.

The page neighboring it were all photos of Nani herself that he'd taken as recently as three days ago. One of her looking wistfully out of the kitchen window, the sunlight playing on her hair and making it look like spun gold. One of her curled up in her bathrobe on the sofa reading a book after the kids had been put to bed. One of her sitting on her home's front steps, smiling at the camera and looking very natural. And very happy.

"Sometimes, I wish you could look at yourself through my eyes." he said, reaching out to idly touch the border of one photo. "and see just how beautiful you are."

"Maybe." he smiled. "They might think its a bunch of silly fluff too...you never can tell."

As the page turned, it revealed one last picture. One Seiji had taken very recently after insisting he knew how to handle the camera on their way back from the crystal lake as evening had started to settle in. It was Nani and Zhane, illuminated by the glow of early spring fireflies and the face of the moon as it shone overhead, painting everything in rich indigos and blues.

They looked as if they fit together with one another perfectly, allowing themselves just for a moment to steal into the world that only two people could share, before being pulled back to reality, that split second immortalized in film.

It looked to be the end of the album, had it not been for one lingering note written on the first bare page adjacent to the photograph...

He said nothing, but the smile remained as he took her free hand in one of his own, his thumb stroking over her fingers soothingly in silent encouragement to keep going.