"Do I remember how to make chicken noodle soup. I think I can manage such a complex recipe," he promised her with a bite of teasing in his voice. He leaned in to her again and gently kissed her brow once more. Slowly he climbed out of bed from her again then tucked her in before fully leaving her side.

Walking across the room, he dug into his recently cleaned clothes for underwear, socks, joggers, and a long sleeve shirt. He slid all the dark clothing on standing mostly on one foot before fishing his plugged in phone from under Natalie's bottoms. As he tossed them aside, it felt kind of surreal that they weren't on the ground in a panicked haste nor was there blood on them. It had been all bliss - worth the sore back on so many levels.

One last time he leaned fully over her to reach her lips to his. Carefully he rested on his forearms to steal a few kisses from her before leaving. "Ich liebe dich Shatz," he whispered before his last kiss.

Elijah gathered the last of his things from the room and then the rest of his things from the kitchen. He mischievously smiled when he saw Natalie's keys and headed out of the high rise pent house, down the stairwell, and into the driver seat of the Tesla. After moving the seat back considerably to not smash his knees through the steering wheel, he groaned as the leather seat gave way to his weight. "God help these seats if I watch Natalie drive this thing with me sober..."

Less than an hour later - and completely scratch free - the Tesla rolled back into her parking spot with Elijah carrying an arm full of canvas bags with him. Refusing to use the elevator or make more than one trip, he awkwardly shambled up the stairs, all the way to the top to practically collapse through the doorway. With a loud limp, he got everything onto the table at least before he fished through his bag to put up a full kitchen worth of supplies with everything between ice cream, egg whites, and spicy lime chips. He started up the pan to warm up while he chopped onions and raw chicken to start the stew.

The hardest part of the hour of cooking was not eating the loaf of bread in the mean time. He settled for the corn chips.

At a total time of two hours, he finally cut up the loaf of bread and served two bowls of stew. He stretched out his arms as he walked back to the bedroom, peaking back in to see Natalie asleep. Somehow he felt nothing but admiration for her to see her slumbering there and hated to interrupt it. The non-lethality of it and lack of blood-loss made it magical. But he had a job to do: Get some hearty food into her. "Natalie, you wanna eat in bed or kitchen?" he asked while walking back to her side. He thought about climbing back into bed with her but decided against it after realizing that he probably would never get back up out of it. "Afterwords we can go back to sleep if you are still tired."