Disclaimer: It's not mine. It never will be. It all belongs to Tamora Pierce.

This was written as a birthday present for Navigator101, though it is admittedly a bit late at this point. It's a little flashfic expansion of one of the themes of Undeniable. It's shorter than I'd have liked, but it was fun to write.

There were some days when Rosto hated mornings. This was one of them. It was still dark outside, as it usually was when Beka kicked him out. Three years together and they had somehow still managed to keep their relationship a secret. Three years since Port Caynn had brought the two of them together. There was not a day when he was not grateful that he had followed her there under the guise of having business with Pearl Skinner. That business had resulted in him bringing down Skinner and giving her to the Dogs – a far less merciful gesture than killing her.

Three years later, he had Beka trying to get him out of bed when he most certainly did not want to get out of bed. It was cold out and they had been warm only moments before she had jerked the covers off.

"Come on, Rosto," she said. "Get up. You have to get back to the Dove."

He let out a groan, burying his face in the pillow. He did not want to get up and she knew it.

"Do I need to get the ice water, old man?" Beka asked teasingly. Rosto lifted his head up and glared at her.

"I'm not old, Beka. I'm twenty-six," he informed her.

"You've white hair, though," she pointed out. He glared at her, but she only smirked back at him.

"It's not white," he growled. "It's blond. Cornsilk. Sun-colored. We've been over this a thousand times, Cooper."

"And we'll go over it a thousand times more, my buck," Beka replied. "Up, Rosto."

He shot her a dark look. "It's early, it's cold, and I'm sick of hiding, Beka."

She sighed as she looked at him. "We can't, Rosto. You know that. Both of us will lose everything if we allow our relationship to become common knowledge. No one will respect you as the Rogue and no one will trust me. Not get up," she said.

Rosto grumbled, getting out of bed. He silently – and a little bit sullenly – picked up his shirt and tunic. He pulled them on and shivered.

"You are not cold, don't do that," Beka commented.

Rosto scowled at her. "You can't blame me for trying," he told her.

She shook her head at him. "You grew up in Northern Scanra, as you are continually reminding me. You informed me the first winter you were here that it wasn't cold here."

Rosto shrugged, silently unbuckling his belt to slip the sheath for one of his knives onto it. "Where I grew up, it was cold all the time. Even with my mother traveling, we stayed mostly in the North. I don't enjoy spending time in the cold, Beka," he said.

"You could have fooled me," she replied, shaking her head at him. "Particularly with the way you were running around last night," she added.

He rolled his eyes at her, leaning over to pull his boots out from under her bed. "I do the things I have to. Just because the cold doesn't really bother me doesn't mean that I like having to walk all over the city at night without a coat after someone stole mine because hers wasn't warm enough," he commented. Beka flushed slightly when gave her a pointed look. "For the record, I did not appreciate that," he added.

"Mayhap if you did not tease me so, I wouldn't borrow your things without telling you," she informed him, giving him a little smirk. She walked over to him, her steps measured and slow. "But you know I can make it worth your while," she told him, her voice soft in his ear. "And I could chase you around the whole city. I'm the only one who can keep up with you, Rat-King. You wouldn't be cold, then…"

Rosto looked at her for a long moment. "And you would do better not to play the tease, Beka," he said softly. "I thought you wanted me out of your room…"

Beka chuckled faintly. "I'm not the one who was being stubborn," she told him. "If you stay, all we worked for goes away, Rosto. We cannot be together during daylight hours – we're tenuous friends when people can see us, nothing more. We have a healthy respect for each other, but only because we're Rat and Dog. Mayhap in the future we can be something more to the world, but not now. Right now, it's just us, laddybuck. That's how it needs to stay. Now go, before I tease you more."

Rosto gave her a faint smile before he kissed her softly. Then he was gone, slipping into the night.