Something for Ross.

Ross sat patiently on his couch and listened, trying to figure out what Madison was doing. She had blindfolded him, explaining that she had a surprise, and left him sitting there while she did whatever she needed to to prepare the surprise. He was pretty sure he heard whispering and second set of footfalls, so he knew she had an accomplice.

"Ok," he heard her say from directly in front of him. The gentle sound of jazz chord strummed on his cheap nylon-string guitar hit his ears and she told him he could remove his blindfold. Ross blinked in the harsh light before his eyes swam into focus and he did a double-take at what he saw.

Madison and Pat sat on two stools in front of him, Madison with his guitar and Pat with some sort of large drum. Madison was grinning ear-to-ear and Pat looked at her intently. Before Ross could say anything, the two started to play a strange, almost hypnotic song. Madison's fingers danced across the frets with incredible ease and dexterity, plucking delicate, fluttering melodies on the high strings while letting the bass notes ring out sonorously with her thumb. Pat kept a simple, reliable beat underneath the song, smiling pleasantly.

The turnaround at the beginning of the song was unique and catchy, progressing through a diminished scale before resolving on a first to launch into the verse.

Snow on the grass, snow in my hair
I couldn't feel the cold
The morning sun would thaw the earth
An animated lump of dirt
A thing without a soul

The ballad continued, Madison describing her life as a golem via a haunting melody re-enforced by alternating countermelodies and harmonies from Pat. After the fourth verse, they repeated the turnaround from the intro and catapulted into a major-key variation of the same tune. She described her tumultuous time with Ross, Andrew, and Maria in poetic metaphors and flourishes while Pat's countermelody weaved around hers like helix. She finished with a short instrumental reprise of the verse, then put the guitar aside and smiled nervously.

"Well?" she asked. "What do you think?"

Ross was stunned. "Mads, that was amazing. Where did that come from?"

She tapped her head. "I wanted to put this new creative drive to good use. Seriously, you liked it?"

"I loved it," Ross told her. "That was amazing. Did you write it all yourself? The music, the lyrics?"

"Pat helped out a little with the harmonies, but otherwise I did. Vanilla golems like her can create things, just nothing really new. Before I got nitrated I could have written you a by-the-numbers song cobbled together from a dozen cliches - the musical equivalent of a Thomas Kincade painting. I wanted to see if I could make something a little more special."

"That definitely qualifies," Ross said. "Babe, I can't believe you wrote that for me. That was beautiful."

Madison threw her arms around him in a deep, intimate embrace. "I think I'm having an emotion right now," she said shakily. "I think this may be joy. Whatever it is, I don't want it to ever stop."

Ross closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. Her warm body pressed hard against his and he felt a stirring between his legs. Madison pulled back and smiled knowingly. She took Pat and Ross by the hand and led them into the bedroom.