[It's strange and so familiar, this little dance they're engaged in just now — the daydreaming together, the looking toward a lighter future to escape the darkness of the present, the clinging and idling and conjuring up fantasies forged in love. Once she would've been afraid of this, because there have been too many times in her past when the castles built up in the air came crashing down around her, crumbling to dust with the onslaught of a harsher reality.

But she's not afraid of this. Since the beginning, Dave has proved himself time and again — or, knowing Dave, time and time and time and time and time and time and time and again — to be different than anything she's ever known.

(Noblemen live in castles, and have spares to flee to when one turns to dust. Knights defend castles, and fight for their loved ones inside them.)

She sets her mug down as well, next to his, and she knows she ought to keep the two of them on track with their plans, but it's so much easier to just walk into his arms and press herself close against his warmth instead, so she does.]

Perhaps lunch and supper in bed, as well. If we're feeling so extravagant — and why shouldn't we?

...It's a fine thought to hold fast to, for now. That there are good things waiting for us on the other side of the morning.