Ben looked up at her face at her question, a bit surprised. "If you want me to," he answered, earnestly but uncertainly. That was a big jump from where they'd started the evening, when it had seemed as though there was only a fifty-fifty chance of them making it through their marriage.

But this was — that was good, wasn't it? Something to ... cement the new direction they were headed in. Lay a foundation for the future. Ben shifted his hand so that he could hold hers, still resting it on her knee. He squeezed her hand gently, and smiled.

They could do this.

  

---

MJ made this <3

"We don't have to ..." be intimate was what she meant but was too timid to announce. After all they'd been through the last few weeks (and after firmly telling herself that she would never feel his embrace again) being held through the night was her greatest wish. "I don't want to be alone, if that's okay..."

  

---

beautiful set by mj

"Yeah, I get it," Ben assured her quickly, though he hadn't actually picked up on her subtext at all. Staying the night, to him, meant intimacy, and while he was surprised that she was so inclined he was hardly going to argue with her. And they'd both been alone long enough, hadn't they? He hadn't visited her bedroom since the middle of December, which, while only three weeks ago, felt like an entirely different lifetime. If they were going to start over, though, there was no reason to keep suffering silently across the hallway from each other. Ben, at least, had been laying awake at night feeling restless and anxious, and this would be an outlet for all of that frustration if nothing else. She must have been feeling the same thing.

He moved his thumb along the side of her hand, looking up to meet her eyes. After a moment of quiet, he moved in to kiss her slowly and tentatively.

  

---

MJ made this <3