Zelda's heart jumped in her chest. Hearing Alfred talk about that night like it wasn't a mistake, and keep talking about it like that - it really was something. She had spent so long ashamed and mortified and horrified, and she was still so into him. And she never wanted to go back to that moment in Ari's house, explaining what she had done, but she wanted other things. She wanted the excited lurch in her stomach when she kissed him. She wanted the warmth of his hands on her hips.

With the same tentativeness that he had grabbed her with, Zelda leaned forward and rested her head against Alfred's chest. She sighed. This is what that night should have been like, after. She should have stayed, not frantically grabbed her clothes and scrambled to get out of there, not spent so long shut down and trying to figure it out. She was a very tactile person, she wanted to just touch him like this, the steady securing contact that reminded her he was really here.

"I wish we'd had this," she whispered into his shirt.

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