17 June, 1892 — Crouch Home, Swallowbury

Ben woke the next morning with a throbbing headache, which was expected, and a warm body tucked under his arm, which was very much not. If he didn't have the confirmation of his senses — the warmth of her body under his hand, the texture of her hair falling against his cheek, the scent of her hair mixed with sweat from a night's sleep — he might have thought he imagined her there. He remembered coming back home last night with the intention of waking her up to talk to her, but he had never expected that it would work. He'd taken the advice from Dionisia with the same attitude of a sulky teenager determining to run away from home. Fine, I'll do it, then you'll see. There had never been a moment he considered that this would not have ended in disaster. He didn't really remember most of the night after he'd gotten back home, but this... did not seem disastrous. He wanted to know how they'd gotten here, but at the same time he didn't want to rock the boat by asking questions. At the moment this felt fragile, as though he might shatter the bubble and break the moment just by moving the wrong direction.

But he did need to move at least a little, because right now he was facing the windows and the sun was going to burn a hole in his head. Gingerly, Ben disentangled his arm from Melody's sleeping body and rolled over, away from the light. There was a glass of water on the nightstand — his doing or hers or just something leftover from another night, he had no idea, but he sat up enough to drink it all the same. He felt Melody move on the bed next to him and he tried to muster up something to say in greeting, but — Merlin, his head hurt. He managed to turn his head back towards her, but then gave up and buried it in his pillow instead. The best good morning he could manage was "Mmphf."

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