#kabbyfic

Abby looked at him, and despite their circumstances, managed a half smile.

“For now,” she replied. “But this is not how I hoped we’d meet again.”

“Me neither,” Marcus agreed, with a wry laugh. The soldier pushed on his back then, causing him to stumble.

“No talking!,” the warrior ordered.

Abby and Marcus walked in silence the rest of the way to Polis, where they were finally thrown into a holding cell together.

With their hands unbound, their group - except for Clarke - was left alone.

“Where are you taking her?” Abby shouted as their captors walked away. “Where’s my daughter?”

Marcus placed a hand on Abby’s arm, leaned down and whispered by her ear.

“We have to have faith in Clarke now. She’s going to figure something out,” he said.

Abby choked back a sob, and turned to fall into Marcus’s ready embrace. He pulled her to him, and held her tightly. No matter how terrible this situation was, he was grateful to be holding Abby again. He wasn’t sure he ever would.

“Why is it always like this?” Abby cried, her face pressed into Marcus’s chest, muffling her words. “Why?”

“I know, I know,” Marcus murmured, stroking her hair. He knew Abby wasn’t really asking - she just needed comfort.

Abby pulled back, lifting her face so she could meet Marcus’s eyes. She realized how long it had been since they had been this close…how much she had missed him.

An unspoken moment passed between them. Now was not the time to say “I love you,” of course - not in this cell with all these people. But - just like when Marcus had spotted her bare neck, no longer wearing Jake’s ring on the chain - he knew.

He knew what she was saying to him now, though she didn’t speak a word.

I love you too, Marcus thought, hoping Abby could read him as well as he could read her.

Marcus gently caressed Abby’s check with his hand. Leaned in and placed a kiss on her forehead.

Where the people were who once lived there was a mystery though. They had left everything behind. Clothes. Books. Children’s toys. Food supplies.

“I can’t believe it,” Abby had said on the radio. “It’s a miracle.”

It was.

“If you leave now, you can get to other side of the water by this afternoon,” Marcus told her. “We’ll send a vehicle to pick you up and take you the rest of the way. Bring anything you can that might help…food, medical supplies. Anything.”

“We will. I’ll see you soon. Stay safe,” Abby replied, signing off.

By mid afternoon the crew pulled their boat onto the bank. But there was no truck waiting for them.

“Where are they?” Raven asked. “I thought they’d be waiting.”

Clarke scanned the tree line with her eyes.

Nothing.

Abby felt her stomach twist into knots. Of course something had gone wrong. Of course. It had all been to good to be true.

“Let’s wait until…”, Abby said, in reply to Raven, but her words were cut off by a roar in the woods.

The roar of an engine.

Relief flooded Abby’s body as she watched the truck emerge from the trees and come to a stop before them.

The door opened. And none other than Marcus Kane pulled himself up, standing on the edge of the truck’s door frame, his body half out of the vehicle. Gripping the top of the window of the open door for support, he surveyed the crowd, taking a quick headcount.

“Sorry we’re late,” he said, as his eyes landed on the one person he had been longing to see the most.

Abby looked more beautiful than ever. She was clean, like in Polis. Her hair was being blown around behind her in a gentle breeze. And her eyes were lit up with surprise.

“Abby,” Marcus breathed and hopped down from the truck, crossing the distance between them with long strides as Abby did the same.

“You came,” Abby said, and she wrapped her arms around him. “I didn’t know it was going to be you.”

Marcus pulled her in close. He hugged her tightly, not wanting to ever let her go. Apocalypse be damned, it would have to wait a minute, he thought.

Abby smelled amazing - like soap and flowers and rain, he marveled.

Abby ran her hand through the back of his hair. Her Marcus. He was here. He was in her arms again. She was too overcome with emotions to speak. She was almost crying.

Abby had been looking forward to seeing him, but she hadn’t been prepared for this. How completely and fully overwhelmed she was to see him again after all this time. How large the hole of his absence had been. How her entire body had melted under his touch.

“I’m here,” Marcus whispered in her ear. “I couldn’t go without you,” he said.

Abby regained her composure some, pulled back a bit from the hug so she could look at Marcus’s face. “I’m so glad,” she smiled, then dove back into the hug again.

“I missed you so much,” she murmured, with her lips pressed at the side of his neck.

“Same here,” he replied.

Marcus drew back, cupped her face with his hand. He stared into her eyes. She placed her hand over his.

For a moment, they just stood there, taking each other in. They were together. They were going to survive. They were going to live.

“I love you,” Marcus said.

“I love you too.”

Abby said it back without even thinking. It wasn’t so much of a declaration - though neither of them had said it until now. It was just a statement of fact.

Abby leaned in and kissed him - a move to which Marcus enthusiastically responded, pulling her back towards him as his lips devoured hers.

From inside the vehicle, Raven’s eyebrows shot up as she witnessed the passionate reunion.

“Your mom and Kane, huh?”, she asked Clarke, who was settling in beside her.

Clarke glanced out the window to see her mom and Kane’s embrace.

“Um, yeah,” she said, quickly looking away, feeling like she had just intruded on their private moment.

Raven gave her a look that clearly implied that wasn’t all she was asking.

“He really loves her. He was so torn up with worry about her when she was going into space,” Clarke said, answering Raven’s unspoken question.

“He makes her happy. I’m okay with it,” she added with a slight smile, watching her mom make her way towards the truck with Marcus’s hand in hers.

At last, Marcus’ foot fell on a flat, circular rock; one in a series of similar rocks which had been placed there by design to guide visitors homeward. Abby felt him give her hand a gentle squeeze as he suddenly picked up speed.

She saw the water first: a broad expanse of navy blue and black dancing lazily beneath shadows of clouds. A handful of stars still poked through the oncoming daylight, determined to outlast the night. As the trees cleared from view, she was taken aback by the immeasurable size of both sea and sky. She was almost dizzy in reverie when Marcus suddenly stopped, turning to face her. He drew in close, now taking both of her hands in his, and even in this dim half-light, his eyes twinkled.

“Marcus, this is beautiful,” she commented, shaking her head in awe. His smile widened, and he seemed to laugh to himself before levelling her with a boyish stare. “I want to show you something.”

He slowly, carefully took a few steps backward, still holding her hands to guide her, watching her expression for the moment she’d seen it – and there it was. Her jaw went slack, her eyes wide.

“Is that…?”

She gently released his grip and made her way past him, curiosity steering her through the trees and up a short slope toward where the edges of a wooden frame could be seen. He smiled to himself as he followed her, comfortably pushing his hands into his pockets as he calmly watched her approach the weathered building with all the bright amazement of a child.

“How did you find this?” she questioned as she peered into one of the small windows, which were almost opaque with grime.

“Out on a recon mission,” he answered. “Luna’s tribe isn’t far from here.”

“How long has it been here?”

“Nothing we found inside is more recent than the year of the bombs,” he explained with reverence. Abby nodded in somber acknowledgement of the owner’s probable fate.

She then turned towards Marcus, something akin to youthful sheepishness in her expression.

“Can we go inside?”

He smiled.

“Of course.”            

It was her turn to take his hand as she marched them both around to the front of the cottage, where they came upon a deck overlooking the water; supported with beams that dug into the hillside soil below. Marcus gently put a hand on Abby’s arm as she stepped up onto it, warning her to be careful: the deck was less than sturdy, and rife with opportunity to fall through. They both kept a watchful eye on their own feet as they made their way towards the door – left partially-ajar after Marcus’ first visit so that they wouldn’t have to wrestle with the heavy barrier, resting at an angle with its hinges rusted into immobility, in order to gain entrance. All it took, instead, was a small push from Abby, and they were inside.

They might as well have landed on the moon.

A wave of emotion washed over Abby as she took it all in, and Marcus knew that the life he’d sensed on his first visit was affecting her, too. It wasn’t just that there was evidence of life, here; they’d been into many Grounder dwellings with comparable soulful adornments. But there was an unshakeable sense of peace to the way these people had lived that tasted utterly foreign in their mouths, so thoroughly disciplined in the art of craving strife. But what punctured deep into Marcus and Abby’s hearts as they reverently made their way through each dusty room was the paradoxical familiarity of it – a reminder of a childhood virtue long hidden away. Here, with every hand-crafted vase and crocheted rug, that virtue left them absolutely exposed – who were they if they couldn’t live a day without dutiful desperation, without fighting for some cause or other… where these people had lived their whole lives?

Marcus had been content to quietly follow behind Abby, keeping a hand on her shoulder as she took in every detail. Here and there, she’d pick up a book with a curious title from the numerous shelves and thumb through it, marvelling at the rich scent of the yellowed pages – The Little Prince,with its pages nearly all dog-eared, had been a favourite, she decided, and passed it to Marcus to hang onto.

As they concluded their exploration, Marcus steered her back towards the living room; a bright, open space walled in by windows that centered around a rustic stone fireplace.

There was one more surprise.

Carefully placing the book on the mantle above the fireplace, he turned to the small cupboard to his right, crouching down to open the doors and reach inside for something rectangular and heavy. Abby crossed her arms as she awaited explanation, the boyish gleam in Marcus’ eye the only thing that sufficed as she received none. He carefully placed the suitcase-like box on top of the cupboard, clicking open the snaps and raising the upper half to reveal a complicated bit of machinery: a flat, circular surface with a metal arm extending over it, ending in a needle. As she drew close, she could see what looked like a crank on the other side of the case.

“I can’t promise this will actually work,” Marcus warned as a disclaimer, rolling the needle between his finger and thumb to clean it. “From what I understand, this was an antique even a hundred years ago. But it’s worth a shot, I think.”

Brushing away the dust from the main surface, he steered the arm away from it, and reached into the cupboard as he searched through a collection of what looked like thin folders. He pulled one of them out – a large square of green and purple artwork, on which Abby could read the name “Van Morrison” – and angled it carefully to dispense its contents: a shiny, ridged black disc with a hole at the center around which the name appeared again.

“I’m not sure what exactly this one is,” Marcus confessed as he positioned the disc on the circular surface, adjusting the needle to once again hover through the middle and press into one of the ridges. “It was the only one still in one piece. Let’s find out, shall we?”

He gave the crank several turns, and the disc began to spin.

And then she heard it: a few seconds of thick, warbled crackle followed by… music.

She laughed a short laugh of disbelief.

“I guess that means it works,” she remarked, grinning wide as the sound of a steady guitar strum filled every corner of the cottage.

Marcus took a moment to ensure that the success wasn’t only momentary before he finally stood, turning to face Abby. He held out his hand.

“May I have this dance?”

Abby’s mouth hung open dumbly, stammering as the realization sunk in that she hadn’t danced at all since her youth – and that had been the bouncy, energetic dancing that prevailed at Unity Day dances. She wasn’t quite sure what this folksy rhythm demanded.

“I don’t – I can’t –“

Marcus’ eyes softened as he smiled.

“Come here.”

With that, she stepped toward him, taking his hand, and he gently tugged her even closer. She laughed as she stumbled into his shoulder, clutching it for balance. She felt his free hand come up to hold the middle of her back, and he nuzzled into the crook of her neck as they began to sway. He pressed a soft kiss into her skin, breathing out a contented sigh.

“I have to confess,” he murmured, his voice warm against her neck, “I… don’t really know what I’m doing, either. But it feels nice.”

“Mm,” Abby smiled, the stiffness of apprehension evaporating as she finally melted into the rhythm, into Marcus’ capable arms. There was an effortless communication in the way she and Marcus were together now, easily anticipating the way the other would move as they began to sway in a slow, easy circle. She marveled at it; the proof of the deliberate heart-work it had taken to get them here. She wondered if that early deliberation was why it was so uncomplicated, almost mindless to be at ease with this man now: nothing was taken for granted. Everything was acknowledged. That had been the landmark of the later years of her marriage to Jake: with him, it had been easy from the start, but inevitably, “easy” eventually slipped into something that all-too-closely resembled “indifferent”. The more things became routine, the more desperate she became for a reason why, and she couldn’t stop herself from it. But it made Jake uncomfortable to parse into their relationship like that: he was happy being happy. Abby wanted him to be happy. Abby wanted herself to be happy, too – and as far as she could have known at the time, she was.

But it wasn’t easy – not like this. With Marcus, she could make incisions as deep as she wanted into him, into their relationship, and he would stand sturdy, unflinching. He would offer to pull her deeper. Simply allowing her the freedom to have such a busy, inquisitive mind was, she considered, the very reason she was able now to find complete stillness in the security of his arms. Even as he suddenly lifted her arm above her head to spin her, resulting in a cacophony of giggles at the inadequacy they both felt in the clumsy attempt, she was at ease. Landing back against his shoulder, she breathed in deeply, absorbing the musky, woodsy scent of him. The easy, warm touch of his rough, calloused hands pressing her against his broad chest - against his steady heartbeat - was lulling her into what felt like a dream. She could have very easily fallen asleep here.

She closed her eyes as she let the voice of a long-dead musician sing a prayer over them:

And you shall take me strongly In your loving arms again And I will not remember That I even felt the pain. We shall walk and talk In gardens all misty and wet with rain And I will never, never, never Grow so old again.

As the song reached its instrumental section, Abby removed her hand from where it had been held out to the side and drew herself up against Marcus’ chest; the dance evolving into little more than an embrace in motion as they continued to sway. Marcus moved his now-freed hand to cradle the back of her neck, holding her close. Then, she felt a whisper of breath on her neck as he spoke: “Abby. Look.”

The first thing she saw as she opened her eyes was the dust, glittering faintly as it rose up through what little light was beginning to emerge through the windows. She realized that they’d ended up so that Marcus was now facing the front entrance; and as she reluctantly peeled herself from their embrace, she noticed a warm red glow being cast on his face as he looked outward.

She turned around. Her heart stopped.

The sun had finally crested over the horizon, illuminating the sea and sky with a vibrant, piercing red. Abby made her way out onto the deck, being careful to find somewhere secure, and Marcus followed, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist.

And I shall never grow. never grow so old again.

The reprise echoed softly from inside as they gazed out at the phenomenon before them. The sky was a dazzling array of colours, the wispy clouds above everything looking more like broad paint strokes in shades of violet and pink against a vast backdrop of gold. The water glittered beneath the sunlight, a cascade of precious rubies that expanded and multiplied as the crimson sun slowly climbed higher. Mist had formed on the water along the shore, dancing like an ethereal ghost as the warmth of daylight slowly burned it away.

But amid these vibrant hues of daybreak was one more: streaks of an unnatural turquoise that shot through the sky like flares. They would appear only momentarily, dancing in a serpentine cascade before fading into the golden light once more.

“What is that?” Abby remarked after a particularly substantial occurrence.

Marcus exhaled somberly, frowning.

“Radioactive isotopes in the air,” he answered. “It’s not far off, now.”

There was a moment as Abby considered the catastrophic implications of such a thing; a reminder of their dire situation. She felt Marcus squeeze her closer, almost possessively. And then, suddenly, she laughed.

“What?” Marcus inquired.

“No, it’s – god, it’s cheesy,” she tried to argue as she smiled to herself, cringing with embarrassment.

“Tell me.”

“It’s just…” she started, bracing herself for the ridiculousness of the rest: “How something so horrible can create something so… beautiful.”

Marcus smiled fondly as he nuzzled into her hair. She sighed.

“I told you.”

“No, I like it.”

At that, Abby felt the tickle of his beard on the sensitive skin of her neck as his lips teased with featherlight kisses down toward her collarbone. There was a flutter in her heartbeat as she melted into the contact, resting her head back against his shoulder as he made his way back up. As he finally reached that little spot behind her ear, she craned her neck to turn so she could meet his lips with hers. She would never take it for granted how such a masculine mouth, with its thin, hard edges, shrouded by sandpaper scruff, could be so tender. Slowly, the rest of her body followed as she turned into him, winding her arms around his shoulders to hold herself flush against him, deepening the kiss.

The song had ended: now, it was time to write their own.

With a little gasp of shock, suddenly Abby felt Marcus’ broad hands reach under her ass and lift her entire weight upward; a gesture she instinctively met by wrapping her legs tightly around his waist.

“That’s new,” she teased between kisses.

“Mm,” he affirmed, and then brushed her hair away from her face as he looked at her. “Call me old fashioned, but…”

Then, with a coy smile, keeping his gaze locked on hers, still carrying her, he made his way back towards the door.

With a small flourish of exaggeration, he stepped over the threshold.

Abby shook her head in disbelief, blinking with mild confusion as she realized what he’d done, and he hurried to explain:

“It might take a little work, and it might not be tomorrow, but Abby,” he began, suddenly wracked with nerves. “I love you, and I think – with your approval – one day, we could make this our home.”

“Hmm,” Abby considered with a smirk, taking his precious, panicked face in her hands. “I think,” she began, kissing one cheek, “you might-“ a kiss to the other, “-be right,” she concluded, moving to capture his mouth in a sweet, languid kiss that completely mollified the man whose strength was so easily holding her up at present.

Suddenly, it wasn’t just Abby Griffin he was kissing. It was Abby Griffin, the woman who would be at his side until death did them part. Whether or not rings were ever exchanged, or papers signed, this was a woman who had officially chosen to be his constant as their lives navigated this ever-changing world. He would always have her. They would always have this.

Still effortlessly carrying her, still a tangle of limbs and lips, he moved them both toward the bedroom. As he opened the door, Abby nuzzled downward, gently nipping at the stubble on his neck, provoking a low growl. The heat surged between them, then, and – somewhat gracelessly in his hurry – Marcus allowed them both to tumble downward onto the bed.

They bounced as they hit the ancient mattress, and Abby broke into a fit of bright laughter as a cloud of dust rose up around them. Marcus collapsed onto her, dropping his head as he joined her in laughter, half-embarrassed.

“We’ll fix that,” he commented, and she reached to steer his head back to where she could see him. She was smiling at him – this beautiful, blissful creature was smiling at him – and his restraint evaporated. He captured her mouth in an open, deep kiss, and he felt her fingers tangle into the hair at the nape of his neck. Lying on top of her like this, he was acutely aware of the tenderness of her breasts against his chest, the sharp curve of her hips against his; and they began to move in a slow rhythm. Her hands wandered beneath the collar of his jacket, leaving a trail of warmth as they made their way toward the zipper – and then he remembered.

The coffee.

He groaned, a dry groan that had nothing to do with their current position, and Abby looked up at him inquisitively.

“You have to promise not to laugh,” he warned, and she eyed him suspiciously as she tugged the zipper all the way down. There it was – a large, ugly brown stain that sprawled across the grey of his t-shirt. Abby pursed her lips – hard – in an attempt at restraint.

“I did make two,” Marcus explained with a sigh. “This is the other one.”  

“Well then,” Abby replied, her expression beginning to crack with good humour, “I guess we’ll just have to get this off you.” With that, he moved to discard his jacket – and only just had time to do so before Abby took him by the shoulders and rolled both of them so that she was on top, straddling his waist. She smiled as another small cloud of dust arose around them, and then scooted backwards to sit across his thighs. She lowered herself, her mouth achingly close to where his throbbing hardness was becoming difficult to conceal. But instead of confronting that, she began to slide her hands slowly over his hips and beneath the hem of his shirt, lifting it as they moved.

As each inch of his torso was bared, her hands sliding meticulously up his abdomen, she followed the upward movement with her mouth, leaving hot little kisses as she went. Here and there, her little tongue would dart out to lap at his salty, coffee-infused skin. Reaching the scruff of dark hair at his chest, she breathed in deep.

“I like how you taste this way,” she murmured with one last kiss at his collarbone; and at last, she pulled the coffee-soaked shirt over his head, discarding it on the floor, and reclaimed his mouth with hers.

“God, Abby…”

He wrested his fingers into her hair, pulling her closer, and began to blindly undo her braid, fumbling mildly as he finally removed the tie and unleashed her mane. She sat up as she removed her shirt, with none of the deliberation it had taken to remove his. It was simply over her head and gone, and suddenly there was so much skin - and not enough - and Marcus sat up to reach behind her and begin undoing her bra. He nipped at her neck as he worked, eliciting gentle, deliciously-feminine moans.

There was a girlishness to how Abby was in these moments that Marcus knew no one else got to see; hidden behind carefully-maintained curtains of maturity and duty. Only he would ever get to hear the soft, involuntary, high-pitched sigh as she finally shrugged the bra off her shoulders; as he gathered her bare breasts into his broad hands, worshipfully massaging them. He gently flicked a thumb over one nipple, and she gasped, clutching his shoulder so hard he could feel her fingernails dig in.

Then, her hands moved to his waistband, fumbling with the zipper that would leave him all but exposed. He groaned, this time entirely sexual; but as she met his eyes with a challenge, he decided to change the game.

With a somewhat forceful push (the kind he knew darkened Abby’s eyes with thrill and desire), he pinned her beneath him once again.

“No, Abby,” he breathed. “Now, it’s your turn.”

She only had a short moment to quirk a curious eyebrow at him before he was suddenly making his way southward with kisses, undoing the button of her jeans as he did so.  She kicked off her boots to give him an easier time as he slowly peeled her jeans off of her thighs, over her knees, down beyond her calves – locking onto her gaze with a challenging smirk as he did so. Then, he made his way back up, lightly grazing her skin with his lips and, occasionally, just the tickle of his beard. She shivered with pleasure and anticipation as he drew closer, ever closer.

“Marcus, please.”

He hooked his fingers around the hem of her simple black underwear, pulling them down and off her, and suddenly Abby Griffin was completely naked, and lying in wait for him. For what he could do.

He obliged.

He dove in deep with an eager mouth, and her hips rose to meet him at the delirious sensation of his textured beard on her bare flesh. He besieged her with a variety of ravenous licks: long, languid and flat-tongued strokes along her centre interspersed with light flutters of his tongue against her clitoris, occasionally mixing in a hot, open-mouthed kiss to wherever tasted best.

(Everywhere tasted best.)

He could hear the little hitch in her breathing, could see her clutch at the faded blanket as she tried to get her pleasure under control. But she was getting close, and desperately so; he could taste it in the wetness that was accumulating where his mouth worked.

So he stopped.    

He hovered for a moment as the confusion and frustration settled into her face.

“Marcus,” she warned with a low growl.

“What do you want, Abby?”

“Oh god,” she moaned as his breath fluttered over her clit.

“Tell me what you want.”

“I want you.”

“Me?” he challenged with a smile, rising to hold himself over her.

“God, yes, you.”

“Say it again.”

“I want you, Marcus Kane.”

He kissed her lips, then, a sticky kiss; allowing her the pungent, saline pleasure of tasting herself. He could feel her heart racing beneath him, her breath coming in short, laboured heaves as he lightly – ever-so-lightly – pressed himself against her hips.

“One more time, Abby.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!”

With that, she deftly tore open his pants, violently yanking down his briefs and leaving him completely exposed. He would have laughed at her urgency if he’d had time before suddenly her hand was on his cock – and suddenly his cock was inside her.

He shuddered at the sensation, and Abby collapsed back against the bed with utter satisfaction, a primal “oh!” arising from her lips at the sudden pressure as he filled her. She hissed with pleasure as he began to move; a slow; easy repetition that allowed him to multitask by taking her breasts in his mouth, one by one, devouring her. But that pace quickly built to something more desperate as Marcus’ finely-tuned vestiges of self-control finally began to evaporate. It started as a series of short breaths, which grew into moans, which, as he really started to let go, finally emerged as heady growls and groans. His mouth was no longer pinpoint accurate on her skin, waves of pleasure forcing him to clumsily hover where he wanted to burrow down. He took to her lips.

“God. Marcus,” Abby breathed between hungry kisses, “Are you-“

“I’m- I’m close…”

“Please.”

And with that, he reached down between them, fumbling a little until he found her clit, rubbing desperate little circles as his rhythm began to falter. Her voice pitched upward, her gasps more rapid as she approached the edge. She clung harder and harder to him, her gasps starting to take the shape of his name as he thrust, and then suddenly – just as a shudder was beginning at his toes and working its way upward – they both let out long, guttural groans; and they collapsed into each other in boneless, spent, and sweaty bliss.

Marcus allowed himself to take a moment to catch his breath as he sprawled on top of Abby’s warm, heaving body before finally removing himself and rolling over to lay next to her. As he looked at her, studying the sweat-soaked glow on her skin and the matted mess of her hair – he noticed a sizeable smudge of dirt on her cheek, from where she’d pressed herself against the pillow. He chuckled as he reached over to gently rub it away.

“Maybe next time, we bring blankets,” she laughed as she brushed at a similar smudge along the side of his arm.

Marcus may have been a bit hazy from the encounter, but with the sunlight now pouring in in bright beams, the dust in the air shimmering around them, he could have sworn he’d fallen into a dream. And maybe, in a way, he had: they’d have to go back to Arkadia soon, and this place would soon become a faint memory – that is, until the next time they could miraculously align their schedules to make a trip and get work started on it… on their future home.

No, he thought as the sunlight illuminated Abby’s wild hair, a satisfied drowsiness rendering her heavy-lidded as she smiled at him, this wasn’t a dream. This was perfectly, inarguably real.