Oh yes! They take it slow in a kind of unusual way. David I think got a pretty good read on Laurie pretty fast, back in the realm, and he knows she will want to focus on one task at a time. And it starts with what must be done. If he’d flirted in the realm? She’d have staired at him in disbelief and then probably decked him if he’d done it in a way to make a real deal out of it. She barely had the emotional well-being and energy to talk to people and stay alive. Someone demanding her time and energy to consider dating would have been incomprehensible and infuriating. Out of the realm, things aren’t too different.
Sure, she is way, way better off. But Laurie is still rebuilding a life after /decades/ of exhaustion and trauma. She is doing her best, but she needs to be able to focus, and other things need to come slow and be handleable. She likes David back, like it is implied in the last chapter, and probably has for a good while just without realizing it. But her focus right now is helping Michael and reconnecting with him and successfully getting him help, keeping both of them alive, and together as a family, and making it to a place they have a sustainable, okay, solid thing going. That is a /lot/. It goes pretty well, but Laurie is going right out of hell cold into a pretty monumental undertaking! And David knows that. So he takes it slow. Because she /needs/ to focus on her brother and mental health, and she is already stretched pretty thin. And he is happy with what he has—with being with her and seeing her okay and actually happy to be alive. He’s happy with his life, and so is she. And I think it goes on like that, for three, maybe four years, until one day they’re holding hands in an crisp November evening, walking home from a movie, and Laurie realizes that for several years now he’s been coming over for meals and helping make them, and to help repair things or install them, or to talk, or have game nights. Talking about their lives and hopes and the people they love, and sharing burdens and thoughts and time. And he’s been helping pay for things and listening to her vent or go on long excited monologues about how well something with Michael is going, and staying the night on the couch almost as often as he stays at his place. They’ve even fallen asleep on the couch together a few times, and it’s been months and months and years of little gifts and calls and gestures and space and closeness and walks in parks and nice dinners together and trips to the movies, and she kind of realizes they’ve been well and truly dating for over a year, and she just never put a name to it, but it feels natural and welcome and good, like the lined glove protecting her hand from the chill, the glove he bought her two years ago, and she smiles up at him and he smiles back and she sees he gets it too, or she hopes he does, and she kind of leans her head against his chest and they pause and he touches her cheek and asks if everything’s okay, and they look at each other and he can see it is, and I think he kisses her. On the cheek, that first time. And they walk home with her head on his shoulder and her hand in his and her chest warm and heart dancing, and him proud and content and overflowing with how much life is good, and they both remember that night and that walk always.
