It seemed patently unfair that it was only now, after saying all of this, that she felt a wave of emotion swell in her. She was pretty sure she had cried more in the last few weeks than in the preceding few years, and she really didn't want to do so again now. Everything was so much, though — the memories that she tried not to let herself have, the reminder of the life she'd had that he hadn't, the fact that he was thanking her for sharing what should have been too burdensome for anyone to take on. Add to that the inherent vulnerability of being unclothed, and for one horrible moment, she felt like she might break.

Instead, she ducked her head to press her face to his shoulder, using him as a shield to try to keep or regain her composure, breathing in deep the faint scent that she associated entirely with him.

"And here I've been thinking that we should probably redo the bedroom," she mumbled against his skin, aiming for wry but not quite getting there. It was true, though, something she had been thinking about even before now but just wasn't sure how to proceed with the logistics of.

A thought occurred to her, and she let herself blurt it out before she could think to do otherwise. This, at least, was easier than the story that prefaced it. "That dream, it's not like that's what I want now. Or what I was trying to get before. I think it was always about the fantasy of it. Something impossible."

Even so, when she'd bought a small house, one that was now a heap of burned-out ruins in the eastern part of the countryside, she had made sure it was one with hardwood floors and marble countertops. One tiny way of bringing that fantasy to life.