‘It is said that the dream state is where we explore the information the day has brought us through our senses. Others say that the dream is, in effect, the achievement of our fondest and most secret wishes. Wishes that we, in our conscious, may not even recognize.

    ‘It felt like heaven.’

    The gray light of the day seeps into the room as two pairs of eyes open slowly and meet the other. Two bodies, tangled close after a night of restlessness and a dawn of repose, are curled up warm together in the large bed. Pale, slender palms up against a strong chest, and a wide, strong hand splayed over a small hip. No words are spoken, and for a long moment the quiet of the morning hour reverberates into their troubled souls. A small, genuine smile tugs on his lips and his eyes drift closed, fingers tightening momentarily in a gentle squeeze. She stares at his face, loose and free of the lingering emotions brought by his nightmares, and moves one hand to slowly caress his cheek, taking in the texture of his skin and her own reactions to it and the situation, and storing the memory deep in her ‘mind.’

    For another fleeting moment she basks in the comfort of the position, feeling her heart beat a little quicker and yet steadier at such close and sudden proximity to his almost overwhelming person. She allows herself to be engulfed by his stationary hands, one on her hip and the other with its back cushioning her head since the position curled near him denies her temples access to the pillows.

    And as the moment following rears its ugly head she starts her slow detachment, moving so calculatedly that the hand holding her hip slides to the sheets as though it had always been there, and her own fingertips pull away as though moving through water and not from flesh covered in silk. She allows herself a single glance back at him as she closes the door slowly and finds herself forced, by some internal weakness, to prop herself upright against the wall next to it, lest she reach the floor before her own room.

    As she makes her careful, barefoot way down the hall her aural sensors pick up a mumbled whisper of, “Dorothy,” and her heart misses a beat, alarming her.

    Once safe inside the four imprisoning walls of her own room, she touches her hip in his manner, to test the circuits and see if she herself can evoke the same reaction.

***