(no subject)

[called_lioness]

It's not an overly large house, in Finchley, but it's large enough to hold a family.

It doesn't, now, but it looks like it still could. There's enough rooms and enough furniture, and in one of those rooms there's a wardrobe, and when the door opens and she steps out, Lucy blinks, and starts to laugh.

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[the_seafarer]

He opens his mouth to answer, and closes it again, turning the question over in his mind.

"I wanted you to make your own choice," he says, finally. "Not because of what I wanted, or what you might have thought it would do to me. That if you stayed, it would not be because I asked, but because you wanted to. Because you decided to."

[called_lioness]

She smiles, a little, and closes her eyes at that.

"I want to stay with you. I don't want--I don't want to have to do everything that comes with that. But I want you most, and to stay with you. And that is what I'm going to do. Because it's what I decided. But you could ask me to stay anyway."

[the_seafarer]

A slight smile, at that, and he nods, once, twice.

"Then stay with me?"

He reaches out to run his hand over her shoulder, the back of her neck, down the curve of her back.

"For I don't know what I might do without you. Come back. Stay forever."

[called_lioness]

"I can manage that, I think," she promises, and smiles a bit more widely than she was. "Possibly even longer."

[the_seafarer]

He leans over to kiss her cheek, and when he sits back again, his smile is very bright.

"Then I am glad," simply, and then he laughs, less from mirth than from joy.

"Though we might be hard-pressed to find something longer than forever, even in Milliways."

[called_lioness]

"I'll just have to stay long enough to find out if there is or not, then, won't I?" she says cheerfully. "It's an important question that needs answering and all."

[the_seafarer]

"I'll be around when you find the answer," he promises, grinning. "The the twins will be long grown up, with children of their own to torment me."

Raising her hand, he kisses the back of it lightly, and looks down the street.

"Shall we stay here for a while, or be on our way?"

[called_lioness]

"And they shall learn to love you, I'm certain, as much as their grandmothers did," she laughs, and then it fades, for all she's still smiling, as her eyes close again.

"Just stay here a little while longer. And--and then I think I need a few moments alone before I go home. But for now, just a little bit longer?" Because it does smell different, and not very good, really, and there's noise and crowds and it's London--and that's really it. It's London, and it was home, and right now, she thinks a few more minutes in it with his shoulder under her head are all she wants.

[the_seafarer]

He nods, and wraps his arms around her waist, and watches the world that he knows so little of move by--people walking, cars rushing, horns and laughter and talk and wind.

But Lucy feels the same in his arms, and he'll be waiting for her when she makes her own way back, so for now, they can sit, and talk a little, and mostly be silent until it is time to make their way back to the house.