“Beck,” She says. “I can't sleep again.” She's crouching in front of the couch, with her hands cupping either side of the dog's head the way Aiden used to cup her head during kisses years ago. The large part of her palm rests on the dog's cheeks as her thumbs brush the soft fur of his ears. The tired animal seems content to let the woman stroke his ears but offers no solution to her problem. After a moment, he drops his head onto his paws. In the darkness, the shine of ambient light reflected in his eyes disappears as he returns to sleep. Sara pulls her hands into her lap and turns to sit on the floor with her back to the couch. She sighs tiredly.

She's on the verge of falling asleep half an hour later when a voice in the darkness startles her to wakefulness. “Are you alright?”

“Y-yeah,” She replies. He sounds as though he's standing in the doorway. “I just couldn't sleep.”

“Again?”

“I didn't think you had even noticed the other times,” She answers with a nod he can't see in the darkness.

“I told you, I don't sleep the same when you're not around.”

“How can you tell if you're asleep?”

“You're not seriously doubting me, are you?” He asks, taking a step toward the couch.

“Doubting your psychic abilities to tell where I am at all times? Well, yes,” She admits. “Watch out for Beck's bone, I ste-”

There's a muted thud as he stumbles over a bone, and crashes to the ground beside her. He laughs huskily. “And down he goes.”

“You're so impatient. I mean, is it really that big a difference if you get down here quicker?” She asks as he picks himself up and sits beside her. She feels him take her hand into one of his warmer hands in the darkness, and as he feels her soft skin, the dull ache in his knee quickly disappears.

“Yup. If I had taken my time and sat down like you probably did when you got here, I wouldn't be holding your hand already, would I?”

“By now? Maybe.”

“Would not.”

“Would too.”

“If I can't have psychic powers, you can't be able to know how things might have happened differently,” He argues.

“But, even when things happen differently, the same things still happen.” She still hasn't told him about her sleepless nights in college, the nights when sleep wouldn't find her unless she found medicine first. Her recurring sleeplessness is the only thing she has ever kept from him.

He laughs. “I'm not sure that even makes sense.”

“Sure it does,” She says. She clambers onto him, straddling his lap. “Your sleep-deprived brain isn't working properly. I mean, you're probably half-asleep, partially dreaming right now.” She presses her lips to his.

“I'm not,” He says when she pulls back.

“You probably think I'm on your lap right now, trying to get hot and heavy with you.” Her warm breath caresses his neck as she leans in to brush cheeks as she speaks.

“You are.” He can feel his heartbeat picking up as he presses his lips to her neck.

“Just a dream,” She says.

“I guess its a good thing I was planning on sleeping in and didn't set an alarm, then,” He replies. He shifts her off of his lap and onto her back on the floor. Her hands are surprisingly cool as she places them on either side of his head. “You were freezing out here,” He says after a moment. He shifts from leaning over her to lying on his back beside her. He manages to get his left arm under her head and pull her close.

“It's not that cold,” She replies, cuddling closer.

“Was too.”

“Not this again,” She says. “Oh God. What is that?”

“What?”

“Why's my forehead wet?”

He reaches his right arm over to feel her forehead in the darkness. “Feels like...”

“What? What is it?”

When he pulls away his hand, he accidentally brushes the snout of the dog sleeping on the couch. He laughs when he sets his arm back at his side. “This is why people sleep in beds instead of on the floor.”

“Tell me.”

“What's above you that could possibly drip?”

“I'm- no.”

“Yes.”

“It's not.”

“You're getting drooled on.”

“You did this on purpose,” She accuses.

“Did not.”

“You probably got the back of your head drooled on and then tried to line my face up with it. Hell, you and Beck are probably in it together.”

“If I were doing that, which I wouldn't, I think I'd line it up with a part of your face other than the forehead.”

“Because you're an asshole.”

He's laughing again. “I didn't do it though, which means I'm not an asshole.”

“You didn't do anything about it, though. It's still just sitting there, dog slobber drying on my forehead.”

“Last I checked, you have arms too.”

“There's dog drool on my forehead, goddamnit. How's a girl supposed to function?” He leans over her and quickly wipes the drool from her forehead with his shirt. When he rests back on the hard floor again, she shifts closer and buries her face in his chest. “You asshole,” She says, voice muffled.

“Seriously? I just cleaned drool off your forehead for you.”

“With the part of your shirt that I put my face in.” She punches him when she feels his chest shudder with laughter.

“That's not my fault.”

“You did it on purpose.”

“There's just no pleasing you, is there?”

“Maybe I'm a little cranky when I don't get any sleep.”

“Maybe you should spend more time in bed and less time freezing on the floor by the couch,” He suggests.

“Yeah, well, what are you going to do about it?” When he makes it to his feet and then stoops to pick her up, she fights back feebly. “Don't you dare pick me up. If you trip over that bone again...”

“Clear,” He says when he crosses the living room successfully. Her arms remain tightly wrapped around his neck as he crosses the threshold.

“The real question is whether or not you can navigate the bedroom in the dark,” She teases.

“Don't doubt me, my love,” He replies. “I made it out successfully.” He sets her gently on the bed and then flops onto the bed beside her.

“But that was without a grown woman in your arms.”

“It was dark, you don't know that.”

“She just jumped aside when you fell?”

“Well, yeah, she didn't want me to land on her.”

“I can understand that, I guess. I was pretty afraid of you falling on me.”

“Luckily for you, I only fell for you.”

“Cheesy,” She teases, poking him as she calls him on it.

“But true. Now go to sleep.”