I wake up to a soft sound of distress from my Companion Plant.

I lift my head, look out through the window to see a pale blue dawn. A soft, peachy shade of orange at the horizon line, cobalt in the highest reaches of the sky. A few lingering stars are spangled across it.

It’s beautiful, but I take only a second to look at it before I turn to Aiden.

I was sleeping with him wrapped up in my arms, his back to my chest. I can't tell if it was his heightened breathing or his tiny, twitching movements that woke me up. It takes me a moment to figure out that it was his hand that did it. It’s clutching mine so tightly, numbing my fingertips.

“Aiden?” I murmur, to no response. I shift a little, so I can see him better.

I don’t think that he’s having a nightmare. The expression on his sleeping face is more complicated than that. As I prop myself up on my elbow, he makes another quiet, breathless noise.

This one forms enough of a word that I can understand it. Jamie.

"Hey." I stroke my fingers down his side. “I’m right here.”

Aiden suddenly rolls over, sweeps me into his arms, and buries his face in my neck.

“Don’t leave me.”

He says it so clearly that I think he’s woken up.

“I won’t," I answer. "I would never."

Aiden talks over me, because he’s still asleep. “Please… not yet...”

I’m struck with a sudden, vividly clear memory of something that Aiden said to me.

I do have nice dreams, too. Ones about you. It used to make me sad, waking up from those.

I wonder if Aiden, in his dreams, thinks that he’s about to wake up from something nice and find himself in a very sad reality.

It really does seem like he’s fighting to stay in his dreams. The way he’s squeezing his eyes shut, trying to hide his face against the slow-growing light, holding me like I could slip away at any moment.

I manage to maneuver myself down in Aiden’s embrace until our faces are even. It takes some effort; he’s holding me much more tightly than he does when he’s awake. I forget how much power is packed into those muscles, sometimes. He’s always so gentle with me.

“Aiden,” I say again, and push a kiss onto his lips.

I’m startled when, in his sleep, Aiden kisses me back, leaning into me. There’s something desperate, hungry, urgent about it. His eyebrows are drawn together, his expression pained.

He lets out a despairing little sound when I break the kiss off, trying to gather me up even closer against him.

I’m now pretty sure about my guess as to what’s going on here, and I redouble my efforts to gently wake Aiden up. I press soft kisses down the bridge of his nose, smooth my palm over his face.

“Aiden,” I say, at full volume. “Aiden.”

He must really be trying to ignore the call of the world beyond his dreams, because even this doesn’t rouse him from his sleep. I hesitate, then give him sort of a hard shove, and climb on top of him. I bend down and take his face in my hands, start peppering it with kisses.

“Hey, Companion Plant,” I say, right into his ear. “Can you wake up, please? I’m waiting for you.”

A pause, and then Aiden goes still. There’s a brief stretch of silence. He runs a hand over his eyes, slowly blinking them open.

Then he vaults upright, nearly throwing me off of him, feeling frantically around in the bed.

“Jamie?” he gasps, his eyes still unfocused.

“Hi, hey-” I quickly take his face in my hands. “It’s okay, I’m right here!”

The moment that Aiden’s gaze finds me, his eyes fill up with obvious relief. He falls flat on the bed again, breathing hard. I bend down to plant a kiss on his mouth. He lets out his breath in one heavy rush, a burst of warmth against my lips.

When I draw back, Aiden gazes up at me. For a long time, he doesn’t say anything.

He rests his hands on my upper thighs, holding onto me, but much more gently than he was before. Very, very slowly, his warm, oversized hands slide down to my knees, until they hit the bedding. Then they glide all the way back up, traveling over the curves of my hip bones, up my torso and chest, down my arms. Then up again, to my shoulders, to my neck, to dip briefly into my hair, and finally to cup my face.

All at that achingly slow, lingering pace. His hands are roving, but his gaze stays right with mine.

It’s almost as if Aiden needs to feel every part of me, to be sure that I’m here.

I’m holding perfectly still all the while, yet somehow I feel a little out of breath by the time that Aiden stops.

He hooks a hand around the back of my neck and pulls me down to him, treats me to a much longer, calmer kiss. Even when we break apart, he keeps me there for a moment, his nose pressed against mine.

“Hi,” he says.

I roll off of him to lay flat on my back, because my cheeks are hot enough to burn someone, and I need a second to catch my breath.

“Hi,” I stammer.

Aiden rolls onto his side, sits up on his elbow, and spreads a hand on my chest.

“I’m sorry,” he rumbles, tracing his fingertips in slow circles. “I woke you up, didn’t I?”

“You, um.” I’m trying to rearrange my brain, to remember that words exist, not just physical sensations. “You were having a dream, I think. But - not a nightmare?”

Aiden chews his lip. I can tell by the look on his face that he remembers exactly what he was dreaming about.

“Did I say anything?”

He closes his eyes as he asks the question, like he’s not sure he wants to hear the answer.

I really, really want to lie to him about it. Just one tiny little white lie. Maybe I can do it, if I really focus, give it a serious effort. It’s literally just one word.

“No,” I answer.

Aiden groans deeply, his bronze cheeks turning a burnt shade of crimson.

“Shit. Goddamnit. What did I say?”

“Nothing!”

“Stop trying, dude,” Aiden says, with affectionate exasperation. “You’re the worst liar on the planet. Possibly in the galaxy.”

I hesitate, choosing my words carefully.

“Okay, fine. Yes, you were talking to me. But not me out here.” I tap Aiden’s forehead. “Me in there. Dream me, I guess.”

Aiden cringes with embarrassment, runs a hand through his messy chestnut hair.

He goes quiet. I get the impression that he’s trying to figure out how to explain himself. He really doesn’t have to, and I’m tempted to tell him that. But I try not to interrupt him when he’s working through a thought, so I keep quiet.

A deep silence falls over us. Aiden’s eyes eventually flit to mine, like he’s starting to worry that this is taking too long. I give him an encouraging smile, try to silently communicate that I’m happy to wait for as long as he needs.

Aiden understands me, as he always does, and sinks back into his thoughts.

The silence lives on for a few more minutes. Outside, the sky is slowly starting to awaken. The chittering of birds comes in soft, distant bursts, a gentle fracturing of the dawn quiet. Beyond Aiden’s open windows, the breeze stirs the tree branches. The early-morning mist sways with the movement of the wind, like waves on a peaceful ocean.

Aiden takes a deep breath.

“I - I still can’t - sometimes it’s hard for me to, um. Jamie, when you do things like giving me that book…”

Oh, no. I freeze, looking anxiously up at Aiden. “Was it too much?”

“Too much?” Aiden huffs out an incredulous laugh. “No, it’s too good, and I - some part of my brain decides that it can’t be real…”

He stops again, frowning hard, like this isn't coming out the way he wants it to.

“It’s okay, Aiden,” I say gently, lifting a hand to his jaw. “You don’t have to explain-”

“No, I - I can do it.” He looks down at me with determined blue eyes. “I just - I used to be so fucking upset when I’d wake up from dreaming about you, and remember that we were thousands of miles apart, and complete strangers to each other. I never want to wake up like that again. And it fucking sucks, because I love to dream about you, but even now, when I'm at the end of the dream, when I can feel myself waking up - I always freak out, I think that you won’t - won't be here, and that I'll be back to how I was…”

Aiden fades off, out of breath from his sudden outburst. Then he bites his lip, the blush in his cheeks growing darker.

I’m fighting a losing battle against the smile rising on my face.

Part of me aches for Aiden, that he went through such a rough awakening, and so many times. But part of me can’t help but be touched by what he said.

“Well - we’re here together, now," I point out. "Maybe... should we recreate the nice part of the dream? But without the stressful ending?”

Aiden draws back, surprised. “What - seriously?”

“Yeah, why not?” I smooth a strand of chestnut hair out of his face. “Do you remember what happened?”

Eager anticipation blossoms in Aiden’s eyes, but he’s still trying to look casual. “Yeah.”

“So…” I shrug, smiling up at him. “Show me.”

A warm, devious smile turns up the corners of Aiden’s mouth.

Still propped on one elbow, he bends to kiss me. His hand settles on my side, on my ribs, keeping me in place as his body presses up against me and his tongue slips into my mouth.

It’s a long, intense kiss, and my heart is racing by the end of it. I melt beneath Aiden, my fingers sprawled on the muscular curve of his shoulder.

“I love you,” he purrs, his voice and words both vibrating through me.

I'm sure that my answer is clear in my eyes, but I say it out loud, anyways.

“I love you, too.” I slide my hand up the back of Aiden’s neck, then stop, curious. “Is that part of your dreams? Us saying that?”

“Mhm,” Aiden answers, his hand roaming further down my body.

“Even before you - came back to Ketterbridge, or-?”

Apparently Aiden is done taking questions. Before I can even finish what I was saying, he climbs over me, and starts feathering kisses down my throat, my chest, my solar plexus.

I close my eyes and tip my head back. Lost in the feeling, and therefore caught by surprise when I find myself dragged towards the edge of the bed. I prop myself up on my elbows, and watch Aiden sink to his knees on the floor.

His hands wrap around the outside of my legs, so that the sides of his palms rest in the creases of my thighs. His head drops between my knees.

I shift my weight onto one arm, so I can reach down to slip my fingers into Aiden's hair. Watching him, my feet flexing, my breaths growing deeper and faster.

I try to bite back a sound from deep in my throat, and fail completely. Aiden looks up at me for a second. His grip on my thighs tightens, but he doesn’t stop what he’s doing.

“Hey,” I manage, “What, um - what am I supposed to do? Like - what do I do, in the dream you had last night?”

Aiden lifts his head to look up at me again, his blue eyes on fire - and smiles. “You enjoy it.”

“Oh,” I stammer. “Okay. That’s literally the easiest job ever. Actually - yeah, I think that’s the easiest thing anyone’s ever asked me to do. In my life.”

Aiden huffs out a laugh, and his warm breath against my body makes my toes curl.

I lay back and let myself get lost in a sea of beautiful sensations. Shivering and gasping, holding a fistful of Aiden’s hair. Opening my eyes to watch him, a sight so unbearably sexy that I can only handle looking for brief flashes at a time.

Aiden keeps looking up at me, too. His pupils are overtaking the blue in his eyes, more so with each sound to escape my mouth.

By the time he sits back on his ankles, all smirky and smiling, I’m melted, boneless, trembling a little. I know that I more than fulfilled my part of the dream, and Aiden - he did, too.

I spend a few speechless minutes recovering, then ask: “What now?”

Aiden has climbed back up onto the bed, and is stretched out next to me. The bright, glowing smile on his face falls slightly at my question.

“Now… we get to lay here like this for a little while. And then I wake up.”

I tap his nose with my finger. “Well, good thing it’s not a dream, this time.”

“Could it be, though?” Aiden asks, almost to himself. “Because this is so-”

“Nope, it can’t be.” I sit up, start kissing my way down the length of his body. “Because watch this, I’m gonna change the ending. In this version, you get a turn, too.”

“Little demon.” Aiden starts to laugh, but it dissolves into a sharp, shuddering breath. His words are halting when he continues, broken up by the movements of my hands and mouth. “You know, waking up from those dreams has already gotten a billion percent easier for me, since I came home. Like - just because you’re there. But now I think I'm actually starting to love it. I don't know how you do that, Keane.”

I stop halfway through licking the divot of Aiden’s hip, groan loudly, and drop my forehead onto the sculpted muscle of his torso.

“Aiden. Don’t say shit like that. I can’t handle it.”

He smirks down at me again. “How are you gonna stop me?”

“I’m gonna have you killed,” I answer, very seriously.

“Wh-?” Aiden begins, then lets out a burst of startled laughter, sitting up on his elbows. “Um, okay. I thought the answer was gonna be a little sexier than that.” He breaks into a wide grin, shaking his head at me. “I guess I’m not dreaming, then. You’ve definitely never said that in any of my dreams, no matter what’s going on.”

I laugh, too, lightly trailing my fingers over Aiden’s body hair, watching the wave of goosebumps that rolls up his arms as I do it.

“It’s real life, babe. Can’t be like a dream all the time.”

Aiden pinches his lip between his teeth, smiling at me. “You’re really wrong about that, man.”

I don’t even know what to say in response, so I do my talking in other ways. Aiden stops talking, too, aside from a few soft, moaned curses.

When I climb back up to snuggle against Aiden, we’re both out of breath again. For a long moment, he stares at me with wide, dazed eyes. Then he rolls me onto my side, and folds me into his arms.

Positioned like this, we can both see the sun starting to rise through the windows. I’m watching, but also mentally reliving everything that just happened. A shiver of pleasure moves through me at the newly-formed memory, which somehow already feels like an old favorite.

Aiden feels the little tremor, and thinks that I’m cold. He trails a fingertip down my side.

Heat spreads from the point of contact, seeping into my body. But I was perfectly warm already, with Aiden curled around me like this.

Sometimes I can’t tell whether the warmth comes from me or him. Whether it’s magic, or simply human, or both.

The deep rumble of Aiden’s voice breaks the silence.

“So, um. Same time tomorrow?”

Now it’s my turn to let out a burst of startled laughter. I reach back to smack Aiden’s shoulder, and his huffing laugh rushes against the nape of my neck.

Smiling to myself, I rest my head on his bicep again, gazing out through the open window. Aiden twines a strand of my hair around his fingers, watching the sun make its shining appearance over the horizon.

I take long breaths of cold winter air as the sunlight spills out onto the dawn mist, setting it alight. All I can hear are the songs of distant birds, and the deep, relaxed rhythm of Aiden’s breathing.

I can understand why Aiden sometimes thinks that he’s dreaming. In fact, I understand perfectly.

It’s the kind of gift that Companion Plants give each other. The power to dream, while vividly, brilliantly awake.