A sharp, ringing silence cuts right through the gentle atmosphere of our bedroom.

I don’t know what to say, what to do. I could try to lie to Aiden about what he just caught me doing, but the futility of that is instantly obvious to me. That only leaves telling him the truth, or not answering at all.

I just sit there, frozen and wide-eyed. Aiden stares back at me in much the same way. Suddenly he’s breathing very fast, and I’m not breathing at all.

Aiden is out of the bed before I can even blink. The moonlight slides down the muscles of his torso for only a split second before he’s snatched his sweatpants up from the ground and put them on.

He pulls a shirt over his head as he strides to the light switch. I start blinking very fast in the sudden brightness of the room when he flips it on.

Aiden comes back to the bed and stands there looking down at me, his hands flexing and unflexing.

“Aren’t you gonna answer me?” he asks sharply, in a breathless, fast-flying voice. “What the fuck were you doing, Jamie?”

There’s this panic-stricken, frantic texture to his words that I can see reflected in his blue eyes. A dark, rising storm.

I stare up at him, tipped off of my axis. I knew that Aiden might be upset if he ever found out what I was doing, but I didn’t expect this. He looks halfway to furious, halfway to frightened. His blue eyes are blazing, his face about as pale as it can get.

I sit up on my knees and start to reach for him. “Aiden, take a breath-"

He recoils from my outreached hand, and I freeze again, beyond startled.

“Just - just calm down, okay?" I press my fingers to my face, my voice scraping with building desperation. "I can explain, I was-”

Aiden cuts me off with a choked, breathless sound, taking a step further back from the bed.

“Calm down?” His words are nearly incoherent from his frantic breathing, and I can only barely make them out. “What did I just wake up and find you doing, Jamie?”

I stare up at him, hurt and bewildered. Flinching at the forceful words being thrown at me, shivering from how cold and tense it suddenly feels in our bedroom. I can’t find a word to say, no matter how desperately I try. My mouth opens and closes silently. I run a stressed-out hand through my hair, then start twisting the ring around my finger, peering up at Aiden, my anxiety swiftly turning to mounting panic -

“Jamie, what the fuck?” Aiden's voice drops to a quiet, seething, furious hiss. “You gonna say something, or not?”

I draw back, defensive instincts pushing through my panic. “Don’t shout at me, Aiden!”

"Who's shouting? I'm talking quieter than you."

"This is basically your version of shouting, and you know it!"

“How am I supposed to not shout, right now? I wake up to find you secretly doing something with my magic, with the connection open, crying, with the guiltiest fucking look I’ve ever seen on your face-”

“Because you caught me sneaking around, not because of what I was doing!” I lift my chin defiantly, suddenly determined to hold my ground. “I’m not ashamed of what I did!”

“Really? Because you won’t even tell me what you did!”

“I’m trying to, you won’t let me! You won’t give me a second to think!”

“I want the truth right now, before you have time to think about what to say!”

“Why, because I’m gonna come up with a lie to tell you? I’m gonna lie to you, Aiden? Me?” I hear the hurt, bewildered tears gathering in my voice, but I can’t help it. “Why won’t you give me time to think of how to give you an explanation? Do you not actually want to hear it?”

Aiden jerks his head back, startled, then freezes up. He swallows hard, his breathing fast and shallow. And suddenly I see it, in his eyes.

Aiden is having some kind of all-out war within himself. He looks helplessly torn apart by two different instincts, struggling hard to know what to do. His nerves are shot to pieces, just like mine. It’s hidden far below, in the depths of his gaze, but I can sense the violent hurricane of panic and bewilderment in him.

He doesn't actually know if he wants to hear my explanation.

I reach out and catch Aiden’s wrist in my hand, all my anger scattered to the wind at once. His expression has gone very blank, but he’s still breathing hard. His wide, unseeing eyes drop to my fingers where they're curled around his wrist.

“Aiden.” I'm painfully aware of how desperate and pleading I sound, but I'm powerless to stop it. “Just let me explain-”

He tears his wrist from my hand, takes a staggering step back. I shut up instantly, staring at him with huge eyes.

“Don’t,” he says in a hoarse, fractured voice, looking anywhere but at me. His words are breathless with barely-repressed tears. “Please don’t, I don’t want-”

Aiden stops, all out of breath. He pushes a hand through his chestnut hair, then turns and strides for the door. I don’t even have time to catch a glimpse of the expression on his face before he’s gone.

The door falls closed after him, leaving me alone in our bedroom.

I remain in frozen silence for a long moment, then slowly sit back against the headboard. I hug my knees to myself, sniffling, shocked tears running down my face. I drag the back of my hand over my eyes, trying hard to draw air into my lungs. Minutes pass by, the silence broken only by my ragged, broken breaths.

Then, suddenly and impulsively, I shove aside the covers and get out of bed. I find the nearest clothes I can stumble into - boxers, my jeans, and a t-shirt - then rush for the door, doing up my belt as I go.

Before I even set foot on the curved staircase, I know that Aiden isn’t downstairs. I can feel the emptiness of the house somehow. Without Aiden, it’s without warmth.

I step out into the darkness of the living room, then silently cross to the kitchen. Moving as if magnetized, drawn by I don’t know what.

The back door is open. I can see the night and the softly-falling rain beyond it, the moonswept garden swaying slowly beneath the droplets. Luna is sitting in the doorway, watching something through it.

I stop beside her and follow her gaze to Aiden.

He’s all the way at the far end of the garden, with his back to me. He’s got one shoulder leaning heavily against the nearest tree, his head hanging. The rain is sifting down through the branches onto him, but he doesn’t seem to notice or care.

It’s a rush of huge relief just to see that he hasn’t left.

I twist the ring around my finger, hesitating, then step barefoot out onto the thick wet grass.

Aiden hears me as I draw closer. His body stiffens up, and after a moment, he raises his head to look at me over his shoulder.

He looks lost and miserable and bewildered, his blue eyes overflowing with tears.

And all of a sudden, I feel dumb with love for him, an immense, aching love that I feel through my whole body. It steals my breath away, draws a shuddering exhale from me. I feel it all throughout myself, rooted down to the deepest levels of my subconscious. Like loving Aiden is something I’m meant to do, by nature.

I can’t stop myself, and I would never want to. The sight of him fills me with love so overwhelming that I almost can’t bear it.

I stop behind him, then slowly reach out and rest my trembling hand on his back.

“Aiden,” I say softly, breathless, almost in tears again. "Please don't hate me. I'm so sorry, I just wanted-"

Aiden’s breath catches in a sudden, sharp sob. In one swift movement, he turns around and gathers me up into his huge arms. I nearly shudder in the immensity of my relief at the feeling of his strong, warm embrace.

He hides his face in my neck and lets out a broken, agonized little noise.

“I’m sorry,” he stammers softly into my neck, spangling it with tears. “I’m so sorry, Jamie. I should never have yelled at you, I just-"

“What?” I draw back to look up into Aiden's face, then take his stubbled jaw into my hands. "No, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry that I was sneaking around, I just... I just wanted to stop your nightmares."

Aiden stops still, staring down at me.

“I f-figured out a way to do it through the connection," I stammer, letting him go to anxiously twist the ring around my finger again. I know how timid and terrified I look right now, but I make myself look up into his eyes. "That's what you caught me doing."

There's a long, motionless silence. The rain sifts down onto us, making the garden whisper.

“What…?” Aiden finally rumbles, peering down at me through the rain. “What’s that mean?”

I gaze up into his wet blue eyes meaningfully. “Don’t you know what I mean, Aiden? Can’t you feel it, even while you’re asleep?”

Aiden lifts his gaze over my head, stares blankly into space for a long moment. His eyebrows knit, and he looks down at me again, struggling.

“The - the nightmares that turn into dreams? Those - you’ve been doing that?” He tilts his head slightly to the side, looking deeply into my eyes. His voice sounds tentative, only halfway to believing me. “That was you?”

I nod earnestly, and Aiden stares down at me, such a complicated storm of emotion going on behind his eyes that I can’t tell one from the other. I can only wait, staring up at him anxiously -

Aiden lets out another quiet sobbing sound, only this one also sounds sort of like his huffing laugh. A tiny smile turns up his soft, full lips.

He lifts his hand and smooths a rain-wet strand of hair out of my face with two fingertips.

“You been taking my nightmares from me, Keane?” he asks softly. "That's what you were doing?"

His deep voice is still rough around the edges. But there’s something unmistakably warm in it. Something warm shining out through his eyes, too.

I place my hands on his chest, then nervously nod up at him.

Aiden gives me a look almost tortured with raw love and tenderness. Another tear rolls down his cheek as he bends to put his forehead against mine, but he's smiling.

The tension in the air between us seems to break all at once. I let out a relieved sob of my own, then bury my face in Aiden’s chest.

He takes me in his arms, warms me against the cold rain. He bows his head over me and pushes his nose into my wet hair. We hold each other tightly, Aiden stroking his trembling fingers up and down the back of my neck. We stand there in intimate silence, holding each other as close as we can.

Aiden suddenly lets out a soft, shaky huff of laughter. "I'm having a moment, Keane."

"Oh, yeah? What kind of moment, Callahan?"

There's a short silence.

“My mom always said,” Aiden murmurs, very slowly, “That if I ever fucked up and trusted someone to love me, there would inevitably come a day when I’d catch them sneaking around. Finding ways to use my magic for themselves. She said that would be the day I’d finally understand that she was right all along. That what she had always warned me about was beginning to happen.”

I freeze in Aiden’s arms, then squeeze him tightly, my suffering heart pounding against my ribs like it needs to get to him.

“And that day is finally here." Aiden sounds dazed, in disbelief, but I can hear in his voice that he's smiling. “I finally catch you sneaking around using my magic without me knowing, and it was - because you were secretly trying to help me with my nightmares.”

He huffs out another soft laugh, then presses a kiss onto the top of my head.

I shut my eyes tightly, holding two fistfuls of his shirt. "Aiden, I promise I wouldn't - I would never-"

Aiden pushes me back and looks fiercely into my eyes.

“I know that. I trust you, okay?" He's using his firm, inarguable voice. "I trust you more than anyone in the fucking world, Jamie. Don’t think this has anything to do with you. It doesn’t, it’s - all my own shit. It’s just the - the stuff with my mom - it’s all behind me now, but sometimes it’s just hard for me to - and lately, everything’s just been so…"

Aiden fades off, floundering for the right words. He drops his gaze to the wet grass, twisting his fingertips together uncertainly, and suddenly he reminds me of how he looked in that picture of him that Aunt Sarah showed me.

Sometimes Aiden's inner child emerges as a shy, anxious, fretful thing.

“Everything’s just been so good." He meets my eyes again, speaking hoarsely. He brushes his palm over my cheek, sinks his fingertips into my hair, and holds me by my face. “In my wildest dreams, I didn’t think you were gonna love me this good. And my dreams used to strike me as pretty fucking wild, Keane.”

I blush deeply, then lift my face to Aiden's, unable to stop the little smile slowly turning up my lips.

“It’s just hard for me to get my head around,” Aiden rumbles softly, stroking my cheek with his thumb. “You don’t get it, Jamie. For days after we had that talk about our future, I was walking around stunned. Just feels like it’s too good to be true. Hard for me to not be afraid that something’s gonna happen, and it’s all gonna crumble apart in my hands. So when I woke up and found you like that, and you wouldn't explain, and all that stuff my mom said crashed into my head, I just...”

“Oh,” I say softly, understanding. “Oh.”

Aiden lets out a frustrated breath, then bites his lip.

“I’m trying to do what Ariana told me. Believe in joy that lasts. But I guess that particular lesson takes time to learn. I’m trying, though, and I - I’m just so sorry that I freaked out on you like that…”

Aiden's eyes are full of guilt and apologies, but I’m not upset at him. On the contrary.

“It’s okay.” I turn my face into his palm, brush a gentle kiss against it. “I understand.”

Aiden blinks at me. “You do?”

“Mhm.” I spread my hands on his chest, hoping he can read the sincerity in my eyes. “I know you came in from the cold bruised up and battered, Sugar Maple. I know that it takes time to heal.”

Aiden stares at me, then lets out a heavy rush of breath.

I let out a startled laugh as he surges forward and starts brushing kisses up the side of my throat, holding me in place with a hand grasping the back of my neck.

“Aiden!” I laugh, burying my face in his shoulder.

“You’re so sweet.” He lets out a helpless, agonized groan. “Maybe I picked the wrong plant for you to be, man. Sugarcane, that’s what you are.”

I smile into the soft, damp fabric of Aiden’s shirt. “You want to change it?”

Aiden straightens up and takes me by my chin, looks down into my eyes.

“Nah. Too late.” He tips forward and pushes a slow, lingering kiss onto my mouth. “You’re my Linden. Forever.”

Forever, I repeat silently, a strange, bright, humming current of electricity rushing through me.

I hold onto Aiden tightly, spellbound by the relieved, adoring expression in his blue eyes.

Forever, Sugar Maple, my heart whispers in answer.

“I can’t believe that’s what I caught you sneaking around doing.” Aiden lets out a huff of affectionate laughter. “Why sneak around, anyways? Why not just tell me?”

The truth is, as always, my first instinct. “I was afraid that you’d ask me to stop.”

“Why would I go and do something dumb like that?” Aiden ruffles my hair, smiling warmly down at me. "I love that you do it. Actually, it's so fucking sweet of you, I can barely process it."

“Just…” I hesitate, biting my lip. “Because of how it works.”

Aiden draws back, looks down at me curiously. “Why? How does it work?”