I can count on my fingers and toes the number of times I’ve slept past 9 in the morning in the last 20 years. 

Army life is all about routine. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, natural about waking up at 0500 in the morning and running five miles before sunup. I was never one of those freaks who could just raw dog the morning routine without caffeine or complaint. The only way I managed to pull it off for as long as I did was because I was consistent. 

Every day, no matter what, I got up before the sun and went through the motions. Didn’t matter if I was on leave, sick, hungover, whatever. The habit served me well, and I had no intention of dropping it just because I died. 

Do something long enough, and you carve the habit into your brain. I didn’t need an alarm clock to know when it was close enough to 0500 to count. 

That first morning was no different, though it took several long moments for my brain to catch up with my surroundings. 

The first thing I noticed was that it was entirely too quiet. After a few months in the sandbox, the endless drone of diesel generators worms its way into your soul. It becomes background noise, only noticed by the absence thereof. The fact that I couldn’t hear anything made my heart skip a beat. I cracked my eyes open and took stock of my surroundings. 

I was in an unfamiliar room, and on a mattress, no less. The night before, I’d slept on the roof of my truck. Some of the guys, the younger ones especially, brought air mattresses with them on patrol, but I couldn’t stand the things. I was old. My back didn’t especially appreciate the lack of support, and a slab of metal warmed by the desert sun is about as supportive as it gets. 

The mattress, if we’re being honest, didn’t have much more give than the roof of my truck, but that didn’t bother me. What did bother me was that I had something warm and soft and heavy draped across my body. 

I stiffened, frantically wracking my brain for answers. Just who or what the hell was-

Oh. The memories of the last 24 hours came flooding back in a rush of noise and jumbled images. 

The last hour or so of consciousness explained my current situation. My living blanket was Hani, who, I have to say, made for about the best blanket I've ever had. 

A telepathic link goes a long way towards breaking down barriers. Hani didn’t feel like a stranger I’d only just met the day before. She felt like an old friend that I’d known all my life, a part of my soul I’d been missing all this time. There was a connection there, deeper and more real than anything I’d ever known. Even now, as she slept, I could feel the flickers of dreams at the edge of my consciousness. She was warm, happy, and safe, and her contentment seeped into me like sunlight.

Frankly, I was tempted to just lay there and bask in the moment. I didn’t have anything pressing to do that day, and it seemed a shame to ruin such a perfect moment. Especially since, deep down, I was afraid this joy wouldn’t last. 

My track record with relationships is kinda awful. My habit of bottling up negative emotions carries into the positive ones too sometimes, and I’m really bad about expressing how I feel. This leads my partners to think that I’m detached, or that I’ve lost interest. 

It’s not that I can’t or don’t care deeply about the people I love, I’m just awful at expressing it. 

Logically, I knew that wouldn’t be as much of an issue with someone who could feel what I felt, but logic and emotions don’t always play nice with one another. Besides, I wasn’t even sure how to define this burgeoning new relationship. Last night was nice, but there was no guarantee that that’s how things would be going forward. Sex was an expedient way to form emotional bonds, but things might be a lot more businesslike going forward. As the Goddess had said, we might be Destined companions, but that didn’t mean we had to be lovers. 

All told, I had a million and one reasons to just lay there and enjoy the moment. It was the sort of quiet perfection I’d known only a handful of times in my life, and it almost seemed criminal to ruin it. 

But, discipline is a motherfucker, and besides, I had to pee. I carefully extricated myself from Hani’s embrace, and started on my morning routine.