I hate the thought of you dead but it's barely a fraction of what you had to deal with.

I'm so sorry -

I'm sorry, I shouldn't have given up--

Given up?

Imliss died first.

I wasn't thinking--I should have gotten up and kept walking and worked on my magic like a madwoman and sought what solace I could in your arms and found a way to get her back and instead I condemned us both to what should have been permanent death and you to thirty thousand years in pain.

Not your fault, not your fault - don't believe it was even a choice - might as well get mad at me for not waking up - I should have - 

If I had been thinking more clearly I wouldn't have even gotten on the ice to start with, just stayed in Valinor and worked on my magic until I had a safe way across.

No point in reliving it, any of it. Once was bad enough.

Mhm.

Before I found out you were alive and I was getting you back I worried that some day I'd wake up and realize I'd forgotten some trivial detail--the way you smelled right after scrubbing in a cold stream, the way honey tasted on your lips, the timbre of your laughter, the way you looked at me--and I'd really believe I was going to fail to rescue you, that I was going to live alone for the rest of my life and die with my body withering around me--

I'm so sorry. So sorry. Should have found you sooner.

Not your fault. I'm just so glad I get you back now.

And then he's there and he does not remember to turn off the car but who cares if someone steals it a second time, really - "Idaia -"

She stands up and all but flings herself at him, throwing her arms around him and burying her face in the crook of his neck and trembling. Tyelcormo--and they are married and he can feel everything she feels and one of those things is a desperate, roaring skin-hunger unsated by contact with any other person and ignored for lack of the ability to satisfy it only now he is here and she is drinking in the contact like someone come crawling out of the desert to an oasis--

He lifts her off her feet and holds her - not too tight, not too tight, never going to hurt her again - and hums her name over and over again - Idaia Idaia Idaia

And she is crying with sheer relief, half a decade's worth of grief obviated and let out, the anticipation of a thousand future griefs repealed--he's here, he's here, he's warm and solid and himself and everything's going to be just fine and she loves him so, so much.

It's okay, it's okay, everything's going to be okay...

Mhm. She cannot think of a single thing she would rather do than just hang here holding her husband and being held by him, breathing in his scent and feeling his thoughts hum adoringly against hers--well actually she can, but her dorm room currently contains a small version of his dad, and everyone's going to want to leave for Canada ASAP anyway...

We can be in Canada tonight if we ignore a lot more speed limits - be at the house tomorrow - 

And does it have soundproofing as good as the house at Tirion? Because she is having kind of a difficult time restraining herself from kissing him like she's drowning and his lips are air and his hair is a flotation device.

Dunno - didn't actually come up - I love you but are you sure this is what you want -

What do you mean?

I mean it's been? thirty thousand years? and I'm - we did a lot of really terrible things -

Caranthir sent Imliss a summary. I caught a bunch of it.

You made mistakes, and people reacted badly, and things escalated, and a lot of people including you ended up dead. My love, have you forgotten how we met?