"Is this ...important to you to figure out? Because like - 

- I kind of figure if we do things you like and don't do other things then that's fine? I'm not - against trying to figure out how to like more things but it's not like I'm sad about the way things are now."

Nodnod.

"I think - if we were married I would want to figure it out? It would be important to me? And if we weren't I would want things to stay - simpler. But I don't know what we are. So - I dunno."

"I want us to be - 

- I liked that we could make a plan with a hundred years in it."

" - yeah. I liked that too."

"I want you to be mine forever."

"Yeah.

"I want to - be something that means I can trust you to take care of me, and protect me, and listen to what I need, and stay here, and - love me, I guess, and that you can trust me to listen to you and support you and love you and - try to be what you need? And - to be the only person who's - that thing, for you. And then to be that thing forever. I guess. And - maybe it won't be exactly marriage but maybe it can be - the kind of thing where it's just really obvious that I'm not going to look for anyone else, because I already have something that's - taking up that space?"

 - nod. 

"I want - if we get separated by a random dimensional accident I want us to plan on finding our way back to each other, eventually, and when we do I want us to work hard on getting things back to the way that they are when they're nice. When people have opinions I want us to be - so sure that they might as well be having opinions about whether you ought to love your children, or whether you ought to eat. I want you to trust me. I want you to - not to be looking for anything else, yeah, we're not doing precisely the human thing but I don't want to wonder if maybe you'll want it someday -"

Nod. "Yeah. All of that.

"Kind of want rings. This is not important but, uh, while we're listing things we want."

"Want to learn a thousand of your names and be so entangled that fairies treat us as the same person."

" - yes.

"I don't - I don't think we should do anything right this second because we have done an astonishing number of things in the past hour, and I don't know how equipped we are to do an irreversible one right this very second, but - yes. I would like that. Very much."

"Okay. Then, we will....sleep, now, because it's bedtime, and we will think of other things we might want, and then we will figure out how to get them."

"Yes. We will do exactly that."

She kisses his cheek, and she holds him, and feels very warm and very safe, and she sleeps.

Well, that went really well, mostly!

He holds her and feels so much better and sleeps.

In the morning she wakes up and is momentarily very confused about not being in the room they had in Colorado Springs.

Then she remembers. She finds him next to her and is very very happy.

They are in a better place! And can stay as long as they want! Or go as many other places as they want!

They can!

"Mentioned that I loved you, right?"

"It is seeming really really likely that I love you too! I am not sure which one of the feelings I am having is love but I'm pretty sure it's one of them."

"Oh good. You do seem rather like someone in love, in my professional opinion as a poet."

"Do I? How can you tell?"

"I think it was the wanting to spend forever with me and learn a thousand of my names. Also the constant smiling. All very suspicious on the love front."

"You're so happy."

"Yes. - I had no idea how sad I was."

"I noticed but I was worried it was me. Me not being - human, not the thing you'd thought -"

Hug. "No, not you. Just - 

"I think the only time in my whole life that I'd felt like I wasn't stuck somewhere was - the space between you telling me you didn't want to hurt me and us deciding to stay here all night."

"Never again."