"Good morning." She greeted upon finding Will waiting outside her bedroom to walk her to breakfast. She flattened her skirts as she brought her hands behind her back.
"Oh, don't put your hands there. I can't hold them that way." He reasoned, lightly touching her forearms and sliding down them until he could draw her hands into his own between them.
"You're being rather...." She paused for a moment and began to rub her thumb against Will's knuckles "affectionate today."
"Are you opposed?" He asked. His raised eyebrow suggested a playful tone but the slight hitch in his voice betrayed the seriousness of the inquiry.
"Quite the opposite."
"I love you." He whispered airily, his grip on her gloved hands tightening.
"William..." She paused, quite unused to this sort of overt and sudden display. Will had been learning slowly since he discovered he had not been cursed how to express himself openly. He opened up to her piece by piece and each new arrangement of pieces was an adjustment for the both of them.
"I want that to be the first thing I say when I wake up and the last thing I say before I go to sleep. I want to tell you whenever I think it because you deserve to know. I wanted to do so many things before and now that I can do them I don't want to stop myself." He spoke fervently, the ideas clearly flowing through his mind only at that moment. "At last I can love you - really truly love you without restraint."
"I'll return that love every time, Will."
"Do you think we'll become a bit of the bother for the others?" He smiled after a pause. He quite liked the idea of making Gabriel uncomfortable.
"I almost hope so in a way." She laughed lightly. "I don't think we ever expected things to turn out this way- Let's just enjoy that they did."
"Let's"
