Big news, big night: The morning (is it?) after

[newredmuses]

Did he sleep at all last night? He may have tried, long after he and Kate had exhausted themselves with talking and crying and laughing. It's hard to say too, when he first noticed that he was lying awake, watching the light in the room change. (Of course, he'd been told, that there isn't sunlight here, as such, but the facsimile is fine enough.)

The scar in his side tells him he is dead, but in faith, lying here beside his wife, his own Kate, he feels nothing of the sort.

Now, is she sleeping still? He slides closer, and plants a kiss just so on her bare shoulder.

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[tiltingwithlips]

"Mmm."

A breath in, and out.

"My lord?"

[valiantrebel]

"My lady?"

[tiltingwithlips]

"Do you think to stay here? At Milliways?"

[valiantrebel]

Some of the cheer leaves his face. "I cannot go home," he says quietly.

[tiltingwithlips]

"I know. But if you stay here, then mayhap I may have you near."

[valiantrebel]

"That's not in question." He picks up her hand and kisses the knuckles. "But Kate, you cannot be planning on staying here too."

[tiltingwithlips]

She sighs.

"I've thought on it."

[valiantrebel]

"This is no place for anyone to stay."

Particularly not Harry Hotspur, who if he is not at home will always need to be on the move.

"Yet I'll not lose you again, nor the child." He stares up at the ceiling and rubs Kate's arm, distracted.

[tiltingwithlips]

"I would have him know his father, somehow. Know him more than as whatever stories are told and whatever armor is left."

[valiantrebel]

"My armor will be in fine shape," he says, more than ruefully. (In truth, all his armor is in terrible shape, for it was used heavily and often; and his sword, lost somewhere in Shrewsbury, it's certain. If there be relics, they'll be in the hands of men of the king.)

He lifts his head. "Him?"

Did Nita say it so? Can they know that too?

[tiltingwithlips]

"Well," she says with a shrug, "I hope for a son. The wizard said she could not know for some weeks yet."

[valiantrebel]

"Another Harry Percy to plague the world? Should not we hope for a daughter?" He wags his eyebrows. "She'll have all thy temperance and all my looks."

[tiltingwithlips]

She laughs, reaching up to tweak his nose.

"So might a son."

[valiantrebel]

He chuckles. "Nay, a son would have all my patience and all your spleen." Yet perhaps third time's a charm? Who is he to say?

[tiltingwithlips]

Kate looks vaguely horrified.

"A right terror to us all."

Kate Percy has plenty of spleen to go around. Just ask the new-crowned king.

[valiantrebel]

Harry nods. "Somewhere, the devil is laughing at us."

His mind is on other matters, though. 'When you come here, how does it happen? Can you make a door appear when you wish to come?"

[tiltingwithlips]

She frowns. "I've not tried. It sounds sorcerous to me."

[valiantrebel]

"Well, I'll not send you away to test it, but it cannot harm us any more than coming at all will." He shakes his head. "'Tis just a fancy. Perhaps we might go our ways and meet. No one where we've come from ever knows when we're gone. We might take as long as we please, wheresoever we please."

[tiltingwithlips]

"A place all out of time," she sighs, more to herself than anything.

Then, grinning, she props herself up on one elbow to look down at him.

"Now tell me, Harry, and tell me truly, when did you find this place?"

[valiantrebel]

"I? When did you find it?" He prods her lightly on the chest, smirking. "In the palace, when King Henry called us in. I was certain 'twas a house of riot built to keep the Prince of Wales at home." A chuckle. "It did not make me any more peaceful when I was off to answer in front of the king."

[tiltingwithlips]

"Nay, I am not surprised. And never before that? When I could not find ye in Warkworth on a winter's day and shouted myself hoarse, you were never hid away here?"

[valiantrebel]

"No, I was out with my horse for the purpose of vexing you. I never found it at home -- where does it come?" He gives her a suspicious look. "And when I'd come home and have no wife to greet me and bring me wine and otherwise attend on me, were you never pounding princes over here?"

[tiltingwithlips]

"In the cellar 'tis."

She thumps him in the shoulder.

"I was out with thy dogs. For the purpose making them less nuisance to the servants. Very like their master, are they."

[valiantrebel]

"Was that the purpose of all our hours abed? So the servants might get some work done?" He lets out a tragic moan. "My dogs! Marry, but I miss them. Might you bring one back, the next time you are here?"

[tiltingwithlips]

"Ah, my lord, I would have taken that to my grave!" She flops down beside him, pulling a melancholy face. "All those hours wasted 'twixt the sheets with thee when I might have done honest work. Such trials I've been through, lord."