Found:
I returned to the house within the time allotted by myself. Two days, I had written, and in two days I arrived again upon that depressing doorstep. To my pleasant surprise, Rowan was inside by a roaring fire. He is a Northman, able to withstand the cold far better than I, so conversely I must assume that he's not quite so good with the heat. Yet, still, he kept the place at the temperature I prefer, even though I was not there.
It's the little things that matter the most.
We didn't do a vast amount of talking - the poor man was exhausted - but what we did speak on was heartening, to say the least. He cares little where we live, it seems, and is quite content for us to find somewhere else in time. Whilst I do find it somewhat unhelpful that he has no opinion to offer on the where of it, I nevertheless appreciate his willingness to seek somewhere that I will find more... homely.
A part of me wonders if I ever will. If I only feel at home when I am by his side, then does that not make him my home? Is that even possible? Have I completely bypassed "soft" and jumped straight to "useless pile of melty goo"?
Ugh. I think I just threw up a little.
Existential crisis aside, the man has actually listened to, and taken into account, my feelings on the matter of his over-protectiveness. Although he still worries, he has promised to put more faith in me and my abilities from now on and stop treating me like a clueless child. I have to admit, in that moment, I found myself loving the man that much more. I also realised that his overbearing actions were not to do with a lack of trust, not really, but more to do with his inner fear. As such, I promised to at least try to be less reckless in the future. I hope this will help to ease his concerns.
I took him to bed then and lay by his side until he woke. It was simultaneously a rather boring and strangely comforting few hours. Things feel less... unstable and uncertain now. I'm not sure how they will be tomorrow, but for today I am a little less adrift.
Except in the kitchen.
Having bought a new cookbook recently, we decided to try our hands at meal-making. Not just me, but Rowan as well! It... could have gone better.
Omelettes, I thought. We couldn't mess up something so simple, could we? Yes, yes we could! His burnt and stuck to the frying pan. Mine turned into some manner of jelly-like scrambled egg with bits in. Unidentifiable bits. Considering I'm the one who put all the ingredients into the bloody thing, you'd think I'd be able to figure out what was in it after cooking! Still, it was edible. Barely. No one died, nothing got set on fire. I'll call that a success.
We have a lot more learning to do.
