By George's reckoning, it had only been a year, give or take, since the Great War - the War to End All Wars, or so they'd said. One year since he'd been buried in wounded men a few miles from the front. There had been no shortage of wounded, that much was certain. One year, since some unknown force had seen fit to inexplicably sweep him away from the bloodshed and deposit him here in Rhy'Din. One year to forget the horrors of war and put them behind him. One year by his reckoning, but nearly one hundred, as far as the history books were concerned.

Though he'd tried to forget, to push those memories aside, every now and then, they reared their ugly head in the way of nightmares so vivid and so real, it was almost like he'd never left. The dreams always left him shaken, terrified, unable to fall back asleep until morning. He remembered all their faces, each and every one of the men he'd saved or failed to save. Each one of them haunted his dreams at night as he relived the horrors of war. One year was hardly enough to forget it, no matter how hard he tried.

The worst part about the dreams, though, wasn't so much the names and the faces; it was the fact that it never seemed to end. Though the war had ended nearly one hundred years ago, it still seemed to go on in his head. He wasn't sure what triggered the nightmares, other than the horrors he'd lived through and witnessed first hand, nor was he sure why he'd decided to pick up his telephone and call Gabrielle upon his awakening. He only knew that at times like this he was terrified to be alone.

Just a few miles to the south of the city, Maple Grove slept. The houses that were scattered through the estate were dark and quiet, with nothing but the sound of the wind whispering through leaves to disturb that stillness. In Beecham House, all was blessedly still. Gordon snored quietly in his own bed; the twins, Theo and Jake, were sprawled in their own beds, dreaming the happy dreams of childhood. Even Gabi, who found it so hard to fall asleep in her big bed these days, was dozing, her face pressed into her pillow. Until an insistent sound penetrated the darkness of her bedroom. Groaning, she raised her head, peering toward the nightstand, where her phone was lit up and vibrating, dangerously close to toppling off the edge of the stand altogether. She reached out, fumbling to collect the call, and drew the phone to her ear, sitting up in bed. "Hello?"

There was a brief silent pause as she picked up the phone and then a quiet, strained voice she'd likely recognize as the good doctor's. "G-Gabi?" he inquired, shortening her name for the very first time. "I-I'm sorry. I know it's late ..." His voice trailed, sounding strained and weary, as though he'd either just awoken or hadn't really slept.

"George?" Rubbing her eyes, Gabi pushed herself to the edge of the bed, a spike of anxiety for him in her chest as she noted the time. "No, don't apologize. I told you to call if you needed me." Dragging her fingers through her hair, she made an effort to wake up a little more. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he heard himself saying, but that was quite possibly the biggest lie of his life. "I just ..." There was that pause of awkward silence again, where she couldn't even hear him breathing. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded quiet and strained and on the verge of breaking. "Just tell me this is real ....That you're real," he said, as if he was pleading with her.

That long silence frightened her - frightened her enough to spur her into an action she might never have considered without the aching worry gathering in her chest for him. As George gathered himself to speak again, Gabi was already moving, pulling a cardigan on over her pajamas, scribbling a note for her father. "Of course I'm real," she promised the doctor when he spoke again, relieved that he hadn't simply put the phone down and gone back to that obvious lie he had told her to start with. "You're real. Rhy'Din is very real. Sweetheart, what happened?" Even as she spoke, she was moving through the house, leaving the baby monitor and note next to her snoring father's bed before heading downstairs.

If he'd been aware of what she was doing, he would have told her not to bother; that all he really needed was to hear her voice and for her to talk him through it, but he didn't know. Pacing the bedroom in his pajamas, bare feet silent on the cold wooden floor, her voice seemed to be the only thing keeping him sane, keeping him grounded to this reality, if reality it was. "I was-I was dreaming, I think ..." he tried to explain, not really wanting to think about it, much less talk about it, but needing to share it with someone. "I feel like I'm losing my mind."

"You're not losing your mind," she told him firmly, pausing for just a moment to look in on her boys before she padded downstairs in the dark, slipping her feet into shoes and snatching her keys. She could easily guess what it was that had sent him groping wildly out of sleep to call her. "Tell me what you did today," she told him. "In detail, I want to hear all about it. Every last gory bit of gloop." Which was saying something for the squeamish Gabrielle. But she didn't want him dwelling on his dream; at least, not until she was there with him.

"I, uh ..." He trailed off again, pausing a moment to shove a hand through his short blond hair as he took a seat on the bed. He felt cold suddenly, chilled to the bone, though the room didn't seem all that cold. "I had surgery. Routine stuff. An appendix in the morning and then I did my rounds," he told her, trying to focus his thoughts on the events of the day. He knew she was trying to distract him from his troubles by having him recount the mundane events of his day. He'd seen a doctor once upon a time when he'd first arrived here, but when the man had suggested drugs and sleeping pills to help George cope, he'd stopped going, choosing to deal with his memories in his own way. The truth was he didn't want to forget; it didn't seem right to forget. It seemed almost sacrilegious. No, he didn't want to forget them; he only wanted to learn how to put them to rest. He went on to tell her about his day, as uneventful as it was, unaware that she was already on her way to him.

She pressed him for every detail, however small it might have seemed to him - what time he woke up, what he ate for lunch; she even asked him to describe the typeface on the official paperwork he'd signed over the course of the day. Until finally, half an hour and a little reckless driving after he called her, she was making her way swiftly up the steps of his apartment building. "All right, sweetheart, I want you to do something for me," she said quietly into the phone at her ear as she came to a halt in front of his door. "I want you to open your front door and let me in."

He'd been so distracted describing his day that he'd never noticed the signs that she was on her way to see him, to rescue him from the horrors that plagued his nights. He had only just realized that she'd called him sweetheart - twice! And now she was telling him to open his front door, but why' And then it hit him that while he'd been going on about his day, she'd been driving the short distance from Maple Grove to his flat. "Open my door?" he echoed, pushing himself up off the bed only to realize he was in his pajamas. "I, uh ....Give me a moment," he told her, wondering if he should push the button that would disconnect them.

Her smile was warm in the moonlight as she drew him to the bed with her. "I seriously doubt that a planned seduction would involve a two a.m. wake up call, sweetheart," she assured him, inching over to make room for his tall frame beside her. "You needed me. That's why I'm here. I care about you, George, a lot more than I'm ready to admit to. Why else would I drive thirty miles in my pajamas?"

He bit off the apology he'd been about to make, one of many it seemed. He'd already apologized more than once, and she'd told him how unnecessary it was. But there was something she'd said that got his attention, though he wasn't sure why he was surprised by it. "You care about me?" he asked, unable to hide the surprise from his voice, even as she drew him toward the bed. He still had his robe on, though it was not fastened in the front.

"Of course I do." Kneeling up onto the bed, she reached up to ease the robe from his shoulders. "You can't go to sleep in your robe, you'll be awfully uncomfortable." She laid the robe over the end of the bed, taking his hands once again to pull him down beside her. "Please, sweetheart, let me help you."

It didn't miss his attention that she kept calling him sweetheart, though he wasn't sure why. Did she really think of him that way, or was it just something she called those she cared for out of habit' He let her help him out of his robe, against his better judgement, still shaking a little, but not from the cold. "I feel like a fool," he admitted, with an embarrassed frown on his face as he shrugged out of his robe.

"Well, you don't look like one," she told him with a firm nod. "You look like a strong man who has had an awful night, and who needs someone who loves him to be there before he can get back to sleep." Whether she'd noticed what she'd said was debatable - it was too dark to tell whether or not she was blushing. She was, however, getting insistent, not allowing him to stall any further. Drawing back the sheets, she pulled him down onto the bed, covering him over before easing her arms around him.

Whether she noticed her choice of words or not, he certainly did. First it had been sweetheart, then the fact that she cared about him, and now she had mentioned the word love. Just a few days ago, they'd decided to take things slow and see where they went, but it was becoming obvious, at least to George, that what both of them were feeling was far more than mere friendship, or at least, so it seemed.

Touched by her caring, he let her draw him down to bed, wrapped in both blankets and her arms, feeling as safe as a child in his mother's arms, though his mother had never seen fit to hold him like this or show him any sort of loving affection a mother should. No, she was always far too busy with her social gatherings to spend much time with her own children. It wasn't long before he was sent off to boarding school, where he found solace in the company of friends. But all that was a long time ago, just like the war, and she was long buried and gone. "I could get used to having you here with me," he admitted quietly, once again against his better judgement.

Curling close to him, Gabi let George find his own comfort before laying her head on the pillow beside his, her fingertips gently stroking against his cheek. "I could get used to being here with you," she murmured in answer, brushing the tip of her nose against his affectionately. "I think I could get used to being anywhere, so long as you and the boys were there too."

He couldn't very well ask her to move in with him. Not only was it not proper, but she had a home of her own at Maple Grove, and his flat wasn't big enough to accommodate children. What, then, should they do' Keep going the way they were going until he asked her to marry him' And what then" Buy a house" Was he thinking too far ahead" "Gabi?" he asked, using the more familiar, less formal form of her name again without hardly realizing it. "I was thinking ....Do you think it's too soon to talk about the future?"

"How soon is too soon?" she asked him softly, her fingertips never ceasing in their tender stroke over his cheek, into his hair. "Some people marry within days of meeting one another, and never look back. Others spend years engaged. Impatience is a theme in my family - my brother bound himself to Leilani within just two days of their meeting; I have cousins who have married their husbands and wives within just a couple of months. It is difficult not to think of the future when I want you to be a part of it, but ....I've been trying not to talk about. I didn't think you were ready."

"Two days!" George exclaimed, obviously shocked. He'd heard of such things happening before, but rarely. Back home, there were rules for everything that needed to be followed to the letter, though he had admittedly and almost inevitably broken some of those rules. But none of that seemed to matter now. His parents were long since dead and no one remembered or cared about his pedigreed bloodline, especially not in Rhy'Din. "Well, I ..." he started a little uncertainly. "I didn't think you were ready."

Gabi sighed softly, looking into his eyes in the gloom. "I'm not ready to jump in with both feet," she admitted in her quiet way. "But I am ready to move forward a little. I was wondering ....wondering if perhaps you would like to stay at the house a couple of nights a week" Or I could stay here. I-I don't want to push you into a situation where you will be uncomfortable, sweetheart."

"Stay at the house?" he echoed, that uncertainty creeping into his voice again. It wasn't that he felt uncomfortable being with her, but staying at the house meant living not only with her, but her father and her sons, as well. "It might be a little crowded at the house, don't you think?" he asked, though the house certainly seemed big enough. Was she assuming they'd share a room or have separate rooms, and what would her father think of all this" There he was worrying about propriety again.

She hesitated, aware that he was not familiar with how quickly or how slowly a "modern" courtship could move. "I ....George, if it were just me, I'd be asking if perhaps you and I should move in together," she told him worriedly. "But it isn't just you and me. I have to think of the boys. They're only two, and although finding somewhere else to live with you would be wonderful, they need to be used to having you around, to having you in their daily lives, before I can consider taking that step. Too many changes at once could do so much damage."

"You're right, of course," he replied, doing his best to understand her concerns. Of course, she had to think of the boys, first and foremost. He found himself wondering once again what his place would be in their lives if he and Gabi did decide to take the next step. "Well, then, I suppose they should get to know me a little," he suggested, though he wasn't quite sure how. They seemed to like him well enough when he was around, but they didn't really know him yet. "I, uh ..." He sighed, that worry niggling at his brain again that he was barging in.