They did order their late breakfast, and then had to eat it cold. Rhys' Sage coffee machine had gotten tired of beeping and reminding them that the coffee had been ready hours ago, and Rhys had to turn it on again, because Viola said that no matter how magical the sex was, she was under no circumstances drinking coffee warmed up in a microwave. After a bath and three hours of not watching her cartoons, Rhys announced he was cooking her a late lunch, and she followed him to the kitchen. She was feeling utterly content, the extent of which she only realised when she noticed she was picking at the excellent sourdough bread he'd sliced and was buttering on the island.

"I was going to ask you if you'd eat a bacon toastie, but I see you're in," he said, and gave her a warm look over.

Viola nibbled on a corner of the crust in her hand.

"I can't even remember the last time I had bread," she said, and the confident movements of his hands stuttered. She'd forgotten how jarring her disorder could seem to those who weren't familiar with it. She smiled at him softly. "I think I've eaten more carbs in Fleckney than I've had in the past five years cumulatively." She sent the rest of bread in her mouth and chewed pensively. "Am I remembering it wrong, or this bread is actually unusually spectacular?"

Rhys laughed and pushed another slice towards her. Viola took it and bit into it.

"It is really good bread," he said. "A weird Russian woman baked it for me as a thank-you."

Viola swallowed and gave him a bewildered look.

"What was the thank-you for?"

"I picked her up on the road, walking to the Ferguson farm, with her daughter and her cat in a cardboard box," he announced and made a dramatic wave with his knife. "It was late, and you could hardly see anything through the snowfall. So, I gave them a lift. And two days ago she showed up in town and handed me the loaf. And it's not just you. That's one of the best loafs I've had in my life."

"Was it a black cat with one white ear?" Viola asked, and Rhys looked at her in surprise.

"Yeah. Do you know her?"

"I know where she works." Viola shook her head in disbelief. "And I know she's had a run-in with Klaus. Goodness, that's a very small town," she added and bit another piece of the magnificent Russian bread.

She finished the second slice, and then started on the bacon toastie Rhys had placed in front of her. He made them the American style: with cheese, tomatoes, some leafy greens, and a generous glob of some piquant garlicky sauce. Viola ate it all and then threw a look at the plate of biscuits he'd put in the centre of the island. Rhys chuckled and got up to start the kettle.

Her stomach full of endlessly satisfying comfort food, and her thoughts in lazy anticipation of a nice cuppa - maybe even with a couple of the shortbreads - Viola watched Rhys move near his counter. He was dressed in a soft tee and a pair of black boxer briefs, and Viola ogled his long, muscular thighs, his pert buttocks, and the muscles moving on his back as he stretched to pick up a couple of mugs out of the cabinet.

"I think that's why I wanted to stay over last night," she announced a few minutes later, quite surprised by her own admission. "This. The way you make me feel." He looked up at her over the second half of his second toasty. "When you take care of me, and feed me, and rub my back in the bath, I feel... coddled."

Viola gave out a small, slightly embarrassed laugh.

"Well, you're easy, I reckon," he said and wiped his mouth with a napkin. "If it's just the promise of a good meal and a warm bath that can convince you to stay the night."

"Well, there's also the li-lo," Viola drew out - and his gaze grew sharper.

He couldn't possibly be in the mood for any of that anymore, she thought, not after what they'd been doing for the past few hours, and then she saw the predatory glimmer in his electric blue irises. Viola listened to her body - it was shockingly easy to be present in her body at the moment - and then she picked up a shortbread and jumped off her bar stool.

"I'll wait for you - and our tray - in bed," she announced regally, and walked out of the kitchen towards his glass-panelled staircase.

The shortbread was even better than she vaguely remembered from her uni times, but the cuppa had to wait.

***

Kiki had just arrived to Koriko, and Viola realised she was nodding off, lulled by the warmth of his body close to her, and the utter exhaustion after several hours of enthusiastic shag. She lay half on top of him, half tucked in his side, his right arm wrapped around her. His left fingers were drawing absent-minded circles on the back of her palm. She could feel his heart beat evenly under her hand on his chest. He was watching the cartoon, and a funny little furrow lay between his eyebrows, as if it was a documentary on climate change, and not a Ghibli film.

"Are you trying to find something to enjoy in it?" Viola asked, her voice shaking with laughter. "We can watch a different film."

"It's alright," he said, his eyes on the screen, following Kiki's mad dash through the streets.

Viola rose on one elbow and pushed her fist under her chin.

"You're so cute," she drew out, and he looked at her askance sardonically. "It's not a test, you know?"

"I know," he said, and the left corner of his lips curled up. "Maybe I actually like it."

"Oh really?" Viola asked teasingly. "And what is it that you like about it?"

"I thought you said it wasn't a test," he grumbled good-naturedly.

Viola snorted and dropped her forehead on his chest. His skin was warm, and she rubbed her nose against his chest hair. He was significantly furrier than the other 'Holyoake boys,' based on what Viola remembered from her Summers in Fleckney. She never found it unattractive, since the fur was contained to his chest, his forearms, his legs, and a wide strip going down his stomach. There had been a lot of manscaping involved in Hani's grooming, and Viola, with her sensitive pale skin that bruised and burnt easily, had been quite strict about him keeping it up. She definitely very much preferred Rhys' natural 'manscape' of his softer Anglo-Saxon body hair.

"What is it?" Rhys asked distractedly.

"Pardon?" Viola asked, threading her fingers in said fur.

"What are you laughing about?" he asked and looked at her.

Answering honestly probably wouldn't do - what man would enjoy a woman voicing her thoughts on the body hair of his predecessor? - and Viola settled her cheek on his chest and sighed contentedly.

"I'm just... enjoying it," she said.

He hummed and started running his fingers through her curls. She didn't notice how she fell asleep.

***

When Viola woke up it was dark outside. Rhys was asleep, still in the same position, on his back, his arm open to accommodate her. She'd been sleeping on her right side, as she always did, using his arm as her pillow, her backside pressed into his hip. She remembered how they'd always struggled with sleeping together. She'd suffered from insomnia since she was a teenager, any sort of disturbance would wake her up, and she couldn't stand any sort of restraints, never wrapping in her duvet or tucking it under herself. He tended to sprawl, and take most of the bed, and roll in his sleep at least three times per night. After the deaths of the older Holyoakes they'd started taking separate beds, because neither had been getting any sleep. They'd tried to get back into sharing the bed a year later, but at least once in three days one of them would rise in the middle of the night and go to the sofa. Suddenly Viola felt an overwhelming urge to go back to the surgery - to her bed, to her room, where everything was familiar, and organised, and pristine, and faceless, and just the way she liked it. She frowned. Leaving right now - no matter whether she explained truthfully, or found a convenient excuse - would create tension.

She carefully slid off the bed and decided to make a cuppa for herself in the kitchen. On the way, she remembered Fenton's joking about Rhys' glass staircase, and she opened his wardrobe hoping to find something she could throw on.

"Vi," Rhys muttered and stirred. Viola noted that she felt a pang of apprehension. "What time is it?" he asked, his voice scratchy.

Viola forced herself to turn around and walk back to the bed.

"It's half past eight," she said, sitting down on the edge near him. "Our schedule today is all over the place."

"I don't have a schedule," he muttered and half-sat up. "Hey."

"Hey," Viola answered.

He studied her face in the twilight of the bedroom, and then stretched his hand and turned on the lamp on the bedside table. Viola squinted and shook her head.

"Vi? Remember when I asked you out for the first time?"

"In uni?" she asked, pulling her feet closer to her body. They were getting cold.

"No, since you were back," he said. "And you said you needed a week to think about it, because it took you time to think things over."

Viola nodded, waiting for him to continue, and he shifted and covered her legs with his duvet.

"You have the same face right now," he said in a low voice. "Like you're thinking really, really hard - and anything I say, annoys you." He looked her over and exhaled a long disgruntled sigh. "Do you want to go back to the surgery and think about today?"

Her first impulse was to deny it, and to reassure him - but she did want to retreat to her sanctuary, to the little orderly world she'd built for herself, and she needed time and solitude to process what had happened.

She pressed into him, wrapping her arms around his neck tightly, and whispered, "Thank you."

"I don't get it," he said in the same dark tone. "I don't understand this, but– But I'm not arsing it up again. Not like I did at the Dance. Or before, when we were married. So, you take your time– Just tell me we're good."

His voice gave a small waver at the end, and Viola cupped his face firmly and gave him a direct look.

"We're better than good," she said. "We're amazing! Today was wonderful, and we're doing great, and– I just need a bit of time to get used to the idea that we're back together."

He nodded, and Viola leaned and tenderly kissed his lips. He hardly returned the kiss, but then he sighed and embraced her.

"It's not easy for me," he whispered. She was going to thank him again for being patient with her, but he spoke before it, "To admit that– It scares me, Vi, when you just sort of disappear, and– You were like that before you left me. And I don't know what you're thinking there, and–"

"I'm not going to change my mind," Viola said, stroking the back of his head. "And everything is alright. I don't regret getting back together, I just need–" She wanted to say 'some space,' but worried about being misunderstood. "And we can have dinner in a couple of days. On Friday, maybe?" she said, but then wondered if she was being presumptuous. He could, after all, have other plans. "Or some other day," she added hurriedly.

"Friday sounds good," he said. "And after dinner, can we watch more of your cartoons?"

His voice was losing its tense tone, and flirty notes were creeping in.

"Are you being delicate?" Viola asked, turned her head, and nibbled at his ear.

He jumped up - his ears were ridiculously sensitive - and laughed throatily.

"I did watch some of that witch one," he said in a fake defensive tone. "You were the one who conked out."

"I simply couldn't keep my eyes open. I was utterly and thoroughly–" Viola purred into his ear, and playfully scratched his nape with her nails. "Satisfied."

He twisted from under her lips and caught her mouth in a greedy kiss. At the end, they agreed to play it by ear. She promised to text him the next day around lunchtime and called herself a cab. She hadn't been exaggerating, she was tired beyond measure - and in the best possible manner.