A week has passed. Seven days of slow, unpredictable, but noticeable progress.

I had a rather useless dresser in my living room near the door to the bathroom, serving as nothing more than a table and somewhere to store odd wires of which I had no idea as to the purpose. Now, Camila has her own drawer, as does Sofi. Sometimes, I catch Camila slipping a shirt or hoodie from my wardrobe into her drawer, but the cheeky smile that crosses her face as she does it is enough to not mention anything.

She's a terrible cook, I learn, but it makes for some heartfelt laughter. To be fair, she's also a fast and eager learner. For dinner tonight, she made a simple alfredo pasta largely on her own and, while hesitant to try the unfamiliar sauce at first, she'd ended up with a proud grin etched into her face as she finished the entire plate's worth.

She's started planning things, too. She has a small notebook that I think she keeps in her drawer, in which I often find her scribbling throughout the day. When my curiosity gets the better of me and I ask what it is, she claims that whatever she's writing is for the future, not for right now. It makes me smile endlessly, as she's now admitting that she has a future and actually working towards it. She asks me about things, too; things like the logistics of how long she and Sofi will be able to stay here, how long it will be until I'm assigned to a new patient and go back to work, how we might be able to have Sofi enrolled in school so that she doesn't miss out on a proper education as Camila did. For that last one, we enlist the help of Normani. While rather inexperienced in the matter, she agrees to help us through the process of having one of us gain custody of Sofi, who could technically be sent away to an orphanage, in order to keep her and Camila close and be able to legally enrol her. It's a tedious process, figuring out how to go about it without ruining things or getting in even more legal trouble, so I make sure to frequently remind the woman of just how much we appreciate her efforts.

Despite all of this, however, Camila still cries in the dead of night. Her birthday is coming up soon and I'm revisiting my plans in my head when I hear the sniffles start up again downstairs. My bedroom being on the loft allows for a sense of privacy, but the fact that it is open causes it to become a simple illusion. I'm not sure Camila realises that I can hear every little sound that rises in the house. The only place that's muffled is the bathroom below me, but she never opts to take the short trip into that room for the increased seclusion.

The sniffling stops for a moment, replaced with a small huff before soft footsteps pad around the living room. A quiet rumbling tells me that she's opening her drawer. She must dig around in there for a moment, then slides it shut. A trench forms between my eyebrows as the telltale creaks of the stairs fill the otherwise rather silent room. In my debate of whether to roll over or remain facing away from the loft's entrance, I end up freezing until the mattress dips behind me. I move to turn on my lamp, but a soft pinkish glow interrupts me. I roll over, eyes first finding the bear-shaped lamp before tracing her slouched figure. She's sitting cross-legged on the bed, back hunched over. Even as mostly a silhouette, the tear tracks streaming down her cheeks are clear in the dim light, shimmering ever so slightly.

"Camila," I whisper gently, reaching out to place my hand on her thigh. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She hesitates for a moment before turning her head to look directly into my eyes with her own, pleading ones. I smile sympathetically before tugging back the covers. She frowns at the action for a moment before shimmying under them, laying on her back with her arms by her sides and awkwardly staring up at the ceiling. I shuffle a little closer to her, sacrificing some of my warmth along the way as I vacate the space I've been laying in.

"I thought your medicine made the nightmares better," I recall, propping my head up with my elbow to be able to look down at her more comfortably. She gulps, eyes falling to her toes. I quirk a brow. "You have been taking it, right?"

"It made me sad," She mumbles.

I sigh. "Camila--"

"Please don't," She interrupts quickly, "I- I can start it again if I have to but... I don't want to talk about that right now."

"Then what do you want to talk about?"

She pushes herself up on her elbows as if to change her position, but sighs and drops herself back onto the mattress. "I just..." Another sniffle, this one paired with a hasty wipe of her tears. "I don't want to bore you?"

My brows furrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well... ugh, all I do is talk about the same things. I just talk about myself and my past and how terrible all of it is and... how aren't you bored of me? How come you still want me here? You... you do still want me here, right?"

I seek out her hand under the covers, pulling it up to press my lips against the backs of her fingers. "Of course I do, Camz. You're not boring. You're the strongest, sweetest, most honest person I know."

There's a pause, and I pass my lips over her knuckles once more. Finally, she takes a deep breath, turning to face me. "Lauren?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I sleep with you?"

The words, in any other context, would've made me blush in the most unholy of ways, but something about the way they were muttered, about the pink light casting a halo along the edge of her face, about the shine of her doe eyes and the way she oh-so-slightly clenches my hand in hers, something about all of those things combined makes the sentence the single most unadulteratedly wholesome phrase I have ever heard. My heart blossoms in my chest. My lips curve into a grin. My whole body seems to warm and I pull her into me. For just a moment, her body is tense as I position her half-way on top of me, but when I kiss the crown of her head, she melts.

"Is this okay?" I ask, just to make sure.

Her arms snake around my waist and she squeezes tightly, nuzzling up into the crook of my neck. "Yeah," she hums, leg dragging up to be tossed over me too, "Yeah, this is... this is dreamy."

My smile grows until it can no longer be suppressed, and I allow my eyes to slide shut, savouring the feeling of her lips against my shoulder, her eyelashes brushing my neck, her breath sending ripples of goosebumps across my skin. 'Dreamy', I realise, is the perfect descriptor.

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updates are a little delayed rn bc I'm on a (social distancing) vacation but I hope this pretty cutesy chapter will satisfy you for a while until i get the next one done :) Also, I think I have a pretty good idea of how I want the rest of this story to go but is there anything specific you'd like to see, let me know and I may just have to include it 👀