A/N: Another of Eric's daydreams for you this morning, with very, very slight spoilers for 5.15 "Man Down" and 6.14 "You May Now Kill the Bride". If you haven't read any of the other stories in the "Dream" series, no worries--they are all related to each other, but independent fics, so you can read them in any order or one all by itself.

Enjoy this!

"Because I want a girl to call my own
I want a dream lover
So I don't have to dream alone..."

Bobby Darin's voice drifted across the beach from some tourist's radio as Eric walked along, the setting sun slowly giving way to a muggy twilight. In front of him, a pair of young lovers sat together on a blanket, admiring the new diamond ring he had just placed on her finger.

"…and I was thinking maybe the wedding could be at the Botanical Gardens…"

"How beautiful!"

"Not as beautiful as you…"

Even in the coming darkness Eric could see color creep into her cheeks as he passed, noting the love struck expression on her fiancé's face. I know that look, he thought with a half-smirk. That's the same way I look at Calleigh.

Calleigh. The name softened the smirk into a tender smile as he pictured her standing at the altar earlier that afternoon, wearing a bridal veil in a reconstruction for the case they'd been working on. It was all he could do at the time to keep his mind on the job, but he had used every one of his powers of observation to fix her image firmly in his memory: the way the tulle frosted her blond hair, the crystals on the veil catching the sun and sparkling as brightly as her emerald eyes.

"She's going to make a beautiful bride," he murmured to himself, "for some lucky guy."

Calleigh squeezed his hand, her smile radiating from her lips all the way up into her eyes. "You have good taste in jewelry," she grinned.

Eric ran a thumb over the diamond ring on her left hand, a matching grin plastered across his face. "I have good taste in women," he corrected with a wink. "I just picked out the ring that goes with the girl."

"So this is what you think of me then," she replied with mock seriousness, studying the rock carefully. "It's how much you love me?"

He slid her hands around his neck and wrapped his own arms around her waist, pulling her against him. "That's not even close to how much I love you," he told her sincerely. "There isn't a diamond in the world big enough for that." Her cheeks turned pink in response and his grin returned. "You're beautiful when you blush," he whispered, his lips brushing over the soft skin of her neck.

"And you always know just how to make me blush," she laughed lightly, her eyes closing at his touch as her fingers caressed his stubbly hair. "But don't we have plans to make?"

"I told you that whatever you wanted for the wedding was fine with me," he muttered, kissing his way across her jawline.

She smiled when his mouth found hers, dragging her fingertips tenderly across his back. "I know," she drawled softly when they parted, "but I thought it would be more fun if we planned together." She released her hold on him and clasped his hand, leading him slowly down the packed sand of the beach. "Besides, there's more than just the wedding. There's the honeymoon—"

"—which I am definitely looking forward to," he cut in with a mischievous smirk.

She swatted his chest playfully, but continued her original train of thought. "—and we have to think about where we're gonna live—"

"You don't like the apartment?" he asked, drawing his eyebrows together in confusion. "You decorated that whole place yourself."

"Well, I was thinking more long-term," she replied demurely.

The look that accompanied her words practically melted him on the spot. "Kids," he said quietly. They had discussed the subject before, but always in hypotheticals and far-off possibilities, never as an actuality.

"They tend to take up a lot of room," she smiled, moving closer to him as they walked. "And I know how much you want a big family."

He stopped, taking her free hand in his and squeezing affectionately. "I don't want to put any pressure on you, though," he told her seriously. "I know how your childhood was…how you feel about your family…"

She nodded, her green eyes meeting his brown ones. "Yeah, but you and I are not like my parents."

He didn't need her to elaborate to understand what she meant. So confident was she that they would be happy together forever that she was even willing to stake the wellbeing of their future children on it. Spontaneously he bent down and kissed her, releasing one of her hands to caress her face, hoping to show her once again how deep his feelings for her ran. "I love you," he murmured before capturing her lips again.

"I love you, too." When she drew back she was smiling knowingly. "But we are not having ten kids!"

He laughed out loud. "Nine?"

"Two?" she countered hopefully.

"Seven."

"Three."

"Five?"

"Compromise," she decided. "Four?"

That surprised him. "Really? You want four kids?"

"Yeah," she responded quietly, her eyes shining. "Four children that are half me and half you," she nodded.

He felt himself melting again, the thought of having children with Calleigh making his knees weak. "I like that idea."

He was aware of something digging into his palm, the pain dragging him back to reality. Opening his fingers he discovered indentations in his skin where the cross and beads of the rosary he held had pressed into his flesh. It was the same rosary that Calleigh had placed in his hand at the hospital after he'd been shot, the one he had begun discreetly carrying with him everywhere he went when he was released. It reminded him how close he came to death, how Calleigh had sat by his hospital bed and prayed for his life, how she had helped and supported him when he came back to work in a less than stellar condition.

Most importantly, it reminded him of how much she cared for him. Maybe she had romantic feelings for him, and maybe she didn't—Eric knew better than to try and pin her down on that point, at least for now—but time after time she made it very clear that he meant a great deal to her either way. He had seen it again in her eyes that very day from underneath that veil at the crime scene.

He smiled a small smiled as he closed his hand around the rosary, a smile meant only for himself and the few stars that twinkled through the bright city lights. Bobby Darin might still be looking for a girl to share his dreams with, but Eric had found his.