AN: I'm not sure where this came from. Okay, so I totally am. This is for my very close friend Aaron, who might be more than a close friend, but we haven't quite worked that out yet. Either way, he totally inspired this, and if he sticks around, there will be alot of fics coming in a very lovey dovey theme. Enjoy, and feed me!

Dreams Aren't This Good

What is it about human beings that makes finding love so difficult? What primal instinct forces us to search for something that brings us pain, torment, and keeps us awake at night? Being in love is a risky, potentially agonizing experience. People change. Death or disagreement can so easily rob us of the one we love. The deeper our love, the deeper our insecurity. Deep within us there seems an empty chasm that not even a hundred lovers could fill.

Lasting love has eluded many of the most envied and lusted-after people in the world. It seems to run away from its pursuers. And even when found, it can be fleeting.

So how do we do it? How do so many people find that one person who they can share everything with, and spend their entire lives devoted to? Is there such a thing as love at first sight? Do fairy tales really exist? Or does love just crash into you when you least expect it to?

Laying here in bed with Hunter Bradley, starring down at his blond head and feeling his cold toes on mine, I find it was really the last scenario that got me here. Of course, this particular love had to hit me on the head a few times before I saw it for what it really was.

You know, they say that looking for love is like looking for lady bugs. You can spend all day crawling around in the fields looking for them, but you'll never find one. But if you go to sleep and forget about them, when you wake up they'll be crawling all over you.

Got that right. Hunter came into my life at a time when I wasn't looking for love in the least. My father was a guinea pig, and we were fighting evil. The last thing I had time for was a romance. Hunter had other plans. And they included me.

I must admit, I'd never given thought to what I'd do after Lothor. For all my thinking, all my planning, everything I'm good for, I never dreamed I'd be living with Hunter in Blue Bay Harbor, 3 years to the day since we defeated Lothor. It's better than I ever could have imagined.

The sun is starting to come through the window and soon he'll be getting up and teasing me like always for watching him while he sleeps, to entranced by him to even consider disturbing his peaceful slumber. I don't care though. He's adorable when he's asleep, and it's moments like these that I know won't, can't last forever. So I'm enjoying them while I can.

When Hunter and I first got together I thought it was going to be the shortest relationship I'd ever had. He was a man. And he was my complete opposite. Still is both those things, actually. Maybe that's why we work. We've never really gotten along. We hardly agree on anything. Everyone thinks we're crazy for staying together as long as we have. So do I, sometimes.

But there are moments. Moments when I know that he's the only person I could ever be happy with, and as sappy as that sounds I know without a doubt that it's completely true. I'm talking about fate here- when your feelings are so powerful it's as if some force beyond your control is guiding you to someone who can make you happy beyond your wildest dreams. And Hunter has always found a way to do that.

Even when he whines and complains, and steals the remote, and messes up the house, and forgets to feed the cat, and purposefully forgets to buy my tofu, and hides my keys so he can be a hero and find them for me… even with all those things, he's still the only one I want.

And frankly, I don't know what I'd do without him. It's strange thinking that. I always thought I was a perfect person before Hunter came. I never thought I needed anything. Hunter proved me wrong. The fact is I need him. I wasn't a whole person until I met Hunter, and if I ever loose him, I will never be whole again.

It's strange and funny and completely disgusting, but watching him wake up I can't deny it and I would never want to.

His eyes gently flutter open and he looks up to me. "Watching me again?" He wonders groggily.

"Always am." I answer back. He gives me an unreadable look and plops his head back down on my chest.

"Are you making me pancakes today?" He asks quietly.

"Do you want pancakes today?"

"Would I have asked if I didn't?"

"How am I supposed to know what you want?" The sarcasm is tired and dry, and it's really not all that funny, but I feel him smile into my chest, and a second later he bites me. I let out a tiny yelp, but I'm sort of used to it by now.

"Go make me pancakes." He orders. I smirk. I kiss his head, and as I try to stand he won't let me up.

"I can't make pancakes with you attached to my side." I tell him. He doesn't seem to move.

"Then just wait until I let you go." He needs to make up his mind, I decide as I roll my eyes. I settle back down as he cuddles back into me.

This is the man I am going to spend the rest of my life with. He's rude, annoying, sloppy, ignorant in a cute way, commanding, stubborn, picky, and generally a pain in the ass… but he's everything I love and everything I want.

Love is a strange thing. It can twist you and turn you inside out and you will never understand why. But in the end… it's worth it. Worth it to see him smile at me and know it's just for me. Worth it to wake up beside him every morning. Worth it to hold his hand. Worth it just to be with him at all.

It's totally worth it.