Has there ever been a time in your life when you abandoned your senses completely and were only able to experience how you felt, like you'd left your body and had a direct connection to your soul? I didn't think anyone could feel that way unless they died and gone to heaven, until it happened to me.

I stared up at the ceiling and didn't think about anything in particular. I was completely void of mental activity. I couldn't even tell you what I was feeling, not until she stirred and held me a little bit tighter. Then I knew I was feeling absolute joy. I held her as close to me as possible because I could tell that was what she wanted. Somehow, I knew everything she wanted.

It was early the next morning. So early that it was still dark, although there was a very faint light that barely separated the horizon that peeked through the windows to our room. Celes had her head She slowly opened her eyes and looked up at me.

"I didn't know it could feel like that. I didn't know I could feel like that."

"Me neither."

"How did it feel for you?" She sounded calm and peaceful, but she felt a small sense of urgency. I could tell that this was important to her somehow. It'd never been important before.

"It was…" I paused, unsure of how to describe it. "I don't want to say. It seems too important for words."

"Yeah…" she hugged me tighter.

I sighed, "I wish time could stop for us. For this moment."

Celes kissed my neck gently and snuggled closer to me.

"I don't." she said, "I want to feel more moments like these."

"They're so rare though…"

She looked up at me for a moment with an expression I didn't understand, then suddenly lifted herself up so that she was facing. "Not for me Locke. I experience it every time I'm alone with you. Every time I feel your touch and every time I can lie next to you. All I have to do is be with you and I feel this wonderful feeling like everything in my life is perfect. Don't you get that feeling too?" Her eyes looked into mine with a sort of desperation. Pleading.

"Yes. I feel it every waking moment of my life. I feel it because I know you exist. If you never came to know who I was, still I would get that feeling simply by being in your presence. I never thought saying 'I love you' wouldn't be enough to describe how I feel about you." It all came out before I could stop it and when I finished I felt a swift, blind terror one might feel if they were in a sword fight and suddenly realized they'd left themselves wide open on their side. She could destroy me with a word.

"Really?" She said it with such honestly, such a look of genuine inquisitiveness, it was almost scary. How could she not know?

From out of nowhere, a sudden realization hit me. Something about our relationship was changing. Somehow I was looking at her and not seeing the same woman from yesterday. No, that wasn't right. It was the same woman I'd always loved, but I was seeing her different, though I didn't have any idea how. I wondered, did she see me differently too? Again I felt a fear run through me. It was a deep fear, a basic fear of the unknown, but there was anxiousness there too. Something new and fresh was before me, waiting to be explored. I had a decision to make.

"Why did you come with me Celes?" Once again, it spilled out of me before I realized I was asking it, but it was different. As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew what I was talking about. It was something that'd I'd successfully kept to myself. Something I never wanted to tell Celes but now I was blurting it out and I didn't seem to have the will to stop it coming out. It could have been that lack of control that was the most terrifying thing of all.

"When the airship landed, you followed me down the stairs. At first I thought it was because you were seeing me off, being courteous and all. But you stayed with me and even as the ship lifted into the air, I kept looking back to you to make sure you were real, that I hadn't imagined it. Then I assumed you wanted to make a new life for yourself and Kohlingen was as good a place as any to start. It was just coincidence that I was going to build my home there in the fields near the town, but then you didn't leave. Still I couldn't understand it. Even when you told me why, I didn't understand. In fact, I don't think I've ever fully understood Celes."

I stopped. The deed had been done and there was no turning back. I don't know what I'd just done and I didn't know now what to do, so I waited.

"How can you not understand?" Celes still stared into my eyes and brought her hand to my cheek. "How can you not understand that I love you?"

"Because I'm not worthy of your love!" I move her hand away. "Celes I love you, yes, but who wouldn't? How can anyone not fall in love with you, your strength, your power, your beauty? What am I to that? You were a general of the highest rank in the most powerful empire in the history of the world! You wielded the arts of the Magi! You might just as well have been a queen! And what am I? A petty theif from a back water town. What can I possibly offer you that would make me worthy of your love? How can you love someone like me? Why do you love me?" That defenseless feeling returned, but it was far worse. It was worse because now I was asking for an answer that I had never wanted to hear. I lived in the terror of the silence and inevitable reason. It was because she pitied me.

She looked at me with a steady expressionless face. Then she turned her gaze to my hand. I still held her wrist. As if her hands could burn, I released it immediately. Without a word, she brought her hand to mine and slipped her fingers through mine, grasping it tightly. Then she slowly looked back at me.

"That's why I love you." She said with infinite softness. "Because every time my hand holds yours, you'll hold mine tighter. Because every time I embrace you, you'll hold me to you as if you'll never want to let go. Because I know that even if I'd been the washing maid in the laundry sector of the imperial castle who didn't know an esper from a flower pot, you still would have fallen in love with me. Because…" she faltered and looked down for a moment and I felt a sudden need to do just what she had said and hold her.

"…because no matter how many mistakes I make, you'll just hold my hand and my body tightest of all and say you'll always be in love with me and do whatever I wish if it'll make me happy." She was crying now, but there was such a look of joy on her, as if she'd discovered the truth to eternal happiness. I couldn't hold back any longer and I held her tight to me as if never to let go.

She wept openely and her tears fell on me, They were warm as I felt them hit me, and that strange and wonderful feeling of being alive just for her returned, but was more subdued. The sense of purpose wasn't as strong…or maybe just not as focused. It was hard to describe, if not downright impossible. I felt great and let's leave it at that.

I think we spent the rest of the day like that. Soon, she'd stopped crying and fell into a deep sleep with her head resting where it had lain before. I stared up at the ceiling and now my mind was filled with questions. Things were changing and I owed it all to something I didn't understand at all. I didn't even know how to approach it. What was happening to me and why? I was almost ashamed for asking such obvious questions, but I think I still deserved answers. The more I thought about it, the more anxious I grew. There was a growing fear that if I concentrated too hard, it might come back. But the fear never grew beyond anything more than a slight tremble in the back of my head. Eventually I stopped thinking about it and as I ran my hand idly through Celes golden hair, my eyelids grew heavy.

Oddly enough, the last thing I thought about before dozing was the realization that I had been on top. It kinda sneaked into my head out of nowhere and it was almost cute in its embarrassing masculinity, but it made me realize something else. I had never been on top before.