After the intense conversation outside the hotel, Lulu and Dillon had spent the entire night talking. Somewhere between dinner and hot chocolate, he was glad that he had spent the extra few dollars on the room with the private terrace. They had talked about everything – the secrets, the fears, the regrets. No subject was off limits, and no leaf left unturned. This was their chance to really be honest with each other about everything that had happened. While it was never easy to relive the past, both of them understood that it was important if they were to ever put everything behind them.

Around two in the morning, Lulu had finally yawned and headed off toward bed. With her internal clock still running on Port Charles time, it was closer to wake-up time for her than bedtime. Dillon remained behind, giving him the chance to reflect on the extraordinary day. As she crawled into the lavish bed, Lulu was happy to have the time alone. While her arrival in California had not been what she had expected, it was still amazing nonetheless. She would go through anything if it meant Dillon would be there with her.

Rolling to the left side, she tucked her arm under her head and stared at the wall in front of her. Though the room was dark, a stray moonbeam illuminated the shadows dancing in front of her. She could hear the constant rise and fall of the waves as they crashed on the sandy shore below. From the terrace, she could hear Dillon as he changed the radio from one station to another. Finally settling on her favorite song from Imogen Heap, Lulu knew that it was for her. They had listened to that song constantly last summer. By the end of July, he knew every single word.

This is not what I expected, Lulu confessed to herself. I thought that my first night in California would end with Dillon in my arms. I don't know what is going on between us. We are so close, and yet, so far. I want this more than anything, and I think I'm on the verge of having it. We're on the verge. I just pray to God that we can both let this go.

"Hey, are you asleep?" Dillon murmured as he came into the room. Lulu closed her eyes, contemplating whether she should answer or not. When he came around to her side of the bed, she knew that she didn't have a choice. Kneeling in front of her, Dillon reached out to caress her face. "I meant what I said earlier, Lu. You really have made my life."

Sighing heavily, Lulu let her cheek sink heavily into his palm. "I'll never know how you do it, but I don't think you know how much I appreciate the fact that you can always see the best in me," she replied. "I've never had anyone believe in me like you do, except maybe my mom. Everyone else has always been too busy with their own lives to take any interest in mine. But with you, everything is different. Part of me wishes that we could stay here forever. Your family is never going to support this."

Even in the dark, Lulu could read the emotion on Dillon's face. They both knew that she was right and that there was nothing either of them could do about it. Peeling the blankets away, Dillon kicked off his sandals and crawled in next to her. "None of that matters," he vowed to her. "My family, the past, the drama, it doesn't matter. We're what matters. You are what matters."

"I love you." The whispered declaration wasn't accompanied by any other statement. It was finally enough to stand on its own. At those words, Lulu turned her body toward Dillon's and allowed him to wrap his arm around her. Nestling her cheek against his chest, she finally felt at peace with everything. She believed him when he said that she was what mattered. "After my time is done here, are you going to come home with me?"

"I'm not living my life without you," he promised. "Whether it is in California or New York, I'm not going to push you away anymore. You and I are going to be together. We are together. Whatever happens from here on out, we decide together. That includes where we live."

"I'm going to want to go home, Dillon," she stated bluntly. "Even though it's a little fractured at the moment, my family is there. Whether they like to admit it or not, my dad and my brothers need me. I'm the thread that holds us all together. I'd never be able to forgive myself if something happened and I wasn't there."

Dillon thought about his grandfather for a moment. Well past what most would consider young, Edward probably wasn't looking at that many more years. Besides, he had spent most of his life away from the Quartermaines, and they hadn't been happy years. His happiest times had all been in Port Charles. "If you want to go home, we will go home," he assured her. "I just want to be able to live my dreams, and they all include you. As long as I can be with you and work on becoming the director and writer I want to be, I don't think I will have anything to complain about."

"Don't get ahead of yourself," she warned him. Things weren't perfect between them, and if history had taught her anything, it was to value caution. "I just want to take this one step at a time, one choice at a time. I'm committed to you, and by extension, our life together. I just don't want us to get ahead of ourselves."

"That's why I love you," Dillon gushed softly, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to the crown of her blonde head. "I just want everything to be perfect this time around. I know that's impossible, but I want to make it as close as possible for you."

Lulu nodded her answer against Dillon's forearm as he leaned down again. This time, he laid a soft kiss on her lips. When she didn't pull away, he deepened the embrace. His tongue pressed against her mouth, begging for entrance. Lulu moaned in response, reaching desperately for his shoulders to bring herself closer to him. As his fingertips made their way down her spine, she felt her entire body start to tingle. When his hands reached the hem of her shirt and started to pull at it, she finally stopped herself.

"No," she whispered, pushing his hands away. Dillon was confused and shocked as Lulu turned over and moved away. "We're not there yet, Dillon. We can't just get back together and fall into bed. It didn't work last summer, and it's not going to work this summer. There is still so much we need to work out before I can."

"Lu, it's fine," he whispered. "We don't have to do anything. I don't even have to sleep here with you. I will be as patient as you need me to be. I will do anything you need."

"What I need," she told him, "is for you to hold me tonight. I just want to feel your skin against my skin. I want to wake up next you in the morning. I want things to be easy between us again. I want my best friend back."

"You have him," he promised, looping his arm around her waist to pull her back across the mattress. Lying behind her like a spoon, he rested his chin on his shoulder. "You always had him. It may not have seemed like it, but you did."

She knew that wasn't true. She had lost him more than once to Georgie, and a part of her secretly feared that she could possibly lose him someday again. But loving someone meant trusting them, as her mother had long told her. She was giving herself to fully trust Dillon because she was in love with him. That was the only way this was ever going to work. "And you have me," she responded, her voice completely devoid of hesitation.

"Do you ever feel like we keep going back and forth? It's like one of us is always completely sure and the other has no clue what to do. Sometimes it's me, sometimes it's you. I wonder if we are ever going to be on the same page."

"Maybe not the same page, but definitely the same chapter," she retorted. "It doesn't really matter if we are, Dil. As long as one of us is, there will always be someone fighting for you and me."

"It's really that easy for you, isn't it?" he smiled, appreciative that she could simplify things like that. He was the one that preferred to analyze things, looking at it from every angle until it had been played to death. Maybe it was dreamer in him, but he needed everything to be complex. "I love that about you. It always makes me see that things don't have to be so twisted."

Lulu didn't comment on his statement, electing not to ponder too much on the subject. She simplified things because she was afraid that logic would overrule her heart. "I heard the song earlier," she remarked. "I don't know how you managed to find a radio station that played 'Goodnight and Go,' but maybe we could convince them to move to Port Charles."

"It wasn't the radio," he confessed. "I bought the album last fall. When you and I weren't talking and I was spending all my time with Georgie, I missed you so much. I couldn't really talk to anyone about it, so I would listen to this song on repeat. It drove her crazy. Since it doesn't really jive with my usual music taste, she questioned why it was so important to me. I always commented on how catchy it was."

"It is catchy."

"That was never why I loved it. I loved it because it reminded me of you. My favorite line is the part where she sings, 'Follow you home. You've got your headphones on and you're dancing.' It seems silly, but it always reminds me of something you would do. And then the chorus, I think it explained our relationship perfectly."

"Why'd you have to be so cute?" Lulu sang. "It's impossible to ignore you. Must you make me laugh so much? It's bad enough we get along so well."

"Exactly," he chuckled. "When I was with Georgie, it defined who you and I were together. I thought you were this beautiful girl, and even though I wanted to, I couldn't get you out of my mind. And the fact that you're so damn funny, it made me want you even more. Like the song said, it was hard enough that we got along so well."

"I've never had someone explain me like that."

"What about me?" he asked. "How would you explain me in lyrics? What song reminds you of me?"

Lulu didn't even have to think about that one. Her song for Dillon had long been a mainstay on her playlist. "It's a song by Something Corporate called 'As You Sleep.' It's how I feel about you."

"Sing it to me."

"But as you sleep, and no one is listening," she harmonized, "I will lift you off your feet. I'll keep you from sinking. Don't you wake up yet, cause soon I'll be leaving you. Soon I'll be leaving you, but you won't be leaving me."

"And how does that remind you of me exactly? It talks about leaving."

"It means that even though I had to leave you, you never left my heart," she explained. "When I had to let you go back to Georgie, you were still with me. I would always be there to hold you up, make sure that you didn't fall. There's this line, 'In the car, the radio leaves me searching for your star.' That's the other thing. You connect people in your life through movies, and I do it through music. No matter what happened, this is my soul's connection to you."