Their heads were on opposite sides of the bed, but Rapunzel and Eugene's feet were tangled up somewhere in the middle, under the blankets. A jerk of his foot startled Rapunzel half-awake, and the jerk of his body that followed woke them both.

"Eugene?" Rapunzel could see him pushing himself up and looking around in the dark. When he didn't reply she reached out for him. He jumped at her touch, even though she was gentle. Had she startled him by the chill in her fingers? The double doors to their balcony were open and the blankets on their bed were not heavy, but his shoulder felt hot and a little slippery with sweat.

There was very little moonlight—whether because of cloud-cover or its phase, she wasn't sure—but she could only see Eugene's profile when he turned, still tense.

"Dreaming?"

She felt his shoulder relax under her hand, and he flopped back onto his pillow.

He sighed heavily, like he'd been holding his breath before. "Yeah. Did I wake you?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Sorry."

"It's fine." She scooted closer to him in the bed, careful not to disturb the pillow next to her own on which Pascal was still asleep. "You okay?"

"Yeah." He turned onto his side so they were facing each other. "Yeah."

In throwing the blankets off of himself he ended up displacing the part that was covering Rapunzel; she pulled it back up over her.

Though she meant to fall back asleep, she became preoccupied with Eugene's stillness—with the very small breaths he took that told her he was still awake too. For a time she couldn't measure because of the darkness she contemplated asking what he had dreamed of that had roused him. She'd seen it happen a few times before, when he was only napping or when she was already awake—but he usually bounced back from those episodes so quickly that she let her questions go. Does it happen often? Maybe it just never wakes me up. What does he do then?

"Are you too hot to snuggle?" She didn't think to pretend she hadn't noticed he was still up.

"No." He lifted his arm up so she could move under it.

Close to him—where she could tuck her head under his chin, feel the rhythm of his breaths against her, and smell the skin of his chest—she decided she'd let him be. Maybe they'd both be able to fall asleep that way.

"Can I tell you something?"

Rapunzel only nodded, because she knew he would feel it.

"Sometimes, in my dreams, I'm called Flynn Rider."

His words sounded especially deep to Rapunzel, so close to his throat.

"It bothers you?"

"It's not that—it's…I just wasn't a very nice guy when I was Flynn."

"I know." She said it to help lighten him up, but she worried right after that it might have been inconsiderate.

"I didn't do good things when I was Flynn."

"I know you did things you regret, Eugene."

"I did very bad things."

She kissed the space between his collar bones. "You're a good man now, Eugene. My parents made sure everyone would know it, too. You worked three years for it."

"Don't you ever worry that that part of me isn't gone? That I'll do something? Maybe even to you?"

"Of course not; you'd never do anything to hurt me." She considered this, trying to find some way to work her gut feeling into reason for him. "I know who Eugene is, and he's just not capable of doing the things Flynn did."

By his silence, Rapunzel thought she'd settled it for him.

"Sometimes, in my dreams, I do things that hurt you."

She didn't know what to say.

"I don't do them to you on purpose—I just cause you to get hurt, or… be hurt. I don't know. I just don't like seeing it."

One of the things she love about being with Eugene was that she could translate her exact feelings into words and not worry about being embarrassed, as she had learned to be around everyone else. So it was easy for her to respond.

"I'm not worried about Flynn, Eugene. I haven't seen him in years. In fact, I think you left him in a cave. And I'm glad—I mean, he sure was handsome, but he was kind of a jerk, you know?"

Eugene made a sound that was like a mixture of a laugh and a sigh.

"And it's just as well. I mean, I never would have met Eugene if Flynn hadn't disappeared first."

"I killed him, then?"

"It seems like it, doesn't it? Maybe that's why I'm not worried about him."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." She smiled at the absurdity of it. "If he's dead he can't hurt either of us."

Note: And that's that. There are some things I cut out from the story because I thought they didn't fit. Maybe I'll make one-shots out of them sometime.

The word count requirement of the big bang for which this was written was 10,000; this story- without notes- sits at 13,521. (Weeeooo!) I was really pleased to be able to participate in it, alongside a bunch of awesome fanartists and fanfic authors. You should go check the Big Bang's tumblr out.

I put No Touch on hold to write this. Just in case anyone's concerned, please let it be known that I've started working on it again.

Again, thanks for reading.

-8/10/12