Dave (hearts) Jade: "You are so beautiful when you sleep, but it's getting kind of old. Please wake up." -A Softer World
"Jade, wake up!" Dave stage whispers right in her ear, she blindly pushes her hands into his face to get some space. When she opens her eyes, he's propped himself up on one arm, and is smiling at her warmly. "Do you hear that?" he asks, and nods towards the hallway outside their room. Sure enough, there is giggling and the pitter-patter of little feet.
"As much as I hate to wake you up," he says, and her face warms at his very open affection, "since you're such practically sleeping beauty, all pretty and at peace and stuff, our little wigglers are out there tearing up our Santa shit." This of course wakes her up. In a flurry of hair and limbs, Jade is up, and out of bed, and dressed.
"Dave," she says with a beaming smile, "It's Christmas!" Her excited voice must've carried into the hallway, because the next thing Dave knows, his beautiful wife and twin children have dog piled themselves on top of him.
They chant, "Christmas, Christmas!" with wild abandon, and he's vaguely reminded of that one horrible movie with the cults and the deaths and wow, does he love his family.
"Come on, Dad!" One of his little ankle biters insists, grabbing his arm and trying to literally pull him from the bed. "Christmas. That means presents."
"Yeah, Dad!" The other one echoes, grabbing his ankle and assisting the first in pulling him off his comfortable spot.
"Yeah, Dave! It snowed!" Jade adds, before literally picking him up in a fireman's carry. "Lazybones, you can't stay in bed when it's snowing. And presents! Let's go be Santa!"
Dave laughs, and something along the lines of "fuck it, let's be Santa" is muttered into Jade's ear. He keeps it low, so the kids don't hear him swearing, but Jade nearly drops him, she laughs so hard.
Once in the living room, Jade puts him down and throws her arms over his shoulders. "I love you." They share a chaste kiss, though the kids still pretend to gag in the background. Dave is warm to the tips of his toes, buoyed up with a sense of completeness and by the affection he holds for his family.
He wants to wrap this moment around him, keep it safe forever, and look on it and know he was loved. But it isn't real. He opens his eyes.
"Dave, please…" Jade sobs over his chest. "Dave, I'm so sorry, please wake up." He coughs, and gives her a smirk as he pushes his glasses back up his nose. The smile might be a little off; when he looks at Jade he still sees that version of her he married and had children with.
"What, can't a guy get a little beauty sleep?"
"Dave, you were dead!" Jade wails, crushing him again in a hug that gives him déjà vu. "You were dead for five minutes!"
"Beauty sleep, Jade. That's all." He soothes, trying to push the alternate timeline memories from his mind. "Just beauty sleep."