notes: jerza first, disappointment later.

from dawn to dusk
time only matters when i'm with you

For Erza, the dawn never starts her day.

She takes her coffee in the morning – sweet with sugar and light with milk – and she goes to work, contributes to her team meetings, sends her emails, designs her clothes, does what she loves – goes through an entire eight hours of work, but this is not a day in her life as she knows it.

She comes back to her home — small for a future family but cozy for a couple — and she settles for the night, changes into more comfortable clothes, starts making rice, empties the remainder of this morning's coffee into her mug, picks a book from the shelves, lounges on the couch — operates as anyone would after a long day of work, but this is still not a day in her life as she knows it.

After all, for Erza, the day begins when he is home.

He greets her first, always. His voice tickles her ear before his lips tickle her neck, and then as she slips an old envelope as a makeshift bookmark into her reading, he slips into the kitchen to turn off the slow cooker he had set in the morning. She rises from the couch, echoes his steps to the kitchen, and reaches above her head to grab a couple plates from the cabinet.

She stands up on her tiptoes to get the top two dishes on the neatly stacked tower, and he takes the opportunity to gently his arms around her and kiss the back of her neck.

"What," she giggles, shrugging him off teasingly. "Do you want me to drop these plates?"

"You're doing just fine," he murmurs, lips still hovering over her skin.

She rolls her eyes to herself, setting them down and shifting over to open the cover of the rice cooker. She takes a moment to observe the puff of steam that emerges from the well-done rice before she cuts into it with the rice paddle. She serves them both plenty.

"How did your curry experiment go?" she asks, looking behind her at the slow cooker.

"It looks okay," he replies.

She takes the two plates and swivels around to the counter on the other side. He keeps his arms around her, and together they waddle to the slow cooker. She pops open the cover and the smell of warm spices and tender meat bubbles from the pot.

"You don't need to keep my expectations down," she chides him as she ladles the curry onto their plates. "I know your cooking is going to be exceptional, no matter what."

"Well then, add a bit more onto your plate, why don't you?" he replies in a snap. "Aren't you eating for two?"

She bites her lip, a small blush threatening to appear on her cheeks. "I knew I should have saved telling you for later. Now, all I'm going to get is just you telling me to eat more for an additional twelve weeks more than I needed."

"I'm sure I would have found out anyway," he says, and she knows he's right.

She's never been able to keep a secret from him and her face was altogether too expressive to keep anything hidden.

So she scoops an extra portion of stew onto her plate, but not before adding an additional one-and-a-half onto his, as well.

"You eat faster than me," she explains to him, when she hears his questioning silence. "And you need to store up some energy so that you can start fetching my every craving."

She feels him smile against her neck. "Of course," he says.

Dinner carries on. He tells her about how the attendings are just dreadful and about a frustrating patient case. She tells him about impending deadlines she's somewhat ignoring and about her gossipy passive-aggressive co-workers. They clear their thoughts of their workdays as they clear the table and clean the dishes, and they shower off the headaches and muscle aches with hot water and lavender soap.

They crawl into bed together and she lets him kiss her stomach, lets him curl his fingers around the ends of her hair, lets him spoon her into his body for the rest of the night, lets him occupy every single second of her time and every single space of her mind before she falls asleep.

He's gone by the time the sunlight kisses the edge of her white bedsheets but his musk still lingers over the pillowcase and blankets. He's gone by the time the warmth from his sleep escapes his side of the bed, but she wakes up to coffee he's kept on hot for her and to an "I love you!" note freshly scrawled on the small dry erase board on the refrigerator that keeps her heart equally warm.

His residency at Magnolia General Hospital calls him early and holds him late. Maybe it's not fair for now, but just as the sun rises, she knows the sun must also set, and she waits again until the stars shine bright in the sky and the clouds disappear into gray.

And just as she's finished another chapter of her reading, the door clicks open and the soft breeze that follows rustles the ends of her scarlet strands. Her brown eyes lift to meet his hazel eyes, and a widening smile graces her lips when she sees the same grin stretched over his face.

"I'm home," he tells her, with a kiss to her temple — and so begins another day in their forever.

thir13enth