A/N: The title of the story is from the song "I will love you" by Fisher.

Forever and a Day

Prologue

A sinking ship. Cold breeze and a sinking ship.

Monica tossed and turned around in a bed that felt foreign beneath her body, her brain pulling her deeper into the dream. Her skin slick with sweat, despite the cold air, she struggled to pull herself out of the maze.

The effects on the body and mind are bad enough when you're that drunk, and to top it off, she was having a nightmare.

The ship sank completely beneath the surface of the water, the last of the bubbles bursting at the surface, leaving the water clear, calm and black under the midnight sky.

She woke up with a start, her fingers instinctively rising to brush the tears that were flowing down her cheeks. She clutched the sheets which were gliding down her skin, to her chest, just as she realized she was naked. She took a deep breath, willing the pounding headache to stop.

The moonlight was slanting through the slight gap between the curtains, but it was coming from the wrong side, at a wrong angle. She shook her head, wondering whether her alcohol-addled brain, combined with the nightmare, was playing tricks on her mind, but that still didn't explain her state of undress. She sat unmoving for a couple of seconds, trying to focus her eyes on a spot that wasn't wavering.

Her eyes finally settled on something. A pair of red boxers.

She felt her heart stop beating for a couple of seconds, and then hammer rapidly against her ribs. She lifted her eyes from the floor and looked around the room, but not before her eyes recognized the grey dress that she was wearing the previous evening and the familiar, well-worn, faded blue T-shirt on the floor.

She knew this room; she knew this bed.

She knew the man who was lying beside her.

~.~.~