[ He could spend this moment and all the moments after it doing his best to memorize her: how she looks, how she feels, the way she talks... He wants to know all of her, as much as she will share with him, because they are each other's pair and they belong together in every way. ]

Leave you? [ He asks the question even as he lets her guide his hands to the back of her dress and the ties that can be found there. His fingers rest on them, not beginning to undo them just yet as he tries to form an answer. ] Why would I leave you when I have just found you? Or rather, when you found me? In any life, why would I leave you?

[ Perhaps that is not the way this works. Perhaps they have no choice nor say in when they are reborn or in how long they must remain. But a surge of stubbornness overtakes him although his touch remains gentle. If neither of them can stand to be parted from the other, then they simply will not be. He knows not how he can make that happen, but perhaps resistance is possible. ]

I will not leave you. I promise. [ And he means to uphold that promise even if he has to argue and bargain and even fight to do so. ]