Let's explore.

Eric slept better than he had in months, lazily drifting back to the world sometime in the early morning. He opened his eyes and looked around. He was naked in bed, laying next to-

"Stacy!" he cried, sitting up abruptly. She sat up beside him, smiling warmly, and embraced him. The heat of her breasts against his chest stirred a desire in him, but he ignored it and pulled back.

"Good morning, sweetie." Stacy was gazing lovingly at him. "Did you sleep well?"

"Incredibly well," Eric responded. "But what- how are you? Are you ok? How do you feel?"

Stacy took his hand and pressed it to her breast softly. It was pliant and warm under his palm, and for a second Eric didn't believe she really was just clay underneath.

"How do I feel?" she responded coyly. "I feel the same, don't I?"

"You do," he admitted.

"I do. I need you to remember that. I feel the same. I am the same. I'm Stacy, and I still love you with all my heart. And it worked, our plan. That thing - that rot - it's gone now. After years of slow suffocation, I can breathe again, babe!"

Eric almost pulled his hand back. "You shut off the part of your brain that grieves, Stacy. You never told me you were gonna do that. You lied to me."

A joyful tear trickled down her cheek. "I know, and I'm sorry, but I had to. I didn't shut off any part of my brain, because I don't have a brain. I didn't harden my heart, because I don't have a heart. I just reached into the thing that is me and ripped out the pain, and it worked better than I ever could have imagined!"

"Isn't that a part of you?" Eric protested. "Isn't removing it the same as killing part of yourself?"

She shook her head. "No, babe, it's not like that. Picture a great tree in the middle of a forest. For decades it grows and flourishes and provides shade to all of the plants, but one day a vine begins to grow. A small, ugly thing attached to this magnificent tree, hardly noticeable. But the vine wraps around it, **** it. It attacks the roots, preventing the tree from getting the rich nutrients it requires. And then the great tree withers, and the leaves die and fall off, and the branches sag."

"So mourning your family is like a weed?" Eric asked skeptically. She laughed and his heart swelled at the sound.

"I stopped mourning them long ago," she told him gently. "I thought I was mourning them, but I was just dying. The accident started the fire that ravaged my soul, but the original grief was long since burned to an unrecognizable husk. The pain detached from the cause and it was destroying me, and now it's gone."

Eric stared at her, unable to formulate a response. She stroked his cheek. "Please, babe, can we just enjoy this? We have all the time in the world to question it, but for now I just want to be."

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak without sobbing. She pulled his head down onto her chest and then he was crying again, her soft pillowy breasts supporting his head while he wailed. She stroked his hair soothingly.

"That's it, get it all out. I love you, Eric. I love you so much."

He sniffled. "It worked." It was something between a question and a statement.

"It worked," she confirmed. "It worked better than we could have known. The vine is gone, ripped away, and I can flourish again. I was buried in the earth and now I feel the sun on my face. Thank you for letting me do this."

"You're welcome," he mumbled. "I love you."