~~Three months later~~
Celine's recovery of her strength was very slow. One didn't catch up on missing a year of sleep overnight, especially not when the sleep was occasionally interrupted by a flashback. But even though there were times when she had to take a nap in the middle of the day in order to be able to cook dinner in the evening, she had the comfort of knowing that even though Willem probably couldn't always be with her, if she called him, he would likely come running. Fin probably did more than his share of running the ship in the first few weeks after Celine joined the crew, but she hoped he didn't hate her for it. In fact, sometimes she took extra measures to make sure he wouldn't, such as slipping him extra dessert if one of the other crew members was too full to eat it.
After a few weeks though, the horrible dreams began to occur less often. She never got to the point where they were completely gone, but she could go for weeks at a time without them, which gave her the energy to focus on other things.
Things like the crew members. She wondered if they were aware of the romance between herself and Willem. Did they wish she had fallen for one of them instead? Other thoughts on her mind included her and Willem's future together.
Celine had always hoped she would become a mother, but with Randver, she had been terrified at the thought of giving birth to a child that would be almost bigger than her. Even then, Celine would like to have married him. Now, with Willem, she wasn't so scared about having a baby, but she'd still like to be married before it arrived, if one did. But how was that possible? Surely they couldn't be married on the ship. There would be no one there to perform a wedding... if he wanted to marry her at all.
That, too, bothered her. Not their marriage, per se, but the thought of him not wanting to marry her. Then she mentally kicked herself. They'd only been officially in love for three months. What was she doing, thinking about marriage already? Still, she'd love to know what he thought of the idea. It wouldn't be right away of course, but eventually, she'd love to get married.