Six months without his twin was a trial Gideon never thought he'd have to endure, but having his sister around had been somewhat of a consolation. Now that she was gone again, Gideon had no family that he recognized from his own time, and yet he had all the family in the world still in the village. It was all just Molly's family, and he knew they probably missed her already as well. But Gideon had only been there six months. Amelia had been there for years and had seen people come and go so many times. That must've been really hard, too.
"Yeah, probably," he conceded, knowing that it would be a long shot to have Amelia on the sleep schedule he'd developed since working at the club. He knew how she felt, though. It would be nice if she was still awake when he got home. That happened every once in a while, like on some weekends or on days like that one where he worked earlier, but generally he returned to a dark, sleeping house. Gideon didn't have any plans at the moment of seriously asking his nephews to change his job, but it was getting annoying being on a different schedule than one's girlfriend.
He ought to know her well enough, he thought, considering she'd been one of the few familiar faces from before he arrived in the village. Yes, she'd been a lot younger in his time, but she was still Amelia Bones and he'd still been decent friends with her. Mostly then, though, it was through Eddie and Sally, not that it made much of a difference. The age gap being lesser in the village was a boon, though, and it made him feel a little better about going after his friend's sister.
But Gideon hadn't expected to hear what he'd heard out of her mouth. Fortunately, he wasn't holding anything anymore or he probably would've fumbled and almost dropped it. Maybe not really, but almost. It wasn't entirely unexpected, right? They'd been dating for a few months and living together for that same amount of time, seeing each other every single day of those months, and the circumstances were certainly not what they would've been. Gideon hadn't been alone in considering that word, but to hear it first out of Amelia's mouth was the surprising part. He knew he looked surprised, but he was glad he didn't look completely gobsmacked or Mel might've cringed worse than she did. When he heard her voice waver, Gideon stepped back over to her and took the plate out of her hands to set it on the table across from his own. He didn't want to build it up at all because he wasn't fancy with words or anything and that would probably sound weird coming from him. So he just looked her right in the eyes and spoke plainly. "I love you, too, Mel," he said, holding her lightly by the forearms to stop her hands from shaking.