Chapter Text
When she and Cam go house-hunting, they confuse the realtor desperately. The woman keeps trying to show Dani the kitchen -- but she has no interest in kitchens, and Cam does. What Dani wants to see is dens and "rumpus rooms": spaces that can be converted into a library.
They're both agreed on some things. A fireplace. Two full baths. Easy access to the Mountain (which means near the house she's selling, and houses in that area aren't cheap, but between them there's enough money so there won't be much of a mortgage, if any, and location is vital.) But (at first) the woman from the agency keeps trying to interest Dani in lovely landscaping and beautiful kitchens and Cam in large garages and cozy dens. She quickly learns that Cam is interested in the kitchens, Dani in the garages (they still need a place to get three vehicles out of the weather during the winter) and that they intend to tear out most of the landscaping anyway.
Finally they find the perfect house.
Four bedrooms, three and a half baths. Full finished basement (formerly a family room, soon to become a library.) Three car garage. Two fireplaces. An immense, recently-remodeled kitchen; stainless-steel appliances, oak cabinets and gold granite counter tops. Formal dining room. Something called a 'great room' leading off the kitchen (the second fireplace is there.) They'll need to rip out most of the landscaping, but aside from that, it's perfect.
They move in.
It's nice to have the luxury of doing that before she lists the other house at all. The joys of financial liquidity. And there's finally room for everything. Her piano goes in the living room. Cam's a/v suite goes in the great room, along with his couch. Her furniture goes to the living room (and they'll actually need to buy a few more pieces to fill out), the dining room (and it all actually fits), the master bedroom (her bed is bigger than his.) Her desk, her bookshelves, and all of her books go down into the basement. His bedroom furniture goes to the second-largest bedroom; her daybed goes into the third. There's an empty room left over; they can worry about it later.
It's nice to spread out and have so much space.
And nothing about this arrangement is a secret (not that it could be, she now knows, given the nature of their ongoing security reviews, but still), because of course, once everything's in and mostly unpacked, they give a housewarming, and all their friends come.
Even General Landry stops by. Briefly. But he still comes. Seeing her and Cam. Living together, and oh, no way to disguise that, because they've bought a house together (the concept still stuns her, when she thinks about it), and both their names are on all the documents.
His kitchen. Her china. His pots and pans. Her silver. And sleeping and waking and living together, and she'll never comprehend his fascination with college basketball (any more, than, she suspects, he'll understand her willingness to get into screaming fights with other academics on the listserves she frequents over whether a particular type of cooking vessel was indigenous or imported to a particular area five thousand years ago), but those things don't matter.
He's her family.
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