HEATHER

It was morning, but not yet light.  My heart was too full, too heavy to sleep.  Lachlan had come to bed not long ago.  He'd smelled of cigars and tasted of scotch, but seemed more at peace than he'd been since we crossed.  And more resigned.  We'd spent many nights like that in Italy, wrapped in each other's arms at the edge of a sunset or a sunrise, giving each other the words we keep closest to our hearts. 

In the wee hours of the morning, he told me what had happened last night.  Told me about contacting Dea.  About her response.  About admitting to Terry we wanted out.  About hearing from Terry he was of like mind.  And lastly, he told me about making peace with Dino.

That was the hardest part for me.  Dino.  Lachlan and I had already made our choice.  We hadn't wanted to come back.  I knew in my heart that it was the right choice for us, for our family... but I felt so guilty for making it.  Felt guilty for causing Dino hurt.  I'd promised him that his heart was safe with me, that I'd never hurt him.  And yet, I have.  I am. 

We had said our goodbyes once before, but they had been tinged by hope.  By the fact we might one day be together again.  That I might stand again at his side and feel the sun on our faces as we loved.  It wounded me that I had so deeply cut his beautiful heart.  He deserved so much more.    

None of us knew what was going to happen, and yet we all knew it was the end of an era.  The last story had been told.  The last blank page had been filled.  It was time to put down the pen and close the book. 

It was time to say goodbye.

LACHLAN

I held her while she nursed Tristan and wiped the tear from her cheek.  Just rocked them both in my arms.  It would never be easy for me to accept her love for another man- but I know it is my heart she is bound to.  Tristan is a symbol of that, of a love that is so vast and deep it defies even the laws of this World where love is free. 

I shook my head.  Love is never free.  And all of us were fools to ever imagine otherwise.  We are no different from anyone else.  There is no magic that makes it easier for us to accept the people we love share intimacies with other partners.  We are simply men and women in an extraordinary situation.  At least, I think we used to believe so.  But now we have seen behind the curtain.  Now we know the truth.  It's all strings and wires, just like every place else in this World- or any other.  The magic is gone, and with it, the veil of wonder and suspended disbelief that made it all possible. 

God... this World.  Everyone loves everyone.  How many times have I heard that?  Funny how in this place where that is the guiding premise, that the world of free love can be destroyed by true love.  What is the lesson in that, I wonder? 

All of us have fought it... but now we know the truth.  Staying here will tear this World apart.  It will tear us apart.  We all know what we must do.  I took Tristan from Heather's arms and kissed her cheek softly.

"Go to him, love.  Now, before the others wake...."  It was hard, but I did it.  Real love is about sacrifice not gratification.  "None of us know how long we have now, Blue... and he deserves a goodbye."

DINO

She didn't see me.  I was sitting in a chair, just looking out at the sky that was slowly beginning to lighten.  She crept silently through the kitchen and made her way to the stairs that lead up to the third floor.  There's nothing up there but my bedroom.  Still, I think I would have knows she was looking for me even if I hadn't seen her start to climb the stairs.  She wouldn't leave without saying goodbye.  I set aside the cup of hot tea I'd made and stood, calling her name softly.

She turned and came to me.  "Dean...."  She hesitated a little nervously.  "I just wanted...."

"One last sunrise?"  I held out my hand.  She nodded and put her hand in mine.

I folded her into my embrace and simply held her for a long moment before I picked up a blanket and led her outside.                  

I put the blanket around my shoulders, sat down on my favorite bench and pulled her down next to me, wrapping my arm around her and the blanket around us both.  She settled into my side with a soft sigh and rested her head on my shoulder.  For a long time, neither of us spoke.  I'm not sure where she was in her mind.  Mine was lost in memories.

There were so many of her here in this place.  She was the only woman I'd ever brought here.  The only one who'd ever slept in my bed.  Cooked dinner with me in my kitchen.  Sat with me out here watching the stars fade from the sky.  So many memories....

Hot summer nights.  The deck was warm under our bare feet.  The wind smelled of sage and cedar and the music of Van the Man spilled out of the open French doors.  She swayed seductively to the beat, letting her head fall back as she spun slowly to the music.  She took a sip from a long necked bottle, pausing briefly to run the cold brown glass down her throat.  I moved up behind her and took it from her fingers with a grin.  Her laughter washed over me like a warm wind, stirring things deep inside me. 

I drank deeply and tasted her on the bottle while we danced.  She lifted her arms and swayed, pushing back to rub sensually against me.  Her hair slid to the side and I pressed little kisses up her neck as I put my hand on her stomach and pulled her back against me.  Heat crackled between us and built slowly with each throb of the music, with each tantalizing brush of our bodies.  Sweat that had nothing to do with the heat of the night prickled at our skin and slid from time to time in torturous drips over sensitized flesh.  Trickling between her breasts.  Collecting at the small of my back.  That night when she lay in my bed, her skin tasted of salt and want under my hungry, searching mouth.  I went to sleep with the taste of passion on my tongue... and woke with the taste of love on my lips.

~ * ~

Laughing at me in the kitchen.  A meal prepared together.  Talking about everything and nothing over the cutting board on the island.  I tossed cherry tomatoes at her.  She admired my backside while I was picking up the ones that rolled under the table.  She can't catch worth a damn.  She's got a wicked pinch, though.  Enough to make a man crush a tomato, that's for damn certain.  I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard. 

~ * ~

"No!  Dean... On, please, no!  Stop!  She shrieked and panted with laugher as she tried, futilely, to twist away from my insistent, tickling fingers.

"Heh.  Make me, honey."  I chuckled with amusement as I teased my fingers over her ribs, brushing again and again over her sensitive skin.  God, I loved being naked with her.  I also loved the way she looked, cheeks flushed from laughing as we teased and played in my bed.

Tears of mirth sparkled in her lashes.  "No!  No more!"  She bucked harder under me and tried to grab my wrists, still giggling and squirming all over my bed.  She looked so pretty, golden in the afternoon sunlight that fell warmly across us both.   

I easily avoided her clumsy attempts to capture my wayward hands.  "I don't think so, baby.  This is definitely a good look on you."

"Dean!"  She wiggled under me in mock outrage.  "Get off!"

A naughty smile turned up one corner of my mouth.  "Heh.  It would be far more fun to get you off, honey."  My low dirty laugh sent shivers of want racing down her spine.  She never disappoints, though.  She wasn't quite ready to give in just yet. 

She twisted and heaved under me, on the edge of fighting me in earnest.  We both groaned as the tip of my cock slid through her slick folds.  I blew a raspberry against her neck and she conceded defeat with an amused squeak as she opened her legs to me and let me in to the one place I most wanted to be.  Wrapped up in her, safe and loved.

What had been playful and wild became softer- but no less full of joy.  Velvety heat enveloped me as I pushed home and I hummed out my pleasure to her, turning to my back so I could just watch her above me.  So I could make a memory of her in this bed that would warm me on nights she was far away. 

Her hair floating around us.  Her scent in my head.  The feel of our bodies rocking together.  The exquisite flutters of her orgasm.  The pulsing bliss of my own.  An afternoon of love.  Smiles on our faces and laughter in our ears. 

~ * ~

Half a world away, I made a midnight phone call following a mission that went horribly wrong.  I ached, not for sex but for comfort.  Intimacy.  Someone to hold me close and tell me it would be OK.  Someone to stand behind me and hold me up when I couldn't do it alone.  Her soft voice sustained me.  In that night, she was to me what she has always been.  A steady, gentle light that guided a wandering soldier home. 

~ * ~

Kissing and licking, I am in heaven.  I cannot resist giving her a little nip right there on the most delicious part of her rump just because I can barely control my desires.  She gives me a little squeal but I think she's enjoying my enjoyment of her body.  Yes, she is enjoying this.  The noises she's making into the gag tell me she wants me to hear how much she likes it.  My cock is so hard it hurts.  I am leaving drops of passion on the floor now as she did earlier.  My hips move instinctively, seeing relief from my intense arousal.  I shunt it aside and refocus on her.

I kiss down to where her cheeks meet her legs - that spot I teased before when I was tickling her there so lightly with my fingertips... only this time, I am kissing.  From this position, I kiss right into her slit.  She groans loudly into the gag.  She did not expect me to do that.  She thought I'd go on teasing her but I'm serious now.  She moves with me, trying to get more from me, all the while not quite certain what to do.  Her cries are getting frantic.  This is more intense than she thought it would be.  She wants....but she almost doesn't want.  Last time, I nearly burned her to ashes.  This time will surpass that.

Her back stiffens as I latch on to her clit with perfect control.  I suck.  Hard.  All I want in this moment is for her to be coming so hard that she can barely move.  Her wild rhythmic cries tell me she's close.  She's pushing herself back against my mouth and I'm spreading her as far as I can, relentless in pursuit of her orgasm.  Come on!  Give it up to me!

I drink her up and her coming makes me lose all my will to go further with her.  I cannot handle this aspect of it.  It is more than I realized it would be with her but she is giving me so much....  I am left with only one desire.  Even before she stops coming I am on my feet and thrusting against her.  I have taken all she can give and I still want more.

She let me in - although she couldn't have stopped me from taking her.  I couldn't stop myself.  I wrap my arm around her waist and push deep, forcing a grunt from her.  I am not gentle.  This is what she has driven me to.  It was supposed to be her that lost control but in this moment, I am the one who is lost.  She knows what I want.  Her back arches and she welcomes me in.  I want to be inside.  Inside.  Deep.  Inside.  Where it's safe.

Safe.  I am murmuring that word to her over and over.  Safe....safe....safe... Saying it low and steady as I rut and pump in so hard, knowing it seems all wrong for this moment.  Knowing she will ask me about it later.  It is a part of what I give up to her in this night.  A trust I have in her that I don't seem to have with other women... though, that's so unfair to compare, I know.  I hold her hard to secure her to me in my last final moments.  I press deep, press home to take myself over and my surrender is complete.

I collapse against her back.  Safe.  She won't hurt me.  She has never told me that but I have always known it.  She doesn't play with people.  My face is pressed into her back.  I whisper her name and feel her clench around me in response.  I wonder if she can feel my tears.  I am not ashamed of them.  Another salty trickle from my body.  Now she has them both.  I wipe my tears against her skin and kiss her back softly as I catch my breath.   

~ * ~

Lying with her before the fire in my living room.  Sipping a scotch while she told me about the baby.  I held her in my arms that night and dreamed of watching her swell with my child while a little redheaded boy played at my feet.  I called him Andy.  He called me Daddy. 

~ * ~

Tortola.  Where it all began.  I saw a woman standing at the ferry's rail with the wind in her hair.  I flirted with her.  She flirted back.  I knew then I'd just met someone who'd change my life forever.   

 

 

So very many memories.  Private moments, the little details we kept just for us.  Visits we never logged.  Truths we didn't tell.  Moments that live on only in her memory and mine.

There was a different ocean below us but the same wind still blew her hair.  There were tears in her eyes.  I took her hand in mine.  "Remember how it began, Island Girl?" 

She nodded and pressed her face into my neck.  I felt a silent sob shake her slender shoulders and just held her close and rocked her.  This was so hard.  I knew it was the right thing for everyone, myself included, but what is right and what is easy are rarely the same.  When we last parted, hope had still burned within me.  It had faded before I'd finished reading the last of the words she'd left for us.  They might not have been able to see it, but I did.  Things had already started to change, even before the babies were born.  The smallest stones in the pond had made the biggest ripples.  I'd known for weeks now what would have to happen if they were returned to us.  I just hadn't expected it to be this hard.  How do you say goodbye to someone you love?

"I'm so sorry."  Just the softest whisper against my throat.  "I said I'd never hurt you....  I never meant to..."

"Oh, honey... don't."  I pulled her into my lap and tucked her head under my chin.  The sky was turning colors, from deep purple to a golden peach.  "My heart was always safe with you."  I kissed her temple softly.  "It still is."  The first rays of light were beginning to break through the trees.  "I've been thinking a lot about it.  You and me, we're connected.  In my past.  In yours.  Here.  Probably other places too.  Who knows how many portals there are?  How many 'experiments' this Dea has her fingers in, you know?"

She sniffled and smiled softly through her tears.  "You think we ever got it right?"  Her fingers played with mine gently. 

"I absolutely do."  I thought of my dream.  "You and me.... a house... a family... this little redheaded-"

"Andy."

It felt like I'd been sucker punched.  "You dreamed about it too."  It was a statement not a question.  I felt her nod against my chest. 

Acknowledging it to each other made this easier somehow.  Somehow, somewhere- we had been each other's lifelong love.  Here, she was Curry's.... and that was OK.  I understood her desire- and his.  I'd wanted the same things with Gen.  I still do, to tell the truth.  Just because a person is no longer in your life- that doesn't negate the feelings you had for them.  Gen is gone and I still love her.  I always will.  Just like a part of me will always love Heather, no matter where she is.  

It hurt.  Of course it did.  I love her.  But there was a peace in all this too.  A rightness.  I did not want her in the Game now.  I wanted what is best for her.  I've always wanted that.  And in this case, what is best for her also happens to be what's best for me.  My own intense reaction to what happened between her and Terry in Scotland is enough to convince me of that.  And yet I'm also selfish enough to wish I'd had one last intimate night with her. 

I got a sunrise instead.                    

And memories.  And the feel of her, soft and still in my arms.  I couldn't help but wonder if I'd been less skeptical of this Dea if I might have been granted more.  But I suppose the fact that I even ask that question is an answer in itself.  I can't change my nature.  I have faith... but it is rarely blind.  Where would all those folks in Zion be if Neo hadn't asked: What is the Matrix?  It's the questions that drive me.  The search for things that bring meaning to my life.  The search for the meaning of my own life.

It made me think of something we'd spoken about once.... The part I'd played in her crossing.

I am still harboring that memory in a special place, Island Girl. I wonder about the reverse of that -- why everything centered around you in that time and that it was really only because of your arrival that it was made it clear there was a reason I was in this Game over and above the 'hanger on' status. I had rather envisioned that I'd stick around for a while and then either drift away from the group to find my own place in this World or that I'd high-tail it back into my other World to take my old life back up. But then you came along ... and everything changed after that, didn't it?

Her response intrigued me, as they inevitably do.  She has always had an odd way of looking that things that appeals to me.  I often have a bit of an odd view myself.   

It did change.  Your words - they really touched me.  I've been giving them a lot of thought since we last talked.  I think the Dean in my portal felt that 'hanger on' status too- only he drifted away and never came back.  Maybe that's part of the reason for this World, to address things that didn't get addressed before.  This time around, we got a chance do that, to make something different.  This time you thought about drifting and allowed a woman to anchor you, whereas the girl could not.  You're not the Dean I knew and I am not that little girl any more.  I think we're both different and this time around things evolved enough to let us move ahead together rather than to drift apart.  Whatever the reason for that, I am thankful for it. 

All of this has been weighing heavily on my mind.  I dreamed of you last night and woke up feeling anxious and disturbed.  In the dream, I trusted you and you hurt me deeply.  I can't help but wonder if it's not some strange inverse of this world.  Here you trust me and I am afraid of hurting you.  It would devastate me.  I care for you too much.  I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I do know this - I am looking forward to my time with you in your home.  I want to feel your arms around me and I want to see if we can't find some sense in all of this.

Well... I think it's safe to say we did make sense out of it.  As much as two people ever can, anyway.  And how strange to be able to look back on it all and know that was the moment we followed the White Rabbit down the hole into Wonderland.  I remember, clearly, writing my reply to her.  I was in this shoebox of a hotel room in Italy.  Waiting... as inevitably I do in my job.  My laptop was a welcome distraction.  As were thoughts of her. 

Heather wrote to me.

What a lift it is to my day.

You speak of dreams of me and I read only this: you care for me.

You speak of worrying that you could hurt me and I read only this: you care about me.

You speak of knowing how deeply I trust you and I read only this: you know how deeply I care for and about you.

Who can say what life will bring us?  Not me. But I can say this ... there is always the possibility that lovers can hurt each other. Sometimes, it is malicious; sometimes, it is circumstance; sometimes, it happens even when the last thing desired is to hurt the other. I have been around this world long enough to know this one thing about lovers: where there is love, there is risk. Don't be afraid to risk, Heather. I no longer am. Let's take the risk together. Whatever happens, I will always remember that you are the type of person who is more afraid of hurting me than of me hurting you. I am not sure I've known anyone who's felt that way about me before.

It's an interesting thing, though, isn't it? I thought about that for so long after I first got your email. For days now, I've let it filter through all my normal thought processes. The oddest thing ... I've always been afraid that I'll be the one to hurt you. I never once thought about the possibility that you'd hurt me. And I think today is when I figured out why. I think it's because I know that if it happened that you would hurt me, it would devastate you. There's something so powerful and strong in that one sentiment. I would always know it, too. I would always carry it in my heart that you would be wounding yourself.

I am not saying it won't happen ... I am saying that I don't want to live this love worrying that it can happen. To do so would mean we were always keeping one foot on the ground. Let's fly instead.

Okay, one last thing. You are as bad as Annie with this portal shit and searching for meanings. Can't you stop that? Ah, what am I saying? Of course you can't. And truthfully? I wouldn't want either of you to stop. It fascinates me to watch your minds worry over these things and to witness the different things that you wish to know about the meanings behind the mysteries that brought us all together here.

A woman to anchor me. I cannot get that image out of my mind. 

But as for this World existing to address the things that we should have addressed in our other worlds? It's not how I view it. I think it might be more a matter of parallel worlds and none of them are "right" -- they are just different in some ways and the same in others. But in this one, we have chosen to stay and make it the place we count on for our future. I also am still worried that messing around with our other worlds invites disaster back there, and possibly here as well.

I adore how you ended your letter. Don't you find that things always seem to make more sense when you've found yourself wrapped up in the arms of someone you love? I know I do. That's why I share that sentiment.

Abrazos,

Dean

'Still worried that messing around with our other world invites disaster back there and possibly here as well.'  It is almost shocking how right I was then.... though the jury is still out whether I should chalk that bit of insight up to irony, serendipity, or Dea.

I was in Athens, waiting yet again, when I got her reply.

Dean,

You are a very wise man.  As always, your words leave me reeling.  Giddy.  Contemplative.  I have so much to say and I don't have even the slightest idea where to start - but I think, for now, I will simply begin and end with this:

You speak of dreams of me and I read only this: you care for me.
You speak of worrying that you could hurt me and I read only this: you care about me.

It is curious what you pick up on.  Man, if you only knew how long I agonized over those words I wrote to you in that email.  And then this:

Don't be afraid to risk, Heather. I no longer am. Let's take the risk together. 

A risk then.  I censored myself before.  What I wanted to say was this:  I love you.  Truly.  Deeply. 

Always,

Heather

I was floored by her words.  I knew what we had was special.... but I have also watched her.  Read her words.  Seen how she spoke of her time with the others.  Love is not a word she uses carelessly.  At the time, I remember feeling overwhelmed she would take such a risk for me.  Now?  Now I fully understood the enormity of the risk she'd taken in sharing those words. 

She'd been carrying Tristan when she wrote them.

That still blows my mind.  I hope Dea was paying attention.  Isn't that proof of real courage?  Proof she'd embraced the Game and tried to keep her heart open even after finding her lifetime love?  And Jesus- Lachlan.  I'd always thought of him as a bit of a loose cannon- but now... now I know he played his hand with more grace and skill than I'd have done in the same situation if it had been Gen carrying my child. 

And I think it was some blend of all those things that allowed me to appreciate this one last sunrise. 

Love is a risk.  We took it.  We loved.  We hurt.  And the thing that kills me is that I know what this is doing to her.  I know what I feel in my chest is reflected in hers because she loves me.  When I hurt- she does too.

I smiled into her hair.  "I'm not sorry I took the risk, honey."

She met my eyes and her hand was soft in mine.  She smiled this beautiful smile that touched her eyes too.  "I'm not either."  I kissed her.  Gently.  Softly.  The barest brush of my lips on hers.  A precursor to the goodbye I wasn't sure I knew how to say. 

Above us, the sky had turned a vibrant orangey pink.  In some strange way, it almost seemed to be echoing what was happening between us here.  Deep purple had given way to warmer, lighter colors.  Now the sky was on fire.... and soon, soon it would begin to fade to a soft calm blue.  And then we would say goodbye. 

"Will you sit with me a little longer, Dean?"  I nodded and tucked the blankets around us, snuggling her into my chest.  I wasn't about to rush a single moment of this.  For a few minutes, we simply stared out at the sunrise and I just enjoyed feeling her chest rise and fall against my own as she breathed.  It is one of my favorite little details.  A sound and rhythm that is distinct to her alone.   

I felt her quiet laughter as she threaded her fingers with mine.  "What?"

"You wouldn't believe how red your hair looks in this light."  I couldn't help but laugh.  She said the same thing to me that morning on Tortola when we shared a sunrise for the very first time.  But then her soft giggle quieted and she became more serious.  "I need to tell you something before- before I go.  Something about what happened to me while I was with Lach in Italy."

I nodded.    

"I know it's going to be hard for you... but I made a promise to someone that if I ever saw you again that I'd pass on a message for him."

I was intrigued but also a bit amused.  She'd never been a linear thinker.  I was also concerned.  She's always careful like this with me when she's got something to say she thinks will be difficult for me to hear.  And she's usually right about that.  It was the same tone that had been in her voice when she told me she'd once known a Dean in her past.  And the same when she'd told me about the baby.  And when she and Terry and given me back the picture of Gen I though was lost to me forever.

"A promise to who, honey?" 

"Your grandfather."  She gave me a few moments for that to sink in and then told me this wild story about meeting him at this little hospital in Italy.  How he'd sassed her like I had.  How she'd told him about me in his last moments.  That I was a good man.  That I'd found love.  She told me how she'd sat with him while he died. 

God.  The things she told him.  That is so like her.  And it says so much about who she is inside and what she values.  Of everything she could have said, she told him I'd known real love.  Such a simple thing- but it says so much.  In one breath, she told him I was happy.  That I hadn't been alone.  That I was capable of trust.  That I was the kind of man who could be trusted by others.  That I was lucky enough to find someone worth taking a risk for.  That someone had seen me as a person worth taking a risk on.  Isn't that what every parent and grandparent wants to hear? 

Her eyes searched mine.  "You all right?"  

I nodded.  "What was his message?"

She took a deep breath.  "This is where it gets hard, Dean."  This is where it gets hard?  The hair on the back of my neck stood on end.  "He was nearly gone when I told him about you.... in that twilight place between this world and the next.  When I told him you'd found love... he knew her name.  He said Gen was with him."  She put her hand on my arm.  "The message is from her, Dean."

For the first time since we came out here, I felt my eyes grow wet.  I just shook my head.  Isn't that just like Dea?  To give the most skeptical among us a message like this.  One that required such blind faith to accept? 

"Do you want me to tell you?"  I knew I could say no and she'd never breathe a word of it to me.  It all came down to faith.  Did I believe?  But the thing is.... with Gen- there will never be a time when she wasn't worth the risk.  I just nodded, not quite trusting myself to speak.

"She was waiting for you.  She said to tell you not to take any wooden nickels."  

I knew then, in that moment, that it was real.  I believed.  Not because those had been my last words to her before she died... but because it was just so utterly Gen.  She was never one for drama and yet, she could always catch me unaware.  Drop me on my ass just like that.  I could imagine how she would smile and how her eyes would shine knowing every other woman in the world would have had some kind of angsty message of star-crossed love.... and what do I get?  Some sass.  Heh.  That is so Gen. 

Wooden nickels.  It's one of our little details, you know?  Has a whole story and everything... and it's one only we know.  That's what makes it so damned good.  Her message?  It wasn't just sass.  It was also so very much more.  Something nobody in the world but me would understand.  And to have that from her, today of all days, was like this reminder that she was still there to pick me up when I fell. 

And my sweet Heather.  She's always been this person who's helped me remember Gen in ways that I am just so incredibly thankful for.  Do you know what an incredible gift it is to be able to share your memories of someone special with a person who can see what they mean to you?  She listened to me talk.  She asked questions.  She shared in the joy of the telling.  She talked the old man into going back for the picture I thought was lost forever.  And in opening my heart to her about Gen, it brought it back to me tenfold. 

Heather has always been a person who made Gen's memory brighter for me, and that she could do it again, now... It spoke of how well she knew my heart that the last loving act between us was the sharing of a secret that helped me touch my Gen.  Not in a way that would keep me from moving on in the future, but in a way that would help give me the strength to go forward alone.

We stood slowly.  The last tinge of pink was fading from the sky.  It hit me then, all at once.  This was really it.  The last time I'd ever get to hold her like this.  I was going to lose her.  I was going to lose them all.  My favorite dance partner.  My lover.  My rival.  My best friend.  Tristan and Maia... who were the closest thing to children I would ever have.  I had thought I was prepared for this... but as I wrapped my arms around her, this choking grief closed like a fist around my heart.  I had held it together with Lachlan... but whatever grace I thought I'd had crumbled to dust.

I couldn't make myself let go.  She felt the shift in me and just held me tight.  We didn't kiss or talk.  She just took a moment, put her face against my neck and breathed me in one last time.  I gathered what courage I had and whispered to her.  "Go."  Neither of us moved.  "I need you to help me let you go."  I needed her help to let them all go.  There was no shame in sharing my weakness.  I had always been safe with her. 

She pulled away and touched my cheek, with affection and love.  Her hands gently took mine from around her waist and she pressed a single kiss into my palm before closing my fingers over it.  She was smiling.  We turned away together.  I heard her go back inside.  I stayed at the edge of the deck, my fist closed tight and pressed hard over my heart as I stared out at the sky.  The last of the color had gone now, leaving only a soft, lonely blue. 

I stood there at the rail for a long time before I was finally ready.  I opened my hand and let go.... and somehow found the strength to say goodbye.