The rain began in the morning, a light dusting of damp, escalating to a downpour by noon. Soon the harbor's collective filth would be flowing through the gutters, brown and gurgling, until the cobbles were washed clean of a year's detritus. Pirates and law-abiding citizens alike retreated to their homes or to various purveyors of alcohol to escape from the chilly rain; by twilight the skies were black with thunderclouds, and by nightfall the entire city was soaked to the gills.

Stu sat alone on the foot of his bed, his hands held open in his lap. He stared at the lines and creases in his palms as if noticing them for the first time. A little lamp by the bed sputtered and flicked oil onto the stained wallpaper.

Only a few hours before he and Fion had emerged, gasping with laughter, from a bright and cheery tavern door, and he had held out his coat to shelter her from the unexpected rain. It came every year like clockwork, but he had forgotten how it felt, how thunder could shake you to your core and lightning make you jump like a nervous child.

The last week had been a blur of strange emotions. They had run together like floodwaters, happiness indistinguishable from sadness, regret and anger and bitterness and joy combined in an exhilarating mess. He and Fion had been inseparable during the days, and increasingly during the evenings, when she had forced him to follow her to taverns and bars. They had chatted happily even as something inside him was raging: they were acting as they always had, but something inside him had changed, a tiny invisible setting adjusted, and nothing would ever be the same, not really.

And they had bade each other goodnight as usual, with the odd quiet politeness that always followed these outings, and a thousand unspoken things filled his ears so that he could barely hear her whisper "good night."

Now he mulled them over in his mind once more. They tasted bitter and ached for want of being spoken, but they drowned out the evil memories of the time he had spent in the jail. He had barely thought about his brush with death in the last seven days. Too much of that time had been spent in good company.

He found himself standing, and a rush of blackness and adrenaline blinded him.

Were those his hands on the frame of the door, his shadow hovering over the decayed wood? Was that the carpet of the hallway beneath his feet, or was he still sitting on the edge of the bed, feeling sorry for himself, seething over his lot in life, over the promises he had made before he had known how they would ruin him?

Was that really the door to Fion's before his eyes? Was he putting his head in his hands now, content to lie back and fall asleep, or was he pushing it open and stepping into the room?

It could have been that Stu was dreaming, slumped somewhere within Hawke's large mansion. Fion before him, an elaborate mirage with her mouth hung slightly open, her corset undone. Sitting on her bed with her fingers tangled in the laces.

She might not have been there at all, "Stuart..." Barely audible over the rain, which was so loud at night. The first night of the rains.

They had parted just a short time before, reluctantly. Always reluctantly. Fion did not want to push or pry or lose him again. She was terrified of losing him again.

Fion had read a romance novel once. This was nothing like that. He hadn't even crossed the room yet and her bodice was still on. Stu looked real, not like the novel at all. Fion wasn't sure she had legs anymore, she couldn't feel them. She was too surprised.

She couldn't move, so she looked at him. His broad shoulders, his scars, his crumpled shirt and haunted eyes and his hand on the door. She found him to be familiar. And new, yes. He'd always hidden that look before. She'd never seen that look, before.

"Stu?" She said, not knowing what she was asking, knowing that she wanted him close.

Stuart Grey saw the rest of his life flashing before his eyes in a single instant.

His cosy little tavern shut down, no longer a necessity in the brewing war, which was miles away, ended in some vague peaceful resolution. Ginny in a sun dress, playing in a garden with Piran. Sunlight on red tiles, falling gently through the pergola roof. Fion with a dress shop in the country and a ring on her finger and a smile on her face. A view of the sea.

For one moment, it was as solid as stone, a single possibility for his lifeline to follow, more real than any promise or any prayer. That Stu lived out his many years in quiet and peace, a whole lifetime in the span of a moment.

Then it ended, and he was back in the pivotal moment again, knowing how futile it was to search for such an ending again. To imagine it should have been enough. The clock's hand moved and he was across the room, moving like a sleepwalker, and he lifted her off the side of the bed and into his arms. He kissed her.

A lifetime's sleepless nights, when the imagination runs wildest and most feverish, could never have prepared him for the warmth of her face and the feel of her lips on his, how small and delicate her body felt, how close and real her heartbeat was. He had always imagined this moment as a brief one, lasting only for the flutter of an eye before she pushed him away and everything was destroyed, but he didn't expect it now. There was no future to consider, and no past. Something inside him had shattered.

Fion was broken, clinging, pressing into him as he kissed her and she wondered why he never had before. Why she hadn't, either. She did not push him away, just made a sound, a half-sob against his lips and then there was no space between. Her hands were shaking with small tremors and she did not know where to put them. She touched his face, his hair, his shoulder.

She thought about him dying, about how she had almost lost him, never been able to touch him again. Even the faintest thought was devastating. She tugged at his belt, backward, closer to the bed.

Don't leave me again. She thought, please don't leave me again.

There were no past mistakes, no bad decisions, no absent lovers. There was no hurt worse than the thought of turning him away. She loved him. It was not simple. She loved who he was, even if that had almost taken him away from her. She didn't want to wound him worse and she felt like a knife that was sharp and in his hands. She always hurt the ones she loved.

No words to stand between them now, just her palm on his cheek and her finger curled around his belt.

The voices in his head had ceased their clamoring, and there was a vacuum of silence now, wonderful silence as cool and cleansing as a deep pool of water.

It had been burning to be said for almost a decade: he loved her. He had wanted to burst into her room and say so, to declare her the one he'd always wanted, to reveal how long he'd denied it and hidden it and nursed it like a wound, lusted after her, tortured himself with his ignorance of her. But his mouth was otherwise occupied now, and there was no need to add to what it was saying.

It was someone else that had been so tightly wound and concerned and stoic. He pulled her into him, lost in the heat and friction and breath. His hands explored her delicate shoulder blades, the nape of her neck, her dark hair.

The bodice was his current nemesis. He had not undone one in many, many years. It was a worthy opponent, but he was determined; slackened, the strings gave way.

Their mouths slipped apart for a moment, as Stuart's hands grappled with the binding. Fion pressed her lips to the spot just beneath Stu's ear. Her hands were fumbling at his shirt, slipping underneath to feel his stomach. The muscle and the heat as she lay her palm against it.

"Wait, let me." She pulled away for a moment to slip it over her head. Completely unlacing the damn thing would take forever.

Her shirt buttons were partly undone, her hair a mess. Her face was red. Her lips were swollen. Her breasts were lower now without the corset to support them and her arm curled around her torso self-consciously, with the other she put the bodice down on the chair next to her bed.

She undid the rest of the buttons, slowly, looking at him. Trying not to feel scared. She folded the shirt and put it aside. She only had her skirt now. She reached for him. She pressed her lips to his neck, again, she liked his neck. She undid his belt buckle.

"Come to bed with me." She whispered, looking up, then across to check the door was closed. It was. "Please."

He watched her, frozen, as she removed her shirt, a lump forming in his throat. Reality was slowly catching up to him; he wondered if he was asleep now, face pressed against the pillow, imagining that this was happening. But it was a hollow thought. When one is truly awake, it's difficult to confuse the waking state with that of a dream. Reality caused his skin to prickle in the chilly air and his lips to burn where she had kissed him.

He pushed the doubt forcibly out of his mind as she nestled her head in his neck. Without a word he pushed her gently back towards the bed, his face buried in her hair.

(( fade to black ))