The morning sun had come and gone, climbing high into the sky at its noonday peak. This room was now empty; tousled sheets and trail of bedclothes like little graces of presence now past. There was a hush, a quiet; the warm afternoon glow giving everything a hazy softness. A coat was draped forgotten over the back of a desk chair, tiny chunks of sand forming a small pile on the floor beneath. The twisted sheets marked the passage of some sweet struggle, as did the heady scent of her perfume on pillow. They had made it back here, somehow - away from the push and pull of the tide, the rough scrape of the sand. The song of the ocean and the inevitable passage of time were like a distant dream, in this small sanctuary. A refuge in the storm. To come together and find a kind of answer to the ghosts of the past in the rhythm of their bodies. The electric heat of skin on skin, the roughness and near-violence of it - and its opposite; the quieter, sweeter things. An epilogue.

The door opened and a dark figure stood there, blinking in the light. Barefoot, he padded through his little domain, careful not to disturb anything, content to take it in as it was - to let the peace he felt saturate him to his core. Wash shut the door and leaned against it, a pair of baggy sweat pants and a worn t-shirt clinging to his damp body. He felt tired, sore; a delicious ache in his muscles that reminded him of what he- what they- had done. Was it wrong, to want something so simple? To crave this experience; to let it be an end in and of itself? He felt as if something inside him - a knot he hadn't known was there, a tiny seed wrought of pain and people left behind - had finally loosened its hold on him. He was baptized in flame, marked for better or worse by the events of that night. A pure, clean thing.

If this was sin, then he was a sinner unrepentant.

He remembered how good it had felt, when he woke, to realize he had slept at all - to realize she was still there, not forever; perhaps for a day, a night, an hour - and to find her all the sweeter for it. A forbidden thing, a strange and intoxicating fruit. The way she fit into the circle of his arm, the sight of her hair trailing across her face. Looking up at her - the weight of her body in his arms. It had been a sharing, raw and primal and nevertheless spiritual. Fulfilling a void; a need; one into the other. The sensation of the scalding water on his back as they'd gone to clean up - contrasting against the slick moisture on her skin, steam rising around them and swallowing their passion in a cleansing warmth. Her pale, pale hands pressed to his own darker ones.

Wash had found little sleep that night, and dark circles now ringed his eyes. He smiled in spite of himself. He should feel guilty, he should doubt, but... Perhaps it was exactly what he had needed, in that moment. A hand to hold - a body to envelop in his. To cast aside his past, his doubts, his worries, for one long, shining night. He was truly blessed, he realized in that moment; that even with the knowledge of what lay ahead - the violence, the fear, the uncertainty - that they were still capable of that kind of honesty. This intimacy. New memories to wash away the old. A new flame to warm him, for the long winter ahead - the acceptance and quiet joy that came with letting someone see you; really see into the depths of who you were. And to not be turned away, however briefly. To have that kind of primal emotion met with understanding; to let go of of the guilt and the shame and the loneliness.

A day. A night. An hour.

He sighed, his breath blowing out slowly, and he could still taste her lips on his skin. With that breath, he decided - to let it be. Let this stand as a testament of their friendship then, that he could let her have this moment unsullied by meaning and attachments. That she could go as she came; with a kiss, a sigh, and a heartfelt farewell. Sasha had let him in as he had let her, and he valued that more than he could express. It would probably cost him later - there would be guilt, and sadness; not for what had happened, but for what it meant. For the emotions and the memories and the doors it closed; doors perhaps long since shut. But not today - not now.

Wash closed his eyes and instead was content to linger upon the doors it had opened.

"For these disorders wouldst thou find a cure,
Such cure as human frailty would admit?
Drive from thee anxious cares; let reason curb
Thy passions; and with cheerful heart enjoy
That little which the world affords; for here,
Though vain the hopes of perfect happiness,
Yet still the road of life, rugged at best,
Is not without its comforts -
Wouldst thou their sweetness taste, look up to heaven,
And praise the all-bounteous Donor, who bestows
The power to use aright."