EPILOGUE

For their first date they go rock climbing. There's lots of touching, helping each other into the harnesses and all. There's lots of giggling. Some awkwardness, on both of their parts, but isn't that what a first date is supposed to be—talking and giggling and mystery and energy and the warm rush of possibilities?

Oh, the possibilities.

He walks her to her door and this is ridiculous, their nervousness; it's like they haven't spent the last eight years side by side.

But not like this, they haven't. And so he leans down, and her eyes are bright and welcoming and her lips are so vibrantly alive that he has to smile into the kiss, which ruins the moment a little because she pulls away and demands to know what's so funny, but it doesn't matter because there's another moment after that and then another and then another.

Moments all their lives, until they're both old, both retired from the force. No more cases. No more death to poke and prod every day.

But still moments.

Still possibilities.

Still warmth.

It's warm now, this twilight in May. They sit in rocking chairs on their porch, holding hands, and they watch the sun set.

This was not easy, getting to this point. There were fights, and stillness, and withdrawals. He made her cry more than once, and she made him cry a couple of times, too.

But they're partners.

He knows her so well now, after thirty years of being together and eight of wishing they were. He knows how every inch of her feels under his fingers. He knows that she believes in aliens, a little, even though she doesn't want to--and he knows that he no longer believes in ghosts. He knows when she's going to like a certain book and when she's not, and he knows the specific face she makes whenever Ross, retired too, calls them to see how they're both doing.

But every day there's still something new, he discovers.

And maybe he'll never know it all, or have all the answers; maybe there will always be parts of her that are a mystery to him—but he's going to die exploring, trying to figure it all out.

He loves it.

He loves her.

And, wonder of wonders, she loves him back.

The mystery of it all.

The beauty.

His Stonehenge.

~~Complete~~