She is smiling at him, not a trace of irony in her eyes, and that is how he knows it is a dream.
The air curls moist and heavy around them, and it tastes of mangoes: something latent twists and stretches in the pit of his stomach.
Her hair is loose and free around her shadowed face, like it hasn't been in years, the tendrils dripping with saltwater, and the gun casually clutched in her left hand fits better than his ring ever did, he thinks. The blow is dull under his ribcage, a familiar pain he registers but does not flinch at.
She is almost a part of the lush green gloom, predator and prey all at once (they are in the jungle, of course they are in the jungle, the spangled deep foliage above and below them a default setting for their rendezvous). She sways towards him slightly, or at least he wants her to, just slightly, and he takes four stumbling steps in her direction because he misses the feel of her skin. (And perhaps it is not a dream, perhaps it is not a hallucination, perhaps the plane has crashed at last and he is home, his heart whispers hopefully.)
She is no longer smiling as he reaches her, and maybe it is a tear that glistens on her cheek or maybe it is only perspiration or seawater or the alcohol that burns in his throat; but that's irrelevant speculation, because this will end soon, as it always does. He cradles her warm cheek in his palm for one moment, her wet hair dripping cold and strong through his numb fingers, and yet somehow he cannot quite feel her through the smoky haze that seems to have infiltrated his vision and his senses. She leans into his trembling hand ever so briefly and then she is gone.
The day turns to night and it is the end of the world with an abrupt crackling of thunder and electricity behind his eyes.
He laughs aloud as reality thuds in his chest (the flight attendant asks if he is all right and the plane's engines whir busily in his ears). He laughs, because of course it has to be raining, and couldn't his subconscious have come up with something just a little more original?