My bounty is as boundless as the sea,

My love as deep. The more I give to thee,

The more I have, for both are infinite.

~ Romeo and Juliet (2.2.133-35)

xxx

In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages.

In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Nature"

xxx

When she thought about it, Marian could barely believe it was true – after spending her entire life thus far deep within the prairies of Iowa, she was moments away from seeing the ocean for the first time.

As much as she'd always been perfectly content just where she was, a woman as well-read as she was couldn't help but dream of faraway places – and she'd been fortunate enough to end up with a husband who was happy to live with her in their cozy house in Iowa but still no stranger to travel and excitement.

Harold had promised her years ago that he would bring her to the ocean someday, but when he'd announced this trip to her at Christmas, Marian couldn't have been more shocked. Their children were still so young that she'd figured that it would be years before she and Harold could do something as frivolous as traveling for non-band-related purposes, and at first she'd doubted if doing so would really be wise. But in truth, this opportunity had, in a certain way, arisen at the perfect time – in fact, it felt almost necessary.

The past couple of years had been shrouded in a sort of storm cloud of worry and fear – while many of River City's young men were off in Europe risking their lives in the war, even those at home could not feel safe while the threat of Spanish influenza menaced the world. Even though happier moments could still be found in those troubled times, it was hard to forget what was happening when there was nearly always a dark, distant expression on the face of at least one person that one encountered each day – though Marian was fortunate enough not to be in such a position herself, so many people she knew had a son, a husband, an uncle or a brother at war, or were anxiously awaiting some sign of improvement of a sick relative or friend. Gloomily, she'd wondered if anybody would ever again know what it felt like to truly relax and feel at peace.

But things were finally looking up these days, at least for those who had not had their lives permanently altered by these events – and somehow, by the grace of Providence alone, nobody among their circle of family and friends had been lost. Over the past winter, the boys had come home from Europe little by little, and at the same time, the reports of disease from near and far had mercifully slowed to a halt as well. By the time spring came, it was like the nation was able to breathe a collective sigh of relief – and the librarian and music professor were both ready to learn how to be carefree once more.

The day-to-day exhaustion of parenthood would have taken enough of a toll on Harold and Marian if the world hadn't been in turmoil, but the additional stress brought on by these universal misfortunes had subdued the romance in their lives even further. They had clung close together every night, but much more rarely sought the opportunity to make love – though their feelings for each other had not lessened in the least, for a time it seemed that they had lost the ability to let go and revel in each other as they used to. Even with the person that one adores above all others, it was difficult to surrender to joy and desire when one always has a knot in one's stomach, Marian reflected. They had gotten into the habit of loving each other for comfort and security, but not simply to delight in bringing each other pleasure.

In recent months, as their long-held fears had finally faded away, they had managed to rekindle their passion, but both of them also knew that this trip would be just what they needed to solidify their reconnection for good – a true new beginning, a true second honeymoon. Alone together in a beautiful and exciting new place, they could simply learn how to be again – to be a man and woman madly in love with nothing, real or imagined, to keep them apart.

When he'd long ago promised to take her to the ocean, Harold had never given her any indication of where he thought they might go. Certainly, there was a staggering array of choices, so Marian was puzzled – but excited, too – to learn that he had decided upon Sonoma County, California, a place that she had never even heard of, much less thought of visiting. Harold had never been there before, either – practically a requirement for any place they could dare to travel! – but he promised her that he'd done quite extensive research and chosen the northern Californian coast for its wondrous variety of natural beauty and what seemed to him like a wonderfully romantic atmosphere.

Getting there had been an adventure in itself – eye-opening, but certainly not relaxing. The librarian had seen mountains and desert for the first time in her life, and had been delighted and fascinated at this introduction to the wide world that lay outside Iowa, but even such novelties tended to look bleakly monotonous when hour after hour of the same landscapes passed them by outside the windows of the train. Marian supposed that it was a testament to their partnership that they had been able to make it through several days of nearly nonstop travel without ending up unable to stand the sight of each other. The thrill of being completely alone together and free of all obligations for the first time in years had probably helped quite a bit, though!

Now Marian could understand, for the first time, the appeal that living on the road must have once held for Harold – she certainly wouldn't have wanted to live that way permanently, but it was incredibly exciting to watch the world around her change day by day, never knowing what sort of place they might see next. More than once she'd wondered what they might have been able to find in certain places if they'd had the liberty to stay there. Still, she never felt too wistful for the locales they had to pass by – as stunning as they could be, her heart was set on the ocean.

Barely a ten-minute walk from the shore, their hotel room was unlike any Marian had ever seen, about as far from the Victorian style as any room could be. The walls and floor had the look of weathered wood, but, as this was quite a fine hotel, the librarian suspected that they were rather deliberately so. High angled ceilings, huge windows pouring in light, and immaculate white linen on the bed and flowing curtains made the room feel wonderfully open and spacious – it was the kind of place where one could be truly, utterly carefree, Marian thought, and she fully intended to be.

Just not right now.

It was really saying something that anything could draw the Hills out of that hotel room at that point. After a couple of nights spent in the relatively comfortable but still cramped sleeping quarters in their train compartment, the huge, comfortable bed looked extremely inviting – for sleeping purposes as much as for amorous ones! – but even on the way from the train to the hotel, they'd been able to smell the salt on the air, hear the seagulls calling and the waves crashing, and Marian knew that she simply couldn't wait any longer to finally see the ocean that she'd dreamed about for so long.

In truth, it had been a close call. Harold was fully aware that his wife wanted to head down to the ocean as soon as they had divested themselves of their luggage, but the temptation of the room, the bed, the solitude, proved to be too much. When she sat on the edge of the bed – just to see what it felt like, if it was really as wonderfully soft as it looked, and it was – she was surprised and yet not surprised when her dear music professor stepped between her legs and crushed her mouth to his own, his hands sliding up under her skirt to stroke the soft, bare skin of her upper thighs, not actually touching any intimate areas but causing them to react strongly anyway. His touch electrified her, and the librarian couldn't help writhing in his arms, desperate for closer contact, sighing her approval between fierce kisses and trailing her hands across his chest.

And then, too soon, it was over – after all, his only intention had been to tease her a little bit. When he pulled back, his gaze was smoldering, but his lips formed a wavering smile. "Ready to go, Mrs. Hill?"

Marian clung to his lapels, breath coming quickly, eyes wide. She wasn't sure how to interpret that – frankly, she wasn't sure how she wanted to interpret that, for she suspected that Harold would accept whatever interpretation she chose, regardless of his original intentions – but the faint, still-unfamiliar call of a seagull outside brought her back to herself, and she settled on a compromise between her warring desires.

"Why don't we head down to the beach – just for fifteen minutes?" she suggested, intending to sound coy but unable to hide the raw longing in her voice or her eyes.

Her husband looked back at her with equal fervor and adoration as he gently pulled her skirt back down and smoothed it over her legs. "Fifteen minutes," he agreed.

xxx

When they at last crested the hill of the dunes and stepped off the boardwalk, the sight stole Marian's breath away. And, though she couldn't tear her eyes from what she was seeing for a single moment, she could somehow sense that, even in the presence of such a view, Harold was watching her reaction most intently of all.

Her first thought was that it was everywhere, as far as the eye could see in every direction except where the waves broke on the shore. But any attempt to describe it in words failed again and again – it was unlike anything she had ever known or tried to imagine, in a class all by itself.

When she could find her voice, she laughed aloud in sheer joy and amazement, and she was half inclined to simply run down the beach to get nearer to the water immediately, but it was difficult enough to even walk on the soft sand, and it didn't help that the heels of her boots kept sinking in independently of the rest of her foot – thankfully, Harold was holding tightly to her hand to keep her from falling. But as they neared the water, the sand grew firmer, and despite her every effort to remain dignified, Marian couldn't help but pick up her pace, tugging her husband along behind her.

There were people swimming and wading at the water's edge, of course, but the area that was shallow enough to allow for such activity was tiny compared to the full scope of what she could see – she couldn't even imagine how deep it must have been at the horizon, and beyond and beyond, for there were not enough "beyonds" to encompass what lay in front of her, knowing that even this vastness was a miniscule sliver of the immense Pacific.

"Oh, Harold – I can't believe it!" she cried at last, throwing her arms around his waist and pulling him close. "I can't believe it's even real. I feel like I've stepped into the pages of a book! Thank you so very much for bringing me here."

The music professor was staring out into the distance, too, his warm brown eyes glowing with awe. "I had practically forgotten what it's really like – I hadn't been near an ocean for several years even before I came to River City." He turned to her and kissed her forehead, the happiness on his face magnified by hers. "But that certainly can't be anything like seeing it for the first time."

"It's just so expansive," she exclaimed, letting herself sink down onto the sand, not even caring that they had no towel or blanket on which to sit. "I've looked out over fields of grass or corn that went on as far I could see, but I've always known that somewhere in the distance, there was town or a farmhouse, surely not more than an hour's walk. But the ocean – it's as if we're standing on the very edge of the world. If one traced a straight line out from where we were standing, why, there'd be nothing but water and more water all the way to somewhere in the Orient!"

"Maybe there're two people having this same conversation on the other side," he noted, amused, as he sat down beside her.

Marian smiled at the thought. "Wouldn't that be – " She stopped abruptly and wrinkled her nose at him. "Actually, I believe it would be the wee hours of the morning there."

Unwilling to admit defeat, Harold raised his eyebrows in playful defiance. "Well, maybe they're two people who work the night shift!"

"Ridiculous, but not impossible – just like all your ideas," she conceded, kissing his cheek.

As she attempted to get comfortable where she was sitting, Marian noticed her hand brush something flat and hard in the sand beside her. She picked the mysterious object up, letting the sand fall away from it, and examined it in fascination – a pure white seashell, shaped vaguely like a fan. It was such a simple thing that she felt almost surprised that it was completely new to her, but it was – she'd never seen a seashell outside of drawings.

"Oh, look." She proudly presented her discovery to Harold, as thrilled as if she'd struck solid gold. "Here I thought that we might have to go hunting to see any, and I've found my first seashell without even trying! Isn't it incredible?" She blushed a little then, realizing how childish her excitement must have sounded to him. "Oh – I sound like Charlotte when she finds one of her pretty rocks, I suppose."

"Nothing wrong with that," Harold assured her with a grin. "A seashell is quite an amazing thing – and even though I've been by the ocean before, I never bothered to pay much mind to shells. If that's what you want, I'd love to see all the different kinds of shells we could find here."

"Let's look for them, then," the librarian responded fervently. "I'd imagined that we could collect some to bring home. We'll fill our bedroom with them so we can always have a little bit of the sea with us! Of course, I don't want to create clutter, but I'm sure we'll think of what to do with them later. And, we must bring enough home for the children as well – oh, and I suppose my mother would like very much to have some." Abashed, she took a deep breath to halt her fanciful ramblings. "I'm – I'm sounding like Charlotte again."

"Well, she gets it from her mother, then, doesn't she?" He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. "I love watching your Irish imagination come out, darling – you don't need to hide it. I'm just happy to see you happy."

"Yes – I'm very happy right now," she confessed, her voice soft and sweet, and she leaned her head against his shoulder.

The librarian held her first shell up to the sunlight to examine it more closely, smiling as the curved inside glinted with iridescent colors.

She recognized what she was seeing immediately – mother-of-pearl, like the ornamentations on so many of the band instruments, or the buttons on some of her blouses. And now, here it was in nature, not anything to do with pearls, but just the inside of a deceptively white shell – it was incredible, the things that were in the world that she hadn't dreamed of even in her vast literary experiences.

Just seeing the ocean had awakened in her a whole new idea of what a horizon could be, and she realized that she could learn to see her personal horizons in the same way – not boundaries, but boundless. She was already learning what was beyond her horizons, but she wanted to learn more, and what better opportunity could she have to explore them than out here, where everything was new and she'd already traveled far away from the familiar little corner of the world that she'd known?

Filled with more excitement than ever, the librarian turned to the man she loved and squeezed his hand fiercely in her own, and in return he gave her a slightly bemused but intensely affectionate look. He always spoke of how she was the one who gave him the confidence and courage to achieve everything good he'd ever done, but he was the source of all her boldness as well – and with Harold by her side, Marian knew that she could find the strength to do absolutely anything in the world.

xxx

Of course, once they returned to their hotel room shortly after, it wouldn't have mattered where in the world they were. All that mattered was that they were alone, with nothing at all to concern them except exploring one another as thoroughly as they intended to explore the California coast – and not just for one night, like the occasional nights they had to themselves when the children stayed with their grandmother or a friend, but day after blissful day for over a month, the way it had been in the earliest days of their marriage.

They'd had a couple of fumbling trysts in the narrow beds of their private sleeping compartment on the train, but they'd been constricted physically and forced to be even quieter than when the children slept in nearby rooms. Now, at long last, they were free to fully indulge every desire that they'd been teasing out of each other for the past few days – weeks – months, even.

So, when they'd arrived at the room, they hadn't wasted a moment in resuming what they had so briefly started before. Their hands roamed over every inch of each other as if it were the first time they'd ever been at liberty to do so, tugging at each other's fastenings so desperately that it rather compromised their efficiency at undressing.

Even in the midst of their fervor, they had to stop and laugh when he had trouble getting her boot off, or when she found herself suddenly unable to make sense of the knot of his tie – they'd done this hundreds upon hundreds of times, yet here they were, fumbling like a pair of foolish teenagers. That was certainly one way to make everything between them feel new again!

As if things couldn't have gotten any sillier, as they tumbled onto the bed at last, they were arrested by a peculiar snapping sound.

Marian immediately sat up in alarm, her eyes darting all over and hands patting down the covers to determine what they might have broken. "Did that come from the bed? Is there something wrong with it, do you think?"

Harold winced, his hands flying to his pockets. "No, I know what it is." When he held out his hands again, they contained several white-and-gray fragments that were quickly recognizable as bits and pieces of some of the shells they'd picked up on the beach.

"Oh!" The librarian laughed and shook her head, taking the fragments from him and letting them fall to the bedside table – she wanted him far too much to concern herself with disposing of them right now. "Clearly, keeping these in your pockets wasn't the best idea – I guess next time we collect some, we ought to bring some kind of container – "

Even as she spoke, Harold was already drawing her back to him, covering her cheeks and throat with heated, hungry kisses, unbuttoning and unlacing her blouse and girdle and brassiere, and as every moment passed Marian was becoming less and less interested in discussing such practical matters. Her words trailed off into small whimpers pleading for him to touch her more and more – she was vaguely disoriented when her husband spoke again, the vibrations of his voice tickling the skin of her neck.

"Our first time making love in this room, and we're already breaking things?" He pulled back to look at her, with a brilliant, fervent grin lighting his face. "We're setting the bar high for this honeymoon, I must say. I can't wait to see what else we might manage to do…"

Marian smiled, thrilling with anticipation not only for what they were about to do but for all the long, idyllic days that lay ahead of them in the next month. "Neither can I."

It was several hours before they gave any mind to broken seashells again.

xxx

General disclaimer for this fic: I did quite a bit of research for this story, but I freely admit that I may have taken some liberties with geography here, in terms of the proximity of the areas to each other and how easy it would be to travel between them, especially in 1919… if you happen to be familiar with any of the areas described, dear reader, please don't kill me :P