Time is an abominable thing. For something that's supposed to be infinite, how can it find pleasure in being so cruel? Infinity shouldn't care, it shouldn't take sides. And how can you run out of something infinite? Lauren wonders about time a lot lately. She knows she's running out of it. On some days, she almost forgets how long she's spent on earth already. She's been here more years than most, but not as many as the woman lying down in bed next to her. Here she is, old and wrinkled, withering away with every single breath, and her love, who's been alive thousands of years, doesn't look a day over 30.

Tamsin wonders about time as well. She's never given it too much thought before, but now, with Lauren moving farther away from her grasp every day, she cannot help but wonder. She never felt out of time, yet here she is, faced with the imminent disappearance of the only soul in this world she was ever truly in love with, and feeling overwhelmed with all the things she still wants to tell her and do with her, all the places she wants to take her. If only they had more time.

Lauren watches her sometimes, when she thinks she isn't looking. Tamsin knows, but pretends she doesn't, she enjoys the attention too much to say anything. Tamsin's skin is still young and beautiful, shining pale and glistening with sweat whenever she's working out. Lauren just sits in a chair and watches her. Sometimes while she's reading. Other times she just pretends to be reading, while in fact she is watching Tamsin taking it out on a punching bag, her muscles rippling underneath her smooth skin, her lean figure a perfect mechanism of fiber, bone and viscera. That body has always looked like that, and Lauren knows every inch of it by now.

Tamsin watches her as well, as soon as Lauren turns her eyes back to the computer screen or dozes off. She does that a lot more often now. Tamsin studies her wrinkles, her beautiful gray hair, the spots old age has left on her skin, and she is certain she has never seen anything more beautiful. She is old and frail, but her entire being exudes the same intense beauty it always has. Tamsin hadn't realized how frail Lauren had actually become until she came back from the market one day to find her passed out on the kitchen floor. She dropped her shopping bags and rushed to Lauren's side, while peaches from the torn bags were rolling on the floor around them. Lauren used to love peaches, but she cannot eat them anymore, her teeth are not strong enough. After this incident, Tamsin makes a habit of watching Lauren sleep, and she does this every night, sitting in the darkness, listening to her breath and watching her chest rising and falling evenly.

Lauren contemplates suicide. She can't stand what she's doing to Tamsin and she doesn't want her love to see her fade away so slowly. Quick and painless generally gets the job done better, she thinks, lying in a hospital bed after she fell. It was silly and stupid, she only wanted to reach for her favorite cup and have some tea, but her damn limbs wouldn't obey her, as if they weren't even hers anymore. She pretends to be asleep when the nurses come in, trying to avoid their small talk and comments about how Tamsin was taking such good care of her and how lucky she was to have such a supportive 'granddaughter.' So she lies there, completely still, thinking how killing herself would save Tamsin a world of embarrassment, and trying to block out the nurses' conversation about the Sistine Chapel – apparently one of them had been there recently.

Tamsin knows, Lauren has no idea how, but she knows and she makes a point of letting Lauren know that she knows. When she comes to take her home, Tamsin helps her into the wheelchair and then kneels in front of her, carefully rolling the bottoms of her trousers to keep them from getting caught in the wheels. Lauren's lost a lot of weight since the accident, her clothes now hanging loosely on her thin frame. Tamsin looks at her for a while, still on her knees, and Lauren holds her gaze defiantly. They don't really need words to understand each other, not anymore. Nevertheless, Tamsin wants to make sure.

"Don't you fucking dare do that to me, doc."

Lauren just looks down and sighs. She won't. She can't. Not when Tamsin is looking at her like that. She becomes ashamed of her own body after that, as if she's just realized how old she actually is. Tamsin has never stopped wanting her, truly and completely, even now. She feels embarrassed and tries to avoid any kind of physical intimacy, but Tamsin insists. And it's impossible to tell her no. Tamsin touches her with the same reverence and love as she did at first, almost half a century ago. She is gentle and patient and most of the time she has to stop before either of them finds release, because Lauren's body just can't take it anymore. She holds her close, running her fingers through her gray hair, along her wrinkled cheek, and whispers strange words of comfort and love. Lauren could stay like this forever, or at least for the little time she has left.

"You should let me go, Tamsin."

"Not in a million years."

Tamsin knows when the time comes. It's what she is, after all. She sees Lauren's feeble life force slowly dripping away from her tired body, and she feels her heart breaking into an infinite number of pieces. She knows she will never be able to put it together again. She calls Bo, who arrives the next day. She would have preferred to be alone with Lauren, away from the world, away from everything and everybody. But she cannot deny their goodbye. Bo did the same for her when Kenzi died. The Russian had passed away 10 years before, in a stupid car accident. She shouldn't even have been driving at her age, but that didn't stop Kenzi. Not when she had a limited-run, vintage Jaguar to break in. Lauren was too old to travel, so Tamsin went there by herself, and did everything she could to keep Bo together. They slept together, in the same bed, the night after the funeral. They didn't have sex, they just lay there, holding hands, crying and remembering.

Lauren looks at Bo and marvels how she hasn't changed a bit since they last saw each other. She's mad a Tamsin for bringing her here, she doesn't want to say goodbye. But she does it anyway, she has to. Bo leaves, in tears, after placing a soft kiss on her lips. Tamsin comes in a second later and lies down next to her, pulling her slowly in a warm embrace. She settles her head into the crook of Tamsin's neck and breathes in her lover's smell one last time. Tamsin kisses the top of her head.

"Close your eyes."

"They're closed."

"What do you see?"

The sea, a bright greenish blue like Tamsin's eyes. The smell of salt and water, like Tamsin's skin. The sound of waves crashing into the rocks, just like Tamsin's whispers of love.

"You. Us."

Tamsin nods, choking back her tears. She steadies her breath and her heart until they match Lauren's, beat after beat after beat. Until they stop.

The silence is deafening.

Ummm... Merry Christmas, I guess? Please don't hate me.