Cassie smiles at Cole's lower half, sticking out from under the bathroom sink. It's so quintessentially domestic, so cliched - so very un-Cole.
"You know," she says, after a few moments of silent observation, "you could call a plumber."
He huffs, a combination of distaste and frustration. "I can do this."
"The last thirty minutes prove otherwise."
He sticks his head out so she can fully appreciate his glare.
The smears of grease all over his face really lessen the impact. She grins.
He drops the wrench on the floor and wiggles free of his prison. "Are you laughing at me?"
Her grin gets bigger. "That was a lot of exertion for not actually accomplishing anything."
"Why don't you get under there and do this, then, Ms. Know It All?"
"Not without Youtube."
He snorts. "At least I know they're called pipes, not tubes," he says, pushing up to his feet. "Where were you raised, again?"
"Civilization."
"Sometimes I wonder." He scratches his head and frowns. "So how about we just don't use this sink? Two sinks seems like overkill, anyway."
"Definitely."
He wipes his face with his sleeve, succeeding only in making himself more filthy. She loves this side of him - not the sweaty one, necessarily - the relaxed one. Sometimes, in the middle of all the madness, she forgets that they're humanity's last hope, that they're neck-deep in a mission where failure isn't an option. Sometimes it feels like they're just Cassie and Cole, living in a crappy little house in the late 1950's, just the two of them, grocery shopping, doing home repairs, and watching I Love Lucy over frozen casserole dinners. Sometimes she lets herself believe it's true.
But never for very long.
"It's not as if we'll be here much longer anyway," she says, her nails digging into her arms. "The next owner can fix it."
The moment she says it an image flashes in her mind: the same house, the same wallpaper, the same cracks and creases, drowning in a sea of red, collapsing and rebuilding, collapsing and rebuilding.
"Or, you know, not."
She pushes off the doorframe and pushes away the thought, crossing the room to grab a hand towel. She takes it to the shower, turning on the tap and running it under the cold water. When it's sufficiently soaked, she pulls it out and goes to Cole. She offers him the towel and he takes it, scrubbing at his hands and tossing it onto the counter. She shakes her head, reaching out to retrieve it and stepping up to face him.
She runs the towel over his forehead, down his nose and across his cheeks. The dirt comes away, leaving him clean, untouched.
She thinks about how that's their ultimate goal - how if they succeed they'll be washing away the plague, the distortion of time, everything that happened between the moment he appeared in the backseat of her car and now. All of it will completely disappear.
It seems impossible - and maybe it is. Will she be reset with everything else? Will the Cole that she knows be completely erased? Will they veer off into some alternate existence while their previous selves start anew? She doesn't pretend to know time travel any more now than she did back in - forward in? - 2013. Maybe she even knows less.
She hopes the fluid coursing through her keeps her consciousness intact - that she'll be able to remember these little moments, even if she has to remember everything that came with them. She's someone else now, someone different, and she doesn't want to be who she was before. She doesn't want to lose so much time.
"Cass?" His hand is on her wrist and he physically pulls her from her thoughts.
She doesn't want to lose him.
They're so close anyway, it doesn't take much to press her lips to his.
His lips are softer than she expected, sweeter, and his initial shock quickly gives way to eager reception. The hand that's on her wrist slips easily behind her neck as he pulls her into him, her hands falling to his chest. The towel falls forgotten to the floor.
She's clutching his shirt, trying to tether herself to something, their kisses deepening at an exponential rate, when he pulls back, breath heavy and voice hoarse. "Wait, Cass, what are we doing?"
"What we should have been doing all along."
"But you're right, you've always been right, it won't last, it can't." She can see he's trying to keep his distance, but he doesn't stop touching her. "I don't want to hurt you."
That, she knows, is inevitable.
Desire and fear battle inside him, she can see it in his eyes, can feel it echoing inside her. She sees everything that's happened, everything that's probably going to happen, and knows that this, too, is her fate.
"We're already haunted," she says, the words little more than breath. "What's one more ghost?"
It might be the least romantic thing she's ever said, but it's enough.
His lips find hers again, gentle this time, like he might break her, like she might break him. But they're already broken, and she doesn't have the patience. She doesn't want to wait.
She presses herself against him, walking him backwards. His legs hit the open cabinet and it clatters loudly, but doesn't slow her down. He slams into the counter and his hands come up, wrapping around her and steadying him.
His fingers dig into her waist and he spins them around, contact never breaking, kisses never stopping. When her back is against the counter he grips her and lifts, hoisting her up. The momentum takes her back and she has to release him to brace herself against the tile. It's cold under her palms, a harsh contrast to Cole's warm skin.
He pulls his lips from hers and settles them on her neck, kissing and sucking as his hands fumble with the button of her pants.
As he tugs them down her hips, her lungs contract, pushing out a ragged breath. Air slides past her lips and she feels the thoughts of ghosts, of time, of past and future, disappear into the night.
She inhales, drawing in his scent. Her breath catches, an involuntary desire to keep him safe, locked deep inside her. To keep him somewhere he can never be taken away. But his hands are moving again and what little control she had over herself is slipping away.
In the moment before she loses herself into him entirely, she realizes what she had been missing all along.
The present.