It snowed in Georgia but not like this, and it utterly transforms the Zone, sends them all into a kind of altered state, drives dogs crazy, makes kids run and scream and throw handfuls of powdery white into the air. It's not a piece of Before, it's not the world that was, and the entire year is a long string of vacation days from school, but the whole world is clean and new and so beautiful, and he sees her standing in it, head tilted back, mouth open and catching falling snowflakes on her tongue.
With anyone else it might almost be sort of a cliche, but with her it's perfect, because she's perfect and he can't imagine her doing anything that wouldn't be so.
He just watches her for a moment, standing a few yards away with his hands in his pockets, and she lifts her hands and turns them palms up, catches more of it on her fingertips. She's wearing black gloves and he watches it accumulate into tiny delicate drifts.
It's clinging to everything. The sky is low and gray but it doesn't look heavy or sullen. It looks like porcelain. The trees are turning themselves to webbing, to lace.
It crunches under his boots as he goes to her, cold on his cheeks and nose and ears; he can feel the blood rushing in to warm them. His breath clouds the air. Her hair is spilling around her shoulders, somehow almost silver in the odd snow-light, and he notices these little details: how pink her cheeks are, the flakes on her lashes, the way she catches her bottom lip between her teeth when she lowers her head and sees him, like she's already planning some kind of mischief.
He's not wearing gloves and his fingers are already stiff with cold. He presses his hands to the sides of her neck, just under her jaw, and she lets out a shocked little laughing scream which he cuts off with his mouth.
She could dance, he thinks, breaking the kiss and leaning his forehead against hers, soaking in her warmth. Her heat. She's loosening up the joints in his fingers, returning sensation to him. She's light and intricate and complex, unique, formed in a kind of natural miracle, and she could spin through the air until he catches her in his hands. She couldn't, not really, and neither could he; they're both human and they've both been broken and they both bear their scars. But the snow is making everything clean and new, and maybe for now they can be the same.
When he finally steps away from her, turns his back for the briefest moment, she hits him in the back of the head with the snowball she'd been hiding.
So after that it's on.
He actually tackles her in the end, tackles her and drags her down into the snow, and it's thick enough to cushion them as they roll and wrestle. He comes up on top, straddling her, shoving handfuls of snow under the neck of her coat and down the front of her sweater. She shrieks, wriggles, laughs and beats at his arms, and they've very possibly attracted some observers but he doesn't care. He wants them as witnesses. There's such a defiance in feeling this good and being this hopelessly in love in a world still falling apart a little more each day. Such a defiance in demanding the right to be young again.
They're shivering when they get back to the house, soaked and freezing, and she's still laughing as he strips both their clothes off and hauls her with him into a shower almost too hot to stand. And he presses her back against the tile, grins when she yelps at how cold it is, and kisses her as he slips a hand between her legs and works her slowly. Unhurriedly. For the moment they have the place to themselves and no one else needs the hot water. She gasps and clutches at him, rocks her hips, clearly pleading with him to go faster. But it's not until she reaches down and curls her fingers around his cock that he relents and gives her more, and then it's just a wet, hot blur of hands and mouths, kissing her and being kissed, fucking her with his fingers and fucking the tight circle of her fist.
He presses in hard, his whole body pinning her. It's difficult to move either of their hands. But he needs to feel her, how hot and real and alive she is, how solid, how strong. And he comes anyway - they both do, together - with very little difficulty and a long, almost lazy wave of pleasure sweeping over them.
Feeling her panting, almost laughing again. Holding onto her as the water starts to cool at last, her head against his shoulder and her arms wrapped around him, holding her so tight. She's holding him. Oh, my girl, my god, oh.
Oh.
Bed is warm and soft, and she's asleep about ten seconds after they both slide beneath the covers, curl together and tangle their legs. She settles against him, breathing deeply with her head tucked under his chin, but he stays awake for a while, staring at the window and watching the snow fall in the last of the daylight. Night comes early now. There's still so much darkness here. These walls still feel so flimsy.
But for now the world is clean and new.
So are they.