The drive was pleasant. The company was amazing. The chocolate was very welcomed.

Just as Jane predicted, it was nearing dusk as the truck pulled onto a dirt road in the countryside they had been driving through. The road was little more than a trail made by vehicles that had driven the same path over and over again for several years. At first, there was nothing but a thick wooded area on either side. After a few miles, it opened up to green open fields on either side. A few miles more, and Jane turned onto another path similar in wear that took them up an incline.

Finally, Jane came to a stop on small bluff that overlooked the open land. The space was just big enough to safely hold the truck with a few feet of land on either side for good measure. Jane smiled, inhaling deeply as she turned the motor off. "We're here."

"Where is 'here'?" asked Maura as she gazed around. "I mean, other than extremely beautiful and open. What is the significance of this place?"

"When I was a kid, I had a friend whose dad had horses they would ride out here. I always like it, you know? The freedom of riding a horse and how pretty this place is. Come on," Jane slid out of the truck, walked around the back, and dropped the tailgate. She waited for Maura to follow before jumping in the back of the very clean truck bed and opening the large bag that had been sitting in the back.

"He was my best friend when I was a teenager." She continued on as she pulled blankets and pillows out to arrange them into a pallet in the bed of the truck. "We did everything together. A lot of people thought we were dating. We weren't. He was just a really good friend." She finished making the pallet and turned to offer Maura a hand. "He was gay. I'm talking rainbows and unicorns gay. I didn't care, but there were a lot of people who seemed to." She sat down, back against one side of the bed. "When we were 18, something really horrible happened to him, and he didn't survive it… neither did his dad." She frowned, eyes distant at the memories. "His father," she cleared her throat, "he knew something might happen. They didn't have any relatives. It was just the two of them. In his will, he left the place to me and set up a trust fund to help keep up the property taxes and upkeep. It basically runs itself, which means I have someone bushhog it every now and then, and I keep the government from coming in to take it. I sold the horses. It didn't seem right to keep them after."

Jane's eyes ran over the horizon as if she was looking for something. "I come here sometimes if I want to get away. All those times you can't find me? I'm here. I come here and just sort of drift for a little while. I think about my friend. How brave I think he was. He was open about being gay long before it was even close to safe to be open about that sort of thing. I remember the talks we had here where he tried to get me to come out, too." She shrugged. "I was too scared. But, when I was with him, I wasn't. He had this way of giving other people a sense of strength." She shook her head, "It's hard to explain. But, this place… it's the only place I feel peaceful and safe." She reached out, taking Maura's hand. "Well, until I met you anyway." She gave a weak smile. "I wanted to take you here to share it because I want to share who I am with you. I want to be with you, Maura, and I want you to know about my private places because I want them to be yours."

Listening to Jane talk, getting to watch her face as dusk deepened to night, without having to come up with something to say to excuse the fact that she was there, listening, watching, and enjoying Jane... It was a pleasure of a new category. Maura did not respond verbally for quite some time. Instead, she simply gave every ounce of her attention to her friend, her girlfriend. She wasn't a passive audience, but an active one, for all her subtlety of purpose: her mind recorded not just what was said, but everything she could see in Jane as she spoke. She would be the witness that created permanence for this shared memory.

But, after, she did want to speak, and she didn't want to offer information. There couldn't be a history lesson about this territory that would mean more than Jane's history in this place, no discussion of the evolution of equines or the grasses that grew here or the winds that blew here. What in the world could she possibly say that would come close to an equal offering? It was spoken, before Maura realized that she'd said it, before she realized that it was the right thing to give someone who gave something so personal.

"I love you, too, Jane."

At first, Jane said nothing. In fact, she didn't move, not a muscle, but, as the words seeped in, she smiled. Without a sound she leaned forward to kiss Maura, pulling her down so they were both lying on the pallet. Several passionate moments later, the dark haired brunette pulled back to look at the incredible woman in her arms. "The cabin is about five minutes from here, but we're safely alone."

"Are we?" Maura asked, just to make sure, then gave herself over to the rapture of getting to hold Jane fully, kiss her deeply. "Do you... Do we need the cabin, or...?" she asked, ignoring the sky's majestic canopy overhead, scattered with its crowding of stars, so different from what one could see above the well-lit city they both knew. The stars she wanted to view were not far away, not in the heavens, but right here, so near, within the chocolate-black of Jane's eyes.

"Yes, we are, and, no, we don't," Jane whispered as she ran a finger lightly over the jawline of the woman now lying beneath her.

"Good." Maura shifted only slightly, but it made a profound difference: this was 'their' position, the one in which, with little variation, they had awakened almost every time they shared a bed, at some point in the night or first thing in the morning. One hand stroked along Jane's temple, down past the back of her ear to her neck, throat, shoulder, along that slender arm, and then she opened her palm to Jane's for a brief press before letting her wrist fall to the truck bed. Pin me, the motion said. Hold me. Take me.

Finally. It was the last coherent thought Jane had before at last giving in and taking what she had wanted for so long.