So… this wasn't one of the ficlet prompts, but I just felt the need to finish up the "Sally-Ann goes up the mountain" story line that I had written about before. Fair warning: this is slightly NSFW, but just slightly – suggestive, but nothing more… :)

The barest hint of light was curling through the interior of the cabin, peeking past the gaps between the wooden walls, visible through the open spaces that gave view to the shadowy wilderness beyond. Birds faintly chirped, calling out to each other in a greeting song, as the world began to come awake.

Sally-Ann blinked her eyes open, trying to remember where she was, and then she felt the warm and solid form underneath her, her gaze slowly turning towards the familiar face of the man who had brought her here. He was still asleep, his features made more boyish in the half-light, his hair in rough disarray across the top of the mattress. She watched him for a little while, enjoying the luxury of being able to look at him unobserved. For once, he was still, a shift from his normal state of expressive animation. His eyelashes were so long, fanning downwards to his cheeks, and even as he slept she could see the shallow diagonal indentations that cut so broadly when he smiled. She lingered far too long on his mouth, on the tiny lines arrayed in parallel down the roundness of his lips. There was a tiny spot near his chin that he had missed while shaving, and she was barely able to restrain herself from shifting against him so she could reach up and touch it.

His skin was so warm against hers as she lay half-way against him, her head tucked into that hollow where his shoulder met his chest. For a moment she wondered what it would be like in winter, with the cold and the snow raging outside, their bodies cozily nestled within a cocoon of blankets. She knew she shouldn't think like that; it was foolish, envisioning anything beyond each day they shared together, but still it tempted her, this thing she knew she couldn't keep but wanted fiercely anyway. His arm was heavy draped around her waist, the fingers of his good hand lightly grazing her skin. She looked over at her own hand, how it partially covered the tattoo on his chest, the prongs of the deer's antlers just barely jutting out beyond her fingertips.

All their clothes had come off quickly enough, as they had lost themselves in the excitement of discovering each other. By now, of course, it was more of a re-discovery, but a satisfying and enjoyable one regardless. There had been sense enough to extinguish the two lanterns before they collapsed entirely, worn out not only from their immediate exertions, but from the half-day's uphill journey it had taken to get here.

At some point, though, in the darkest point of the night, they had woken and silently found each other, moving quietly, his hands and his mouth giving her every cause to cry out, even though she knew she shouldn't make a sound.

Right before she fell asleep for the second time, she had started to think about how all of this – all of her time on the mountain, really – had begun to resemble a dream, one she would soon wake up from, requiring her to return to the sad realities of her life. Even this moment, as they lay together in the early morning quiet, seemed so surreal, as if it existed somewhere beyond the recognizable world. If it was a dream, though, she had no desire to leave it, even as she acknowledged the harsh truth that it would end regardless of her feelings on the matter.

"Ya 'bout done?" Even as a low rumble, his voice startled her, a rough intrusion into the quiet.

"Done?" she asked quietly, glancing up at him. His eyes were still closed.

"Lookin' a' me," he said gently, a corner of his mouth raised in amusement. "But don' stop. Don' wan' ya ta miss nothin'."

"You…" She stopped, nearly ready to fire off some retort, and instead sighed and pressed her cheek more firmly against his chest, settling her body across the length of his. He said nothing, but curled his arm tight against her waist, his left hand reaching over to clasp her by the shoulder. He was encircling her, pulling her towards him, until it was hard for her to imagine a way that they could get any closer. She didn't mind, though; as long as he held her, she didn't have to leave, she didn't have to wake up.

Everything was so still, so quiet. The light outside was growing stronger, but even so, she wanted it to stop, for the whole world to stop its spinning, for this moment to stay suspended in time, the way a bird hovers in a draft of air. She could feel his heart beating underneath her palm, a soft rhythm that echoed her own.

"Sally-Ann..."

"Hmmm?" she murmured.

"I don' know..." he half-whispered against her hair. "I jus'... I jus' wan' ya ta stay here, wi' me. I don't wan' ya ta go…"

Now that he had said something, given voice to the thoughts she had been turning over in her mind, it was almost as if she felt the need to counter them, to bring both of them back down to reality, if only to make it easier in the long run.

"Hasil..."

"I know, I know... ya gotta… But a man's got a right ta dream, don't he?"

That was the thing about Hasil: he was a dreamer. He could afford to be. But she didn't have that luxury. Sometimes it seemed like the whole world was conspiring to tell her who she was and what she could do, how to act and talk and how to look, and it wasn't something she was allowed to just ignore.

And the world definitely did not want them together. This thing they had - this wonderful, surprising, miraculous thing - she knew it could never last, not with everything that was stacked against it. Maybe it had been doomed from the very start. She could sense, if only faintly, how much it was going to hurt when she had to let him go; perhaps it would be better to do it now, before she fell any deeper.

"Hasil..." she half-whispered, finding it even more difficult than she had anticipated to say the words she knew she had to say. "Maybe after today, you should jus' stay up here, for a while."

He shifted, quickly turning his head down towards hers.

"Wha'd ya sayin'? 'Stay up here'?"

"I jus'..." she stammered. "I jus' I don't see how this is gonna work."

"'Work'?" he repeated, and with his two good fingers raised her chin up so he could look her directly in the eye. "I'm here and ya's here, and we's together. Wha's gotta work?"

"It ain't that simple..."

"'Course it is. We th' only ones tha' matter here. Unless..." He paused, his gaze shifting away, no longer meeting hers.

"Unless what?"

"Unless ya no longer reciprocate my sent'ments."

He didn't move, but she could see the pain from that idea slicing through his features, and then she saw something in his eyes she had never seen before: fear. It cut through her, too, just the mere thought that he could consider himself alone in his feelings, and she couldn't bear to have him think it for a moment longer.

Sally-Ann raised herself up onto her elbows, staring down at him until she finally caught his eye.

"Nothin's changed, Hasil. I still feel the way I did before."

He let out a sigh, some of the color returning to his cheeks, and then ran his fingers over the top of his head.

"Then this is jus' plain foolishness. All our troubles, they's nothin', really. You and me, we's stronger t'gether. We's happier t'gether. And I'll do wha'ever I can ta make ya see that."

He spoke so forcefully, with such conviction, it was nearly impossible not to be swayed entirely by his words. He believed so strongly; maybe that was enough, enough to silence her doubts and then carry her through the times that tried her faith in the two of them. She could only hope it would be. So she simply nodded, and laid her head back down against him.

"We should get goin' soon," she said, after a time.

"Yeah, a'right... But let me kiss ya good mornin' firs', righ' proper."

And then he took her face in his hands, the full light of the morning sun pouring in all around them, and his lips found hers, softly, tenderly, like they had all the time in the world.