"Whoa, dude, it's really coming down."

I join her by the wide sliding glass door, wrapping my arms around her from behind and resting my cheek against her temple. Fat downy flakes swirl sideways and scud diagonally, already accumulating in drifts on the terrace and frosting the furniture with a thick layer white fluff. "Pretty, isn't it?"

Cosima leans back against me, absently caressing my forearm. "It snows sometimes in San Francisco, but never like this. When I was little we lived on Cape Breton Island for a few months while my mom was doing research on migration patterns of the local avifauna. That was the first time I'd ever seen really deep snow. It was magical, like I'd landed in Narnia. I found some kids about my age who lived a couple of miles down the road and we had snowball fights, made snowmen and snow angels, the whole thing. But then we got slammed by this huge blizzard. Everything shut down and for days we were stuck in our tiny scuzzy rental house with snow piled up to the roof, no power, no heat and nothing to eat except a box of stale saltine crackers and a bunch of canned shit that had expired, like, years before. Kinda killed the charm, you know?"

Slipping a hand under her sweater, I play my fingertips across the flat of her belly, describing slow circles and abstract patterns over silky skin. "That actually sounds like it could have been fun. I can think of far worse fates than to be isolated on a beautiful remote island sharing a tiny house in the snow with you, chérie."

Taut muscle jumps under my touch as she laughs. "Picture two shellshocked academics with limited domestic skills, at their wits' end and drinking cup after cup of shitty instant coffee while watching their bored hyperactive daughter bounce off the walls all day. It wasn't pretty. Probably not a coincidence that most of Mom's subsequent research trips were to tropical destinations." Turning, she drapes her arms around my neck and tips up her head to kiss me. "So what would you have done, if you'd been there?"

I nibble gently at her lower lip, then kiss the end of her nose, making her eyes cross briefly. "Hmm. First I'd probably dig a tunnel into the yard and use the displaced snow to form blocks to build an igloo, one that was big enough for both of us so we'd have someplace to escape and give your poor parents some privacy. Split saplings and skin the inner bark from birch trees to make snowshoes. Make snares to catch squirrels and rabbits in the woods, then build a fire on a green-wood platform with a spit to roast them. Maybe set traps for lobsters and crabs off the coast, if we could find a suitable boat. Harvest seaweed and edible lichens to put into stews and soups, or freeze-dry them for later. Things like that."

"Holy mother of fuck. I was totally off. You're not Martha Effing Stewart, you're Crocodile Effing Dundee. I'll bet you were, like, a ninja-level Girl Scout, or whatever the French equivalent is."

Resting my forehead against hers, I smile. "We do have Scouts and Girl Guides in France. But no, I never joined. My grandmother taught me all kinds of things she'd learned growing up. Her family was very poor, though it didn't really matter because everyone else in their village was poor, too. They had to make or raise or catch or barter for almost everything they owned and ate."

"Shit. And I thought I had a colorful and unconventional background, being the product of overeducated pot-smoking hippies." She tilts her head. "While I was marching in Divest Now! protests and scoring crappy weed from the guys on Market Street who would sling to someone who was obviously a minor, you were probably, like, learning how to skin a bear with a spork and card and spin its fur into wool to crochet into blankets. So how is it that you are also the most innately sophisticated and effortlessly glamorous woman I have ever had the inestimable pleasure to know and fuck?"

As always, her phrasing catches me off guard and tickles me unexpectedly. "When she was twenty, Mémé married a rich man — my father's father — and thoroughly enjoyed throwing herself into navigating society and the trappings of wealth and privilege with as much energy and focus as she had on surviving her early life. Those lessons, she passed to me as well. But she never forgot where she came from, and she never took for granted what she had. Even in their big house in Lille, she always kept flocks of chickens and ducks and grew almost all their vegetables and fruits in her garden and orchards. She was adamant that my education come first, but I think she also wanted to make sure I could take care of myself so that I wouldn't need to depend on anyone, no matter what the situation."

"She sounds like a total badass. I bet I would have loved her." Cosima's face is soft, her expression luminous. "And I bet you still miss her."

"Every day." I smile crookedly, the sting of unshed tears pricking my eyes. "She would have loved you, too." Just then, my phone emits a plaintive miaou, breaking the mood. With an apologetic glance at her, I slide it out of my pocket, confirming the Grocery Gateway delivery man's identity via the lobby camera and letting him into the elevator. He arrives with a handcart bearing a pile of boxes, which he unloads onto the kitchen counters at my direction while I compare the contents to my checklist. Cheerfully he accepts my tip and takes the empty boxes with him when he leaves.

Hands on hips, she regards the unwieldy mountain of goods. "Seriously? Usually you buy just enough food to last us for a day or two. And since when do you have shit delivered, anyway? You're the only person I know who actually likes grocery shopping."

"I didn't want us to get stranded with nothing fresh on hand in case we do get snowed in. And yes, I prefer to pick things out myself, but I gave very specific directions when I placed the order. Besides, would you want to go out in this weather?"

She eyes the window, where pellets of sleet are now peppering the glass with tiny tik-tiktiktik-tiktik sounds. "You have a point. So what happens if we lose power?"

"If the power outage lasts longer than 12 hours, the perishables will go out onto the terrace in insulated containers. And we will make love in front of the fireplace all day and night to stay warm."

Sidling into my embrace, she kisses me, smiling against my lips. "Mmm. I like the way you think, Dr. Cormier."

Reluctantly I let her go so I can put away the groceries and supplies, except for a small packet of dried cherries. Pouring the cherries into a saucepan along with some bourbon, I bring them to a boil, then take them off the heat, stirring in a bit of almond extract before putting the lid on the pan and leaving it on the range.

"Whatcha making?"

I flicker an eyebrow at her. "You'll have to wait and see."

Her recalcitrant scowl makes me laugh.

Quickly I wipe down the counters and make sure everything is squared away. Holding out a hand to Cosima, I stroll with her to the living room, stopping by the long narrow fireplace to ignite it before joining her on the sofa. Snuggling into my side, she makes a happy sound against the curve of my neck as we stretch out at full length cradled by overstuffed cushions. She reaches for her phone; soon the air fills with the lushness of Joyce DiDonato's and Patrizia Ciofi's voices twining in gorgeous, sensuous harmony.

"No 'beeps and boops' this morning?" I press my lips to her temple.

Careful teeth nip at my throat. "I like listening to your stuff sometimes. It's good to switch things up every once in a while. Feels more like a Handel kind of day, anyway."

Managing to extract my phone from my hip pocket without dislodging the slender warm form in my arms, reluctantly I begin to sort through the backlog of emails and texts that have accumulated since yesterday afternoon. Cosima does the same; I scrupulously avoid peeking over her shoulder at her screen but can't help looking up when she starts giggling. "What is it? Is someone trying to enlarge your penis naturally? Does the exiled Rwandan prince need you to send him your bank account information so he can deposit the royal treasury for safekeeping?"

"Even better. They want to increase my sex drive. I can learn hundreds of 'ancient Oriental secrets' for just $19.99."

Laughing, I squeeze her tightly. "Chérie, if your sex drive increases any more, you will have to call for an ambulance to cart away my smiling, desiccated corpse."

"Haven't you heard the phrase, 'It takes two to tango'? I'd be in the same state as you. Be a hell of a way to go, though, wouldn't it?"

"Certainly one of the most pleasurable. Death by orgasmic excess is probably not something the coroner sees every day."

She cranes up her neck to kiss me softly, then contentedly tucks her head back into the crook of my shoulder.

With a sigh, I resume wading through my messages, the vast majority of them work related. The somewhat amorphous scope of my current responsibilities would seem to be expanding beyond helping Rachel to oversee the Leda clones; I imagine her glee in shunting off to me the more tedious administrative aspects of Dyad management. There are an astonishing number of grant proposals, most of them poorly written and preposterously impracticable; I forward them to my assistant so she can send out denial letters. One intrigues me, though, a well thought out and professionally presented project that seeks to combine mushroom mycelia with industrial-scale 3-D printers to form water-, mold- and fire-resistant building materials; that one, I send to R&D with a note stressing that Dyad is only to examine the proposal's hypothesis for possible further inquiry, not aggressively take it over or reverse-engineer the technology in order to file for a preemptive patent.

Next is a parade of resumes and job applications, most of which are so similar that scrolling through them quickly becomes tedious and repetitive. Again and again I find myself startling with a jerk of my head, having to reread files as my eyelids grow heavier and heavier.

When I wake, the lights and music are off, the flat eerily silent. The sky is a curious yellowish gray non-color filtering through a lacy curtain of steadily falling snow; it's so quiet that I can actually hear the flakes pattering against the windows. Cosima dozes, draped neatly at my side with an arm flung possessively over my torso, but stirs when I try to swallow a yawn.

"Better start building your igloo," she mumbles against my neck. "But just so you know, I'm not eating any bunnies."

I kiss the top of her head. "No bunnies on the terrace, anyway. A pigeon or two, perhaps."

Carefully I untangle myself and find my feet, draping a fleece throw over her before heading to the bathroom. I note that the floor is still warm. Thank goodness for thermal mass — even with no power to the radiant heating grid, it will take a considerable time for the layers of concrete and marble to release all their stored heat.

I am also thankful that the water is still running and the plumbing still works. The temperature is unlikely to drop low enough to freeze the pipes, but just in case, I leave one of the sinks dripping slowly.

Returning to the living room, I am arrested by the sight of Cosima sprawling naked by the fireplace. She flashes her incandescent smile. "I was getting cold without you. Thought you might be able to tap into that vast store of practical knowledge to figure out a way to warm me up." Waggling her brow at me, she beckons.

Drawn irresistibly to her, I yank my t-shirt over my head and discard it somewhere, shedding my loose knit pants, underwear and socks along the way and pausing to let her gaze prowl up and down the length of my body. "Will that do for a start?"

"Very nicely," she says hoarsely, licking her lips as she reaches for me.

Next chapter: what do they care how much it may storm? They've got their love — and their inexhaustible hunger for each other — to keep them warm...