Two notes:

First, a side effect of writing this in a serial fashion was that I veered off track. There's no good way to get back on it without reworking most of the story, but I felt first I owed an ending to the characters, to myself, and to everyone who ever read this story.

Second, now that this is a completed first draft, it's time for a second. It's a big job and I could very much use help. If you'd like to beta, please drop me a line- my email is in my profile. At any rate, I thank everyone in the ship for being awesome, and all the writers for such amazing stories.

Chapter 9

He burned.

Grace wasn't sure if it was him or herself: the second would be a bit of a disappointment and the first was no sure thing either but she didn't really care at that moment because she knew what came next.

She had sat behind him throughout the play, knew the back of his head even after all these years. He had never turned around and when he got up and left, during the applause, she turned away, afraid suddenly to see his face, to maybe have him see her face, there in a room with hundreds of people who now knew so much about them but knew nothing. It had been four years and she hadn't seen his face but that didn't matter much because she had just seen everything he felt and had felt for those four years, had seen everything he remembered of a time when she had been so wrapped up in herself and her imagination of who he was that she wouldn't have known if he had bared everything.

And she was looking at the back of his head now, the hair a little too long, resting on the collar of his overcoat as he stared at the bottle in his hand. He was still, but for small movements, and she knew which rhythms were his and which were the wind's because the same wind was playing with her and she could feel the bottle rocking in her hand. Slowly it swirled and the faint colored light hit her cheek and she could feel the burning from where she stood five feet behind, in the open doorway.

It is a writer's job to know the next line of dialogue, the next action, and Grace was a writer and she knew what came next.

She let the door close behind her, the soft click a cue.

"Chris, please."

His voice was tired and flat but under the surface was pleading and pain, a passion she didn't remember but which reminded her of why she had loved him.

He turned slowly, and she held her breathe because she knew the actions and the words but she could only see a moment ahead- they were writing this together and he had as much say as she. They both owned this moment, but neither had control.

Eyes met over a bottle of wine. Grace knew everything from his play but she had known nothing. Now, in his eyes, she saw the years and in her eyes he saw his life. They both knew what came next and moved together without rush.

"Can I have a taste?" She placed one hand above his, felt his fingers brush against hers, smelled the wine and his soap and her perfume and the traffic above the heartbeats almost consumed by the breaths mingling in the air between them. The reflection off the wine flitted here and there and she could no longer tell what was him what was her what was the wind.

"You were...?" A loose shrug indicated the theatre but he wasn't asking this question.

"Yes."

"I've read all your stories. They're good. You're good." His eyes were not searching hers, but steady, and this made her smile.

"So are you." And she smiled because she had nothing to look for in him either. What was, was, and was not hiding.

"What did you think?" He was calm but he was nervous and this close she could feel the fire inside, see the flames behind his eyes.

"I think it was a good ending." And it was. The lead characters had lived on in each others minds, inspiring and driving by the gilded additions of memory as reality never could have.

It looked like he might pull back, but the wine was there between the, and neither could let go. "Not sad?"

"Sad. But it was right for the play. And you never answered my question."

The corner of his coat swept across her knee and it didn't matter where the motion begun. "What was that?"

"Can I have a taste?" Their voices had been low all along but now she whispered, not wanting to share with anyone but him, with nothing but the wine and the light and the wind that touched them.

"It's yours."

He let go of the bottle when she tugged and she had grown some so she didn't need to stretch quite so far for their mouths to be on a level. And this time there was nothing between them but air. The years sat by, intangible, surrounding them with support and cautious warning. And she kissed him for the second time and for the first time and there was no need to pull away because there was no one but themselves and they were alone.

Then she pulled back and she smiled and this time she had not taken anything but had offered a promise. Then he smiled and the woman who had been a girl who he had known was smiling back and he kissed her for the first time and the passion was on the inside and made the light contact more powerful than any kiss she had ever received, still filling her even after he pulled back.

"This is our ending?" He thought of structure and flow and balance and emotion and saw the past and the present and the years in between.

The hint of wine was on her tongue and she spoke with it in mind. "Of one play."

When a writer finishes a work a writer can do nothing but begin again; can never rest but must again put pen to paper. So she drank some wine and kissed him again and they stood there together with the back story to their lives a topic of unwitting discussion and nothing but the promise of blank sheets