The Fine Print: As always, the great Dan Knauf and the folks at HBO own Carnivale and all its characters. However, it's beginning to look like they are never going to show us this scene, so I had to write it myself.

The Things You Can See From a Doorway

Chapter 3

After what seemed like an eternity, Iris opened her eyes, trying to put together cohesive thoughts and marveling that she was still standing. Justin was standing in front of her. Soothing his hands down her cheeks. Taking her face in his hands. Kissing her. His mouth.

Iris realized with a blush that she could taste what must have been herself on his lips. Oh god, what his mouth had just done—where it had been. Iris rubbed her forehead with her hand, covering her face in the process and hoping to hide her burning cheeks.

He smiled down at her as if he were reading her mind once again. He moved her hand away from her face and kissed her slowly, pulled her lower lip between his teeth and sucked it into his mouth, savoring it. She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the emotion that flooded her chest.

She trailed her fingers down his chest, along the tree's dark trunk to rest on the band of his pants, before undoing the first button, then pausing.

He had been watching her hands, his breathing becoming more labored. He throbbed at how near she was. How close her hands were to him. He hadn't felt her hands on him in months. What he wanted was so near now. When she stopped, he looked up to meet her eyes, his own hands taking over her task only to have them covered with her own, stopping him.

"No more secrets, Alexsei."

At that moment if she had asked him to cut his heart out and feed it to her, still beating, he would have. Justin leaned his head close to hers and whispered in her ear, so quiet she wasn't sure he had spoken at all, but that one word echoed in her mind.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him fiercely, helping to pull herself up even as he lifted her higher onto the wall, pressing his hips into hers to keep her from falling. Her legs wrapped around his waist as he slid inside her.

Neither of them moved, overwhelmed by the sensation of being together again, put back together again to a whole. Iris looked down between their joined bodies. She found it hard to tell where his skin ended and hers began, as if the ink were creeping in tendrils beneath her skin too.

She bit her lip to keep from crying out as he began to move inside her . . . when they moved together again, it was with the practiced movements, perfected over years, of old lovers. Knowing where to touch each other—his mouth unrelenting at the hollow of her throat—what to whisper at the right moment—his name on her lips repeated like a prayer.

He felt her legs tightening around his waist-as she tightened around him—crying out, and the sound of her name once more filled the house, as he came inside her.

Her fingers lazily tracing patterns across his neck as their breathing returned to something resembling normal and he still leaned against her, Iris's gaze fell across the room to the screen door. A dark figure stood out in stark contrast against the white porch and the blue sky surrounding it. Startled, Iris started to push herself away from Justin.

"Someone's outside."

He turned his head, following her gaze. Someone was sitting on the front steps. He looked back to Iris to see her hastily buttoning her blouse. Justin sighed in annoyance. "Get rid of whoever it is," he said, dropping a quick kiss on Iris's cheek.

Iris didn't answer, but walked unsteadily across the room, straightening her dress, trying to smooth out the telltale wrinkles. Reaching the door she paused and looked over her shoulder—Justin had disappeared upstairs. She ran her hands over her hair, tucking an errant bit behind her ear, before opening the screen door.

The door creaked as she pushed it open but the person on the steps did not look in her direction or show any other signs of awareness for that matter.

Iris could tell now that it was a woman—a young woman. Her dress, really no more than a tattered shift, may have once been white but now it was dingy and stained from the dust. Iris had no doubt that this person had wondered up from the migrant camp, probably fresh from weeks or even months on the road.

Iris lay her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Can I help you with something, dear?" She secretly breathed a sigh of relief as her voice came out much steadily than it felt. God, what had this girl seen through the door?

The girl finally turned her head to face Iris. She was taken aback at how haunted the girl's dark eyes were. "Is there something I can do for you?" she asked again, recovering herself.

The girl didn't answer at first, seemed to be debating something within herself. Finally she replied, "I need a job and people down in the camps said that you all were looking for a new maid."

If she had been sure the girl hadn't seen them, Iris would have sent her packing. But what if she had seen? What would she tell the rest of their followers?

"We were—I guess we still are, actually," Iris forced herself to smile sweetly down at the girl. "How long have you been waiting out here?"

The girl hesitated. "Just a little while, I guess."

She knew. Iris tried to remain calm, to keep her face neutral. They would have to deal with this problem quickly.

"How rude of me." Iris offered her hand to the girl. "I'm Iris Crowe. Brother Justin's sister."

The girl looked visibly relieved to hear that and taking Iris's hand, she stood up and smiled awkwardly at her.

Iris almost laughed. The idea that she had just seen the two of them, the famous minister and his sister, together, was so abhorrent to the girl that she could easily convince herself that what she had seen had been a hallucination, that she had been mistaken.

"You must be parched. Come inside and I'll get us some nice lemonade while we talk about the position."

"Thanks."

Iris held the screen door open for the girl, letting her pass in front of her. "What's your name, dear?"

"Sofie."