Grelle stood on the balcony of their suite, the breeze sending her hair back every so often as she looked out at the sea and the stars barely visible in the light from the city. One hundred and twenty-five years. Forty-five thousand six hundred and twenty-five days spent with her and all Sebastian could think as he watched her was that it was not enough.

She'd changed out of her gown, but did not need expensive clothing to be beautiful. He loved the way the moonlight caught that pale glow on her long legs, the curve where her neck became her shoulders. She had let her hair down, but it still held some of the curl. He was sitting on the bed, removing his shoes finally, thinking as her fingers flexed over the balcony railing that he'd like to kiss every one of their tips.

"How do you do it?" he asked.

She looked at him, laughing. "Do what?"

"Make me so absolutely mad for you." He set his shoes together next to the bed, aligning them perfectly. "I have to say, it's very uncharacteristic for a demon."

"I disagree," Grelle said and smiled when he looked up at her. "Demons are some of the most obsessive creatures I know."

Rising, Sebastian went to her, slid his hands around her middle to draw her into his arms, pressed a kiss against that moonlight skin on her neck.

"And reapers are some of the most vexing," he replied.

She laughed softly, taking hold of one of his hands and leaning her shoulders into his chest, pressing her back against him as well to be as close as she possibly could. They stood like that for a moment, listening to the sounds of the ocean in front and the city behind, sleepy with the hour but not altogether quiet.

"It's strange, isn't it?" Grelle said, stroking the fingers on the hand of his she held. "Looking at that frame in the water and remembering when it was a pier?" She laughed again. "And when there wasn't a pier there at all?"

Sebastian looked up, out over the balcony, resting his chin on Grelle's shoulder. The remnants of the West Pier were barely visible between the sea and the night sky, water breaking around the beams that held it aloft. The visits he'd paid to Brighton before the pier had gone up in 1866 were hardly filed under his "remarkable" tab. What was remarkable was walking through Rome two summers ago, looking at ruins of palaces he had helped to build, but he supposed on Grelle's timeline, the pier very well could have been Rome.

"Indeed, my love."

Grelle made a little contented noise at the back of her throat and was quiet. In a few thousand years, archaeologists wouldn't even know the West Pier had been there, just like they knew little about so many ancient cultures now. But Sebastian would remember, and so would Grelle, and they would come to whatever had become of Brighton and stand on this very spot and remember how long one hundred and twenty-five years had seemed at the time, and laugh at how naïve they'd been, and perhaps have celebrated one hundred and twenty-five years ten times over by then.

Straightening, Sebastian brought one of his hands to Grelle's face and turned her chin up to kiss her. She smiled, shifting her feet so she could face him, hug her arms around his neck. Another moment in the embrace, and Sebastian was picking her up. She drew back, above him now in his arms, and looked down into his eyes, smiling.

"Happy anniversary," she said.

He lifted one of her hands from the place it had fallen onto on his shoulder and brought it to his lips to kiss her fingertips. "Happy anniversary," he replied.