She didn't have any more dreams, or if she did he didn't wake up to hear about them. She was still asleep when he woke up, as he'd expected. He'd gotten more sleep than she had, but the previous night had been exhausting even for him. It was later than usual when he finally managed to pull himself out of bed, but as soon as he did he looked over to Kate's side of the room. She was lying on her side facing him, so he could easily see that her eyes were closed and her chest was rising and falling heavily. There was no doubt that she was still, in fact, asleep.

He went back to the bedroom where his things still were and got dressed, and then he went to the kitchen and started making coffee. He arranged a small assortment of muffins on a plate and set it on the counter, and then milled about the kitchen fairly aimlessly while waiting for the coffee to brew. When it had finished, he filled a mug for himself, left an empty one beside the pot, and went outside to sit on the deck.

Out of habit, he sat down in the chair nearest the porch rail and gazed out into the ocean as he sipped his coffee. Today, he noted, the water was different than he'd seen it since they'd arrived here. It was unsettled. Darker in color, and churning nervously as though waiting for a cue from some outside source, someone to tell it what to do. Should it clear up, flatten out like a sheet pulled taut and glisten in the sunlight? Or should it wrinkle even further, tossing and turning uneasily throughout the rest of the day?

He followed his beloved ocean out to the horizon line and allowed his gaze to make the natural transition to the sky. Like the ocean, it was a dark gray. The clouds were full, threatening rain that hadn't yet come. He marveled at the way, out here, the water and the sky seemed to come together. In the city, the sky held all the authority. It made its decisions and did what it wanted without waiting for input from any outside source. But here it seemed that the sky and the ocean were engaged in a sort of partnership. Although the ocean waited for a cue from the sky, this was the ocean's territory, and the sky wasn't quite willing to do anything without its permission. So the two entities engaged in a kind of symbiotic dance. The clouds moved according to the water, rolling and churning with the waves. When the sky darkened, so did the water. When the sky started to clear, the water started to settle. When the waves picked up, the clouds seemed to multiply.

He didn't know how long he sat there, sipping his coffee and watching the ocean watch the sky; the sky watch the ocean. He so was inspired by the mutual inspiration that the minutes melted into one another and time seemed to become an abstract concept with no real meaning. But he was snapped out of his trance-like state when he heard the screen door open behind him.

He watched with a small smile echoing hers as she emerged on the deck with a full mug of coffee in one hand and two muffins in the other. She had some difficulty balancing everything as she tried to close the door, so he got up and took the coffee from her without a word. "Thanks," she murmured.

She followed him back to where he'd been sitting and pulled up a chair next to where he'd put his, so close beside his, in fact, that when she sat down their arms nearly touched. "Trade you," she offered, holding up a muffin while she waited for her coffee.

He nodded. "Sure." He passed her the mug and accepted the muffin.

"What were you doing out here?" She sipped her coffee while she waited for his answer.

He shrugged. "Just… watching."

She nodded as if she understood, and sipped her coffee again. "Look, I'm… sorry about last night," she finally said.

"Sorry?" he repeated, uncomprehending. "For what?"

"I woke you up, like three times."

He waved her off. "Two of them weren't on purpose."

"But the last time was. I really shouldn't have done that. I don't need to make my problems yours."

"I don't mind," he insisted. "Really. That's why I'm here."

But she shook her head. "It's too much. That you're here, with me, away from your family… it's too much. We should go home. Soon. Today."

He fiddled with his muffin, skillfully removing the top in one Frisbee-shaped piece. "And do what?" he finally asked.

She shrugged. "You go back to your life. I'll go back to what's left of mine."

He shook his head without looking up, biting back irritation that she'd even suggested that. "Forget it."

"I can't. This isn't right. I can't just ask you to put your life on hold for me."

Finally he lifted his head and looked at her. When she'd started this conversation he'd been a little annoyed. Now he was decidedly aggravated. "You didn't ask that," he reminded her gravely. "You didn't ask me to come here, I asked you. I also asked you to wake me up last night if you needed to talk. Do not be sorry for doing what I asked. And I'm not putting my life on hold for you. Guess what? This is my life. You're in it. Whether you like it or not, you are my friend, my partner, and I care about what happens to you. I care that you're okay, and if you're not and there's something, anything, that I can do to help, the best thing you can possibly do for me is to let me do it. That isn't bothering me. Bothering me is when you're hurting and you won't let me help. That's what bothers me." He took an angry bite of his decapitated muffin's top, as though sealing his speech.

She didn't say anything for a long moment. Neither did he. He'd said everything he needed to say. Now it was her turn.

For awhile she just sat there staring at the horizon and sipping her coffee, much like he'd been doing before she came out. He finished off his muffin top and was just about to move on to the bottom when she looked at him. "Looks like it's gonna rain," she observed.

For a second he was thrown off. He'd been preparing himself for her response, whatever it was, getting himself ready to fight if need be, and she'd chosen not to respond at all. But he soon decided that as long as she was dropping her argument, he didn't care if they continued to discuss it. In fact, it might have been better that they didn't. He looked up at the sky as if he hadn't memorized all the cloud patterns before she'd come out. They'd changed slightly, but looked just as threatening as ever. "It does, doesn't it?"

"So… we should probably do something inside today."

He felt the corners of his lips twitch upward, aware that, in her way, she'd just agreed to stay and drop the argument. She wouldn't say it, and he wouldn't flaunt it, but he'd won. "Well," he said instead, "I don't know about you, but I'm a little tired today. I don't really feel like going out anywhere." He was telling the truth, he was a little tired, but mostly he'd said that because he'd read the exhaustion on her face: the relative pallor of her complexion, the shadows that were still beneath her eyes.

"I'm with you," she granted.

"Good. So, what do you say to a movie marathon day?"

She raised an eyebrow. "A what?"

"Movie marathon day," he repeated. "We'll make popcorn, we'll order in for all our meals, and we'll take turns picking our favorite movies to Netflix."

She smiled. "Sounds fun."

"Oh, it will be. You haven't lived until you've experienced a Castle-style rainy day movie marathon. You'll love it."

"Will I?"

"You will." He finished off his muffin in two final bites.

"So when do we start this marathon?"

"It doesn't matter. Now, if you want."

She swirled her coffee. "Can I finish this first?"

"Absolutely."

She stared into her coffee cup for a long moment, carefully studying the brown liquid. "Thanks," she finally told it, a little stiffly, spitting out the word. "For… being here for me. Whether… whether it seems like I want you to be or not."

He raised his eyebrows and looked at her with mock condescension, like a schoolteacher would look at a young pupil. "Kate, your coffee will always be there for you," he explained. "Unless you drink it all. But then you can make more."

She looked up at him sideways, half-smiling. "I wasn't talking to the coffee."

"Oh." He feigned shock. "Well, it certainly looked like you were talking to the coffee, but if you say you weren't…" He smiled as she rolled her eyes, and he allowed his tone to soften. "You're welcome."

He got up during the second movie to make more popcorn. While it popped, he found himself staring out the large picture window. The dynamic out there had changed. The sky had finally let loose. Everything it had been holding back now cascaded down in sheets to meet the earth, the sand, the sea.

Something about the rain seemed to bring the sky down closer to the water, or maybe it was bringing the water up to meet the sky. Either way they seemed even closer than they'd been before, each even more easily altered by any motion at all from the other. Each tear shed by the sky left an indentation on the water's surface before it was absorbed, never to be seen again.

The ocean seemed to cradle the sky in the way that nothing else could. Blacktop rejected the raindrops, refusing to take them in, or, worse, deflecting them back up toward the sky. Dirt mixed with them, creating a mess. Sand just let them fall, not even seeming to notice. But the water… the water was sympathetic. The water cared.

Some might say that the ocean and the sky operated on two totally separate planes, living two lives that never intersected, but he knew how wrong this was. The ocean was the sky's partner. The sky couldn't do anything without affecting the ocean directly—the pull of the tides, the size of the waves—and when the sky was ready to let go, to lash out in anger or pour down in sadness, the ocean could always be counted on to absorb the blow, to share in and eventually dissipate the sky's every trouble.

Author's Note: I'm changing it up, trying to just put the author's notes at the end of each chapter instead of the beginning and the end... usually I don't have anything to say that's important enough that I really need to tell you before you read, anyway. :) In fact... usually I don't have anything all that important to tell you anyway, I just enjoy my blabbering and I'm not willing to give it up.

So this chapter sort of took I direction I didn't exactly intend... which is good, because before I started writing it I really had no idea what it was going to be about. I know it's short, but I feel like there's a lot here, so short might be okay. The ocean/sky metaphor is the part I didn't exactly intend... it kind of snuck up on me while I was writing, and I figured it could work and just went with it. I think I probably already stretched it a bit far, but if I know anything about the way I write (which I certainly hope I do... because if I don't, I have no idea who the hell does...) I would suspect that it will be back again before too long. When I come up with a metaphor I like, I tend to kill it and then beat its carcass until it cries out in pain. Which it will, eventually. I'm just that good. And THAT is a disturbing metaphor which I hopefully will never go near again. A metaphor about metaphors? Isn't that a bit excessive? On that note, moving on...

I need to dial back the angst in this story a bit. I'm aware, and I'm working on it. I'm planning an excessively fluffy chapter soon, if not the next chapter then probably the one after that. So you can look forward to that in the future. However, there will be more angst as well, which you can probably tell from what has and hasn't happened already. Mostly, I'm just trying to keep it balanced.

I will now proceed to post this, finish my homework and go to class. Hopefully when I get back later tonight I'll have a nice little pile of reviews waiting for me (hint, hint?). That would be an awesome way to finish off the day. :) Thanks for reading, as always!