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Crickets chirped in the dunes behind them. Somewhere, a frog droned and galumphed into the night. The air was still, but for a cool, gentle breeze off the ocean, and clouds blacked out the night sky in soft, mysterious patches. In the clear spaces, stars shone down, and the moonlight glowed, and danced on the rippling waves.
They sat together at last, remembering the feeling of the sand between their toes, and sun on their faces, from earlier that day. They laughed, thinking about how long it was since they’d had fresh strawberries, and how it was almost a shame to be dipping them in chocolate. They stared warmly into each other’s eyes, and then out over the ocean. Over the world. After so long feeling like it was trying to crush them and swallow them up, it was odd, and yet comforting, to let its stillness, at long last, sink into their bones.
Simmons licked the chocolate off her fingers one by one, her eyes flicking from where the moonlight shimmered on the ocean, to where it was reflected, just as dappled, in Fitz’ eyes. He didn’t seem to notice she was looking: he was staring up at the moon with an expression of such reverent wonder that his eyes were starting to fill with tears. It made her heart swell in her chest, to the point of aching.
“Fitz…”
Simmons put one hand over his, where they rested half on blanket and half sand, between the two of them. She almost wanted to ask, what’s wrong? but that wasn’t quite it. Nothing was wrong.
Until Fitz inhaled a tear-filled breath, and pulled his hand from hers to wipe his eyes. (The other had a strawberry head still in it, which took her a moment to realise, and calm her suddenly terrified heart.)
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he assured her, a smile lighting up his face all of a sudden, even as he continued to wipe at his eyes. The tears refused to stop. “Nothing’s wrong at all. That’s exactly it. It’s so…”
He looked back out, back up at the moon, as if it could somehow help him convey the way every emotion at once, every good memory, had filled his heart to overflowing.
“It’s real,” he said, finally settling on something. “It’s so real and I can’t – I almost can’t believe it. We came through hell…and bloody high water…to get here and it’s a dream turned real. It’s perfect. It’s…”
This time, he didn’t trail off for a lack of words. His eyes had been drawn to Simmons in his explanation; as always, she helped him find what he wanted to say. Her own eyes shone tears back at him now, and she smiled gently.
“Oh, Fitz,” she whispered. The way his heart swelled looking at the moon, was the way hers did when she looked at him. Whenever she saw the vulnerability, the heightened emotional state that Fitz seemed to live and breathe, she could hardly believe his bleeding heart had not been crushed or frozen by their lives. If she could, she’d hold it and love it like it deserved and protect it from all approaches.
Well. Was that not what she was doing right now?
Simmons took his hand back and squeezed. There was nothing she could say that could match the poetry in his heart.
“I love you,” she said instead, and raised their hands to her lips to kiss their united knuckles. “I love you so much, Fitz.”
Blinking through tears – some of which retreated, and some which spilled, now unchecked – Fitz nodded, and pulled Simmons into a hug against him, so that they could both look out at the shimmering ocean, and feel the beating of each other’s hearts.
“I love you too,” he whispered back, and rested his cheek against the top of her head.
Simmons smiled, and reached her free hand up to brush gently through his curls. She didn’t have to look to know he was still wearing that same expression, looking at her the way he looked at the moon; loving her so much his heart could burst with it. She felt him shift, and hoped he was smiling again. Probably, he was, as her words sunk in and impressed upon him the thought behind every touch, and every look, and every silence. He knew. He had to know. But she would be eternally grateful for moments like this, when she could remind him, and wrap him in it like a blanket, so that there was no denying it, even with his doubtful heart.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.