Sora was leaving her office for the day when Hana arrived unannounced.

"We need to talk."

I don't know what circle of hell I'm on today, but I'd like to request an upgrade.

Sora checked for her keys and finding them, made to walk around her sister.

"Hana, not today. I have somewhere to be."

Hana stepped into her path. "This is important. We have to discuss what you're doing with Ravi."

"We don't have anything to discuss. We've been dating for months. When are you going to let this go?"

"I won't let this go. That's the man I love, truly love, Sora."

Sora stopped, bidding silently for patience. It wasn't as if Sora didn't understand on some level. "I love him, too, Hana. And Ravi loves you. He is just no longer in love with you. I'm sorry that you're hurt. You don't know how I wish this had happened in a different life where Ravi and you didn't have all the history that you have." She'd feel more secure if that shared history didn't exist, too, she didn't say. "Nonetheless, it didn't there. It happened, we happened in this life."

"Fighting you won't make me happy, but my heart won't let me give up on Ravi. I've tried."

When? Sora asked herself, bemused.

"Sure. Your heart. Good luck with that." Sora looped her purse strap over her shoulder. "You know where the door is. Cristina can show you out if you lose your way."

Sora left her sister where she stood. She had bigger dragons to slay tonight.

...

...

Sora used her key to enter Ravi's condo. Fresh moonlight spilled in behind her, the waters crashed against the shoreline, obscuring the double-time galug- thump of her heart as she set foot inside.

She found Ravi sitting in his armchair. He smiled when he saw her come in and rose to meet her, kissing her hello so sweetly she pulled back wearing a grin of her own. He still wants me, he can't lie that well, so what is this?

"Hi."

"Hey."

He walked her to the sofa. "Sit with me."

They sat.

He rubbed a hand on his slacks. "How about a glass of wine?"

"Or you could tell me what you wanted to talk about."

"Wine might make it go down easier."

The hairs on Sora's arms stood up. She moved a couple of feet down the couch from him.

"Hana came to see me this afternoon. Is this about that?"

Ravi furrowed his brow. "I don't know anything about whatever that is. This is about us."

Sora's hackles lowered somewhat. At least this isn't down to Hana. She struggled to silence her other insecurities. He chose me. What about Jasmin?

"Is Jasmin back?"

"Is she? I dunno, last time we spoke she was taking a sabbatical in Prague with a doctor she met on the Seychelles Islands."

"Oh, I just thought she must be in L.A."

"Wouldn't know about that. This isn't about Jasmin. This about me, and you. You need to know why I hesitated to start this." He gestured between them. "—us up."

"You weren't sure about your feelings for me."

"No, I've known for a while how I felt. I told you months ago that I knew I was asking for too much. I knew I wanted more than you were prepared to give, so I waited and hoped you might come to feel the way I did. That's not the only reason."

"Tell me."

"Do you know why I waited all that time to come back? Why I only called Hana about Dhiren? Why I didn't make any promises to my children and Jasmin and hardly saw them while I was there?"

"I thought it must have been awkward under the circumstances."

"It was, but that wouldn't be enough to keep me from them today. I talk to Evelyn when she'll take my calls. I saw Ishir a lot more in the months before I came home. I had my reasons and I thought they were good ones, but that doesn't mean my silence kept anyone from getting hurt."

"Is there someone else? Hana said she thought you got married and had a child. Anthony guessed you had a gay fling."

"That sounds like something Anthony would think. Hasn't met very many fashion designers, has he?"

"He's...Anthony. He has flaws that are easy to overlook when you love him."

"You can see why I never had that problem."

"I can!" She giggled, disquieted though she was. "Why didn't you come home, Ravi? Forget Hana and Anthony and everybody else. Tell me why."

"I got sick," he croaked, watching the tips of his polished shoes, expression pensive. "No, I must have already been sick before I left, before the wedding. I was just too caught up in Hana to see what was happening. I was tired and irritable. I kept turning up with all these bruises. Hana laughed them off and said we'd just got a little...Uh, you know what I mean."

"Unfortunately, yes." Sora let her concern crowd out the rest. The past wasn't hers to claim, only the present.

"I puttered around the Misra place in Rome for a few weeks stewing over my feelings. I was working up the courage to come back. I thought I'd overreacted, or that's what I kept telling myself. But the time was going by too fast and I couldn't get up the nerve. Next thing I know, I came down with this bug I couldn't shake. I was out of commission for a month, stuck in bed. I couldn't sketch or do paperwork; I was down for the count, knocked out. Enzo was the one that eventually pushed me into getting checked out. He said normal bugs don't stick around like that."

Sora shifted toward his end of the sofa.

"I went to the doctor and they ran a bunch of tests. I was thin. Hadn't been able to keep anything down for a while. I was dehydrated. My lymph nodes were swollen, but none of 'em hurt. Everything else was...agony; I hurt all over. I kept getting nose bleeds, too. I wasn't okay. I wanted to be and I wasn't."

I have to ask what it is. I should ask. No part of her wanted this to be true. Ravi can't be sick. I don't want him to be sick.

"What was your diagnosis?"

"Adult Acute Myeloid Leukemia, AML."

Sora pressed her forehead against his shoulder. Be strong. Stay strong. "Okay. Tell me more. What was your prognosis?"

"Decent, not great. It's more severe in adults, more common in children. I'd waited a while to get my symptoms seen to and I was pretty bad off. I wanted to come home right then, but I was too sick to travel. My doctors wouldn't have permitted it. Enzo put his foot down as best he could. Not that it mattered since my immune system was shot. I went to a concert with some friends and got so sick afterward I had to be admitted to a hospital. I was in denial; I don't get sick."

"So when you spent the night with me when I had the flu you were taking your life in your hands."

"I was okay. It would have been worth it even if I wasn't."

Sora leapt up and began to pace. She needed distance. I forget how to think around him.

"Not to me! You had no right to put me in the middle of your illness. I wouldn't have ever forgiven myself if you'd died only for me to find out it was all my fault."

"I know it was selfish—"

"It was selfish. You made a choice that would have impacted both of us and our sons and you don't have the right to do that."

"It felt worth it."

"To leave Dhiren and Evelyn and Ishir just like that?" Ravi was at the very least a devoted father these days, if a less than outstanding ex-husband to Hana.

"To be close to you. On that night, it felt worth it."

Sora collapsed into his chair, head in hands. This was the world entire on her shoulders. She'd forgotten how to bear the weight. Shakespeare didn't write our story, Shakespeare won't. This is ours and we decide the ending. She went to Ravi, grabbing his arm.

"Don't ever say that to me again. I'm not Hana. I don't need you to risk your life for me to know how much you love me. When you say it, it's enough."

"I love you."

"And that's enough." Sora laid her hand across his beating heart. "Don't ever do that to me again. Don't make me the weapon that kills you. That's not what love is and if that's what loving Hana has taught you, she taught you wrong."

"I know."

He pulled her onto his lap.

"Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;"

"Poetry can't fix everything."

"Sometimes it's the only thing that can."

They rested temple to temple, breathing in sync. Sora couldn't let this moment go by.

" Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,.."

He shifted to brush a kiss across her cheek as he reached up to cradle her face.

"Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings."

Sora exhaled, shaky. "Even a perfectly healthy king?"

"A healthy king could never be as happy as you've made me this year."

"I don't want to lose you. If having you means losing you in the end, I don't know if I'm that strong."

"Then, you won't have me and I won't have anybody. I'm not going to Hana. I'm not going to Jasmin. I'm not going anywhere. I'll just be on my own. Is that better?"

Sora couldn't answer.

He pulled away. "You can go if that's what you need to do. We can forget this whole thing and go back to before."

"You know we can't go back. You can't un-kiss me or...."

"Given the chance I'd kiss you with my last breath."

"You say the most beautiful things and they scare me."

He waited. Sora wouldn't make him wait for long.

"I believe them when you say them, and I believe the heartbreak, the literal heartbreak just to love you would be worth the pain."

"I know it would be."

"That's easy for you to say, you wouldn't be the one left behind."

Ravi brushed away her tears. "Doesn't matter. I'd be without you."

Sora hid her face and touched her scar. You'd never be without me.

"Sora, I'll do everything in my power not to leave you. I'm not done loving yet or creating. I still have things to contribute to this world, and I have a life I have to keep living with you."

She closed her eyes and prayed. "You'd better be okay."

"I'll be okay, but I have this appointment."

"That's why you're telling me."

"I'm telling you because you deserve to know what you're getting yourself into. Some of the symptoms...I'm tired lately, keep falling asleep at my desk. The gala knocked me out; it wasn't just you. The bruises...I have an appointment tomorrow. I don't know what happens after it, but you needed to know before I go."

Sora felt like she'd been kicked. "You should have told me months ago. I deserved to know."

"I was better, in remission. I was nervous that you wouldn't want to be with me knowing there might not be time for it."

That hurt. "We found each other close to twenty-five years after we met. Even if we live another fifty, there won't be enough time. I wasted months feeling guilty about what was happening in my head and in my heart. I will not waste another day. We'll make time."

She stretched up and kissed him softly. "We will make time."

He held her tighter than any occasion before. She held on just as tight. They did nothing but make time and love and memories for the remainder of the night.