Rhysand can't sleep.

He's been staring at the ceiling for two, three hours, and his legs feel cramped, but it's not just the couch, Rhysand could care less about the couch—the fact that Sanford is just in the next room, sleeping soundly, without him—it physically hurts.

But—but he's wrong.

She's not sleeping, at all, because the door slightly creaks open, and Rhysand sits up, eyes blinking against the darkness.

"Oh," Sanford says, blinking, pressed against the door. "You're—you're awake."

"You are, too," Rhysand says, just as softly.

She winces. "Sorry, is the couch too—"

"No," he answers, shaking his head. "No, it's fine. I just—I don't know. Do you—" he pauses, taking a deep breath. "Do you want me to leave? So you can get some rest? You have work tomorrow."

She purses her lips. "No," she whispers, and Rhysand's heart pounds loudly against his chest. "No, you—you should stay."

Rhysand swallows and nods. "Okay."

Sanford stares at him, fiddling with her fingers behind her back. "Can I—" she stops abruptly, face heating. He's always—he's always loved the color on her cheeks when he made her flustered, or—or happy, or nervous—the good kind of nervous. "Can I sit?"

Rhysand scoots over. "It's your couch."

Meekly, she walks the few steps from the hallway to the living room, and she sits on the far end of the sofa, tense and incredibly rigid.

Rhysand clenches his hands into fists. "How is school—"

"Do you hate me?"

Rhysand whips his head around to look at her, drawing his eyebrows together. They spoke at the same time, and Sanford blushes, looking away. "What?"

"S-sorry," she stammers. "You go first."

"No, no, I want to know why you asked me that," Rhysand says, face set into a frown. "Have you been—is that what's been on your mind this whole time?"

Sanford's hands ball into fists on her lap, too.

"Why would you even think that?" Rhysand demands, suddenly annoyed. "Why would you—I don't get it—"

"Why don't you hate me for leaving you?"

She—she asks this so quietly, so barely above a whisper. She raises her head, and her jaw tightens, like she's trying to keep her emotions in place. Rhysand knows her best—her heart is always on her sleeve, and whatever she feels, Rhysand can see in her eyes.

And—and right now, her eyes are shiny with tears once again.

Rhysand answers, "Because it was my fault that you did."

Sanford swallows the lump in her throat. "No, I—"

"Because you said you needed to face this on your own," he continues, inhaling deeply. "And because you wanted me to choose my music."

"I left without a goodbye."

"I wouldn't have let you go if you stayed."

Sanford pauses for a moment, just staring at him. "I knew that," she says, lips pulling up into a small smile, and Rhysand—Rhysand sees his sunshine. "I knew that."

Rhysand searches her face.

"When I heard the album, your songs," she murmurs, and she's crying again, and Rhysand resists the urge to wipe her tears away, "my heart broke."

Rhysand sucks in a deep breath.

"Because," she says, still wearing that—that smile that made him weak to the knees whenever they were directed at him, that smile that made him fall at her feet, "because someone could wait this long for me," she whispers, and a tear falls down her cheek, "because someone could love me this much. Still. Even after I hurt him."

"I hurt you, too. I hurt you a lot. I hurt you all the time."

"You loved me more than you hurt me, Rhysand," she says, shaking her head, moving closer, and Rhysand inhales a staggering breath, digging his nails into his palms. "I always thought I loved you more than you did me, but I was wrong."

"Sunshine," he says quietly, watching her eyes, and the oceans in them move closer, and closer. "I love you."

She squeezes her eyes shut. Takes a shaky breath.

"I still do," he whispers. "And I hope you don't mind."

Sanford's hands reach out shakily to his face, and his breath stops, because she leans forward and kisses him.

It's hesitant, and brief, and unsure—but Rhysand feels all the emotions that she offers to him, and Rhysand—Rhysand gasps, and a shock runs through his skin, his body, his spine—kissing her feels like coming home.

Sanford pulls back, worried, tugging her lip into her teeth. "Sorry, I should've—"

Rhysand grabs her waist and pulls her to him, chasing her mouth, and she lets out a sound of surprise, falling onto his lap, legs on either side of his hips—and God, God, the weight of her body, the physical weight of her on him—his heart bursts loudly, and it's screaming, yelling so loudly Rhysand can hear it—

Rhysand is aware of everything—everything her. Her hands are on his shoulders, fingers grasping the back of his neck, brushing the pads of them through his hair, and they shake, they shake so hard like they've missed his skin, and Rhysand's hand is on her waist—curling around her hipbone like it fits, it does, it fits perfectly—and his other grasps her chin, her jaw, her cheek, tilting her head, pressing harder, and Rhysand squeezes his eyes shut, listens to his own heart screaming.

She's as warm, and as lovely, and as perfect as Rhysand remembered.

"I can still taste the cigarettes on you," she mutters in his mouth, and Rhysand kisses her again, pulling her desperately to him, like she'd be gone if he let go. "You said you stopped."

"I said I do it less," Rhysand answers quickly, panting, kissing her again, and again, and again, and Sanford whimpers when her mouth is coaxed open, clutches his shirt with her fingers, lowering her hips onto his.

"I missed you," she says, pulling back, eyes wild and wanting, teary and desperate. "Rhysand, I missed you."

"Sunshine," he breathes, and he doesn't realize he's crying until Sanford leans in again, lips passing through his forehead, his eyelids, his cheeks, his mouth, his neck where his pulse point is—"Sunshine, baby, I missed you," he chokes out in a sob, gripping her small body, and her breath catches, trailing her lips over his collarbone. "God, I missed you."

It hurts. It hurts how good it feels to be wanted by her again.

"Please," she whimpers, hands grabbing desperately for his shirt. "Please, please, Rhysand."

It's not enough. He takes off his shirt. Sanford takes hers off.

He marks her skin. Starts with her neck.

"Rhysand, Rhys, Rhys," she mutters repeatedly like a prayer, laying down when Rhysand switches their positions, hands all over her neck where the sun is, her chest, stomach, legs.

"I got you, baby," he says, pulling her shorts and underwear down. Does the same with his own. And then he pulls back, mind struggling to pause for a moment, to think beyond, beyond his need, her need, beyond the feeling of being wanted by her. "Sunshine, are you—are you sure? We can—we can just talk—"

"No, please, please," Sanford sobs, pulling him to her, kisses him hard. "Rhys, please, I want you, I want you always, I love you, I love you so much."

Rhysand presses his forehead to hers, shutting his eyes, and his heart is screaming again. "What tense?"

"Present tense, future tense, any tense you want," she blabbers, hands clinging to him, crying. "I never stopped, Rhys—"

Rhysand—Rhysand catches sight of her wrist.

It's small. It's small, on the left side of her wrist—just above her pulse point. RH.

Rhysand grabs it, frozen. "Sanford."

"Please," she whispers, eyes looking up at him. "I never—I never stopped, Rhys—"

He does as she asks.

There's a—there's a frightening edge to their need, their—their desperation, like they're barely clinging onto each other. Like they're about to lose each other again.

Rhysand tangles their fingers together, pins them above her head, kisses her eyelids, her wet cheeks, her lips moaning his name.

And finally, the mark on her wrist. Sanford grabs his own, too. Kisses the sun.

It burns on his skin. It burns, and Rhysand pants into her neck, gripping her hips with his free hand, breathes into her skin, "I love you. I love you, I love you. There's no one else but you."

It hurts.

It hurts—how good, how right, how incredibly right it is to be wanted by her again. Loved by her again.

"I love you," Sanford whispers through her tears, gripping him, clinging to him. "I never stopped."

It hurts. But it's bearable.