"There was no one word with which to brand the moment..."

The early morning sun peeped through the gaps in the tent flap, warming Portia's back slowly, gently rousing her from sleep. Blanche's head rested on her chest, her unruly curls spread out across the pillow behind her, blissfully unconscious in the arms of her new lover. A little smile tugged at the corners of her mouth and Portia couldn't help but smile to herself as she imagined what she much be dreaming about. A little arrow of sunlight caught her hair as she nestled closer in her sleep, making the thin strands of copper that laced through honey-blonde shine like fine wire. Portia very gently traced the lines of her face, her body, her hair, as she lay listening to the deep rhythmic sound of her breathing.

As she followed the line of her cheek bone, down to her jaw, Blanche stirred in her arms, her bright green eyes fluttering open. She smiled to herself when she saw Portia watching her, and let her eyes drift shut again, settling herself back into Portia's protective embrace.

"I almost feared it had all been a dream," she murmured, smiling to herself.

"So did I," Portia mused, "when I first woke. I was horribly afraid that I had simply concocted the entire night in my mind and that I would wake up to find that none of it had really happened." She smiled down at her lover in her arms. "But then I saw you," she said, "lying there, so beautifully asleep in my arms, and my mind was put to rest." Blanche chuckled, her eyes still closed. She loved to hear Portia speak like that. She was capable of making even the simplest of things sound like poetry, the most mundane of people like characters in a great, tragic love story.

Blanche shivered involuntarily as she felt Portia's fingers trail lazily up her side. The steady sound of her heartbeat beneath her head, combined with the warmth of the sun on her back, made her feel drowsy. She found herself sliding back into sleep as Portia toyed idly with her curls; she hummed contentedly. Portia giggled.

"Are you happy my love?" she asked. Blanche smiled and opened her eyes so that she could look up at Portia's smiling face.

"Yes," she whispered. "I think I have been waiting for this moment since the minute I first met you." Portia kissed her softly, pulling her gently closer. There was no one word with which to brand the moment. It was as if two lost halves had become, in this moment, whole again, and would never again be whole, or remain whole, with out the other.