“I asked her to return if there was any change.”

So yes, in a way.

She’s somewhere out there over the cove, wheeling slow over dark water. A cursory scan overhead reveals nothing, no sign through the haze of FItcher’s smoke. He’s back to drawing lazy circles where her leg fits over him. Drifting distant again, in thought, the crook at his mouth crimped in bittersweet.

There’s a last time for everything.