Hastings was not, by and large, the most touristy of towns, despite its rather large claim to fame. Nonetheless, there was plenty to see and do if you knew the place, and Kit did know the town very well indeed. She'd lived there all her life, in various neighborhoods. Despite the odd awkwardness of living in close proximity with a man she knew she loved and hoped loved her, she had done her best to help Rand settle in, giving him as much time, as much space, as he needed. But she didn't forget her promise to show him the town. That morning, she had all but bounced into his bedroom and thrown a towel on his head, demanding that he get up and dressed, because today was the day he was going to meet Hastings.

Slowly but surely, day by day, Rand was getting used to his new home in Hastings and the young woman who had invited him to stay. Slowly but surely, bit by bit, they were getting to know each other better, but he still thought of that other Randal as a separate being and him the keeper of that other Randal's memories. Slowly but surely, he and Kit were becoming more comfortable with each other, and that morning when she'd awoken him to tell him she was going to show him around Hastings, he'd laughed at her wit and her bravado. Laughing, perhaps for the first time since arriving, with a full and happy heart. He'd had to resist the temptation once again to take her in his arms, but he'd somehow managed, glad at the prospect of spending the day with her.

She hadn't exactly been gentle with him, ushering him out of the house almost the moment he'd appeared fully dressed, declaring her intention to treat him to the best greasy spoon in this part of the town. It may not have been the best, but it was certainly a filling meal, which turned out to be fairly necessary. She seemed to have the intention to walk him all over the town, starting with the castle up on the cliff-top. The centuries of erosion and decay had left William the Conqueror's first fortress in ruins, half slipped away into the sea, but the wildness of the stonework and overgrown grass had a beauty of its own.

"I used to come up here all the time when I was a child," she told Rand, leaning her arms onto a fallen wall to look out at the English Channel. "Especially after my father died. He was the one who always encouraged me not to worry about grades and facts and figures. He always said that I had magic in my hands."

It was the first time she'd spoken to him of her father, or of her childhood at all. That other Randal knew things that he didn't, but those memories were still slowly emerging in bits and pieces, and he wanted to hear it all from her, anyway. "How long has he been gone?" he asked, as he took a lean beside her, turning from the sea to study her profile.

"My mum divorced him when I was three," she told him, flicking her head to clear the windswept hair from her eyes. "That was when we moved in with Nana. He died about seven years later, when I was ten. Complications of a cardiac nature was all I was ever told about it." She shrugged, shaking her head sadly. "I really missed him, even before he died. Mum didn't like that, of course. She thought I was playing favorites with my own parents."

"I'm sorry for your loss, Kit. I'm sure he was very special," he said, reaching over to brush a little of that windswept hair away from her face. She really was lovely, but it wasn't just the way she looked. He was slowly learning that she was not mad as he had once thought, but possessed of a kind heart and a lovely soul. "You never forgave her, did you?" he asked, a little tentatively. She hadn't really told him much about that part of her life, but some part of him remembered, and it wasn't hard for him to put two and two together.

"Isn't it awful of me?" she asked, turning her head toward him as he tucked a little of her hair back from her face. "I'm supposed to be an adult. But no ....I've never really forgiven her for what she did to my dad. She had an affair, you see, and flaunted it around so much that he didn't really have much choice but to divorce her. But he never stopped loving her, right up 'til the day he died. No matter what she did or how much she hurt him, he loved her." She shook her head once again. "I didn't understand why. I still don't, really. I don't find that much to love in my mother."

One of the pieces of the puzzle slid slowly into place, something clicking in his mind, a connection that hadn't occurred to him before. "Isabelle did the same thing in a way," he said, turning his head to the sea, watching as the waves crashed upon the shore and the gulls flew overhead. "Perhaps that's why he came to you. Though you were only a child, he saw something in you that was the same in himself," he mused, still talking about her captain as though he was a separate entity.

"Perhaps," she murmured, watching his face as his eyes turned to the sea, stealing the chance to absorb every detail before he looked back and caught her. She knew it made him uncomfortable, trying not to do it when he might catch her at it. "But you said that Isabelle knew it was me before I was even born. So maybe it wasn't a choice at all. Maybe it was fate."

"Fate," he echoed quietly. The wind caught a curl and swept it onto his forward, before he brushed it away from his face, quietly considering her words. He paused a moment, thoughtfully, before putting to her one of a few theories he'd been considering over the last few days. "What if part of Randal's soul was able to choose" What if only part of him was stuck here in this house" What if the other part of him chose his fate" What if he choose to come back as me, knowing you would be here" What if you chose it, too, Kit' What if none of this has been chance at all" What if we chose this before we were born?"

She bit her lip, turning fully to face him as she considered this theory. "That would ....make a lot of sense," she nodded slowly. "He didn't seem to have much control over what he could do, or touch, or affect. And if it was only part of your soul, then that part I've known for most of my life wouldn't know what was happening in your life. Perhaps that was Isabelle's plan all along."

"Perhaps," he agreed, though whether his theory was right or not, it still left some questions unanswered. "The only thing I don't understand is why you? Why didn't she....Unless..." He trailed off, brows furrowed in further confusion. If Isabelle truly wanted to rectify the past, why didn't she incarnate herself to set things straight' Or was that the price she paid for what she'd done?

"I don't have her memories," she said quietly, quick to catch on to what was trailing through his mind. "She said something about only a steadfast heart being able to teach Randal faith again, and that she'd paid some sort of price to give him that second chance. I don't know what it means, or why me. Maybe I take after my dad."

"Or perhaps you're the only one who sees something special in me," she reasoned in return, slender fingers squeezing his as she stepped back with a warm smile. "We should go before I do something highly inappropriate in front of the altar." One eyelid flickered in a wink that was decidedly cheeky above her teasing grin.

"Kit," he said, reaching for her arm to pull her back around. "Just because someone hasn't told you you're special doesn't mean you aren't. It's been my experience that people don't usually tell those they love how much they mean to them until it's too late." He said nothing in regard to her cheekiness, needing her to understand this first.

Drawn back, she blinked in surprise, the mischief in her expression fading away as he spoke. She wasn't sure why he was telling her this, but perhaps it was because no one had ever told him, either. She rose onto her toes once again, her hand cupping to his cheek with tender intimacy. "I love you," she murmured, for his ears only, even in a house of worship. "If there's anything special about me, it came from you. Because I didn't let myself feel anything until your soul found mine, and now what I feel revolves around you."

He hadn't told her that because he was fishing for compliments or looking for her to tell him how special he was, but for another reason, though he chose to let her believe whatever she wanted for now. He wished he could tell her he loved her back, but he couldn't, not yet anyway. "I wasn't here when you created that piece, and if anyone should be thanking someone for saving them, it should be me thanking you," he told her, ducking his head so she wouldn't see the tears that were filling his eyes, for some unknown reason.

"Don't." Her hand gently lifted his head, gentle eyes looking into his with the love he couldn't share, not yet. "Don't hide from me," she whispered to him, sweeping her thumb against his cheek. "I will never judge you for what you feel, or how you show it. Whether you share it with me or not, don't ever feel that you should hide it. It's the most beautiful part of you."

"You don't understand, do you?" he asked as she forced him to meet his gaze, unable to hide the tears from his eyes. Whether he was her Randal or not, there was a part of him that was himself, that was separate, that had lived his own life and carried his own burden of regrets. "I never had the chance to tell her how much she meant to me, how much I appreciated her," he explained. "And now it's too late." He didn't bother to explain who he was talking about, but knowing what little she knew of him, it wasn't that hard to figure out that he wasn't talking about Kit or Isabelle or even Katherine. He was talking about his own mother.

Her fingers stroked against his cheek, her own eyes echoing his in the brimming of blue as she comprehended what was hurting him so much. "She knows," she promised him, knowing that regret only too well. She carried her own burden of guilt for not being with her grandmother when Katherine's time had come. "How could she not know how much you loved her, how much you still love her" We've only been together a few days, and already I know when you feel something strongly, even if you don't say it. Believe me, Rand ....she knows."

He nodded his head, as if he knew this already or at least, wanted to believe it, and wiped a hand across his face. "It's been a long time since I've been to church," he admitted quietly. "A long time since I believed in anything." What was it Isabelle had said just before he'd passed out' Believe.

"I don't practice as much as I should," she agreed with him, her fingers gentle against his face despite the calluses from years of working wood. "I go to Midnight Mass at Christmas, but rarely any other time of year. I don't know if I believe in God. I believe in what I can touch and see and taste. I believe in you."

"You said something about Fate earlier. Isn't Fate the same thing as God, Kit' You don't honestly think Isabelle arranged this all on her own, do you? If it's true that she has somehow redeemed my soul, as well as her own, then it's not just Fate. It's something so much bigger than Fate." He held her gaze, his eyes watery with tears, touched by her words, by her belief in him. "I only hope I don't disappoint you."

My soul. He hadn't said his soul, but my soul. Whether it was merely a slip, or a sign that his confusion was beginning to grow clearer, she didn't know, and she didn't much care. It was happening, slowly. "You could never disappoint me," she promised him tenderly. "Just be yourself."

"Myself," he echoed softly, not worrying much about the tears that were streaming down his face. "I don't even know who I am anymore," he confessed, his voice strained with emotion. "Help me, Kit. I need your help."

"I will help you, however I can," she promised him, belatedly drawing him away from the altar to sit in the front pew of the nave, less obvious to anyone who might wander in the view the church themselves. She sat close beside him, his hands tangled in her own. "I don't know how to, but if I can do anything to help you, Rand, I will. I know who you are. You're a good, kind man, one who feels everything deeply. You have wit and intelligence, and the will to be able to use them in a profession you clearly excel in. You're Randal Nichols, and I love you."

He followed her to the pew and sat down beside her, letting her take his hands in hers, drawing comfort from her touch and her kind words, though he wasn't so sure he believed them himself. He chuckled suddenly, not because he found what she was telling him funny or because he wasn't taking her seriously. He was only laughing at himself and at the irony of the situation. "A few days ago, I wouldn't have believed you. I wouldn't have believed any of this was possible, and yet, here I sit with you, the luckiest man in the world. I don't deserve you, Katrina, but I think I am falling in love with you."

"A few days ago, I didn't believe in anything," she reminded him gently, a soft smile on her face as she stroked her fingers against his cheek once again, her heart thumping in her chest as she struggled not to throw her arms around him in delight at his confession. This moment wasn't about her. "I don't care if you think you deserve me or not. I love you, and I'm not about to let you go, even if you ask me to."

"London?" he asked as she drew him onward, wondering if she was purposely giving him something else to talk about and think about to put him at ease. "London is....It's crowded. Loud. A mix of old and new. There's always something going on somewhere in London. It never seems to rest." It was times likes these when he wondered how he'd managed to live there all his life, when he'd always longed for someplace quieter, quainter. Someplace a little more lost in time. Someplace just like this.

"What was like to grow up there?" she asked, smiling as she turned away from the old man with clever fingers, creating a bird from colored glass for the amusement of the people who stopped to watch. Across from that shop was a candle-maker's, no less fascinating to watch that man at work. Kit looked up at Rand with a smile. "Are you hungry?"

He watched fascinated while the craftsman worked the glass, wondering something. "What was it like to grow up in London?" he asked with a brief glance at her before looking back at the glass-maker. "Excuse me, sir," he said to the old man. "Would you be able to make a butterfly for the lady?" he asked, as he reached into a coat pocket for his wallet. He wasn't sure why a butterfly exactly, but it seemed appropriate for some reason.

As Kit's jaw dropped, the glass-maker looked up, setting his newly made bird aside to cool safely. "Aye, I can make a butterfly for the lady," he chuckled, glancing from the dumbfounded lady in question to her gentleman friend. "Takes time to heat the glass ....be ready in an hour, say?" He waved away the wallet with another chuckle. "Pay me when you come back."

"Yes, all right. Thank you. We'll be back in an hour," Rand agreed, pulling his hand out of his coat pocket and leaving his wallet there. He forgot Kit's question about growing up in London, at least for the moment, but not about food. "Shall we grab a bite to eat while we wait?" he asked, flashing a smile at her, chuckling a little at the look on her face. "Come, Kit. Don't look so dumbfounded. Is it wrong of me to want to buy you something nice?"

She stared at him, her feet dragging a little as he drew her away from the glass-maker's shop. "But ....buying something pretty is one thing," she pointed out. "Asking for something to be made ....I don't know what to say. How did you know about the butterfly?"

"You don't have to say anything," he told her as he led her away. Something else caught his eye and he started that way, one hand wrapped around hers. "How did I know what about the butterfly?" he asked, not quite sure what had prompted him to approach the man. He hadn't really thought much about it; he'd just wanted to do something nice for her.

She blushed, shaking her head. "I never told anyone about my butterfly," she admitted, gently tugging him to a halt. "Let me show you." Lowering her hands, she drew the hem of her shirt upward, showing off the soft plane of her stomach. There, beside her belly button, was a collection of freckles that, if looked at in the right way, could almost be a butterfly on the wing. Her blush deepened as she laughed self-consciously. "My dad said I'd been marked with a butterfly because I was so flighty."

He arched a curious brow as she unveiled that sprinkling of freckles, expecting to find a butterfly tattooed on her flesh. He dared to brush a light caress against the spot, quickly pulling his fingers away, a blush rising to his cheeks. "Flighty' You don't strike me as being flighty," he said, lifting his eyes to her face. He'd need to take a closer look to see if the spattering of freckles truly formed the shape of a butterfly, but it wasn't something he was about to do here, where everyone could see them.

She couldn't prevent the gentle shiver that prickled her skin with gooseflesh at his touch, or the darkening of her eyes with longing, easing her shirt back into place as his gaze found her face once again. "I was when I was little," she told him in amusement. "These days ....I can be a little hyperactive."

"I'm looking forward to seeing that side of you, then," he remarked with a smile, as he took her hand again, threading his fingers through hers. "Do you like fish and chips?" he asked, knowing not every Englishman was fond of the dish foreigners seemed to think they all subsisted on.

She giggled, stepping close to his side as he took her hand once more. "That depends on whether or not you're going to make me eat the fish part," she mused teasingly. "Battered sausages go down well, though." She winked up at him, teasing but not teasing, daring him to guess why battered fish didn't float her boat.

"I had a roommate back in university who was a strict vegetarian. Couldn't abide the smell of the stuff. Whenever I wanted fish and chips, I either had to leave the dormitory or throw all the windows wide open. It made things a little awkward in the winter," he told her, sharing a little of his past as they strolled along toward the smell of food cooking. "Battered sausages it is, then," he said with a smile, having no idea whatsoever why she didn't care for fish.

"Oh, I'm not that bad," she laughed with him, brushing her cheek against his arm as they walked along. "I'll eat virtually anything, but for some reason, fish has never been my meal of choice. It just doesn't appeal to me, that's all. I'm not even allergic to anything."

"Roast," he said suddenly, as if it just popped into his head. "Your favorite meal is roast, isn't it?" he asked, with a tilt of his head down at her. He wasn't quite sure how he knew that, but he did.

Startled by his sudden insight into something she had shared with the ghostly part of himself, Kit smiled as she nodded. "Yes, it is," she confirmed for him, stroking the back of the hand in hers with her fingers. "I like dinner in general, really. It's my favorite meal of the day, that is for certain."

"And I prefer breakfast, the most important meal of the day, my mum always said." He paused a moment, not wanting to dwell too long on the subject of his mother. "Unless you count tea," he added with a grin.

"And lunch," she added impishly. "Not forgetting elevenses. And supper. And never forget the necessity of the midnight snack. Or food sex." There was a pause as her ears caught up with her mouth. "Oh god ..." If he thought he'd seen her blush before, it was nothing to the crimson that stained her face as she hid her eyes behind her hand on realizing what she'd said.

"Rand ..." She sighed softly, shifting the packet of chips onto her own lap to scoot closer to him, wishing she knew what to do or say that would help him at all. "You are everything I have never let myself think I could have. You. Not the ghost who taught me how to love you, but you. I wish I had some way to prove it to you." Her hand gently touched his cheek as she looked into his eyes. "I will never ask you to give me anything you are not ready or willing to give. If all we ever are is friends, then that will be enough." And, oh, how she hoped he didn't spot that for the lie it was. His mentioning of Isabelle made her jaw tighten; she might have forgiven the woman for her seeming deception, but Kit would never forgive Isabelle for the hurt she had given. "I think it may be," she said softly. "She hurt you badly, at a time when you needed her to love you and to be loyal to you. Pain like that leaves scars."

He held her gaze, something stirring in his heart at her words and at the way she looked at him and touched him, with infinite patience and love in her eyes. Friends, no. He didn't want to be just friends, not now, when his heart was opening to her. "Scars so deep they affect who I am now, who I've become, even though I barely remember them," he mused quietly when she was finished. "I only wish to make you happy, Kit, and never disappoint you," he said, turning his head into her hand and taking her hand in his to press it against his lips.

"You don't have to rush this," she told him, smiling as his lips brushed her skin. "I can't imagine how confusing it must be for you. But try to trust me. I will be here through it all. You do make me happy, Rand. We have time."

"I do trust you, Kit. That's just it. I feel like I've always trusted you. I only worry that I won't be good enough, that's all. That you'll realize I'm not like him at all, but I can only be myself, can't I?" he said, hoping she understood that this doubt was something inside himself and not something she had caused in any way. "We should eat our chips before they get cold," he reminded her with a soft smile.

"You don't need to be him. He's you, but you're not him. I don't know how else to explain it. I know that I love you, that's all." She brushed a kiss to his jaw affectionately, giggling as he reminded her about their food. "Should I wiggle away again, then?"

"No, I think not," he replied, that smile still in place as he reached to snag a now safely cooled chip from her lap. "I think this is rather cozy, don't you?" Rather than popping that chip into his own mouth, he offered it to her instead.

Her lips parted in a warm smile as she took that chip out of his fingers, leaning into him with trusting affection. "I think you're absolutely right," she agreed, raising a chip to do the same for him. "And I think you should decide what you would like to do when we're finished with the pier."

He smiled as she leaned into him, happy and content for the moment, despite his own fears and doubts. The graveyard was out of the question. He had let that moment pass for now, and he wasn't willing to face that sadness just yet. He turned his gaze toward the rides that were running even on a chilly day in November. "There's no better way to show me the town than from the air. What do you say, Miss Clarke" Are you up for a ride on the ferris wheel?"

"Oh, I'd be up for anything with you," she teased him, glad his moment of insecure uncertainty had passed. The chips disappeared remarkably quickly between them, just enough to take the edge of hunger without being too filling. Her head tipped up to consider the ferris wheel. "Promise not to let me fall?"

He wasn't sure falling was such a bad idea, but he knew she wasn't talking about falling in love. "I can't promise not to let you fall, but I can promise to always catch you," he countered, figuratively speaking. He leaned in, not hesitating quite as long this time before touching his lips to hers, lingering for only a brief moment in that kiss, just long enough to let her know that he wasn't going anywhere.

She sighed into that kiss, taking a long time to open her eyes and meet his gaze when he drew back. "Each time you do that, it gets just a little bit harder to ignore the part of me that wants to rip all your clothes off and take you right here," she murmured, not so much teasing as serious, despite her mischievous smile.

Rather than the shocked look he might have worn a few days ago, he laughed in undisguised amusement at her suggestion, not quite understanding that she was actually serious. "We'd likely get arrested for that," he teased back with a grin before gathering up what remained of the chips and the paper and crumbling it up to toss it in a nearby trash bin. He moved to his feet, offering her a hand to pull her up with him. "Shall we?" he asked, thinking they still had some time to kill before they went back for the glass butterfly.

"Why yes, Mr. Nichols, I think we shall." She had warned him about her tendency toward being slightly hyperactive, so hopefully he wouldn't be surprised by the enthusiasm in the way she jumped up from her seat, seizing his hand to pull him toward the far end of the pier, where the rides were still doing roaring trade, despite the season. Of course, he was a full foot taller than her, so rather than him being pulled along, it was far more likely that Kit just pulled and ended up bouncing off him when he didn't move.

He moved, as anxious to have a little fun as she was. She'd warned him that she could be a little hyperactive, but she hadn't seen his own hyperactive side yet. They were practically running toward the rides, like a couple of kids, laughing all the way, but after all the confusion and tears of the last few days, perhaps this was just what the two of them needed. It wasn't long before they were standing in the queue for the ferris wheel and Rand was looking way up above his head to see how high the thing was. "We should be able to see the whole town from up there."

"I've never been on any of the rides here," she admitted laughingly, her arms looped about his waist without a second thought as they shuffled forward in the queue for the ride. "Have you ever been on the London Eye' Is it really like being in a fish bowl surrounded by everyone else's farts?"

He chuckled at her question. "Only once, but I wouldn't describe it quite like that. I can understand the fishbowl part, but I'm not so sure about the rest. The view is bloody brilliant, but once was enough for me." He paused a moment as he remembered she'd never been to London. "Unless you'd like to give it a go. It's a lot higher than this one."

"Seven nipples?" he echoed, laughing at the thought of that. "Good lord, no. Nothing so terrible as that." They were just reaching the top of the ferris wheel at that point where there was nothing above them but sky, the landscape spread out before them, the people below looking very small.

"I notice you're not arguing the hairy green monster," she laughed, moving carefully to tie the sleeves of his jacket together at her back. This still made the car rock, and this time, so high up, she didn't just squeal, she grabbed hold of him. Blushing and going pale at the same time was not the best look for her.

"Yes, well, I wanted to break it to you gently, but since you already know..." he shrugged, unable to hide the playful smirk from his face. He chuckled a little as she rocked the car herself this time and then grabbed hold of him for fear of falling. At least he was gentleman enough that he wasn't the type to rock the car purposely just to frighten her. "It's all right, Kit. We aren't going anywhere," he assured her, turning her face toward him as he decided to take her mind off the height the best way he knew how. He kissed her lightly at first, his eyes drifting closed as he deepened the kiss.

"I didn't think I was scared of -" Heights went unsaid as he kissed her. She melted into him easily, forgetting everything as her lips parted beneath his, her hand skimming over his chest to tease her fingers into his hair as the kiss deepened. He knew more about her than he thought he did, or perhaps he simply knew her, in a way that didn't need explanations or descriptions. Whatever it was, she didn't want to let go of it, even twenty feet in the air above the sea.

Maybe he knew her better than he thought, or maybe he'd just wanted to kiss her. Either way, they were caught up together in that kiss high above the crowd below, sharing unspoken hopes and dreams that maybe didn't need to be said, even as the wheel started to turn again, drawing them back downward to the ground below.

Her palm smoothed against his neck as finally, reluctantly, her lips broke from his, warming his skin with her breathless sigh. It seemed to take an age for her to open her eyes, words tumbling free without the intervention of her internal censor. "Oh god, I wish we were somewhere private right now."

"So you can check out the hairy green monster under my shirt?" he teased back. There was no way they were going to be anywhere alone just yet. They still had a certain glass creation to pick up before they could head home.

"Something like that," she breathed, lips curving in a smile that showed off her dimples as she leaned in to kiss him softly, the first time she had initiated such intimate contact. It seemed as though she was losing her fear of pressuring him into a decision about the rest of his life with her affection.

He only smiled back at her, a little lost in thought as he studied her face, quietly admiring the unique beauty before him - the way her cheeks dimpled when she smiled, the way her eyes lit up bright with happiness, her smile, her lips, everything about her. He knew he was very slowly losing his heart, but he didn't really care. He'd been alone long enough; there was no reason to be alone any longer, not when this lovely, kind, caring woman so longed to share her life with his. "Let's go home, Kit," he told her quietly, suddenly wanting to be alone with her, too, away from all the prying eyes around them.

Home. Not to her house, or to where he was staying, but home. Their home, up on the hill. Sure that her heart was obvious in her gaze, she nuzzled to him affectionately, the tip of her nose circling his as the wheel drew them down to a halt beside the vendor. "Then we'll go home," she promised Rand, untying his jacket from about her waist before unfastening herself from the car.

He wasn't sure why he had called the house home. It had just slipped out of his mouth without thinking. The other Randal had built that house, but whether it was his memories asserting themselves or not, it was hard to say. He followed her out of the car, turning quiet suddenly, though he couldn't say why. His thoughts had turned again, and he found his stomach tied up in knots at those thoughts, wondering not for the first time what it would be like to make love to her, a woman he felt like he knew through and through, though they had only just met. He gave a silent nod of thanks to the vendor as he followed her away from the wheel, turning his head to the sea and closing his eyes briefly to feel the wind on his face.

Offering her own thanks to the vendor, she trailed along after Rand, waiting until he had stopped before maneuvering his arms back into his jacket, pushing it up onto his shoulders once again. "You'll get cold without it," she murmured affectionately, turning her own face to the sea as her fingers found their way to tangle with his once again.

He shrugged his way into the jacket, though he had not asked for it back. "The cold reminds me I'm alive," he told her, turning to face her with a faint smile, his mood having turned again - not quite melancholy, introspective, thoughtful, even mellow perhaps. He touched her cheek, fingers tangled in hers, wanting nothing more than to be alone with her and to see what came of it, knowing he wanted her, but unsure if it was the right thing to do. "Kit," he said her name, just as quietly, all the longing he was feeling wrapped up in her name. "Would it be terribly forward of me to tell you I want you?"

"There are better ways to remember you're alive," was her softly philosophical answer, the fond warmth of her gaze rising to his as he turned to her. Her cheek tilted into his touch, no denying or even trying to hide her own longing as he poured his into her name from his lips. Fingers just a little chilled from the breeze stroked against his stomach as she held his eyes, flushed with more than just longing at his words. "No," she whispered, the wind whipping her words away so only he could hear her. "It's only forward if I don't want you. And I do want you, so much I'm aching."

It was unclear which Randal was making that statement - maybe it was both of them - one who'd been dead for nearly a century and another who was still grieving the loss of his mother, a woman who'd meant the world to him. "I feel like I've known you forever," he admitted quietly, tilting his head into hers so that their foreheads were touching.

That lack of clarity was a good sign, if only he could recognize it as such; evidence that the demarked lines between the man he had been and the man he was were beginning to blur without taking anything away from his own self. Kit let her arms slide about his waist as he leaned down to her, nose to nose with an intimacy that took some people years to be comfortable with. "Maybe you have," she murmured to him. "I hope you always will."

Whatever it was they'd set out to do when they left the house that morning, it seemed they'd accomplished it. He wanted nothing more now than to go home and have her all to himself, to open his heart to her without fear, and to cross that last boundary line that he had placed before them. Maybe it had only been a few days since they'd met, but for part of him, he felt like he'd been waiting for this moment for years. He touched his lips to hers, briefly, gently before repeating himself again, before he lost his nerve, "Let's go home, KittyKat."

The unexpected play on her name brought a smile to her face that echoed the warmth of the sun above them, her body leaning into his to embrace him tenderly for a long moment before she drew back. She didn't care about dinner dates or glass butterflies in that moment; like him, all she wanted was to go home and have him to herself, no matter what happened between them. He was slowly learning to trust her heart, and that was all she needed. "Come home, then," she murmured to him, backing away a few steps with his hand in hers. Come home with me.

Oh, but he hadn't forgotten about that butterfly. He had asked the man to make one for her and if nothing else, he was a man of his word. He touched another kiss to her lips, followed by a smile, before taking her hand to lead her away from this place - away from the noise of the crowd and the crash of the sea. He stopped at the glass-maker's stall on their way out, exchanging a few bills for a gift he hoped would please her - a glass butterfly, as delicate and fragile and beautiful as their growing love, like a butterfly emerging anew from its chrysalis.

((See, we're not completely evil! We just like complicated stories, that's all. :grin: Stay tuned, what happens at the house is coming very soon!))