Tom turned to Bette, and asked with a warm smile, “What about you Bette? You and Tina ever …,” his voice trailed off.

Bette kissed the top of Tina’s head, as the blonde leaned against her, and drew the brunette’s arm across her body.

She stared at the fire also, like the others were. Her thoughts went back to the time she and Tina had been apart, a separation the brunette had enforced, upon learning about Scott.

“Well… a partnership, and marriage, especially, is about working through the tough times, difficult times.  It wasn’t always easy between Tina and me,” Bette answered. She saw the others around the circle were looking at her now. Some of them knew about what had happened to her and Tina, but some didn’t.   She saw Diane and Jules were now sitting up, looking intently at her and Tina, past the occasional leaping tongues of fire coming from the bonfire. They were amongst those that didn’t know.

Bette continued, “There was a time, a span of almost a year, actually, when we kind of lost each other.”

As she paused, Tina picked up from where she’d left off,  “Even after Bette and I had reunited after being apart, we realized that just being in love wasn’t enough. We accepted the challenge that we needed to work on the relationship, probably harder than ever, ironically, because we’d realized we had this really strong, unique connection to each other that nothing could break. And we knew we could not take anything for granted. Not our love, not this connection.”

Bette added, ”And it took a lot of work to get to a really solid point. Solid enough to plan for the future. ”

Bette kissed the top of Tina’s head again.

“Plus … having a child helped put things in perspective.”

The group fell silent again, as everyone resumed staring at the fire.

“Sarah?” John asked, breaking the silence.

Hmmm? Sarah answered, her thoughts still on Bette and Tina’s story, and the heartbreak each had suffered when the couple had broken up.

“Aren’t you grateful that you and I inherited this love of the hearth from dad? One of the few things that I appreciate …”

Everyone was soon contributing stories about campfires shared with friends or family, laughing at one other’s stories and jokes.