“I’m sorry, baby, just a terrible co-incidence,” she continued.  “At that time, and for weeks after, I’d wondered if I could have prevented all that somehow,” she said, still shaking her head. 

Bette shook her head vigorously, “No…no…T, that’s not at all something that you should take on yourself.  If it’s the same one you remember, then Eric caused the accident. Not you.” 

Tina didn’t immediately respond.  Bette continued, “And I chose to stay with the body.  I knew what I was doing…even the emergency techs and the 911 operator had questioned my decision.” 

She rubbed the blonde’s arms, reassuringly.  Tina, Tina, so giving, so strong, in her way. 

“What happened, happened. We all made our decisions that night.  And we all have had to deal with them after,” Bette was saying. 

This is the issue we need to get on top off.  Right now. 

Tina cut in, “Maybe so, Bette.  But, things are different now, as you yourself said in our vows to each other, “that one soul would emerge from us two,” and that “Love drew us together.” So, we need to make those things work for us, right baby?  Our love?  And the union of our souls?” 

Bette didn’t respond, looking at Tina with an unfathomable gaze. Tina pressed her, “You help me decide; I help you decide?  I help you deal? And you help me?” 

Bette swallowed, her throat was dry.  It was her turn for her hands to get clammy.  Maybe there were taboo topics between them still.  At least on her side. 

But Tina was pulling her somewhere.  A place she didn’t realize they’d arrived at, all of a sudden, as their conversation took this unexpected turn.  It was unfamiliar to Bette, but which she intuitively realized, a place that Tina knew.  And maybe had inhabited all along. Waiting for her. 

Tina’s hazel eyes implored Bette’s brown troubled ones to meet hers.  Join me, Bette. Trust in our love. I do.  Fall off the log.  I have.  Let it happen. 

She tried to explain, “I crossed a line, T…when I decided to wait in the darkness with that body.  I did that, I’ll admit, with my eyes open,” Bette said quietly, wanting to join Tina’s unspoken invitation to fall completely in, but instinctively pulling back, also. “But that’s my burden…not yours.” 

It’s dark here, T. And I don’t want you in it. 

Tina shook her head, recognizing that Bette was afraid.  There’s nothing to fear, baby. Fall. Trust in me. In our love. 

“Then cross this line, Bette.  You were willing to cross the other line, to follow where your morality took you.  Cross this line. This line.  Where your love has taken you.  The line that separates us from the others.  The one that says: our love is for eternity.  That it will last forever,” the blonde begged her. 

Bette closed her eyes, and felt herself falling. 

“This is why you feel immortal when we’re together, baby,” Tina whispered as she kissed her wife softly, feeling Bette release her fear. 

Bette’s lips parted easily under Tina’s tender pressure, eyes shut, face relaxed now. 

“Because you love me.” 

“And because I love you.”