They had slept on deck, on the very spot where they now lay. As the sun set they were literally able to watch darkness spread across the sky from East to West like ink on cotton. It was as if the daylight were a sheet draped over the Earth, pulled away to reveal the universe beyond. For one brief moment he had been able to see the last chord of the sun on one horizon and pinpoints of starlight at its direct opposite. The sky in between was gradiated every shade of Orange-to-Blue never before seen by man. The absolute purity of the world was all-encompassing for that fleeting second. He packaged it up and tucked it deep in his psyche, promising to bring it out again once he rejoined the real world, during those moments when it tested him, pushing him to question whether or not any hope existed at all.
        Once the day had gone they were gifted a night sky unlike any he had ever witnessed. It was not a black slate stippled with corpuscles of light, not the sky he had seen following nightfall on every previous day of his life. In the clarity of the unmanned world the density of the stars was multiplied exponentially. The galaxy's spilled milk bleached the sky, filling it with a hazy glow. The night had been two days shy of a new moon and the waning remnants gave no light at all, yet he was able to see her in the darkness incredibly well. He could recall nights in the moonlight, but this was the first he had ever spent lit merely by starlight.
        They laid as always, with her head on his chest, and watched the sky for hours. He wondered if they might catch a glimpse of a shooting star. He pondered the idea of wishing on one and how ludicrous it seemed at that moment, as if there were anything in the entire universe that he could possibly want for on that night. Infinity spread out above him and in all its endless locations he would place himself nowhere other than the spot where he currently lay.
        At some point she raised her head and looked into his eyes. Her features were vague in the near-darkness, but his mind filled in the details which were etched there permanently. He couldn't make out her green eyes, but could see their shape, their intensity. He could read the emotion they conveyed, tears verging at the corners.
        "I could stay here with you, like this, until the end of time.", she said, her voice faltering, "Until the Earth stops turning and the sea beneath us runs dry."
        "Baby...", the word was carried from him on stolen breath.
        "This is all I want." She laid her head back down and he tightened his hold on her. He began running his fingers through her hair.
        She continued, "Being out here always makes me think about the Titanic. I know we're practically on the other side of the world from it, but all this sea, the way it just goes on and on forever. We can be out here for days and not see anything else in the entire ocean.
        "I think about that iceberg, the moment it cracked off of the polar ice cap or wherever it came from. It started drifting... for weeks or months or maybe even years. Just slowly inching its way toward one of the most important events in the lives of so many people. I imagine how long it took and how from the moment it set forth it was destined to meet that ship on that night. How many seconds, minutes, hours, days went by with fate already sealed, just patiently waiting. How much life was lived, the people not knowing that the end had already been determined.
        "Then I think about me, and you, and this. How it's almost like every step I've taken from the moment I could walk, everything I've felt and experienced, every moment I've lived... It's as if it was all leading me to you, to nights like this. As though this is where I belong and that decision was made long, long ago and far beyond my control. The path was set the moment I took my first step, I was slowly on my way to you and it was as unavoidable as that ship colliding with the ice.
        "So being here is the whole point.", she finished softly.
        He felt the warmth of her tears soak into his shirt.
        "Baby, come here.", he whispered and pulled her up to him, his intent to comfort her.
        Before their eyes could meet she was upon him, devouring his mouth hungrily. He felt the warm wetness of her tears spill onto his cheeks, pooling in the corners of his eyes. She held his face as she kissed him firmly, repeatedly. Behind his closed eyes he spun in the darkness, dizzied by her intensity, her passion.
        She pulled back from him suddenly and he opened his eyes to find her face only two inches from his.
        "I love you... so much", she said, her eyes locked to his as if she were speaking not to him, but into him.
        That is how she had won him, how he turned the corner from attraction to love. The feelings he carried in his heart and the ways in which he expressed them seemed mirrored exactly by her own. The moments they shared together, the words they spoke, the caresses, smiles, hugs, kisses, lovemaking. Everything felt like a perfect balance between the two of them. When he wanted to hold back, she pulled him on and when she was spinning out of control, he slowed her. Their souls waltzed.
         He rolled onto her and began kissing down her body, opening the robe she wore to expose her breasts and stomach. She ran her hands through his hair, feeling the thick softness of it, grasping handfuls and letting it pour through her fingers. Her skin was lighted faintly in the blue starlight and he had to keep himself close to make out the details. So close that he could smell her skin, the natural scent of her that he knew so well. As his hands moved over her body the same sensation always engulfed him. The feeling was not that he was touching her but that his hands were sculpting her, as if the curves of her body were being molded by his grasp. To him it felt as if she were exactly how woman would have been shaped if the fingers of creation had been his own. The way she felt against his palms, the subtle arches of her, the long, smooth, soft surfaces. She felt like home.
        Their lovemaking on that night was as it often had been: intense, satisfying, gentle and sensual. They kissed as he moved inside her, feeling her body react to him. They moved in a slow, synchronized rhythm and she began to breathe deeply. He knew where she was. For him this was the perfect moment, when she would exhale and he would catch her breath, breathing it into him, breathing her into him. Deep, deep inside him. He could taste her, the actual essence of who she was, as she filled his nose and mouth then moved into his lungs. He could feel her within him, just as she could feel him within her. He held her in until his lungs began to burn, fighting to reach his threshold, then he was forced to relent. He exhaled her as she climaxed, hoping that a bit of her lingered in the corners of his lungs, maybe becoming a part of him forever.

        He was lured back to present time by her movement. She snuggled against him, pressing closer as she cat-napped. They were nicely shaded from the mid-morning sun by the mainsail and the temperature was absolutely perfect. He thought how differently he had felt earlier that morning when he was alone, completely non-existent, as opposed to now with her in his arms. He felt very alive, very real.
        He was going to marry her, he knew it already and was as sure of it as he was the rising of the sun they now basked beneath. It had never been this way with anyone, this sense of 'knowing'. Knowing that she was exactly what he wanted, what he needed. Knowing there was a happiness for the two of them for the rest of their lives. Knowing it was unquestionable. He thought of all the things everyone imagines: days together, nights together, the surprise proposal that would bring her to tears, seeing her come down the aisle, the honeymoon, years together seeing the world, learning her every secret, her every nuance, sharing in her success, her dreams and her disappointments, being the person who carries her when she's weak and follows her when she's strong, finally growing old. For the first time he wanted all of it, and he wanted all of it with her. Again it was like Christmas, the desire to appreciate the moment yet trying to hurry its pace. He felt a tingle in his stomach at the idea of asking her to be his wife. When to do it, where and how. He smiled as his mind wandered in love's playground.
        The boat rocked listlessly on the building waves, providing the lullaby which beckoned him to join her in sleep.