The grandfather clock in the hall struck three a.m., its rich tones echoing in the quiet of the house. Sarah stirred, coming awake to the black room as a bar of moonlight traced silver over the covers.

Lucas's arm lay heavily across her waist, his chest expanding and falling steadily against the back of her neck. She crawled slowly, not wishing to rouse him, but his fingers instinctively clenched, pulling her nearer even in sleep.

Outside, a summer storm was brewing in the distance. Sarah timed the intervals between lightning and thunder—one Mississippi, two—like she had since she was a child. The seconds blended with recollections of other storms ridden out together: curled up under blankets during the leaky roof of their first apartment, singing absurd songs to reassure a toddler Olivia, making love to the beat of rain pounding windows in each house they'd lived in.

Lucas growled something against her skin, his whiskers rubbing gently. Sarah rolled over in his arms, tracing the familiar landscape of his face—the line between his brows that came out at hard-dreaming, the cheekbone scar of that old bike mishap, the mouth that had made promises upon promises against hers.

Thunder boomed closer now. The clock ticked on. The house creaked its nightly opera.

Lucas's lids opened, heavy and black. "Can't sleep?" His voice was gritty with sleep, a warmth against her cheek.

Sarah shook her head, snuggling in closer. "Just thinking."

"About?"

"Everything."

His laugh resonated through her. "That's a lot."

Lightning slashed through, illuminating the room in temporary brilliance. For a moment, Sarah glimpsed it all—the framed photos on the dresser (their courthouse wedding, Olivia's graduation, last summer's beach trip), Lucas's glasses on the nightstand, the quilt his grandmother had made draped over the chair where Olivia had wrapped herself up just the night before, home from college for the weekend.

The thunder rolled in more loudly this time. Lucas's arms held her closer. "Do you remember when storms used to frighten you?"

Sarah giggled against his collarbone. "You wasted eighty dollars on that idiot lightning detector."

"Best eighty bucks I ever spent."

She pinched him in the side and he flinched. "We used it twice."

"Worth it."

The rain began in earnest then, a hammering rain that pounded against the roof. Sarah breathed deeply of the scent of Lucas—soap from the wash, sleep, and something distinctive to him—as his fingers made easy patterns along the small of her back.

They'd inhabited this body a thousand times prior to this, in this bed and others, and the magic of it never wore off. That after all these years, through every twist and turn of life, they still fit this way—her head under his chin, his heartbeat steady against her hand.

Lucas kissed her forehead. "What are you actually thinking?"

Sarah closed her eyes. "How lucky we are."

The phrases did not even begin to do it justice—the decades of shared dawns and in-jokes, of burned dinners and spotless moments, of holding each other through losses and celebrating every triumph, grand and small.

Lucas's hand froze on her back. "When I'm old and gray—"

"You're gray and old," Sarah taunted, running her fingers along the silver at his temples.

He nipped at her shoulder. "When I'm older and grayer, I'll still be waking you up at night."

Sarah laughed into the darkness. "Promise?"

Lightning flashed again, caught Lucas's face frozen in the same mad fire that had glared back at her across a rowdy bar twenty-five years ago.

"Always," he whispered.

And the storm raged on outside, but Sarah slumbered quietly in his arms, with the knowledge that morning would find more of life's sweet mundane—coffee drunk in comfortable quiet, plans made and broken, laughter echoing through their house.

The hours passed. The rain patted softly, like lullabies.

And in the space of the heartbeats, their love blazed a fire—a fire no storm could extinguish, no years weaken.

As eternal as the stars, As long as time.