He could see the first traces of the moon, faintly touching the treetops with a liquid silver light, as well as the face of his beloved, sleeping peacefully for the first time since he had arrived for the weekend. Her brow wasn’t creased, she didn’t mutter, nor did her breathing go irregularly, and when he listened to the pace of her heart, he found a steady beat.

   ‘I love you,’ he whispered, his lips curling in a soft smile when he heard the rythm speed up a notch. He saw she had the faintest hint of a smile on her lips, and her face, illuminated by the moonlight, was a view he’d never forget. A vein softly pulsed in the hollow of her throat, showing her steady beat of life. She looked so fragile, so... eternal at the same time. As if time would never touch her.

   Then again, time, life, was evanescent, just a fleeting moment in which they existed, and then would give themself over to the arms of Death, who would lovingly take them down the path of eternal, blissful rest...

   Her hair lay spread out on the pillow, black as midnight, with the single red lock straying across the black like a light through the dark of a forest. Behind those closed eyelids, he knew, two calm, crystalline green eyes lived, ached with the sadness he knew still filled her heart. The rare times that she had given him the wholehearted laughter he loved so much, her eyes joined in, and it always was a rare view. He remembered each single time.

   He was perfectly content with just lying there and watching her, a fine pastime in the middle of the night. He threw a glance at the clock, and the digital numbers glowed red towards him. 3:01... He really should go to sleep.

   He placed a soft kiss upon her temple, and breathed her fragrance in, deep. She always smelled a bit sweet, but he never could distinguish the one from the other. Coffee, that was for sure, but not entirely, sandalwood, but that wasn’t it either... He really had to ask her how she did that.

   He lay down behind her, pulling her close, breathed deeply, and drifted off to sleep, so slowly he barely knew. All the while, he knew she was holding his necklace, at the hollow of her throat.