"Oh god, we have to say good bye today," Jane said as soon as she woke up.

"Good morning to you, too, sunshine," Charlie said, going up on his elbow as he usually did when he first woke up. He smiled, leaning in to kiss her. How could her mouth taste so good when she first woke up?

"So," he continued, lying back down and pulling her close. "Are we going to have a good-morning meltdown?" He nuzzled into her neck. "Because I'll admit, I was hoping for a good-morning shag, you know?"

"I don't understand you," Jane said, sitting up, pushing Charlie off her. "We might never see each other again after today, so why don't you care?"

Charlie sighed and sat up, too, running his hand through his hair, making it stand up in crazy peaks and whorls all over his head. "Look. Am I feeling like I just want to die? Like life as I know it is over? Yeah." He blinked at Jane, who was staring at him, fascinated.

"You know," he continued, "you keep going on all the time about how this is all new to you?" He looked at her frankly, and not very lovingly. "Well, guess what? It's new to me, too. I've never had a real relationship before, where I actually cared what the other person was feeling. I've never been in love with anyone." He sounded completely exasperated.

"Why didn't you tell me that?" Jane asked in a small voice.

"I did!" Charlie exploded. "That first morning, after you spent the night here? I said all those things to you while sitting right here in this bed!" Again, Jane jumped at his voice.

"Why do you do that every time I raise my voice?" he thundered. "It's damned annoying."

"I'm not used to people yelling at me," she explained, looking at him with her sea-glass eyes.

Charlie felt terrible. "Really? No one ever yells at you?"

She shook her head.

"Well. That's hard to believe," he responded, a bit nonplussed, if truth be told.

"That's not a very nice thing to say," she said. "Saying it's hard to believe that no one ever yells at me? It's like a backward way of saying you think people should yell at me all the time." She blinked at him again, eyes very bright.

"No, that's not what I meant," he said, frustrated. He tried to backtrack. "What I meant was that it's hard to believe that no one wants to yell--that no one ever feels like yelling--ahh, bloody hell!"

And of course Jane flinched yet again.

Charlie felt like he might be losing his mind.

How had this happened? He'd woken up feeling randy as fuck, with the knowledge that he could do something about that because Jane was lying next to him sleeping, taking sweet breaths, ribcage rising and falling slightly, looking like a wispy, pale angel.

And she still did, except that her eyes and nose were starting to look suspiciously red.

She sniffled, a huge, wet sound, looking so bereft and woebegone that Charlie felt about an inch tall.

"Fuck me," he said, reaching for her, pulling her willing body into his. She snuffled on his chest for a few seconds, and Charlie suspected that she'd wiped her nose on his shirt. "What I'm trying to say, very inarticulately, is that this is hard for me, too, really, really hard, okay?"

She nodded, again snuffling on his chest.

"And I know that if I sit around and think about it too much, I'm going to fall apart," he concluded in a soft, musing voice. "This isn't going to be like any of the other times I was with someone and had to part, and I don't know how to deal with it, either, that's all I was trying to say."

Jane lifted her face to look at him, and the look in her huge eyes, puffy from impending tears, made Charlie's throat tight, made him feel like his heart was being squeezed by huge, invisible hands in his chest.

"I'm sorry, Charlie," she whispered. "I'm only thinking about myself."

"No," he said, shaking his head. "No apologies for feelings, ever. One of my mum's rules, and a pretty good one, I think." He kissed her soft and humble mouth.

"Come on," he said. "Let's go take a shower."

She looked at him in surprise. "But I thought you wanted to, um, shag?" She tried out the new and unfamiliar word, feeling the urge to laugh because it reminded her of Austin Powers.

Charlie, hearing Jane say it, did laugh, showing the lovely crinkles at the corners of his hazel eyes. "Nah, I think we're both too emotional, it would end up being this sorrowful thing where we both cried our eyes out, wouldn't be pretty," he said.

So they showered, trying to talk about neutral things, and ending up talking about nothing at all. They looked at each other in silence, over the falling water, through the steam, and came together, kissing like it might be the last time. Jane made the sound she made, and Charlie heard it and felt desire bloom inside him, and he took her, there in the shower, pressing her against the tiles as he plunged into her, urgently, until she felt like he might split her in two.

"Love you, love you, love you," he murmured into her mouth, timing his words to match their rhythm.

She let her head roll back against the tiles, her eyes closed, as she felt him hit a place deep inside her that he'd never hit before. It felt unutterably good, and she clenched her whole body around his as she came, over and over, calling his name into his ear as she left red marks on his back with her nails.

He marked her, too, leaving a row of pink and purple love bites across the front of her, trailing off into her neck, where he sucked on her, bit her, until she felt herself starting to black out from the steam, from him relentlessly pounding on her, from his hot mouth moving on her front.

Charlie felt the sensitive tip of himself pressing, brushing against some secret part of her deep inside, and the sensation was driving him out of his mind. He thrust, over and over, trying to hit that spot each time, finally reaching his climax, feeling his consciousness obliterated for a few seconds as he buried himself inside her.

He slowly lowered her to the ground, a hand on either side of her face. He kissed her, her mouth deep, wet and inviting from all the deep breaths she was taking.

"Oh god, I love you, Jane," he panted. "I love you, okay?"

"Why are you doing that?" she asked. "Why are you saying it like we're never going to see each other again?" She leaned into him, inhaling the smell of him, of them, in the steamy air of the shower stall. "Please don't," she begged.

Charlie nodded, still breathing hard. "I'm sorry, love." He kissed her again. "And don't worry, we're going to see each other, at least one more time, because this is something I definitely want to do again, yeah?" And he grinned at her.

She grinned back, nodding, and they got dressed.

Charlie had ordered basically the entire breakfast menu from room service before they got in the shower, and it was waiting for them when they emerged from the bathroom. The whole room smelled like food, and Jane sniffed appreciatively as she surveyed the two wheeled trolleys of food.

"Oh, has anything ever smelled so good?" she asked, plopping down on the bed in front of the nearest trolley.

"Well, you smell amazing, always, now you mention it," he said with a smile as he sat next to her.

"When do you have to go?" he asked, reaching for the nearest plate.

"Well, today we're on your schedule," she reminded him. "My mom and dad are in Virginia at a wedding this weekend, and Bear's at some speech tournament until tomorrow morning, so I serve at your leisure, my liege."

Charlie cocked his eyebrow at her. "So now I'm your sovereign? Nice."

He checked his schedule. "Looks like I have some sort of radio thing this afternoon at two. So let me just send this text--" he typed for a minute--"and I'm all yours until one. How's that sound?"

"Short. It sounds short," Jane said. "But that's okay, I'll take it." She morosely stabbed at a sausage and put the whole thing in her mouth at once, making Charlie smile.

They got back in bed after breakfast to watch another movie, but ended up talking through most of it, trying to make the most of their remaining hours together. Nothing they did could stop time, though, and soon enough Jane was standing at the door to his room holding her bag.

She took a deep breath, looking at Charlie, and he looked back at her, filling his eyes with the sight of her, willing himself not to cry.

He finally stepped forward and hugged her, and she gripped him back, tightly. He put his hand on the back of her head and kissed her, over and over.

"One last snap, okay?" he asked, sniffing as he pulled out his phone.

She nodded, and he took a photograph of the two of them, heads together.

"Send it to me?" she asked softly, and he nodded.

"Okay, this is stupid. I'm going." She turned and opened the door. "Bye, Charlie, I love you."

"I love you, too, Janey-Bird," he said with a smile that didn't reach his reddened eyes.

"Hey Jane?" he called as she walked down the hall.

She turned around.

"Dot dot dot." He held up the wrist with the bracelet.

"Dot dot dot, Charlie," she replied.

She looked back after she pushed the button, but Charlie was gone.