The woman whose hair spilled down his shoulder pressed her face into the hollow of his collarbone and inhaled. He raised one hand and wove her black locks between his fingers. "I'm sure I've seen that at the Rijksmuseum," he continued, playfully perturbed. The woman kissed the skin between neck and jawline and bade him be silent and still.

"Mmm, it's so beautiful," she murmured, and laid one ear against him to turn her face to the west. The man felt her relax. He took his gaze from the sea and studied her once more. How a chance stroll through Amsterdam could bring you to the person you'd love forever! Surely that afternoon was more than a yesterday ago. Never had one day felt more like a lifetime than this.

"What are you listening to?"

She did not open her eyes. "Lots of things." She readjusted her embrace around his middle. "The gulls. The sea. The quiet. Your heartbeat." She exhaled, and he saw her eyelashes rise. He smiled.

"It will still be here tomorrow. The weather looks like it will hold -- we can come back and do this again, you know."

"You may. I still have to leave tonight."

He felt that twinge in the pit of his stomach again. "You continue saying that. What reason have you to leave me? To leave this, only one day after we've started?"

The line of the horizon began to bleed into both sky and sea. The sun burnished the clouds, and covered the ocean with a skim of silver. She only smiled, and breathed deep of a breeze billowing off the waves.

He knew what she said was true, knew it more firmly than almost anything else he'd known in his life. His heart rose in his throat, and he hugged her a little tighter. "When will I see you again?"

She kissed him again. "Once." The tide surged toward them, tugging the couple a little deeper and a little closer to the edge. The water receded; the footprints of small birds had already melted away.