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The evening had settled into Port Haven like a blessing.
Everything wore gold for a little while before the sun slipped lower—gold at the edges of the trees, gold over the pond, gold caught in the loose strands of Kat’s hair as she stood at the water’s edge trying to steady her breathing.
She never got used to this part.
Not the pond itself, exactly. Not the impossible of it. She had crossed too many times now for the shock of cold water and the dizzying pull of time to feel entirely new. But there was always a moment before she stepped in—just one—where anticipation curled warm and nervous in her chest, where her heart beat too hard against her ribs, where she had to admit to herself why she was really coming.
Not for answers.
Not this time.
For her.
For Susanna.
Kat glanced around once, as if anyone might catch her hesitating, then stepped into the pond.
The world bent.
Cold, dark, silence—then air again, birdsong softer here somehow, the scent of summer earth richer and older, and the sound of the breeze moving through the trees. Kat pushed wet hair from her face and waded to shore, her breath coming out in a laugh she tried to smother.
Every time. Every single time.
By the time she climbed onto the bank, her jeans were soaked to the knee and her heart was racing for an entirely different reason.
Susanna was there.
She sat on the old fallen log beneath the willow, her hands folded neatly in her lap, as though she had been waiting for some perfectly ordinary visitor and not a woman who kept arriving dripping from a magical pond. The last light of evening softened everything about her—the elegant line of her neck, the dark shine of her curly hair, the curve of her mouth as she looked up.
“There you are,” Susanna said, as if Kat had merely been late.
Kat stopped short, smiling before she could help it. “You knew I was coming?”
Susanna tilted her head, and there was that familiar spark in her eyes—the one that always made Kat feel seen in ways that were equal parts thrilling and terrifying. “You have been visiting every third evening for nearly two weeks, Katherine. I felt it was a fair guess.”
Kat laughed and came closer, wringing out the ends of her shirt. “Wow. That is… embarrassingly predictable.”
“I did not say it was unwelcome.”
That landed somewhere low and soft in Kat’s chest.
She moved to sit beside her, leaving a careful inch or two of space between them. The pond glimmered behind them, the sunset stretching pink and amber across its surface. Somewhere in the distance, frogs had already begun their evening chorus.
For a minute, neither of them spoke.
That, Kat had learned, was one of the strangest and best things about being with Susanna: silence never felt empty. It felt full. Like a room lit by candlelight. Like a pause in music that somehow deepened the song instead of breaking it.
“You are smiling,” Susanna said at last.
Kat glanced over. “Am I?”
“You are.”
Kat ducked her head a little. “I’m just happy to see you.”
Susanna’s expression softened in a way that made Kat’s heart flip over itself. “I am happy to see you as well.”
The simplicity of it nearly undid her.
Kat had spent so much of her life tangled up in complicated feelings and fractured timing and love that came with history, grief, and unfinished conversations. But this—this felt simpler, even when it wasn’t. Honest. Warm. Like something she didn’t have to fight just to hold.
She looked down at her hands. “I think about you all the time, you know.”
The words slipped out before she could decide if they were too much.
Beside her, Susanna was very still. “Do you?”
Kat let out a breathy laugh. “Constantly. It’s kind of a problem.”
Susanna’s mouth curved into a smile. “I am sorry to hear I have become a problem.”
Kat turned toward her more fully. “You know that’s not what I mean.”
“I know.”
The smile lingered, smaller now, gentler. Kat loved that smile. She loved the rarer, brighter laughs too, but this one felt private somehow, like something meant only for her.
The breeze shifted, carrying the scent of water and wild grass. A strand of Susanna’s hair had come loose and blown across her cheek.
Without thinking, Kat reached out.
Her fingers brushed the soft edge of Susanna’s face as she tucked the strand carefully behind her ear. The motion was simple, almost shy, but the moment it happened the air changed. Susanna’s breath caught. Kat’s hand stayed where it was, cupping her cheek now, thumb resting just below her temple.
“You’re beautiful,” Kat whispered.
Susanna looked at her the way dusk looks at the earth—quiet, deep, full of something impossible to hold.
“Katherine,” she murmured, and even her name sounded tender in Susanna’s voice.
Kat smiled helplessly. “Sorry. I know. I say things.”
“You do.”
“I just…” Her thumb moved once, lightly across Susanna’s skin. “I don’t always know what the rules are here. Or what I’m allowed to say. But when I look at you, all I can think is how beautiful you are.”
The faintest flush rose in Susanna’s cheeks. It was subtle, but Kat noticed everything about her now.
“You are very bold in certain moments,” Susanna said softly.
“In certain moments, I’m trying not to completely lose my mind.”
That drew a real laugh from Susanna, low and musical and warm. Kat grinned just from hearing it.
“Oh, there she is,” Kat said.
Susanna’s eyes narrowed with playful suspicion. “There who is?”
“That laugh. I love that laugh.”
Now the flush deepened, and Kat felt ridiculously pleased with herself.
“Must you speak every affectionate thought the instant it enters your mind?” Susanna asked.
“Probably not.”
“And yet?”
“And yet, apparently I’m incapable of shutting up around you.”
Susanna shook her head, but there was no reproach in it. Only fondness.
Kat had never expected fondness to feel so intimate. But with Susanna, it did. Every softened glance, every amused look, every tiny shift closer felt precious. Fragile in the best way.
The sun dipped lower. Shadows lengthened around them, and the sky deepened toward lavender and rose.
Susanna’s gaze dropped briefly to Kat’s mouth, then lifted again.
Kat’s pulse jumped.
“May I kiss you?” she asked, the words barely above a whisper.
Susanna did not answer right away. She reached up instead and laid her hand over Kat’s where it rested against her cheek. Her fingers were cool, elegant, steady.
“You may,” she said.
Kat leaned in slowly, giving her every chance to change her mind. But Susanna met her halfway, and the kiss was soft from the very first touch.
It was never enough, kissing her.
Not because it lacked anything. Because it held too much.
Susanna kissed like she felt everything and concealed most of it, like every emotion she allowed through had already been considered and cherished and understood. There was gentleness in it, and care, and a kind of aching patience that made Kat want to melt apart right there beside the pond.
Kat deepened it only a little, just enough to feel Susanna sigh against her mouth.
That tiny sound almost stole the breath from her.
When they parted, Susanna did not move away. Their foreheads rested together, noses brushing, the whole world reduced to evening air and shared breath and the warmth of being close.
“You are still smiling,” Susanna whispered.
Kat laughed softly. “You noticed.”
“It is difficult not to notice when someone looks at me as if I have hung the moon.”
Kat opened her eyes. “Maybe you did.”
Susanna made a small, disbelieving sound, but her expression had gone tender again.
“You say impossible things,” she murmured.
“I time travel through a pond. My whole life is impossible things.”
That earned another soft laugh. Kat thought she could live on the sound of it.
Carefully, slowly, as if guided by instinct more than thought, Susanna shifted closer until their shoulders touched fully. Then her head rested against Kat’s shoulder, the weight of it light but unmistakable.
Kat went still.
Not because she didn’t want to move. Because she wanted to remember this exactly.
The willow branches swayed overhead. Fireflies had begun to appear near the edge of the grass, faint green sparks blinking to life one by one.
Kat turned her head and pressed a kiss to Susanna’s hair.
She felt, more than saw, the way Susanna smiled.
“This,” Susanna said after a long moment, “is not at all what I imagined my life would be.”
Kat smiled into her hair. “Me either.”
“And yet…”
“And yet?” Kat prompted softly.
Susanna lifted her head just enough to look at her. In the deepening dusk, her eyes seemed darker, softer. “I find that I am very glad you stepped out of that pond.”
Kat’s heart gave one painful, lovely thud.
She touched Susanna’s hand where it rested in her lap, then threaded their fingers together. “I’m glad too.”
Susanna studied their joined hands with an expression Kat couldn’t fully name. Wonder, maybe. Or disbelief that something so simple could feel so enormous.
After a moment, Susanna lifted Kat’s hand and turned it slightly, examining her palm as though it were something rare. Her fingertips traced lightly across Kat’s skin, and Kat shivered.
“You are cold,” Susanna said.
“I was in a pond.”
“That does make sense.”
Kat smiled. “You always sound a little amused by me.”
“I am often amused by you.”
“Wow. Brutal.”
“Affectionately.”
Kat looked at her then, really looked, and the word hung between them.
Affectionately.
So modest a word for something that felt like it could crack her open.
Kat brought Susanna’s knuckles to her lips and kissed them, once, because she couldn’t help herself.
Susanna inhaled softly.
“See?” Kat said, unable to resist. “Now you’re cold too.”
Susanna gave her a look that was meant to be stern and failed completely. “You are impossible.”
“And yet you keep meeting me here.”
“That is true.”
“Which means—”
“It means,” Susanna interrupted, though her eyes were laughing now, “that I have developed an unfortunate weakness for impossible women.”
Kat’s grin came fast and bright. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
“I suspect your standards are too low.”
“No, I’m serious. That was incredibly romantic.”
Susanna shook her head, but she was smiling too fully now to pretend she wasn’t enjoying herself.
The light faded slowly around them until the sky was more blue than gold, and the first stars began to appear. Kat knew she should go soon. She always knew. The knowledge sat at the edge of every visit like a bruise.
But tonight, neither of them seemed willing to name it.
Instead, they lingered.
Kat told Susanna about fireflies in mason jars when she was a kid, and Susanna confessed she had once tried to keep one in a glass and cried when it died by morning. Kat told her she absolutely would have been the most heartbreakingly earnest child alive, and Susanna protested this with such quiet dignity that Kat laughed until Susanna did too. Susanna asked about music in Kat’s time, and Kat tried to explain playlists so badly that both of them ended up breathless with laughter again.
By the time silence returned, it was the easy kind once more.
“I wish,” Kat said before she could stop herself.
Susanna turned. “What do you wish?”
Kat hesitated, then told the truth. “I wish I could stay longer.”
Something in Susanna’s face softened, then turned sad at the edges. She lifted her free hand and touched Kat’s cheek this time, mirroring the gesture from earlier.
“So do I,” she said.
The honesty of it ached.
Kat leaned into her touch. “Sometimes it feels cruel, getting just pieces.”
Susanna’s thumb brushed gently beneath her eye. “Pieces may still be precious.”
Kat swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
“They are to me,” Susanna whispered.
Kat kissed her then, because there was nothing else to do with a feeling that big.
This kiss was deeper, but no less tender. It carried all the sweetness of the evening with it—the laughter, the longing, the little domestic ease of simply sitting beside each other. Kat’s hand slid to Susanna’s waist. Susanna’s fingers curled lightly at the collar of Kat’s shirt. Everything felt warm, suspended, golden even in the dusk.
When they finally pulled apart, Kat rested her forehead against hers and let out a shaky breath.
“You really have no idea what you do to me,” she murmured.
Susanna’s smile was soft and secret. “I may have some idea.”
“Oh, do you?”
“I am not entirely unobservant, Katherine.”
Kat laughed under her breath. “Good. Because I’m gone for you. Completely.”
For a second Susanna only looked at her.
Then she leaned in and kissed the corner of Kat’s mouth, so gentle it felt almost like a promise.
“I know,” she said quietly. “I think I am rather gone for you as well.”
Kat stared at her.
“Oh,” she said faintly, which only made Susanna laugh again.
It was dark enough now that the pond reflected the stars.
At last, reluctantly, Kat stood. Susanna rose with her.
Neither of them said what they were both thinking.
Kat didn’t want the night to end with goodbye. Not when it had felt so full. So she reached for both of Susanna’s hands and held them between them.
“I’ll come back,” she said.
“I know.”
“Soon.”
A faint smile touched Susanna’s lips. “You are predictable, remember?”
Kat huffed a laugh. “Right.”
She squeezed her hands once, then twice, like she could somehow press all her feeling into the gesture.
Susanna stepped forward and adjusted Kat’s still-damp collar with careful fingers, smoothing it as though she needed an excuse to touch her one more time.
The gesture was so unexpectedly tender Kat nearly lost it on the spot.
“There,” Susanna murmured. “Better.”
Kat shook her head, smiling helplessly. “You can’t just do things like that.”
“Do what?”
“Be absurdly lovely and expect me to survive it.”
Susanna’s expression warmed. “And yet, you do survive.”
“Barely.”
Susanna leaned up and kissed her one last time, sweet and slow enough to feel endless.
When she drew back, she kept one hand lightly over Kat’s heart.
“Go home, Katherine,” she whispered. “And come back to me.”
Kat looked at her, at the woman glowing softly in starlight, at the pond behind her, at the whole impossible, beautiful life suspended in this moment.
Then she covered Susanna’s hand with her own.
“I will,” she promised.
And this time, when she walked toward the water, she did not feel only the sorrow of leaving.
She carried something gentler with her too.
The warmth of Susanna’s mouth.
The softness of her laughter.
The quiet certainty in her voice when she had said come back to me.
Kat dove into the pond smiling.
⸻