It didn’t take more than a second of that unexpected kiss before Ian dropped his knife, and moved even closer, his hands moving to her hair as he pulled her closer still, his tongue easily sliding inside her own mouth, dragging out each second of ten years’ worth of desire. At last, the need for air forced their lips apart, though he remained close to her, breathing just a bit heavily in the thin air, just as she did.

Their pools of blue stayed on each other for a long moment following that kiss, before either finally managed words again. “You know I’ve gotta ask, what brought that on?” he finally breathed the words back to her, his hands still tangled in her hair, holding her face close to his, both of them completely unaware of whether their interaction had caught the attention of the two teens below them, which it most likely had.

Lili took her own ragged breath as she looked up into those impossibly haunting eyes of his, “It was so you remember,” was her simple answer.

“Remember?” he repeated, with his own little grin, still not letting her loose from his close embrace just yet.

“Remember why I need you to always come back. I can’t lose you, any of you. And believe me, that does include you, as well. And I need you to remember that. Now, maybe you will.”

“Maybe you should remind me again, and often,” he whispered back, only to cause a tiny grin in her, which he easily covered with his own lips once more, that passion still just as evident as it was in their first kiss that had taken place mere moments earlier.

“Are you gonna look? I’m not gonna look.” Jared offered Kyle quietly, nearly an hour later when they had finished preparing the meal, both of their gazes long since forced away from the top of the incline upon seeing that first, and second, kiss take place earlier.

“Do I have to?” Kyle returned with a sigh.

“Well I’m not going to,” Jared repeated.

Kyle then sighed again in resignation, before finally allowing himself to turn back toward the incline, moving his eyes to where Lili and Ian were surprisingly still outside of his tent, her laying back with her head upon his lap, looking up to meet his amazingly laughing face with her own.

“Um…” Kyle narrowed his eyes as he prepared to give Jared his report.

“How bad is it? Did they at least go into the tent?” Jared returned.

“No, they’re still outside, just sitting there, laughing even,” Kyle reported warily, casting another glance back toward the two atop the incline, just to make sure his eyes hadn’t deceived him in the dimming light of the gray sun setting.

Then Jared looked just as perplexed as Kyle, still not allowing himself to look back, himself, “Do they still have clothes on?”

Kyle couldn’t help chuckling. “Yes, they’re seriously just sitting up there, chatting and laughing…not even continuing the tonsillectomies at the moment,” Kyle had to add.

That was when Jared just had to allow himself to finally look back up toward the curiosity in question. “Ok, odd.”

“Yeah, a bit,” Kyle had to agree.

“So um, think they already, like finished?” Jared offered in the same quiet tone, casting another puzzled glance up at their companions.

“Please, if they’d just done it, don’t you think Ian woulda been giving us the play-by-play by now, instead of just sitting up there chatting, and laughing and watching the frigging sunset with her?” Kyle offered his own analysis.

Jared sighed again, with another look toward them before turning back to Kyle. “So, any chance you ran into any pod people out there?”

Kyle just shook his head. “Well, if one of them took over Ian, should we thank them, then?”

Jared just allowed a small chuckle. “He wasn’t that bad.”

“Really?” Kyle returned in disbelief.

“Ten years of wanting her, only to have her pick not one, but the only other two guys on the planet, before picking him? All things considered, he handled that pretty damn well,” Jared admitted quietly.

“And still kept us all alive too,” Kyle allowed himself to admit.

“Maybe he’s a nice guy in jerk’s clothing, after all?” Jared offered with a shrug.

“Let’s not go overboard,” Kyle teased with little seriousness before finally turning back toward the subject of their conversation.“Chow’s on,” he called up to them.

“Bout time,” Ian called back as Lili sat up, allowing him to stand, and then he even proceeded to help her to her feet.

Kyle looked back to meet Jared’s eyes. “Yeah, I’m still torn,” the younger admitted, as Jared allowed a small smile, before they all decided to move their attention to the matters of food right then, and save the tougher stuff for later.

When the hour finally grew late enough for bedtime to be a serious option, Ian allowed a small yawn before starting away from the water’s edge, and back up the incline, exchanging the slightest grin with Lili as he moved away.

Allowing her own smile in return, she glanced over at where Kyle was helping Jared catalog some of the fish he had pulled from the river that day, then she too started up the incline after Ian. Kyle and Jared just moved their eyes from her then back to exchange a small glance with one another, and the slightest sigh on each of their parts, before moving their attention back to finishing their task.

“So, are you actually going to sleep?” she asked Ian as she reached his side, where he was arranging his blanket and pillow inside the tent.

“I might attempt that, for a few minutes,” he answered with another smile back at her.

“And would that attempt be in the vicinity of now, or would it be closer to later?” she asked with a feigned innocence to her tone.

Ian allowed a small chuckle as he stood once more, and turned back to stand close to her as he looked down into her face. Though rather than speaking, he leaned in to give her another one of those passionate, and even bordering on tender, kisses once again. After several long moments of that kiss, he finally moved back and gently spoke.“See you in the morning, Lili,” was his only smiled statement before moving to crawl back into his tent, zipping it closed behind him as he did, which easily caused Lili’s breath to catch as she watched that zipper close in confusion.

After another deep breath to try and compose herself in the face of such a confusing turn of events, she finally made her slow way back down to the two of her actual lovers who were still seated on the river bank, both also looking a little surprised by her return to their side.

“Hi, Lili,” Kyle offered, trying to keep any emotion out of his voice.

“Hi,” she said softly as she took a seat near them, staring downwards in too much confusion to offer more of a response.

“Is he, uh, going to sleep?” Jared managed a moment later, as he cast his own surprised glance up toward Ian’s now closed tent.

“I…guess so,” she stammered the response.

Kyle took a breath as he looked back at the equally perplexed look Jared wore, before turning his eyes back to Lili. “So, you shot him down again?” he couldn’t stop himself from asking with a cross between surprise and some other reaction.

Lili let out a heavy sigh. “Actually, no, I didn’t,” she stated in a near whisper as she moved to disappear into her own tent without offering any further explanation, as if she even had one.

“Back to the Twilight Zone we go,” Kyle mumbled once Lili finished removing herself from the conversation.

“Apparently,” was Jared’s only whispered response as he looked at the now closed flap of the tent.

After a few more quiet moments of finishing with the last bit of cataloging, Kyle finally shrugged over at Jared as they put the fish back into the cooler of sorts, and the youngest finally made his way back to his own tent as well. Jared took a few moments to glance out at the stillness of the night around him, before he couldn’t help moving his eyes back toward Lili’s tent once again. He then glanced up at Ian’s tent, then Kyle’s, then his eyes fell on hers once more as he let out a concerned sigh before finally allowing his feet to move him toward it.

Lili startled more than a bit as Jared parted the zipper. “Just me, not a bear,” he attempted a smile as he glanced over at where she was still quite awake, though wrapped tightly in a cover as she still sat up, seeming to have been intensely concentrating on nothing more than staring at the floor of the tent. “Want any company, or no?” he asked warily.

“You’re not going to sleep, too?” she finally returned.

“Not if you want company,” he offered another smile.

“Doubt I’m gonna sleep anyway,” was the only semi-answer she offered.

He allowed another small smile before turning to close the tent behind them once more. “So, mind sharing?” he asked a moment later as he gestured to the cover she clutched protectively around herself.

“I’m only in my t-shirt,” she offered with a slight blush.

Jared allowed his own small blush. “Well, it is pretty dark in here, unless you want me to go outside and wait for you to put something else on?” he teased.

Lili just shook her head with her own wry smile before offering him a place under the cover with her after all. Jared easily slid into the cover, pulling it back up over both of them as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder, gently laying his head upon the top of hers.

“So, weird night, huh?” he finally allowed.

Lili just let out a sad little laugh. “Weird week.”

“Yeah, there’s that,” he agreed with a smile as he squeezed her slightly.

“So…” she finally began several moments later. “You had any visions that can explain that…him?” she broached the subject, saving Jared from trying to decide whether or not he should.

“I dunno, you guys seemed to be getting along great, like all evening,” he returned.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Well, did he say anything before he went to bed, alone?” he couldn’t help adding.

Lili just shook her head. “He gave me yet another incredible kiss, and said ‘see you in the morning.’ I mean, what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Lili asked in frustration.

“Guess it means he uh, wanted to see you in the morning?” Jared shrugged.

“Are you patronizing me?” she looked up at him with narrowed eyes.

“No, no patronizing, just…deciphering.”

“Well, mind helping me out with that?” Lili complained as she continued to look at him expectantly.

Jared sighed as he pondered the facts, before finally speaking. “So, what was the reason you and him never hooked up on the ship?”

“Excuse me?” she returned, a little caught by that question.

“Well, you’ve always known he liked you. I’m pretty sure you liked him. So boy likes girl, girl likes boy, you know what the third part of that equation usually is. So why wasn’t it, with the two of you?”

Lili scoffed as she shook her head. “The lines were terrible.”

“Excuse me?” he repeated her earlier question with his own small chuckle.

Lili allowed another shake of her head before she spoke. “Well frankly, he was already busy screwing every other person up there. I didn’t wanna wait my turn just to end up as a statistic. Or what did they used to say? Just another notch on his belt?”

“And you’ve told him this?” Jared returned.

“Explicitly,” she informed.

“So…”

After waiting another moment for Jared to continue, she spoke again. “Care to share the rest of that sentence?” Lili prodded.

“So…what he’s really doing is, he’s giving you what you wanted.”

“Come again?”

“You told him you didn’t just wanna be another notch, another conquest, and so, he hasn’t made you into one, even after you finally let him get close enough that he could have. He still didn’t,” Jared returned with his own smile of what almost looked like admiration.

Lili just shook her head up at him in disbelief. “So you’re saying that now that I’m willing, so to speak, I should be happy that he doesn’t want me anymore?” she scoffed.

“Oh believe me, he wants you…badly. And that’s most likely why he’s not taking you,” Jared pointed out with another little smile.

She shook her head once more before speaking. “So, him not fucking me, after trying to constantly for the last ten years…I should take that as a sign of his deep devotion?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Hey who ever said that love made sense?” Jared offered with another slight shrug.

“Love?” she repeated, almost choking on the word.

Jared allowed another small smile as he looked down at her again. “You mean you haven’t noticed how lovable you are yet?”

“Right,” she said as she looked down with another blush.

“I’d be willing to bet money, that if we polled every single guy on this planet…”

“Shut up,” she laughed up at him.

“Make me,” he teased before he moved to pull her closer still, covering her mouth with his lips, silently, easily giving his own answer to how lovable he himself did find her as well.