“Don’t die,” Tori said.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t die. We just found each other again, and you’re old enough I don’t think it’d be weird, and…”

Tori’s hand brushed the side of March’s face. March took it in her hand and kissed it.

“Our thing is temporary. You can’t get attached,” March said.

“You always say that. Temporary because you plan on dying?”

March shook her head. “Because, until I figure something out, we can’t be together long-term. It’s unfair to pretend we can.”

“I’m worried what your solution would look like. She got you good. Wormed her way into your head.”

“It’s not that she got me,” March said. “I got it. I figured it out.”

March looked in the rear view mirror, saw Tori’s expression, deathly serious.

She twisted around, kissing Tori, to make that expression go away, because there were few things that bothered March, and one of those things was people she loved being unhappy.

“I won’t die,” March pledged, her words breathed against Tori’s cheek. “I promise.”

Tori smiled.

“We’ll be together for a few decades, I think. Unless we’re interrupted.”

The smile faltered a bit. Tori shook her head. “You’re messing with me, not making any sense.”

“I’m the most sensible rabbit I know,” March retorted.

“You say interrupted, but you mean dying. You promise me decades but you tell me no long-term?”

“Yes on all counts. Yes, dead is always possible, and you know that. Yes, decades. Yes, I can’t get your hopes up about long-term.”

“You’re fucking with me. Lying to me by dropping ‘decades’ in there, or pulling some double-meaning on me.”

March shook her head. She kissed Tori again. “Talking about it makes me sad. Let’s just enjoy the time we have together, without commitment?”

“Thinker neurosis. Like the fire thinker having a thing about arson. Except you somehow think decades aren’t a commitment?”

“Sure. Let’s call it that.”

“Or is it the relationship that isn’t important enough to count?”

“You are important. You count.”

“But not as much as Flechette. Not as much as Homer.”

“They count in a different way.”

“I should be glad that you don’t want to drink my blood.”

“I don’t want to drink Flechette’s blood either. But…”

“But.”

“But if I could? If I can? I’d map you to our cluster, so I could do all the kiss and kill things I have to do to them to you, too. And you would be the most important person in the world to me, then. I’m going to look for ways.”

Tori touched March’s face. There weren’t many people she was willing to let touch her like that. Tori knew, too.