"They walked toward the lovers' stone
And through it passed their hands.
They plighted there a constant troth
Sealed by love's steadfast bands...
This maid had nearly reached her home
When she was startled by a cry.
And she turned to look around her
And her love was standing by
His hand was pointing to the stars
And his eyes gazed at the light.
And with a smiling countenance
He vanished from her sight..."

"Well! Fancy meeting you here!"

Ryou blinked up at Sai, the warrior of Torrent as at home in the saddle of his borrowed mare as he would be atop a surfboard.

"Just kinda went to stretch my legs after breakfast and kept goin'," Ryou grinned, shrugging. He tilted up a hand to shield his eyes from the summer sunlight. "Are we still on the Manor's property?"

Sai nodded as he swung down to the ground. "All the way to the rock wall on one side and the river to the other." They were standing in a small copse of trees: ash and oak, and the grass bordered a deep natural spring that was a perfect swimming hole.

The mare tried to eat Sai's hair, and he laughed at it affectionately and petted the pink velvet nose, pressing his cheek against the sleek chestnut head. Ryou reached out a hand for her to sniff and approve before scratching her behind the ears, like Blaze was fond of.

"Never thought I'd see you loving a critter that didn't have fins."

Sai smiled back, scritching her chin with a hand still in its leather riding glove. "Now, Ryou, I'm really quite fond of horses." He turned back to it. "Aren't I? Aren't I fond of you oh yes I am." The horse agreed and attempted to gnaw Sai's nose as proof. "Bleeah!!" Sai rubbed at his face. "Stop that, you! I am NOT a lump of sugar!"

"Well, you DID kinda ask for it."

"Horse spit, honestly. Are you hungry, Ryou? I have lunch?" Sai Began digging though the saddlebags, producing several squashy foil wrapped packages. Something that smelled good leaked into the air from them.

"I had blackberries on my walk but-" his stomach growling interrupted him. "Obviously that wasn't enough!" He helped Sai unload a blanket and spread it on the mossy stream bank. "It's a great spot for a picnic."

"It IS a lovely place..." Sai paused, one hand still in the satchel. "You know I don't know that I've ever been here? Isn't that odd? After all the roaming I've done on this place, you'd think I knew every blade of grass by heart, to say nothing of a patch of trees the size of a Tokyo flat."

"Well, you might have seen it a long time ago, or in a different season, and it wasn't the same."

"Yes, I suppose that's true." Sai tethered the mare to a tree and left her to contentedly crop the sweet grass and clover. "Vegetable roll or Benedictine sandwiches?"

"Both, please. Is there any sauce?"

Sai handed him a small margarine container of it and unpacked the food onto the blanket. It was an odd mix, Japanese and decidedly English.

"Were you expecting Kento, Sai? There's enough here for a third world country.. or him." Ryou ate all the nori off the side of his sushi roll and then stuffed the rest into his mouth.

Sai shook his head, peeling the foil seal off his bottled water. "Mrs. Hastings heard I was going for a ride and had me take the whole larder with me. When I was here as a boy sometimes I'd stay out well past dark and once or twice until the next morning, so she still packs out of habit."

"The manor sure is a different place with all these people running around. Where's everybody else?"

"Sage and Rowen took two of the bikes into town for shopping and Uncle Nicolas told Kento that if he cleaned out the whole armory, he could have one of the suits of armor rusting in there. Personally, I didn't want to be stuck helping him!"

"Remind me to say 'no' if he asks for any favors."

"Of course."

For a moment they munched in silence, listening to the wind and the birds and even, from a mile or so to the west, the dim rustle of the ocean.

"Actually, I'm surprised all of you came with me when I asked," Sai concentrated very hard on the rice ball he was eating, grain by grain.

"Why wouldn't we? This is a great place, Sai- even better in the summer, and your Uncle is the bomb... letting us have free access to everything, the bikes and the horses and the grounds."

Sai really didn't say anything, quietly packing up what remained of lunch.

"You're thinking of what happened last time." Ryou's voice was hushed; he and Sai had never really discussed what had happened, not in private anyway. Those dark hours between Samhain midnight and Saint's Day dawn last year felt far distant from the bright, summer afternoon.

"I didn't think it was anything you'd want to remember."

Ryou reached out and lifted Sai's chin, making those green eyes meet his. "Sai- because of that I feel like you and me- well, like we share some kinda secret. I can feel what was left of him on me sometimes.. like a fingerprint. And this place is like coming home. It's not something to be forgotten, kay?"

Sai blushed, his eyelashes lowering. "Thank you, Ryou."

"And while we're on the subject, how's the transcribing of that journal coming?"

Sai exhaled and smiled up. "Very nicely actually, we were off on our dates, there was a year in between Ashe and Colin meeting and- and the end. It didn't happen the same winter they met."

"That's good." Ryou lay on his back on the blanket, smiling up at the sky. "It's good to know they had a summer. Every pair of lovers needs a summer."

Ryou tossed his head, brows puzzled at Sai's intent stare. "What?"

Sai shook himself. "Hmm? Oh, I must have just been drifting. Did you say you found some blackberries? I'd love to get some- for all her packing the Hastings left out dessert."

"There's a thicket behind the spring- nah, don't get up.. I'll get us some." Ryou vanished into the underbrush and trees, sometimes Sai forgot that Ryou had grown up in the woods.

"Hey, Sai?" Ryou's voice echoed from the clump of trees. "Could you c'mere?"

"Did you find something?" Sai asked. Ryou had that 'gee I wonder what this is' tone in his voice. Sai stood up and brushed his hands off on his jeans, wandering around to where Ryou stood pondering a large tower of ivy.

"There's something under all this." Ryou nodded at it. He had taken off his shirt and used it to contain the berries he'd picked, holding the black tee in one hand as he tugged at some of the stubborn ivy. "I stubbed my toe on it pretty bad."

"Here let me help you." Sai set the blackberries aside and the two of them went to work on their mystery, pulling away stubborn cloying vines. Before long Sai went back for his riding gloves and he and Ryou split the pair between them; the vines were tough and nasty for digging into their palms. They were both shirtless and panting by the time they got though an hour or so later Ryou didn't look too thrilled at the result of their work.

"It's a rock."

"No, It's a standing stone.. A small one yes, but man-made nonetheless." Sai traced his hands over the faint relief markings in the stone. "They're all over the place really, from prehistoric Britain, but I never knew we had one of our own. I wish Kento could see this.. he could talk to it and find out when it was put here."

Ryou frowned at it. "What was it for? Religious something?" He lowered his head to the hole midway through the stone, and laughed when he saw Sai's green eye squinting back at him from the other side. "Hello, Sai."

"Hullo, Ryou" Sai giggled and stuck his hand through. "It's a lovers stone."

Ryou straightened and looked at Sai's ungloved hand, sticking out of the rock more or less at the level of Ryou's fly. "Anything I say now will be cheap and pointless."

"Oh, don't be such a hentai. Just give me your hand." Sai's fingers made an impatient gesture.

Biting his tongue on the crude comment and the snicker, Ryou removed his glove and shoved it in his pocket, twining his hand with Sai. "Now what?"

Sai pulled his hand back until both of them were imprisoned in the stone. "It's for good luck."

Ryou waited what he deemed an appropriate amount of time before clearing his throat and poking his head around the obelisk to inquire how long they were required to do this. Sai looked sheepish and released him. Ryou scraped a fingertip against Sai's palm suggestively before taking his hand away, flashing one of his quietly dazzling smiles at the other warrior.

"Not that I mind holding hands with you or anything, but a swim and these blackberries are sounding better by the minute."

"Oh, lord, yes." Sai picked up his shirt and glanced back at the stone. "I suppose we can come back later to investigate this."

"Aaya! Sai!" Ryou emerged drippily from the waist-deep spring water, shaking out his hair, holding something cupped in his hands. Sai laughed and splashed at him, sloshing over in curiosity.

"It's best to get wet all at once, an especially when it's nice and cool like this. What have you got there?"

Ryou unfolded his hands obediently, holding out the berries for Sai's inspection. "I brought us some."

"Mm. Thank you.. You scratched your hands to bits on the briars." Sai ran his fingertips over Ryou's knuckles before delicately picking up a few berries and popping them in his mouth.

"Nothing that won't heal, I lived with this sort of thing growing up with dad." Ryou flipped back his wet dark hair and bent his mouth to the berries he held, eating them the only way he could without dropping any.

"Here." Sai held one up to throw, and Ryou opened his mouth. Within a few moments they were laughing like ten-year-olds, most of the blackberries having gone in the water.

"Your aim fucking sucks, Sai." He tossed his hair again and shifted his weight on the slippery bottom, unconsciously beautiful.

Sai chuckled through a mouthful of errant berry, having been the one to dart down and catch the strays, and reached over to give a few to Ryou directly. "Mm. Eat them this way. I've had half already." Sai's smile faded as Ryou's eyes slid closed, the warmth of his breath whispering against Sai's water-cooled hand as he accepted the proffered berry. Sai gave him another, and another, entranced by the graceful motions of his neck and the way he still held both hands out even though there were only a few blackberries left.

Not sure why he did, Sai took one of the last ones and crushed it between his fingertips, the juice dark as blood and spilling down his palm. Ryou watched him with a pensive, intrigued look, tilting his head and parting his lips as Sai to painted his mouth with the purple-crimson liquid. Sai could only stare at him for a long moment, the stain on his mouth looking almost unbearably seductive against his wet brown-sugar skin. Ryou caught Sai's fingers in his teeth before they could be removed, caressing the last traces of berry pulp away with his tongue.

Sai shivered violently, helpless when Ryou lifted blue eyes that were suddenly smoldering, one arm reaching out to draw the other boy closer in the water. Their mouths met as if it had been carefully planned, thighs sliding against each other, sharing the sweetness deep into their kiss. Sai made a soft frantic sound against Ryou's tongue, invading him in slow tandem with the sex being pushed against his.

~You want this, Sai?~ Ryou was being uncommonly patient, by this point Sai was sure he should be flat on his back with his legs around Ryou's shoulders.

"Yes..." Sai breathed it into the kiss rather than sending it, his legs floating apart in the water, grazing either side of Ryou's hips.

Ryou rubbed a berry against one taut pink nipple, his mouth reaching down to suckle away the juice he'd put there. Sai arched back against the arm holding him, his legs wrapping tightly around Ryou's and a strained noise leaking from his clenched jaw as Ryou's teeth scraped over his skin.

"Like that, do you?"

"Aye... do it again..."

Neither of them noticed that their selection of words had become somewhat antiquated. Or that both of them began speaking English.

Not that language mattered, as Sai's words muted into an inarticulate groan as Ryou compiled, roughly kissing Sai's chest and scattering hungry bites into his neck. Sai's fingernails clawed at sun-dark shoulder blades, a dangerous glint in green eyes as he pulled away slightly, resting his hands underwater on Ryou's hipbone.

"I have something for you."

"Really?"

"Yes. But you must promise me something."

"Anything." Ryou's eyes followed every motion of Sai's mouth, his response instantaneous.

"Don't let it out that I played servant to my own stableboy, hmm?"

"I shan't breathe a word of it." Ryou reached out and ruffled Sai's damp hair.

"Mmm." Sai's smile was edged with mischief and want. "Good."

He submerged, auburn hair floating like seaweed. Ryou's eyes went wide. "Oooooooooooh..." He leaned his head back, biting his lip and pushing against the hot wet that had replaced the cold spring water. "Nnnnnn..." The few berries he still held were crushed in his hand, the juice seeping out of his fist. His body trembled, knees weakened in the onslaught of Sai's mouth on his sex.

Sai emerged from the water like a Naiad, arms winding hungrily against Ryou as they kissed with an urgency that was almost brutal. He held up two fingers and Sai drew them into his mouth, moaning around them as Ryou carried him out of the water and over to the abandoned blanket. They fell onto it roughly, bodies twined and pushing eagerly against each other, their quickened breathing and desperate sounds soft in the strangely still summer air.

Sai clutched at Ryou's wrist as the fingers he had kissed plunged into his willing body, rocking him on the blanket. Sai's touch drifted, closing on Ryou's heat and shaping it with his hands, until the warrior had to surrender and lifted pale legs around him, thrusting in and kissing away Sai's involuntary tears.

Sai held still at first, clutching to Ryou, afraid he might break with the intensity of it. Then he pushed back at the body buried so perfectly within his, joined to him in the most intimate way possible. Ryou's lovemaking was violent as his element, his mouth delivering sharp bites against Sai's neck, spurred by tight hot perfection and the iron warmth of Sai's need pressed against his belly.

It wasn't long before Sai gave in, sobbing softly into Ryou's still-wet hair as he spilled himself between them, Ryou letting out a long slow growl as he did the same. They breathed names to each other as they slid apart and crumpled to the blanket, and the names were not their own.

Something warm nuzzled Sai's shoulder. "Mmm...Ryou?" Sai opened his eyes and yelped, jerking upright. This wasn't Ryou, unless he had grown a very equine face since this afternoon. "Hazel! How did you get loose?" Sai patted the mare's nose and shivered. The horse whickered anxiously, nosing his arm again. "What on earth?" The shadows were long gaunt things, and the light was the color of amber. The evenings were already beginning to get cool, and he reached for his clothes to ward off the breeze. They would be lucky to get home before dark.

Sai shook Ryou, who was snoring faintly on the blanket next to him. "Ryou! Wake up!"

"I'm awake, I'm awake!" Ryou yawned. He blinked in puzzlement and looked strangely at Sai. "Sai.. what just-"

"No just about it, We've been asleep for a while." Sai shook out his pants and slithered into them. "C'mon, we can talk on the way if you want."

But oddly enough they didn't, riding back together across the countryside. Ryou gave Sai the more comfortable part of the saddle, blushing softly with memory as he did so, resting his cheek against Sai's shoulder as they galloped into gathering twilight.

"And where have YOU two been?" Rowen grinned, opening the back kitchen door for them as they trooped in from the stables just after full dark.

"Shutup," Ryou growled, making the archer blink in surprise.

"Sorry?"

Sai patted Rowen on the shoulder and shrugged. "Don't take it personally."

"Huh. I nevah do. Hey Sai.. guess what I figyahed out how ta do on a motorcycle?"

Three a.m. chimed on the mantel clock and Sai was still propped up in bed, transcribing Colin's journal from the fragile notebook to the confines of his laptop. He would scan any pictures in the morning in his uncle's office. In the giant double bed Kento was sleeping peacefully, the small table lamp Sai was using hadn't disturbed him and the quiet clicking of the keys had soothed him to sleep quickly.

Sai didn't know what kept him awake, the nap he had earlier or the fuzziness of the memories preceding it. Not that he had forgotten what happened, that heremembered clearly. Finding the standing stone, swimming with Ryou in the spring, the most inventive use for wild blackberries he'd ever happened upon, and the smooth heat of Ryou's straining body against his own: that was easy to remember. But what had they said? Had they talked at all the whole time? Sai couldn't recall it. And when he asked Ryou, the bearer of wildfire had simply shaken his head and looked away with confused blue eyes.

Sai keyed in the last paragraph, yawning. Colin's ink-gall etched script was beginning to blur in front of his eyes; he left off the journal with the entry for August 9th, 1761. Sai closed the laptop with a click and set it on the bedside table, laying the open journal on top of it. It was better to just not close it every night and wreak havoc on the fragile binding and pages.

He tucked himself in with a contented noise and settled back against feather down warmed by Kento, drifting into a dreamless sleep.

Water squawking through turn-of-the-century plumbing woke him with a start, the usual pings and bangs of pipes overlaid with Kento's baritone doing an enthused impromptu "Livin La Vida Loca." Sai smiled to himself and stretched luxuriously, wiggling his toes against the comforter and contemplating how good a bowl of miso would be. Mrs. Hastings didn't mind them coming down in their pajamas, being family and not paying guests, as long as they stuck to the servant's stairs and ate in the kitchen. His uncle would no doubt be entertaining the bed-and-breakfasters.

Sai tugged on his well-loved blue bathrobe and blinked fuzzily at the journal on his bedside table as he fumbled with the belt. His eyes widened, and the fragment of terry cloth fell from his oblivious fingers.

The page he had been typing up last night was a pure text entry; there were no accompanying sketches. He was fairly certain that the dates were the 7th-9th of August, while this page was dated the tenth. But a drawing flooded the facing page of it. Most of Colin's work had been of Ashe, and Sai was quite used to seeing 200 year old images of Ryou in states from amusing to casual to the very intimate, but this one slammed into him as hard as the first one he had seen.

Ashe was dressed only in a pair of nondescript breeches, leaning one arm against a pillar of stone and smiling shyly up at the viewer. The obelisk had an arm-sized hole intersecting its middle, and piles of ivy were crowded around its base as though just recently cleared away. He held one leather glove in one hand, part of a pair, and the area behind him was a riot of blackberry bushes, weighted with fruit. It was impossible to tell, but Sai knew the anonymous bundle Ashe held was filled with the same, and that it had been knotted out of his shirt.

Sai's gaze stumbled over the entry.

'...We met today at our usual spot, and turned up a bit of a discovery. Ashe happened upon a lover's stone while exploring in the thicket behind the spring...'

When Kento wandered out of the shower, toweling at his hair, Sai was gone. The faint tremor of his mental call for Ryou still hung in the air like an afterimage of fireworks.

"And we've looked everywhere." Sai slumped into the chair and took the sherry Sage offered. "Thank you. Rowen even flew me up over the area but we still couldn't find the place again."

"Does it really bother you?" Sage asked the two of them. He'd driven in to London early that morning and had so missed the massive search the rest of them had undertaken. They were all in the library now, after supper for drinks like in some Victorian mystery novel. "That you can't find it, you mean."

Ryou chewed his lip. "No... I guess not." He frowned down at the scratches on his hands. "It just.. it doesn't feel real.."

"Like hell it doesn't," Sai mumbled, and shifted his hips. Ryou smiled over at him softly. Sai couldn't help but smile back. The other three exchanged a glance over their heads.

"If you went back, Sai.. would it be the same?" Sai and Ryou shared something Kento didn't understand, but that was fine by Kento, as long as Sai was happy. Beautiful was beautiful; it didn't mater to Kento if he couldn't speak the language. Nothing was being revoked from his bond with Sai because of it. "Or would you rather just have your memory of it... their memory of it... and know that it is true?"

For a moment they were silent, Rowen gazing quietly at Colin, observing neutrally from his self-portrait above the shelves. "We thought they were gone.. an' in a way they are.. but this place must still have an imprint of them, somehow. Besides, who else coulda turned the page in ya book, Sai?"

"It's not MY book," Sai said weakly, but had no real answers.

"All we remembered of them was pain." Ryou seemed to exude some subtle kind of joy, they felt it hum within their bond. "Well maybe they wanted us to remember something else."

Sai brushed loving fingers against he pen and ink sketch. To him it was not black and sepia, he knew the crimson and burgundy of the berries, the cool blue sky and green leaves, the smooth gray stone and the banked azure fire in a pair of eyes. Very carefully, he closed the book. "Something like a summer."

"Damn, is it getting dark already?" Sunset gleamed in raven hair and on one gold hoop gypsy earring. There were few fireflies left, but the ones that remained blinked slowly up from the grass.

"It is always 'already'." The cultured voice took on the tone of an annoyed aristocrat, lowering the bottle from his lips and offering his lover the last of the wine. It was refused politely.

"Come on then, we should be getting back." He rolled to his feet like a cat, eyes gleaming blue in the dusk.

"Will you be sure to come in later than me?" He fumbled with his cravat; the thing was being beastly today. Dark hands batted his away affectionately and tied it for him. "And from a different direction?"

"Of course. Though I must tell you, I do not think we're fooling anyone."

He sighed. "No, I don't think we are. Loving me will be the death of you."

A low chuckle was all he gained in response to the familiar phrase. "And I do not much care if it is, Colin Blakeney. I do not care much if it is."