Marlowe hadn't been expecting Caiti over that night, but he still wasn't all that surprised to see her at the door when he went to answer it.

"Hey," he said.

"Are you busy?"

"No, I'm not doing anything."

"Can we go for a walk? I feel overwhelmed."

"Yeah- yeah, hang on a second." Marlowe left the door open for her, but ducked back into the house to grab a pair of shoes.

"I'm going for a walk with Caiti," he said, poking his head into his parents bedroom where his mum was watching something on tv.

"Caiti's here?"

"Yeah," he said, and then he ducked back out again and found her at the door. She looked troubled.

"I'm ready," he said.

He slipped his hand into hers and they walked down the front porch steps and along the stone path beneath the droopy tree branches hanging over the front yard, then onto the street where they kept to the side in case of passing cars. It was dark, and the street wasn't well lit.

"You said you were overwhelmed,' Marlowe prompted when they'd been walking awhile and Caiti hadn't said anything yet.

"Yeah," she said.

"About?"

She shook her head. "Everything."

"Okay, well... start with one thing," Marlowe suggested, feeling a lot like Evelyn, except less calm.

Caiti didn't answer right away. "I don't know what I'm doing," she said as they rounded a corner.

"Well, you graduated like five days ago, so I feel like that's probably okay for now."

"Well, sure for a minute. But I've been working on this since September, and I just feel like I've used up all my ideas and now I don't know where to go with it, but I've got all this money and people are expecting things and I don't even know where to start. Like I've got all this information, but it's all discombobulated in my brain and I don't really know why any of it matters or what I'm supposed to do with it. It just feels like I'm at the point where I should be done just looking stuff up in library books and actually trying something, but I don't know how to do that."

"Are you going to meet with your mentor soon?"

"Next week," she said.

"Maybe she'll have some ideas."

"I'm sure she will, but I don't want to show up and act like a student."

"You won't."

"I might."

"You won't."

"I have to show up with a plan. I need to have an idea of what my next step is so she can guide me on that. She's not supposed to be doing it for me. She's not a teacher."

"She isn't going to do it for you. I just meant maybe she'll have questions that'll get you thinking and maybe that'll spark something."

"All I have are a bunch of plants and I don't even like herbology that much."

Marlowe couldn't help it. He laughed.

Caiti pulled her hand out of his and shoved him.

"I'm sorry," he grinned. "It's just the way you said it."

"Well, I don't like it! It's kind of boring! Nothing even happens for weeks and what if I'm just wasting all this time growing these stupid things and they don't even turn out to do anything?"

"Then you'll have a very nice garden."

"And I'll put you in charge of it," she said darkly.

Marlowe looped his arm around her waist and pulled her back into his side.

Caiti turned and hugged him so tight it was hard to breathe, but he didn't care.

"You'll come up with something," he said.

"Let's talk about something else," said Caiti, letting go of him. They started walking again.

"Okay," said Marlowe. "How about the fact that I'm really, really happy you're home."

"For good," said Caiti quietly. There was a smile in her voice.

"Thank god."

—-

They walked for a long time, laughing about stupid things, but eventually, they found their way back to the house. Marlowe saw Caiti's gaze slide towards the little shed out back that his dad had converted into a tiny living room for him to spend the full moon nights. He tried to pretend not to notice her looking at it, but his heart rate picked up.

"What do you do those nights?" she said. "Can you sleep at all?"

Marlowe swallowed. "Sometimes."

"Don't you get bored?"

"I don't really think about it like that. I just... I try to get through it."

"Can I see?"

"See what?"

"Inside." She was still looking at the shed.

"No," said Marlowe immediately. "Definitely not."

"Why?"

"Because I don't go in there when I don't have to. It's not like... it's not exactly full of my favorite memories."

"Just for a second," she said. She took a step towards it, but Marlowe pulled on her hand to stop her.

"Caiti, don't."

To her credit, she didn't walk any further. She turned back and looked at him.

"Why do you care?" he asked. "It's nothing special."

She shrugged. "I don't really. I was just curious."

And that was probably the only reason Marlowe gave in. He inhaled through his nose, sighed, and said, "Come on," quietly.

Caiti hung back.

"You really don't have to show me if you don't want to," she said.

But Marlowe kept walking, and after a few seconds, he heard Caiti's footsteps hurrying to catch up to him.

The door wasn't locked at the moment, though he made sure it was locked in every way he knew how when he came here. It was Marlowe who'd suggested most of the precautions on the place. His parents had first thought he could just stay in his bedroom, but Marlowe had vetoed that idea instantly. He didn't ever want to ruin the safety of his childhood bedroom with those kinds of memories. He wanted that feeling confined to one place he never had to look at or think about otherwise.

That was why it felt so strange and so vulnerable to open the door and let Caiti see.

But Caiti didn't react how he thought she would.

She looked around the tiny room, at the sofa along one wall and the little coffee table that was never used for anything, at the rug covering the floor and the fresh paint his dad had done that past summer. Had Caiti not been making the potion for him every month, all the soft furnishings would likely have been torn to shreds. Just picturing made him nauseous.

"I expected it to be more like a garden shed," she said. "Your dad did this?"

"Yeah," he said. He sat down on the couch, which felt very wrong in his regular body, and he shut his eyes, because he didn't want to watch her start to picture the things that went on in here.

"It's nice," said Caiti. "He made it comfortable."

Even with his eyes closed, he felt so unsettled. Her voice in this space was all wrong. She wasn't supposed to be around him when he was here. She was supposed to be as far away as she could get, where he couldn't hurt her if something went wrong.

He felt the couch cushions sink beside him as she sat down, felt her hand on his knee.

"We don't have to stay in here," she said softly. "If you want to go."

"Like I said, it's just... not full of the best memories."

But he made no move to leave. He felt stuck there. He felt like her hand had pinned him to his seat and his heart had started pounding.

"Do you want a better one?" she asked.

Marlowe sank further down, leaning back against the cushions. He was careful not to open his eyes. "What does that mean?"

Then Caiti's hand lifted from his leg and moved to his jaw. Her thumb brushed across the bone and then over his lips and he almost opened his eyes by accident, but then she was kissing him and his stomach jolted and his hands went to her sides and then into her hair.

He laid back, pulling her with him and only let himself think about her warmth and her weight on top of him and not about the other nights he had spent on this couch. He only let himself think about how confidently she kissed him and how she suddenly seemed older and more grown up than she had even just a few days ago.

He felt hot and jittery, and every time Caiti's lips came back down on his, he felt like he'd forgotten how to breathe. The next time she pulled back, he opened his eyes and they looked at each other, faces so close he couldn't focus on any one feature.

"Next time, you think about this," she whispered.

They kissed for what felt like a long time, on and on until Marlowe was nervous he wouldn't be able to control himself, so he turned his head, whispered, "Wait, give me a second," then pulled her down into a hug, hand twisting into her hair, and shut his eyes again. Another day, he might have tested the limits a little. But not here. Not in this place.

He could feel her heartbeat against his own chest and his whole body buzzed. She was here. She was home. She was not leaving again. He thought these things over and over to himself, but they did nothing to calm him down.

Caiti's hand was on his shoulder and he was so aware of each individual finger right there next to the scar marking the spot where he'd been bitten. He tried to think about that instead. That would cool him down, he hoped.

She slid off him, wedging herself between the back of the couch and his body. He adjusted, so she could lay her head on his chest, his arm beneath her.

He tried to pay attention to the rate of her breathing, to sync up his own inhales and exhales with hers. Her hand moved from his shoulder to his side, her warm palm pressed up against his bare skin where his t-shirt had ridden up when she'd moved.

"Oh god," he muttered as his stomach lurched again. How was he supposed to think about anything but her when she was this close?

He opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling he had stared at once a month, usually unable to relax enough to sleep. It was then that something crossed his mind that made him shiver even though he had been hot just a second ago. He felt goosebumps prickling his skin.

"You're cold," Caiti said.

"No. I just thought of something. Well I remembered something I thought about before."

Caiti kept quiet, waiting for him to continue.

"It's about your research," he said. "Something you could try."

Caiti lifted her head up.

"I didn't want to say anything, because I don't know if I want to do it."

"I would never make you do anything you don't want to," she said.

And she sounded so certain, so sure that nothing could tempt her enough to push him to do it, that he continued, but he squeezed his eyes closed again so he wouldn't have to watch her think about the possibilities of what he was about to say in case he couldn't go through with it.

"You remember when you helped me with antidotes?" he said. "My seventh year."

"Yeah."

"And you said sometimes you have to put the poison in the potion so the ingredients know what to attack."

Caiti put her head back down. "I remember."

"A while ago I was thinking if I... well it's being bitten that infects you. I guess there's like... venom or something. I don't know. I was thinking if I bit something when I was... you know... if I bit something that would catch it, then you could... I don't know, you could experiment with it or something. I don't even know if that would work."

Caiti was quiet while she thought this over. He could tell she didn't want to say anything in case it made him feel like he had to do it.

He really didn't want to, but it was an idea he had pondered more than once, and he did think there was something to it.

"I wouldn't make you do something you don't want to," Caiti said again, like she had read his mind.

"I'm just afraid I'll— it sounds weird," he interrupted himself. "I'm afraid it'll feel good."

His voice sounded too loud in that small space and he wished he hadn't said it. Still, he went on.

"I'm afraid I'll want to do it again."

"Then don't," said Caiti.

"But do you think it would help you?" Marlowe asked.

"I don't know," she answered. "Probably."

Marlowe swallowed. "I'll think about it." He smoothed his hand across her back and took a slow breath. "Let's go inside," he said. "I don't want to be in here anymore."

They sat up and before they left, Caiti kissed him one more time, soft and slow. Marlowe was amazed by her.