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The stars were gorgeous that night.

With the fire crackling in the silence, the scent of pine and smoke and earth drifting through the air, Edie could have blissfully slept. Other campers had settled in for the night, and the darkness was a second blanket on top of the fleece one she’d brought along with their gear.

She wouldn’t want to be asleep, though. Not if it meant being unaware of Noah’s chest rising and falling behind her, his soft breaths against her ear, or the way his arms tightened around her waist with every sudden noise.

“Are you cold?” he’d ask every so often.

“No,” she’d say. Not as long as you’re here.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Edie leaned back against him, smiling when he shuffled the blanket around so every inch of her from neck to toe was covered. Smiling because he cared.

It was, in reality, getting cold, but damn her if she’d admit such a stupid thing. Sitting here with Noah under a sea of stars was time she couldn’t get every day, so she wouldn’t move until her ass was numb.

“I think that’s the Big Dipper,” Edie told him, though she didn’t bother pointing it out.

His thumb drew idle circles on her hip. “What else do you see?”

“The Little Dipper?” It came out as a question, because she couldn’t really tell what she was looking at other than bright twinkling spots in the sky. “Orion’s Belt should be right over there, I think.”

Noah’s thumb paused. “You have no idea what the constellations look like, do you?”

She laughed, unabashedly happy that cold September evening because she was with the man she loved knowing that he loved her just as much. It had taken her twenty-six years to find him, and she would never ever ridicule fate ever again.

“Well, neither do you,” she told him. Her cheek brushed against his when she turned her head, nose accidentally tracing the line of his jaw.

Noah grinned and said, “You can describe them to me.”

“Okay,” she agreed.

As the sounds of the campgrounds gradually decreased to little more than twigs snapping and pine needles tumbling off their tent, Edie whispered into his ear stories that her dad used to tell her as a kid, stories of girls being turned to stars, bears and wolves and other bits of myths she could recite from memory. These were stories she had kept near to her heart, stories she would tell herself whenever she missed her dad’s laugh or frustrated rants or deep voice.

Her Astronomy 101 class eight years ago wasn’t nearly as helpful as the shreds of life passed down from one generation to another.

“I don’t want to go back,” she admitted to Noah later that evening. The fire had all but died out, and the wind was picking up. I want to stay here with you forever.

“Rather stay here with me, eh?” he teased, though he allowed her to snuggle even closer.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?”

She felt him shrug. “You’re Dr. Edinburgh Kim. Your patients might miss you.”

Noah had been there through medical school, through the exams and late-night study sessions. He would bring her water or snacks or whatever else they had in their pantry, and he would always wake when she slid into bed a couple of hours before dawn. As a writer, he often kept odd hours, but it couldn’t be beaten by a woman who worked a hundred hours a week.

“I have the best paediatrics fellow covering my shifts until Tuesday,” she reminded, and her hand found his under the blanket so she could entwine their fingers.

“Doesn’t beat having you there. You didn’t have to take this vacation for me,” he repeated, as he had the past two weeks when she announced that they were going camping. “There are babies who want you to be the one to welcome them into the world.”

“I want to spend time with you, Noah.” It was the quickest, most honest way of getting him to accept that he was important to her, no matter who might stare at them.

A doctor and her blind husband sounded like a recipe for failed aspirations.

They would never understand that she pursued medicine because it was what she dreamed of doing since she was little, that it was a dream shared by her and her father ever since she learned that doctors – simply put – help people feel better.

Her mother was the catalyst that people thought Noah was.

“Edinburgh is a ridiculous name,” she noted.

He chuckled under his breath. “It is, but it’s the one your father gave you. It’s the name your mother chose before she died.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not ridiculous,” she pointed out. “Besides, I suppose it’s marginally better than Noah Na.”

She felt a pinch at her side. “What are you laughing about? You’re Mrs. Na.”

“Only to our friends, and it’s still annoying when they announce us as Dr and Mrs. Na.”

They bickered back and forth for a few minutes, reiterating the same conversations they had been having for the last few years. But talking to him never got boring, or repetitive, and though it lost the excitement of novelty, it was anticipation for their future together that made her eager to start each day with him.

“I love you, Edie,” he murmured in her ear.

Words he had said before, countless times, but softer and more awestruck as the years passed.

She looked up at the stars, loving how they shone brighter as the night grew darker, loving how they grew more resilient in the face of something keen to wipe out their light.

“I love you, Noah,” she said.

More than anything.