She waits in the shadow of the temple, midnight-black hair fading into the darkness, pale slivers of skin glowing with moonlight. It is almost time for their rendezvous, or so she believes; she's been reluctant to break the sanctity of the night with something so crude as a glow-in-the dark watch face. She fears that she'll anger some almost-forgotten deity if she should dare profane this place with anything more modern than the fabric of her clothes.

She waits, surrounded by the brooding silence of the Parthenon, nervously adjusting the sunglasses she has only taken off to sleep since arriving in Greece. With the sunglasses obscuring half her face, she shrouds herself in mystery. People have passed her in the street and only stared a moment before going on; she's sure that they've all created stories and nationalities for her, not knowing the secret that lies behind her opaque glasses. She is grateful to the weather for being cool enough to wear long sleeves and pants.

She waits under Athena's watchful eye, wondering what the martial goddess of wisdom would think of her and them. From the moment she arrived in Greece, she's been able to feel something in the air, old and unique, somewhat disquieting. Though its people had turned to monotheism, she knows that the land still holds the old gods dear. She stands almost against one of the marble pillars, afraid to touch, and thinks. Surely the fiercely independent goddess would respect her and her league for their temerity, but she wonders if the chaste, virgin goddess would look down on her for her love.

She waits, alone but accompanied by the ghosts of millennia past, starlight and moonlight reflected in her opaque glasses. She is a stranger to all who approach her; no one can see who she really is. Fair-skinned by nature, she looks downright ghostly in the faint celestial light, though only the barest glimpses of her skin can be seen. She appears like a specter of the past, barely there, barely visible, easily mistaken for a figment of someone's imagination. That encapsulates the way she feels right now as she senses her loneliness.

A figure appears in the distance, and her heart begins to beat faster. The shadows make it hard to tell whether she's about to be accosted by a cop or finally make the rendezvous she's been waiting for. But the quiet voice reassures her. "Have you been here all night?" Kristin demands of her. Kristin's voice seems angry, but she can hear the undertones of fear and worry.

"Not that long," she laughs back. "I caught something to eat at a café, drank some coffee that's got enough caffeine to keep me up all night, and wandered around for a while."

Kristin pouts. "You thought you needed coffee to stay up all night? Knowing that I'm here? You cut me to the quick." A momentary flash of white is the only hint she has that Kristin smiles as she says this.

"Enough talking," she whispers in Kristin's ear.

"I couldn't agree more." Kristin brushes away the jet-black hair that has fallen across the dark, mysterious sunglasses, revealing what she wanted no one but Kristin to know. Without a word, Kristin runs long, delicate fingers along the folded corners of her eyes. She murmurs softly under Kristin's touch, nonsense syllables that are there merely to fill in the silence, and her eyes close; here, in the dark, with this woman she loves, she feels as if she can finally be safe.

Faint light shines on her eyes, revealing their unmistakable tilt, and pours down the fine bones of her face. Gently, Kristin kisses her eyelids. She giggles. "I think I'm ticklish," she whispers as she twines her hand into Kristin's.

She darts a glance down at their interlaced hands, thinking that they have so much in common. The hand Kristin uses to bring small joys to her is the same one she's used to send shots flying into the second row, the same one that's swatted volleyballs without mercy. They share many secrets, she and Kristin. They know two worlds that most of their colleagues don't. For all that they've chosen basketball as their career, it was their volleyball background that drew them together.

As if reading her thoughts, Kristin murmurs, "They'll never understand. They just won't. They can't. It's just you and me. And maybe Natalie, but she's not here. It's just us. And I don't think the locals look kindly on people making out in front of this place, so let's take it somewhere else."

She smiles quietly at Kristin, understanding perfectly what her brown-haired girlfriend has in mind. "I think you're going to need some coffee to keep up with me," she purrs, squeezing Kristin's hand just slightly and letting Kristin take her away, just being in the moment. The folds of their loose, casual shirts float like drapery; they walk with unstudied grace as they disappear, swallowed by the shadows. Soon there is nothing but the darkness, the quiet, and the heavy presence of myth and legend.