Oh, Will," she said, "What can we do? Whatever can we do? I want to live with you forever.

I want to kiss you and lie down with you and wake up with you every da y of my life till I die, years and years and years away. I don't want a memory, just a memory..." "No," he said. "Memory's a poor thing to have. It's your own real hair and mouth and arms and eyes and hands I want. I didn't know I could ever love anything so much. Oh, Lyra, I wish this night would never end! If only we could stay here l ike this, and the world could stop turning, and everyone else could fall into a sleep..." "Everyone except us! And you and I could live here forever and just love each ot her." "I will love you forever; whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I'll drift about forever, all my ato ms, till I find you again..." "I'll be looking for you, Will, every moment, every single moment. And when we d o find each other again, we'll cling together so tight that nothing and no one'l l ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you...We'll live in bir ds and flowers and dragonflies and pin trees and in clouds and in those little s pecks of light you see floating in sunbeams...And when they use our atoms to mak e new lives, they won't just be able to take one, they'll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we'll be joined so tight..." They lay side by side, hand in hand, looking at the sky. [...] She wondered whether there would ever come an hour in her life when she didn't th ink of him -- didn't speak to him in her head, didn't relive every moment they'd been together, didn't long for his voice and his hands and his love. She had ne ver dreamed of what it would feel like to love someone so much; of all the thing s that had astonished her in her adventures, that was what astonished her the mo st. She thought the tenderness it left in her heart was like a bruise that would never go away, but she would cherish it forever.