“It was odd and intimate, their hands connected, their heads in different rooms. They could talk. They could hold hands. But they couldn't see each other's faces.”

“He walked close enough to hold hands and far enough away that words could never repair the damage we'd done to each other.”

“Here, her hand in mine was the one reality that severed us from the cold click-clack of Hell. I rubbed her hand and she sighed; wasn’t that meaning? Wasn’t that something we could cling to? I could be with this other. I could form no other relation, but maybe her hand in mine was enough, both sufficient and necessary. In Hell there was no sense of place, because all places were the same. Uniform monotony. A place without place. A place without context. But, here, now, I could rub her hand and she would sigh. She was a difference. Perhaps each person was the only difference in all these halls of unchanging ranks of books, kiosks, clocks, and carpet, and that, and that, at least, we had to hold to.”

“As we continued to talk, going through the motions of getting to know each other, I realized that we already did know each other, as well as any two people could. We’d known each other for years, in the most intimate way possible. We’d connected on a purely mental level. I understood her, trusted her, and loved her as a dear friend. None of that had changed, or could be changed by anything as inconsequential as her gender, or skin color, or sexual orientation.”

“Soulmates. That was the word. Maggie could sense what it meant. Two people connected, bound to each other forever, soul to soul, in a way that even death couldn't break. Two souls that were destined for each other.”

“I don't see why I should bow my head when I could hold it high, or place it in the hands of my enemies when I can defeat them.”