Snapshots of a life, lived

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Author's Note: We got into a big discussion about sexuality and labels over in the TNN server, and it led to a little thought piece on Autumn and how she went from homophobia in the early days (I know early Autumn is dubious canon but bear with me) to happily having a threesome with her husband and a woman. And here we are.

Autumn had never really been in a serious relationship.

She had dated men long-term, of course. But she had never been serious about any of them. Had never imagined that she could be serious about anyone.

Winter Fortune was doing a good job at throwing out all her preconceived notions of herself, however. And it scared her. Because if she was going to be with him, then she wanted to be honest with him. About everything. Even the things she wasn't proud of. Especially the things she wasn't proud of. He deserved a chance to walk away.

"Winter?"

"Hmn?"

She felt bad interrupting their lazy Saturday morning lay-in for a serious conversation, but he'd come dangerously close to calling her his girlfriend the other day and they absolutely needed to sort things out before they started labeling this relationship.

Autumn took a deep breath and rolled over to look at Winter. "Have you... ever had a serious relationship before?"

He tilted his head as he thought about it. "I suppose my last one could be classified as serious. We were together for three years. Obviously it didn't work out, though. Have you?"

"Not really. I've never made it to a year in any relationship."

She'd never felt ashamed of her dating history - she knew how hard she was to love. But she couldn't look Winter in the eye as she said that.

"Well I look forward to being the first person you do that with."

Autumn's eyes snapped up to meet Winter's. She was definitely blushing now, if his smile was anything to go by. "Right, well." She coughed. "I have also slept around a lot."

"You do seem like you know what you're doing in bed."

She shoved Winter's chest a little, ducking her head to hide her smile. "Men and women." The second of pause that followed was enough to send Autumn into a panic. "I was never serious about the women, though. It mostly happened when I was drunk. I'm straight."

Winter tucked his fingers under her chin, tilting her head up slightly so they were eye to eye again. "My love, that's fine," he assured her. "I don't care about your dating history or who you've slept with. What matters is where you are now - which is right here, with me."

Autumn relaxed a little, daring to smile. "You don't care?"

"Not even a little. Am I correct in assuming you don't care much about my history?"

She couldn't imagine Winter having anything in his past that he was ashamed of - he was far too confident in himself. "I don't care, no."

But it had felt freeing getting that off her chest. Now she felt more comfortable shuffling closer to Winter and kissing him. His hands drifted down to her waist and he rolled, pulling Autumn on top of him.

"You think you're so smooth, don't you?" she murmured teasingly against his lips.

"I like to think I have some good moves."

* * * * *

Autumn thought that was the end of the conversation. They settled into their relationship, comfortable far too quickly, but it felt right. Winter fit so perfectly into her life. She loved him so much. She was so lucky to have him.

"My love?"

She looked up from her book, smiling when she met Winter's gaze. "Yes, my sweet?"

"This is a little random, but bear with me. Is it possible you're bisexual?"

The color immediately drained from Autumn's face. "What do you mean?"

"When you mentioned that you've slept with women you seemed... ashamed of it, almost. And you were so quick to say you're straight after-"

"I only slept with them when I was drunk," Autumn insisted weakly. Winter raised an eyebrow.

"Admittedly I'm not entirely sure how that works, but I'm pretty sure alcohol doesn't influence sexuality." Autumn didn't say anything, so Winter continued. "There's nothing wrong with being bisexual. You know that right?"

It took an amazing amount of effort to not let her lips curl in disgust. She was working hard to unlearn all the homophobia she had picked up from her father - she didn't even really believe any of it, but she had become so good at parroting it over the years.

"I know," she finally said unconvincingly. "My brother's girlfriend is bisexual. Probably."

It was really the only explanation Autumn had for why Mia had hooked up with Dangerous Deliah and then gone after Reece less than six months later.

"The brother you don't speak to with the girlfriend you don't like?" Winter asked. "Possibly not the best association."

He was probably right. But it wasn't like she'd ever had feelings for any women...

Mia.

She'd been so young though. Surely that little crush didn't count? But then there was Kyle Killerman... those two crushes had happened basically at the same time. If it had just been Kenny, she would use it to prove she was straight, wouldn't she?

"You don't have to make any decisions right now," Winter said quickly, seeing the turmoil in his girlfriend's eyes. "Whatever conclusions you come to, I love you all the same."

"Then why bring it up?" There was a slightly bitter note in Autumn's tone. Winter cocked his head as he thought over his answer.

"Because you seemed like you hated yourself when you were talking about it. And I haven't been able to stop thinking about that. It's probably not possible for anyone to love anything as much as I love you. But if you could love yourself even half as much as that, I think you'd be a lot happier. And I want you to be happy."

It was such a simple answer, but it left Autumn breathless. It's probably not possible for anyone to love anything as much as I love you. I want you to be happy. She would never be good enough to deserve Winter no matter what she did. He didn't have to keep reminding her of that.

"My love?" Winter had moved to kneel in front of her, his hand on her cheek pulling her out of her spiral. "What's wrong?"

She was crying, she realized as he wiped the tears from under her eyes. She brought her hands up to rest over his.

"Thank you," she said, voice wavering. Winter's lips twitched under his mustache.

"Of course, my love. Of course."