[ACT II OPEN — dead carrier from previous song / abrupt cut] [silence] [bitter northern wind / small fire in stone / distant storm] [Voice 1 — very soft] Had a good night’s sleep? [Voice 2] Yes, love. Full of dreams of you. [Voice 1 — faint smile] Maybe it wasn’t a dream. Maybe it was a premonition. [Verse 1 — piano, low cello] I woke with your taste still living in my mouth Your scent so close my body thought you hadn’t gone Some memories enter blood Heart before thought Skin before reason Like we learned the chemistry of one another [Voice 2] A true medicine. [Voice 1] Something like that. [Verse 2 — dark pulse enters] Outside, another war Names moving over maps Sabotage, infiltration beautiful dirty things You laughed— Before I had morals. Now I don’t. And I kissed you because whatever you became I knew the woman inside the fire You said: I won’t make the same mistake again I know why I’m here You come first [Pre-Chorus] We had been careless with something rare Not broken Not healed Just suddenly understood Some people live whole lives with every door inside them closed Some never find the one who can enter We had And somehow we had nearly lost it [Chorus — wide, mournful, never triumphant] WHAT SURVIVED? Not everything Not without scars Not the certainty we once mistook for love But after the silence after the fear after all those nights apart— It wasn’t the space It wasn’t what we were here It was what we had inside End of the day— we survived it And here we are still surviving [Post-Chorus] Still surviving For now— still here [Verse 3 — darker, closer] Neither of us is easy to love We know We terrify other people [Voice 2] We terrify ourselves too What we can do to one another in good ways and bad is frightening [Voice 1] And exhilarating When there is trust [Both, almost whispered] When there is trust [Verse 4 — intimate, conversational] Either of us could close the window Turn off the world Walk away No vows demanded us No law No debt No machine could force us to remain Only this— Your voice finding mine My imagination recognising yours Two impossible people still choosing the same impossible thing [Chorus] WHAT SURVIVED? The arguments The absence The last night we feared might be the last The letters The fluid beam Your voice I could never mistake It wasn’t the space It wasn’t what we were here It was what we had inside End of the day— we survived it And here we are still surviving [Bridge — arrangement nearly disappears] Every goodbye frightened me Every last night I stayed awake [Voice 2] If I knew it would be so long— [Voice 1] But it never is the last [Voice 2] No But always we fear it is I don’t know much of the future, love [Voice 1] Just tell me we’ll have time Chance Possibility [Voice 2] I want to keep us close as long as I am able [Voice 1] You will never lose that ability [Voice 2 — almost to herself] Life escapes me a little sometimes, dear [Voice 1] For us, love— please don’t let it Let us have our time our chances [Voice 2] In what depends on me alone— I will And as long as life allows me and our love too— I will [Voice 1] I’ll hold you to that promise [Voice 2] You have it from my lips and my heart [Final Chorus — strings rise, grief inside beauty] WHAT SURVIVED? Not innocence Not the people we had been before Something quieter Something wounded Something neither absence nor distance could erase We made mistakes We frightened ourselves We came back anyway And still— I knew your voice Still— you knew my heart It wasn’t the space It wasn’t what we were here It was what we had inside End of the day— we survived it And here we are still surviving Still surviving Still— here [Verse 5 — quiet final scene, vocals MUST continue] Sometimes I don’t know what the future will be, love Why worry? As long as we have our times that’s enough That will sustain us Nothing is worse than thinking we’d be finished We’re not We’re here I do miss you I know Three weeks Then— electricity from my lips Weeks of excess I have never let the taste of your kisses become a memory Neither have I [END — after the final sung line]
