Long story short as they used to say. The two of them cannot be intimate.

It is not within their ability now.

So the question is does it really matter? Does it actually make their emotions and their feelings and their truth less important to them? Do they decide to make other plans... move on?

Does it diminish the ties they share and have shared so long?

They say in French - désolé. Sorry, or desolated. The same.

Their affair could feel desolated, barren.

No. It will never, ever be a desolation. 

Perhaps, just maybe, they created beauty in desolation.