NINETY DAYS: CHAPTER 44 – AMOR VINCIT OMNIA

Happy Sunday and Thanksgiving week, friends! I’m so grateful for all of you and so many friendships I have made here. Here is the next chapter for you, hopefully to add some cheer to the holiday week. I know you’ve waited long for it, and so have I. I hope you love it as much as I did. Also, this is *not* the last chapter. I will announce the last chapter which will come with an epilogue but it will be the next one or the one after if I decide to break them into two.  So much love and joy to all of you and your loved ones. Theme: victory. Song: My love, by Sia. Favorite line: “What a beautiful gift to give.”

44

Amor Vincit Omnia

In the carpark, Benson is pacing by the Range Rover, stalking from the headlights to the boot and back again every few seconds, brows furrowed as he scans the grounds. As soon as he spots us, he freezes mid-stride, his brown eyes wild with anxiety. I feel instantly guilty for keeping him waiting even though I would not change the last hour for anything.

Aiden picks up our pace in response. “We’re okay, Benson,” he assures him quickly as soon as we reach the car. “I’m sorry we made you wait. We had a lot to cover.”

Benson does not relax out of his ramrod posture. “What does ‘okay’ mean? What did the grey lady say?”

I watch with a clenched heart as Aiden speaks our news out into the world for the first time, making it real for someone we love.

“It means it’s over, brother,” he answers slowly, as though trying to find the right words. “I am—we all are—safe.

Safe. His holy grail, his dream, the word that has tortured and eluded him for twelve long years is finally his. I clutch his hand tighter so he knows it’s real.

Benson stares at him blankly. “Safe? As in . . . the thing is gone?”

“Yes.” Aiden hesitates only for the briefest fraction of a second. “The startle is done—in no small part thanks to you.”

I don’t miss the change in his voice, from awe to a defiant inflection of the dark word as though he no longer wants to give it that silent power.

Neither does Benson. “You’re fucking with me?” he breathes, eyes frozen wide.

“No.” Aiden shakes his head, pulling me closer to his side. “As Elisa keeps having to remind me . . . it’s real.” A smile flashes on his face at that last word. A natural, easy smile that makes Benson’s jaw drop, and I know why: because he has not seen it for a long time.

That smile does it. Benson’s massive shoulders sink in relief. All the tension blows out of his enormous frame with whatever questions or uncertainties, and he starts rumbling a deep, booming laugh.

“HAH! HA, HA, HA, HA, HA!”

Then their bodies collide into a manly hug, thumping each other on the back in a way that would pulverize my bones to dust. Benson does not ask why or what or how. None of the reasons seem to matter to him one bit. He only cares that Aiden is healed.

I reach stealthily inside my picnic basket and fish out my phone. Through the sparkly mist of tears, I take a photo of this moment between them. Aiden’s waterfall laughter is cascading over their clinch, washing away every riptide of violence that has ever torn through their iron arms. Leaving only their deep bond behind.

“Well, damn!” Benson chortles as he pulls away, wiping his brow. “Does this mean I’m out of a job now?” A new apprehension dawns over his face as though he hadn’t registered this worry about himself yet, and I want to hug him too for the risks he took for us. Perhaps so does Aiden because he does not release Benson’s boulderlike shoulder.

“You’re family, Benson. You’ll always be my right-hand man. Your job will just be less hazardous now—you know, boring security stuff. You might even get to take a vacation every once in a while.”

“Ugh, vacation!” Benson pretends to shudder, but I see his relieved joy as his face breaks into a beaming smile that, from his tremendous height, makes him seem like our very own sun.

I squeeze his huge fingers, too awkward to hug him in my current state without knickers.

“We love you, Benson,” I sniffle. “We wouldn’t be here if we had not had you by our side.”

“Thank you for breaking all my rules,” Aiden tells him, and I know he is not talking just about Benson secretly agreeing to the startle test for today. He is talking about Benson giving me his war letters when I left America, refusing to drive me away after Aiden’s attack, standing with us every step of the way, even when it meant facing Aiden’s wrath.

Benson’s forehead flushes, and he mumbles gruffly. “Yeah, well, thanks for not firing me in the first place. I suppose I won’t have much reason to break the rules from now on, will I?”

“I fervently hope not,” Aiden sighs, and we all laugh in relief that it’s over. That Benson’s shadow next to ours will not float by necessity, but by choice. And that his lethal strength is no longer a weapon against my love. It’s simply a part of who Benson is: a friend, a brother, a trusted advisor. A protector of Aiden, not from him.

“Well, in that case, I’ll drive you home.” Benson does not need to ask to know the only place we want to be. “And then, if you don’t mind, I’ll go sleep for the next week. I was lying this morning when I said I slept last night—I didn’t catch a wink.”

“I don’t mind at all. Just get us home as safely as you can. I think we’ve all earned at least a year without disasters.”

Benson laughs again and tries to get the door for us but Aiden is a step ahead, no doubt because I’m standing here en déshabillé under my dress. Healed he might be, but his mind is still the same. He waits until our Big Ben lopes to the driver’s seat with a spring in his step, and then helps me climb in the back, standing close behind for cover. His eyes blaze at me in a way that makes the muscles in the pit of my belly tighten as though our two big bangs in the oak tree never happened. Then he secures me to his side like always, and we’re off, racing down the boulevard toward the cottage.

Yet, for once, the car speed is too slow for me. I lean my head on Aiden’s shoulder—is it my imagination or is it already softer? —and start timing the clock to my sprinting heartbeat. The ticking seconds don’t throb anymore. They heal. Flowing easily like air in my lungs or notes in a melody.

Aiden chats with Benson about Doctor Helen’s trick, about calling the Marines and his parents to surprise them, chuckling at this, sighing at that, but his arm around me never relaxes. Except this is not the kind of tension that used to strain him in traffic. His hold right now is just an embrace as his fingertips on my hip count down the time.

We reach Elysium in exactly thirty minutes like Aiden predicted. The Rover skids to a stop by the potted roses outside the garage shed. Benson tries to come open our door, but Aiden stops him again.

“I got this, Benson. You go get some rest. We’ll still be here when you wake up and then we can discuss your issues with vacation. Maybe I need to bring Cora and Max for reinforcement.”

Benson half-chuckles, half-yawns, scanning Elysium as we climb out, ever our security guard despite his sleepy eyes. And then he drives off, honking the horn lightly to a familiar note: the Rover’s version of Für Elise.

As soon as we’re alone, Aiden takes both my hands. His eyes are blue fire. How can they burn and calm me at the same time?

“Are you really going to bring everyone over?” I ask.

“Yes, tonight.” He kisses my forehead. “But first, it’s time for your present. Come.”

I’m about to find some excuse to delay the goodbye gift and go straight to our happy bedroom, but abruptly he is shining. Exactly that—there are no other words for it. Eyes dazzling with that my-all look he first gave me yesterday after I woke up. His beauty amplifies in that way that stops everything, from my breath to my mind. I can barely remember my own name, let alone the excuses I was trying to devise.

He chuckles at my dumbfound expression, blowing over my lips. And then he tows me across Elysium, his arm around my waist almost sweeping me off my feet.

Our little field sparkles with the late August sun, still the same, yet it has never felt more precious. Each blade of grass looks gilded with every battle we fought on these wildflowers to be together. Over at the hedge, on the reel’s scar, the orchids and forget-me-nots have withered under the flame of Aiden’s fever. But they do not seem to mourn their last bloom. Their wilted petals flutter calmly in the rose breeze, facing the sunrays with their forged wisdom.

I feel a similar sense of peace, of continuity in the change of seasons. And suddenly, I know exactly what needs to take root in the flowers’ soil.

“What are you smiling about?” Aiden asks.

“I think I just found a new home for Hope, our hybrid.”

He looks at the spot that healed and burned him. “Fitting,” he agrees. “After all, we planted the American Beauty in Portland. It makes sense to plant its descendant here.”

Portland. Here. Despite his musical voice, the words ring like a bugle call in the distance. The start of another war, except now, no matter the choice, a piece of my heart is lost. But which one?

I shut down the question immediately. I will not think about that today—today belongs only to happiness.

“Let’s go,” I tell him, my feet speeding up. “We can come plant Hope in the morning. Roses like sunrises when they change homes. And music.”

The sound of his chuckle makes the bugle call disappear. “I’ll compile a playlist for the occasion. Is there anything else the roses would like? I think I owe them a gift too if I recall correctly.”

“No, they’re the happiest flora in the world now that you’re healed. Although you still have to grovel for saying ‘lavender’ the other night.”

“On my knees.” He laughs and pulls me quickly under the willow garlands.

The sunlight flickers through the leafy drapes, kissing his lips, touching his scar, drawing him closer inside their verdant heart. And their ethereal whisper begins to trill. From somehow, somehow, somehow to a new harmony.

“What are they singing now?” Aiden guesses as though the murmur is also changing for him.

“Happy, happy, happy. Yours?”

He smiles in a way that makes the willows start humming, he’s ours, he’s ours.

“Secret, secret, secret. Come, let’s not disobey the willows.”

He takes my hand with a soft kiss and tugs me through the garlands, eagerness almost touchable in his eyes. I follow him in a trance, mystified by this secret gift and the fluid grace of his movement as his mind continues to heal.

But as soon as we step into our rose garden, everything changes in a heart-splitting blink. Aiden sweeps me behind his back so fast, the air whooshes past me like a gust of wind. By the time my breath huffs out in a gasp, he is towering in front of me, tense and protective.

“Aiden, what—?” I choke in alarm, but just as quickly, he relaxes again. Instantly, his tension softens and a stunned breath whistles through his lips.

“What the fuck?” he whispers, staring in shock—not defense—at something in front of him.

I peek around his elbow, and then almost collapse in relief as I see the reason for the quick ease in his reaction. Because the sudden difference in our garden is not danger. It’s the safest, warmest, most loveable sight there is.

Our family.

Javier, Reagan, Stella, Robert, James, Hendrix, and Jazzman are all right here, standing rigid among the roses as they stare back at us, frantic with worry, eyes frozen on Aiden’s stance. But only for a second. And then before we can catch our breath, they launch themselves toward us, Robert and Stella at the front, the Marines right behind, Reagan and Javier on each side.

“Oh, Aiden!” Stella cries, reaching us first, and then everyone else swarms around us.

“Mom, what—?” Aiden starts, but I can’t hear what else he says over her sobs. Or perhaps he can’t speak because they all begin hugging us in a frenzy. I can barely tell Stella’s pillowy embrace from James’ crushing grip or Jazzman’s scarred arms. But two hugs clutch me longer and harder than the others: one powdery with flaming ringlets and the other warm, smelling of paint and peppermint. Reagan and Javier have squeezed through the throng of Marines and are squishing me between them, as they all start blubbering and rushing to speak at the same time.

“Son, we had to come—” Robert begins.

“Of course, we did!” Stella sobs some more, stroking Aiden’s cheek from what I can see through the two bodies wrapped around me.

“How could we not?” James is rumbling from his immense height. His jungle of auburn hair and beard is even more feral than when I last saw him. “You’re in bad shape, Elisa was texting me questions about Marshall, Benson was avoiding our calls. We got on a plane last night, I called you from the airport this morning. What the fuck else were we supposed to do? Sorry, Mrs. Hale—”

“We won’t stand by like shit-flumps while you ruin your life—” Hendrix is booming from somewhere to my right.

“You almost died last time—” Jazz cuts in.

“Of all the moronic, asinine things all of us have ever done, this takes the fucking cup—so sorry, Mrs. Hale.”

“I agree, son, though not so colorfully as Callahan. We have to talk about this as a family—”

“Exactly, like a family, amorcita.” Javier is still holding me so tight, my arms are going numb. “We’re not okay with either of you hurting like this. It’s wrong. Even I can see that now—”

“You belong together.” Reagan is mopping her eyes in my hair. “There has to be a way—”

“Yeah, if Benson needs more help, you got us, we’ll rotate—”

“Everyone, please—” Aiden tries to get a word in, while Stella is trying to feel my forehead through Javier’s and Reagan’s arms.

“No, Storm, let us finish!” James interrupts.

“And I will, Cal, but first—”

“This selfless bullshit has to stop! You’ll be hurting Trouble and yourself even more!”

“Hendrix, will you just relax—”

Me relax? You need to relax! So you have a big problem when you get startled—”

“Everyone has problems! Look at me, I have a fucking glass eye!”

“I know, Jazz, just listen for a minute—”

“No, Storm! You listen—”

“EVERYONE STOP!” Aiden thunders at last, looking like his brain is about to explode. They all fall quiet instantly and jump a step back, realizing only now how much they have crowded him. Their wide eyes are locked on his shoulders because they don’t know about our new life. Aiden takes a deep, steadying breath and pulls me close to his side. I wrap my arm around him too, seeing them all properly at last: Stella’s tear-streaked face, Robert’s lined forehead, Reagan’s flushed cheeks, Javier’s thick beard, Hendrix’s stubble, James’s tangles, Jazz’s scars, livid like him. All beloved, all here for us.

“Good. Now,” Aiden continues, his voice back to its piano tone. “First, thank you for coming. I know I didn’t give you much choice and I’m sorry for all of it. But I’m very glad you’re here.”

“Where else would we be?” Stella weeps but Aiden presses on.

“Second and more importantly—” He looks down at me, then back at their tense faces. “Elisa and I are notseparating. I’m not leaving her, and she’s not leaving me.”

“Well, of course, you’re not—oh!”

A battery of gasps and questions fires through the half-circle around us. “You’re not?” “What?” “Staying together?” “How?” “What?”

“You’re not breaking up?!” Reagan squeaks in shock while Stella crosses herself and mouths something that looks very much like oh, please, God.

Aiden smiles at both of them. “No, we’re not breaking up. Come inside, we have a lot to discuss. Elisa and I have some news of our own.”

“News? What news?” Stella’s voice trembles.

“Don’t worry, Mom, we’re alright.”

“Dude, are you pregnant?” James blurts out, strangely looking at Aiden’s stomach in horror, while everyone gasps except Stella who makes a cooing sound that sends an odd flutter thrumming in my own belly and a blush all way to my hairline.

Aiden gives James an exasperated glare. “No, Cal, I’m not, and neither is Elisa for that matter. Come on, get inside. You’ll give my mother a heart attack.” And before any of them can stammer another word, he starts herding them up the garden path, never releasing my waist. Can he feel the tingles still fluttering in my body at the idea of a sapphire-eyed baby? Maybe he can because his fingers tighten on my hip and, lightly, he kisses my hair.

Our family spreads out on the threshold, careful to give Aiden the space he no longer needs. He winks at me knowingly as I open the front door. It’s only then I remember that the cottage is still celebrating Christmas and it’s far from the polished guest perfection they have seen before. Yet despite the clutter waiting for them, suddenly this feels exactly right. Homier somehow. My own mess under the dress, however, is another matter. I start fretting about buying a few moments to clean up before facing our families au naturel, but Aiden saves me.

“Everyone, have a seat wherever you can,” he tells them as they start ducking inside. “Elisa and I need just a minute.”

They nod and file to the living room one by one, and then I hear a new flurry of gasps as they must see the winter wonderland.

“Go on, I’ll clean up down here,” Aiden whispers, kissing my forehead, and I’m sure he must need his own moment. He sighs with a wistful look toward the Christmas rose and the mysterious present underneath that looks like it will have to wait a little longer.

I sprint upstairs to the loo and freshen up as quickly as possible. But as I race to our happy bedroom for new knickers, the stripped bed glares back in its stark, desolate emptiness. Abruptly, everything else can wait. I don’t want Aiden to have to see it this way later. I whirl down the hall to the guest room for our pillows, quilt, vase of Elisas, chess set, and old record player. Then I grab a set of clean sheets from the cupboard and make our bed as fast as I can. I set the Elisas by Aiden’s nightstand with a Baci by their side like our first night. Then, leaving on the light, I dash back down the stairs toward the symphony of voices singing through the cottage one more time.

Aiden is waiting for me at the foot of the stairs in the foyer. He is still in his white shirt from our first embargo, but with fresh, dark jeans—intentionally similar to the ones he was wearing.

“Are you ready?” I ask him, for one of the most important memories he is about to form in his life.

He takes my hand. “Now I am.” He smiles and, together, we step into the Christmas wonderland.

The scene would be comical if it weren’t so emotional. The space is so tiny that, even without our Big Ben, everyone is standing crammed together, staring at the holiday decor with various expressions of worry and confusion. Aphrodite twinkles in the corner—someone must have turned on the lights even if they didn’t understand why. The stocking sways above the fireplace where a new fire is crackling. The Christmas village is sparkling on the windowsill, the white petals still blanket the hardwood floor. And on the coffee table are what seem to be the entire contents of our fridge. In the last several minutes, Stella must have managed to warm up the leftover roast chicken and potatoes, make a leafy salad, heat up the frozen chicken soup, brew coffee and tea, fill up a pitcher of rose lemonade, and stack our Christmas cookies on the silver tray, sprinkling them with powdered sugar and blueberries.

All of them joining Christmas in August without question or hesitation if this is what we need.

A tidal wave of love engulfs me for each of them, just as implacable and powerful as for my own parents. One look at Aiden next to me, and I know he feels the same. How many times has he dreamt of telling them this news, giving them this joy? Each time feeling more and more impossible until he stopped dreaming at all. And now here he is, at the brink, awe filling his expression like the golden halo of the protein.

As soon as they see us at the door, everyone turns to us immediately. Their eyes are still wide—Reagan’s and Stella’s watery, Robert’s and Javier’s tight with worry, the Marines’ haunted and deep.

“What’s with the early Christmas?” James breaks the silence.

“Was it because you were trying to say goodbye?” Reagan’s voice quivers as she wrings her hands by the rose tree.

“No, not at all,” Aiden recovers quickly before either she or I start wailing. “We were just celebrating a friend.”

“Are you both really alright?” Stella whimpers from the coffee table, Robert’s hands on her shoulders. “You’ve lost so much weight, Aiden.”

I don’t have to look at Aiden’s face, even healed, to know she is right. So must Aiden because he tells her the truth, even if gentled for her heart.

“It’s been a hard couple of weeks, Mom, but we’re better than alright now.”

“Then what’s the news, son? What do you need to tell us?”

He looks only at his parents, with a feeling that must surge from his early days, the days that the rest of us cannot remember. His fingers tighten on mine as if for reality, then he takes a step closer in their direction.

“We finally beat the startle, Mom.” His voice is very soft when he tells her. “It has changed. The danger is gone. Forever.”

A deafening silence falls over the room at his words. No one seems to be able to blink or breathe or move an inch. No one except Aiden’s parents. Their eyes turn liquid and deep, like Aiden’s when he is feeling too much. They don’t say anything. No questions like Benson, no doubts. Just a ragged gasp tearing through Stella’s lips. They stagger toward us unsteadily in the profound silence.  Then, without a word, they take their son in their arms. Covering him in their hold despite his height. I try to glimpse Aiden’s face but his head bows between his parents, and he wraps them both in his long arms. A family torn apart coming together at last. A quiet sob hitches from within their embrace, as if deep from Stella’s heart.

I watch them through the filter of tears, standing right here where my own parents used to kiss. Except there is no sadness in me at all now. Because we are the luckiest people in the world to know this kind of love. As though all those coins we’ve thrown in fountains have finally bronzed into fortune. All our prayers and wishes coming true inside this hug.

I wipe away my tears, not wanting to miss a single blink of their reunion, but Aiden’s strong arm reaches down for me. And just like that, I am inside their hug too, wrapped in all three of them, right next to their hearts. I can feel the strength of Aiden’s hold as it tightens around us. And in the hearthy warmth, trembles a motherly whisper.

“We love you both so much.”

Then with a familiar kiss in my hair, our little hug opens up. Like a rose spreading its petals to the sun, but the roots standing close, deep and entwined.

I turn around for Reagan and Javier, but abruptly James sweeps me and Aiden’s parents out of the way and crashes into Aiden while Hendrix and Jazz lunge at him from the back, catching him by surprise. He staggers from the sudden ambush, trying to throw them off. I panic that he’ll get hurt but I know this is not an attack. He’s just fighting to stay upright while Hendrix piggybacks him, trying to startle him again.

“I’ve waited twelve years to jump your ass!” Hendrix hollers while James, the most lethal sniper in Marine Corps history, sobs and laughs at the same time. Jazz just throws himself at Aiden’s back again, wrestling him to the floor as James and Hendrix pile on top.

“Oh, he’s healed alright!” Jazz crows as the furniture rattles under their steely weight and all four of them begin to laugh.

Their raucous laughter rolls around like peals of thunder and catches inside all of us. Robert pulls Stella in his arms, and I nearly throttle Reagan and Javier, wrapping them up in my own hug. They tuck me in their midst, chanting between English and Spanish.

“Thank Dios, amorcita!”

“I knew it, Isa! I knew it would work out.”

“And now you can come back home, and we can all be together again for the real Christmas.”

Javier’s words—so gentle, so full of relief—pierce in my ears. As though the bugle call is trumpeting nearer and nearer. I silence it again with everyone’s laughter and hug them closer.

“I’ve missed you so much. Now it’s your turn for this kind of love.”

“No offense, but that sounds mega-stressful.” Javier laughs while I try to ask Reagan with my eyes if there has been any progress between them. But she shakes her head slightly and hides in another hug. Bloody hell! I make a mental note to mobilize Aiden and maybe even spill some oxytocin in Javier’s coffee.

When all the laughter and tears have calmed and the Marines are done jumping Aiden for now, he finally manages to stand upright, hair a mess, face flushed. He mouths a profanity at his brothers— “assholes!”— half-glaring, half-chuckling and comes to my side.

“Sorry about the animals.” He wraps his arm around my waist. “Did you get out of there okay?”

“Slightly better than okay. It’s you I was worried about. Did you hit your head?”

“No, just the wildlife.” He shakes said beautiful head and turns to Reagan and Javier. “Thank you for coming. And for supporting us like you have. I know it wasn’t easy.”

“We’d be here no matter what,” Javier answers. “But I’m very happy you beat this, man.”

“Oh, Dragon!” Reagan cries and gives Aiden the first full hug I have seen between them. “I told Isa to warn you that I’d hug you. Did she?”

“She did, although you’re early. I believe I was supposed to have until September to prepare.” He chuckles and hugs her back with his free arm, never releasing my waist. Then he pulls away and looks at all of them, gathered around us. “Why don’t you all take a seat? You’ve had a long fight, apparently while having me believe you were at work. Web of lies.” He chuckles, clearly happy with their surprise, while Stella revs up into mother mode immediately.

“Yes, Aiden, Elisa, you first, sit down. You both need to eat.” She rushes us to the sofa, ladling hot soup in our bowls. Then they all perch, curl, fold, and plop wherever they can around the table: James to Aiden’s right on the sofa, his parents on the fluffy armchairs, Hendrix on the piano seat, and Javier, Reagan, and Jazz on cushions on the floor. And the questions really start: how, what, when, why.

I start eating my soup, letting Aiden choose what he wants to share from his deepest, most private war.

“It was a lot of things that made a difference,” he explains simply, and I know some things, like the reel, the protein, and his fever and agony, will always stay between us. “From the scientists’ experiment to all of you helping us, and everything Elisa and I did together every day. But in the end, it all came down to her effect on me, and her faith. She never gave up even when I did.”

“How?” “What effect?” “In what way?” “What do you mean?” The questions blurt out everywhere and they lean toward us eagerly.

Aiden smiles at me in his most embarrassing this-is-Wonder-Woman way before answering.

“Well, as it turns out, much to the scientists’ surprise and our own, Elisa is able to change my traumatic memories, rewrite them if you will, in a way that replaces the violence with calm.”

Blinks of shock and confusion flit through all their wide eyes.

“What did you say?” Stella breathes, spilling some of her rosehip tea.

“She can change your memory?” Robert whispers in astonishment, as though the words are in a language entirely new to him. The others just stare incomprehensibly.

“Yes, I couldn’t believe it myself when I heard it, but it’s true. Look.” With an almost palpable joy, as though giving them every Christmas they missed together, Aiden reaches in his shirt pocket for the photo of his healed mind and hands it to his parents who know his memory better than any of us, except Aiden himself.

They gasp now as the Marines, Reagan, and Javier clamor around to look at the polaroid even though, like me, they probably don’t understand all the implications of the magnetic image.

“Astounding!” Robert murmurs, the photograph shaking in his hand.

“So calm . . .” Stella marvels. Her eyes flood with tears as her trembling finger caresses the contours of Aiden’s mind, the way she does with his drawn cheek.

“How was Isa able to do that?” Reagan asks intrigued, her psychology degree kicking in, while Javier squints at the image the way he does at a painting—seeing the meaning behind it.

Aiden’s arm wraps around me again, his gaze still awed as he tries to explain in the safest way possible, without disclosing any horror or secrets that would traumatize his parents, or Reagan and Javier for that matter.

“Well, without getting into the details, she guided me quite literally through my personal hell. She stood by me every dawn while I had to revisit our last mission in Iraq, adding her calm and love to every traumatic aspect until even the worst of my memories changed itself forever. Or rather my emotional response to that memory changed so that I was able to heal and see the truth of what really happened that day.”

Eight pairs of eyes blink at me in such unconcealed wonderment that I want to hide under Aiden’s arm. I’m not the hero of this war. He is. And the three soldiers sitting close by him.

“What I did doesn’t even compare to Aiden,” I mumble the understatement of the century. “He had the hardest job in all this . . .” My voice trails off, inadequate to capture the enormity of his sacrifice, struggle, and strength. How do you ever explain bravery like that? Courage so valiant even science could not match.

They nod slowly in stunned, wordless understanding, even Reagan and Javier who know the least. But while they look at the two of us in amazement, I watch only the Marines who know exactly what Aiden had to relive fifty-five times to heal.

Their eyes age with their own memories, traveling thousands of miles away, and for a moment, I’m sure they are back in that blood-soaked schoolyard, hearing the bombs and the screams. Their scars glint both visible and invisible on their suddenly ashen skin. But all I see are their youthful faces from the video, their valor, their bravery. I lean closer to Aiden as a need to shield them all overwhelms me even though they are a thousand times stronger than me.

I can tell from the protective way Aiden looks at James that he is wanting the same thing. That his victory will not be complete until his brothers are freed with him.

“What really happened that day?” Jazz repeats Aiden’s words slowly, his smoky voice dropping around the word that matters.

“Is this about the message you left me earlier?” James’s question is almost a raspy breath. Tension curves his height, and abruptly he seems so small, so breakable.

“It is, brother, and it’s a good thing.” Aiden reaches up and grasps James’s shoulder. The gratitude is almost tastable in the air from his lips as he tells James the words that freed him. “It’s solid evidence that what happened that day was not our fault.”

The Marines freeze, blinkless, even as a low gasp comes from Stella and Robert. Even as Reagan and Javier still, sensing the magnitude of the moment. The fire crackles, moments pass, but the brothers just stare at Aiden, statues burning in a distant, charred desert, pain whipping through their ghostly eyes.

“That’s not possible,” Jazz mouths almost silently at last. From the strained movement, the vicious burn scar on his cheek drags down his mouth. James seems unable to speak. He only shakes his head slowly against the idea, against his own innocence. His breath has stopped entirely.

“It is.” Aiden’s voice is gentle, yet sure, knowing exactly what they need. “I’ll tell you everything later and you can see it for yourselves too. Even the General agrees.” He pauses, shaking James’s shoulder slightly. “What happened that day was not our fault, Cal,” he repeats the words deliberately, with conviction. “Not mine and definitely not yours. I know it feels impossible to imagine, but it’s true. Trust me.”

Something changes in James’s breath then—the slightest drag, the way he gulped for air in the video, the way my lungs fought after drowning. But his breathing doesn’t restart at the three words that freed Aiden. It restarts with those last two: “trust me.” At their sound, the deadly sniper’s eyes blink, come alive above the tangled auburn beard. As if those two small words— “trust me”—were a defibrillator shocking him back to life. That’s when I fully grasp the depths of their bond. It’s not just a brotherhood, it’s a lifeline. The test of reality, the scaffold for the world. The truth against which all other truths are tested. The binds of unfathomable sacrifice and loss, as though the fire that scorched their veins is its own blood, its own DNA code.

I can see that in James’s eyes as they return to the present moment. I see it in Hendrix as his back softens. And I see it in Jazz as the scars fade, blending again with his wholesome, unmarred half. They accept the truth absolutely, without any more questions, argument, or evidence. They accept it solely on their trust in their brother and the commander that saved them.

And that’s all it takes. James nods at Aiden once, and his rugged hand comes up and grabs Aiden’s shoulder too. Do they feel the difference in each other’s bodies? Do their hands know the chains are gone?

They must because none of them says another word about it. No thank you’s or sorry’s or thank god’s. I’m sure they will talk later in their own language, but for now, this is enough.

“This is some day!” James rumbles, his voice back to its normal timbre, even if still a little rough. “I think we need a drink. Or a toast.” He picks up his coffee mug, raising it in the air toward us. “To Storm, for healing this wound at last.” Abruptly, he smiles in the jungle of ginger hair as though that one fact—Aiden healing—works like an anti-Fallujah protein for him. “And to Elisa, for putting up with his shit, having magical powers, and saving his sorry ass.”

“Hear, hear, and Merry Christmas!” says Jazz, and we all start to laugh. A true, reviving laugh that you never forget. It melts away all the pain, the past. Stella’s and Reagan’s like Christmas bells, Robert’s and Javier’s like guitar strings, the Marines’ like thunder rolling over the hills, and the most beautiful one of them all, falling like a waterfall next to me, straight from Aiden’s lips. All bouncing off the cottage walls, filling it with joy from the rose roots to the roof beams.

And a sense of completeness finds me here, laughing in this squashy sofa under Aiden’s arm. A wholeness that brings back a sensation of bliss from early childhood days when only love existed in this cottage. I search myself for any other feeling but I can’t find a single thorn of pain. Not one bud of fear. Not a single leaflet of grief or worry or anger. Only endless petals of love and roots of gratitude. I know that another separation is still looming bigger and closer, but for now all is well. And just like that, happiness shifts again. It doesn’t look like this cottage full of roses, or these shining faces, or even Aiden healed and free. In this one moment, happiness looks exactly like me.

We all start talking easily then, everyone claiming they knew it all along that Aiden could heal, raising more toasts, opening champagne, wanting to know more. I sink happily into Aiden’s side, listening to his voice as he tells them about the doctors’ trick and Benson’s help, how hard I had to try to make him believe it was real, the General, their care package, their beautiful gifts, the miracle of them being here, exactly where we want them to be. And this day turns to Christmas too. Stella starts cooking everyone’s favorite dish. Robert, Reagan, Javier, and I help and catch up. Aiden talks with the Marines about his discovery. Benson comes over when he wakes up. Just a big family—bigger than this cottage has ever had—making our very own holiday: Healing Day.

Through it all, Aiden’s eyes and touch never leave me for long. Like a silent conversation flowing between us. His lips in my hair, his arm on my waist, his fingertips brushing my knee, now an infinity loop, now an A, now an E, and then a tap like a clock’s tick.

Outside the cottage, the sun starts to set on this day that gave us everything. I am torn: I never want it to end, yet I can’t wait for Aiden and I to be alone. So many things I still don’t know about him, so many new molecules and neurons reforming as we speak. What is he thinking? What does he want to do next? What word is running through his mind this very minute? Why does he keep looking at my secret gift? Where will be our next date? To a crowded garden or museum where we can stand in long lines and be the only two lunatics who are happy about it? What does the future look like to him? Will he take more time off work to finally live? Does he miss Portland? I stop right there—not that one, not yet. I can’t.

Aiden looks down at me and, in that one gaze, I can tell he feels exactly the same. Ready to be just with me.

Stella, who never takes her eyes off us for long, must have noticed too because she stands abruptly.

“We should go. We’ve been here all day, and you two really need to rest after all that. Come on, everyone, we can catch up tomorrow morning.”

They must understand because they all scramble up quickly, ignoring my feeble protests while Aiden doesn’t pretend at all anymore.

“That’s a good idea. You’ve had a long day too. Are you sure you’re settled at the Inn?”

“Yep, we’re good,” James answers. “Don’t worry about anything. You just—you know . . .  sleep.” He wiggles his eyebrows in a way that makes me flush, and I am grateful Stella and Robert are both hugging me so they cannot see either his lewd expression or Hendrix and Jazz making kissing pouts. Javier pretends to gag behind them and not so subtly tosses the skunk spray bottles and strobe lights in the bin. And Reagan kisses my cheek, promising me girl time tomorrow and a hat-shopping spree. Then they rush out quickly, their laughter chorusing with the willows in the rose breeze.

Family, family, family . . .

As soon as they melt out of sight, Aiden pulls me in his arms on the threshold, lifting my face to his. The sunset kisses his skin, half of him bronzed like the young, unharmed Aiden, half-golden like the healed one that conquered everything.

“Alone at last,” he murmurs, his eyes on fire, his breath a flame on my lips. And the whole world vanishes. There is only this moment with him. Nothing and no one can distract us now. He is free and beautiful and all mine.

“Yes,” I breathe, caressing his scar as the soft glow starts to shimmer with desire in my blood.

“And a lot to celebrate.”

“Everything.”

He brings his mouth to mine, his lips like plumes of heat. “Come upstairs with me,” he whispers between each kiss. “To the happiest place in our world.” And before the “yes” has sighed out of my lips, he sweeps me in his arms and carries me upstairs, his mouth urgent, steps fast as if my speed could never be quick enough.

But as we reach the threshold of our bedroom, his kiss changes, deepens. His lips slow as though stopping time. But intense too, serious, growing. I pull him closer, my fingers in his hair, my skin aflame, my head a whirl with his wine-and-cinnamon taste. I am already dizzy by the time he sets me down at the foot of our bed. Even then, he does not release me. His hands cradle my face as he pulls back and blows over my lips. Aiden and the roses and me . . . I inhale deeply and open my eyes. And then promptly lose my breath again.

Because he is finally back in our bedroom, kneeling before me under the soft light of the chandelier, like he never left, yet more dreamlike than ever. That surreal beauty has fallen over him, but new now, without the veil of fear, restraint, or guilt. Only the glow of every blissful memory this little room lights up inside him. And his eyes . . . They have changed into that my-all gaze I know in every cell. Except it has grown while we kissed. The fire smolders, becomes a sort of sentient incandescence. It breathes through my lungs like oxygen and flows in my veins like my very blood. This is not just a look, it’s a language. It speaks with words I don’t know, yet they beat inside of me like a heartbeat, thud-thud-thud.

“What are you thinking about when you look at me that way?” I can finally ask.

“This,” he answers and reaches in his back jean pocket, bringing out the thin, rectangle present that I thought was still waiting for me under the rose tree. “Now you can open it at last.” His voice is almost molten, lilting with something like fulfillment and peace.

He hands the flat packet to me, still wrapped in newspaper, and all my reticence about this gift disappears. How can I possibly resist anything that makes him glow like this, even if he planned it as a goodbye? I take it from him eagerly now, curious, rather than afraid. It’s featherlight, the newspaper printed from the library downstairs.

“What paper is this?” I muse, trying to read the words for clues. But the page is strategically wrapped like a surprise over the surprise. I can only see something about a new hybrid of white roses, but it’s enough to make me gasp. Because although I don’t know what date this is, I immediately recognize the style. It’s not The Oregonian from Portland or The Oxford Student like his diamond A, or even The Burford Times or the Reed College Quest.

“It’s the Rose Petal Press!” I answer my own question, caressing the newspaper of the Portland Rose Garden. The garden we strolled on our first night together, the garden where I made my first wish for more time with him. Abruptly, I miss the rose-lined paths we roamed together, despite my one million roses outside. “How on earth did you get this?”

His lips pull up in my favorite, dimpled smile—except newer, more radiant now. “Do you remember Patty who helped us plant Lady Clare for your mother?”

“Yes.” I grin too, thinking of the sweet woman and her little son, Jack, trying to imitate Aiden’s straight posture.

“She was very kind and emailed me a copy of their archived print yesterday morning.”

“Archive? So which date did you pick?” I turn the present over, searching, but the date isn’t visible.

“The best day until today.” The emotion in his eyes is deepening. He rises to sit next to me on the bed, so close that our thighs touch. My heart thumps so loudly, he can probably hear it. “Open it.” His breath brushes my cheek.

I start unfolding the newspaper carefully but then my breath catches. Because as I lift one of the folds, I can finally see the date that means everything.

“May 14!” I sing, beaming up at him. “The day of our first embargo.”

“The day that brought us together, not just in a painting.”

Those perfect hours flash between us and I’m sure we are seeing the same reel of beauty now. His first kiss, seeing his home for the first time, every look, every touch, that first night, the stroll in the rose garden, all those ticking, ephemeral minutes that we fell in love even though we did not know it at the time.

“You’re right, it was the best day. I had never been happier even though everything was such a mess.”

“Me neither.”

I bring the newspaper to my lips and kiss it. “I think this is my favorite newspaper now. Do they have subscriptions?”

“Apparently, they do. I signed us up.” He chuckles but underneath the waterfall sound, there is a rare, nervous note reminding me of the real present inside. What on earth could deserve a date like this? I take a deep breath, bracing myself for whatever it might be. If this amount of thought went into the wrapping alone, I cannot imagine the real gift. I peel the paper off gently, peeking curiously underneath. A familiar, white envelope is waiting for me. Not in commissary paper like the ones in the safe from his war letters. This is our cottage stationary here, simple with a single rose embossed on it. There are no markings anywhere, no dates as is his style, but it is filled with something soft and downy inside.

I try to find my voice but I can’t as I blink up at him. The emotion has grown in his eyes—a new significance, a new level of intensity.

“You asked me the night we read my war letters together which of them was my favorite,” he explains. “I didn’t have one because I hadn’t written it yet. So here it is—the letter I love the most even if it feels late.”

Curiosity rages everywhere, and the envelope flutters in my hand. What could he have written to me if this was his goodbye present? What words could make him love it more than all the other letters combined? Is it as I asked him in my brave letter—to write to me? But why?

“You’re right on time,” I tell him as he tells and lift the unsealed flap eagerly, finding so many rose petals within. Both dried and fresh—some from the centifolia rose he gave me on our first morning together, some from the rare aeternum at his Alone Place, some from our Suite of Firsts at the Inn the first time we made love skin to skin, some from the Elisas and the American Beauty in our garden . . . All our best moments right here, replacing the old grains of dark sand.

Gently, I fish out the folded letter, trying not to spill a single petal. And then I’m lost in his words.

My all,

So you are real. I’m not writing to you from a distance, burning in a white desert for your nearness. No, at last, you’re here. Sleeping softly next to me, after changing the core of my existence. 

So close that your hand on my chest is my flesh. The little wisps of air from your lips are my breath. The tic-tic-tic of your pulse is the blood flowing inside my veins. And your quiet sleepy mumbles are my dreams. You’ll miss me, you love me, ‘stay, Aiden, you’ll heal . . .’

All these millions of pieces of you, so much better than any mirage I could have ever envisioned. How could I possibly leave them? 

How can I leave your lower lip as it trembles when it says my name? How can I breathe if I can never smell your scent again? The way it changes in your sleep, first sparkling like dewy petals, then warmer, deeper, like you hold my sun underneath your skin. And this little pucker between your brows as you dream—what is it? A formula? A secret? A wish?

How can I never ask you all these questions? How can I not spend the rest of my life trying to find out all your answers? Taking away your pain, making you laugh, learning your secrets. How can I not stay and make true all these hidden wishes?

Those are the wrong questions, I know. The right question is can you afford for me to stay. I’ve said no, you say yes. I’ve said I have to go, you tell me to stay. I have tried to leave a thousand ways. But I am never able to, I just can’t. Not when you want me to be the most selfish man in the world. Not when I would steal your choice again. Not when we both love in this mad, forever kind of way.

So what if I finally accept who I am? Not strong enough to leave you but maybe strong enough for everything else. I’m brave and afraid, right and wrong, flawed but not at fault. So many contradictions inside me, yet somehow I’m every single thing you want. All these millions of pieces of me that only you can see. All these things I am only because you love me. Hopeful, brave, maybe even good. Good enough to earn a woman like you?

Could we forget about right and wrong then? Could we start again? Could we still laugh, play the piano, dance?

What if our life was like this? I would hold you every night as you fall asleep, my nose in your hair, your cheek to my heartbeat. You’d mumble that you love me as you drift. I’d sleep next door to your song, and we might meet in dreams. Then I’d wake up before you and wait until you opened your eyes. You’d smile like always and everything would be alright. We would kiss, share a Baci, make love, have breakfast while watching the sunrise. I’d take you to work or school where you’d save more lives. And I’d run my companies and maybe write. I could tell my story, perhaps it might help someone. And fight. Fight every minute of every day to be safe, maybe to heal like you believe I can. 

Then it would be time to come pick you up. Hear your voice sing about your day and ask about mine. And we would make love again in the car because home would seem too far. Then your stomach would growl and we would laugh. We’d drive back as fast as we could, solving your daily puzzle, listening to my playlist, planning the real Christmas, talking to our families. We could have dinner in the garden, watch the sunset, play chess, make love on the petals again and again. Then I’d carry you to bed and we would start over—every morning, every evening. Never stop trying, never stop believing.

And the years would pass, even with security measures and bodyguards. We would grow old, just you, me, and the roses. Perhaps even a couple of puppies. We’d name them Portland and Burford or Baci and Skittles. Maybe we’d open a shop called Snow Roses, count the seeds, and set up the flowers each morning. We would not fight about the years, we would remember. We’d know the minutes, the dates, everything we’ve been through together. You and I would only fight about the weather. You’d want it sunny, I’d want it more rain. You’d argue I’m grumpy and I’d tell you you’re nagging. You’d laugh and call me a barmy old fool. I’d tell you I’m still in love with you. You’d glow like you do in all my paintings. I’d chase you with my cane and eventually break a hip. Until one night in a hundred years, I’d just go to sleep. And I’d tell the world I was the happiest man who ever lived. You’d cry a little but you’d know it was true, except you’d think no one had been happier than you. And it would be a life well-lived. A life of love that conquered everything, even me.

Would you want that still? Never full, but always complete? 

So here we are. Just the real you and the real me. All the millions of pieces of us that fit together into one whole, one simplicity. Will you be with me? Not in fantasies, paintings, memories, or dreams. But every hour of every day for as long as we both shall live? If I try every second to be safe, will you keep me exactly as I am and exactly as I will be?

Yours,

Aiden

I don’t know how many times I have read every word. I don’t know if I am in our present, our past, or every minute of the dreamlike future spelled in his assertive script. I don’t even realize I’m crying until a teardrop splashes on his name like a kiss.

“Oh, Aiden …” I breathe, blinking up at him. But the instant our eyes meet, he slides down on one knee in front of me.

“Oh!” I cry again, as he takes my left hand and looks at me with that my-all gaze that I finally understand. It’s the look of choosing our love above all else; the look of taking a chance on himself.

“Elisa Snow?” He says my name lovingly, with a sort of reverence. “I loved you before I met you, I have loved you every minute we have had together, and I will love you every minute of my forever. Will you marry me?”

I try to breathe, I try to find all the right words, or simply stay upright but I can’t. I just fall on my knees next to him and start sobbing.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!”

My answer blazes across his face like a sunrise. He is glowing, his turquoise eyes radiant with triumph and joy.  His beauty is so dazzling, it knocks me breathless with its force. Before I can find oxygen, he kisses me, his mouth exultant and urgent on mine. Our bodies tangle on the rug where we dance, lips folding together, tongues tangoing in their own sway, weaving their own poetry, until I am gasping for air. Even then, his lips never leave my skin. They brush down my throat to my racing pulse, pressing there gently.

“Thank you,” he murmurs against my lifeblood, then he pulls up to look at me, more victorious than I’ve ever seen him, his bliss shining like a bright light underneath his skin. So glorious, I still can’t think or speak or breathe.

As if he knows, he blows on my lips lightly, once, twice, three times, watching me like I am his whole life. And somewhere in the mush of my brain, an old fear flickers on.

“Is this real?” I mumble in a trembling whisper.

A brilliant smile flashes over his face—exactly as an angel’s would. “Yes, it is.” He chuckles. “I’m not sure about anything else but I know this. I’ve waited twelve years, one hundred twenty thousand miles, and the last twenty-seven hours to ask you, Elisa.”

He kisses my lips once more—lightly so I don’t faint—and waits for me to process the impossible words. The words he must have really said because he is still glowing and I’m still sure this is a dream. He must see that because he kisses me again and again and again.

“It’s real, love.” His voice, his air slip inside me between kisses, like mine did for him.

“B-but—” My breath shakes and I have to inhale his scent to be able to speak. “But you wrote the letter yesterday, before you knew you were healed . . .” How could that be? It can’t be real, I must have fallen asleep in the sofa next to him. “You were really going to stay with me?”

“Yes, I was,” he answers simply.

I caress his scar, touch his face, feel his body against mine. He’s real, he’s real. “But how? What made you change your mind?”

His smile softens but the brilliant joy and victory in his eyes do not dim. Then his words start flowing fast like he can no longer hold them inside.

“I told you—my mind changed me. I was already losing the selflessness battle by the hour. I was fighting to make it through a single minute. Then after that reel, I came back home again, held you in my arms, read your brave letter, and I couldn’t tell right from wrong anymore. With all my memories so jumbled and inaccessible, I could only see the present. Truly see it, without the filter of my mind or the bias of the past. And all I could see was how happy I can make you, how you would never give me up or move on, even if I were gone.” He smiles, brushes my cheek, kisses away the tears that have spilled. “That’s when I really started falling apart. The only thing I still knew was that you deserved better than a killer. But then I discovered the truth about Fallujah and listened to you talk in your sleep: ‘stay, Aiden, you’ll heal, trust me.’” He pauses at those words, glowing, and I realize why he chose them for his brothers earlier: because they too freed him. He caresses my face, my lips, brushing off more tears. “And I thought, maybe she is right about this too. What if there is a small part of me that deserves her? If I missed something that big, what else was I missing? Maybe there was a way to stay with you that I was not seeing? That’s all it took. Just allowing myself to visualize a life with you, and whatever strength I had left disappeared. All the rules, all the selfless notions. The only thing left was the love. The sheer force of it. I could barely breathe. For hours while you slept, I was just drowning in it.” His smile brightens again as though this kind of drowning is a beautiful thing, and his arms tighten around me. “When I managed to resurface, I was not the same man I had known or tried to be. I was the real me. And I knew then I was not strong enough to leave.”

He stops talking, breathless like me, his eyes almost liquid with the depth of his love. For an endless moment, I just let myself drown in it too, feeling it flood every space of my body, drenched in the simplicity that, finally, he is mine and I am his, like we wanted to be. And my own world—spinning and splintering for so long—finally settles in its rightful axis.

How beautifully the universe heals. What was dark becomes light. What was shuddering becomes still. Cosmic dust fuses back into bold, brilliant stars, torn atoms into their own endless galaxies. Or perhaps it was always like this. Maybe fear is just a force and pain only energy. Time is just a dimension, but the direction is our choice. And everything else that shoots across our skies—accidents, deaths, monsters, wars—is not a big bang. It’s just a meteor. Dimming momentarily every other light, but never once extinguishing the stars. We go on. Humming our faith like a celestial tune, thrumming in the throes of bravery, bound by the only gravity we know: love.

He manages to breathe first with a stunning, mind-melting smile. “Still with me?”

“Always.”

He laughs, head thrown back, so buoyant and free. “Well, hopefully ‘always’ will be a lot easier now. Nothing can be harder than waiting to actually tell you. It was worse than all the reels combined. I almost asked you to marry me the moment you woke up and a hundred times after that—at Christmas, after the call with the General, in the garden, in the car—but even I knew I had to do this right.”

He laughs again and, through all the haze of wonder, my brain remembers something as if from another life. All those moments when he looked like he was going to say something vital. That indescribable my-all look in his eyes.

“But why did you wait to tell me?” I whisper, still awed, hearing back his words that it was for a very good reason.

“Well, for one, I didn’t want this moment to be associated with Marshall, the video, or the doctors. I wanted it to be just ours. But I didn’t want you to keep hurting so I gave you my gift as soon as you woke up. So you would know there was something better waiting on the other side.”

I don’t tell him I worried it was his goodbye gift, because that was my lack of faith, not his. I just replay the last few hours through the filter of the truth. The way he promised we would have more time and he would be selfish the right way, his diamond A, all his words, his strength to restrain himself only so he could give me this perfect moment for the rest of my life, untainted by any other memory or pain. And above all, I remember the way I felt when he looked at me that way. Alive, safe, hopeful beyond the end. As though my molecules understood meaning of that look, quite outside of my consciousness or reasoning.

“You were right,” I tell him. “I think a deep part of me knew something better was waiting. I just couldn’t fathom it would be this.”

“And that’s the other reason why I gave you the gift early, much like you did with the protein for me. Because I wanted you to have faith in my decision to stay. I wanted you to know that I chose us not because of duty, guilt, or the doctors’ advice, which I expected would be for us to stay together. I chose us because I love you and you love me. And that’s all that mattered in the end.”

My heart takes off like its own life form, beating triumphantly quite outside of our finite bodies. Rising above our minds and all the rules we tried to place on it. I cannot feel my own weight in Aiden’s arms, almost empyrean myself against these earthly limits, as I understand the full meaning of his gift.

Amor vincit omnia.” I smile through tears. “What a beautiful gift to give.”

I try to bring him back to my mouth but he sits up, reaches somewhere above my head, and brings out something extraordinary in his hand, something I must have missed in my utter astonishment. A golden rosebud, every petal carved in such exquisite detail that for a heartbeat I think it’s real. Tiny, white diamonds sparkle all over it like dew. And a soft glow comes from within its heart, catching the radiance of Aiden’s smile.

“More beautiful than this?” he asks.

I just gape at the rosebud, incapable of blinking or speaking, as Aiden presses something at the rose’s hip and oh!The petals open slowly, like a rose in timelapse, revealing inside the most wondrous ring. It glows in the soft light, seeming almost alive. The oval blue diamond gleams like the most precious blues I have known in Aiden’s eyes. Some facets sparkling sapphire, some turquoise, with a deep, indigo flame at the heart. Smaller, white diamonds glitter around it like a halo. And the platinum band weaves around the flawless stones in a subtle filigree. I have never seen anything like it.

I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. I inch up in a trance, fingers and breath trembling toward the ring. As I move, the gems cast a dim light on my skin. Gently, I caress the center diamond, as rare on earth as Aiden is. The fiery heart flickers with the shadow of my touch.

“Do you like it?” Aiden asks casually but, underneath, I can hear the depth of his emotion. Only that sound can make me blink away from the impossible ring. And his face dazzles me more than the diamonds.

I can only shake my head.

“No?” He smiles in amusement, but at that question, my tongue manages to unravel enough to speak.

“I love it,” I whisper, still breathless, wishing I could find words strong enough for what I feel.

He laughs again with my favorite sound. “And the roses? Do they love this gift too?”

“Almost as much as they love you.”

Another beautiful chuckle. “I suppose I should have asked you what you liked first. I still can—”

“But I would have never known to tell you I want exactly this.” I look back at the blue diamond inside the gold petals, stroking the blue flame at the heart. “I didn’t even know something like this could exist. Wherever did you find it?”

“From an ethical mine in Botswana. Only about ten hours away from where your roses grow in Kenya, actually.” He turns the golden rose in his fingers—the diamonds thrill—and my mouth falls open. He chuckles at my awed expression, bringing the golden rose to my cheek, brushing my lips with the smooth petal. “It was worth all the search just to see your face in this moment.”

“W-when did you start searching for it?” I tremble at the touch.

“The first day I came to England when you agreed to fight with me, just in case we would win. I ordered it the day my parents arrived, when I was in London, and it came through Benson last week.”

I don’t ask if we had not won, how much this ring cost, or anything else—none of it matters. All that matters is the hope he held for us, shimmering exactly like this diamond.

“Then I love it even more,” I tell him through a fresh blossom of tears.

He smiles more brilliantly than all the diamonds and reaches inside the rose’s golden petals for the ring. His eyes smolder on mine, absorbing every pixel inside his mind for the rest of our lives. He takes my left hand and slips the ring on my third finger. It slides home with a perfect fit. Belonging there so absolutely that it seems my hand was made for it.

“I love you,” he says and kisses my hand, my fingertips, and the ring that makes me his.

Happiness expands so violently, so absolutely, I don’t think I can survive it.

“Always” I whisper, pulling him to my lips.

And then we begin.©2022 Ani Keating

NINETY DAYS: CHAPTER 43 – SECRET

Happy fall, friends! New chapter for you, and probably one of my favorites. I have waited for so long to give Aiden and Elisa the gift that is here. I hope you love her secret as much as I loved it from the moment it first formed in my head. Thank you to everyone who is reading and writing to me. Love you all. After this, only one more secret left… Theme: healing. Song: A Thousand Years. Favorite line: We are not the big bang; we are stars that shine on. Enjoy!

43

Secret

“So what’s next?” I ask as Aiden carries me down the steps of Doctor Helen’s building.

“Come.” He tilts his head toward the meadow in the back. “Sit with me for a moment before we have to see anyone else.”

For a moment? Forever. “I will sit with you for as long as you want, unless you’re still planning on leaving now that you’re really free.” The reflexive crack in my voice ruins my bad joke.

He pulls me tighter in his chest, his gaze full of that my-all look that heals every pain. “I’m not going anywherewithout you. But it might be awkward for Benson to wait in the car for us for a thousand years.”

I laugh and reach up to kiss his dimple. “Even a thousand years wouldn’t be enough.”

He chuckles and kisses my temple. “Well, we have to start somewhere.”

Start . . . it’s really beginning for us, isn’t it? I scrape the pad of my thumb with my nail, abruptly needing to test reality myself.  It’s real, it’s real, it’s real. Thank you, God. Thank you, Marshall. Thank you, Mum and Dad.

Aiden carries me and my picnic basket behind the building, toward the familiar oak of his childhood. The pink sunrise has turned into an opalescent haze, the sleepy grass still glistening with dew. There are no children in the quiet playground, except the seven-year-old boy of my imagination. He is flying down the slide in his grass-stained Levi’s and white T-shirt, laughing freely like he did the last time we sat here, when we thought we had lost everything.

As soon as we clear the building’s shadow, the last strains of tension leave Aiden’s body and a sense of fluidity flows gradually in its place. I cannot blink away from his beauty. He is even more impossible than the young, unharmed Aiden in the war tent or the Aiden of my dreams. Perhaps because this Aiden has risen above it all and healed.

He looks at the merry-go-round, too tall and leonine for the tiny seats. I cannot imagine what he must feel right now, striding past the childhood that was lost to him, treading to the same thick branches that sheltered him from a world both too small and too big. I give him the moment he needs. Besides, I need a few minutes of my own to collect my thoughts, to process the last secret between us, the full truth that has been waiting for him. What will it mean now that he is healed? More, surely—a lot more than I could ever have dreamed. Right?

At the oak’s canopy, we sit on the same muscular root as we did that dark Saturday morning two weeks ago. Except now Aiden wraps me up in his arms. I curl closer in his chest, listening to the thud-thud-thud of his heart. He kisses my hair, my temple, my cheek, the diamond E at my wrist.

“How are you feeling?” I ask, tracing the polaroid of his healed mind inside his shirt pocket.

He tips up my face to look at me. His eyes are the stillest turquoise. Not like the memories have stopped stirring underneath. But like has finally floated above them.

“It’s hard to find the words,” he answers. “Relieved, grateful, incredulous, happy, but most of all awed, I think.”

“You should feel awed. You just did the impossible.”

He cups my cheek. “I meant awed at you, not me. Elisa, you saved my life. And not just mine. You saved my parents, my brothers, and above all, you saved yourself and us. I have never been more amazed than I am in this moment.”

And here it is. Right here. Right now. I sit up a little so we are eye to eye and take his face in my hands. His skin touches me differently, more intensely somehow. Its warmth melts through my bones, like a melding. I have to use all my strength not to be distracted by the sensation or the effervescent glow that illuminates his skin like the candlelight of our happy bedroom.

“Remember yesterday when I said I would argue with you when the embargo was over?” I ask him.

My favorite dimpled smile curves up his lips—so vital, so beautiful I almost lose my train of thought. “It’s ringing a bell.”

“Well then . . .” The two familiar words that started us trill in the air between our mouths. “Let’s argue.”

His brows arch with amused surprise. “Argue? That’s the first thing you want to do with me?”

“Yes, it has to be.”

“Are you sure? I had some better ideas, not the least of which has to do with your tomorrow-now-today Christmas present that is waiting for you at home under the rose tree.”

His eyes smolder for some reason at the idea, but I don’t want to think about his goodbye present ever again. “I’m sure. Besides, it’s my present to you that we need to argue about.”

He picks up on the emotion on my voice. The smile turns into a frown of confusion. “We’re arguing about the present you gave me right before we met Helen?”

“Yes, your last post-reel surprise although hopefully there won’t be much arguing and you will finally see that you did this all on your own.”

The dimple flashes on his cheek again. “Well, I can’t imagine not arguing about that, but okay, I’m listening.”

I kiss his scar and let go off his face reluctantly so I can reach inside my picnic basket for the small box wrapped in the world map of dad’s old atlas. My fingers shake a little but the simple contact fortifies me through the paper as I hand it to Aiden. “Here, open it.”

He takes it from me, searching my face for a moment, no doubt trying to comprehend what is running inside my head. But I know he will never guess this, despite his ability to read me exactly like the map. He starts unwrapping the cardboard box, taking care not to rip the atlas page. Then I hear his breath catch when he lifts the lid. Because there, nestled deep in the flurry of every Baci quote we have read together this summer, except Shakespeare’s, is a crystal vial I know in every molecule of my body.

The lilac liquid shimmers mysteriously inside, with the seal intact.

Aiden whistles quietly, staring mesmerized at the luminous halo, part-liquid, part-mist. His fingers brush Dante’s quote as he takes out the warm, glimmering crystal. He shakes it gently but the fizzy aura does not give. Entranced, he sets down the box on the grass and holds up the vial against the cloudy sky, no doubt trying to understand the glow within that cannot be explained by the oak’s deep shadow. But there is no sunshine behind the fantastical sparkle. He turns the vial again, watching the glittering substance move fluidly with him.

“Elisa . . . what is this?” he whispers. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Even though I have been planning these words for a while, it still takes me a minute to form them from the sudden wave of emotion engulfing me.

“It’s the protein, love. The protein of bravery.”

His head whips up at me, the V folding between his brows. “What do you mean, ‘it’s the protein’”?

“I mean this is the protein that dad invented, the formula that erases fear.”

He frowns back at the strange, hypnotic mixture, as though trying to reconcile it with what he knows. “Have you made some changes to it?”

“No, it has always looked like this.”

He shakes his head, utterly perplexed. “It can’t be. This looks so different. The protein was less warm, more purple . . . like your eyes . . .” His voice trails off uncertainly, his eyes widening as an instinct of truth must seep through his ironclad perception. I watch that conviction start to waver into shock, perhaps the third biggest shock of his life. “Elisa, what . . .are . . . you . . . saying?”

I cradle his hand where it’s frozen around the distinctive warmth of the vial. “You’ve never taken the real protein, love.” I tell him the full truth. “You really did do this all on your own.”

His jaw falls open, his breath blows out with a gasp, and the vial slips softly on my palm as I knew it would. He doesn’t blink. He just stares at me, as stunned as he was when the startle turned into our dance to Für Elise.

“Never?” he mouths.

“Not a drop.”

How?”

I set the vial back on our Baci quotes and explain the secret I told only Doctor Helen after he fell asleep that night. “I gave you a placebo and made it look somewhat similar to the real protein, although as you can see now, that’s not really possible.”

He is still gaping at me, not a single eyelash fluttering out of his astonishment. “Why would you do that?”

“Because after I took the protein myself, I realized so many things, including the reasons why dad kept it hidden. For one, everything it makes us feel—all that courage—is already within us. The protein only allows us to feel it amplified. And it gives us this unbreakable faith in ourselves because, of course, it suppresses all doubt and fear. But there are side effects too, consequences I could have never anticipated.”

The shock twists with terror on his face, blanching his golden skin. “Side effects?” he chokes, his arms tightening protectively around me. “What—?”

“Shh, I’m perfectly healthy,” I interrupt quickly before he has a heart attack. “It didn’t harm me in anyway, just like I told you.”

“Then what is it? What side effects?”

I choose my words carefully because I know this part of the truth will still hurt him even now. “Well, the main one is that all emotions become very strong, very powerful. Every trauma, every pain you have ever felt in your life combine together without the numbing of fear, and you feel it all at once. As you feel all the good emotions: love, joy, desire, gratitude. They balance each other out, but it’s difficult. And that was only for me with my relatively normal life.”

“How difficult?” He picks out the most important word.

“More than I was willing to let you feel.”

He studies my face, eyes tortured like the idea of my pain is burning him. Then he folds me in his chest, as though he sees all the hurt left unsaid. “Oh, Elisa,” he sighs, kissing my hair.

“I really am okay, I promise.” I look up at him so he can see the truth in my eyes. “The brave love I wrote about in my letter softened all the pain. But once I saw how the protein works, I had no way of knowing how it would impact you with your memory and your past. And I realized why dad made it so difficult, why it tastes as awful as it does. Because we’re only meant to take it when there is absolutely nothing at all we can do about the situation. But I always knew you had it in you. I knew you could leave Fallujah behind if only you believed you could. So I decided to let you think you were under the influence of the protein, so you could feel your full potential. I was so high on bravery I couldn’t doubt at all that the plan might not have worked. But thankfully it did work, just as I thought. You did it—you found the truth about your innocence, you laid Marshall at rest all by yourself. And you destroyed the startle too, although I didn’t expect that. The protein would not have worked against it—Doctor Helen confirmed it with her test. This victory was your own strength. Everything we have right now—your freedom, your health, my dreams, our love, our very life—is not because of me. It’s because of the strong, brave, brilliant man you are.” I take his hand and place it above his own heart. Once he loves, he loves forever. He loves me, his brothers, Marshall, Benson, his parents . . . and at long last, hopefully himself.

He has breathed in every word, eyes still wide, but not in fear for me anymore now that he has seen I really am alright. He is staring in awe, the way we might look at ourselves in the mirror for the very first time.

“I really did this without the protein?” he breathes, as stunned as he was in Doctor Helen’s lab.

“Yes, love. Only you and your own bravery.”

He traces the crystal vial with his finger. The protein’s sparkle casts a rainbow over the wooden A at his wrist. As though Marshall Fortis is winking at him. “So what did you give me?” he asks. “It was purple, though not as beautiful as this.”

“Well, I sort of hinted at this part. It was grape juice with some pearlescent food additive to mimic the sparkle.”

He squints, as if watching the world through this new lens. “But what about what I felt physically? The heat, the odd taste, the rush of strength.”

“I added some capsicum oil—or chili oil—and a micro-drop of denatonium for bitterness to make it seem realistic. Then I boiled them together so the liquid would still be warm by the time I came home. As for the strength, it was all your own. I just asked you to let me calm you. And once you thought you were invincible, you finally felt the full extent of your natural power.”

He is still dazed. “And the sixty seconds it took for me to feel brave?” He asks but then catches up. “Ah, I see what you did. You told me casually before you gave me the fake protein that it took you sixty seconds to feel brave, which subliminally made me expect the same thing and, therefore, imagine I was feeling it too. And you told me to keep my eyes closed for focus, but that was also so I wouldn’t realize there was in fact no difference. Combine all that with telling me you knew it would work, and I stood no chance at doubting your word.”

“Exactly, although when I said I knew you could do it, I meant it. That part was all true.”

The oak leaves rustle as he watches me in amazement. “Brilliant,” he murmurs.

I shrug. “I got the idea during the protein. It allows you to see and plot things like that. Doctor Helen said my brain activity was similar to yours when I took it, although of course nothing can equal that.”

He ignores that last part. “So Helen and Corbin were in on this?”

“No, I only told her afterwards, while you were sleeping, and I assume she told Corbin from the way he was smiling today, but the idea to keep it from you was mine. I’m very sorry I lied to you about that. I wish I could have thought of a better way.”

The tectonic plates shift swiftly in his eyes, as they do when he is remembering something. “You didn’t lie,” he corrects. “Now that I think back to your words, you never told me explicitly that I was taking the protein. You called it ‘bravery’ or ‘our new tea.’ You said everything I needed to win was already inside me.” His voice quiets again—no note of anger or disappointment there. Only wonder, hopefully at himself. “And after the reel, when I thought my dose had run out, you said I was braver than even the protein.”

“Because you are. You never needed the protein, you only needed to believe in yourself.”

He nods in understanding. “So of course had to keep it from me. Although I am curious why you waited to tell me until now. You gave me this box to open after we met with Helen, but you didn’t know then that the startle was finished.”

“That’s true, but I thought both you and she were giving up, and I wasn’t. I still believed that you could heal from it someday. Not soon enough to save us, but eventually, if you kept trying, if you could only see your own strength. That’s why I wanted you to open this present afterwards. So it would give you hope when it seemed there was nothing else left, and faith in yourself so you would have a reason to keep fighting even without me.”

He winces at those last three words, pressing his index finger on my lips. “Shh, don’t say that.”

His touch sends tingles across my skin, suffusing his face with the star-kissed glow. I kiss the pad of his finger and take his hand in both of mine. “We don’t have to worry about that ever again. Because you destroyed the startle. You are the one who saved us. Not me, not the protein, not anyone else.”

He watches our joined hands, as though staring past the skin into a mirror deep within. I let him see his own strength at last, happy to just feel his warmth, to simply be with him.

It takes a while—I don’t know how long, time has stopped having meaning—for him to be able to speak again. Even when he does, he only asks, “This is real, too, right? Not a dream?”

“It’s real and the full truth. Now do you finally believe that you did this on your own?”

His eyes soften out of the shock, deepening into that look that gives me air, that has become my calm, my hope. “I believe I have the strength that I could have done it on my own,” he answers. “But in the end, I still think we did it together. Can we settle that without your faith, I would have never tried again, and without my strength, the reel would not have worked?”

We. I like that even better. “Yes, we can agree to that,” I smile, blinking back tears so I don’t miss a speck of his face.

He looks at me like I am his entire world, his face glowing, partly from my own mind, partly from his.

“Thank you,” he says, kissing a teardrop from my cheek. “For all of it, but especially for never giving up, even when I did.”

“Always.”

The word that has defined us from the very beginning chimes between our lips. But now it finally means what it should mean: always together, not always apart. And abruptly I see that vivid image I had in my apartment in Portland when Aiden first said always to me, the day after our embargo as he was explaining why I should not be with him. I pictured a young couple across the world then, tangled together, beaming, not ashen, warm, not cold, whispering “always.” In a blink, the couple transforms into us right now: brave, not afraid, healed, not in pain, wrapped tightly in each other’s arms—whole at last.

“Always.” The real Aiden murmurs back, bending his face to mine.

My hands fly in his hair eagerly but he freezes an inch from my lips and pulls back, suddenly intense again.

“You said side effects,” he recalls. “In plural. What other side effects did the protein give you besides the intense emotions?”

I have to use all my strength to concentrate on his question through the flammable fog in my brain. His lips are so close, his fragrant breath . . . But as soon as I squeeze in some focus, I remember the other part of my secret—the most beautiful, precious side effect I could never have imagined. The reason why some emotions will always remain potent at certain triggers. Abruptly, I am excited to tell him. I didn’t think I would—he would have never been able to move on in peace—but now I can. Now he can know it without any agony or fear . . . once he understands.

“Elisa?” Aiden prompts. “Is something wrong?”

“Not even the least bit. It’s just that this other side effect is more of a gift, although I didn’t realize it at the time. I only figured it out last night when you gave me the diamond A for my bracelet.”

My favorite letter glitters on my wrist like his relieved smile. “What did you figure out?”

I try to think of the best way to explain. “Well, I think it may be better if I show you. Will you humor me with something?”

“Whatever you need, you know that.”

“Okay, then pick one of your favorite days in life, whichever one you want, and tell me what it is.”

“Easy. May seventh of this year, the day I first saw you. Why?”

I nod at his choice because that day is one of my favorites too, no matter how dark it felt at the time. “And what did you do that day? Precisely, like you remember it.”

He frowns at my odd questions but answers anyway. “You know some of this. I woke up at four thirty in the morning, worked out, showered, ate an omelet with bacon and drank three cups of black coffee while reading the news, including about the UK national election. Then Benson drove me to the office, passing thirty-two cars, with license plates from KBA572 to SNT743. I responded to eighty-two emails, had six conference calls, and went to Feign Art to look for a birthday present for my mom, where I saw your face at last . . .” His speed slows, and his eyes lighten at the memory. “You looked like nothing else in my world. Like nothing I could have ever dreamed. Eyes like violets but red from tears, lips parted like rose petals, that white silky scarf over your head.” He brushes my cheek. “The most beautiful thing I had ever seen, yet so heartbreakingly sad. You leaned your head to the side as you looked at me, and instantly your skin glowed silver and ivory. It was so surreal, I couldn’t understand it. I hadn’t connected yet that it was the silver gloss from the painting I had just seen, because you were covered by the scarf, barely two inches of your real jawline were visible. But even if I could have seen all of you, I don’t think I could have comprehended anything at all in that moment. Not even my own name. Everything inside me fell stunned and silent, from my mind to my breath.”

Tenderness softens his face as he remembers, his eyes luminous with peace, yet smoldering underneath. He caresses my jaw, lingering on the path of calm and desire that bound us in this irrevocable way. And I forget everything.

“Is that enough or do you want more?” he asks, bringing me back to the now, to the reason why I needed him to tell me this.

I want every single second, I think, but he is waiting for me, anxious again. “It’s perfect. Now, ask me what I did on one of the most important days of my life.”

The V deepens in bewilderment, and he cups my face. “If I ask you, will you actually explain what’s going on?”

I nod, playing with his fingers.

“Okay, what did you do on one of the most important days of your life?”

“Easy.” I mirror his words, voice trembling a little with nerves as I try this out loud for the first time. “It was the day I took the protein—the first day you healed. You know most of it already so I’ll tell you what happened after I finished watching the video with Doctor Helen. I sprinted to Bia to make the placebo protein, passing by sixteen strangers, four professors, the elderly groundskeeper, five bicycles, and four cars with license plates OX5391, OX1034, OX9256, and OX768—”

“Elisa!” Aiden gasps in shock. “How? How are you doing that?”

I twine our fingers together as I tell him the very last secret between us. “It’s the protein, love. For those five hours that it was in my system, it gave me a memory similar to yours.”

My words don’t have the effect I had hoped—only the one I had feared. “What?” he breathes, his skin turning a pale, horrified green.

“No, please don’t be worried. This is the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened to me, other than your love.”

Beautiful?” he rasps, staring at me like I have lost my mind.

“Yes, beautiful. Aiden, please! I would always wish in secret that I could remember you forever, like you will remember me. That time, age, and distance wouldn’t fade a single part of you from my memory. I just never dreamed such a thing was possible. But it is, at least just for those five hours.” My voice drops in wonder as I caress the miracle of his face.

He does not seem to agree. “Those five hours include the video, Elisa!” A shudder rocks through him. “You will remember everything that happened in there too!”

And there it is—the reason for his dread. “Yes, but I want to remember that with you. I want to remember every moment that made you who you are. Aiden, please! I wouldn’t change this for anything in the world. Relax, I’m completely fine.”

“But the pain!” He snarls, pulling me close as though to protect me even from the word. “I know how this works. You’ll feel it every time you remember, just as real and intense. Never recovering from that.”

Except I understand my memory better now—all those questions I had over the last two days. Why I feel the scalding agony only at some moments, but not others. Why my love for him remains as Everestian and potent.

I reach up and caress his scar. “Not exactly. My memory is still limited compared to yours. Only one pain will stay that intense for me, and only at one trigger: when I see you hurting, because that’s the kind of pain I saw during the video. The other types of pain are the same as they were before the protein, not amplified. But the good emotions— love, pride, joy, desire—are powerful all the time because I felt them throughout those five hours and because when I see you, those are the primary emotions I feel.”

He wavers at that, no doubt hearing the truth in my voice, but does not relax. “What about the triggers? How have they been?”

“Not bad at all. Except for seeing you in pain during the reel, the rest have been wonderful. Remember, I only have this memory for five short hours, most of which were filled with love and courage and hope. My triggers are a lot easier and fewer than yours.” I don’t tell him about the agony that his Arabic pleas triggered. He would be besides himself. That’s a pain better left behind with the reel, a pain we will hopefully never have to feel again.

He is still staring at me unconvinced. “And flashbacks? Have you had any?”

Of course he would ask about that. “Only a couple. Like when you said Marshall would have joked that you finally got your period, I heard Marshall’s voice so distinctly in my head, saying he would buy tampons at the Baharia Mart.”

He gasps at the realization. “So that’s why you slipped about the video! It wasn’t a lapse, it was a flashback.”

“Yes, exactly. Except it was so vivid, I didn’t realize I said his words out loud until after your reaction. I’m still getting used to it. But I love that we will both remember the best parts of Marshall together.”

He refuses to be sidetracked from my safety. “Any other flashbacks?”

“Mostly the beautiful emotions. Like the brave love—I feel it all the time.” I stroke the denim of his jeans over the pocket where I tucked the paper rose of my letter. “You asked how that was possible after you read my letter, and I didn’t realize why then, but I do know. Because even though bravery has faded, the love is still there like it always was—as deep and unchanged. I just cannot forget what it feels like without fear. Once I love, I love forever too.”

His eyes deepen as he hears his own words in my voice, except now they are about him. And he deserves them. He blinks a few times as if returning from a dream.

“What made you realize this last night?” he asks, his voice a little calmer but still focused only on me.

“When you gave me the diamond A and touched my lips. It was the first time you had done that since the monster, but my physical reaction to your touch was just as strong as it was during the protein. My body physically remembered too, like yours does. And I knew then what it meant. I wasn’t going to tell you right away, but it was the best gift I found under that rose tree, other than your initial on my wrist.”

His expression softens with the same memories as mine. “That’s right—you said it was such a beautiful place to be in my world . . .”

“It is, even if I only see a glimpse of it.”

I can see his eyes change at my words. Perhaps considering his memory under this new filter, as something to cherish, not fight. “You really like this, don’t you?” he asks, studying my face.

“Like? Aiden, I love it . . . I can’t even tell you. I love that we can remember the hours that saved us together. I love that even when we will be grey and old like the Plemmonses, neither of us will ever forget that day. I love that, for those moments, it’s like our minds are one. I love that I can finally see the world through your eyes, even for a blink in time. It makes me so happy.”

At last he smiles, unable to resist that last word for me. Happy. Slowly, he brushes my lips—the soft glow thrills again—and I see a strong emotion start brewing in his eyes.

“Is there a part of you that likes this too?” I ask.

“The important thing is that you’re happy and healthy,” he answers, staring into my eyes. But as I gaze back, trying to name the deep emotion swelling there, his selflessness slips. His eyes blaze with a new intensity. “Yes,” he whispers fervently. “Yes, I love it, and I had no idea. Can you show me again?”

It takes me a moment to catch my breath through the force of his gaze. He waits eagerly, and I finally understand what I’m seeing. Aiden has never seen anything like his memory. In this, he has always been alone in this world. But now, against all odds, he can finally see a reflection of his mind, even if it is only a faint echo of his true powers. He can share some of his heaviest burden and his greatest joy. He can have someone hold his hand and whisper, “I know. I see you and I love you even more.”

So that’s what I do now. I take his face in my hands, letting my memory free as I touch the wonder of his skin. And then I begin. “I’ll tell you the best part: the moment I first saw you with my new fearless eyes. I had only run about two thousand steps to find you, but I would have run ten million miles. And there you were, in the river, trying to remove the boulder that almost killed me. You looked like nothing else in my world,” I quote his words because they are even more true for him. “The most beautiful thing I had ever seen. You turned to look at me but I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t find words for you. You frowned and bounded out of the river, frantic with worry. And I still couldn’t speak. You touched my neck then, your hand both warm and cold from the river, and my heart pounded—

“Thirty-two times,” we say together as our memories fuse with laser clarity.

“Yes, thirty-two times.” I smile, tears welling up in my eyes. “And as I looked at your face, it dazzled me with every moment of beauty I had ever seen on it: our first sight at the gallery, our first kiss, every caress, every touch. They sparkled on your skin with every light under which we have made love: the chandelier in our happy bedroom, the nightlight in your home in Portland, the fireplace in our Room of Firsts, the sunrise, the twinkly lights, the stars . . .” As I remember, the golden halo dances around his face again, wrapping it in the soft glow of our bedroom. So stunning I can barely breathe. “It was so surreal, I couldn’t understand it,” I repeat his words, stroking his cheek. “I didn’t realize it was the glow of all those other memories combined in one. But even if I could have understood, I couldn’t have found the words for the man you are. Everything inside me fell stunned and silent, even with my new mind.”

His breath catches at my words like they are an elixir entering his bloodstream. “You really do know,” he whispers, eyes wide with that deeper emotion I can finally name: belonging.

“Yes, I do. I still feel it. Even now that the protein is gone, the glow is there, just softer like candlelight. It flickers every time I want you. That’s why I saw it when you touched my lips last night, why I dreamt of a golden veil as you kissed me awake yesterday, why I thought it was the twinkly lights when we were up in the guestroom. . . Because the way I want you has stayed just as powerful, just as intense.”

He doesn’t speak—perhaps he can’t—but he takes my face between his hands. His eyes roam my skin, my jaw, my lips, just as spellbound by me as I am by him.

“And now you know,” I tell him. “You know what it feels like to be loved as deeply and irrevocably as you love me.”

“Forever,” he agrees, and then he kisses me, his lips fierce and dominant against mine.

Spiked with my memory, the sensations are overwhelming. Desire detonates in my veins, even more powerful than during the protein. My blood sings, I’m light, I’m fire. Every cell starts sparking like live wire. Because this is real. And I don’t care that we are out in broad daylight, right behind a building with large windows. I throw myself at him, crazed for his taste.

He responds with a rough moan that reverberates from his throat to mine, sending my body into a frenzy.

“Aiden!” I whimper.

“Fuck!” He pulls back a millimeter, looking agonized. “Your pill—did you keep taking it these last two weeks?”

“Every day,” I gasp, realizing only now how much secret hope my heart held, refusing to give up.

He blinks at me, eyes on fire, no need for questions—we both finally know the answer. The heart knows. Even when we don’t.

“Come here,” he growls but before I can touch his lips again, he springs to his feet, lifting me up and throwing my legs around his hips. That’s when I realize what he is doing, where he is taking me.

“Aiden, we’ll fall,” I squeak, barely sparing a blink for the oak’s dense canopy.

“Yes, but if we stay here, we will die,” he answers and jumps up.

There is no doubt about it. Already, I can’t breathe right. I grip him with all my strength, locking my arms and thighs around him as he starts to climb, but each time he moves between my legs, the motion almost sends my body into near convulsions. Even his breath, coming fast and hard in my hair, turns into electricity on my skin. I don’t know how I hold on with all my wild, riotous reactions or how he climbs as fast as he does with his thundering heartbeat. But he does. Somehow, we make it to our thick bough near the top, faster than the first time we climbed this ancient oak.

“Hold on tight,” Aiden warns, his voice rough, but not from the climb. It’s low with the same desire I can now finally grasp. He folds down on the branch and leans against the trunk, pulling me astride his lap.

“Aiden, hurry!” I almost burst into tears.

“I know, love. It’s a lot when it first hits.” He grabs my arms and locks them around his neck like fetters. “Right here, don’t let go.”

“Never!”

His own hands turn to manacles on my hips. “Be ready, Elisa. This will be the best sixty-second big bang of your life.”

“Yes!” I laugh shakily at the exact words he told me the first time we made love here in England. But it doesn’t take us sixty seconds this time. It takes nine.

A millisecond for his mouth to swoop on mine. Another for our tongues to entwine. Half a second more for his hands to slide under my dress. A full second for him to shred my knickers into scraps. I feel them slip away, somewhere in the breeze. Then barely a blink for him to unzip his jeans. He grasps himself, and my head starts to spin. I can’t breathe, I can’t hold still. With a gasp from us both, he breaks free. Still not enough time in the world to feel all of him. I try to touch him, but I’m too slow. He lifts me up by the waist and slams home. He is bewildering, more surreal than ever before. Harder, stronger, my all. Heavenly in every inch, in every throb.

And I come. Instantly. Every apex of pleasure I’ve ever felt, every flutter of desire, every tingle, every tremble, every brush of heat and rush of blood, every taste and every touch between us—all surge through my system at once, and I soar into the most intense orgasm of my life. Stars in my eyes, a sensation of flight, a scream through our lips, a curious, powerful river gush inside. My body shakes so much that for a wild second, I think I’m spiraling to the ground. But I’m not. Through the frantic, spasmodic delirium of my body, I sense Aiden’s iron grip, holding my up. And then the force of his orgasm ripples like a tornado through us, half in release, half in restraint, with a torn snarl.

“Ho—ly—fuck!”

His bruising control vibrates from his grasp into my bones as though the oak is shaking underneath. Maybe it is. I hold onto to him with everything I have as we shudder in each other’s arms, sodden, gasping, clutching every body part so we can stay upright. And then we both burst out laughing. Pure, shaky, true laughter—mine lost in his waterfall one that I have not heard in so long. The most beautiful music in my world, flowing straight from his heart. I gulp it in, taste it, listening to the free sound. It’s more fluid, more symphonic, as though all those other laughs before it had missed a new note—an eighth frequency on the scale, a new pitch you can hit only when you are fully healed.

“I think we made it,” Aiden rumbles, still pulsing inside me.

“Hmmm—no—heaven—this.”

“No, I’d have lasted more than ten seconds,” he chuckles. “My cock reverted back to puberty on this tree.”

My giggle trembles with the throbbing of said cock. “S-speak—for—yourself. I—only one second—”

We laugh again, tangling closer even though there is no space left between us. I manage to lift my head from his shoulder and flutter open my eyelids. And there he is—his eyes still blue fire, lips bitten from my kiss, his skin glowing with that flush of orgasm, like an astral light is shining from within. Leaves are raining over us like petals in the garden. A dappled sunlight filters through them, trying to caress the sculpted angles of his face, then fading, utterly unable to compete. He is so glorious, the beauty knocks me breathless. An angel with his wings intact would pale in comparison.

“What’s that look?” He murmurs, smiling my favorite, dimply smile at whatever awe is showing on my face.  “Do you need oxygen?” He blows over my lips, kissing them softly. The light touch flutters through my skin, blossoming into a quiver like the thousands of leaves. It trembles in the pit of my stomach, taking root, then rippling everywhere like a carnal breeze.

“Is this how orgasm feels like for you?” I marvel.

He searches my face in similar wonder. “Hmm, I can’t be sure in your case . . .” The blue depths blaze with the flame of his thoughts. “Does it feel like every orgasm you have ever had, and all the ones you could not possibly dream of, each potent on its own, yet still a fraction of the absolute whole, until every part of your body is both fire and ice, still and storm, and you no longer know if you will live or die or both? But it doesn’t matter because in that moment, you feel all the exquisite things you have ever known—every joy, every climax, every hope, every thing of beauty in your world and the most beautiful one of them all: the woman you love, trusting, trembling, all yours, not by chance but by choice, because you are the only one she wants. So why does it matter if you live or die, when you’re already in the only home you want?” His voice gentles and slows, and his eyes soften. “Is that what orgasm feels like for you now?”

It takes me a moment to be able to respond or even blink, lost as I am in his words, in the impossibility of him. Even then, I barely manage a chirp. “Ah . . . uh-huh . . . yes . . . like that.”

His fingers trail up my waist to my heart, around his dog tags and my locket against my skin, brushing my nipple. My eyes roll in the back of my head a little. “Now imagine adding thirty-five years to that and you will have some idea of how my orgasms feel with you.”

Thirty-five years! I cannot begin to fathom the potency of that. I am barely surviving the beauty of my short, five hours, yet I could never live without their vibrancy ever again. All the life before them seems almost pale grey. And now it’s dazzling like a perpetual sunrise over this new world. Especially because of those last words: with you.

“Wow,” I whisper. He smiles, giving me time or perhaps simply happy to look at me. I stroke his cheek for reality, feeling the soft, vernal glow of his post-orgasm bliss. “And the halo? Does it spark for you too?”

“The halo?” He frowns, and then laughs, low and gentle. “You mean the golden filter you see on my face when you want me?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I already have a silver filter over your face from the painting. You always glow for me, not only when I want you, which of course, is all the time.”

“Oh!” I gasp, my brain finally connecting the dots, seeing the similarity that now seems so obvious I don’t know why I didn’t realize it before. Gold and silver, just two souls shimmering in the same spectrum of light. Even if his will always shine brighter. “I really love this part.” My voice trembles as I kiss the silver strand of hair gleaming at his temple. The thread that turned white overnight after his final battle for us. “I wish I could see the halo over your face all the time too.”

“Hmm,” he muses, and a speculative look falls over his eyes. Slowly, his hand gathers in my hair and tips my head to the side. Then he touches his lips under my jaw, kissing the hollow spot below my ear. “Are you seeing it now?” he murmurs against my skin.

The shimmer flickers like our happy bedroom chandelier. “Yes,” I breathe.

I feel his lips smile as they skim along my jawline to the corner of my mouth. “And now?”

“Uh huh.”

His lips brush mine lightly, and the shimmer trembles with me. “What about now?”

“Mmm . . .”

“You know what the solution is then, don’t you?” he asks, his lips folding with mine.

“Hmm?”

“That I should always . . .” He kisses me between each word in that illegal way that obliterates every single thought, that makes the world whirl. “Always . . .” His tongue traces an infinity loop on my lip. “Every minute . . . of every hour . . . make love to you.”

“Oh!” I cry out as he comes alive inside me again like a second heartbeat. As hard and implacable as five minutes ago, probably with the shortest refractory period known in human history. “I love your mind, Aiden,” I gasp breathlessly, pulling him back to my lips.

“I do too.”

The answer is so easy, so automatic, that we both freeze as we hear the words out loud. The words I never thought I would hear from him. “Y-you do?” My voice breaks with both shock and need.

He stares at me for a moment, considering in similar astonishment. Whatever breaths I was managing stop. I hadn’t realized until now how important this one answer is, as though no victory can be complete without it. I keep my eyes on his, watching as surprise gentles into resolution and then in a slow, inward smile.

“Yes, apparently, I do,” he answers.

The oak rustles around us . . . healed, healed, healed. “Really?” I check again, pinching my wrist.

He brings his hand to my cheek. “Yes, really. How can I not love it when I see you like this? Eyes like violets, sparkling with desire, not tears, your skin flushed silver and ivory.” He turns around his words from earlier about the first time he laid eyes on me.  “The most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I can never hate anything that makes you feel like this. Or anything that now is also a part of you. And I love every part.”

I try to say something, anything, but I can’t. My heart swells, filling up my chest as though my heartstrings alone could hold us up in the air, weightless against gravity. He loves every part of me. And now he loves every part of himself.  Self-love . . . It really came down to that in the end. He may not realize it, but I certainly have.

I launch myself at his mouth, frenzy striking again.

This second time takes us a little longer than sixty seconds. One for our lips to fold together, another for our tongues to dance. Then a frantic race between my hips and his unstoppable hands. I still win on the moans, he wins everything else. My grip loosens on his shoulders, I want to touch him everywhere, but he pulls out and slaps me hard between my legs.

“Hold tight!” He reminds me and waits, suspending me right above his length.

We lose some seconds while I struggle to obey, feverish with need to the point of pain. But as soon I manage to clutch him back, he lowers me onto him with abandon. Up, down, fast, slow. But the deeper we go, the more we still want. Our bodies no longer just remember or absorb. They meld—live, incandescent extensions of each other. His mouth on mine is my taste, his hands on my hips are my flesh, every mind-blowing thrust is my heartbeat. Tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick.  One thrust per second, two, three four. My body builds—even higher than before. Every muscle shakes, my gasps change to a language only Aiden knows.

“Elisa,” he moans, and I know the end is close. And the faster it comes, the more the world slows, spinning, whirling with gold, stillness in the air but inside us only storm, raging, both fire and flood. One more second, one more blow. Until with a final cry, we both explode.

That’s how we come, that’s how we go. With our names in our lips, blindingly and for each other alone. Just like he wrote to me so long ago. Just like we fought for.

We are not big bangs, we are stars that shine on.

In the aftermath, there is only music. Our gasps, our heartbeat, the leaves shushing and whispering. I sink into his chest, my cheek on his heart, on the photo of his mind, listening to the rustle that lulled him through life . . . And happiness shifts again. It becomes us, twined in his tree, two joined oaks of our own, hearts like roots, lips like leaves, minds like crowns, reaching up toward our own open skies, finally healed.

My lips start fluttering of their own volition, kissing every place they can reach—his heart, his neck, his jaw, his lips. He kisses me back too—his mouth whispering warm kisses on my throat, my temple, my mouth, my fingertips. And our bodies begin rising again, fire lighting up every cell like beacons of a new storm on the horizon. How can they not? And how on earth are we ever going to stop?

My stomach is the only one who seems to know that answer. It growls loudly as his teeth graze my lower lip. His chuckle washes over my skin, warm and delicious. “I think we may have found one part of our bodies that wants to leave this tree.”

“The least relevant part.” My body clamps tightly around his—an instinct of some kind.

He tips up my face, his eyes somehow both heated and soft. “We don’t have to go far,” he assures me as though he senses some subconscious emotion behind my reflexive grip before I can understand it myself. “And we have all the time in the world.”

That was it—the old fear behind the instinct. Time. Even if it is no longer racing against us, abruptly I want to hear the truth again in his voice, like he wants to hear it in mine.

“Promise?” I ask him. “That we have all the time in the world?”

He smiles the kind of smile that would stop any clock. “Do you think I’d ever be able to leave this tree if we didn’t?”

That will have to do for now. I will use all the strength I learned during the protein to control this insatiable, frantic desire just a little longer. And then we can be in our happy bedroom, lock the doors, and never stop touching him again until we both drop.

“Okay,” I decide. “Besides, Benson drives fast. We can be home in less than forty minutes.”

The waterfall laughter thrums inside me. “Thirty. I’m surprisingly attached to that number now.”

He has to help me out of my tangle, gently unloosening my stranglehold around him. Kissing my wrists, massaging my shoulders, zipping up my dress, sighing with all the memories it holds for him, from our first night to this first day. Then I help him with his jeans—the same ones as that night, except now they’re a mess from both of us. He laughs and leaves his shirt untucked. Then carefully, more slowly than the race up, with me dangling limply from his neck, he starts the climb down.

When we finally land back on the meadow, me still trembling, I am almost surprised to find the world exactly as we left it: the protein shimmering on its box of Baci quotes, my picnic basket with some fallen petals, the empty playground, the slow Saturday morning. Except it looks different now, brighter, more colorful. As though a dark veil has been ripped away from my eyes. Shakily, I tuck the protein back in its box while Aiden gathers the silky scraps of my knickers that have scattered all over the dewy grass. He kisses the last one and stuffs them in his jean pocket, making me flush.

“Come.” He takes my picnic basket and pulls me to his side. “Let’s get you home so you can eat. Besides, you too have to open your Christmas present. You’re not the only one that can keep secrets.”

That my-all look blazes in his eyes despite the smirk on his lips. Even if the goodbye present can wait forever as far as I am concerned. Maybe I’ll find a way to hide it from him and blame the rose thief.

“I already have everything I need,” I quip, reveling in the absence of tension around him.

“Not everything,” he insists and picks up his pace, abruptly urgent and eager.

As we stride past the playground, the beautiful seven-year-old boy of my imagination laughs and soars at the tiny swing. He looks up at me mid-flight like always and winks, his sapphire eyes shockingly brilliant. Then poof, he disappears.

“Are you alright?” Aiden asks.

I blink up at him startled, not sure I can explain, but then I see his dazzling, luminous eyes. Through all the layers of memories, deep below my turquoise, there is a new, yet familiar light. The purest, newborn sapphire. And I know then where the little boy has gone.

H-o-m-e.

©2022 Ani Keating

NINETY DAYS: CHAPTER 42 – HEALED

Happy Monday, everyone! It’s been a minute because, after dreaming and writing about it for years, I finally made it to England. And not just England, but Oxford, Burford, and the rest of the Cotswolds. I took a writing class right next to the Chemistry Building, I roamed the Ashmolean, I strolled the University Parks and along River Windrush, I stalked every cottage with roses, I ate clotted cream and drank tea and took in every cobblestoned alley I had been imagining, but never seen. I wrote the last scene in a little Inn on Burford’s High Street. And I loved it even more than I love it in my head. More on it soon, but for now, you’ve waited long enough. Here is Chapter 42, written largely at the bench on Lucas Walk where little Aiden saw his parents’ kiss. I hope you enjoy it.  Theme: healing. Song: it has to be Für Elise. Favorite line: “But deep within our hearts, there is always the truth, if we are only brave enough to believe it: love always wins. And in its triumph, it does not die like fire and powder. Love heals.” xo, Ani

42

Healed

This second kiss on the other side is different from the first. Slow, as though we have stopped time. Aiden’s lips fold with mine in a dance, not domination. Soft, tender. I can keep up with him, savoring his fiery flavor. The feeling is like coming home, like returning to myself. And like glowing. Heat smolders deep in my belly and a gold shimmer flames behind my closed eyelids. I melt closer in his warmth, wrapping him with all of me, his air to my air, his skin to my skin.

From somewhere in the distance comes a muffled sound of indistinct voices. And the outside world starts fluttering at the edges of the real one between our mouths.

Aiden kisses my bottom lip, once, twice, nipping it with his teeth, nudging his nose to mine. Then he pulls back with a sigh. His eyes are still brimming with shock and wonder. “Should we go find out how this happened?” he asks, hushed like a bedroom whisper. “Before they decide to trespass us?”

I almost say no—everything can wait, and there is the changing room right next to us—but, underneath his desire, I can see his desperation to make sure this is real. Still too afraid to hope, or perhaps too afraid to wake up. I curl my fingers in his hair so he can feel this is not a dream.

“Yes, but before we go, I want you to know something.”

“What is that?”

“That no matter how this happened, you did this. Not Doctor Helen, not Corbin, not anyone else. This win is all yours. Trust in that.”

His eyes linger on my lips where the words formed, and he tightens his arms around me, still holding me up against the wall. “This win—whatever it is and however it looks like—is all because of you.”

Except there is something else he doesn’t know. Something that will give him the full truth. My gift to him, still wrapped in the small box in my picnic basket that I left in Doctor Helen’s command center.

“You’ll see,” I tell him and kiss his scar.

He looks like he wants to go inside the changing room too, but he sets me down on my shaky feet, holding me against his side, knowing my balance problems after his kissing.

“Come. The sooner we know, the sooner we can be just us.” He smiles, cheered by the thought. “And if it turns out it’s not real, don’t let me wake up.”

“It is real, and I promise to wake you up with these words as soon as you let me.”

That my-all look blazes in his eyes again, almost incapacitating me. I want to ask what he is thinking when he looks at me that way, but not now. This moment belongs only to him.

We start winding down the hallway, our arms around each other, my eyes constantly on his surreal face. It’s still glowing with that faint, candlelit luminosity that it always will hold for me when I feel desire. He looks at me too, his fingers tightening sporadically on my hip as if to test reality. In the one peripheral glance I spare for the outside world, I realize the hall is now entirely empty—we must have nauseated poor Benson, Richard, Doctor Helen, and whoever else ran after me into seeking refuge as far away from us as possible. At other times, I would have blushed brighter than the Reagans. But right now, the only thing I care about is being with Aiden, finally free.

As we reach Doctor Helen’s lab, the tension returns to Aiden’s body. All the memories and doubts start dimming the new light burning in the stunned sapphire eyes. He pauses at the metal doors and looks at me.

“I love you,” he says. “No matter what they say or what this means, nothing will change that part. Do you still believe that after these last two weeks?”

I get lost for a moment in the intensity of his gaze, as though something vital depends on me knowing this before I hear anything else. “I believe it even more. And I love you the same way.”

He kisses my hair and opens the door, waiting for me to go first, still unwilling to let anyone behind his back. I don’t let go of his hand as he follows me inside, hopefully for the last time.

The lab looks exactly like two days ago when I was here—I remember every single wire, beep, and monitor—but now it’s back to its intimidating, white gleam instead of the fantastical, snowy landscape of the protein. The giant screens are still glaring electric blue, each displaying an image of Aiden’s brain from April 12, 1987, and every other scan since then. Doctor Helen is sitting at the long desk with her Van Gogh binder and my picnic basket full of roses, reading her notes. Corbin is above her on the overhead screen, his features crumpled in an abashed expression. As soon as I see their faces, my blood simmers with a strange mixture of anger and gratitude. Anger because they lied to us. Gratitude because where would we be if they hadn’t.

Doctor Helen stands as soon as we walk in. “Ah, Aiden, Elisa,” she starts, gesturing at the two chairs she has set out for us across her desk. “We’re so glad you took a moment to yourselves. If you’re ready, please, have a seat.”

“Where is Benson?” Aiden remembers to check on his friend before anything else begins.

“He’s perfectly alright,” Doctor Helen assures him quickly. “He said he will wait in the car while we finish up here—something about work.”

Aiden nods, and we take the metal chairs that feel too hard and cold to me after his embrace. He grabs my hand, holding it in both of his fists. Abruptly, my conviction becomes fear too. What if I’m wrong? What if this was only an accident, sheer chance, or a simple fluke? What if we cannot count on it to last? How can we survive losing it now that we know how it feels? How can I watch this new light extinguish in Aiden’s eyes, this new life die out before it even starts?

I grip his fingers and cup my other hand over his blanched knuckles. Neither of us is able to speak. We just stare at Doctor Helen and Corbin, waiting while I try to remember how to breathe.

The two doctors must see our sudden paralysis because Doctor Helen rushes to break the silence. She closes the Van Gogh binder, setting it next to my basket, and meets our frozen eyes.

“First, please allow me to apologize to you both,” she begins, her voice low with contrition. The pleading tone is so unexpected, so incongruent with her regal mien that I start in my chair at the dissonance. But there is no question the regret is almost palpable in her liquid, grey eyes. “I wish there could have been another way to test the startle,” she continues. “And I am deeply sorry for the ambush and the fear I caused. Please know that the decision was mine alone. Doctor Corbin, Benson, and my team knew nothing about it until yesterday. I had my reasons for that choice, which I shall explain soon, but now, I’m certain you don’t want to hear my apologies. You want answers about what happened and how is it possible that the startle reflex changed.” She peers at Aiden on that last word, putting volume behind it, as though she can see the shock and doubt rippling through his core.

Perhaps so does Corbin because he intervenes with a similar remorseful expression. “I am very sorry too, for all of it. I don’t feel blameless despite the amazing and incredible results.”

The two doctors nod emphatically in unison, their regret earnest in every blink, but all I can hear is that one word: incredible. Is this change too big to trust or too good to last? My eyes flit to the Clares, still sparking here and there with dew. Make it real, Mum. Make it ours.

“So . . .” Aiden hesitates as though unable to give voice to this fear. “So you both agree that it—the startle . . .”—he forces out the word, his teeth clenching around it— “it has in fact changed?”

“Oh, yes! There is no doubt about that part.” Doctor Helen’s voice rings back to its authoritative note, and I grip Aiden’s fist to stay upright.

He leans closer to me, his body still tense. I can’t feel any flow of breath through his chest. “And this change, could it be . . . just an accident?” The last word is barely audible from his lips.

Doctor Helen’s stately features soften, as if she heard the unspoken dread behind his question. “No,” she answers immediately with decided confidence. “Your reaction was not randomly different. As Elisa so quickly realized, your response was precisely adapted to Für Elise and your nightly dance. There is zero statistical probability that this could be a coincidence. The startle has changed at last.”

My heart inflates, pushing against my ribs, as I clutch Aiden’s fist frantically and sink into him in heady relief.  It’s real, of course it is! And not just luck or chance. It is a change forged deep within Aiden himself. With all his blood, tears, fever, and agony—every reel, every day, every night, every minute. But can it last?

Aiden’s fists do not relax; he does not breathe even as he seems to inhale Doctor Helen’s words like oxygen.

“How is that possible?” he asks.

“Ah, now that is the question, and I believe we know the answer.” The two doctors exchange a nod and, for the first time, the great neuroscientist smiles. Not her barely visible smile, but a full smile I have not seen on her that makes her look decades younger. When neither of us manages to blink or exhale, she continues. “I’ll start at the beginning—the moment when I think the startle began to change: on the night Edison struck.”

“What?” My tongue releases abruptly, and the question tumbles out of me in a choked gasp. Aiden freezes—a flawless statue carved out of ice by my side. His lips fall open in a perfect, silent O of surprise.

“Yes, indeed,” Doctor Helen presses, her smile sparkling an ivory gleam. “That moment of terror went from horrific to hallowed in the end, although of course none of us could have predicted that. You see, when Edison struck that treacherous blow to Aiden’s head, in the exact place as the old rifle injury in Fallujah, in all relevant ways, he replicated the past trauma, down to the details—jagged glass like the broken window in the classroom, dark night like the smoky skies, harming someone Aiden loves, and most crucially, Aiden’s loss of consciousness. By all accounts that should have doubled the trauma and the startle. Yet it didn’t—why? First and foremost, because this time, through the startle, Aiden saved Elisa’s life and his own.  Unlike Fallujah where he was unable to rescue Marshall or himself, or back home when he injured his mother, this time the startle itself became an ally, a savior—not an enemy. And once that happened, Aiden’s mind began reversing a process that started so many years ago in that Fallujah classroom. By chance, intention, and Elisa’s subsequent actions, the entire experience in fact became the opposite.”

She emphasizes that word as though to impart its meaning but my brain is stunned past all basic functions. I look up at Aiden as astonishment starts blending with analysis in his eyes, replaying the past with this new filter.

“The opposite . . .” he muses almost silently to himself.

“Yes, in significant detail,” Doctor Helen explains. “Instead of a bare classroom filled with torture, this time you were in a cozy library you associated only with love. Instead of a rose drawn on a blackboard, there was a real garden full of them. Instead of a prayer on the wall, there was a periodic table. Rather than seeing black smoke, you saw the bright light Elisa flashed into your eyes. Instead of hearing ‘Your death will come soon,’ you heard ‘I love you.’ Instead of falling on a cold, tiled floor, there was a soft pillow that Elisa placed there with her quick thinking.

“And of course, when you woke, that experience was the opposite too. Instead of waking with Marshall’s blood on your lips, you woke to her kiss. Rather than inhaling smoke, you were smelling her. Instead of hearing screams of pain and hatred, you were hearing Für Elise—the melody that calms you the most—as Elisa, in her desperation, was singing it. Instead of seeing Marshall’s broken body, you saw the most precious thing in the world to you: Elisa’s face that gives you peace even in the most profound torment. And instead of failing to save a life, you saved two: Elisa’s and your own. And so the process came full cycle, the opposite from the beginning to the end. That’s when we believe your neural pathways started rewriting themselves . . .” Doctor Helen trails off, her commanding voice lower as she allows us time to process.

I try to follow her explanation but awe is blurring my brain. How can the moments that almost ended us become our salvation? Yet, her words ring with the chime of truth. I can see it in Aiden’s expression as wonder widens his eyes. And something else too: a flicker of h-o-p-e, shining like a light behind his skin now that he hears some reasoning behind the result. But his grip on my hand still does not relax.

“So—” he pauses, as if unsure how to form words. “So because of all that, the violent reflex died that night?”

I look back at Doctor Helen, struggling with the same question, but she shakes her head. “Not quite. I believe it got wounded that night but, on the whole, I think you were right that the violence survived because that original memory of trauma was still very much alive. We can never dismiss the fundamental principle of your memory: the initial one is always the ruler, the decider.”

“But then how?” He frowns, skepticism evident in his voice. “How did the violence end?”

Doctor Helen exchanges a glance with Doctor Corbin on the screen, who grins hugely.

“Because apparently there is a way to change that initial memory even for you,” he answers.

The impact of his words on our side of the desk is staggering. Aiden’s jaw drops, and his fist falls open around my hands. He stares at the two doctors, seeming beyond the powers of his impressive comprehension. Never mind me. I just gape blankly into the white space. Because nothing, absolutely nothing could have prepared me for this. I thought I knew Aiden’s memory better than my own. I thought there was nothing truer in our world than its unchangeability. It’s the reason why we are embedded in each other’s every neuron and heartbeat. The power of his memory has been our creator, our architect, our protector, even our enemy—the soundtrack of our love, like a cerebral Für Elise.

What could be so strong as to change that force?

Aiden is still staring at the doctors, more shocked than I have ever seen him—even more so than minutes ago when the violence itself stopped.

“Excuse me—I think I misheard you. What did you just say?” he asks in a low voice, grasping my hand like an anchor for reality.

I squeeze his fingers back while Doctor Helen smiles her maternal smile. “You heard Doctor Corbin correctly. Apparently even your initial memory can change,” she repeats.

How?” he breathes.

“Only through an equally powerful counterforce.”

Her words, so similar to the question resounding in my head, manage to help me find voice. “And w-what could be such an equal force?” I stammer.

Doctor Helen looks straight at me. “You, child.”

“M-me?” I jump a little at the unexpected word. Did she really say me? She must have because she nods.

I will my mind to make sense of her answer but I can’t. Yet next to me, Aiden comes to life. I can feel the change washing through him in the way his grip softens on my hand, the first deep breath flowing from his lips. Whatever doubts he had, that one simple answer—me—must have resolved them. The shock fades from his expression, leaving behind only awe. He turns to me, his beautiful face triumphant, which doesn’t help me think at all. And his eyes warm with that gaze that has become my entire world.

“Of course!” he murmurs in understanding, a smile lifting the corner of his mouth. “Of course it was you.”

It takes me a moment to remember how to speak, let alone think. “I . . . I’m not following,” I admit, looking away from him reluctantly to the two doctors. “How can I be equal to the strength of Aiden’s memory?”

His fingers trace the PEAC diamonds at my wrist but he lets Doctor Helen explain.

“Remember what I told you both on our very first meeting, Elisa?” she asks, and then proceeds to answer her own question when I barely manage a stupefied huh. “That your calming effect on Aiden is so effective because his own memory gave you that power. When his mind created you during war, it marked you as its equal. It purposefully gave you the ability to calm it, to defeat it. None of us can do that for him like you can—not any kind of therapy invented today. Only you. Because Aiden himself designed it that way.”

I remember now, every word she told me in the command center next to this lab. The hope that rushed through me at hearing that my effect on Aiden is by his mind’s own choice, not just by fate. But how does that give me the power to change his past?

“I’m sorry, but I still don’t get it. Even if my calming effect is powerful, I can’t go back in time and change what happened to Aiden in Fallujah.”

Doctor Helen beams at me. “As it happens, you sort of can.”

“What? How?”

“In ways none of us could have possibly dreamed. Least of all Doctor Corbin and me. We designed this entire experiment based on Doctor Corbin’s brilliant theory that your calming effect was shrinking the snowball of trauma. We believed that if Aiden lived with you in the present, instead of expecting and reliving past horrors, the snowball would not grow further. But we focused so thoroughly on bringing Aiden in your present moment that we didn’t think about the crucial importance of bringing you into his. And even if we had thought about it, how would such a thing be possible? And yet, that’s precisely what you were able to do two nights ago after Aiden completed his final reel. Do you remember?”

A shudder runs through me despite Aiden’s warm hand on mine. I will remember that day with perfect clarity for as long as I live, from every droplet of blood on his blistered palms and every diamond of sweat sparkling on his feverish skin to the scalding agony and that healing, Everestian love still surging inside me as potent as during the protein. Like it always will be.

I blink past the images flashing vividly through my mind. “I remember,” I answer as Aiden wraps his arm around my shoulders.

“Well, you told me on the phone everything you tried to bring Aiden back to the present moment with you. But when it didn’t work, you broke all my rules. You listened to your instinct and made the brave, even reckless decision to enter Aiden’s present moment and follow him inside his terrifying memory. And that changed everything.

“You guided him through the horror in your loving way. Pointing out the positive details that your enhanced mind had been able to perceive during the video. Things none of us had noticed, not even Aiden, because we were all terrorized while watching or living through it. But not you. You saw it all fearlessly because of the protein. And you forced his mind to revise its own memory. You permeated it with your calm, building new associations, new imagery. The market vegetables like wildflowers, the minarets like Oxford’s spires, images that mean something beautiful to you both. You brought your love inside the hatred, your peace inside his war, turning the experience into its opposite. You guided him quite literally through hell with light and faith. And Aiden, now full of something other than terror, was able to focus and follow, feeling for the first time calmer inside that horrific memory. His mind started noticing new angles, new details, new perspectives. It absorbed all that newness, fighting and enduring unfathomable agony until it found the truth, replacing his perceived guilt with innocence. In effect, the initial memory that caused his violent startle in the first place changed itself under your effect and his own raw strength. It became new. And I suspect that’s exactly when the violent reflex was destroyed once and for all.”

Doctor Helen’s voice quiets into a thoughtful silence. Even the digital beeps fade from my ears. Because what she is saying sounds so impossible, yet some place deep inside me recognizes the truth. At the time, I thought I had ruined everything by breaking all the rules. I made Aiden’s agony worse, I added to his fear, I went against the fundamental principles of any experiment. But perhaps sometimes that’s what we need to do—break the rules, write our own, start new. And perhaps at other times, there are no rules at all. Only heart. And we just need the strength to listen to its beat and not give up.

“Wow,” I whisper in wonder—not at myself, but at us. “And so . . .  and so . . . that’s it?”

Doctor Helen smiles. “I believe so. The process was already unraveling from Edison’s blow, but then once that initial memory that caused it was reframed as one of love, peace, and redemption instead of torture, terror, and guilt, the causal connection in Aiden’s brain between startle and violence broke. There was no more reason for it because the underlying threat that prompted the reflex to defend no longer exists.”

“What an amazing force she is,” Aiden murmurs now that I have had time to catch up, his finger caressing the lifeline of my palm. “Does this mean Elisa can change every other memory of pain?” He talks about me with a veneration that makes my cheeks burn but Doctor Helen’s smile shines even more widely.

“For you alone, yes, she can. And if you need proof, think about your reaction last night when you watched the video for the first time. It felt like a new memory, didn’t it?”

“Yes, but I thought that was because it was a new memory. I was, in effect, seeing events from an angle I hadn’t seen before: from Marshall’s body camera.”

Corbin speaks for the first time in a while. “That’s true, but we believe there’s more to it. Think if you had simply heard Marshall’s voice before you completed your fever reel. The sound of his voice alone would have triggered flashbacks for days, if not weeks. Yet, by Elisa’s account, this time, there was nothing but acceptance and grief for a lost friend. And the peace Elisa makes you feel. That’s not only because it was a new memory. It’s because you have healed.”

Healed. The word sounds dreamlike, no matter how true and real I feel it to be. It fills the lab like the lark song, like the willows, like Für Elise. A profound feeling of home settles deep in every cell of me, like we have finally arrived where we fought so hard to be. Whether in an arctic lab or burning schoolyard, a sultry rose garden or blood-soaked dessert, a mournful hilltop or lonely mountain, an English village or American metropolis, a tent or a cottage or a mansion, at peace or in battle, we are exactly how we want to be. Together and healed.

Aiden holds my hand, his eyes full of emotion as he mouths that same word silently to himself. Healed. His breath catches as though the syllables become air and enter his bloodstream. Then he repeats the word again, out loud but still quietly.

“Healed.” Exactly as he murmured “not my fault” two nights ago. And I realize that he is trying to hear it in his own voice.

I squeeze his fingers so he knows it’s real. “Healed, love,” I say it back to him, blinking back tears.

“Healed,” Doctor Helen echoes as though she senses the same thing. “And not only your violent reflex. You are finally healing from a pain I’ve seen in your eyes since you were seven years old.”

The grown warrior blinks up at her, and the years flow between them, from his heavy childhood to this moment. Except even I can see the difference in this reel: the blue sentient depths are lighter.

“So it’s truly over then?” he confirms.

Doctor Helen’s smile glitters pearl and silver. “My indefensible experiment just now proved it. At most, if you are startled, it will trigger memories of Für Elise and you might react to dance to it. But with your learning speed, that should not last long. I suggest you still test it a few more times for your own comfort but yes, it’s truly over.”

O-v-e-r. The four hardest letters for us, second only to t-i-m-e, sing in the ethanol-scented air, musical and free. But they remind me of another question crooning in my brain.

“Why is the startle connected to Für Elise now? I mean, I understand its significance for us but why did Aiden’s mind go straight to my melody when startled?”

“Ah, now that is curious, isn’t it?” Doctor Helen’s eyes spark with fascination. “We wondered the same thing. I believe that, once the violent connection was broken by your calm, Aiden’s memory reacted with what it associates most immediately with rest: the song he has been listening to while sleeping. Your melody obviously played a critical role in his memory healing, although of course, we have no way to measure it.”

I feel my lips turn up in a smile as Aiden’s fingertips tap my palm in a way I know in every pore: the first notes of Für Elise that he has played so many times on my skin. The heat of his touch sends tingles down my spine like music notes on the piano ivory.

Aiden’s fingers twine with mine as they do during our dance. “Speaking of testing, how did you know to run the experiment today at all?” he asks. “I’m grateful you did, of course, but what made you suspect something had changed in the first place?”

I turn to Doctor Helen curiously too, but her face ages back to remorse. “I’m still sorry I kept this from you, but I couldn’t think of another way to hide it so that you could, in fact, be startled. You see, I started suspecting something was changing the morning after Edison’s attack when I scanned the spot where he hit you. There was no internal injury to your brain, that was true, but I could see increased blood flow in the area. Ordinarily, that would mean simple healing. But in your case, it very well could have meant something more. So I didn’t say anything but asked Elisa to walk me through every detail while we were waiting for you—what she saw, what she did, how you reacted. It struck me then how opposite the experience was. And objectively, there was no evidence the startle was the same because it was interrupted mid-progress by your loss of consciousness even if, subjectively, it felt the same to you.”

She gives him a small, apologetic smile, and I remember her cryptic questions and reactions during that meeting. Questions I assumed meant the worst when they were apparently the analysis that saved us.

“That’s when I decided to pretend to agree that the test was off so you would not expect it later,” she continues. “The opportunity was too singular to miss. Our other ideas for startling you became untenable after the attack. Still, it was only a hunch; I wasn’t sure I would actually run the test. The risk to your well-being was too high, but I wanted to reserve the chance. So I tried to bargain for more time or for you to continue the reel, but you wouldn’t, quite understandably. I admit we lost all hope then, given your mental state as the days passed. At that point, we were simply trying to help you survive. Doing all we could, from testing our theories on computer models to speaking with the General and the Marines.”

She pauses, looking a hundred years old, as Aiden tenses at the black memories. They seem so distant now, yet so crystal clear. I can feel the scalding flames licking up my throat at the reminder of his pain. I lean closer into his body to stay in the beautiful, healed present.

“But then Elisa succeeded with the protein and convinced you to start again,” Doctor Helen moves on quickly. “And the most incredible thing happened. She told me about your fever. Only a very powerful mental process could have caused that. Add in the speed at which your memory was processing and your ability to realize your own innocence, and it became quite clear that something was unfolding. I just didn’t know what it was and if it had anything to do with the startle. But I reached out to Benson and Doctor Corbin yesterday to prepare them. Because we all knew this was your final chance. Still, even this morning, I was undecided. Testing you against your wishes for such a traumatic experience goes against all ethics, rules, and conscience. I almost decided against it when you two arrived and I noticed you seemed a little better. Why threaten this new sliver of peace you had found with your innocence? But then Elisa changed everything again. She told me you watched the video without a single trigger. Of course, she was thinking it only meant you had finally laid Marshall to rest, but that was also my clue. The first real proof that something had indeed changed. That’s when I made the decision to test you—only minutes after you went in the antechamber. I sent a signal to Benson, Richard, and Doctor Corbin to confirm it, and you know the rest.”

She shrugs remorsefully again, but I cannot find any anger in me. Only gratitude for her brilliance. I look up at Aiden, and I see the same appreciation in his expression. A slow smile spreads over his face as he looks between the two doctors.

“Well, I’m impressed. I would have never profiled either of you as rule breakers or co-conspirators, and I certainly never expected this. Well-played.”

Doctor Helen lets out a shaky, relieved laugh. “You might be pleased to know it was the single, most difficult trial of my forty-year-long career. So much so that I’m considering retirement. After all, everything else will seem quite boring now compared to your mind.”

Doctor Corbin chuckles too. “Not so fast, Doctor. We might need to work after Aiden fires us. For now, I’m only counting our blessings that he’s not having us arrested for showing Elisa the video. But we would do well to secure some security detail. Only his startle has healed, mind you. His personality is very much exactly how it was.”

And exactly how I love it.

We all laugh together then, with these two generals at our helm, so different, yet so alike in many ways that count. In their intelligence, their care for Aiden, their willingness to take risks for us, their faith in our love. Then slowly, the laughter quiets like the last note on my melody, and both doctors breathe a sigh of relief.

“I suppose all the risks were worth it to see you both laugh like this,” Doctor Helen says.

“Is there any way it can ever come back?” Aiden asks, abruptly tense again.

“I don’t think so.” She opens her Van Gogh binder and pulls out a polaroid, similar to the one of our kiss. “And here is why: this is the last image I took of your brain when you were in the MRI today, processing photos of Marshall. Look for yourself.”

She hands the photograph to him, and we both gasp at the same time. I still don’t know anything about neuroscience, but even I can tell the difference. The dark blue areas in his hippocampus that rage like the vortex of a tornado in all the other historical screens around us are an astonishing azure in this photo, like a summer sky.

“You can still see your incredible recall, perception, and speed right here.” Doctor Helen points to the denser areas. “I was not lying when I said they have not changed. Your memory remains as powerful as the first day I met you. But your automatic reaction to trauma has calmed. The image you have in your hand is what healing looks like for your brain.”

Aiden watches the image mesmerized, tracing the light blue areas with his index finger. “You won,” he says softly, gazing up at me, his eyes shining with pride and victory.

“No, love, you did.”

“But because of your calm and the protein you made for me. And here, we have the evidence to prove it.” He waves the polaroid, then tucks it in his shirt pocket by his heart.

I wait to argue just a little longer because of that something he still doesn’t know, something I want to tell him when we are alone.

The two doctors smile knowingly at me, and I have a feeling Doctor Helen has told Corbin my secret because he amends gently. “I think you both won. I never saw two people fight harder for their love. Aiden with a strength that defied all human limits, and Elisa with a faith I would have never believed.”

“I agree.” Doctor Helen inclines her silver head at us with a dignified nod. “May you live the rest of your days happy and without any fear.”

F-e-a-r.  It’s gone too. Not a single chill left. I feel as invincible as I did during the protein. That sense of infinite possibility sweeps over me, but this time for two. Like there is nothing Aiden and I cannot live through, nothing we cannot conquer after this. He squeezes my hand, and I don’t need his words to know he feels the same. But Doctor Helen’s words remind me of something else.

“There is one thing that is confusing me,” I say, even though that’s an understatement. My head is still spinning with all the discoveries of today.

“Yes?” Doctor Helen invites in the same encouraging way she did when we first met right here in this lab.

“You said it takes ninety days for memories to reconsolidate and change. All this happened on day fifty-five of the reel or sixty-five since Aiden came to England. How could that be?”

All three smile at me now, Doctor Helen indulgently, Corbin excitedly, and Aiden like his entire universe begins and ends with me.

“Actually, Elisa,” Doctor Helen explains. “If you count the first thirty days of your relationship, from the very first moment you entered Aiden’s life in Javier’s art gallery, the change happened right on time.”

Time. The word flows easily without clawing my ear drums, scorching my throat, or ripping apart my chest. There are no shivers scraping my skin, no black river water in my lungs. Willingly, I find the clock on the wall, wanting to remember forever everything from this moment. August 22, 10:05 in the morning. The minute that time stopped racing against us. Two days before the anniversary of when I landed in America and when Aiden bought his home, four years ago. Funny thing, time. I smile, watching the seconds tick away without any pain. Entirely healed myself.

“Is there something else?” Doctor Helen asks, following my eyes to the clock.

I shake my head because right now I only want one thing: to be alone with Aiden.

He must want the same thing too because he wraps his arm around me. “We need to go, but first, we brought something for you. Elisa’s idea.” He gestures to the picnic basket, and I remember what he means. I reach for it and gather the Clares and his heartfelt note for Doctor Helen, wishing we had known to send something to Doctor Corbin too.

She takes the bouquet from me, her regal face lightening at the blooms. “I was dearly hoping these were for me. It’s like having a piece of Clare right here with us in this moment, just like she was the day I met Aiden.”

“Then you will have one of her roses on your desk every day for as long as they bloom. But there is something even better inside the envelope.”

“Ah, in her stationary too.” She brushes the initials, opening the envelope carefully.

I watch her sharp, grey eyes glisten as she reads the words Aiden wrote this morning. I hear her intake of breath as she reaches the part about him being grateful he cannot forget. And I feel her wonder as she looks up at him—a scientist, a mentor, a friend. “Oh, Aiden. You were already accepting who you are even before you knew you had healed.” She picks out the most important message from his note. Then she rises to her full height and rounds her desk to give him a hug, roses and all. “That is a much better victory than any of my experiments could ever give.”

He did not expect her words or embrace, that much is obvious from his wide eyes. But he holds her a moment as he does with his mum even if her touch still strains him. It probably will for a while after all this time. A pink petal flutters from a Clare behind his back, kissing his tense shoulder and floating to the floor in a celestial dance.

“You know—” Doctor Helen looks at us both— “if I must believe in fate as Aiden wrote, I’m quite glad to start with your happy ending.”

F-a-t-e. We really will have our happy ending, won’t we? We were never Romeo and Juliet as I thought. We have always had a healing kind of love. From how we began to how we go on, in every breath and every heartbeat, Aiden saved me and I saved him. He is my strength, I am his peace. I gave him meaning, he gave me my dreams. And in the end, we kept our hearts beating.

But we are not Dante and Beatrice either. We are real, not ideal. We have flaws, we make mistakes, we rise, we fall. We are Aiden and Elisa.

And our violent delights do not have violent ends after all. Boulders don’t whisper tragedies or prophecies. They only whisper our fears. But deep within our hearts, there is always the truth, if we are only brave enough to believe it: love always wins. And in its triumph, it does not die like fire and powder. Love heals.

Aiden’s subdued, piano voice pulls me back from my epiphany. “Thank you,” he tells the two doctors. “For everything.”

“It was my privilege.” Doctor Helen bows her head in her restrained, majestic way.

“And my pleasure,” Corbin agrees, closing his notepad and dimming his desk light. Behind him, Portland’s night is still deep, hopefully giving our families good dreams until we can wake them up with our reality. Abruptly, I wish we were there or they were here so we could all be together, like families are meant to be.

We say our goodbyes then, Corbin promising to check on us next week, and Aiden promising a proper thank you for them both. I cannot fathom the sums of money that will be involved behind that gratitude. The two doctors very well might retire after that. With a last glance at the lab of his childhood, the glowing monitors displaying his mind, the red button that could incinerate his brain, Aiden takes my hand and we follow Doctor Helen outside.

But as we come out, we both stagger in another surprise. Right before us, lining the long, polished hallway to the lift, are Doctor Helen’s entire team of scientists. At least twenty white coats, from Richard, who no longer seems like a bear to me, to Old Morse, closest to Master Aiden. I recognize the nine who have been with us in meetings, but the others are new. Or rather new to me. Clearly, Aiden recognizes them. The tectonic plates in his eyes shift with memories as he looks at their faces. And I realize these must be other neuroscientists who have worked on his case over the last twenty-eight years.

As soon as they see Aiden, they start to clap, unafraid of startling him with their unannounced cheer. I can see his emotion underneath the shock sculpting his features. I’m sure it’s not because he is not used to applause—the military, communities, businesses, even my own little college have honored him so many times before. For his service, his philanthropy, his career. But it’s clear he never dreamed anyone would applaud him for this, not for what he has done, but for who he is.

“They all wanted to be here once they heard,” Doctor Helen says. “Especially Old Morse.”

At the mention of his name, the wispy man shuffles forward, hunched and quivery, looking up at Aiden with a wizened smile. “Well, well, well, Master Aiden.” He takes out a weathered chess piece from his lab coat pocket, and I see it’s a birchwood, scuffed-up king. “I know you remember this.”

The memories deepen in Aiden’s eyes as he reaches for the scruffy figure. “From your old chess set, the first game we played.”

“Yes, you brought your own after that—a beautiful one, it was too. But this kept you still that first day, didn’t it? Even if I lost every game to a seven-year-old.”

And now I know how this Mr. Plemmons got the little boy to sit for all the electrodes. “I don’t think it was the king, Morse,” Aiden answers. “It might have been the hands that moved it.” He grasps the frail hand gingerly so he doesn’t bruise it with his strength.

The old man’s eyes—watery with age—crinkle at the corners. “Well, you’re certainly still at last.” And he rests the war-torn king on Aiden’s palm.

“Thank you,” Aiden tells him. “And not just for the games.”

“Don’t be a stranger now. I have to get to know this lovely lady before I pop my cogs.” Old Morse grins at me, patting Master Aiden’s elbow, and bobs away.

Carefully, Aiden tucks the old king in his shirt pocket with the image of his new mind. It reminds me of the paper clues he placed there when we were at Chatsworth during our treasure hunt. Except this one is a boutonniere of healing.

Doctor Helen pats his arm lightly. “Go on. You have a lot to celebrate, not the least of which is Elisa’s promotion.”

“Promotion?” Aiden’s eyes flash at me in confusion. “What promotion?”

It takes me a moment to remember life before healing, and what she means. “Oh, right, I forgot! I’ll tell you later. It’s not really a promotion.”

“Well, I think it will be,” Doctor Helen counters. “Come by the house after you’ve settled. We can raise a toast to everything and Aiden can tell me how he really feels about that video. I don’t think I’ve heard the last of it.”

It hits me then. There is a life ahead. We can talk about the future without terror. We can choose. We can make plans.

The realization shoots through me like bravery. I throw my arms around Doctor Helen’s waist like I would have never dared without the protein. “Thank you. Don’t worry about the video. We love you.”

One of the roses nudges my head as she hugs me back. Her rare, voluminous laugh follows us into the lift with the neuroscientists’ handshakes and Old Morse’s wave.

As soon as the lift doors close behind us, Aiden takes me in his arms, tipping up my chin.

“What promotion?” he asks again. “What did I miss?”

All the worry about telling him about Graham is gone now, as if his healing cured every fear that ever existed. “Well, as I said, it’s not a promotion at all; it’s a recommendation. Graham decided he needs some leave to recover from the mess with the monster, which will be good for him, so he recommended me as temporary manager of Bia until he returns. Oh, and he gave me this sweet note my dad had written to him for his first experiment. That’s what helped me solve the protein.”

As I thought, the news of me without Graham doesn’t worry Aiden now. For the first time since before the monster struck, Aiden’s lips lift into my favorite, lopsided smile. More dazzling than I’ve ever seen it, the dimple finally glitters on his cheek. Like a star that had imploded has reformed to glow in this new universe just for Aiden and me.

Softly, his hands cradle my face. “You solved bravery all on your own. And there is nothing temporary about you. You are timeless in every way.”

Time . . . less.  The word rings defiantly against our old enemy, triumphant at last. I try to think of something witty to say back, but I can’t. My mind is so full of him, there isn’t room for anything else.

“When will you see that?” He caresses my cheek, not releasing my stare.

It takes me the rest of the lift ride to unscramble my brain, but he waits, seeming happy to just look at me. “Umm, when you see that you won all on your own,” I answer. “Which will be in a few minutes.”

He chuckles like he used to, with a free, deep sound. I get lost in the music, more beautiful than Für Elise. “How about congratulations first? Because I’m sure you will be the next manager of Bia. You can do anything.”

But do I want to manage Bia? Now that we have horizons of possibilities, that a whole new world is ours—without deadlines, ghosts, wars, ICE, or reels—what do I want to be?

“We’ll see. Right now, I only want to think about us.”

His eyes smolder with that my-all look that has kept me alive these last twenty-four hours. “Us,” he agrees, taking my hand and we step out into the lobby.

A few researchers have arrived despite the early Saturday morning, zooming around with their white coats like paper planes. Aiden freezes out of habit, scanning the space, his body reacting faster than his mind after decades of razor vigilance. Tension ripples over him with instinctive guard—not for himself, for others. But it only takes a moment.

Then I watch with a trembling heart as his mind catches up, his memory firing the truth to him: there is no danger here, you are healed. I can see it all on his clenched jaw as it softens, in his eyes as they lighten, gazing at the white hall before him. Just regular walls and ceilings and people he can no longer hurt. And that set of double doors like pearly gates, waiting to open into the new world.

“Come,” I whisper, squeezing his hand. “You’re ready.”

He looks at our joined hands, and his fingers tighten around mine. “We are.”

And we step out of the lift, weaving, half-tense, half-awed through the scientists. Each time one passes by us, a new lightning bolt of tension strikes through Aiden’s shoulders. And each time, I see him overcome it. Step by step, inch by inch. I rest my head on his bicep to add my calm as always. He pulls me close, kissing my hair, but I know it’s not because he needs me for this. He wants me. And because of that, this simple touch—just his arm around my waist, the slight pressure of his lips—means so much more.

In a few small steps—but so big for us—we reach the double doors. Instantly, Aiden’s old neurons command him to stop, let me go through first, safe from him. But that is not our life anymore.

“You first,” I tell him.

He hesitates, muscles flexing automatically against the idea, coiling with the instinct to protect me from himself. I kiss his granite bicep and wait, not caring who else needs to come and go. But his impossible mind doesn’t take long. New, healed neurons fire again, overruling the fear pathways. Aiden straightens his shoulders and grips the steel door handle. Such an ordinary gesture for others, so extraordinary for him. With a deep breath, Aiden opens the door. The morning breeze blows in, smelling of linden and clover. I smile secretly to myself. Linden, the tree of Aphrodite, symbol of love and fidelity. And a little bit of luck for his first breath outside.

The breeze dances again, caressing his face.

“It’s time, love. You’ve earned it.” I nudge the small of his back gently.

He looks around at the clinical building that has dissected, scanned, and imprisoned him over the years. Memories darken his eyes again, but only for a heartbeat. Then he turns his back on the sterile walls and his foot slides forward. Yet something about the motion must not satisfy him because he pauses and turns to me. The brilliant, dimpled smile bursts over his face like sunrise over the horizon.

“I like it better with you,” he says. And before I can blink, he sweeps me his arms, carrying us across the threshold on the same step.

I laugh, winding my arms around his neck and kissing his scar. “And what now?”

“Now this,” he answers, and brings his mouth to mine. Kissing me right here in front of the door, as deeply and slowly as though we are alone.

In the last wisp of thought, I remember something he told me long ago, on his bed in Portland, when he was so torn between loving me and letting me go. What do you want? I had asked him. His eyes stilled then, became translucent with dreams, with all the things he couldn’t have. Kiss you in broad daylight, he had answered, not caring who is around us.

So I kiss him back hard, right here on the threshold of our new life. If anyone is waiting or tsking or laughing or clearing their throat, I don’t know it. The only thing that exists for me is making his dreams true, giving him everything he can finally have.

He started this kiss, and he has to end it. There is no question of me breaking away. He pulls back to look at me, his eyes exultant. But underneath the victory is a deep love, mirroring my own.

“It’s real,” I tell him, like I promised.

He smiles with the dimple. “You’ll have to tell me at least another million times.”

“That suits me.” I reach closer and bring my mouth to his ear. “It’s real, it’s real, it’s real.”

His chuckle caresses my temple and flurries in my hair. He steps away from the door, still carrying me in his arms. As we pass, his shoulder brushes the steel frame one last time. Goodbye.©2022 Ani Keating

NINETY DAYS CHAPTER 41: REAL

Happy Monday, friends! What can I say about this chapter? If I had the words, I would have given them to Elisa, but I don’t. Every. Single. Thing in the story has led to this.  Theme: “at last.” Song: just a heartbeat. Favorite line: “At the end of all things, how do you find a beginning?” I hope you enjoy it. Love, Ani.

41

Real

I try with every blink to stay awake but as soon as we get home and cuddle on the sofa together to watch It’s a Wonderful Life, a deep feeling of safety overpowers me, and I pass out despite sleeping all day. When I next open my eyes, dawn is filling the living room with a soft periwinkle light. But time is the only thing that has changed. I am still exactly where I was: curled up under the fluffy blanket, in Aiden’s arms, his lips in my hair as though he has been holding me all night.

I look up at him immediately, a different kind of glow sparking inside, but he too has fallen asleep to the low sound of Für Elise. The auroral light casts his face with a forget-me-not tint. A glimmering thread of sun weaves through his black hair, longer now with the passage of summer. And his lips are parted, a dream flitting quickly under the golden eyelids.

So vulnerable, the air trembles in my throat at the sight. Because underneath the beauty is the staggering cost of the war he fought for us. More visible now that he is adrift in the currents of subconscience. His sculpted cheeks have hollowed, drawn in as though from a prolonged illness. Deep purple shadows circle his eyes. And for the first time, I notice a strand of silver at his temple. Like a brushstroke from the Old Aiden of my happily-ever-after visions. Visions that will only ever remain a fantasy.

I shut down the thought at first flash, closing my hands in fists against the urge to caress his face, to wake him with a kiss. Because today is our meeting with Doctor Helen. How do you wake up from peace for a war you have already lost? How do you open your eyes into the daylight that makes it real? At the end of all things, how do you find a beginning?

I press my lips lightly on his T-shirt and inch out of his arms very slowly so he stays in dreams until he has to face that reality. And until I prepare everything I can to make it easier for him.

The magic of our embargo still twinkles everywhere around us, with a different beauty in the daylight. Like a pale, gossamer moon in blue, sunny skies. My unopened tomorrow present shimmers underneath Aphrodite’s branches. Except it’s today. Abruptly, my stomach twists at the idea of opening it. Because that would be the end of the magic, wouldn’t it? Not to mention this razor fear that this is his goodbye gift.

“Not yet. It’s still embargo,” I mutter to myself so I can breathe. Then I pick up my phone and pad silently up the stairs to get ready, including my present for him. From the corner of my eye, I glimpse the time on the screen unwillingly. Six thirty on Saturday, August 22—only two hours until the meeting. It’s just a check-up after the fever, I assure myself repeatedly. Nothing new, nothing we don’t know. But the fire in my chest isn’t listening. Because I remember the finality in Doctor Helen’s voice on the phone two days ago, her silence, so similar to my parents’ funeral. This is not just a check-up; it’s when science officially gives up. I trip on the landing and rush to the loo, prayer humming in my mind as though it has been drumming uninterrupted all night. Someway for us, please, somehow.

But there are no codes or formulas for this, only indefinable instincts and the frantic beat of my own heart. I jump in the shower, trying to focus at least on the things I understand. How to lather, how to rinse, how to help Aiden today, my gift for him. Another secret he needs to know. And the last plan the protein laid for me.

I dry off roughly, brush my teeth, and shuffle down the hall to our happy bedroom. It waits like always—roses in the air, the white curtain blowing from the open window, the empty bed missing its pillows and sheets that are now in the guestroom, the defeated poppies of our weapons. I dive headfirst inside the closet to shut out the image. Intuitively my hands grasp the same navy dress I wore on our first date—the day of the painting, the day when we chose each other over reason. I throw it on with my PEAC diamond bracelet, the locket, and Aiden’s dog tags underneath. And then I do the same for him. His briefs and jeans from our first kiss, and the white button-down shirt he was wearing before our first sleep. A mosaic of us, of moments when we chose our hearts. Then I dig up the small cardboard box I hid deep behind mum’s journals with some other treasures, and slither downstairs to the library.

The precious room is healed as though Edison never wrecked it—the window replaced, the rug of planets clean, the chess game finished in the corner, its flower glass case sparkling freely on the shelf. Only dad’s microscope is still absent, in evidence against the monster. I start printing, stuffing, and wrapping the box with shaking fingers, each wisp of tissue a kiss, a touch, a tear. How will Aiden feel when he opens this? Shocked, yes—as deep a shock as his discovery about Fallujah. Maybe even angry with me. But I know like I know his every heartbeat that it will be good for him. He has the truth; now he needs the faith in himself. Yet even as I try to prepare him for our end, my mind plays the same constant refrain: somehow for us, please, someway.

“Elisa?” Aiden’s alarmed voice comes from the foyer as soon as I paste the last strip of tape on the gift.

“Yes, love, I’m right here!” I call back, tucking the present in my purse and tossing the wrapping materials in the bin before he can see them. He strides through the library door in seconds, hair tousled, the entire sky lightning in his eyes when he sees me. And instantly, the burning pain in my chest heals. “Morning!” I smile, launching myself at him, greedy as usual for his touch.

“Good morning.” He sighs with relief and wraps me in his arms, pressing his lips hungrily in my damp hair. I can tell from the way his tension softens around me that this is the first breath he has taken since opening his eyes.

“How are you feeling?” I ask, kissing his heart through his T-shirt.

He tips up my face so he can look at me. “Better now that I see you.”

“Me too, but I mean . . . about this meeting.”

He forces a smile for my benefit, but deep in the turquoise depths, I see the pain he is trying to hide. “I already know what they’ll tell me, Elisa. The reel served its purpose—it’s done. There’s nothing more they can do to change what’s left.”

The startle—the only thing we could not overcome. I tighten my hold around his waist. “You know what else they can’t change?”

“What’s that?”

“It was not your fault. You are home. And you are loved. And there’s nothing more important than that. Do you understand?”

A true smile curves the corner of his mouth—no dimple, but it’s that quiet smile of this other side. “I’m starting to,” he answers and pulls me back in his chest.

He holds me like this for a while, swaying as we do with Für Elise, just us on the rug of planets, our feet on Venus, our bodies wrapped in the first rays of run. On the wall, the atomic clock is ticking, but I focus only on his heartbeat. Thunderous and fast. Because of our touch or what’s coming?

“Were you able to rest at all, crammed up in the sofa like that?” I ask, looking up at him.

He strokes my hair, sending an electric current over my skin. “Elisa, I was able to sleep with you in my head through Baghdad’s raids. Of course I did in a comfortable couch with the real you next to me. How about you? Have you been up for a while?”

“Not long. Just enough to bring my hair under submission before I can be seen in public.” I point to my head as an exhibit.

“You look beautiful,” he murmurs, and for the first time this morning, his eyes leave my face. Descending over my body, catching fire when he notices my outfit. Just like that first night, except stronger, fueled with the force of time. “Ah, this dress . . .” His fingers trace the hem, brushing my thigh. The flame is in his touch too; it sweeps under my skin, heating my blood. The bedroom glow suffuses my vision with the candlelight filter that will always bind us in secret.

“I thought we could use the memory today,” I breathe, my voice evaporating in my mouth.

“And what memory is that?”

“A memory of us . . .” I barely hear my voice through the pulse hammering in my ears. “When we were a little selfish.”

His arm winds around my waist, arching me to him. His body heat seems to melt through the fabric of my dress. “Mmm . . .” he whispers, lowering his face until he kisses the hollow spot at my collarbone. “Very selfish.”

“Not . . .” I start but his lips trail up my throat to the corner of my jaw, and I lose my train of thought. All I can feel is the four seasons thrumming inside my body. A spring of tingles blossoming on my skin. Summer heat smoldering in the bottom of my belly. Winds of autumn blowing through my lips. And a quiver of winter in my spine, each molecule melting like snow under his touch.

“Yes?” he prompts, his lips brushing my earlobe.

It takes all my faculties to remember my answer. “N-not selfish enough.”

“No?”

“No.”

His lips flutter along my jawline. “More?”

“Most.”

“Hmm . . .” he murmurs, stopping at the corner of my mouth. His breath is coming hard and fast against my lips. Mine has stopped entirely. Will he break his rules just this once? If he is still being selfish?

“D-did you change your mind?” The question trembles out of my lips.

He pulls back with a pained sigh, eyes on fire, hands in fists at my waist. I can feel the strength of his acute restraint in his grip. “No, my mind changed me,” he answers, his voice rough with his own need.

I try to make sense of this words but I can’t think past the heated gaze. “What do you mean?”

He draws a deep breath, shaking his head.  “Let’s get this meeting with Helen out of the way first. Then you can open your today gift and we need to talk.”

T-a-l-k. The four seasons freeze into a deep winter chill. The lovely glow extinguishes from my vision. “Talk about what?” I whisper.

“Us.”

The library tilts at an odd angle with panic, but his eyes take on that my-all look that immediately heals me. The one I have been waiting for subconsciously even while asleep. It steadies me without knowing how or why. As though nothing can touch me while this look is on me, not even time.

“Okay, but no hard talks, please?” I answer, clutching his arms for balance. “It’s still embargo after all. And you too have a little surprise for later.”

He brushes my cheek, a smile winking at the corner of his lips. “Of course you have a surprise for me, but I think I might win this one.”

As much as I want him to win everything, there is zero chance of that in this case. “You wish.”

He chuckles, but his eyes stir with truth. “Yes, I do.” The words are simple but there is something fervent, almost desperate about them. Before I can understand the deep emotion smoldering beneath the surface, he strokes my face again. “Let me just take a shower and get ready. Benson will be here in half an hour.”

Oh, right! Time starts again, and I remember what we still need to live through. “Here, I picked your clothes too. Better than the ones you wear for the reel, I think.” I reach for the folded stack on the desk—his arm stays around me—and hand it to him.

His expression softens as he recognizes the mementos immediately. “You chose good memories for me too.”

“Yes, I wanted you to feel only love on your skin today. And I put my love letter right here in your jean pocket.” I fish out the origami rose of the note I wrote to him during the protein. “I thought it would be good for you,” I explain, my voice lower with the potency of the brave love still surging utterly unchanged through my body.

He strokes the paper rosette as he would one of the Elisas. Then he leans closer and kisses my forehead. “You are good for me.”

The words trill against my skin, as though a different pulse beats there that responds only to him. “And you for me.”

I expect him to argue despite the embargo, but he just smirks knowingly. “Eat something before we have to go. I won’t be long.”

L-o-n-g. I hold the word inside my lungs, breathing it in. He strides out of the library with something in his eyes, like an unfinished thought. What was it? Is he still reaching for hope, allowing himself another selfish day? Or is the talk he is planning just reality returning because every magic has to end? Abruptly, the chime of the wall clock seems to pierce my eardrums, so I run straight to the kitchen to make breakfast. On each step, the same frantic refrain throbs in my head. Somehow, please, someway.

Sunshine is filling the little kitchen with a profuse light, brightening the creamy cabinets, dulling the glint of the breadknife. All corners seem more rounded under the molten haze, as though this dawn is softening the sharpness out of the world. I start Aiden’s coffee and my tea, and prepare some dippy eggs with soldiers, wishing futilely I had more time for everything: to cook his favorite pancakes, to find a way, to convince him that a half-life together is fuller than any long life apart. But as always, the more I will the clock to slow, the faster it races ahead. Tic toc, tic toc toward eight thirty, toward the white flag.

I tuck the eggs in their cups, butter the toast, and set everything on the table. Then I arrange some blueberries to spell A&E on our plates and turn to another present. Hard in its own way. Because there is a goodbye today: Doctor Helen. She will still be here, I know that—we’ll have tea, we’ll go for strolls at University Park, she will even get her last scan on September eighteen—but our fight is over. After twenty-eight years of trying to save Aiden, science has surrendered.

The idea sets the flames raging in my chest so I cut up some of the best Clares from the windowsill, still sparkling with dew. I consider briefly warning her that Aiden knows about the video, but that feels wrong now, disloyal. He handled his anger so well last night. I just hope he can do the same when he actually sees her face.

“More selfish reminders for breakfast?” Aiden asks, walking into the kitchen. I wheel around, and there he is, in his white shirt and jeans, wet curls on his forehead, a ray of smile on his lips as he looks at our fruit initials like they are Javier’s unfinished masterpiece of me.

“Always,” I answer. “Even if you don’t need reminders.”

“It’s nice to get them just the same.” He strides to me and pulls me in his arms, as though every second apart was burning him as much as it was scalding me. His freshly showered scent stuns everything, even the Clares. “What are you doing with all those roses?” He nods toward the arranged long stems.

Uh oh. I stroke his neck for added calm . . . or distraction. “They’re just a little thank you for Doctor Helen with a note from us. I know you’re still angry with her about the video, but I think we should let it go.”

His eyes widen in disbelief like I just told him to sell Hale Holdings. “Elisa, if you expect me to say nothing to her about that, I’ll first have her scan your brain, not mine.”

A dozen arguments flicker through my head, but abruptly I don’t want to win this on logic. I don’t want to argue at all. I just want us to listen to our hearts. Because I can’t shake off this instinct that this is the only way for us, even if I don’t know how.

“Please, Aiden?” I trail my fingers down his chest to feel the thud-thud-thud there. “I don’t want this chapter of your life to close in anger. I want it to be with kindness and love because that’s who you are. Let’s just think only of the good things and how hard she fought for us.”

At that big little pronoun or perhaps the plea in my voice, the conflict dissolves in his eyes. He draws a deep breath, blowing his delicious cinnamon scent over my lips. “Alright,” he sighs. “I can’t argue with that feeling. Come on, we’ll write her note together while you eat.”

“Thank you,” I say, kissing his heartbeat. A light shudder runs through him.

“No, thank you for always guiding me to the right thing.” He kisses my hair again and carries me to the table.

We sit together, side by side, arms touching, thighs brushing, our breaths mingling through our lips. I give him mum’s stationery and rest my head on his shoulder, watching his pen glide across the parchment like it did in his tent, scribing words that only Aiden knows how to write. Except these words are from us.

Dear Doctor Helen,

This is not the card we had hoped to write. And we know it’s not the card you wish you could have received. But it is the truth of what we have and what you helped us achieve.

We came to you with love, and you gave us hope.

We came with dreams, but you gave us reality.

We came with fear, and you led us to bravery.

And for me, I came to you as a child, wanting to forget, and I am leaving as a man, grateful I can remember.

You say you don’t believe in fate. There was a time when neither did I. But apparently even I am capable of change. So despite all the pain, I have to thank gods and stars for a path that started with you and ended with the greatest love of my life.

For every time you fought alongside us, thank you.

Aiden

He sets his pen down, turning the page toward me. “Is this what you had in mind?”

I shake my head from my spot on his shoulder, swallowing back tears at the difference I see behind each word. “No, I could never have found words like this. Are you really grateful you can’t forget?”

“Now that I know you, yes.” He looks at me again with his life-giving look. It shoots like adrenaline through my system with his words, and I throw my arms around him. Because here is our win even in the war we lost. His self-acceptance, his freedom from guilt, his selfish deeds . . .

“I love you,” I whisper, kissing the pulse at his neck. The bands of muscle relax under my lips despite the suddenness of my attack.

He chuckles and brings me on his lap. “As I love you. Did you want to add something to the letter?”

“No. What you wrote is perfect. I’ll just sign my name.”

I pull back just enough inches to pick up his pen and scrawl my name quickly next to his. Then I turn to him again, but he is looking at our joined names with a curious expression in his eyes.

“What is it?” I ask, checking to make sure I didn’t forget how to spell.

He blinks back at me, shaking his head. “I’m regretting agreeing to this meeting at all. There are a lot more important things to do with this time.”

How can I disagree with any of that when I feel the same? Abruptly, I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here on this rickety chair with him, inhaling his clean scent, feeling his lips at my temple, and kissing his neck again. Then maybe he will be selfish enough and kiss closer to my mouth. And I will be brave enough to touch his lips. I’m about to tell him to break his promise, but the doorbell jingles and the moment is over.

Aiden sighs. “That will be Benson. Why don’t you wrap up here while I let him in?”

“You didn’t eat at all,” I grumble as he slides me off his lap reluctantly.

He swipes a few blueberries from the E and tosses them in his mouth. “I’m partial to these.” He brushes my cheek and goes to open the door. I can hear him talking with Benson while I tuck everything I need in my basket and grab my purse with the precious box still hidden inside.

When I come out, our Big Ben is towering on the threshold in beige slacks and an off-white shirt, not his usual dark palette. The sandy colors trigger a flashback of the video so I try to find his smile, but he is looking tensely at Aiden, no doubt worried about him.

“Morning, Benson. How was your night?” I greet him.

“Just fine. How about here?”

“Don’t worry, Benson. We actually got some sleep.” Aiden settles the score quickly as he locks the front door.

“Glad to hear it,” Benson answers, but his anxious eyes don’t relax.

“Thank you for taking the red roses to the hilltop,” I add, patting his colossal arm for distraction. “They were beautiful.”

“I can’t take credit. The Plemmonses gave me their best once they heard where I was taking them.”

“Of course you can take credit. Here—a little something for you from across the pond. We love you.” I hand him a bag of treasured cookies from our care package, decorated with frosted roses. Merry Christmas forever, I add in my head. The idea of saying goodbye to Benson—our protector and closest friend—sets my throat on fire so I shut down the thought immediately. Not yet, not today.

Aiden pulls me closer as though he felt the scorching flames.

“Ah, well, thanks,” Benson grunts, still tense, and swallows a cookie whole. I think he wants to ask me if the secret invention helped, if my mysterious plan worked, but he must decide against it with Aiden here. I give him a smile to calm him. He doesn’t smile back but leads the way as we set off down the garden path.

At the hedge, Aiden reaches behind the farthest shrub, and suddenly I realize something that should have occurred to me already. At last, the reel is leaving us. Doctor Helen already conceded that. And even though this surrender is torching us both, I know not a single cell of ours will miss the evil monitor. For the first time since I saw it, I breathe with relief when Aiden brings it out even though it’s hidden back inside its original box and out of my sight.

“We might as well return this.” He tucks the box under his other arm, away from me. “No reason to keep it here another minute.”

“Not one,” I agree, grabbing his free arm and picking up our pace in Benson’s quiet wake so the box leaves his fingertips as soon as possible.

There is a crispness in the air, a stillness. As though the world is holding its breath. No breeze, the lark hiding somewhere in the beech leaves. Even the willow song sounds more muted than usual, but I can still hear its quiet aria like Stella did. Somehow, somehow, somehow. It follows us across Elysium like a hymn. I clutch Aiden’s arm as our shadows glide over the purple orchids and the forget-me-nots. Neither of us looks at the scar of the reel on the meadow, where the wildflowers have wilted from the blaze of Aiden’s fever. I will revive them tonight—replace them if I need to—so none of its images will ever touch his retinas again.

At the edge of Elysium, Benson’s black Rover gleams against the country road. As soon as we reach it, I climb in the back seat quickly, curling next to Aiden who stashes the box on the front seat. But he has barely closed his door, when his phone beeps in the notes of Für Elise. He takes it out, frowning at the text banner on the screen—from James.

Callahan: “Sorry I missed your calls, brother. Are you home?”

“Finally,” Aiden mutters and thumbs back a quick reply: “No, on our way to see Helen. All fine but need to talk to you. Will you still be up in about two hours?”

James doesn’t hesitate. “Yea, you sure everything’s fine? Your message said something about hell day.”

“Yes, but it’s good for once. I’ll call when we’re done.”

He finishes texting with James and pulls me on his lap, exactly where I want to be. “Sorry about that. I’ve been trying to reach him to tell him what you helped me discover.”

I caress his scar, worry gnawing at my nerves that he will have to re-live it again. “Eventually you’ll believe me that you discovered it on your own, but I’m glad James is about to find some peace too.”

“Yes, he will,” he answers quietly, still adjusting to this reformed universe where he knows he didn’t cause his brother’s death. He is just a man with wounds, finding his way back to himself. And there is one thing left to help him with that. One thing the protein helped me see above all else. He will know it very soon. Then maybe our end will be survivable for him. And maybe, just maybe, he might stay with me once he sees who he truly is? I try to smother the silent question before it kills me, but it keeps singing in my ears like a siren. Maybe this is our somehow, someway.

“Ready, sir?” Benson checks in the back mirror, still tense behind his aviators.

Aiden looks at me for a moment with a sort of determination, then his arms lock around me like a safety belt. “Yes, Benson, we are.”

And then we are off in the lilac dawn.

It’s a quiet drive, me trying to stay present, Aiden staring out at the emerald hills, his fingers tracing my face over and over. Every few moments, he kisses my hair, my temple, my forehead, the inside of my wrists. I do the same with him—I can’t stop myself even though I know it will hurt me later. I kiss his bicep, his shoulder, his fingertips. It’s as though our lips have transmuted into their own heavens. Rotating around each other’s mouth, helpless against its gravity as we shine our last rays, pulling inexorably toward that final kiss, knowing it will turn us into stardust yet unable to resist it.

But as we enter Oxford’s boundary, reality crushes in with its inevitability. The iron tension grips Aiden’s shoulders, and agony begins to sear my insides. The flimsy fragments of fantasy vanish. And the air becomes heavier in my lungs.

Outside the window, Oxford’s heartline shimmers closer and closer. The domes and spires are gleaming pink-gold with the sunrise. Just petals glowing in the horizon. Rosy clouds wreathe the clock tower, and it’s impossible not to imagine mum’s arms reaching down from the lilac sky to protect the seven-year-old boy who grew up.

“I think Mum is putting on a show for you,” I tell Aiden to distract us both.

He looks at the clouds deeply as he did at her marble name last night on the hilltop. “Or maybe it’s for us.”

Us, us, us . . . someway, Mum, somehow. “I think you’re right. She would have loved us.”

He presses his lips in my hair, his breath catching as if to say something. But the Rover turns into WIN’s alley, and the weight of the last twenty-eight years silences us. Benson doesn’t ask a single question this time. He simply parks under the deep shade of an elm tree and steps outside, busying with his phone to give us the moment.

“Here we are.” Aiden gazes up at the stony building. Memories start darkening his eyes like clouds. At the sight, my words tumble out in a whisper.

“We don’t have to go in, love. Doctor Helen would understand.”

But he shakes his head, as I knew he would. “Unfortunately, I gave her my word when I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

W-o-r-d. How do you give your word to pain? How do you negotiate with lost dreams? I reach inside my purse for that last hope, curling my hand around the precious box like a talisman. It warms me the way breath heats our fingertips on a December morning.

“Then here.” I offer it to him with trembling everything—voice, hands, heartbeat. The most important gift I have ever given him. “This is your surprise to open after this meeting.”

I know he hears and sees my emotion because in a blink, I feel singular—like nothing else exists for him but me. He takes the small box, wrapped in a map from dad’s nature atlas. From my Cotswolds to his Portland. The way Earth should be—no visas or wars. One sky, one core, distance a mere matter of heart and will.

“A map?” he asks, searching my face as minutely as the cartography.

“The world,” I correct.

He brushes my cheek. “I have the whole world right here.”

My fingers quiver up to his heart. “Me too.”

He still doesn’t release my face. “Is there something different about this surprise?” he guesses as though he can sense the wind of change inside the small box.

I nod, trying to swallow past my tight throat. “It’s both something you already have and something you don’t.”

Childhood flickers in his deep eyes like always at the clue, and he smiles. “I think that might be your best clue yet.”

“It is,” I allow. “So think about that instead of this meeting.”

“Is that why you’re giving it to me now?”

“It’s part of a very good reason,” I paraphrase his words about my own present that is waiting under Aphrodite’s branches.

The smile lingers a little longer even as he grasps instinctively the importance of the tiny box. “Come. Let’s get this over with, and we can both open these mysterious surprises.” A light flickers in his eyes at the prospect, and he kisses my temple again.

I expect my mind’s reaction by now—the subtle golden glow emitting from his skin. But expecting it doesn’t inure me to the beauty. It only stuns me more. I still haven’t recovered my breath when he tucks the box in his shirt pocket and opens the door. The fresh, grass-scented air steals in my lungs. He helps me out, holding me to his side, the reel on his other hand.

“Get some coffee, Benson,” he says to our Big Ben who is standing as rigid as the clock tower. “This should only take about an hour.”

Benson nods but doesn’t move as we climb the limestone steps.

Doctor Helen is waiting for us in the polished white lobby, her impeccable silver crown and white coat already in place despite it being Saturday morning. The gravitas of her regal expression seems weightier, more imposing compared to the last time I saw her when I was invincibly brave.

“Aiden, Elisa. Thank you for coming.” She sounds relieved beneath the commanding voice, as though she guessed we almost turned around. Then she strokes my hair in a way that reminds me of mum. “Were you able to get some sleep last night?”

“Yes, we both slept and without any fever this time.”

“That’s good. And you, Aiden?” She turns to him, studying his face with her shrewd eyes. “How are you feeling now that you’ve had some time to adjust to the truth?”

“Better, thank you, although eager to be finished. No offense intended, we just need to spend time together.” His voice is composed, showing none of his disappointment or anger, or maybe they softened at her evident concern for me.

“Of course, that’s understandable,” she answers. “We’re ready when you are.”

“Just one thing first, slightly more urgent.” He hands her the closed monitor box without ceremony. “I think it’s finally time we return this. Even you will agree there’s no more reason to continue it.”

“I do agree,” she concedes, taking the box from him.

As soon as the reel changes hands, a weight I didn’t know I was carrying leaves my body. Like the monitor had been pressing invisibly on my back since that first day the way the world crushed Atlas’s shoulders. I lean into Aiden, sensing a similar lightness in his subtle deep breath.

Doctor Helen is still searching his expression, but if she is looking for any answers, she doesn’t press him. She simply reaches up to squeeze his shoulder. “I’m glad this is behind you. Now come.”

I think about giving her the roses and Aiden’s note now, but it’s clear they are both impatient to be done. And it will be better after, so there is something else to say other than it’s over. I hook my arm in his, and we follow her billowing coat into the lift.

As soon as the doors close, the sensation of déjà vu hijacks me. My mind thrashes with the terrifying images of the last time we were here—the morning after Edison struck. The end, the terror for Aiden, the agony for us. Yet, in retrospect, they still seem more hopeful compared to the finality of now.

It seems to take a lifetime for the lift to ascend to a full stop, punctuated by a chime that clangs through my skull. But when we step out into the top floor, I blink around in surprise. Apparently, I was expecting Doctor Helen’s bear assistant, Richard, or Old Morse at least. But the clinical white space is empty again, gleaming endlessly like mirrors on all sides.

Next to me, Aiden scans the hallways with a similar question in his eyes.

“I asked my team to wait in the control room,” Doctor Helen explains quickly, seeing our confusion. “I didn’t think you would want a fuss.”

“You were right.” Aiden nods once.

“Let’s start with a scan to confirm the fever did no harm, although it’s unlikely, then we can discuss your next steps with Doctor Corbin on the line.” She pauses at the double doors of the massive lab, but all I hear is the separation already starting in her tone. “Elisa, I’m sure you want to go in, but we know your effect on Aiden’s neural activity and unfortunately, we need a stable reading.” She sounds apologetic, and I have a sense it’s for many reasons. That we have to part, that the reel didn’t work, that it caused so much agony, that we didn’t win.

I nod too even though I’d rather watch the video again than leave him for a second. “Don’t worry about me,” I tell him. “I’ll be right here with Doctor Helen.”

Except that doesn’t seem to calm him at all—in fact the opposite. He glares at us both with almost palpable intensity. “Nothing unsafe or painful, do you understand me?”

“I promise,” I answer, but to my astonishment, Doctor Helen smiles almost invisibly as though she just found the answer she was searching for.

“Ah, I see. You already know about the video. Of course you do. Well, you can shout at me later and you have every right. But for now, let’s finish up. Go on, I will take care of Elisa. The safe way this time.”

There is a brief moment of silence—me stunned and anxious, Aiden staring at her in his incontrovertible way as he tethers back all his fury under his iron control. “There will be no shouting today, Doctor Helen, though you owe that to Elisa, not me.” He speaks slowly, precisely, each word on a tight leash. “But she is right. My anger aside, we’re grateful for what you’ve done for us.”

I want to kiss him. Right here, in front of the great neuroscientist who is watching him in unconcealed amazement. Can she see the big, small victories I see? Does she consider the brutal experiment a success because of them?

He turns to me and plucks a petal from one of the Clares in my basket, tucking it in my hand like always. Then he gives me back my gift. “Keep this safe so it doesn’t enter that room with me. I’ll open it on the other side, and we can be just us.” And with a kiss on my forehead, he strides down the polished hallway.

As soon as the changing room door closes behind him, I look up at Doctor Helen who is staring at the space where he stood, eyes narrowed in concentration.

“I’m so sorry, Doctor Helen,” I apologize. “I didn’t mean—well—it’s probably better that I explain.”

She blinks at me as though returning from another world. “It’s quite alright, child. I told you his faith in you was more important than his peace with me, and I meant it.”

“I know but I still want to explain. Because as it turned out, I think it was for the best.” And I tell her everything as fast as I can: from my slip to every minute of Aiden watching the video and afterwards, leaving out only his anger and the reason why the slip happened to me in the first place. Not today—she and I will have years for that.

When I’m done explaining, barely breathing through the deluge of information, she gawks at me in a way I didn’t think was possible for her brain. “Dear God! He watched all of it with you in his arms?”

I nod, still breathless. “He did amazing, Doctor Helen. I know we could not beat the startle, but I think we laid Marshall to rest at last. You said that would help, right?”

“Hmm,” she muses as her eyes squint in some internal analysis.

“What is it? Do you disagree?” The question shudders from my lips.

She focuses on me, as if remembering I’m still here. “Hmm? No, of course it helps. Now, let’s get started. Aiden is waiting.”

She ushers me along swiftly, and I stumble behind her, feeling abruptly panicked. Because I have this sudden intuition that she is keeping something from me. What is it? Is she worried it will still not be enough for Aiden to survive our end? Or something else?

Inside the cold command center, my unease only grows at the dizzying screens and the nine neuroscientists laser-focused on the mass of numbers and symbols of Aiden’s mind. I thought it was going to be only Richard, but it’s all of them. Their absolute concentration is like a dense fog in the air, making it hard to breathe. Shiver after shiver lashes down my arms. How different this room feels from that first time, full of hope and fight. Now, the digital racket seems to rattle inside my very spine. Except the familiar sight on one of the wall screens. Doctor Corbin is smiling at me, in his sage shirt and yellow notepad, sitting next to his dark office window in Portland, still on Friday night.

“Evening, Elisa, or morning your time. It’s good to see you.”

“Hi, Doctor Corbin.” I wave, almost running into his screen as though it could teleport Aiden and me back to the City of Roses for a while, with our families, far away from these arctic hallways. “Thank you for dialing in.”

“Of course. I know this one is hard but we can discuss . . . afterwards.” He seems to stumble on that last word and smiles again, but there is a tightness in his eyes like Benson.

“Yes, yes, alright,” Doctor Helen interrupts briskly, taking her throne before the three central monitors, her Van Gogh binder ever on her side. “We can catch up later. Elisa, you’re next to me. On my mark . . . three, two, one.”

Everyone, from Corbin to her bear assistant, tenses at her command, eyes like snipers on their screens. Their intensity only terrifies more so I scramble to the chair next to hers and, in seconds, the scan begins.

But I don’t give the computers a second glance. None of these numbers, pixels, or algorithms can ever know Aiden’s heart. The universe of him. They cannot chart the stars of his beauty, nor traverse the vast space of his mind. They cannot hold the gravity of his strength. They cannot capture the symphony of his soul or contain the force of his love. All his molecules that sing their own secret tune, each atom that casts its own primordial light, the millions of his cells that dance like planets to the melody of my name across his skies. The surreal, celestial sum of his being, more splendid than all these parts. He is not an answer or a question mark. He is a wonder known only to gods.

Instead, I take out my phone and stationery and start to write. Emails to Reagan and Javi—they’ll be here in only three weeks, and I can’t deny I will need them like air to breathe. Thank-you notes to Maria and Aiden’s parents. And letters to the girls, tucking petals inside. So many people who love us, so many other goodbyes. My hand shakes so much through the words, contorting mum’s calligraphy like a frantic EKG, that her quill slips through my fingers. It’s not until I’m able to hear its quiet, feathery swoosh that I notice how silent the room has become. Deep and cold, like a crypt. Everyone is still, except the occasional blink or click. And not just still, but rigid, their ramrod backs emanating waves of apprehension. I scan their screens in terror for explanation, but the innocuous images still mean nothing—just codes and numbers alternating with photos of Marshall and me.

I want to ask what’s wrong, but my throat is clenched closed because that’s not the right question. The correct one is what can be worse than it already is.

“Has something happened?” I choke instead, but I can’t hear my voice. Perhaps the scientists can’t hear me either because no one blinks away from the screens. “Is Aiden okay?” I repeat, trying to put more volume in my tone.

Doctor Helen’s hand pats mine, her eyes never glancing away from her monitors. “He’s fine, Elisa. Now, please, we need quiet.”

F-i-n-e. Why don’t I believe her? Panic starts stabbing my body like knifepoints, one in my chest, one at my temple, another in my gut, one more on my forehead, dead center where Aiden’s lips turn the world golden. I try to breathe but the room is spinning, walls closing in and out at strange, obtuse angles. Quickly, I grab a rose for air but it doesn’t help. Icy numbness starts prickling my toes. I should have worn Aiden’s sweatshirt or his cologne. But as soon as the idea forms, my mind pulls up his fragrance on its own, as vivid as it was during bravery on the riverbank, nothing changed. It floods my senses as if I am curling in his chest again. But the terror is still mushrooming everywhere, numbing my legs, arms, the base of my skull, my face.

Breathe, I try to reason with myself. Nothing can be worse than it already is. We have already lost everything. There is no more life or love or meaning. What more can they take? But not a single atom thaws out of the frozen dread. Because I know exactly what I’m seeing. I grew up with these scientist eyes. It’s the stare when science cannot explain or understand. The unflinching gaze of finality, of truth.

Something has to be wrong, even more wrong than we knew.

I watch the screens now too, without any understanding. The display speed picks up, numbers, symbols, images racing by, almost blurry for our normal minds while Aiden’s brain leaves us all behind. Then suddenly, they stop. The monitors go dark. The clicks end, the fingers on the keyboards freeze. No one speaks, moves, or breathes. Something is o-v-e-r, but I don’t know what it is. I try to hold onto Aiden’s scent in my mind, and his my-all look that gives me life. Somehow, please, somehow. 

At last, Doctor Helen taps some kind of pager and speaks into her microphone, but her voice is no longer brisk or commanding. It’s gentle, quieter when she addresses Aiden.

“Aiden, that was your last slide. As expected, the fever caused no harm. For the record, I can also confirm the data shows no measurable change in subject’s cognition depth, perception accuracy, or speed of recall and retention. If you wish, we can consider this your final scan. I’ll give you time to get dressed. Please meet us at the lab when you’re ready. I have Elisa with me. She is safe.”

S-a-f-e? Is that what I am as I hear our life reduced to clinical conclusions? My love as a “subject,” the wonder of Aiden as “data”? All our hopes and dreams as “no measurable change”? Our greatest loss as a blank computer screen? What is safety if you no longer feel alive?

I try to look away from the black monitors now but I can’t. Like blood-soaked battlefields at night, when the gunfire finally falls silent. The only artillery left is our heart-bombs, thudding faintly into the quiet. I don’t know how I am sitting or breathing. Maybe there is a back-up system that kickstarts like a resuscitation protein. A spare phantom heart that beats only when the real one stops. A reserve of lifeblood that flows when the old arteries dry. Because that’s how it feels now. Phantom heartbeats, phantom lungs, phantom eyes. Existence, not life.

But if this is the end, why am I still terrified? Why the sense that something else is looming? Maybe because through the fires of my personal hell, I become aware of the silence around me, the lack of change. No one else is moving either or looking away from the dark screens. Even Corbin in Portland is frowning intensely at his computer.

“What is it? Aren’t we meeting Aiden?” I shudder, surprised I can make a sound.

Corbin peers at Doctor Helen to my right. “Doctor?” he asks.

“Silence, please,” comes her commanding reply. I don’t know how she moved her lips—she seems entirely carved in stone—but the denial came definitely in her voice.

I follow her piercing eyes to her central monitors, but I see nothing that would make her look so severe. Yet that sense of foreboding crashes over me. The icy terror spreads to my eyelids, exactly like it did after the protein. Abruptly, I can’t sit here anymore. I can’t handle the tangible sorrow or disappointment or whatever it is. I try to wobble up to go wait for Aiden when a single buzz vibrates from Doctor Helen’s pager. In the same second, static crackles in the thick silence and the screens flicker back on. And the images cut me at my knees. Not because they are gruesome like the reel. But because they’re live, right here, right now.

A camera feed of Aiden in the MRI chamber, alone with the pale blue sheet around his waist, his bare shoulders rounded, face chiseled with both strength and pain. Slowly, he rises to his feet. I bolt up too, ready to run to him, but Doctor Helen’s voice rings out again.

“Wait a moment, Elisa, please.”

I’m about to snap that we don’t have a moment but the camera starts following Aiden. He leaves the MRI chamber and strides down the narrow corridor that connects it to the changing room. His steps are slow, heavy, and I know he is remembering every time he has walked that path since he was seven years old. Always hoping for a change, and now that hope is gone. Tears spring in my eyes, and all I want to do is hold him in my arms.

“I have to meet him,” I whisper, but to my surprise, Doctor Helen’s hand closes on my wrist, firmer than I would have expected—a lot stronger than it felt during the protein.

“Elisa, you need to stay here.”

Abruptly, fury blisters on my tongue. “No, I need to see Aiden,” I hiss through my teeth and rip my hand from her grasp. I spin around for the door but she stands to stop me, as Richard the bear slips out and another researcher shifts to block my passage.

Please, Elisa, trust me.” Her voice becomes imploring despite the edge of authority. The urgent plea derails me with its rarity more than the barricade she is obviously erecting around me.

“Why?” I demand.

Her creased face folds with an ancient ache, and she sighs. “Because if you go now, you will only hurt Aiden.”

Something about the regret in her eyes frightens me. An odd shiver trickles down my spine like ice water.

“What do you mean?” I breathe, but from the corner of my eye, I glimpse the changed screens. On one, Aiden has reached the changing room and steps through the back door to get dressed. On another, two figures slink down the white hallway outside the room’s closed front door.

It only takes a moment. My body reacts faster than my mind laboring to make sense of the scene. A gasp tears from my lips, and the ceiling start to fall. A wave of dizziness crashes over me. I struggle to bring myself to some sort of control, but a part of my brain seems to be reaching for unconscious relief. Anything but the images in front of me. Because I finally understand why Doctor Helen is not letting me go, why the scientists look so grave, why no one can breathe.

The two figures prowling down the hall are none other than Benson and Richard. They spread apart, Richard facing the closed door, waiting for Aiden to come out, Benson rounds the abutting corner, out of sight. And everything falls into place. Why Benson was so tense this morning, the sandy color of his clothes nearly invisible in the white hall, Corbin’s unease, Doctor Helen’s scrutiny of Aiden’s every move and word, why she asked for this check-in, why she pretended to agree not to do the final test of the startle in the first place, what she has been plotting all along.

Her plan is as simple as it is practical: Richard will distract Aiden in the same breath that Benson will trigger his startle reflex from behind. It will be sudden and immediate—Aiden has no way of suspecting this now—but it will be enough.

“NO!” I cry in horror, ducking around her despite the dizziness so I can stop this. But she grips my arm again, shaking it with urgency.

“Elisa, think! You need to be safe for Aiden. I will not allow any risks.”

“Don’t do this!” I scream, ripping back my arm. “You promised him! You promised!”

“I had to, child! He would have suspected something if I hadn’t.”

“It’s his choice!”

“Elisa, please—” Corbin tries to intervene.

“WHY are you doing this?” I snarl at both of them, whirling around with desperate impatience to grab my phone and warn Aiden. But I’m too late. The screens change again. I freeze in horror as Aiden opens the door, still fastening a button on his shirt, hurrying to see me. He blinks up, spotting Richard, clearly unaware of Benson.

“Richard?” He frowns but in the same breath, Benson strikes. His huge body whips from the corner and lurches forward, flinging his fist at Aiden’s back. And that’s all it takes.

“Aiden!” I gasp, but it’s over. It’s done. The moment bursts violently apart.

For a fraction of a second, dread ripples across Aiden’s face, then his body pivots toward his assailant. In the same spin, one of his hands seizes Benson’s arm, the other flies to the boulderlike shoulder, as Benson shifts and crouches into a self-defense stance.

“Benson, abort!” Doctor Helen fires into the pager I thought was just an innocent device. “Step back, now.”

Benson must hear her command on some earpiece because he tries. His feet slide back but Aiden shadows his footwork in a lithe step, his body angling in formation with the sheer muscle mass that can crush him to death.

“Richard, stand by!” Doctor Helen orders again, then she turns to someone behind me. “Go in—Plan B.”

I want to see who it is or what she means but I cannot blink away from the screen. Because Benson raises his knee as if to smash it into Aiden’s ribs. But Aiden shifts another step to the right—a memory flashes through my mind—another right, then left—

“Strobe lights in three, two—” Doctor Helen commands again, as Aiden takes another step to the left.

“STOP!” I shriek, throwing myself at her and tearing the pager from her grip. “BENSON, STOP! HIS FEET! LOOK AT AIDEN’S FEET!”

I know he hears me because he jerks at the volume of my scream, but he drops his knee quickly, frowning in confusion at Aiden’s shoes.

“Elisa, unaccept—” Doctor Helen rebukes in outrage but I cut her off, pointing urgently at the screen.

“LISTEN TO ME! IT’S DIFFERENT! IT’S CHANGED!”

A blur of white coats swarms around the monitors, while Corbin directs frantically, “Let her speak!”

“Stand by!” Doctor Helen instructs her own team, and they all freeze. “Elisa?” she demands, her sharp eyes roaming the camera feed. “What is it? What do you see?”

“Aiden’s steps,” I explain, my voice suddenly dropping into a whisper of wonder as I watch the image before me. And the whole room falls silent in my ears—no breathing, no voices, no beeps. Just a familiar tune trilling in my memory. Because if I know anything like I know my own name is this: our steps to Für Elise. “It’s our dance,” I murmur, my eyes flooding with tears. My hands grasp the monitor as if it were Aiden’s shoulders. “It’s not the startle. I’m sure of it.”

A collective gasp blows through the room, yet despite all the eyes and cameras, abruptly, I feel alone with Aiden. My finger trembles on the monitor, caressing the contours of his body, tracing his next step as Fallujah’s curse breaks before my incredulous eyes.

What we thought was an attack is actually an embrace. The pivot was not to kick, it was only a turn. Aiden’s arms around Benson were not to punch, just to hold. His feet didn’t move in combat; they stepped into a dance. And the startle did not trigger violence, but rest.

I watch in awe as his unfathomable mind—against all odds—overwrites itself. Instead of war, it’s retrieving peace. In the place of terror, it found calm. And rather than hatred, it’s remembering love.

“Extraordinary,” Corbin breathes as he did the day Aiden attacked me, but his whisper is already behind me. I shoot through a space opened between the frozen, scattered scientists and launch myself at the door. If anyone shouts, I can’t hear from the roar of my heartbeat. And if hands try to stop me, I can’t feel past the current blowing on my skin. I am just wind, blasting through the white blur of coats across the hall, and there it is.

The real, true wonder—live, without pixels or screens.

Only seconds have passed. Aiden is still bound with Benson in their clinch, his back to me. Their eyes are locked on each other, Benson’s wide with stunned disbelief as, slowly, they must register the impossible phenomenon unfolding through their grip. Another breathless second or maybe an endless minute. Then at last understanding seems to dawn through the barriers of shock and self-preservation on their minds. Carefully, hesitantly, their arms drop at the same time and Benson steps out of his defensive stance. Falling back to give space to the marvel breaking away from the past.

Aiden’s body straightens, rising fluidly into his full height, the curved shoulders unfurling out of their tension like wings. The powerful bands of muscle soften under his shirt, his fists bloom open into his piano hands, the slightest tremble in his fingers as though he is running them through the ivory keys to Für Elise. The sinister strain that has bound him for the last thirteen years doesn’t just ease; it melts. The invisible chains fall off his back. Leaving behind the most surreal grace. It flows sinuously within him like a spell, elongating his body, broadening his shoulders, changing him in subtle rewind back to the glorious, unbroken Aiden in the tent.

Free at last.

Transfixed in his transformation, Aiden raises his left arm, then the right, as if he were holding me during our dance, gazing at the motion mesmerized. The movement is so hypnotic, I can only gape. Then he murmurs a single word on his first breath.

“Elisa . . .”

At that low, awed music, I remember myself. My quivering body, the tears flooding my face, my heart booming in my chest. And the world vanishes again. I don’t see Benson where he must be still standing, I don’t see Richard and the other scientists, I don’t see the hallway. There is just a blank slate only for Aiden and me.

Entranced, unafraid, I take a small step toward Aiden’s unchained, exposed back.

“I’m here, love.”

He turns around and—oh! His eyes . . . incandescent with shock, filled with the purest of light, their depths stirring glow after glow, through a spectrum of life. The azure of childhood, the cerulean of youth, the sapphire of man, the turquoise of us. At that look, I forget everything—the past, the rules, the pain, all my doubts and uncertainties. Gone. My body takes off on its own and I leap straight into his arms.

He catches me like always, sweeping me up, one arm around my waist, the other hand in my hair, gasping and stunned.

“I love you,” I tell him, and then I kiss him hard. For a heartbeat, I’m afraid he will pull away, but he responds so fiercely that we stagger against some wall, mouth to mouth, a low moan in his throat.

How many times have we kissed? Hundreds, thousands by now? Yet, this kiss feels like the very first one. As though every other kiss—no matter how soft, gentle, sweet, or hard—has been only a prelude to this one, reverberating forward in time. To give us a taste, to keep us fighting for the real us. Because that is how it feels as his lips meld with mine. Like we are entering a brand-new world that has been waiting only for us.

And what a world it is. Shimmering with the purest light like a perpetual sunrise behind my closed eyes. Tasting of fiery spice, salt rose, and a chocolatey effervescence that erases the bitter venom of distance. All forged in the vivid, urgent possession of his mouth. I can feel his body against every curve of mine, fire and steel, molding me to the shape of him. My fingers fly frantically in his hair, over his shoulders rippling only with our tangled weight. No tension, no resistance, no flashbacks. His hands memorize me too, all anew, gripping my waist, caressing my face. And his lips . . . They move dominantly, claiming back every touch we have missed in the last twelve days, inhaling every breath, capturing every sigh. But giving back too: healing the pain, erasing the distance, stopping time. I taste him back in a frenzy—cinnamon, Aiden, and salty tears. His, mine, ours. Flowing with our kiss like lifeblood, bringing us to who we truly are, to who we fought to be, without war, distance, or deadlines. Just two arteries entwined inside the same heart, teeming with life.

My breath gives out before our lips, coming out jagged and fast until my head starts to spin. His mouth slows then, gentles on mine to let me breathe. In the few gasps when his lips are free, he whispers my name. I murmur his too, over and over, not like a prayer or a wish. I say it the way we say sacred things. With faith, with a sort of reverence.

“Aiden, Aiden, Aiden . . .”

He leans back just an inch to look at me. And I can finally see his face—really see it now. If I live a million years and cross a million skies, I will never find words for it. Not for the golden light flickering on his skin or the long lashes, sparkling like diamonds. Nor for the prismatic blue irises glittering with life. He is even more surreal than he was during the protein. More exquisite than the young Aiden in the tent, more beautiful than any other time in my life. Because this kind of beauty is beaming from within, healing at last.

He searches my face with this whole new world in his eyes. “Is it real?” he murmurs, almost fearfully, holding me tight.

“It is real, love,” I answer without a doubt despite the warm glow still filling my sight. “We’re wide awake. It’s not a dream.”

His fingers trace my lips as though testing that reality. “How?” he breathes.

I stroke his face too, his glistening cheek, his bitten lips, his scar. I am sure somewhere in this modern lab, in the clinical data, in the irrefutable evidence of science, there will be answers. But I know the real answers are in the stars.

“Somehow,” I whisper and bring his mouth back to mine.

©2022 Ani Keating

 

NINETY DAYS: CHAPTER 40 – CLOSE

Happy Monday, friends (and Happy May)! Here’s a little something to help with those Monday blues: a new chapter. Hope you all love it as much I enjoyed writing it. My favorite part of it: H-o-p-e. Song: Moonlight Sonata. Favorite line (some of you ask about this?): “We just keep our hearts beating, lights in the darkness, always reaching for hope.” Lots of love, Ani

40

Close

I take Marshall’s gift from Aiden’s hand as if it’s also a gift to me. Almost as precious as the PEAC diamonds chiming on my wrist. And as mysterious as my tomorrow present waiting under Aphrodite’s branches. The wrapping newspaper under my fingertips is an internet print-out of The New York Times, dated February 10, 2001.

“It’s the day he met Jasmine,” Aiden explains, his voice flowing despite the resistant pause that usually stilts his speech when he talks about this. “I thought about picking the date I met him or his birthday but you were right: he really wanted to come home that Christmas for her. She was his greatest love.”

Marshall’s words from the video ring with sharp clarity in my ears, like he is standing right next to us. Gotta keep my balls in shape for Jasmine, man. Maybe this FUBAR war will end and I’ll see her for Christmas. And vividly, as though she is sitting here under the rose tree too, the beautiful Black girl on the photo is laughing as if she can hear him.

“It’s a perfect day to pick for his present. Although now I’m thinking we should also have a little gift for Jasmine.”

He smiles. “Of course you do, but this is technically for both of them so you have nothing to worry about.”

“Oh!” I quip, intrigued, loving the present even more. Carefully, so I don’t tear the newspaper, I peel it back and tuck their love in Aphrodite’s branches with the rest of our gallery. The love that, in its own way, was a genesis for ours. Then in my hand is a neatly rolled stack of papers. I flatten it out, expecting his assertive handwriting, but my breath stops at the bold, typed words across the top:

JJ Marshall Trust

In honor of a brother and his love

And right below it, in legalese, there are several paragraphs outlining the articles of incorporation.

“JJ Marshall Trust?” I whisper, looking up at Aiden in wonder.

“Jasmine and Jacob Marshall. It’s a nonprofit I asked Bob to establish today for a scholarship fund.”

“Wow . . . A scholarship fund for veterans?”

He shakes his head. “No, I didn’t want any part of this tainted with war. You were right, he deserves something positive. So this is for something they both loved . . . children.”

“Oh!” I gasp, my throat thickening with the beauty of the gift as I read through the fine print. It’s nation-wide in the United States, with special focus on students with diverse backgrounds. “Aiden, this is amazing. I can’t imagine a more meaningful way to honor him. I’m sure he would have loved it.”

He nods, staring thoughtfully at the bold names. “I think Jasmine will like it too. They wanted at least six kids, if you can believe it.”

At least six. Like me when I first realized I wanted a family of my own with Aiden, the night of our I-love-you dinner. “I can definitely believe it. They were obviously mad for each other.”

He chuckles again, though it’s a first when talking about his lost brother. How far he has come from the man who could barely say Marshall’s name when we first met!

“Mad? He was possessed, Elisa. I had never seen anything like it. And at first, I kept praying: God, please, whatever else you take from me, save my head so I don’t ever lose it like this. And then what do you know? I lost it after you and I hadn’t even met you yet. I make Marshall seem downright sane. If he only saw me now, wearing bracelets, talking to roses, and making purple flames.”

I laugh at the look of only semi-mock horror on his face. “What do you think he would say?”

“Storm, you finally got your period,” he answers without hesitation, his voice a perfect imitation of Marshall’s Southern drawl that only makes me laugh harder.

“And buy you a box of tampons at the Baharia mart.” The words trigger instantly and vividly in my brain.

Outside of my laughter, I become aware of a very deep silence. Then our little snow globe freezes in a blink.

Aiden’s smile dies on his lips, and his eyes lock on me, wide with disbelief. In the same breath, I realize what just happened. What my memory played out loud. The exact words Marshall said to Aiden in that Fallujah tent. The words no amount of research could have ever given me. The words I could only know because of one thing: the video.

Terror strikes through me, raw and visceral, just as the question fires from Aiden’s lips.

“What did you say?” he breathes.

Blood rushes to my feet so fast, I feel dizzy. My stomach heaves. I can see my own blanched skin down to my fingertips. And my hands start trembling under his clear, unerring eyes that can see everything. I scramble frantically for a single word or even sound, but I’m entirely frozen. Throat closed, tongue glued to the roof of my mouth. What do I do? Do I run? Do I call Doctor Helen to warn her? Do I—what can I say? How?

“Elisa, what did you just say?” he repeats, his voice harder.

“Ah, umm—” I try to swallow for more time, more ideas, or just some volume, but I can’t hear my voice over my pulse pounding my eardrums. “S-something Marshall might say?” I think I whisper.

“No,” he counters firmly; him I can apparently hear. “It’s not something he might say. It’s something he actually said.”

“I’m . . . s-sorry . . . Aiden . . . I didn’t . . . mean—”

How do you know those words, Elisa?” he interrupts my useless fumbling, his razor gaze leaving no room for excuses of any kind even if I could find them. “I’ve never told you about Baharia Mart. And before you say Cal has, he was not there when Marshall said he’d buy tampons for Morton who bailed that night. It was only Marshall and me in the tent—no one—” He cuts off with a strangled gasp. Abruptly, all color drains from his face. His eyes darken with dread, so deep and staggering that he shuts them as though he is seeing death itself. “The camera!” He chokes in a voice from the grave. “Marshall was wearing a camera that morning.”

It took him five seconds. Only five seconds to destroy all his rest, all the momentary peace the truth gave him. If I could move, I’d rip out my own tongue, and my heart too. Bile burns in my throat like acid.

“The river,” he continues to himself in horror. “The chalk rose on the blackboard, the market, the truck, the song . . .” His eyes flash open on me, haunted like nothing I have ever seen. “You’ve seen the footage of that day,” he whispers, ashen, his tone like a last breath that pierces through me with its harrowing agony.

That’s all it takes. At the tortured sound, instantly my tongue releases. “No, love, no—not the whole thing!” I blubber urgently before his own imagination kills him worse than the truth. “I didn’t see the parts you’re dreading—just the beginning. I’m completely fine, I promise.”

At my confirmation, terror throttles his eyes, more scorching than during the reel. All life seems to drain out of him. He can’t breathe. He doesn’t seem able to move or speak. He just stares at me with horror-struck eyes, carved into a sculpture of dread, except a slight tremor in his lips as though he is trying to mouth my name without sound.

E—li—sa . . .

“Aiden, love? Please listen to me.” I shake his arm, blowing on his lips as he does with me, but he doesn’t even blink. “I swear on us and on my parents’ memory that I’m okay. I was under the protein the whole time. Fear couldn’t touch me at all. Remember how strong I was yesterday?”

It’s like I haven’t spoken. He still doesn’t blink or speak. Not a single lash thaws out of his horrified stance. Torn shreds of air are ripping from his chest. Quickly, I take his ashy face in my hands. “Please, sweetheart, listen to my voice,” I beg. “I truly am alright. The protein took care of me, as did Marshall and the video itself. Most of it was through a really grimy screen—I could barely see anything. Please believe me!” My voice cracks at the torment in his expression but, thankfully, the sound seems to finally reach him. He blinks then, and his hands come around my face, gentle as though he thinks I’m breaking.

Alright?” He rasps the word as though he has never heard it before, as though he has no idea what it could mean.

I almost collapse in relief despite the panic still suffocating him. “Yes, love, I’m completely fine,” I reassure him again, trying to soften his petrified jaw. “Here, just look at me and you’ll see.”

“H-how?” he chokes, his fingers shaking on my cheek. “How—could—you—be—fine?”

“Shh, I am, because I was right about this part. Without that initial fear taking hold, it’s not a memory of terror at all. The protein immunized me from the subsequent trauma, just as I thought. I give you my word.”

“But the protein doesn’t immunize you from pain, Elisa!”

And there it is—the reason behind all his dread. He winces, and a long shudder ripples through him as he utters the word.

“No, love, but it doesn’t cancel all the good, happy emotions either,” I answer, choosing my words more carefully about this than anything else. “You know that brave love I tried to explain in my letter?” I pause, caressing his face, waiting for his mind to take him into a positive moment. But he’s too terrified to do anything but watch me in horror. “Okay, well, that super-love was flooding my system the entire time. It was—still is—the most powerful thing I have ever felt. And because of that, it softened the pain. Like a shield or the aloe balm on your blisters.”

His agonized expression morphs to heavy doubt. “How is that possible? It didn’t do that to me.”

Of course it didn’t, but now is not the time to explain everything. “You and I had different experiences, love. And I don’t have your memory or your mind.”

“But you still feel pain! You feel it deeply. I’ve seen what the reel does to you, and that’s just snapshots you witness through me. Now you’ve watched the actual events, almost live.” He flinches again, and another shudder runs through him, rocking me along.

“No, love, they’re not even comparable. The reel was different for me. It didn’t help me find the truth, like the video did. This time I was able to save you. And that made all the pain worth it.”

But it’s like he only hears that one word: p-a-i-n. So quickly I can’t catch my breath, terror changes into fury in his eyes—the kind of fury I have only ever seen once: when Edison slapped and tried to poison me.

Who did this to you?” he demands in a low, deadly voice, dropping my hands off his face, while his own close into fists. His body flexes into a lethal blade. In a blink, he transforms into the Marine who ripped apart fully grown monsters, limb from limb.

“No one!” I blurt out quickly, tripping over my words. “I did it to myself. It was my choice, nobody—”

“Who—gave—you—that—video—Elisa?” he hisses, but then his teeth clench with an audible snap. “Helen!” he snarls between them while my heart drops through the soles of my feet. It’s over, the planet is done, he knows everything. Rage darkens his face like Fallujah’s smoke clouds as he glares through the window to wherever the poor doctor is. “She’s the only link,” he seethes. “And she could only get it from the General, but how the fuck did she know about it? From Cal and the others,” he answers his own question in the same breath, so rapidly, I can barely follow the words firing like bullets from his lips. “She asked them for information, and they connected her to General Sartain. He sent it to her under the DIA’s non-disclosure agreement, which she breached. But why would she take such a risk? The protein. To test that it really worked. Is that it? Is that it, Elisa?” The sniper eyes zoom on me, wrathful and lethal.

It takes my brain almost an entire Christmas carol stanza to catch up to his speed, let alone to figure out what to say or how to lie under the furious gaze that might incinerate to dust Doctor Helen’s lab, the DIA, and the Marines through the thousands of miles right now.

“It was all my fault,” I confess as soon as I can speak. There is no other way; he has solved all of it. How the bloody hell did I ever think I could fool him even with the protein? “I forced her to show me. She tried to warn me a million times, but I wouldn’t listen. If you’ll be angry with anyone, please be angry with me.”

On one hand, I’ve stunned him so motionless he can’t leave . . . yet. On the other, his fury seems to climb an even higher peak.

“With you?” he growls. Where his breath was gone, now it’s coming out in irate gusts of air. “How the fuck could you have possibly forced her, hmm? Did you put a gun to her fucking head?”

“No, but—”

“Did you threaten her fucking family?”

“No—”

“Then tell me exactly how you forced a woman of her status and stature into traumatizing you against her free will!”  He fumes through his teeth, no doubt trying not to roar.

“I’m not traumatized,” I argue, trying to take his fist but he rips it away so I clutch his arm instead. “And I threatened to take the protein on my own if she didn’t help me, that’s how—”

But he cuts me off again. “Why the fuck did she have to tell you about it in the first place when you were under the influence of a potent hormone mix? Why was it so necessary that the protein be tested with the worst of humanity possible?”

“Because that’s exactly what the protein was made for.” I try to keep my voice calm through my own panic, but it almost breaks into a wail. “It’s not meant for typical fears we can overcome on our own. Aiden, please, Doctor Helen took care of me! She adjusted the sound and speed and monitored all my life signs. We owe her for taking so many risks to help me do it safely. To help us.”

Except I have only made things worse. “We owe her?” His icy voice slices through his teeth like knives. “We oweher for exposing you to footage so traumatic that even the top brass of the United States military couldn’t watch it without a break, that my entire squad is unable to even hear about? We fucking owe her?” His volume thunders on those last words, breaking through whatever leash he had on his control and echoing around the cottage.

“Aiden, calm down! Of course, we owe her! Think where I’d have been without her if—”

But his expression becomes so livid at my words that I break off mid-sentence. “I’ll tell you exactly where you would have been, Elisa!” The words explode out of him like grenades. “If she had used her fucking brain for which I have paid her millions, she should have said no like a fucking adult and should have tested that shit on ME directly. Not you! And then you could have just waited, safe and sound, your biggest worry just your imagination. Instead, on top of everything you’ve had to live through, now you’re going to have the most inhumane, sick shit inside your head for the rest of your life!”

“Aiden, no—” I start but his roar drowns my reply.

“FUCK!”

And before I can reach for him, he whips around, storming out of the room.

“Aiden!” I shriek, scrambling to my feet, terrified he is raging straight to Doctor Helen’s house but then I hear the half-loo door slam so hard, all the twinkly lights and frames tremble and dip. I sprint after him anyway, hovering outside the closed door to listen. But the only sound is the faucet running at full pressure. At least there’s nothing breaking, like the mirror or a wall. I start pacing the foyer, trying to think through the panic. What on earth have I done? How could I have been so careless? Except I know that wasn’t the reason. I know exactly what happened to my brain despite my vigilance; I am just new at this power. I had no idea it could do this to me. Not that it changes anything—he is still hurting because of me. And Doctor Helen is still in trouble. How do I calm him down? Where do we go from here? How do I help him?

I wear a path on the floorboards, waiting and waiting . . .

He comes out after seventy-two periodic tables, the collar of his T-shirt soaked, hair drenched, mopping his neck with a towel. Clearly, he must have been holding his head under cold water to reset his sympathetic system. But at least the fury has cooled too, softened with worry now. An unintelligible cry of relief breaks out of my teeth, and I run straight into him.

“Oh, Aiden!” I sob, kissing his chest, running my hands over his cool face to make sure he is okay.

He folds me in his arms, pulling me closer. His heart is hammering loudly in my ear, as frantic as mine. “Shh, I’m okay,” he says, his voice still rough. “I’m sorry I got so enraged. This shouldn’t be about my anger. It’s about what you lived through and how I can help you. I fucked up.”

“No, you didn’t. This is about you feeling whatever you need to feel. Of course you’re angry. You’re only trying to protect me. I’m the one who should apologize.”

His finger comes under my chin, and he lifts my face to look at me. I can see his natural objection to me feeling guilty about anything, but he resists it, no doubt sensing my need. “What do you want to apologize for?” he frowns. “I don’t blame you for watching the video. I know why you did it.”

“I’m not sorry I watched it, but I am sorry for hiding the truth from you. For thinking I should keep this a secret in the first place. And for ruining your first day of freedom and our embargo.”

He shakes his head. “You’ve ruined nothing. And of course I want you to tell me everything, but with the way I react, how can I expect you not to hide something like this from me?”

I should have known he’d blame himself even when I deserve it. “No, love, I didn’t hide it from you because I’m afraid of you. I kept it from you because I don’t want to cause you any more pain.”

His eyes soften even with all the torment underneath. “I know, but it’s your pain I’m worried about, not mine. Come, tell me everything. I promise not to get angry this time. Or at least not so completely unhinged.”

“You’re not unhinged. Although I am worried about Doctor Helen and her whole building.”

He sighs, jaw still tensing at her name. “I’m sure after I’ve had a few years to calm down, I will agree that you’re right. But now, you are all I care about.” He sets down the towel and swoops me in his arms, carrying me back to the sofa in our Christmas snow globe as though he doesn’t think I should walk one more step until he takes care of me. Then he wraps my new favorite blanket around me—the one handknitted by our families with our initials—and drapes me on his lap, exactly where I want to be.

“Let’s start over,” he murmurs, kissing my temple and making the world glow again. “Talk to me. How far did you see? The whole truth without worrying about my feelings. Let’s do this as a team.”

T-e-a-m. The word sings in the air, more beautiful than the Christmas carols. Even if we only have it for one more day. I silence the thought immediately and cuddle closer, burying my face in his neck, inhaling his Aiden-and-sandalwood scent. And then I begin.

“The whole truth: I didn’t see as far as I wanted to see at the time, but I’m glad it ended when it did. I don’t know how much the General has told you about the video, but Marshall ripped off the camera before the . . . the worst parts.”

It’s obvious he didn’t know this because his breath catches and his arms tighten around me.

“He did?”

“Yes, and I think he did it to protect all of you and his family.”

He doesn’t speak right away. His heart is bombing his chest like a distant echo of the IEDs. Lightly, I trace my fingertips down the column of his throat. My whole life flowing right here in this vein. As though he feels the same, he buries his nose in my hair, breathing me in.

“I think you’re right,” he says after a moment. “It’s the kind of thing he would have done.”

“I know this sounds weird and might upset you, but you asked how I feel. I’m so glad I finally met Marshall even in this way. From the very first time you told me his name, I had wanted to meet him. And he was everything I knew your best brother would be. Loving, loyal, brave, noble, strong—just like you.”

I half-expect him to argue with those last three words, and perhaps on another day he would. But now he kisses my hair again and hugs me closer. “He would have loved meeting you too. As you probably heard in the tent, he was fixated with the woman in my letters.”

Despite everything, I smile at the sharp, clear memory, just as I did in that moment. “That part was funny, with the lion and the gazelle and the Jergens. Which letter were you writing by the way?” The question bursts out freely now that I get to ask it. Another gift I never expected today. How can something that scorched me to ash feel so dear? How can it knit us together like we are spun from each other’s soul yarn?

He chuckles softly too as he did in the tent. “The one about my first actual dream of you.” His piano voice croons the words he was writing in my ear. “Last night, I dreamt of you. You were just a light in the dark, floating closer with my breath. I tried so desperately to see your face, but it was like looking into a rising sun. Then you leaned so close and whispered, I am real.” His breath sends whispers of electricity over my own skin.

“I really love that one.”

“I’ll recite it to you later.”

Later? So more embargo? “Promise?”

“I promise.” He doesn’t rush me but I know he is still waiting to hear how much of the horror I saw, how much pain did I feel.

“I was with you and Marshall all through the pipes, the schoolyard, up to the classroom—”

He shudders and tenses, all his breath stopping again. He cannot seem to draw air until he buries his nose in my hair for oxygen like I do with him. But for once, we are both reliving the exact slice of the past, with the same vibrancy, clarity, and intensity. I finally can now. Truly, impossibly, I can see this pivotal point in his life the same as he does.

“You saw everything,” he murmurs when he can speak, his arms like ramparts around me. “The bombs, the . . . the kids—”

“Very little of the kids,” I interrupt in a whisper so my voice doesn’t shake at the crystalline memory. “The camera got smokey and grimy after the IED. But I also saw you. Your strength, your courage, how you led your men, how you saved them. And even there you managed to keep me safe because I kept my eyes on you as much as possible.”

He still hasn’t relaxed. He pours light kisses on my hair, rubbing gentle circles on my shoulder. “You must have been hurting so much . . .”

Lightly, even if it will scorch me later, I press my lips at the rapid pulse on his neck. Ah, the silk of his skin, the fragrant warmth, my home. “You cannot save me from all pain, love. It’s part of life, and you would never want me not to live it.”

His hand curves around my face, angling it up at him. “I know I can’t prevent all pain no matter how much I want to. Loss, illness, grief—those are hard, natural pains we are born to face. But not this, Elisa, not . . . torture.” He flinches at the word, his body cold stone around me.

“I didn’t see the torture, I meant that. The video ends a couple of minutes after you regained consciousness.”

That derails him. His gasp washes over my lips, and his eyes freeze, as though another big bang is about to implode this new world that has barely just reformed.

“You were able to see what happened to me in those few minutes?” he mouths as though his voice has vanished too.

I nod, caressing his scar, blinking past the crimson filter that my memory of his blood is burning me with now. He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t breathe. His heart is thrashing next to mine. I know he knows his own physical wounds better than anyone—every bruise, every cut. But what do we fear more: the known or the unknown?

I place my hand on his heart. “Don’t be afraid. It was all with dignity.”

He watches me with those newborn eyes. “When you say dignity . . .?”

“I mean none of it would change your soul if you knew. And none of it changed the way I see you. If anything, it made me love and admire you even more, and I didn’t think that was possible.”

He still hasn’t drawn a breath. “And Marshall? Could you see what they did to him during that time?”

I run my fingers over his taut shoulders that were bound with chains. “Not much, love—the camera pointed away from him. I could hear you both though, and could see his boots and the blood, but definitely not the worst parts. I promise you—this is everything.”

Torment still ravages his expression, but I know he sees the truth. I know because he draws the first real breath since he learned about the video. Then a filter I didn’t know existed seems to clear from his eyes. Now that it leaves the sapphire depths, I realize the anguish it used to add. What was it? A deep-buried fear of the only minutes he cannot remember? Or his fear for me? Whatever it was, the tension softens at last and he almost sinks in profound relief.

“Thank God, Elisa!” he says fervently, taking both my hands inside his own, his head bowing like in a prayer. “Thank God. Thank Marshall for ripping off the camera when he did, thank your father for the protein, thank every power up above that this is all you saw, even if it’s still too much.” He kisses my fingertips one by one like rosaries, shooting quivers of life up my spine.

I cup my hands around his face, lifting it so he can see me for the most important part. “No, it was exactly right. And that’s what made the video so different from the reel. Because it had moments of laughter and love. I got to see you whole and free. That’s what that video will always be for me: a memory of love first and foremost, a memory that binds us in ways I didn’t even know were possible. I wouldn’t trade a single minute I watched for an entire lifetime of peace, especially not the last few seconds.”

He has inhaled every word, but he frowns at that final part. “The last few seconds?”

I nod, stroking his cheek. “I will never tell you to watch that video, but I do think at some point, you should hearthe last five seconds.”

His breath seems to suspend again. “Why?”

“Because there is something there that will be very good for your heart.”

He swallows, his Aiden’s apple jolting with the hard movement. “Is it something Marshall says?” he guesses.

“Yes, it’s something meant for you alone.”

He hesitates for a moment. “If it was good, the General would have told me.”

“Assuming he heard it—it’s very low. And even if he could, would you have been ready to hear it back then?”

The question hangs between our mouths for a long moment. Then he shakes his head, eyes drifting beyond the room, into the purple and sapphire flames in the fireplace. I give him the time he needs, curling back in his chest, noticing an easier air flow in my lungs. Like the secret of the video between us was lodged in my throat like a bone, choking me until now. Doctor Helen was right. How did I ever imagine I’d be able to keep this hidden from him? How was I going to live without the way it just united us even here at the end? As though my eyes are his eyes, my memory is his memory even if for a fragment in time. The most crucial one. It’s better than closeness—it’s sameness. And, despite the terror and agony of the video, a deep sense of gratitude overpowers me. Because some gifts are not beautiful like diamonds; they are harrowing, ugly visions that let us save someone we love.

“Where is the video now?” Aiden asks after a while; the colorful flames are burning lower in orange embers.

“I assume Doctor Helen’s office, but I’m not sure. Why?”

He doesn’t answer but reaches for his phone on the table, still holding me on his lap.

“Aiden, what—?” I start, but he is already tapping the screen. Pink Martini stop singing about a little drummer boy, and a ring starts echoing as he brings the phone to his ear. Then a sonorous, male voice answers the call.

“Lieutenant?”

Just one ponderous word, but I know immediately who it must be. I have to stifle a gasp in my palm as I listen in awed disbelief.

“General,” Aiden replies, his eyes deepening with all the memories this giant of a figure must hold for him. “My apologies—”

“Never needed, Lieutenant. I’m sure I’ve told you that a hundred times.” Despite the godlike timbre that is making me shake in my fluffy blanket, General Sartain’s care for Aiden becomes instantly obvious even through the muffled static.

“Only seventy-one, sir,” Aiden responds with similar affection.

A growl on the other line that may or may not be a chuckle. “Are you alright, son—after everything you learned?”

Son. The word seems to have an effect on Aiden because some of the heaviness lifts from his eyes. “I am, sir, thank you.”

“Did you speak with Callahan, Hendrix, and Jazzman?”

“Not yet; they’re still at work.”

“And Elisa—how is she holding up?”

The sound of my name in the stentorian voice startles me, but it has the opposite impact on Aiden. His posture softens, and my peaceful turquoise lightens his gaze as he looks at me.

“Better than all of us combined,” he answers in a proud tone that makes me flush all way to my hairline.

“Women usually do, Lieutenant. I hope you’re giving thanks to the Virgin Mary every night.”

“Celebrating the birth of Jesus as we speak, sir.”

I would laugh if I wasn’t a coil of nerves, but the General has no idea how literal Aiden’s words are. “As you should, Lieutenant. I’d be celebrating Baby Jesus every day if I were you too. Now what can I do for you?”

Aiden’s eyes never leave mine as he responds. “Do you remember the video, General?”

His question drops like a bomb into the abrupt silence. The powerful general falls quiet. Aiden’s heartbeat slows down. And my breath stops completely even though I guessed this was the reason for the call. Not because I disagree. But I still don’t want him to suffer one more second of pain.

The General recovers first. “I do remember it, Lieutenant. Why do you ask?” His weighty voice sounds cautious. Is he worrying about Aiden like I am? Or wondering about Doctor Helen?

Aiden is still watching me. “Because it’s time, sir.”

At his answer, despite my own panic, I feel a sense of profound pride, so consuming that it silences even the hardest four letters of them all. T-i-m-e.

I love you, I mouth to him.

His thumb draws an infinity loop on the back of my hand. Always, he is saying.

On the phone, the General seems to be reflecting. “I didn’t think I’d ever get this call from you, Lieutenant,” he rumbles after a moment, still pensive.

“That makes two of us, General.”

“Is this some wizard’s idea?”

A wizard? What does that mean?

“No shrinks for this one. This is all Elisa,” Aiden translates for me, and I’m glad he is protecting Doctor Helen despite his fury at her. Of course he is. Thank you, I mouth again, and he nods with a half-smile.

A low chuckle from the General surprises me—the sound is more relaxed, almost at ease. “She really is very good for you, isn’t she?”

“Yes, sir, she is,” Aiden answers, never looking away from me.

“Is she awake? Would you be willing to introduce us?”

The booming question stuns us both. My mouth pops open and Aiden’s eyes widen into perfectly round blue pools of astonishment. He brings his phone in front of his face, staring at it as though he is not quite sure it made a sound.

“You . . . what?” he checks while my nerves start fraying at the idea of speaking to a general at the highest rank of the U.S. military. What the bloody hell do I say?

“Lower your rifle, Lieutenant, I’ll behave. I still want to retire with Gwen next month, preferably with my seventy-five-year-old dick intact.” He laughs mightily.

“Glad to hear your dick is still STRAC, General,” Aiden hedges, no doubt to buy me some time, whatever STRAC means. “That certainly gives me some leverage. Let me see if she’s done working. She was testing something called NPY/AGRP,” he quotes the paper I wrote with my dad so fluidly, it’s impossible to detect the lie, and mutes the line in the middle of General’s thunderous laugh.

“Hey,” he whispers, brushing my cheek. “Do you want to talk to him? Don’t feel pressured to say yes.” He tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear, searching my eyes in worry. But somewhere between the General’s laughter and their familiar dick jokes—so similar to James—things changed for me. Abruptly, speaking to the man who saved Aiden more than once seems natural, right even. Not to mention everything I owe to the General myself.

“Aiden, I would love to talk to him. He is one of the most important figures in your life.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am. But do you want us to meet . . .?” My voice trails off as if to silence the hardest part I cannot speak. Do you want us to meet now at our end? But perhaps he hears it anyway because he pulls me closer.

“I do,” he answers without a shadow of doubt in his voice. Perhaps he is still doing selfish things—I hope he is. That’s the only thought I need. I take his free hand and bring it to my lips.

“Well then,” I say like always. “Let’s talk to the General.”

The new smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, his arm covering me like a shield. “I’ll be right here,” he murmurs in reassurance.  If only for forever, I think, but thankfully he is already unmuting the phone before he can see the unspoken words, and their corresponding pain, on my face. “Okay, General, we’re both here. I’ll put you on speaker.” He taps the screen again and introduces us. “Elisa, this is General Sartain. General, this is Elisa Snow.” His voice saturates with so much pride, he sounds like he is introducing Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war.

“Hello, General. Nice to meet you,” I squeak, my stomach churning despite the soothing circles Aiden’s hand is drawing at the small of my back.

“Well, hello, Elisa,” the General booms, and I have to resist the urge to stand and salute the voice of God reverberating through the cottage. “It’s a pleasure meeting you too. And you can call me just Jack.”

Aiden’s jaw drops. “What?” he gasps at the phone, his beautiful mouth falling open into such a shocked, bewildered expression that I start laughing. Clearly, he has never heard these words from the General before.

“I’m not talking to you, Lieutenant. I’m talking to this lovely lady with the British accent.”

“As Jack?” Aiden is still gaping at the phone. “The name that even President Carter couldn’t use?”

“Was President Carter a loving young woman who could put up with people like you and me, Lieutenant?”

Aiden stares at the phone as though the General is climbing out of it. “No, sir?” The answer comes out like a bewildered question.

“What about Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Baby Bush, and Obama—any of them had tits? Sorry, Elisa,” he apologizes, but all I can let out is more stifled giggles.

“Not to my knowledge, sir,” Aiden responds, too stunned still.

“That’s correct, Lieutenant. If they had had tits, maybe the world wouldn’t be the shitshow that it is. Therefore, I’m just Jack to this young lady, and General Sartain to all dicks. Sorry again, Elisa.”

“No problem, Just Jack. I’ve heard worse.” I laugh while Aiden shakes his head, mouthing unbelievable, except his eyes are light now, the way they were when I met his parents.

“I’m sure you have. Now, that Marine of yours tells me you helped him figure out the mess in Fallujah. I owe you my thanks. Our boys deserve the truth about what happened out there.”

“Aiden figured it out all on his own, while asleep no less. And I’m the one who needs to thank you. For Aiden and also for saving Javier and my entire family. I don’t know how I can ever repay you, General Jack, but I will be forever grateful.”

“Oh, that was the right thing to do, but if you want, you can easily repay me by trying to keep our Lieutenant from being his own worst enemy. Do you know what we do with our worst enemies, Elisa?” Despite his easy manner with me, in his voice, the question sounds so imposing that I can’t help but tense and scramble for the right answer.

“Umm, we keep them close, sir?”

Aiden and the General break into similar chuckles, both deep and masculine, except Aiden’s brushes my cheek, sending warm tingles over my skin.

“That’s correct,” the General approves. “We keep them close, and we use all weapons necessary, including heavy iron pans, so the good side can win.”

I use all my strength to stay only on the present moment—not on the war we have already lost—so I can keep breathing. “Don’t worry, sir. I have an army of roses with very sharp thorns at my disposal.”

“She has a lot more than that,” Aiden adds, staring at my face, his turquoise eyes tender and full of things that a deep, subconscious part of me must understand because I feel abruptly safe, like all is well.

“Of course she does. Now, Elisa, will you do this old man a favor?”

“Sure, Just Jack, what do you need?”

“Will you send me a photo of you and the Lieutenant together so I can show it to my wife? She really wants to see you. I’d ask him but I know he never takes pictures.”

I smile, my throat closing at his words, at how much Aiden has changed this summer. “He does now. How about I send you one that he took—will that be even better?”

The General lets out a commanding chuckle. “More power to you, I guess, but can you make sure it shows your eyes? Gwen can’t believe they’re really purple like Callahan says. And your hair too—she was asking if it was long. In fact, your whole face—”

“Okay, okay,” Aiden decides to intervene. “That’s enough before you ask her about other body parts. We’ll send you a photo and let you get on with your day, General. Tell Gwen I said hi.”

“I’ll hold you to that, Lieutenant. Elisa, wonderful talking to you. If you have trouble with him, call me.”

“I will. Bye, Just Jack.”

“Merry Christmas, General,” Aiden adds, making me laugh again.

“What the fuck are you talking about, Lieutenant? Oh, am I still on speaker?”

Aiden chuckles too and hangs up. Then he takes my face between his hands and kisses my forehead—the spot that belongs only to him.

“Thank you for that. I didn’t realize how much I wanted you to meet him until now.”

I caress his cheek—it’s glowing again with the candlelight filter at the closeness of his lips, his delicious breath. I have to concentrate to think through the beauty stunning my every brain cell. “Me neither. I thought I’d be afraid of him.”

His lips brush along my hairline to my temple. “You’re afraid of nothing.”

“N-not true,” I sigh, my breath trembling from his touch, from the surreal vision the closer he gets to becoming just a dream.

He leans back, still holding my face. I can see his eyes again through the golden shimmer. And he is looking at me like he did upstairs, like our whole life is there in his gaze, from our very first sight to our very last breath. Then the most peculiar expression flickers on him, the way waterfalls might look as they’re about to cascade deep below, powerful and certain that they are not falling, they are simply coming home.

“I love you,” he says before I can find oxygen and, for a moment, I think he wants to say something more, but a ding from his phone breaks through the moment, blasting in like a cold gust of wind. The warm tingles become an icy chill. Because I know without looking what it is. After four thousand four hundred seventy-seven days, Marshall’s farewell is here.

The effect of the chime on Aiden is instant. The tension of desire morphs into a different strain as we both turn to look at the screen. A banner notification is there from the General, no words, just a series of numbers, no doubt some encrypted code.

Slowly, methodically, as if each movement matters, Aiden swipes it away and taps his photo library. It used to be empty when I met him. Now it’s full of photos of me, of every moment in our reel of brilliancy until the end eleven days ago. I don’t allow myself to revisit them or to look at the blank white space that glares at the bottom of the screen.

“Which one would you like to send him?” he asks, scrolling up through the photos as though he can’t bear to see the blank strip either.

I’m about to pick our favorite—his first selfie: us in the field of poppies—but abruptly, I realize that’s not what I want.

“How about us right now?” I suggest, never wanting that white, void space in the end.

He looks at me, considering, his gaze like a spell that heals me immediately without a word or touch even as I have no hope of ever grasping the million things that flash in his depths. But I know this new smile. “Us then. Exactly as we are.”

He snaps our selfie—my pale cheek to his hollowed one, my messy tangles to his wet curls, me in his favorite sweatshirt, he in his damp T-shirt, wrapped in our blanket and surrounded by twinkly lights. But with the same thing as always in our smile: each other. He texts it to the General with one word:

Us

It croons in my head like a soundtrack, like all the other words have become meaningless and silent. Then the screen blinks again with the unread message. And Aiden’s smile vanishes.

“Are you thinking of watching it or just listening to the last part?” I ask.

“I’m not sure yet. I just know I want it done.” An intense yearning blazes in his eyes at that last word. And instantly, his urgency catches in my blood.

“Should we try now?”

He raises an eyebrow. “We nothing, and absolutely not. Nowhere near this cottage. I’ll deal with it later. Now it’s just us.”

An idea strikes me in full form then, a plan that has been brewing since the protein. “Wait here!” I tell him, throwing off the blanket. “I’ll be right back.”

His arms tighten instinctively around me as though he doesn’t want to release me even for a second. “Where are you going?”

“Just in the kitchen. You’ll see.”

He sighs but lets me go with another kiss in my hair. “Slow down,” he calls behind me as I try to sprint on trembling legs.

As soon as he is out of sight, the scalding agony almost buckles my knees. Impossibly, it has grown during our Christmas hours while I’ve been ignoring it, becoming even more excruciating than the video itself. It’s though once we fused back together, each second apart tears out my very flesh. How much worse will it be tomorrow, on September eighteen, for the rest of my days? My hands jerk so much, they rattle all the silverware in the drawer. I shove down these thoughts immediately and try to focus only on my motions and how not to burn the cottage down. Then I tuck everything in the covered picnic basket and storm back to Aiden for oxygen.

But he is already waiting for me in the foyer in a fresh, dry shirt—navy this one, from the laundry closet. He catches me in his arms immediately, seeming to inhale for the first time himself. And instantly, the pain disappears. Not like I’m healed, but like I was never broken in the first place.

“Hi,” I breathe, smiling up at him.

“Hi.” He smiles back. “Are you okay? It sounded like you were attacking the cabinets.”

“Yes, they didn’t want to cooperate but I won.”

“Of course you did. What is the basket for?”

“We’re going for a little excursion, if you feel up to it.”

His thumb brushes my cheek. “The better question is do you feel up to it? You’ve been through hell no matter how much you say you’re fine. Maybe we should stay here and watch Christmas movies with hot chocolate? Would you like that? It’s still embargo after all. We can deal with whatever you have planned tomorrow.”

His sonata voice paints the most beautiful picture—just us and maybe his lips on my temple again. And that siren song: another day. “That’s exactly what I want but when we come back. Please? This won’t violate the rest rules—I think this is important for us too.”

The corner of his mouth pulls up in a smile. “Well, in that case, let’s go now. I’ll just douse the fire first and turn off the lights.”

Of course he remembers safety before I even have to ask. He kisses my forehead again and strides back to the living room. Thankfully, he is back before my chest catches fire.

“Will we need anything else?” he asks, picking up his jacket from the peg.

“Just the car keys. I have everything else I need right here.” My fingers flutter up to his face, tracing the perfectly sculpted angles. He takes my hand and brings it to his lips, kissing the inside of my wrist, right by the diamond E.

“True,” he murmurs against my skin. His nose glides along my lifeline, and his face is candlelit in my vision again. He releases my hand, clueless of this secret, and throws his jacket over my shoulders instead of mum’s parka. I set down my basket and shove my arms eagerly in the too-long sleeves. From his sweatshirt and jacket, I feel bulky, but I wouldn’t shed a single layer. My entire body smells of him.

“I like this.” I grin as he slips my wellies over my feet, also wrapped in his socks. “It reminds me of our first embargo night when we went to the Portland Rose Garden. You bundled me up in all your clothes then too like we were going out in the Arctic tundra.”

His eyes lighten at the memory as he rolls up my sleeves like he did then. “One of my favorites.” He smiles, zipping up my jacket. And then we step out into the breezy night.

Only for me to stagger on the doorstep.

Because the Christmas magic is also here. The garden is not just silver this evening. A warm gold sparks in the air from more starry lights woven around the roses like fireflies. Not everywhere, just the Elisas twinkling in the velvet dark. The blooms are fast asleep to the willows’ carols, their petals aglow like crepuscular snow. I inhale their ambrosial breath, almost honey and myrrh with the late summer ripeness. It blends with Aiden’s scent in my airways, making my head whirl.

“Thank you,” I whisper to him. “It has been so long since I’ve seen the cottage like this.” I don’t think of all the Christmases ahead, without the North Star shining next to me. They no longer exist. The only thing that exists is this present moment with him.

Aiden pulls me close, looking up at the cottage with a similar spell in his eyes. “It has always seemed like a fairytale, but for some reason, tonight it feels more real. More home.”

“I think that’s because you’ve come home to yourself.”

He turns me in his arms, and even the Christmas wonder pales next to him. “It’s a good place to be.”

When he says things like this, with that silver look in his eyes, his moon shadow next to mine, it’s impossible notto be us. Not to believe that this present moment is also our future and our past. Not to hope that there has to be a way for a love like this somehow. Just like the willows sang for his mum. Just like their garlands are chanting now. Their aria fills my mind with an ethereal longing.

Somehow, us, somehow.

“This will always be your home,” I say, hooking my arm in his. “Come, let’s do this.”

He hesitates for a second and again I have that fleeting intuition that he wants to say something more. But his eyes flicker instinctively to his iPhone, and he must change his mind. He takes my basket instead, and we set off down the petaled path, arm in arm. I notice as we pass the hedge that the reel and his waders are gone. I don’t ask where—not today. I just clutch him tighter as we cross the starlit Elysium, him carrying the basket, me trying to carry my heart.

When we reach the garage, he starts for the driver side, but I stop him. “Can I drive? Not that it’ll be much of a surprise. You’ll know exactly where we’re going in two minutes.”

He smiles, seeing what I want. “How about I don’t look at the road at all? In fact, I prefer it.” He winks playfully, and I miss the keys he tosses my way.

And he never looks at the road one bit. As soon as he checks my security belt and I clear the garage, he leans back on his seat. I have to use all my strength to stay focused on the empty, dark road, instead of the gaze I sense on me. But I’ve never been able to resist his face, so I slip and glance at him every few heartbeats. From the dim light of the dashboard, it’s difficult to understand his expression.

“What are you thinking about?” I ask him.

“Us.” The word thrills in his piano voice against the low purr of the car.

I listen, unwilling to interfere with the beautiful sound. It sings inside my head with the same willow chant: us, somehow, us. But what does that somehow look like? Maybe living in different houses, spending the nights apart, security always around us? All those half-options that never seemed enough, I would take them all now, without a single regret if I could see the real him for one hour or just one minute every day. Even if only from a safe window every night. Anything but goodbye.

Except all these options end the same way: his guilt and pain for giving me only half a life. And I’ve given him my word that I will live, that I will have a future beyond him.

But what if . . . What if some things are just too hard? What if you can never succeed, only try? What if in trying, you cannot live? Is there some point when it’s okay to give up? To accept that you are not strong enough to resist your heart? And to follow that beating, terrified heart to the end, whatever the end might be? Because that is the only true bravery there is.

“And you?” he asks, touching my arm gently as though to bring me back. “What are you thinking so hard about?”

“I was trying to plot ways to maximize your selfishness,” I admit, peering in the dark as the road curves past the field of poppies.

He chuckles, and I hear a note of relief. “Trust me, I don’t need any help in the selfishness department. I’m already doing too much of it.”

“But still not enough. You’re supposed to be the most selfish man in the world, remember?”

His index finger brushes the back of my hand very lightly, no doubt trying to save us both from a car crash. It still feels like a jolt to my system. The Rover lurches as my foot trembles on the gas, and he pulls back his hand. “Why don’t you tell me one of your ideas then?” His voice is hypnotic, like he is touching me with it instead.

“I’m still working on that part.”

“As am I.” He chuckles again, and I can’t resist. I peek at him again, but for once his eyes are not on me. He is staring at the PEAC charms at my wrist. The phosphorescent letters glow in the dark around the diamonds. And that’s good because it gives me a minute to think. If he is still working on being selfish, then maybe he will give me more embargo. More t-i-m-e. And I can spin this out like Scheherazade, night after night until I can magic something into existence. Abruptly, the Rover picks up speed as though my frantic heartbeat shot like fuel through its engine. The acceleration distracts him, and he looks up at last through the windshield.

“Ah, the hilltop,” he guesses as the road veers left at the end of the clover fields. “Of course I should have known.”

I pull into the narrow shoulder and turn off the car. The cabin plunges into total darkness under the hill’s dense shadow. “Is this okay?” I ask, suddenly worried I chose wrong, that this will cause more pain. But he raises my hand to his lips. Blindfolded with the black night, I only feel the warm touch of his fingers, and the stroke of his breath on my skin.

“Hmm, it’s perfect, actually,” he answers cryptically, and I sense some emotion in his voice, only I don’t know what it is. He kisses my hand again and then we climb out into the satiny air. His arm finds my waist in the dark, guiding me up the slender trail.

The higher we tread toward the summit, the more visible his beauty becomes from the moonlight. It gilds his hair, illuminates his skin, and shimmers into a silvery flame in his eyes. He strolls slower than usual, gazing toward the crest. We don’t talk much, and I sense he has bigger thoughts in his head. Mine continue the same refrain: somehow please, someway.

When we reach the peak, it’s like stepping into a pool of pure, opaline light. And it’s impossible not to feel like the meadow was expecting us. The marble gleams like a smile, the white miniature roses wave, the wind breathes. Except this time, a bouquet of red roses rests next my vial of Aiden’s dog tags, as I knew it would be.

“Who are these from?” Aiden asks as we stride across the pearly grass and sit by Hope’s half-sister, the American Beauty rose we planted together the first time he came to this hilltop. It has grown too, taller than Aiden’s knee.

“Benson,” I answer, feeling a surge of affection for our friend and deciding he too deserves a Christmas present. “I asked him to bring them yesterday for Marshall until we had a chance to do something for him together. I know it’s humble for a war hero, but I thought this would make a good resting place for him . . .” I trail off at the awed look that floods his eyes.

“You’re letting me share this place for Marshall?” he murmurs as he understands the full meaning behind this trip.

I nod, trying to breathe. I should be terrified of engraving him here when he is about to leave. Except I’m not. The closer the clock ticks, I want him everywhere, in every blade of grass and every speck of stardust like he is embedded in every molecule of me. “What’s mine is yours,” I tell him. “And maybe this place will heal you too, like it did for me.”

For a moment, I expect him to argue with this choice—worrying that it’s not best for me—but he doesn’t. Moonlight flows across his face with the soft movement of another emotion. L-o-v-e.  “Thank you,” he accepts, his voice subdued with feeling. “Maybe it will.”

“Oh and wait until you see this.” I lift the lid off the basket and take out a thermos. “Jasmine tea,” I announce, holding it up like the Rose Cup.

He chuckles then, eyes lighter, the smile like a shooting star over the horizons of his face. “Of course you brought jasmine tea. But what will the roses think? I was already caught saying the name of another flower.”

“They’re okay because I also brought this.” I dig out a small sandwich, cut in half, wrapped in a rose-appliqued tea towel. “It’s a version of Marshall’s favorite: peanut butter and rose jam.”

He stares at it incredulously. “You’re unbelievable. Did Cal tell you it was his favorite sandwich?”

“Yes, I told you I was texting with him last night. I was gathering intelligence.”

He shakes his head. “First me, then lethal snipers, now the General. If we manage to bottle your power, we’d have a weapon of mass destruction in our hands.”

I laugh, rolling my eyes at his filtered image of me. But isn’t it the same for me now with the golden tint in his skin every time desire races in my veins? Yes, it is, even though he doesn’t know it. And never will.

I pour the jasmine tea in our mugs—it’s still piping warm—and clink my mug to his. “To Marshall and his love.”

“And to leaving the past behind.”

We sip the tea together and share the sandwich in comfortable silence. Then without me prompting, he sets down his mug on the grass and takes out his phone. My breath stops as he turns it in his long fingers, the way we might hold something precious before letting it go.

“Let’s hear him out,” he says.

A million anxieties prickle my skin like the cypress needles. Is he sure? How much will this hurt him? But I don’t ask him those questions. Why would I cast a single shadow of doubt in his mind? Especially when I know this is right. I set down my mug too and wrap my hand around his wrist where the wooden initials of his brothers rest against his skin.

“Did you decide if you will watch or just listen to the last part?”

He looks at the dark screen. The moon’s sickle reflects distantly on it like a cracked portal to another night. “If you watched all of it, then so will I. I’m not leaving you alone with this just like you didn’t leave me.”

I had a feeling this would be his choice but I know it will be useless to argue with the resolve in his eyes. And maybe this way, he will also see some of the good things under a different light. Except there is one thing worrying me about that. “Will this still trigger all that trauma for you?”

But he shakes his head, seeming confident. “No, I don’t think this will be like the reel. In some ways, this is technically a new memory for me because I will be seeing the events through Marshall’s angle, not mine. Some even for the first time.”

I sigh in both hope and relief. Because if it’s a first, maybe I can make it easier on him? “Then I will be right here in your arms. I won’t look or listen but this way, you can feel my calm.”

He stares at me in his in inescapable way to make sure I really mean it. Then he nods, seeming satisfied, and pulls out his AirPods. I snuggle in his chest, covering him with all my calm.

“Close your eyes, love,” he murmurs in my hair.

And I do. I bury my face in his pectoral, listening only to his heart. Its rhythm is not terrified like mine was—it’s steady and strong. But I know exactly when the video starts because his breath catches and his heartbeat falters. I hug him closer, caressing his tense shoulders, trying to breathe evenly so he can time his lungs to mine.

It’s a different kind of war. Fought inside our arteries and bones. Heartbeats like bombs, breaths like bullets, each other as our only shelter, but we are not alone. As the video storms on, it’s impossible not to think of other battles we have waged on this hilltop. It’s as though each teardrop, each star, the very souls that go on invisibly around us, our old selves, our new ones, every tendril of hope and gust of faith, and this irrational, irrevocable, irreplaceable kind of love, all weave together for the simple purpose of fighting alongside us. For the last time.

And after one thousand four-hundred eight heart-bombs, it’s over. I know because of the low gasp that leaves Aiden’s lips and the slight shudder that runs through him. It ripples out of our twined bodies and blows away in the hilltop wind. But I still hold him close, wrapping him in my calm until I feel his kiss in my hair again.

I open my eyes then and look up at his face, half-dizzy with worry, half-terrified. Starlight has dimmed on his skin, cast into shadow from the tension of his jaw. But there is no fever or torture in his expression, at least not compared to the reel. I remove his AirPods quickly and take his face in my hands.

“I love you,” I tell him so these are the first words he hears on this other side.

His jeweled eyes gleam on mine, liquid and deep. “As I love you.” His voice low, though not as ravaged like it is after the reel.

“How are you feeling?”

He sets down his phone—the screen is back to black—then his arm folds around me again.

“You were right,” he answers thoughtfully. “It was good for the heart despite the pain. I didn’t realize how much I had needed Marshall’s understanding until now. How much I had missed the real him.”

And here is our win. Exactly as I was hoping he would feel. Just a man missing his brother without guilt. “So you heard his words to you?”

He nods. “Not your fault, my brother,” he repeats them. “You said them to me over and over again, only I didn’t know they were that literal.”

“Of course you didn’t. But I meant them, love, as did Marshall.”

He nods again, his eyes tracing the path of calm on my face. “I’m sorry I waited so long to hear them.”

“Don’t be sorry. Some things we can’t hear before we’re ready. If you had heard his words before you found the truth on your own, I don’t think you would have believed them.”

“No doubt about that,” he starts but then frowns as though something else just occurred to him. “Will you tell me something?”

“Don’t I always in the end, even if I fumble along the way?”

“Well, that’s my point actually. If I hadn’t discovered the truth, would you have never told me about this?” He seems disturbed by the thought as he should be. But at least the protein planned for all eventualities.

“Do you really think I would have given up that easily? There was never a chance in my mind that you wouldn’t have figured it out once you were free of fear. But if you hadn’t by tonight, I had a back-up plan for tomorrow. I would have told Doctor Helen all the clues and asked her to give them to you at our meeting. No matter what, you would have found out; I just knew it would mean so much more if you did it yourself.”

He stares at me, part-impressed, part-stunned. Then the first smile since the video curves up his flawless mouth. “I had no idea you were such a plotter, Elisa.”

If he only knew about the next plot twist waiting for him. But at least that one is not hard to keep—it’s more like a gift. “I’m not, but the protein is. As you can see, I crumbled on my own within minutes, especially after you stopped running a high fever.”

He chuckles at last with a free sound like the wind in the leaves. “Yes, you really are an awful liar, but that’s part of your charm.”

“Well, at least we found something you think I’m awful at.”

“What do you mean?” he asks in all seriousness even though the entire hilltop feels abruptly lighter. “There are several things I think you’re awful at.”

“Name even one. And mean it.”

“Easy. You’re terrible at personal safety.”

Okay, he has me there. “And yet somehow I seem to find exactly the kind of people who would do anything to protect me, including sacrificing themselves. So that one is neutral, not awful.”

“I disagree, but the embargo rules prohibit me from arguing and I’ve already breached them.”

“Exactly. So name another.”

“Sure. You’re an unmitigated disaster in rugby, football, soccer, basketball, volleyball, wrestling, weight-lifting, martial arts—” He cuts off as I start to laugh.

“So basically lying and competitive sports?”

“Basically.”

We laugh together then at the absurdity of our eyes and minds, what they see, what they don’t. His beautiful chuckle strums on my cheek. Making me think . . . If we are so blind to each other’s flaws, what else are our minds wrong about? Saying goodbye? Seeing no other solution or choice? What about that part of us that always knows, that sees the truth exactly as it is? The heart. How do we listen to it?

I burrow closer in his chest, focusing only on his heartbeat as though it can give me the answer now. His fingers start combing through my tangles as the sound of our laughter fades slowly into silence. A change in the atmosphere. I peek up at his face, but he is staring at the epitaph carved on the marble, eyes deep and unfathomable again.

“I still believe it,” I tell him in case this is what is wondering.

He looks back at me, the silver V folding in his brows. “Believe what?”

“That love conquers everything. Maybe not the way we think, but somehow, in the end, the heart wins.”

He tilts his head toward the names carved on the marble. “Do you think they would have agreed?”

The question takes my breath away, perhaps because of the way his voice lowers when he asks it. I think about it seriously, but it’s still the same answer I have known from the very beginning.

“For our kind of love, yes. They would have wished it was less dangerous, I’ll grant you that, but they would have believed there was a way. I’m sure Dad would have invented some kind of selfishness protein that would have cured you of all your high morals and noble intentions.”

“Well, I don’t seem to need a protein for that.” He ruffles my hair, turning back to the marble. I try to understand the intensity in his gaze, but it’s too deep for me. The white miniature roses flutter back as if they know what he means. Under their delicate branches glints the vial with his dog tags that I tucked there my first day in England, when I was trying to leave him behind. Abruptly, that feels wrong now, like I’m excising my own heart.  I reach out and swipe up the vial, unwilling to let it rest on marble a second longer.

“What is it?” Aiden asks, looking at his tags nestled inside the crystal with the dried rose from the garden.

“I don’t want to leave these here anymore. They’re a part of you, and I love every part.”

The confusion dissolves in his eyes; they become luminous with that my-all look I now know well. I don’t understand how but, in just a few hours, this look has become my oxygen. It flows in my airways to the deepest parts of myself hidden even from me. I wait for it breath to breath, my lungs heavy and shallow until I see it again. There is nothing like this look in my world, even now in the end.

“Hard to argue with that,” he says, taking the vial from my fingers. The precious tags chime as if they can feel his touch. He opens the cap and spills the gleaming steel on his palm. Then, lightly, he throws them around my neck, gathering back my hair. I feel the brush of his fingertips to the marrow of my bones.

“Welcome back,” I whisper, caressing his engraved name, his blood type that can save everyone. Yet they still feel too distant. I tuck them under all my layers until they rest directly against my skin. The cold steel makes me shiver but in a good way. Like a missing beat has returned to my heart.

Aiden smiles, his expression lighter as he watches the spot where the tags disappeared. “Well, that’s definitely an upgrade for their home.” Then slowly, he bends his face to mine. Not to my lips, and that’s good. I know he would never blend a memory of this precious part of our love with any kind of pain. Not to mention we still have to survive. After all, how many times can we tear out our hearts and still expect them to keep beating?

His mouth presses on my eyelids instead, then my temple, then at last the center of my forehead. “Now let’s go home for us.”

Home. Us. Somehow. The silver meadow shimmers with the golden haze of his kiss.

We rise together then and pack up our basket. Shadows of fluffy clouds follow us across the meadow like celestial hugs.

“So, except the shock of the video, how was this first day on the other side?” I ask as we stroll back down the hill, arm in arm.

He looks at the village lights in the distance. “Hopeful,” he smiles.

So this is what our other side looks like, after descending through the nine circles of our hell. Each of us have our own brand. Some burn in loneliness, other scorch from judgment. Some drown in loss, others in greed. All of us writhe in our own pain, fight our own war. We win, we lose, we rise, we fall. Then it’s over. And we open our eyes to the world beyond. Praying that it’s softer, kinder, and we’re stronger, wiser than before. But we don’t know. We just keep our hearts beating, lights in the darkness, always reaching for hope.©2022 Ani Keating

NINETY DAYS: CHAPTER 39 – GLOW

Happy Saturday, friends! I hope the good vibes of spring are renewing you all for the weekend.  Here is a new chapter that might make you feel a bit . . . glowy. Can you guess what Elisa’s secret discovery is? P.S. This photo is a hint. P.S. This one is for my friend, Linda. For all the glows to come. xo, Ani

39

Glow

My awareness quivers with a feeling of profound beauty. So exquisite I try to linger in the dream a little longer. A gold gossamer veil swirls gently before my eyes, filling my senses with an almost corporal sunshine. The kind that beams only for angels. I try to see through the veil, knowing the sublime vision is just on the other side. But as I chase the elusive wonder, something soft and warm flutters at the hem of consciousness. And reality blows in like a sultry breeze.

“Oh!” I gasp, flinging my eyes open.

But no, it’s not reality. I have only slipped through the golden veil, and there he is. The angel in my dream. Aiden, as he used to be. His flawless face rests on my pillow without the dark, thick beard. Heart-stoppingly beautiful, more sculpted than my other dreams. From the dim light around us, his skin is almost a starry white. And his eyes . . . I have not seen them so alive in a long time. Even asleep I know that. They are watching me like I am a dream too, gleaming with an inner light.

He pulls me into his vivid, fragrant warmth, and I realize I am cocooned in his arms. That sense of wonder floods me again.

“Did I startle you?” His low, piano voice thrums in my ears.

I lift my hand to his smooth cheek, afraid I might not be able to touch him. But I can—the feeling is so supple, so sensory. A spring of tingles blossoms on my skin. “No.” I smile in bliss. “I knew you were behind the veil.”

A lovely frown creases his luminescent forehead. “The veil?”

I reach a single finger between his brows, smoothing the V. The diamonds from the bracelet he gave me throw sparkles on his lips. “Yes, the golden veil. You can’t see it?”

The frown deepens, and his hand flies to my forehead. The tingles thrill everywhere. “What golden veil, Elisa?”

I squint for the light to show him, but it’s glowing faintly in the distance. “It’s fading now. But it was here.”

“Where, love?” Alarmed now for some reason, but that word. L-o-v-e. So real, the way he says it, layered with tension. I trace his satiny jawline with my fingers.

“Don’t worry. It’s okay. That’s just part of the dream.”

“The dream? What dream?”

“You told me to dream beautiful dreams. And I am.”

“You’re not dreaming, Elisa. You’re awake.” His hand leaves my face and clutches my shoulder, shaking me lightly. Once, twice, three times—his grip as substantial as the rest of him, his face paler than other dreams. I blink away from his angel face unwillingly and search around me. We’re curled up together in the small guest bed, me under the quilt from our happy bedroom, him on top of it. The light is muted from the closed curtains. Hope is growing on the dresser with its second bud leaf. And on the nightstand blooms the bouquet of Elisas, with the origami rose of my brave letter and our phones. All as it was when I went to sleep. Abruptly, my mind clears and the last twenty-four hours rush back in . . . The protein, the harrowing video, the near-fatal reel, Aiden’s fever and agony, his discovery about Fallujah, the hope that came with it, our embargo, the meeting with Doctor Helen tomorrow, science’s surrender, the goodbye looming ahead, that pure, brave love like nothing else, still surging . . . But overpowering all that—like the brilliant cloud of my dream—is the beauty of this present moment. Aiden is truly here with me for a few more hours, finally guilt free.

“Elisa?” he shakes me again.

“Wow, I really am awake,” I muse, caressing his silken cheek that confused me—hollower without the beard, back to his normal temperature. The tingles spark again on my skin like the golden veil still flickering on my retinas. “I was so sure you were a dream.”

He chuckles once, still anxious. “I know the feeling, but what veil were you seeing while awake?”

“Oh, it was just a leftover from the dream. This magical filter in front of your face.” I realize now I was dreaming of the aura that shimmered on him during the protein.

His delicious sigh of relief washes over my lips, and the alarm vanishes from his expression. He chuckles truly now, like the most harmonious music. “I know that feeling too, with Javier’s filter, though I had no idea your dreams were as vivid as mine.”

“Not always.” I can’t stop touching his smooth cheek, and he lets me. “You shaved . . .”

“It seemed like the roses were missing my face.”

“They were. They haven’t seen anything like your face in their thirty-five million years.”

He rolls his eyes. “Maybe you should go back to sleep. You’re not coherent.”

Sleep? When our embargo is just starting? When his first day after the truth has already begun all alone? I’d rather watch the video for the next thirty-five million years. “I’m wide awake now, and fully rested just like you wanted. How are you feeling?”

His fingers trace my cheek too. He gazes at me with a look I haven’t seen on him before. Like that nameless expectant gaze of last night has arrived or resolved. It makes me both anxious and calm. Anxious because I don’t know what the resolution is. Calm because he seems somehow . . . home?

“Not that different from you,” he answers. “I’ve had moments where I had to test myself that I was really awake. That what we discovered about Fallujah was true. Then I would look at you, at this bracelet you made me, the letter you wrote, and I knew it had to be real. I didn’t cause Marshall’s death . . . it was not my fault.”

He says those last words with practiced rhythm as though he has repeated them so many times that they have become a soundtrack in his mind. I take his hand, stroking the wooden A at his wrist. Only now I notice the bandages are gone, his labor blisters more healed.

“It is real, love,” I tell him. “Don’t ever question that again. It was never your fault, and you really are free.”

“Yes, I am. Because of you.”

But that reminds me. “You know how I said I would argue with you when I woke up that you did it all on your own?”

A soft smile lifts the corner of his lips. Not ravaged or war-torn. This one curves with something like peace. And instantly it becomes a favorite for me, second only to the dimple.

“Ah, yes, you did make that threat. But if I’m right, the embargo is still ongoing and all arguments are still banned.”

“Right, damn! Well, tomorrow then, I’ll make you see exactly who you are.” And I finally know the way how. The only way I could find even during the protein.

“I’ll be on my guard.” He chuckles again, and I get lost in the beautiful sound, in the impossible face looking back at me. The shock of his discovery seems to have faded, but the wonder is still there in the newness of his gaze. I search every pore I have missed for answers. He seems centered somehow, more present. And he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to race through our embargo, which suits me just fine.

“So what have you been doing while I’ve been asleep?” I ask, cuddling closer in his arms.

He brushes my jawline with his knuckles. “Selfish things.”

My body feels his words before my mind. They jolt electrically through me like his touch.

Really?” I squeak in surprise a second later.

He nods, smiling at my evident delight. “I believe you wanted me to be the most selfish man in the world after your letter. I thought I’d give it a try.”

“And I missed it? How—what selfish things have you done?”

“Well, being in your bed, for one. Kissing this for another.” His warm lips press at my temple, triggering an image of the golden veil in my dream. And I recognize now what woke me. Such a light kiss, yet my whole body trembles against his steel lines. But he doesn’t tense away like the last eleven days; he only holds me tighter, his eyes incandescent with desire. Why is that? Is it because of the embargo? Because he is still being selfish? Or something else?

I try to envision kissing his temple, so close, lying in bed, but the idea alone is too much for me to survive. I press my lips over his heart instead. It’s pounding jagged and hard like mine. “This . . . seems a little easier for you today.” I run my fingers along his bicep, feeling it flex back under my hand.

“Does it seem that way?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.” His fingers trail down my spine over the quilt, the sheet, and my sweatshirt. I still quiver like Hope’s leaf.

“So . . . why is that?”

He sighs achingly, pulling back a few inches. The tremor of his breath flits over my lips. “I suppose being selfish with you feels natural . . . like nothing else in the world, if I don’t resist.”

“Then don’t resist.”

He smiles that new smile that makes my heart stutter, and resists. “But there has to be a way to do it right, no?”

I laugh breathlessly, the sound shaking with me. “Only you would worry about being selfish the right way.”

“If something is worth doing, it’s worth trying to do well.”

“In that case, you’ll have to try a little harder. Because I don’t think you’re being that selfish at all. In fact, I’m not sure it is selfish if I want it too.”

“That’s debatable, but since debates are not allowed either, how about eavesdropping on your sleep? Does that qualify as selfish? I think it’s utterly egotistical on my part.”

My grin disappears despite his obvious joke. Bloody hell! I was talking in my sleep? I usually reserve that kind of humiliation for my orgasm comas. What on earth did I say? I try to think through my dreams, but all I recall is the sunshine haze. The possibilities are horrifying. What if I said something about the video? No, it can’t be that because the world would be in ashes right now but he is waiting for me with that ceasefire smile.

“I suppose it could be selfish,” I hedge. “It depends on what you heard.”

“Ah, that’s for me and the roses to know.”

“Oh no, it’s that bad?” Heat singes my face all way to my scalp. Did I do something crazy like propose to him? No, he most definitely would not be smiling about that either.

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” he tries to soothe me. “I’m sure you heard a lot worse during my sleep.”

I wait, trying to breathe.

He sighs. “It really wasn’t much. You miss Reagan and Javier. It sounded like you were planning their visit. You were trying to give Reagan your mother’s pearl earrings and convincing Javier to marry her. At some point, you ordered me to teach him some ‘kissing tricks’ and started plotting an aphrodisiac formula to sneak into his tea.” He chuckles at the memory of my babbles.

Oh! Well, it could have been a lot worse. I could have been begging him to kiss me, rip off our clothes, and . . . Stop! At least this way I made him laugh.

“Well, that’s absolutely an option if Javier doesn’t wise up. And not just him, but all self-loathing men who are unkind to themselves.”

“I’ll heed the warning and avoid anything you cook or brew for me.”

“Did I say anything else?”

He knows what I’m after immediately because a velvet look passes in his eyes. “Just how much you love me.”

My cheeks burn. “And, umm, how exactly did I do that?”

“With the words of your letter. Amazingly, you remembered them all even in your sleep as clearly as I do. You must have read it to me a thousand times last night.”

Except I remembered it even before then. Apparently, when it comes to the way I love him, it must be branded in my brain. “What else?”

“There may have been some mumbling about an illegal kiss, but I have no idea what you meant by that.”

I do! Now that he reminds me, the golden haze shimmers again at the memory of a dream. A dream of those kisses he used to give me that made me faint. No wonder my brain was mush like in my sex comas. But I can’t allow myself to linger on that. Not if I want to live through these final days. “Hmm, I probably meant that you should kiss Javier for practice. You know, so he can make Reagan say yes.”

“Naturally.”

“Is that all?”

He shrugs casually. If I didn’t know his eyes so well, I would have missed the flicker of pain he is trying very hard to hide. My heart stammers and thrashes into my ribs.

“Please tell me. I know you remember everything.”

He sighs again. “You might have said you will miss me.”

And there it is. M-i-s-s.  The four letters float between our breathless lips and fade. If this is all he is saying, who knows what really came out of my mouth. His control seems to slip and, for a brief moment, I glimpse the staggering agony before he leashes it back. The same agony suddenly scorching through me.

“I’m sorry,” I say as soon as I can speak. “Don’t worry about my unconscious rambles; I’ll be fine. Only rest and selfish things today. Nothing else is allowed.”

He shakes his head, eyes intense and deep. “I’m the one who is sorry, Elisa. I never wanted you to miss anything. Not awake, not asleep.” I can hear the anguish in his murmur, I can see it trying to throttle his new gaze.

“Well, that’s good because I’m missing a lot of things already.” I make my voice as light as possible to cheer him up, and also so I don’t scare him with the vicious longing raging inside me. “Didn’t you promise we would start our embargo the second I opened my eyes? I’ve had them open for hundreds of seconds now, and nothing. We have Marshall to celebrate and your discovery and your first day on this other side. Not to mention this Marine-sized meal I kept hearing about, and instead I’m starving.”

My attempt at humor and distraction works the second he hears I’m hungry. His eyes change in that quick way and settle on the look of home.

“My apologies, ma’am. You’re absolutely right. Today is a first, and I’m wasting it on the past. But with some luck, your Marine-sized meal will actually be edible.”

As if it heard his words, my stomach rumbles loudly, making me giggle-blush. “Bloody hell, you’d think I haven’t eaten in a week. I hope you have secured me at least five MRE’s.”

He chuckles freely at my casual reference of military meals and softens his hold so I can wobble up. “Of course you’d eat even MRE’s. You’ve been asleep for almost twelve hours.”

All the blood rushes to my knees, and the room spins. “Twelve hours?” I shriek, making us both jump. He springs up next to me, catching me before I hit the mattress.

“You were exhausted, Elisa. But don’t worry—I called Bia early and left a voicemail that you were sick. I don’t think they’ll be upset.”

As if I care about that right now. “But—but the embargo!” I wail, trying to count the hours in my head, too terrified to look at the clock on the wall. “I wanted to do so much! Is it really after seven at night?”

He hugs me closer. “Don’t worry about the embargo. I told you we’d have more time after you woke up.”

“But we have to see Doctor Helen in the morning! And—and—” I choke off in horror, shuddering at what I’ve done. Because it will be over after that. There is no more reason left for him to stay. Everything is finished—his closure preparations, the reel, the truth—no more excuses, no more embargoes, nothing else. How could I have wasted our last day together? How did I squander his first day after the truth? The day I knew would end, yet now that he is back in the cottage, I don’t think I can live through watching him leave again, brave or not brave. What am I going to do? How? Abruptly, even though I was trying to cheer him up, blistering flames start chewing up my throat, scalding their way to my eyes. The invisible wound in my chest rips wide open, suffocating my lungs.

“Elisa? Shh, love, listen to me.” Aiden is rocking me gently in his arms, blowing on my lips. “We can have as much embargo time as you want, alright? Stop thinking about that. Just breathe for me, please.”

T-i-m-e? Did I hear him right? “R-really?” I check in a broken whisper. “You’ll give me more t-time after we see Doctor Helen?”

He stops rocking me and takes my face in his hands, locking my gaze in his. “You have my word,” he promises in a voice I trust with much more than my life. I trust it with his every heartbeat. “There is no reason at all for your panic; I want more time too. Now, please relax. You’re breaking your own rules and ruining all the rest you got.”

There is that one word again. T-i-m-e. How can the same four letters that suffocate me become air in a blink? I know he doesn’t mean forever like I want, but I will take every minute he will give. Instantly, my terror retreats, and I slump between his palms. “Thank you,” I sigh, inhaling his sandalwood-and-us fragrance.

“Always. Now, can you promise you will try to live in the present moment with me today as much as possible? Not in the future or the past.”

How can I say no to any of that? When I never want tomorrow to come?

“I promise.”

“Thank you,” he says fervently as though he needs this as much as I do. He releases my face and takes my hand, bringing it to his lips. “Come on, let’s start with food.”

My blood thrills under his kiss.

We rise together then, him fluid like water, me rigid with the lack of motion. He eyes me carefully as though I might topple over. And he’s right because as soon as I hop out of bed, I stagger on jelly legs.

“Whoa . . . head rush!” I huff, but he saves me before I can stumble into the nightstand.

“Easy, easy. Come here.” He scoops me up in his arms. “Bathroom first or straight to the kitchen?”

I almost say back to bed. I almost say to the end of the world. I almost say so many things I shouldn’t say, but thankfully I can’t speak. Because he is carrying me like he used to. And it’s so easy to stay in this present moment. To wrap my arms around his neck and pretend again. Pretend that the last eleven days, except his discovery, did not exist. Neither does tomorrow. There is only now, repeating ceaselessly into the arc of time.

And right now, he is smiling at something in my expression. “Never mind. It’s clearly too soon for hard decisions. The bathroom first it is.” And he strides across the hallway to the loo door, looking like he is about to come in with me.

“Bloody hell, Aiden, no! This is one thing I can do by myself.”

He rolls his eyes. “Elisa, relax. I’ll turn my back. I don’t want you to fall and get hurt.”

“Absolutely not. Aiden, I’m serious. Put me down! Right now!” I try in vain to wiggle out of his iron hold. He half-sighs, half-snarls, but sets me down on my feet, his arms hovering around me lest I fall face first into the sink.

“Don’t lock the door,” he growls as I close it. “I’ll be right here.”

Exactly where I want him to be. I race through the motions as fast as possible with my dubious balance so I don’t miss any more seconds with him. But as soon as I glimpse the mirror, I stumble again. Because I look exactly like I have been through a war, and then snoring and drooling all day.

“Ugh!” I groan, staring at my face. There are pillow creases like the mark of Zorro all over it.

“Elisa?” He pounds on the door. “What’s wrong? Did you fall?”

“No, I’m just a mess. How were you not laughing at my face?” I grab the brush and start yanking it through the tangled haystack that is my hair.

“I didn’t see anything laughable about it.”

I scoff. Him and his permanent Javier filter over his eyes. Although I could definitely use it for myself now. That or the golden halo of my bravery visions. I wonder briefly what my own face would have looked like to me if I had thought to see it during the protein. Would I have felt like the most beautiful woman in the world, finally an equal to him? I laugh at the impossibility of that idea and give up on the hair jungle, wash my face, brush my teeth quickly, and come out.

He is pacing, frowning at the floor, deep in some thought, but as soon as he sees me, whatever conflict was tearing through his mind resolves, and a profound peace descends over his face. His beauty grows in that surreal way I cannot describe, triggering an overwhelming sensation of pure wonder. And his eyes . . .

There are some looks we always remember. Looks that can save, heal, revive better than any medicine, protein, or shock to the heart. Looks that can bind, shield, love, touch. Blazing like fire, protective like steel, vital like our own heartbeat. Looks that can speak. My all, they murmur silently, yet every atom hears it.

That is the look I see now in his eyes.

It stuns my mind, my heart, my lungs.

“Come,” he says softly, a deep emotion smoldering below the surface. And before I can remember how to speak or breathe, he swoops me up again and flies with me down the stairs, straight into the kitchen. I still haven’t caught my breath when he sets me down at the table. But as soon as I do, the delicious smell of roasted chicken hits me and my taste buds like a javelin.

“You actually cooked?” I squeal, sniffing the air hungrily. Yes, definitely roast chicken and something buttery. My stomach lets out a dragon-like snarl.

“That’s the idea.” He strides to the oven that is set on warm with such speed, it’s obvious he fears I will die of starvation in exactly one minute.

“What did you make? It smells amazing!” I flit to his side to investigate as he takes out a deep bowl and roaster covered in foil. And then I have to grip the counter for balance again. Because as he removes the aluminum sheets, I see one of the best meals my heart has ever had; I know it without taking a single bite. I would know it even without the sense of taste or smell.

“The dinner we had at your house when we babysat Javi’s sisters,” I murmur through a tight throat, watching the golden roasted chicken, cloudy mashed potatoes, and glistening peas. But I know we both remember this meal for another reason. “The night we first said I love you to each other.”

He looks at me in that breathless way as he did upstairs. “One of my favorite nights.”

“Mine too.”

My heart is pounding in my ears at the sight—because it looks like another home I’m missing deeply, because my stomach is suddenly full of butterflies, and above all because Aiden chose this memory for his first day on this other side. “Why did you pick it for tonight?” I ask, knowing he never chooses a memory without reason.

He sets down the crumpled ball of foil and takes my hands, sending a warm flurry up my arms. “It seemed fitting. We were afraid that night too. Waiting to meet with Bob and his legal team in the morning, our path so dark and uncertain. But in that one moment, everything felt true, simple—you love me and I love you.”

In his musical voice, his words crystallize this present moment into that simplicity too. Staving off all agony and fear. Is that another reason why he chose it? I wrap my arms around his waist, holding him for as long as I can.

“That part has not changed.”

“And it never will.” His voice has the seal of promise in it. I lean into his chest—maybe he will kiss my temple again—but my stomach decides to ruin everything with a furious roar.

“Christ! I knew I should have fed you before going to sleep,” he says urgently, pulling away to load up my plate to the porcelain brim lest I faint this very second. But if I do, it won’t be from this kind of hunger. Still, I don’t whine about the mountain of mashed potatoes, hillocks of peas, or the near half-chicken he serves me—I’d eat those and the pan too if he made them.

We sit together side by side at the small kitchen table for the first time since the end. His knee by my knee, his elbow next to mine, brushing gently as a chair drags or he fills my glass with our favorite Pinot Noir. Each touch fires like a thunderbolt though my system. But despite the frenzy inside my body, my heart is at peace. Just beating next to his. I know it’s only the calm before the final storm that will drown me tomorrow once and for all. But in this one present moment, all is well.

I shove the first forkful of mashed potatoes and dark meat in my mouth, and almost moan at the taste. “Wow! This is definitely not an MRE,” I mumble as soon as I swallow.

He smiles. “Not many things are.”

“Really impressive for someone who claims he doesn’t know how to cook.”

He takes a bite himself. “Well, I wouldn’t call this cooking. Strict obedience is more appropriate. I had Cora on WhatsApp this afternoon, guiding my every move. I thought she was going to quit half-way through but, thankfully, she likes you too much to subject you to my culinary skills.”

I giggle, wishing I had been a rose at the windowsill to watch the whole scene. And happy because he is eating again even if slower and less than me. “I think Cora might like her boss even more,” I answer, gobbling more mashed potatoes and crispy chicken skin. “You’re like Mr. Darcy that way; all your staff love you.”

He shakes his head. “I’m still questioning if you got enough sleep.”

“Shh, don’t say that word. The roses hate it,” I hiss, listening to his chuckle as I snarf down our I-love-you dinner.

He eats along, his eyes lingering tenderly on my face every few moments. Sometimes I think I sense a question there—something deep and vital—but I’m too afraid to ask what it means. What if he tells me he is memorizing our last supper? I swerve around the thought before it kills me and focus only on this second.

“So what else did you do today?” I ask. “Other than cook me a Michelin-star meal, save my job, and selfishly spy on drooling, unconscious innocents?”

He takes a sip of wine, the gesture easy and familiar like a homecoming. “Caught up on work, filled in Helen and Corbin, called Cal and the others to tell them about the . . . the truth. Cal backed me in the decision to stay in the schoolyard that day. It has torn him up too.”

I like the way he calls it the truth. Overriding his hesitancy, emphasizing the word as if to get used to its sound. “What did they say? Is James feeling better?”

“Didn’t have a chance to connect—they’re all at work still—but I did talk to General Sartain.”

At the name, fear bolts through me despite my vow to stay present. What if the General mentioned the video he sent to Doctor Helen? How long would it take Aiden to make the leap that I’ve seen it? My blood drains out of my suddenly icy face. “What did the General say?” I ask, trying to sound normal but my voice cracks anyway.

He frowns, setting down his knife and fork. “He was shocked too but he ordered the DIA to reopen the investigation and correct the record. Elisa, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, love. Did the General say anything else?”

His eyes are still on me but they soften. “He asked about you actually.”

“Me?” I jump a little on my seat, distracted briefly from my current plight. “The General knows about me?”

He nods. “I told him when we had to help Javier.”

“Oh, right. I guess that makes sense.”

I’m too afraid to ask what he told the General now at our end, but he must sense the question anyway because his hand comes to my face, caressing my cheek. My blood rushes up to the surface again as if to touch him back. “I told him you led me to the truth,” he offers. “And that you are like no one else. Do you want to know what he said?”

I nod, speechless, leaning into his hand.

“He said, and I quote, ‘Wanna free the world, Lieutenant? Send five thousand good Marines. Wanna free their soul? Send one good woman. Wanna find her? Send God.’” His fingertips trace my jawline to my chin. “What do you say to that, Elisa?”

It takes me a moment to unscramble my brain. “Umm . . . that if you want to find God, send the General?”

He chuckles—more today than since before the end. “He’ll like that. Now, will you please tell me what’s bothering you about me talking to the General?”

Oh bloody hell—we’re back to the video. The truth. Only the truth that protects him. “I just don’t want you to hurt,” I admit what I can. “And I’m also thinking about how we’re going to celebrate Marshall and you for our embargo so that it doesn’t cause pain and gives you a good memory for this first day.”

He cups my cheek again. “I’m not hurting. In fact, right now, I’m feeling completely at peace—the way I always do when I allow myself to just be with you. As for celebrating, how about you finish eating first, and then we can start?” He flashes his new smile at me, and I almost liquify in his hand. All the dread slides back. And why not? He really does seem calmer than I’ve seen him in the last eleven days. Dread can wait with everything else.

“Okay, but you finish your plate too,” I agree easily and start gulping down everything, feeling his eyes on me. As soon as I swallow the last pea, I chug some water and jolt to my feet. “Thank you—that was even better than Cora’s, though I wouldn’t tell her. Can we start the embargo now?”

He laughs at my impatience but wipes his lips and rises in all his grace, holding out his hand. “Yes, we can.”

I take his hand, feeling him pull me along like a tide, unable to blink away from his face—more golden than pale now, like an inner light is glowing underneath. Why is that? The absence of guilt, allowing himself some love, a desperately needed break? Whatever the reason, his beauty is hypnotic again.

He pauses in the foyer, under the light from the chandelier. In the muted glow, his eyes deepen with that my-all look that incapacitated me upstairs. My body must sense something in it that my mind can’t because suddenly my heart starts fluttering and I have the dizzying sensation of soaring up high.

“What is it?” I ask, my voice coming out in a whisper.

He smiles slightly as though at something inside him. “I love you,” he says, and for a moment I wonder if he is answering my question or his own.

“I love you too,” I reply, bewildered.

He wraps his arm around my waist, towing me to the threshold of the living room. It takes me several frantic heartbeats to finally glance away from him. But when I do, I stagger again despite his hold. Not because of my balance problems this time. But because I finally understand the reason for that look in Aiden’s eyes, for the emotion flowing through his touch.

A fairytale has been waiting for me.

“Oh!” I gasp the same as in the dream.

The living room has transformed into a snow globe scene. Glowing with magic new and old. The chocolate box windows are wreathed with starry lights—golden constellations charted against the dusk. On their sills glimmers mum’s miniature Burford village: the Inn, the church, the school, the tiny weaver cottages, our home, Plemmons Blooms. All sparkling with fairy lights as they used to in my childhood. The rest feels new. A gentle fire bubbles in the little beehive fireplace, purple and sapphire flames tangoing happily to the crackling sound. Countless white petals strew the floor like snowflakes. A fluffy, cream blanket drapes over the sofa. And in the corner, where the Christmas tree used to glisten each year, is our biggest potted rose. The white Aphrodite. Its branches are woven with our twinkly lights, blinking like fireflies around the chalice-shaped blooms. My knitted stocking leans against the stony pot, and around it shimmers a posy of presents. Three small boxes wrapped in what seems to be printed newspaper. And on the coffee table blossoms a low vase of Elisas, but they are not alone this time. Clusters of forget-me-nots hug the ivory rosettes with their vibrant blue. So similar to the fiery eyes I sense on me now, even if nothing earthly can ever quite compare to their gaze.

“Oh, Aiden!” I breathe, turning to look at him. And abruptly all the magic seems ordinary next to his face. If his arm were not still around my waist, I would have flopped on the downy floor from my trembling knees. “I—you—I don’t have the words.”

“Merry Christmas, love,” he murmurs, that potent emotion back in the timbre of his voice. It blends with the willows that are suddenly susurrating a different song . . . Christmas, Christmas, Christmas. “Is this what you had in mind?”

“I—never—we—we’re really doing Christmas for Marshall?”

He pinches my chin with his free fingers—tingles twinkle everywhere in my body like the starry lights.

“Not just for Marshall. We’re also doing it for us.”

Us. The tiny word trills in my ears, in my blood.

“Us?” I ask, quivering at the beautiful sound.

“Us,” he repeats.

His voice makes the word into music, even if it doesn’t mean what I wish it could. Even if it’s not the us before or the us after. Because it’s still us now. And happiness shifts again under his fingertips. It becomes these two most beautiful letters, more important than all the others, more vital than I.  I know there is agony simmering underneath, waiting to scorch me to ash. And I know there is gravelike emptiness ahead—so many Christmases alone, just the roses and me. They will all claim me in the end, but I don’t give them a single part of me now. Not because I’m abruptly stronger—no, I’ve never felt more breakable—but because Aiden is still here, mine. Giving me this most wondrous, final gift. And wasting any second of its miracle on pain is a sin I simply cannot commit, an unforgivable violence against the purest thing there is. L-o-v-e. It gushes bravely from its crescent peaks, as implacable as during the protein, utterly unabated by time or sleep, flooding every space in my awareness until I can barely breathe. It takes me so many heartbeats to be able to find air, then words, then string them into sense and sound. He waits, seeming content just to look at me.

“Thank you,” I manage to whisper at last. “I love, love, love all of this.”

That new smile breaks over his face. “I do too.”

When he says it that way, softly as though the words are new, I finally realize what I’m really seeing. “This is one of your selfish things!” I stare at him in awe as the magic around us takes on a new meaning.

“The us part is.”

“The best part.”

I glance around me to look at our snow globe with this new light. But I don’t want to miss even a speck from his face so my head keeps whipping back and forth between him and the Christmas magic, making me dizzy. He doesn’t laugh as he should—he just smiles, leading me inside the fairytale bubble. As I totter through it in a daze, a familiar jingle floats in the air with the willows. Pink Martini, A White Christmas. I smile because this is us too—the band of our first dance.

“Perfect,” I whisper as he sets his phone on the table.

“Almost,” he murmurs cryptically, looking back at me. A flash burn heats my skin, but not from the flames. It’s from that gaze, from the way his fingertips brush the sweatshirt at my hip. Forcefully again, I wish I could remember like he does. Forever, so I never lose any part of this.

“You know how to make a colored fire,” I marvel.

“Your father’s Encyclopedia of Elements. Salt substitutes, apparently.”

“I really love the blue flames.” I watch mesmerized the way they reflect in his eyes.

“I’m partial to the purple ones.”

“And I love the forget-me-nots.” I caress the blue flowers nestled with my roses, trying to picture him picking them in Elysium. “The Elisas can definitely use the memory.”

“As can I.”

He holds my waist again as I wobble in a trance to Aphrodite glowing. “Aphrodite is so excited about this.” I almost bounce, stroking the twinkling petals. “None of the other roses have ever played an actual Christmas tree before. You’ve made them very jealous by picking her.”

“Well, I’m already in the garden shed with them for saying the word ‘lavender’ last night, so I might as well infuriate them fully.”

“I’m sure they’ll forgive you. You might have to give them a gift though.” I kneel by the stony pot, looking at the presents wrapped in newspaper. Like my old tradition of buying the paper on memorable days.

“What would they like?”

You to stay forever, the answer bubbles to my lips but I bite my tongue. Because I know that chance is lost to us. G-o-n-e. Abruptly, the scalding agony tears through my resolve to stay present with its fire incisors. I’m glad I’m looking down at the presents so he can’t see it. I shove down these thoughts immediately before they can turn me into a jigsaw of torture on the petaled floor. Before they can char even a split-second of this perfect moment.

“I’m sure you’ll find something,” I answer, picking up the smallest box, a square no bigger than a votive candle, and shaking it. There is no sound, no name on it, just the distinctive carbon print that must mean something important to him. “But what will you open? There are no presents here for you.” I count the three boxes unnecessarily.

He folds on the rug next to me. “I already have mine. There is this.” He holds out his wrist with the MIRAJ bracelet I made for him. The wooden initials are brighter under the Christmas lights. “And this.” His hand frames my face, the warm touch settling on my skin like spring.  It takes me a moment of scattered concentration to form a coherent reply.

“But that’s still only two. I already have you and Christmas, and there are three boxes here and a stocking.”

He chuckles again—how many times has that been today? Six? Can I make it a million?

“Well, first, as we have established, Christmas is for me too. Second, not all these boxes are for you. One of them is for Marshall.”

His answer is so unexpected, it derails me completely. “It is?” I ask, gobsmacked.

He nods, and the amusement softens in his eyes. It becomes almost wonder in this new world he is charting now. As if he can’t quite believe he is the one taking these steps by himself.

“I am so proud of you,” I tell him, the words seeming so inadequate for what I feel. “For having the strength to get up after last night and choose love over pain.”

He smiles. “This was your idea.”

“Yes, but I could have never dreamt this, let alone make it real. I was thinking Christmas carols and jasmine tea. I love that you’re giving Marshall a gift. Which one is his?”

“This.” He picks up a cylindric present, about the size of a rolled sheet of paper but thicker. His eyes stir with memories as he taps it rhythmically on his palm.

“Is this okay?” I inch closer to his body in case he needs the calm. “Do you want to do this or are you doing it just for me?

He wraps his arm around me. “It’s better than okay. It’s right. And I’m doing it for him and myself too. As you said, it’s time to give him something positive.”

I stroke the newspaper-wrapped cylinder—it feels firmer, heavier to the touch. “I wish I had something for him too.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Elisa, you already gave him the most meaningful gift any soldier could ever have. You named the only bravery protein in existence after him. What could compare to that?”

“I know, but it’s not something wrapped under the tree—or Aphrodite.”

With a jolt of surprise, I watch him smile as he holds his lost brother’s gift. “Criminal, but don’t worry. This one is from both of us.”

Us again. The word shimmers in the air like the starry lights.

“I really like that word.”

“I do too. Are you ready to open yours?”

Bloody hell, it’s now! “Wait, wait!” I cry out. “I want to take a photo first before we open anything!” I scramble around for my phone, wanting capture this present moment for posterity like I did on our first embargo, but his hand closes on my hip. The warmth that shoots through me must spread to his skin and becomes fire in his eyes.

“Stay here. I brought your cell with me.”

He reaches in the back pocket of his jeans and hands me my phone he obviously remembered to retrieve from the nightstand. I snap photos of everything, especially him watching me with an indulgent smile. And suddenly, as I look at him through the phone screen, another vision is triggered for me. Young, whole Aiden, glowing in his tent, with a Peter Pan smile at the corner of his lips and the sapphire eyes lighting the desert night on fire. Incredibly, the two visions merge, and I finally realize what this surreal beauty that Aiden exudes at certain moments is—moments when he does breathtaking things like this. It’s not only love for me. It’s a feeling of wholeness within himself.

I toss aside my phone, knowing no pixel can ever do him justice. “Okay, I’m ready now.” I skip to his side and curl back on the rug under Aphrodite, trembling when our knees bump. “Which one should we open first?”

“Well, only this small one is for today. This other one—” He picks up the thin, rectangle packet, a little longer than his hand. “—is for tomorrow.”

That distracts me again—it’s impossible to hold a train of thought with so many emotions and sensations at once. “Why for tomorrow?”

“Because today is not its turn.”

“So why are you giving it to me today?”

“For a very good reason.”

Abruptly, I worry that this is his goodbye gift, and he doesn’t want our day of peace to blend with it. My chest starts throbbing immediately but his eyes blaze with that my-all look that keeps me anchored to this present moment. Besides, am I not doing the same for him? A secret gift he knows nothing about. A present for tomorrow after he meets with Doctor Helen, and not a second before. The protein taught me that, and it hasn’t yet been wrong.

“Tomorrow then,” I agree. “That way, I’ll have something for you too.”

He smiles, half-adoringly, half-relieved, setting down the mysterious present. “I already have everything I need—”

“Not this one,” I interrupt.

“Fine, you can prove me wrong tomorrow. Now, why don’t you open your today gift?” And hands me the small square box I picked up earlier.

I take it with windy fingers, trying to read the newspaper script. It’s a reprint on our printer paper, but the sentences break off from the wrapping, just words and phrases about a festival and spring. “A newspaper article,” I murmur, peeling it back carefully so I don’t tear any of it. My voice comes out thick at my tradition that he is adapting this way and making it entirely his . . . ours. I open it, expecting today’s date but he surprises me so much I forget even about the cognac leather box underneath. It’s a reprint from another date that means everything.

“October sixteen, 1999,” I read, my breath shaking. “The date dad and I carved the initials under the bench.”

“The date the idea of a magic, all-conquering love was born in your head,” he adds.

I flatten out the paper—a copy of the front page of The Oxford Student. The article is about the exam schedule and the rain predicted for the Spring Festival. “Wherever did you find this?”

“It’s only a copy. Helen scanned it to me this morning from their online archive. But now you know more about that day, like me.”

“I’d love it even if this was the present itself. Thank you.” I kiss it and tuck it carefully in Aphrodite’s branches. It glows there under the twinkly lights like a mini art frame. But why did he choose it for this gift?

“I think the real present is feeling offended,” he chuckles, but I sense a similar emotion in his eyes.

I turn to the leather box, bracing my heart and mind for whatever is inside. But as I lift the lid, I still lose my breath, despite all my preparation. Because there, nestled in the black velvet folds, glimmers a diamond A, exactly like the P-E-C charms jingling on my wrist.

“Oh my God!” I whisper, tracing its brilliance with my fingertip. The diamonds toss and catch the blinking lights like stars. And the phosphorescent borders gleam mysteriously in the dusk like a crepuscular moon. My entire sky right here in this letter A. “Aiden, how did you know?” I look up at him, awed.

The expression on his face overwhelms me. It’s too much—too much beauty, too much meaning. “Your eyes told me when I gave you the bracelet. I ordered this that same day, but then Edison—”

“Don’t! Don’t say his name today, or ever.”

“Fair point. Then everything changed that night, and I didn’t think I’d give it to you after that. I didn’t want it to cause you more pain.”

The diamonds almost dim at his words. “What made you change your mind?”

“Your brave love. The truth. This bracelet you made me. You included the M despite its pain because you believe love conquers that. And I knew I wanted to give it to you then.”

At those last words, something more beautiful than the diamonds sparkles for me. “This is another one of your selfish things!” I grin, impossibly loving the initial even more.

He smiles. “I thought so, but does it qualify under your selfish definition if you want it too?”

I revise my definition immediately. “Yes, I was wrong. It absolutely qualifies if you want it as much as me.”

“I do. Maybe even more.”

He gazes at me like I am his all again. His hand comes to my face as though it’s as eager to touch me as I am to touch him. Except I’m frozen in a spell as his fingers trace the path of my painting along my jawline to the corner of my mouth. He pauses there, half-peace, half-fire, his breath catching. And for the first time since the end, his thumb grazes my lips. Just the faintest touch, but desire ignites in my veins, blazing through my bones and kindling in my belly. Abruptly, my vision shimmers. That unforgettable golden halo flickers on, suffusing Aiden’s face with a subtle light. Not bright and glittery as in my dream or during the protein—this is softer, like candlelit skin. The way he used to glow in our happy bedroom, with the after-radiance of an orgasm.

“Oh!” I start, fingers flying to his cheek. Why am I still seeing this? What is it?

“Elisa?” Aiden frowns, feeling the pulse at my neck. His thumb brushes my lips accidentally with the movement this time. But instantly, the candlelight dazzles me again. With a burst of instinct, everything clicks then. Images, sensations, emotions—all weave together with blinding speed, transforming the scene. What I’m really seeing, what it means, what I get to keep.  Beautifully, incredulously, my little world opens in a single blink. Warm tears glint in my eyes as I gaze at him in wonder. Because how many people in the world get their most secret, impossible wish, only to realize it’s even more perfect than they had dared to dream?

“Wow!” I breathe.

“Elisa, love, what is it?” Aiden asks in alarm at my tears. He wipes them frantically with his fingers, skimming again the corner of my mouth. I hold my breath, waiting, and there it is. The bedroom glow breathes with him as yearning sings from my scalp to my toes. I blink off the new tears so I don’t miss anything, especially the worried V.  That V brings me back, centers everything where it should be today: him.

“I’m okay, love,” I assure him, caressing the lucent frown, upset at myself for ruining the moment. “You just take my breath away sometimes, that’s all.” I don’t tell him about my discovery—not yet. I don’t want to take a single minute from his first and maybe last selfish day. He would worry, he wouldn’t be able to leave in peace after that. Perhaps someday. . .

He sighs in relief. “Welcome to my world all the time,” he smiles.

“It’s such a beautiful place to be.”

“With you it is,” he murmurs, pulling me in his arms. Then ah! His lips press at my temple again. The kiss sweeps through my skin, jolting into my bones, effervescing behind my closed eyelids. I can feel his steel body harden against every curve of mine. His nose glides down my cheek, his breath coming out rough and fast while mine stops completely. But he doesn’t get close to my mouth now—probably afraid of making me cry again. Or maybe the momentary lapse in his control passed. Would he give in if I turned my head just a little bit? And if he did, can I survive losing it again? Can he? Not that I care what happens to me after he leaves but I still have to be able to breathe. And causing him even one more second of pain—there is no desire in the world justifying that. Even the one that quite literally makes me see stars.

I kiss the tip of his shoulder and pull back to make it easier for him. Still, it takes me a minute to remember where I am with the blue flames in his eyes.

“Right, Christmas!” I recover, jumping up in his arms. “All my diamonds. Where is my wrist?”

He takes a deep breath—the sound is almost agonized—and chuckles. “Here, it’s attached to your left hand . . . I think.”

I laugh with him as he unfastens my precious bracelet and reaches in the velvet folds for the magnificent charm. Then carefully, he rearranges the letters, stringing the A exactly where I want it: next to my E, until the initials glimmerPEAC under the twinkly lights.

“Thank you. It’s perfect now,” I say as he secures the bracelet back on my wrist.

“Yes, it is,” he answers simply, holding my hand.

The phosphorescent borders glow next to the black leather cuff I made for him. MIRAJ and PEAC. Lights in the dark. And I love them even more for what they truly mean: that Aiden is choosing to stay in some form with me.

“So which one next?” I ask, staying only in this present moment. “Marshall’s gift or the stocking?”

“The stocking. It’s for both of us. Although technically I should call it art.”

“Art?” I ask, intrigued, as he hands it to me with that new smile on the corner of his lips.

I peek inside and, under a confetti of petals, is a little card on top. A card I would know anywhere, with glitter and pink hearts. Two stick figures—a tall one and a short one—are holding sticky hands. And right below it, in Anamelia’s crayon letters, it says Aiden + Isa.

“Oh my goodness, did your mum’s care package arrive?” I blubber, clutching the craft paper.

“You could say that. Look inside. Easy though—it might cause some heart palpitations.”

I laugh at his dire warning and toss out the petals. And then the palpitations really start.

It’s not a care package like any I have gotten in my life. Aiden is right: it’s all art. Homemade cookies, individually wrapped in clingy film and decorated with creamy roses by Javier’s sisters. Candid photos of Aiden and me that Stella must have taken when she was here: us laughing, dancing, playing the piano together, building up the rose stand at the Rose Festival, our entwined hands, a kiss. More photos from my camera when I was in Portland that Reagan must have printed: our first embargo, our trip at Powell’s bookstore, our daytrip at the Rose Garden, planting Lady Clare. And rolled carefully, Javier’s unmistakable sketches of us that he must have drawn when he and Reagan were visiting: Aiden and I walking across the field of poppies, curling together at Chatsworth, watering the roses . . . A gallery of us, of every minute we have shared with our other loves yet wrapped entirely in ours.

I don’t realize more tears are blossoming until one splashes down and Aiden catches it on his palm before it hits a masterful drawing of his long fingers on my cheek. His trademark caress.

“I know,” he says, pulling me close. “It’s something else, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is. It’s everything.”

“The blanket on the sofa came too. Apparently, it was handknitted by my mother, Reagan, Bel, and Maria for days.” He sweeps it off the couch to show me. In the corner are those two letters again, woven in golden thread: A & E. “Clearly, initials are in vogue these days.”

I sniffle and laugh at the same time, kissing the soft yarn. He throws it over my shoulders, and we tuck the photos and sketches on the branches of our rose-tree. They glow under the starry lights, a tiny museum of our love. I try not to think about what that means. I try not to think of the fact that they always hang here like this for as long as Aphrodite lives. Until that last twinkly light burns out. These are not thoughts I will let in today.

“Don’t worry, these are good tears and palpitations.” I grin at him, taking his hand in both of mine. “I couldn’t imagine an embargo I would have loved more. Even compared to the first one.”

“I tend to agree. I’m not yelling at you about your graduation, glaring at Javier, kicking you of out my house, or trying to give you a million dollars and make you feel like a prostitute in the process. And you’re not having nightmares, working illegally, or getting deported. All in all, I’d say this is an improvement.”

I laugh again—more today for me too than since before the end. I don’t allow myself to think about anything else. “And we still have so many hours left. Shall we open Marshall’s now? Are you ready?”

That old bruise dims his eyes for a moment, but not with guilt—even I can see that. Now that it has vanished from the sapphire depths, I realize the anguish it used to add to the agony.

He looks down at the diamonds in my wrist. Then that look of home, of resolve galvanizes the blue depths.

“Yes, I am.”

At the clear ring of his voice, a curious, familiar trickle of warmth climbs up my throat like a tendril. H-o-p-e. Is this clarity enough to turn his freedom into hope? Turn redemption into faith in who he is? I try to smother the next question, but it blazes in my head as luminous as his glow: can this keep him here with me? Can it give us some way forward that I cannot see? I stop the question right there. Not one syllable longer. I’m too awake now not to know the difference between reality and dreams. Too breakable not to distinguish the hope that builds from the hope that kills.

“Okay, love, let’s celebrate,” I tell him.

He reaches for the cylindrical present—like a kaleidoscope for stars and fairytales—and hands it to me. Outside, a new willow song starts blending with the Christmas carols . . . us, us, us.

©2022 Ani Keating

NINETY DAYS: CHAPTER 38 – MASTERS

Hey all, I have waited for you to read this chapter for over six years, I’m actually in disbelief. It’s one of the most secret, fundamental things about Aiden that I knew would be excruciating to wait to reveal. But I also knew it had to come only now and not once before. So the clues were buried very deep. I’m oddly emotional setting it out in the world, but also happy and thrilled to finally let it free. And that’s all I will say about it. After you read it, you might see Chapter Ash and all the clues there under a new light.  Oh, and this photo. You’ll see why it’s so perfect for the chapter and, of course, our world right now. #Peace

38

Masters

I scramble on my knees to the side of the bed, searching Aiden’s face to understand the difference in his voice. What changed the desperate pleas to a bold injunction? His feverish expression folds out of agony into the sharp focus of a sniper, all creases of torment gone.

“Stop!” he commands again and, for a second, I freeze. Can he tell I’m here, leaning close to the danger? But no, his eyes are still closed, pupils racing underneath. “Stop, wait! . . . What is that?” he demands again. His voice is iron like the rest of his body. Something about his posture—despite lying perfectly still on his back—is tense, yet graceful, like the pause before the sinuous spring of a lion or the fluid strike of a snake. And even though he is asleep, I have an acute feeling that all his senses are awake, ranging out in hypervigilance. Is his mind reliving or discovering? I have no idea what to think or do, except follow Doctor Helen’s advice to change nothing, to let him process the unfathomable depths of his memory.

“My love,” I keep reciting my letter to him as I was. “I don’t know why it has taken me so long to write you back. After all, we’re still fighting a war—”

A breath whooshes out of him as though he was punched in the gut. “There!” he fires. “Right there . . . listen . . .”

A deep silence grips the tropical guestroom. So abrupt it makes me jump. Foolishly, I scan around me half-expecting a black shadow to morph from the inky dawn but there is nothing. Not even Aiden’s breath anymore. His entire being seems suspended in this one moment in time. Even the pupils under his eyelids have frozen.

“A war like no other,” I mumble. “With hearts instead of shields, memories instead of bombs—”

“There . . .” Aiden murmurs again, but his tenor is different—wonder now. Or is it dread?

“—Dreams instead of missions,” I stammer. “It’s the war to end—”

“That line . . .” he breathes.

“The war to end all wars. The war to save you—” I start again but never finish. Because in the same breath, Aiden’s forehead locks, his mouth parts, and with a thunderbolt movement, he springs up. His eyes flash open, vigilance blowing out of him like a tidal wave of power.

“They were there!” he gasps.

“Aiden?” I cry out startled, jolting on my feet.

He doesn’t respond. His stare is locked beyond this world into the influx of his memory. Not a single blink flutters through the long lashes, not one twitch flickers over the steely muscles.

“Love, what is it?” I call again, unsure whether to touch him yet.

No answer. The darkened eyes are wide with shock. He seems stunned beyond any capacity for words or movement.

“Aiden, please?” I gentle my voice, inching close to the bed. His fever slams into me like a gust of desert wind. “Can you hear me?”

He must because his eyes turn to my face, but he only stares in disbelief. His mouth is parted as though he wants to speak but no words are coming out. Fear slithers down my spine. I pick up the cold compress from the ice bowl on the floor and perch carefully on the bed at his side.

“Aiden, love, you’re alright. We’re in the cottage—”

But he shakes his head, his expression astounded. “They were there, Elisa!” he breathes.

“Who, love? Where?” My voice trembles in fright. Not for me, but for him. What is this? Is it the fever? Slowly, so he sees my intention, I press the iced compress on his bearded cheek. He blinks then, just once, refocusing on me.

“Hey, you.” I try to smile, dabbing his forehead with the damp towel. “It’s okay—it was just a dream. You’re safe, we both are.”

But he takes my hand off his face and folds it in both of his, dazed beyond any sight I’ve ever seen. Even terrified, his touch tingles my skin despite the gauze covering his blisters.

“No, not a dream,” he mouths, seeming unable to find his voice. “They were there, waiting for us.”

It’s my breath that whooshes out of me now at those last three words. The compress slips through our fingers. In a flash, the scene transforms before me. This wasn’t a nightmare, it was analysis. He is not terrorized; he is staggered. And this isn’t a flashback, it’s a realization. Possibly the biggest realization of his life.

The one I sensed in the smoke clouds during the video. The ephemeral instinct the protein gave me. Was I right?

Thankfully, he is too shocked to notice my reactions. Or perhaps he thinks I’m trying to catch up, which is true.

“The insurgents, Elisa!” he explains in a trance. “The IED! It wasn’t an accident. It was an ambush!”

My gasp blows over his parted lips. It’s not a gasp of shock. It’s heady, overpowering relief. Because he listened. He saw. He was able to follow my words. And he found it—the clue buried so deep in the black smoke and flames, even my super-senses barely glimpsed it. His conscience, with some sleep at last, caught up with his amplified memory. It connected the dots planted like landmines on that unspeakable May day over a decade ago, lurking in the deepest chasms of his mind, hidden from our unseeing eyes—his blindfolded by torture, mine blurred with the unknown. Until I saw the video without any fear, until we both felt invincible enough to ignore the terror and see the truth veiled behind.

Abruptly, my heart starts bombing my ears. Will this make a difference as I hoped when I was doubtless and indomitable? Can it help Aiden move on from Fallujah at last?

Half of my brain is racing forward. But the other half is frozen to a full stop, as stunned as Aiden.

“They must have known we were coming,” he continues in awe. “Elisa, they were already there, on the street by the schoolyard!”

Yes! Yes, that’s how it seemed to me too! I almost shriek. Only one surviving brain cell makes me clench my teeth against the gush of words that absolutely cannot slip from my tongue.

“It’s so clear now,” he murmurs, his eyes brimming with amazement. “I can access it all—everything during the reel, and everything before and after . . . everything you said to me.”

“Tell me, love,” I whisper frantically, clutching his fingers. “Tell me all of it.”

“I could hear your voice again in my sleep.” His eyes lighten on my face. The turquoise is almost diaphanous with wonder. “Guiding me through the schoolyard after the reel. You told me to find the market, you compared the colors of the vegetables to the flowers in Elysium— tomatoes for poppies, leeks for daisies, eggplant for orchids, a hijab like our blanket,” he quotes my words verbatim while I fight for air. He heard it all, his hermetic mind preserved every letter, ready for him to weave them into meaning. “Then you told me to search closer,” he presses urgently. “You asked if there were cars, if there was music like the willows. You asked what it was singing. Did you say all that to me?”

“Every word,” I breathe, as awed as he is.

“I searched with you as you spoke. Unearthed all the innocuous details I had never revisited since that first glance that awful day.”

Of course he hadn’t. How could he have lingered on trivia when he was fighting for his life, when he was drowning in torture? It’s not the eye that sees, it’s the mind. And what mind can manage to focus on such minutia when it is tearing apart? I know only one.

“That’s when I finally saw it again,” he marvels. “A tan Toyota truck, across the street from the school, the color of sand—dusty, off to the side, easy to camouflage.”

Yes! I want to cry. Yes, I saw it too, but I clamp down on my tongue and listen.

“It was loaded with banana crates as though it was delivering them to the nearby stall, no one at the wheel. And it was playing an old American song by Bob Dylan. Masters of War.”

So that’s what that song was! I couldn’t place the title or the singer during the video.

“Do you know it?” he frowns in surprise, no longer missing my facial expressions.

“I have heard it before,” I whisper, choosing my words with care—trying to stay as truthful as possible before he can smell the lie in my very breath now that his alertness is returning.

He nods. “Me too. Even before that day, but I certainly heard it then, when I saw the truck. I just didn’t think much of it. American songs were oddly popular in Iraq. We heard them all the time in shops and cars, although it was usually hip-hop, rarely the classics. I suppose, in retrospect, that should have been a hint, but it was not. None of us made anything of it . . .” he trails off, seeming disturbed by the thought.

“How could you have?” I intervene before he finds a way to blame himself even about this. “Who would think of music when the bombs started exploding?”

He shakes his head as if to disagree. “I did the same thing yesterday after the reel. When you told me to look for familiar things, I found the truck and the song in my memories—just the same as it had been that Fallujah morning. Seeming just as harmless and irrelevant. I rested on it only for a second, following your direction. It calmed me even—seeing Elysium superimposed over the market, the images braiding together so strangely. Wildflowers started blooming in my vision, the bananas became trefoils, the tomatoes poppies, Dylan chorusing quietly with Für Elise. It was mesmerizing but only that—a distraction from the pain. . .” He drifts again, now here, now there. I squeeze his hand gently, bringing him back, too amazed to be able to speak myself.

“I’ve told you what happened next,” he continues, his gaze darkening like the smoke that must be billowing in his memories now.

“The IED,” I mouth, shuddering on the mattress.

Even in one of the most pivotal moments of his life, he doesn’t miss it. He releases my hands and throws the quilt over my shoulders. “Yes, that should have been another hint in retrospect. The fact that the blast came from the side of the street. The side of that truck. But the truck didn’t explode, nothing else did—that’s why we concluded it was an off-road device, triggered by accident. Perhaps by the kids playing soccer. That was the norm for the region. The intentional attacks were usually suicide bombs, installed on bodies or cars. The DIA itself analyzed the blast radius afterwards and agreed—”

“The DIA?” I interrupt, confused.

“The Defense Intelligence Agency—the CIA’s counterpart for combat missions. Their exact quote was ‘accident of the most unfortunate kind.’ Of course, none of us realized then what I do now.” His eyes melt on mine. “What you and the protein helped me see at last.”

“What?” I breathe. What helped him make sense of the horror? What made the truth click?

“That the song was aimed at us, the truck was not alone. I finally realized it when I went up to the classroom with you in my ear. I sailed straight to the window where Marshall was, searching the flames for Jazz who was still stuck below. Then for a split-second, there was a pause in gunfire as my ammo was running out. And your voice was guiding me again at that moment, trying to calm me, I think. You told me, ‘Search through the smoke. What do you see? Something old? Something new? You remember it. Now see it, hear it all—not just the horror.’” He restates my words with precision down to my inflections. “Did you say all that to me?”

“All of it,” I whisper, shivering at the image I recall with too vividly.

“That’s when I heard it again. That same song, that same line, ‘And your death will come soon. I will follow your casket, by one pale afternoon.’” He looks at me in sheer wonder while I shudder inside the quilt. Even with my super-mind, I hadn’t caught the words, only the tune. “Then there was a faint break in the smoke, and I saw them. A few more trucks—about four or five, behind the first one—they had all arrived. It was like the chalk rose on the blackboard. Like seeing something with new eyes, with yours. And once I did, it all made sense. Everything fell together. We didn’t walk into an IED. We walked into a trap. They were already there, waiting for us . . .” He repeats the words in a dreamlike state, but his eyes are awake in every sense of the word. Staring again beyond the room as the realities must merge. The one he always knew and the one he has finally seen. Which one hurts more? Which one will he believe?

I inch closer into his body heat, taking his blazing hand again. He blinks at my touch, his expression dazed and wary. Perhaps questioning everything he knows or testing this reality.

“I think you’re right,” I tell him, wishing I could say so much more. How awed I am by his mind, by his strength to watch the horror raw in his sleep—without any anesthetic of any kind except one piano melody—and endure untold agony with the courage to see the truth, to fight to the very end. He is bravery defined. No protein can ever compare. And I wish I had words in any language to tell him all that.

Instead, I only stare at the miracle of his face.

“Do you?” he asks fervently—the first time I’ve ever known him to be unsure of his bulletproof perception. “You agree that it was orchestrated?”

“Without a doubt. You’re the expert, but it all fits. The choice of song, the timing, the matching trucks, the color for camouflage, the motive, the way they got to you faster than you thought. I don’t see how it can be any other way. The only thing I’m wondering is how they knew you’d be there.” It’s the question that was stumping even my super-mind, but he shrugs as though this is the easiest part.

“That’s simple enough to explain. The network of civilian spies in Fallujah was vast. It was one of the most challenging war zones for the DIA and Langley—still remains to this day. Someone must have seen us enter the pipes and alerted them. We had to trek for a while to get there. The Iraqis will always know their desert best.”

I shiver, remembering their hike in the moonless dawn. There were other eyes in the darkness stalking the brothers with me, other invisible shadows haunting them, so enmeshed with the night, even the camera in Marshall’s chest missed them.

He stares at me, still stunned. “How could I have missed this?”

“Missed it? You didn’t miss it. You saw it all—every single detail even in moments of unspeakable horror. And your mind preserved it perfectly for over a decade. My God, Aiden, what human could have ever perceived more?”

He shakes his head. “Elisa, it has been four thousand four hundred seventy-seven days since that classroom. I have relived that morning at least fifteen thousand times. How could I not have seen this once?” Emotions fuse on his face like flames: dismay, pain, anger at himself.

“How could you have seen it even once?” I argue, pressing my other hand to his burning cheek. He doesn’t pull away. The feel of him seeps through my skin into the marrow of my bones. “You may have relieved it every day, but every single time you’ve been fighting it. You had never sat with it, trying to examine every angle, trying to find beautiful things. Who would? Tell me who could focus on songs and veggies when gunfire and bombs were blaring. Who would examine those details under torture?” My voice quivers. I don’t allow myself to remember the blistering image of his blood, the brunt of violence on the body that is my life. I couldn’t live through it without the protein. Even at the memory of the memory, I struggle to stay upright. “I’m not surprised at all it took you until now,” I add. “Until the moment you allowed yourself to see and feel all of it.”

“Because of you,” he murmurs, and the emotional flow changes, becomes wonderment when the real wonder is him.

“No, love.” My hand trembles from his cheek to his scar. From the heat, it shimmers as if it has become alive. “You did this all on your own. It’s okay to give yourself credit for that.”

“But had I not taken the protein, had you not guided me—”

“You still would have found it. I have no doubts about that. You would have seen it all in the end. I know you would have.” And I wouldn’t have rested until that day.

He doesn’t answer, but the tectonic plates shift deeply in the sapphire depths as though reaching seismically to his very core. I hope he believes me. I hope he finds this faith. And above all, I hope he finally frees himself.

“The only thing that matters now,” I tell him. “Is what you do with this knowledge. With what it means.”

He looks at me like a man finally finding the holy grail, the Moby Dick, the elixir of life—seeing that elusive treasure at last, yet too afraid to stretch out his hand and grasp it. Too afraid of losing it again. Too afraid that it is only a dream.

“It means it was not your fault, love.” I put all my conviction in my voice to make it real. “Your decision to stay in the schoolyard and help those little boys didn’t cause Marshall’s torture or Jazz’s scars or anyone else’s loss. The insurgents were already there, waiting. They would have gone after you even if you had gone back. Except in the pipes, it would have been even worse, without light and barely any air. None of you would have survived.” I try to fight the shudder that rattles my teeth at the idea and take both his hands again to anchor me here.

He has listened to every syllable entranced, his eyes liquid. Even his breath has stopped, as though the lightest puff of air might blow my words away. I scoot closer to his warmth, breathing gently on his lips as he does with me. He inhales sharply, the way my lungs open up to his fragrance. But still he doesn’t speak.

“You know it’s true. You know if you hadn’t listened to your heart, you would have gone back to camp through the pipes. The monsters probably hoped for that because they would have had the upper hand inside, with their knowledge of their own homeland.”

Another trembling breath of mine, another shallow gasp of his—two life threads entwined to the end. Strangle one, and you choke the other.

“You saved your brothers, Aiden. You didn’t hurt them. You’re the reason they’re still here, even if Marshall is gone. Because of you, they are safe, secure, and alive.”

Still no answer. Only that sentient gaze, so deep it would take a lifetime to reach the turquoise light. A lifetime I would gladly give.

“Listen to my words. Listen to the truth. You have waited for four thousand four hundred seventy-seven days to hear it. It has been living inside you under all the pain and the guilt and the fear. It’s okay to free it. It’s okay to accept it. This—was—never—your—fault.”

No words, no breaths, no blinks. Just torn gasps, snagging on the jagged teeth of agony, trying to break free.

“I will never stop telling you this. Not even after you’re gone. It was not your fault. It was your merit. You saved them. You brought them home. It’s time for you to come home too, love. Not in Burford or Portland—come home to yourself. To the man you truly are.”

He looks at me like no other time in our love. Utterly lost, with those shocking newborn eyes I saw in Stella’s photos—eyes trying to find their way in this reformed world.

“I know you’re afraid.” I keep going because if I stop, he will not hear the words his heart needs more than blood. “Afraid to believe it, afraid to lay down this guilt. It has been a part of you for so long. It has been your fight, your mourning, and your grief. You feel that if you let it go now, you are betraying him. You fear you won’t recognize who you are without it. But you will. I promise you that. You will still be just as loyal, just as honorable, just as selfless and brave as you’ve always been. Because all those things are in here.” I lift our joined hands to his heart like I did in my old apartment in Portland when he came back after our embargo, when he told me the truth about his startle reflex. His heart hammers back as if clamoring to be heard. I’m here, I’m here. “Listen to your heart. This was not your fault. Say it with me. Say it with Marshall.”

His chest thrashes like a broken eagle wing. Tension strains his jaw as though his body is tearing apart with war. I don’t need to ask if he could hear Marshall’s words, if he could read his lips. I know. I know from the ancient grief in Aiden’s eyes that he couldn’t. It was too low, too far, too stifled with the laughing monsters for Aiden to hear it, lost in his own torture. Fiery tongues start licking up my eyes. How will I give him that truth without breaking his heart?

“You know he would say it,” I tell him as I did after the reel. “‘Not your fault, my brother.’ These are Marshall’s words, not just mine. Say them with us.”

His throat constricts as though the words are suffocating him, stuck there, unable to get out. A single tear glimmers in the sapphire gaze like a lone star. At the sight, I forget everything—all the closure and our end and our own pain—and take him in my arms.

“Oh, my love,” I whisper, kissing his scar.

And Aiden breaks. His steel body wraps around mine, contorting with pain. A vicious shudder radiates through him, as if tearing him into pieces. I clutch him harder and tuck his head in my neck, like I did the only other time he has broken like this. When he attacked me. And like then, I give him everything: my smell, my touch, my breath, my strength, my voice. His fever consumes us both, flame after flame.

“It was not your fault,” I repeat in his ear. “Not as a brother, a friend, a commander, or a man. This was never your fault . . .”  Over and over and over until his silent, absent breath splinters into three ravaged words.

“Not—my—fault.”

They’re barely a gasp in the breeze, barely a note in the piano melody, but I hear them louder than I have ever heard anything. My eyes simmer with tears, but I fight them back for him and kiss his temple. His pulse kisses me back, rapid and deep.

“That’s right, love. Say it again, so you know how the truth sounds in your own voice.”

Another strangled breath. “Not—my—fault.”

“Please believe it. Believe every word because it’s true.” I cover him with all of me, body like a second skin, murmuring in his ear until he can utter the words on his own, without me.

“Not my fault . . . not my fault . . . not my fault.”

Sometimes, big bangs are neither big, nor loud. Sometimes, they are fractured kernels of soul, imploding and reforming breathlessly without a sound. Just a gasp, a shattered heartbeat, three words in the breeze. But that doesn’t mean they are small. It means they are deeper than our eye can see.

When the words fade, we shudder here on the bed, holding each other like no other time in our lives. Like a beginning in the middle of our end. But if we had to end, let it be so he can start to heal. Let it be so he can believe these words. Let it be so Fallujah ends with me. So when that airplane carries him across the skies, it is not just a goodbye. Let it be a hello to Aiden Liber—Aiden the Free.

Outside our heat bubble, the skylark starts to sing for the first time in eleven mornings, harmonizing its warble to Für Elise. My throat blisters as I finally realize why the lark had stopped coming. Because the music stopped inside the cottage when Aiden left at night. But the piano is playing again now. Once more, twice, until his usual wake-up time. Six o’clock. Our embargo is almost over. The melody stops like the breath between our lungs. Then there is only the lonely lark and the willows whispering, he’s free, he’s free.

And even though I vowed he would not see me crying, the tears spill down my cheeks and soak through his T-shirt, misting his wrought shoulder before I can stop them.

He leans back, his grip softening around me. My body shifts reflexively with him trying to prolong the contact. But he doesn’t let me go. One arm stays around my waist as his finger tingles under my chin. Mothlike, I lift my face to the flame of his gaze, afraid to see our closure in his eyes. But there is no goodbye there yet. Nor a hello. Just a crystal droplet at the corner like a question mark.

“Hey, no tears,” he murmurs, his voice rough. “No tears for me.”

I smile so he has it in his first memories for this other side. “They’re proud tears. And hopeful and awed and loving.” And painful and soul-slaying and scalding . . .

He brushes the moisture with his fingertips as if he heard all the unspoken words. “I still don’t like them.”

A cloud of warmth engulfs me as though the teardrops are evaporating from his touch. “What about this?” I ask, wiping the solitaire sparkling on his lashes. “What kind of tear is this?”

“Oh, don’t worry. That’s not a tear.”

“It’s not?”

He shakes his head. “It’s not.”

“Then what is it?”

Lightly, his blazing finger glides down my cheek. “It’s a closed door.” His fingertip comes to a stop at the corner of my lips. “A different life flashing before my eyes. That’s what that drop is.”

I try to live through his words, his touch. My heart almost stops from it, from everything. I fight to keep it beating for him. “A closed door on the past?”

He nods. “It has to be.”

“What about the future? Is there something from the future in that non-tear too?”

A look passes in his eyes—a gaze I have no name for. It’s thoughtful, all-consuming, like a held breath or a stare in the horizon. Here, yet waiting for air or a beacon to lighten. “I hope so,” he answers.

H-o-p-e. “And what does that future look like?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“But you believe it now?”

He knows this one immediately. “A part of me will always feel some guilt. It’s the reality of being a survivor, a commanding officer whose men died on my watch. And I will always wonder if I could have done more, better, faster, smarter. But I won’t lie. That weight feels . . . less crushing. More livable knowing my decision didn’t force him—Marshall—to his death. And it’s all because of you and the protein you made for me.”

I don’t miss the way his voice drops on the name, but he still says it out loud. I see the haunted look that flickers in his gaze, though his eyes stay focused on me. And I feel the intense relief, more overwhelming than even when he returned from the reel. But abruptly there is something else that suddenly matters more than anything. Something so vital that instinctively I know we both need it to breathe.

“Aiden.” My voice trembles around his name, the way it caresses my tongue on the way out. I clutch his hand for strength, for bravery to ask the question. His fingers wind with mine like arteries. “If you had never seen those trucks or heard that song in Fallujah in the first place, if you had nothing at all to clear your decision, do you think you would have always carried that guilt?”

He must hear the gravity of the question because he seems to think about it, his eyes deepening as if looking inside himself. “I don’t think so,” he answers after a moment. “And not just because that’s what you were hoping to hear. There was something different about this reel. I couldn’t reconcile it then—the past and the present were merging so fast—but as I look back at the whole, it didn’t feel the same.”

My heart starts hammering in triple tempo like his mind. “Different how?”

“At first, it was worse. The worst agony of my life, even compared to that day itself. Because the classroom started blending with your father’s library the night Edison attacked you. I don’t know why but the images were melding together in the worst possible way. Your blood with Marshall’s blood. His screams with yours when Edison slapped you—” Fury chokes him off and locks his muscles. His eyes become black tunnels of horror again, exactly like the reel, exactly like that night.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m safe, love.” I swirl my fingers in his beard, hating Edison’s every atom and all my own molecules for adding to this agony.

He draws a deep, steadying breath. “I couldn’t breathe through it, Elisa.” His voice is more tormented than I’ve ever heard it. “I know you think I would, but I know my mind, my limits. And I know I could not have come back from that reel. I could not have left you there in his hands, even if only in a memory.” He shudders, and I shudder with him.

So this is why this reel took so long. Why nothing I tried was bringing him back. He was trying to save me again. Reliving two tortures at once—his worst terror and worst pain—both tearing him apart and burying him alive. Doctor Helen’s text blares in my vision, blinding me with its black and white letters: Aiden’s memory can stay in the past forever. I shiver as I realize how right she was, how close he came to being lost.

“Hey, don’t say that.” I whisper, unable to breathe myself through the agony that starts scalding my throat. “It’s gone now. I’m safe because of you. And you’re here. Right here, back and freer than you’ve been in a long time.”

His arm tightens around my waist, pulling me into his warmth as he sees the dread I can’t hide. “Yes, I am, because of you. Because you made a protein that gave me the strength to endure. And because somehow, against all rules and reason, you decided to come after me. You joined me in that hellhole, in the last possible place I would ever want you to be. My mind couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t accept it. This illusion of you—so beautiful, so full of love, the most perfect miracle to ever exist—walking through the flames with me . . . I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t tolerate one single second. For a moment, I wondered if I had in fact died and this was what my version of hell looked like.”

Another shudder ripples through us both. And more puzzle pieces fall together. Why he was shaking his head no when I first entered that moment with him, why it seemed the torment got worse. Because it did. Because I added to his agony instead of lessening it. I should be quarantined.

“But then your calming effect started to seep even through those flames, like it always does,” he continues. “And I was able to breathe again. I was able to see something other than Marshall’s body and yours on the floor. I was able to recall there was a reason to live through it, to come back even if we were not together. Because the real you was worried and waiting. Because I had given you my word. That’s when the change started, I think. Having you there became strength, not weakness. It must have boosted the strength of the protein. Everything felt new. Like I was seeing it for the first time—just as painful, but there was also your calm, your love. And I was able to follow your voice. I could hear you telling me it was not my fault. Even in the end, in that classroom, with Marshall so . . . gone—” A convulsion tears along his shoulders like a ghost blasting through him. The turquoise gaze becomes speckled with darker stars, like Marshall passed and became a constellation in his eyes. “I was able to repeat your words to him. To say goodbye.”

He says it quietly, like a breath. My own breath stops with it. “You did?” I whisper in wonder.

He nods. “As much as I could.”

I want to ask what Marshall would have said back, if there was a final word he would have wanted to hear from his best friend, but somehow, I know this will always have to stay between them. “How do you feel?”

“Like he died all over again, except a better death this time. More human. And I could say a few last words.”

I caress his scar again, lightly so I don’t add a different kind pain. “They don’t have to be last words. I’m learning that. I randomly catch myself talking to mum and dad in my head. Maybe that makes me crazy, but it feels healthier. With a lot less pain. Maybe it will be the same for you.”

“Maybe.”

Neither of us says what I am sure we are both thinking: can his memory ever let him do that?

I remember my idea then—an idea that started brewing during the protein, building after the reel, honing into the night after Doctor Helen and science gave up. “How about we try something together?” I suggest.

“Try what?”

“Well, first, I made you a little something. Do you want to see it?”

He doesn’t miss the new lightness in my voice because a shadow-smile plays automatically at the corner of his lips. “Will it make me cry? Apparently I do that now.”

It’s an obvious joke, but abruptly I hesitate. Will it hurt him? Is it too early for this? Or too late? “I don’t think so, but you don’t have to do anything with it,” I answer, remembering the way he handled the chess set with me. “Or say anything. You don’t even have to touch it if you don’t want to. It’s just a . . . a reminder of something you love.”

He recognizes his own words immediately. “Well now, I’m extremely curious. What did you make that needs a warning?”

I stretch over the edge of the bed, reaching down into the mess of arts and crafts on the floor for my creation. His arm curves around my waist in case I topple and fall.

“This,” I whisper, losing my voice completely as I resurface and open my hand so he can see it in my palm. It’s not beautiful at all, nothing like the gifts he has given me, but his eyes rivet on the tangled coil with eagerness. “It’s a bracelet,” I explain. “Not as precious as the one you gave me—” The diamond initials chime musically on my wrist in agreement. “—But I tried to make it masculine.”

He fishes it from my hand, unraveling the thin, black leather plait and the wooden letters strung on it: M-I-R-A-J.

“All our initials,” he murmurs in wonder, gazing at the letters for the names of his brothers. From the first sunrays, the ordinary wood glows almost like antiqued bronze.

“I kept Marshall’s with an M, instead of his first name—Jacob—because that’s how you refer to him. But for the rest of you, I used the first initial.”

“Life with life,” he mouths in understanding. His eyes deepen with the vision I tried to create for him.

“Yes, but I tried to braid the leather cord like a double helix, like the bracelet you gave me. Because the five of you will always be family. Nothing can ever take that away, not even death. This kind of love does conquer everything.”

He looks up at me, and that nameless look floods his eyes again. Pensive, yet dreamlike, as though hitting pause on everything. I still can’t find the right words for it.

“You don’t have to wear it,” I remind him uselessly in case there is pain underneath. “I just thought—”

“You thought perfectly.”

“You still don’t have to wear it. Or even look at it if it causes you pain.”

“It doesn’t. It causes other things, but not pain.”

“What does it cause?”

He flicks through the wooden letters until he stops at his. “Faith,” he answers, brushing my cheek with the A like he did with the chess queen. “Hope that maybe all love can conquer everything even if not the way we think.”

His initial leaves behind a comet of heat. I open my mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a sigh. Can cheap, non-flame-resistant wood combust from breath? From touch?

As if he wonders the same thing, he smiles his after smile and drops his hand, holding out his wrist. “Thank you. It’s a very meaningful gift. But did you really think I wouldn’t wear it if you made it for me?”

I shake my head to rattle some brain cells back to life. “What if I had made you a dress?” is my genius response. “Would you have worn that?”

He chuckles—the first chuckle on this other side, more beautiful than the lark song. “Well, how far is a dress from a friendship bracelet really?”

“It’s more of a cuff,” I correct, taking the leather cord and tying it around his wrist. Little flames kindle on my skin at the contact and, for a blink, I see stars again even if they’re only the twinkly lights. But the fire must catch in his blood because the bands of muscle in his arm tense as if resisting a great force.

He clears his throat. “Did, ah, Cal tell you Jazz’s first name is Indy?”

“Yes, I texted him last night. They’re all so worried, Aiden. Maybe we should let them come when . . .”

I can’t finish the sentence, and he can’t seem to be able to hear it. “You said ‘first’ earlier, when you asked if we could try something,” he reminds me. “Does that mean there is a second part?”

“Oh! Right!” I remember, grateful for the change in direction. “Yes, but you can say no, like with the bracelet. It’s only if you feel up to it.”

Curiosity flashes in his eyes again, but he smiles. “Duly warned. What is it?”

A frisson of life thrums in my chest. Or is it nerves? I caress the A on his wrist, wishing I had one on mine. “Well, I was thinking, perhaps we could do something to celebrate Marshall today. Maybe as an early birthday or the Christmas he wanted?”

But in my focus on his heart, I have slipped. A big slip. I watch in horror as my words float from my mouth and land on his brain. He stares at me in disbelief. “The Christmas he wanted?” he repeats in a low voice. “How do you know he was looking forward to Christmas? I never told you that.”

Ice whips my cheeks. A wave of nausea heaves to my mouth as I see my blanched face reflected in his unerring eyes. “D-don’t all s-soldiers want to be home for C-Christmas?” I scramble. “B-but it doesn’t have to be Christmas either.” I change tracks frantically. “I just—I think it’s important we give you and him both a good day, like we did with mum and dad. It really helped me.”

He has seen all my reactions, the initial surprise fading and the V deepening between his brows on each word. “It sounds incredibly thoughtful, but why do you look so . . . scared?”

I try to stay focused only on the ultimate truth. The smallest lie and his eyes will catch it. “Because I don’t want you to hurt even more.”

The frown intensifies, and he brushes my arm as if he senses the goosebumps that have erupted there. “I’m not hurting more,” he tries to assure me. “I’m touched—that’s different.”

I manage a slight breath of relief, feeling guilty for letting him misunderstand, but not guilty enough to tell him about the video. Right now he only thinks I’m scared. If he knew the truth . . . I fight back a shudder because he is still watching me, worry creasing his forehead.

“Elisa?” He traces a circle under my eye, thawing the ice. “Your idea is as meaningful as your gift, but you’re obviously upset and exhausted. You’ve been up all night, taking care of me, making me presents, planning birthdays, Christmas, and God knows what else. So, no, sweetheart. We’re not doing anything—no celebrating, talking, or even thinking—until you finally get some sleep.”

“Sleep?” I cry out in panic. On one hand, he’s not pushing me about my Christmas slip. On the other, he has obviously concluded it must be from exhaustion, which is even worse. I’d rather move to Fallujah for the rest of my life than miss one second left of the embargo. “Not now, Aiden, please!” I beg. “This is more important to me—more important than anything else left. It won’t be much, I promise. We’re not supposed to do anything strenuous today anyway, according to Doctor Helen. She wants to check on us tomorrow morning.”

“Exactly—rest is the most important thing right now. We can talk about your idea when you wake up.”

“But then we’ll have to go see Doctor Helen and—and—” My voice breaks at what is coming, at the way her tone sounded last night. So final, so terminal. I can’t tell him any of that. Let him have just one day with h-o-p-e.

But he wraps his arms around me like a shield. “Elisa, you don’t think I know the words you cannot say? I know there is nothing more she can do and tomorrow is just a formality. But it doesn’t change a thing. You still need to rest. Come on, bed.” His arms flex as if to scoop me up.

“No!” I choke, my fingers gripping his T-shirt like hooks. All my resolve to be strong for him shatters, and the full truth spills out. “No, Aiden, please! There’s so little embargo left. I don’t want to miss any of it!”

That look I have no words for deepens his eyes again. Lightening them like skies, softening them like velvet, then morphing into almost palpable tenderness. “Hey, hey, shh,” he murmurs, almost crooning as he pulls me closer. “Forget about the embargo, all right? We can have more time when you wake up. Don’t worry about any of that. Breathe, Elisa!” He blows on my lips like always, slowly until my lungs restart. But I can’t even blink from his beautiful face. Did he really say what I think he said?

“More embargo?” I whisper, still grasping his T-shirt. “Really?”

“I promise you,” he vows, his arms tightening around me. “If you go to sleep, I’ll be right here, and we can celebrate or do whatever else you had in mind when you wake up. Just, please, Elisa.”

I can hear the truth and desperation in his voice even through the blood pounding in my ears. And as swiftly as it struck, panic recedes. Because this is all I want—more t-i-m-e with him. All except one thing: his health, his peace.

“But what about your fever?” I force out the words against every cell that wants me to shut up and curl in his arms for as long as he will let me.

“Elisa, I don’t give a fuck about my fever. I don’t give a fuck about my feelings, my memories, or whatever other worry you’re spinning in your head right now. The only thing I care about is you. Just you. So if you want me to relax, then do it for me.”

How can I argue with his words or his eyes when I feel the same about him? When all my resistance crumbled to stardust at the promise of another day together?

He sees my surrender in my eyes. “Thank you,” he says with so much feeling that the waterworks almost start again. And before I can breathe, anytime, he lies down with me, wrapping me in his arms. Electricity jolts everywhere the second our bodies touch. Tingles on my skin, trembles in my limbs, stars in my vision, earthquakes in my heart. And he is the force that makes them all run. Fire in the blood, titanium in his body, gravity in his hold, my entire universe in his eyes.

“Aiden, love, if—”

“Shh, you’re staying right here.” He throws a light sheet over me, but then seems to remember something. “Unless you’re hungry. Do you want something to eat first?”

“No, I’m fine.” It’s not even a lie. There are other hungers in me, but not the food kind.

“Not even a scone with clotted cream and rose jam?”

“No, not even that.”

He sighs, pressing his lips in my hair. “All right, but when you wake up, you’re eating a Marine-sized meal. Now sleep.”

I want to answer that when I wake up, I only to make happy memories for him. I want to ask what he would like, I want to tell him so many things.  Like the way his fragrance is blending with the rose mist into the stuff of heavens, the way the skylark stops singing every time he speaks, the tiny new bud leaf on Hope because of his warmth, the willows crooning he’s free, he’s free. Do they still sing Elisa, Elisa for him? I want to say all these little nothings that are my everything, but I can’t find the words. So I curl in his chest, closing my eyes, feeling oddly whole with everything in shreds. I try not to think of tomorrow when we meet Doctor Helen, the finality in her voice last night, the startle we couldn’t beat, the last goodbye. I concentrate only on his body heat, counting the times his heart beats in my ear—fast and vital and mine.

But abruptly, on heartbeat eight hundred and five, a change startles me. Subtle yet fast. Like a cool breath on my cheek.

“Oh!” I gasp.

“Elisa, what’s wrong?” Aiden sits up alarm, scanning my face.

“Nothing is wrong!” I cry out, my hand flying to his forehead. “Aiden, I think your fever might be dropping!”

“Christ, Elisa, relax!”

“Never mind that! Here, let’s measure it!” I twist in his arms to grab the thermometer from the nightstand.

“I can do that. Lie down—” he growls, but I stick the tip in his mouth before he can finish. He gives me a beautiful glare.

“Mmmm.”

“I know you’re saying fuck, not this again, and terrorizing the roses.”

No answer, except maybe the glower becomes darker.

“That bad, huh?” I trace his scar with my fingertip—it’s still hot, but not scorching. “I promise I’ll sleep after this, except it will be so much better if I know the fever is breaking.”

He sighs in a give-me-strength way, but the glare softens. The first rays of sun fracture on his thick beard, filtering into a prism of light entirely his own. Obsidian, midnight, garnet, bronze. Shimmering like the halo of my bravery visions.

“Then again being awake does have its advantages.” I grin at him, running my fingers through the lustrous bristles. “This, for example, would be difficult while sleeping.”

He sighs again, but above the dark horizon of his beard, the sky of his gaze deepens with that held, indescribable look. It lightens on my face, so hypnotic, I can’t even blink. But then the thermometer beeps, jolting me back to reality. I pull it out quickly, my hands shaking.

“You were really off this time,” he says, but my squeal drowns his voice as soon as I see the numbers blinking on the window.

“Yes! Ninety-nine-point-eight! It’s dropping, it really is!” I throw my arms around his neck, almost strangling him in relief.

He hugs me closer, kissing my hair. “That is, indeed, what I was trying to tell you.”

I sob-laugh in his neck. “Thank God! It’s still a little high, but I’ll take any difference. You’re almost normal temperature for a dragon now.”

He chuckles. “Don’t worry. I’m sure it will keep dropping. My memory started slowing after the connections were made. I think they were related.”

I pull back to look at him. “Really? It’s completely back to normal?”

“Well, normal for me. It had to have been the effect of bravery. Now, bed. You got what you wanted, you made a promise, and there are no more excuses left, no matter how much you want to argue with me that I should give all credit to myself.”

I sigh. He knows me too well. “Okay, I’ll argue with you when I wake up.”

He smirks and tucks me in, cradling me in his arms. “Sleep now, love. Sleep and dream beautiful dreams.”

L-o-v-e. The skylark chirps as if it hears the beauty in his voice and knows it cannot compete. “And what will you do while I dream?”

“I’ll be right here, dreaming too.”

“What will you dream?”

“The only dream I see, awake or asleep.”

“It’s Mrs. Willoughby, right?”

“Right.” He chuckles again.

A laugh bubbles on my own lips. And why shouldn’t it? When he is still mine for another day, one step closer to himself? Finally free from a heavy fault that was never his. What is my loss and pain compared to that?

“That is exactly the sound I dream about,” he says, pressing his lips in my hair.

I listen to his piano voice, trying to memorize its music. In secret, I wish I could remember like him. So the years that will sweep my mind can never touch a single note of his melody. “We have a very similar dream then.”

His breath pauses staccato for a second, then bridges fluidly into my lullaby. Not Für Elise, but his letters to me like I did for him. “My all,” he murmurs, as though he heard my thoughts. “Another night, just you, me, and the desert. I don’t know which of us has more heat . . .”

I kiss his heart again and snuggle in his chest, listening. That brave Everestian love surges omnipotently inside me. Inexplicably as strong as during the protein, as immutable as it will always be.

“The desert, you might say, but here is a secret that you don’t know. The desert can never burn the soul. And you are the mirage at the end of the fire. Shimmering like cold water, pouring over this pyre. No, the one burning is me . . .”

Slowly, with each word, a tension I did not know was wringing my muscles starts to drain out of me. His fever softens into the sultry warmth of home, and I start to drift. The last thing I sense is a featherlight pressure on my lips, like a whisper in the breeze.

What a beautiful dream.

©2022 Ani Keating

 

NINETY DAYS: CHAPTER 37 – STOP

Happy Palindrome Day (22-02-2022) and happy Twosday!  Palindromes are one of my favorite random things and I gave that to Elisa, so it made sense to post today to celebrate. Plus, posting as soon as I finish. Hope you enjoy this chapter and that, if there are tears, they are bittersweet. xo, Ani (P.S. bit of trivia: I found this photo of a wild rose many years ago when I was first thinking of this scene. It feels good to be able to finally use it–you’ll see why it’s a perfect fit.).

37

Stop

The cottage waits for us, back to its fairytale wonder. The limestone walls catch the moon, now silver, now childhood white. Starlight flows over the garden as a molten river, weaving around the roses like freshwater pearls. And the feeling of home swaddles me again. This sense of being complete exactly with what I have, as long as Aiden is next to me.

And for now, he is. Towering here at the garden hedge in his cargo pants and Byron boots, his heavy arm around me, shoulders still rippling with torture, his beauty more dreamlike than even during the protein. The luster of his fevered skin is almost opaline. His soaked hair and lashes glint black, and his bare chest shimmers as though sculpted in the rarest moonstone. He is staring at the cottage with the same longing as me, drawing the first deep breath since the reel.

“I was looking forward to seeing it with bravery,” he murmurs.

I tighten my hold around his waist. “You’re always brave.”

“You know what I mean.”

I risk a kiss on his bicep—the band of muscle twitches back but he doesn’t pull away. “Trust me, it looks a lot more beautiful with all our emotions. It’s perfect exactly as you see it.”

“Yes, it is.” His eyes linger on our open bedroom window where the light is always on for him, like in his war letters.

I drop the evil monitor and the blanket by his waders, keeping them out of our bubble, and hook my arm in his. “Come, let’s go in. The roses have missed you.”

“I’ve missed them too.”

“They say you look good in your new beard, but they really miss the dimple.”

“Tell them they look good in their new dew, but I really miss their blush.”

“They like your pun.”

“I like their everything.”

His fingers brush the Elisas as we pass by them. How am I going to walk in this garden without his hand in mine? Will it hurt worse than watching the video? Will every rose in this cottage wither and die with me? But none of my pain matters now. All that matters is easing the pain for him.

On our front step, Hope the Hybrid is almost invisible with its single leaf. I hope it grows another before September eighteen.

“Hi, Hope,” I greet it. “Look who is here to see you.” I pick up its tiny pot and give it to Aiden. “Hope wants to stay by your side tonight. She says she will be very safe and not touch you at all.”

He takes it from me, his eyes soft even in the dark. “Tell Hope she can stay with me for a while, but then she has to get some sleep. The embargo applies to her as well.”

As if there is a chance of that when he is like this. Still I flutter Hope’s leaf like a nod since my ability to lie to him even while impersonating a rose is now completely null and void.

“Very convincing,” he answers as I open the door.

As soon as we step in the glow of our tiny foyer, the shudders skip a beat over Aiden’s shoulders. His eyes consume the space with famine—the photos on the wall, the Clares blooming on the console as always, the Rose Cup, dad’s scarf on the peg. Gone is the vigilance of checking for intrusion; his memory now gives him the bliss of that first time he walked through this door, so full of hope. I watch with a clenched heart as his gaze lightens when it falls on my childhood photographs, and another deep breath flows through his lungs.

“See? I told you your mind needs this,” I gloat, hanging up mum’s parka.

“I never questioned that.”

No, he didn’t. He stays away only to prepare me for his absence. Except it’s so easy to pretend—as we stand here, our arms around each other, still shaking and burning, looking at our little home—that we are still us, that there wasn’t an end, that there won’t be a goodbye. Even if it’s a lie. But maybe we all need to pretend sometimes to survive. Maybe that’s what bravery is: pretending until you believe. Or until you can accept the truth.

So that’s what I do now: pretend.

I reach up for his burning cheek, swirling my fingers in the thick beard. “Come, the cottage has been missing you too.”

The shiver that runs through him now seems different—less horror, more desire. But the agony hasn’t released his eyes despite the faint light. He takes my hand off his face, still holding my icy fingertips. “I’ll go wash this off,” he says as always after the reel. “I don’t want to drag any of it here.”

Maybe he is pretending too. Whatever it takes for this pain to relent even for an hour, or a minute. “Good idea, but try to keep the shower cold. It’s better for the fever. I’ll go get your pajamas.”

“I can—” he starts but I’m already sprinting down the foyer to the linen cupboard where most of his clothes live now. As soon as I’m away from his body heat, chills erupt everywhere, and my chest starts throbbing. I race back before he has finished slipping off his wading boots.

“You know, I can walk, Elisa.”

“Yes, but I know what calms you so much better. Your favorite boxers are there too.”

His eyes when I say that. Half the bad fire, half the kind that ignites my blood. My knees almost give out. He takes the clothes from me, his fingers brushing mine. Then something catches his attention. He sniffs the air around the soft cotton. “Did you spray your perfume all over these?” he asks, perplexed.

“Exactly.”

He shakes his head, but his lips lift in the war-torn smile. “You’re unbelievable.”

“It helps you with the calm.”

“Not just with the calm.” He brings the fabric to his face, inhaling in the same way he breathes me in when we would curl up in bed. “Is this the second part of my surprise?” His voice is huskier beneath the slow timbre of pain. “I like it.”

“No, that’s later. This is just one of our embargo weapons.”

“Powerful.” His chest rises in another deep breath. “Put on something warm. You’re still freezing.” He brushes the goosebumps on my arm with Hope’s leaf and climbs the stairs. His favorite fifth stair where we used to make love squeaks under his feet.

Did the cottage just get brighter? Are the walls breathing? Is every grain of wood and stone coming to life even if just for one night? I’m unable to blink and check until I hear the loo door close behind him. And then I’m a tornado of chills, updating Doctor Helen and whirling around the rooms to prepare for our embargo night. Without the super-mind of the protein, I’m left with whatever brain cells have survived the scorching agony, terror, and sheer magnitude of the last six hours and ten days. It’s not many. My thoughts feel like mulch, decomposing under the strain of fear and anguish.

But the rainy sound of the shower keeps me moving on my shaky legs. By the time I hear it turn off ten minutes later, I’m already in the guestroom upstairs, throwing open the window to let in the rose breeze and the willow song. It has changed again in my normal ears. Not ephemeral anymore, but more beautiful, homier like a lullaby.

“New song?” Aiden guesses from the doorway. I spin around and there he is in his pajamas and white T-shirt, with Hope still in his hand. The droplets of water glimmer on him like the surreal halo of my bravery visions. But I can tell immediately the fever has not dropped a Celsius from the heaviness in his gaze, which means his mind must still be on fire. And the tension is still wringing his shoulders.

“Yes,” I whisper, my voice evaporating at the sight of him.

“What do they sing now?”

He’s here, he’s here.” I’m afraid again to ask about what he hears. Is it still safe, safe, safe like before the reel?

His eyes stroll around the guestroom, capturing each happy memory I managed to infuse here in the last few minutes. The vase of Elisas on the nightstand, two microwaved bowls of his favorite chicken soup leftovers, two Baci chocolates even though neither of us can eat them anymore, my chess set, the Chatsworth picnic basket hiding the medicine kit, the Christmas lights strung along the headboard, the old record player from our happy bedroom, playing Für Elise. His gaze quiets at last on the full bed. Except now it has our pillows, sheets, and quilt.

Instantly, all tension blows out of Aiden’s muscles like a gust of wind. Light floods his eyes back to their sapphire flames. Not my brilliant turquoise—only our bedroom can do that—but at least it’s no longer midnight. Another deep breath swells in his chest. He sets Hope on the dresser without a word and walks toward me where I’m still frozen at the window in his favorite sweatshirt and my leggings.

“I—” I start and try again because no voice comes out. “Since we can’t go back to our happy bedroom, I thought maybe I could bring some of its happiness to you. Like a Room of Happies compared to our Room of Firsts. I know it’s not the same, but—” I stop babbling because he reaches me. His body is so close I can feel his fever on my lips.

“It’s everything,” he finishes.

I topple headfirst into him, but his arms catch me. I lock mine around his waist before he can pull away, and melt in his blazing chest, inhaling his freshly showered scent. Sandalwood and Aiden and me. My head swirls with it, with the feel of him in my arms again. An old fear slithers up my spine, and I scrape my nail against my wrist to test reality. But I’m awake. He is truly here in the cottage, even if only for a few hours.

And he doesn’t pull away. His arms fold around me too, as he murmurs, “Elisa.”

“Yes?” I clutch him tighter. How is he still able to stand?

“That’s what the willows are singing for me. Elisa, Elisa, Elisa. Isn’t that what you wanted to know?”

How could he tell in just one glance? I press my lips above his heart—it’s thudding faster than the earlier death toll. “Well, I think mine just changed to sleep, sleep, sleep and soup, soup, soup. The willows want you to lie down and eat something.”

His long fingers caress the fabric of my sweatshirt lightly as if anything more or less might end us both. I can only tell because the heat permeates the thick cotton. “In a minute, but first, thank you. You were right. I do love this surprise even if I shouldn’t.”

“You should, but this isn’t your surprise either. You can see it after you get in bed.”

“Hmm . . .” His body sways, whether from the fever or the piano I don’t have time to understand because he abruptly tenses. I freeze automatically in response.

“What is it?” I ask, looking up at his face. My heart almost drops through the floorboards when I see his eyes drifting beyond the room, but he blinks back at me, frowning in confusion.

“Did you try to dance with me at some point when I was under? Or is that a memory?”

“Oh!” I breathe in relief. Not the worst of what he has seen, but his mind is not slowing down at all if he is still trying to parse out the past from the present. “No, you’re right. I did try, when I started playing Für Elise.”

He eyes change again, tender despite the pain. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting, ma’am.” And he lifts me slowly by my waist, sliding his bare feet under mine. We shudder in tandem at the touch.

“Aiden, love, you need to lie down,” I protest feebly. “You’re breaking the embargo rules already.”

“Am I?” He tucks my face back in his chest. “I think the rule was ‘rest and nothing else,’ and this is restful for me. The scientists say so.”

How can I say no to that? Especially when I want him to hold me so much?

As if he hears my thoughts, he pulls me tight against his body—summer and winter—yet it’s not close enough for me. I wish I could be air and float inside his lungs. Or blood so I can flow in his arteries. I want to slip under his skin and become a shield. I grip him back, and we dance through our steps that have become as instinctual as the breath hitching from our lips. I can feel his desire against every line of me—the way it ripples out of him as potent as the fever. I want more than anything to lift my face to his, to tangle my fingers in his wet hair, to taste him now that he is awake. But I cannot fathom the strength it’s taking for him to restrain his need. To deny himself everything he wants only to make the end easier for me. So I have to be good. I have to do the same for him.

He twirls me on the final bridge as always but doesn’t dip me over his arm. That’s good too—I couldn’t control myself if he did.

“Thank you for the dance. Earlier and now.” His voice has a poignant note to it like the last note of Für Elise. I’m too terrified to linger on the sound.

“Always. Now on with you, Adam, get in bed before I call every doctor in Oxfordshire.”

He doesn’t fight me this time—perhaps he can’t. He lies down, propping the pillow against the headboard, the twinkly lights above him casting a shimmering aura. His long legs dangle off the bed as he eyes the small space anxiously.

“Elisa—”

“I know,” I interrupt, throwing only a light sheet up to his waist. “It’s a small bed and you won’t let me in it. I’ll be careful.”

His finger hovers under my chin without contact, jolting me the same as his touch. “More than careful. You’ll go to sleep in your room after we’ve eaten, okay? I’ll be fine. It’s just a little fever.”

“Just a lot of fever. Aiden, I’m not arguing about this. We have a deal that tonight is about your health, with embargo on all else, including arguments. I’ll take care of you, and you’ll have to trust me that I’ll be safe. I wouldn’t endanger myself knowing what it would do to you. Haven’t I earned that trust?”

He opens his mouth to speak, but I stick in the thermometer, envious of its mercury tip under his tongue. “Mmmm,” he answers.

“That’s right. I interpret that to mean, ‘Yes, Elisa, darling, you have earned my trust, and I will not argue again tonight. Instead, I will take the paracetamol, eat the soup, see my surprise, and sleep, knowing that I’m loved.’ Is that what you’re trying to say?”

He looks at me like I’m his life and his worst enemy at the same time. “Mmmm.”

“Exactly. And if you don’t cooperate, I’ll call Doctor Gramercy, Doctor Helen, Doctor Corbin, your brothers, and your parents—they can be here tomorrow, they’re all packed. Oh, and Benson to hold you down while I force feed you.”

“Mmm—” he responds, but the thermometer beeps then, like my heart at the lab. I pull it out and almost collapse.

“Bloody hell, Aiden! It’s a hundred and two! How on earth are you coherent? I’m calling Doctor Gramercy right now.” I turn for my phone, but his hand closes at my hip.

“Elisa, darling, can I get in a word first?”

“Depends on the word.”

“How about these words? You’re right. You have earned my trust. More than anyone ever has or ever will. I’ve had an awful habit of questioning it, and I’m sorry. I’ll change it now even if I’m too late. I will trust you to be safe tonight and I’ll let you take care of me even though it should be the other way around. And if the fever doesn’t drop by tomorrow morning despite your magic, I’ll see a doctor. But tonight, I cannot handle anyone else but you. Can you give this to me?”

I just stare. How can I argue with his words, the pleading eyes, his simple wish, or his rare request for something he needs? How can I not give him everything?

“You’re not too late,” I recover, perching on the edge of the bed, afraid if I get any closer, I will throw myself at him. “And it shouldn’t be the other way around. You can’t always be the one saving me. I want to save you too.”

His lips lift into the worn half-smile, but he does the same, scooting to the middle of the mattress. “You save me every day, Elisa.”

But will it be enough?

He keeps his promise then. He takes the paracetamol tablets without argument, drinks a full glass of ice water, eats the soup, and even lets me take care of his hands no matter how much he hates anyone fussing over him. I disinfect the gnarly blisters with ethanol and cover them with honey balm, avoiding the heated gaze I sense on my face so I can concentrate. If the alcohol stings him, he doesn’t flinch. Instead, his fingertips curl instinctly toward mine. Every time they brush me, my heart hammers so loudly I think he can hear it. Being so close to him after ten days is more overwhelming to my system than even the protein. My emotions are a snarl. Everything possible to feel, I feel to the nth degree. From desire to the most absurd anger that his golden skin is hurt. Now I finally understand the mystery of how Aiden could be so furious at my sandals for giving me blisters. I loathe every shovel in the world at this moment.

“There.” I tape the strips of gauze around his hands gently. “They’ll be better tomorrow. But no shovels or hard labor for at least a week.”

He doesn’t like that—who knows what else he is planning to fix for me—but he concedes. “You really missed your calling as a military nurse.”

“Of course I didn’t. I’m taking care of a soldier right now. Here, let me put this compress on you. I even sprinkled some rose oil on it so it smells good. See?”

He stares at me in that you’re-unbelievable look but recovers. “Well, thank God for that. I wouldn’t want an ordinary compress.”

The note of dry humor under the hoarseness of agony sounds like a symphony to me. I press the damp tea towel over his burning forehead and eyes before he can see my eyes fill with tears. I try to avoid touching his skin—sure that any more contact, no matter how faint, will kill us both—but as soon as the wet cloth drapes over his face, he gasps as he did when he touched the evil monitor. As though something shocked him.

“Aiden?” I remove the towel immediately, but his eyes are focused on the labyrinth of his memory, tracing images I cannot see.

“You were there!” he whispers.

The words turn to chills on my spine. What is this? Is the reel trying to reclaim him? Or is this guilt? “Of course I was. I told you I’ll always be on the other side, just as you would for me.”

He shakes his head, his mind clearly processing with that surreal velocity he mentioned earlier. Here, in the light, I can finally see the stunning speed of thought in his far-away gaze.

“That’s not it,” he murmurs.

“Then what is it? What are you remembering?”

He looks between my face and the invisible mirage before him, his focus a laser beam, yet something seems to elude him. “Not remembering, exactly. Or maybe I am . . . It makes no sense.” His voice tenses with frustration.

“What makes no sense?”

The sentient eyes blink and return home. Meeting mine, torn between awe and puzzlement. “I have this very vivid image of you and me on the riverbank of Euphrates in Fallujah. Your hand is in my hair, and I’m splashing cold water on my face. I can hear your voice so clearly, telling me to do that. The vision is so vibrant, yet I know it’s impossible. I know you weren’t actually there. And I sure as fuck would never imagine you anywhere near that hellhole. But the texture of it—so rich and detailed. I can smell you with the gunpowder. I can see you through the smoke. I can feel your little hand around mine. It’s as if it really happened. As precise as any other memory.” He squints again, trying to reconcile the images.

I flap uselessly around my head. Obviously, a part of him heard me, though I don’t know how or in what order the memories are flowing back. Why this last image and not anything that came before it? Is it just a matter of the compress trigger or something else? But at least I can explain some of it. That way he can relax. “Actually, I think I might know why.”

He frowns. “Why?”

“Because I did tell you to go to the river and splash water on your face. You were so feverish, and Doctor Helen said to keep you as cool as I could, so I thought it would help if I gave you some images of cold water. Don’t worry about this part. Or any part at all. You really need to give your mind a break.” I pull the cold compress over his eyes again, stroking his forehead through the fabric. I can almost feel his thoughts racing inside his brain.

“Elisa?” His voice is unnaturally hard all of a sudden.

“Hmm?”

“How did you know there was a river close enough for me to go to?”

My mouth dries like the Fallujah desert. The only thing that saves me is that his eyes are covered. How could I have made such a blunder? Because the protein was fading, that’s why. My super-mind would have never floundered idiotically like this. “Well, ah, because I have studied Fallujah,” I scramble, sticking only to technical truths like the protein taught me. “I saw the Euphrates River runs through it.”

I would be proud of myself if I wasn’t liquifying into a blob of panic on the mattress. I didn’t tell a single lie, except by omission. Still, I force air in and out in case he can feel my choppy breathing through the mattress.

A few moments drag, stretching like the entire video, while I pray frantically to every angel and polygraph inventor to save me, Doctor Helen, Aiden himself, and Planet Earth. Then he sighs in a way that makes me think the entire galaxy will not, right this minute, scorch to ash by dragon fire. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you would have researched it but I hate that any part of that evil is in your head at all. Is it really so hard not to investigate every single thing that crosses your path, Elisa?”

My breath flows naturally again, and I almost slump on the bed in relief. Would he ever have accepted my explanation this easily if he wasn’t blindfolded with a tea towel, sleep-deprived for ten days, agonized, traumatized, assaulted by thousands of memories at stratospheric speed, and running a fever of a hundred and two degrees? No, not in a million years.

I dab another cold compress on his cheek. “It’s impossible. Snooping where I don’t belong is my specialty.”

Another sigh. “I’m aware . . . But it still doesn’t explain why the image feels so vivid even though it never happened. It’s as though my mind took your fantasy and flipped it into reality.”

The momentary relief disappears. Because for this, I have no answer. Nothing but a mounting terror expanding like an imploded universe. Terror that something has broken. Terror that I violated some fundamental principle of memory and nature by crossing the boundaries of time dimensions when I entered the reel with him. Terror that I made it worse instead of helping. Terror that I may not be able to save him at all. Terror for his pain. And terror that the fever is not relenting. My fingers tremble as I stroke his scar over the damp cloth.

“I wish I knew why, my love. I wish I could make it stop.”

His fingers caress the sweatshirt gathered at my hip, as if hears the unspoken dread. “Don’t worry,” he assures me. “I’ll figure it out.”

“I know you will, but not tonight, Aiden, please. We really need to give your mind a break, something else to work through that’s not burning or painful.”

“Alright,” he agrees, but I hear what he is not saying. What thought is left that doesn’t carry pain?

“How about a riddle so you can guess your surprise and keep your brain busy?” I splutter ridiculously, as if any childish game can tame terrors like these.

But it brings back the ravaged smile. “Very embargoish.”

“Okay, let me think. What would be hard enough for you?” I remove the compress to refresh it with more ice and rose oil. His eyes find mine immediately, lightening, softening, which doesn’t help me at all with the thinking process. I have to look at the soggy towel so I can string together some clues. “Alright, here it is.” I wrap the compress back over his eyes and forehead, wishing it could blind him from the images in his head. “Solve it and you’ll know what your surprise is. I start with love and end with riches. Within me, only mirror images. I am fragile, thin, and very light. Yet I can carry great loads inside. I can be a thought or a feeling. And if you lose me, you might lose meaning. But anyone who’s seen me will agree. There’s no greater suspense than me.”

A low gasp like a chuckle flows from his lips—the first since the end. My heart almost stops at the sound. So beautiful, even if only a ghost of the joyful music it used to be. What I wouldn’t give to hear it again.

“How do you come up with things like this?” he demands. “Do you have a section in your prefrontal cortex reserved for puzzles only?”

“No, but I do have a big part of my brain dedicated to you.” Okay, that’s an understatement. My entire brain is dedicated to him.

He shakes his head as if he doesn’t think a single neuron should be his. “And this is something you’re giving me?”

“Yes, and I’m very late at it.”

“Okay, my turn to think.” And underneath the willow song, I can almost hear the sudden silence in his mind, the ceasefire as he tries to focus only on the riddle.  Let it help, please. Let it cool the fever.

“Is it health?” he guesses, but then answers his own question, “No, it can’t be.”

“A good guess but keep trying.”

“Peace?”

“No, but it could have been.”

“Air?”

“No.”

“Coming home?”

The way home sounds in his voice—so warm, like it was made for him. “That’s your best so far but keep thinking.”

And he does. He keeps guessing answers that are a lot better than mine as I change the compress over and over again. But the fever isn’t dropping. His body is still a furnace, raging next to me. From the heat, the room feels sultry, the rose breeze like a tropical zephyr. And his voice becomes slower, his eyelids heavier as they struggle to open whenever he can see me. I try to fight back my rising panic so I can breathe for him.

“You really missed your calling to be an intelligence code writer, Elisa. Are you sure there is an answer?”

“Of course I didn’t miss it. I’m giving codes to a CIA analyst right now. And, yes, there is an answer.”

“Well, I’ll be Harold Plemmons’ age if I ever solve it.”

My breath rolls out into a faint whisper before I can stop it. “Promise?”

Even burning, he hears it. His hand clambers up to his face and he pulls down the compress. His eyes are abruptly fierce underneath the fever.

“Elisa.” He pours all his strength into his commanding voice. It rings with power, fortifying me as he must intend it to do. His other hand grabs a fistful of the sweatshirt at my hip. “For as long as your heart is beating, so will mine. You are not allowed to ever worry about that. Do you understand me?”

Except I want his heart to beat forever. I shove down the dark thought and put all my strength in my voice. “I do. I’ll keep my heart beating for a lot longer than Mr. Plemmons, I promise. And so will you. You will heal from this. You are not allowed to ever worry about that. Do you understand me?”

He sees my faith, my fear even with his hooded gaze. “I do. That’s why I’m still fighting. Now, is it lavender? Because it starts with an L and ends with R, even though nothing else fits. Or did I just commit a cardinal sin mentioning another flower’s name around here?” His lips force a valiant smile, and I grin naturally in response.

“You’ll have to grovel to the roses first thing in the morning—they’re very jealous flora, but I’ll give this to you because you guessed a flower and that’s close enough. Look under the other pillow and you’ll find your surprise.”

His smile lingers. “Really? You’re giving me a pass?”

“I can fail you if it would make you happier?”

“No, no, I’ll take it.” And his long fingers reach under the spare pillow immediately. For a a split second, a shadow of the seven-year-old boy flits in his eyes, not carefree, but alive. I swallow hard against the lump in my throat as he fishes out the origami rose I folded out of lab paper. “A white rose,” he muses, but as soon as his eyes lock on it, his memory strikes again, impossibly fast. “There was a rose!” he breathes in shock. “In the classroom, on the blackboard, there was a flower drawn in chalk like a rose!”

I hear my gasp of dread and relief. Because he saw it. He heard me, he trusted me, he found the rose as I had hoped. But I’ve triggered another flashback. And we’re getting closer to the torture, to the deepest circle of the fiery inferno.

His eyes flash to my face in awe. “You were there too. Just like with the river. You led me straight to it. How did you do that?”

I feel the blood drain from my skin. There is no compress over his eyes now, nothing to hide behind, except the only truths I can tell him. “I didn’t say anything about a flower,” I whisper, mouth dry like chalk, skin white hot like the desert. “I only told you to look for familiar things.”

“Yes, I know, but what gave you the idea? It’s so different than what you’ve done in the past.”

“I—I was just trying to bring you back, and I couldn’t think of another way.” My voice shatters under his gaze. “Aiden, please let it go. Don’t dwell on the horror now. Please!

My panic must derail him. He lifts his hand to my face, brushing my cheek with the paper rose as though he, too, can’t survive touching my skin. “Hey, hey, shh, not horror. At least not this part. That rose kept me breathing today. It was the one thing of beauty in all that hell. Once I saw it, I kept my eyes on it instead of . . .”

My own breath stops entirely—with the origami touch, with his words, with the tenderness in his gaze. Even the anxiety about the video disappears for the moment at this revelation. Because I’d watch it a million times over withoutthe protein if it gave him one bubble of oxygen. “It really helped?” I whisper. “But I—I broke all of Doctor Helen’s rules!”

He nods, caressing my cheekbone with the paper petals. “I’m glad you did. If you hadn’t, I would have never found the rose, even though I obviously glimpsed it when I stepped inside the classroom that day.”

I press the cold compress over his cheek like a caress too. Of course he hadn’t registered it since that accursed moment. Who would think of roses with all the torture that followed? “I’m glad you saw it in the first place. Thank God for your mind and for whomever drew the rose there.”

His eyes travel, and I’m certain he is seeing the image that I know so well: the simple petals, so obviously drawn by a child’s hand. Was it one of the broken hands Aiden had to pick up and match to the rest? Or is that child still alive somewhere in the desert—an adult now, unaware he just helped a man breathe thousands of miles away? Will that chalk rose be enough to help Aiden in the future when I’m not there?

“Thank God for you.” His eyes focus on me with feeling. “I still can’t access most of it, but I know I’d still be in that classroom if it weren’t for you.”

A shiver runs through me at the haunted look that mars his beautiful face. “No, you wouldn’t,” I say quickly, patting his brow with the damp cloth. “You’d be right here, except you’d be opening your surprise instead of trying to comfort me.”

It works. The ghostly look fades and, for now, we seem to leave the classroom—and my detailed knowledge of it—behind. “Open it? The paper rose you folded so carefully?”

I nod. “Oh yes, the surprise is inside. You didn’t think the answer is ‘rose,’ did you?”

“No, but it seems sacrilegious to unravel this. Haven’t I committed enough sins against the roses tonight?”

“No, the roses like this part. And I’ll fold it again for you if you want.”

He trails the origami rose down my cheek to the corner of my jaw. “I want.”

He opens the rose carefully while I try to find the real rose breeze for air. Abruptly I’m nervous. Will he like it? Or will it cause more flashbacks? It seemed like a good idea when I was brave, but now my decisions during the protein seem downright insane. But it’s too late—he flattens the scrap of lab paper and his breath catches. The weary smile sparks again. “Ah, I see. The answer to the riddle is a letter. Of course it is. Clever.” He looks up at me through his long lashes, heavy with fever. “Now what could you have written to me?”

“I don’t know, I was high.”

“All the better.”

I watch without air as his eyes turn to the words I wrote. The words I remember as clearly as if they were still in front of me.

My love, he is reading,

I don’t know why it has taken me so long to write you back. After all, we’re still fighting a war—a war like no other. With hearts instead of shields, memories instead of bombs, dreams instead of missions. It’s the war to end all our other wars. The war to save you. Because you deserve it, and we will fight for as long as we have breath left. Even when we’re an ocean apart.

And one day—whether now or when we’re as old as the Plemmonses—I know you will win. I know I will wobble on my cane to my postbox, and I will see an envelope there with just my address and an international stamp. I will know your handwriting even blind. I will know what the letter says before I open it. Just one four-letter word: F-R-E-E. And I will dance right there by the rose hedge—cane, titanium hip, knee braces, and all. Then I will scribble you back one word. The only one I will know. L-O-V-E.

But until then, maybe we’ll keep writing to each other. Just like this—never goodbyes, only “my” and “yours.” Even you cannot find anything unsafe with that. And I will tell you all the things I haven’t had a chance to tell you. There are only a billion. This time, I will start with how it feels to love you with absolutely no fear. Love you for love’s sake only, just like your first Baci quote said.

I wish I had your talent for writing—perhaps then I could do justice to the feeling. It’s compulsive, instinctual, like every right and wrong has ceased to exist. All my worries and what-ifs no longer matter. Every other purpose in life has become secondary to this one simplicity: I love you. From the A of your name to the Zs of your sleep. I love the totality of the man you are, without a single care of what was or what will be.

I don’t love you safely, tucked between a dream and a fairytale. I love you violently, torn between wars and nightmares. I don’t love you with pasts or time. I love you the way stars are meant to be loved. Forever, in darkness and light.

Yet it still doesn’t seem enough, because I know it can’t last. Fear will return soon and, with it, reason and reality. I know there isn’t a world where you would ever risk my life. And I know bravery changes nothing between us. So when I’m awake from this spell, don’t give me anything but whatever you can. From however far.

Yours,

Elisa

He finishes before me even though these are my words rhyming in my brain more fluently than my own name. But he doesn’t blink away from them. He gazes at every period and every comma the way he looks at me sometimes. As though they’re his reason for living. And for the third time in our love, I see the glimmer of a tear at the corner of his eye. But it’s not a tear of pain. For once tonight, there is no trace of agony in his expression.

A whiff of rose breeze floats by, and I realize I had been barely breathing until now.

At the sound of my breath, Aiden looks at me. And before I can figure out how to blink, he sits up, coming so close with his surreal face, his body heat, his sky gaze full of dreams. His fragrance washes over my lips, and I have to wring the tea towel to stay upright. But the room starts to spin. And the tropical air crackles on my skin like melting ice.

“Elisa,” he murmurs, and the deep emotion is in his voice, too. “I—what can I ever say to a letter like this? There are no words for it.”

I dab the single tear sparkling at the edge of his scar. “I don’t want you to say anything. I only wanted you to know how brave love felt for me.” But as I hear the past tense, oddly, it doesn’t feel in the past at all. It feels viscerally present.

He looks at me with the whole world in his eyes. “I know it. I feel it. But that’s not all you want, is it?” He flutters the paper along my cheek—it billows with our breath. “You want more. So much more than that.”

M-o-r-e. Except what I want no longer matters compared to him. “I want you to be at peace most of all. So I’ll take whatever you can give me safely, even if just in letters.”

It would never be enough. To have the words of our love story tucked in the library right next to Dante, Austen, and Tolstoy . . . in the empty spot left by Romeo and Juliet.

His eyes turn to the letter as if he is considering that other world. The world where we speak only in paintings and scribbles. The paper trembles from his touch. “I don’t know how to be with you half-way,” he admits, seeming lost. “I did it in war, but now that you’re real . . .”

This morning I would have told him to be with me in every way, but that won’t help him now. Not when he needs to hope I will have a life beyond him. The hope that will keep him alive. “That’s okay. Then be with me only in here,” I answer, hovering my hand above his heart. His fever burns my skin even without contact. “Just promise you will send me that letter when you heal. Because you will, Aiden. One day, you will.”

He looks again at the words I wrote, his eyes deepening, and I wonder where his thoughts are taking him. To that dream? That day in his future? I don’t know but my mind flashes to the past. To us. To every maddening, beautiful, surreal moment of being his. They roll by in a memory reel of my own: the first time I saw his exquisite face at Feign’s gallery . . . touching the miracle of his hand at the presentation for my supplement . . . coming alive under his gaze on our coffee date . . . his first kiss and every single one that followed it . . . that first night together and every night since . . . the war we fought . . . the way he healed me . . . his gifts . . . the games of chess . . . the dances . . . the sleeps . . . his waterfall laughter . . . every minute of his impossible, forever love.

The wound in my chest rips wide open, almost curling me over in a torture of loss. I barely have a second to whip around and pretend to soak the compress so I can hide from his quick eyes. But I’m not fast enough. His finger comes under my chin, skin on skin without any fabric between us. The small touch jolts through me like electric current.

“Elisa, love?” He turns my face to him immediately. “What is it? What hurt you just now?”

L-o-v-e. I commit the way it sounds in his voice to memory, wishing I could remember like him so not a single note of his music ever fades from my mind. Even his panic for me right now. But it knocks me to my senses, overruling my own pain. What the bloody hell am I doing? How can I add even a second to the burden he is carrying?

I take a deep breath and press the compress back to his cheek. “Your fever isn’t dropping at all,” I answer, choosing the most urgent of the thousands of flames because it’s the one that will worry him the least.

He doesn’t release my eyes or my chin, still studying me. The light contact grows, sinking through my skin to my very bones. “I’m sure it will. Is that all that’s upsetting you?”

“Isn’t it enough?”

“No, nothing is worth this pain.”

“Well, it is to me,” I say truthfully, because nothing else compares to his health. “Aiden, please, I’m worried about you. Maybe we should try something stronger to break your thoughts. How about blind chess against me and your laptop? That ought to distract even your mind for a few minutes.”

He sighs, no doubt seeing the earnest dread, and relents. His finger drops from my chin, leaving behind the chill of his absence. “I have a better idea instead.”

“What idea? It had better not involve worrying about me, Aiden, I swear.”

“It doesn’t. At least as much as I’m capable of doing that.”

“Then what is it?”

He holds my eyes in that way that makes it impossible to blink. “How about you read your letter to me?”

The sheet of paper quivers in his hand from my surprised gasp. “Really? But you already remember it by now—it won’t be enough to hold your focus.”

“I promise you it will hold it more than anything else. And I haven’t heard it in your voice. Or with you in my arms.”

My mouth pops open. Because I realize what he wants. Didn’t I try and fail to imagine his piano voice when I was reading his war letters alone? How alive did his words feel when I finally heard them in his music, curled in his chest? But did he really mean in bed with him?

He nods as though he is in my head. “Elisa, you’ve been up since four—assuming you slept at all, made breakfast, went to work, solved the protein, tested it, watched me in agony for three hours, revived me all on your own, found a way to save my sanity, prepared my surprise, and now you’ve been taking care of me all evening, refusing to leave me alone, hurting deeply, and putting on a brave face for my benefit. The embargo applies to you too. I’m not going to lie here all pampered with you on your feet, and I don’t think I’ll fall asleep tonight. So if calming me is your goal, nothing else will calm my mind more than your rest.”

And before I can find my breath or blinks or tell him none of that compares to what he’s done for me, he pulls the compress from my frozen hands, tosses it on the floor, and takes me in his arms. His scorching hold zings me back to life. Tingles explode everywhere until I see stars. My arms fly around his waist and my lungs restart, inhaling his delicious fragrance. A shiver runs through me at the same time as it ripples over him.

He sighs in my hair and lies back down, pulling me across his chest. I snuggle frantically into his heat, breath racing, heart pounding, pulse almost breaking through my skin. He is so close, the bed so small, this doesn’t bring us back together, yet it’s so much more than I ever thought I would get again. The feeling is overpowering. Like coming home, air, health, peace—like all his answers to my riddle because he is my answer to everything.

Through the flammable haze in my brain, I realize Aiden has forged into titanium around me as though the fire that’s turning me to vapor has petrified him. Every single muscle is flexed into a blade of restraint. Even his lungs seem to have stopped. But his heart thunders like mortar fire under my cheek. And his hold—so tight, so desperate, like a last breath. Yet even now, he turns his strength against himself so I don’t bruise under his hands.

Only his need can break through my frenzy in this moment. I loosen my stranglehold around his neck and untangle my leg from his.

“Aiden, love, if this is too hard, I can—”

“Shh, it’s harder without this.” His voice is husky, the way he sounded when we would make love.

I want so much to look up at his face, but I know there is no way either of us can survive that right now. One blink, and we will end. On our tomb, it will say Amor Finit Omnia. So I lie very still in his arms, head on his chest, listening to his heart.

“Do you want me to tell you about Rostóv?” I ask, trying to remember War and Peace. “Will that help?”

A quiet exhale flurries in my hair like his lost chuckle again while I liquify at the sound. “No, I’d much rather hear your letter.”

I take it from his hand where it’s shuddering like us. “Okay, whatever you want. After all, you’ve slept on the ground—assuming you slept at all, you didn’t have breakfast or lunch, you lifted a whole quarry of stone, reinforced the riverbank, have fixed the roof and the plumbing and the shutters, cleaned the gutters, built the garden beds, fertilized and mulched the garden, pruned the shrubs and the trees, hacked the thornbushes, chopped wood, established a grant for my job, set up my trust fund, lined up my security, hired me lawyers, attacked the boulder that almost killed me, God knows what else, watched the reel, were stuck in torture for three hours all alone, you’ve been running a fever of one hundred and two all evening while fighting the triple-force of your  memory, and now you’re worrying about me. Did I forget anything?”

Another low chuckle blows warm tingles over my skin. “Yes.”

“What?”

“I finished the entire War and Peace.”

Astoundingly, laughter finds me in this moment. It bursts from my lips as it did the first time he told me about his trick.

“There, much better. I love the sound of your laugh, Elisa,” he tells me as he did then too—if I’m remembering that moment, he certainly is, which means he is not thinking about the reel. And like then, my laugh seems to work better at distraction than Tolstoy. He takes a deep breath and tucks the sheet between us like an extra shield. It’s too warm with his fever, but I’d rather burn to cinder right now than move one inch. I hold up my letter to busy my eyes and begin, voice trembling without the confidence of the protein.

“My love, I don’t know why it has taken me so long to write you back. . .”

He listens with his heated lips in my hair, the thud-thud-thud of his heart to the thumpa-thumpa-thumpa of mine. And when I finish, he is quiet. Only our heartbeats and the sounds of the night. The rustle of the beech trees, the willow song, a gentle creak as the breeze kisses the shutters. But the fever still isn’t dropping.

“Do you miss it?” he asks after an immeasurable moment—I’m avoiding the wall clock.

“Miss what?”

“Loving me that way. Without fear.”

When he phrases it like that—in the past too—that visceral sense of presence engulfs me. A familiar force gushes in my veins, just as potent as during the protein. Not scorching or icy, but healing. Like glacial spring water, washing away all the debris of fear and agony. With a startle, I recognize what it is. L-o-v-e.

“Oh!” I gasp, trying to breathe through it with my unfortified lungs. I thought once fear reentered my world, it would normalize everything, but I was wrong. Somehow, through facing our worst terrors, that Himalayan super-love survived. How could that be?

“Elisa?” Aiden props himself up so he can look at me, the V of worry between his brows. And for a second, his face seems to shimmer again with the lovely aura of my bravery visions—but it’s just the twinkly lights.

It takes me a moment to remember his question, to find my voice through the potent emotion. “No,” I answer in wonder. “I don’t miss it at all. I still love you the exact same way.”

The V deepens. “How is that possible without the protein?”

I try to think past his closeness, his fragrance, his gaze, his body heat, the sheer existence of him. “I don’t know but I’m glad it is.”

“Do you think some of the protein’s effects might still be lingering?”

“No, I think it’s because my love for you has always been the same, just as strong with or without fear. Bravery only allowed me to feel all of it. And now that I have, I can’t unfeel its power. I can’t unknow its depth.” Again, the words bring a vivid sense of recognition. Silently, I thank my lucky stars. If I had to keep one thing from the protein, I’m grateful it’s this one.

He watches me intently, his eyes deepening with an unfathomable storm of their own. The rose breeze blows back and forth between our lips.

“Do you wish I didn’t love you like this?” I ask and regret the terrifying question immediately. Or rather the answer he might give.

His gaze softens on mine. “A part of me will always wish that.”

Fire torches my throat, almost as scalding as during the video. It seems some types of super-agony have survived too—why is that? I can’t find enough strength to analyze it through the flames.

“Shh, let me explain!” He shakes my shoulder gently. “A part of me will always wish that for your happiness. Our end would certainly have been easier for you if you didn’t love me like this. But a bigger part of me—the most selfish part—wouldn’t change a single thing about your love. How can I when it keeps me alive? When it’s the greatest happiness of my existence?”

The fire vanishes as quickly as it erupted, as if he doused it with his words. A sense of peace rushes through me in its place. Not because we won or because it will change our end. I feel peace for a victory that matters more than my wants: Aiden has finally accepted love, even if only in a letter, even if only from a distance. The man who wouldn’t even let me tell him I loved him at first, who did everything he could to make me hate him, just heard four hundred forty-four words of my reckless and unconditional love for him and wouldn’t change a thing. If that’s not worth every minute of the reel, every flame of agony, every stab of terror, every empty minute of my future existence, I don’t know what is.

I feel my own lips lift into a true, straight-from-the-heart smile.

“What is it?” He smiles in response, clearly unaware of his own transformation—so subtle, yet so bold.

“Nothing. Only that selfish is such a beautiful word.”

He taps the brave letter at the corner of my grin. “And me being selfish makes you happy?”

When he asks me that, abruptly, happiness shifts. It hasn’t taken any forms in so long. I thought it would always look like the past from now on. But it shimmers again, looking exactly like this present moment: Aiden, even if feverish and worn, cherishing my love.

“Very happy,” I tell him. “I want you to be the most selfish man in the world.”

I know he sees the truth. I can tell from the way his eyes lighten on mine. “In that case, can I hear that letter again?”

“You can hear it as many times as you want.”

His gaze lingers on my smile until a different kind of fever starts to burn my skin. He shuts his eyes with a pained sigh. Hard, harder than I’ve ever seen him fight anything, he leashes back his body and lies back down, hands in fists on the sheets. And I know he made right choice for both of us. Because if he kissed me now, I would not survive losing it again—faith or no faith, protein or no protein. And if I kissed him, I would cool his fire only to finish him in the end.

“Do you have a favorite part of the letter?” I ask for distraction.

He seems to think about it for a second, eyes still closed. “Every word, but maybe the part about the stars.”

“Why that one?”

“Because it’s almost as strong as the way I love you.”

Almost? Don’t you mean equal?”

“No, I mean almost. The protein doesn’t seem to have changed the way I feel about you either. I love you as indescribably now as I did before it. Maybe even more. Though, of course, I have no idea what happened during—”

“Shh, don’t go there.” I tighten my hold to keep him present. “Just think about the good parts you know: that you love me like this because you’ve always been extremely brave and your emotions are naturally much more heightened already.”

“Precisely. So almost is the right word. But surprisingly I like hearing about this other love that comes close.”

What’s the point in racing the stars? You will never catch them. That’s why they are stars. Shining outside your window every night, more beautiful than any dream—forever yours, yet forever out of reach.

“My love,” I start reading again even though I don’t need the letter. But he seems to like looking at my handwriting, and I’d rather his eyes stay here than drift back to Fallujah.

He strains me closer with each word, molding me to his blazing body. And this time, when I finish, I start over without pause like we do with Für Elise. Every now and then, I feel his body tense with flashbacks, but each time, I raise my voice a little and he comes back. Listening to the words of my love with his nose in my hair, fever on his skin, and shudders in his heart.

“I love you the way stars are meant to be loved. Forever. In darkness and in light . . .”

Abruptly, his steely arms become heavy around me, and his hold softens with a sigh. I panic that the reel is dragging him back, but when I peek up at his face, I see he has miraculously fallen asleep. So heroic, I can hardly breathe. His beauty is war-torn with deep shadows under his eyes and hollowed cheeks. The V is still etched between his brows like a peace sign. And the fever is still flushing his pale skin. I watch every flutter of his eyelids and every bristle of his beard, memorizing all of it. Because I know I’ll never have another chance like this. The clock is ticking away every minute of our last embargo. And when it’s over, he will be gone. Aiden and I will be the past.

My chest rips open again, and I let it now. I let agony claw my throat, tearing out huge chunks of my heart. There is no sense in fighting back—it will have all of me in the end. The only thing I stop are the tears boiling in my eyes. Because they would blur Aiden’s face, and I don’t want to miss a blink of it tonight.

But right as he finds a cradle of rest, terror breaks through. The reel snakes inside his dreams and steals him. I can tell from the tension that seizes his body, from the way his breath twists into shallow gasps. How much is his mind reliving? Has it reached the schoolyard? Can it see that vital clue buried in the smoke clouds? Will his memory slow down enough for him to find it like a second chalk rose? And will that clue be enough to give him some peace at last?

A shudder ripples over Aiden—not one of mine, one from the desert. Deadly, with its tentacles deep in the chambers of his heart. And even though I’d give up every rose in this cottage to stay here in his arms, I know the only thing he would want right now is for me to be safe. So I start slipping carefully out of his hold, feeling as though with each centimeter away, a chip of my soul rips apart and stays behind. By the time I climb out of bed, my heart, mind, and breath are still in his arms.

I tiptoe to the nightstand for his iPhone to turn on Für Elise, but something next to it catches my attention: Aiden’s anti-nightmare pill. He didn’t take it; didn’t fathom he would fall asleep. My stomach churns in dread. Because whatever horror is scorching him now, he will be facing it alone without any anesthetic against the poisonous flames. I shudder and swipe up his phone for the only weapon we have left. His screensaver is still the same from our very beginning: me fast asleep in his Portland bed.

“Here you go, my love,” I whisper, tapping the pre-programmed playlist. And the piano starts floating around the room with the breeze. I fold my letter back into the origami rose and set it next to his pillow. “Sleep safe, I’m right here.”

But he doesn’t sleep safely tonight. Because this isn’t sleep. It’s war. Raiding his brain, strafing his heart, bombarding his memories with IEDs. His body revs up, muscles glinting like knives. Deep creases trench his forehead like chains around his mind. I curl on the armchair in the corner and try to count his breaths like always, but they’re not puffs of happiness anymore; they’re heated gasps of torment. And his fever starts radiating out of him in blast waves. I can taste it on my tongue. Even the air in the room changes—no longer tropical; it’s a desert heat dome. Fallujah is here. With its blood-soaked sands, dark shadows, hellfire, and bombs.

I bolt to my feet, searching for anything to stop the torture from drifting closer. The ice bowl and compresses are on the floor, but I know I cannot touch Aiden now in any way. It would kill us both. But what else is left? Old cottages like this were not built with air conditioning or ceiling fans. I dash to the window and tie back the curtains so the breeze can blow in more freely. Then I turn up the volume on Für Elise.

Help him, Dad. Break the fever, Mum. Let him go, Marshall, please.

But the heavens aren’t listening. For the first time, I hear Aiden speak in his sleep. Not the soft moans of love I’ve heard before. These are the guttural, soul-wrenching words in fluent Arabic. They fire from his lips like bullets, sharp and rapid under the staggering processes of his memory. I can barely catch them, and the ones I do, I don’t understand, yet I can remember each inflection, each fierce vowel, each strangled consonant from the video with razor clarity. I can recite them with him right now, as though his pleas for Marshall are branded with hot iron in my own memory.

“Khidhni, aqtilni . . .” His breath slashes the rosy air in agony.

At the sight, my own agony explodes—not the wound in my chest, the flesh-tearing pain, or the intangible torture of loss. This is the blistering kind, the brave torment of the protein, searing me alive. Except I have no superhero endurance anymore. I wrap my arms around my torso, trying to breathe through the scalding smoke in my lungs. Why isn’t this gone? Why now and not before? How did I live through it then? Where are my limbs, my heart, my spine? I can’t find anything in my body—there is only fire even though I know it’s all in my mind. In my normal, limited mind that gives me no answers now.

But there is one thing the flames don’t torch even as they incinerate everything else: Aiden himself. His love, his agony so much vaster than mine. His voice turns into that inhuman sound for which no language exists. And he needs me.

I wrench myself upright and stumble to the nightstand for my phone. It flickers on with my own screensaver: Aiden peacefully asleep in our happy bedroom. The time glares neon white across his smooth, unlined forehead. Five minutes past midnight. Another day gone. So few left to save him. I pull up Doctor Helen’s number, too terrified to care if she is wake or asleep. But she picks up on the first ring.

“Elisa, there you are. How is he?”

I sprint out in the hallway, still keeping my eyes on Aiden, and tell her everything. “What do I do?” I choke. “How do I help him?”

Silence on the other side as she must be taking in the deluge of information I just unloaded.  I expect her to admonish me for breaching her directives but she doesn’t say anything. For once, I will the seconds to tick faster, but they seem to stop as they did during Edison’s attack: only on moments of unspeakable terror.

At last, she sighs. “I’m not sure there is much more you can do, child. From what you’re describing, Aiden’s mind is processing at an unfathomable rate. As excruciating as this is, we must allow it time to do that.”

“But the fever?” I whimper. “I can almost feel it out here in the hallway!”

She doesn’t miss a single second now. “Elisa, you cannot touch him under any circumstances, you know that. Even for a compress. And no medicine or doctor can lower the fever because this is not illness—it’s trauma. We will need to endure as best we can. Do you think a second dose of the protein would help you do that?”

As if I’m worried about myself. “No,” I answer firmly. “I understand the protein a lot better now. It’s not meant for this. I’ll save it for Aiden. For bigger things.” Like September eighteen or that very last breath when he is finally at peace.

“That’s probably wise in any event,” she agrees. “Two doses in one day would be ill-advised with its emotional extremes.”

A shudder pins me against the wall at the idea. For a second, I consider telling her about the super-emotions but this isn’t about me.

“In that case, would you like me to come stay with you tonight so you’re not alone?” she offers.

Except Aiden cannot handle anyone else here tonight. And if I’m honest, neither can I. “No, I’ll be okay. If I need to wake him, I’ll call Benson. But thank you for all your help, for picking up at this hour.”

“Of course. Call me anytime. But tomorrow, you both need to rest. No reel or protein or strenuous activity of any kind.”

“We will,” I promise, even though I have no idea how Aiden will be when the embargo is over. Maybe I can buy another day Scheherazade-style, like I did on our first night.

“Meanwhile, I’ll connect with Doctor Corbin and we can reconvene at my lab the day after—I suppose that will be Saturday now—to see how you both of you are feeling.”

A second shudder almost knocks me to my knees. “You’re not going to show Aiden more awful images, are you?” I croak in horror.

“Of course not. In fact I’m not sure it would help anymore given this reaction . . .”

In her rarely hesitant voice, I think I hear what she is holding back now that my bravery has worn off. She is protecting me from another truth, but I know. This is it. There is nothing more she can do to save Aiden. Science has tried it all.

I feel the doorframe against my back as my body wobbles for balance. An odd blankness tugs at the edges of my mind as if to shut it off, but I fight to stay in the present second only.

“Then we’ll find another way,” I tell her.

“You will never give up on him, will you?”

“Never.”

“Then follow your instincts, child. They’re Aiden’s best hope.”

H-o-p-e. The hybrid trembles on the dresser from the breeze.

When Doctor Helen is gone, I search every crevice of my frantic mind for anything that might help. But without the protein, all genius is gone. All that’s left are slivers of instincts and bursts of faith. It has been enough to survive until now. It will have to be enough tonight.

“I’ll be right back, love,” I murmur.

I race around the cottage, throwing open all the shutters, grabbing the old fan from the living room, mum’s crafts basket, and anything that occurs to my composted brain. As I run, I text, stumbling into furniture in a way that would give Aiden a stroke if he saw it.

“James, can you help me with something?”

His response is almost instant. “Name it, Trouble.”

And he does—in fifteen minutes, I have what I need. Or at least what I believe might help tomorrow. But Aiden has deserts to cross, chains to break, clues to find, and torture to survive before then.

I hurry back upstairs, hauling everything in my arms. On the bed, Aiden is still burning in every way, from his mind to his skin. I set the fan by his side, fill its reservoir with rose water, and train it on him so the mist and ventilation blow straight on his body, amplifying the breeze. Then I spray my perfume in the air and curl on the floor by his side, reciting my letter out loud. It helped him fall asleep. Perhaps it will help again now. I time my words to the notes of Für Elise, rifling through mum’s crafts and trinkets to keep my hands busy so they don’t fly on their own to touch him.

I snip, string, tie, and knot, hands shaking, voice trembling, heart shattering, burning with him. And though it all, Fallujah wins. Torching his body with fire, irrigating his lungs with smoke, retrenching his heart with bombs. And his words change again, back to English, contorting into dry sobs.

“Take me. Kill me, not him . . . it’s my fault . . . my fault . . . my fault . . .”

There are some moments in life—moments drenched in storms, with volcanoes of agony forging ravines of fury, waterfalls of love drenching the crags of fear, torrents of desire flooding mountains of longing, thunders of guilt shattering the skies of freedom—when we are simply small. Just leaflets in the wind, hoping to land somewhere we know. This is one of those moments. A moment when I can only tremble and hope.

Outside the window, the night deepens, then lightens into another dawn. On the dresser, perhaps from the desert heat, a tiny, new bud leaf is peeking on the stem of Hope. And Aiden’s torment changes, ringing out with a different tenor, less desolate, more commanding, until it becomes a single word.

“Stop!”©2022 Ani Keating

NINETY DAYS: CHAPTER 36 – FORTIS

Hey gang, happy Sunday and here’s to an easy week ahead. How is it February already? Here’s another chapter for you. I thought it would have taken me three days to write this compared to the last two until I realized how much harder it would be to continue planting the clues. But they’re now all out. We will just have to reveal them in the last few. And then somehow, I will have to figure out how to say goodbye to these two characters who, in many ways, feel like my children. They’ve been by me through hell, and I honestly don’t know what I will do without them. Weird, maybe, since they’re not real. But they feel very real to me. Have a great one, peeps. Chat with you next week. xo, Ani (P.S. A note on this photo–straight from Cotswolds, credit Krasimir Dyulgerski. I felt like it perfectly captured what this chapter represents in so many ways, it deserves a blog post on its own.)

36

Fortis

“Aiden?” I call him again as his heart gives another frantic lurch under my hand. “Aiden, love, listen to my voice. Feel my hands on your face.” I trail my fingers up to his steely jaw that is clenching as if against a scream and remove the evil headset. It’s hot too, like his skin. What is this fever? Is he ill? His eyes are closed, the pupils racing underneath. I don’t waste time with just holding his fist anymore—I know it will not be enough. I know this will take everything I have learned, guessed, and discovered in the last four hours, maybe even life.

I remove my parka and lie gently on top of him as he likes, my body to his shuddering lines, my heart to his heart, my breath to his breath, my hands on his feverish face—all of me to him, for him. “We’re together now, love. Even after everything we’ve been through and everything still ahead, in this present moment, we’re together, fighting back. Because you’re worth it, Aiden. Every part of you, from this one hair—” I tug at a drenched lock on his forehead “—to every one of your breaths. You—are—worth—it.”

His heart is still a machine gun against my chest, a jailed eagle thrashing its wings. I massage the sharp blade of his jaw, his stony neck, the wrought shoulders. Not a single shudder slows. His fists don’t soften. Lightly, I kiss his satin eyelids. “When you open your eyes, you’ll see this is exactly your kind of sunset. Gentle and mild, not hazy and hot. There’s a fluffy cloud floating by, shaped like a heart. The breeze has picked up. There are petals flying about—the roses are coming to find you, like I am. And you will come back to us, I know you will.”

There is no change in him whatsoever. I press my lips to his scar, tracing the permanent L above his eye as a reminder from fate to see only love. Usually as soon as I kiss him, the fists start to loosen, but not now. They are still iron grenades even as a trickle of blood drips through the folds from his work blisters. I take the petal he gave me and wipe off the droplets. “This is our petal, remember? Feel my touch. It’s just a rose, waiting for your hand to open.” I bring his fist to my lips, kissing the thorny knuckles. But it doesn’t open a single millimeter. The sinister tension is still wringing his shoulders.

I glance at my phone, still playing Für Elise. Fifteen minutes—the shudders have always skipped a beat by now, his grip has always softened. My own heart blisters with brave agony.

“You know something else about this present moment?” I continue. “There is a forget-me-not by your head, but that’s not your surprise. I think you’ll like this one. It will make you smile, or I hope it does. What is it, you’re wondering? You’ll see. But right now, I’ll turn up your favorite song. We haven’t danced to it in so long. And I miss it so much.” I increase the volume on Für Elise with scorching fingers. The pain in my own body ratchets to another peak as terror would by now, but I ignore it. I tangle my legs with his and hold his fist against his heart as he does with my hand when we dance. “Just listen to the piano and my voice. They’re real, the words are real, all of this is real. Our love, my faith in you, your faith in yourself. You can do this, I know you can.” For the first time since the end, I press my lips to his. I’m not breaking our closure rules—Aiden agreed for this reel. He knew it would take all of me. I just wish he could kiss me back, even if only for a moment.

The instant our lips touch, his face shimmers again with that surreal golden halo. The soft bristles of his beard make me shiver. And his taste . . . so fiery, so pure, with the hint of rose oil I dabbed on him. More heavenly than any delicious morsel I have ever sampled, and every intoxicating perfume. I almost drown in it, but his hot, broken breaths are still slicing through his teeth like the gasps in that Fallujah classroom. And the lovely aura disappears from my vision. I start kissing him in time with the melody, blowing on his lips to cool them. Twenty minutes now. “I love you,” I whisper between each kiss. “Aiden, I love you. Come dance with me.”

But nothing is working. In fact, the opposite. I sense him drifting further and further. It’s in the way the tension strains his body, the way his pupils lock beneath his golden lids, and the way his heart is bombing his chest. Another geyser of heat blasts my throat. Why are my words not bringing him back? Did something break forever? Or is this present moment even more unendurable than Fallujah? Would he rather stay there in torture than here with our shattered love?

The pain climbs again, finding another summit to scorch into ash, but my mind opens up another inch. Trying to find another way. If I can’t bring Aiden here, I will have to find him there. I will follow him anywhere. I register briefly that I’ll be breaking all of Doctor Helen’s rules to the fullest—everything she taught me, and Corbin too. A prickly sensation slithers down my spine like a warning. But what else can I do? Their rules aren’t working. And this is my only chance, while the protein is still firing, while I can’t collapse.

“Aiden, my love.” I make the decision I would never have dared to make, hoping against hope I don’t regret it later. “I know I’m supposed to bring you to the present moment, but perhaps that’s not a moment you want to be in. So I’ll join you in yours, because that’s more important to me. I want to be with you whether we’re in Elysium or Fallujah, whether we’re happy or agonized, in sickness or in health. So let’s live through this together, because right now we’re both unafraid.” I caress his iron jaw, blowing on his lips to synchronize his breath to my calm lungs. But abruptly my own breath shudders for the first time in the last four and a half hours. Why? Has the pain finally turned my lungs into charred bricks? Or is the protein starting to fade?

Another barbed feeling spikes down my spine. Quickly, while I still have my potent mind, I search through everything I found in the video, everything bravery allowed me to see. And then I start, using only the words Aiden has told me about Fallujah. “Let me in that moment, love, from the beginning. You said you were in the tent when Marshall came in, writing a letter. It must have been one of mine. Did Marshall see it? Did he ask you about it? Tell him about me. Say, ‘There’s a girl I met in a painting, but she is real. And she loves me more than anything.’ What does Marshall say? Does he laugh? Does he think you’re making me up like Jazz did? Introduce us. Tell him I wish we had met, and maybe someday we will. But until then, I have a little gift for him. It’s a protein that makes us fearless. Tell him I’m naming it Marshall Fortis—Marshall the Brave. Because he was fearless, too, as were all of you.”

I flutter my lips along Aiden’s jaw, giving him time to process if he can hear me, if he can find me through the fire maze that’s scalding him. But in my own fingertips, I feel a strange, cold breeze. Like a chill. It distracts me for a moment. Nothing has felt cold to me since the protein. I glance at my phone again. Forty minutes since the reel ended—double Aiden’s record. And over five hours since I took my dose. Is it wearing off? Is that what this chill is? No, not yet, please. But in that same second, my breath shivers again and picks up speed. And I know it then without a doubt. Bravery is leaving when I need it the most. When I need every ounce of its strength just to push air in and out.

“I’m still here, love.” I fire all my power into my brain, draining it out of my body. “We’re in your tent, just the three of us, laughing. But we have to go. Take me along with you because I’m not afraid. I’m safe, right here in your heart. Are we meeting James, Hendrix, and Jazz? Let’s sing Marshall’s song together like you used to before each mission. Because this is another mission too, now. A mission to save you. You deserve that, Aiden.”

I reach for my phone, noticing a slight tremble on my fingertips. The chill advances another inch to my knuckles while the blistering fire of the agony closes around my heart. I scroll quickly through the songs, and there he is. Ray Charles.

“Here, let’s listen to I’ve Got a Woman with Marshall.” And the familiar tune fills our sphere of fire on Elysium as it did the tent in the video, except I only hear Young Aiden’s voice crooning in my ears.

“Well, I’ve got a woman,” I hum against his lips, hoping I remember all the words. But as soon as I start singing, something changes. Aiden’s heart slams into his ribs even faster than before. Am I reaching him at last? Or am I dragging him further into terror? Another prickly frisson runs down my arms. I recognize it now. Fear. Faint, but returning, as the chill reaches my wrists. No, not yet. Aiden first, I have to bring him back.

“I’ve got a woman, way over town, that’s good to me,” I keep singing through the last lines, running my cold fingers over his feverish face, memorizing every pore, every plume in his beard. Can he even hear me? Or is he locked at the school in the horror I didn’t see? “Stay with me, love. We have another good-luck song to play before we go. Ours. Tell Marshall about that. Make him laugh. What is he saying? I think he’d chuckle that only you would pick a song with no words, and that Für Elise is for sleeping, not sexing. Tell him he has no idea and start playing it.”

Another tremble through my fingers as I switch back to Für Elise on my phone. Another breath dies on Aiden’s lips. I blow on them lightly as he does with me. Perhaps I should stop, but I can’t. Because if I stop, I have nothing else to fight with.

“There, now we can set off into the night. How far to the pipes? Let them come. Laugh with Marshall because it stinks. Guide your brothers the way only you know how. Lead them out into the fresh air. I’m right there with you because we’re both untouchable now.”

Under me, impossibly the shudders double over his body. His neck jerks to the side, teeth vised together as if he’s saying no. I search through every space of my mind—it’s still clear, still holding—and I need all of it now. I need everything I learned and saw to get this right. “Is it the schoolyard? Don’t fight it. Look around in your memory, not just at Marshall. Look at the last place you were together, well and alive. Is it so different than where we are now? You said there was a market. Are there veggies, like the flowers here on Elysium? Bright tomatoes for poppies, leeks for daisies, eggplant for orchids, a hijab like this blanket. Where is the ancient Euphrates River? Is it flowing by you like River Windrush? Now search closer. What do you hear? Are there cars? Is there music like the willows? What is it singing?”

A sharp inhale of breath burns from his lips. Hotter and guttural. Can Aiden see what I saw, hear what I heard? Is his mind racing ahead like mine is? The chill of fear starts crawling towards my elbows.

“Let’s find Marshall together. I know it’s about to start. You can’t stop it, sweetheart, it’s already there. Waiting . . .”

Another gasp of breath. His chest jolts against mine—once, twice, three times with the IED that is deafening him now. I slide off gently to his side to lessen the weight and bring my lips to his ear. “Shh, love, listen to my voice, to Für Elise. Look past the smoke, past the broken little boy—what do you see? Anything familiar? Ignore the fiery sky; it’s just a hot sunset. And the black smoke is just like that boulder in the river. Both dark and deadly, but neither won in the end.”

Aiden’s heart is still thundering under my hand. And although the fists stay locked, his pupils start racing again. Searching or finding? Or losing himself even deeper in the terror?

“We’re almost to the end, love.” I keep going as the chill reaches my shoulders. “Let’s run inside the school where Marshall is waiting. You’re still his best hope, trust me.”

His thighs vibrate against mine like the imploding desert. His neck jerks again to the side as though he is trying to pull away.

“Take me upstairs with you, step by step, like Für Elise before bed. This is just another dance.” The ice starts biting my heels, frosting up my legs. “Here we are. Marshall is already there. You still have time together, fight again. Save Jazz. He’s stuck in the fires below, you know that. Search through the smoke. What do you see? Something old? Something new? You remember it. Now see it, hear it all—not just the horror.”

Another shudder ripples through Aiden’s body, another gust of breath. Because he saved his friend? Or is his mind weaving the memories together, giving him a new angle?

“The blank minutes are coming now. Let’s use them.” I stroke his heart, counting its thunderous beats as my chest starts throbbing. “Look around the classroom you remember. Let’s find the safe, the familiar in this place. It’s always there.” I scan through the images my mind captured. They’re still crystal clear but in the horizons, dread is rolling in like clouds. “Are there desks like dad’s library? What’s on the walls? And the floor? Is there a pattern there? Maybe like the chessboard you gave me or the rug of planets where you fell and came back again. Because you will come back from this, too. Trust me, trust yourself. Is there a blackboard like every classroom? Is there anything on it? Something different than the horror?” Yes, there is, the rose in chalk, I just hope he is able to find it. “Hold on to that, my love, as it begins. I’m right here.”

The tremor that runs through him shakes my very bones. It seeps through my skin as the chill spreads over my scalp. But the agony is chewing my heart, taking flaming bite after flaming bite. Will it not fade as fear sneaks in? A shiver scurries down my spine. I fight it back by curling next to Aiden’s body heat. Maybe my chilled limbs will cool him. Fire and ice—how will our world end?

“I know Marshall is suffering,” I tell him, peeking at my phone. An hour and ten minutes past the reel. How much longer is it safe? “Try to look away, that’s not where your fight is. Find the safe things you saw earlier. The blackboard, the walls, the floor. I know there’s blood, but something else is that same color, too. Something happy, something ours. The American Beauty roses we planted together in Portland at your house. They’re growing, just like our love.”

If he hears me, I don’t know it. His shoulders strain against the cables that are binding him, utterly unchanged. Another tremble flitters down my neck; the ice spreads to my belly. Quickly, the vast skies of my mind are shrinking, smaller and smaller.

“Aiden? Hold on a little longer, love. This is the hardest part. Turn to Marshall. Look at him now. Can you see his face? You said you know he smiled. Is he saying something?”

Not your fault, my brother. Not your fault, Marshall gasped, but could Aiden hear him as low as it sounded? And how can I tell him without him knowing what I saw? Already my memories of his words, the reel photos, and the video are blending into a macabre mosaic of horror.

“You know what Marshall would say even if you can’t hear him. He would say he loves you. He would say it’s not your fault. He is right, love. Listen to Marshall, to everything you have just seen in your own mind. Listen, then let him go.”

But if he is trying, the past won’t let him out of its jaws. The shudders are still rocking his body, unabated. His pupils are still racing. Have I failed already?  Did I make the wrong choice? Should I have let these last days run quietly to our closure? Can I still go back? But if I can’t bring him from this torture, what other chance is there? Each question claws at my brain as the shield of the protein starts to crumble.

“Aiden, love, it wasn’t your fault. Not your fault. Not your fault, sweetheart,” I repeat, blowing my wintry breath over his lips and scrambling for my phone. It slips through my no-longer sure fingers. I pull up the name, tapping away with one hand as the other cools Aiden’s burning forehead.

“Dr. Helen, you there?”

Her text is immediate, as if she was waiting by the phone. “Elisa, thank goodness. Did you start the reel?”

“Yes. Aiden still away. Over an hour. High fever. Not dropping. Why is that?”

Her answer is not immediate now. The three dots pulse on the screen once, twice, as another shiver trembles in my fingers. Then: “Is your protein holding?”

No, but I want the truth. “Yes.”

The three dots don’t hesitate now. “It sounds like psychogenic fever. It can happen when the mind is under severe duress. Particularly, if in his memory, Aiden is locked in the desert, with the fires burning for such a long time. Do you have anything cold nearby?”

Just my frozen body. “Yes.”

“Good, try to cool him as best you can. It should return to normal once he breaks free.”

But why does even a minute longer feel too far away? “How much longer before it’s unsafe?”

Another fire-quick answer as she thinks me still unbreakable: “Unknown. Theoretically Aiden’s memory can stay in the past forever. At this point, it’s all up to it.”

A shudder riffs through my fingers. The ice spreads to my throat. Forever? “No!” The savage denial clangs through Elysium. No, no, it can’t do that to him. I won’t let it.

On the screen blinks another text: “Elisa?”

I force my icicle finger to the phone again. “Not all up to it. I’ll text when he’s back.”

More dots race on the screen but I no longer have eyes for them. “Aiden, love, listen to me.” I press my cold palms to his cheeks, blowing on his lips. “Let Marshall be at peace. It’s not the goodbye you should have had. There shouldn’t have been a goodbye at all. So let’s have a different one now until you’re grey and ancient. Tell Marshall what you want to say. Tell him you love him. Tell him you miss him every day.”

Aiden’s breath rips and snags through his teeth as though he is suffocating with his own memories. I curve one icy hand over his forehead and the rest around his volcanic neck. “Tell Marshall he’ll always be your best man.” I keep going with every last brave breath I have left. “Promise him you’ll live. You’ll start playing his song more. We’ll have his favorite food. You’ll love the girl in the letters. Tell him he’s the one who gave you the idea. Thank him. Thank him from me, too. I’m so grateful he loved as he did in a war, writing to Jasmine with that flashlight in his mouth. Because without Marshall, I may have never been born in your head, giving you calm even then. He gave us that example, this dream we still have. Thank him, love, and give him a hug. Hold him as long as you need. And when you’re ready, tell Marshall to rest in peace.”

But Aiden’s body is still locked in chains. His heart is still mortar fire between us, ripping to pieces.

“Take my hand, love.” I force my voice to stay calm with every last whisp of the protein and wrap my chilled fingers around his fist where the new blood droplets are blooming. “Can you feel it? Take it and let Marshall go. You’re not leaving all of him, you’re keeping his soul, his love and courage. We won’t relegate him to the physical loss. Tell him goodbye and come with me.” I tug on his fist as though we’re walking. “It’s just us, down the stairs now, across the burning yard. Follow me. Let’s go for a walk along the Euphrates River like we do here.” I blow over his forehead like a breeze. “Take a handful of cold water, splash it on your face.”

I press my free fingers to his cheeks again. His skin is as hot as the scorching agony in my chest. The only spot in my body still burning. Oddly the flames are raging higher there, as if racing the ice that has spread everywhere else. But they will lose in the end as I become more and more myself. No more a super-hero or Cinderella in a fairytale. I’m just Elisa, the ballgown in rags, the clock is ticking to midnight, closer and closer to the moment both Aiden and I dread. Yet I’d take it, I’d take it a million times over only for the chance to bring Aiden back.

“Wash your hands in the river, love,” I continue bravely for as long as I can, grabbing a tissue from my purse and wiping the blood droplets from Aiden’s fists. “There’s no blood there. Not Marshall’s or anyone else’s. It’s just cold, clear water, cooling you after the flames. And then when you’re ready, the two us can come home. Not back to what we’ve lost, but back to what we’ll always have. Our love. Even if we can’t be together, you and I will always belong to each other. So come back with me, come back to our s—side.”

My voice breaks. And with a final gust of arctic air, terror finally reaches my chest. As though to escape the inexorable dread, my burning heart leaps in my throat. But there is no escape. With a racing thud-thud-thud, the ice fills my heart chambers. The boundless universe of my mind snaps back, rattling my skull. And with a mighty shudder that rocks me from my stomach to my fingertips, the last wisp of the protein blows out of my system.

Just like that, bravery is gone.

I know because its veil is ripped from my eyes and the world comes into its usual focus. The emerald sheen fades from the grass. The breeze cuts like December. Elysium is darker than I had realized, the sun long buried behind the hilltops. And before my frozen eyes, I see the true terror, unsoftened by the protein: Aiden’s torment. I thought I was seeing every stab of torture on his body, but I was wrong. I should have known the protein had blurred the agony to let me function. Without it, the image becomes incomprehensible. Even after five hours of burning, my unfortified mind cannot absorb pain like this. Every pore of Aiden’s face is flooded with it, every harsh breath trapped between his teeth. The fever is a lot hotter than I was feeling, the varnish of sweat like a second, liquid skin, dripping from his lashes like tears. Under the bluish dimness of twilight, he looks vigil-like, suspended in that infinitesimal fragment of time between beginning and end. Yet his beauty somehow stays the same—just as impossible, just as dazzling. Even throttled in terror I can see that. I try to move a single finger glued to his chest but the terror of all terrors freezes me beyond all capacity for thought or movement as if it revived every other fear that was erased from the past. I just stare in horror, unable to remember how to breathe or blink or stand.

But under my frosty hand, Aiden’s heart throbs faster, tolling out each beat like a death knell. Thawing me back.

“Aiden!” I wheeze through chattering teeth, scavenging for every crumb of strength left. “Aiden, love, I’m here. It’s over now. Marshall is at peace. Now it’s your turn. Let’s go back. Come home with me, please.” I try to sound calm, but my breath shatters into sobs. Glacial tears gush from my eyes. And once I move, my own body starts shaking violently in tandem with this. “Aiden, I love you, I need you,” I whimper, scrambling to call Doctor Helen but as my tears splash down on his lips, everything shifts.

Aiden’s chest heaves as if he’s resurfacing from drowning, and a ragged gasp strangles from his teeth.

“Aiden?” I cry, bolting up on my knees.

A long tremor shivers down his body. His muscles snap up like knives, vibrating as if he’s breaking through the cable chains, and a low snarl builds in his throat. It tears from his lips and becomes a single word. My name.

“Elisa,” he rasps, and the incredible eyes fling open. Darker than I’ve ever seen them, almost midnight, locked in undiluted torture. So hollow, like his very soul has died, but open and seeing again.

“Oh, thank God!” I bawl, collapsing on top of him, grabbing and kissing the first spots in my reach. His hair, his scar, his eyelids, the deep V between his brows. “There you are!” I sob between each kiss. “There you are, you brave, strong man! I’m here, I’m right here!”

His arm coils around my waist and he sits up unsteadily, covering me like a shield.

“Aiden, lie—” I protest, but one of his hands shudders up to my face, tilting it so his ravaged eyes can see me. Instantly, they widen with a terror that seems to break through his own bravery. “The protein,” he chokes in understanding. “When did it end? How long­­ have you been like this?”

“Never mind me!” I splutter, pressing down on his chest. “Aiden, lie back down! You’ve been through hell. You’re still in it.”

Another shudder rocks his great frame, but he doesn’t relent. “How—long—Elisa?”

“Shh, just a few minutes ago,” I reel off quickly so he can relax. “I’m truly alright, just worried about you. Please,you really need to rest.”

I don’t convince him. “How do you feel other than worried?” he demands, his eyes scanning me urgently. But as they search my face with visceral dread, the faintest speck of turquoise flickers in the tortured depths.

Such a small light—the farthest star in the darkest abyss—yet it brightens my whole vision more brilliantly than the protein even in the pit of terror. Not with the razor acuity that magnified every pixel, but with the supple softness of the whole. That togetherness that turns blades of grass into fields, notes into music, places into—

“Home.” I tremble with forceful longing, reality fully dawning on me only now that he is here, only now that I can tell him. “I feel home. Except home is so much better than I ever knew, with you next to me.”

His eyes see my truth even in torment—all my ability to hide things from him is gone. He can read me like his war letters, knowing every spoken and unspoken line. Exactly as I love it. I realize abruptly how much I had missed the world with fear, with myself, with Aiden and me, precisely as we were made. Was that another lesson dad wanted me to learn? That the emerald grass is not greener on the other side? That we are imperfectly perfect as we are?

“Oh, Aiden!” I cry again, locking my arms around his neck, burying my face there in his delicious, warm scent.

His shuddering arms tighten around me. “What’s wrong?” His hoarse, anxious voice is more melodic than Für Elise in my normal ears. The most perfect harmony, heavenly and mine.

“I’m just s—so glad we’re both back. I missed us s—so much.”

Another tremor rocks through his body. His breath is so shallow and fast, his muscles vibrating steel, but he pulls me closer and runs his fingers through my hair. “Shh, you never left, and I’m here . . . I promised you I would come back.”

I nod even though I know soon he will leave again, this time forever. But at least he’s back from Fallujah even if its flames are still scorching him, dragging him with their scalding fingers into the inferno. The vicious shudder that runs through him reverberates down to my bones. It snaps me back to my senses. What the hell am I doing? How can I give him one more second of worry? I wipe my face and clutch his feverish shoulders.

“I’m sorry, love. I really am fine, just deliriously relieved. It’s you we need to worry about. You’re burning up.” I press my cold palm gently to his forehead, even though I don’t need to. I can feel the heat waves emanating on my tongue.

“What?” He frowns as he registers himself at last. For the first time since they opened, his eyes drift to his own chest. Instantly, the turquoise light dies. His gaze seems to search inward as though he is trying to recognize his body but perhaps can’t. The weight of his arm suddenly presses down on my waist, heavier as if the torture of the last few hours—the last twelve years in fact—is crashing on him again. “Is this . . . heat . . . part of the protein?” His voice drops too. “My dose must be burning off faster than yours . . . I was terrified for you just now.”

I trail my fingers to his cheek. Even his beard is hot, the way my hair feels when I run it through a straightening iron. “I’m not surprised at all that fear is returning after what you’ve been through. But the fever is not from the protein. I texted Doctor Helen, and she thinks it’s psychogenic fever. From the trauma. You were gone for almost two hours after the reel. How are you feeling?”

His eyes round in disbelief. “Two hours?” he staggers, finally blinking away from our heat dome to scan the area around us. Dusk has cast its velvet cape. The half-moon is glowing like Aiden’s lost smile, gilding his stunned face. That’s when he sees the blood on his blisters that I couldn’t reach. From the moonlight, the droplets shine silver like mercury. He turns back to me, eyes burning with that unspeakable agony, wiping a spot on my cheek. “I left you—alone for almost three hours—terrified and hurting?” His low voice is half-strangled again, sharpening in that sword-edge against himself.

“No, you didn’t. I was invincible until five minutes ago. You came back exactly when I needed you most.” I take his hands quickly, dabbing off the blood with my tissue. “I don’t know how you managed it, but you did. You’re braver even than the protein.”

He doesn’t seem to agree. He looks haunted, eyes drifting in and out of time and space. His shoulders rise and quiver, as if the invisible chains have bound him again.

“Sweetheart, please lie down. Give yourself some time so the fever can break.” I press on his chest, but he is still staring into the invisible terror, somehow both here and far. His irises seem to be tracing the rapid movement of his mind with a look of unmet expectation. “Aiden? What is it?”

“I’m just . . . trying to process.” His voice triggers a memory of my own. It’s slower and adrift like the night Edison struck, after Aiden was wrenched awake by my scream. I taste panic in the back of my throat.

“Please, don’t! We can do that later. Just look at me—give yourself some calm. Everything else can wait for now.”

Maybe he is worn even beyond the limits of his immense strength. Or maybe it’s because he gave me his word. Whatever the reason, he rests his gaze on me. And in a few heartbeats, the turquoise light gleams back like his soul, trying for life again and again. Tears spring in my eyes.

“Shh, don’t cry, Elisa,” he murmurs, wiping them with his fingers. “Don’t cry for me.”

How can I not? He is my everything. But I mop up my eyes and force a smile.

“They’re happy-adjacent tears,” I mumble. “Even though you’ve banned that word.”

“How do I make them . . . fully happy?”

I swallow hard against a sob. “Just stay with me in this present moment.”

He must see my terror twisting into frantic need—or perhaps he needs it too—because he gives in and lies back on the blanket, pulling me against his chest. His clasp on my waist is bruising with urgency, his hold instinctive, familiar like my own breath. And for a precious, fleeting moment it feels like the old times even if they’re forever gone.  “Shh, Elisa” he whispers again. “Don’t worry . . . I’ll be alright.”

Will he? The shudders aren’t slowing at all. The fever isn’t dropping. He almost seems worse. What if it was a mistake to walk with him through Fallujah? What if it was a mistake to restart at all? My mind gives me no answers anymore. The inability to doubt myself is gone. All that’s left is terror and pain. I nestle into his body heat, trying to think of what I learned about how to cope with this. Try to stay only here with him, I suppose. Grip my faith with both hands even if all confidence, bravery, strength, and clarity have disappeared.

“Yes, you will be,” I tell us both. “You’ll be okay. You will heal. I know it. I know it.”

His heart is thudding more heavily under my palm. Its beat echoes in my ears like our bodies are hollow pipelines, carrying thunder from point A to point B, from glowing tents to blood-soaked classrooms and back again.

“Thank you,” Aiden murmurs after a moment, his voice still rough.

I prop myself up on his chest to peek at him. His eyes are still haunted. “For what?”

“For not giving up. For the faith it took to stand by me that entire time . . . For everything you must have done . . . I can’t seem to access it all yet . . . but I know this one was . . . hard.” He meets my gaze as he admits this out loud for the first time.

I want to ask what happened, if he could hear me, if he could follow, if he held Marshall’s hand and said goodbye, if Marshall spoke back, if any of it made any sense, if it helped or made it worse in the end. But I’d rather die here and now than have him think about that horror one more second. Maybe later, when the fever has dropped, if he ever wants to speak of it again.

“I will never give up on you. The protein fading didn’t change my faith in you at all.”

“I know . . .”

K-n-o-w. I hope he always keeps that knowledge inside him. “Try to think only of that faith and this present moment. We’re both safe, Für Elise is still playing, the stars are twinkling—”

“And you’re in my arms,” he finishes, pulling me tighter against him even though there is no more space between our bodies for air. But agony is flowing in his eyes as his memory tries to drown him back.

“And you still have your surprise waiting for you,” I blurt out, desperate to distract him.

It works. His eyes narrow as though he’s searching through the black smoke. “So you really did say something about a surprise . . . that wasn’t a memory?”

I cannot fathom how deep he must have been wading in the foundations of his psyche to be unable to tell a memory from the present. What has it done to him, merging the past and the present so closely?

“No, you’re right. I did tell you about it but it was early on. Do you want to see it?”

“More than anything . . . except your face.”

His voice, his words, so him, yet so far. My body blisters like the brave pain is returning to finish me off without the protein. “Well, you’ll have to look away but only for a few seconds. It’s by your feet. Or at least the first part is.”

That distracts him again. His eyebrows unfurl out of the worried V into surprised arches.

“There are two parts?”

I nod, wishing there could have been a thousand for what he lived through. He sits up on his elbows, still unsteady, holding me to his side. And then he sees them. The words I Sharpied on the soles of his wading boots like he engraved on my sneakers on our first date. The words that mean so much to us.

“He walks in beauty.”

His expression transforms into a prism of emotion, changing in that quick way that always leaves me a step behind. Surprise, longing, tenderness, settling at last into a ghost of the worn half-smile, so beautiful I almost start sobbing again.

“You know,” he says, and the kaleidoscope of feeling is in his voice too. “I think Byron is turning in his grave right now.”

“That’s okay. I’ve broken up with all poets except Dante.”

“Especially Shakespeare?”

“Don’t mention that charlatan to me—I’m banning his name.”

The frayed smile fights valiantly against the weight of his memories. “How do you manage to find a way to make me smile even now, Elisa?”

I push up the corner of his mouth to help the smile win. Every point of contact tingles with that same electric charge I felt during the protein, and for a blink, the diamonds of sweat might as well be the sparkling halo again. “The same way you healed me. We just add love. It works.”

“Yes . . . it does.”

His eyes linger on mine, ravaged and tender, then fall on my mouth. His grip on my waist tightens, a shudder ripples from his iron fingers into my flesh, and his sharp breath brushes my lips. Just a heated breeze but it catches in me like madness. A hallucination of halos bursts in my vision. His own lips part as if to taste my air. The dusk changes between us—charging with longing, desire, need, everything we have lost, everything we will miss. And just like that the reality of our shattered love rips through the flimsy gossamer layer of dreams. The impossible weight crushes us both, strangling me and bending Aiden’s shoulders with a new wave of torture. Agony over agony over agony—all of them untamed. When does it end? The fledgling turquoise light dies under the gravitational force of pain. It stops his breath. His blazing grip loosens and drops from my waist.

I take his hand in both of mine, barely finding air myself. “Aiden, love, come home. You need to rest. Everything else we’re feeling—that’s pain for another day. Tonight, all that matters is your health.”

He watches me with his burning eyes. “I never wanted to give you pain, Elisa . . . Not today, not any other day, yet I keep doing it over and over again.”

“No, my love, you don’t. You’ve never given me pain. But tonight, we can give each other some peace. We don’t have to go back to our bedroom. But you need to be with our other happy memories so you can heal, and I need to take care of you like you take care of everything for me. Then you can see the second part of your surprise, too.” I actually have it here, but anything to lure him back.

He doesn’t answer, still breathless.

“Think of it as another embargo,” I invent wildly, desperate for any scrap of argument before he manages to recover enough oxygen to protest. “A night with no plans, no decisions, no changes, nothing at all except rest. Please? Or I’ll stay out here with you, too. Because there’s no universe where I’m leaving you alone tonight.” My voice breaks twice as I try my best shot, my last chance. For I know in my heart that if he doesn’t come to our home tonight, Aiden will never find home again.

He is still looking at me with war on his shoulders, fire on his skin, bombs on his chest, shamals in his breath, but the faintest light kindles in his eyes at the memory of that first, perfect day of our love. Maybe it’s that memory or my threat to sleep outside. Or the sound of my pain and the palpable fear blowing out of me like the fever from his body. Or perhaps his own need has reached a level that defies even his strength. I don’t know which reason does it, but he doesn’t argue as I expected. He searches my face in his way of seeing everything and I gaze back in my way of hiding nothing. After an immeasurable moment, he folds our fingers together, warming my skin with his touch.

“Embargo then,” he agrees as he did on our first date, three months ago. “For tonight.”

Forever, I want to answer, but that chance is lost for us. “Thank you,” I say fervently, nearly collapsing again in relief. I lean in to kiss his cheek, as I did then, too. The thick beard tickles my lips, making me shiver. A heated sigh flurries in my hair at the touch. When I look up at him, his eyes are a little lighter under the anguish. “Let’s go, love. I think you’ll like the second part of your surprise. It’s not a Nikon camera, I’m afraid. Or flowers from every genus in the world.” I reference his gifts to me from our embargo, trying to keep the happy memories going.

“I don’t need a camera or every flower. I’m partial to only one.”

We rise precariously, mostly because now that I have to be vertical, my legs are shaking too hard for balance. Somehow, Aiden manages to stand before me, pulling me up and supporting my weight despite the shudders still roiling over him. But he is worn, more worn than I’ve ever seen him. His graceful movements are slower, heavier; his breathing harsh and labored. The fever has hooded his gaze. And every few moments, his eyes drift out of focus, deepening and hollowing, as if searching for something he cannot find.

I try to beat him to the evil headset, but he swipes it up before my fingers can tremble in its direction. As soon as he touches it, he gasps as though the metal zinged him. “Marshall Fortis,” he murmurs, flashing his wide eyes to me in shock. “Marshall the Brave.”

My heart kicks my ribs as I realize what he is remembering, but at least as triggers go, it’s not the worst, or at least not as excruciating as what came after it. “Don’t think about that right now, love.” I take the monitor from his frozen hand and hide it inside my parka before he can wrestle it back. “There will be time to revisit. You really need to give your mind time to rest.”

But he is looking at me in astoundment. “Elisa,” he breathes. “Is this real? You’re naming the protein after . . . Marshall?”

We rarely say the name—the torture is too raw for that—even though Marshall is always with us, in every heartbeat. But as Aiden utters it now, there is a note of wonder under the blistering agony. A note worth every sleepless night, every broken vial, every scorching minute of my own pain.

I reach on my tiptoes, caressing his scar. “Yes, I am, if you think he would have liked it.”

I can see memories play in his eyes—light and dark—but he studies the lines of my face. “I’m sure he would have. But do you? . . . Or are you doing this for me?”

“I’m doing it for both of us. I already named the nutritional supplement after dad, and I always thought I’d name the protein after you because you’re the bravest person I know. But now, after everything, I think we should give Marshall something good. Something he deserves. Don’t you?”

A million emotions flit in his expression, too deep, too fast for me to follow. I think I glimpse tenderness and pain and something else I can’t name. “Thank you,” he says after a moment, his tone subdued. “For honoring him like this. He does deserve it . . .  He deserves it a lot more than—”

“Don’t,” I put my hand over his lips to stop the words I know will come. A lot more than him. “You deserve it most of all because you didn’t live that horror only once. You live it over and over again without a break. But you deserve something else above all: peace. And if I ever manage a protein for that, I’ll call it Aiden Liber—Aiden the Free”

He doesn’t answer, but his lips press gently inside my palm. It’s a chaste, reverent kiss, yet firelets spark on my skin at the same time that tension bolts through him. With a clenched jaw, he removes my hand from his mouth, but doesn’t let it go. He just holds it, entwining our fingers. But something about that joining rivets him. He stares at our folded hands with that same searching look, as if he is seeing them for the first time. Why is that?

“Hey,” I squeeze his hand, inching so close my parka brushes his bare arm. “Let it go for now, whatever it is. Embargo, remember?”

He shakes his head, his inquisitive gaze flying to the blanket, still seeking, hunting for something he doesn’t seem to find. “It’s not that, exactly.”

“Then what is it?”

He squints again with a rare look of confusion, of an unanswered question. I can almost see his brain racing in the background. “I’m not sure. Something feels . . . different.”

“Different how?”

He blinks back at me, the tectonic plates in his stormy eyes shifting. “Hard to explain. My memory’s speed seems to have doubled . . . or tripled. Images are flying by faster, reshuffling before I can reconcile them . . .  It has to be the lingering effect of the protein. You said there is more space to process without fear.”

I nod, but an icy shiver flays my skin and I grip his arm for us both. Doubled or tripled? How is that possible? What do we do? We’re barely surviving the usual extraordinary speed of his memory. What hope do we have against this one that has been unleashed? I shudder again.

“Come, we need to bring down this fever and you need to sleep. Maybe things will settle in the morning.”

He nods, still looking unsettled. “I’m sure you’re right. Don’t worry about me . . . You need rest, too.” He throws the blanket over my shoulders, not missing the trembles, and hands me my purse and phone. Then we set off across Elysium, him carrying most of my weight, me trying do the same with my arm around his waist as we tread home together at last.

©2021 Ani Keating

NINETY DAYS: CHAPTER 35 – BRAVE

Hey, hey friends,

Thanks so much for your response to the last chapter and your good wishes to me. Love you all for your kindness and support. I know that last chapter was brutal, but I promise below the pain, there were a lot of clues. You’ll see why in the next few chapters that are left. Here is the next one. Brave. And that’s all I’ll say about that. Bear with me as these last chapters take a bit longer. They are harder as I tie up all the loose ends. Enjoy.  xo, Ani

35

Brave

It is very difficult, as I wait for Benson to pick me up at Bia, to convince myself not to sprint all the way to Burford on my own. The massive force of the protein buzzing in my muscles makes it seem easy, fun even. But my mind is still diamond clear and recognizes that, although I think I could sprint the twenty miles, wheels will be a lot faster. And I don’t have a second to waste. Oxford’s spires and domes are already glowing with the dipping sun. How much longer will bravery last in my system? How much longer can Aiden breathe without hope?

I grip the small vial in my purse, pacing on the sidewalk against the raw energy. Questions and answers drum like a chemical Für Elise in my brain. Am I right? Will this work for Aiden? What if I’m squandering our last chance for closure, for acceptance? But although the protein has expanded my mind to wonder, it allows zero space for self-doubt. I know when it wears off, fear will suffocate me again but, right now, my decisions are made. The battle plan for the reel is in place. I just have to implement it. And implement it, I will.

The black frame of the Rover glints down St. Giles Boulevard. As soon as I glimpse it, I hurl myself down the street to meet Benson half-way. Because in minutes now, I will finally see Aiden exactly as he is—without the distortion of fear, the limits of my imagination, or a camera lens. I will see the true wonder of him.

The Rover jolts forward the instant Benson must spot me running, and in seconds it screeches to a stop at my feet.

“Kid, what’s wrong?” he booms in alarm as I dive in the backseat. “What happened? Someone hurt you?”

“No, but I think I’ve found a way for Aiden,” I almost shout the words. “But we need to hurry please! I don’t know how much time I have left.”

“Oh shit!” His eyes pop wide, and he shoots off the curb like a bullet before my seatbelt clicks. “Is it the secret thing you’ve been working on?”

And everything else implicated by it. “Yes, but it’s so much more than that. I just hope Aiden cooperates. How was he today?”

“He was just finishing up at the riverbank when you texted me.” He frowns at the windshield, avoiding the real question. But I don’t need more to know every single second is more precious than the protein itself. As though Benson can hear my thoughts, the Rover plunges through two red lights while horns blare everywhere behind us. A single neuron registers how terrified I’d be at this speed without bravery. But not today. Today, it feels like a crawl compared to the race of blood in my veins. I lock all my muscles to stay in the backseat and not rip through the steel door and start flying.

As soon as we clear Oxford’s limits, Benson punches the petrol until the rolling Cotswolds hills become a green blur. The super-emotions start churning wildly. Unfathomably, they’re still growing. All potent, all at the same velocity, each bursting forward at the right trigger, each with its own sensations, force, and rhythm. Except I know them better now after the last three hours. Not how to soften them—only fear can do that—but how to endure. How to strengthen myself.

“Should I give a heads up to Mr. Hale’s parents or the Marines?” Benson asks as he swerves around Burford’s village center for the open country road. “They’ve been texting him happy pictures all day.”

I’ve already thought about this. “Not yet. I don’t want to raise their hopes until we know how it works for Aiden.” If I know anything—know it from my prickly scalp to the bouncing backs of my heels—is the power of hope to kill. And rebuild.

Far in the distance, my eyes capture Elysium’s brilliant dot. From the speed, it looks like it’s zooming toward us, not us to it.  The tires squeal to a stop by the garage in only sixty-five seconds. I fling myself out as soon as the wheels stand still.

“Is there anything I can do?” Benson pleads, half his torso out of the window. “Anything at all you need?”

I clutch his umbrella-sized hand that appears suddenly normal to me. “Take a red rose to my parents and play I’ve Got a Woman, please. Until Aiden and I can.”

If he is confused by my nonsensical instructions, he doesn’t question them. “You got it. And I’ll wait by the phone if you need me.”

“Thank you,” I cry over my shoulder, already sprinting. But the rose breeze engulfs me even from here with these new senses, and I stagger for a second. It’s as if I’ve never smelled it before. So ambrosial, so complex. Not like a perfume of indistinct roses, but like the aroma of each single bloom has blended into a bouquet of a million, both profuse and entirely itself. I inhale it deeply, and then I’m hurtling down Elysium again.

A topaz pollen sparkles above the wildflowers as I blow past the inkblot of the reel.

“Support him today,” I snarl at the flattened tapestry, flying straight to the willows.

I scan the area urgently, but Aiden’s unmistakable form isn’t here. The riverbank is all finished, its walls reinforced for the winter, the muscular logs and stones like a rampart for my protection. On the very top slab is the old stereo I left him, its batteries no longer playing Für Elise. But the willows are still lamenting. Louder in my new ears, ephemeral. And their song has changed. No more ashes, ashes or wishes, wishes. With a shiver, I realize what I’m hearing.

Marshall, Marshall, Marshall . . .

“I hope you’re resting, Marshall,” I murmur. “I hope you’re singing.”

The willows chant behind me as I blast down the riverbank trail. Where could Aiden be? Not at the cottage—I know he doesn’t want to taint it with more agonized memories. And all his tools are missing. Peripherally, I recognize how terrorized I would be by now—Is he hurt? Is he gone?—but bravery overrules all those thoughts and propels my feet forward with invincibility. The world vanishes as I streak by, searching only for his tall frame.

But it takes only five minutes to find him.

He would be hard to miss even without the protein. Standing thigh deep in the river, facing away, trying to dislodge the boulder that almost killed me. He has pulled down the straps of his waders, and his bare back ripples with the storm of his movement, the powerful muscles tense even without a shadow around him. Exactly as sculpted as in that Fallujah tent. Yet his grace now is a different grace. Not airy like shamal winds but dignified like the weathered hills. The sunset turns his skin a deep gold, almost the bronze of his desert youth, and gilds his obsidian hair into a million lustrous strands, each a thread of gravity that suddenly keeps me tethered to the ground. I stare at him with my new eyes, and the super-emotions implode with crushing intensity. My feet sink into the grass like boulders of their own. And all the words leave me.

. . . !!!  . . . !!!  . . . !!! . . .

He must sense the force of my gaze because he stops his attack on the boulder and whirls around. And at last, I finally see Aiden’s face. Even if chiseled in agony.

How many hours have I spent looking at it, awake or asleep? How many days and nights dreaming of its flawless shape? I thought I knew every pore and bristle on his cheek. I thought there was not a truer truth in my world than his beauty inside out.

I had been blind with fear.

Now that I can truly see, I cannot find the words for the reality of him. They don’t exist. Not for the satin of his skin or the curve of his lips or the otherworldly eyes that belong only to me. I watch with newborn awe as my calming effect illuminates their astonishing depths to a blue without name even as worry rushes over the impossible face.

“Elisa?” he calls in panic at my stunned appearance. “You’re back fast. What’s the matter? Are you all right?”

But I still can’t speak because I’m hearing the true sound of his voice as if for the first time. It’s not just musical—it has texture, color, taste. Dark and chocolaty. More harmonious than any melody. More luxuriant than any instrument, despite the layers of pain. It resonates from his vocal cords deep in my chest, right by my heart.

He moves then, hurling the shovel aside and bounding out of the river, his waders hanging off his hips. The symphony of his movement fills my vision despite the tension wringing his Atlas shoulders. He is next to me in a thundering heartbeat that would have fried Doctor Helen’s electrodes to cinder.

“Elisa, what is it? What’s happened?” he demands, scanning me urgently from my tangled hair to my Byron sneakers.

Everything, I want to answer. War, peace, pain, love, hope . . . but before I can manage a single blink, in his dread, he abandons our closure rules. His hand curls at my neck as it used to, feeling my pulse where it’s trying to break free.

And I feel Aiden’s touch for the first, fearless time. Heat whips over my skin despite the cool temperature of his fingers from the river water. Not searing like the agony; smoldering. But just as staggering, just as instant. It jolts through every nerve ending like an orgasm that renders all my new abilities null and void. I can’t even breathe as the warmth trembles in my stomach then bursts like fireworks on my skin. In the same heartbeat, a golden haze dances around the contours of Aiden’s face. At first I think it’s the sunlight, but it’s not. As he bends over me in alarm, it flows with his shape, diaphanous and glowing, as though it’s part of him. I force my eyelids into furious blinks which takes some strength as I don’t want to miss a speck of him. But the glow is still there, radiating from his skin. What is this? Is this Aiden? Or just desire without fear? Or him and me? My fingers flutter up to the lovely aura, trying to feel it, but there’s only air. A startled gasp huffs from my lips.

“Elisa?” Aiden’s voice breaks, his arm flying around my waist as if to hold me up. Electricity tingles on my skin at each point of contact, and the dazzling light intensifies. “Talk to me! What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

Only that dread in his timbre could reach me in this moment. Only the palpable terror in his eyes, as vivid as in that Fallujah classroom. Instantly, my mind clears. Not that the desire recedes—on the contrary, it combusts through my tissues sending every cell quivering—but like the protein blazes a new dimension, making more space for everything to coexist. Thought, feeling, and this inexorable compulsion to touch him. Somehow it compounds bravery, and abruptly I leave even invincibility behind. Under his hand, I feel immortal.

“Elisa, for the love of God!” Aiden chokes, his hand at my neck shuddering.

I wrap my fingers around his, holding his touch to my skin, and finally the words come.

“I’m alright,” I breathe, my voice low with wonder. “Better than alright actually. I’ve never been stronger or more amazed.”

His body doesn’t relax. If anything, it tenses more. “What? What do you mean? You feel very warm—do you have a fever?”

I look only into his eyes as they burn on mine and say the words I’ve been praying to tell him for so long. “It’s the protein, love. It’s finished.”

Shock sweeps over his face. The celestial eyes widen into perfect pools of astonishment, the tectonic plates in their depths stunned motionless. I take full advantage of his frozen form to feel the effervescent radiance around his face, watching it swirl intangibly like stardust around my fingers. And very lightly, I stroke his surreal cheek, testing reality. Instantly, the orgasmic tremor thrills in my belly. How can even this slightest touch feel like this? What would a kiss do? His taste? All this maleness? The golden halo flares around Aiden’s face as the smolder simmers in my veins.

As if it burns his skin, Aiden finally blinks. The phantom of his heart-shattering smile tugs at the corner of his lips. The first smile since the end. “Of course you did it,” he says at last, his philharmonic voice deep with emotion. “How could I be so surprised?”

We did it together.”

He shakes his head, still watching me in awe. “This was all you. My brilliant, forever love.”

And for the first time in ten days, Aiden folds me in his arms. Gently, away from the water dripping from his waders. Except the instant our bodies touch, BOOM! Desire explodes again. Wonder to yearning in a nanosecond. I throw myself at him, arms around his waist, face smack to his chest, fingers hooking into the silky perfection of his skin. His entire being overwhelms my senses and stuns my new mind. The cold river water soaks through my clothes, making me shiver in the same second that his flushed warmth seeps through my skin, igniting my blood. And his scent—his vivid scent, so concentrated compared to his faded cologne on my wrist, beyond any words created by or for any man. I crush myself closer, burying my nose in his pectorals, breathing him in. So lost and found in his embrace, in that four-letter word—love—that I haven’t heard in his voice for so long, that I can’t think of a single thing to say. Only feel more than anyone has ever felt.

“I’m so proud of you,” he says in my hair, his breath firing tingles down my spine. “Every horror that fate throws your way, you face it. With grace, intellect, and strength like no other.”

Except these words apply only to him. “I haven’t overcome anywhere as much as you,” I whisper back the most inadequate words ever formed. “Just when I think I can’t love you more, I do.” I press my lips on his fragrant skin, kissing his heart.

It takes me a moment, even with my new powers, to register the shudder that runs through him under my lips. And through the incandescence of my own body, I remember how painful this embrace must be for him. His muscles vibrate as if tearing asunder with both agony and need. Yet he doesn’t release me, no doubt sensing my longing. His arms tighten even as his heartbeats fall quiet.

That near-silence breaks through me. So similar to mine when I was burning in Fallujah’s fires alongside him and Marshall. I channel all the strength of the protein into my muscles, yanking and pulling until it permeates my limbs. And I manage to loosen my grip on his waist by an inch. Because no matter how primal my desire is, everything is secondary to him.

He must see the extraordinary effort because he mirrors it as if to help me, and gives us another inch of space. More agony, but at least now I can see his face again. The luminescent filter lingers over his skin, glowing above his L-shaped scar. Now that I have seen exactly how he got it, the healed ridge has never seemed more beautiful.

He takes a deep breath, and the pained fire in his eyes changes to curiosity. “What did the trick with the formula?” he asks.

“The code,” I answer quickly, eager to keep the pain away. “I was missing the forest for the trees. I just had to use sixty times the amount of oxytocin for serotonin.”

It works. Another worn smile lifts his lips. “Ah, five times twelve. Of course. Very elegant.”

“Very dad.”

“Very you.”

He looks at me like I am the heavenly vision on this riverbank. But the smile starts to wane slowly with his breath. The sight is enough to bring back the urgency. Instantly, my hand flies inside my purse for the vial. “Here,” I say, taking it out for him. “Take a look at our new tea—no rose petals I’m afraid.”

His breath catches at the sight. He takes it from me carefully, raising it against the setting sun. From the copper rays, the molten substance looks almost iridescent, but nowhere as luminous as the haze still shimmering around his face. He watches it with unconcealed awe.

“It’s beautiful,” he whispers. “Almost the color of your eyes. Of course, nothing can ever equal that.”

Except you, I think, but I don’t want to ruin his moment. He is still staring at the crystal vial. It casts a rainbow sparkle over his long fingers. Nothing like the shattered vial of my Romeo nightmare because bravery has vanquished such visions.

“It’s warm,” he muses, shaking it lightly. “And not solid like the hunger supplement.”

“No, I was wrong about that part, but this is easier and faster to absorb. The effect more immediate.”

He nods, and his eyes start to deepen in that unfathomable way that even the protein cannot comprehend. The smile stays but I sense it’s taking a lot of effort to keep it there. “Aiden, love, what are you feeling right now?”

“Don’t think about me. This is your moment.”

“No, it’s ours. Please tell me.”

He sighs. “Pride, joy for you for accomplishing this incredible triumph, agony that I can’t be with you the way I’m dying to be, grief for us, for what we could have been if I didn’t have this.” His shoulders tense at the unspoken reference to our enemy, too formidable even for the protein.

I understand then. How quick he is! He must have always known the protein will not heal the startle but let me hope and try so I could have faith. So I wouldn’t be even more terrified than I was already. So I could dream until I was strong enough to discover the truth on my own. Even now, he will not say the words, no doubt to protect me.

“I know now, my love,” I answer to relieve him of this silence he is keeping for my benefit. “I know it cannot fix the startle or keep you with me. I cannot tell you how much I wish it could. But it can give you what you need to fight the reel so you can . . . say goodbye to Marshall.” My voice drops with the name. Marshall’s last words echo in my ears: not your fault, my brother. “You both deserve it. You need to be together, just two brothers again, as you were before all the terror.”

The unspeakable agony strikes in his eyes, even deeper than this morning. Except it’s no longer nameless for me. I know it now—know it down to every scalding stab—as my own blazes automatically in response to his. The self-defense instinct fires, but not for me, for him. So much more potent than during the video. My muscles bunch and spring, ready to throw myself between him and the world, and decimate anything that gets close to him. In the same flex, my body angles next to him like a shield.

His eyes don’t miss it even as he reins in the pain. “Elisa, what is it?”

It takes only a second for my mind to regulate the sudden impulse to destroy. To recall that the danger is from the terror inside, not anywhere around us. As abruptly as it rose, the self-preservation instinct softens. My body relaxes out of its defensive posture. And my mind takes over. It’s time for a different kind of fight.

“Let’s get started, Aiden.” I inch closer until my Byron sneakers kiss his wading boots, as big and heavy as the Marine ones that treaded on that blood-soaked desert. “We don’t have time to waste. Let’s go get the reel. You can fight it with this, and win. I know it.”

I’m ready for his response. His eyes flash with an outrage fiercer than Doctor Helen’s. “Absolutely not. This one will be yours after it’s been vetted for safety. We can worry about me later.”

“A step ahead of you this time. I’ve already taken it. How else do you think I’m standing?”

I’ve shocked him again. Whatever blood he has left drains out of his skin, and his face contorts in horror. “You what?” he mouths.

“I took my dose. This is for you.”

He gasps, and his fist flies to his mouth. “You—took—it—without—any—clinical—trials?” he hisses through his teeth. “Elisa—what—the—fuck?”

He is clearly demanding an answer, but for a moment I’m derailed. Because under the dread, I hear a shadow of his former rage. Still alive, still enough of him left to save. Anger has never looked more beautiful.

And despite my control, I can’t help it. I reach up and stroke his shimmering jaw that has clenched into the familiar blade. He must be so shocked and furious, he’s unable to pull away.

“Don’t worry. I took the protein with Doctor Helen. She monitored everything. I promised you I would be safe, and I will.” There is no need to ever tell him about the earlier tests on myself. That might truly finish him.

He blinks once at the unexpected information but continues undeterred. “That’s just one test, Elisa! What about the long-term effects? If—you—risked—yourself—for—me—”

“I didn’t,” I interrupt before he finishes that sentence against himself. “Do you really think dad would ever leave me something that could harm me?”

He glares for a second, considering. So exquisite that it would have flattened all my brain waves without the protein. Then he shakes his head. “Of course not, but he might not have had time to test it. How could you possibly take this risk with your life?”

“There is no risk,” I answer with conviction. I know this, not just from the protein. I know it from the very core of my father’s character. “Dad knew I had access to the safe. He wrote it in the code he taught me. That was our way. He knew I would try it.” But he made it difficult, I add in my head. So I could learn its lessons and only use it when there truly is no other option left.

Aiden is still watching, but the lovely glower disappears. Leaving behind the staggering horror for me. I caress his jaw again, feeling the lustrous bristle of his beard for as long as I can.

“I promise,” I tell him. “And if you need more convincing, ask yourself this: even if I would risk my own safety, would I ever take a chance with yours?”

That question does it. The horror starts to soften. “No, you wouldn’t,” he sighs. “I shouldn’t have questioned that.”

Despite his pained voice, I feel a tingly sense of hope. Because Edison took everything, but he didn’t destroy this truth: Aiden will always know he is loved. Maybe that will help at the right time.

“How do you feel?” he asks, still too dazed to inch out of my touch, which suits me just fine. I revel in the feel of him—his fragrance, the inexplicable golden aura, his gaze deep with something other than pain for once. Even if it’s just worry about me.

“I don’t have the words. Every time I try to think of them, they seem so shallow and inadequate. Like the word ‘strong’ seems in fact weak or the word ‘beautiful’ is suddenly very plain . . .” But I try to concentrate now, choosing only the words that matter for the fight ahead. “I feel everything. Every single thing but fear. But the most dominant feeling is unshakable faith. Faith in myself that I can and will survive anything. And faith in you to overcome the past.”

I trail my fingers up to his scar. The tough L looks almost opalescent, bleached by time. He doesn’t speak, still staring in anxiety and wonder, but the shudder returns at my touch, rippling across his shoulders that, even today, are in chains. But perhaps the cables will not cut as deep when he is no longer carrying Marshall’s body over time and distance.

I drop my hand with brute force of will. “Let’s restart the reel, love. Because you don’t have to worry about me anymore. I’m ready. I have never been stronger than I am right now. I will not be afraid. There is absolutely nothing today that can break me.” My voice rings with conviction, and I’m fiercely grateful for the video that scorched me. What other test would have ever given me this kind of faith?

The worry doesn’t relent in his expression. “What about after the protein wears off, as I assume it does? Won’t the terror be a lot worse then if you experience more trauma today?”

My mind has given me this answer, too. “I don’t think so. In fact I suspect the opposite. I’m fear-proof from everything I do and see while the protein is in effect. Afterwards, I will go back to being afraid. However, facing a specific terror without fear should help make that terror more manageable in the future. For example, if we do the reel today, I wouldn’t be afraid at all. Tomorrow, it will go back to horror, but my hope is that I will have better tools to manage it because, well, I would have already done it. So with time, that specific fear should wane.” I choose not to tell him about the indescribable agony I will feel and remember. He would never agree and, worse, he will feel even more terrorized for me going in, increasing his own pain exponentially.

“But that’s still a theory. I don’t want to risk you being traumatized again, now or later.”

“It’s more than a theory. I know dad. He wouldn’t have created something that simply delayed a specific terror. He would have temporarily erased it so we could learn from it. I’m sure that was his intent.”

“All right, I accept that. But what about the pain? The reel isn’t just terrifying for you, it’s also extremely painful. You can’t tell me your father intended you to hurt.”

And there it is. I knew he would get there, sooner than I had ever hoped, but at least I prepared for this first and foremost. Because if there is one thing I have to get right today, it’s this. “Love, I will hurt either way, whether we do this or not, like Doctor Helen said. But at least now I’m stronger than ever, stronger than anyone I’d bet, until you take it. And this way, we will know we gave it our all. That will help more than avoiding the extra pain, especially when I am so full of faith. Now is the time. Trust me.”

A blistering geyser shoots in my throat as if to disagree but at that word—trust—a faint turquoise light enters his eyes. Not the turquoise I have seen with my fearful vision; this is inhumanly beautiful. I try to compare it to anything earthly but cannot. “I trust you implicitly, Elisa.”

“Then let’s go. Let’s fight together one more time.”

Time. Can he hear my voice not breaking on its vowels and consonants? Can he see only the faith as the protein shifts all the super-emotions? Can he feel bravery reinforcing my mind like fireproof steel?

Yes, he can. His eyes have never missed a change in me even without any sleep. I know because he nods, even if worry doesn’t leave his gaze, even if he cannot breathe the word “yes” to anything that exposes me to any form of pain.

I hold out my hand, following all the cues the protein is firing at me. “Come. Try not to think about how we will lose this touch. From this second until the reel is done, let’s stay only in this present moment together.” The only one we have left.

I expect him to argue more, even speechless as he is, but he doesn’t. Perhaps he doesn’t want to deny me this final hope. Or perhaps his own agony has become unendurable. Or maybe he is still shocked. Whatever it is, he hands me back the vial and twines our fingers. They fold together easily, sliding home into each other’s palms. A tandem shudder runs through us both and turns into current on my skin. I tuck the vial back in my purse and we leave the boulder and his tools behind, winding back to the cottage.

I can afford a second to skim the world now. The river gleaming green-grey-blue, the sunrays dimming over Aiden’s bare shoulders, the redolent breeze blowing toward us. But they’re all peripheral. In the very center is only Aiden moving with indomitable grace, deep in thought, his face still bathed in that strange suffuse light.

“How did Helen test the protein?” he asks, and I know he is still processing. Everything in my mind shifts. Of course he would pick the one question I was hoping would never come. But I’m ready for it.

“The same as she does with you. She wired me to the electrodes and monitored my brain and heart activity. It was incredible actually.”

The V folds between his brows, making my heartbeats shiver. “That’s the physical evidence of thought and emotion, but how did she test for fear?”

The secret to lying, the protein has taught me, is to tell as much of the truth as needed and fill the rest with conviction that you will be believed. I take advantage of my ironclad confidence before it runs out. “Well, as it turns out, it was rather obvious. I was so terrified going in that she couldn’t even get a baseline reading. But once I took bravery, everything went back to normal—better than normal actually—within sixty seconds. Doctor Helen was almost as amazed as she is when she looks at your brain. Of course, even the protein can’t equal that.” I leave out all the rest, surprised by how easily the half-truths are rolling off my tongue, how deep the secrets are staying hidden. A feat that would have been utterly impossible without the protein—I can never keep anything from Aiden. Still, I look ahead at the willows because I most certainly am not immune to his eyes that I can feel on my skin.

But his hand squeezes mine, stopping my feet. “Why were you terrified going in?” As I hoped, he focuses on what could hurt me. “Did something else happen or just me?”

“You are never something that happens, Aiden. You are everything.”

He ignores that. “Just answer me, please.”

I clutch back his hand, tingles flittering up my arm. “You know why I was terrified. And putting our best hope to the test only made it worse.”

He watches me a moment longer, nodding in understanding. Because he knows the terrors that would make my heartrate immeasurable.

“But I’m not afraid now,” I promise. “The protein works. All the terror is gone.”

“I can see that,” he murmurs, seeming pacified for now, and starts walking again. Our shadows float together on the grass that has an emerald sheen I had never noticed before. I try to stay only in this one moment, focusing only on Aiden’s hand. A few blisters have blossomed on his palm from all the hard labor. More fire lashes my throat, and I shift my fingers infinitesimally so they don’t even brush against the sore spots, but his hand clutches mine reflexively even though he is still lost in thought. He will catch up shortly even worn, exhausted, sleepless, agonized, and caught entirely by surprise. Which is part of the plan, why I have to act now. I pick up my pace even though a very loud part of me would rather tackle him and his waders down here on this grass. He matches my step instinctually, still deep in analysis when we reach the willows.

I allow my senses to truly capture them now. How alive they seem! As though their swaying garlands are breathing. And they’re not just one shade of green as I had always thought. They’re a thousand, each strand a different nuance. Eucalyptus, moss, basil, mint . . . all blending into a hue I don’t have a name for. Brave-green, that must be it. And their song. So heavenly, like angels’ harps. Marshall, Marshall, Marshall.

He’s coming, Marshall. Wait for him, sing together once more, then send him back. So you can meet again when he is grey and ancient. And you can say, “Motherfucker, at least I saw you be wrong. She was real, and you let her go.” Aiden will laugh then and answer, “I didn’t. I just kept her safe.” I hope you tell him he saved us both in his way. I hope by then, he will know you were right: he is the very best part of us.

“Has the song changed for you?” Aiden asks. The unearthly emotions must be showing on my face despite the protein.

I nod, reshuffling them quickly with the crystalline thoughts.

“What do they sing now?”

I look up at his breathtaking brave-blue eyes. “Friends, friends, friends,” I modify. But is it just for him and Marshall? Or also for us?

Another wave of torment surges in his eyes but he controls it for me even invincible as I am now. And finally unafraid to ask. “What about you? Has it changed?”

He nods, too, eyes turning to the brave-green symphony.

“What do they say?”

“Safe, safe, safe.”

Then, without releasing my hand, he takes a deep breath, and we step through the perfumed drapes. And abruptly the world stops again.

I thought I was ready to see the cottage with these crystal-clear eyes. I thought no sight, other than Aiden, could stump me. But the vision of home does, especially with his hand around mine.

The usually snow-white walls are glistening, but they’re not a white I know. It’s a veil of all the whites I’ve ever seen, sparkling together into this rarest stone. From our happy bedroom window, the linen curtain billows in the breeze as if reaching to touch us. The beech trees gleam with the sunset, brave-green and Aiden-gold. And the roses . . . Aiden estimates there are about a million, but these new eyes see all of them, taking in their resplendent brocade and each individual petal. Like the other colors, they’re no longer simply white, ivory, or pink. They’re a kaleidoscope of every nuance, tinting the air with a powdery blush. Their fragrance combines with the most beautiful perfume there is—Aiden next to me—and for a moment, I can only hold his hand and breathe. The mega-emotions spin again, settling to a feeling like magic.

“Are you all right?” Aiden’s voice is muted, too, with his own storm. His thumb strokes the inside of my wrist where my pulse has picked up.

I manage a nod. “Just the beauty of this place . . . it hits differently without fear. Almost like yours does. It’s impossible to describe.”

“Something to look forward to.”

Despite the fairytale kingdom before me, my eyes leave it easily for his face. But he is watching the cottage with a visceral longing, as visibly powerful as the one inside me, and he hasn’t even taken the protein. The defense instinct jolts me again, total and absolute. But I refocus only on one truth: for the first time since we lost everything, Aiden is looking forward to something.

Suddenly, even another second feels too long to wait.

“I’ll go get the reel,” I tell him. “Do you need to change first?”

“No, I’m set.”

I open my mouth to argue but there is no time. So I whirl around, sprinting to the garden shed. The monitor looms in the same shelf as always. A layer of dust has gathered on its icy glimmer. At the sight, my stomach heaves in the same blink as fire claws up my throat as a silent scream. Revulsion and agony, magnified to the extreme. And for a split second, I waver, or rather my heart does. What if I’m wrong? What if this makes everything a lot worse? But the protein dismisses such questions, obliterating any hesitation. That immense energy roars in my body. My mind expands like a blast wave, and my senses range out ahead as they did during the video. Because the same exact horror is waiting in minutes. Not at all faded or less real for Aiden than the one I witnessed. Except now I can do something to help him.

I swipe up the monitor without needing to wrap it in dad’s blanket. Oddly, I want to touch it with these fearless hands. Touch it, pulverize it, but I can’t. We need it now as much as faith. I throw the blanket over my arm and duck out, wishing forcefully I had had time or foresight to prepare a surprise for Aiden for this reel. The reel when he will need it the most.

Aiden has transformed by the garden hedge. He has removed his waders and towers in the dry cargo pants he must have been wearing underneath and his wading boots. His body is back into the lethal weapon it becomes when he heads back into that Fallujah schoolyard. War maces for shoulders, mortars for legs, grenades for fists. Everything is carved into destructive steel, except his eyes. They’re still mine.

“I’ll miss the waders.” I gesture to the neatly folded miraculous fabric. “But the pants will be more comfortable. Thank you, I know you changed for me.”

He nods once, searching my face. “When did you take the protein?”

“About three hours ago.”

“Any idea how long it lasts? I don’t want it to run out on you while I’m under.”

“We don’t know yet, but it doesn’t feel like it will fade soon.” I search my body quickly, but that sense of power is still mushrooming everywhere. “Don’t worry. Look, I can even touch the monster without goosebumps, blankets, or shivers. When has that ever happened?”

His jaw clenches and his fingers twitch as if he wants to rip it away from me. “I noticed. You’re very calm. But perhaps you should keep my dose just in case. I can handle the reel on my own,” he offers, and I realize this is what he has been thinking: how to protect me even now. But bravery is finally a match for him, at least while he is shocked and sleep deprived for ten days.

“I’ll pretend you didn’t say the last part, but if it makes you feel better, I have more if needed. Dad left us three doses. Now let’s go, before this one runs out.”

It works again. At the idea of me having even one second without bravery, he kicks up his pace toward his own torture. I give him the moment and run through the plan in my head one last time.

At the reel’s spot, we spread out dad’s blanket as always. The flames of agony erupt in my chest. Raging sky-high, even hotter than in Doctor Helen’s lab because my worst terror—Aiden hurting—is about to begin in real life.

“Sit with me a moment,” Aiden says as he did that very first time we sat on this spot—his first morning in England when he was still so full of hope. He folds down, and I curl next to him as close as I can without our thighs brushing. Then he takes my hand again. His skin has chilled like it always does before the reel, but it still spreads warmth over me. Not blistering like the agony. A melting. How can I feel made of steel and liquid at the same time?

“Elisa, you still have to be safe during this, even with protein,” he says gravely, locking me in his bold, commanding gaze. “It won’t make me less strong physically or you less breakable from that strength. Are you able to recognize that with all the serotonin?”

Barely—I feel unbreakable—but my mind knows that, physically, he is right. “I’ll be safe,” I agree, even though it will scorch me alive. “I’ll stay in the safety zone until it’s over.”

He watches me in his intense way that, with these new eyes, seems to imprint directly into my brain. “Promise me, Elisa.”

What could make him doubt it now when even I don’t? “I promise. Please don’t worry. I’d never risk myself, knowing what it would do to you, no matter how brave I am.”

He manages the worn smile and turns my hand around. To my surprise, he presses a brave-pink petal from the hedge roses into my palm. “Here’s your petal.” He closes my fingers around it. “You may be infinitely braver than me, but you will always be my Elisa.”

Fire scalds my insides, licking up to my eyes. But no, not yet. “You will always be my Aiden. And I’m not braver than you. Everything you need to overcome this is already inside you. This—” I reach inside my purse with my free fingers and hold up the vial. “—will only bring it out. It will allow you to observe it all, not just the horror. It will sharpen your mind until your thoughts reflect reality. And it will give you faith that you can and will close Fallujah’s door. Not for me or your parents or anyone else. But for Marshall and yourself.”

He listens raptly, throttling back the agony at Marshall’s name. “Theories on how often we would need to do this for that door to close?”

At least he seems to consider that it might. But of all the answers the protein has given me, this isn’t one. “I wish we knew with your mind, my love. But however long it will take, I know it will happen in the end.” Hopefully before our end, so he can only carry one agony at a time.

He nods, staring at the vial with a ghost of life I haven’t seen in his gaze since Edison destroyed it. It’s as good a place to start as I could have hoped. I tuck the vial in his hand away from the blisters. “I’ll make you something for these,” I say, shoving down the lava tears. “But first, will you make me a promise?”

His fingers curl around mine instinctually. “What do you need?”

“Doctor Helen said I need to use whatever it takes to bring you back from this reel. I know this will go against your nature, but I would like your promise that you will listen to me without question, accept my calm and touch without guilt, follow my instructions, and when you’re ready, you will come back no matter what’s happening between us. Even if this present moment feels as painful as the past. Can you promise me that?”

I can see the resistance in his gaze—resistance to me doing anything painful or hard—but he knows there is nothing he can do to avoid that now. “I promise,” he vows, his hand tightening on mine.

An intense wave of relief rushes through my head. I’m abruptly overwhelmed by the depth of his trust in me, like that first night he slept by my side. Except even more forceful now.

“Thank you,” I whisper, my voice bending under the onslaught of emotion. Perhaps I should tell him more about how bravery feels to me, but instinct says no. Because I sense without knowing that we all have to discover our own bravery in the end. But I can guide him to that with every last weapon we have left: our love, his strength, my faith and calming effect. “Now, let’s start with you feeling calm. I think it will be easier if you come from a place of serenity than fear.” Yes, it has to be, I’m counting on that.

And Aiden keeps his promise. Instantly, his eyes find my lips, my jawline, my throat—the parts of my face that calm him the most—until the sapphire of his eyes brightens to the most translucent brave-turquoise. I gasp at beauty of the true color. I have never fully seen it before this second. It exists on an arc of the rainbow all on its own. As though all the blues of the world—from the sky to the ocean, from the Adonis butterflies to the gemstones—gave their most perfect sparkle for the sole purpose of becoming his sight. It takes the full force of the protein to keep my brain going.

He inhales deeply as though he hadn’t taken a single breath until now. “Every time,” he sighs.

“Because you gave me that power, as Doctor Helen says. Now hold on to it and take this.” I ignore the knives of fire as I break our joined hands and unseal the vial. “It doesn’t taste great, I’m sorry. Definitely not Skittle-flavored as I promised. I did modify it though—” I pause because his half-smile tugs lightly at the corner of his lips, almost stopping my heart. Like an echo of the Peter Pan grin in his war tent.

“Don’t worry about it. I’d drink bleach if it would help.”

“This will.”

“I believe it if you made it for me. To your bright future, Elisa.” And, trusting me again, he brings the vial to his lips and swallows in one gulp without a flinch. I watch on fire as the violet fluid slips inside him. One second. He presses his lips together manfully. “It’s not bad. A hint of grape?”

“Yes, a little grape juice. It’s all there was in the drink fountain to make it swallowable but keep the color.”

He nods, tilting his head to the side, eyes vigilant as if listening to his body. Nine seconds. His back straightens ramrod, the muscles start rising. “Oh,” he says, eyes widening. “Interesting.”

“What do you feel?” I ask, thrilling even though I know what he should be experiencing down to the second.

“Heat. Intense heat. From my tongue to my gut.”

“Perfect. That’s exactly how it starts. Now close your eyes and just feel.” I don’t want anything to interfere with the rush of faith. I want his first memory of feeling fearless to be combined only with my calm and his confidence. Nothing else, not even a poppy or a sunray that may carry other triggers.

He becomes a perfect statue more beautiful than Adonis, the golden halo still emitting from his skin. That’s when I take his hand again, following the map my new mind has drawn. He gasps as our fingers entwine but doesn’t open his eyes. I use all my strength to muster my body’s wild reactions to his proximity and lean gently into his fragrant chest.

“Elisa,” he breathes, and the sheer mass of muscle ripples around me like a seismic wave.

“Shh, love, don’t speak. Just listen to your body, your heart.” I fold his arms around my waist and rest my head on his shoulder, covering it with me exactly where the monsters punched him repeatedly. “You will know when you’re ready. Trust me.”

His arms tighten around me, his body shuddering and strengthening in the same breath, but he follows my direction. I let the flames scorch me by the thousands and rest my palm above his heart, feeling its thunderous thud-thud-thud. I don’t know how to interpret heartbeats, but it does not seem terrorized like mine was. Aiden’s heart sounds more powerful, more rhythmic. I want to caress his fragrant skin, kiss his tense jaw, the parted lips. So I lock down my body and count his heartbeats, wishing dad’s watch was working. But the protein gives me an inner sense of chronology.

Forty seconds now: Aiden’s cold skin heats, a mesmerizing flush tinting the golden filter. Forty-two: another inhale, this one longer, deeper. Forty-nine: a low sound in his throat, somewhere between a snarl and a sigh. Fifty-one: his muscles sharpen and expand, a sense of raw power emanating out of him. Fifty-five: the V disappears from his brow, his hands close into titanium fists. Fifty-seven: with another ponderous thud, Aiden takes a final breath in my hair.

“I’m ready,” he says, his voice new again. No note of worry or panic or dread. Just that invincible timbre I first heard in his Fallujah tent.

“Yes, you are,” I answer with all my confidence, unwilling to let any other tone blend with his faith. “Keep your eyes closed. Look only at what you see in your mind. It’s time.”

I curl my hands over his shoulders as he lies down, running my fingers gently along the invisible bruises. A low sigh leaves his lips. Then, with the pain of a branding iron, I pick up the headset of evil. I secure it over Aiden’s closed eyes, feeling like I’m pouring hot fiery oil on the golden lids. And that’s when the blistering tears scald my own eyes. When he cannot see them in his first fearless memory.

“I’ll see you on the other side,” I tell him.

“I still see you now.”

“See me well.”

“I will.”

My fingers hover above his lips. They are still shimmering in my vision, full and bitten-crimson. I’ve never wanted anything more than to taste them. Not even air while drowning in the river. Maybe just a little? But his warm breath washes over my fingertips, bringing me back. Reminding me of everything. I tremble in my purse for my rose oil and dab it on the flawless curve of his lips exactly where the monsters smeared Marshall’s blood. Even at that slight touch, the orgasmic current shocks my fingers. From his low gasp, it must jolt him, too.

“Ah, you,” he sighs. His teeth graze his bottom lip lightly, tasting the oil. I manage to stay upright only by the strength of the protein.

“I love you,” I whisper.

“Always.” His voice is husky. “Whatever else has changed, that never will.”

I bend to kiss his heart where the steel cables crossed, tracing the path of the vanished chains. Then, with a smoky breath through my charred lungs, I press the power button. And the fifty-fifth reel starts. Our fight to save him, not us. Aiden stills as the headset highjacks him, yanking his mind through the portals of his powerful memory into a different place, a different time. And even though he is still here next to me, I know he has left me far behind.

For the first peaceful fifteen minutes, I can’t move despite the raw energy spiking in my muscles. I just burn next to him, feeling like both iron and ash, watching the golden aura that still frames his face. My body echoes with the lack of the physical reactions I would now feel: short breaths, shaking, chills, nausea. They are all absent. In their place are all the mega-emotions. A Himalayan waterfall of love, a volcano of pain, a hurricane of desire, an abyss of longing. I remember when I used to believe that strong emotions last only ninety seconds. But science didn’t know about the protein then. I don’t know how long these emotions will rage either, but I know it will be a lifetime in itself.

Yet it would never be long enough. I would scorch here forever just watching the hypnotic halo, but my mind doesn’t let me. Somehow, while I’ve been in his spell, it has found new horizons of space to think and keep track of time. And Aiden’s peaceful minutes are almost up.

I try to think of a surprise I can do from here so he doesn’t come back to nothing. There isn’t much. I improvise with the contents of my purse, set my phone on Für Elise by his ear, and, in two minutes, I’m coiled back to my safe circle even though I could tango through the seven circles of hell, carrying Dante in my arms.

The second I sit on the wildflowers, Aiden’s agony starts. And mine. Unfathomably more vicious than during the video. Because I am no longer sheltered by a camera lens or a smoky screen—this is real, this is live. I can see every facet of the torment I had missed, each blow of anguish on the face I love. I can hear each gasp from his lips. I can feel each cable slicing his shoulders, each minute of torture ravaging the body that is my home more than any cottage will ever be. And all the words disappear again, there isn’t a human language brutal enough.

!!!

The more I see, the more the emotions scald, flay, tear, rip, saw, and stab. I want to simultaneously sob, thrash, shriek, and die. Yet not a single scream passes Aiden’s lips as he relives the torture the camera didn’t film—the torture no one alive knows except him. But the deeper he sinks, the more his agony changes before my cruelly clear eyes. A sheen of moisture is gathering on his skin like fever. His breathing becomes rapid and shallow as if he is drowning—not steady like mine. And his body is contorting a different way. As though the ripples over his muscles are coming from a vital organ that’s tearing apart.

The vacuum of horror sucks the air out of my lungs, filling them with fire. “No!” I choke as the defense instinct thrusts me to my feet. I will end this. I was wrong. It’s not working—it’s hurting him even more. But as I strike one step in Aiden’s direction, a sound reverberates through my head, more deafening than any IED. Because this sound is coming from inside me. Aiden’s voice is thundering in my own memory, amplified by the protein:

“PROMISE ME, ELISA.”

It locks down every burning muscle, from my fists to my thighs. I cannot move a single inch, imprisoned by my own mind. My thoughts become my steel cables, chaining me down with my vow. Because my mind is right. If I touch Aiden now, I will surely die. And although I can’t care about that in this moment, it will destroy him. The only thing that will help him now is if I sit here and wait. Wait and love him more than anyone has ever loved.

At the excruciating realization, the binds melt off my body. Aiden’s voice fades in an echo. Promise me, Elisa. The ember tears singe my eyes. So this is why he insisted on that promise. He knew even before I did that, without fear, I might not be able to stay away. And he agreed only because of his trust in me.

I drop back on the grass, burning. Across from me, on the blanket, Aiden’s torment reaches a level that almost blinds my new eyes. His body is arching off Elysium, sweat sparkling on his body like diamonds. The blisters on his palms are bleeding. Ten more, minutes, love. Just ten more, and I’ll bring you back. But back where? To a present that hurts just as much? Did I choose wrong? Should we have lived the last days in closure, hoping for the best? Should I have gone the other way? But faith is still firing incontrovertible in my system. No, Aiden can do this, I know he can. I knot my legs against the unreleased reflex, flipping through the raging flames like pages in a book, pulling up a blank one. And then I find the gushing waterfall behind the inferno and fill the blank page with love. Until it’s done. With a final, silent no! Aiden’s body arcs as if dragged up by his very heart. Then it slumps back on the blanket, breathless and unmoving as he was on the broken tiles of that classroom floor.

“Aiden!” I cry instantly, bursting to his side in a flash. But the horror of the sight might break through the protein.

Moisture has soaked his skin like the river water. Even without a single touch, I can feel the fever blowing out of him in waves. His breath is shallow spurts of air through his parted lips. The halo around him is fading in my vision. And the shudders are different, more sinister. Like the cracking earth of that schoolyard after the IEDs. And I know that without the protein, I would have never breathed through this.

But I do now. “Aiden, love,” I call him again in my calm, singing voice that would have been a scream this morning. I kneel next to him, one hand to his feverish face, one to his heart. It’s pummeling his ribs like nothing I’ve ever heard, not even mine. “I’m here, sweetheart. Right here by your side. We’re both safe in Elysium. Safe and strong and loved. Listen to my voice, to Für Elise. It’s over, love, it’s done.”

But his heartbeat is faltering under my hand. Like the crack of bones on Marshall’s chest, like the grenades. BOOM-BOOM-BOOM. Blowing us up, limb by limb—tiny bodies on this grass like in that Fallujah schoolyard. Because we are both just children now. Children before the vast, black abyss of the past. Reborn violently to that first held breath that we must either take or die.

My body strains for the dulling terror that my mind won’t give me. I claw for my phone to call Doctor Helen but, under my hand, there is a new beat. A relentless pounding, a vital sprint.

It’s the sound of a brave, fighting heart.©2021 Ani Keating

 

NINETY DAYS: CHAPTER 34 – ASH

Hey peeps,

Did this last week go on forever or what? Just in time to end the weekend and kickstart Monday, here is another chapter.  Thank you to all of you who read the last one and commented. As her mom, it was emotional for me to watch Elisa finally accomplish what she did. And of course, it wasn’t going to be the magical fix she had hoped, was it? Well, this next chapter was even more emotional for me to write. It’s one of the very first scenes that came to me with the story, and I knew it would take a while before the readers could see it because of where it had to be revealed. I also knew it would be painful to write. Hope I did it justice.  Thanks as always for reading. See you on the other side, as Elisa would say.  xo, Ani

34

Ash

“Okay, Elisa,” Doctor Helen says, still holding my hand. “What is your worst fear without the protein?”

“Aiden hurting,” I answer without hesitation.

She nods as though she expected as much. “What about your second deepest fear?”

“Aiden losing himself, although I wouldn’t call it a second. It’s tied with the first.”

I catch her by surprise with that—her silver brows arch. “I would have thought it would be you losing Aiden.”

“No.” As if any loss of mine could compare to the loss of the most beautiful, precious wonder there is.

“What about the next greatest fear?”

“Surviving the end enough for Aiden to truly live.”

Her intelligent eyes narrow in analysis, and I can tell from her pressed mouth she doesn’t like my answers. Who would? She seems to plunge deep in thought, staring beyond me. For a moment I think she is looking at one of Aiden’s brain images on the giant screens, but her eyes are far away like his travel sometimes. “Challenging. Very challenging,” she murmurs as if to herself. She is still for so long that I start watching the clock on the wall without fear for the first time since May seventh. There is a hypnotic quality to it now that I’m not terrified. The rhythmic tic toc is lulling like my measured heartbeats.

At last, Doctor Helen resurfaces back in the lab, looking unsettled. “Please wait here,” she says. “I will return shortly.”

Not a single nerve flutters for me as she strides out of the lab despite the onslaught of the super-emotions and questions. My mind is already hours, days, weeks, years ahead. How vast the capacity to think is when unhindered by fear! I’m still sorting through all the knowns and unknowns when Doctor Helen returns fifteen minutes later.

Fifteen minutes that have aged her. Her face is pale, her commanding footsteps slower as she carries a white filing box. My body’s response to her is automatic. My muscles flex and coil, jolting me to my feet. A sense of danger fires up my spine as the instinct to defend bolts through me. “Doctor Helen, what is it?” I ask, stepping to her side as far as the electrodes will let me. “Are you feeling alright?

She glances at the box she is carrying, and a shudder rocks her great frame. “I wouldn’t say so, no.” Her authoritative voice sounds hesitant. “Not when I’m about to cross the same professional and moral duties I have sworn to uphold.”

“What duties? How are you crossing them?”

“With what I’m about to show you.”

Even though my curiosity flares, there is only one correct answer to that. “Then don’t show me. There’s no reason to place yourself in conflict.”

“Yes, there is. Because nothing else will test the protein for you more realistically in a lab.”

“Then test me in the real word. Make me speak publicly to the entire Oxford faculty or in Trafalgar Square. Or take me car racing. Or anything else, I don’t care.” But as I reel off the options—as my mind struggles to conceive any terrifying test—I know all of them would be futile. As effortless as blinking. Nothing that would truly challenge the protein.

She nods knowingly, already having anticipated this problem. “Your worst fears are not typical, child. You’re not afraid of your own pain, loss, or embarrassment. You fear something impossible to test artificially: harm to the person you love the most. Public speaking or the risk of a car accident wouldn’t affect you at all now.”

I can’t argue with any of that, not to mention that I promised Aiden I would be safe. How inconvenient that promise has become now that I can’t be afraid. “But there must be some other way?”

“Not without risking your safety or Aiden’s, and I will never do that.”

Risking me? The idea is laughable, almost a thrill. But risking Aiden? That’s out of the question.

She must see my resolve without any answer from me. “I still want you to consider carefully,” she warns. “What I’m about to show you is going to hurt deeply. You can choose to accept uncertainty for Aiden or proceed without the protein. Indeed, I’m certain he would never permit this if he knew about it.”

There’s no doubt about that. Aiden would set whatever is in the box on fire before he allowed me to hurt in any way. Which is why this is my only chance. “I choose pain. And he will never know. I swear it.”

She shakes her head. “There may come a time where you will need to tell him. Don’t keep secrets from him on my account. His trust in you is infinitely more valuable than his peace with me.” But my confidence must resolve her conflict because she takes a deep breath, straightening up to her full height, and gestures toward my chair. “I think it will be best if you’re sitting for this.”

The instinct to defend turns inward, yet I can’t find any trepidation. Only raging curiosity. I sit back down, waiting as she takes the seat in front of me and sets the white box at her feet.

“I acquired this for the sole purpose of studying it,” she explains. “I never imagined I would ever need to use it this way.” Her grey eyes burn on mine. “There is still time to change your mind.”

Except my mind recoils from that option. “No, I want to be absolutely certain for Aiden.”

“With a mind like Aiden’s, we can never be certain until he tries it,” she amends. “But if this doesn’t terrify you, I think there is a very good chance, the protein will shield him from terror, too.”

If only there was a way to also shield him from pain . . . I nod, scarce for words again.

Her fingers hover a final moment above the box, then she lifts the lid. And for the second time since I ingested the protein, a super-charged storm of agony tears through me.

I can see now why I needed all her warnings. Why Doctor Helen looks ill. Why bile geysers in my throat. Why other emotions throb in my tissues: loathing, revulsion, anger. But I can’t argue with her flawless logic. What other test could ever match the protein except the one that rips Aiden to pieces?

“You’re showing me Aiden’s reel,” I whisper, glaring at the icy white monitor in the box exactly like the one in our garden shed. My hands ball up in fists ready to crush it, but her answer derails me.

“No, this is not his montage. But everything you’re about to see is real.”

My eyes fly up to her in astonishment. “Real?”

She nods gravely. “Real. I haven’t shown it to anyone, not even Aiden. But I won’t tell you more. I think its effect will be stronger if you don’t know what it is.” She picks up the monitor. My eyes don’t miss the quiver in her fingers as she touches it, but why if it’s not the reel? “You can stop any time,” she assures me for some reason that I no longer can comprehend. “I’ll be right here monitoring your every response. I have total wireless control and can pause it in a millisecond. All you have to do is tell me. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

She gives me the fiercest gaze I have ever seen on anyone who isn’t Aiden. “Your word, Elisa.”

“My word,” I vow, my mind and body revving up for anything. Yet there isn’t a single frisson of fear. The dominant emotion is profound relief. At least I won’t have to see Aiden hurting. What else can possibly touch me?

“Then let’s begin,” she answers and secures the monitor around my eyes as I do with Aiden. His piano voice whispers just a petal in my memory, and abruptly something scorches the corner of my eye. Startled, I realize it’s a single tear. How different tears feel without dread. More painful and solid somehow, like a piece of flesh is chipping away.

From the monitor, my heartbeat tolls slowly. I blink away the moisture but can’t see anything. The screen is pitch black.

“You will need audio, too,” Doctor Helen adds, and I feel her hands snap a set of padded headphones over my ears. Instantly, they cancel out every sound. I hear and see absolutely nothing. Then a faint static purrs from the monitor like the fizz of a radio transmission flickering on. I squint hard but there is only darkness. For a moment I start thinking the monitor is broken or Doctor Helen has made a mistake, but then the clear sound of breathing fills my ears. Brisk and even, so vivid I almost feel the air at the back of my neck. Yet the screen remains midnight. One more invisible breath, two, then footsteps starts thudding, quick and heavy, as if walking on a soft surface. But the black never lifts. A sense of unease starts prickling over me. Not fear, but a hunch that something is looming. The self-defense instinct blazes in my muscles. I search the screen for any clues, but then a third sound changes everything. A low, male voice I’ve never heard before starts humming a familiar tune. Ray Charles’s I’ve Got a Woman.

A chill bolts down my spine as the blackness transforms before my stunned eyes. Because I realize now exactly who I’m hearing, what I’m watching. A body camera on Marshall, still alive, humming his good luck song for his love, Jasmine.

In a lightning flash, all the puzzle pieces fall into place. Why Doctor Helen shuddered, why she is breaking her rules, why this is the only terror that can test the protein. Because this must be the black dawn of May first, 2003—the day of that Fallujah torture. The real-time footage of the horror incredulously playing before my eyes. My body reverberates with the ghost of dread I cannot feel. Its absence mangles in my chest and contorts into agony. The wound that festers there implodes like an IED.  Every nerve ending blisters, and for a moment, I’m bewildered. Precisely that. Even with my new mind, I can’t make sense of this level of anguish. So potent, so immediate at the slightest trigger. I want to beg Doctor Helen to stop already.

Except I haven’t forgotten that there is an important reason for this. A lot more important than any pain I will feel.Aiden. The second his name resounds in my head, the pain retreats an inch. Just enough to boost my reinforced brain, that sense of invincibility that I can and will live through it for him.

Barely ten seconds have passed while my sharpened neurons process all this. Marshall is still striding into the impenetrable dawn. But those ten seconds changed the entire scene. I’m no longer captive, I’m a volunteer. Perhaps it will help to see this without fear. Perhaps with my new abilities, I can finally grasp a fraction of Aiden’s torment. Maybe watching this will bind us together in a way that no time or distance can ever break.

Without another thought, I follow Marshall into the black space.

There is no moon or stars on this dawn, but as he charges ahead—toward the end of his life though he doesn’t know it—dense, indistinct shapes morph out of the darkness, glowing subtly. With a start, I realize they’re tents lit from within, and I know where Marshall is going with a song under his breath.

No, I want to tell him through the years. Stop, don’t go, stay behind. But Marshall doesn’t. He strides onward into the black maze, his boots pounding on the sand that fills the envelopes of Aiden’s war letters. Then as quickly as he started, he stops. In a flash, a tent’s flap-door rips open, and I’m blinded by the sudden light. It takes a few furious blinks to see again. Only to realize until now I had been blind. Because in front of my sharp eyes, more beautiful than any sight in life, dreams, or art, is twenty-three-year-old Aiden. Lying in his cot, his black hair shorn into a buzz cut, bare chest gleaming under his steel dog tags, long legs in cammies, writing what can only be one of my letters.

He stuns all my new senses. I’m sure even my heart beeps have stopped. Every angle of him is carved in sun-forged bronze like some indestructible god of war. As his hand glides over the commissary paper, his arms throw golden shadows from the tent lantern. And his face . . . Youthful, untouched by tragedy, with an uncatchable Peter Pan smile at the corner of his lips. But more surreal than all these are his eyes. They haven’t yet seen the torture waiting. They’re turquoise flames, setting the night on fire as he gazes at the words he is writing. And I realize now that all those moments when his beauty dazzles in that indescribable way are echoes of this young, whole Aiden.

He looks up at his best brother, at me through the camera that must be clipped on Marshall’s chest. A shiver whispers over my skin. Not fear, but everything else in the extreme. And I know the words that are coming. I remember them from the Portland Rose Garden as if Aiden is quoting them to me.

“Drop your dick, Storm,” Marshall drawls in an American Southern accent. He has an upbeat voice, lighter than the other four brothers. “We’re going to Fallujah. Palomino’s got Q fever and Morton’s on his period or something. We’re switching patrol. Do some recon on the city pipes that lead to the hajji market.”

Aiden chuckles. “Isn’t this Morton’s fifth period in the last month?” Even with the flat distortion of the recording, his voice rings like storybook music.

“I’m getting him a box of tampons at the Baharia mart. Fucking pussy.”

“Ah, now that’s where you’re wrong, Marshall. See, pussies are astoundingly strong, fearless, resilient things. Not to mention absolutely perfect in every minute way. I refuse to have Morton’s face associated in my memory with something so divine.”

Marshall lets out a raucous laugh that rattles the camera. “Motherfucker, just once in my life I want to see you be wrong.”

“You’ll have to live a long time.”

“That’s the plan. Come on, let’s go smell the shit tunnels. By the way, I’m cam guy today.”

No, say no! Fall ill, make Morton go, stay in the tent, writing to me. I don’t care if you don’t follow orders. Just don’t go, please!

But Aiden smirks at Marshall. “I see that. Give me ten seconds.” And his eyes return to the letter. He scrawls a few more words quickly—I’d give up bravery now to know which ones—and the dimple forms in his clean-shaven cheek.

“So who the fuck do you keep writing to with that boozy-ass grin?” Marshall asks, and the camera gets closer to Aiden, leveling with his mirage face as Marshall must sit somewhere next to him. “Can’t be a woman. There’s only dicks as far as the eye can see.”

Aiden smiles again, and my heart beeps must stammer. “Oh, the eye can see pretty far.”

“Is that gibberish supposed to be some genius level shit?”

Another starry dimple. “I promise you in this area you know a lot more than me.”

“What the fuck? So it is a woman? Is she human?”

“Nope. As I said, divine.” He jots down another word—probably Yours, Aiden—and folds the letter, slips it in the envelope, and runs his tongue over the flap, sealing it. For twelve long years until the moment I opened it. He tucks it inside his rucksack and rises to his feet. The motion is fluid like water, without any tension straining his shimmering shoulders. So graceful I can’t breathe despite my powerful lungs. It seems awe is not affected by the protein either. It’s only intensified. Or perhaps it’s not the protein; perhaps it’s the impossibility of him.

“Then why the fuck do you never mail them?” Marshall continues, sounding half-puzzled, half-amused.

Another chuckle is Aiden’s only answer as he turns around to a large cooler. His golden back glows at ease with the lithe movement. I can barely blink from him to take in his surroundings even with my expanded brain. The spartan tent is tall enough for the soldiers to stand, another empty cot across, presumably Marshall’s. Between them two crates like nightstands, each with a lantern. On Marshall’s is a photograph of a stunning African-American woman with startling blue eyes who has to be Jasmine. On Aiden’s a folded map, his chess set, and Byron’s Poems. The rest is crammed with weapons and battle rattle as Aiden calls it.

He opens the cooler and takes out what I know are two Bologna sandwiches. “Pringles of Ruffles?” he asks Marshall.

“Motherfucker, knock that shit off. Tell me what’s the deal with the goddamn letters.”

Aiden doesn’t turn but his relaxed shoulders shrug. “Think of them as good luck. To keep me alive, like that infernal song you keep singing.”

“Hah, it’s not the song, it’s the woman, brother.”

“Exactly.” Aiden tosses a water bottle in the rucksack. “Ruffles or Pringles?”

“My dick.”

“It’s still attached? I could have sworn it fell off with all the combat jack.”

They laugh together with a sound that soothes the edges of my raw chest. “Gotta keep my balls in shape for Jasmine, man. Maybe this FUBAR war will end and I’ll see her for Christmas.”

“For all our sakes, I hope it’s sooner. There’s no Jergens left at the BX. Ruffles or Pringles?”

“Ruffles. So you’re not going to tell me who the letter woman is?”

Aiden throws on his shirt, and despite the horror he is getting dressed for, I still can’t miss the ripple of his chest or the Adonis V muscles flowing below his waist. “As soon as she comes along, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Well, fuck me, I’ll be dead by then. You have to go after a woman for her to come along, Storm. That’s mother nature. Like a lion with the gazelle.”

Aiden laughs my favorite waterfall laughter, pulling on his bulletproof vest. “Agreed. Jasmine is definitely a lion. Come on, gazelle, throw this on—” He tosses a groin protector at Marshall. “Keep those dainty balls of yours safe for Christmas.”

I would laugh if I wasn’t drowning in grief, if pain wasn’t scalding my throat. They arm up—protectors, ammunition, helmets, boots, rifles, knives—laughing together in this tent for the last time. Razzing each other with words that soon will pierce hearts more than any bullet.

Aiden hoists his enormous rucksack over his back, shoulders relaxed despite the weight, and ducks out first. That too is a last. No one has ever walked right behind him again after this dawn, except Benson. The pain ratchets up another level, and I wonder vaguely how much stronger it can get before it kills me. Not that it matters. There is no way I could leave him now. I will crawl to the deepest, fieriest end with him and for him.

The brothers’ boots crunch on the sand in practiced tandem, but they don’t go far. In seconds, they step inside another tent. There is only one dim lantern here, just enough light for me to recognize young James, Hendrix, and Jazz. How different they look from the life-worn warriors I have met! James is beardless, his wild auburn curls gone in the same buzz cut. Hendrix is unlined, more muscular than he is now. And Jazz . . . he is whole and unscarred. A youthful Paul Newman with alabaster skin. They’re all asleep in their cots, James’s immense height diagonal across the tent to fit. But as soon as Aiden and Marshall duck in, his sniper eyes fling open.

“What the fuck?” he rumbles. The other two wake instantly, leaving their last peaceful sleep behind.

“Sorry gents,” Aiden answers. “Recon is ours today. Morton went Semper-I.”

A huge yawn overcomes Hendrix. “That whiny little bitch bailed again?”

“PMS,” Marshall informs everyone.

Jazzman groans. “His asshole has a date with my M-007 tonight.”

They all rise with a chorus of profanities that would make me laugh if they were in the cottage. But I can’t even remember laughter now as I watch Aiden study the pipes map while the others get ready. I’m so absorbed with his relaxed stillness in a crowded space that the sound suddenly blaring in the tent confuses me, even though I should have expected it. Marshall breaking into his good luck song.

“WELL, I’VE GOT A WOMAN—” he belts out at the top of his lungs, making all four of his brothers jump.

“God fucking damn it!” James roars, hurling his rucksack over his shoulders and shaking the tent’s rooftop with it. “Stop that shit! It’s too fucking early.”

“WAY OVER TOWN,” Marshall keeps going. “THAT’S GOOD TO ME. OH YEAH…”

“Let him get it out, Cal,” Aiden sighs indulgently. “Or we’ll have to listen to it all year.”

“SHE GIVES ME MONEY WHEN I’M IN NEED! YEAH SHE’S A KIND OF FRIEND INDEED!”

All four of them glare as Marshall trills between lines, “Sing it, dicks, you know you want to.” The camera sways slowly, and I realize Marshall must be dancing. Hendrix shakes his head in disgust. Jazz flips him off. But a piano voice that almost dissolves my bones croons next to Marshall.

“She saves her lovin’, early in the mornin’, just for me,” Aiden hums for his best friend. His rare song swells in my ears and becomes acid tears in my eyes.

“OH YEAH!” Marshall riots, and then the other three join as a battery of fuck-you’s starts firing from other tents outside. I wish they would keep singing. I wish they would stay and wake up the entire world. But their swan song is over in less than a minute, and the five brothers head out in the starless dawn together for the last time.

Instantly, they plunge into silence. Not a single word or laugh passes through their lips now as they melt in the darkness, slipping here and there into other tents until the squad is complete. Eleven Marines I think, Aiden at the head, Marshall on his right shoulder, James to his left. Then everything starts zipping fast forward, as Doctor Helen must have modified the fragment for speed. No, I want to yell at her this time. Let them stay here. Because here they’re still themselves, still hopeful, still alive. But the blackness races ahead, dawn lightening to navy, just in time for a tunnel entrance to zoom up like a gaping black hole. My body coils with tension. The sewage morass. The last passage to that schoolyard of terror, the descent to hell. And the footage slows to normal speed again. I search swiftly for any orienting detail, but there is only the yawning darkness spanning the camera.

“Moonbeams out, single file,” Aiden orders, and the squad revs up. Rifle locks and clicks snap everywhere like teeth. And with a deep collective breath, they dive in, Aiden first—the spear point because of his memory. My screen glints black for a second, then flashlights slice the darkness. But even with their radiance and the protein, I can only see endless walls wreathing around like snakes. A relentless drip-drip punctuates the squelch of boots as the Marines slosh through the marsh below. Their methodic breathing echoes off the pipes and magnifies in my ears, replacing the absent thud-thud-thud of terror. The tight space presses down on my senses with an invisible weight that would have suffocated me without the protein. But bravery only hones them further under the sense of danger. So sharp, so vivid, I can almost smell the putrid air that’s making them gasp as Aiden leads his men deeper and deeper into the bowels of war. Left, right, right, left, left. Oddly, I think of his steps when we would dance Für Elise before bed, and agony nearly incapacitates me again. I pin my eyes only on the contours of Aiden’s back, more at ease under one hundred pounds of iron than I have ever seen it in life. So close, a breath away, yet forever gone.

“Storm,” Marshall huffs, and my throat seizes up. Because I know the words he is about to chortle—so similar to mine when I triggered this memory for Aiden at the Portland Rose Garden. “Your brain’s the best fucking thing that’s happened to this platoon.”

“No, that would be clean oxygen,” Aiden responds through clenched teeth.

“Hear, hear,” Cal croaks somewhere in the back. “Seriously though, how the fuck do you remember this shit? I can’t tell up from down.”

“Down will be Morton’s ass when I’m done with it,” Jazz grunts, and a chuckle rumbles through the squad. Speaking must become impossible then as they gag and wheeze in silence.

The camera races forward again, condensing hours of crawling into soul-wrenching minutes—the last moments before the schoolyard. And I know like the sterile air I’m breathing that I would have ripped off this monitor without the protein right now. I would have begged Doctor Helen to stop. I would have traded knowledge for ignorance in a jackhammer heartbeat, only so I wouldn’t have to see what happens next. But bravery has wiped out all those fears and hysterics. Instead, the deeper the Marines sink into the earth through the drains, the more the protein spreads like wildfire in my veins. Quite literally. My skin warms and a massive energy starts thrumming in my muscles. The blistering agony licks up my throat like flames. Yet the more it burns, the more my mind hones. Clearer now with the instinct of preservation but shielding Aiden instead of myself. Processing every facet and nuance around him with razor perception. I fling all my senses in the vast labyrinth before him, bracing my mind and muscles for the torment ahead.

It comes out of nowhere. One second everything is tar black, the next a burst of brilliant light blazes over the screen like the strobe light in dad’s library. I blink furiously for sight, regaining it before Aiden and Marshall despite the fact that I’m watching from a screen. They catch up in a second, choking triumphantly: “Thank fuck!”

Then Aiden falls back, letting Marshall and the others pass, clapping them on the shoulder while they don sunglasses. My gaze brushes his scarless brow as Marshall climbs out into the dazzling glare of the desert. I have to crunch my eyes as my pupils adapt to this strange light spectrum. And almost plug my ears. Because frantic gasps and coughs sputter everywhere as the Marines soar out. I search through them instantly until I find Aiden again, coming out last. His Crossbow sunglasses hide his eyes but he gazes up at the sky as though trying to inhale all of it and rinse out his lungs. I cinch him in the center of my focus—the end is getting closer now—and peer around the screen, dissecting the scene. Where did evil come from? Was it here lurking already? But the protein doesn’t see only danger. It locates the familiar, the safe even in the foreign, deadly horror.

The schoolyard, blazing with white desert sun. Sand glimmering like ice. The school with yellow brick walls. Mosques and minarets in the horizon, eerily similar to Oxford’s spires and domes. A market down the street flashing in brilliant colors: tomatoes, lemons, leeks, eggplant, all shot through with inkblots of hijabs scurrying through the aisles. The ancient Euphrates River sparkling like molten silver. A tan Toyota truck playing an oldie tune I can’t pinpoint. And right before us, six little boys, playing football with a Marine helmet, just as Aiden described it to me. I hear their Arabic and innocent laughter and more agony singes my chest fiercer than fear.

“All seems normal,” James says from somewhere behind Marshall where I can’t see him.

But a strange needly sensation prickles my skin. Before I can explain it—BOOM!

The explosion reverberates in my skull, rattling my ribcage violently. BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! I never knew sound could rend the world like this. So deafening it would perforate normal eardrums, but these fearless ones somehow withstand it. Clouds of fire mushroom in my vision. Thick smoke billows everywhere, swallowing Aiden and Marshall down its black throat.

And that’s all I see. A fierce snarl I’ve never heard before tears from my lips, but it’s drowned by the instant human implosion. Piercing screams, wailing, a suckling gurgle nearby that makes me shiver. The screen becomes a dark blur of sand as Marshall must dive for cover, while I scan every grain for any sign of Aiden. There is none. No English, no familiar piano voice, no deep clearing of his throat. I listen in torture instead of terror, but another IED detonates, and the earth shatters against the monitor.

Aiden, Aiden, Aiden! Where are you? Keep your eyes closed, love! Roll away from the street, the protein commands for some reason I can’t access.

But I can’t hear him. Not a single rasp of breath that I know better than my own. Only screams and that same chilling spongy sound. Another salvo of violent energy surges in my body. I have to labor to adjust its intensity. But the less terror I feel, the more agony batters me. For entire minutes that with my new time perception feel both like milliseconds and hours.

I devour the screen in a frenzy, but the charred ground presses over my eyes, hard as a tomb.

Then at last something changes in the pitch void. A slight movement, a lightening in the grimy screen, new sounds that are not screams. Yet they tear through me with a new shockwave of torment. Coughing, retching, suffocating, a thunder of rubble, and a voice spluttering.

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Marshall croaks and stumbles, but the camera is coated with a smoky film. I can’t see anything as the violence of adrenaline wrings my own muscles, but then a familiar roar floods me with dizzying relief.

“MARSHALL, thank Christ!” And a powerful force wrenches Marshall upright, like it ripped Edison off me. I can’t see Aiden’s face through the sooty screen but I sense everything else about him, even the strength of his grip on his friend. He’s still whole, still himself. “You in one piece?” he shouts hoarsely.

“Yea, except my ears,” Marshall craws back. “Where the fuck did that come from?”

“The road, I think.”

And then I hear it. A third voice that starts the countdown to horror. “BACK TO VOLTURNO,” Hendrix bellows from somewhere close. “WE GOTTA GO NOW!”

“They’re fucking kids,” Marshall protests in broken breaths. “Fucking kids, man.”

“IN FIFTEEN MINUTES, WE’LL HAVE HAJJIS ON OUR ASS, STORM. THEY’LL SKIN US ALIVE AND SELL OUR BALLS FOR FALAFEL . . . WE GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE NOW!”

“Can’t leave them, Storm! They’ve got fucking mothers. Maybe one of them survived?” Marshall must be brushing himself off because a slender, brown hand swipes over the camera, and streaks of grime peel off, finally letting me squint between them. Only to see more billows of smoke, crags of rubble, and a shadow of Aiden’s face. Gone is the bronzed skin. He’s covered in white ash, staring in horror at something before him, his throat convulsing. And they’re still so close to the street.

“Marshall’s right.” Another gravelly voice spews next to Aiden—James. “Look at that shit.”

“I know!” Aiden hisses through his teeth. I can hear the torment in his voice, the battle of the decision that has haunted him ever since. Stay or go?

My own stomach heaves with ache as I see the tortured ghost of his face. What would I have chosen without the protein? I don’t know for myself, but I know for him I would choose fear, selfishness. I would choose for him to leave. But Aiden has never been selfish, no matter how much I want him to be.

“FIVE MINUTES!” he roars to the squad, making the choice that brutalizes him every day. The choice to listen to his heart, to his best friend. The call he has never forgiven himself for even though he wasn’t alone. “KIDS ONLY, THEN BACK TO CAMP!”

No one questions him again. They spill out in the yard, digging through the wreckage after the wails. That’s when I see them in the streaky screen—the small bodies smattered on rubble. The torn ribcage with shredded lungs at Aiden’s feet; the sound I was hearing is the gurgle of the little boy’s throat. A tiny hand here, a crushed leg there, a tangle of shrapnel-ridden intestines, that helmet full of human brains I saw during the reel—gruesome jigsaws that would have pulverized me without the protein. I could have never breathed through this even from a safe screen. My mind would have reached for unconsciousness before processing any glimpse of it.

But Aiden has always been braver, stronger. He starts heaving out huge chunks of pavement, and I think wildly of him rebuilding the riverbank for me. More agony incinerates my insides. I have never seen him work faster, more desperately than he is now, as his mind matches the flung-out body parts and puts them back together, frantic for any sign of life. I can’t see his face as Marshall digs too, but I know the torment tensing his frame as he blows through the debris, leaving macabre order behind instead of chaos.

He’s holding a little arm with a scrap of bloodied cloth when they come. At first, I can only hear that oldie song between screams, then a thunder of gunfire blasts through the thinning smoke from the street. Bullets shriek past Marshall, missing him and Aiden by inches, but piercing down two other Marines. Their bodies drop on the same children they were trying to save.

Somehow, I don’t fall. There is no time. Because another IED explodes, or maybe a bomb, shaking Marshall’s body and the camera on his chest. It resounds down to my bones, almost dislodging them at the joints. The world erupts on fire again, but this time the flames rage higher. There’s no more sky—only orange tongues lashing the clouds. Smoke churns through the yard like a hurricane. I can’t even make out Marshall’s machine gun even though I can hear its grisly snarl as he manages to aim. Crammed between its roars, a familiar voice rings in my ears, close but out of sight.

“GET IN AND RADIO BAHARIA!” Aiden shouts. “I’VE GOT THE STREET.”

“NO WAY!” Marshall hollers back. “I’M WITH YOU.”

“YOU FIRST. UN-ASS NOW! THAT’S AN ORDER!”

“Fuck!” Marshall swears, but I know from his tone, he has to obey. He has no choice; Aiden is his commanding officer. I watch the fire whirl by as Marshall bolts toward the school. Smoke and flames rush over my eyes like a blindfold, dense and impenetrable. My body tears in conflict—senses jailed to the screen, heart hooked at my spine as Aiden is left behind. I always thought they ran in together.

Marshall lunges inside and, abruptly, there is a crack in the suffocating darkness. I can see a narrow staircase and his dusty boots as he bounds up, yelling into a radio.

“Bravo-alpha-hotel—this is Unit 89—grid Whiskey-Hotel-Fife-Niner—blown up, TIC, direct fire. Need dust-off and artillery NOW! Repeat, dust-off and artillery now. Over.”

A staticky voice caws back but my mind mutes it because right then Marshall flies into the classroom of horror. My eyes rove furiously across it, scanning the threadbare walls. The protein vacuums up every detail, shuffling them in whatever priority keeps my insides in my body. Some Arabic lines scrawled in faded red. An empty bookcase in the corner. A flower drawn in white chalk on the blackboard like a rose. Cracked, loose tiles tremble on the floor. Desks rattle on rickety legs. And that’s it—nothing else. If my heart wasn’t already ash, it would break.

Marshall streaks to the first window where the glass has shattered, skidding to a stop on his knees. I squint through the spikes, but there is only a black sea of smoke boiling below. The less I see, the more my body revolts. Instead of the flight response, it strains for action. My limbs are vibrating with the compulsion to plummet into the flames, tear through rubble, and find Aiden where he must be choking for air. My body thinks I can do it. My mind recognizes the chance was never mine. My heart refuses to accept it. Three forces tearing me apart.

All around, the barrage of artillery is relentless. For a wild second, I wonder why my eardrums haven’t ruptured, then I realize the protein must be adjusting my perception just a decibel below harm.

“STORM!” Marshall bellows into the abyss, and my chest throbs with another wave of agony. What happened? Where is Aiden? How many seconds has it been? But then suddenly his homey voice booms behind me.

“AT YOUR SIX!” And he materializes beside his brother at the window, his beauty unrecognizable with black soot and white ash powdering every inch of his skin. I rip in half: one anguish, the other relief. Relief because he is here breathing. Anguish because we’re only minutes from the deepest terror of his life. Minutes where neither of us know what happened.

“Thank fuck!” Marshall cries, and his fist shoots out, grasping Aiden’s shoulder.

“Did Jazz make it in?” Aiden aims through the jagged glass, searching the inferno.

“Can’t see anyone, and I’m almost black on ammo.”

Dark fury rolls over Aiden’s face like the smoke clouds. Then he signs quickly. Go low. Cal and Hendrix are upstairs.

“Fuck!” Marshall hisses, crouching beneath the window frame, reeling off again into the radio. But I can’t peel my eyes from Aiden. The undiluted terror on his face almost stumps the protein and becomes my own. It drowns every ashen pore like the curdling smoke below. And even though I can’t see his eyes, I know the terror is not for himself. It’s for his brothers. I can see it in his sandy lips quivering in silence. I know their movement better than any language, and for the first time I see Aiden praying. Please God, he’s mouthing, please save them. Take me, not them, I’m ready. Send them home to their women, keep me to yourself.

In my own head, a different prayer is drumming even though I know how this ends: take all my bravery and give it to him. Take all his pain and give it me. Send me to my parents but keep him to himself.

Between each prayer, he tries to aim through the inferno. How many bullets does he have left? How many seconds before the deepest hell? Past the shattered panes—so similar to dad’s library—the smoke starts thinning. Enough for my eyes to glimpse the orange sky, a throng of sandy cars, Marshall’s fingers crossed as he keeps radioing. And for Aiden to see something that stops his praying lips. Dread implodes over his face like a grenade of its own.

“He’s burning!” he chokes, and I know he has found Jazz.

That’s when I register something I recognize—no, more than one, but the most crucial— Aiden’s posture from the reel. The way he leans forward, rolling on the balls of his feet. The signal that the torture is about to begin. Something must combust in my blood at the sight because the protein triggers a gust of heat around my heart as if to cloak it. In the same breath, agony soars higher, scalding my eyes.

“Yes!” Aiden rejoices and fires his last shot. I watch with an IED in my throat his hand closing into the telltale fist as he saves his brother. The last image, his final act. Then my unbreakable heart stops as several terrors strike at once.

Two black, masked shadows streak into the screen behind Aiden. A rifle flashes in the air and crashes into the back of his skull right at the helmet’s edge. His guttural groan rips through his teeth at the same time as Marshall’s cry, and Aiden drops unconscious on the tiled floor. Then five more shadows swarm above the brothers—one screaming, the other silent. The screen is a mosh pit of black. My last mad thought is of dementors sucking out their souls, then a tsunami wave of agony drowns me.

My parents’ wrecked Beetle—that was just a grain of sand in the eye compared to this.

The doors to the morgue—they were only clenched jaws.

Their frozen, bluish bodies—only a broken bone beneath bruised skin.

Their coffins in the grave together—barely a bathtub of acid swallowing me.

Losing Aiden—that was my flesh peeled away by a thousand scalpels.

Watching Edison hurt him—that was just death.

I accept them all now, accept them humbly because, alone or together, they pale to this. Normal human minds were not made for this pain. Unfortified hearts would crush from this. And the torture hasn’t even started.

Abruptly, selfishly, I wish I hadn’t taken the protein. Let me fear, let me fear, let me fear. Dull this agony now before it ends me.

It’s too late for that, but bravery does give me one thing: acuity. Even as I beg for terror now, I don’t forget for a second why I am doing this. The one reason that is worth every moment of this unfathomable pain. Aiden, Aiden, Aiden. His name rings like a talisman in my head, fortifying me as much as the protein. I will endure this horror once for every time he lives through it without a single complaint. I will search for hope even in this hopeless place. I will be here on the other side for him.

The screen is still a viper nest of limbs, tearing and ripping. A knife glints as it slashes through the melee. Then a piercing scream stabs me and keeps echoing in Marshall’s voice. The black fist of bodies opens, and I can finally see. Just in time to wish I was blind or at least with my old, fear-struck eyes that missed so much. But these new eyes consume everything. Everything I never wanted to exist.

It’s worse than anything I ever imagined. A stream of blood has smeared on the broken tiles to the front desk where Marshall must have been dragged, gasping and thrashing. Under the window, Aiden’s body is still contorted on the floor, a crimson pool flowing out of his skull, his helmet, shirt, and weapons gone. Deep red is seeping beneath his skin over his shoulders and ribs. And closer to the camera, for the first time, I see the entire lower half of Marshall’s body as he must be propped up. He was shorter than the others, slenderer. His legs are twitching, the cammies stained with blood, and his dusty boots are no longer dusty. They are caked with coarse, red mud, the way sand must turn when congealed with blood. Somehow the protein keeps my heart inside my chest. These feet that pounded the desert with a song, that danced for the woman he loves, that have walked next to Aiden every step of the way, dreaming of the road home, will never walk again.

A harsh chorus of voices in Arabic draws my eyes from the red boots to the black ones. I don’t understand anything the monsters are grunting, except I know these are the moments Aiden doesn’t remember. The ten minutes hidden from his memory. The last moments before the torture begins.

Aiden’s body is still lifeless on the floor, his skull still overflowing. So vivid, so red, so much. A ghostly pallor is spreading over his face. It feels as though my own skull is crushing, my own blood draining out of me. Let me live, let me live, let me live for him, please.

But a new rush of torment clamors in my ears. Strangling, snapping, more grunts, one gunshot, then another. Pink droplets mist the screen. Another shriek rends the air, then a high-pitched reedy laugh as Marshall writhes in agony, the camera with him. Jarring voices are arguing, squawking phrases I can’t comprehend. Scientists say language makes us human, but science is wrong. Because although these voices speak human, human they are not.

The bloody mist dissipates now, and I can see Marshall’s boots again. Two bullet holes have torn through them, leaving behind ragged gashes where there used to be toes. His legs jerk violently as his tortured cries claw at my eardrums. The classroom pulses with his heaving chest, and I pulse with it. It’s an impossible fragment of existence—this feeling of terrorless pain without the need to scream, vomit, or expel any agony. Because your mind is strong enough to handle it all.

Even Aiden’s pain that’s just about to begin?

Steel cables whip in the air like lightning, and three monsters start advancing toward him.

“Don’t touch him!” A woman snarls, stunning me, then I realize it’s me.

“Leave him alone.” Another weaker voice gurgles in English—Marshall—but a black boot stomps on his gut, choking him off. The camera shudders with him as four arms yank Aiden’s body off the floor.

The instant they touch him, everything changes for me. Rage explodes like a car bomb, scorching through my muscles like lava and hardening into a ferocious sense of strength. It crackles on my skin like current and sinks down into my bones. Images of violence flash before my eyes like my own reel: skinning this evil alive with the knives of glass; carving out their eyes; pulling out each nail, each tooth, each finger, and wearing them around my neck like scalps; ripping open their chests and tearing out their hearts, still beating until I bleed them dry. And even that doesn’t seem enough because I can’t turn back time. But somehow knowing I could have avenged this changes the pain. Rage blisters forward with its own heat. A scarlet haze flames bright in my vision around Aiden’s and Marshall’s bodies as if to shield them. It doesn’t lessen the agony, but it balances it. Makes it just barely possible to endure, to witness with infallible senses what happened to my love and his brother. To hold it in my memory because both these warriors deserve nothing less.

Yes, just barely enough to give me purpose but excruciating still. I watch through the filter of fury as stained fingers tie Aiden in thick chains—two around his purple shoulders, three binding his arms behind his back. The same laughing monster digs his claw into Aiden’s bloodied scalp and tugs his head. The mouth I have kissed a thousand times falls open. With another reedy laugh, a second monster smears a blood-drenched thumb over Aiden’s lips. For a sickening moment, I think it’s a caress, and violence fires out of me in waves. But then the evil hisses, pointing at Marshall with more laughter, and I understand. Just in time to wish I hadn’t. Because it’s Marshall’s blood that Aiden will be tasting when he awakes.

A volcano of rage erupts in my throat, chewing its way into a silent scream, but deep beneath the hellfire, I’m grateful. Because Aiden doesn’t remember this. What would it have done to him if he had? Or am I wrong about that? Did his powerful memory know the taste of his own blood and could tell the difference?

I will never ask him those questions. I don’t want him to recall one more second of this horror. And there are too many seconds left.

More guttural voices are shouting over his body and, suddenly, the corner of a rifle slams above his eye. Exactly where today he has his scar. A fountain of blood gushes from the beloved face as his head lolls back. Then a foot crashes into his chest, cracking the ribs where I rest my head. Grimy hands touch his body—gripping his arms, spreading them apart as if to rip them off their sockets.

Another burst of fury blasts in my gut. A phantom vise twists my own limbs as though they, too, are tearing apart.

“No!” Marshall gasps, and the camera starts to shake as he tries to fight but another blow to his gut silences him again. Burgundy is flowing from Aiden’s wounds, coating his cheek, painting his inert shoulders. A third monster locks his arm around his throat, strangling him from behind. Then another crushing kick to his side, and his body sinks in the monster’s chokehold.

Stop! I roar in my head, but I know it’s useless. The protein cannot turn back time.

“Wake—up—Storm,” Marshall murmurs so weakly I can only hear him because his mouth is so close. “Wake—up—so—your—woman—can—come—along. Wake—up.”

But Aiden’s doesn’t move. The monster behind him throttles him again, as the other two start bombarding his shoulders with their fists like a game. And the fortress of Aiden’s body begins to break. Sharp cracks snap in my ears, as my heart keeps tempo with the blows. The camera shakes on Marshall’s chest, and I shake with it. From the motion, another lava stream washes in every crevice of my mind. But bravery commandeers my senses toward any detail that can soften the pain or at least differ from it. The rose on the blackboard, a tile cracked like the letter A, the blood forming shapes with its rivulets . . . a harvest moon, a setting sun, an American Beauty rosebud.

It’s just a petal, love, I think toward him fiercely. Just a petal, I’m right here on the other side.

But Aiden doesn’t hear us—he can’t—no matter how much I hurl my mind through the years as the seconds grind in my head to a near-halt. Has it been ten minutes? Or fifteen? Will the protein be enough to endure the worse torture about to begin or will it kill me?

A sharp inhale sucks the air from the screen, from my very lungs. I watch without breathing as Aiden’s chest shudders, and he comes awake.

He returns as he lives, with strength, with dignity even in hell. He tries to straighten up despite the chains, dripping in blood, blinking his one eye open. I can’t see the color of his iris in the crimson sheen varnishing his face. Yet his beauty doesn’t release him even now, and I know why—because his beauty comes from within. Not from any part that evil can touch. It’s obvious even to the monsters who have frozen still, watching him come to life.

It takes only one blink for his mind to revive. He snarls and thrashes against the steel cables, searching frantically for his brother among the black specters. Utterly unafraid until his fierce gaze alights by the desk that has been my pyre, straight to the camera, finding Marshall at last.

Every life has two stories: the one we can tell and the one we cannot. Perhaps we can’t tell it because of fear or pain. Perhaps we don’t know. But there are some unspoken stories that stay silent because we simply don’t have the words. This is one of those stories. I will never find the language to describe the terror on Aiden’s face as he sees his best friend, or the agony there that suddenly makes my own seem like an old bruise. There is no code, no formula, no dialect in human I can speak this in. But I will always know this part of his story even when I am ash. I will know it because this is when a part of his soul dies. I almost hear its last breath as it blows out of Aiden’s lungs.

“Marshall,” he whispers, his face wringing in torture, bubbles of his own blood and Marshall’s forming on his lips. “Let me take this. Breathe for Jasmine.”

The camera is trembling on Marshall’s chest. Through his low gasps, I think I hear, “I will.”

Then Aiden turns his eye on the monsters, transforming to blood-soaked steel. He fires something at them in fluent Arabic, except his cadence is different now, low and pleading. But the monsters laugh, their words stabbing him like knives. Another desperate, urgent plea from him, pointing with his chin at his chest, and I know he is bartering for Marshall’s life with his own. Another cackle, then the world ends. The monsters converge on the two brothers like black smoke. The screen plunges to chaos. Gunfire punches my eardrums, more bullets shatter Marshall’s feet, a silver blade slices the air before the camera, right Marshall’s bloodied hand quivers up.

“Not your fault, my brother,” he chokes so low I can barely hear him. Before I can tense against the torture that’s about to start, the screen goes blank. I wait for it to flicker back on or any sound or static. But there is nothing. My ears ring with the deafening clang of silence.

“No!” I gasp, rattling the monitor against my face. “No! Come back!”

But two gentle hands cover mine, startling me, and a woman’s maternal voice calls nearby. “Elisa, you are fine, you are all right.”

Doctor Helen. I had forgotten her existence, the test, everything that’s not that classroom where the true horror has now begun.

“No, bring it back! Let me see, let me hurt with him.”

“Hush, child, you’re safe.”

“But they’re not!” I clutch the monitor harder, searching furiously for the power button with my fingers. “Bring—it—back!”

I feel a pull at my wrists as she must be trying to loosen my grip on the monitor. Her clasp seems so feeble compared to mine. I could break it easily, but she combs a hand through my hair.

“It’s over, Elisa. It’s done.”

“No, it isn’t. They’re hurting. Let me back in!” I press the power button in the center repeatedly, but the screen stays black.

“There’s no more, child. That was it. Marshall ripped the camera off. There’s nothing left to see.”

Her hands fold around mine again as I process her words. My heart rejects them in every way, yet my mind recognizes the truth, replaying that last image under this new light. Marshall’s hand flying up, but not to defend himself. My fingers stop pushing the button in vain as I stare at the empty screen. “He . . . he was trying to protect everyone else from having to see their torture,” I realize, hearing Marshall’s last words so clearly still. Not your fault, my brother.

“I think that’s a reasonable conclusion, but we will never know. That was the only footage ever recovered.” She strokes my hair again, and I let my arms fall to my sides. Agony is still scorching every crevice of my mind.

Doctor Helen notices the lack of resistance. She unbuckles the monitor and pulls it off as carefully as I do with Aiden. I squint into the sudden light from smoky, blood-red classroom to glimmering snow-white lab. How am I sitting in this same chair? How did I not claw through the earth to that school? How is my body so still despite the violent energy short-circuiting in me? How did I not go blind or deaf from all of it? My senses are still impossibly clear and unobstructed. As is my mind. I can feel it humming in the background, its conclusions inaccessible, just the rhythm. I let it run, focusing now on the silver neuroscientist. She is kneeling before me like she did with Aiden, still a thousand years old, but her grey eyes are full of the same wonder they hold when she looks at him.

“Well-done, Elisa. You brave, brave girl.”

As if I could accept any accolades. There are only two men who deserve them and their soul is buried in that classroom.

“How did you get that video?” I ask even though it’s not the most vital of questions. But its images are still entwining with reality, as if tattooed permanently in my retinas.

She places the monitor back in the box quickly. “Only recently,” she answers. “After Edison’s attack, Corbin reached out to Aiden’s parents and the Marines to prepare them for the end of your relationship and the support they might need to give afterwards. Without telling Aiden of course. We thought if he knew, it would only make his pain and guilt worse.”

I nod, convinced of that axiomatic truth.

“I was also hoping to learn anything that might help, any detail we might have overlooked,” she continues, still on her knees. “But their memories of that horrific time lack Aiden’s accuracy. And, of course, none of them were in that classroom especially for the unconscious part. That’s when Jazzman mentioned the camera offhandedly. Apparently, each recognizance mission involved one. I was surprised but it made perfect sense that Aiden never mentioned it. When has he ever needed videos or photographs that don’t involve you?”

I nod again, thinking of his smile when he takes pictures of me—Peter Pan-ish, like in his tent, as if he’s looking at something he might never reach even though it’s already his.

“Of course, I jumped at the opportunity to learn more about it but, understandably, none of them have ever watched it after it was recovered from Marshall’s body.” Her lined face crumples further. “I understand that collecting it from the . . . the remains . . . was very difficult. None of them has ever been able to touch it, let alone see it.”

Of course they can’t. If that’s how half of Marshall’s body looked before the torture really started, I cannot fathom the end. Agony rages in my chest, utterly unabated. “Then how were you able to get it?”

“Has Aiden told you about General Sartain?”

My mind instantly retrieves everything I know about the name. “He’s the man who discovered Aiden, his mentor at the CIA. He helped Javier.”

She nods with a strained smile. “The Marines thought if anyone might still have the footage, it would be him. Apparently, he is very fond of Aiden. Jazzman put us in contact, and the General called me personally three days ago.”

Her answer surprises me, and I thought nothing else could reach me now. “He did?”

“Quite eagerly. Obviously, I didn’t share any details other than we’re trying to assist. But he understood the urgency. He emailed Corbin and me the video only after we signed an agreement not to share it—an agreement I breached today. The General, Corbin, I, and now you are the only four people in the world who have watched it in full. And all of us, except you, needed multiple breaks.”

Her eyes sparkle with awe again, but I can’t accept it. “Not even Marshall’s family or Jasmine? He loved her so much . . .” My voice that hasn’t shaken once since the protein, trembles now. At the mention of love, something airy and cool starts trickling through me like spring water, soothing the burn of agony.

“According to the General, he offered it to Jasmine and Marshall’s family, but none of them were able to watch past the pipes.”

In an odd way, this relieves me. At least they only saw Marshall as he was: alive, whole, in love.

“But you did, Elisa.” Admiration bends Doctor Helen’s commanding voice. “You watched every minute. You lived through your worst fear of Aiden getting hurt.”

“Did I?” I whisper even though the evidence of my life signs is everywhere around me. In the steady monitor beeps. In my heart and brain waves swelling and rising deeply with pain.

Her eyes flit to them, and she takes my hand.  “Absolutely. Now take a moment to recover and we can talk about the results.”

My mind doesn’t need a moment, but my heart must. Everywhere I feel, it hurts, but it’s a bodiless pain. Physically, mentally, I’m still brimming with power. I could pulverize that school, that entire desert with my bare hands. But emotionally . . .

“Would you like some water?” Doctor Helen offers, her forehead creased with worry.

“No, I’m all right.”

She surprises me again with a true half-smile this time. “Yes, you are. You were braver beyond any degree I could have dared to hypothesize. The protein works, Elisa.”

I know this, of course. I don’t need the data to tell me the protein does what it promises. All the other times in my life I thought I was being courageous were pale imitations to the bravery I felt during the video. But I still need to be certain for Aiden.

“Are you sure?” I ask, staring at the vast screens with images of his memory.

“There’s no question about it. Your heart rate didn’t rise even to the level of nerves, let alone fear or anxiety. It was remarkable.”

“And it will work the same for Aiden, too?”

Doctor Helen’s grey eyes are clear of any doubt. “Yes. With his singular mind, we will not know for certain how much and for how long until he takes it. But it’s safe to conclude that whatever courage you felt, his will be even stronger given his heightened perception and memory.”

And there it is. The true question. The implications of the protein my mind is still unravelling. “But there was also a lot of pain,” I say, looking at the monitor where the beeps are quiet, and the waves are oscillating deeply.

Doctor Helen is staring at them too. “Yes, and there still is. There were moments during it—especially at the end—where I debated stopping the video. But your processing remained astonishingly clear. The only sharper perception I have witnessed is Aiden’s himself.”

Aiden himself . . . The meaning behind the words echoes like the aftershocks of the IEDs.

Something on my face must clue Doctor Helen to my thoughts because she clutches my hand. “You already understand what this means, don’t you?”

I nod, wishing I didn’t. “That the pain will be stronger for him, too. And not just stronger, but extreme given how expansive his mind already is.” For the first time since the protein, my voice hesitates. Because this is only half of the truth.

Doctor Helen utters the other. “Yes, and the startle reflex, as well. Because that’s not based only on fear. It began with terror, but over the years, it has become an automatic response that is triggered by surprise: an entirely distinct emotion. Based on your data, I don’t believe the protein can heal it.”

My teeth clench against that half of the truth, agony still growing. Isn’t there a way to do both? To give Aiden this sense of power, of unshakable confidence I felt even during the video, but without the excruciating pain? “Did you see anything in the video that might help?” I ask, my mind racing in every time dimension for answers.

Her face grows somber as she shakes her head. “Unfortunately no. Aiden’s memory is as precise as I had feared. What about you? Your perception was certainly sharper than mine.”

I try to replay everything but sense a wall of resistance, as if my mind is blocking it. I decide to trust my brain—or rather the protein—to guide me. Perhaps bravery too has its limits. “I’m still trying to think through it all,” I admit. “But I know it’s not possible to change the formula to ease the pain. I’m convinced that’s another reason why dad kept it a secret.”

Another grave nod. “I think you’re right,” she says in her way that doesn’t soften any truth. “But remember, all emotions except fear are strengthened by the protein. The good ones as well. Love, joy, hope . . . perhaps that will be enough in the end to lay Marshall at rest.”

Perhaps. It’s not an answer the protein can give us today. But at that big, little word—love—agony stutters again. My mind grips the four letters, concentrating only on Aiden’s brilliant light still pulsating in the center of my entire being. And that one single emotion—love—blasts forward with a force that nullifies everything else. Impossibly, it has grown during my own reel. Soaring to summits I never knew I had inside me, even more staggering than the agony. Then washing down from its Everestian peaks like glacial water, flooding every cell, every space between every neuron, until it douses the searing pain. Not like it’s gone—as long as the protein is in my system, I will continue to feel everything but fear—but like I’m out of its grip. Free in that expanse of infinite possibility still spanning endlessly before me. In the faith that I will save Aiden, that no one and nothing can get through me.

“I have to go,” I say, ripping off the electrode at my temple.

She does not seem surprised by my sudden change—after all the waves on the computer have changed again. They are fluttering gently now like the calmest summer sea, the beeps chiming to their musical beat. She starts taking off the electrodes immediately in silence as if she knows I need the moment. When all the wires are gone, and I’m back in my blouse and locket, she hands me the vial with the remaining two doses and throws mum’s parka over my shoulders.

“Trust your instincts,” she tells me. “They have not led you astray with Aiden yet. And now you also have your experience and knowledge.”

I nod, tucking the vial in the inside pocket of the parka. Its warmth seeps through the layers next to my heart. “I hope they will be enough.”

“As do I, child. Go while the protein is still working. The reel may be a lot different with him fearless, and you might need your strength.”

“What do you expect?”

She stares beyond me again, at the images of Aiden’s memory on the blue screens. “As we just learned with you, the mind has a lot more room to perceive without fear. I think it will be excruciating and it will take Aiden longer to return from the reel.”

I suspected the latter already—my time perception during the video was warped, feeling like years and seconds. “How much longer do you think?”

She blinks from the glow of his memory back to me. “For as long as it takes him to process. We have no precedent for this. Give him the time but stand by him. Use whatever it takes to bring him back.”

A ripple of determination tears through me. “I will.”

“Call me if you need me. And keep track when your bravery ends. Let’s meet again in a couple of days to take stock and see how Aiden is feeling.”

In the storm of super-emotions, gratitude flares for this woman. A general on her own, a moonbeam in the underground tunnels of our psyches, who broke her rules to help us, however doomed we might be. Gently, I wrap my arms around her waist. Something I would have never dared without bravery. Her frame is harder than I would have imagined, yet it seems so breakable to me.

“Thank you,” I tell her. “For showing me the video.”

A frisson of tension runs through her. “Was I right to do so?” Her voice is hesitant again.

“More than you can ever know,” I answer, and I mean it. That sense of conviction, of rightness blazes in my chest right next to the warm vial. Is it the protein? Or is it me daring to trust myself? “I would take that pain every hour for the chance to save him.”

She hugs me back once, and then I release my new body. Pushing my legs into long strides toward the only hope we have left.©2022 Ani Keating

NINETY DAYS: CHAPTER 33 – POWER

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a joyful holiday season even if the world is still testing all of us right now. I wish all the good health, peace, and joy for you for 2022! These wishes used to sound cliche but the more we seem to lack them, the more r-e-a-l they feel. And to help with the hope part, here is another chapter. I’m sorry I’m taking forever. I wish it didn’t have to be that way, but my health has taken a lot from me and my family so there are some days I can’t write at all. I am very thankful for those of you reading and understanding, even though there is so little left to go in the story. Thank you for all your support, kindness, messages, and of course, your love for this story. It makes me smile even in the darkest of days to have created something that has brought you joy.  Here is Chapter 33 — Power– to charge us up for the new year.  Lots of good wishes and love, Ani

33

Power

Days pass. Even in hell. Even if every hour is no longer a reel of brilliancy, but of pain. One agonizing moment to another, all dragging together into a battle for survival. Each night is more silent than a grave—Aiden no longer sleeps in the cottage or the garden. He stays out in Elysium where he used to watch the reel, the only place in Burford that holds traumatic memories for him. Each day is more distant than America—his touch has vanished with his gaze. He barely eats or speaks. And each dawn is darker than Fallujah even though a light is always on in the cottage. Darker because we don’t wake up together. Darker because his eyes don’t brighten in bliss anymore. And darker because I don’t want to wake up at all.

But I am wide awake, sitting up in my childhood bed, trying to breathe through another dawn. Day sixty-five is here. Ten days since the end. Only thirty left until the last goodbye. Happiness has shifted—it has become the past.

The serrated wound in my chest flares painfully. It grows stronger by the hour, but I don’t grow stronger against it. I simply have found the only thing that keeps me breathing for Aiden. I bury my face in his favorite sweatshirt that I now wear every night. He hasn’t worn it in ten days, but his scent still lingers, lacing with my own. Slowly, my airways start to open and I can inhale. In and out, in and out until my old bedroom stops spinning.

I climb out of bed one stiff leg at a time, shoving aside the stacks of paper with useless protein formulas, and peer out of the open window. The garden is still funeral black except the column of light pouring from our happy bedroom across the hall. “The light is always on above our door,” Aiden wrote in his homecoming war letter. “The curtain is always moving.” But night after night, he doesn’t knock, the cottage doesn’t tremble with his arrival.

I breathe into his sweatshirt again, swaying on the spot. A waft of rose breeze steals inside as if it knows I can’t find air on my own. I squint harder into the darkness even though I can’t see his unmistakable form. But perhaps our lines of sight will meet, the way our eyes used to at this hour. Because I know he is awake like me. Neither of us seems able to sleep without the other around. I watch the golden light glowing from our blissful window, seeing only turquoise until the black sky changes to indigo and I can pretend to wake up. Then I shamble down the stairs to start again even if it’s making no difference. I don’t know how my body moves forward, but I have to keep going. If I stop, Aiden will miss even a moment of calm. If I stop, I have to accept that it’s over. And I can’t do that.

His absence follows me around the cottage like a shadow. In the closed door of our happy bedroom. In the silence of Für Elise. In the skylark that hasn’t sung from the beech tree since the music stopped playing. In the foyer where Aiden’s boots are missing. In the lack of his morning coffee in the air. I start a pot of his favorite Italian roast, my mind wailing the same constant refrain: How can I save him? Why isn’t the protein working? How can I convince him to restart the reel?

Outside, the garden shed that houses the evil seems to call with an icy whisper. My hands shake, but not just from the torture leashed within. I shudder because we have stopped fighting it. How did that monitor transform from my worst dread to my best hope? It took only two words from Doctor Helen: “only chance.” The only chance to bury Marshall so Aiden can survive losing me. Unless I succeed with the protein. But no matter how many hours I spend calculating and testing, no matter the endless combinations I have tried, bravery remains as elusive as the dream of us.

The cast iron pan drops from my hands with a loud clang. I pick it up methodically and start Aiden’s favorite breakfast—dippy eggs with bacon and crispy potatoes. Not that it matters what it is. All I can taste is the acrid bitterness of my mouth without his kiss. But I will force it down for him, and he will swallow it for me. Still, I pour his coffee in my thermos, set a Baci on the side, garnish with an Elisa petal—any detail that triggers my calming effect on him, triggers and holds it through the hours apart. Serotonin and oxytocin formulas drum like a second tic toc in my head, replacing dad’s broken one on my wrist. Fifth time. Not December. Add love.

Over the horizon, the sky starts to lighten. I pack everything in my basket and slip out of the door. The air is sultry outside, lacking the usual early bite. Summer is burning off its final heat with us. Hope the Hybrid is fluttering its single leaf on the threshold. A twilight filter turns the roses blue like the color I am missing. They are still sleeping in their garden beds that Aiden just mulched and enriched. Because like I am trying to fortify him for the end, he is doing the same for me, from the moment he pretends to wake up to the moment he pretends to fall asleep. Clean the gutters, repair the roof, fix the shutters, chop wood, establish a grant to Oxford’s Chemistry Department to secure my research, set up my trust fund, retain lawyers against Edison—everything and anything so I lack for nothing after he leaves. Nothing except my very life.

I sniff his sweatshirt again and stumble down the path to find him, whatever he is taking care of today.

I don’t have to go far. I spot him on the riverbank by the willows, standing out in his white T-shirt and ripped jeans, back to me. He is carrying something massive in his arms I can’t identify from here. I teeter closer, bracing for the nameless agony I know I will see on his face. Even ten days later, I still cannot breathe through it, sweatshirt or no sweatshirt. It’s not something any living thing can get used to.

If he hears me coming, he doesn’t turn around. He heaves the huge mass—a burly stump—to the edge of the bank and picks up an enormous slab of riverbed rock. As I step through the willows both terrified and curious, I realize he is hefting around a mountain of hulking things— boulders, dead tree trunks, logs—hauling them to the river. The powerful bands of muscle in his arms and back ripple with the movement. He doesn’t groan or huff from the effort; he is entirely silent. The garden spade, fork, and wheelbarrow rest some feet away. My chest throbs as I realize he must have been up all night doing this . . . whatever it is.

“Morning,” I croak.

He freezes, boulder in hands, and I guess he is rearranging his features for me. It takes twelve chemical elements before he drops the rock—the ground quakes under my feet—and turns around. Even with the flush of exercise, his beautiful face is hollowed and pale. Or at least what can be seen of it above the thick, dark beard. Every flicker of emotion is suspended in his scorched expression, but despite his iron restraint, the pain is palpable in the air. I can feel it on my fingertips, taste it on my tongue. It has snaked through each pore of him, binding to his DNA until it has transformed him inside out. If he wasn’t embedded in my own cells, if his face wasn’t perfectly carved in my neural pathways, I wouldn’t recognize him.

His eyes meet mine with divided allegiance: half resisting my calm, half giving in for me as he promised.

“Good morning,” he answers. His voice has lost its music like the cottage has lost Für Elise. I have to grip the trunk of a willow not to run to him and take him in my arms.

“Umm, what are you doing?”

He breaks eye contact and picks up another huge slate of limestone. “Reinforcing the riverbank before the rains really start. I don’t want you to have to deal with any flooding come winter.”

“Ah . . .” I don’t tell him that I’d rather drown than live through any storms after he is gone. It would only hurt him more. “Thank you. Of course you’d think of this.”

He stacks the rock on top of the other and attacks a muscular log he must have collected downstream.

“Aiden, love, that looks really heavy. I don’t want you to get hurt. At least wait for Benson and you can do it together.”

“I’ll be fine.” He hoists the log over his shoulder and wedges it between the slabs of concrete. He moves with determination, as though something vital depends on him finishing this.

“Where did you learn how to do that?” I ask, suddenly unable to carry my wicker basket.

“The Corps.”

The place that started it all for him and is ending it all for us. “Why don’t you take a break for a bit? I brought some breakfast. Will you eat with me?”

He wrestles a boulder of granite, rolling it down to the bank. I don’t wait for his answer—I can’t. I drop on the dewy grass before my knees give out and start taking out the food. Perhaps he will actually eat out here, where we first listened to the willows together. That perfect memory of hope shimmers in my vision, filling me with longing. He rips off his work gloves with a sigh and tosses them by his tools. I see him stride toward me from the corner of my eye, but I don’t look up to give him the moment. I focus on spreading out our picnic blanket, setting out the plates, hoping he allows himself some calm as he watches.

“Here.” I pat the blanket when I finish. “Come on, sit with me.”

“Thank you,” he answers, but he doesn’t sit close. He folds on the other side of the blanket, seeming as far as across the ocean. Grief crackles in the space between us like static. The compulsion to touch him becomes acute to the point of pain. And even though I have waited all night to see him, abruptly I feel as though one gaze from him would shatter me. But he is staring at the breakfast spread like it’s going to devour him, not he it. I wrap my arms around my torso so they don’t move on their own. His hands are closed into tight fists on his knees.

“Eat something,” I coax. “It’s not as good as when your mum makes it, but it has happy memories.”

“It’s beautiful, but I’ll eat when you do.”

It takes river-harnessing strength to unravel my fingers and pick up a forkful of crispy potatoes. He mirrors my movements, swallowing hard as if the bacon turns to glass in his throat. We eat slowly, bite after bite in silence, except the willows’ lament. It swells around us like a siren song.

“Do you still hear them?” I whisper, listening to their chorus.

He nods, taking a sip of coffee from my thermos, his lips wrapping where mine do. I’m too afraid to ask him what he hears, and I don’t want him to ask me back. How can I answer ashes, ashes, ashes?

“Did you get any sleep at all last night?” I ask instead. Another question with a difficult answer, but one worth fighting about.

“About as much as you.”

How can I lie about that? How can I tell him the truth and make him feel worse? “But you need sleep a lot more than I do right now. Did you listen to Für Elise?”

“I have things to take care of, Elisa. There isn’t a lot—”

He stops abruptly, but he doesn’t need to finish. I know. There isn’t a lot of time left to secure my entire life before he leaves. My fingers break through my flimsy control and grip his free hand. Warmth shoots up my spine even though his skin is wintry from the night. I know I should drop it—even this slight contact makes him shudder—but the feel of it, so homey and strong, seeps into my bones, nestling there like marrow. “Aiden, I really wish you would come inside at night.”

He pulls back his hand, his eyes burning like the absence of his touch. “Elisa, not this again.”

“Please, just listen. We don’t have to sleep in the same bed or even bedroom—I know you won’t do that—but you can sleep in the guestroom or the sofa where it’s warm and comfortable.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ve told you, the ground feels more natural to me in times like this.”

He did—the first time I saw his Alone Place. Of course he will revert to the habits that kept him alive then. “Just because it feels natural doesn’t mean it’s good for you. We have to do the opposite now. You should be in the cottage where you have happy and calm memories, not on the spot that has tortured you every morning.”

“We had to do the opposite when we thought it would work. It didn’t. But I’ll use Für Elise, if it will help yousleep.”

“But that song is only one thing, love. Corbin, Doctor Helen, even you have said that being around me adds hours of rest for you, and a deeper sleep. Even if we’re not in the same bed, the effect of all the other calming and happy associations in the cottage will help, so that you can heal enough for what’s ahead.”

He sets down the thermos, not responding or looking my way. Perhaps he has nothing more to say. Or perhaps like me, he doesn’t think anything can prepare him.

“Please, Aiden,” I press. “I hate knowing you’re out here at night, thinking God-knows-what when we should be together for the time we have left.”

Something changes in his face then, almost a shadow of his former anger. His eyes flash to mine. “And then what?” he asks in a low, hoarse voice. “We wake up together on September eighteen and I load up on a plane? Won’t it be hard enough without this? You want to add one more thing we’re going to miss? I stay out here so you can start getting used to what it would be like, Elisa. I stay out here because I don’t know how to breathe through sharing your home but not your touch.”

All my arguments die in my throat. Because he is right: it is hard enough, excruciating. Even breathing—this most elemental function we can do from the moment we’re born—feels impossible, and he is still here. How much more unbearable will it be after he is gone? I’m not brave enough to find out yet. But he has already started enduring it, and it’s destroying him by the hour.

“You’re right,” I finally manage some words. “I will miss sleeping next to you most of all. I just don’t think we should start missing it now.”

“When will it ever be the right time to miss it, Elisa?” He sounds abruptly tired. He rips away his gaze, staring downstream toward the boulder that almost killed me. All light douses in his eyes. Between us, his plate of food lays unfinished, the Baci untouched.

Never, I want to answer, but that will not help him. Only one thing can help him now.

“On September eighteen, love. And there is something that may make it livable then for you, but we need to restart it now.”

He understands immediately. He shakes his head, never looking away from the lethal boulder. “I’m not restarting the reel—we talked about this. I will not expose you to it again. I have not forgotten what it does to you.”

And I have not forgotten what it does to him. I fight back a shiver. “Aiden, there’s no one in this world, except you, who hates the reel more than I do. But I agree with Doctor Helen. We have to prepare you. We have to lay Marshall at rest so you’re freer for . . .” I can’t say the end out loud, but I know he hears it. He stares unseeingly into the grey depths of the river.

“It’s like those slabs of rock, sweetheart,” I continue, unable to stop. “You can’t carry them all at once. You have to lift them one by one.”

“That’s my problem, and I’m not about to unload that burden on you.”

“I’m stronger than you think. And this is as important to me as my protection is to you.”

His jaw flexes in that fury-at-himself way. “I have no doubt about your strength, but the fact that you are strong doesn’t give me permission to put you through hell.”

“You’re not putting me through anything. This is my choice.”

“Exactly. And it is my choice not to expose you to more horror. It was one thing when you stood to gain something from it. It’s quite another now when you would be terrorized simply for my benefit.” His fists tighten against the idea.

“It’s not just for your benefit. It’s for everyone who loves you, too.” Not that I could ever endure the reel for anyone else. I’d rather live through my parents’ funeral a thousand times over than see him watch one more minute of that torment.

“Same answer. You will not be the sacrificial lamb for everyone who has to bear the burden of loving me.”

What a catch-twenty-two we have snared for ourselves. Never brave enough to hurt each other, but brave enough to die in the other’s stead. How can I ever break this tie? There is no argument or logic he will accept. And the only thing that can give us courage is still an unsolved mess. Abruptly, even with all the things left unsaid and the hours racing toward the end, I want to sprint to Bia.

“Loving you is never a burden,” I say, starting to pack up the basket. “Only Fallujah is, and I will not let you carry it alone.” My hands shake at the thought, and my plate slips through my fingers. But his hand flashes out and saves it before it drops on the grass. For a second, our arms brush, his breath whispers on my cheek. Just one second, yet my body responds with vengeance. It turns to him on its own, leaning into his chest like a bolt sliding home. He catches me reflexively, and our eyes meet—then hold. The small space between us closes and changes. Electricity starts to charge in the warm air blowing through our lips. He gazes into my eyes as his blue depths start to lighten, first with calm, then with heat. There is no question of me blinking away. Even my heart seems to stop. My breath comes out fast and ragged, my skin thrumming with his nearness. His own body tenses in response, and his hands grip my waist. For a second, I think he will rip off his favorite sweatshirt, but he doesn’t. He clenches his jaw and shuts his eyes, breaking the spell. Slowly, I feel his fingers loosen, and his arms release me.

“Be safe at Bia.” His voice is rough; his eyes still closed as if he cannot bear to watch. And I know he needs me to leave. I know he chose the healthier option for us both even if it feels like death to me. But for a few moments, I can’t move despite the urgency for the protein. All I can do is watch his face—beautiful beyond limit even if strained with desire and ache.

“Please, Elisa,” he murmurs without opening his eyes.

I gather every wisp of strength from every crevice of my mind and force myself into motion. Except the only thing my limbs can muster is to caress his scar. His breathing hitches with mine, and he shudders under my fingertips. But the L-shaped ridge above his eye reconnects my body to my brain, and I’m able to remember all the reasons why I should run to the lab right now. With more effort than it took to lift coffins, immigration denials, or reels, I pick up my basket and take out the small, ancient stereo, pressing the play button. Für Elise starts weaving with the willow song. Aiden’s eyes fling open. “Use my calm and love, please,” I tell him. “At least until I make you something stronger.”

“There’s nothing stronger,” he answers, his voice still coarse.

I pull myself to my feet, summoning serotonin formulas for strength to leave him here. To find what he needs more than anything. I sense his eyes on me as I dart through the willow garlands. Help me, Dad. Give Aiden peace until I get back, Mum. This is our last chance.

Back inside the cottage, I storm like a tornado through my new getting-ready routine. Wearing Aiden’s socks, spraying his cologne on my neck and wrists, tucking the locket against my chest as if to fill the burning hole gaping there, layering only clothes that trigger happy memories—all like armor to help me breathe. Then I start doing the same for him: sprinkle my Aeternum perfume on his clothes now in the linen cupboard in the foyer, set Für Elise on repeat throughout the cottage in case he comes in. I’m propping a photo of me in the fridge when the door knocks, but I know it’s not Aiden. Benson is towering on the threshold like every morning at this hour to drive me, even though the danger is long gone and Edison is behind bars. But we both know it’s easier on Aiden if I’m not alone.

“Morning, Benson,” I say, grabbing mum’s parka for strength, not warm. “How did you sleep?”

“Fine. How was the night here?”

“The same . . . so worse I should say.”

He frowns, pointing behind his shoulder with his thumb. “I see he’s taken on the river today.”

“The river, the forests, his own self.”

“Don’t worry,” he says as I break into a run down the garden path. “I’ll check on him during the day.”

“Thank you. I don’t know what we would do without you.”

He smiles but it doesn’t wipe the creases on his forehead. “You won’t have to find out.”

The ride to Bia is short as Benson speeds through the sapphire dawn. It’s as though he knows without speaking that I can’t waste a single second. I will miss him terribly when he is gone. This gentle, quiet presence protecting us at every turn. And not just him, but the whole new constellation Aiden has chartered for me. As if hearing the very thought, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I yank it out with greed, knowing exactly who is up with us at this hour across the globe.

Stella: Darling, I pray you got some sleep. We love you both. We’re with you. I overnighted another care package with happy things. It should get there tomorrow afternoon your time. Please call when you can. Oh, how I wish I were there!

Robert: Elisa, we were talking: what if we came and stayed in London or somewhere closer in case you need us? Would Doctor Helen and Corbin approve of that?

Javier: Amorcita, how did the night go? Let me know when you can chat. Love you. You’re not alone. I can come right back.

Reagan: Isa, I’m packed and ready. Say the word and I’ll be there. Don’t let Aiden go, no matter what anyone says. Xo.

James Callahan: Hey pest, you up yet? How’s he? Helen and Corbin are on my shitlist. Why the fuck can’t we come?

Ryan Hendrix: Hey Trouble! What Cal said. Fuck the docs. We want to be there.

Jazzman: We can’t be there if the docs think it would hurt him, Cal. That’s the whole fucking point. They obvs have a plan. It’s not Elisa’s choice.

James Callahan: What the fuck do they know? We’ve always stuck together before.

Jazzman: But this time Elisa can help him more with her calming effect than we can with our triggers. Are you a fucking neuroscientist now? Elisa, ignore him. What else can we do to help?

James Callahan: Fuck this. I’m getting on a plane.

I almost drop the phone, heart in shreds. Because they have every right to want to be here. If only it wouldn’t make it worse for Aiden. But how much worse than this can it get? I shiver just thinking the question. Every time I ask it, a new wave of horror finds a way to drown us. I thumb back a reply, needing auto-correct multiple times from my trembling fingers.

Hey all, thank you for everything. Sorry for the group text, but I’m on my way to work. I’ll talk to Doctor Helen again today and let you know what she says. In the meantime, can each of you text Aiden some photos of your day? Only happy or positive images, no words—that should reduce the negative triggers. I’ll call you after work. Love you.

My text bubble has barely floated on the screen when Benson curves around the chemistry car park, skidding to a stop. I missed the whole ride here. Outside Rover’s window, Oxford’s golden heartline sparkles with the first rays of sun. But its soft glow burns my retinas, harsher than all the combined sunrises Aiden and I have watched together, wrapped around each other. I shove my phone in my purse and hop out of the car before Benson can get to my door.

“Late again tonight?” he confirms.

“And every other night until I solve this. I’ll be in the lab all day—Doctor Helen will check on me. You stay with him, please. Make sure you both eat. His favorite chicken soup is in the fridge. Cora sent me the recipe.”

“Don’t worry, Isa. Focus on whatever smart thing you’re doing to help him. Believe it or not, physical labor can help with things like this. The harder, the better.” He winks, trying to cheer me up, but doesn’t move as I sprint across the quad to the chemistry building. I’m already deep in serotonin calculations by the time I bound inside the lobby.

And then for a few seconds it’s like returning to England all over again. The news of Edison’s betrayal has exploded, and curious, blood-shot eyes follow me everywhere despite the early hour. But dad’s bust waits for me like a steadying anchor. I resist stroking his bronze cheek and dart down the hall, looking down at my Byron sneakers.

I burst through Bia’s door, expecting it to be empty, but Graham is there already, hunched over his workstation, staring at the gleaming tiles in his rain jacket. I don’t expect that either—he is never in the lab without his white coat, doing nothing. He looks up at me, no sunny smile on his drawn face. But at least that look is now familiar. He hasn’t smiled once since Edison’s blow, even though the coppers, Oxford, and Aiden’s own private investigation cleared him of any involvement.

“Morning, Graham,” I say, feeling a twinge of sorrow and even more regret that I can’t be alone yet. “You beat me today—did you have a spark?”

He shakes his head and stands. Only now I notice a small package in his hand, wrapped in lab paper. “No sparks; only wanted to catch you before you got started.” His desolate voice derails me from my own hell, and regret becomes worry.

“Graham, what is it? You sound really upset.”

He seems to force a small smile. “I’m taking leave for a while. I just wanted to give you this.” He hands me the white rectangle while I try to blink through this surprise.

“Leave? But why? You love Bia. The 2-AG is your life.”

“That’s precisely why. I’ve been doing loads of thinking, Eliser. If I hadn’t been so obsessed with that bloody molecule, I’d have seen Edison for who he was. Instead, I was so consumed, I ended up passing him information that almost got you hurt. I—” His breath catches, but he squares his shoulders. “I’m sorrier than I could ever say. I was a rubbish friend, a miserable mentor, and an all-around disappointment.”

“No, don’t say that!” I argue, my throat tightening. The only friend I’ve made here, a brilliant chemist on his own right who adored my father, is now exiling himself from the very axis of his life, because of my mistakes. “This wasn’t your fault at all. None of us saw Edison for who he was, not even me and I had several red flags.”

He shakes his head again. “Professor Snow knew it. I’m sure of it now. That’s why he left me no clues about the protein. He must have known I’d fall for the arsehole’s lies. I disappointed your father, too, and almost stained his legacy. I deserve this and a lot worse.”

“Of course you don’t!” I counter, trying to think of a truth I can share with him. “I think dad was protecting you, Graham. If he suspected Edison, he would have never placed you at risk. That’s why he didn’t tell you, not because he didn’t trust you.”

He squints at the package in my hand as he does when he tries to solve the 2-AG algorithms, hopefully believing me. “Your father is exactly who I aspired to be,” he says after a moment.

“You can still be like him. Don’t go now. You’re—we’re lab partners . . . friends.”

He smiles again without any sunshine, but this seems more real. “You don’t need me, Eliser. I’ve known for a while you’re light years ahead in this. You have his brain. You will solve the protein, I just need to get out of your way.” He raises an eyebrow slightly, and suddenly I have a feeling he knows I have been hiding something, a secret a lot more important than he ever told Edison.

“I don’t need you just to solve chemistry problems. I’ll miss you as a friend. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Stay, and we can start over,” I say, even though “starting” has nothing to do with me. But I realize now how much I was counting on his presence. Aiden will leave forever—all love, life, meaning, purpose will be over. Javier is just starting the stratospheric future that has been waiting for him. Reagan will hopefully be by his side as he reaches all his dreams. The Solises have finally found their peace. And the Plemmonses will eventually pass away. But Graham was supposed to be the constant in this imploded cloud of ash. Avogadro’s Number expressed in our devotion to chemistry, our mutual admiration for dad. I thought perhaps this is how I would exist after September eighteen: working with Graham in this lab, both married to science with zero romantic interest, both missing the compass of our lives, him striving toward an ideal, me trying to breathe away from it. I didn’t imagine I was going to lose even that.

Perhaps he senses some of this, more emotionally perceptive than he would ever guess. “Despite the wanker, you have a lot of friends here, Eliser. Let them in.” He reaches in his pocket and fishes out his keys to Bia, dropping them on my desk. “I’ve recommended you as interim lab manager until they find someone more senior. That way you’ll have Bia to yourself. And if you stay true to who you are, I think you’ll run this place someday.”

He runs his hand over his workstation and passes by me while I watch more versions of the future fade away.

“I don’t want to run Bia,” I counter even though I can sense it will be futile. “I’d rather work with dad’s favorite student. Maybe a protein for detecting wankers early next time? Or cure unnecessary guilt?”

He pauses at the door, looking over his shoulder with a faint smile. “Don’t name a bench after me yet. I might be back eventually. Until then, take care of that.” He points at the package in my hand. “Your father gave it to me my first year when I ruined my first experiment.” His butterscotch eyes sweep over Bia one last time, and then he is gone.

I stare at the closed door, feeling off balance. How many times have I wished he would leave so I had time to test alone, and now that he has, I can’t imagine Bia without him at the helm. It seems unnatural, like a rose without petals or Oxford without its spires. Not as life-ending as a world without Aiden—nothing can ever compare to that—but lonely in its own way. Not to mention the added worry it will cause Aiden to hear that I lost a friend, especially a friend that was safe. What can I do to hide it from him with how determined he is to leave everything in order? It’ll be easier to clone Graham than keep this a secret.

I rip the paper off the small package, riddled with guilt. Inside is a silver frame, but that’s not what makes me gasp. It’s the letter it contains in dad’s slanted script.

Graham, he has written,

Don’t despair. There’s no such thing as a failed experiment. There’s only trying, then trying again. And when things seem hopeless, step outside. Everything is better after a deep breath of fresh air. I prefer the old bench myself. It has a rare magic. You may use it anytime.

I caress the glass cover as the words become blurry with tears. I know the magic he meant—it was the magic of love, of our carved initials that I told Aiden about. Not that Graham would have known that, but he obviously cherished this simple wisdom for years. And now he gave it to me despite his own need. I set the frame on his workstation, take a photo of it with my phone, and text it to him.

Thank you. It will wait for you here while you take a deep breath. Do it and come back.

Three grey dots hesitate on the screen, then his answer pops up: Keep at it, Eliser.

And I know I won’t hear from him again for a long while. I hope he finds his oxygen even as I struggle for mine.

I wipe my eyes and follow dad’s advice. Try again. Because I cannot fail this experiment. In failing at this, I forfeit my will to live. And Aiden cannot survive that. I throw on the lab coat and wheel to the fridge, taking out the ampules of serotonin and the twelfth oxytocin. My hands steady the moment I touch the cold glass, then my fingers start flying through the motions with the same desperation that Aiden is moving boulders. Quicker than any other time in my life even though I no longer have Graham to race. But another deadline, deadlier than all the others, is looming closer by the second. And all those frenzied prior experiments—in the first dark days in England, the hours waiting for Javier’s trial, the rage at dad—seem peaceful compared to the current horror. The pipettes seem to fuse with my bones, becoming their own entity. But no matter how many serotonin doses I try, the solution stays the same old indigo sap, bubbling here and there like boiling mud. Still I keep injecting more serotonin with manic precision, milliliter after milliliter, ampule after ampule, molecule of fear after molecule of fear—ninety vials, one hundred, tic toc, tic toc—until abruptly dizziness strikes. A sudden weakness lashes at my knees, and I grip the workstation for balance. What on earth is happening?

I drop on the stool, blinking through my tunnel vision to make sense of the change. And then I see it. The clock on the wall, ticking away time. Bloody hell, no wonder I almost collapsed! How is it already two thirty? How have I worked nine hours straight without any food or break? Even worse, how did I not make a single difference? The crystal vial rests in front of me useless, filled with blue sludge. I almost hurl it in the sink and set it on fire. But I’m still dizzy and have made a promise to be safe. A promise I just broke like a thousand vials. Aiden would be besides any remnant of self if he saw this fiasco, and he would be absolutely right. I wouldn’t put him past him to hire someone to spoon-feed me three times a day, plus snacks.

I rest my cheek on the cool porcelain tiles and close my eyes, waiting for the vertigo to pass. I try to feel past the terror and anger at myself and think only of his sandalwood cologne filling my lungs. And quickly, dizziness subsides. That’s when I realize my other mistake. In my focus, I forgot to keep breathing. What hope do we have if I can’t handle oxygen and chemistry at the same time? Especially when we need both to survive.

I lift my head—it’s pounding now—and stand slowly, testing my legs. All that’s needed to end the world is me spraining my ankle on top of everything else. On Graham’s empty workstation, dad’s frame reflects the fluorescents. When things seem hopeless, step outside. Well, they’ve never been more hopeless than now. I decide to trust him again. What else do I have left?

Carefully, I use the restroom, gulp some water, then grab my lunch and shuffle out to the quad. As soon as I step outside, a light breeze cools my clammy face. The afternoon sun has gilded the air with a molten haze. Students and professors hurry by, some peeking at me, others carrying on with their day. I trudge to the bench with its new bronze plaque, taking a deep breath, concentrating only on the gasping flow. Is this ever going to get any easier? Or will it always feel like a war just to find air, let alone inhale it? I don’t mind for myself—I would fight that war every minute because if I breathe, Aiden breathes. But isn’t there anything left I can do to make this easier for him?

I draw another gulp of fresh breeze and eat my BLT sarnie, trying to think. What am I missing here? Is it just a matter of finding the right dosage or do I need an entirely new element or two or three? Why did you make it so difficult, Dad? There are no answers in our carved initials under the bench.

Futilely, I open the locket where Aiden’s scroll of oxytocin is tucked with dad’s clue. Both worn from the hundreds of times I have read them.

Fifth time. Not December. Add love.

But no matter how long I stare at the words, I find nothing new. “Fifth time. Not December. Add love,” I mumble under my breath over and over until it sounds like a tongue twister. Fifth time—not December—add love. Fifth times not December add love. 

Abruptly, right then, something clicks! When I chant the words this way—quickly, together like a sentence without periods or breaks—their meaning changes. Their sound transforms. And the entire quad vanishes. Instead, numbers and elements spring in my vision, flitting around like the letters of Solstice Gallery in my sleepwalking dream—the dream that gave me the truth about Aiden and Feign. For a wild second I think it’s another dizzy spell, but it’s not. My mind delivers another verdict now as it did then. The elusive answer, the solution that has been haunting my every minute asleep or awake, the yes to all the prayers and wishes. The very obvious formula I have been missing. The antidote to terror.

“Oh my God!” I choke out. “Bloody hell! Is this—no—yes—it has to be. It’s dad’s style: two meanings in everything! It’s not just three sentences, it’s one key! Holy fuck! How on earth did I miss this?”

I stare at the symbols dancing in my vision, unable to blink. I know I should run and test the theory right now, but I can’t move past the epiphany, past the images as my mind breaks through another barrier. The formula spins out as vividly as if etched in dad’s handwriting under this bench. And not just the formula, but the message behind the clue, the lesson behind the solution.

“Thank you, Dad. I get it now,” I murmur in wonder. “I see it so clearly, but am I too late?”

L-a-t-e. The four letters unfreeze me. The outside world blinks into focus again, but only briefly, just enough blinks to register the elderly groundskeeper frowning at me in concern, and then I’m running. Bursting back through the building doors, crashing into a body, shoving it out of my way, and hurling myself down the hall to Bia, straight at the refrigerator. Then I start ripping out fistfuls of ampules in a tray because if I’m right, it will take more serotonin—a lot more self-love—to erase fear. Sixty times the amount of oxytocin to be exact. Five times twelve, add love. For every milliliter of love you need five times more confidence, more faith in yourself. That must be the true meaning of the clue.

I dump all my old work into the sink and line up everything anew on my station. The 2-AG spun five times, minus magnesium. The twelfth oxytocin, five milliliters. Serotonin, sixty milliliters. And the peptides to bind everything together. My hands don’t shake, but my heart is ricocheting off my ribs. I secure a large vial with clamps and start pouring in the ingredients, watching them change with my throat clenched like closure.

It’s not a transformation like any I have ever seen. It’s almost a dance. First the music of the molecules wrapping around each other. An ahh here, a pop there, a hushed ssss. Then love spins with fear, the purple and golden fluids twirling to a lilac shimmer. One leads, the other follows, one takes, the other gives, but both fading, equal forces bubbling above the flames of the burner, until confidence waltzes in. They vibrate together then, rocketing from a gentle tango to a tribal beat. Blending their atomic crescendo, swirling and pirouetting before my incredulous eyes, faster and faster as the liquid emulsifies. The vial starts to shake in the steel clasps, and a violet smoke spirals from it, igniting into golden sparks. I gasp and duck away reflexively, but the fiery stars don’t scatter. They shoot up like a fountain while, underneath, the viscous potion starts darkening, from violet to orchid. Another ripple billows through the liquid with a hiss. Then in the same second, quicker than I ever could have dreamed, the cloud of vapor dissipates completely and the substance pivots to a full stop.

I watch in a trance the amethyst mixture as it settles fluidly at the bottom of the vial. It’s not the hard candy consistency I had envisioned at all. It’s a wondrous texture, part-liquid, part-solid with a pearlescent aura at the very top like a halo. Yet despite the clarity, it looks oddly impermeable, unyielding.

I stand rooted on the spot, eyes wider than my goggles, not daring to breathe, waiting for . . . anything. Fizzing, exploding, dissolving, or simply waking up. Just another false start. But I know I’m not dreaming because Aiden isn’t here. And because a sense of conviction washes over me, more powerful than instinct. Conviction that this is it. Bravery has arrived. After hundreds of hours, countless tears, endless prayers and searches and calculations and tests, right when it was the last resort, when failure was no option, courage is finally ours.

Yet time ticks away and I still can’t move. The vial of bravery rests confidently, waiting like me.

Waiting for fears to tame, terrors to fight, love to save.

S-a-v-e. It takes only those four letters again. And then I’m the one spinning. Not to swallow the protein, although I’m certain it would not harm me in the slightest, but to do this right for Aiden. I unlock the vial—it’s warm, almost hot to the touch—seal it and wrap it safely inside mum’s parka several times, clutching it to my chest. Then I sprint out of Bia, jumping the stairs two at a time. More students and professors give me a wide berth as I huff and leap out in the quad, but I’m already gone, hurtling down the cobblestoned lanes, flying through doors, catapulting in the lift, toward the only person here I can trust.

It takes only a frantic blink to find the familiar office, but its door is closed. I pound on it with my foot, almost tearing it off its hinges. It flings open and Doctor Helen glowers there with a look of outrage that changes instantly to alarm when she sees me.

“Elisa? Good heavens, whatever has happened? Are you alright?”

“It’s—done!” I wheeze, leaning against the door frame and holding out the crumpled parka for her.

She frowns at the ball of red fabric in my hands. “What’s done? Elisa, what’s the matter? Is Aiden hurt—?”

“No—the—protein—it’s done—it’s here!”

A different shock drops over her face in comprehension as her grey eyes widen beyond her rimless glasses. “I don’t believe it!” she breathes, staring incredulously at the parka hiding the vial even though she can’t see through it.

“Test me!” I splutter while she stands there, frozen. “Test me while I take it—my life signs, its strength, everything! Make sure it’s safe for Aiden.”

That unthaws her. She blinks back at me in unconcealed bewilderment as I had feared. “That’s outrageous. We can’t test it on you—”

“I know it’s safe—I’ve tried it before—but for him I want to do it right. Please, we don’t have time to waste. Every hour he grows worse. Every night, I’m losing him before he’s even gone.”

Conflict implodes in her stunned mien. Science and ethics on one side, requiring rigorous rules for testing, but medicine and humanity on the other, mandating immediate action. It’s not a battle Aiden can afford to lose.

“Please, Doctor Helen!” I rasp again, shoving the protein closer to her hands. “I’m begging. You know I’ll do it anyway. Help me do it right. I have to save him! He will not survive the end without this, and you know it!”

That’s all it takes. The hesitation vanishes from her face. “When you put it that way . . .” And before I can gasp thank you or crumble to my knees in relief, she grabs my elbow as if unsure I can stand anymore and tows me down the hall to her vast lab. The white walls blur past me with the sudden motion, then the myriad of screens blare everywhere, all displaying Aiden’s mind as she must be relentlessly studying it. I almost trip over my feet as she marches us across the polished expanse to the electroencephalograph in the corner that measures Aiden’s heart and brain waves.

“Very well.” Doctor Helen gestures toward the chair where Aiden sat the day she took a photo of our kiss. “Let’s be brave.”

But the second she utters that last word out loud, unmistakable panic implodes inside me. I plop down on his old seat, staring at the stormy images of his memory. So staggering and unfathomable compared to the delicate vial tucked in my chest. Doctor Helen holds out her hands for the protein. “May I take it?” she asks, her voice softer as if she sees the havoc. “I will just place it next to you while we get set up.”

I nod woodenly and hand her my precious cargo. The moment it’s out of my touch, the lab’s cold air nips my fingers. A shiver slithers down my spine. She sets the parka undisturbed on her control desk with the wires of electrodes fraying out of it like nerves.

“I’ll need you to remove your blouse, Elisa,” she adds, sounding apologetic. “Please, don’t be embarrassed. No one will dare to come here with me inside, I promise.”

I manage another nod and start wrestling with my locket and buttons, but my hands are shaking so much that she has to help me. I don’t know why, but now that I’m sitting here on this chair, a terror unlike any other I have ever felt crushes me. The policeman telling me there has been an accident was nothing. The ambulance ride to the hospital was almost a breeze. The two beloved bodies in the morgue come close, but still don’t compare to this dread. Neither does Javier’s imprisonment or his trial or leaving America or Edison’s blow. Bravery is resting only a foot away, yet every droplet of my blood feels frozen solid. Because what if it still doesn’t work? What if even this weapon fails? For all our closure and preparation, I know deep down we have gambled our last hope on this one vial. And I’m about to roll the dice on our survival.

Peripherally, I feel my locket and blouse peel away as shiver after shiver ripples over my skin.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s cold here,” Doctor Helen says, but we both know my goosebumps have nothing to do with the temperature in the lab. She starts placing the electrodes on me gently, as Old Morse did with Aiden. On my temples, forehead, scalp, neck, pulse, sternum, wrists, hands. Her touch is light and warm, triggering distant memories of mum combing my hair.

“You look exhausted, Elisa,” she observes as she pastes the last electrode over my thunderous heart. “No sleep again last night?”

I open my mouth to speak but, just then, the wide screen to my right blares with my own heartbeat, and my EKG and brain activity lines blast across it.

“Oh, child!” Doctor Helen’s grave voice mutes my startled gasp as I stare at the monitor in horror. I don’t know anything about neuroscience, but even I can tell my heartline looks nothing like the waves of love that undulated for Aiden. Mine is craggy like the daggers of glass in the library the night Edison struck. And the second line—my brain—is stabbing and plunging erratically as a thrashing power line. My beeps are different, too, more like the rise and fall of ambulance sirens.

“Elisa, dear, you’re terrified,” Doctor Helen reads the data easily as she takes the chair in front of me, the chair I perched on for Aiden. To my surprise, she folds her organza hands around my wired wrists. “I could see that even without the monitor, but the intensity is too high. Let’s try to relax for a moment so we can get a baseline reading, shall we?”

I try. I summon every strategy and trick I know—Aiden’s cologne, the locket, the periodic table, Maria’s prayers, even a photo of our kiss—but they’re all futile. The monitor keeps wailing.

“Deep breaths, Elisa, try for a deep breath with me,” Doctor Helen coaches patiently, inhaling and exhaling to set the tempo. “Keep the faith that it will be all right.”

The knives of terror slash my heartline. “How?” I gasp.

“Follow Peter’s advice that you shared during your speech. ‘Have faith in science when you don’t know, in your heart when you do, and in yourself to be able to tell the difference.’ Maybe your love and this protein will be enough.”

“And if it’s not?” I whisper the words, unwilling to voice them into reality.

Her hands tighten on my wrist, digging in the electrodes. “Then you’ll know you did everything you could.”

I know she is trying to assure me, but all I hear is the postscript: that this is truly our last shot. Another round of beeps fires from the computer like bullets. I focus only on the sterilized air, trying in vain to calm my heartrate. Hydrogen, 1.008, Helium, 4.0026…

Doctor Helen must see the futility in my efforts. “It’s all right, Elisa,” she murmurs, eyes trained on the riotous screen. “I’ll work with this. It’s not standard but in a way, it might make the test more accurate. We won’t have to manufacture fear artificially.”

Manufacture? There could never be any lab-made fear that can compare to this. She stands, setting my quivering hands on my bouncing knees. Then gently, she starts unraveling mum’s parka, finding the vial nestled within.

“Oh but it’s beautiful!” she marvels, and even in my state, I know she is right. “I’ve never seen a substance like this.” Her inquisitive eyes dissect the part-fluid, part-solid elixir. The lilac halo shimmers on the surface unbroken like sunrise mist over the clearest lake. I sense her trying to grasp every facet, but she doesn’t ask me details about how, what, why. She lets me keep those secrets, and for that I’m grateful. She picks up the vial ever so carefully, shaking it gently. “It’s warm,” she muses in wonder. The knives on my heartline sharpen to razor-thin blades as the seconds to the truth tick closer. She peers at me, her gaze filling with apprehension. “Are you sure it’s not harmful, Elisa?”

“Positive,” I breathe, feeling the only gust of certainty. Of all my fears, this is not one. “Dad would have never left me something that could hurt me.”

“That’s true,” she agrees with evident relief. “How many doses do you have in this vial?”

I have no doubts about this answer either. “Three. That was dad’s style: one for each of us in a moment of need. He and I followed the same dosing for the nutritional supplement.”

Her silver eyebrows arch in surprise. “Ingenious. And how long will it last?”

I sense this answer, too, but not from anything dad taught me. “I’d guess a few hours at most. Serotonin has a very short half-life on the brain, but oxytocin can linger. We’ll need to test it to be sure, but I can’t see dad creating something that would eliminate an entire emotion for extended periods.”

“I tend to agree with that analysis. Very good.” Her voice bustles with finality. “Are you ready?”

The beeps trumpet like an alarm clock. “I am.”

She unseals the vial—my hands are too shaky to attempt it—and carefully brings it to my lips. The crystal rim is warm with the protein’s internal heat. “Let’s start with a tiny drop first,” Doctor Helen suggests. And with a slight tip of her hand, I taste bravery for the first time.

And almost vomit instantly. The beautiful tincture is pungent to the extreme. Bitter and sour, not quite as unendurable as denatonium, but certainly worse than raw thistle or citric acid. My throat seizes up against it, and the monitor shrieks. Doctor Helen stops immediately.

“Elisa, what’s the matter? Does it hurt?”

I force down the pool of saliva that surged in my mouth to drown the taste. “No, it’s tolerable. Dad must not have had time to refine the taste . . .” Or perhaps the revolting taste is the point. Like sulfuric acid added to gas to warn or stop you. Perhaps you have to be in dire need to take this. Is that part of dad’s message? Why? “I’ll have to adjust the flavor before Aiden ingests it, not that he would complain.”

A sad smile lifts her lips. “Of course not. Shall we go on?”

“Yes, but in one go this time.” I don’t want to gag and waste a single droplet.

“You read my mind.”

I open my mouth wider, and she pours a third of the vial in one swift spill. I gulp it down instantly but despite the speed, my entire body protests, from my throat to my toes. I have to clamp down my teeth and grip the edges of the chair not to spew it out. But as soon as the potion slides past the gagging point, the taste changes abruptly. It becomes numbing like lidocaine, though only for a few seconds. Then the bitterness starts to fade at the precise moment that a cloud of heat engulfs me, starting from the pit of my stomach and radiating to my fingertips.

“Oh!” I gasp as the racket of beeps literally skips a beat.

“Elisa?” Doctor Helen prompts, but abruptly several things happen at once. A feeling of raw power sweeps over me like a tidal wave. I feel my body snap out of a hunch I didn’t know I was holding. An awareness of physical strength spreads on my skin like a layer of steel. In the same split second my vision sharpens. Like an invisible veil has been ripped off, and every detail becomes crystalline. The first thing I see—although “see” no longer seems to be an adequate verb—is the screen. It looks oddly smaller, not as vast as I had been perceiving. The knives of terror in my brain waves judder as I stare bewildered, and the jagged edges of my heart rate quiver.

“Whoa!” I cry out, transfixed, as the gold of my heartline brightens into sunshine yellow. My brain waves sparkle electric blue, similar to Aiden’s neural activity. Then the digital wailing stops as suddenly as it began, the sirens quieting to chimes and the blades flattening to wavelets.

“Astounding!” Doctor Helen murmurs, but in the same breath, the lab bursts into a focus so clear that all images I have ever viewed through powerful microscopes dim in comparison. And not just clearer, but friendlier. The stark white expanse looks more like a powdery snowfall. The blue storm of Aiden’s memory images seems like a summer ocean. The blood-red button that can incinerate our brains twinkly as a ladybug. And the Amazonian neuroscientist who has always intimidated me looks kindred—a fairy godmother. I see her shrewd eyes widening in awe and her mouth falling open, but I also see her vulnerability, her age. Even the height difference between us shrinks as my vision impossibly hones further. And not just my vision now, but the rest of my senses. My hearing is clarion, not muffled by any hammering of blood in my ears. The calm computer beeps sound cheerful, like jingle bells at Christmas. The lab feels sultry like the rose garden. The hard chair under my fingers like putty. My sense of smell clears too as though I have had a stuffed nose all my life that has finally cleared. I can smell the distinct electric odor of the technology, a faint freesia perfume that must be wafting from Doctor Helen, the ethanol of the sanitizer. All richer, but instantly irrelevant. There is only one fragrance I care about inhaling. My wrist flies to my nose despite the electrodes. And Aiden’s fading cologne suddenly rules everything. It’s as if I have never smelled it before this moment. I try to find words for it but cannot. Pure beauty, almost soporific, and even though I’ve never felt more awake, abruptly my new eyes want to close. I inhale single-mindedly, and desire sings from my every pore, stunning me with its force. How can I possibly feel this when I was just drowning in terror? But terror is long gone like a distant, vague dream from a lifetime ago.

All this takes only a few seconds. Then a sense of endless possibility grips me. My mind seems to clear some quantum leap because the world transforms again, at once expanding and narrowing. It’s as though I can see farther in the distance, yet it would take only one step to traverse thousands of miles. Because cross them I would. As sudden as the changes in perception are, they don’t compare to this new conviction, this creed that I can do absolutely everything and anything.

Take the walls around me: I think I could demolish them. The ocean between here and America: I would swim it. Planes across the sky: I would ride on their wings. Every insurgent in Fallujah: I would find them and flay them alive, first the skin from the flesh, then the flesh from the bone, body part by body part. I would die at the end—I’m surprised by the certainty and irrelevance of that knowledge—but I absolutely would attempt all of it. My mind, freed of all fear, can already analyze exactly the preparation I would want; want but not need because right now, I’m the most fearless human that exists.

“Elisa?” Doctor Helen’s voice weaves easily through my refined perception, but it rings differently than a minute ago. Although louder than usual from her evident concern, her tone sounds soothing like a nighty-night. I realize then exactly what the protein is doing beyond honing my senses and strengthening my body. It’s converting any potential stimulus of fear into one of comfort. Doctor Helen is right: it’s truly ingenious.

“Yes?” I hear my own voice for the first time. The timbre distracts me. It’s more musical than I ever knew but, more than that, it’s slow and measured as though it has lassoed time.

Time! The name of our terrifying foe croons smoothly in my head, not chopped up in four letters and mental gasps. Time, time, time! It plays as easily through my thoughts as Für Elise. It will finish me in the end—I haven’t forgotten that—but it doesn’t matter because I own it until then. For once, time is not an enemy, nor an ally or a friend. Time is an equal.

Another second has ticked by. My entire transformation from terror to invincibility has taken only one minute.

“Your EKG and EEG are extraordinary,” Doctor Helen murmurs, staring in wonder at the monitor where the sunshine and ocean waves are now rising and swelling deeply in perfect synchronicity. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Could you describe what you’re feeling?”

In response to her question, the raw force of my mind breaks into the emotional realm. And then I feel it, truly feelbravery for the first time. It floods every corner of my being, flushing out every obstacle my fears had ever constructed. I always thought the protein would make us untouchable, impervious. But as it gushes inside me, I don’t feel less, I feel more. A lot more than I could have ever imagined I had room to feel. And that’s exactly when I grasp the full impact of the protein, its repercussions, the possibilities, why dad made it so difficult, maybe even why he kept it hidden, perhaps not just from Edison.

Because now that fear has cleared out of my system, it has freed space for every other flicker of emotion. And has magnified it to the nth degree. Surprise, calm, joy, grief, longing . . . although opposites, somehow they coexist in the same heartbeat. So deep and unfathomable, no normal human could breathe through them. The beeps on the monitor become stentorian tolls.

Yet, despite their potency, these other emotions are all tangentials. At the very core of my new being is Aiden. His existence pulsates like a blinding star in this realm. The epicenter, the gravity, the alpha and the omega, the nucleus and its energy, the entire meaning. As if every second in my life has led to this one moment of loving him without fear. The feeling is so overwhelming it disorients me. Even my new mind cannot contain it. All thought is replaced instantly by an irrepressible compulsion to protect him. It isn’t a choice; it’s the most basic of instincts. Exactly like self-preservation, as though he is me and I am him.

“I need to go.” The words fire from my lips as I jump to my feet. The action seems sinuous to my new eyes. A side effect of self-love? Confidence that I can be anything, including graceful?

“Elisa, wait!” Doctor Helen cries in alarm, her hand out to stop me from ripping off the electrodes. “What are you doing? We haven’t finished.”

“We don’t need more testing,” I answer, my mind already working, thinking ahead with this new knowledge. “My fears are gone. I need to go help Aiden.” The moment I imagine seeing him, the beeps quicken again, trilling as my heartrate surges forward. Silverbells of the most powerful love any human anywhere has ever felt at any time.

Even stunned, she doesn’t waver. “Of course this is to help Aiden. And I see the EKG and EEG, but I still need to monitor them to ensure you’re safe and the protein is truly working. Can you please answer my question?”

Another deluge of emotion roils through me: impatience, frustration, desire, longing for him. I have to lock my muscles against their intensity as their gravitational pull thrills in my limbs. A bugle call for me to complete what I was meant to do: save Aiden from anyone and everything. But my mind is amplified too. Despite the super-emotions, it can see all implications, the sense in Doctor Helen’s insistence.

“Elisa?” she prompts again. “Do you remember what I asked?”

“I do. You asked how I was feeling.”

“And?”

“I’m trying to find the words. Our language doesn’t have them.”

Worry crumples her forehead. “Neither does science based on what I’m reading. Let’s start with good or bad. Can you tell me that?”

“No, because both good and bad are an absolute understatement. I feel every emotion I have ever felt in my life all at once but magnified, except fear.”

Her eyes deepen, flitting to the computer. On the monitor, my heart and brain waves are billowing in tandem, charged and ready for action as soon as I release my body. “No fear at all?” she verifies.

“None.”

“But every other emotion must feel a lot more powerful based on the data.”

“Oh, yes. By far and away.”

“Even pain.”

I—or perhaps the protein—must have instinctually been shielding the self from this emotion until now, but the moment she says the word out loud, agony strikes inexorably to my consciousness. And once it claims my focus, it detonates through my body with such force that, without the protein, I’m sure it would have demolished me on this floor. As it is, my heartrate plummets again, and the monitor quiets to near-silence. Because all the facets of the truth become finally clear. Despite bravery destroying fear, it cannot heal pain. It cannot erase violent memories. It will not rewire a conditioned reflex. It does not cancel our own honor code. It will not stop time or distance. All those emotions and processes are apparently separate and distinct from fear. And the protein will intensify them, beyond any limit of the human existence. There is only one thing the protein can do for us: vanquish the terror for each other and give us faith in ourselves. Is that enough to make a difference to survival? In a world where we can be either safe in fear or brave in agony, what do we choose in the end?

Doctor Helen has clearly read my emotions in my tolling heartbeat without me needing to answer. “If the pain is this strong,” she says with a deep frown. “We had better be certain fear is truly gone. Some humans survive torture, but fear can kill.”

Yes, it can. Even though I don’t feel it now, I know which emotion I would pick for myself. But for Aiden? That’s an entirely different question. I sit back down on the chair even though my mind is still racing in the future. “What do we need to do to be sure that the protein works?”

Her grey eyes gentle in a godmotherly way, reminding me of the gazes I would see during the funeral. Gazes of sorrow. She sits back on the chair across from me and wraps her hand around mine. “I think you will need to live through a lot of pain, child.”

On the blue screens, the ocean of Aiden’s memories deepens. My heart and brain waves rise and fall with it. But my new mind flexes with confidence. There is no pain I wouldn’t endure for him.

“I am ready,” I answer.

The lab floor throbs with the knell of my heartbeat.©2022 Ani Keating

NINETY DAYS: CHAPTERS 31 & 32 – ROMEO & JULIET

Hi friends,

It’s been a while but I have two chapters for you: Chapter 31 – Romeo and Chapter 32 – Juliet. We’re getting close to the end now. Thank you for your patience as I finish this story while coping with some health matters. And special thanks and love to my friends here for checking up on me and being a source of support: Wattle, Linda, Liz, HN, and Suzi. Love, xo, Ani (P.S. There were no songs for these chapters, but I recommend you re-read Chapter 11, Phenomenon, after you read them. They are in some ways bookends to each other.)

31

Romeo

The sound of rain lashing the window wakes me. I open my eyes to the charred light of a grizzly dawn. In that same blink, a shiver whips my skin despite the woolen blanket and heavy quilt over my shoulders. It takes only another blink to realize why. There is no sandalwood body warmth wrapped around me.

“Oh!” I gasp, sitting up. My body screams in protest at the sudden movement. The anesthetic has long faded, leaving behind only the stabs and aches of last night. The soles of my feet burn, my knees sting, my shoulder throbs where I fell against the chair from Edison’s slap, the corner of my mouth smarts where his bony hand struck, and my head pounds from my temples to my eyelids. But worse than all that is the pain in my chest—that jagged, raw feeling when Aiden and I are apart. It hasn’t left me while asleep; it has magnified.

“Hey, hey, easy.” Aiden’s muted voice reaches me from the direction of my old desk only a second before my eyes focus enough to see him flash to my side, still in his sweats and T-shirt. A deluge of relief floods me at the same time that my stomach fills with splinters of ice. Because he is still here like he promised, but he has changed profoundly in the night. The expression of the burning man has vanished as if his agony has scorched everything to ash. There is no flicker of animation on his face. A pallid haze blurs his skin like dust over his former golden glow. The sapphire eyes are glasslike, their sentient depths gone. And tension strains him differently. Not like a sculpture that still evokes emotion in stillness, but like a lifeless body embalmed in eternal beauty. He is no longer thousands of miles away; he has left life.

“Oh, my love!” I hear myself choke out. I scramble out of the covers he must have draped over me and pull him down on the bed, taking him in my arms. His body is rigid and cold. I don’t have to ask how he feels. I just hold him, trying to think of the first words I want him to hear from me right now. His war letters echo in my head as if they’ve been playing like Für Elise in my sleep. “This is not that day either, sweetheart. We go on together, one minute at a time.”

Nothing passes through his stony frame, not even a breath, as he pulls away.

“How are you feeling?” he asks. His voice is dead, too, without any pulse of intonation.

“Worried sick about you. How is your head?” I reach around, feeling the spot gently with my fingertips. The bump has shrunk some, but it’s not gone. “Any dizziness or confusion?”

“No, I’m fine, but I meant your feet and knees. How badly do they hurt?”

Who cares about my stupid feet when he is like this? “Actually, nothing hurts at all,” I lie with conviction, but I don’t fool him.

“I’ll bring you some Tylenol,” he says, standing so fast, I don’t have time to draw breath.

“Aiden, I’m alright, really,” I argue, but he is already out of the bedroom.

My panic skyrockets through the stratosphere. Even in my deepest fears last night, I didn’t think it was possible he could get worse, but I was wrong. It’s as though every minute has sucked out his very soul. And it hasn’t been a lot of minutes. The clock on the nightstand is ticking five thirty. I was out only three hours. What has Aiden been doing since then? Has he heard from Corbin? How many ways has he found to hate himself? The beloved letters are back inside their envelopes, stacked neatly by the clock like handwaves. If I end, you end, he wrote. Even though the idea of him not existing is unendurable, his words give me some air: he goes on if I’m still breathing. But how? I hug my torso, trying to inhale. To be strong for him. I have barely managed two breaths when he returns—morgue white—with a glass of water and a bottle of paracetamol in hand. I take the pills without argument, saving it for bigger fights that are surely ahead.

He sits at the foot of the bed, checking my feet and knees without any sign of life. At least the gauze is still sterile, not a drop of blood has seeped through.

“They really don’t hurt,” I promise again, not even lying this time. I cannot feel anything but dread for him. He doesn’t blink or speak, doesn’t gaze at my face for calm as is his instinct when he needs it most. Something about that makes the base of my skull prickle, but I set it aside for now. “So what have you been doing while I was asleep?” I ask, even though I’m terrified of the answer.

“Taking care of a few things.”

“What things?”

“Getting you a lawyer in the Edison prosecution, for one. I spoke with Bob—he’s contacting a law firm in London who will represent your interests so you won’t have to deal with it. Bob is confident Edison will plead guilty given all the evidence.”

Of course he took care of this. Of course he will take care of everything except the one thing I want: staying with him. “Thank you,” I whisper, a shudder running through me.

Even in hell, he doesn’t miss it. “He will not bother you ever again, Elisa.”

I nod, letting him misunderstand. My shivers have nothing to do with Edison anymore.

“And for what is worth, I don’t think Graham was in on it,” he adds. “We’ll watch him closely but . . .” He trails off, his eyes drifting inertly to the letters. “I think he would be a safe friend for you.” There is something about his statement, like he has put a lot of thought in it despite its simplicity. I change topics immediately, afraid he has been contemplating who I should be with instead of him.

“What else did you do other than mobilize an international legal team at my defense?”

“Informed Oxford and drafted your report to them about Edison. You should review and submit it this morning. They’ll need to change security codes and take other measures.”

“I’m sure it’s perfect if you wrote it. What else?” I’m still terrified. Any normal human would not have had time to ponder right and wrong after doing all that, but Aiden probably did this and a lot more.

He sighs, no doubt hearing the fear in my voice. “Think, work, Corbin—”

“Oh, thank God!” The words blurt from my mouth. “He called you already?”

He nods once. I expect, even hope for that tight reaction to Corbin’s name he had last night, but nothing glimmers on his ghostly face or the empty eyes.

“What did he say?” I ask, barely hearing my voice over the hammering of my heart.

“He saw fit to wake up Helen. They’d like to see me in an hour.”

My mouth falls open. For a second, I forget even the terror about his thoughts in the black night. They must be besides themselves if Doctor Helen is seeing him at six thirty on a Saturday.

“Bloody hell!” I squeak. “I’m so glad he did that. We need to get going right now.” I throw off the covers, ready to sprint.

“Elisa, wait.”

“What?” I ask, one leg out of bed.

“There is no sense in wasting time with this meeting. I obviously don’t have an internal injury, and there’s nothing left to discuss with them.”

It takes me a moment to comprehend what he is saying. “Of course there is! There is everything to discuss and understand. What it means, what we should do now, how we react—”

“They don’t know any of that. They understand my memory about as much as dark matter. The rest is for us to decide.”

Us. At least he is still using that pronoun. But how can I convince him this is first and foremost for his health? What can I say that would make him care about that?

“Aiden, please,” I beg him, trying to stroke his pale cheek, but he leans out of my touch and closes his eyes. I feel blind without them, as if I am missing my own sight or some deep internal sonar. “I know you don’t see the point but do it for me, if not for yourself. At least let Doctor Helen scan your brain. If nothing else, it might help me sleep better tonight.”

It’s probably not true. Sleep—as in dreams and rest—seems lost forever. But my health is the only argument he might accept.

He opens his eyes unwillingly as if in surrender. “If that’s what you prefer. But I’d rather—”

“I’m coming with you,” I interrupt with as much strength as I can muster before he starts trying to convince me to stay in bed and rest my feet while he is locked inside an MRI tube alone. “Even if I have to walk there, barefoot in the rain,” I threaten for good measure.

We look at each other for the briefest moment: me unyielding, him . . . lifeless—there is no other word for it. Then he sighs, no doubt realizing I mean it, and stands. “I’ll let you get ready then.”

“Please, stay,” I say, taking his hand.

He looks down at my trembling fingers without seeming to breathe. For the first time this morning, a shadow of emotion flickers on his face. And then it’s gone before I can understand it. He sets my hand gently to my side.

“I can’t, Elisa.” His quiet voice is agonized. It lingers in the room as my childhood door closes behind him with a thud.

My body starts shaking so forcefully that for a while I cannot move even though I can hear the clock ticking, his footsteps fading, the willows murmuring ashes, ashes, ashes. My mind cannot think past the blinding fear. I try to remember any other time I have seen Aiden like this . . . I never have. Even after his attack on me, his eyes stirred, he was able to keep up a façade, he held some hope, at first for me, then later for us. Now there seems to be none of that. But every second I stand here is a second away from Doctor Helen and Corbin. They will have some guidance, they must.

Their urgency releases my feet. I scramble out in the hall, noticing as I run to the bathroom that Benson’s door is still closed. But as soon as I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I stagger to a stop.

I have definitely seen worse, but I know—from the goosebumps on my skin to my bandaged toes—that Aiden is bleeding life because of the image in front of me. My lower lip is swollen and red although the cut there is shallow and will heal in a couple of days. There is a faint shadow across my cheek in the shape of Edison’s fingers. A small purple bruise has bloomed on my shoulder and another one is starting at my hip. But it doesn’t matter that my injuries are minor or from a monster’s hand that Aiden saved me from. When it comes to my safety, his perfect cognition sees no nuance. Everything is a mortal danger to be eliminated, especially himself.

Another volley of shudders rattles my very teeth. I start brushing them on reflex, all my conscious mind focused only on one thing: how do I give Aiden some hope? How do I help him? But my brain cannot form any coherent answers, just cracklings of instinct, vague and tenuous. Things like dabbing make-up and lip balm to mask the worst. Or choosing every layer of clothing carefully so they only trigger good memories for Aiden: mum’s scarf from the first time he saw me, the white blouse from my supplement presentation, my old jeans from our date at Paradox Café, the jewelry he has given me, a drop of Aeternum perfume. Head to toe, a collage of some of our happiest moments. I race down the stairs, trying to calculate doses of serotonin. Will I even be able to work on the protein with Edison gone?

But all chemistry disappears from my head the instant I enter the living room.

Aiden and Benson are both there, Benson on the sofa, frowning at his phone, Aiden standing by the window, staring into the rainy garden. I cannot see his face, but he is dressed in his reel clothes: the same dark jeans and blue button-up shirt he wears every morning since the first session with Doctor Helen. The only fabric in this cottage that’s woven with horror. And the only clothes that live outside our bedroom. Is this because he will never step over that threshold again? Or because every minute today feels like its own reel? I swallow hard past my constricted throat.

“Morning, Benson,” I croak, asking him a million questions with my eyes. How was Aiden while I was asleep? Have they talked? Has Aiden hinted at what he is thinking now?

“Morning, Elisa.” He shakes his head slightly, but I don’t have time to decipher his gesture because Aiden turns at the sound of my voice. Against the dawn light, he looks so much like my Romeo nightmare—ashen, frozen, except the open, dead eyes. Somehow, they are worse than closed. At least then I could pretend he was asleep. But there is no pretending now even if there isn’t a vial of my failed protein in his hand. This reality is not a dream. I cannot wake up from this.

But my body does. Of their own volition, my feet sprint toward him. He catches me in his arms instinctively as I crash into his chest. I hold him tightly, resting my head against his pectoral. Listening to his heart.

“Elisa, what happened? Do your feet hurt?” His voice is low and tense.

I shake my head, breathing in his scent, wrapping my arms tighter around his waist. He doesn’t feel like my parents in rigor mortis—even though marble hard, he is touching me back. But only for a second. Then he leans away, extricating himself from my grip. I don’t know if he notices the ensemble of hope I’m wearing. Like before, his eyes don’t stray below mine to anything that might trigger calm or happiness. The base of my skull prickles again. Why is that?

“Do you need more time?” he asks.

“No, I’m ready when you are.”

“Then eat something first. There’s some breakfast in the kitchen.”

Of course there is. “Have you eaten?”

“I’m set.” Translation: no, I have not eaten, and I am not having this argument now. He takes a step back. And then I remember Benson. He is still on the sofa with his phone, studiously trying to ignore us.

“Benson, what about you?”

“I’m good too, Elisa.”

I don’t believe him anymore than Aiden, but there is no time to start a fight I will lose. I force a smile and wheel to the kitchen on shaking knees.

The clotted cream and rosehip jam are on the counter, a scone already slathered with them exactly as I take it. My cup of Earl Grey tea is steaming with my daily Baci glimmering on the saucer. I can’t even touch it without Aiden’s kiss, but I force down a few bites of scone only for him, shoving back tears. Outside in the garden, the roses are drowning. The Clares quiver by the windowsill, raindrops trickling down their petals. Help Aiden again, Mum. Help me save the seven-year-old boy like you did then. The biggest, heaviest bloom taps against the glass from the wind, splashing down a pattern of water. I search it for answers that might make this live reel easier, but the droplets cascade down the pane and disappear. I pack some food in a covered basket, a small token for Doctor Helen, and the post-reel surprise I had hidden for Aiden today. This small ritual never fails to make him smile even after fifty-four reels of torture, no matter how minor or silly the surprise is. Maybe it will help this morning, too. I close the basket and dash back to the living room.

Nothing has changed there: Benson is still on sofa, Aiden is still towering at the window, staring at the weepingElisas. Is he searching for answers like me? Or has he already found them?

“All done,” I announce, trying to inject some liveliness in my voice.

Aiden’s eyes fall vacantly on my basket. No familiar flash of curiosity sparks in their depths. The blankness terrifies me almost as much as my nightmare. “It’s a little something for Doctor Helen,” I volunteer, too afraid not to hear him ask.

He barely nods. And then we’re out in the crisp, sodden air. Ashes, ashes, ashes . . . Beyond the willows, River Windrush is a swollen, muddy gray. From its lethal depths, the boulder’s prophecy rumbles in my ears for the first time in a while: Neither survives if the other dies. Neither dies if the other lives. I huddle under the umbrella Aiden is holding over me, clutching his arm. As we pass the garden shed with the reel, tension bolts through him like lightning. Will Doctor Helen continue that torture or stop it after last night? Which is worse: one more minute of its evil or giving up?

As soon as we reach the Rover in the garage and Benson starts backing out, I climb on Aiden’s lap like always, hoping it will have the same calming effect it usually does. But it doesn’t—at least not enough. His arms feel reluctant and heavy, as they do after the reel. So I do what I do after the reel, too: flood him with me as much as I can with Benson present. I lean against his chest, pressing my lips at his throat, letting my weight, my smell, my warmth engulf him. Yet his posture remains strained, resistant somehow. His breaths are shallow and rare. Why is that? Are there some things that my calming effect cannot soothe for him? What do we do if we lose even that?

I fight back a shudder, staring out of the window into the blur of torrential gray. It whips by like a montage on rewind: rewind to that first rainy night Aiden came to England; rewind to another drizzly drive like this toward another team of experts, that time to save me from ICE; rewind to all the stormy battles we have fought for our love.

“Do you want to hear a little story?” I whisper to him as he asked me on that crucifying ride to Bob’s office when I thought I was losing everything. The ride when Aiden first told me about his dream of me that started the war letters. His breath catches in recognition. He nods once, wordlessly, as I did then.

“You have a birthday you don’t know about,” I quote him, keeping my face in his neck like that time. I only phrased it this way hoping to revive him, but as I speak the words, I realize how true they are. He doesn’t answer, but his breath has not restarted. “It’s October sixteenth, 1999, around eight in the morning, long after you were really born, of course. But I remember the date well because it was the day Dad and I carved our initials—PEC—on the bench. I was six a half, almost your age when you first came to Oxford, and Dad brought me to work with him that Saturday. It wasn’t that different a Saturday from today: cloudy but the rain hadn’t started. I used to love going to his work. He’d teach me how to play in the lab. But that morning, he said, ‘Eliser, we’re doing something else first.’

‘What are we doing?’ I asked him—always eager as long as it involved making a mess.

He smiled, ‘Today, we’re doing magic instead of chemistry.’

‘Magic?’ I remember laughing.

‘Magic,’ he nodded in earnest, grabbing a lab scalpel.

So we went out in the same quad you’ve been guarding every day and crawled under the bench. He didn’t tell me what he was doing right away even though I kept barraging him with questions. But then I understood as he first carved the P—he did it quickly like he was trying to get it out of the way. Then the E—that one took longer as he asked me how I wanted it to look. And in the end the C. That took him the longest. So long that other feet started passing by ours. But he kept going, being so careful with the curve of mum’s name. The whole time, he had this smile on his face. I think you would call it moronic, as you did for Marshall’s when he was writing to Jasmine in the sand ditch. And it was exactly that. Sort of loopy, the tip of his tongue trapped between his teeth. That smile was only hers, no one else ever gave it to him. Except I was getting impatient for the magic to begin.

‘Dad,’ I whined. ‘Stop smiling and do the magic. I want to make pink smoke today.’

He laughed—this big laughter that shook the wood flakes off his face. ‘Eliser, this is the magic. Right here, look!’

‘What is? Our initials?’ I was confused—we wrote down our initials all the time.

‘No,’ he answered. ‘This smile.’

He waited for me to get it as I watched his face differently. I didn’t know what I was seeing, I only realized that my smile wasn’t like his.

‘Why don’t I smile the same way if this is magic?’ I asked him, trying to lift my lips the same way but somehow knowing they wouldn’t.

He smiled even more widely. ‘You will.’

‘When?’

‘When you meet someone that will make you carve out the alphabet on an innocent garden bench. When you love someone the way I love this letter C. That’s magic.’

I was so disappointed—there was no pink smoke or blue sludge or yellow sparks or anything. ‘That’s it—love? Love is the magic we’re doing?’

He heard the letdown in my voice but kept smiling. ‘Love is the only magic there is.’ And he turned to finishing the C until it was an imitation of mum’s smile. That’s when it started dawning on me, kind of like it did for you with Marshall. As I watched how happy he was, lying there on damp grass, whittling these three letters together, I remember wanting that smile. I wanted to feel the magic he felt.

‘So when will that be for me?’ I wondered as he kept perfecting the C.

‘Someday. But it will be.’”

I stop, half in that memory, half in this present moment. Aiden is still silent around me, still hardly breathing. “And that’s when the fantasy of you started,” I add, quoting him again, and then flipping his words to the opposite. “You were not perfect in my head—I was too young to know any of that—but you are perfect for me in real life. Now, what can wars and startles do about that?”

I caress my PEC bracelet, listening for his breath, not really waiting for an answer. Even though he doesn’t speak, I know what he is thinking because it was the same thought I had that rainy Portland day: all those things can take me away, even kill me. But he knows, as did I, they cannot do anything to the dream. That will never be enough for me, but perhaps it will give him a speck of hope today like it did in Fallujah’s firepits.

It doesn’t seem likely from the look of his skin. It stands out in the heathered light of the car, whiter than bones, grayer than ashes. His eyes are trained on the bracelet at my wrist. From the gloom outside, the phosphorescent letters are glowing.

“A beautiful way to be born,” he murmurs after a long moment. His voice is ephemeral, almost part of the rain.

“And to live.”

“Sir?” Benson’s hesitant voice makes me jump. Somehow, we are already in the car park next to WIN—Doctor Helen’s building. Aiden’s vast oak looms in the distance at the fringe of the lawn. Beyond it, the heartline of Oxford’s spires is invisible through the thick clouds. “Same time as usual?” Benson asks, looking at Aiden in the back mirror.

Aiden nods without a word and opens the door. A gust of wind steals inside the cabin, sprinkling droplets on the leather seats.

“Benson, here, I packed you some food,” I remember, handing him a wrapped scone and fruit. “It will be at least another two hours before the shops open around here.”

“Thanks, Elisa.” He gives me a small smile and watches us leave with a deep frown.

Aiden holds his black umbrella over me, practically carrying me up the four slippery steps. But his touch is minimal, distant, releasing me as soon as we are at the entrance.

“So do Doctor Helen and Corbin know everything that happened?” I ask him.

He nods silently again and opens the door, shielding me from the rain with his body.

The empty lobby feels cavernous with the stark white that covers everything—an arctic tundra much like the wasteland of his gaze. He scans the building he has visited since his own seven-year-old days, but there is no vigilance in his eyes.

“Aiden, love, what are you thinking right now?”

He blinks down at me. “Too many things, including that I’d like to get this over with.” He starts leading me down the polished hall to the lift.

“Wait! Just a second!” I rummage inside my basket for the Clares I brought for Doctor Helen. They’re still wet from the windowsill. He watches as I take his hand and press a blushing petal onto his palm. “This is just a petal,” I tell him as he does for me before every reel. Maybe it will help him, too. “I’ll be waiting on the other side.”

But it has the opposite effect. Instead of a ghost of a smile or speck of life, that unspeakable agony from last night floods his face. Except it has grown and multiplied beyond any limit I could ever fathom. So staggering that it closes my throat and twists like a knife in my gut. Has the idea of me waiting for him become this excruciating? Am I making things worse instead of helping? I try to say something—anything—but I cannot form a single sound. Neither can he, it seems. He opens his mouth as one might do to scream, but no words come out. And his eyes . . . they darken from barren to burning as they stare at the petal on his hand.

“Aiden, Elisa, there you are!” A commanding voice breaks through the suffocating moment. Doctor Helen is bustling out of the lift toward us, her pristine white coat billowing behind her despite the early hour. Aiden tries to leash back the devastation in his face, but not fast enough. I watch in horrified stupor as their eyes meet and the unshakeable Doctor Helen falters. Horror because I realize I’m not the only one who has never seen this depth of torment in Aiden before. The scientist who has studied him for twenty-eight years is stunned.

Aiden recovers first. His face folds back into nothingness. He inclines his head at the silver neuroscientist who still has not blinked. But she does now and lopes through the last few steps between us.

“Good morning, you two. My apologies.” Her tone regains its authority as she tries to cover up her shock, but to me it sounds like I’m drowning in the river again. “I’m still reeling from Edison—what treachery from one of our own! I have already reported the matter to the Council. Elisa, thank everything you’re alright.” She grasps my shoulder.

“Thank Aiden,” I whisper, unable to find my voice. I cannot blink out of my retinas the image of his ravaged face at the idea of me standing by his side.

“Of course—him above all.” She turns to him. “Aiden, let’s get you in the MRI room right away, then we can discuss.” And the woman I used to think of as cold takes both our hands and tows us into the lift to the top floor where she presides. I follow her without knowing how—my heart and mind are splattered on the spot where Aiden stood, dying before my eyes.

The familiar, gleaming hall is empty with no court of scientists waiting for Doctor Helen’s every command. “It’s only us for this,” she explains, sensing the question I still cannot form. “And Doctor Corbin, of course. I thought that would be best. Aiden, you know the way. I’ll only scan for brain injury now; I won’t show you any images. Go on!” She urges him down the narrow corridor leading to the MRI machine I have seen only once before. He glances at me, his face remaining void of life.

“Stay with Doctor Helen. I’ll be fine.”

I think I manage a nod, still frozen. But even if I could move my lips, I have no idea what I would say. Somehow, in one minute, everything I thought I knew shattered. He strides away and enters the MRI antechamber without looking back. The heavy door thunders as it locks him in.

“Elisa?” Doctor Helen’s voice sounds distant even though she is standing right next to me. “Come, child. This one will be quicker than last time. You will see Aiden very soon.”

I know I should say something but all I can do is stare at the white expanse that swallowed up Aiden. Peripherally, I feel Doctor Helen’s hand around my elbow as she leads me across the hall to the command center where she tormented Aiden’s mind before, when he was still so full of hope. When the only option he could live with was to walk through the fires of Fallujah every dawn only for the chance of being with me. A chance that now seems all but destroyed.

“Do you need a moment before we go in?” she asks, still muffled and far-away.

I shake my head as she opens the metal door, her hand never leaving my arm. I can’t tell if her fingers are warm or cold.

The analytics room feels claustrophobic without the glow of the giant screens displaying Aiden’s brain in electric blue. Doctor Helen’s Van Gogh binder is resting next to her central monitors. But now I have no murder of crows circling out of me in rage, no sunflower seed bullets firing from my lips at fate. I am just the blank canvass that never became art.

“Have a seat, Elisa. Doctor Corbin is waiting on the line.” She pulls up a chair next to hers. I place my basket at my feet, feeling foolish, even naïve. How could anything I can pack in a basket help with this kind of torment, especially when they dangle from my arm?

“Doctor, we’re here,” she speaks into the ether, then Corbin’s face appears on a smaller screen in front of me like last time. Except unlike then, he is not smiling or waving. Deep wrinkles are burrowing around his bloodshot eyes. He is sitting under a desk lamp, the window behind him black with Portland’s night. The same night lulling Reagan and Javier into sleep. How can I tell them about this? How can I break their hearts along with mine?

“Ah, Elisa.” Corbin’s tired voice pipes through the room. “I’m glad you’re here. How are you holding up?”

It takes me four tries to mumble a whisper. “I’m fine, but Aiden . . .” I can’t finish. What can I say? Does any language in the world have words to describe the harrowing pain I just witnessed? It makes his anguish during the reel seem like a minor headache.

“I know,” he sighs, peering at Doctor Helen. “How does he seem to you this morning?”

She doesn’t answer verbally, but her eyes flit to me then back at him and she gives an almost imperceptible shake of the head. I would have missed it if I wasn’t staring at her like a life raft.

“He’s even worse than I know, isn’t he?” I breathe, clutching the edge of my chair. A hesitant look passes between them. “Please, tell me. I don’t want to be protected from his pain.”

Corbin tries to force a smile through tight lips. “Of course you don’t. And you deserve to know. The trouble is I can’t tell how much worse, but it seems worse than any other time I’ve known him. With every other loss, Aiden has had a purpose—building his empire to support his parents and the Marines, saving Javier, saving you, his hope for this experiment so you could be together. But Aiden without hope . . .” Despite his years of experience, he pales.

My mind reacts quicker than my body: the walls start spinning, the floor shaking, the air congealing. Then my body catches up, swaying on the spot like Aiden in the library last night. I grip the chair harder to stay vertical.

They must notice my reaction because Doctor Helen pats my shoulder.

“Deep breaths, Elisa,” Corbin coaches methodically. “Let’s try to remain optimistic. This time Aiden has your calming effect after all, and there’s no medicine more powerful for him than that.”

Except his words make the dizziness worse. That prickly sense of unease jolts from my skull down my spine. And I finally realize why. “C-can—” I start, then try again for volume. “Can my calming effect get weaker? It doesn’t seem to be working as well today as it was last night.”

Their reaction is unmissable. An identical mask of dread drops over their faces at the same time. Doctor Helen’s forehead crumples, eyes narrowing as though they are reading an invisible text. Then they widen in some inner understanding. “Of course,” she mutters to herself. “Of course, we should have known.”

“Known what?” I wheeze.

Her perturbed, grey eyes zoom on me. “Your calming effect on Aiden is strong and unchangeable. There is only one thing in the world that can impact it.”

“W-what is it?” I didn’t even know this was a real risk we’re facing.

“Aiden himself.” Her voice doesn’t sound distant anymore. It roars too loudly even though she is speaking in her usual, authoritative tone. “He is trying to stop it from helping him.”

Another deep sigh comes from Corbin but I barely hear it over my own gasp as this morning flashes back under a different light: Aiden avoiding my face, leaning away from my touch, not breathing in my scent—fighting all the stimuli that usually trigger my calming effect.

“No!” I tremble. “No, he can’t do that . . .”

Their somber gaze tells me he already has. And understanding strikes as fast as denial. “It’s because he doesn’t think he deserves peace, isn’t it?” The words strangle me as a new terror snakes its way through my heart. How many more kinds of horror can there be? Which one will kill?

The two doctors nod in unison. “You know him well,” Corbin agrees while I wish he would tell me I’m mad. “Yes, there’s no other explanation I can see. And he is probably trying to get used to an existence without you in it.”

Existence—not life. As my days will be without him. Both breathing only so the other can live. Abruptly, the boulder’s prophecy resounds through distance, no longer a prediction, but now reality: Neither survives if the other dies. Neither dies if the other lives. It reverberates around my head, chorusing with Aiden’s letter and my own silent refrain: If I end, you end . . . violent ends . . . Because is there a death more violent than a life unlived?

“Doctor Corbin, you use the word ‘existence.’” Doctor Helen picks up on the same thing. “Is there any scenario where you think Aiden would . . .?” She doesn’t finish because the idea is unfinishable, unspeakable.

But Corbin answers immediately, with conviction, before I can collapse. “Not while Elisa walks this earth. But I have no doubt he will suffer beyond all our imaginations every minute of the time left. I fear I won’t be able to reach him, especially without Elisa’s calm . . .” he trails off, now unable to finish himself.

The room blurs again, the walls closing in around me as if my mind is clamoring for unconscious relief. “What do we do?” I choke, laboring to keep my lungs working. “How do we help him? How can we save him from this?”

To that, the doctors have no answer.

Panic cleaves through my skull like Edison’s microscope. There has to be something, anything . . . “Should we ask his parents to come?” I grasp at any idea even though I don’t think he would allow that anymore. “Or maybe the Marines? Aiden’s mum said they kept each other alive last time.”

Corbin shakes his head, still looking disturbed. “With this revelation, I’m sure he will not accept their comfort. And they come with their own traumatic triggers for him. It might be better if we focus on the two of you having this time together.”

Better together than apart. An axiom on which I would have staked my life when I woke up. But now I can’t unsee Aiden’s pain at the thought of me standing by his side.

“I tend to agree.” Doctor Helen’s eyes are still deep in analysis. “Our priority must be getting Aiden to accept your calming effect. That’s the best hope we have at this point, but I think Robert, Stella, and his brothers should be prepared.”

She doesn’t need to explain for what. I know. The ceiling tilts oddly toward my face.

“Elisa, how far are you from solving the protein?” Corbin asks.

“I don’t know. There’s still a lot left to do, and I’m not sure what will happen to the project now with Edison out.”

“Leave that part to me.” Doctor Helen sounds resolute and confident. “You keep at it, child, keep at it.”

Is that all we have left? An unfinished dream? Even if somehow I manage to succeed, what chance does it stand with Aiden denying himself any form of relief? He simply wouldn’t take it. How can I convince him?

“For now, let’s just try to stay in the present moment and take it a step at a time,” Corbin hedges, perhaps wondering the same impossible questions. “You’re not alone in this, Elisa. We are here for you both.”

I listen to his practiced voice trying to comfort me. But there is only one person I want comforted, and he is tearing apart, alone inside an MRI machine that suddenly seems like a coffin, in a room icy like a morgue.

“Without question.” Doctor Helen revs into motion. “There’s much to consider, but let’s start by ruling out any physical injury first.” With a quick tap, she switches on her monitors. They blare neon blue on the walls that are still spinning. Static bristles in the air like high pitch. “Aiden, we are ready,” she fires into her microphone without any reply. “Starting on three, two, one.”

His wondrous brain lights up the screens in brilliant sapphire like his former eyes. But this time, I cannot bear to look at the images. I fold my arms on the desk and rest my forehead against them. Perhaps it will help me think if I can’t see. Perhaps I will find a way if I am blind. But the computers caw loudly around me with beeps, clicks, tweets. And the doctors’ grave voices like jarring notes in the digital buzz.

“Did Aiden say he was hit right over his old rifle injury, Doctor?” she verifies.

“Yes, smack in the middle,” he confirms while I try to fight the nausea. “Why?”

“It hasn’t caused bleeding or internal swelling in the area—we can be grateful for that part.”

Thank you, God! Thank you, Mum and Dad! My legs almost give out despite the fact that I’m sitting. Even the chaos in my head pauses for a second, immobilized by profound relief. Tears burn my eyes, and I let them fall. It’s better now when Aiden cannot see.

“Thank heavens he turned around so quickly.” Corbin repeats the words that have become a mantra. “He saved his own life and Elisa’s. Although he doesn’t view it that way.”

“Indeed . . .”

And the snarl inside my skull restarts. Like this morning, I only seem able to blurt out questions, not answers. The same question really—how do I help Aiden?—but with a different, razor-sharp edge now. It slices through every purpose, reflex, or analysis, leaving me only with raw instinct. Everything I have ever known, wanted, dreamed, wished, hoped, fought, or strived for all tumble one rung down to make room for this one visceral compulsion at the very top: saving Aiden, no matter the cost.

As from across the globe, the beeps stop at last and Doctor Helen’s voice projects into the microphone. “Aiden, we’re all finished. Good news: there’s no internal injury, just as you expected. When you’re ready, why don’t you meet us in the lab? I have Elisa with me—she’s perfectly safe.”

There is no answer from him, but I expected that. I want to run down the hall and be there, on the other side of that door, when he comes out. I want to take him in my arms. But will that bring back the unfathomable agony? Is my very presence now another reel of torture for him?

I wobble to my feet, wiping off any evidence of tears, and follow Doctor Helen to the futuristic lab where I first saw the waves of Aiden’s heart and mind. Its snowy interior is empty, but as we walk in, Corbin’s face flickers on the overhead screen. He is scribbling furiously on a yellow notepad. Doctor Helen takes her seat at the same long desk, flipping through her Van Gogh binder, eyes narrowed in concentration. And I fall on the chair closest to me, staring at the white double doors.

“While we’re waiting, Elisa, could you clarify something for me about the time Aiden was unconscious?” Doctor Helen asks. “He told us everything you shared, but obviously has no memory of that part, and I’d rather he not relive the experience.”

I don’t want to relive it either, but to help him, I would relive the day of my parents’ accident. “Anything,” I offer.

“I know he started losing his balance quickly after he was triggered, but did you do or say anything to him during that time?”

Despite the chills flogging my skin, I let last night flood my mind. Abruptly, I’m back in dad’s library, staring into every slide of my memory as if with microscope for magnification.

“I was just telling him to keep standing, that we love each other, that the glass was just petals, that I was waiting on the other side . . .” My voice breaks, thinking of the effect those same words had on him today. “I don’t know, a lot of things like that.”

“A lot of loving things,” she corrects kindly. “And did Aiden react in any way?”

“No, he was already locked in the flashback by then. He just fell.”

“Not just. He fell back safely on a pillow because you had placed it there and calculated his trajectory so precisely. Well-done in such crisis. You saved his life as much as he saved yours.”

I listen to her words, finding no pride in me. All I can think of is how can I help him live the life I saved.

“What did you do while you were waiting for the medics?” she asks.

“I was taking his pulse and breathing in his mouth and—” I stop because, suddenly, those few terrifying minutes become private, our last ones together on the same side, in the final throes of hope.

“It seems there is something else. It might be important.”

“It’s not,” I mumble. “It was just things that mean something to him and me alone.”

“I know this is reprehensively intrusive, but would you mind sharing? We’re looking for anything that might help him.”

As am I, and failing. “I was just talking to him . . . trying to keep him in the present moment like you taught me . . . and, umm, I was humming Für Elise. It was silly—I knew he couldn’t hear me—but I couldn’t think of anything else.”

She gazes at me with something like sorrow. “Actually, when I think of it, it doesn’t seem silly at all. It was love in a moment of untold terror.”

“But it doesn’t help Aiden now.”

“No, but perhaps it helped him then.” She gives me a wistful smile.

I look away from it, unable to withstand the grief hidden underneath—the grief that confirms we have already lost. A long, twitchy silence falls over the lab. A scratch of a pen here, a shiver of a page there. And my own thoughts, howling the same impotent refrain. How can I help? How do I convince Aiden to let himself feel peace?

There are no clues in the computer beeps, no patterns in the white surfaces that undulate like Van Gogh’s rippling wheatfields.

“Doctor, perhaps we should check on him.” Corbin finally breaks the silence. I can’t look away from the doors as Doctor Helen answers in a pensive tone.

“Not yet. Aiden wouldn’t make Elisa wait if he absolutely didn’t need the moment.”

I agree, I disagree, I don’t know. My only goal right now is to breathe so if he looks at my face, he sees a semblance of hope. It takes everything I have to sit here and not run to find him: a locket in my hand, ten periodic tables on my mind, non-scientific prayers in my heart, the ticking seconds on dad’s Seiko watch like a back-up pulse: one, ninety, six hundred . . .

At long last, the doors open.

Aiden comes in, as blanched as the wintry space around us, too beautiful to last. His eyes flash to me, then away, but in that glimpse, I see the aftershocks of agony he must have been fighting to control. Unfathomably, it’s even more blistering than an hour ago. How much more can it grow? How is he still standing? I have to lock all my muscles to stay on my chair and not fly to him. I have seen now the pain my touch is causing, like acid on his skin.

“My apologies for the delay,” he says, taking the seat next to me. His piano voice is hoarse, the way he sounded when he first came to the cottage after I left him. My fingers flutter to take his hand, but I grip the rim of the chair hard against the instinct.

“It’s no problem,” Corbin speaks first. “I’m glad you took the time you needed. And even more glad you came. I know you don’t want to be here.”

H-e-r-e. The hardest word for Aiden right now.

“I’m here for Elisa,” he answers.

“I know you are.” Corbin nods in understanding. “I know no one else could have convinced you to stay.”

S-t-a-y. For me. Am I worth this torture? Is anything?

Aiden doesn’t respond again. He stares beyond Corbin, beyond Doctor Helen, beyond anything we can see. How much more is he suffering because of my insistence?

“Why don’t we get started so you can go back to the cottage and be more comfortable,” Doctor Helen suggests while I question everything. “I’d like to begin with the obvious: the startle reflex.” She pauses as though to allow us time to adjust to the name that terrifies Aiden the most. He doesn’t blink, but the tension of his body throbs through the polished floor tiles. “Clearly, it’s still there,” she continues. “Although in what form and to what extent we cannot know without the final test.”

I know,” Aiden states without any inflection. “There is no reason for more tests or for exposing Elisa to them.”

Her intent grey eyes examine him, as his used to do, although the sentience of his gaze is not something anyone else can achieve. “Perhaps, but I won’t argue with you on that point because, as it happens, I tend to agree in part. Even though there is no physical injury, I am deeply concerned about the psychological harm you are suffering. And I have no way of knowing what effect it will have on you if I trigger your startle reflex again so soon after last night. For that reason, I propose that we extend the September eighteen deadline and wait to run the final test for at least an additional month or two while you recover.”

My head whips toward her in shock. Did I hear her right? More t-i-m-e? Isn’t that what I have been begging for every hour of every day since I the very first moment I saw Aiden? And now that it’s being offered, I cannot breathe a single sigh of relief. How can I after seeing how much every minute is costing him? Suddenly, dad’s watch seems to tick the seconds faster on my wrist as if to spare Aiden.

He is staring at her with nothing in his eyes. Somehow the void there makes his gaze more chilling. “Doctor Helen,” he addresses her slowly, deliberately, and I know what’s coming. “There is no circumstance under which I will stay here beyond September eighteen or continue the study of my memory ever again. I suppose it’s up to you how you want to proceed from here.”

The huge lab sways again. They look at each other: her gaze pleading, his dead. Then she nods, but it looks like defeat in her regal manner. “I see. In that case, you are giving me no choice. Since you are determined to leave on September eighteen and I have taken an oath to do no harm, I will not run the test—”

“Doctor?” Corbin interjects, clearly stunned at her decision. As was I a second ago, but now I am nothing. Not because she is protecting Aiden—that’s exactly how it should be—but because how final everything suddenly becomes. The last slide of our reel, the last note of Für Elise, the final words in our story. The End. Life, meaning, dreams, purpose—all over. So certain, so quick. Like death.

I realize now how much hope, instead of fear, I was placing on that ultimate test: hope for a change, for a different result, for waking up and realizing this is only another Romeo nightmare. H-o-p-e. I always knew it would finish me in the end.

I don’t know how I make it through the next minutes. The walls whirl like Bia’s centrifuge, and my fingers glue themselves to my locket for balance. Keep me standing please, keep me breathing for Aiden. Because it’s better this way. Less pain for him. I will gladly suffer every day of my existence to spare him another hour of agony in this lab.

For once, I’m glad his eyes are away, lost in past and future torment. At least he is not seeing the present torture next to him.

“I understand your surprise, Doctor Corbin. I truly do. Even Elisa’s, I imagine.” Doctor Helen’s voice is fading in and out of my ears. “But I cannot justify the procedure so soon. Not with Aiden in this state, no matter how strong he is. The only thing I would insist on is to scan his brain with the war images before he leaves, to ensure Elisa’s effect remains an option for the future ahead. His memory does not need her physical proximity to give him comfort as he grapples with the greatest loss in his life yet.”

She looks only at Aiden for that last part, and I finally understand why she is giving in so quickly, why she isn’t arguing with him, why she isn’t trying to convince him there is hope left. She must have analyzed all battles and realized the only one worth picking now—the only one worth fighting for—is not to save us, not to beat the startle, not even to heal him. The only battle we might still have a chance at winning is to persuade Aiden to allow himself some peace. What is my pain compared to that? Nothing—just a petal.

Doctor Corbin presses his lips together, shaking his head. “I cannot disagree with your rationale, but that must mean you have concluded there’s nothing more we can do to end the startle reflex?”

“Indeed,” she answers, ever logical. “Because Aiden has concluded it, it is over. He knows this reflex better than all doctors and neuroscientists in history combined.”

I can see from the set of Corbin’s mouth how much he wants to argue with that incontrovertible fact, and how little he can. He looks at Aiden from his screen with a beseeching gaze. “Aiden, please reconsider. Are you sure about this?”

There is no wavering in Aiden’s face, but he inclines his head toward me, still staring beyond the lab. “Elisa, is it important to you for me to undergo the final test, however it was planned?”

I can almost hear Corbin’s thoughts imploring me to argue, like my own heart does. But there is something else more important than all that. Something that has silenced all the chaos, finally bringing order, even if not answers. “I don’t want you to get hurt again.” I am surprised by how calm my voice sounds. “And there is no procedure that can take away my faith in you. I will always believe you can do this, test or no test.”

A new wave of agony drowns his eyes, but he masks it quickly and nods as though he expected my words before I uttered them. “Then I am sure,” he responds to the doctors. “No test for the startle reflex, but I will allow a final scan of my brain if you would do me a final favor in return.”

“What favor?” Doctor Helen asks immediately.

Aiden’s eyes focus on her and abruptly come to life. They deepen with an intensity so fierce that I feel as though I am standing at the edge of a great precipice. Even the mighty Doctor Helen withers from it. “Will you be a source of support for Elisa as you were for her mother? For friendship, mentorship, solace, and guidance—a safe, loving presence for her after I leave?” The intensity is in his voice, too; it becomes guttural, pleading. And the air thickens again. It clots in my throat like the failed protein. So this is how we end—the same way as we started: caring for me above all else. I clutch the locket harder. Don’t let me fall apart, please. Give me strength to wait until Aiden cannot see.

Outside my personal hell, Doctor Helen and Aiden are locked in a silent exchange. I cannot fathom their thoughts, but I know the pained look that flows between them. I know it because I have seen it in every goodbye. At last she nods again, but not defeated this time. “I will be there for Elisa until my last day,” she vows in her commanding voice. “And for you, in every way you will allow me to be.”

“Thank you,” he answers—a fervent, agonized sound—and the life dies out in his eyes. The void returns as swiftly as it left. “Then I promise you I will be here on September eighteen and watch every image you show me so that you can collect the last data you need to complete your research of my memory.”

“You have always been more than research, Aiden, but I will take whatever time you give me,” she replies. “Now, let’s talk about what happens from today to September eighteen. I reckon you’ve been giving it to a great deal of thought.”

The lab splits along an invisible fault line at her change of direction. On her side of the desk, both doctors breathe a sigh of relief.  On ours, all breathing seems to stop.

“I haven’t had a chance to discuss it with Elisa,” Aiden says.

Corbin looks between the two of us. “Do you mind if we do so together now?”

Nothing moves in Aiden’s face, yet I sense his hesitation in the air. Or perhaps it’s mine. “Whatever Elisa is comfortable with.” He leans his head in my direction.

I nod, unable to think of a reason to protest but I know I don’t want to see what happens next. Some old instinct, forged in the days after my parents’ accident slithers on my skin like a warning. It will get worse, it says. Much, much worse than everything you have lived through.

“Thank you.” Corbin smiles with evident gratitude. “Then, Aiden, why don’t we start with you? How do you want to spend the next five weeks given the decision you have made today?”

The hesitation disappears from Aiden’s stance. “What I want is irrelevant. There is only one defensible way to use that time: to prepare Elisa for our separation and protect her from me.”

Each word stabs like knives of glass. Each syllable a confirmation of every fear that has been riddling me since last night, since the very first time I loved him, in fact. Yet expecting them does not make the words easier to hear.

“And how do you plan to do that?” Corbin asks, but I know. I knew it from the moment Edison struck. Childishly, I want to throw my hands over my ears so I don’t hear the words that will make it real. But they are real, and they are what Aiden needs.

He doesn’t speak as tension strains his posture. Every part of him seems etched in war: stillness versus tremor; void versus agony, right versus wrong. Then a side must win. His hands close into fists on his thighs and, slowly, at last, Aiden turns to me. His eyes look only into mine. I can see the effort it’s costing him to keep his focus there and not drift anywhere else on my face that might add some calm. Yet despite his Herculean resistance, some specks of turquoise start shimmering in the distant blue depths. The light is so beautiful—like a dazzling star in the vast obscurity ahead—that it fills me with longing. But before it can ease his tension, he clenches his jaw and drops his gaze to my hand around the locket. Then agony throttles him again.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” I murmur so my voice doesn’t shake. “Tell me what you need to say.”

The end comes almost soundlessly from his lips. “I think I should move out tonight.”

Seven words, seven bullets. The same number that finished Marshall. So why are they not enough to finish me? The lab turns upside down in my vision, and I grip the locket tighter. Keep me breathing, please, keep me alive for him.

“Where would you go?”

“To the Inn. It’s still close to the cottage so that it will give you time to adjust to this.”

This morning I would have argued, I would have probably screamed at him, blocked the cottage door, even summoned his parents and the Marines. But now that I have seen his hurt, I cannot fight with him. I can only fight forhim. “And then?”

“And then we would do whatever it takes to make this . . . livable, healthy for you. I would fly over Reagan and Javier earlier if you want, secure your future here at Oxford or anywhere else, build you a support team, anything and everything to prepare you for September eighteen. I know you will not be happy, not for a very long time, but at least you will live, Elisa. At least you will have a chance at a safe future, as it should be.” His quiet voice breaks in the end. The shudder that runs through him reverberates under the soles of my wellies.

“What about your future? What would we do to prepare you?” My voice cracks too, no matter how hard I try to control it. His knuckles glint marble white, no doubt fighting his instinct to comfort me. I know because mine shove the same way against my skin.

“Don’t worry about me,” he answers as always. “I’m built for this.”

“No, my love, you are not. No one is built for this. You will be giving all you have to me, keeping nothing for yourself. I can’t, Aiden. I can’t watch you do that. If I have to prepare for the end, so should you.”

He shakes his head—the motion is rigid as if lifting an enormous weight. “I’ll be fine, Elisa.”

“No, love—” I start to argue anyway despite all my determination to stay calm for him, but Doctor Helen decides to intervene.

“Aiden, I hate to interrupt, but I can’t stay silent. I agree with Elisa on this. We must focus as much on your well-being as hers.”

Aiden looks away from my locket, his eyes skimming over the blank, white slate, landing on the only color in the room: the red buttons of the machine that measured his heartbeat and brainwaves during our kiss. The buttons that can incinerate his brain in one flick. I know, I could wager my life on it, that if it weren’t for me breathing, he would have flipped that switch. Reflexively my body leans to the side to block his line of sight.

“All I need is for Elisa to live,” he answers. “I just need her safe from me.”

The torment beneath his bleak voice is overwhelming. If torture itself could speak, this is how it would sound.

“That’s not enough, Aiden,” says Corbin. “It might suffice to keep you breathing, but not enough to live. You are hurting too much. More than I have ever seen in my career.”

“Or I in half a century of mine,” Doctor Helen agrees. “You will need to allow yourself to heal, and that has to start now while you are still together.”

“This minute, in fact.” Corbin’s urgency radiates from his screen. “You have to allow yourself to feel Elisa’s calm. We can see you are trying very hard to block it, but you can’t. Her effect on you is much stronger and healthier than any antidepressant or sedative I could prescribe. Let it comfort you now so you can grow stronger for September eighteen and beyond.”

No reaction from Aiden at realizing we know what he is doing. Perhaps he thought it was obvious, not the shock it was.

“It’s crucial, Aiden.” Doctor Helen leans across her desk as though to reach him. “You were already weakened by the reel. That was a risk we all accepted. But then you were wrenched awake by the worst nightmare of your life: Elisa in acute danger. And that terror and pain hasn’t stopped since. It’s as bad as Fallujah even though there was no death or physical torture this time. Would you ever have sent any of your brothers on another mission shortly after that schoolyard?” She pauses, waiting for him, but he doesn’t respond. He is still staring at the red button as if he wishes it could blow him up now.

“Of course you wouldn’t,” she answers her own question. “You would have given them the time they needed to recover. Show the same care to yourself now. Don’t move to the Inn. You would be making a mistake.”

Corbin nods. “A grave one. Spending these final weeks at a distance will rob you and Elisa of the closure you need to survive the end of this rare relationship.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” she presses without pause. “The only reasonable option is to continue as planned: maximize Elisa’s calming effect while you cope with trauma.”

“Do the opposite of your instincts,” Corbin fires before she has finished. “They have always served your fears, not your happiness.”

With each rapid word, Aiden’s shoulders curve under the onslaught of their dire injunctions.

“Stay together,” Doctor Helen states with finality. “And in a few days, restart the traumatic exposure and let Elisa calm you while she can. This way the old trauma will hopefully be dulled some before this new one hits in full force.”

I stare at her in horror while Aiden’s head bows further. “Restart the reel?” My whisper is shredded by disbelief. She can’t be serious. How can that evil possibly help him when she just said it weakened him?

“Yes.” She doesn’t hesitate. “Restart the reel. Even it hasn’t fixed the startle, it might help close the door on Fallujah at last before the Burford door is ripped off its hinges. One trauma is easier to carry than two.”

Something scorching builds in my throat like a scream. I hate every syllable she is uttering. I hate every nod Corbin gives without argument. I hate their twirling pens and notepads and binders. I hate Van Gogh and every brushstroke of every painting. I hate every brick in this laboratory, every beep, every particle of ethanol in the clinical air that is touching Aiden’s lungs, chilling the body I love more than my own life. I hate them all, but I cannot argue with any of it. Because through this inferno, I finally start seeing a thin trail ahead. Uphill, thorny, bloody, riddled with peril at every blind curve, but a trail nonetheless. Perhaps this is the new purpose, the meaning. We cannot be together. I cannot heal Aiden enough for that. But maybe I can finally save him from his past. So he can go on.

Perhaps that’s what Romeo and Juliet did. They didn’t die. They only finished the life that gave them so much pain, so they could become immortal in the end. Their love did conquer all, survived even human death. That’s why we all know their names; that’s why they’re always uttered together in the same breath—because they don’t belong to us. They belong forever only to each other. Is that what Shakespeare meant? Is that what I have been sensing all along with boulder prophecies and goosebumps at the back of my neck? Is this what my subconscious mind tried to tell me through that vivid nightmare? We have to be Romeo and Juliet before Aiden can be Dante. As for Beatrice? She was only ever a dream.

“Will this really close the door on Fallujah?” I ask her.

“We won’t know until the end, but we have to try. It’s the only chance we have. How can it hurt at this point?”

Aiden moves then. His head snaps up at Doctor Helen, black fury rolling over his face. “It can hurt Elisa,” he snarls in a strangled voice. His body vibrates with the force of the emotions he is trying so hard to contain. “Watching me writhe in pain, over and over again every morning. I don’t give a fuck if it would bury Marshall. I will not risk her anymore for something we now know isn’t working!”

“It hurts Elisa either way,” Doctor Helen counters, not flinching at his profanities. “Either way, she will watch you suffer.”

And Aiden breaks. The void mask melts away, exposing the iceberg of agony underneath. The agony we have only been glimpsing. So primal that it knocks me breathless. It pours from his eyes, shifting them out of focus. He grips his forehead as though he wants to rip it off. The muscles of his back lock as the two scientists eviscerate his plan to save me—the only fight he still is willing to wage, perhaps the only shadow of hope he has left. His ribcage no longer rises and falls, as though they are taking everything from him, even his breath.

“—at least under my plan, she’s doing something instead of sitting there, helpless, watching you repeat your old patterns,” Doctor Helen is admonishing.

“Stop!” I hear myself cry out, my arms shooting in front of him like a shield. “Stop it, stop it, please!”

They all freeze, watching me with wide eyes. Even Aiden, though in a heartbeat his close at the sound of my voice. His head slumps on his hands. If he wasn’t sitting, I’m sure he would be falling on his knees.

“He is hurting,” I lower my voice, pleading. “Don’t push him! We’re here to support him even if we don’t agree.”

The two doctors are still staring but Aiden’s spine ripples as though he is imploding from within. I look away from them and drag my chair as close to him as I can without touching. He doesn’t look up, and that’s good. I will miss his eyes—I will gauge out my own—if it saves him even a second of pain.

“Aiden, love? Don’t worry about me. Because there is a way to make me happy and still keep me safe: just use my calm in whatever way you can, even if from the Inn. You have all my photos, my song, I will give you my home videos if you want. And I promise you, if you do that, there will be no happier woman in the world than me.”

He shakes his head into his hands. They curl inward into claws, digging into skull. He will not claim any part of me, whether near or far. It feels like my own skull is about to shatter from the pain of watching this. I caress his fingers with my eyes, the knuckles that used to brush my cheek, the strong wrists that no longer carry his watch because he didn’t want to watch our time run out. Higher still, the arms that are my fortress, the chest that is my home, the contours of his jaw, the entirety of his beauty, inside out. I kiss it in my mind, trying to get used to this non-life of loving him from a distance, this idea of existing for him, without him. Cell by cell, my own void starts to claim me, but it will have to wait a little longer.

A gentle pressure squeezes my shoulder from a different direction. I look up, and Doctor Helen is there. Silver and Amazonian, with that aura of invincible command. Except now, she looks her age, maybe older. Older than the Plemmonses, older than Oxford itself. In her hand is a polaroid like the one on my nightstand—the photo of Aiden’s heart and brain waves. She smiles the way my mum smiles at me sometimes in my dreams. Knowingly, sadly, from far away. Then, to my utter shock, she kneels on the floor in front of Aiden and rests the polaroid on his knee.

“Aiden,” she says in a voice softer than I have ever heard, from anyone, anywhere. “Singular, brave Aiden. Elisa is right; we are pushing too hard, and I am sorry. So try to listen to me not like a doctor or a friend. Try to listen to me like I am your eighty-year-old self. Yes, the experiment hasn’t fixed the startle, but you still have five weeks with the woman that makes your heart do this. Don’t throw them away. Even if it will be miserable and dangerous, this is the only time you have left. Use it to look at the face you love.”

He doesn’t react in any way. There isn’t a single spot to touch him that doesn’t look like it might break from the force with which he is trying to control himself. She must see that too because she rests her hand on his Timberland boot. “Aiden, I implore you to allow yourself to feel the calm Elisa gives you. You know it’s not as powerful with only the photos or paintings, especially if you won’t look at them.”

He shakes his head again, burying the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I will not take anything from her when I can no longer give her anything back.” His voice is a ravaged whisper.

“Yes, you can. You can give her the closure you cannot have. You know your love for her will never change. That’s not poetry. In your case, that’s a hard, scientific fact. You will love this girl for the rest of your days as deeply, passionately, and irrevocably as you did when I took this photograph. But the time you have left to love together in the same place and the same breath, is now. And it will never come back.”

She stops talking, plunging the lab into silence and ripping out my heart. Because my love for him will never change either. I don’t know much anymore, but I do know that. Above her, Aiden’s body is straining from his effort to hold it together, probably for my benefit. I cannot fathom the depths of his grief, but I know instinctively right now he only needs one thing.

“Let’s give Aiden a moment alone,” I tell them.

Somehow, I manage to rise on my feet. The lab tilts again with the motion, but the locket he gave me keeps me standing. Make me brave. Give me courage to see the right answers.

“That’s a good thought,” Corbin says from his screen. I had almost forgotten him and everyone else that isn’t Aiden. “Take as much time as you need.” His monitor goes blank.

Doctor Helen stands too, steadier than me. She gives me one of her nods that seem to bestow protection and rests the hand that touched Aiden’s boot on my shoulder.

It’s the hardest thing I have ever done to leave him here. Harder than hearing “there’s been an accident,” harder than seeing my parents’ bodies in the morgue, harder than the funeral, than moving to Portland, than the four years orphaned and alone against the U.S. government. Harder than even leaving Aiden the first time or boarding that plane back to England. Harder than returning to the hilltop grave or drowning in the river or trying to leave him a second time in the rose garden of my cottage. Harder than everything else in my short, tumultuous life. Especially leaving him without a word, without a single touch. But I do it because it’s what he needs.

He doesn’t move or breathe as I trail backwards behind Doctor Helen, never taking my eyes off him. The white doors close between us.

My own memory roils with flashbacks. The morgue’s steel doors hiding away bodies, the American courtroom’s wooden doors imprisoning Javier, so many doors shutting me out.

“Elisa? Elisa?” Doctor Helen is calling. “Let’s go to my office. I’ll brew some tea while we wait.”

I shake my head, needing my own alone moment. “Thank you, but I think I’ll just get some fresh air. I won’t be far.”

And then I run without knowing how I move my feet, leaving my heart behind.

32

Juliet

The torrent has slowed outside, but the skies are darker—a bruised purple, churning around Oxford’s heartline. Their weight presses down with an electric charge. It crackles in the crisp air, raising my skin into goosebumps. I hug my arms around my torso and slosh my way across the soggy lawn, past the empty playground to the oak of Aiden’s childhood. Its powerful roots are dry under the shelter of the immense canopy above. I curl against the gnarly trunk where seven-year-old Aiden would crawl to hide. Everything is hauntingly quiet, even the leaves. The students, birds, and animals must be hunkering down.

Here, in the silence, the dizziness subsides. It’s easier to think, if not feel. Easier to focus on the only thing that matters: the seven-year-old boy who grew up. I can see him, perched where I am, away from the games of a childhood stolen from him, looking up at this green dome like his own personal sky. His own universe that no one else could comprehend but him. And I can see through all the questions and fears of adulthood, straight into the heart of things.

How quickly the universe transforms. It becomes a single star. That brilliant, elusive radiance we chase night after night, dream after dream, for the rest of our life. Until we implode, not because we give up, but because the only way to touch that one bold star is to become its sky.

That’s what this moment is, right here under these protective branches. The final big bang that makes us realize who we truly are. I was never meant to reach Aiden; I was meant to hold up his light. That’s how we go on, he and I. Not two stars dancing in the same orbit to a celestial Für Elise. There is only one star, and I am the cosmic dust that lets him shine.

I smile up at his childhood universe through tears. It was never a choice between Shakespeare and Dante, was it? Maybe we are always both things: hope and tragedy, guilt and redemption, love and loss. What matters is which one we choose to win.

A rivulet of rain trickles through the leaves, landing on dad’s watch at my wrist. It splashes on the glass case and soaks through the old dial.

“No!” I whimper, wiping it off but the ancient seconds hand trembles and quits. “No,” I choke again, shaking my arm, turning the crown, tapping the crystal, but the delicate gold hand does not move again. It rests there, stuck at ten past eight after over forty-six years. “Not you too!” I stifle a sob, brushing off all moisture in vain with mum’s scarf. Perhaps she can fix it, perhaps only something of hers can mend something of dad’s. But it doesn’t work. The watch, like my parents, like my life, like my heart, is broken.

T-i-m-e. It has finally stood still.

“Elisa?” Aiden finds me, his voice not lifeless or remote. It’s bending with concern for me. This is the voice I will always remember to keep myself breathing. I look up, and there he is. Towering pale against the dark, fallen sky, with eyes like torn daylight snagged in the gruesome clouds. How can agony look so beautiful, so tempting even as it pulverizes me to ash? “What happened, other than me?”

I shake my head, grateful to have an excuse that doesn’t give him a new reason to blame himself. “Nothing, only my dad’s watch. I think it just retired.”

A ghost of the V forms between his brows. “Can I see it?”

I raise my hand to him, eager for his touch, but he wraps his fingers lightly around my sleeve. Even in that faint contact, I think I feel a shudder run through him. As it does through me. “Did it get wet?” he guesses.

I nod, memorizing the light pressure of his touch through the layers.

He sets my hand back on my knee, closing his own into a fist. “I’ll find a good horologist to fix it.”

“Don’t worry about that. It was about time.”

If he hears my pun, he doesn’t comment. His eyes seek my jawline reflexively, but he clenches his jaw and drops them to my wellies. The blue light extinguishes in an instant, bringing back the devastating void. And all the reasons why we are here. “You’ll get cold,” he murmurs. “I should take you home.”

H-o-m-e. Will it still feel like that without him?

“Your oak has been keeping me dry and warm.” I reach into every nook of my mind for strength. “Will you sit with me for a minute?”

His face doesn’t move again, but he folds down on the thickest root next to me and hands me his rain jacket. The jacket we sat on in Elysium, in the meadow of my childhood, his first morning in England. I wrap it around myself, inhaling his scent as he stares at the ground. I follow his gaze to the emerald blades of grass, brushing against the sole of his boot. Unlike the rest of the lawn, they are not soaked or drowning in mud. The oak protects them.

“Do you feel better or worse than in the lab?” I ask, looking up at his profile.

“Both,” he answers, and I’m glad he is being honest. It seems like a good place to start, even though neither goodnor start has anything to do with this.

“What would make the better feelings win?”

He sighs, scanning the dripping lawn. “Your safety. Your health. Your happiness. Clarity and strength to do the right thing.”

Mine, mine, mine. Never about himself. We will never be free from selflessness, will we? It’s too late now to change. “Maybe I can help with all that.”

His eyes fly to my face despite his resistance. And even though he only allows them to rest on me for a second, he sees everything. “If you’re about to suggest some self-sacrifice for my benefit, Elisa, don’t. I cannot handle it—not now, not ever again.”

I want to argue. I want to ask why he is the only one allowed to sacrifice himself, but I learned some things from Doctor Helen in the lab. I figured out which battle to fight and the only way I might be able to win it. “I’m not suggesting self-sacrifice, not any more than you are. I’m offering a . . . a deal, a compromise.”

His eyes don’t flicker with any expression. He waits, his back as rigid as the weathered trunk he used to climb. I search the lawn of his childhood, trying to find the words and the strength to utter them. And look, there he is. A seven-year-old boy with shocking sapphire eyes, playing at the merry-go-round. Laughing, circling, his black hair ruffled with the wind, a white T-shirt stained with grass and Levi’s jeans. His beauty fills my vision and stuns my mind. And the words release.

“You want me to have a future, a long, safe life,” I start—a fact, not a question.

“I do.” There is no hesitancy in his answer.

“Filled with love and family and happy memories.”

“Yes.”

“Even if it is not with you,” I breathe, my voice quivering. But the little boy laughs again. A precious, cascading laughter that will grow up into a waterfall springing from his heart. It fortifies me for the response I know is coming.

Especially not with me.”

“Because you think you are dangerous and unhealthy for me.”

“I don’t think it, I know it.”

Another argument lost, another battle I will never win. “That’s why you want to move out. To keep me safe in the interim.”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t really want to stay in England at all, not even until September eighteen.” I risk a glance at grown Aiden’s face, beautiful and severe. He is looking at the lawn, too, at the memories of his real childhood, not the one I am dreaming of now.

“Wanting has nothing to do with it. I have given you my word that I will stay, Elisa.” He sounds abruptly aged like Doctor Helen. “You don’t have to worry about me leaving before then. I will keep my promise.”

Little Aiden has bounded to the swing now, shooting up like a fledgling star. My heart stutters at the sight. He laughs again and summersaults in the air, landing supply on his trainers, checkered like a chess board. I draw a deep breath, letting his giggle strengthen me for my next words.

“What would you negotiate to be free of your promise to stay?”

His head turns to me. Surprise flashes across his face, chasing away the void. Not the pain—nothing seems to erase that—but at least it brings him back to some semblance of life. “What did you say?” he whispers incredulously.

“What would you give me if I gave you all that: a future for myself, commitment to my own health and safety, and agreement for you to leave tomorrow, even today?”

He is so astonished that he forgets to avoid my face. His powerful memory takes advantage of his abstraction and consumes my calm with lightning speed. I know because the beautiful turquoise glow illuminates his eyes. And for a moment, he is my Aiden again. Stunned, but familiar like home, like the roses, like the sound of my own name. The sight makes my chest bruise with ache. Because I know soon it will disappear.

“What would you want?” he asks.

I commit his alive voice to memory as countless answers implode in my head. Smile, touch me, look at me like you used to, call me “love” again, yell, shout, take me in your arms, make love to me right here on your rain jacket, stay . . . stay forever. But they are all the wrong answers. There is only one answer that matters now.

“I want something that will make you feel better. I want you to use my calming effect. With photos, paintings, videos, Für Elise, and anything else we can find. And if I ever finish the protein, I would want you to take it so you can fight the reel and finally lay Marshall to rest. And even after that, take it as long as you need to feel alive again. Those are my only conditions. As for leaving, I will not hold you to your promise. You are free, Aiden, not my prisoner. You can go whenever you want, deal or no deal. I will not begrudge you taking away some of our days together. I will only feel grateful to you for giving this time to me.”

He watches me without blinking, his gaze so intense that I cannot handle it despite the turquoise light sparking here and there. I drop my eyes to the grass blades fluttering against the gnarly roots. Does the root feel their gentle caress? Is that what makes it so strong?

“That’s very different than what you were saying last night,” he reminds me. “‘If you leave before then, you might save my body, but you would kill my heart.’” He quotes me perfectly, of course. “Why the change now?”

I want to cut my tongue out. But that was before I had seen the full depths of his pain, before I could even imagine such agony exists. And before he decided to give up his last hope: the calm I give him.

“I was wrong last night to make you promise to stay when you’re hurting so much. I was doing the same thing I did in Portland. Forcing you to stay with me when it terrifies you. And all it’s done is hurt you over and over again. The doctors say not to repeat the past. But maybe it’s not your mistakes we should not be repeating. Maybe it’s mine.”

“Those weren’t mistakes. You’ve never forced me into anything I didn’t desperately want myself.”

“All the same. Besides you kept your promise: you promised to give this your best fight. And you have. You have been fighting all your life. Since you were a seven-year-old boy, climbing up this tree. For your parents, your country, your brothers, me. It’s time for you to rest, my love. That’s all I’m asking. Let me give you peace, like you healed me.”

“How could I possibly be at peace knowing you’d be hurting, Elisa? Sleepwalking and spending your days at the hilltop grave, waiting for the end.”

How well he knows me, better than I know myself. I find Little Aiden in the playground to say the next words without tears. “I won’t let it be that way again. If you dedicate yourself to your health, I promise I will do the same. I will go to work, make friends. And I’ll let you set up everything you need for my well-being, from bodyguards to trust funds and heaven knows what else you have planned for me. I won’t complain. And when you board the plane, you won’t have to see me cry. I will just say ‘like cookies, Aiden’ and turn around. Just please go and take my calm and the protein whenever I finish it. That’s what I’m offering. Will you accept it?”

His eyes become deep oceans, as they were that first morning in Elysium, when he was describing my future without him. I look away from the waves of pain in those eyes, knowing they will become tears in mine. The blades of grass he stepped on as a child swish against grown Aiden’s boots. Would that they could become staircases to heaven now.

“No deal,” he fires after a long moment, startling me.

What?” I gasp in dismay.

“I reject your offer. I appreciate it but reject it nonetheless.”

Why?

“Because it’s not a win-win, like all the other offers you have made me.”

“What do you mean? Of course it is.”

“No, it isn’t. You would be giving up a lot more than you would gain.”

“No, I wouldn’t. I would gain your rest.”

“And you’d be losing yours. The best—the only—persuasive argument I have heard today in favor of me staying until the eighteenth is closure for you. If I leave tomorrow or move to the Inn, you will not get that. You will always wonder what those final days could have been like. It will be yet another shock to your system. And you will hurt even more. You will never move on. That’s not winning, Elisa. It’s losing before you’ve even started.”

I don’t tell him there is no chance I will ever move on, no matter when he leaves. The whole point of this is for himto move on from me as best he can with his memory. “I would try, Aiden. I would give it my everything.”

But his eyes miss nothing. “And it won’t be enough, because you still believe there is a chance I could overcome this. Even when you are Helen’s age, you will wonder what if. What if I had stayed the entire ninety days? What if I were exposed to your effect a little longer? What if I hadn’t moved to the Inn? What if you had offered me something else? What if, what if, what if. You will question everything: yourself above all. And I cannot live with that. I cannot and will not create any reality where you lose faith in yourself.”

How can I argue with any of those truths? Especially when I want him so much to stay with me? “So . . . so what will you do then?”

“Try to give you whatever closure I can. I can’t go back to the way things were—taking trips to River Eden, sleeping in the same bed. And I will not continue the reel. I cannot do that to you now. But I will stay and use this time for what it is . . . the goodbye we never had.” His voice drops, but not the way it does when he calls me “love.” The way it quiets when he talks about Marshall—another torture, another death that he won’t let me heal. And I have nothing left to convince him with. Everything inside and outside of me starts whirling like the merry-go-around. But I hold on to the dimple in Little Aiden’s smooth, golden cheek as he gambols to the slide, climbing up easily, then flying back down with open arms like wings. The dizziness fades again, and I can speak.

“What about my calming effect and the protein? Will you use them?”

Instantly, his eyes close. Is the idea of helping himself so unbearable? Would he rather live through torture everyday than take something from me? “Please, Aiden,” I beg. “It’s the only thing I want now.” It’s true and it isn’t—it’s the only thing I want that he might still give. “I want it more than air, more than water. Please?”

I expect the unspeakable agony now, the one with no name. My hands shake, grasping the thick root, as it floods his face. But he tethers it back, inch by excruciating inch. His throat seems to close as if he can’t speak, but he does—for me. “I will use the protein when you finish it only if there is enough for you to take as well.”

“Thank you,” I whisper fervently. “What about the calm—will you give yourself that?”

He doesn’t answer, jaw clenched into a steely blade.

“Please, Aiden. It’s yours already. Keep this one small thing for yourself. You deserve it even if your mind is trying to convince you that you don’t. You have given me so much love, you have saved my life, you healed me from my own past. Take this little gift in return. It will give me peace, too.” And it will. Nothing else will ever give me that except knowing his eyes will brighten again.

He still doesn’t answer, glaring into the tarry clouds. And I can’t help it, I slip. I touch his hand that is a gnarly fist like the burls in his childhood tree. It shudders under the lightest caress as it does when he watches the reel. I pull back my hand quickly. “Why won’t you do it anymore?” I ask, not sure I can live through the answer. “Is it only because you don’t think you deserve it? Or does it hurt too much to look at me now?”

He closes his eyes. “Elisa, looking at you is like looking at the sky. This beautiful, immeasurable space that makes you believe in wings and gods and dreams. There is nothing painful about it.”

“Then why?”

He shakes his head. “Imagine living in a world without a sky. What would you do? Would you still look up or would you look at the ground because it’s the only evidence that the sky was real once?”

His question makes me gasp. Because this is my world he is describing, my dark universe. It shouldn’t be his. “I’m real now, my love. Look at me, so you can hurt a little less. Even if you only do it a couple times a day, it will be better than nothing. Will you at least try that? Please? I need to give this to you as much as you need to take it from me.” My breath hitches, and there is no locket or little boy that can stave off the grief that grips me.

I don’t know if it’s my pleading that he can never resist, or the quiver in my voice, or if his need is as exigent as my own. But whatever it is, Aiden gives in. He turns his face to mine and lets his eyes free. They race over every line, greedily, hungrily, as though they have been starved. My jawline first, my cheeks, the curve of my lips, my eyes, over and over and over, absorbing every pore of my skin. His breathing picks up, shallow and rapid, somewhere between an orgasm and a drowning man coming up for air. And the turquoise light blasts through the depths, almost blinding me with its force. More beautiful than the little boy of my fantasies, more exquisite than any star. It shatters my mind even as it mends my heart.

But as soon as tension starts to soften around his shoulders, he wrenches back his gaze. It takes only a blink, and his face plummets into lifelessness again. Before I can gasp or say anything, our names ring across the lawn.

“Elisa? Aiden?” Doctor Helen is striding toward us in her white coat and umbrella, carrying my basket on her arm. “I’m glad you’re still here. You forgot this.” She hands it to me before I can test whether I can stand. The wicker feels like a souvenir from a different life. And a colossal testament to the distress Aiden is in, that he didn’t notice right away my basket was missing. He is staring at it blankly, no doubt realizing the same thing.

“Thank you,” I manage, remembering the contents. I lift the lid, trying not to look at Aiden’s post-reel surprise, and take out the Clare roses. “Actually, I brought these for you, Doctor Helen. Thank you for seeing us so early and trying to help us.”

She takes them from me with a look of wonder. “Ah, the Clare roses! It’s been so long since I’ve smelled them.” She brings them to her nose, inhaling deeply. “Clare brought some to me when she finished her fellowship. You weren’t born yet, but she had just married Peter. I have never seen anyone that happy.”

“I found some of her journals. She was very fond of you.”

“And I of her, but I might like her daughter even more.” She looks at Aiden, who is staring at the roses like he is burning. “I’ll let you be together now. That helps you more than any scientific advice I can give.” She inclines her head in her dignified manner and walks away, smelling the roses.

The weight of the basket disappears from my arm as Aiden takes it.

“I got it,” I say quickly, yanking it back before he can see the surprise and feel more pain. I pretend to brush off grass from the lid, holding my breath.

“What is it, Elisa?”

“Nothing. Are you hungry? I brought you some scones. I know you didn’t eat.”

A heartbeat of silence. Then, “Tell me.”

I keep my eyes on the blades of grass, so the truth doesn’t spill out. “It’s just something silly. Please, don’t worry about it.”

“I can’t do that.”

I sigh, not knowing what is worse: letting him worry or causing him pain. In Aiden’s case, they’re made from the same molecules, but only one used to make him smile. I lift the lid, knowing it won’t have that power now. But maybe somewhere deep in the inconceivable networks of his memory, a single neuron might trigger even the faintest release of serotonin. Carefully, I bring out the seedling I have been cultivating between my Elisa rose and his American Beauty. Its very first leaflet has sprouted on Elisa’s stem, bright and chartreuse green.

A sharp breath from Aiden makes it flutter. I watch with a clenched heart as the void on his face changes to recognition, like a pulse of life.

“This was going to be your surprise after the reel today.” I fight to keep my voice even, as I hand him the little plastic pot with the word “Love” painted on it. It balances easily on his palm. He doesn’t move a finger, whether afraid of breaking it or breaking himself, I don’t know. “I first brought it to our Room of Firsts the day of the Rose Festival for our lunch date,” I explain, thinking of that day when I made the mistake with the devastating consequences we are suffering now. “Your clue had said to bring love. But then I got angry with you about my hands even though you were right, and I never had a chance to show you. Probably for the best—there wasn’t much to show then. But it has been growing ever since and it just got its first leaf. See? It’s really nothing, like I told you.”

He is still holding the pot in his open hand. “Nothing?” His voice is rough.

“I—I just thought it would make you smile like these things do after the reel, but it was foolish. Not even ninety thousand more reels can compare to today.”

“Not foolish.” He shakes his head, and his face starts changing again. Fighting between the nameless agony and tenderness. At least he is feeling something else, no matter how minor. “How long does it take for it to bloom?”

A lot longer than we have left together. “A few months,” I murmur, but that doesn’t erase the excruciating pain in his eyes so I change tracks to tangentials. “I wonder what color it will turn out.” Will it look like his rose or mine? Will he take it with him, plant it in his backyard with its grandparents that we planted together? Will it make him smile years from now or will it wither like us? I tap its happy, green leaflet, thinking vaguely of that first morning on Elysium when Aiden told me about his hope for this experiment. I was staring at the forget-me-nots then, trying to avoid his eyes, trying to keep my hope from fledgling. And now everything is the opposite.

“Is this its name?” He indicates at the word ‘love’ on the pot. Perhaps he is focusing on tangentials, too.

It was going to be. But as I watch it dance in the wind, the new green sparkling like the tendril of the American Beauty rose we planted at my parents’ grave together, a different name clicks, fitting the hybrid as his war letter put it: like air and lungs, hearts and beats.

“No, its name is Hope. H-o-p-e.”

The leaflet flutters again with his breath. “You changed your mind about giving it to me.”

“Yes, but only because I saw earlier how much it hurts you. The things we do, how we used to be—they are painful now.”

He shakes his head, still watching the hybrid. “That’s not what hurts, Elisa. It’s the knowledge that, soon, I will lose them.”

L-o-s-e. S-o-o-n. Dad’s watch doesn’t tick. Even my own pulse feels quiet. I cannot think of a single thing to say. Not one word that will not shatter us both. So instead I memorize this moment: the indestructible roots of his oak, the fragile grass, my rose stem carrying the bright, starry leaflet, the playground, the raindrops slipping through the leaves. And I know I will never forget this either, like him. I will return to this oak every day of my existence.

He sighs and rises to his feet, holding Hope in his hand. “Come, the rain is picking back up. Let’s take you home.”

Home. Where he will not be able to r-e-s-t at all if I am anywhere close for f-e-a-r of hurting me.

Not sure I can stand or even breathe, I do the only thing I can—continue the last battle to save him. “Actually, I want to go to Bia. I don’t know what will happen with the project with Edison gone, so I’d like to test some more today. You go on and get some sleep. Use Für Elise, please. I have food with me and paracetamol, don’t worry.”

He didn’t expect my answer, and that’s good. Because in his surprise, his eyes find my face again and some life touches him. The deep V forms between his brows. Resistance clenches his jaw. Worry creases his forehead. I can see he wants to protest that I should sleep or stay off my feet or talk to Reagan and Javier or any number of things designed to care for me. And I can see how much it’s costing him not to say them, as if his very soul is being mutilated. But he does because this is when our goodbye begins.

He nods once, the motion taut against the grain. “Benson will stay with you. And I’ll send Doctor Gramercy to check on you later.”

“Who will stay with you?”

He looks down at the seedling. “Für Elise.”

It’s a win, I suppose, in the dead center of losing everything. I will my deadened legs to stand so he can see me strong, so he can leave. His free arm reaches for me as if to catch me. I reach for him, too, my feet reflexively closing the small space between us. Our fingers brush, sending a shiver through us both like an electric umbilical cord. The feel of his touch spreads over my frozen skin like warmth. I can feel my face contorting in ache, but I control it. Not yet. He closes his eyes as though the image is burning him.

“Be safe,” he whispers roughly.

Then his fingers are gone, and his warmth disappears. Blind, he turns around, taking Hope with him. The green leaflet trembles with the motion of his passage.

©2021 Ani Keating

NINETY DAYS: CHAPTER 30 – AFTER

Hello friends, after a few weeks off for health reasons, here is the next chapter.  I have missed you a lot. I’m sorry for the delay and thank you so for the amazing response to the last one–I know it was heavy and heart-breaking.  Only about four chapters left now as we conclude Aiden and Elisa’s journey.  Thank you to everyone who has been checking on me and providing support, from regular messages and comments to health research, network, and nutritional tips help (you know you are, my lovely friend).  Hope you enjoy.  – xo, Ani [TRIGGER WARNING: parts of this chapter may contain references to depression or self-harm.]

30

After

“Elisa!” My name booms from the garden, making me jump against Aiden’s inert body. “Elisa, where are you?” Benson is thundering. His heavy footsteps rattle the shards of glass on the floor. A beam of light cuts the night outside the broken window. I tear my lips from Aiden’s unmoving mouth so I can answer.

“Benson, we’re here! We’re in the library!” I shout, keeping my hand on Aiden’s chest. Under my palm, his heartbeat is still slow and quiet.

“Coming in,” Benson roars, and I hear the front door slam. Thankfully, one brain cell remembers that my robe is open, and I tuck it around me quickly one second before Benson bursts into the library. His eyes are huge as he takes in the scene. “Good God! Elisa, are you hurt?” He crouches next to me at once, one massive hand flying to Aiden’s wrist, another to my forehead.

“Not at all, but Aiden is. Edison smashed a microscope in the back of his head.” My voice breaks, and I shudder at the image branded in my retinas.

“Fuck!” Benson’s snarl is almost as feral as Aiden’s. “Edison was the creep?”

“Yes, he’s somewhere by the beech trees, I think. Aiden kicked him—”

As if to complete my sentence, a yelp of agony rises from wherever the traitor is suffering. I bring my lips back to Aiden’s mouth, humming Für Elise loudly so he doesn’t hear, if he can hear. “Aiden, I love you. We’re safe, love. Benson is here.”

“Have you called an ambulance?”

“Yes, they’re on their way.” On cue, a siren starts wailing in the distance. Another howl comes from the garden. “It’ll be okay, love,” I tell Aiden. “Don’t worry. You just breathe with me, all right?”

“How long has he been out?” Benson asks, peeking under Aiden’s head without daring to move it.

“About three minutes.”

“He was out for over ten minutes in Fallujah, and he was okay,” Benson mutters, as if to himself. “But his pulse is faint.”

“I know.” I blow over Aiden’s lips again, my hand never leaving his heart. His face is still peaceful, glowing under the soft overhead light in stark contrast with the havoc around us. “Benson, can you bring me that blanket for him?”

“You got it.” Benson bolts on his feet and hurtles to the desk for my blanket that still has blood from my lip in its corner. He is back before Aiden’s heart has stuttered twice. I tuck the blanket around his waist and legs, hiding the bloody corner down by his feet. “Aiden, I’m still here, love. Come back to me, please. You promised . . .”

The seconds on the clock are ticking. Three minutes and fifteen seconds now. Sixteen. Seventeen. Then abruptly something changes. Aiden’s heart nudges my hand with a firmer thud. Lub-dub.

“Aiden?” I cry, leaning closer. “Aiden, can you hear me?” I run my fingers over his cheeks, wiping away my tears that are still glistening on him. A slight movement flickers under the golden eyelids. In my own chest, my heart stops, restarts, and double-strikes. “Aiden, I love you, I love you so much. Come back, love. I’m on the other side.” Five more seconds, another lub-dub. Then a faint, warm breeze flutters over my lips.

“Oh, thank God!” I sob, almost collapsing on top of him as Benson drops on the rug, shaking the entire library and crossing himself. Another lub-dub, another waft of breath.

Then at long last, a voice that brings me back to life. “Elisa,” Aiden murmurs.

“Yes, I’m here, love. I’m right here. Can you feel my hands?” I stroke his forehead and clutch his long fingers.

The impossible eyes open. Sapphire at first between each slow, heavy blink. Then a spark of turquoise flickers in the blue depths as I must come into focus. I almost flop all over him again with heady relief. Whatever Edison’s blow has done, it hasn’t stolen my calm from him. That weapon is still standing. And so is his memory from the looks of it. Instantly the tectonic plates shift, and a sharp edge of terror slices his eyes like the jagged glass.

“I’m safe and sound,” I blurt out immediately, knowing this is exactly what he is dreading. “You saved my life, Aiden, as well as your own.” I caress his creased brow, yet my words don’t seem to calm him. The seraphic face blanches whiter than bone. Like a portcullis, tension drops down on him, turning him into stone.

“Aiden, love, I’m all right, I promise,” I assure him again before he can speak. “Benson can tell you himself.”

“She’s really okay, sir,” Benson rumbles. “It’s you we’re worried about.”

“How are you feeling?” I stroke his jaw that is sharpening into a glacial blade.

“Fine,” he answers automatically, but his eyes are scanning me as if he will only accept his own evidence. As they do, the terror morphs into agony—an anguish so deep, it looks as if someone is lighting him on fire. Exactly like the one time he hurt me.

“No, love, not that look!” I plead. “I’m not hurt at all. Nothing happened to me, all thanks to you. Please believe me.” I smooth the V between his brows, but the eyes . . . They deepen like an abyss, hollowing further and further, darkening until they close. A shudder tears through him.

“Aiden—” I start again, but he interrupts me.

“I’m fine, Elisa,” he repeats, his voice low and hoarse. “It seems that you saved me, too.” He opens his eyes—there isn’t a single flicker of life in them—and starts to sit up.

“Oh no, you don’t!” I press my hands on his tense shoulders, trying to push him back on the rug. “Aiden, lie down. The ambulance will be here in a minute. I don’t want you moving before then.”

“The ambulance?” Even in obvious torment, he sounds appalled. The siren blares closer, from what sounds like the garage across Elysium. “Christ, Elisa, for this?”

“Yes, for this. You took a blow to the head and were out for over three minutes. Do you remember?”

The plates shift again—it takes only a second, his usual recall speed. “Of course I remember. Edison?” His teeth almost strangle the name, and he tries to sit up again.

“Shh, relax.” I push against his chest with all my strength. “He’s weeping outside, ruing the minute he crossed you, I imagine. Aiden, you need to be still. Please, for me!”

His jaw flexes once, but at least he stops trying to stand. He lies back down and turns to Benson. “Can you secure the asshole for the police? Apparently, I can’t help you because I took a three-minute nap.”

“I’m on it. I’d like a chance to say hello personally anyway.” Benson’s slow grin gives me chills. He rises to his feet and streaks out of the library, much too nimbly for his size. The shards of glass tremble at his passage with a sound like rain. It’s only then that Aiden’s eyes fall on the droplets of my blood on the floor. Instantly, the blue depths harden like gemstones and his teeth snap audibly with familiar rage.

“It’s nothing,” I say quickly, grateful that my legs are tucked under me, at least for now. “Just a little prick. I stepped on a cactus once; this is nothing compared to that. More adjacent to rose thorns. Oops, sorry, you’ve banned the word ‘adjacent’, but you get the idea.”

But the more I speak, the more his face is withdrawing. “Let me see your legs, Elisa.”

Please, stop worrying. You need to relax instead of fussing about a silly splinter in my foot.”

“Elisa, so help me God! Show me or I will stand and look at them myself.” His abs flex ominously through the blanket.

Oh, bloody hell! I don’t want him to look before I’ve had a chance to inspect the situation, but I don’t want him to move either. He starts to rise again.

“All right, all right!” I surrender. “Here, see?” I open my robe only a few inches. The silk quivers in my hands. As soon as my knees are exposed, his forehead locks. Every angle of his face freezes into greyish ice, from the blinkless eyelids to his strained jaw. I follow his gaze and feel my own blood drain away. My knees look almost as terrible as they feel. A dozen splinters are lodged in them like bloody asterisks. A vicious snarl slides from Aiden’s clenched teeth.

“I swear they don’t hurt,” I lie, pulling down my robe, and thankfully in this second Benson locates Edison in the garden.

“Well, good evening, Professor Edison.” A hard thump causes the last of the knives of glass to clatter from the shattered windowpanes, and a new howl pierces my ears.  I take advantage of Aiden whipping his head toward the sound and leap over him before he can grab my ankles and check the soles of my feet. Who knows what they look like compared to my knees? “Don’t move an inch or I’ll call Doctor Helen, Corbin, and your parents right now,” I call over my shoulder, sprinting out of the library despite the stabbing pain. “I’ll go get in my pajamas before the medics get here. Stay where you are!”

His growl follows me in the foyer. As soon as I turn the corner, I pause to examine the mess and, more importantly, what I can do about it before Aiden sees it. Bloody hell—quite literally! My feet are as thorny as they feel. Spikes of glass have embedded themselves like stars forming constellations of their own on the heels and balls of my feet. Halos of blood glow crimson around them. I pick off as many as I can from my right foot and hop on it all way upstairs. It’s difficult, but not because of the acrobatics. It’s difficult because I’m shaking with terror on two legs, let alone one. Terror for what comes next, for what Aiden is thinking about as he lies alone on the rug of planets in the ruined library. And above all, terror that he will decide he has endangered me enough and end us once and for all. A blistering wave of nausea rises in my throat, and I almost vomit on the landing. Hydrogen, 1.008 . . . Help me, Mum. Keep him here, Dad.

Our happy bedroom is still dark. Für Elise is still lullabying softly from Aiden’s phone. The alarm clock glimmers ten to one. Was it only an hour ago that I was dreaming of kissing his back, shivering with pleasure, not dread? I switch on the light, gripping the door for balance. But the intimate glow stabs deeper than the broken glass as it illuminates the little room that makes us, us. The double-frames of our firsts on each nightstand, the rosewood chess set on the dresser, the polaroid of Aiden’s heartline and brainwaves, the dried poppies of our weapons by my locket and charm bracelet. How many weapons do we have left after tonight? My calming effect—nothing can change that, it seems—but can it hold if we lose Aiden’s fledgling self-love, his laughter, pleasure, faith, and even his fight? Especially if I can’t finish the protein that caused tonight’s horror. Another shiver rocks me so violently, it knocks me off balance on my one leg. I pluck off more splinters from my left foot, trying to concentrate only on the way they sting rather than the punctured wound that just ripped open in my chest. I hide the shards at the bottom of the rubbish bin so Aiden won’t see them. Out in the garden, Benson calls over to Aiden, and I’m thankful for his distraction.

“He’s all pretty and tied up, sir. I’ll stay out here, keep him company. What say you, Professor?”

There is no answer from Aiden, but whatever Benson does makes Edison whimper. From the willows drifts a chorus of indistinct voices, and flashlight beams wash over the bedroom window. The medics are here. I swipe up Aiden’s favorite sweatpants and T-shirt and throw on my pajamas and navy socks to hide my grisly feet. Then I dash downstairs as fast as they will carry me.

On the library floor, Aiden has heeded my threat. He hasn’t moved an inch, physically at least. But his eyes are thousands of miles away beyond the ceiling. The difference in them is so staggering, I freeze at the door. They look as if they have been gouged out of their sockets by some cataclysmic force, even though they are physically intact. His face is different, too. Entirely empty; all expression ripped away, leaving only his beauty behind without any sign of life. My stomach roils again. I try to draw air, but I can’t feel anything—nor the smell of roses in the wind or the metal of the doorknob in my hand or even the sharp stings on my skin. But the hurried, stressed voices of the medics break through. Shaking, I pad to Aiden’s side. His eyes flash immediately to my socked feet.

“How badly do they hurt, Elisa? And no cactus or thorn comparisons, if you value my sanity.”  The change is in his voice too. It’s lower, rougher than his usual timbre—fading with the wind as soon as the words are spoken. I scramble through my panic, trying to think which answer will go better. Hastily, I decide for a version of the truth.

“I value your sanity most of all, which is why I picked out the splinters and am completely fine. Here, I have your sweatpants and T-shirt if you want them after the medics examine you.” I drape them over his waist, trying to hide my trembling hands. If he sees them, he says nothing. His eyes return to the ceiling, staring at things and places I cannot comprehend. Before I can wrestle with another breath, the doorbell jingles with the first notes of Für Elise. Nothing changes in Aiden’s face at the beloved sound. I rush to open it, my terror impossibly doubling. A crisp voice calls from the other side of the door.

“Elisa, PC Dockery here with the medics. You rang the emergency number?”

The familiar voice triggers a flashback of my own: the funeral reception, last time PC Dockery was here. What was he saying then? May you remember only the love? Or was that someone else? I trail my fingers along the wall, trying to stay present, and wrench open the door.

A gust of wind blows in with force, bringing me back. The tiny threshold is overflowing with bodies and flashlights. PC Dockery is at the front, two medics and another copper behind him, and to his right Doctor Gramercy, our elderly village doctor, hunched as the day he came to the funeral.

“Oh, hello, Elisa.” His wizened mouth opens in a smile. “I came along when I heard there was need at the Rose Cottage. Are you all right, dear?”

“I’m fine, Doctor, but my boyfriend, Aiden, is hurt. We had an intruder who hit him in the head with a microscope. He’s hurt too, outside around the corner, with our friend Benson.”

“An intruder?!” PC Dockery cries in shock. “What—here in Burford? At this cottage?”

“Blimey!” Doctor Gramercy’s eyes widen behind his round glasses. “Let me through, Philip. Let’s see how they are first, then you can get the story. Mary, Jenny—” He turns to the two medics. “You go around for this character with PC Clarkson—carefully now. I’ll treat Elisa’s sweetheart.”

They bustle in with urgency. Across Elysium, the red and blue sirens arc through the night like macabre rainbows. There’s been an accident, an accident . . .

“Elisa?” Doctor Gramercy is calling me from the present. “Where to, darling?”

“The library, Doctor, just down the hall. Be careful, there’s broken glass from the window.”

They head in before me which gives me a moment to get it together. Aiden will see the flashbacks in my eyes the second I walk in if I don’t clear my head. He would fly back to Portland tonight then. I gulp down the wind, searching for any trace of roses. The night is darker now, only patches of moon are visible through the velvet clouds. The roses turn crimson and blue under the ambulance lights. It’s not the same, I chant in my head, inhaling and exhaling, letting the cold wind blow out the flashback cobwebs. Aiden is strong. Aiden will survive this. But will we? I draw another gust of wind and shut the door on the sirens’ gleam.

The library is bursting at its mahogany beams. It has never looked more crowded, probably because Aiden is so tall that he takes up most of the floor. I immediately find his eyes, hoping for some change, but there is none. They are still empty as they scan PC Dockery and Doctor Gramercy.

“Oh, my!” The doctor rushes straight to Aiden, carrying the same black leather bag I always remember.  “Well, hello to you, sir, Doctor Gramercy here, how do you do?”

“I’m fine, Doctor. Thanks for coming.” I know Aiden’s voice well enough to hear the controlled exasperation buried below his manners.

“Looks like there’s been quite the kerfuffle here. Mind if I examine you?”

“Actually, could you check Elisa first? She has stepped on a lot of glass. I’m truly fine.”

Doctor Gramercy smiles. “I’ll be sure to do that, but I think a head injury is a bit more urgent. Elisa, have a seat, dear, and keep off your feet while I check on your sweetheart.”

I curl down on the rug, trying to give the doctor his space and bring my fears under some form of management.

“All right, Aiden, is it?” Doctor Gramercy proceeds, clearly unaware of the seething underneath Aiden’s composed mien.

“Yes, Aiden Hale.”

“That’s very good. Now, Aiden, tell me, do you know today’s date?”

The doctor starts checking Aiden’s cognition and memory that could dance circles around all of ours combined, even after he was knocked unconscious. There isn’t a second of hesitation or delay in his answers, not one waver from his perfect articulation. But my hands still shake as the doctor feels Aiden’s head and tests his reflexes. Waves of emotion wash over me, wringing my insides. Fear and pain, even more potent than in that ambulance ride so long ago. I grit my teeth against the bile and tears. Save him, God, please. Take everything from me and give it to him.

“You have an old, tough scar back here, Mister Aiden. How did that happen?” Doctor Gramercy’s fingers run gently over the back of Aiden’s scalp, while I twitch on the rug helpless. I know it’s the scar from the insurgent’s rifle—the rifle that knocked him unconscious from the moment he saved Jazz to the moment he opened his eyes and saw Marshall being tortured alive.

“Old and fully healed,” Aiden avoids the question. His voice does not betray a single note of the trauma his memory must have unleashed on him now. Because only the physical scar has healed. What happens to the deep, invisible scars after tonight?

“Thankfully, it didn’t reopen.” Doctor Gramercy palpates the spot but does not push for an answer. Perhaps his years of experience recognize the warning in Aiden’s omission. “The microscope hit it smack in the center. Does that feel tender?”

“No.” Aiden’s denial is immediate, which means the spot is probably as raw as my chest right now. I have to concentrate on breathing in and out as the doctor continues to feel the spot with a frown. Peripherally, I notice PC Dockery revolving around us, taking notes and photos of the library that is now a crime scene. Out in the garden, bright lanterns are glowing electric blue. Mary and Jenny must be treating Edison because he is swearing and weeping.

“My, my, the other fellow sounds positively apoplectic,” Doctor Gramercy notes. “Elisa said he broke in?”

“Twice, at least,” Aiden answers through his teeth. I’m sure, he is silently reciting a full-length prayer in all his twelve languages for this charade to end right now.

“Elisa.” PC Dockery turns to me with his notepad and pen at the ready. “Could you tell me what happened? Do you know the intruder?”

“Oh, Philip, let me examine the poor dear first,” Doctor Gramercy stops him. “You can take their statements while I’m working on her. I’m almost finished here.” He lets go of Aiden’s head and pinches his cheek affectionately as he used to do with me when I was five. “You’re a strong fellow. And a lucky one at that. The microscope spared your skull and brain—a mercy, that is! You must have turned around very quickly to avoid the full impact or the wretch must have been weak. I don’t see any lasting damage except a big bump that should go away with some Tylenol and ice. Here is a cold pack for now. You’ll feel sore for a few days, so no strenuous activity, the telly, or hard brainwork in the meantime.”

Relief, so powerful that it’s almost painful, crashes over me at the doctor’s words. I choke back my whimper and brace my arm against the floor not to topple over. I’ve never thought to be thankful for Aiden’s startle reflex, but I’m grateful for it now. If it hadn’t been triggered, he would have never been able to whip around as swiftly as he did. Not that Aiden will ever agree. He would be furious at the mere idea of me appreciating it.

“Nevertheless,” Doctor Gramercy continues, and I stop breathing again. “I’d like to get an MRI to make sure there’s no internal bleeding, especially given the prior injury. Why don’t you sit up slowly and we can take you to the hospital after I tend to Elisa?”

“Oh, that will not be necessary,” Aiden responds immediately. “I assure you, there was no bleeding last time either. I’ll be seeing my regular doctor tomorrow on an unrelated matter at Oxford. I’ll have her do a scan then.” There is no space for questions or argument in his authoritative voice, as I knew there wouldn’t be. Doctor Gramercy notices it, too.

“Well, I can’t take you by force. But do try to wake up every two hours tonight to be safe then. And if you feel the least bit poorly—confusion, headache, anything—call me no matter the time. Here is my mobile.” He reaches in his coat pocket and hands Aiden his card. “You can move now—gently, there’s a good lad—and I’ll check on Elisa. Do you know I delivered her? The tiniest, prettiest thing she was, too. We’re chuffed she’s back.” He smiles at Aiden and turns to me. “Very good, Elisa, let me see those feet before your Aiden has a heart attack in addition to a skull attack.”

My Aiden rises on his feet faster than the doctor or me, securing the blanket around his waist. He grabs the armchair pillow from the floor and sets it back on its spot, pushing me on the seat with a firm clasp on my shoulder that says clearly “sit or else!” But his touch thaws me out of my frozen anxiety. For the first time since I left our bed tonight, I feel a sense of warmth spreading from his fingertips even though they are icy. I look up at him but he is watching Doctor Gramercy as he teeters toward me.

“A chair, Doctor?” Aiden offers, but Doctor Gramercy waves and sits down at my feet.

“Easier on my back and eyes like this, Mister Aiden. You should be the one to rest, even with your strength. And ice that bump.”

Aiden sits on the arm of my chair, stony and tense, holding the cold pack to the back of his head. Nothing changes in the hollow eyes. I take his free hand in both of mine to comfort him and warm up, but he doesn’t look my way—he is following every movement of Doctor Gramercy who is peeling off my socks and rolling up my pajamas above my knees. A low hiss slides from Aiden’s teeth as he sees the full damage. The armchair creaks with the force of his tension, and I feel a shudder run through his frame. So must Doctor Gramercy because he smiles in a reassuring way.

“Ah, yes, I see! Nothing to worry about. Just a few splinters. I can get these out in no time.” He rummages in his black bag while I stare only at Aiden’s ashen face, thankful I had a chance to pluck out most of the splinters. What would he have done if he had seen all of them?

“Doctor, with anesthetic, right?” he demands, so coiled I think he wants to search the bag himself. But Doctor Gramercy chuckles again.

“Of course with anesthetic. I wouldn’t want to hurt our Elisa. The Plemmonses would beat me up with Harold’s cane, if you don’t wring my neck first.” He brings out a cotton pad and soaks it in liquid lidocaine. The sharp, cherry scent burns my nostrils. “All right, dear, a wee bit of a sting now. Like when you stepped on that cactus, remember?”

As if I care about my skin burning when my insides are on fire, when the wound in my chest is oozing more than any cut or blister. I peek at Aiden again. He is staring at the doctor’s fingers as they brush the cotton ball over my soles and knees. His face is rigid; his eyes could burn holes on Doctor Gramercy’s freckled hands.

“It doesn’t hurt,” I tell him, drawing circles on the back of his fist. “I promise.”

He nods but doesn’t blink away from my feet. A numb feeling starts spreading over my skin. I wish it would numb the pain inside—the pain that doesn’t come from broken glass.

“Doctor, may I question now?” asks PC Dockery.

“Oh yes, Philip, go on. I’ll be here for a while.” He takes out a pair of long tweezers and starts hunting for fragments of glass. Aiden, who never flinched during his examination, winces now.

“I don’t even feel it,” I assure him again. “Doctor Gramercy has the gentlest hands in all of the Cotswolds. Everyone knows it.”

The doctor chortles while PC Dockery drags the chair from behind the desk to my side. He casts a glance at Aiden.

“Normally, we would interview witnesses separately—” he starts.

“I’m staying right here,” Aiden interrupts, glancing away from my feet briefly to lock eyes with the constable in a way that accepts zero opposition. Outside, Edison is whimpering about broken ribs.

PC Dockery nods, seeming unsurprised. “I can see that. Given the type of infraction, I’m comfortable with an exception in this instance. So, Elisa, I’ll start with you. Tell me what happened from the beginning.”

Aiden turns his lethal gaze back to my feet but stops breathing entirely. I realize now that this is the first time he will hear the story, too—at least the part for which he was asleep. I choose my words with care so I can be truthful and earn Edison exactly what he deserves, but not sound so terrified as to cause Aiden more pain. It’s difficult, almost impossible as I remember every horrifying minute. But despite my efforts, each of my words might as well be a stab of jagged glass in Aiden’s own skin. His fist in mine is as cold as when he watches the reel. I stroke it a few times to no avail. His eyes never stray from the growing pile of crystals that Doctor Gramercy is collecting on his porcelain tray. Tinkles of broken glass punctuate my story like exclamation marks. Clink. Clink. Clink. I try to fight back the waves of terror drowning me. But at least I have Edison as an excuse for the cracking in my voice even though right now, I would rather face him a million times over than watch what comes next.

PC Dockery is quiet as he takes notes, although both he and the doctor gasp when they hear the name of my intruder—the polished professor they remember from the hospital, the funeral, and even the rose festivals. Then they fall silent again. The only sounds are my voice, the clinks of glass, and Edison’s cries. When we reach the midazolam part, I feel the armchair vibrate under me with Aiden’s fury as he relives it. PC Dockery reaches in the desk drawer and takes out the brown bottle with a gloved hand. He places it inside an evidence bag that apparently has been with him unused for the last fifteen years and with his predecessor for decades. Now and then, he questions Aiden, too. Aiden answers in a leashed, unemotional tone, his eyes drifting farther and farther away.

“Elisa, dear, try to keep still while I check your toes,” Doctor Gramercy cautions me, no doubt feeling the shivers that are jiggling my body like the wind. I tear my eyes from Aiden’s face and focus them on the doctor’s hands. Like so many aged hands that have comforted me through life. Maria and Antonio, Robert and Stella, and now Doctor Helen . . . What will they say now? How can they help? Will they even have a chance this time?

“Elisa, I do have a question,” PC Dockery says when I finish, skipping over Aiden’s startle and flashback—it’s easy to do, it only lasted a minute before he fell unconscious. “Why did you not awake Mr. Hale right away? Why talk to Edison alone?”

If I thought Aiden was frozen before, it is nothing to how he transforms now. Hard, cold, and entirely still—as though he is channeling all his immense strength toward hiding whatever iceberg is solidifying underneath. He is blaming himself. I know it, I can taste it on my tongue like the lidocaine. My stomach twists with dread. But thankfully the tweezers tug at my skin, yanking me back from the edge. I choke back the nausea, focusing on remembering words and stringing them into sentences.

“I didn’t want to wake him,” I answer quietly. “We were planning on getting up early to go to River Eden, and he had a long drive ahead. I thought I could finish up with Edison quickly and send him off on my own. I didn’t realize he was planning to hurt me.”

PC Dockery peers at me through his half-moon glasses. “I can understand that given how long you knew him, but you must have been suspicious. He came in with a key you hadn’t given him after all.”

“I was but hoped he had a reasonable explanation. I was very naïve,” I mutter even though I am not fooling Aiden. He knows exactly why I chose to handle Edison alone—knows it and loathes himself for it. I caress his arctic fist again, but it doesn’t give an inch. His body is so taut with restraint, he looks like a sculpture. I’m sure only the fact that my feet are scraped and bloody is keeping him sitting by my side.

Doctor Gramercy sighs. “Elisa, next time, use those lungs. I know you have them, I heard them the second you came into this world. Give it a good scream. You’ve got a strapping fellow here who obviously wants nothing more but to keep you safe.”

S-a-f-e. Doctor Gramercy has no idea how dangerous safety is for Aiden and me, how it can tear us apart more than any r-i-s-k. He drops another sliver of glass on the porcelain tray.

“That should be the last of it,” he announces, feeling around my toes for any more splinters. He soaks a new cotton ball with more anesthetic and wipes it everywhere on my skin. This one smells like iodine, mixing strangely with cherry and roses. “I’ll give you both something for the pain, too,” he adds, wrapping a thin layer of gauze over my feet and knees and taping it in place. “But I don’t think River Eden is a good idea tomorrow.”

“Agreed,” Aiden confirms in a decisive tone that cuts through me more sharply than the glass even though I know he is right. But why doesn’t he want to go? Is it only for our health or is he also trying to avoid being alone with me?

“Would you like me to stay tonight if you won’t go to the hospital?” Doctor Gramercy offers.

“No, thank you, Doctor,” Aiden answers, setting down the cold pack. “Benson can stay with us, we’ll be fine.”

“I better interview your friend as well.” PC Dockery stands, midazolam bag in hand.

“We have the evidence from the June break in,” Aiden remembers to add when I completely forget about it. “The mint wrapper, Elisa’s doodles, and the rest. It should be easy to obtain his fingerprints and match them to the bottle and everything else. There is also a security camera in the foyer’s light that we installed afterwards. I’m certain it will corroborate our account tonight.”

“Oh, I’d very much like to see all that. May I search the foyer, Elisa?”

“Please do,” I whisper, realizing that he cannot ask Aiden for permission. The cottage is not his, as much as I long for it to be. Aiden directs PC Dockery to the bottom desk drawer where he has kept the items he and Benson found that early dawn weeks ago—the dawn I didn’t believe him with such drastic, far-reaching consequences. PC Dockery nods and, with a gentle pat on my arm, marches to the foyer.

Doctor Gramercy looks up between Aiden and me, rolling down my pajamas. “You were both very fortunate tonight. I’m glad—this cottage has seen enough heartbreak.”

“I was lucky Aiden came when he did,” I say, looking up at the face I love. It’s still pale, not even the faintest flush of blood in it. “He saved my life.”

“Oh, without a doubt,” Doctor Gramercy agrees. “Now, take these painkillers. You should both get some rest. I’ll call tomorrow after you have visited your own doctor.” He starts to rise, and Aiden helps him on his feet.

“Thank you, Doctor,” I mumble, wishing he would stay. Aiden wouldn’t leave or make final decisions with him still here, would he? But as always, when I beg t-i-m-e to stop, it races ahead. Everything fasts forward at blinding speed. PC Dockery and PC Clarkson download the camera’s footage, sequester the microscope and Edison’s anorak where it is still hanging by mum’s parka, and fingerprint the doorknob, his key, and the photo frame he touched last time. By the time they are done, their old evidence bags are full. Then they finish with Benson and formally arrest Edison, who looks like a mummy swaddled in gauze. The medics load him on a stretcher, and the six of them file down the garden path, lit up by lanterns, flashlights, and the distant sirens. Edison doesn’t look at me when they pass by, perhaps because Aiden—now fully dressed—and Benson are both towering at my sides. Only as the medics carry him by the Clares does his head turn slightly toward the roses. I watch him disappear into the darkness, out of my life. At least my parents are not alive to see his betrayal. At least they never witnessed his full capacity for evil, even if Dad realized his greed in the end.

“Sir, everything okay?” Benson breaks the silence when the responders’ voices fade out of earshot.

I look up at Aiden, but his eyes are on the sirens. Their red and blue beams flash over his skin. I blink away, shivering under my blanket, unable to watch them color the face I love. He doesn’t speak until the ambulance and the coppers drive off. Instantly, we are plunged in darkness. For the first time, I register how much the clouds have thickened. Not a single star or speck of moon filters through their dense canopy.

“Are you able to stay here tonight?” Aiden asks Benson, his voice without any intonation. “The doctor wanted someone around.”

I shouldn’t be surprised he is following Doctor Gramercy’s orders. It’s the right thing to do, it’s for my safety. So why is my stomach spasming with fear again?

“Sure, no problem,” Benson agrees without hesitation.

“Thank you. You know your way up. I don’t want Elisa walking around on her feet.” Finally, Aiden looks at me. In the moonless night, I cannot see his eyes, but my skin erupts in goosebumps as if missing the warmth of his gaze.

“My feet don’t hurt at all anymore,” I say, not having to lie this time. “Come in, Benson, I’ll show you upstairs. Do you want some tea or something to eat first?”

“No, I’m good. I’ll just grab some water.” He steps inside the foyer sideways, stealing a quick glance at his impassive boss.

“You too, Elisa,” Aiden says. “It’s time for bed. I’ll clean up the library.”

“I’ll stay with you,” I insist. “Besides, you’re not supposed to do anything strenuous.”

“Moving a broom around isn’t strenuous. Go on, get some sleep.”

“But—”

“I’ll be up in a minute.”

Even without inflection, there is an undercurrent in his voice. Something I have only heard once before—on our second embargo night when I woke him from his nightmare. It tells me what he is really asking for: a moment alone. Except this time, everything in me recoils from the idea. I don’t want him pondering right and wrong again as he did then, but how can I not give him everything he needs now?

Next to us, Benson ambles from the kitchen with a glass of water, hovering uncertainly.

“I’ll get you set up, Benson,” I mumble, stepping inside. Every string of muscle aches in protest as I twist away from Aiden. He doesn’t follow us. I listen for any sign of him while I lead Benson up the stairs. But there is nothing—only silence.

“Here you go,” I tell Benson, turning on the light to the guest room. “It’s not king-sized, I’m afraid, but it will be more comfortable than the sofa.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

I fluff the pillows that haven’t lulled a guest to sleep since Javier. What would Javi and Reg say now? They would probably be boarding a plane already. How can I tell them about this without worrying them out of their minds? Can I uproot them across the globe again when they are still catching their breath from the last time?

“You ok?” Benson whispers, setting his glass of water on the side table.

I shake my head. “He’s very upset,” I mouth back.

“Yes, he is. This is his worst nightmare. You getting hurt because of him.”

“But it wasn’t his fault at all. This one was all me. I couldn’t rest until he got rid of Max and the whole security bit.”

Benson smiles but his gentle brown eyes crinkle with worry. “It’s not your fault either. You know him inside out. I’m sure you had your reasons.”

I look at his kind face, unable to agree. Yet in some ways, he knows our relationship better than anyone. He has been there with us every step of the way, even the blackest hour of them all—not Aiden’s attack on me, but our break-up.

“I’ll still back you,” he murmurs, sensing my unspoken question.

“You will?”

He extends his enormous hand, the size of a tea kettle. It swallows mine, but he squeezes very gently. “You’re his only hope, Elisa. I’ll back you until the very end.”

The end. What kind of end? When? How? Romeo and Juliet flit in my vision like sirens.

“Thank you,” I whisper, throwing my arms around his vast waist. “I know he loves you, as do I.”

He pats my back lightly, making my knees buckle. “Anytime. Now get some sleep. I heard the doctor. I’ll set my alarm for every two hours and check on him.” He ruffles my hair and pushes me out of his room with a gruff, emotional expression.

The hall becomes dark and empty as Benson closes the door behind me. The light of our happy bedroom glows faintly at the other end. I don’t need to look to know Aiden is not there. I tiptoe to the stairs’ landing, straining to listen. The unmistakable chime of broken glass floats up from the library. I sit at the top stair, huddling in my blanket, waiting. I know instinctively Aiden doesn’t want anyone with him right now. And I don’t want to make anything worse. Maybe he needs this present moment to breathe through his own terror. Maybe he will realize nothing actually happened to me, except being saved once and for all from a lifelong enemy, all because of Aiden. Without him, I would be dead right now, soon joining my parents under marble.

But as I sit here, searching for h-o-p-e, something else finds me. Agony. Creeping at first, only around the festering wound in my chest, then radiating through the rest of my body in wracking waves of hurt. The kind of pain I used to think belongs only beside a grave. I clutch my torso to hold it together, wondering how it is not imploding like the torn ribcages in Aiden’s reel. Lungs and heart and arteries—what is the point of air and blood if the very essence of life ceases to exist?

Downstairs, the jingle of glass gets louder. Or perhaps it’s my senses. Somehow, everything feels magnified, closer. The wind, the broom’s swipes, the willows. Wishes, wishes . . . Or is it ashes, ashes now?

I cover my ears against the sounds, trying to focus on any detail in the present moment that doesn’t hurt. A strategy, a plan. What do we do now? Call Doctor Helen and Corbin at first light—that goes without saying. What about the rest of our allies? The Marines, Aiden’s parents, Reagan, Javier? Would that trigger more flashbacks for Aiden or help? I can’t be sure about that; we’ll have to hear what Doctor Helen says. Yet as I sort through the questions, I realize why they don’t calm me. Because I’m asking the wrong ones: it’s not what we do now. It’s what Aiden will accept for himself. And I have no answer for that.

At last, the glass stops tinkling downstairs. There is only a deafening silence, laced at the edges with willows and wind. I fold my arms around my knees so I don’t run to the library. But t-i-m-e stops again, as it did during Edison’s attack. For the first time since my visa was denied, I look at the clock willingly, longingly even, urging it to move faster. It doesn’t. The minutes stretch, endless and quiet. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-five. Finally, I hear Aiden’s footsteps. I breathe in what feels like hours. He doesn’t take the stairs though; he is striding toward the living room. But he spots me here before I can speak.

“Elisa?” He stops immediately. “What are you doing there? Do your feet hurt?” His eyes meet mine, yet in the time we were apart, they seem to have travelled even further away. Distant and remote—I could search their depths forever and never discover what they are holding. His face is unreadable too, wrong somehow. Too smooth, too blank. My heart lurches to my mouth.

“No, I don’t even feel them,” I answer a fraction too late.

“Then why aren’t you in bed?”

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

He watches me for a long moment from the foot of the stairs. With the soft light of the chandelier behind him, he looks like an apparition. The most beautiful, heart-wrenching kind. Finally, he sighs and starts taking the stairs toward me. The fifth stair that usually squeaks with our love is almost silent at the supple motion of his bare feet. He doesn’t smile when he steps on it, like always. I stand as soon as he is three stairs down, folding my arms around his waist. At this height, my face is almost level with his. It doesn’t help me decipher his expression any better. I lean in to kiss him but he climbs the other steps, towering out of my reach.

“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” he murmurs. “The lidocaine will wear off soon.”

“I’m not going to bed without you.” I take his hand in both of mine—it’s still closed into a tight fist—and try to lead him to our bedroom. But he stops.

“I don’t want to risk falling asleep next to you when I’m supposed to wake up every two hours. I’ll read in your old room if it will make you feel better. Go on, get some rest.”

In the dark hall, his face is shadowed. Terrified, I wobble closer, reaching for his cheek—perhaps my fingers will read something my eyes cannot. The sculpted planes are hard. His jaw flexes once under my palm.

“Maybe being in our happy bedroom will help,” I suggest, knowing how peaceful he becomes as soon as he crosses the golden threshold. “You’re supposed to rest too.”

He leans away from my touch. “No, I’m not bringing in there everything we’ve always kept out of those four walls.”

I think about that—I wouldn’t want to taint that space for him either. “Then I’ll stay with you in my old room,” I insist. “If I fall asleep, I do, but I’m not—under any circumstances—staying away from you right now. I can’t, Aiden. Please, don’t ask me that.”

Another long moment passes in the hallway. Ashes, ashes, ashes . . . Then he sighs again, perhaps realizing I won’t give up. I take it as a yes and take his hand. He lets me hold it as I tow him behind me to my old bedroom.

The room is exactly as it was during my childhood and adolescence. The same white linen curtains drape over the window, the same cream desk, the same full bed lined with rose-printed sheets. Abruptly, the story Aiden’s parents told me about how they discovered Für Elise rings in my ears. Aiden returned to his own childhood home the night I left him. I can’t be anywhere else, he told his long-lost parents. I almost trip as I pad to my own old bed. What will happen this time if we lose each other? There would be no place in the world to hold him or me. Will we be ash then, not even stardust?

I turn on the side lamp and pull back the covers with frozen hands. “Come on, lie down with me,” I tell him, trying to shake off the memory of Stella’s voice.

He takes a deep breath and strides reluctantly my way. His face is still void of any expression, but I will take that over the physical distance. He picks me up carefully, but I know it’s only for my feet because he checks the gauze on them as he sets me down on the bed. I would protest that my legs fine, but I want his hands on me too much, so I let him fuss and examine my knees. Only when he is satisfied that there is no hint of bleeding, he climbs in. I snuggle to his side, much closer than in our big bed, which suits me just fine. His body is statue-like, carved in stone again. I mold myself to his shape like a second skin. He reaches deftly around me to switch off the bedside lamp.

“Sleep, Elisa.”

“Wait, not yet.” I stop his hand. “Can’t we talk for a bit?”

“What would you like to talk about?” he asks in that same detached tone.

I prop myself up so I can look at his face. It’s still unfathomable. “How are you feeling? Does your head hurt?”

“I’ve seen a lot worse than a blow to the head. I really wish you would stop worrying and go to sleep.”

“How can I possibly not worry with everything that happened tonight? Will you really see Doctor Helen tomorrow like you told Doctor Gramercy?”

“Yes, I already emailed her from the library.”

It’s astonishing how much this small initiative relieves me. I feel my lips lift in a smile. “That’s great. What about Corbin?”

His eyes tighten at the corners at Corbin’s name. “I’m sure he’ll call in, too.”

I don’t understand the abrupt edge in his voice, and I’m not sure I want to. But I still can’t help asking. “What is it? Why do you get that look?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t want to get into psychoanalysis now, Elisa. It’s late. Can we give it a rest for tonight?”

I caress his tense jaw, back and forth, hoping it will soften. No matter how much I want to talk, his rest is more important. But I want him to rest with the right thoughts. “Okay, but can I at least apologize first?”

The control slips in his composed face. His raven eyebrows fold in obvious confusion. “Apologize? What did you do that needs forgiveness?”

“If I had believed you about the break-in, we wouldn’t be here tonight. And if I hadn’t woken you up, Edison wouldn’t have triggered you. I placed us in this position, I hurt you, and I endangered myself. I’m so sorry, Aiden. You were right about everything. This was all my fault, and I don’t want you to spend a single minute blaming yourself.”

I have managed to break through the hollow eyes. Something glints there, dark and furious.

Your fault?” He sits up, staring lividly for a brief second. Then the floodgates burst. “It was your fault that you couldn’t keep quiet when a man slapped you hard enough to knock you off your feet? Your fault that I’m so fucked up you didn’t feel you could wake me even to save your own life? Your fault because you questioned someone who is living in several realities at the same time? Or was it your fault because you had to save me from the window I broke by blinding yourself in the process and stepping on the same broken glass you were trying to spare me from?”

“Aiden, no—” I try to interrupt, but he continues in full flow.

“Or maybe it was your fault because you had to lift a heavy desk all by yourself far enough so I wouldn’t crack my skull? Or perhaps I should fault you for saving my life when you were alone and terrified? Which of these crimes deserves the death penalty that I almost delivered to you tonight? Hmm? Tell me, Elisa, because I’m failing to see which of these you want me to forgive.”

He stops talking abruptly, breathing hard. He glares beyond me, while I gaze at him in horror. Even knocked unconscious, he has missed nothing. And he has found a way to blame himself for everything, as I knew he would. I sit up, trying to take his face in my hands, but he tears himself from me and bolts out of bed. In the time it takes me to blink and focus, he is standing at the window, glowering into the black night.

“Aiden, please, don’t do this again,” I beg, climbing out of bed and shuffling to his side. “I know it’s in your character to take the blame, but you have it wrong this time. This one was all on me.”

“No, it wasn’t. There is only one fault you have here as far as I’m concerned: that you fell in love with me. In a world full of Graham Knightleys and Felix Plemmonses, you insist on staying with the absolute worst option for you alive—”

“Aiden—”

“No, strike that. Even that I can’t blame you for. You actually managed to leave me. You found the strength to get on a plane and start again, but I couldn’t leave you well the fuck alone. Oh no, I had to chase you all way around the world because I want you too fucking much. God forbid I should be miserable for a chance that you stay safe and alive.”

“Alive?” I hiss back, losing the grip on my own temper. “What kind of life do you think I would have if you hadn’t chased me around the world? Edison would have turned me into a tombstone on the hilltop by now if it weren’t for you. You’re the reason I’m alive at all. Even you can’t deny that.”

He winces as if I struck him with my words about tombstones. “Yes, I can deny it, because anyone else could have saved you tonight—Cal, Max, any trained bodyguard without you ever knowing. It didn’t have to be me.”

“You’re not serious! What, you would have planted security outside my cottage forever?”

“That’s exactly right!”

“That’s exactly mad! Edison would have found a way—”

“This is not about Edison! Edison is out of the picture now and he will stay that way until he dies. Does that mean you’re less in danger with me, Elisa? Does that mean you can wake me up at night whenever you need? Does that mean you’re safe with the person from whom you are most entitled to expect protection? When you are constantly one startle away from a violent death, more painful than a dose of midazolam? No, it doesn’t. Because I am the most lethal danger that could have possibly crossed your path.”

His words are coming at me fast and gusty like a hurricane. Blowing back all my cells, stripping away everything that gives me meaning. What can I say to convince him? What argument would ever make him accept that I don’t want any kind of life without him no matter how safe or long it might be?

He turns to the window again, his muscles flexing with anger like a churning ocean, keeping us apart. I reach a trembling hand for his granite forearm. “Aiden, you know I could never want anyone else. Why can’t you see how happy you make me? Why can’t you accept that I belong with you exactly as you are?”

He doesn’t hesitate. “Because I refuse to believe in any fate that dooms you to me, that’s why.”

I step in front of him, squeezing myself between his tense body and the window. He doesn’t look at me even when I rest my hands on his chest, but his heart is thundering. “Stop this, please. This thinking isn’t good for you, especially tonight. We’re supposed to rest and do the opposite, not an exact carbon copy of last time.”

He stares into the night for so long, I start thinking he will not answer. But then he speaks slowly. “We can’t do the opposite when the problem is still the same, Elisa.”

His voice has lost all its fight—it’s almost a whisper. The deep eyes break through his control. And for a moment, I’m a child again, like I am during the reel—the same little girl who used to sleep in this white, rosy room with an enchanted life filled with blooms. Because I would have to live through a thousand more fatal accidents, funerals, betrayals, ICE trials and jails, goodbyes, and deaths before I can grasp even a fraction of the agony in Aiden’s eyes. They burn in their sockets, ravaged with despair. His body shudders under my palms and, for a split second, I think his knees will give out. I almost fall on mine, but he flexes and stands taller, as if in front of a firing squad that is not executing him fast enough.

That’s when I realize what I’m seeing, what the searing torture is in his eyes. His hope is gone. And it has taken everything, leaving him only biologically alive.

I don’t know how I breathe through the pain that seems to crush my very bones, how I don’t gasp from the way my body feels ripped inside out at this realization. But I manage, for him. I reach on my tiptoes, ignoring the way the cuts stretch with the movement—it feels like soft petals compared to the mangled mess within—and take his face in my hands.

“Love, we don’t know that the problem is the same. Don’t think that. We still have five weeks left.”

He still doesn’t meet my eyes. He is motionless, as though tied to a flaming stake. “I know exactly how many weeks, days, hours, and minutes are left.”

“Please look at me.” His eyes meet mine, torn and unwilling. My own hurt doubles with the hopeless anguish he is trying very hard to hide. “And we will fight during each one of those minutes. We will fight for the entire time we have left.”

“We have been fighting. I have been exposing you to trauma and danger for fifty-three days. It hasn’t made the smallest difference—not even a moment’s delay in the reflex. I felt it. You saw it yourself.”

I wish I could argue with him. I wish I could say he is wrong. I think back furiously through the sequence, trying to identify any change that will give him life or at least some faith. But how can I dispute something Aiden knows better than anyone? I better stick to facts. “I won’t lie and say it looked different. But I also can’t say it looked the same. It started the same way, but then you were knocked out. I don’t know how it would have ended. Let’s see what Doctor Helen thinks.”

“But I know, Elisa. There’s no one on Earth that knows it like I do. It was the same trigger, the same flashback, the same speed. Of course, it would have been the same end. We have the proof now. Five weeks early, but there it is. All that torture you’ve had to witness, all the pain I put you through every morning, all the risk, everything it costs you to bring me back from the reel—all of it has done nothing. It—didn’t—work. Every additional minute you spend with me now is indefensible and places you in more danger.”

And there it is. Our poison and dagger. The way our love story always races to same end: killing our hearts to save my life. As if I could want any life after that.

He is still looking at me with those same tortured eyes, daring me to disagree. I use the only option, the only h-o-p-e I have left. “Aiden . . .” I clutch his face harder, needing it to be able to stand. “We promised we would fight until the ninetieth day. You will not finish us early this time. Because if you leave before then, you might save my body, but you would kill my heart, not to mention yours.”

With each word I speak, a new inferno seems to burn him. But what else can I say? How else can I buy us more time to try, to find another way? He is still burning at the stake: face a thousand years old, jaw clenched as if against a silent scream, eyes out of focus in agony.

“Aiden, promise me,” I press, my tone bordering on hysteria. “Promise me you won’t leave before the ninety days.” Or ever, I add silently, but I cannot push that tonight.

He closes his eyes, cutting off my only access to his emotions. Seconds tick away, each a new tear through my chest.

“Please,” I implore him again. “Don’t take these last days from us.”

He opens his eyes. Somehow, he has reigned back the agony into a semblance of composure, no doubt for my benefit. I know because when he gazes at me, he looks resigned, as though my words have lashed at his will.

“I will stay until September eighteen,” he breathes at last. “But I need to think about what that will look like.”

Living apart, maybe worse—and he will not stay a single minute more. He doesn’t say it but it’s there in the silence that follows, in his unflinching gaze. Every part of me wants to argue with him, but tonight is absolutely not the right time. I’ll need all our allies and science for that.

I wind my arms around his waist for support. “That’s a good place to leave it for tonight. We can think together what it will look like. Now come to bed. I’ll go get our phones and some ice.”

“I’ll do that—get off your feet.”

Except I need a minute. “No, I need to use the restroom anyway. I’ll be right back.”

Perhaps he needs a minute too because he nods, watching me leave. As soon as I’m out of his sight, I run to our bedroom and grab our phones, trying to think only of a plan for the rest of the night until we see Doctor Helen. Something that will calm him, a way to do the opposite of the last time. But as I search our bedroom for ideas, I find nothing: talking, making love, playing chess, dancing—none of those happy activities will reach him now. Inspiration doesn’t strike until I’m leaving the kitchen with an ice pack and glimpse the light still on in the library. Please let this work, please let us win, please keep him with me.

The library is spotless. There isn’t a glimmer of broken glass or droplet of blood anywhere. Everything is back in its precise place. Aiden has secured the broken shutters together with wire so they don’t slam. The willows’ lament is louder on this side of the cottage: ashes, ashes, ashes… I find what I’m looking for and dash back upstairs.

Aiden is sitting on the bed, toying idly with one of my Rubik cubes—he has already solved it. But his eyes are back in their hollow setting, empty and far away. He raises an eyebrow at his war letters in my hand.

“What are you up to, Elisa?”

“Well, Corbin says we have to do the opposite of last time, and you mentioned reading. So I was thinking of my favorite thing to read: your letters. Last time in Portland, I read only one, all alone. This time, I think we should read them all together.”

His perfect eyebrow arches higher in his forehead. “Elisa, you’ve had a hell of a night. I’d very much prefer it if you got some sleep.”

“And I will, but I’m sure it will be easier to fall asleep to the sound of your voice.” I use the only argument that stands a chance and hand him his phone and ice pack. He checks my knees and feet again as I curl to his side. “They’re warm and cozy,” I lie even though the lidocaine is starting to wear off. I hold my treasure in my hands, stroking the coarse paper that to me feels like my own skin now. “You know when Benson gave these to me, he wrote that he was breaking your rules. What rules did you give him?”

He gazes at the yellowed envelopes for a moment. “He wasn’t supposed to do anything that stopped you from leaving me,” he answers. “No information about Javier, no interference of any kind. Of course, neither of us was prepared for your decision to come back to England. And I should have known in the end he would have been on your side.” He frowns at some thought, glancing at the closed bedroom door.

A shiver runs through me as he confirms my worst fear. I turn his face to me, cupping his cheek. “You will not do anything like that again. No forcing my hand or secret plots for me to hate you, all right?”

His eyes burn on mine, deep and unfathomable. “If only there were such a way, but you seem to be incapable of hating me no matter how hard I try. So there is no point to that strategy now.”

His voice is low with an ancient sadness, but there seems to be only truth in it. Our separation will be different this time. He will make sure Javier and Reagan are here. He will see that Edison is gone away for life. He will set me up with permanent security and trust funds. He will take care of every detail the way only Aiden knows how. And then he will say goodbye. Honestly, truly, forever. The fault lines in my chest tear open. It feels as though everything is cleaving in half, from my body to my life. I have five weeks to stop him. Five weeks to win with almost all of our weapons obliterated in one fell swoop tonight. And I have to start right now.

“You’re right,” I say, knowing he must hear the emotions playing in my voice. “I could never hate you anymore than you could hate me. So stop wishing for it and let’s read. We can start with this.” I pick the most worn envelope from the stack—even undated, I know it by heart. “It’s my favorite.”

A flash of curiosity touches his eyes. “This is?”

“Yes, by a wide margin.”

He frowns, and I can understand why. After all, I was in tears the first time I read, and the second, and the third. But I still couldn’t stop reading it over and over again.

“Why is it your favorite?”

“I’ll tell you after we read it.”

I wrap myself around him, resting my head on his chest. His heart is thudding with its firm, assertive rhythm, slower than during our argument—probably from the memory of writing these letters. The letters that were the genesis of my calming effect. He takes the envelope from me and fishes out the beloved sheet of commissary paper, taking care to keep the red desert sand inside. I know he doesn’t need to read it to remember, but he still begins in his piano voice.

“My all,

This is the day. The day I thought I would stop writing to you. I knew it would come. Despite my romantic notions, I am fighting in a war. I spend my days and nights surrounded by IEDs, artillery, and homemade bombs. But I didn’t know how it would come. I imagined perhaps a grenade on my side of the road, a bullet in the right place, at the right time. The how didn’t really matter—you would know. Because you live inside me, there would never be a need for goodbye with us. I go, you go. In the same last breath.

But as with all perfect things, there is a catch: I love you. Fictional and mythical as you are.

I know that too, I can hear you say. But did you know how deep that love runs? You couldn’t, because until now that I am scribbling these words, I didn’t know it myself. It’s so profound that I cannot bear the thought of you not existing. Even if only inside my head.

And that is why today is not that day. That is why I am still writing to you even though I shouldn’t be here, even though I should join my best man. But if I end, you end with me. And apparently, I cannot tolerate that fact.

How did this happen? How did an imaginary woman become a reason for living when a bullet in the mouth would be the better choice? How did you manage to make me love a part of myself on the day I hate all the rest?

They will say my strength saved my life tonight. They will credit faith, hope, or even angels. But they will be wrong. It was you. I picked up a pen instead of my pistol because of you. There is ink on my fingers instead of blood because of you. I am still breathing so you can continue, even if only as a dream. I am still writing because, in a day when everything feels surreal, I believe you exist.

So we go on, you and I, halves of the whole. You the wind, and I the cloud. You the current, I the ocean. You the fire, I the burn. We go on, like air and lungs, hearts and beats, light and dark.

We go on together because we love.

Yours,

Aiden.”

His voice drifts off, more beautiful than any of the pale imitations I would hear in my head when I read these words alone. I barely breathe so I don’t interfere with the aftersound. Even when he is no longer talking, it echoes in my ears like a lullaby. We go on . . .

“So why this is your favorite?” Aiden reminds me while I commit every tilt of his cadence to my imperfect memory.

“Because in all the other letters, you write about your love for me. This is the only one where you write about loving yourself. When you said, ‘how did you manage to make me love a part of myself,’ it made me happy even though I know this was one of your darkest days. See, there is some self-love in you after all.” I press my lips above his heart, crushing myself closer to him. “And of course I love that you didn’t give up on us even on that day.”

“That day I didn’t know I had developed a deadly reflex, Elisa.”

“I know but, still, you kept some hope.”

He doesn’t answer but his arm winds around me for the first time since Edison’s attack. He looks at the aged letter with a thousand-miles stare, seeing all the images and memories that must be layered underneath each word. His long fingers trail absentmindedly down my arm.

“Hey,” I call him back, suddenly worried I’ve unleashed more terror than comfort.

“Hmm?” He blinks at me. The fingers stop their caress.

“Are these too hard to read? We can find another way to do the opposite.”

“No, not hard,” he corrects. “It’s . . . fitting, I suppose, to read these with you now.” There is a tone of finality in his words, like the sound a full circle might make if it could produce sound. He feels my goosebumps and tucks the quilt around me. “It was a good idea. In a way, they still bring me calm.”

I shudder under the covers. “Let’s go on, then,” I whisper, wondering if he hears my double-meaning. “Read another one. Do you have a favorite?”

I feel his head shake against my hair. “No, each of them felt different and yet the same.”

“Let’s start from the beginning then.”

And he does. “My all,” he murmurs, his voice a quiet sonata. I listen to him read the words that saved him, pretending they can save him again now, can save us both. And despite my efforts to stay awake, slowly, his rhythmic poetry soothes me, too, and I start drifting. Yet, I feel no sense of closure or relief. Because I know darker, more terrifying days are still ahead. Change is coming. I can feel it in the space between my cells, in each breath Aiden takes, in the throbbing of the open wound in my heart. Change is coming. I just hope it’s not the end.

©2021 Ani Keating

NINETY DAYS: CHAPTER 29 – DEATH

Hello, everyone, and hope you are all having a good Sunday.  It’s been rainy and a bit tearful here with this chapter. Okay, not a bit. I’m a mess, but this is the way of this story and these characters. And that’s all I can say for this. The music of this chapter says it all: Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture.  Hang in there, I’ll be back soon with more.  Only very few chapters left now. Thank you for continuing to read this story to its ultimate conclusion. Lots of love, xo – Ani

29

Death

In my dream, our bedroom is very dark. The only light is radiating from Aiden’s skin. I know it’s a dream because there is no Für Elise. The melody has become so deeply embedded in my subconscience that I recognize its absence even asleep. But I sink deeper into the quiet because in dreams I can always touch him. He is sleeping on his side, facing me. The candlelit shimmer of his body triggers a flashback, like a dream within a dream. No, not a dream—my worst night terror: Aiden as Romeo, cold and lifeless next to me. Choking with panic, my hand flies to his chest. But his skin is supple and warm, his heart is beating under my palm, evenly and reassuringly alive. I blow out a gusty sigh of relief. From my breath, a lock of his hair flutters above his scar. He moans lightly and rolls over. And the golden expanse of his back glows before me as it never would in real life. Exposed, vulnerable, and not dangerous. Eagerly, I take full advantage of the fantasy. I wrap my arm around him, safe and sound, and press my lips on his relaxed shoulder blade. The sculpted angles give to the pressure of my mouth. I caress them with my fingers, taste them on my tongue. My body molds itself to his shape. For the first time, in life or dreams, I feel the steel of his back against my bare breasts. I tremble like a shiver on his spine.

“Ah, Elisa,” he murmurs.

In the silence, his whisper sounds clear like a symphony.  “Yes?” I breathe, unwilling to let my voice interfere with his music.

“It’s a dream, love.”

“Then let me dream.”

I kiss the tip of his shoulder, waiting for the sound of his reply. A willowy rustle whooshes in the distance. I press into his back, quivering again, and hold my breath for his voice. But all I hear is a wooden creak. The edge of the dream roils.

“No,” I grumble, burying my nose between Aiden’s shoulders. His scent is so pure here—no rosewood or me, just him—like a new home, counterpoint to my spot above his heart on his chest. But the dream is slipping away. The light of Aiden’s body twists into conscience, turning dark where my fingers touch it. Another creak, and he vanishes.

Irritated with the cottage, I blink awake. The moonlit bedroom takes the place of the candlelit dream. The most beautiful dream—my body is thrumming with it, my breath fluttering. The true Aiden is fast asleep next to me, more surreal than the fantasy. Surreal because my mind can never replicate his beauty. Real because tension strains his shoulders despite the low lullaby of Für Elise. I can never touch him now, nor startle him awake in any way.

I scoot closer to his warmth, trying to go back to dreaming. One puff of happiness, two, three . . . But the shutters creak again with the wind that woke me in the first place. I glower into the starlit darkness. They’ll wake Aiden this way. I steal out of bed carefully inch by inch. Even with the slow movement, my body groans like the cottage. How can it not after three games of real and body chess, all of which I lost spectacularly to the dark king? My ego is obviously not the only sore part. Aiden will have to carry me along River Eden tomorrow. Or is it today? The alarm clock on my nightstand gleams four minutes to midnight.

I teeter to the window to tighten the latch, but it’s still locked as Aiden secured it in his safety obsession. Another creak from downstairs—one of the kitchen shutters must have come loose. Not entirely sure I can make it that far, I start tiptoeing across the bedroom, feeling blindly for my robe on the floor and stubbing my toe on the dresser.

“Ouch!” I hiss, and then freeze. I must look comical, crouching here, one arm in my robe, another hand around my foot, but Aiden doesn’t move. His deep breaths flow rhythmically without a hitch. Mine, on the other hand, have stopped completely. I don’t draw a wisp of air until I slip out of the door.

The wind must have become a near-gale outside because a shutter slams against the cottage with force.

“Bloody hell,” I mutter, padding down the stairs in the dark, knotting the sash of my robe. A metallic jingle chimes nearby. My body freezes on the squeaky step, heart lurching to the soles of my feet. Abruptly I cannot move or breathe. What is that sound? I’m not wearing my new charm bracelet or my locket; I’m not carrying a single thing that tinkles.

The foyer light flicks on, though not from my fingers.

I blink into the sudden glow in terror, my throat closing around a scream. I wasn’t hearing the shutters slam; I was hearing the front door. Aiden has been right from the beginning. It was never the reel or his PTSD. There is no more logic or gravity to argue against his theory.

Someone is here for me.

Pale, thinner somehow in the foyer’s dim light, with an odd glint in the familiar eyes, the real intruder stands motionless, except a bundle of keys dangling in his hand. Confusion and surprise blend in the narrow face when he spots me. Then the wafery lips stretch up in a closed smile.

I choke back my building scream, my stomach heaving with horror. It’s very strange for I know the fear should be for myself. There is no good reason for a visit at this hour, in my home, with a key I’ve never given out. Yet in this moment I feel only one dread: Aiden sleeping upstairs. How do I keep him safe?

No one knows what would happen to Aiden’s memories if he is wrenched awake while they are reconsolidating, but we do know what happens when he is triggered. Doctor Helen’s severe voice reverberates in my pounding ears as if she is towering right next to me: you must guard against the startle reflex during this time . . . it is imperative . . . imperative . . . imperative.

Somehow, someway, I will have to be quiet for this. For Aiden. It’s my choices, my mistakes that have placed him in danger, that have brought us here, all alone and unprotected.

“Elisa?” Professor Edison recovers first as my brain scrambles frantically for a plan. “My apologies, I didn’t realize you were here. I thought you went away for the weekend.”

The normally measured voice has a jolted edge to it, but otherwise is casual, as if we are bumping into each other on the street. But it’s also quieter than Reagan’s on Skype, which doesn’t wake Aiden. And that’s a good thing. Keep Aiden asleep please, keep him away from this.

“I think I’m the one entitled to surprise, Professor,” I whisper, taking the last few steps down the stairs, further away from the bedroom, my legs shaking so much I have to grip the rail. “What are you doing in my home and how do you have a key?”

The smile opens his mouth, revealing an unnaturally red gumline between his lips that I haven’t seen before. The crimson hue lingers like a filter over my eyes. Beneath my terror, I feel a burn of anger. This man who has stood in this foyer more times than I can count—laughing with my father, hugging my mum, ruffling my hair—who is he? How dare he stand where my parents stood as if he owns the life they left behind? As if he owns me.

He takes off his anorak and hangs it next to mum’s red parka with easy, at-home manners. He is wearing the same tweed suit as he was at dad’s bench ceremony this afternoon. The anger seeps through my skin like tonic, fortifying me a little. His greyish eyes don’t seem to fall on Aiden’s trainers in the corner; instead they flatten, as if with an inner decision.

“Oh, I can imagine your surprise,” he answers, comfortable now, back to his professor persona. “It’s quite understandable, of course. But no matter, no matter. It’s better like this.”

“I’m not following you.” I take another step closer to him. On the console, by the Rose Cup and the perpetual vase of Clares, is the skunk spray and the strobe flashlight that Aiden planted to protect me from himself. Both of them out of reach. “Better how, Professor?”

“Better for the truth, of course. Isn’t that the goal of science? Shall we go in to discuss, Elisa?” He smiles the scarlet smile again and gestures toward the library.

On one hand, it’s farther away from the stairs and the bedroom. But it’s also the farthest room from the front door, and I need him out of here immediately. I try to think quickly through the raw panic. Should I tell Edison I’m not alone? But what if he goes upstairs and startles Aiden? Is there any chance Benson is awake at this hour, looking at the foyer camera feed?

“Actually, I’d like to talk when I return from River Eden,” I suggest as quietly as possible. “I still have to pack and my boyfriend will be here shortly for an early start. Please set the key on the console and leave.”

He sighs and shakes his head. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. I’m here for answers that cannot wait and, since you’re here too, I’m certain you can give them to me faster. But you have no reason to fear and invent a boyfriend. I’ve known you since you were born. The library then.” He indicates with his hand down the corridor, with no room for opposition. Yet, for some reason, I don’t think he would hurt me, at least not yet. He is here for the protein—if there is anything I’m certain about, it’s that. The biggest danger is to Aiden and I cannot allow it in any way.

“I’m not inventing,” I answer, wishing I could speak loudly with conviction, instead of the necessary murmur which must make me sound exactly as afraid as I feel. “And frankly this is inappropriate, not to mention unlawful. Whatever answers you need, I will happily discuss at work.”

The red smile opens again, clearly unconvinced. “Oh, Elisa, there is no need for hostility. Such an American way. But I can assure you, I’ll be quick. I only have a couple of questions.” He gestures to the library again, blocking the front door. I can see from the flat eyes that he will not leave, at least not immediately. A chill slithers down my spine. Am I wrong? Would he hurt me? No, he needs me. I’ll have to go with that or I will not be able to stay calm for Aiden.

I try to scan my options swiftly. Everything else—continuing to argue here, disclosing Aiden’s presence, screaming, going upstairs for my cell phone on the charger—runs the risk of waking Aiden, of jeopardizing everything we’ve been fighting for. But if I talk to Edison quietly, closer to a desk phone and more skunk spray, hopefully he will leave. And I may get some answers—answers that I may only have tonight to receive.

Only seconds have passed. Edison is waiting for me with a patient, academic mien. Used as I am to reading Aiden’s deep eyes, his flat concrete shallows keep me off balance. But his stance is casual, relaxed. Outside, the wind is whistling with the willows.

“Ten minutes,” I murmur, hoping I can somehow dial Benson before then if he doesn’t leave. The coppers are out of the question with their sirens and alarms.

I scurry down the corridor away from the bedroom, knees trembling, stomach churning to the point of nausea. The Oxfords click behind me, quieter than Skype’s dings. I tighten my robe, feeling exposed. Upstairs all sounds quiet. Keep Aiden asleep, please, keep him dreaming.

As soon as I switch on the library light, I swipe the blanket from the back of dad’s armchair, throw it around me, and march straight to his desk by the side wall. There are more sprays and strobe lights in the drawers here, there is the phone if I can manage to use it. But that leaves Edison with dad’s armchair across from me, and I see crimson again. That’s good, too; it makes it easier to look brave.

But Edison doesn’t sit right away. His eyes alight on the precious chessboard in the far corner, free of its glass case. “Ah, you finally finished the game! How poetic.” He presses his palms together, but a new bolt of dread strikes me.

“How did you know about the unfinished chess game, Professor?” I try to put strength behind my whisper, but it shudders in my mouth.

“Hmm?” He looks back at me, still casual, but something falters in his gaze. “Oh, I saw it the day of the funeral.”

It’s the only answer that makes sense, yet my stomach heaves again, recognizing the lie. Because in a flashback quick like Aiden’s, I remember the day I returned here from Portland, finding this desk messier than usual, thinking dad had run late the morning before the accident.

“You have been here before, haven’t you?” Of course he has—Aiden discovered one time—but this suggests more break-ins. Why? What am I dealing with here? Have I misjudged again?

He doesn’t speak until I reach carbon, trying not to vomit. The flat eyes are mesmerizing in an odd, chilling way. I cannot look away from them. Eventually, he seems to make a decision and takes dad’s armchair.

“Very well, Elisa.” He tents his hands, his voice quiet and pleasant. “It’s quite natural that you should be curious. And if I expect honesty from you, which I do, I should extend you the same courtesy. I’ll start first. Yes, I’ve been here before.”

“When?”

“The night after the funeral.”

Of all the nights in my life, that’s the blurriest, even foggier than the night of the accident itself. I only know that I was at my grandparents’ home in London at the time, medicated, while my cottage was being raided. Abruptly, I have to concentrate on breathing through the growing rage to control my reactions for Aiden.

“You look so very much like Clare when you’re displeased.” Edison cocks his head to the side, and the glassy eyes take on some semblance of expression. “But you must understand, the work had to go on.” He shrugs as if this one end justifies all the means. And if it justifies this, what else can it excuse for him?

“How did you get a key?”

He takes the cottage key out of the bundle and sets it on the desk in front of me like he is simply returning a borrowed book. “I’ll give this back. I suppose I no longer will have need for it after tonight.”

“Why did you need it at all?”

“Why?” He shakes his head as if in disbelief at my question. “My dear girl, because I had no other option. You were incapacitated with grief, and Peter was gone. I needed access to his work to continue with the protein. I wasn’t going to bother you in the hospital or at the Snows, was I?”

He smiles the gummy red smile as if he truly believes he has done me a kindness. “I asked how you got a key, Professor. I’m certain neither mum nor dad gave it to you.”

“Ah, the Clare passion again. But there’s no need for censure when I quite regret it myself.” There is no remorse in his eyes whatsoever despite the solicitous tone. “I made a copy of the key you gave to the Plemmonses during the funeral reception. Without their knowledge, naturally. I took it from Harold’s coat pocket when he slipped it in. There was no other choice that wouldn’t have inconvenienced you or forced you to comb through your dead father’s papers in such a fragile state.”

Dead father. How easily it rolls off his tongue. How quickly that ease negates the veneer of concern from his explanation. I focus all my mental power on keeping my voice quiet for Aiden. “Why not simply ask the Plemmonses or my grandparents for permission?”

“Because they were elderly and had also been through a tremendous loss, obviously.”

The lie is so fluid, it would be impossible to detect if I didn’t know what Aiden discovered despite my resistance. “There is no need to invent compassion, Professor. Because I know that’s not the only time you’ve broken in here.”

His eyes widen with evident interest or perhaps it’s feigned innocence. As they do, I notice a faint pink tint in their whites. “How curious. Why do you believe that?”

“Because you left marks.” Like a reel on rewind, the last two months flash before my eyes. “Marks that I now realize fit only you.”

The sliver of gumline glints again and the blank gaze becomes eager, acquisitive as it is in Bia. “Ah, you’re analyzing like a scientist. I’m so very interested to hear your hypothesis.”

“It’s not hypothesis. It’s fact. You have a habit of slamming doors and storming in, Professor. You should know that in an old, creaky cottage, picture frames move, scarves and parkas slip. You were careful not to move anything on June thirtieth because I was back, unlike the first time you broke in when you left this desk a mess. But you didn’t realize the unintentional signs you left behind the second time.”

As I talk, Edison’s expression folds from curiosity to incredulity and now in a friendly, indulgent mask. He chuckles. “These are not facts, Elisa. That’s only a theory at best, and a creative one. But proof?” He shakes his head again. “No, my dear girl, it is not.”

“No, but this is. You have a penchant for After-Eight mints. I smelled them on you earlier this morning at Bia but thought nothing of it until now. You ate one on June thirtieth, the night you broke in here for a second time. And you dropped the wrapper in front of the garage, perhaps even smoked a cigarette. I’m certain now that a simple nitrate and ninhydrin powder would immediately reveal your fingerprints. As they would show on my doodles you stole from this library and tossed out of your car window down the road when you realized they held no information about anything. Isn’t that right, Professor?”

The flat façade has vanished from Edison’s face. He is staring at me with the same wide, astonished eyes as he was during my speech, but there is calculation underneath. “Well, well, Elisa, how impressive. You really are Peter’s daughter.”

Except this is all from Aiden, and I didn’t believe him. I made him question his sanity and have now placed him in grave danger. I will deal with myself later. “Why do you come here, Professor? The truth now, so we can be done with this and you can leave.”

The scarlet smile doesn’t waver from Edison’s dry lips, but his eyes flatten again. Why do they do that? “As you wish.” He nods. “I said we will talk openly, and so we shall. I have a hypothesis, too, Elisa. I believe Peter left you the formula for the protein or at least a hint of it. And you have been pursuing it ever since you returned, finally succeeding today before your speech.”

At least I don’t have to pretend to look surprised now. “What?” I breathe, gobsmacked. How on earth did he reach that last conclusion? Not that he isn’t absolutely correct about the rest.

He squints as he did earlier today, hesitating at my genuine shock, but then recovers with another thin smile. “Ah, like a good chemist, you won’t give up your conclusions first either, I see. But not to worry. You gave me your evidence, and I will give you mine.” He knots his bony fingers. “I shall start at the beginning, so you can understand—a professor’s habit, no doubt you know it.”

And he begins in a slow, quiet voice that holds me prisoner even as I will each second to tick faster for the first time in months. “You see, you came back to England right on time, though you didn’t know it. Graham and I had hit a dead end, and I had lost all hope for my protein. Even the funding for it is quite precarious; you cannot fathom the cost of such a project. But here you were, against all probabilities, although just as weak as the day you left.

“I thought immediately I was gaining an asset. Not your experience, of course. There are thousands more qualified than you. But your mind. Ah, yes, it works just like his—Peter used to say so himself.” He nods as if he is praising me instead of confirming that the only reason he gave me a chance was my last name. S-n-o-w.

“But I admit that initial thrill quickly faded into disappointment those first couple of weeks,” he continues. “You moved your hands like him but didn’t think like him. Determined and methodical, yes, but limited in ways he was not.”

He speaks factually as though he is reporting the qualities of a chemical component instead of stirring all my inadequacies with a very sharp, precise pipette.

“Oh, I mean no offense,” he adds quickly, perhaps seeing it on my face. I need to control my expressions better. “And as it turned out, I was wrong in that assessment. Very wrong indeed.  You are not limited, just discreet. I realized all that on Saturday, June thirtieth, the night I came here.”

Whatever breaths I was managing stop. “What did you realize?” I ask, keeping my voice quiet so he doesn’t catch the emotion. Because that’s the day I discovered the right oxytocin, the day the vials stopped breaking, the day Aiden’s parents came to visit.

“That you were using oxytocin, of course.” He watches my reactions carefully. It takes all my concentration not to move an eyelash while my heart is pummeling my throat. He knows. Then why is he here?

“You lost me,” I hedge.

“Did I? The fault lies with the teacher then. You see, Graham mentioned you were working earlier that day, which in itself was unusual for you on a Saturday. But he also observed you were so absorbed, you didn’t even jump when he came in—a habit of yours, that is. And that made me ever so curious. Why would a fidgety young intern who hadn’t been working a single hour on weekends suddenly not flinch? Especially a young intern who happens to be the only living descendant of the only chemist in the world who may have discovered organic bravery right before his untimely demise? Could you have seen something in his notes I had missed? Did he leave a clue for you in a place I wouldn’t know, his briefcase perhaps that you had taken to Portland with you? Most understandably, I had to find out.” He nods again as if to give me time to respond. I say nothing so he can speed up, but my hammering heartbeat might awake Aiden. Keep me calm, please, keep me strong for him.

“I went to Bia after Graham left for supper, searching for any sign or hint,” Edison continues when I don’t acknowledge his theory in any way. “And there it was, in the broken glass container: an empty, cracked ampule of oxytocin.

“I admit I was puzzled. There is no place for it in the formula. I tested some doses right away myself, in fact. Of course, nothing. But I was intrigued, so very enraptured. Like I hadn’t been in four long years. Yet I couldn’t find any notes of yours anywhere. Not one scribble. How could that be? It left the cottage as the only alternative. I already heard from Graham you were dining with friends that evening, so I came in just around eight.” He pauses, his eyes following every blink of mine. Under the blanket, my hands ball up into fists to absorb all fury from my expression. I hold my breath as the wind rattles the closed shutters.

“You might be wondering, why not ask you directly,” Edison prompts without any qualms. “I admit I was not certain you would be honest. After all, you hadn’t shared the oxytocin idea with me.”

“That doesn’t entitle you to break into my home, Professor.”

“Of course not. But your misuse of my lab, chemicals, grant funds, and trust certainly allows me some . . . liberties. And in any event, I feel so very at home here, as if it is my cottage too, in a way.”

The crimson of his smile flares into a haze in my vision, into a fierce loathing. I don’t recall ever hating anyone quite like this: so instantly, so venomously. Not even Feign. “But it is not, Professor. It is mine as it always has been.”

“Ah, Elisa.” His voice lowers with rebuke. “You abandoned it for four years. Don’t tell me you suddenly care for it.”

How deeply he cuts. Does he do it intentionally? Or does he truly believe it? And what did I expect people to think? “I’m not surprised you would think so, but I am disgusted that, after pretending to be a friend to my father, you would use my grief to your advantage.”

My advantage?” His eyes widen in perfect approximation of shock, not that I can trust anything in them. “Certainly, but I think Peter’s dream benefits from this, too, and more importantly, so does science. And in any event, I assure you, I was respectful,” he adds as if this makes everything okay. “I didn’t sneak or pry that night. Indeed, I came only here in the library, but everything was spotless. You had obviously cleaned for your guests. I couldn’t find a single note except the crumpled doodles in the corner of your reading nook. Naturally, I had to study the concentric circles—so unique a pattern. What if they were the code? Perhaps as many circles as numbers on the atomic mass of a new element? But nothing added up.

“You’re right, of course. I stopped by the garage and had a mint and a cigarette while studying it. I so rarely smoke, but I admit you had disappointed me that day, too. But I still watched you in the lab the following week. More oxytocin went missing from the cooler, yet nothing seemed to fit. You certainly didn’t act as though you were braver. But how to be sure? Can you venture a theory on what I did, Elisa?”

My face feels frozen with the effort of composing my expressions, but another chill whips through me. A man able to rationalize every wrong deed like this cannot be harmless even to me. I shift my chair a little closer to the phone. Could I lift the receiver and press Benson’s number one digit at a time? No, I can’t. Edison’s eyes are zoomed on me like a microscope.

“I’m still trying to comprehend your audacity, Professor, so I admit, nothing will surprise me. But your ten minutes are up. Get to the point and leave.”

I expect the flat stare to continue, but he chuckles. “There’s the Clare glare.” Then the eyes empty again. “Very well, the point is that I had to see how you would act in a moment of fear or anxiety. I knew you hated public performances—you always have. So I decided to pay you a visit at the Rose Festival. After all, if you had made a break-through with the protein, surely you would use it then.”

I feel blood draining from my face. In a flash of intuition, all the elements fall together, and I have to fight back a gasp. “It was you!” I hiss, gripping the desk so I don’t shout or hit him. “You made my palms pink!” Aiden was right about this, too. He was right about everything. Remorse stabs my chest exactly where the wound burns at Aiden’s absence. And I deserve it. I deserve a lot worse if I didn’t know it would destroy Aiden.

Edison looks almost elated. “Ah, very good, Elisa. How quickly you see. Yes, I have an anti-theft solution of my own invention to protect the protein. You didn’t think I’d leave one of the most expensive substances in the world unguarded, did you? This solution, when it comes into contact with the skin of someone who has ingested the 2-AG, that patch of skin will turn pale blue, then fade quickly before anyone thinks of seeking medical attention. If you had not consumed the protein, your skin would simply turn pink. It’s entirely harmless, I promise you,” he explains as if this justifies the violation, as if he didn’t invade me and literally stain me without consent. “I just brewed some more tonight, in fact. You might notice the reddish hue in my gums and eyes. I always taste it myself for efficacy.” He taps the corner of his mouth, flashing his gruesome smile while I stare in horrified understanding. “There’s no need to worry.” He waves his hand, missing or dismissing the true horror of his own self. “I only placed a very light coating of the solution on the rose pot I handed to you. And immediately, I noticed your palms blush.” He opens his own palms with something like pride. “In the words of our continental neighbors, voila! I knew then that you hadn’t made a break-through or you would have taken the protein before the festival. But then today changed everything.”

He tilts his head to the side, training his unblinking eyes on me. Rage and fear congeal into their own formula in my head, scorching through my tissues, bolting me to my feet.

“Professor Edison.” The words slice through my clenched teeth, and now I know exactly the kind of effort it takes for Aiden to speak quietly when he feels fury like this. Only the thought of him keeps my voice from exploding. “You have violated me and my home, and I would like you to leave immediately. If you do not, I’m afraid I will have to call the coppers.”

He doesn’t move an inch, perhaps sensing my bluff. He simply sighs, brushing an invisible piece of lint from his tweed-clad knee. “I regret it has come to this. I have clearly lost your good opinion. Pity. But there is no need for the police. Simply tell me what changed today that made you go from a terrified little girl on the verge of crying right before the ceremony to a lioness during your speech, and I will leave.”

Nothing changes in his flat eyes, but his voice becomes softer, almost coaxing. In that change, I finally sense danger to myself. Of course he will leave, but what will he do before then? Can I stay silent through whatever he has planned? The instinct to run or scream is nearly uncontrollable. But I do it for Aiden—I would suffer in silence through Fallujah-level torture for him. “My boyfriend happened, Professor” I answer. “He was in the back and gave me the confidence I needed. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I will dial him. I really must pack.”

I grab the receiver but Edison jumps to his feet and his finger presses down on the phone switch, blocking the signal. Everything changes in his expression in one blink. The red smile starts twisting into a sneer. The eyes flash with malice. Like the mask has been ripped off him, and here stands the true man. The change is so staggering, I stifle a gasp. Yet, when he speaks, his voice is still low and genteel.

“Ah, this boyfriend again. Let’s call him together shortly. I’d quite like to meet him after knowing you all your life. But first, what do oxytocin and serotonin have to do with the protein?”

Now that he is close, a faint whiff of alcohol lingers in his breath with the After-Eight mint. Bile rises in my throat. “Absolutely nothing,” I mutter. “I have been experimenting with an anti-depression solution on the side. I’m sorry I used Bia for that, but it has nothing to do with the protein. If you want, I can give you the formula for the one I’ve been mixing and reimburse the cost of wasted hormones.”

He leans closer. The saccharine odor washes over my face, making me gag. “You are lying, E-li-sa.” His slithery voice makes me shudder. “Peter left you something, I know he did.”

“Why do you think that?” I probe not just to distract him, but because this is the question that has haunted me from the moment I found the code. And this may be the only chance I have to find out. “Why are you so convinced dad kept a secret from you even though you were working together?”

The sneer stretches higher, pulling up into a horrific grimace. “Ah, I see, you will pretend you don’t know. Or perhaps you really don’t. Perhaps he died before having a chance to tell you.” He slurps the word as if he relishes it. “No matter, I’ll tell you the truth. Because we had a row about our goals for the protein three days before he was crushed to death in his cheap Beetle. He wanted to restrict the use of bravery only for medical reasons—patients, the terminally ill, classic Peter.” He smirks again. “All heart, no ambition. That’s why he left you with nothing, living off internship quid and rose dirt, without a single protection. I wanted to sell it to the military. Imagine the value, the profit, the importance in that. What more powerful weapon is there than a man without fear?”

“A man with a conscience,” I answer automatically even though it’s clear he meant the question to be rhetorical. But at last, I know. I know the truth. Dad would have never used the protein as a weapon of war. Dad would have seen that Edison wouldn’t have stopped there. What next? Terrorists? Organized crime? Anyone who would pay a filthy lucre for it? I feel my lips lift in a smile despite Edison’s cutting words. “You should have known dad better, Professor. But I don’t have anything to tell you. And after you betrayed my father in every way, we have nothing further to say to each other. Now, let’s call my boyfriend together, shall we? You should know, he was in the U.S. military and knows about you and your break-in. If anything happens to me, he will know it was you and you will see exactly what a powerful weapon he is.”

I grab the phone and try to yank it away from him, but his hand whips down on my wrist. His fingers are like cold shale, his grip stronger than I imagined.

“Let go of me.” I pull back my hand without success; he crushes my wrist to the point of pain. There will be bruises tomorrow. Aiden will finish him when he awakes. “You are in danger here, Professor. You need to leave. Now.”

The horrific grimace opens further showing a contortion of red-rimmed teeth. The pink-hued eyes widen. He looks almost deranged. “I in danger? Oh, I don’t think so. There is only one danger here, and it’s to the reputation of your foolish dead father. Because if you don’t give me the code, I will be the one calling the police and the Honour Council at Oxford to report you for stealing restricted substances like my 2-AG. Trust me, the prison sentence is severe. Imagine the infamy of Peter and Clare’s daughter caught thieving. I’m quite certain you will do anything to protect their legacy. So tell me the code, and you can go on with your fantasy boyfriend and your beloved father’s untarnished memory.”

It takes me a few thundering heartbeats to remember how to breathe. I don’t even feel his grip on my hand, or the floor, or fear for myself as if anger is its own twisted, courage protein. Only Aiden’s safety hushes my voice. Only he is more important than any of this. “There is no code, Professor, and you can report me to whoever you wish,” I whisper. “But I will tell you this. You can keep dressing like my dad in tweed, eating his favorite mints, using his office, his lectern, his favorite student, even his daughter. But you will never be like him. Now, leave for your safety.”

His eyes mirror my loathing, but his is deeper somehow now that it’s unleashed. And I see more truth in that unhinged stare. His hatred is not new; it’s ancient with spite and jealousy. And I think I know why. It may even be the only quiet way out.

His fingernails are digging into my skin. “You know nothing of what I want to be, Elisa.”

“I know you want to be him. You even wanted his wife. That’s when this hatred of my father started, isn’t it?”

For the second time tonight, his face transforms. Shock slashes his features. “You think I wanted Clare?” he whispers through taut lips, but his voice wraps differently around her name.

“You still do. You hang your coat by hers when you come in despite all the other free pegs. Your show emotion only when you speak of her. When I look angry, it’s hard for you to look at me. You came to her rose stand. You touched the sleeve of her parka last time you were here and her roses on the console, causing their petals to fall. You wanted her, but she only ever loved him.”

Shock is still distorting Edison’s face, but his grip loosens on my wrist. His head dips to the side, and his eyes change again. Distant now, human, they sweep over my face and rest on my eyes. My mother’s eyes. I try not to blink, but shiver after shiver courses through me. Help me, Mum, get him out of here.

“Go, Professor. Do it for my mother. She would have wanted you to let me be.”

A long moment passes. Can he hear my heart jackhammering? Can Aiden? It takes all my strength to stand on my feet. Edison’s head bends toward me. “You look exactly like her,” he mouths, raising the hand that’s not gripping my wrist and stroking my cheek.

“Don’t touch me!” I recoil automatically, cringing away from his fingers.

His eyes empty again so suddenly I cannot control my gasp this time. “But you are exactly like him.” And his raised hand slices through the air and slaps me hard across my cheek.

From the blow, I fall backwards and smash against the wooden chair. It screeches and crashes into the wall at the same time that I hear a high-pitched cry. With horror, I realize it’s my own. I snap my teeth immediately and bury my face into my sleeve to smother the sound. How loud was it? Did it break through stone walls and Für Elise? Please keep Aiden asleep, please, please, please. I scramble up on my elbows, clutching my robe around me, not daring to breathe. But Edison has rounded the desk and wrenches me up by my throat. That’s good—it’s harder to make noise this way.

“Peter’s heart,” he spits, raising his hand again.

I close my eyes, tensing so I don’t let out even a breath, but a deep roar I know to my atoms reverberates through the walls to my very bones, shaking the cottage and me with it. My eyelids fling open as my heart plunges through the floorboards. Before I can blink my frozen, horrified eyes, a massive force rips Edison off me and hurls him away like a rag doll. There’s a split second of Edison’s cry, then two powerful arms swoop me up, giving the sensation of flight.

“Elisa?” Aiden’s voice is strangled with terror as he runs his hands frantically over me. “Can you hear me? Elisa, please, please, please.”

“Aiden!” I croak as soon as I can breathe, unsure whether I can touch him. “Oh, no, Aiden, oh, no! I woke you up. Did I startle you? Are you alright?”

No, he is not alright. As my eyes focus, I see his beautiful face twisted in agony. A violent tremor rips over his naked body, rattling me in his hold. Murder fills his eyes. The very air around him is vibrating with danger. I try to hold very still. At first, I cannot tell if he is locked in a flashback. But then his thumb wipes the corner of my mouth very gently, and I see a smear of my blood. Relief washes through me at the same time as horror strikes again.

Relief—he is present and awake.

Horror—what does it mean for his memories to be woken to this?

Another tremor ripples over him as he dabs a second droplet of blood. I take his face in my hands immediately. “Aiden, I’m okay. I’m fine, I promise, it’s just a small cut.” Only now I taste some blood on my tongue. I stroke his cheeks, but his face is smoldering with fury like black embers. He wipes my lips again with the corner of my blanket.

“Did he hurt you anywhere else?” His voice is icy as he rights up the chair.

“Not at all. I don’t even feel this.” This is actually not true. My back is throbbing where I hit the chair, but he doesn’t need to know that. His muscles are straining as he sets me on it gently, his gaze locked on my bloodied lip. “Aiden, look at my eyes, love. Stay calm, please.”

But a groan drifts from the other side of the desk and Edison rocks back up on his feet. Aiden’s body snaps like armor, and a growl of rage whirs in his chest. Horror and confusion mangle Edison’s expression.

“Ah, so there is a boyfriend,” he starts, his voice a strange mixture of shock and manners.

Almost blurry with speed, Aiden’s arm whips out and backhands Edison on the face so hard that Edison flies across the library and hits the bookshelves with a crunching sound. A gush of blood spurts from his mouth.

“Nice to meet you, Professor,” Aiden snarls.

“Aiden, no!” I cry out, trying to stop him, but he’s already in motion, dragging the desk like a barricade around me and prowling toward Edison. Somehow, he grows larger, taller. Every band of muscle becomes a glinting, golden blade. Tension rolls off of his naked body, almost visible in the air. I can feel the all-consuming fury that shimmers out of him as if it were alive. With his back to me, I can no longer see his face, but it must be something else because Edison cowers back against the shelves, blood dripping from his lip on his tweed jacket. His eyes flit wildly around the library for an escape. There is none. Even the closed window to his right would be too far. He cringes into the bookcase, eyes stuck wide.

“So it was you,” Aiden hisses in a dark, hypnotic voice, tensing up to the professor, glorious and terrible. His head is bent so close to his prey from his towering height that Edison shuts his no longer flat eyes, clearly unable to handle whatever death is coiling to spring from Aiden’s gaze. I can almost feel the fiery breath that is scorching Edison’s clammy forehead now. “You are the fool who thought you could hurt her. I have been waiting to meet you.”

The sibilance of his smoky voice echoes in my ears louder than his roar. Chills erupt from the roots of my hair to my toes. I realize now every other time I’ve seen Aiden furious—every Dragon fire, every battle with ICE—was cuddly puppies compared to this.

The only sound from Edison is a gurgle as another rivulet of blood trickles down his chin. Aiden shifts slightly as if to hide the gore from me.

“Open your eyes, Professor. Open so you can see what happens to anyone who touches a hair in her head.”

“Aiden, please!” I beg him, not for Edison, but for himself. He was startled from sleep, he needs safety and peace until we know what it’s done to him.

Edison whimpers and crunches his eyes tighter.

“Open them!” Aiden orders, clawing his hand around Edison’s jaws. Edison’s eyelids fling wide open. The pink whites are huge around the pale, dilated irises. He tries to jerk out of the iron fingers in vain. “Ah, yes, that’s better. You’ll have to do this without a bravery protein, Professor. You will have t