by C. C. Bolick
His outfit changed to a white tux.
“No black?” I demanded. “I thought black was your favorite. I’ve rarely seen you in any other color.”
“Back in that life. I imagined this outfit for you.”
As the preacher began speaking the words for our ceremony, Travis gripped my hand and stood tall by my side. He didn’t seem to care we were alone, that his family wasn’t looking on or any of the agents he might consider friends.
I regretted the fact Dad wasn’t there to give me away—even if he might do it under protest. Mama wasn’t there either to admire my dress and my insides wept that Alfie wasn’t here. If I missed anyone from our old life, Alfie was a person who couldn’t be replaced.
The people we cared about were lost to us and they were missing one of the most important moments of our life, but it was our life. Mine and Travis’s. No one could take it away now. Like me, he no longer feared dying. That part we could control.
Standing by this waterfall listening to a preacher I’d never met wasn’t how I ever expected to get married. It wasn’t how I thought about starting our lives together.
But it would be enough. We’d make sure it was enough.
A weight lifted from my shoulders as I took a deep breath and gave a lingering sigh. The preacher finished his words and encouraged us to say our vows. Vows, as if I’d ever thought this far ahead.
Turning to Travis, I smiled up at him. “I promise to love and cherish you for as long as I live. I’ll stay with you and make sure our lives together are everything they can be.” How could I give him anything more?
Travis kept a serious expression, but his eyes gave him away. Warmth lived there, happiness that was kept at bay, waiting for the moment he could take me in his arms and kiss away the tears that were now falling down my cheeks. “I’ll love you as long as I have the ability to love.”
Love was all he offered. Yet as I stared into the depths of his green eyes, I felt as if he’d given me everything. What more could I ask for than everything Travis Payne could give?
When the minister pronounced us husband and wife, Travis leaned down and kissed me for what felt like an eternity. It didn’t matter who looked on. If I’d ever doubted how he felt about me, those doubts disappeared when his lips pressed against mine. His arms went around me and I breathed in the smell of him. Maybe I imagined that part. Maybe our dreams were finally merged and I had some control here.
As he pulled away, I realized the preacher was gone. We stood alone next to water that crashed along the rocks merely feet away. Water sprayed across my face, onto my lips. With his thumb, he wiped the water away.
“Where to now?” he asked.
“I know one place we’re not going.”
He gripped my hands. “I won’t take you back there. I promise.”
“You’re getting good at making promises.”
“I can think of at least one thing I can do better.” Travis kissed me again, deeper this time, and I moaned. “Seems like you agree.”
How he knew I was talking about not taking me back to the agency, I wasn’t sure. Maybe he felt the same way.
He lifted me in his arms and took me to a small cabin on the side of a mountain. The entire wall before the bed was one huge window, continuous glass with no dividers. We lay on the bed while watching the sunset for what felt like hours, just holding each other close.
When the last rays of light disappeared, he kissed my cheek. “How do you like this for our honeymoon?”
I shrugged. “It’s cool.”
“Cool? We’re in a cabin built into the side of a mountain. Since it’s the only cabin on this mountain, we could safely call it our mountain.”
“Our mountain. Not bad.”
He laughed. “Is there nothing else I can do to impress you?”
“Why do you need to impress me?”
“So you’ll lay in my arms like this, every night for the rest of our lives.” As Travis leaned down to kiss me, I felt my insides glow with a new light. He pulled away. “I think your eyes are glowing. I don’t remember them being this bright.”
“Maybe you’re finally seeing the real me.”
“If that’s the case, I’d like to see more.”
* * * * *
For the next several weeks and then months, Travis took me to every place he’d ever been. When he ran out of his favorite places, he took me to the rest. Everything he’d seen and experienced became a part of me, not just seeing it through his eyes but living it through mine.
Every smell and touch and taste and beautiful sight became a new part of me, along with the ugliness of life. From the most bitter chocolate I’d ever tasted to a lake so clear I could see the mouth of a cave a hundred feet below. He even showed me the island his father won during a card game. It was one of the few times he mentioned his family, but I didn’t press for more and I didn’t judge.
As we traveled at first, I felt he was holding back. After urging him to show me everything, Travis pulled back the curtain and let me be part of him. He’d lived for twenty-one years and I was quickly catching up to him on days logged toward that goal.
Travis took me to his favorite restaurant in Hong Kong and afterward I got to see what he felt was his worse regret. During a mission, a young boy died because of a mistake he made. I held him in my arms for an hour afterward. He let me see him cry, which I thought might change how I felt about him. No, he was the same person I fell in love with. Both tough on the outside and gentle on the inside to anyone who looked deep enough. Staring into his green eyes, I knew that place was fast becoming my new home.
On most afternoons, we climbed the side of our mountain and relished a view no one could see from below. Some days I flew and took him with me. As soon as I convinced him he was in control, that this was his mind and he could do anything, Travis let go and jumped off the cliff with me. Within days, he had no limits. We spent months traveling, and those months turned into years. During the night—yes we had nights of passion along with the quiet rhythm of living—we didn’t stay in lavish hotels or resorts.
At some point, I asked to take me home to Florida. Back to Wynder. For a few months, I insisted we live in a camper similar to the one I grew up in. It was small, parked on a lake with a busybody woman running the main office. Roses grew along the road beside our camper, roses I planted. This place felt like home, and Travis was probably the only person in the world who would understand why.
I was happy there watching the lake in the evenings from a canvas folding chair, as alligators made their way across the water in the distance and ducks swam near my feet. Sometimes I’d cast a pole to try and catch a fish. Travis would laugh as he watched me. It wasn’t about catching fish or eating them.
It was about living the life I once had and so wanted again.
After traveling for more than five years, I’d tired of seeing the new places. It crossed my mind a few times to ask Travis to imagine us on the other planet, just so I could see it. However, I never got up the nerve to ask and he never offered.
Travis had stopped mentioning his dad and he rarely said anything about Angel or Skip. Although I tried to convince him to conjure them up, he always refused. Seeing them here wouldn’t be the same as seeing the real Angel and Skip.
Every evening, I watched the sun sink on the horizon as small shards of light danced across the waves. Watching the sunset never got old. We never got old. Day in and day out we stayed together, but our faces never changed. Maybe who I was inside became older, my thoughts instead of my body itself.
One night, Travis stepped out of the camper and walked to my side as the sun set. He looked on in silence while the blue sky turned a dull gray and then faded to darkness.
“I want to go back,” he finally said. “I can’t live like this anymore.”
“Are you tired of forever?” I asked.
“Never.” He took my hand as he stared across the water. “I realize now we can live like this forever and never go back,
but I can’t turn my back on what we left behind. I’m sorry.”
Standing, I leaned in and circled my arms around him. “I know exactly how you feel.”
He hugged me tight. “Did I imagine the fact you’re okay with leaving?”
I slapped his shoulder. “You know I wanted us to be together. I wanted another chance with you more than anything in the world. You gave that to me and I’ve loved every minute of it. Every second of every day has been with you and that’s all I ever asked for.”
He pulled away and stared at the water.
“Are you ready to go back now?”
“Maybe not just yet.” The serious expression slipped and a grin crept over his face. “Maybe we’ll have one more night before going back.”
“Another night?” I teased. “Haven’t you had enough?”
He shook his head. “Never, Miss Science.”
Travis hadn’t used that nickname for me in months. Though slightly fearful of what awaited us, I felt happy about going back. Even if I only got a few more hours with everyone else I cared about, it would be enough.
“We’ll leave when you’re ready, Double-oh-Seven.”
* * * * *
A hand gripped my shoulder and shook until I opened my eyes. The sheet wrapped around my arm felt slick and the mattress beneath me soft. The air… I choked as I realized I had to breathe again.
“Wake up sleeping beauty.”
Sleeping beauty… I thought of when Erin called Travis sleeping beauty during his coma. That seemed like years ago, though the memory was as vivid as if we’d left the base in Travis’s Ferrari only days before.
I had to remind myself that the trip to Virginia with Erin was only days before. My death was hours ago and now we were facing the possible demise of everyone on Earth. I laughed hard enough tears filled my eyes.
Travis turned on his side and looked down at me. He slid my hair behind my ear, actually Rachelle’s hair. The black glove on his hand felt oddly comforting. “It’s strange to have to breathe again.”
“That wasn’t why I was laughing.”
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“How long were we out?”
Travis lifted his phone from the table beside the bed. “Forty-five minutes. Wow.”
“I feel older now. Years older.”
“Our forty-five minutes turned into forty-five years.”
“I told you time is different there. Now it’s back to living for us.”
He leaned close enough our lips almost touched. “Do you know how much I want to kiss you?”
“We’ll have another chance.”
“You said we’re back to living. What we did for the last forty-five minutes was the most living I’ve ever known.”
“It was wonderful,” I said.
Travis brushed a quick kiss along my hair.
“I thought touching me was an issue.”
“I’m not the same person I was forty-five minutes ago. Besides, I don’t think Rachelle would be upset knowing we’re married now. And there’s the fact I can’t actually kiss you.”
A knock sounded on the door. “Looks like life is calling,” I said.
He wrapped his hand around mine. “No heroic gestures. We save the planet together.”
I could handle saving the planet as long as I had Travis. “Agreed.”
Chapter Twelve
Rena
For the next three hours, I trained with Mama, pushing the limits of my power and then rewriting all of the rules I’d once thought governed how my power worked. We left our bodies on Earth and flew to the sun without worry of the obstacles a living person would face. Air to breathe? No problem. Bitter temperatures of space? Being dead did have a few benefits.
She wouldn’t tell me why we flew to the sun until we arrived. The size of the sun amazed me as it did on our trip to calm the solar flares, but this time I wasn’t watching on the screen of a spaceship. We hovered in space, face-to-face with a huge ball of energy that made Earth seem tiny when I stole a look behind me. Despite how I was always told not to look at the sun as a child, I found it hard to tear my eyes away.
After she watched in silence for several moments, I asked, “What’s the plan?”
“You did better with the warheads than I ever expected,” she said.
A wave of guilt hit me. “I failed at the mission. I let one slip through and, if it wasn’t for Van, that warhead would have hit Earth.”
“I doubt the queen would have let that happen.”
“That doesn’t keep me from feeling like a failure. If I can’t pass their test, I’ll have to work harder to find a way to stop this star from collapsing. No way can I let everyone I care about die.”
“No thoughts of giving up?”
I turned to her. “No.”
“I’m proud of you, Regina. Your death was sudden and I feared you wouldn’t be able to deal with the reality fast enough to grow your powers.”
“You said I didn’t have a choice. What’s different now?”
“You’ve always had a choice. The difference is you made the right choice. You seem older now. I can’t put my finger on why, but you’re not the same teenager I remember. You know, the one who thought she lost everything with a laser blast this morning?”
“Everything is a relative statement,” I said.
Her eyebrows rose. Like me, her form seemed solid but shimmered in the light. “If it seems as if years have passed and not hours, don’t worry. You’ll grow accustomed to the time difference.”
Should I tell her for me years had passed? “I feel older.”
She held out her arms as if ready to embrace the light. “Isn’t the sun beautiful?”
“Beautiful and deadly.”
“Earth needs the sun. If not for this source of light, all life on our planet would cease to exist.”
“Did we come out here to train or talk?”
Mama lowered her arms. “There is a task, simple but effective.”
“Do you want me to drain the sun?”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
“Sure,” I said. “If you want everyone on Earth to die.”
“I don’t.”
“Then we must be here for another reason.”
She put her hands out and I felt her power stretch around the sun like her arms had often stretched around me. I missed those days with her while growing up. At the same time, I knew how to enjoy those memories without wasting my energy wishing for what could never be again.
I felt her power. It was the same as mine yet different. Like the sound of her voice, I’d never forget the feel of who she was, even in this ghostly form.
When she’d circled completely around the sun, she lowered her arms and looked at me. “Did you see how I stretched my power to the limits I imagined and then beyond?”
“You reached around the sun like you were giving me a hug.”
She smiled. “That’s a great way to put it. Do you think you could reach around the sun?”
I held out my arms and attempted to reach around the sun with my power. No doubts; I simply believed I could since she had. The sun’s surface seemed to go on forever. I groaned as the edge of my power flexed and I almost gave up.
“Do you remember when we were here last? How we talked about making the sun seem like it could fit in the palm of your hand?”
Within seconds, I made a similar path around the sun. The power pushing back from the sun tickled my senses. For a split-second, I held the entire sun in my arms.
“Good job. The point of us coming here was not to strengthen your power. When you absorbed the exploding warheads, you stretched the bounds beyond what I thought was possible.”
“Then why—”
“I wanted you to face the magnitude of the sun’s size and not be afraid.”
“Which seems strange since I once needed fear to use my power.”
“I think you’ve graduated past needing anything to use your power, including me.
”
A hint of sorrow in her voice caught me by surprise. “Do you think we’re really ghosts?”
“I’ve never been sure. All I know is you’re the only person I’ve ever met like me.”
“Don’t forget Alfie could be like us when he grows up.”
“Regina…”
“Yes?” I said.
“I don’t have many regrets, but I’m truly sorry you didn’t get your life with Travis. He turned out to be a fine agent, like your father.”
“It’s okay.”
As she watched me, her light began to pulse. “You really do seem older. Has something happened that I don’t know about?”
“After I came back from our last test, I went to Travis’s room. I finally got him asleep.”
“You visited his mind? That means he can see you now.”
“I did more than visit. Travis and I lived together for years. We got married and traveled the world. All of his memories, good and bad, were fair game.”
“Married?”
“He conjured a preacher for us to say our vows and a white dress for me to wear.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“It was your idea. You taught me time moved slower there. Minutes on the outside can take years in there. It took a few months for Travis to get used to a world where we could literally go anywhere he imagined. We didn’t have to work for the agency. We didn’t have powers. I was beginning to think he’d never want to come back.”
“Travis asked to come back?”
“He said he wanted to do his part in saving the planet. He wanted to see the people he cared about again.”
“That’s an amazing story.”
“Maybe you should try it. If you can get Dad to go to sleep—”
“Our time has passed, Regina. Donald and I made decisions that changed our family, choices that make me feel guilt each time I look at you. The only thing left for us is to save the world and ensure your brother has a future.”
“What you did to me—for the world, I guess—I understand now. I don’t hate you or Dad. But you need to understand what you know from this life isn’t everything. It’s never too late to discover what living really means.”