by Hana Starr
Chapter 15
“For someone who has just produced a cure, you look rather unsettled.” She was startled out of her dark reverie when Faer stepped behind her, draping long, spindly arms around her and resting their chin on her shoulder. “I would think that you would feel more joyous.”
“Still testing its outcome,” Anne Claire chuckled nervously. “Who knows if this is going to work, still. I mean, the simulation isn't finished-” the computer beeping cut her off, having completed the test run in the system. They watched as the holographic projection of Faer's body was injected with the cure, and how that cure spread through them, wiping out all of the masses formed by the illness and completely eradicating it from their body.
“It would appear,” they said lightly. “That it works.” She was astonished that they were still speaking so candidly about this, about the end of the line for everything; no matter which way that the pendulum swung, it would still swing, and it would be all over.
“Are you sure that we shouldn't run the test again?” She turned in their arms. “What if there's something that we missed? What if-”
“Anne Claire.” She shut her mouth with an audible click of her teeth at their gentle reprimand. “You know how accurate that computer is, and I know how brilliant the both of us are. It will work.” They held out their arm. “And I want you to test it on me to be sure.”
“I – what –” She was sure, absolutely sure that her heart stopped in her chest. Did they have a defibrillator here? She was positive that she needed it. “Faer...” she struggled to find the words that properly articulated her fear, her trepidation at things going wrong.
“It is alright,” they soothed as they ran a program for the computer to duplicate the cure. “I have complete faith in you – in us – and it seems only fair that I be the one to go first. If it goes wrong, no one will have to suffer but the Hakimme that created it.”
“I don't want you to suffer!” She flailed her arms. “You're in enough pain as it is!”
“Anne Claire,” they said softly, patient as ever. She had almost never seem them so calm. “I am prepared for this. It warms my heart that you care so much for me, that you worry so much about what could happen, but I assure you, I signed up for this. I am ready.” They emphasized, taking her hand and placing the syringe in her upturned palm.
“...Alright,” she conceded begrudgingly. “But if you're going to put your life on the line like this, then I'm going to treat you like a patient, and you're going to be monitored for every second of this,” she said firmly. “On the table, Faer, and prepare the scanners. I want a visual on every single things that I can as we do this.” They smiled affectionately and nodded, wordlessly prepping the medical scanners and perching on the cold steel of the medical table. She started an IV on them, and checked to ensure that all of their vitals were displayed.
“Everything is prepared,” Faer said, even though she could see that the stage was set for their final act: the holo-screens were alight and filled with information on everything from their blood pressure to x-ray scans of their internal organs and the pre-existing growths therein. Still, she couldn't help but feel like she was the executioner stepping up to the guillotine as she came to a stop at Faer's bedside.
“Alright, insertion of test cure at...” her gaze flicked over to the clock. “thirteen hundred hours. Time is marked, site is prepped and sterilized.” She took a deep breath. “Injecting...now.” As gently as she could, she punctured Faer's skin and injected the green liquid, the end result of their collective labors, the embodiment of their hopes and dreams. “Symptoms?” She asked as clinically as she was able, knowing who her patient was.
“My abdomen is tingling.” Faer stared down at their stomach. “It is not painful, but it is there all the-” they drew in a sharp gasp as the monitors surrounding them began to beep wildly.
“Faer-!” She looked at the monitors, informing her that their blood pressure was skyrocketing due to the effects of the shot.
“It is only pain, nothing more.” Faer grit their teeth. “It will pass.”
“I'm administering 5ccs of numbing agent,” she said while doing her best not to panic. With hands far steadier than her nerves she tapped at the release button for the numbing medication that would help with the pain. She watched as the cure took hold in Faer's body, watched the screen displaying what was going on inside of them as the masses shrunk, the same as they did in the simulation. “Pain level?”
“Lowering,” Faer panted, their chest heaving with each breath. “It is manageable now.”
“Any other symptoms?”
“None.” Faer shook their head. “How is the cure progressing? Is it working?” They looked at her with wide, hopeful eyes.
“Just as projected.” She nodded. “The growths in your body are shrinking, and the cells in your body that were coded to make more growths are being recoded to function normally.”
“Then this is worth any pain.” They nodded and let their head fall back against the table in relief.
“All the same, no sense in making anyone else go through it, too.” Already, she was tapping to add a notation with the cure's notes. “I'm prescribing a local anesthetic to be prepped before the cure's injection.”
“Most wise,” they wheezed a chuckle. Anne Claire's eyes bore holes into the holo-screen until the growths disappeared completely, and scans of Faer's body revealed the there were no traces of the illness in their system. It was only then that she breathed a sigh of relief and sagged against the table.
They had done it.
“You're cured,” she breathed, righting herself into standing upright. “It's over.” Faer was standing up before she could even think to stop them. “Faer-”
“I must get this to the other laboratories!” They insisted, their fingers wildly sending copies off to other people that she could only assume were fellow scientists that could replicate their results. “This must be distributed, my people must be saved!” They sent off the messages, and it was a mere few minutes before the other laboratories were reporting success rates with the immediate patients that they could treat.
“It worked!” With the swell of pride and relief that bloomed in her chest came the bittersweet realization that her whole purpose of being here was done. She would simply go back to her boring old life in Bloomington with Momo and live out the rest of her days pretending that she had never seen a lavender sky in her life. The thought made her feel melancholy, and she found it hard to smile in spite of the way that she felt knowing that she helped so many more people.
“I feel no pain, even with the anesthetic gone from my system,” Faer said in wonder as they looked down at themselves. “I had almost forgotten what this felt like.” The awe in their voice, the appreciation of their body all over again made her heart ache. “This is thanks to you, Anne Claire.” They looked up at her with the wides smile she had seen from them yet.
“My parting gift, then,” she said, alarmed at the tears that sprang from her eyes. She clapped a hand over her mouth in surprise. Faer flinched, reaching a hand out to her.
“'Your parting gift?' Would you never want to be here again, then?” She blinked owlishly at them, tears escaping her eyes.
“I would be allowed to?” She felt her head swim at the idea. “But how would I do it without either of our lives being disrupted? I care for you so, so much, but I don't understand how we could be together...” Faer laughed, and the sound alarmed and slightly angered her. This was what they chose to laugh at, now that she had helped them?
“There is absolutely a way, if that is what you want,” they said with a happy sigh. “It is something that I absolutely desire, but you need to want it, too.”
“What even is, 'it?'”
“A quantum teleporter,” they said, their smile taking on a hint of pride. “I have a few friends in the engineering community, and was given a set of teleporter pads that were connected. I would merely have to install one end at your home on
Earth, and one here, and we would be able to visit one another in the blink of an eye.” They grew sheepish. “I would want you to be comfortable with that, though.”
“How would that work?” She tilted her head. “I want that, I want that for us more than anything, but where would I even conceal such a thing?”
“I shall show you.” Faer took her hand and led her out of the lab, leading her down the stairs and back to where the duplicate of her house was. “I confess, I told a partial truth when I told you that I created a copy of your home.”
“It's been my home this entire time?!” She stared at them wide eyed.
“Not entirely,” they shrugged. “At first, it was genuinely just a projection in the space. But it was imperfect, and I thought it logical to install a gateway between your world and mine, in the event that we needed your help or advice again at a later date.” They scratched at the back of their neck nervously. “So when I retrieved Momo, I installed the first pad. Then, when you slept here your first night, I connected and activated the other one. You've been living in your home since your first morning here, Anne Claire.” They walked through the door into her house together and shut it once they were both inside. “Watch,” they said, holding up a finger. They pulled up a display watch on their wrist and tapped out a sequence of button presses on the screen.
Chapter 16
The door's frame flickered with light briefly akin to a camera's flash going off when the shutter is activated. Faer gestured for her to open the door again. Confused, but willing to humor them, she tugged it open, expecting to see their hallway. Instead, she blinked in alarm when her front lawn, her sidewalk, her planet's clear blue sky, and her neighbor's abhorrent lawn gnomes all greeted her sight. She heard the birds from the nest in the tree in her front yard chirping happily, felt the breeze on her face, and knew that their solution was found before the problem had even presented itself.
She quietly clicked the door shut, and Faer closed the teleporter link, returning the doorway to their hallway once more. She turned to face them, her cheeks hurting from how wide her smile was.
“Here,” they handed her a watch looking apparatus identical to the one on their wrist. “This will allow you to travel between worlds on command. You are free to come and go as you please. It is my wish to make my home your home as well.” She laughed giddily and wrapped her arms around them, squeezing gently.
“I'm so happy, Faer,” she whispered. She felt them drape their long arms around her and hug her closer. She could feel their relief, even without their telepathic connection established, and she snuggled into their chest deeper. “I want to share my life with you, and I want us to grow together.”
“That is my wish as well, Anne Claire,” they said quietly, pulling back and smiling down at her. She took a breath to collect herself, and stepped away, deeper into her house, intent on celebrating their multiple victories for the day.
“Now that that's all settled...” Anne Claire smiled, setting her lab coat down on the table with a finality that soothed her to her bones. She was going to stay in Faer's life. They could have a life together without either of them needing to sacrifice an inherent part of themselves. It was an ideal situation that she had genuinely not thought possible, but there Faer went again, surprising her in the best way possible. “Do you want any tea or – oh!” The question died on her tongue when gently but firmly took hold of her by the wrist, redirecting her travel path from the kitchen and course correcting her so that she was pulled into their arms instead. Their other hand found its way to the small of her back, gently coaxing her body to press more tightly into his. She felt her pulse stutter in excitement, and she noticed not for the first time that their temperature almost perfectly matched hers.
“Always taking care of me,” Faer mused with a small smile, their voice husky. “I do not require tea at the moment.” They pressed a kiss to her forehead. “The only thing I require in this moment is you, Anne Claire.” Their lips charted a course down her face, kissing the tip of her nose lightly before coming to a complete stop at her lips, kissing her more firmly and soundly there.
It didn't take long for her to feel the tendrils of Faer's mind lightly stroking the outermost barriers of hers, silently and softly asking for permission to connect the two of them together again. There was no hesitation when she opened her mind to theirs, and she welcomed the rush of warmth and comfort that came with their entrance wholeheartedly. With their entire beings pressed so fully against one another, she became acutely aware of how much Faer had wanted to feel her in every way, in so many other ways than they had previously. It was a feeling that she reciprocated with vigor, her own mind reaching out and showing them that their feelings were the same as hers.
'You are certain?' Came the hesitant reply once Faer had completely processed Anne Claire's feelings and wants. Already, they were feeding off of each other's pleasure, of their mutual feelings and the things that they liked having done to them, but this was somehow...more. With their telepathic endeavor last time, the two of them had merely been sharing fantasies, showing each other what made them feel good. Putting it to practice was uncharted territory for them, a sector that they had not mapped out. And yet, neither of them were afraid of it, more that they were afraid of scaring the other off.
'I've never been more sure of anything,' Anne Claire replied. A ridiculous notion, and they both knew it; she had been just as sure in all of her scientific and medical endeavors leading up to this, but the sentiment was still appreciated. She had always thought that time seemed to slow in the mornings in her home, when the sunlight streamed lazily through her gauzy living room curtains and the warm scent of tea wafted from the kitchen. Now, though, with Faer curling their hands around her waist and eliminating the space between them, it felt as though time had ceased to move altogether.
She hoped it would stay that way.
Chapter 17
Clothing was a boundary that was lazily removed between them, and even then, it was only in between fervent kisses, light caresses, and hushed thoughts passed between the two of them, both in whispers and their shared connection. Anne Claire shrugged her lab coat off of her person and tossed it off to the side, not really caring where it went as long as it wasn't in their way anymore. Though she had more layers than they did, Faer's lab suit was surprisingly more complicated than she had anticipated. Still, Faer mentally guided her through the steps of working the straps and buckles until she was sliding the suit free from their shoulders and letting it pool on the floor.
Faer stepped out of the suit and slid it across the wooden panels of her hallway, forgotten before their foot had even stopped touching the fabric. Their attention was already refocused on tugging the zipper on the back of her dress down. It was a task easily handled, and it wasn't but the span of a few breaths later that she felt the soft cotton of her dress slide past her shoulders and slip past her hips. She blindly kicked it away in some other direction that she couldn't be bothered to place.
There was a little more fumbling when it came to her bra and panties, but it took very little for them to be divested from her person. Suddenly, there was nothing between them, not space, time, or clothing, and it was only Faer and Anne Claire, and their heads swam in their pooled consciousness, relishing in the sensations of each other. For a few moments, they allowed their kisses to grow more heated, permitted exploratory, inquisitive touches, and took in the music of each other's quiet moans, but soon enough, they both agreed that they wanted more.
Anne Claire couldn't be sure who moved first – with their minds linked, it felt like every movement was both of them moving in tandem – but soon she was lifted from the ground effortlessly. She gasped when she felt her bare buttocks being set down on her cool counter top but she barely had time to register the sensation before Faer was situating themselves between her parted thighs. They weren't entering her, not yet, but she still hummed low in her throat when she felt their thick, pulsing erection pressing against her in
ner thigh. They weren't pushing insistently, but it was there all the same, and her mind reeled at the thought of what it would feel like inside of her.
“I feel I must warn you, Anne Claire,” Faer pulled back from their string of kisses, panting and regarding her with dark, hooded eyes. “Now that I don't feel the same pain that I did before, I have nothing holding me back. If you feel that you might not be ready for the full weight of my affections, please tell me now,” they panted. “And I will stop. I would never pressure you into anything that would make you uncomfortable. This begins and ends at your command, Anne Claire.” She didn't even have to contemplate her answer – she hadn't before, and it hadn't changed now that they were naked.
“I'm ready...” she licked her lips. “Please, Faer, show me everything. Share everything with me.”