July 10th, 2003
10:23 PM
South Main Street
Old Seattle, Washington

 

Rainier – huge, bulky, rocky, with an easy, relaxed stride that belied his mass – strolled beneath the trees that protruded from the brick of the wide plaza between two sets of buildings in the now-quiet business district. Dyna Girl, with her trademark orange sunglasses pushed up and resting in her medium-length brown hair, walked along next to him, looking down at and reading something on her cell phone. The night air around them was about ten degrees higher than what could be described as "pleasantly warm".

The streets were light on foot traffic, but occasional pedestrians came into view, spotted the pair of famous super-heroes, and mostly just talked excitedly amongst themselves and watched from a distance. Some got brave and came up to talk, wanting to meet these globally-known Seattle celebrities, and their heroes were gracious and friendly, chatting with them, signing an autograph, or posing for a cell phone photo.

All in all, a gratefully uneventful night of patrolling thus far, and Davis Alexander, the man beneath the rocks, was glad.

Dyna Girl closed her phone.

“Nothing disastrous, I hope? “ Rainier asked, looking down at his teammate.

“No, just Matt,” she grinned. “He’s bored. He texts when he gets that way.”

“Ah. How’s he doing?”

“Healing,” Holly Wood sighed. “And going stir crazy. I mean, he likes hanging around the house just fine, but that’s when he can play his guitar and write songs. Hard to do that with a bullet hole in your shoulder.”

“Isn’t his girlfriend taking care of him?”

She shook her head. “She had to go back home. To Denver. Guess her boss only gives so much leeway with that whole my-boyfriend-in-Seattle-got-shot thing. But it’s cool. She’s moving here in a couple of months.”

“Really?” he asked as they passed the closed Bank of America and made a right onto the South Main Street sidewalk. A passing car honked and someone screamed enthusiastically out the passenger window.

Dyna Girl smiled and waved at the car as it sped away. “Yep. She’s going to grad school here in the fall.”

“Is she moving in with him?”

“No, she’s getting her own place, at least to start. That’s smart, don’t you think?”

Rainier shrugged his big rocky shoulders. “Yeah, probably.”

“So they don’t rush too fast and blow it. Her idea, not his. I told him not to read anything into it. I like that she’s doing that.”

Rainier nodded thoughtfully as they ambled south. “Well, good for him. He’s a good guy.”

“He is,” she agreed, seeming pleased with his opinion on the matter. “I think they’re going to be really happy.”

They passed an alley on their right, and Dyna Girl peered down it, into the darkness, looking for any signs of trouble. There were none.

“Sorry to keep you Earth-bound,” Rainier said.

“Oh, please,” she laughed. “It’s good to be down here. You can’t always spot trouble from way up there. And it makes the fans happy.” She grinned up at him slyly. “That blonde sure got all gushy, getting her picture with you. You big man mountain.”

He rolled his eyes and grunted.

“Come on, she was FINE,” she teased.

“She looked like she could have been one my students,” he said as they passed under a Pioneer Square banner. “No thank you.”

“Nothing wrong with that. College girls are nice and legal.”

He smiled, politely, but said nothing, and she immediately regretted the topic she’d started and felt like an idiot. They walked together in silence up to the corner of 2nd Avenue South and paused next to the Seattle Fire Department Headquarters building, looking both ways, deciding which direction to head.

“How are you doing?” she asked him, quietly.

Drawn out of his thoughts, he looked down at her, and immediately looked apologetic. “Oh, hey, it’s okay. I’m doing all right. Honest.”

“We haven’t talked about it in a while.”

He nodded. “I know. And that’s good. It’s nice to not have to anymore. I’m…you know. Doing the day by day.”

She nodded back, and touched his arm. “I miss her, too.”

He smiled, thinking how funny that was considering how Dyna Girl and Tinker had felt about Chelsea – Moondancer – at the start of things. Chelsea and Tinker had even come to blows at one point. But that was before Chelsea had returned…for the last time. Before she’d been through her changes. She had made her amends with the girls, and he was surprised at anyone that they hadn’t just tolerated her for his sake – as they had in the past – but had genuinely become friends with her. Sadly, it hadn’t gotten to be for long. But it made him happy, if that was the word, that they’d come to appreciate all the things he loved about her before she was taken away from them all. He hadn’t had to mourn alone.

He reached over and put a mammoth arm around the relatively tiny heroine that was his teammate and cherished friend, and gave her a gentle hug.

“I know,” he said. “And thanks.”

He let her out of the hug and looked to their right. “This way?” he asked.

Dyna Girl sniffed and wiped under her eye with the back of her glove. “Yeah,” she agreed, smiling warmly at him. They headed down 2nd, toward the big sign for Howl at the Moon, a popular Seattle piano bar that Dr. Jackal had frequented many times in all his years in Seattle. There were signed photos of him all over the walls in the place, they both knew. He was sort of the joint’s unofficial mascot.

“Yo, Forte!”

There was a small crowd outside the bar, mostly smokers, and one of them spotted the approaching heroes. The others, all about college age, saw them too and started cheering. Smiling patiently, Rainier and Dyna Girl walked up them and said hello, shaking hands, answering questions, and posing for yet another photo, which the bouncer took for them and included the whole group.

The Forte heroes said their good-byes, with Rainier making sure all the fans promised not to drive themselves home (particularly the one kid who couldn’t stop blathering and teetered a lot), and they moved on. At the end of the block, they stopped next to Klondike Gold Rush Museum and peered in through the windows at the closed, darkened little place, and at the rows of fake gold bars stacked just inside the glass.

“Wouldn’t it be hilarious of some idiot villain from out of town thought those were real and tried to pull a heist?” Dyna Girl asked, grinning at the thought.

“I would be completely UNsurprised,” Rainier sighed.

Dyna Girl pulled out her cell phone again and opened it, checking the time.

“I wonder what they’re doing right now?” she asked.

Rainier knew immediately who the ‘they’ was she was referring to. “I think it would be improper of us to speculate,” he said, his slight smile reflected dimly in the glass.

“It’s not fair, you know,” she pouted. “She’s MY friend. I should be able to hang out with her more.”

“Well, to BE fair,” Rainier said, “it isn’t you she came all this way to see.”

Her pouting turned to acceptance, and then to mischievous humor. “How freaked out do you think he is by all this?” she asked him.

“ZERO point of reference for that,” he said, laughing.

“Yeah, no kidding,” she laughed back. “Oh, man, the look on his face. I wish I’d had a picture.”

“I’m sure he’s working it all out,” Rainier said, diplomatically.

“Oh, I’m sure that he is,” Dyna Girl said back, with a wink buried not too deeply in her tone. She snickered and then sighed good-naturedly. “Well, at least she brought us all some cool stu—”

There was a scream.

The scream was a woman’s, and it was followed, almost immediately, by a man’s shout.

“Hey! Hey! Stop!”

They just had time to get a bead on the voices – coming from around the corner and to the right, down South Jackson Street, when they heard the frantic thumping of racing footsteps, coming their way.

A man in his twenties – wearing a torn, dark tee shirt, jeans, a grimy ball cap and dirty sneakers – came barreling around the corner, turning smack into their path. He’d been looking behind himself, but now spun his head around and saw the two super-heroes standing on the sidewalk, right in front of him. His eyes shot open and he skidded to a stop, nearly dropping the purse he was clinging to by its strap. His feet slipped out from under him and he fell back, landing squarely on his ass.

He looked up, his mouth a gaping ‘O’, his eyes taking shape to match. Rainier crossed his gigantic arms over his chest and looked down at the man, raising an eyebrow. Dyna Girl put her hands on her hips and cocked her head.

“So,” she said, curiously, “did you, like, pledge when you went to Douche University? Or did you live in the dorms so you could focus on your studies?”

His nonverbal answer did not make a pleasant smell.

 

---

 

10:48 PM
Old Forte Base
Seattle, Washington

 

Wearing a short-sleeve linen button-down and jeans instead of his Seahawk armor, Jared Banks watched in the rearview mirror as the automatic warehouse doors slid closed behind him. He turned off the engine and pulled out his key, and in doing so, happened to look down at the passenger side floor. He could make out a rectangular black shape sticking halfway out from under the seat.

He cursed silently. It was Gabriel’s Questboy. It must have fallen there on the way to his ex-wife Stephanie’s house, where he’d just returned from dropping Gabe off. He sighed and looked at it for a moment, considering. He didn’t want Gabe to be without it, but he also wasn’t about to drive all the way back to Stephanie’s tonight, especially since Gabe would already be asleep by now. No, he’d drive back over before work tomorrow morning, get it there before Gabe was even awake. He’d just adjust his morning schedule a bit.

Leaving it where it was, he got out and stepped up to the wall ahead of him. He held his watch up and twisted its face, which acted, in this case, as a selector dial, and once it was in the right spot, he tapped a button on the watch’s side. Suddenly, a portion of the wall slid up, revealing a hidden and formidable door. He stepped to it and punched a code into a keypad beside it. The door slid open, and the interior lights of the very famous – and very secret – original Forte base spilled out into the dark faux-warehouse behind him. He stepped inside.

And was greeted by the sound of high-pitched, uncontrolled giggling.

He’d been tense as he came through the door, nervous about what this portion of the evening had in store for him, but that sound, surprising and inexplicably delightful, drained most of that tension away, and he couldn’t help but smile.

The door closed behind him as he walked into the base’s common area – essentially a very big living room with a kitchen off in one corner – and headed for the source of the giggling. Forte’s guest—

—okay, he reminded himself…HIS guest—

—was sitting, curled up on the center couch, right where he’d left her. The luxuriously large TV monitor on the wall in front of her was on.

And, of all things, she was watching “Jackass” on MTV.

The woman—the alien woman—turned her head toward him, having heard him. Her hand was over her mouth as she tried to stifle her (admit it...adorable) laughter, and her eyes fairly sparkled with mirth. His smile, on its own, got bigger. It was out of his control.

He walked to the couch while watching the screen, and sat down beside her (but not too close to her). Johnny Knoxville and his cohorts were doing very inadvisable stunts riding in shopping carts – stunts that all seemed to end badly and quite painfully.

“I swear,” he said, shaking his head. “This is NOT representative of Earth culture as whole.”

This made her giggle louder, and that made it even cuter.

She sat with her legs curled under her, this young woman from another galaxy. She no longer wore her Realmwatch uniform she’d arrived in the day before, but, instead, a casual outfit she’d brought with her and had been wearing all day – a long skirt and a thin pullover, with simple sandals on her feet. She was strikingly exotic. Her skin was the color of a pale sunrise. Her ears were pointed and rose high, and instead of hair, she had what he could only think of as tentacles on her head – long, thick appendages that wrapped around her skull and hung down, and seemed to move of their own accord, but in response to her emotions. They were now, for example, curled up, something that happened when she laughed. And she laughed easily, something he’d come to know about her. Her eyes were hypnotic and darkly, richly crimson. And her light garments showed, despite the obviously alien physiology above her neck, that her body was very human – and very shapely.

She finally got her hand away from her mouth and looked back at the TV.

“They’re ridiculous,” she managed to squeak out.

He nodded his amused agreement. “Yes, they are. I don’t know what your entertainment is like where you’re from, but humans have a strange fascination with other humans making complete idiots out of themselves.”

She laughed, a full and infectious laugh.

“They did an episode here in Seattle,” he noted. “They got our Dr. Jackal and Vanguard to be on it. Well, they got Jack, he talked Vanguard into it. They got Jack to jump off some high buildings. And throw a few of them off a pier out over the Sound. That’s what we call the waterway near here…the Sound. And they took turns letting Vanguard shoot them with his eye beam things. Villains always tried to avoid that. These guys? They all lined up for their turn.”

“You know them?” she asked, fascinated.

“No, I didn’t meet them myself,” he said. “Jack and Vanguard and a couple of the others did. We’ve got some fans of theirs on our team.”

“They’re very funny,” she said, getting her laughter under control. “I’m worried they’ll hurt themselves, though. Are they super-humans? Like Dyna Girl?”

“Nope,” he said, shaking his head. “But that’s part of the thrill for guys like these. They feed on the danger.”

“Not very smart,” she decided. “But funny.”

The show went to commercial, and with a final laugh, the Realmwatch member they knew as Traveler, but now knew by her given name, Seena, pointed the remote control, carefully looked at its buttons, and powered the set off.

“You’ve got that thing all figured out,” Jared said, appreciatively.

“Yes,” she said, setting it on the coffee table. “Thank you for teaching me. I was exploring all the different…channels?” She looked at him for confirmation, and he nodded. “This is such a fascinating world you live on, Jared.”

“I wish we could show you more of it,” he said, realizing after he’d said it that he’d used the ‘we’. One might call that playing it safe, but the more common term for it was being chicken. Bock bock.

“I understand,” she said, meaning it. “I know I’d stand out, the way I look. That would make keeping your secrets more difficult, and I don’t want my being here to cause you problems.”

He was once more struck by her honesty and clear sincerity. It was refreshing, and made her very easy to get comfortable with. Tentacles notwithstanding.

“Yes, us super-heroes and our secrets,” he said, his tone apologetic. “Thank you for understanding that.”

“Oh, I do,” she said, nodding, and her tentacles uncurled and snaked themselves over her shoulders and down her back. “Dyna Girl explained it all very well when she was among us. How it lets you protect your people without fear of retribution from your enemies.”

Her head tails (as he suddenly decided he preferred to call them, as that sounded much less Jules Verne) curled up a bit again, and she looked sad, and embarrassed. “As with your son,” she said, quietly.

He nodded, and worked hard on a smile to let her off the hook for what she clearly thought was the wrong thing to say. The smile helped keep the real emotions that went with that subject down deep where they should be. “That’s…the best example of why, yes. It also lets us lead normal lives when we’re not on the clock.” He considered those words. “’On the clock’ means on the job. Some occupations on our world require you to punch into a clock when you start your work shift, and punch out when you’re done. We don’t actually have a Forte clock. It’s just an expression.”

“I see,” she said, and was looking at him with those deep red eyes, eyes filled with compassion, and looked like she wanted to hug him. He didn’t think that would be the best idea at the moment.

“He really enjoyed meeting you,” he said, steering things in a safer new direction.

“Oh, I enjoyed meeting Gabriel very much,” she said with a beautiful smile, and her tails draped down again. “He’s such a sweet boy. Thank you for bringing him.”

He shrugged. “I already had him for the night, but we were just going to sit on my boat and watch movies. I thought he’d enjoy getting to hang out in the secret Forte base and meet a woman from outer space more. I was right.” Now that Gabriel finally knew his dad was a super-hero, there was no reason to deny him all the cool parts of being the son of Seahawk. God knew he’d already found out the worst parts.

“He looks so much like you,” she smiled, changing positions and tucking her feet further under her, and turning more toward him. “I’m glad that that he got over his shyness after dinner. He has a lovely smile.” She dropped her eyes for a moment, and then raised them again. “That makes him look even more like you.”

Do not swallow, he ordered himself. And stop feeling guilty about using your boy as a human shield to put off being alone with her.

“Most of the good parts of him come from his mother, I think,” he said, deflecting nicely. “He’s got her smarts. And her stubbornness.” And that led right back to a subject he’d thought they’d done away with, but there it was. “That’s helped him in his recovery. He’s been a trooper. Every surgery, all his physical therapy… Dealing with the crutches.”

He felt a lump building in his throat and paused for a moment to let it go back down. As he did, and as he was looking across the room at nothing in particular, he felt her fingers slip between his.

He managed not to jump. He looked down at them, and up at her face. She held his hand softly – easily and naturally – and looked into his eyes supportively. He went ahead and squeezed her hand back.

“He’s a very brave little boy,” she said. “These trials will make him stronger. When he becomes a young man, his peers will only be beginning to understand the world and the harsh truths of life. He’ll be wise and prepared. You’ll be proud of what he becomes.”

And damned if she didn’t always know how to say exactly what he needed to hear. He was learning that about her quickly. He wondered if she might have some kind of mind-reading powers to go with her whole galaxy-hopping teleport thing.

“Thank you,” he said, quietly, and her kind smile warmed him all over. “That’s what I’m hoping for. As a parent, you want to protect your kids from that. You don’t want them to know what life’s really like until they need to. You want them to have a happy, normal childhood.”

“Normal is relative,” she offered, still holding his hand, he noticed. “I was very young when my gift was discovered. Few of my race are born with it. Those that are are given over to the temple, to be raised by the priests and priestesses and prepared for their calling.”

“Your parents gave you up?” he asked, surprised.

She nodded, exuding no negative feelings about it. “It’s our people’s way. My fellow Travelers became my family. It was a lovely, serene life, filled with love and much learning. We grew up together, united in our shared destiny. Other children of our world had their parents to raise and guide them. But we felt no loss. We felt blessed by our way of life.”

He studied her, trying to imagine the life she’d had, on a world so far away he couldn’t even begin to fathom the distance. “No regrets, then?”

“For my upbringing? No,” she said, shaking her head, and her tails moved and readjusted with the motion. “It was wonderful. Any sadness I had was for my parents. I knew that they loved me and that it must have been difficult to let me go, but I was comforted knowing the pride they must have felt, that this would have quieted their sorrow.”

Her eyes turned away for a moment , a far-away look of remembrance in them. “My regrets came later. When I grew to womanhood and began to doubt my place among our people, among the order. I knew I was meant for something else. As Travelers we journeyed to many other worlds, learning their ways and knowledge and bringing it back to Wendelo, to fill the great repository and teach it to our people. But I always felt my place was out there, among the stars. Not simply learning from the galaxy around me but being a part of that galaxy.

“When I met the Realmsovereign… Well,” she smiled shyly, “when I saved him from the kidnap attempt, he offered me that chance. He was forming the Realmwatch, and asked me to be a part of it. I felt a singing in my heart, like I’d been led to the path I’d always been meant to take.

“I’d sworn my life to my order. But I knew I no longer belonged there. I tried to explain it to them, but…”

He saw a clear flash of hurt in her eyes, and despite himself, he squeezed her hand more firmly.

“They didn’t understand,” she went on, her voice sounding tired. “But it was a choice I had to make. I left the order. I was made an outcast for it. My name was erased from the scrolls. I can only imagine the shame my parents must have felt. But I hope that they knew I’d never have done such a thing if it wasn’t so important to me, so right.”

She looked at him, smiling, but with her beautiful eyes moist. “So of course I have regrets. They return from time to time. But I don’t let them linger. I know in my heart I’m where I’m meant to be, out in the Realm, protecting all its peoples from danger and our enemies. My life makes a difference to many, not just to few. I know that’s something you can understand. Because of who you are.”

He understood that more than she knew. He remembered what it was like, living his father’s dream and being a cop, but frustrated at being handcuffed by laws and regs at every turn, wanting to make a real difference in the world. Warren Tether had given him that chance with the Seahawk armor. Jared had used it, and the freedom that came from a super-hero career, to be a big part in saving the city, the country, and even the world. Yes, the world – a failed vice detective had saved the world. Not that his father knew any of that, of course, since he still had no idea his son was anything more than the Tether head of corporate security. Most of the civilized world (and a couple of other dimensions) knew him as a hero. To his father? He was a security guard. So he knew a thing or two about disappointing the parents and smashing their dreams.

And he realized that while he’d been pondering these things, Seena had moved closer to him. Much closer.

She slid her fingers slowly back and forth through his and tilted her head to focus on his eyes. He wondered if there were sweat beads forming on his forehead.

“Seahawk,” she said, then smiled bashfully and corrected herself. “Jared.” All this time, since they’d first met two years before, she’d only known his hero name, so she was still getting used to the change. “Can we talk about…why I came here?”

“Yes,” he said, feeling both jittery and yet somehow relieved at finally getting to this.

It wasn’t as though it was a mystery. She’d teleported all the way from her galaxy to this one yesterday, just as she’d done when she’d first shown up, except that she’d had the whole Realmwatch with her then. A group of escaped prisoners from her galaxy – a cosmically powerful group calling themselves the Deviators – had appeared on Earth due to a teleportation accident during their escape. Seahawk and the original team – Tinker, Rainier and Max – had battled them in the Seattle streets and would have gotten themselves killed if the ‘Watch hadn’t shown up and joined in. That was the first time he’d met her, and it seemed to him, then, that she was coming off as pretty…fond of him. The second time the Realmwatch had come, the previous fall, back when Jared was in Boston at Gabriel’s bedside as the best doctors Tether money could buy were putting him back together again, the expanded Forte team – with Nightable, Dyna Girl, Moonspider and Vortex having joined in Jared’s absence – had taken the returning Deviators out all by themselves, with the intergalactic heroes showing up after the brawl (and quite stunned, Jared was proud to say, that Forte had been able to drop the suckers all by their lonesome).

Due to another bizarre cosmic twist of fate, Dyna Girl and former Forte members Anvil, Lightsedge and Tomarssuk had ended up in the Realm galaxy just about four months ago, and stopped an old Earth villain from starting a galactic war out there. When they’d returned, Holly had sat Jared down and told him in no uncertain terms that Traveler was, in fact, ‘totally hot for him.’ It had been a bizarre thought to deal with, the idea of an alien woman romantically interested in him. He’d given the whole thing a fair amount of thought.

Of course, he hadn’t expected she’d be showing up at his front door soon after. Well, not exactly AT his front door.

She’d appeared in the other Forte base – their team’s base of operations, not this original one that now served as sort of the whole-team clubhouse and secret hotel for team members (and noted guests) visiting from out of town. No one had been home. She’d had to sit on the couch and wait, having no way to contact anyone. It was Vortex who’d popped in and found her, and Jared would have given anything to see Paul’s reaction at THAT moment. When he’d called the team, they were all afraid she’d come to warn them of some new cosmic menace to come. It turned out she had just come to visit.

But it was more than that. They’d all had a nice, casual dinner there and visited with her, but it was Holly, once more, who pulled Jared aside after talking to Seena privately. Seena had come to visit, yes, but she’d specifically come to visit Jared. Apparently she’d been off in the stars thinking about him – a lot – and decided it was time to come to his world and get to know him better.

From another galaxy.

No pressure or anything.

As she was going to be with them for a few days – they knew from past experience that teleports of that kind of distance would take her that long to recover from before she could make a return journey – it was decided they’d put her up at the other (more spacious and guest-friendly) Forte base, and she could stay in one of the suites. In a rare show of mercy, Holly had come along through the teleportal provided by Nightsable and hung out with them while Seena got settled in, saving Jared from having to be alone with her right away. But she’d told him, as they drove one of the always available extra cars parked at the base (thanks, Vanguard) back to his boat, that the next day he’d be on his own, and that he had to man up and deal with the situation. It was clear how much she was enjoying watching him squirm.

He’d gone to work that morning, insisting (not quite truthfully, but truthfully enough) that it was an important day at Tether Corp that he had to be on site for. Holly and Tinker had hung out with Seena and chatted the afternoon away. After work, Jared had decided that his planned evening with Gabriel didn’t need to be postponed, and could be turned (there was the guilt again) to Jared’s advantage.

She’d met Gabe. They’d had dinner, and she’d told magical stories of other planets and star-crossed adventures to the rapt younger Banks. Then it was time to take Gabe back to his mother.

And now, here he was.

Seena smiled. “I’m still learning about your culture, but I know my coming here must seem…bold.”

“It was…surprising,” he said, carefully, and careful to smile back as he said it. “You caught me a little off-guard. But not in a bad way. Really.”

“Good,” she said, pleased. “I don’t wish to make you uncomfortable. It’s just that when we first met, there was so much happening, and I was there on Realm business. And you were injured.” She winced, comically, at the mention of that, and he laughed.

“Yeah, that was quite a beating,” he said. “We were really on the ropes when you people showed up.” He felt he should probably explain the boxing reference, but let it go.

“You fought bravely,” she insisted. “Against greater numbers. Against some of the most dangerous beings of the Realm. You should feel no shame for it.”

“A little shame always comes with a good beating,” he grinned. “But thank you.”

“But I felt myself drawn to you,” she said, running her soft finger over his thumb. “And when the Deviators returned to Earth, I was focused on my duty and feared greatly for the safety of you and your teammates and your world…but though it embarrasses me to say it, a small part of me was pleased at the second chance to see you.”

And she did look embarrassed, as her cheeks filled with a deeper red. Her tails curled only slightly. He wondered if his face was reddening, too. What was wrong with him? He’d had more than a few women flirt with him in his time, for crying out loud. Why was he feeling like he was thirteen and being asked to the Sadie Hawkins dance?

“That doesn’t speak well of me as a Realm Commander,” she said, smiling.

“Hey, you’re not just a Realm Commander,” he said, smiling back. “Any more than I’m just a super-hero. We’re not robots. Inside, we’re still—”

The theory that his mother hadn’t raised no dummy got shot to hell, as he’d been about to say ‘only human’.

“Just people,” he finished. Dipshit. And to cover, he added, “I’m sorry I wasn’t around for that one. That’s a long way for you to come to get stood up.”

“I was pleased to have the Deviators back in our custody. But yes, I was disappointed. I didn’t know when I’d get another chance to speak with you. And I wanted to, very much.” He fingers slid back through his. It was a slow, sensual motion.

“So you just…up and came this time, huh?” he grinned.

She nodded, her eyes bright and maybe a little mischievous. “After Dyna Girl and I discussed you at some length, and after she returned home, you were in my thoughts more than ever. I decided it was time to visit your world on my own. I requested what you would call a ‘vacation’. The look on Galaxia’s face was quite amusing.”

She giggled a little, suddenly, at the memory. Damn, he loved that sound. Curling tails and all. “She was worried. She feared I was battle-stressed, or exhausted from all the teleporting I’d done for the team since near-war. I finally had to tell her I was traveling back to Earth to visit the human called Seahawk, to find out if he felt the same attraction to me that I felt for him.”

He was pretty sure he was blushing now, and didn’t care for how much of a geek it made him feel.

“She doesn’t smile often, but her smile was wide after those words.” One more giggle.

They were both silent for a moment – that electric, not-unpleasant kind of silent – and both looked down at their joined hands.

“Do I…appeal to you?” she asked, raising her gaze to his face.

And there it was.

There were always two people inside each man – the person he felt he should be, and the person he was afraid he really was. The questions about her he’d run through his mind after Holly’s return had been fleeting, a distraction, as he hadn’t really expected to see her again. But since her surprising arrival yesterday, he could think of little else.

She was an alien.

God knew he’d had enough strangeness in his life since putting on that armor, and had seen and lived things most men would never know. He was no stranger to the unusual. One of his best friends was a big pile of rocks that could spit lava. He was friends with a girl whose skin was a frozen blue. He occasionally had dinner at the home of wacky Brazilian who could stretch parts of her body across city blocks. Jack was more or less a werewolf. Hell, he was pals with a goddamned polar bear. He’d learned to take these things in stride.

But they were all from Earth. Seena was, for all intents and purposes, from the other side of the universe, and was a totally different species. He knew he’d be lying to himself if he pretended the whole Medusa thing wasn’t a little off-putting. Did that make him some kind of racist if it bothered him? And DID it bother him? It was strange to him how he didn’t seem to be able to answer that question clearly.

It was awkward. It was confusing. And he didn’t know for sure if saying the differences between them didn’t affect him was an honest answer, or just him convincing himself that he was a bigger man than that.

And yet, the eyes looking at him looked human enough, despite their color. Truth be told, they looked like something out of a dream.

And those legs…

“Yes,” he said. “Of course you do.”

This clearly pleased her, and the smile that came to her narrowed those dreamy eyes beautifully.

“I know that we have many differences,” she said, and a huge weight seemed to lift off him at her acknowledgment of that. “We’re from different worlds, you and I.”

“Different galaxies,” he added, with a grin. “Different lives.”

“Yes. I’m used to living among hundreds of different species. This is new for you, something like this. Don’t think I don’t understand.”

“Thank you,” he said softy. “For understanding that.”

“But my people teach that the hearts of the many sing the same song. If we listen for it, we can hear it in all of us.”

“I’ve never heard it put that way,” he said. “That’s nice.”

She took his other hand as well, and he let her.

“I feel a closeness to you. And a need to explore it. I hope that you feel the same.”

He stared at her hands, caressing them, and creased his brow in thought.

“My love life right now,” he finally said, with some difficulty, as he mined for words. “It’s…complicated.”

She looked troubled. “Holly told me that you had no other right now. Has this changed?”

“No,” he said, quickly. “No, it’s not that. It’s just…”

“You can be honest with me,” she said. And her voice made him believe that he could, and that calmed him.

“I’m in a confusing place. My wife. My former wife, I mean. We spent some time together. In Boston. While Gabriel was getting better. We tried…to work things out.”

“You became lovers again?” she asked. It was a very direct question, but she asked it with no emotion besides understanding. Her honesty and acceptance of such a thing felt unusual, but he was grateful for it, and for how she could so simply put him at ease.

“Yes,” he nodded.

“You wish to make her your wife again?”

He struggled a bit at that, but her openness made speaking the truth easier for him, even a truth he didn’t want to admit to himself.

“No,” he said. “Part of me does, yes, but…we found out that it wasn’t going to work. I thought it might, but I was kidding myself. We’re not the same people anymore. That time is over.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, genuinely.

“So was I, I guess,” he sighed. “It seemed like the right thing for Gabe. I wanted things to go back to the way they were. And because of that, I hurt someone else that I care about.”

“Samantha,” she said, tilting her head slightly. Again, there was nothing negative in her tone.

Holly really HAD had a talk with her. He’d have to remember to thank her for that later. Maybe with a decent-sized helping of oatmeal poured into her boots while she slept.

“Yes. We’d been involved for a while. When Gabe got hurt, I…went a little crazy. All I could think about was my family. I left Samantha behind. It was a terrible thing to do.”

“You were hurting and lost,” she offered, squeezing his hands. “You’d been through a terrible thing. No one could blame you. I’m sure she understood.”

His smile was a bitter one (all bitterness directed right at himself, of course). “I wouldn’t go that far. And while I was gone, she went through something terrible. I came back, was there for the end of it, but I wasn’t there when she needed me. I can’t blame her for hating me.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t, Jared.”

“She has every reason to. And in the end, it was for nothing. Stephanie and I weren’t going to happen. And by the time I knew that, Sam had moved on. I don’t blame her for it. She had every right.” He sighed. “Wish it wouldn’t have been with someone on the same team, but…he’s what she needs now. And I have to deal with that. I owe her that much.”

“You still love her?” Seena asked.

He mulled that over. “In a way I do. And always will, I guess. But I’ll never be sure if that’s out of love or guilt. I have no right to have those feelings. I care about her. That much won’t change. But the rest? That’s over with for good.”

She let one of his hands go, and placed hers on the side of his face, looking into his eyes.

“You burden yourself too much, Jared,” she said, with a kindness and forgiveness that wounded him. “Your actions were noble. And you’ve suffered enough for them. You need to find peace with this and move on. You deserve to be happy.”

He lowered his head and cleared his throat. She ran her hand down his cheek and returned it to his waiting grasp.

“Like I said,” he said, taking a breath. “Complicated. My head’s not on real straight right now. I don’t know if I’m ready to get involved with someone else. That wouldn’t be fair.”

He looked up and found her smiling.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I understand. And I don’t wish to complicate your….love life?...any further.”

“I just want to be honest with you.”

“I know,” she whispered, and smiled again. “But…if you’d allow me…I’d still like to spend the time with you I came for. You’re a fine man, Jared Banks. And I want to learn more about you, grow closer to you. And I’d like you to learn of me as well.”

“I’d like that,” he smiled, nodding. He felt oddly exhausted, yet better than he had in some time.

“No expectation. No pressure. Just two beings sharing each other’s lives for a time. Enjoying each other. Would this please you?”

He smiled, and answered, truthfully, “It would.”

She smiled back, studied his eyes, and leaned forward. He leaned to meet her, feeling like he was on auto-pilot. Their lips touched, and she kissed him softly. He kissed her back, breathing through his nose, tasting a sweetness on her lips he couldn’t define, ignorant Earth-man that he was, except to know that it was wonderful, and that it was a taste he’d never forget.

The kiss ended with their eyes still closed, and their hands still joined, and him thanking God that she hadn’t slid those tails around his head and made him jump off the couch. She rubbed her nose against his and sighed.

And giggled.

He laughed through his nose and drew in a breath. Their eyes opened he stared into deep red magnificence. They smiled and were quiet, rubbing each other’s hands.

“I have an idea,” he said.

“Tell me,” she whispered.

“How about I go put on my armor, and you change into that really stunning uniform of yours—”

She beamed with appreciation at that.

“—and we go out and take ourselves a flight around the city. Let you see Seattle’s lights from its rooftops.”

“Really?” she asked, sounding excited a schoolgirl, not a galactic warrior woman..

“Really. It’s dark out, we probably won’t run into any people. But if we do, well, when you’re hanging with a super-hero, people tend to be more accepting of…things they’re not used to.”

“I’d love it,” she said, breathlessly. “Oh, Jared, thank you. I want to see as much of your world as I can.”

“And I want to show it to you,” he said, reaching up and brushing her rose-colored chin with his thumb. “I really do.”

 

---

 

11:59 PM
Denny Blaine Park
Seattle, Washington

 

James Avalon sat in the dark, on the low stone wall, the beach and Lake Washington behind him. The trees around him made no rustle, as there was no breeze of note on this still, balmy night. The park had been closed for half an hour. And miraculously, for summer night, no kids seemed to be skulking around in the dark with six-packs under their arms, condoms in their pockets and futile hopes surrounding the girls they’d be meeting up with. It was just him – alone in the dark.

And he felt like an asshole.

He checked his watch again. It was now straight-up midnight. He shook his head with impatient and steadily ascending annoyance. He wore slacks and a suit coat, shirt and tie. He reached up and loosened the tie a bit. The top button beneath it, though, he left fastened. As he happened to be wearing his Moonspider costume underneath his suit, that wasn’t an option. His mask, the mystic item that granted him his powers, was in his coat pocket. As for the spiky metallic boot, glove and shoulder overlays, they were in the trunk of his black Mercedes SL500, parked across the field of grass in front of him, reflecting the glow of a short street lamp that buzzed annoyingly next to it. If there was some kind of trouble – which he really, REALLY didn’t expect – he’d have to go sans spikes. He sometimes wondered why he even bothered with the things. Then he remembered. Because they looked scary.

He wondered if some ranger or sheriff was going to wander by at some point and spot him, a well-dressed Seattle attorney, sitting alone in a closed park in the dead of night. He had no doubt what their assumption would be – a rich man cruising the parks for some George Michael Love Connection. Hell, he even had the British accent. Wouldn’t the firm love him for THAT phone call?

He looked back over his shoulder at the empty beach, and mused on what many of the locals so colorfully called it – “Dykiki”. This name was a playful combination of the words “dyke” and “Waikiki”. It was a beach known for nude or just “topfree” sunbathers and, more so in times past but still with some regularity, was a local favorite of the lesbian community.

He couldn’t have been out there in the sunshine for topfree lesbians on parade. Oh, no. He had to be sitting out there ‘round the witching hour, when all the nubile lesbians were tucked snug in their beds.

Again…asshole.

He heard the crunch of pine needles and turned back around, glancing to his left. There was a figure half-concealed behind a tree – sadly, one too big to be a lesbian co-ed in a thong out for a midnight swim. Even in the darkness, the bright orange bodysuit stood out like a beacon; a beacon that could have kept highway workers safe from approaching cars, had this twit chosen a more civic-minded career.

The man didn’t move. James finally threw out his arms and held them there, theatrically looking around. It was a gesture that said – he hoped – that he was, in fact, alone, and that he really had better places to be at this hour.

An honest-to-Betsy super-villain stepped cautiously from his largely ineffective hiding place and peered nervously around before heading quick-stride toward James. His dashing costume was a silly orange and black concoction topped with a face mask that had Halloween pumpkin cutouts for its wearer’s eyes and mouth.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen – Jack O’Larceny had arrived. Applause, applause.

James sighed as the skittish thief approached, still looking every which way.

“You said when the park closed,” James said, speaking at normal volume just to perturb the other man. “That was half an hour ago. It’s late, and I don’t have time for this.”

Jack (real name: Jack – either ironically are, more likely, moronically) closed the distance quickly, James’ lack of stealth freaking him out. “I had to make sure I wasn’t followed.”

“You might have worn something less strobe-like, then,” James said. “Ever considered hanging a bell around your neck to complete the ensemble?”

Jack reached the wall, breathing heavily. It wasn’t from exertion, since he was thin as a rail. It was pure nerves. “You don’t understand. Forte’s after me. They’re everywhere. They could be watching us right now.”

Forte IS watching you right now, you dimwit, James thought. Forte’s sitting right here in front of you. But of course, James wasn’t there in a Forte capacity. He was there, like it or not (he cast his ballot for not), in the super-villains lawyer capacity. Which was good, because in the Forte capacity, he couldn’t bill the time.

“Calm down,” James sighed. “There’s no one here but us and the woodchucks. And while we’re on the subject, why ARE we here? This isn’t what we agreed on. You were supposed to meet me at UNCLE today to turn yourself in. That was the arrangement. Then I get a heavy-breathing phone call from you telling me to meet you here. When the park closed, I point out again.”

“I know,” Jack said, calming some. “I’m sorry. But things changed.”

“What things?” He asked the question, but he really didn’t care much. It was amazing how much sympathy he’d lost for guys like this since joining up with Forte. His punch-them to represent-them ratio had skewed too far to the crime-fighter way.

“You said I needed something to bargain with. To get my sentence reduced.”

“Yes,” James said, fully intending every drop of patronizing undertone in his voice. “That was what turning yourself in and returning the dangerous gizmo you stole was for. The one that got you in way over your head. And now the boys and girls at UNCLE are going to be pissy about your not making your play date with them, and that’s going to work against us.”

“Just hold on,” he said, looking around again like someone might be listening. James impatiently, and sarcastically, mimed his movements and looked everywhere his client did. “Listen, I got an offer on the…uh…gizmo.”

James sighed and rolled his eyes. “Jack. You’re not helping me out here. I’ve got a deal in swing, and you want to go out and commit MORE crimes before you go in? Did I lead you to believe there was some kind of grace period involved here?”

“Wait, look,” Jack said, desperately. “This is big. This guy, I mean. He’s big.”

Okay, he had to ask. “What guy?”

Jack lowered his voice to a whisper. “You ever hear of a guy named Dizzy Belson?”

James gazed at him, pausing.

“No!” he said at full volume, on purpose. “I’ve never heard of a guy named Dizzy Belson!”

Jack flinched and ducked, looking left and right, panicked. James just watched him, about down to fumes on patience.

“Keep it down!” Jack whispered harshly, his voice high. “Geez, man!”

“I have to be in court in eight hours, Jack, and I’ve still got prep to do. I don’t have time for games.”

“Just listen,” Jack pleaded, reaching up and wiping a drop of sweat that was trailing down from the top of one of his eyeholes. “This guy’s connected. He’s a broker. He does deals for other guys who don’t want—”

“I know,” James interrupted, “what a broker is.”

“Oh. Well, he got in touch with me when he heard I was the one who jacked the…gizmo.”

He wasn’t being coy calling it that. James realized he honestly didn’t even know what the thing he’d stolen was called.

“And he knows a guy,” Jack went on, “who knows a guy who’s in touch with a major player who wants it. They want to make me a deal. And I figure if I go undercover and help Forte catch her, then we can REALLY cut a sweet deal. Right?”

James looked at him dubiously. “For the sake of argument,” he said, “who’s this ‘her’ you’re talking about? Or do you even know?”

“Yeah, I know.” He did his looking around thing again, and James fantasized about punching him right in his festive pumpkin face.

“Have you heard of Masterpiece?”

James, with effort, kept his face neutral. Inside, he was hearing the sounds of slot machines paying out handsomely. Heard of Masterpiece? He and the team had had a chance to take her down back in April. But the slippery, lucky, and – he remembered, fondly – scantily-clad minx had gotten away. She was good – up until that point, no one had even gotten a look at her (and too bad for them). She was a mystery, and she was a pro. She’d let her hired muscle – the Dire Four – deal with the heroes and distract them long enough for her to disappear. They’d put the dangerous foursome behind bars, and gotten some major arms dealers in the process, but while it was technically a win, they’d let the big boss slip through their fingers. This made things personal, and they’d been dying for a second shot at her. And on an individual level, he’d been dying for a chance to gawk at her again.

“I have,” he admitted, carefully. “And she is major. She’s on a lot of most-wanted lists. Global ones.”

“So that’s got to be worth something, right?” Jack asked, expectantly. “Maybe even a pass?”

That was actually a pretty strong maybe. Saying Jack was a small fish was an offense to the small fish community. If they could use him to pluck up Miss Hot Pants, James could probably pull that off.

“You know how dangerous she is, right?” he asked his clown of a client. “There’s risk involved if you set her up. Worst case is her getting away and putting you on her evil Christmas list. Even if it goes down smooth, she’ll still be looking for payback from the pokey. Either way, you’d be looking over your shoulder for a long time.” Of course, he already seemed to look over his shoulder a lot, so it wouldn’t be too far out of his way.

“I can’t do jail, man,” he said, pathetically. “I get claustrophobic. And I’m asthmatic.”

“On the upside,” James said, unable to help himself, “the SISRS jumpsuits are a god-awful shade of orange, so you’d have that going for you.”

“Come on, man, I’m serious!” the villain whined.

James sighed and thought for a moment. “They’d have to do this right. UNCLE or Forte. She wouldn’t show up in person for the buy. They’d have to plant a tracer on the item, follow it back to her. Preferably get some video of her taking possession, but her being in the same room with it, with her other outstanding warrants, would be enough. She’d be a hell of feather in their cap.”

“Would they go for it? You think?”

Of course they would. They’d trade a baker’s dozen of Jack O’Loser for one of her. As long as James was able to convince them that the bright jolly wank could pull it off and not get himself shot right in the candle. And it wasn’t like James could pass it up either. This was the whole reason he led this laughably ironic double-life of his, to get info off his super-naughty clients he could use to make a bigger difference – initially on his own, now with Forte, since they finally knew the truth about who he was (THAT had been a fun conversation).

“Just so we’re clear,” he said, looking his client in the face and trying to look serious, which was no easy feat considering the face. “You want to work with UNCLE and/or Forte, do this deal, wear a wire, and double-cross an extremely dangerous master villain who might spend the rest of her days hunting you down to collect your scrotum to jar up and put on her mantle?”

“If it keeps me on the street, yeah,” he nodded, enthusiastically.

You’re dumber than you look, James thought.

“You’re smarter than you look,” James said. “Okay. Let me talk to UNCLE, run this by the higher-ups, get their take on it.”

“Awesome,” Jack gushed, excitedly.

“No guarantees, but I think we have a shot. In the meantime, you lay LOW. You get me? Wear something less Hallows-Eve-Fabulous. You don’t contact this Dizzy until I tell you. You call my office at exactly six P.M. tomorrow. I’ll have a good read by then. And we’ll see how this plays out.”

“Oh, man, you’re the greatest, Mr. Avalon,” Jack said, not waiting for James to accept his handshake, but grabbing James’ hand and shaking it vigorously. “I really appreciate this.”

“Okay, okay,” James sighed, nodding tiredly. “Just get yourself out of sight and call me tomorrow. We’ll see what we can do.”

A second chance at the wicked super-model. Suddenly, a little midnight stroll in the park didn’t seem like it had been such a waste of time after all.

 

---

 

12:39 AM
Fairview Avenue North
Seattle, Washington

 

Bobby McMillan leaned on the hood of his red (at least mostly red, on the parts of it that weren’t faded and/or oxidized) Camry, wearing a white tee shirt and jeans, his hands behind him propping him up. He was a bit tired, but not too much. He’d be more tired tomorrow at the office after pulling a late night like this. He hoped he wouldn’t be yawning all day and make a bad impression on his boss, as he didn’t want anything messing up his first post-graduation job. It was an entry level job, but it was in his field – computer science – the career he’d worked four hard years to get into.

And he’d even managed to finish in four years while being a super-hero. Not bad at all, he felt. He waited patiently, watching across the parking lot as the last of the TGI Friday’s summer revelers finished up their chats by their cars and drove away. Hopefully with designated drivers, he thought, but he hadn’t really seen much evidence of that. He sighed and shook his head.

Finally, the door opened and he saw her, wearing her red-and-white striped uniform, her long brown hair pulled back in a tidy ponytail, and he could hear her laughter immediately. He knew it very well.

Lillian O’Banion. His best non-Forte friend in the world, one who’d been in his life since his freshman year of high school. He’d loved her from afar for all those years, never quite managing to get past the great friend wall with her, with the exception of the night after prom when she’d been dumped, looked to him for comfort, and ended up making out with him. Of course, she’d been drunk, too. There had been a handful of days after when he’d dared to hope that she had finally started to feel for him what he felt for her. They were days filled with too many awkward moments and silences. And then she’d had “the talk” with him, clarifying their relationship and insisting she didn’t want to do anything to ruin their friendship. And breaking his heart. As usual.

They’d gone to college together, too, at UW (where she would still be attending next year, as she’d blown off a couple of semesters). And just when he’d thought he’d left the high school part of their lives together, she’d gotten back together with Jamie Cassidy (the same guy who’d dumped her on prom night) – Bobby’s rival in both sports and for Lillian’s affections – who, much to Bobby’s annoyance, had gotten a U-Dub football scholarship. Bobby had not, of course. The strange results of his blood tests, due to his burgeoning super-powers, had excluded him from one school after another, and once he’d known the truth about his abilities, he’d dropped out of sports all together, not wanting to hurt anyone on the field and not feeling the advantage his gifts gave him was fair to the other players who worked so hard to make the team. He’d had to give up his sports dream after years of imagining no other future for himself besides it.

So Jamie had gotten the scholarship. Jamie had become the big-time local sports star. And Jamie had gotten the girl. All of which he’d enjoyed subtly reminding Bobby of whenever Bobby was forced to be around him and Lillian to keep his friendship with her. They’d fought a lot, Jamie and Lil. They’d break up. They’d get back together. The cycle finally seemed to have ended with their big implosion last fall. While it had been too good to trust after so many false hopes, she seemed to finally be through with Jamie.

He watched her coming out the door – and with her, a tall, black-haired waiter in a similar uniform, laughing along with her. A very good-looking waiter. Of course.

He swallowed his spark of jealousy and stood up. Lillian and Mr. I-Get-To-See-Her-All-Day were loudly gabbing about something or other – something funny, whatever it was. He touched her shoulder when she said something particularly hilarious, and Bobby ground his teeth together a little but was careful to show no outside reaction.

She turned her head his way, spotted him, smiled widely and waved. Bobby smiled and waved back with a casual raise of his hand.

She and her escort approached him, the escort still laughing and saying something about her being “so crazy”.

“Hey,” she said to Bobby, brightly, as they arrived.

“Hi,” he said back.

Lillian walked up to Bobby, put her arms around his waist, and kissed him warmly and deeply.

He kissed her back. Through all his years of high school, he’d imagined (over and over, often during class) what it would be like to kiss the great love of his life. He’d had a too-brief taste of it at the end of their senior year. But now he now not only knew what a real kiss from her felt like, but had done it so many times that it was something completely natural to him, like breathing.

She pulled back and smiled up at him. Moving to his side, she kept one arm around him and hooked her thumb in one of the belt loops of his jeans, turning to face the waiter.

“Derek, this is my boyfriend, Bobby,” she said, still smiling.

“Hey,” Derek said, putting his hand out. “How you doing?” He said it casually, but behind his pretty-boy, I-get-whatever-I-want face, Bobby could see the little ghost of disappointment showing. He felt kind of guilty for thinking it, but in his head he heard the words, Sorry, Waiter Boy. She has a boyfriend. You heard her say it out loud just then, didn’t you? Finally, after all winter and spring, and part of the summer, she had started using the word. Just hearing it come out of her mouth, and knowing it meant him, filled him with that warm embrace of too-good-to-be-true. But true, it was.

He shook Derek’s hand and smiled politely (and a little proudly). “Nice to meet you.”

“My car’s in the shop,” she told Derek, hugging close to Bobby. “Bobby came to pick me up.”

“Ah, cool,” Derek nodded.

“Crazy night tonight,” she told Bobby, putting her chin on his shoulder. “On a Thursday, too.”

“Well, it’s summer,” Derek shrugged. “Everybody’s partying.”

They all nodded at that thought together, but none of them seemed to have anything to add to it.

“Well, listen, I gotta take off,” Derek said. “I’ll see you Saturday, Lil.”

“Cool,” she said. “Hey, have fun in Portland.”

“I will,” he said, smiling at her, but then turned his gaze to Bobby quickly. Bobby liked that. A little sign of respect. Or something like that. “Nice meeting you, Bobby.”

“You, too,” Bobby nodded.

Derek headed off to his car.

Lillian moved in front of Bobby and hugged him. “Thanks for the ride, big guy.”

He kissed the top of her head as he hugged her back. “No problem. I don’t want my girlfriend having to take rides from male model waiters.” He could actually call her that, now, it seemed, without fear, without waiting to see a look of discomfort on her face that said he was seeing their relationship different than she was. He tried to pinpoint the moment when they’d crossed that threshold, but couldn’t find it. It had just happened.

“Oh, please,” she laughed, leaning back and looking up at his face. “My guy’s MUCH more model-rific.”

That answer pleased him nicely.

She planted a quick kiss on him, smacking loudly. “Sorry I taste like chicken strips. I got hungry.”

“You always get hungry,” he teased. He licked his lips thoughtfully. “Is that the honey mustard sauce?”

“Jack Daniel’s sauce,” she grinned. “You suck.”

“Well, whatever it is, I like it.” He leaned down for another kiss, and got one.

After he opened her door for her and let her in, he fished out his keys and circled the car. Soon they were driving down Fairview, gliding along under the hanging cables for the Seattle Streetcars, bound for Lillian’s house.

Lillian fiddled with his radio until she came across a Maroon 5 song, and left the dial there, keeping the volume low.

Bobby slid a glance over at her as she pulled off her shoes and dropped them on the floorboard, and he smiled. So many years he’d let go by without telling her how he felt about her, fearing her rejection and how it would devastate him. Even during their short post-prom transformation, he hadn’t really expressed his full feelings, probably because he could sense, even through his kidding himself, that things were going to go back to normal. His senses had been right.

But that had all changed in one night this past November. HE had changed it. After coming back from the great battle that had almost been the end of him – the end of all of them – he’d found his near-death (and near-end-of-the-world) experience had changed him. He’d realized – in ways too painful to think about – that life was too short. Though it had seemed almost trivial in the face of what he and his teammates were up against, he’d promised himself that if he made it through alive, he would ask her out, for better or worse.

Three nights after it was all over, when the media was still pouring over every detail, day and night, of the moment when human history had almost ended, going on about the greatest assemblage of heroes ever seen and their bravery in the face of unthinkable odds, Bobby had shown up on Lillian’s doorstep, as he had so many times before in his young life.

Only this time, he’d done what Tinker had urged him, repeatedly, to do.

He’d made his move.

And it had worked.

It turned out Tinker had been right all along. Girls DID want you to do that. He’d been fearless and direct, telling Lillian that she was his best friend, but that he wanted them to be more than that, and that he wanted to take her on a real date, to take their relationship to the next level. Whatever it was he’d done, she’d been shocked by it, briefly speechless over it, but ultimately responded to it – and responded shockingly well. Whether it was the honesty, his resolve, his confidence, the words he’d used, or just him acting like a man for once in the face of his feelings for her instead of a stammering, cowardly, lovesick kid, he didn’t know – but whatever it was, it had worked better than he’d dared to dream, and he had seen in her eyes that she was seeing him – really seeing him – in “that way” for the first time. It was a night he’d never forget, and one that had helped him start to put the horrors of the previous month behind him.

Horrors and losses that Lillian still had no idea he’d faced. She was dating the world-famous Forte hero Max, and she didn’t even know it.

He suddenly realized she was talking to him about her day, and he quickly tuned back in.

“…lousy tip after all the whining and sending things back and….ugh!! You have no idea what I wanted to do to their food. And it was Caty’s table anyway, but she totally took her break early to call this guy she met at Contour last weekend and stuck me with them. Any thank you? No. Stupid skank.”

“Sorry it was a rough night,” he said, sympathetically, based on the part of the story he’d heard.

She sighed and shook it off. “Whatever. I just want to get home and use my foot massager and watch a Friends rerun or something.” She leaned her head back and turned it toward him, wearing a seductive grin. “Unless YOU want to hang out and be my foot massager.” She had bent her knees up to her chest to be able to put her feet on the dash, and she wiggled her toes temptingly.

“I wish I could,” he said, sincerely. Sometimes he worried that they had been friends so long that they fell back into that pattern too easily, and that she might start seeing him in that light again, just out of habit. And then she would say something like that and he’d feel safe and boyfriendly again. “I’d love to, but…work.”

“Tonight?!” she blurted out, incredulously.

The near-anger in her voice alarmed him, and he figured out quickly what she was thinking. “No, no, I mean tomorrow work. I need the sleep.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding less combative but not happy. After a few moments of silence that made him nervous, she said, “They can’t just keep paging you and sending you all over town whenever they want. How are you supposed to have a life?”

He was grateful that her irritation seemed to be aimed at his company, not at him, but that emotion was overshadowed by the guilt. He hated this part. It made him feel dirty. The lying. He worked for his company eight hours a day, that was all. There was no random paging for off-site work at all hours. He was a trainee…he’d never get such a responsibility. No, that was just what he had to tell her when he was needed as Max – when there was a villain fight, or a team meeting, or when it was his turn to patrol.

It was the only way to keep the truth from her, and as much at it pained him, he had to. He couldn’t let her in on that part of his life. Mostly it was to keep her from knowing too much, which might put her in danger. It was also because he had to respect the secrets of everyone on the team – current members and past ones – and while none of them would ever directly ask him to lie to her, there was an unspoken understanding. It wasn’t like she was his wife – she was just his girlfriend (and only recently accepting that role). He knew, instinctively, that that wasn’t enough to make her privy to all the private truths of the Forte family.

Another part, of course, was that things were going so perfectly between them, and he didn’t want to throw such a boulder-sized curve ball at her and take the chance on blowing what he’d waited for for so long.

He felt he had to do it – super-heroes had been doing it, for all kinds of reasons, for as long as there’d been super-heroes. He knew enough veteran supers now to have learned that. But what if things kept going well between them, as he dared to hope they would? What if it got more serious? What if they got married (to pretend he hadn’t thought of that possibility time and again would have been a laugh) down the road? When he finally told her all his secrets, would she hate him for lying to her for so long? Would she ever be able to trust him again?

Now he understood why so many supers married other supers.

“I have to, Lil,” he said, despising himself. “I’m still the new guy. I go where they tell me. This job’s a great opportunity, and I can’t mess it up. I’m sure it won’t be forever.” Despise, despise, despise…

She studied her toes and pouted a little.

“I know,” she said, finally. “I just don’t want you to work yourself to death.”

Maybe it was just his shame making him think so, but he felt the implication buried in that was that she didn’t want him to keep running out on her when they were in the middle of watching a DVD.

And he winced at her unintentionally accurate use of the word “death”.

“I won’t,” he said. “Promise.”

Without saying anything, she leaned over and put her head on his shoulder. They stayed that way the rest of the drive to her place, just listening to the radio and being quiet together.

He pulled up in front of her house – the house she’d lived in when they’d first met, the one she now lived in alone while her parents were off living in Switzerland for her father’s job – and turned off the engine. The radio went off with it, leaving them in silence.

He tilted his head, rubbing it gently against hers. “You okay?” he asked, quietly.

Lillian stayed there for a moment, then slowly sat back up in her seat. She was looking at him with a face that perplexed him. He couldn’t read what was there in it.

“I need to tell you something, Bobby.”

He visualized a factory whistle blowing, like in those old movies. That was about what it sounded like in the head of your average guy when a girl said those words to him.

“Okay,” he said, nervously.

She looked into his eyes like she was trying to prepare for his reaction. That couldn’t be a good sign. His heart went full jackrabbit on him.

“Jamie texted me today.”

The jackrabbit came to a screeching halt.

“Oh,” he said. It was the best he could manage. Panic turned to an old, far-too-familiar pain.

She studied him, and looked concerned, and kind. “I don’t know why. It’s been months. He just did. I swear, it was the first time.”

And just like that, he was that pathetic, hopeless high school boy again. The one who felt like he lost about a foot of height at just the mention of Jamie’s name. The one who knew the idea of a girl like Lillian falling for a guy like him was a sad, stupid dream.

“It’s okay,” he said, numbly. “I believe you.”

“He just wanted to talk. Just text talk. So we did.”

He nodded, hiding his misery and jealousy. He was an old pro at that.

“And…how did it go?” he asked, softly.

“It was good,” she said, still watching him. “It turns out it was something I needed to do.”

“Well, then…I’m glad. That you got to do it. Are you…okay?”

She nodded. “I’m fine.” And she seemed totally fine, and calm. And he found that bothered him a lot.

“Okay,” he said, nodding again, and realized he had no idea what to say next.

After the silence, she asked, “Do you want to read it?”

“I don’t need to,” he said, too quickly, shaking his head. “That’s…personal. That’s between you guys.”

“I’d like you to,” she said, and slowly pulled her cell out of her pocket. She put it, wrapped in her hand, on his leg. “Would you?” After a moment, “Please?”

He looked down at her hand. He really, really didn’t want to. Morbid curiosity wasn’t even enough to overcome the sinking fear he was feeling, and the dark certainty that he knew what was coming next. But it was clearly important to her.

She turned the phone over, opened it, and punched buttons until she got where she wanted to be. She held the phone up by his chest.

He took it – and a breath –and looked down, beginning to read, and scroll.

 

Whats up?

Why r u calling me?

Just 2 see whats up.

Im working.

How r u?

R u serious?

Yes.

Ur an idiot. Go away.

Whats ur problem?

It used 2 b you. Now its not.

I just wanted 2 talk to u.

I dont want 2 talk to u. Ever.

Why not?

Mostly because ur an asshole.

U still seeing mcmillan?

Yes.

Hes a loser. Always was always will be.

No ur the loser. Hes amazing. And im an idiot for taking so many years 2 realize how special he is. He cares about me. He makes me happy. And i love being with him. Hes perfect and sweet and 10 times the man you are. Ur the only loser here.

Whatever.

Funny thats the word that sums up how i feel about u. dont ever contact me again. Bye.

 

Bobby blinked, his face lit dimly by the phone’s screen. There had been a number of stings to his heart at Jamie’s insults, and just at Jamie feeling like he could just step back into her life whenever he wanted, a reminder of how much time he and Lillian had spent together, how intimate they’d been.

But none of them lasted. They disappeared, in fact. And the tiny smile that came to his lips blossomed all on its own.

He turned his head toward her, and she was smiling, too. A happy, proud smile.

As he was apt to do at such moment, Bobby blushed.

She unhooked her seatbelt and climbed carefully onto his lap, putting her arms around his neck.

“You’re all I need, Bobby McMillan,” she said, her face close to his. “Don’t you ever forget it.”

He kissed her, the girl he loved. They still hadn’t reached the “I love you” place (if saying “boyfriend” had taken her this long, he was sure that place was still a ways off), and he didn’t want to rush things and push her away (this was another piece of wisdom from Tinker). But she was with him. She’d chosen him. And that was enough. He was in no hurry, because he was, without a doubt, enjoying every moment of the journey.

He marveled that, for the first time in a long while, his life was good. Very, very good.

And as he and his girl laughed together after she’d leaned back too far during their kissing and honked the car horn, starting the neighbor’s ageless Basset Hound barking, he considered that he might just upgrade that appraisal to “perfect”.

---

 

2:27 AM
East Marion St.
Seattle, WA

 

Rodney Kinney pulled his ’86 Chevy truck up to the sidewalk in front of his house, and felt the bounce as he caught some curb. He had sobered up some on the drive home, but obviously not enough. It didn’t matter. He’d made it home without getting another DUI. Which was good, since he was driving on a suspended license anyway.

He got out and tried his legs. They were wobbly, but workable. He locked up the truck and slammed his door and focused hard on making it onto the curb without catching his foot on it. He crossed the sidewalk and prepared for the first three steps in front of the old, weathered, tan two-bedroom house that his folks had left him. The roof was missing shingles. The brown shrubbery, dried out from the summer and a lack of watering, scraped at the porch. It wasn’t much, his house, but at least it was paid for.

He carefully took the first three steps that ran up the center of the lawn and led to a short cement path, one that ran into his wooden front stairs that angled up to the porch. He kept one hand on one of the plank rails as he climbed, managing the stairs more on muscle memory than ability. His feet came down hard on each one, signaling how tired he was. He used to come home even more exhausted, back when he had a job, but a full night throwing back beers and shots at Joe’s Bar in the International District was tiring work, too. So was taking care of that brunette with the skinny arms and the bad teeth in the alley behind Joe’s. He kind of hoped he wouldn’t see her again, but she’d probably come back around looking for him. He’d shown her a good time. He couldn’t really blame her.

He made it to the porch and finally noticed that it was darker than it should be. The porch light was off. His anger flared. His wife knew better. She’d probably turned it off just to try to make him trip on his way in. Well, he wasn’t going to trip, but he WAS going to go in there and teach her a thing or two to make damn sure it would be on the next time he came home.

He reached the screen door and started fumbling in his jeans pocket for his keys, wondering with self-annoyance why he hadn’t just kept them out when he got out of the truck. He happened to look up, and he noticed the porch light wasn’t just off – the bulb was broken. He stared at it, trying to come up with some idea, through the fog that was the current state of his brain, for how that might have happened.

He was in the middle of picturing one of the stupid neighbor kids throwing rock at it – and fantasizing about catching the little punk in the act and putting the hurt on him – when he caught some movement to his left, out of the corner of his eye.

He rolled his head that direction just in time to see the fist coming at him.

It caught him on his right cheek and snapped his head around. His body spun with the momentum and he half-stumbled/half-flew toward the porch rail. He caught it with his arm and managed to somehow stay on his feet. His face started throbbing right away, and he could almost feel it swelling. He leaned there in shock for a second, trying to catch up with what had just happened.

He looked back toward the door, and this time, instead of the fist – which he now realized had been covered in a black glove – he saw a boot. It struck him staggeringly hard on the side of his head, and white flashes filled his vision. He legs buckled, and only his arm hooked over the rail kept him from dropping to the porch.

He felt a hand – a pretty small hand, but a strong one – grab the front of his shirt and twist it. Then he was punched in the face again. And again. And a third time. He felt his nose break, and warm wetness trickle down over and into his mouth. His eyes filled with reactionary tears. His jaw felt like it had gotten tilted sideways.

He had no idea what was happening to him.

Both of the gloved hands grabbed his shirt and pulled him violently to his feet. He got thrown at the front wall of his house, but he tumbled and ended up hitting the side of his rickety porch swing. He managed to grab the chain and grip it tight, and somehow stay upright again. The hook that held that side of the swing to the porch roof creaked loudly in protest, and he thought he heard wood up there split.

The force of his sudden stop caused him to twirl around as he hung on, read ringing and nose gushing. He was finally able to see the figure of his attacker. But only barely. The figure was all in black, head to toe. The gloves and boots were black, yes, but also the pants and long-sleeve pullover. And on the figure’s head was a ski mask, one with no mouth hole, just eye ones. And he couldn’t see the eyes because they were covered with goggles that had dark lenses, like sunglasses.

Was he being robbed? Why? He had only three dollars and some loose change in his pockets. He surely didn’t look like a rich guy, even to someone who probably couldn’t see very good wearing sunglass-goggles in the middle of the night. The shock off the flurry of blows was wearing off, and panic was setting in, chest-clinching fear that was making him huff his breaths.

It was dark, and the black clothes made the figure hard to see, but as he looked at it, something ridiculous but suddenly obvious hit him. The figure was shorter than him, and thin, not having the kind of bulk he’d expect from such pile-driving blows.

And curvy in a way most crackhead burglars weren’t.

The figure was a woman.

He was getting beat up by a girl?

His brief moment of ego rage at that thought vanished when she lunged at him again. He dropped the chain and staggered back on instinct to get away from her, and seemed to have forgotten the front of the house was behind him. His back hit it, and he hated it for a brief second and wondered what he had ever done to it to make it betray him like this, and then she threw another punch. He tried to throw his arms up to protect his face, but her punch was so fast it had smashed his mouth before they got there. She wasn’t just brawl-punching. She was some kind of karate chick. Why the hell – he managed to wonder as his head cracked back against the wall and he tasted fresh salty blood in his mouth – was a karate chick beating on HIM?

The ego kicked back in and he took a hard swing at her. If a woman was going to dare to hit him, karate woman or not, she was going to find out she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. She was going to pay, and pay hard.

She ducked his punch like he’d sent her a telegram first, letting her know exactly when it was coming, and his fist didn’t even come close. When she popped back up – almost immediately – she gave him a left/right combo that threw his face west, then east. He tried another swing, but he was so dazed now it was a weak, laughable copy of the mighty, devastating punch he’d pictured in his head. She ducked this one, too, barely even having to try.

When she came back up this time, her knee flew into his gut. He doubled over with the blow, which emptied his lungs of breath, and her hands were quickly gripping the back of his shirt. She charged backward, dragging him, duck-walking, along with her, and rammed his head into the porch rail. Rotted wood snapped with the impact, and he saw a galaxy of stars.

He finally made it down to the floorboards, landing on his side with a dull thud, his mouth hanging slackly open as he tried to learn to breathe again.

She flipped him over onto his back and leaned over him.

“Molly!” he tried to yell, but the word came out in a pathetic, breathy croak. His wife must have heard all the noise out front. She could call the police. Turn on a light to scare the crazy bitch in black away. Something.

The bitch in black responded by bringing a fist down on his face like a hammer. A part of his mind that felt like a detached observer noticed that one of his teeth was now resting on his tongue instead of lined up with its brothers like it should have been. He felt his grip on consciousness start to flicker.

“Molly’s not here anymore, Rodney,” the woman said, having dropped to a crouch and grabbed his shirt, putting her face near to his. The voice was quiet, but direct and angry – and hateful. “And neither is Emily. They’ve gone somewhere safe where they never have to worry about you anymore.”

Her words were barely making sense to him. His head was swimming. In mud, it felt like, but it was swimming anyway.

She suddenly slapped him hard across his face, jarring him mostly back.

“You scared her into not telling the truth about what really happened to Emily. But the doctor knew. What did you do, big man? Throw your little girl down the stairs? Put her through a door?”

His head had started to roll to the side, but she grabbed him by the hair and yanked him back, introducing another exquisite pain to the agonizing symphony. She made him look at her face; her masked face and impenetrable goggles. He didn’t have to see her eyes to know how much rage was in them.

“Well, it’s over. They’re free of you, and they’re never coming back. When you get pissed at how pathetic and hopeless your life is, you won’t have them around to take it out on anymore. You’ll just have to settle for drinking yourself to death.”

She threw his head down at the deck, and it bounced, and he heard himself sighing out an anemic moan of pain.

“You had your shot at being a parent,” she said, her voice dripping with disgust. “And you blew it. People wait their whole lives for it. Pray for it. Some can never have it. But you had it, and you treated it like this. You’re pathetic. And now you’re going to be all alone, and you’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”

He tried to say something, but trying hurt too much and it never made it out. His tongue just rolled up to feel the wet, throbbing place where his tooth had been.

She slammed her left hand down hard next to his head, and held her head right over his.

“You listen to me, you son of a bitch. If you ever – EVER – try to find your wife and daughter, I will find you. I will hunt you down wherever you are, and you’ll think all this was a trip to the spa. You try going to the police, I will find you. Next time you won’t walk away from it. Because you won’t ever walk again. I promise you.”

She grabbed his face like a vice and centered his head below her. The pain was almost blinding.

“Do you understand me?” she whispered venomously.

As much as it hurt to, he weakly nodded.

She stood up and stared down at him, her fists clenched. He slowly pushed his tooth out of his mouth with his tongue, and it fell to the floor with a tiny tap.

She took a step back, and looked left and right. She turned to go.

Then she turned back again and kicked brutally across his face with her boot. Rodney finally, and mercifully, passed out.

 

 

She ran, silent as a gazelle, to the end of his porch and hurdled it, avoiding the front steps and the street. She landed gracefully in a crouch on the grass between his house and the next, looking all around her for any signs of witnesses. She could see none. She sprinted between and behind the houses and disappeared into the dark, quiet, low-rent neighborhood.

Three blocks away she found her motorcycle where she’d left it, in front of a decades-old house with a “for sale” sign planted on its lawn. Doing a quick visual check around her, she grabbed her backpack and zipped it open, then quickly peeled her bloody gloves off and shoved them inside. She reached up and yanked the store-bought ski mask and the custom night-vision goggles off in one pull. Her black hair fell out, damp with sweat, and draped over her shoulders. She pushed them into the pack as well.

She slipped the backpack over her shoulders and unfastened her helmet from its place behind the seat. She mounted the bike, setting her helmet in front of her.

She went to put the helmet on, but looked down at it – specifically, at her hand that was resting on top of it.

Her hand was shaking.

Lucy Toy stared down at it, barely able to see it in the darkness, and listened to the sound of her own breathing. The tremor bothered her, frightened her a little. She raised the hand and stared at the back of it, trying to will it to stop its trembling, trying to convince it that it that she was really was as calm and together as she was pretending to be.

It stopped after a few moments, and she let out a quiet breath of relief. As she focused on it to be sure it was done with its little dance, she became acutely aware of the pain in her knuckles, sure that if it was lighter out (or if she still had her goggles on), she’d be able to see the bruises darkening on them.

Flashes of his head rocking back and forth, blood spraying off it, fluttered across her mind, as did the sound of her boot connecting with his skull – a thick, dull thud before the sharper one of his temple hitting the floor.

A wave of nausea rocked her, another betrayal from her body that belied the cycle of justification and rightness in her mind. She clenched her eyes shut tightly, afraid to move, refusing to give in to it. No, she thought – this man wasn’t worth remorse. He’d deserved every blow. None of her merciful Tinker gadgets – the ones she found herself using less and less these days against the bad guys in favor of her martial training – would have made the point he needed to learn. The random hospital drop-by she’d made as Tinker, just to talk to the coordinators in the children’s wing about an upcoming visit by some members of the Forte team to surprise the kids, had led to her overhearing a whispered conversation about little Emily, a six-year old with several broken bones, and the suspicions of the father’s culpability. She’d snuck a look at the girl in her bed, with her tired, despondent mother watching over her from the chair next to it.

She hadn’t involved the team. She hadn’t even done the investigation as Tinker – just as Lucy. She’d found all she needed to know. And when she’d found enough, and had become clear in her seething rage of what had to be done, she’d taken the steps to make it all happen. She did it with her own money. Molly and Emily were now set up at a shelter in Redding, California, far from the reach of their abusing, evil husband/father. Molly could now work out her own issues, whatever ones had led her to marriage to such a man, and raise her little girl in peace. Emily deserved a normal, happy life. Every child did. And Rodney deserved to hate himself and remember the humiliation and pain of his beating for the rest of his days.

Her eyes suddenly wanted to cry, and she bitterly refused to grant their wish. As she waited it out, the nausea subsided. When it was gone, she was left with a hollow feeling, and a tiny whisper inside that wondered what she was turning into. A whisper in answer to it said that she didn’t really care.

She strapped her helmet on, started the near-silent bike (as she had built the engine that way), and rode off into the night.

 

---

 

4:15 AM
West Queen Anne area
Seattle, WA

 

Paul Seaborn’s eyes fluttered open in the darkness. Something had awakened him. He wasn’t sure what, and in his slowly-waking disorientation, he tried to imagine what it might have been. A sound? A movement? A minor earthquake, perhaps?

He turned over on his side, toward the left side of the bed, to check the most obvious possibility. Samantha was there, unmoving, her head on her pillow and her breathing slow and steady. His first thought was that she’d been having another nightmare, and the thrashing might have roused him again, as it had many times. But she seemed peaceful in her slumber.

He blinked and waited for his eyes to adjust, looking around the bedroom of his condo. He listened carefully for any tell-tale sounds, but there were none to be found. Just the hum of the fridge from the kitchen, and the sounds of far-off crickets wafting through the open window.

When nothing presented itself, he relaxed again, slightly perturbed at being awake at such an hour. It wasn’t like he had anywhere to be in the morning, as it was summer vacation and he had no high-schoolers to bore with science lessons until the fall. But though he couldn’t remember it now, he was pretty sure he’d been having a nice dream, and didn’t appreciate having it interrupted.

His eyes now used to the dark, he looked back over at Samantha. He smiled. Her long hair – now in its natural brown state instead of the blonde she turned it to when she was Nightsable, using that mysterious spray she brought over from her own near-future alternate Earth – was draped across the pillow, and a strand hung down across her beautiful face. He was tempted to reach over and move it carefully – probably just from his sudden, and familiar, urge to want to touch her – but decided against it. He didn’t want to take the chance of waking her. Seeing her sleeping contentedly was a rare and wonderful sight, and she’d earned the right to enjoy it.

He carefully propped himself up on his elbow and just stared at her, drinking in all that he loved about her. She was gorgeous in a way that made you picture her face in your mind even when she wasn’t around. She looked fantastic even without makeup. He’d dated girls in his life that couldn’t get by without it. One had even done everything she could to keep him from seeing her without her layers of feminine war paint. But Samantha mesmerized just by being who she was.

The urge to touch her, to kiss her, tempted him again, but he wouldn’t let it win. Her nightmares had finally become fewer as the months had passed, and were now a rarity. At least they didn’t present themselves as dramatically – he assumed a lot must have still been going on her head when she dozed, since, more and more lately, she was tired all the time, even after a good night’s sleep. It worried him, and it made him feel helpless. The physical scars were now gone, thanks to several mystical healing treatments from Stephen Strange, Forte’s official doctor and husband of Forte founding member Mist, but it seemed the emotional ones had yet to fade. That was more than understandable after all she’d been through. He knew from his own post-traumatic period after the loss of his bomb squad, back when he was a Gotham City cop, that time was, in the end, the only salve that made a difference.

He just watched her for a while, letting his concern turn into adoration as he thought about the string of luck that had brought such a perfect woman into his life. Even with the tough times in the past few months, they had been happy, and every morning he woke next to her reminded him how fortunate he was. Her sweetness, dimmed some by the series of traumas but never going away, warmed him always. Her laugh made any room brighter. Her touch made him feel complete.

It hadn’t been a smooth romance, theirs, that was for sure. It was anchored to a lot of guilt. Their attraction had been instant and unexpected. And he’d had a girlfriend – Claire – who had been through all his dark times with him and followed him west when he began his new life in the Pacific Northwest. He’d finally had to make his choice, and it was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, and made him hate himself…probably not as much as Claire hated him for it. And Samantha, herself, had been with Jared. THERE was a great way to start out with a new team, stealing the girlfriend of a fellow team member. Though to be fair, Jared hadn’t been around when Paul had first happened onto the team, and had all but abandoned her when he went off to Boston with his ex-wife. Their relationship had already been unofficially over. Still, it gnawed at Paul that Jared wasn’t only a Forte member, but a former cop, like Paul. Cops didn’t do that to each other. But it had seemed destined to be, if one believed that kind of thing (he wasn’t sure if he did or not). And Jared had accepted it, and the tension was kept to a minimum. But the tension was still there, and Paul felt bad about it. Not bad enough to give up Samantha, of course, but everyone knew and understood the pain of seeing someone you loved end up with someone else. He felt for Jared, still. How could losing someone like her not be one of the most painful things that had happened to a guy who’d had plenty pain enough as it was?

All that thinking had brought him to full wakefulness, and he realized he wasn’t getting back to sleep anytime soon. He very carefully slid out of the bed, keeping an eye on her to see if his movements made her stir, but she slept on. He quietly left the bedroom and plodded out into his kitchen.

He walked slowly to the fridge, thinking maybe a cold drink on such a hot night might help him out. He opened its white door and was bathed in its florescent light, and he eyed the stores of his shelves for a couple of minutes. Water, Gatorade, Red Hook, milk, East India Company iced tea. He had trouble making a choice, but didn’t really feel rushed to make one.

Soon, he felt a pair of arms softly wrap themselves around his chest.

He looked over his shoulder to find the heavy-eyed, drowsy face of Samantha smiling tiredly at him.

“Hey,” he said, concerned and apologetic. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” He chastised himself for making this unnecessary trip to the kitchen, as it seemed he didn’t really want a drink that much after all.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, hugging him from behind and pressing herself into his back. She was a little dopey, but didn’t sound angry. “I just woke up and you were gone.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “You should be getting some sleep.”

“It’s too hot to sleep,” she said, rubbing her hands over his chest.

Paul turned around, stepped behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, and gently moved her up to the front of the open fridge.

She laughed.

“Better?” he asked, grinning.

“Much,” she purred, stretching her arms high and putting her hands on top the freezer door, letting the cool air wash over her.

He puts his arms around her waist, sliding his hands over her stomach, and kissed her bare shoulders. She purred again.

“You okay?” he asked. He knew she must have been sick of him asking that, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Really. I’m just tired.”

He worried over that familiar phrase, but didn’t bother commenting on it, as it always ended in the same place with no answer. He moved his kiss to her neck instead.

“You want some water?” he asked, knowing her poison.

“’Kay,” she sighed. She reached into the fridge before he could and pulled a bottle out, cracking the seal. She drank deeply from it. He moved his head over her shoulder and she held it up for him, and he took a chilled draw as well. She smiled at him and put the cap back on, setting the bottle on the top shelf.

He hugged her tightly, despite the heat. “Aren’t we meeting Dane and Stacy for lunch today?” he asked, suddenly remembering.

She laid her head back on his shoulder and made an affirmative sound. “I think they’re really starting to get serious.”

“Good for them,” he said, genuinely, weaving his fingers lightly through her hair. “The UNCLE agent and the museum girl. I’m sure that’ll make a fine romance novel.”

She laughed quietly, busy enjoying his touch, her eyes closed.

“You want to go to Paris for dinner?” he asked.

She smiled and sighed out a single laugh. “Paris?”

“Yeah, why not?” he asked. With her teleportation powers, a fine restaurant in Paris was just as close as the corner deli.

“Are we remembering the time difference?” she smiled, amused.

“Oh,” he said, and clearly had not been. “Well, maybe breakfast then. They do have breakfast in France, right?”

She laughed and turned slowly around to face him, her face showing the loving smile that was the best part of his life these days. “I think they do. I don’t think America invented it.”

“Or maybe Spain,” he offered. “Ooh, or maybe waffles in Belgium.”

“You’re such a dork,” she laughed, rubbing his shoulders and neck.

After looking into her eyes and smiling back at her, he let his gaze drop.

“What?” she asked, looking down at herself and back up him with a curious, dubious smile.

He found her eyes again and grinned at her. “Anyone ever tell you you look spectacular by fridgelight?” It was an immature thing to think, sure, but he couldn’t help think how much so many millions of men around the globe would pay to see the sight he was seeing.

She bit her lip in that way that he loved and smiled widely. She slowly embraced him and pressed her mouth into his, and they kissed, softly but passionately, in front of the eggs and leftovers.

The moment ended deliciously slow, and they gazed into each other’s eyes, touching and simply enjoying their closeness in silence.

“Come back to bed,” she whispered.

“Well,” he said, pretending to think it over, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. Then he reached down and hoisted her up, and she wrapped her legs around him with a giggle, holding on. “Okay,” he said, decisively.

He held her up as she clung to him with her arms around his neck, and he stepped back. Then he stepped forward, awkwardly, and used her rump to bonk the fridge door shut. This brought more laughter from her.

He carried her back to his bedroom – the one that was he was starting to think of, more and more, as THEIR bedroom. Outside, the crickets chirped on, and Seattle slept soundly and peacefully. For a change.

 

---

 

At Pike Place Market, the famed Public Market clock above the Farmer’s Market entrance struck 7:00 AM. Fish, fruits and vegetables were being unloaded already, hosed down and laid out on display shelves in preparation for the thousands of local and tourist feet that would be wandering the market today – for meals, for deals, or for memories.

Davis Alexander stood in his studio, a cup of coffee in his hand, staring at an easel whose canvas was covered with a drape. Beneath it was a painting of Chelsea he’d started two years before. They’d never gotten back to it. He smiled warmly at the memory of trying to get her to lay still for it, and the day they’d had after that. He felt sure he could finish it from memory. But he wasn’t quite ready. Not yet, but the time was coming.

Holly Wood’s alarm went off, and she groaned into her pillow. Her arm flailed up and her finger managed to hit the snooze button without breaking the clock (she’d gone through four since moving into her loft). She had a brunch meeting planned with her friend and business partner, Kelsey, and had planned to get up a little early to answer a backlog of fan email. That suddenly didn’t sound so hot, and a few snoozes seemed just the right way to start the day. She was back to sleep in less than a minute.

Jared Banks cut through the first major wave of morning traffic, on the way the Beacon Hill and to Stephanie’s house. Gabriel’s Questboy was on the passenger seat. He’d gone home, back to his boat, and showered and changed, but he had yet to sleep. He and Seena had toured Seattle’s night skyline, and sat atop the Space Needle talking until the sun rose. He was tired, and it would be a long day, but he didn’t regret it. He mind was still reeling from all the amazing things she’d had to tell him about where she came from, and the memory of her company had his heart feeling light, and put a smile on his face that promised to linger all day long. After that, he would run home, grab a quick nap, and meet up with her to plan the coming weekend they would have together. He looked forward to it more than he’d ever expected to.

James Avalon barked at his assistant, Constance, as he tried to find a file he’d need in court in an hour. Impervious to his ranting, as always, she carried the file in to him patiently, from the same location where he’d left it the day before, and he grinned and thanked her. She looked at his tie with disapproval and got another one off the rack and handed it to him. As he switched it out, he asked her to contact Lt. D’angelo at UNCLE and set up a meeting for the afternoon, after James would be done dazzling (or at least frustrating with a slew of loopholes) the judge at the courthouse. He had quite a proposal for the star-spangled federales, indeed.

Bobby McMillan lathered and rinsed, humming to himself in the shower and ready to face the day. And why not? It was going to be a beautiful one. He could just tell. He had a couple of movies rented, and planned to stop off and buy Lillian’s favorite ice cream on the way to pick her up after her shift. It was a perfect way to start out the weekend. And he planned to spend every possible moment of it with his girl. And she really was, after everything – his girl.

Lucy Toy sat on her bed, her back to her headboard, her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. She hadn’t slept. She’d just been staring at the wall in front of her as the sun had risen over her airplane hanger home. She hadn’t bothered calling the man in her life. She couldn’t handle seeing him right now. She couldn’t handle seeing a MIRROR right now. She just continued staring numbly, alone in the deafening silence of her empty home.

Paul Seaborn slept with his arms wrapped around the woman he adored, with no alarm clock set to interrupt their blissful slumber. Samantha Parker’s slumber, however, was not blissful, and her face occasionally twitched, the only physiological sign of whatever dark things were tormenting her dreams.

Another Friday in Seattle began.

 

END.

 

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