He felt his breath grow shallow; a pain in his chest where his wounded heart raced.
“Nina, I would have done anything to keep you. If it hadn’t been for your memory loss, I think I would have abandoned the world to be with you.”
“But you couldn’t,” she knew. “Because you had a purpose, like me. You had a responsibility.”
“Responsibility?” He rolled the word around on his tongue and he felt a sting build behind his eyes. “The weight of the world-he told me the weight of the world was coming down on my shoulders. Until I lost you, I had no idea how heavy that weight could be.”
She held her hands out and offered, “You’ve carried it by yourself long enough. I helped you before. Now let me help take that weight from your shoulders.”
He gazed into her blue eyes and his legs wobbled. Trevor collapsed to his knees and buried his head into her body. She clutched him with arms so tight they would never let go. Not again.
It flowed out of him. The loss. The sorrow. The emptiness that had threatened to turn his heart black. It poured like a river from his body. The man who had been strong for humanity found the woman-the only soul-who could be strong for him.
“It has been so hard all these years-so alone…”
“Not anymore,” she growled as if warning the powers of the universe not to dare try to part them again. “I put my life on hold to be a soldier. It was all I knew. Until now.”
She slid to her knees and faced him. Trevor ran a hand through her blond hair.
Nina said, “I want the rest. I want it all.”
His answer came in a kiss. A soft press to her lips. He felt her quiver. He felt a tremor of energy himself. A brief, sweet kiss. Merely a taste of things to come.
But, as is often the case with two people who have loved each other for a long time, a strong hug felt even deeper. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled tight, feeling the rhythm of her heart and the warmth of her breath on his neck.
She slid her arms around his back and closed her eyes. She let herself be swept away in his grasp. Nina trusted Trevor with her heart; she could drop the shield and let him in with no fear of injury.
Her strength would always be there, it lived in the nature of her being. It would be there in her arms and her strong shoulders for those dark nights ahead when the memories of his personal nightmares came to haunt. As Nina had told him so many years ago, she would hide with him in the dark if needed. That, of course, is part of being in love.
Their embrace pulled back and they sat on their knees staring at one another.
“He came to see me,” Nina said and she did not need to clarify who.
“What-what did he want?”
“He told me he had something for you. Or maybe us. I’m not sure.”
They got off their knees and stood in front of the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. A shadow cast by the mountain behind the mansion grew across the grounds and reached for the water’s edge.
“He said something about a fourth gift.”
Trevor and Nina moved through the woods hand in hand. Odin-once Trevor’s pet now an old dog in Nina’s service-trotted along in front as if leading the way.
The darkness of the evening and the dampness beneath the canopy of green conspired to chill the air but the excitement of the moment kept any discomfort at bay.
A slight rise in the land gave way to a dry streambed. As Trevor expected, the Old Man sat there on a slab of red rock alongside a flickering campfire with his wise old eyes studying the flames and his mouth moving gently as if chewing a last pinch of snuff. His familiar-a brilliant white wolf-lay at his feet enjoying the warmth of the fire.
Trevor and Nina descended the bank and walked into the sphere of heat radiating from the flames. Odin sat near the wolf. The Old Man tilted his head and eyed the newcomers with what might by a grin tugging at the edges of his lips.
“Surprised there, Trevvy?” The Old Man greeted.
“No,” Trevor shook his head.
“Kinda all got started with me. Makes sense for me to be here and wrap it up, don’t you think?”
“You know,” Trevor wagged his finger at the Old Man, but not harshly. “I’ve been thinking a lot about you. About why you were so upset back when you first heard about Nina and me that first year.”
Nina stood off and watched. The Old Man had told her the answers once in the beginning when she learned that she could not be with Trevor. Those answers were lost with the rest of her memories but when the Old Man came to Annapolis last year he shared the secrets again.
Trevor pushed on, “You took it-you took it personally when you found out I loved her. You weren’t just afraid about the big picture-I think you were sad.”
“Now see that,” the Old timer chuckled nervously. “Trev here thinks he’s got it all figured out.”
“It’s never been that complicated. The war was about what happens when the mind surpasses the heart; when intelligence isn’t kept in check by compassion and love. It bred arrogance and pride; things that are easy for a devil to exploit.”
The Old Man did not appear offended. He blinked fast. Maybe to stave off something sad.
He told Trevor, “You did a fine job of that, yessir. Struck a chord with the whole bunch. Made us-made us remember what we’d forgotten. Made us remember who we really are. I ‘spose when you cut through a couple o’ million years of evolution-well, I guess we was just human after all. ‘Least in my case. But you get the point.”
“The only thing I did was bring you back together. The biggest mistake you made was cutting the mind loose from the heart. Once we patched that up…”
“Yessir, that was one hell of a left turn, wasn’t it?”
“No,” Trevor corrected and admitted as he controlled a wobble in his voice: “I felt sure it would come. I had faith in y ou. I just-I just had to be strong enough to let you go.”
A glint flickered in the Old Man’s eye.
“Now Trevy, what’s that you got hiding up your sleeve?”
“I’ve figured it out. I figured out exactly who you are.”
The fire crackled. Trevor took a step closer. His eyes blinked twice and he sniffled while trying to fight off tears.
“It’s good to see you again- my son.”
The Old Man stood and walked away from the fire. As he did, the facade faded away and Jorgie Benjamin Stone-the little boy born to Trevor and Ashley-walked to his dad.
Trevor knelt. JB hugged hard and Trevor hugged him back with the love of a father.
“I’m sorry,” Jorgie said. “I’m sorry for what I put you through.”
“You didn’t know,” Trevor spoke to the part of the entity that had been born his son. “You couldn’t have known while you were growing up with me. You were split in two. Two different beings made from what had once been one.”
“Father-I…”
Trevor held Jorgie by his shoulders and gazed into his eyes. As great a being as those eyes belonged to, they still were of his blood. One part comprised of the energy and intellect of a greatly evolved entity; another part the body sent to be reborn as both a marker and an observer; a collector of data.
A surrogate for a god.
In the end, it had been the body of the child-his love for his mother-his innocence-his understanding of what it meant to be human-the very chain on which Trevor had been a link-that won the day.
Trevor told his boy, “I have been proud of you since the day you were born. And I don’t blame you. No son could be blamed for loving his mother; for wanting his father and mother to be together. If I had to do it all over again, I would. For you.”
Jorgie smiled and backed away, giving Nina a glance before the child gave way to the Old Man again. But of course he was not an old man; and neither was he a child. He was something much more but in the end he had been human.