Page 20 of Forever

The cane and the uneven gait would have given Daniel’s identity away, but she knew him by his scent anyway. Her first instinct was to rush over, not because he was going to fall, but because she wanted to save him the effort of covering the distance—but he didn’t like when she coddled him.

Collecting herself, she put a determined smile on her face—

She never did get to speak the falsely cheerfulhello. A blaze of light hit her retinas, blinding her so badly, she put her forearms up as a shield.

“Lydia?” Daniel called out as she stumbled back.

The light faded as quickly as it had come, and in the aftermath, there was no reorientation to the darkness, no reason for her retinas to readjust.

Because it hadn’t been light in the conventional sense.

“Lydia, what’s wrong?”

Daniel was right in front of her now, the cap to keep his balding head warm the first thing she noticed. It was on backwards, and the detail of the sewed-on tag was an absurd thing to notice.

“I’m okay,” she lied as she tried to focus. Tried not to think the flash was anything important. Tried to…

And yet is it really a surprise, she thought.

Her Finnish grandfather had always told her that if you wanted to see your future, you went out at the moment of first dawn, when the sun was just starting to warm the sky in the east. There, he had said, you would find what destiny was bringing you in a blaze of light.

And if you wanted to see your past…

Then you went out at gloaming. And waited for the same.

“Honest, I’m fine,” she mumbled as she reached out and wrapped her arms gently around Daniel’s narrow shoulders.

With a surge of emotion, she wanted to crush him to her. Hold him so hard neither of them could breathe. Bury her face into his neck and scent him until he was all she could smell.

Their goodbye was coming—and she had known that in the hypothetical. But the light she had just seen announced their parting as reality.

Daniel was more her past now, more than even her present. In spite of the fact that he was standing in front of her.

“Listen to me,” he said urgently as his arms came around her with a surprising strength. “I talked to Gus. I told him I’ll take Vita-12b. I’ll do it. I’ll do anything to not lose you, to stay here with you. I don’t want you to be left alone and I’ve still got some fight in me, I promise—”

Lydia pulled back. “No, no, Daniel, I’ve been thinking. You’re right. I don’t know what it’s like, what you’ve been through. I can’t ask you to—”

“But I want to. I’ll do it—”

“You don’t have to—”

Abruptly, he laughed in a burst—and then started coughing. After things with his lungs calmed down, he shook his head ruefully. “How is it possible that we got to the same place, just at different times?”

Lydia closed her eyes. He was telling her what she wanted to hear, what she’d thought the only solution was, but she’d reconsidered her desperation all day long.

More than that, though… the light just now told her everything she needed to know about what was going to happen next. Especially if he had resolved to take Vita-12b. When he’d been against it? She hadn’t seen what she’d just witnessed, even though she got home every night at the same time.

There had been plenty of chances.

Jesus… that novel agent was going to kill him.

“No,” she said urgently. “No, don’t do it.”

“What?”

Lydia grabbed for his hands. “I was wrong. You’re wrong now. Let’s—no, we have to enjoy the time we have, okay? You’re right. Another treatment’s just going to make you sicker and we don’t even know if it’ll work—”

“I’ll do it, Lydia. I can do it.”

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