perspective he lacked on this parallel Earth.
'You gave in. You decided it was more important not to be alone than it was to be true to yourself. Let me tell you, if I had ever raised a hand to my Nina she would have tied me in a knot. She was faster and stronger than me, the same way I know you're faster and stronger. Yet you let him beat you down because you were afraid to be alone.'
She did not say a word. He went on.
'The things you did with your Trevor, you did them to keep him. You did them because you thought that’s what it took. You let him use you like an object; you let him…let him degrade you. To cheapen you. Because you were afraid to walk away.'
He felt her flinch. A sigh from her lips became a sob.
'You let him define who you are. Then you did everything he wanted, no matter how it made you feel. You let him use you, and why? Because you were afraid to be alone.'
She shivered, as if a chill had worked its way beneath her armor. Then it came out. She muffled each burst as best she could but she could not hide from him. Not any more. The tears flowed and her chest heaved. The woman he knew to be so strong and brave fell to pieces as she confronted the only nightmare that had ever managed to scare her. The nightmare of loneliness.
'I…I have hated every second…ever…every day…of my life,' she spoke between breaths. 'Every…day. I never knew how to…how to…'
Trevor answered for her, 'How to fit in?'
She wiped a hand beneath her eyes.
'So you let him use you like a toy, just so he wouldn’t chase you away.'
'I thought…he wanted to do things. I did them. I thought he’d love me for it.'
Stone ran his hands along her shoulders and arms in a comforting caress.
'Me and my Nina,' his eyes glazed over with wonderful memories. 'We had all sorts of fun together. But through it all, we had respect. I always respected her. To be with her, together, I mean-wow-we had fun. But we sometimes just sat and talked, for hours over a bottle of wine. We played racquetball together and went horseback riding. I’d give anything for just one moment with her again. If only…if only to talk to her.'
This time Trevor fought to stave tears. He concentrated on her, on holding her tight, on forgetting for the moment how she had deceived him. After weeks of nothing but anger, violence, and lust, he found his soul cleansed by offering compassion; something he rarely had the opportunity to do. The kindness he showed her, despite all she had done, provided a counter balance to the evil he had wrought since coming here. In a way, he found it healing.
'You really loved her, didn’t you?'
'Yes. I loved her, very much. But you know what else? I liked her. I liked just being with her. And I respected who she was. I didn’t want to change her; I wanted her to share with me the person she was. And she did. It took a lot for her to do it, but she did.'
'I’m nothing like her,' she did not ask, she stated a fact.
He corrected, 'That’s not true. You’re very nearly the same person, you just made a different choice. Our memories and our experiences make us who we are. You made a decision my Nina avoided. So yes, you’re different but I know you have the same strength that she has.'
'The same…strength?'
'Yes,' he insisted. 'The strength to be who you are. Don’t let someone else define you. Don’t let someone else cheapen you.'
'Strength…' she turned the word around in her mouth.
'You have it. You showed it once, didn't you?'
She turned around in her sleeping blanket to face him. The glow of the lantern flickered in her blue eyes and sparkled off streams of drying tears.
'Come on now,' he said to her. 'Go ahead, tell me. You need to. Don't worry, I figured it out a while ago.'
She nibbled at her lower lip, cast her eyes down, then back to him. And then Major Nina Forest admitted, 'I killed him.'
He touched her cheek and encouraged her to, 'Go on.'
'One day, after a battle, we were alone. He said I was…he called me a worthless…'
'Shhh,' he kept her from finishing whatever cold insult the Trevor Stone of this world had berated her with.
She said, 'I don’t know what happened. Maybe it was the heat of the battle. I had just finished killing…killing things. I felt invincible for a moment, like I sometimes do when I’m fighting. I felt… comfortable.'
'You’re a natural soldier, just like my girl. That’s who you are.'
'He laughed at me. Real mean, like. And I don’t know… I hit him. I knocked him right down to the ground. He looked at me…he was, like…shocked or something. For a few seconds…like…he was afraid. Afraid of me. Then he got up and he was pissed. He told me he was going to cut me for that. So he came at me with his blade and then, and then I realized I had a knife in my hand and he swung at me with his knife and the next thing I know I stuck my knife in him and his mouth just fell open and he had this look in his eyes and the blood came and then he was on the ground and he was dead and I didn’t know what-'
'Good for you,' he interrupted the long string of words that came from her mouth in an ever increasing panic. 'You protected yourself.'
'No,' she shook her head but not too vigorously. 'I killed him. And you know what? I was glad. For a while, I was glad to be free of him.'
Trevor figured the rest, 'But with time things started to fall apart and every one said it was because of Trevor. And you were alone. Without him no one cared about you; you were a nobody. So after a while, and when you found out about the dimensions and all, you decided maybe you should try and bring Trevor back. Maybe it’d be good for your people. Maybe you wouldn’t be alone any more.'
She did not need to nod or answer in any way because they both knew how right he was.
'Nina,' he spoke softly. 'On behalf of all the other Trevors of existence, I forgive you.'
She chuckled, sort of.
'What he did to you all those years, what he put your people through and what he did to this planet…well, I don’t blame you one bit. I don’t think any one could.'
They paused and listened to the sound of their own breathing for several seconds. The Major managed her emotions but her curiosity got the better of her.
'So, you and Nina, you were, like, friends and lovers, huh?'
'That’s right, yeah.'
'I’m jealous. It sounds like you two were happy. I mean, really happy.'
'Yeah.'
'Tell me some more. Tell me about the Nina you were in love with. I want to know her.'
He smiled and much like showing compassion, sharing the stories of the months he had spent in love with Nina Forest helped return some calm to his heart. She had always had that affect on him.
So they laid there together in the glow of the Chem Lamp while the howls and screeches of monsters played in the distant background of the Hellish city. He kept his arms wrapped around her and they closed their eyes and he told stories of the woman with whom the Major had much in common, yet so much more that was not.
Eventually, slowly, exhaustion overpowered the tales and the two fell asleep.
Their clothes never came off, not even a kiss, only his arm draped over her in half a hug. Yet she had never felt so close to another person in all her life.
They fell asleep together, two human beings on an alien planet yet they were not alone.
– With their bags packed, the two travelers prepared to leave, hoping to reach the rendezvous point before dark. However, Trevor first needed to tend to one task.
He left her and walked into a small room with one window and toilet facilities that offered a smell even more unpleasant than the other smells of the decaying city. Once positioned above a basin that must have been a urinal, he opened a strategically-placed zipper on his battle suit and relieved himself while Nina waited several rooms away.
