remember for the rest of your life and I would remember for only a few more hours. I remember the night before, we sat together and talked about a dream world all of our own with no obligations, no titles.”
Trevor stumbled for words: “How-that’s not possible…”
“You said once that memories make us who we are. Maybe the reverse is true, too. What happened last year was part of it. When I-when I helped you, images came across the bridge to me. Feelings. Emotions. The things you lost. The people.”
She turned and faced him. His lips parted, but he found no breath.
Nina said, “After that day-that last day-I woke up without a year of my life. In all the time since, I felt something missing. But I didn’t know what. I could never open up to anyone. I always pushed people away. My daughter was a help. With her I found a little part of what went missing, but I always knew there was more.”
Her brow crinkled. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second and then opened them wide again, fully focused on him.
“And there you were, my Emperor. My commander. Those times when you came to see me yourself, for a mission or whatever. I–I felt special. You respected me. I could feel the trust you had in me. When I looked at you I saw a man who had a purpose like I always had a purpose. I saw-I saw…”
“What did you see?”
“I saw a man imprisoned by that purpose,” she said in less sure words, as if worried he might take it as an insult. “I was always afraid that soldiering and killing and fighting were all there was to me. And there you were. I could see determination and strength-and loneliness.”
Her hand reached and tentatively touched his cheek as if the touch would serve to prove the image real.
Nina said softly, “I saw a reflection of me in your eyes. Then when I thought you had been assassinated-that missing part of me hurt. I felt robbed. Cheated. Something personal had been taken away.”
“You brought me back,” he pointed out. “Without you I would be dead or insane.”
“Yes,” she agreed, withdrawing her hand and speaking in a surer voice. “When all that confusion and fear came from you in to me, I realized how hard a life you led. And I realized that I could help you. Not anyone; you. When we came together I felt whole. What I’m saying is, for the first time in my life I felt like a complete person. That’s when I finally started to understand what that missing part of me was. It was you. It has always been you.”
She tilted her head and confessed, “Look, Trevor, do you understand? I fell in love with you a second time. They stole my memories. You sent me away farther and farther and I still fell in love with you all over again.”
Trevor trembled from head to toe. He swallowed hard.
Nina spoke in the mother’s voice she honed raising Denise, “I’ve waited nearly a year for you to come home and before that I spent months trying to understand what we once had and why it was taken from us. Now I know. But for you-oh, Trevor, you didn’t have the luxury of forgetting. I know how you felt about me. I can feel it,” she held a hand to her heart, “in here. I can only imagine how hard that must have been for you. All those years…”
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’
