“I’m sorry, Mia. I always found comfort in thinking of myself as the hero in my comic books, but it’s always been you, hasn’t it? You had nothing, yet you found something to give all of us. You didn’t let all this damage you.”
“It did though,” Mia admitted. “I’m so insecure. I need to know that when I come home, you’re going to be there. Each time I made a major stride towards becoming confident, you left me, either emotionally or physically. I can understand it. I’m not really worth staying for, am I?”
Mia pulled out a family album. She pushed it at Ted.
He opened it and saw pictures of Charles and Amanda and that was it. He tossed it at the wall in anger. He grasped the ragged child to his chest. “Mia, where’s Ralph and Bernard? Your grandmother and, for cripes’ sake, Murphy?” He ran out of the room, dragging her. He found where the good memories were residing and forced her to see the man who taught her to ride a bike. “It’s Ralph, honey, and Bernard. You were not alone.”
“Wasn’t I?” she questioned. “Come, let me show you my life.”
Ted watched the child who had a vicelike grip on his hand. He walked with her through her memories, and as they did, she grew up: the young girl left out at school, the teen who tried time and time again to fit in, and then Ted found himself at Murphy’s farm. The windows of the house were broken, and the barn was falling apart, although the foundations of the building showed the careful construction of the builder. He saw the teens arrive. Mia was a cute little thing. She was sporting a Goth look, but there was no masking that the clothes she wore were from the secondhand store. She followed Whitney, who Ted had to admit was a strikingly handsome youth. He witnessed the abandonment of Mia, and Murphy’s arrival at the campfire.
After that, there was a flashing of memories of Mia coming to the farm when her heart was broken, or she was just sad, to find Murphy waiting for her. He didn’t do anything more than make her laugh. Ted witnessed the love bloom between the two and the point when the curse locked Mia in a relationship that would forever be damned.
Ted turned Mia to him. “You let that go for me?”
“Yes, and for me. Murphy was tied to me too. I didn’t know it until I broke the curse.”
“What did you do to break it?”
“I opened up my soul to him, as I’m doing now with you. I expect you’ll leave me now.”
“Oh no, Mia.”
“I’ve been given gifts that take me away from home to fight for the innocent and the lost. I’m afraid to leave, because I’m going to come back and you’ll be gone.”
“No, Mia, I’ll be here.”
“My grandmother said that you are so very important to the beings that fight for good. If you do leave me, don’t leave them, please.”
“Mia, you’re not listening to me,” Ted said sternly, putting his hands on her shoulders. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m not asking you to stay with me because of Brian,” Mia said. “I don’t want that kind of marriage.”
“I thought perhaps that’s why you came home so quickly before, for Brian,” Ted admitted.
“I would have moved close by so we could share him. I came home because I love you and wanted you to love me,” Mia said clearly. “I knew it was going to be a struggle because of the Judas Hex, but when I found out you were leaving, even before Roumain’s scheming, it crushed me.”
Ted put his hand through his hair nervously. “You didn’t seem to need me, Mia.”
“Walk these halls and find one moment when I didn’t need you,” she challenged.
He walked to where she stood proudly on the stage at the beach. “How can anyone so beautiful need anyone?”
“Watch,” she said.
“Miss, we are geeks from IIT, and right now you are on live at the Rosemont Convention Center.”
Mia smiled. She was thinking of Ted being there, possibly watching her.
“Would you give your permission to be voted on by nerds and geeks?”
“Oh, I love nerds. I find smart men so handsome,” she said, lowering her voice, looking into the camera.
“Who do you think that was for? Angelo?”
“No, but at that point I wasn’t in my right mind.”
“I was just coming out of the hex. All I could think of was connecting with you. I was running away from telling you how Roumain had violated us, but Mike made me stay. Brutal truths. Oh, how I hate them.”
“You seemed to be doing alright without me,” Ted said, turning her to look at her training with Ed on the island.
“He wouldn’t let me fall apart. He let me use my anger.”
Ted walked on and stopped, awestruck.
Before him was Mia’s first flight, the entrance of Sariel, and her rejected promise. He relived her stopping the car from her perspective. If he hadn’t turned around, how it would have taken everything she had to move on. He also saw the archangel and how he instructed Mia to keep her mind off of what was going on below.
“He’s a lot like Murphy, isn’t he?”
“Bossy, yes. But I understand now why he needs me. He’s damaged.”
“What about Angelo?”
“Oh, that I fear will always be a problem, Ted, I’m sorry. I can’t seem to do anything to get rid of him. I think it’s a crush. Now I know how poor Whitney felt; I stalked the boy.”
Ted laughed in spite
