“Form up into teams,” he said. He took Ginger’s hand before she could join the people she’d traveled with into the past. He drew her away from the spring and tilted her chin up with his fingers. “You are so beautiful,” he told her.
“In a pale, freckled sort of way,” she answered. She tried to sound light, but her voice came out tight and strained.
“I’ll miss you, Dr. Virginia White.” Words couldn’t begin to describe what having to separate was doing to him.
“Have I thanked you for rescuing me yet?” she asked. She gave him a brief, hard embrace. “It’s been a pleasure knowing you, Colonel Andrew Bern.”
He kissed her then. It was fierce and quick, and not enough. He ran the back of his hand across her cheek. “Hey, we made history.”
“Or something like it.”
He nodded, and his throat was too tight for him to manage to say more than, “Go.”
She gave him a sad smile, and went over to join Kaye and Owen who were already standing in the spring’s shallow pool. They each placed their left thumbs over the inside of their right wrists. Ginger’s gaze didn’t leave his.
“On my mark,” Kaye said. “Activate.”
Everyone pressed down hard on the retrieval implant.
The column of light that sprang from the water blinded him. The roar of the shock wave was deafening. Bern refused to look away. The last thing he saw was Ginger’s face as she whispered, “Goodbye.”
Ginger looked up from the photo before her on the desk, and sighed. A copper bowl filled with water sat on the desk, but she wasn’t interested in looking into it. Being a psychic wasn’t as much fun for her as it used to be. It had been six months since she’d gotten back to her own time. Six months and three days to be precise, not that she was counting. She’d done the debriefing and written up her report, and been sent back to her regular life until such time as the TTP deemed her special skills necessary again. For now her regular life consisted of working with law enforcement on cold-case files, and being alone.
She sighed again, and stood up. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate being back. She loved her house and garden. She loved central heating and modern medicine and interactive holographic entertainment and regular meals of anything she wanted. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed shopping for shoes until she’d entered her first mall. She loved being home. It was just that—
She missed Bern.
Her body ached for him when she was alone in her bed at night, but the notion of taking another lover was anathema. Even trying a holo lover hadn’t worked for her.
She got up and began to pace around her office. She was well aware that Bern had returned to the present three days before, and even more aware that it didn’t matter. Maybe there was some way that she could introduce herself to him, but how fair would it be to him when she knew their past and he didn’t? There was no way for them to pick up where they’d left off. There was a good chance he wouldn’t even be interested in her under normal circumstances. Maybe she wouldn’t be interested in him.
She laughed hollowly, still conscious of the ecstasy he brought her when his body joined with hers. “Yeah, right, sure I’m going to forget that.”
Then again, she really wanted the man, why shouldn’t she fight for what she wanted? She should find a way to introduce herself and see what—
“There is someone at the door,” the house’s security system announced. It was an old house with a very basic system, so it wasn’t about to be more informative than that. So, unless the water in the scrying bowl suddenly showed her who it was—which it wasn’t likely to do—she had to answer the door herself. Entertaining a visitor, even someone looking to get their future read without an appointment, was better than pacing around feeling sorry for herself.
The man standing at the door was the last person she expected to be there. And the one person in all of space and time she wanted to see.
“Bern!”
He kissed her before she could say anything else. The fire that had been between them from the first moment sparked to flames. She clung to him with all her might, her body molded against his. If he’d taken her there on the front porch she wouldn’t have minded. Instead he swung her around into the house, and kicked the door closed behind them. They fell together onto the entryway carpet and clothes were quickly shed and pushed aside.
He was thrusting inside her, hard and strong and fast, before she managed to breathlessly say, “You remembered me!” Then she came for the first time and forgot about words for a long time afterwards.
“Of course I remembered,” he said later, when they were lying together in a sweaty tangled heap. “You’re unforgettable.”
She stroked his cheek. “Oh, that’s sweet…wait a minute…that means you’re psychic.” He nodded. “I thought Percy was your team psychic.”
“He was, on the civilian side. The military side always tries to have someone who’ll remember the op on a TTP team.”
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
“That’s because that information is shared on a need-to-know basis. This seems like a good time for you to need to know.”
“Now I understand why Kaye kept talking about your gut feelings. I should have guessed he meant your psychic intuition.”
“You should have guessed when we went for each other like we were in heat instantly right after we met. That kind of lust only comes when like meets like.”
“So I’ve heard. Hey, the lust had me pretty distracted. That and starring in orgies and fighting the Saxons and that whole Matter of Britain thing we had going.”
He sighed. “Matter of Britain, my ass.”
She stroked it. “It’s a very nice ass. I have a nice big bed it might fit in upstairs,” she told him.
He helped her to her feet, even though she groaned in protest when he stopped touching her breasts. “I’d be delighted to spend as much time as possible in your nice big bed.”
“Good.”
“But first,” he added, “I did come here to ask if you’d like to go on a date this evening. I’ve got tickets for a revival of an old musical I think you’ll enjoy.”
Curiosity nibbled away some of her lust. “What would that be?”
He grinned. “Spamalot.”
She hooted, and they held each other tight, shaking with laughter. What other production could possibly be more perfect for their first date?
LIFE IS THE TEACHER
Carrie Vaughn
EMMA SLID UNDER THE SURFACE OF THE WATER and stayed there. She lay in the tub, on her back, and stared up at a world made soft, blurred with faint ripples. An unreal world viewed through a distorted filter. For minutes—four, six, ten—she stayed under water and didn’t drown, because she didn’t breathe. Would never breathe again.
The world looked different through these undead eyes. Thicker, somehow. And also, strangely, clearer.
Survival seemed like such a curious thing once you’d already been killed.
This was her life now. She didn’t have to stay here. She could end it any time she wanted just by opening the curtains at dawn. But she didn’t.
Sitting up, she pushed back her soaking hair and rained water all around her with the noise of a rushing stream. Outside the blood-warm bath, her skin chilled in the air. She felt every little thing, every little current—from the vent, from a draft from the window, coolness eddying along the floor, striking the walls. She shivered. Put the fingers of one hand on the wrist of the other and felt no pulse.
After spreading a towel on the floor, she stepped from the bath.
She looked at herself: she didn’t look any different. Same slim body, smooth skin, young breasts the right size to cup in her hands, nipples the color of a bruised peach. Her skin was paler than she remembered. So pale it was almost translucent. Bloodless.