Mark was really worried about the outcome of this court date. He had rambled more than once about fixing it, going back and fixing it, but always concluded it wouldn't change enough. I was afraid to ask. He spent as much time with me as possible, taking a few days off until then and a few days after. We still wanted to have an official wedding and hadn't sent out the invites yet, so we decided we would set another date once we saw what would happen.
Feeling some time 'away from it all' would be a good thing for both of us, Mark decided we should go camping in the mountains and it was amazing. We tied and stashed our stuff to the motorcycle like a packhorse, including a tent and fishing poles. I enjoyed this special time with him. We got to see different sides of each other: I got to see the side of him that was less perfectionist. He didn't mind the dirt and mud and smelly no shower bodies. He got to see the calm side of me. Yes, it exists. Being lost in a clearing surrounded by trees and mountains and water I felt at ease. This was a place I could trust. I had less fear of a bear attack in the woods than I did of a jerk attack in the city. He was especially surprised when I found a praying mantis and brought it to him, enamored.
"That's a bug. You touch bugs?" he said slightly patronizing.
"I love bugs! Don't you?"
He reached out his hand calmly and allowed the insect to cling onto him.
"Look at him, isn't he amazing?" I asked in awe. Mark didn't respond, but just admired with me. "You know, when I look at a creature like this, I am once again convinced that God exists." I put it back where I found it, and then just looked at my surroundings with more awe and peacefulness. "It's hard to imagine there's a concern in the world when I'm up here..."
Mark squeezed me tightly. "And that, my love, is exactly why we are here."
Our fishing excursion was successful. We caught three bass, but decided we only needed one to make a meal for the evening and let the others go. We stopped at dusk, and went back to our campsite. We started to pull out the tent, but then I stopped suddenly, tapping my chin in thought.
"What's up?" he noticed my hesitation.
"Are we expecting rain?"
"No. Why?"
"What do we need the tent for?"
He smiled approvingly. "I agree completely. What do we need a tent for?" He secured it back onto the bike. And we zipped our oversized sleeping bags together. Dinner was simple; He actually had taken me on a hike earlier and knew which plants were safe to eat, so we had sautéed greens with our fillet. I had even helped clean and prepare the fish. I felt like a girl scout on her first campout, I was learning so much from him!
"Is there anything you can't do?" I asked with a mock worship while we ate our meal. "You cook, you camp, you read minds..."
"Well, that's three things...that leaves out a very long list of things I might not be able to do. I can't dance!" he placed a tender bit in my mouth.
"True. Very true."
"You didn't have to agree so whole heartedly...!" He laughed as he got up and rinsed our dishes in a bucket of water.
"That's alright, you looked absolutely gorgeous on the dance floor, and that's half the battle!"
"I won't even begin to tell you what YOU looked like on the dance floor..." he whistled in amazement. "I can't wait to go dancing again! Under better circumstances, of course...Hey..." he looked at me cautiously, "You up for a swim?" He was done cleaning up.
"In THAT water??"
"C'mon, a little adventure! Live dangerously!" He challenged me with a devilish smile.
"Freeze dangerously!" I crossed my arms over my chest and looked at him like he was crazy.
"I might be willing to help keep you warm..." he smiled lovingly and hugged me. "If you aren't up to it it's alright. Would you be ok with you if I jump in, though?"
"Maybe you should bring a bag for the body parts that freeze and fall off...!"
He laughed and grabbed a folding chair and some towels. "Keep me company?"
"Sure."
So I made myself comfortable at the edge of the lapping water, and watched the sunset color the sky. I was mostly appreciating the beauty of its reflection on the water, and then I let my eyes rest on Mark, having placed his clothes in a nicely folded pile on a rock. As he was boldly moving into the water with grace, I watched him contentedly. I found myself trying to ignore how much I noticed the way his muscles moved with him, and the way the shape of his shoulders as they tapered down to his hips sent a little shiver down my spine. He turned to me as he waded in water to his shoulders and smiled.
"How is it?" I asked already figuring I knew the answer.
"Let's just say it's not a hot bath!"
"You're nuts!"
"I thought you preferred nuts! I'd enjoy this more if you would be a nut with me!"
I shook my head in disbelief that I could even consider going into freezing cold water, but in spite of my better judgment, I began to remove my shoes.
"I'm just feeling the water; don't get your hopes up!"
He walked closer, up to his waist. The water glistened off of him and he was indeed a sight to behold. He was impossible to resist. I laughed at my weakness for this beautiful man. "You're doing that on purpose!"
"What?"
"Making it harder for me to resist you, by bein' all shiny and everything..."
He laughed out loud, so much so that it seemed to fill the air. "Well, is it working then?"
"Maybe...Ok, fine..." I took off my clothes, not bothering to fold them. I just draped them over the back of the chair. I walked to the edge of the water and paused, a bit fearfully. I could feel a slight breeze brush over my naked body, blowing my hair across my face.
"You can do it." He started to walk toward me.
"No. Stay there, with waiting arms, just give me something to want to come after..."
He chuckled and put his arms out for me... "Come join me, sweet Bubba...I'm anxious to hold you..."
Oooh, he's good. I smiled shyly, took a deep breath and plowed through the cold water as gracefully as I could. I squealed a bit as the water engulfed my dry body, laughing as my goosebumps got goosebumps! Finally I reached him. And I was so happy to be welcomed by his embrace. "Mmmmmn. You make it all worth it..."
"So do you..." We stayed that way for a long time.
It was the usual situation where the water is fine once you get used to it, and we swam around and played. We floated. At one point, I felt a couple fish nibble on my toes. That kinda did it for me.
"Ok. Mark. It's dark. We are currently in water that I have NO idea how deep it is, something just tried to give me a hickie on my leg...it's time to go in..."
"You sure it wasn't me?"
I smiled mischievously, "Oh, noooo...I would know your hickies anywhere..."
He was pulling me gently toward shore. "You really can be a little vixen sometimes..." he smiled.
"Only because you let me."
We wrapped ourselves in our towels and grabbed our stuff to head back to the fire, only a few yards away.
"Go get into the bag, I'll hang up the towels."
I laughed. "You are such a neat-nick!"
"I wasn't always."
"You were messy at one time?? I don't believe it!" I raced the chill rushing into our double sleeping bag and curled up on my pillow.
"Well, when I was much younger, there was a time when I just had a one track mind on having fun, and cleaning up after myself wasn't something that had occurred to me. First, I realized how much easier life was when things were in order, and then it took me a while to build up strong habit."
"How long?"
"Trust me, long enough to not hold your cleaning habits against you!"
"I don't think you can call it 'habits'! That would imply I actually do something! I just try to get through each day by the skin of my teeth, and if that happened to include remembering to hang my keys by the door, I count it a good day..." He had crawled in next to me while I was talking. His hair was still damp, but his body was warm and dry. "But not as good a day as today..." I cuddled my naked body against his.
"It's more difficult to contain details in a mind that's consumed with painful clutter." He looked at me with keen understanding and compassion as he brushed his fingers through my damp hair.
It felt wonderfully relaxing. "Maybe you being a neatnick and all, you can help me clear my clutter...?" I said, my eyes rolling back in the enjoyment of his hands through my hair.
"One day at a time." He stopped.
I slowly opened my eyes to find him looking out over the water. "I bet one good kiss could clear my mind right up!" I wanted his attention on me!
"Ok, then. One kiss at a time." He kissed me softly...
"Mmmmnnn, still messy in there..." I pointed to spot above my forehead.
He smiled brightly, pleased with my playful game. "How 'bout this?" He kissed me again, longer.
"It's a little brighter...but there's lots of messy rooms, you know...It might take a long time to get to all of them, and a lot of kisses..."
"I've got all time in the world...and even more kisses..."
I could imagine us getting old together. Cuddling under the stars made him even more romantic than I thought possible. When we made love, he knew instinctively how to make me feel loved and safe. It was some time before we unlocked from each other long enough to notice the sky above us.
The passionate heart beat in my chest and his warm breath on my face combined with the sky to make me think of things larger than myself. "Can you believe those are real...so far away...again, how can anyone not wonder about God when they look at the sky?" I marveled, in love with the moment. We talked about eternity. "I remember as a little girl, I used to imagine the universe was in a box. And if you were able to jump and fall for a really long time, eventually you'd hit the bottom of the box. But then I got a little older," I smiled, like a proud child boasting, "I realized there had to be something outside the box! So I imagined that God was holding the box, and that was good for me." I shook my head smugly and looked at him listening intently, melting me with his eyes as always. "But then I got supposedly smarter, and I realized that there had to be something around God...and I could no longer imagine an end to the universe...and I realized how unsmart I really was...I liked it better when I could think I knew."
The fire was reflected in his eyes. "I used to try to imagine eternity. The closest I've gotten to it is knowing I'll never be close to getting it." He smiled with a laugh. He lay on his back with his muscular bare arms underneath his head to continue looking at the stars. I was laying on my stomach, looking over the lake and the mountains.
"Do you ever imagine what the world was like, when it was different? I mean, the languages change, sure, and on the surface, it seems so different in the past, but, seeing as how it's still human nature we're dealing with, does it ever really change? People still love, people still hate. People still do stupid horrible things..."
He looked and saw me staring at the ground and I could sense him stiffen his body and get very serious. "It changes. You're right about human nature. But, humankind, like a child, grows and learns. And hopefully eventually, it will completely accept and know the God who created it."
I looked up at him, appreciating the playing along with my queries. "Yeah, but what if they don't? What if they become not like the prodigal son who returns, in repentance, but instead go on being idiots, like the people in Noah's time, when they got so ridiculously selfish and greedy that God wiped out everyone except one family...God promised he wouldn't do that again...so what do you think he would do?"
"Well," he got on his side again, "The rainbow was the promise that he wouldn't flood the earth again. But he's got some pretty harsh plans for the wayward child, if that's the way it goes."
"I sure wouldn't want to be here for it."
Mark looked particularly serious now, "Neither do I..."
He suddenly wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly. "Sometimes I feel so insignificant. I try so hard to make the world a better place...and even with what's been given me I wonder if it's doing any good...I'm so sorry..."
"Markie....?" What does he mean when he talks like that? But it was my turn to hold him, now, and comfort him. Not to ask questions. We fell asleep holding each other this way.
The bike ride back down the mountain was almost terrifying! I had forgotten how afraid of heights I could be. Mark pulled over at one point, to help me relax and so we could marvel at the view of the city and the ocean. I walked over to a large rock and leaned on it to admire the beauty of it all while Mark stayed straddling the bike. Looking out over the city, Mark calmly revealed what he was thinking. "I could just take you away. I could do it. No one would be able to find you. We could leave right now!" He turned to me, almost looking for approval.
Back to reality. "Mark, how bad can it be? Maybe a little time in the loony bin will be good for me!" I smiled to try to cajole him.
"Bobbi, I didn't want to tell you this, but I've seen what the goal is." He looked at me, almost unwillingly got off the bike and walked to the edge of the cliff. "He wants to keep you from me. If he can't have you, nobody can. I wish I could've seen how psychotically obsessive he is, but it just wasn't what I was looking for. I was so distracted by what he had already done; I wasn't looking for the cause behind it. It was already hard enough seeing him through your eyes, and what he was doing to you..."
This was the day before the court date. And I couldn't think of any way to console him. "How could he keep you from me...you're my superhero...my protector..."
He looked at me abruptly, "What did you call me?"
"I know, I'm being silly,"
"No, tell me,"
"My protector. You protect me." I walked close to him and pulled him toward me, away from the edge. "In the most beautiful and loving way possible. I honestly believe if you could go back in time for me you would..."
He looked at me somewhat in disbelief and started laughing ferociously. My face must have dropped when I started feeling like he was making fun of me. "No, I'm not laughing at you! I swear!" He grabbed me jubilantly and lifted me up high. "That's it! Wouldn't that be wonderful!? If you could go back in time, where would you go? What would you see?"
My interest was piqued by this sudden enthusiasm. "I would love to go back to see Jesus."
"Really?"
"That would be pretty awesome." An interesting game.
"Well, I can't think of any better way to tell you, than to show you! And I won't be able to keep it from you much longer..."
Before I could question him, he kissed me excitedly and my head spun in a thousand directions. He stopped kissing me and looked at me expectantly. I suddenly noticed we weren't on the roadside anymore. And we weren't dressed at all like the people around us. People didn't pay much attention to us though; they were all focused on a man on a hill who was speaking. It was dead quiet, except for his voice, and he was speaking a language I didn't know. I looked at Mark, quite freaked out. He was still excited, looking at me with his eyes shining "Sorry, I don't have time to translate" he whispered "...but I believe he's saying something about 'Blessed are the meek'... Where else do you wanna go?"
I was absolutely speechless.
"Ok, I know!" He kissed me again, and the spinning returned, like I was on a corkscrew rollercoaster causing me to cling to him desperately. When the spinning stopped, we were in a field, with a small cottage nearby. Mark took my hand and walked me to a stream just over a little hill. He positively beamed. "This is where I grew up...for a while." He walked us to the top of a taller hill and we looked farther out, and there was a...castle??? "King Arthur. I was almost part of the round table, but I couldn't stay too visible, because they would've noticed I wasn't aging and accused me of sorcery..." he leaned forward and kissed me yet again. This time I was almost afraid to open my eyes. We had stopped spinning across the street from the chocolate shoppe. A car pulls up and a woman gets out and puts money in the meter.
"OH. MY. GOD....that's ME." Sure enough, I was watching myself as I looked a bit harried and randomly threw some coins in and looked at my watch as I ran in. "Ok. I see the deal here. I hardly believe it, but I see it. When do you show up??"
"Actually, I don't. I mean, I'm here. We need to go, or I'll have to get over there personally. As you might imagine, it's extremely important that you get that ticket..." He wrapped his arms around me slowly this time, and with sweet passion, kissed me one more time, and put us into a spin, and we returned to the roadside where we had stopped the motorcycle. He didn't stop kissing me right away, he seemed to be lost in his own experience. When he did, the look on his face shone with something new I had never seen there before. "I only exist once. I'm never duplicated in a time zone, like you were. It can get confusing. I just showed you the three most precious times of my life...I hope you enjoyed them..."
I was silent. I nodded my head up and down, almost imperceptibly, trying to allow myself to comprehend. Should I be upset? Should this scare me? No. He's already shown himself worthy of trust. Like he said before, just go with it. Then I laughed. "Doesn't it just figure that the only man that can get through to me has to be a mind reading, time traveling...and King Arthur, really??" He shrugged while agreeing. "You grew up there?"
He smiled proudly, "Only some, best hundred years of my life. Until you, that is..."
"So, let me get this straight,"
He laughed out loud, "I knew that was coming!"
"Right. So. You not only can read minds, which has been tremendously helpful by the way, but you can...travel through time...and you're, well really old,"
"REEEEEAAAALLLY old."
"Please tell me you're not a vampire."
His happy laughter continued. "I'm not a vampire, but for all intensive purposes, I am immortal."
"Wow. God really came through for me on this one."
His laugh was one filled with relief and joy.
"How hard was it to keep that from me?" He had warned me there was more. And he was right I wouldn't've been able to handle knowing it before.
"I've been trying to tell you since you accepted my proposal. Once a mortal has stepped into a commitment willingly with a Protector, then we are expected to reveal ourselves, but only after the commitment has been made. I know it's not an easy thing to grasp, so I kept waiting for the perfect time. You picked out 'frou-frou eye thing', as you like to call it, on your own pretty early on so I couldn't' keep that from you at all." He beamed proudly, "And with your comment about me traveling back in time, I began to hope that perhaps you could believe it...then, Bubba, you called it!" he shook his head humorously. "I'm a Protector. That's what we're called."
Protectors?? How cool is that! That's even BETTER than Spiderman! Wait: "We?"
"Look, I'm sure you have a lot of questions, why don't we go back to my cabin?"
My thinker had gotten going and wasn't stopping. "Emily!?"
"Like I said, let's talk more at the cabin, K Bubba?"
I grabbed my jacket off the back of the bike and put it on. We sat on the bike, Mark holding it up for me. Before I put my helmet on I hugged him with all my strength and said to him, "I always knew you were amazing and special. Do you always have to kiss the person you're with? That could get awkward..." I added mirthfully.
"Only when that person's you." He replied back with his flirty smile, as he kissed me again. I put my helmet back on as he kick started the motorcycle and we headed back down the mountain and to his place.
We threw together some canned soup and some salad for dinner, although I wasn't eating much because I was so keyed up. "Eat, and then we'll finish talking." He washed his dishes and waited for me, insisting I eat it all.
"Yes mom." I ate quickly to appease his concern. Then I grabbed him and sat down cross armed in front of him. "OK! Talk!!"
He insisted on starting the fire in the fireplace, but as he did, he began to explain to me his existence, and the existence of the Protectors.
"It's hard to say, really, when we began. But I've lived hundreds of lifetimes, two thousand years, give or take a couple hundred."
I was already thinking it. I was already finding a reason to feel sorry for myself. Silly, stupid me. I began to imagine other women who he has loved, imagine that Emily was one of them. I tried to avoid his eyes for the moment.
"So, Emily is one of them, a Protector?" I poked the fire.
"Yes. She's been at me for over a thousand years now," he chuckled. "I had lost her for about 800 years, and she found me. That was when she came after me at the party."
In my self pity I missed what he was really saying. "And, now, can you explain to me what she was talking about?" I still looked only at his hands, or at the fire.
"You're not looking at me. Why?"
"It should be obvious by now when I don't want you to know what I'm thinking."
"I guess it is." He caressed my hands gently.
I stared into the fire again. "All those years...so many lifetimes of other people in your life...
"I'm trying to figure this one out without help...all those years? Other people in my life....?"
"Don't. It's stupid of me anyway. Just tell me what was going on with you and Emily; I've been dying to know."
"Remember when I told you we wouldn't be able to have children together?" I nodded yes, mesmerized by the fire. "Bobbi, please, I can't stand it. Please look at me..."
I looked at him and smiled guiltily.
He took a moment to look and gather my thoughts. "Well, this should answer both your questions. Protectors can procreate. Together. Emily has been at me obsessively to carry on the line of Protectors. It's what we call 'Claiming a mate' it's rather animal kingdom-esque. But like I said, I've avoided her." He laughed at the expression on my face. "Fine, she's beautiful. But I've been like the black sheep of the family, so to speak... I'm not particularly keen to the responsibilities of having the charge of young protectors," he laughed, "Not even sure I'm such a good choice for that job! I've broken a lot of rules. But I've done a lot of things to save my butt and all of yours' in the process. You don't even know how many times this planet has been a hairs width away from total annihilation. I've broken the rules to fulfill my role as a protector of humankind. Even risked my life."
"But I thought you were immortal?"
"Only in the sense that we can't die from flesh wounds, and sort of live forever."
I was confused. "Well, that pretty much covers it, doesn't it??"
"Time travel has its dangers. I have a reputation for pushing its limits and getting away with it. This brings me back to Emily. That night, Emily didn't know about you yet."
"Like it would even matter to her. She looks like she would eat me for breakfast and spit out the bones...!"
He laughed. "You might be right about that, if she wasn't destined to protect mortals. But, see," and now he got very serious and looked at me with such passion I was almost hypnotized... "I had bonded to you. And she can't claim me when I am in a bond; when a Protector bonds with a mortal, it is a bond that is unpredictable and unavoidable and can only be broken one way. I bonded to you that day at the chocolate shoppe, quite unexpectedly. I've avoided bonding all these years, but you called to me too strongly! And to answer your other question, she was very upset because until then I had not ever bonded, and she thought because of that that she would finally claim me." He waited to let it sink in. "She had assumed that because I had never bonded before that I was incapable of doing so. But then she realized she was too late."
It was coming to me. "Never bonded before...?" I looked at him seriously. "In two thousand years, you had never ...loved a woman?"
"No. And perhaps that is what has strengthened my abilities as a Protector. If I had had you hundreds of years ago to distract me, I wouldn't have taken the time to kill my boredom by playing around in the time spin." He gave me a devilish smile, which probably helped to earn him the 'black sheep' namesake. "Right now, because of my previous boredom, I am the only Protector that can not only travel through time, but I can hop from location to location as well. Many Protectors have tried and have lost their lives in the time spin. When you had discovered Emily and I, I was shunning her yet again, but you didn't know that. I had been leaving the room to go back to you when I found what you had left at the door..." He looked tormented. "The thought of losing you..." He grabbed me and held me even tighter.
I remembered, now, hearing him scream after me as I ran away. "Yes, I remember...and then suddenly I was in front of the open door..." I looked up at him... "and I was confused as to why and how you had my badge...in your hand... when I had left it on the floor and you were all the way across the room..."
"I did a skip in time. It's a narrow doorway through a very short course of time that could've caused much chaos because of the skipped times dangerous proximity to real time, if the two spins were to meet. But what the Protectors don't realize is that I've perfected it. Emily cursed me, assuming I had threatened the existence of the Protectors with that danger." He looked at me with eternal pain in his eyes. "But I will do, as I have said, anything in my power to keep you in my life...to keep on loving with you..." I pondered that. So much for feeling sorry for myself. "So, isn't it time for your 'let me get this straight' segment now?" he said with a wry smile.
"I do believe so! So, let's see, there's a group of you people called Protectors. You are immortal, or rather are 'sort of' immortal, unless you screw up taking a vacation in the 'time spin'? And you protect us lowly mortal people, and you've saved our butts several times already! By going back in time to correct mistakes I'm assuming...You're a rogue Protector with a mischevious mind of your own. Oh, and you can bond with someone mortal, but you can't make babies with them – but you can make baby protectors with other protectors...How does that work? If you're immortal, how do you grow?"
"As infants, we grow at a mostly normal rate, but once we hit a certain point, kinda like puberty but for us it's around thirty, we slow down. We actually do age. Just verrrrrrrryyy slowly."
I just was looking at him incredulously. "And...when I die?"
"Then, I will be inexplicably lonely..." he squeezed me gently and kissed my temple for a few seconds, and then sighed and rested his head against mine.
It was getting dark, and we both knew we needed rest before tomorrow's court session. We had no idea what angle Sasha and Lacey were going to come at us, other than my outburst of rage at the party. Mark was beside himself with worry.
"Why don't you go back in time and fix it?"
"The problem is that I can't find a place that would properly break this trend. Sasha is a force in your life that I can do nothing to stop, unless I go several years back and try make it so that you never meet."
"Well, why can't you do that?"
"First off, I can't even guarantee I'll be successful in keeping you two from meeting. And, I'd have to go so far back, that you and I would have to start over again..." He looked at me with profound sadness.
"That's a bad thing?"
"I would have to go back to before we met, so you wouldn't know me anymore. And with elements drastically changed the way they would be, I wouldn't be able to guarantee that you would see me the same way."
We both sat somberly. "Wow. I didn't realize how complicated this time traveling thing could be."
"If I am going back to change something, it's a guarantee that other changes will be put into action. So I have to be very confident that the change I am making is going to do what I set out to do. And I don't see Sasha leaving you alone, so I can only imagine that this event or something like it would've been ultimately unavoidable, and I won't take the chance of taking your love away."
"I'll be ok..." I said, trying to be convincing. "If God gave you to me, surely he won't separate us?" We prayed together. I had never really been one to set out to purposefully pray before. But how could I not believe He listens now, after how He'd answered my desperate pleas so incredibly when I wasn't even acknowledging His existence?
We did not want to leave each other's side even to shower, so like little kids, we jumped in the bath, barely fitting! We covered each other with bubbles and allowed ourselves to laugh. We got into our matching flannel PJ's and crawled into bed around 9pm, smelling of fresh soap and wet clean hair.
I was engulfed in a need to nurture him, to give him comfort the only way I knew how. I began to kiss him, wanting to give myself to him before I might be taken away from him for only God knows how long. At first, he responded as I had hoped. His kiss became heated. He almost crushed me with his weight as his breath practically burned my skin. He forgot his own strength as he gripped my arms and drowned me with his huge body...then he stopped...he panted and looked at me with upset in his eyes... "NO! Bobbi, no...you can't let me do this...I love you too much to allow you to be used by my own lust!" His breathing was still rough as he lay there, frozen, as if afraid to move.
"I..." I didn't know what to say, but I realized he was right. It was all my mistakes rolled up into one and I was going to drag him into my demons lair.... "I just want you...to be..." and we looked at each other in revelation.. "happy..." the tears of knowing rushed to my eyes.
"I'm happy to have you in my life. I wish you could understand the undefeatable joy that comes from knowing you love me even half as much as I love you...all I need is to have you here with me, now. There's nothing you can do to take away my sadness if you and I are to be separated for any amount of time, until we are together again. You don't have to give me anything more than the love I see in your eyes...."
"...ok..." I said without a voice, and looked into his eyes. "Look all you want, my love. Look to your hearts content..." and we caressed each other's faces and searched each other's eyes until we faded off to sleep.