“Every Night… (I Keep Praying That You Love Me)”

I trace shapes with my claws across the cold condensation. Random, meaningless shapes that look like how I feel.

That god-damned Paul Anka song is playing again-

“Every Night! I Keep Praying…”

-and damned if it isn’t starting to grow on me.

“…That You Luuuv Me…”

*Oh Gorgeous, what’s happened to me?*

But Gorgeous doesn’t answer. Of course not. If she knew she would’ve told me long ago. But she can’t. Mine is a particularly human problem.

It’s only been-

*ON MY MARK IT WILL HAVE BEEN 375 DAYS, 9 HOURS, 44 MINUTES…MARK.*

*Well thanks for that, at least.*

-though with all that’s happened, it feels like it’s been forever-Hell, it may as well have been forever-since I’d sat, crumpled and burnt and bleeding in this seat. Since I’d traced red constellations on this glass; connecting the random dots of my own coughed-up blood, while I’d drawn my terrible plans against the world beyond. And yes, against the handsome, but oh-so naïve young man who’d been sitting beside me. The man who’d “rescued” me.

And now here I am, stronger than ever, and about to make those plans reality… but in this same seat, with that same young man still beside me. He’s-I look over at him-still sleeping. Fitfully. Probably in the thrall of yet another nightmare… yes, his Theta waves are spiking yet again. But he’s alive-and-(relatively)well, nonetheless. He’s murmuring, and tears are welling in his sleeping eyes. Probably dreaming of the hill again. Yup… I catch bits of mumbled coordinates and call-signs. He’s fighting the fight again; the one he always loses. While I sit in the dark, doodling like a child.

All of the sudden, searchlights flicker to life from beyond the ridge at the far side of the desert. It seems-

*SOUTHCOM HAS JUST DETECTED ANOTHER GORGON. AN/MPQ-53/65 RADAR COMING ONLINE… GOING ACTIVE. ESTIMATE SHOOTDOWN WITHIN 1 MINUTE.*

And so, this world continues to unravel. Time is running out. Like sands through an hourglass-

*”-SO ARE THE DAYS OF OUR LIVES”. -AMERICAN SOAP OPERA, FIRST AIRING 11/08/1965, THE NATIONAL BROADCAST COMPA-*

If I’m to save it, We’ll have to act soon.

We’ll…

We.

“We” should by now mean only Gorgeous and me. Not Gorgeous, me and… him.

Yet here we all are. Still. I reach up to wipe a hole in the windshield fog, to get a better view of what’s about to happen next.

But what’s happened to me? Every time I ask myself I always get no answer. And what’s happened to Astraea? Does she still exist? If not, then what do I do now? The world certainly knows what it wants to do. Is already getting to it. With a vengeance.

As if to confirm, two small pinpricks of light suddenly leap up from the horizon and arc toward the star-shot sky-

*THAT’S THE PATRIOT BATTERY SOUTH OF THE CITY. MISSILES HAVE GOOD TRACK… INTERCEPT IN 3…2…1-*

The GORGON dies in a double-blossom of white-orange fireballs. Two missiles was overkill for one fragile, bus-sized surveillance balloon, but that’s what this world is all about these days: overkill. And God knows the Nevada National Guard has plenty of missiles to spare. Enough to send multi-million dollar “messages” like the one they’ve just sent. A message which read: “Don’t fuck with Las Vegas.”

I can picture scantily-clad showgirls, rushing even now to pose for pictures with the burning wreckage falling in the far-off background. Middle fingers proudly raised beneath glittery, jewel-studded faces. Not knowing, or probably just not caring anymore that Las Vegas already has enough nukes aimed at it to bring on three nuclear winters.

Just keep your coats handy, girls. And your potassium iodide.

Meanwhile, over in the drivers seat, Gareth stirs, yanking me back from the drama just unfolded over Sin City. He’s still mumbling, but at least his dream-tears have stopped. The dream-medics have gotten to him by now, put him double-under.

My Gar-Bear. My supposed dead-man-walking. My Plan-B, who’s somehow become… not my Plan-B. Dammit. This was supposed to be so simple. Perhaps I should have done what Gorgeous had told me to do that night. But then again, in doing that I might have signed my own death warrant too. I remember how large the mushroom cloud had loomed in the Trans-Am’s rearview, how the withering shockwave had still managed to heave the road beneath the car’s fleeing wheels. He’d saved us both.

While even then, I was already plotting his murder.

But oh how amazing: what a year’s-worth of cross-country, tag-team revenge-killing, with all its associated sneaking around together, and sharing of secrets and mutual risking of life will do for a couple of otherwise total strangers. Throw in a little playful flirtation, a stretch of very unrequited sexual tension, all of it typically in pretty close quarters. Like say, in the cold dark night, in the desert, behind the fogged-up windows of a shot-up Trans-Am with only each other for heat, warm breath in each other’s ears, singing each other to sleep while knowing we’ll both only dream nightmares? Him dreaming of… well, take your pick. And I… well, I would have nightmares, if only I could dream. Though the worst-case simulations always running in my back-brain are bad enough.

All while hiding out in the middle of nowhere, because the rest of the world wants to kill you both…

My hand goes back to work on the window while I watch the wreckage fall. I switch from claw to thumb so I don’t scratch up the glass. The cool condensate feels good against my skin.

Skin… Gareth’s skin. Scarred, but so very warm. I wish I could fix it for him. Though I wonder if I would. What would I want to feel against my own? Smooth on smooth? My hand works faster, now tracing some mindless pattern, over and over and over… Some of the condensate tickles slowly down my arm. Like a cold lover’s touch. Or would I want to feel the real him? The one who burned?

-No! these kinds of questions are part of the problem. And this shit needs to stop. No more thinking- And no more schoolgirl doodling. I’m supposed to be on watch. So I force my hands to my lap. My wet hand drips cold on my thigh-

Skin…

-no! Dammit! No no no! I force my eyes to concentrate on the-

But I can’t see shit through these windows, not that I really need to but- I wipe a fresh hole in the windshield fog. The Gorgon’s remains are still falling. I can’t do anything really about Gareth’s side of the car unless I want to wake him, and he needs his sleep, so I turn to wipe the-

And that’s when I see it. The solo project my thumb had apparently been working on. It looks sloppy, and runny, as if someone had spraypainted it there, but unmistakable.

A great, big, heart.

Oh Daddy, what’s happened to me?

But Daddy can’t answer either. Because of course he’s dead. As of about 375 days, 13 hours and 22 minutes ago. Dead because of me.

*NO, HE DIED FOR THE DREAM, REMEMBER. FOR A QUIET WORLD, AND FOR THE BIRDSONG.*

*Yes, you’re right, Gorgeous. Thank you.*

And I can’t let anything stop me from making the dream come true. Not even-

I switch the radio off, silencing Paul Anka mid-plea. Then I wipe the heart away.

And the view is suddenly so much clearer.