"Magdelena…" And then his voice was flowing over me. Sucking me back into the past with same musicality as his voice danced over my name with the day Hana and I met him by the labs. But the music is different low and rough, like the music that Hana blared through her speakers the day that I realized that I'd never really known her at all. Not anymore like the sweet music that had drifted up the hill when Alex and I danced at Deering Highlands.
But still it fell over me like a wave; A tidal wave, sweeping me off my feet, filling my eyes with stinging water and making my vision blurry. Filling my mouth, choking, with the thick sludge of all the words I never got the chance to say to him. Then suddenly I'm falling. Landing on my front, having tripped on one of my runs at the homestead. But I get to my feet quickly to keep pace with the shadow dancing in the trees beside me. Always with me, never close enough to touch. A shadow among the leaves.
If I can run all the way to the old bank – then Alex will be alive.
Alex is alive.
If I can make it to that tree, Alex will come back.
Alex came back
Alex is standing just beyond that hill; if I can make it to the top without stopping, he'll be there.
Alex is here.
The shadow that ran alongside me in the midst of the autumn leaves. Said leaves that I would so often mistake for him sitting on the cold ground, waiting for me to look over and find him there. But I knew he never was.
And now he is. And I am torn.
There are two Lena's standing in this room.
The Lena who's an active member of the resistance. Who followed Julian Fineman into a subway, and got kidnapped. Who hated. Who found comfort in someone she thought couldn't be any more different than her. Who grew to care about the little boy whose father was a demon; and grew to love the boy he had become. The girl who had just risked her life and her allegiances to save Jullian. The Lena who had just told him they could do anything. The Lena who had just kissed him and felt peace and happiness and freedom.
And the Lena who is still on the floor of 37 Brooks, laying under the canopy of vines over the back porch, feeling the little rays of sun penetrate and warm her skin as Alex whispers sweet words and poems about love. The Lena who had never known what it meant to be in love before. Who had always thought it was a disease, who had counted the days to her sure with anticipation. And then with dread. The Lena who ran around statues with her best friend and left secret messages. Who was terrified to go over the fence, but felt safer in the Wilds, under the blanket of stars in Alex's trailer, than anywhere in the starkly walled cities. Who ran to meet her boyfriend, feeling as if nothing in the world could touch them, even as they were hunted by those who wanted to destroy them.
The Lena who had died with Alex on the other side of the fence.
Then a different voice is washing over me, dragging me to the surface, breathing air into my lungs. "…ena. Lena, are you alright? What's going on?" Julian. With each word his voice got sharper, but so did the image in front of me. I was hearing Julian's soft, enveloping voice, but she was seeing Alex's sharp angled face, ablaze in the autumn color of his hair. A ghost, but so real, close enough to touch.
"Do you know him?" Julian's question floated to me, just as Alex's demands, "Who's he?" With a sharp nod towards Julian, standing behind me, arm firm around my waist. Had I gone faint in the midst of the wave. It did feel distinctly like he was holding me up, and I tried to force strength back into my legs.
My mouth opened and closed, struggling to find the words. "Julian…" His name rolls off my tongue, but the words that follow are a rock rising in my throat, forcing a part of me that died long ago up through the canal of my esophagus and forcing it into reality once again. The words force themselves out of me like sludge, "…this is Alex."