Someone like you
I looked at the plain house in front of me, toddler toys scattered across the front lawn, and my heart sunk down to somewhere around my ankles. How am I ever going to convince Robin to leave this suburban calm? He gave up so much to be here—isn't it wrong for me to take that from him?
Isn't it more wrong for me to sit by and let the Aberration win? my colder self retorted.
I sighed, conceding the point of my mission. I slipped from the shadows and approached the house across the street with a freshly resolved will and plenty of trepidation.
Looking at the carefully tended rose bushes and the abundant evidence of children, I began to worry. Has Robin become as tamed?
Brushing these worries aside, I rang the doorbell.
"I'll get it," a heartbreakingly familiar voice called. I shifted uneasily. This would have gone much better if Elaine had answered the door—she wouldn't have recognized me. Oh well, I thought as the door was jerked open. "Hello?"
I couldn't day anything for a moment. The sight of Robin's easy smile—so unchanged from so long ago—sent a stab of pain through my chest.
"Can I help you?" he asked cordially, stepping out onto the stoop. I wondered at his civility until I realized he didn't recognize me yet. As well he shouldn't—despite me now having a face very similar to the one I had when we were together, I've undergone several facial reconstruction surgeries since he last saw me.
"Robin," I said, my voice and gaze far steadier than I would have thought they could be, considering my racing heart. "We need you."
"Catalina?" he exclaimed, peering at me as he stepped fully out onto the stoop and closed the door behind him.
"Robin," I repeated. "I hate to turn up out of the Blue, uninvited, but I couldn't stay away. I couldn't fight It."
His eyes widened. "You mean—It's still out there?"
I nodded. "I'd hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded that for me—for the company—it isn't over. We need you."
"But Catalina—I can't. I can't go help you. My family—" He choked off the idea of the Aberration finding his precious children too much for him to stomach.
"I know," I said as gently as I could. "That's why we waited this long to contact you—I'd heard that you're settled down. That you found a girl, and you're married now. I heard that your dreams came true." That she gave you all the things I couldn't give to you.
"Then why are you invading them? Turning them into nightmares?" he demanded.
"Do you remember Russia?" I asked, purposely asking about the mission when we discovered the Aberration—and our attraction for each other.
"Yeah," he said uncertainly, not sure where I was going. "Was that really seven years ago?"
I nodded. "Seems like only yesterday. And yet, since then, thousands—if not millions—have been killed by the Aberration. And yet, it was the time of our lives."
Unfortunately for me, my tactic of bringing up Russia in an attempt to make him remember us was making me remember how I had known him all my life. Robin and I had been born and raised in the summer HAZE, the training program for company agents that our parents had donated us to.
The facility we stayed at solely because we were bound by the surprises of our glory days—we had been constantly told we would do great things, and we wanted to find out what they were.
"Yeah. But that's in the past, and I'm different now," he said, tearing his gaze away from mine.
"Old friend, why are you so shy?" I murmured softly, resting my hand on his face. He looked surprised, but didn't jerk away. "It isn't like you to hold back. Or hide from a fight."
"But this isn't my fight anymore," he said exasperatedly.
"Robin?" a wretchedly feminine voice called from inside. "Everything okay?"
I studied the way his face softened at her voice. The way his eyes went wild at the thought of her knowing about this, and I realized I couldn't drag him back into it.
"Never mind," I said, backing away. "I'll find someone like you. I wish nothing but the best for you two."
"Catalina," he said, his voice pained. He knew as well as I did that there was no one else and that it wouldn't work without him.
I waved it away. "Just—don't forget me," I begged.
"I won't," he promised as I walked away.
"Hey Robin," I called over my shoulder. "Remember when you said 'sometimes you last in war and sometimes you die instead'?"
"Yeah," he said sadly.
"I think you should have said 'inside' not 'instead'," I said. I pushed a button on my skintight stealth suit to signal that I was ready to be picked up. He went back inside in the seconds that it took for the chopper to get to me.
Seeing it above me, I crouched for a second, and then I was airborne, propelled forty feet in the air by my genetically enhanced muscles. Nothing compares to how that feels, I thought as I swung into the passenger carriage.
"How'd it go?" my team asked me anxiously. They knew how badly we needed him.
No worries or cares, I told myself. They can't think that we'll lose. "Ach," I said dismissively. "He wouldn't have been much use to us anyway."
They looked alarmed at first, but my bravado eventually won them over as the chopper took us towards the Aberration—our almost certain death.
Sure, this was a suicide mission. But if we didn't do this, the whole world died.
Regrets and mistakes. I tried not to waste what was left of my life clouding my mind with them, but they are memories made.
Surprisingly enough, not having Robin here is not one of them. In fact, I was mildly relieved that he was safe in suburbia, though not having him signed our death warrant. If he were here, we might have a chance of getting out alive. But he's not, and we don't—but at least he's safe.
As we neared our destination and suited up I thought, who would have known how bittersweet this could taste?