Eternal Cupid in the Spring

by Atomdancerrr

A fun Trevor Hale story that could have been a real episode; a romantic match-up that almost didn't make it, Claire bemused as always, silliness with Champ, lots of pathos, and a mystery into Human nature solved.

A fun Trevor Hale story that could have been a real episode; a romantic match-up that almost didn't make it, Claire bemused as always, silliness with Champ, lots of pathos, and a mystery into Human nature solved.

I dedicate this story to my Friend Sandy (the Icemenace's) Cat, Miss Kitty who had a stroke a few days ago. Please pray for her, and for Sandy. Strangely I named the Cat in this story "Miss Kitty" before I was told this. I did know on some level, some way though.

Eternal Cupid In the Spring!

by

Elizabeth Hensley 8-)

Author's Note: In sequence this would be about the last Trevor Hale story before Cupid 1.0 to 2.0 the Transfer. Not the last one I write mind you, don't worry about that! :) But this is where this one would fit in the order they happen.

Wednesday morning April 2, 2008. Wednesday is the equivalent of Sunday morning for a Bartender and the same thing as Monday to almost any Clergy Person except the few who get it right and belong to orders that use Saturday as the original Sabbath day. (Though originally Saturday was supposed to be a day of R and R for us tired Mortals. The kindhearted Big Guy saw His Kids were killing ourselves. Being no other way to get many of us to rest He made it a religious sort of thing. He'd rather we nap or have fun in the first place!) But anyway Trevor Hale and Champ both were off from work and they had pizza and several different kinds of sodas, beers and munchies and they had the remastered, CGIed Star Wars trilogy because for once there was no argument about what they both wanted to watch! So Champ and Trevor were mock light saber fighting around the spacious living room in their new apartment and "da da daing" the Imperial March when there was, of course, (had to be!) a knock on the door.

It was a much better apartment than their old one with a huge hot water tank and a huge back yard that everyone in the apartment complex shared and it was across the street from Claire's new therapy clinic and even nicer it was out of sight of Fairview Treatment Center for Emotional Wellness. (Out of Sight out of mind for both Trevor AND certain Doctors). It did mean Trevor had to drive to work now but that was no problem with his new, gas efficient Smart car. Champ teased him about it being a, "key chain car." "If you can't find a parking space just hang it from your key chain and take it with you." Trevor had it wrapped with a Valentine's day theme wrap. (Whoops! Excuse me! Cupid's day theme wrap!) It was a very cute car!

They were able to afford this because of Trevor's promotion to manager. Linda was trying to spend more time with her family and was turning more and more of the responsibilities of running the bar over to Trevor.

But it seemed the Neighbors were a lot more friendly. That was a plus most of the time. It had already lead to Trevor making five match-ups and Champ getting a lot more dates. But there were a lot of Elderly Women in the building who needed help and it was cutting into their downtime!

Champ growled, "If that is someone wanting you to go matching them up so we don't get to watch this before it has to go back to Blockbuster I shall, I shall!"

"What?" asked Trevor, frowning.

"I think I shall find some Witch who knows how to do exorcisms and get rid of you prematurely!"

Trevor was shocked for the danger was real! "You wouldn't! I'd have to start all over again and I'm almost to eighty-eight matched Couples! And my relationship with Claire...!"

Champ grinned for now he had the upper hand. "So tell whoever it is to wait until Thursday morning before you start work or else! You can wait at least that much longer to go back to Olympus!"

Champ had seen enough to sort of half believe his "crazy" roommate who called himself Trevor Hale but insisted he was really Cupid the Greco-Roman god of love who had been cast down and had to unite one hundred couples without magic before being allowed to go home to his family on top of Mount Olympus! It was just that "Cupid" was still very annoying anyway! And if he was telling the truth it was the gods who needed help not the Mortals!

But when Trevor opened the door he had to look down because there stood just about the littlest Grownup he had ever seen and tears were streaming down her face!

"Oh Trevor! My Kitty's gone and climbed a tree and she can't get down!"

Trevor groaned. Champ was doing the same behind him. Gently Trevor said, "Now Mrs. Thomson, all Cats come down eventually. I am three thousand and ten years old and believe me all Cats come down eventually when they get hungry enough!"

She stared up at him puzzled by that. Champ nodded in agreement, not at his roommate's age (not that he was completely sure he wasn't correct about it). But at the reality that all Cats eventually come down.

Trevor added, "Ever see any Cat skeletons up trees?"

The tiny thing pleaded, "Trevor my Kitty only has three legs! She had cancer and last year her back right leg had to be amputated so she can't back up! The Neighbor's mean old Dog scared her up there. She REALLY can't get down!"

Trevor used a word for what comes out of the bottom, rear end of a Centaur in Greek and made eye contact with Champ who of course nodded.

It didn't matter who Trevor really was. You didn't say "no" to a request like that!

A few minutes later the two Roommates were out in the Spring sunshine eying what had to be the TALLEST Oak Tree in all of Chicago!

Trevor sighed, "I'm lightest. So of course I've got to be the one to climb Mount Branchmore here."

Champ swallowed and nodded in relief, Trying to turn his head away so neither the old Lady nor Trevor could see just how relieved he was, glad he didn't have to admit to his fear of heights! For once he was not ABOUT to argue with his "crazy" roommate!"

A few minutes later Claire came out of her new counseling office and crossed the street to check up on her best and worst Patient and found him "up a Tree." In Britain that can be a metaphor similar to how we in the US use "up the crick without a paddle." Trevor unlike Schizophrenics and some Autists had no trouble at all with metaphors but to her considerable amusement she found that today her Patient was really, not metaphorically, "up a Tree!"

For docilely Trevor had climbed Mount "Branchmore" and there amongst its fragrant new, spring green leaves he'd made a Grand Discovery, new as every Spring and as ancient as the Druids!

The Tree had a Real Presence and it smelled SO MUCH BETTER than where he had just been! The musty Man smell of their apartment was forgotten! The sheer joy that was Trevor Cupid Hale was resurrected with the emerging Daffodils far below and five precious, brand new Fledglings open mouthed on a beautifully crafted nest on one branch of the Tree, emerald, brand new leaves and the smell of things wild and wonderful that carried in the blowing winds!

It was thousands of years since he had been a kid, and yet...he was remembering JOY!

"Look at me! He crowed! "I'm Tarzan! King of the Apes!" Trevor pounded on his chest. "Eyoeyoooeeyooooeyoo!"

Claire called up, "You mean 'Tarzan, 'LORD of the Apes.'"

Ah so! Claire Bear/Psyche/Jane had showed up! Trevor called down, "Thanks for bringing me back to reality, Claire Bear! You're not a bad Shrink, you know that? Correction! I am Tarzan, LORD of the Apes! Eyoeyoooeeeyoooooyooo!"

The amused Therapist said, "You are welcome. Thanks for being a satisfied customer."

"Thanks again."

"Any time."

Champ eyed him skeptically and called upwards. "I thought you think you are Cupid!"

"I am Cupid!"

"Then why are you up a Tree acting like Tarzan?"

Trevor shrugged, "I am Cupid, up a Tree, acting like Tarzan."

"Why!"

"Because this heah Tree is THAR, darling!"

Champ turned to Claire and asked playfully, "You know any way to get him to act sane?"

Claire smiled. "Champ, playfulness is not a sign of mental illness. And he IS acting, sane."

Champ grinned, not quite as exasperated as he was trying to appear. "What do you call it when he acts crazy?"

She gave Champ a Cheshire Cat grin. "I don't know. I can't really tell the difference!"

Champ play-glared at her and glanced back up at the Tree and shook his head in mock disgust.

Claire giggled, "You want my official diagnoses for this behavior?"

Champ nodded fervently.

Claire giggled, "Right now my patient, Trevor Hale has a severe case of Spring Fever! But alas this delightful mental condition is sadly temporary. The Summer heat will cure my patient of his whimsy. All too soon I'll have to deal with him being much more normal than he is now! Sorry Folks! I know the goal is supposed to be to restore normal behavior. But I much prefer him the way he is now!"

Champ tried to suppress the grin on his face. But he did not succeed well enough to hide it from either the Mortals who were interested in Trevor nor the gods on a certain Mountain who were also watching and laughing their heads off.

Literally just for the fun of it and to gross out his wife, Venus. Mars had taken his off and Venus, (Cupid's Mother) didn't think that was funny at all!

"Put it back on, Mars or you sleep on the couch tonight!"

So meekly the god of war did the best he could to get his head back on straight. Because would you want to sleep on a couch however luxurious, when you could sleep with the goddess of love?"

Not that their living room couch was all that luxurious any more anyway. Cupid's white Tigress Sasha had gnawed a big chunk off one its arms and they had never got around to replacing it. Venus had nagged Mars but he was a bit too busy. (Wars you know). The Greek war, the Napoleonic War, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the World Wars, The Korean war, the Vietnam War, the Gulf Wars. (Well he'd get around to it eventually).

Sadly for Trevor he ran out of excuses to stay up Mount Branchmore when he finally got to Kitty. She was quite willing to come into his arms for he was after all the little g god of love and Animals can sense that. No way with them hecould pass for a Lunatic! He comforted her for she had been getting extremely frightened. She had just realized she was lacking a reverse gear and could not get down on her own and was about to panic when this friendly voice called out to her and friendly arms reached out to her. This was not a Mortal Human even though he looked like one! This was an elemental spirit put there to serve her kind, a being out of nature like the Butterflies the Big God put there for her to chase or the Grass that was put there for her to roll in. She instinctively knew it for the Big God told this to her, so she relaxed and started purring and came right into Cupid's arms without the usual fear most Cats would have shown a strange Mortal Human.

Kitty clung to his chest as he gently climbed down. No more Tarzan yells. He sang to her gently in ancient Greek, the same Thessalonian Greek lullaby his Mother Venus had sung to him twenty five hundred years before.

Claire heard the melody and chills went up her spine! There were times when it was hard to discount Trevor's story of being very, very old and from very, very far away. For some reason, that song!She shivered. NO! He couldn't be!

But for the rest of the week that song haunted her! Music is the Universal language and this language was telling The Truth about "Trevor!" If only she could make out what it was saying! (Not necessarily just the words but what culture it was from, etc).

She would have him sing it into her tape recorder and she would try futilely to trace its origins.

Trevor reached the ground and handed a grateful, purring Kitty to a grateful Human. It was if the Human Mortal was purring too.

Trevor was still in the Tree on the lowest branch and once he no longer had the responsibilities of being gentle with Kitty he could go back to using his "looney license." So he hung upside down in front of Claire. "Ooo ooo! You Doctor. Me Patient!"

As Claire was sighing and reacting to this Mrs. Thomas said, "I know what you are, Trevor Hale! I KNOW who you are!"

Claire held her breath. She was trying to discourage her patient from admitting to everybody he was Cupid the god of love. Here it comes! She thought. Another Person is going to call Trevor "Cupid" because of his habit of matchmaking and he will admit itand do it in such a way it is obvious he really believes he really is the god of love and another chance to pass for normal will be lost!

Trevor cocked his head lovingly and asked, "So, who am I?"

"You are an Angel!"

Trevor started laughing, "An Angel? Me! Well I did have wings at one time! Though actually the garden variety of Angels never really had wings. You would be thinking of the Seraphim or the Cherubim but they looked so fierce and so weird George Lucas could not have used them in Star Wars!"

Claire cleared her throat and gave him a pointed look.

Trevor said quickly, "I mean once I played Cupid in a play so I had wings at that time. Ahem!"

Mrs. Thomas said, "Trevor you ARE Cupid!"

Trevor was delighted, "How do you know!"

Claire was burying her face in her hands, Oh no!

Mrs Thomas said, "Because you are such a Yenta! I see you trying to match everybody up!"

Cupid drew himself to his full height and joyously proclaimed. A Yenta! My dear I am the Alpha and the Omega of Yentas!" He gave her a big Bear hug. Her tiny body was almost lost in his.

Tears started running down her cheeks, "No one has hugged me in years!"

Claire felt tears come to her own eyes and she thought to herself, Why can't more People be crazy-wise like Trevor?

Mrs Thomas reached up with her fingers and felt his face. "You have such a kind face! Can you find ME a True Love, Trevor?

He grinned, "I can find almost ANYONE a True Love, but for you it is going to be sooooo easy!"

Later as Trevor walked his pretty Shrink back to her house Claire said to her problem Patient firmly, "Trevor I SWEAR if you break that Lady's heart I'll, I'll...I don't know. You just can't that's all!"

Trevor grinned, pounded on his chest and said in his Tarzan voice, "You Preacher, me choir!"

They came to her house and she reluctantly invited him in because she was not through talking to him. Delighted because he had not been expecting more Claire-time he rushed in past her and plopped on her couch as if he were going to swing down and lay on it Freud style.

Claire said firmly, "Now sit! I have to talk to you."

Trevor hunched down in his little lamb mode completely submissive to Claire. But his eyes were twinkling. "Here I go into the briar patch of the gods again!"

"Doctor! Patient!" They said it together.

Claire said firmly but gently, "Trevor you have to try harder to act more dignified. You have such a reputation for being crazy. I would love it if over time you could overcome that. But you don't even try! You actually encourage it with this idea you have a looney license and can act any darn way you please long as you don't break the law or hurt Folks though I appreciate it that you at least try to keep to those restrictions. But you'd fit in better in society if you would not keep TRYING to live up to your reputation as a Lunatic! For instance I know you had to climb the Tree but while you were up there you should not have acted like Tarzan!"

Trevor just put his hand on his chin and stared at her lovingly.

She sighed. As usual it was not possible to scold him the way he should have been scolded because of his little boy mannerisms. Claire could tell he was not really listening. The psychotic but loving gears in his mind were already spinning like rapid fire prayer wheels, or circuits in a super computer at faster than Mortal speeds cooking up plots and plans and scenarios that would result in Mrs. Thomas being united with her One, True Love!

Trevor started his craziness early the next morning. Claire realized this when her usual self-appointed escort across the street was not with her for her short trip to work from her own new apartment. So she decided to be a little late for her first Client of the day and see what her long, long, LONG responsibility was up to that Fairview had saddled her with those ten years ago (like that Albatross around that Sailor's neck in Coleridge's famous poem!) She soon found out. "Cupid" was walking around the little shopping center/restaurant complex next to their apartments with his hands to his forehead as if he were looking for someone or something far away, and sniffing the air like a Bloodhound trying to catch a scent. He also seemed to be listening intently. He kept cocking his head. Claire sighed. He looked quite odd. So what else was,"new?"

Claire ran over to him and stared at him puzzled, "What on Earth are you doing?"

Trevor smiled, "Trying to get off of it of course, as usual! I am going around here using my Cupey sense!"

Claire said bemused, "Your Cupey sense?"

He nodded, flung his arms wide as if to hug the World and grinned, "Yes. My Cupey sense. It is like Peter Parker's Spidey sense except I don't sense danger. You know what I sense. I sense if People are going to be perfect matches for each other."

Claire frowned and gave him a firm, warning look. "Then how come you got in trouble for mismatching?"

Trevor winced. "That was deliberate! I was doing it on purpose to protest my Father's acts of war! I know he is the god of war and has to do some of what he does but as I stood at Ground Zero at Hiroshima and saw and sensed the incredible destruction and despair and suffering there I felt he was overdoing things big time! And I went a little crazy then, even more so than I did when he rejected me for not being able to learn to kill Doves or anything else during my lessons. They say my eyes got darker and wild. I threw back my head and laughed a long, mad laugh that had no joy in it and I was never the same again! I started mismatching Mortals and even fellow gods just to protest this series of wars he's been doing ever since that started during World War I and I started doing other things too! The kicker was when I painted peace symbols and Doves all over his war trophy warehouse!"

Claire's face showed genuine sympathy. For she knew her deluded patient really believed this and it was hiding what real trauma happened to him and whatever it was it must have been very traumatic, so traumatic he did not even dare remember it and it was worse even than this confabulated memory and many more confabulated memories which were horrible enough! She said gently, "I'm sorry! Your childhood must have been horrible!"

Her very gentle patient frowned and nodded, squeezing back tears. But then he grinned, "Oh well! It's never too late to have a happy childhood!"

Claire grimaced. Usually that would be good advice but Trevor had taken it to very abnormal extremes becoming the child-like Cupid and actually forgetting his real past! She said, trying to bring him back to reality by pointing out the ridiculousness of it, "So you think you can just look at People and tell who will be right for Evelyn Thomson?"

Trevor shrugged, "I am not so sure it is 'looking.' Not sure how I do it exactly. But Claire you KNOW I do it. You yourself have started making use of me in this area. When I warn you not to try to keep couples together because its going to be futile you start preparing them for the worst and it happens. It always does and we've worked together so many times to make things to the other way too. That's a whole lot more fun!"

Claire reluctantly nodded.

Trevor frowned. "And I was right about Alex leaving in the end too wasn't I? Though he hung around a whole lot longer than I thought he would. I admit that part of it I got wrong! I could sense something was making him leave! He didn't want to. He did love you. Neither of us realized he was being ordered to wrap up his assignment and actually risked being disciplined to see you a few more times!"

Claire sighed and nodded, trying not to cry.

"Imagine it turning out he was working undercover for the Air Force! And imagine it turning out all along it he was there because of moi!"

Claire groaned, "Darn it, Trevor! You are just too good at passing yourself off as something supernatural. You even had them fooled!"

Trevor smiled, "Still do. But now they just call me when they want information instead of spying on me. You know that started with Sam and Al."

Claire's eyes glazed over. She felt as little frightened. "I am still confused about what happened there!"

Trevor shook his head and tried to bring his Shrink to facing reality. "It was NOT a dream or a shared fugue state, Claire Bear!"

She shook her head and tried to clear it, trying to figure out what had happened there! She had suddenly been somewhere else in a very white room that had very old books and a vase of flowers. She had been in a Man's body and someone named Dr. Beaks had spoken to her, asking her questions about where she had come from: Plus someone named Ziggy and Al. She could not quite remember! Dr. Beaks had told her things about Trevor that had helped her help him. Trevor knew about it even though she had not told him a thing! She stammered."It had to be!"

Trevor sighed, "Let's change the subject. I am going to find Evelyn Thomson a True Love!"

Claire smiled and shrugged, "I'm not even trying to stop you! You've been at this ten years. I see plenty of happy couples still together. Eighty-seven of them so far. Amazing! That is amazing in this day and age! I see Kids running around who otherwise would not be born! The Parents are of course happy about that! One of them is in college already, a Genius! Now admittedly one of those couples is a pair of now, very old Dogs living on a farm but Animals deserve happiness too! I no longer try to stop you, Trevor. I just monitor to make sure you keep doing it in a responsible manner and more and more I don't even have to say much there. You even read my books. You practically absorb them into your matrix and can quote them like a Fundamentalist quotes scripture! I don't even know them so well! So go at it! I'll see you later at the ice cream parlor just for funzies? We won't talk shop?"

Trevor nodded and turned, but as he did so he saw who he was looking for. "There he is, Claire!"

Claire stared at who Trevor was looking at. She could not believe her eyes!

"Trevor are you sure?"

Trevor nodded.

"Trevor this time you have got to be wrong! I can't say why. But you have got to be!"

Trevor grinned, "That means he is a Patient of yours. Or was. Or he is a Patient of someone else at your little hospitality house downtown and you know it. Your saying you can't say why is as good as saying why."

Claire sighed.'Then you are intelligent enough to know he must really have issues that make him unsuitable for this! Because I've stood by and let you match up Patients of mine and other Doctor's Patients from the hospital before. Even some with some major problems. In fact at times I've even referred some of them to you to do your, 'mojo!' She halfheartedly made quote marks with her fingers at her use of the word, mojo. She didn't even want to do anything but go through the barest motions of protesting him thinking he was Cupid at that point. She had a more practical and pertinent issue here.

"Is he a serial killer?"

"No of course not!"

"Is he a sex offender?"

"No we can keep those locked up indefinitely now!"

"I know! Dr Frechette keeps wanting me classified as one! Thank the Big God for Eli Stone! William is so wrong! We should NOT be, 'killing all the Lawyers!'"

Claire nodded in complete agreement with Trevor about that one!

"So this Man hasn't murdered anybody right?"

Claire sighed. "No. I can tell you that much because you could google for that information yourself."

"He isn't a sex offender."

"No. I repeat. No to that!"

"But he is your Patient, or someone's, and he has issues you think makes him unsuitable as a Match-up for Evelyn Thomson? But my Cupey sense says he's the one! Now Who should I listen to?" Trevor pretended to stroke an imaginary beard and stared at the sky. "Dr Claire Allen with her big fancy piece of paper on the wall, or the gods of Olympus who are trying to tell me something important here?"

Claire said sarcastically, "I wonder! And while I a wondering things I am wondering if I could get Dr. Greeley to prescribe something for you for a little while, to, you know, relax you? You have been looking a little tense lately!"

Trevor laughed, "Oh ho ho! Fat chance, Claire! I'm not hearing voices. My Cupey sense doesn't work that way! Anyway he IS the one! I just have to make it work. The scutwork has to be all Mortal type magic. After ten long years of this that much god mojo I still don't have back!"

Claire sighed, "I should do the sane thing here and follow you around and make sure you don't cause a great deal of harm. But after ten years of this I am just tired! And I know by now somehow you just manage to land on your feet again. You always do somehow, every single time! So do me a favor! Type up your report on yourself for me this week like you do once in a while and let me review it tomorrow. If it's as good as the last one I will just sign it and turn it in!" Claire yawned. "I'm just going to go to bed since the ice cream parlor trip is so obviously canceled now. Make it as juicy as the last one! That bit where I had to coax you off the top of my roof by bribing you with an offer of a trip to the circus was funny even if it didn't happen!"

Trevor grinned, "Will do. I have to keep them juicy. We made a mistake there for a while trying to make them boring. If Dr Greeley and the Hospital Board and the City of Chicago thought I didn't need so much supervision you wouldn't be paid as much and you'd have to find a real job!"

Claire shot back with. "You ARE a real job!" But as she walked away she was grinning to herself.

Cupid went about causing the match-up the way he had most of his others. The ice cream parlor with its outdoor seating area and the beautiful Spring weather was going to make it soooo easy! And the fact Evelyn Thompson wanted his services meant he could literally phone half of this in. Her being blind did mean he had to provide a friendly arm of guidance from her apartment to the ice cream parlor, but gods have been guiding Mortals for billions of years.

It felt good to be doing that sort of thing again!

Getting Frederick Donaldson to the ice cream parlor would be a bit trickier. But wasn't that why Mortals had invented cell phones? N'est-ce pas? "So let's see if I can phone in the other half too! No omnipresence or omnipotence anymore but by Jove I am so high tech and geeky!" He had already taken the liberty of finding out the Man's number. (He had his ways). So he whipped out his cell phone like a gunslinger and Trekker that he was, he opened it, one handed, Captain Kirk style and with a flair punched in the Man's number. "Frederick Donaldson can you meet me at the ice cream parlor inThe Shoppes?"

*Huh?* The voice on the other end was a bit surprised and confused. *Who are you?*

Cupid said with friendly confidence, "You don't know me yet, sir, but believe me this is not a hoax. I am a friend. It is a very short walk to the ice cream parlor at The Shoppes. I will be wearing a red shirt and a blue baseball cap and I will be waving when I see you. You can't miss me. So please come! You won't regret it!"

Frederick Donaldson growled very loudly, *The Hell I won't! While I am with you hearing whatever malarkey you have to say to me to keep me occupied, someone will be burglarizing my flat!*

Cupid sighed, "No sir, they won't. I have someone here you will want to meet and who wants to meet you! That is all."

*Oh yeah? Why? Again I ask you, who are you?*

"I go by the name of Trevor Hale."

*Oh. That guy! I know of you! Blast it, you are a lunatic! Yes, I found out from talking to Folks around here you have a psychiatric history ten thousand miles long! Why are you bothering me?*

Trevor thought a moment, "I heard you know a lot about Women. I want to ask your advice!"

There was a series of very loud and colorful expletives. Then; *If you want advice about Women why don't you go ask your Shrink?*

Without a beat Trevor said smoothly. "She IS a Woman!"

Pregnant pause, then, *Oh! Blast it! Then why don't you get yourself a Male Therapist?*

"Because I'm on Outpatient commitment legal status. I have no choice. She was assigned to me." Cupid was grinning but trying tokeep the grin out of his voice. He was trying to sound desperate and needy.If ever there were a a good example of him being crazy-wise or using his looney license this was it. He thought to himself smugly.

Frederick Donaldson growled, *You are worse than I thought! "Whatever did you do to get yourself legally committed! Murder someone? Am I next!*

Trevor said soothingly, "Now they don't let murderers run around loose, crazy or normal, now do they? They lock those up at best and execute them at worst! No. I just got in a tussle with a pimp and for that I have to spend the next ten years getting stuck with a needle once a month to be tested for blood levels of medications I have never been prescribed and ordered to talk twice a week to a beautiful Woman! This country! Ay yi yi yi! I am 'crazy' everyone tells me. But this wonderful Nation is just plain nuts!"

Frederick laughed at that. It was a bitter laugh but at least it was a laugh. *Why did you get in a tussle with a pimp? Were you trying to argue over how much he was charging?*

Trevor was insulted. "No! He didn't like it that I was trying to find dates for Women for free! He felt I was a scab I guess. But the Women wanted me to and I was doing it so they'd get married, not for one night stands! I shouldn't have been arrested! I should have been awarded for trying to help stabilize society!"

Frederick started laughing, *Why do you waste your time trying to do such a thing?*

Cupid admitted, "If I get two hundred of you matched I get to go home."

*Home to where?*

Cupid sighed. The man already knew he was under psychiatric care. Therewas no reason to lie. "Olympus." He admitted.

Frederick started laughing bitterly again. *Ah! Now I understand! I come to the ice cream parlor and some pesky, untrustworthy Female will be waiting for me. Sorry! Not interested!* Then to Cupid's chagrin and Evelyn's heartbreak he hung up on the disappointed love god!"

It was a very unhappy Cupid who stood in the front of Claire's desk in her counseling office that next Monday.

As usual she could not get him to sit down but at least, unlike many Involuntaries, he was perfectly willing to talk and talk and talk!

He was not happy with himself for once. His usual smirk was gone."Not a good week for me, Claire Bear! I goofed BIG TIME! My Cupey sense apparently only reads chemistry. It doesn't read or know about excess, psychological baggage getting in the way. So Claire Bear I admit you were right too. We are dancing again metaphorically speaking, tangoing, ying and yang! He must have had his heart broke at one time. I see signs of it now and I admit I'm getting sloppy! I should have noticed that! Bad god! I should have checked for something like that before siccing Evelyn on him cold!"

Claire glared at him, "And you did what? Took her to meet him and he didn't want to meet her, did he?"

Reluctantly Cupid nodded. "Something like that."

"And she took it hard, didn't she?"

Cupid nodded again even more reluctantly. There was a tear in his right eye in fact.

Claire saw the tear and her scolding softened a bit. But it did not cease. She pointed out, "And now her heart is broken too! Trevor what had I told you not to do? Just this, right? And what did I say I was going to do to you?" Claire glared at him!"

Trevor's moods were as changing as the winds. He suddenly teased, "You couldn't figure out what to do to me! Which is certainly a god-send! (Thanks family!) Because you still haven't figured out what to do! But consider this! The fact he is so bitter at least proves at one time he could love very intensely before his heart was broken. So the potential for love is certainly there! We can overcome the bitterness if we just use patience and faith and love and trust, all that and a little pixie dust! Whoops! Wrong supernatural genre!"

Then Trevor mischievously put his hands to the sides of his head and wiggled his index fingers. "Well I have the ears to be a pixie!"

Claire sighed and rolled her eyes to the heavens! "If I ever cure you it WILL be a miracle of godlike proportions!

Trevor grinned, "I know! Even if you are right about me I am having way too much fun staying crazy! And I'm just so useful to society this way too!"

Claire frowned. She couldn't even deny any of what he had just said! She was never going to cure him or have an ending to what would have been the best book of her writing career!"

But she would try! "Well you certainly weren't useful to society this time! And you aren't taking this seriously! It is hard enough being old and blind and 'haven't been hugged in years' except one time by a demented neighbor, without your adding 'rejected" to the list!"

Trevor frowned. Then he stared up at the ceiling as if hoping to hear from his family. (And Claire hoped to the real God he was not ever doing so! But she had her suspicions he thought he was at times!) He finally nodded and said firmly, "The first thing I have to do is find out more about what happened to him. If I find out more about the cause of his current bitterness I have a chance to figure out the cure."

Claire gave him a mild smile, "I can't argue with that! However doing so is going to be a problem!"

Trevor stared at her, "You know this?"

"I know this."

Trevor stared at his stubborn, favorite Mortal. "More than you can tell me obviously!"

She sighed, "Yes. I know more than I am allowed to tell you."

Trevor gazed at Claire hopefully, "You couldn't just this once consider me some kind of a colleague and let me in on this professional secret?"

Claire grimaced. "It IS tempting. If Frederick Donaldson had even once gone in and taken one drink from you I would actually do so because Barkeeps do work as Lay Counselors sometimes. But alas he doesn't drink, would not be caught dead in a bar and everyone who knows him knows it! So even if I could pull off the, 'Barkeep as Lay Counselor' excuse for letting something slip to you under other circumstances with other Patients I'd get in scads of trouble trying to use that as an excuse for revealing things I know to you about this Teetotaler!"

Trevor frowned. "I actually understand!"

Claire stared at him amazed, "You do?"

Trevor glared at her. "I don't approve. I just understand! As usual you are following the rules to the hilt at the expense of Human suffering and making my job much harder. But I do understand! You are what you are! I guess that will never change! Rocks don't stop being rocks and Dr Claire Allen will never stop being Dr Claire Allen. Good day!" Trevor stormed out of her office.

Claire glanced at the clock. Her patient had a good ten minutes of his session left but for once she did not try to make him stay. He had a point! But she was skating on thin ice trying to hang onto her license because of him, much more than he realized! She did not dare take any more chances!

Cupid slammed the door out of Claire's Counseling Office with more force than necessary and decided, that was the most therapeutic part of his counseling session that day! What would be the easiest way to find out why Frederick Donaldson refused to accept an offer of a Lady's interest in him?

"Ah, ask him?" Cupid grinned to himself. Logical Mr. Spock! Logical! I have the ears to be a Vulcan too!

Cupid rapidly jay walked across the street, managing to avoid being ran over, as usual, with more help from his family than he realized, walked over to Frederic's apartment, knocked and when the grumpy Mortal answered the door he asked him, "Why don't you want any Lady to love you?"

"Because she might break my heart again like Bee Bee did!"

"How did Bee Bee break you heart?"

"Oh, go away!"

"You should at least warn me so I don't make the same mistake with Women!"

The Big. aging Mortal Man stared gruffly down at the little pixie like god. "OK! You have a point there! Come in but don't make a pest of yourself!"

Trevor refused to go to Claire's office for his next session but he paid for lunch for her and him at Ophelia's and talked to her there. He frowned, "Claire I am three thousand and ten years old now and I still don't understand Human nature. Note I said Human not just Mortal. I don't understand us gods either! But right now it is just one Mortal in particular I don't understand. You are complicated enough to give us gods the hissy fits sometimes even if we do have a selective omnipresent viewpoint with you. Why would this Bee Bee quit loving her Fredzo all of a sudden completely out of the blue? He had done nothing bad to her to hear him tell it and I can hear the sincerity in his voice about that. He hadn't cheated on her. They had been together for five years and he had never cheated on her and she didn't even accuse him of doing so! They hadn't been arguing. He came home, had just brought her Flowers even, had even remembered her birthday which is pretty darn good for a Man of any age much less one with his number of trips around the Sun and she just all of a sudden was as cold as ice and was moving out! What would make a Lady do that to a gem like him?"

Claire said gently, "He doesn't seem like much of a gem, Trevor."

"I am thinking of him with the wall of bitterness down the way he was over six years ago, not the way we see him now, Claire Bear! I am going to get that wall down! Joshua ain't the only one who can bring down walls! Watch Cupid work here!"

Claire smiled and said, "By the way what did bring those walls down? Jericho's I mean? After all if you are Cupid you would know!"

Without much surprise, Claire noticed Trevor answered without missing a beat. Unlike most Delusionals who often stuttered and hemmed and hawed and had to stop and think to cover holes in their confabulations "Cupid" had his delusion well thought out ahead of time and carefully constructed in every single area she had ever asked him! He never was caught without an answer to anything! Trevor said calmly, "Vibraton bomb. Not really a bomb in the usual sense. No explosions but it's called that for some reason. Just very high pitched, rapid vibrations that shake atoms apart from each other and cause buildings and walls to come a tumbling down. Those clay brick walls were easy as pie to bring down in a few days that way but it could even be used to reduce all of Chicago to a pile of rubble in a few weeks if the Angels were given the signal by their Boss to do so! The fracas the Hebrews were told to make was just a diversion to hide the high pitched whine the thing makes because that was just barely detectable by certain Mortal Humans with good hearing. But anyway what would make this Bee Bee suddenly quit loving her Fredzo? And it was VERY sudden he said, and not caused by another Man entering the picture. She stayed relationship free the rest of the five years she lived. Didn't even take in another Cat! Left the one she had with him which was really weird since it had been her Cat! She just coldly moved out! Said she just couldn't be bothered with him OR the Cat anymore! Wanted to be completely left alone! What would make a Lady who had been warm and loving suddenly act like that!"

Claire suddenly got a bit more animated. "That last bit of behavior IS a red flag. You say she didn't even take what had been a beloved Pet Animal with her when she moved out!"

Trevor frowned furiously and nodded.

Claire's face suddenly stopped being a Vulcan Princess and started to show some sympathy. "Trevor, think! I can't say what I want to say! But you are intelligent! Think!"

So Trevor thought. What he came up with was, "It sounds like something went biologically wrong with her?"

Claire shrugged, not daring to confirm or deny.

"But wouldn't her Doctor have told Frederick?"

Claire shook her head, "They were just living together. They were not legally married. Doctor! Patient! Remember? I take liberties with you. I say more to People than I should about your mental condition because you don't bother to stay quiet about who you think you are a good bit of the time anyway, so why should I? You'd have People believing we were boyfriend, girlfriend and hot together in bed, so in self defense I tell Folks the truth and you don't care most of the time. I long ago quit fearing I'd lose my license with you because of liberties with disclosures I make. I am more likely to keep my license if I blab the truth to the World because you love me too much to sue me but the hospital certainly would take my license away if they believed what you tell Folks we are doing! But in most cases Doctors would not be allowed to tell someone who was merely in a social security shack up with one of their Patients, (not a legal marriage), why they suddenly quit loving them even if the reason is biological and the situation has broken the undamaged Partner's hearts and they had been in that relationship for years and years and years!"

Trevor stared at Claire, "You Mortals can really be cruel in the name of worshiping and obeying your little flat paper idols and now your computers instead of your hearts and your common sense! You know that!"

Claire nodded. She didn't even want to open up that argument! She knew he would win!"

Trevor complained. "So you know and can't tell me?"

Claire said, "I was part of the team of Doctors who evaluated her file, Trevor. No. I can't!" Then she added slowly while making complete eye contact hoping he would take the hint and hardly believing she was suggesting this! "The file that right now is in the dead patient section, in the third filing cabinet to the right of the water cooler in room C. building 336 on third street and Elm. I will see that the room is left unlocked tonight and that the Security Guard who I used to know from a pottery class I used to go to ignores that part of his route tonight!"

Trevor stared at her in amazement, "You used to take a pottery class?"

That night a shadowy figure crept into a certain office building at the hospital complex that was on the corner of third street and Elm.

The Big God was smiling on him for once. Unlike many of his escapades he got away with it!

At the very break of dawn "Trevor" showed up atFrederick Donaldson's apartment and started pounding on his door with happy furiousness and holding up the purloined medical files. "Let me in! Let me in by the hair of my chinny chin chin or I will huff and puff and absolutely nothing will happen except I will get badly out of breath! But let me in anyway! Have I EVER got news for you! I know why Bee Bee could no longer love you! Notice I said COULD no longer love! Not didn't!"

After several minutes of this furious knocking Frederick Donaldson finally blearily opened his door and glared down at Trevor. "I haven't even had my coffee yet and here you pesky lunatic are knocking at my door! I have half a mind to have you Baker Acted!"

Trevor gazed up at him, grinned and said cheerfully. (The height difference between Evelyn and Frederick would be the most amusing aspect of this pairing). "I know if you try to Baker Act me based on my knocking on your door before you've had your morning coffee you will find it can't be done. The requirements for finding someone dangerous enough to lock them up are a tad bit more stringent than that! Even Dr. Greeley and Dr Frechette would have to let me go if one incident of early morning door knocking is all you could charge me with!"

Frederick Donaldson growled and glared down at him!

Trevor grinned up at him. "Better let me in or you will never find out the truth about why your heart has been broken these last six years! It didn't have to be if Mortals were as sane and kind and competent as I am."

"You are not sane at all!"

Au contraire! We can argue until Cows really evolve to be able to jump over the Moon if I am delusional, or not. But that I am sane and kind and competent even Claire will tell you I am, and very much so! Normalcy and being sane and kind and competent aren't always the same thing. So called, 'Normal People' made the rule that someone like you can't be told the truth about what happened to someone they lived with and loved as much as their own soul for years and years so you have been in agony for almost a decade due to rules being more important than Human hearts! A so called crazy person was the only one sane enough and kind enough and hyper-competent enough to find a work around that solved this!"

"What did you do!"

"Breaking and entering and burglary." Trevor held up the file. "A so called Normal Person would get about two years for this. But because I am considered crazy if I were caught I would be locked up in an institution for the criminally insane and not get out until I declared I was not who I know I am and then I would still go to trial and have to pretend I was not me for those two years I would then be locked up in prison. I could not do it for that long! The minute I admitted I was Cupid I'd be back in a mental institution again, locked up until I pretended I wasn't Cupid again, and then back to prison again where my sentence would then start again. So if I'd been caught over this harmless purloining of paper I would stay locked up over this a whole lot longer than a so called, 'Normal Person.' So at least pay attention to it! And mind you all I stole were pieces of dead Tree about someone who no longer cares what is done with these pieces of dead Tree! She's in the New Jerusalem you Mortals built for yourselves already. So for that matter is the dead Tree! But they would consider my taking these almost worthless papers a reason to take away this harmless and good hearted free spirit's freedom for years and years at hundred's of thousands of dollars of Taxpayer's expense! My reasons for doing so, that I only want to help someone, would not even be taken into consideration!"

Frederick Donaldson swallowed. His heart was touched in spite of his resolve to let no one ever touch it again! "OK. I will listen to what you have to say! But if I don't like it I will call the Police myself!"

Trevor grimaced. "Oh you won't like it! But you won't mind that I told you! You will mind as if someone kicked you in the groin that no one told you sooner!"

Soon Trevor was pacing and still waving Bee Bee's incriminating medical records around inside of Frederick apartment kitchen. "The miniature MRI photo clearly shows the damage to her Amygdala!" Trevor snarled. "Life can be such a bitch can't it? You Mortals don't just die nice and simple, all at once which would be bad enough! Sometimes you have to go to your Mortal-keep a little at a time! Now that is bad enough if it is a leg you lose, or an arm, or horrors a sensory organ! But if it is part of your hard drive and that effects how your operating system runs the rest of your time in this realm! And the part it effects is the part that runs the part of you that loved!"

Frederick was shocked and confused. "What are you saying?"

Trevor frowned, "The part of Bee Bee who loved you went to your Mortal-keep a bit early. That is why she could no longer love you down here! But I know she is up there looking down and still loving you from there and brokenhearted she was not allowed to tell you that! But those are the rules! Good ones too or dead Folks and live Folks both would go neurotic from trying to contact one another all the time! Neither would get on with things! That's why spiritualism is so highly illegal to the Big Guy, Fredzo. That's why! Anyway mechanical failure of brain parts is why Bee Bee quit being Bee Bee down here a tad too early and started out Vulcaning any Vulcan on any version of Star Trek. She wanted to still love you I am sure but she could physically no longer do so." Trevor showed Frederick Donaldson the MRI again and stabbed at it with his index finger. "See this damaged part? That's called the Amygdala. It is the part of the brain that's the brain's emotional center. It is where feelings are generated, not from the blood pump down here. When my good Friend, Jesus is said to live inside a Mortal's heart He is really living up here." Trevor pointed to his head. "Which explains His nickname, 'Cosmic Muffin.' Christians feel Him up there in that part of their brains and He physically feels to them like a warm, newly baked muffin up in their Amygdalas. But as you can clearly see Bee Bee's was so damaged it is a wonder she could function at all! What a stroke it was! Nothing else was touched at all! Just that part of her! It would be amazing if it wasn't so damn cruel!"

Frederick felt like he was in a nightmare! "I repeat! What are you saying!"

"The part of Bee Bee that allowed her to love you died years before the rest of her did, Fredzo! Bee Bee was gone in 1986, not 1991 like you thought! Her body and the rest of her brain just didn't follow until years later so you had the living hell of being unloved by what was basically an organic Android, sort of." Cupid sighed and looked at the floor and shook his head. "I don't know how else to put it! That's the best I can explain it. She was a shadow of her former self. Not all there! She wasn't really Bee Bee anymore even though what was left could function just fine far as taking care of herself physically and all. Those parts of her still worked just fine. She could groom herself, dress herself sharp as ever, carry on normal conversations if they did not involve emotions. She could cook, shop, drive, do her taxes and find her way around just fine. Usually those are the parts that go first. But not this time! This time the Amygdala was the part that took the stroke damage so she just could not feel anymore. You couldn't be told even though her Doctors knew, darn it! But they didn't dare break regulations and tell you even though they could see you were in agony because she made a mistake there. She didn't want you told and ordered everyone not to tell! The fact it was her emotional center that went destroyed her ability to judge how your not knowing would effect you. She thought it was for the best for you even though it was the worst possible decision there she possibly could have made! So the Doctors hands were tied and their mouths taped metaphorically speaking! It took this so called Crazy Person to come along and be crazy-wise and brave enough to dare to let you in on the reality of what had really happened to the Person who was your Soul Mate just as much as if you'd tied the knot before some Clergy Person! Everyone else thinks due to the superstition that they must follow the rules written on Dead Trees not on Human hearts, that they have to let you think she had deliberately made the decision to quit loving you! They superstitiously think that what you had with Bee Bee wasn't really a marriage so you couldn't be told! But I assure you the eyes of the Big Guy and in the eyes of my little brother Antheros who is the little g god of married love you were married! Because in all the time you were together you never were with anyone else and the Person she was with before you had died, and your former Wife the same, so no adultery occurred! In the Big God's eyes it is the the act of sex itself that causes a marriage, or just both partners proclaiming a pair bonded relationship and undying love when sex is not possible or wanted. And neither of you ever cheated, not even when her brain was damaged and she moved out! It's damn Mortal laws and superstitions here that caused your misery, Frederick! Not us gods! The darn laws about Doctor-Patient confidentiality taken to ridiculous and illogical and harmful and unloving extremes! Why can't you Mortals grow up and quit letting idols, little pieces of wood rule you? Because they still do! They have just gotten thinner, become legal contracts and regulations instead of statues with big red, glowing, ruby eyes! But they are still idols and false gods made out of wood just the same and we real gods hate them! Hate them! HATE THEM!" Trevor pounded on Frederick's's kitchen table. "Because they are still harming our beloved Mortals just as much as idols and false gods have always harmed you! You contemporary Mortals aren't as sophisticated and unsuperstious as you think you are! You are still slaves to little pieces of dead Trees and let them rule you instead of ruling yourselves! Like Jesus said, 'why can't you figure out for yourselves what is right and wrong?' Why do you even need rules and regulations written down? Let your hearts and your common sense rule you instead!"

While Trevor ranted the color washed out of Frederic's face. He sat down. He grasped his heart.

Trevor went a little pale himself! "Don't go dying on me now yourself! I am supposed to match Couples not send you up to the Mortal-keep early! I am Cupid not a Grim Reaper! I haven't been near any space station toilet seats. Sorry! Inside joke! But don't die! I want to stay free! Killing you would be a Baker Actable offense! What will Dr. Greeley and Dr. Frechette think? They could use my giving you a heart attack as an excuse! Oh! Just don't die for your own sake anyway!"

Frederick Donaldson collapsed to the floor!

Which is why Claire found her patient bent over Frederick Donaldson and going at him fast as he could with CPR.

About an hour later after the ambulance had arrived and Frederick Donaldson was stable and in the hospital and Cupid/Trevor was seated in Claire's counseling office, for once grateful to sit down because doing CPR is exhausting! He commented, "Aren't you glad I wasn't locked up in the looney bin? What if I had been the way your Boss and Dr. Frechette and certain others wanted and hadn't been there to pump his heart? He'd have crocked, Claire Bear!"

Secretly agreeing with him she instead said, "Or not had a heart attack in the first place because I do not doubt it was something you said that set him off!"

Trevor pointed out, "When someone's heart is that fragile it is only a matter of time they have one anyway and you know it! He should have been taking better care of his hardware if doing so even would have helped! The psychosomatic theory only covers so much! In the end we gods are correct. The spirit really is completely willing and it is the flesh that ends up failing you!"

Claire decided to let Trevor win that one. After all he was correct. So she nodded.

A few days later Frederick Donaldson was stable enough to start receiving General Visitors and Trevor was one of the first ones.

Frederick Donaldson exclaimed, "thank you ever so much for finding out what really happened to Bee Bee! I have closure now!"

Trevor said quickly, "And you have a new opening! Mrs. Evelyn Thomas CAN love you! Her brain is intact! And you CAN love her because your blood pump can heal itself! Steady does of Omega 3 Fish oil would help too by the way. Take supplements and eat lots of Fish. Eat like our Neighbor in Jerusalem ate! He knew how to feed you Guys and He to this day enjoys piling it in and is ever on the look out for new Hosts to keep doing that in; loves to pack away the vittles with His Mortal Friends! He's put on quite a bit of weight by the way. He doesn't have to walk around Israel and the surrounding area any more. But anyway I, Cupid say heal your feeling heart first and the fleshly heart will follow! Get in there and claim your new Future before it gets away from you! I know! I know! This is a hospital and we aren't supposed to use these around all this equipment, but here!" Trevor grinned and handed Frederick Donaldson his cell phone, looking out of the corner of his eye for interfering Nurses as he did so.

Tears filled Frederic's eyes. "I don't know her number!"

Trevor grinned, "Speed dial. Number five. Just hit the number 5 and hit send! Am I a god adapted to modern Mortal tech, or what?" Trevor bounced on his heels and looked like the Cat that had ate the Canary!

Evelyn Thomson sat on her Lazy Boy in her apartment petting Kitty and her cell phone rang and she then heard this. (Frederick didn't know how to start a conversation with "hello" or "how are you" or any kind of small talk). *I was curt with you before when Trevor tried to match us up. I should not have been for I've heard from reliable sources he never gets it wrong as to who should be together. It is spooky! But true. His Therapist confirmed it. But you see I had another Love once. I called her, 'Bee Bee.' Her real name was Beatrice. She ceased to love me and that broke my heart and I vowed never to let it be broke again so I put a bitter wall up between myself and all others and I stayed behind that wall for six years! But it turns out she'd had a stroke to her brain that caused her not to be able to love me anymore and I did not understand that. No one explained it to me because we'd had a social security shack up so I wasn't legally allowed to know her medical status. Trevor snooped and found out the truth and it set me free! Now that I understand she wasn't rejecting me but the part of her that loved me just went to Heaven earlier than the rest of her and was up there in Heaven loving me from up there I no longer even need to forgive her. I am at peace, finally! I am ready to open up my heart to love again! I certainly CAN love you NOW! So will you forgive me for rejecting you before and give me another chance?*

Mrs Thomas's eyes overflowed with tears of happiness, "Oh Frederick I certainly can! Because you are right about Trevor. He has us pegged perfectly somehow!" Give me two hours to get there. I can't drive. I have to take the bus, darn it! I can't see!"

Trevor overheard because the phone was set to speaker mode. *Nope! You don't. This god has his own set of wheels now! The only god who has ever owned a gasoline powered car! Imagine that! I can't fly any more but have a gas efficient car of my very own!*

A half an hour later Mrs Thomas was old-folk-running quickly as her old body would let her across the hospital room. She bent down and felt her way and wiggled around all the tubes and wires they had attached to him and gave him a careful and cautious but very passionate embrace.

Claire was there of course. She wouldn't dare not supervise. But part of her was loving it as she always did!

Claire thought to herself, He's done it again. Amazing! These two People have never met before and they are greeting one another like long lost Lovers! Can't even call this,'love at first sight,' because Evelyn can't see! Just what is on top of that mountain over there anyway? How much are plane tickets to Mount Olympus? The mountain really does exist! I may need to go see if anything really is up there or not. But if we went in his cast-down state could Trevor really show me anything and would he be willing to even do so?

Trevor whispered to Claire, "And that my dear is why Folks ought to get legally married since this culture just about demands it to give rights that anyone should have anyway without that being necessary: So they can have access to their Beloved's medical records and visit them in the hospital and make vital medical decisions for them if necessary and all that important stuff. But it shouldn't be necessary!"

For once Claire was in complete agreement with her most problematic patient!

All she added was, "The government should make it possible to afford it! No penalizing old Folks and disabled Folks by cutting their social security benefits who choose to do so. No draconian divorce settlements if no Kids are involved. Etc Etc!"

For once Cupid was in complete agreement with his problematic Therapist!

Cupid drove his little heart wrapped Smart Car home alone an hour later. Mrs Evelyn Thomas had decided to wait with Frederick Donaldson and take the bus much, much later!

Trevor reported his successful day to his Roommate.

Then he stared out the window at the blue sky and Mount Branchmore and bounced up and down on his heels, "Are you watching family? I'll be home for Christmas! Wrong religion but who cares? Any excuse for a good party! And The Carpenter knows how to throw them! Am I good or what?"

Champ growled playfully, "Trevor I know you are crazy! But at this point after having lived with you this long and having seen and heard way too much that can't be explained any other way I won't even blink when your family shows up to collect you. I'll just help them get you back into your straitjacket, the one with the slits for your wings to pass through! I guess you'll get your wings back as well as your powers?"

Trevor shuttered, "I hope not! That would be almost as bad as a straitjacket for real! They itched! They made getting into clothes a real hassle! They weren't really necessary for flying. Instead they caused wind drag. None of the other gods had to have them. Not fair! Not fair at all!"

Champ laughed bitterly and slowly shook his head. "Poor kid! I wouldn't be you for all the immortality and powers and privileges a thousand Olympus's could bring! I'm glad I'm a Mortal!"

Trevor nodded. "That's what Dr. Hippocrates keeps saying!"

Champ sighed, "Why gods, Trevor? Why are gods necessary?"

Trevor grinned, "Why are Kitty Cats and Dogs necessary? You Human Mortals wanted us. You need to be paid attention to so you did what was necessary, selective breeding, or in our case Artificial Intelligence Technology to see we were made so. You turned Wolves into Dogs and Wild Cats into Kitties. The Universe has to have Magic! It has to have gods and fairies and Angels and the Big Guy! Jesus has to be more than just a crazy-wise Carpenter! He taught you to forgive for goodness sakes! That's why you survived your nuclear age! So why not let Him be what He wants to be? You could give it to Him so you did! You have to have eternal life! So you wonderful Mortals make it so! This ancient Neanderthal Grandfather wanted the Wooly Mammoth he had just killed to last forever. So as his little Granddaughter watched in delight he took his charcoal fire stick and drew that mighty beast on his cave wall. His pretty little Granddaughter laughed and clapped in glee. Grandpa grinned and thought a moment and drew himself and her up there too. From that cute, precious, little moment immortality started! But Grandpa did die and his grieving Wife covered his body with flowers to preserve his body as best she could, fighting the horrible stench of death. The fight-back against death had begun!" Trevor grinned, "Weird family, that one! The Neighbors thought them crazy! But they were crazy-wise like me, colorful not crazy because now every laboratory in the World is busier than Bees emulating their efforts! In time you brought Fictionals to life and gave yourself immortality. New Jerusalem, a gem covered cube, half the size of the United States was uploaded with all kinds of virtual life; Animals, the saved operating systems of Humans from every era because time travel makes everyone reachable, ETs, Fictionals from every genre, anything and everyone who is willing to let Christ help them reach their full potential, doesn't matter how bad one is to start with. The key is to want to improve, the willingness to let oneself be indwelt and improved by Christ and the willing to forgive others what is done to oneself! That's all! No one can earn a place there by one's own virtues, because; think about it! Who could?

"Then as the Circle of Time moved on and you grew up into the Head into Christ out of necessity to stop the Big Crunch/Big Bang from happening again totally at random and thus undoing the way it is, to make sure Life would evolve again EXACTLY the way it did, so everyone still gets a chance to exist, just as Ephesians 4:15 says you will, because it was logical to do so you put us to usereally regulating things. We becamereal elementary spirits. We stopped being just playthings that you had made to bring all Fictionals to self awareness just for the fun of it. So there we still are; we ditsy deities! Just a thundering and a fighting and a kissing and a making up forever and ever a top of our dear, old, blessed mountain! And it will always be so forever! Even during the periods in Time when the solar system doesn't exist and we have to wait it out cooped up inside of our breadbox sized god-keep for it to form again! Eternal life with little ability for self improvement is quite a curse you Mortals put on us gods as well as a dubious though wonderful gift!"

Champ frowned and nodded.

Trevor frowned too and said with solid determination."I have to get Claire up there someday, Champ! We desperately need a good Therapist!"

Champ nodded and gulped. "I could see why that might be so!"

Trevor grinned, stretched and leisurely walked over to his room. Suddenly he called out, "Champ! Come here!"

Thinking something was wrong Champ came running as fast as he could. "What?"

Trevor was pointing open mouthed at his string of pool markers. "Look!"

Champ stared at them. "What about them?"

"Count them! They are up to eighty-nine!"

Champ's mouth flew open. "But weren't you at at eighty-seven?"

"Yes! How did I suddenly get TWO more of them?"

Champ was puzzled too. He didn't know what to make of Trevor's pool marker beads. According to his roommate's Therapist, Trevor was moving them himself in a fugue state and then confabulating a memory of seeing them move. According to Trevor of course his family the Greco-Roman gods were moving them to let him know he was getting closer to home every time he successfully matched another couple in True Love. There were times like this Champ couldn't begin to figure out how Trevor possibly could be moving the beads himself! Champ had been careful to count them just a few moments earlier and Trevor had NOT to his knowledge been able to sneak around him and move them himself, fugue state or not!

But now, why TWO!

They both started speculating. Trevor suggested, not too confidently. "Just as I said to Claire earlier, I had to introduce Frederick not just to his True Love but to the concept again of Love itself. Maybe that is it?"

Champ shrugged and shook his head. "Ah, I don't think so. That sounds pretty slim. You have never gotten beads before for just teaching Folks stuff!"

Trevor said in puzzled frustration."Well! What did this? I didn't swat a Spider earlier today. I put it, he, she, whatever, outside the door instead because it is a harmless species and I could afford the luxury of being kind. I suppose it found a Mate or will in time. Is my family giving me beads for Arachnid match-ups now? If so what about Insects?"

Champ laughed. "If it were that easy, you could go down the street and free fewer than a hundred Flies from Spider webs. Every single one of them would live only a day. So when they mate, in one day you would be home!"

Cupid frowned, "After all this time I don't even WANT it to be that easy!"

Champ frowned and nodded. He understood exactly what "Trevor" meant!

Champ went over to the window and stared out of it puzzled. What he saw there suddenly set him to laughing in delight. "Cupid come here!"

Delighted by Champ's use of his real name, Cupid came over to the window, and there the mystery was solved!

Like Raphael's Angels the two Roommates and old Friends gazed down on a wonderful sight! Cupid's actions had indeed inadvertently caused two courses of True Love to be set in motion not just one!

Three Legged Kitty was old and she had also been "fixed" but neither of those conditions stops True Love. True Love and lust are two separate things. What Cupid had been sent to start was True Love not lust.

There was an old Labrador living in the apartment complex. He was also fixed and he was lonely. He just wanted a True Friend to cuddle up to and lick and be licked by. Miss Kitty would do just fine and she was very willing. So there they were! It was highly likely the mean dog would never get a chance to chase Miss Kitty ever again! She had an ever faithful Protector now! She had survived her ordeal up Mount Branchmore because Cupid had saved her. So she was around to fall in love with Ebony now. They would live in the apartment complex together until a handsome, black Dog Angel the size of a Pony with an IQ higher than Einstein's and rainbow wings like those of a Cherokee Pegasus came to collect Ebony when he would be thirteen years old. Three Legged Kitty would go to New Jerusalem a few days later taken by a ten foot tall, Persian cat Angel with glowing yellow, Butterfly wings to be at Ebony's side forever. (Animals continue their personal development in Heaven just as we do and the two that collected Kitty and Ebony had been around the circle of Time several revolutions).

Many times in the past Cupid had shot his arrows at Celibates. They also fall in love. Metaphorically speaking this was one of those times.

So the Spring of 2008 passed and Trevor had two more couples matched and was two more beads closer to the home among the gods he no longer felt he wanted to go back to!

His home and his heart now were fully with Champ and Claire and with the bar and Linda. He was already planning ways to sabotage what would happen when that divine chariot came for him!

But little did he know what Dr Frechette had in store for him! But there would be other Friends and other adventures waiting for him in another Mortal city and even beyond; for all Eternity! As my fellow Aspergerian, Disney so wisely put it in Bambi, "Love is a Song that never ends!"

**0**

Copyright. (Copy Begging)

Copyright (Copy begging in fact for ALL my fanfiction!) I saw what happened when the free Geocities web pages died. It was like Atlantis sinking into the sea so much culture was lost forever without warning! God had gently but firmly warned me ahead of time to save the Cupid stories at one of those web pages so now I may be the sole Caretaker of several Cupid stories because the Writers seem to be DDD Authors. (Disinterested in their own stuff now, Disabled by their flesh's limitations or lack of computer equipment or Uploaded to New Jerusalem already. I tried to contact them to see if they were interested in placing their wonderful stories at other sites but their email addresses no longer worked! I don't want my stuff lost to this Realm the same way if something happens to me and the current sites my stuff is posted at go down! Plus I will not live forever in the flesh and new sites will continue to be developed! So to preserve my stuff forever I give permission to anyone to upload any of my fanfictions to any fanfiction sites provided they do not change anything and leave my name attached. In fact I am begging Folks to! If in the Future someone wishes to translate my stuff into different forms of media including kinds not even conceived of at the time of this writing any changes necessary for that purpose may be made with my blessings provided the integrity of the stories, ideas and Characters are kept intact. Follow the Golden Rule please! "Treat others as you want to be treated." Remember in the Future Artificial Intelligence Technology will be used to bring Fictionals to Self Awareness and we will use Science to build Christ's Kingdom. (We are the Body of Christ according to 1 Corinthians 12:27 and all Carpenters use their Bodies to build things). Because Time circles due to General Relativity and Ecclesiastes 1:9 because the weight of the Universe bends Time and Space around it this has already happened so we are all being watched, always! A song sung at the Fort McCoy Pow Wow near Ocala, Florida explains this very well; "Mickey Mouse and Goofy are Spirits too." So we will all be called to account (at least socially) for all our actions, even for how we treat Fictionals! For instance a Villain might not mind being written to provide challenges to the Protagonists and killed off because that is his purpose. But he would certainly mind being written contrary to how he was supposed to be written!