The Key that Fits a Million Locks
By San Antonio Rose
March 21, 2001
Beetleburg, Nebraska
Gil Wulfenbach pulled into the parking lot of Harvelle's Roadhouse and sighed with relief as he shut off the engine. When Dad had sent him to Seattle for a hunt about two seconds after he'd left the apartment Saturday morning, he'd been worried he'd miss Agatha Clay's Spring Break altogether. But the hunt hadn't taken as long as he'd feared, and it was early enough in the day that he had time to check in here with Ellen Harvelle, get cleaned up, maybe take a nap, take Agatha out for pizza, and then decide whether they wanted to make Wednesday night Bible study or drive up to Lincoln to see a movie, assuming the high clouds currently obscuring the sky didn't herald weather that would make the roads bad. Not that there was any particular rush on date night—he'd be in town another two weeks, long enough to take her to prom—but he hadn't seen her since Christmas, and even though they'd talked every day on IM and called every weekend... well, as the old song said, "Ain't nothin' like the real thing."
No sooner had he taken the key out of the ignition, however, than his cell phone rang, and the screen displayed the Clays' number. Unsure whether the caller was more likely to be Agatha or her mother, he answered with a simple "Hello?"
"Gil?" Agatha asked shakily.
"Hey, sweetheart!"
"Where are you?"
He blinked. "Roadhouse. I just got here."
"Can you come over?"
"Agatha, what's wrong?"
"I—" She sobbed once. "I can't stay on the phone long. No one's hurt. Just—please."
"Okay." He started the car again, then waved to Ellen, who'd just come outside, and pointed to his phone before putting the car in reverse. "I'm on my way."
Ellen raised her chin in acknowledgement and waved back.
Agatha sniffled. "Thank you. I'll be in the back yard."
"The back yard?" Gil echoed, backing out. "Why?"
"I can't talk now. Love you, bye." And she hung up.
If his tires smoked a bit getting back on the road, he didn't notice.
Everything looked normal when Gil pulled up to the Clays' house. The driveway was empty, and he heard the phone ringing inside the house when he got out, but he didn't see anything to account for Agatha's palpable distress, which he'd been able to sense three houses away. Frowning, he walked around the side of the house to the gate to the back yard, which was unlatched just enough to be visible only on approach. He went through, latching the gate behind him, and waited until he was around the back corner to call for Agatha.
"Gil!" she sobbed and barreled off the porch and into his arms.
"Hey, now." He cradled the back of her head against his shoulder with one hand and rubbed her back with the other. "What's going on?"
"It's Cody."
"Cody Senear?" Gil never had liked Cody, even before he'd found out that Cody's dad was some sort of crackpot zoologist who'd been involuntarily committed a few years back for trying to cross-breed gorillas with eagles to make flying apes. From the brief time Dad had allowed Gil to go to Beetleburg High, Gil had retained the distinct impression that the blighted apple hadn't fallen far from the diseased tree in Cody's case.
Agatha nodded. "Max... had to have her gall bladder out Monday, emergency surgery, and Jack's in Beijing for six months, s-s-so Mom and Dad went up to look after the kids. They'll be back tomorrow. I've... got that big... big research project..."
"Yeah, I remember, you told me."
"So I stayed, and I thought I'd be fine, b-b-but Cody... he keeps calling, 'cause he says he wants to take me to prom, but I'm not answering 'cause I already told him I was going with you, and... and I can't turn off the ringer, 'cause Mom might need to call, so I set the answering machine to the longest number of rings before it picks up 'cause I thought that might discourage him, but he just won't stop, and I can't get any work done, and now he's threatening me, and..." She broke off, clinging to him more tightly and bawling into his shoulder.
The same surge of something more than rage he always felt when facing down a particularly nasty monster swept through him as he tightened his own grip. "I'm here, sweetheart. I'm here."
"He says... he says you can't love me 'cause... 'cause you're so much older..."
"Oh, can't I?" He pulled back and tilted her chin up. "Well, let's see what he says to this." And he dipped her back and kissed her, harder than he meant to.
"Ohhh," she sighed when he came up for air and set her back on her feet. There were tears still streaming past her fogged-up glasses, but he could tell from the slight smile on her lips and her overall aura that she was already feeling much better. "I don't know what he'd say," she added, almost purring, "but I know what I say."
"Oh? What?"
She pushed her glasses up out of the way and kissed him back. And the heat in his veins shifted from rage into something... else, something other, something deeper, more than desire, although that was there, too. He'd felt flashes of whatever this was every time he'd so much as brushed her skin, even when they were kids, but those had only been sparks. This was the full bonfire, roaring, consuming...
Smoke.
He smelled smoke.
He raised his head a little and saw flames. Alarmed, he broke the embrace and stepped back, only to discover that his hands were on fire. She gasped as he yelped and shook his hands, to no avail.
Off! he thought desperately. Off off OFF!
Finally, he found the right mental switch, and the fire vanished as suddenly as it had appeared—just in time for her to throw a bucketful of water at him, which did nothing but leave him looking like a drowned rat.
"Thanks," he said flatly as she dropped the bucket and covered her mouth in shock.
"Sorry!" she squeaked. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, fine." He shook the worst of the drips off his hands and shoved his hair back out of his face. "Have you got any coffee?"
"Not fresh. I can make you some. What... what happened?"
"I... I dunno. That's never happened before." He stared at his hands in disbelief. Then a breeze sprang up, and he shivered hard.
"Come inside," she insisted, taking his left hand. "You can dry off while I get the coffee going. You've still got some stuff in the guest room, I think."
Nodding, he followed her into the house, where Cody's voice was just audible, snarling something into the answering machine. Gil left his boots by the back door and Agatha in the kitchen and went upstairs to the guest bath, stripped to his shorts, toweled off his torso, and used the blow dryer on his hair. Then he crossed to the guest room, where he had indeed left a set of clothes and a pair of boots when he and Dad had come to visit at Thanksgiving, and got dressed again. He was still deeply chilled when he came down to dump his wet clothes in the laundry room, but the scent of coffee promised a remedy for that.
Agatha was just pouring up the coffee when he came back into the kitchen. "Mom left me some cupcakes," she said, nodding toward the covered cake plate on the bar. "Help yourself."
"Thanks," he said, sliding onto a stool and taking two cupcakes off the plate. He handed one to her as she set his mug in front of him, and she thanked him with a smile and sat down beside him to eat and drink in companionable silence. And when they'd finished, they started kissing again, kisses that tasted of coffee and icing, gentler, calmer, but still tender and warming and oh, dear Lord, he was on the brink again...
Suddenly she giggled.
"What?" he asked.
"Guess this means we're pretty hot stuff!" she answered with a teasing sparkle in her green eyes.
He rolled his eyes and backed off. "I'd better go before I burn down the house."
She sobered just as suddenly and grabbed his arm. "No, Gil, wait, please. I-I'm sorry. I wasn't laughing at you. Please, I—"
The phone started ringing again, and they both looked at it. Again the Caller ID box showed Senear Corn under the number. Her hand tightened on his arm.
"I don't understand why," she continued quickly when he looked at her again, her voice low as if she were afraid of being overheard. "But when we kissed—I mean just before... I felt... something here." She touched her fist to the center of her chest. "Something deep, like..." She paused and looked away briefly, eyes unfocusing and frowning a little, as if searching for the right word. And as she shook her head slightly, there was the barest flash of blue light way in the back of her pupils. "I can't really describe it," she went on, focusing on him again, "but it... it helps, and... I mean, I've felt it before, just a little, not like this. But... it's not all the way there, and I can't help thinking I need to get all the way there to be able to deal with Cody." Her eyes searched his face, imploring him to understand.
He swallowed hard and nodded. "Wait here. I gotta get something out of the car."
She nodded in turn. "Okay."
He rushed out of the house, pausing only a moment to take a deep breath and let it out again. He didn't have a clue as to whether this were the right thing to do or the right time to do it, but whatever was thrumming through his veins was growing more insistent, and even if it were the wrong thing or the wrong time, he could at least hold on to enough control to try to do at least part of it right. So letting fly a short prayer for help, he grabbed his treasure out of the glove box, stuck it in his pocket, and ran back inside before the answering machine picked up again.
"I do know what you mean," he said as he came back to the kitchen. "I feel it, too. Have since the day we met. But I wasn't kidding about burning the house down, and I don't think we can get there just by kissing."
She gulped. "I... I see."
"If you want to wait, that's okay. Really. I can go over now and make Cody wish he'd never been born. But if you're serious, if you really want to do this today..." He pulled the ring box out of his pocket and opened it as he went down on one knee, revealing the gold-and-emerald ring he'd bought with the proceeds from selling his latest patent.
She gasped loudly over the long beep of the answering machine. "Gil!"
"I know it's sudden. We can wait if you want."
"No, it's not that—I—I mean, I don't know if we're read—"
"AGATHA!" Cody shrieked into the answering machine loudly enough to be heard clearly downstairs, startling both of them. "I KNOW YOU'RE THERE! ANSWER THE %^$#~$!*# PHONE, YOU #$#~%*—"
"Yes," she half-sobbed, grabbing the ring and jamming it on her finger. "Yes, let's go now."
He stood and kissed her. "Pack a bag. Something warm. Wear good shoes. You can call your mom on the way, use my phone, tell her about Cody. We can come back in the morning, tell them everything when they get home."
She nodded. "Okay." Then she kissed him back and slipped past him to run upstairs.
While she was gone, something occurred to him, and he went over to the kitchen phone and picked it up as quietly as he could. Then he closed his eyes and felt along the connection until he sensed Cody at the other end. When Cody screamed another obscenity, Gil shot a burst of power down the phone line, felt the connection sever when Cody's phone exploded, and hung up the handset with a satisfied smirk just as Agatha came downstairs again.
"I never said," she told him as he took her backpack from her. "The ring is lovely. Thank you."
"Glad it fits," he replied with a smile and ushered her out the door. "I was planning to wait until prom so I'd have a chance to ask your dad first."
She locked up and smiled at him as they went on to the car. "I don't think they'll mind. Maybe that we're eloping, but I've heard Mom call you her son-in-law a few times."
"We can still do the church wedding later if we want. Maybe this summer. We don't even have to tell anyone until after graduation—well, family, of course, and the registrar's office at Stanford, but not, like, anyone else here in town. Probably not even Ellen; you know how things travel at the Roadhouse." He opened the front passenger door for her, tossed her bag in the trunk on his way back around the car, and waited until he'd gotten in the driver's seat to continue. "And about... about not being ready... y'know, I'm gonna be gone after prom until graduation. We can do some premarital counseling classes before we move in together; we have time."
She nodded. "I'll talk to Mom about the church wedding, but the classes do sound like a good idea. I mean, we've known each other... eight years now?"
"Nine."
"And dating for three, and we talk all the time, but still... living together is a whole different ballgame."
He put his key in the ignition and paused to look at her again. "Are you sure?"
She nodded. "I don't know why, but... we need to, Gil. And not just because of Cody. This—whatever it is keeps poking its head up, even when you're gone, and it bugs me, like an itch I can't scratch. Now that it's this close to the surface, it's gonna drive me crazy if we don't... well, do this. But thank you, both for asking and for... for doing it the right way before God."
"Even if I didn't fear God," he said, unable to keep a straight face as he started the engine, "I would definitely fear Adam Clay."
She laughed, and he handed her his cell phone before backing out of the driveway.
By the time they reached the county courthouse, she had called her mom to explain about Cody and assure her that Gil was there and things would be fine overnight, and he had called Ellen to check in and claim that they were going on an emergency date night. Inside, the civil ceremony was surprisingly brief and mostly consisted of filling out paperwork. They walked out, man and wife, each with an arm around the other's waist, just after 2. But the clouds were lowering as they left, and he found himself reaching up and rubbing her arm absently as he studied the sky.
"So what now?" she asked quietly.
He sighed. "Walmart first, I think. Need to get some supplies, something for breakfast." He swallowed hard and looked down at her. "This... may not be super romantic. I'm sorry."
"It's okay. I know what you're worried about; I understand. But I... I think we'll be okay."
He kissed her forehead, and they got in the car.
"Do you need to call your dad now?" she asked as they buckled in.
He shook his head. "No, I talked to Dad Monday, and he said he's on radio silence the rest of the week. Bobby knows I'm on break; so does Dean; and John's not likely to call anyone but Dean. So we should be fine."
"All right. I just don't want to get you in trouble."
"Nah, we're good." Suddenly giddy, he grinned and started the engine. "It's our wedding night. What could go wrong?"
"Don't say that!" she laughed.
Shopping didn't take long, but the clouds kept rolling in. So on a sudden impulse that felt a bit like desperation, Gil sped off for I-29 and then turned south. They took the loop around Kansas City to I-49 and stopped for supper in Joplin, but that gave the storm time to start catching up, and when he turned off the interstate somewhere in the Ozarks, his heart was racing more than it had the last time he'd helped Dean fight a wendigo. He lost the light before he lost the road, pushing on through pure instinct, until at last they were pulling to a stop at the foot of a mountain he vaguely remembered having visited years before with the Winchesters.
"Gil?" Agatha asked as he shut off the engine.
"Up there." He pointed up a narrow trail, just visible in the headlights, toward a waterfall. "Behind the waterfall, there's a cave. We went camping there once, the five of us. And it's... it's big enough that even if there's anyone else out here, we can be far enough back that... we, uh, won't be seen."
She peered out at the trail for a moment, then nodded. "Think we can get everything in one load?"
"Yeah. There's not that much."
"We'd better get going, then, before it rains."
"Right."
They got out in tandem and gathered their gear and supplies out of the trunk, Agatha taking the bags and Gil taking the blankets and firewood. And they made good time getting up the trail. But they weren't fast enough to beat the rain altogether, and by the time they made it into the cave, everything that wasn't in plastic was soaked.
Gil sighed as he set his burden down. "Maybe this wasn't the best idea. I'm sorry, darling."
"How's the firewood?" Agatha asked as she followed suit, sounding surprisingly chipper.
"I dunno yet." He carried the wood into what felt like the center of the space, not too far back but far enough to be safe and dry; then he knelt to strip the wrapping off and groaned as he felt each piece. "Well, I'll get it arranged, but I doubt it'll light. It's pretty wet."
"Let me know when it's ready. I've got an idea."
"Don't think we brought any kindling, either," he added, starting to arrange the pieces for a fire.
"We'll be fine." She still sounded way happier than the situation seemed to warrant.
It didn't take long to finish his task. "Okay," he said, turning toward her as he placed the last piece. "What's your idMMPF!" he broke off when she came seemingly out of nowhere and kissed him so hard he forgot there was still wood in his hand. He forgot everything, in fact, until he registered heat coming from somewhere other than her sitting in his lap. He broke the kiss and opened his eyes to find the cave illuminated by the now merrily-crackling fire—in the midst of which was his hand, still holding a burning brand but not burning itself at all.
"See!" she crowed as he pulled his hand out of the fire and extinguished the flames that still covered it. "Hypothesis confirmed!"
He looked at her oddly. "Doesn't this worry you?"
"No." She leaned in as if for another kiss, and he could see the faint blue light in her eyes again, steady this time. "I don't think you could ever burn me."
His eyes narrowed. "Do you want dessert first or not?"
She laughed, ruffled his surprisingly dry hair, and got up to bring over the stuff for making s'mores while he spread the blankets around the fire to dry. Fortunately, the s'mores turned out perfectly, and by the time they'd had their fill of toasted marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers and started kissing again, he was feeling considerably calmer about this whole affair.
"Your shirt's still pretty wet," he murmured against her lips after a while, his non-flaming thumb hooked through the back of her bra as her cool, damp fingers fumbled with his shirt buttons. "Better get it off before you catch cold."
"Won't it be colder without?" she murmured back and got one button undone.
"Skin-to-skin contact's the best way to combat hypothermia."
She chuckled. "Better get yours off, too, then," she said and pulled back to take off her shoes.
He grinned, suddenly nervous, and took his shirt off.
"Ooh, interesting tattoo!" she said, glancing at his chest. "New?"
"No, it's... it's been a few years. 'Member that time in '98, Fall Break, the Adventure Club cleaned out that skinwalker pack?"
"And Dean almost died? Yes, I remember."
"Yeah, well, to celebrate not dying and to thank me for saving his life, he took me out, and we got these. He asked Bobby what might be a good design for a hunter tattoo, and Bobby gave him this—it's an anti-possession sigil."
"Nice!"
"Yeah. Says he's gonna take Sam to get one, too, after graduation."
"And Sam's still coming with us to Stanford?"
"As far as I know. John's not real happy about it, but he'll have us there, plus the Adventure Club—and you'll like them, I promise. Colette and Sleipnir are dying to meet you. I mean, you'll have your own friends there, I'm sure, and so will Sam, but..." He paused to pull his pants off, then to consider his boxers and whether he was really ready to do this. And suddenly he realized that the cave had gone silent apart from the occasional pop from the fire and rumble of thunder and the rush of the rain and the waterfall outside. A cold gust of wind made him shiver, and he looked up to find that she wasn't by the fire anymore.
"Um," he said, looking around. "Hey, Ag—" He broke off in horror to see her standing, stark naked, at the edge of the cave mouth, right under the strongest stream of falling water. Her arms were spread wide, and her face was turned up toward the spray and the pouring rain.
"What are you doing?!" he cried, jumping up and running toward her. "Are you out of your mind?!"
"No," she replied, her voice echoing strangely from something other than the acoustics of the cave.
"Agatha, you're going to—"
She turned back to him, the green of her eyes almost totally obscured by bright blue light, seemingly heedless of the water still streaming over her. "Not cold. Won't fall. Won't drown. And I told you... you. can never. burn. me."
He grabbed her upper arms. "Get back here before—"
Lightning struck them both at just that moment—but somehow it didn't feel at all like the times he'd been shocked by a loose wire or even the times he'd played with a van de Graaf generator in his various physics classes. It wasn't any worse of a shock electrically than licking the terminals of a 9V block battery. Rather, it felt like raw power flowing in and around and through the two of them, blowing open circuits that they'd barely even realized were there, and sinking deep, deep, letting loose a torrent of whatever this was that swept through him and tore every one of his inhibitions away.
He spun her away from the edge with a wordless growl and kissed her hard and deep, staggering back a few steps toward the fire, and then... before he even realized what was happening, they were horizontal and... well.
Married.
It took quite a bit longer for his rational mind to catch up enough to recognize that the growing blue light around them was coming from Agatha, that the green light that was also growing might be coming from him, and that they were... two feet off the floor.
At about the same moment he realized that last fact, though, he felt a sudden, desperate tug at his soul that set off all kinds of strange and wonderful reactions in his body. So he let nature continue to take its course while she kept pulling at his soul, until... somehow or other, it came loose and met hers halfway. They fumbled a moment, slipped—he was looking up at his own eyes, glowing green, how the—she pulled him up again, and they clung to each other in the building, blinding light, touching, embracing—
—merging—
—holding each other—themselves—theirself?—as tightly and long in the merge as they could, not even knowing what their bodies were doing, relishing the pure exhilaration of union until—
POW!
Something exploded, and then they were two again, embodied again, holding tight as they tumbled and rolled and landed sprawling in the furthest, darkest back corner of the cave, well out of the circle of firelight.
"What... was... that?!" he gasped when he'd gotten some of his breath back.
"I du... I dunno," she wheezed.
"You... you okay?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm... are you?"
"Yeah. That... that was..." Amazing? Terrifying? Both? Every nerve was singing with adrenaline, and his head was swimming with endorphins. "I... I don't think... that was normal."
She started giggling madly. "WHEEEEE! We have GOT to try that again!"
Laughter bubbled up and boiled over in him, too, despite the corner of his mind that was still babbling about how scary-weird this whole thing was. And they just lay there, laughing helplessly, setting each other off every time they'd almost settled down, until Gil's abs were screaming for mercy.
"But seriously," he tried again when they'd mostly stopped gasping, "are you hurt? I mean, that... whatever knocked us a pretty long way."
"Uh," she replied. "Lemme—I—ooh," she groaned as he heard her try to move. "Now that you mention it, I am pretty sore."
"Can you move at all?"
"Yeah, yeah, it's just... ow."
"'Kay, c'mere." He reached for her hand and, on finding it, started a gentle flow of healing power through his hand into hers. This he already knew how to do and how to control; it had surfaced a long time ago, although he hadn't understood its extent until he'd used it to keep Dean from bleeding out when a rabid skinwalker had ripped his side open. Dean had still been laid up for a week while the tissues finished knitting, but there'd been no sepsis from the bowel injury, no permanent damage to the kidney, not even any visible scarring, and the rabies hadn't had a chance to get into Dean's system. Now... well, Agatha didn't need that degree of healing, but Gil had a hunch he'd be able to do even more if it were needed.
After a moment, she started humming under her breath, that strange atonal hum that always vibrated in his chest, no matter how far apart they were. After another moment, she followed his arm to scoot up against the rest of him and put her head on his shoulder while he ran his hands over her back, searching out and healing any bruises before they could form. Some of the bruises were pretty deep, but none went to the bone, and nothing was broken, thanks be to God. Then she ran her hand over his chest, and comforting warmth spread through him, banishing his own aches and pains. He kissed the top of her head in thanks.
Just about the time he was starting to get chilled, she said, "I think we should try again."
"Okay," he replied. "If you want to. Shall we—"
She ran a slightly glowing finger along his clavicle, making him shiver from something other than cold.
"Here?!"
She nodded. "Can't explain it. Just... feels like we ought to. I mean, there's nothing back here you can burn, and no water, no lightning. Just us."
"And cold, hard rock."
"But don't you remember?" she asked, looking up at him as the blue light kindled in her eyes again and grew to obscure them from corner to corner. "We're hot stuff." And she kissed him.
Forty-odd minutes and another, easier, non-explosive soul merge later, he cleared his throat. "Yes, well, that... was better, I think. At least we're still where we started."
She giggled. "What, you were expecting Timbuktu?"
"Hey, the way this night's going, anything's possible." She giggled again, and he kissed her forehead. "But my back's getting cold lying here."
"Oh, all right."
She kissed his nose and got up, and he stood up and guided her back to the fire. The blankets were nice and warm by this time, and they agreed to another round of s'mores, which led to his initiating a much sweeter, warmer, and calmer Round 3. And when that was over, they finally fell asleep, both humming in contented counterpoint.
Gil wasn't sure what woke him some time later. He could just hear the first birds waking up outside; the sky was clear but still dark grey; and Agatha... was walking toward the ledge again.
"Agatha?" he called, worried that she might be sleepwalking.
"I'm going for a swim!" she called back, turning to smile over her shoulder at him.
He sat up. "Are you kidding? It's freezing!"
"Come on!" And before he could get to his feet or say anything else, she ran up to the ledge and dove out.
Mind whirling, trying to calculate exactly how many stories up they were and what rocks were at the bottom and whether the sheer force of landing in the pool below could kill even if she hit water, he chased after her and dove out before he even knew what he was doing. Then he felt invisible wings flare out from his back, and instinctively he swooped down to catch her in mid-fall.
"What are you doing?!" she gasped indignantly as he swept her into a bridal carry and pulled up so he could land on his feet. "You messed up my dive!"
"Agatha, it's at least a hundred-foot drop, and you were about to land head-first on a rock!"
"I was not!"
"Yes, you were!" he insisted, touching down on said large, flat rock to prove his point.
"I wouldn't have hit it if you hadn't caught me! I was aiming out there!" She flung an accusing finger toward a more open part of the pool with such force that he nearly dropped her.
"You have no idea how deep that water is, and neither do I. Furthermore—"
"Furthermore, you're a spoilsport!" She wriggled out of his grasp and dove into the water.
"AgaACK!" he spluttered when she splashed him.
"Come on, Gil!"
"NO! It's COLD!"
"Chicken!" She splashed him again. "CHICKEN!" Another splash.
"Oh, that does it, you—"
Completely forgetting himself, he ran across the rock, flung himself into the air, did a double somersault, and landed in a cannonball. They both came up gasping and then got so wrapped up in their splash fight that they both seemed to forget their annoyance, laughing and shrieking and actually having a pretty good time.
Then she snuck up on him, eyes glowing again, and kissed him. His eyes widened as he felt gills flare open on his neck, and a third eyelid slid over his eyeballs and his nostrils pinched shut a split second before she pulled him under.
And there they were. Having sex. Underwater. Um.
The wild thing was, to the extent he registered much of anything before reaching for soul merge, it wasn't even cold. And his lungs didn't seem to be operating any differently just because the oxygen was coming in through his neck instead of his nose. It was too dark to see whether she had gills, too, but... given the givens, he didn't really care much.
In fact, it wasn't until they both lay on the rock again, sated and gasping, looking up at a much lighter sky, that he even bothered to feel of his own neck. By then, of course, it was normal.
"Let's not do that again until summer," he said, pushing himself up on his elbows, just as a stiff breeze blew up and reminded them both that they were still too far north for spring to be anything but a technicality yet.
"Ohhh," she groaned and shivered hard. "Oh, man, you're right, that was a bad idea. Fun, but a really bad idea."
He sat up. "Can you walk?"
"Um..." She sat up but shivered hard again. "It m-m-might be a ch-ch-challenge."
"All right, c'mon." He stood and helped her to her feet, then caught her when another full-body shiver made her stumble against him.
"C-c-c-c-can you..."
"Gonna try." He looked up at the cave and swallowed hard, but her arms wrapping around his waist somehow bolstered his confidence, so he held her tight, concentrated, and... flew them both back up through the waterfall and into the cave, landing right next to the fire, which flared up from the embers at their approach.
By the time they'd snuggled up in a blanket beside the fire and finished off their breakfast bars and coffee, the weirdness was... not forgotten, exactly, but pushed well onto the back burner by the much deeper, lower-key happiness of just being together. They didn't even kiss, just sat with their heads together, watching the fire and smiling. All too soon, though, more birds were chattering, and he realized it was nearly sunrise.
"We'd better get a move on," he said.
"Yeah, guess so," she said.
And the fire went out completely, whereupon a dust devil whirled up, picked up the ashes, and carried them out to be washed down by the waterfall. With a sigh, Gil and Agatha got up and set about getting ready to leave.
He was dressed and folding up blankets and she was still buttoning her shirt when she asked, "Where are my glasses?"
He looked around and shrugged. "I dunno. Didn't see you take them off."
"Huh." She looked around, retrieved them from where they'd been flung by either haste or explosion, and looked at them pensively. "The thing is... I don't think I need them anymore. I hadn't realized it until just now, but... my vision is perfectly clear without them. Maybe... maybe when you healed me, you healed more than just my bruises."
"Huh. Well, then... does that entitle me to a thank-you?"
She chuckled and walked over to him, and they kissed as the first rays of the sun pierced the waterfall curtain. And somehow he felt a last loose piece lock into place, sealing their union once and for all and settling everything that had become unsettled overnight. Even the short, sharp pain that flared around his left ring finger didn't register for more than an instant, nor did the wave of power that rippled outward from the pair of them like a sigh of relief. He pulled back to smile down into her gorgeous green eyes...
... which now had rings of brown at the pupil edge and flecks of brown scattered through the rest of the iris.
His smile had just fallen when she gasped, "Gil, your eyes!" and he got the mental image of his own brown eyes with green flecks and rings, just the mirror image of hers.
He pulled back further, startled, his right hand going up to his cheekbone and his gaze lowering even though he didn't know what he was looking for—maybe a mirror. But that thought was arrested when he caught sight of something black on the left side of her chest. "Agatha," he said, pulling her shirt aside to uncover an exact duplicate of his anti-possession tattoo.
Her mouth fell open, and she raised her left hand to touch the new ink, only to stop short when they both spotted more black ink under her ring. She slid the ring forward to reveal another tattoo, similar to Dad's, this one a trilobite with bird wings extending from each side. He blinked and raised his left hand, only to find an identical mark on his ring finger.
Swallowing hard, they looked back at each other and chorused, "What have we done?!"