AN: I suck at rhymes.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 2: Letters.
The brotherhood of Heracles,
Protectors of the Zodiac,
Has taken your children to their Paradise on Earth
For they have been chosen to become part of our ancient brotherhood.
If you pass our tasks and prove yourselves worthy of raising them,
You will be given your children back.
If not, you will lose your children forever
You'll be contacted again.
Alex and Jen read the note over and over, trying to find a clue. However, they could only wait until they were contacted again.
The door bell rang and Alex left Jen's side to get it. Captain Logan, high Commandant Drake (Alex's father), Katie, Lucas and Trip entered the house when he stepped to the side of the open door. Katie ran to Jen, and hugged her, trying to offer her comfort and support. Jen began sobbing on her friends shoulder again.
"Jen," Katie whispered, caressing her hair.
"My babies," she sobbed. "They were supposed to be safe now!" she complained.
"What happened?" Logan asked.
"We woke up late, which we never do, and the babies were gone." Alex gave him the note and the envelope. "This was on the crib," he said.
Logan looked silently at the note and read it. His face seemed somber. "Do you remember anything else? Anything out of the ordinary?"
"A sweet smell," Jen said softly. "A smell like flowers, very sweet, last night before we fell asleep."
"A drug probably," Drake said. "To put you both to sleep deeply while they took the children."
"That's what we thought. Last night I was drowsy suddenly, and I blamed it on my tiredness, and I blamed the smell on Alex's soap," Jen explained.
"And I blamed it on her shampoo, we really didn't think there was nothing to worry about," Alex added.
"This may sound a bit cold and cruel," Logan began, looking at the young parents. "But the best thing you can do is prepare funeral services for your twins and have another child," he said bluntly.
Katie had to hold Jen back, as she jumped towards the man with an angry yell. "HAVE ANOTHER CHILD?!" she yelled in disbelief. "Do you know how hard it was for us to have these babies? Do you know how much we love them?" she asked; anger leaking out of her through her voice, her eyes and her clenched fists.
"Do you know how many pairs of dead bodies we have found of parents that received this letter after their children were kidnapped?" Logan asked back.
"But why our children?" Alex asked suddenly, his voice surprisingly broken. "Why us? There's nothing special about us anymore!" He ran his hands through his hair, which was considerably longer, but well cared for.
Jen broke free from Katie and sat next to her husband. She held his hand and they pressed their foreheads together, as if combining their minds, trying to find a reason, a light in this mess.
"It was never clear why they took any of the children," Logan said. "But the children were never seen again."
Drake sat next to his son and put a hand on his shoulder affectionately. Alex and his father had grown closer during the trial of Alex's mother. It had been a hard time, but Alex and Jen had quickly blown the dark clouds away through their babies. And now, this.
"Alex, it will be all right," Drake said.
"How, Dad?!" Alex asked, exasperated. "How will it be all right? If we let go and have another child? We won't do that!"
"I never said that," Drake said. "I meant to say, I have a great trust in you two, and if there is anyone that can get through this, it's you two."
"What are you getting at?" Alex asked.
"I'm suggesting you and Jen could study this case for a while, and then try to solve it, try to figure out where your children are," Drake said slowly.
"We can't," Jen said. "Time Force files are classified to civilians."
"Precisely," Alex said, looking into his father's eyes. "He wants us back in the Force," he said.
"What?" Jen asked, surprised. "No way, we would never go back to the Force!"
"You don't understand," Drake began.
"The Force hasn't been the same since you guys quit!" Katie interrupted him.
"It's been a mess, failure after failure, the Power Rangers aren't half as good without you," Drake said. Then he threw a side glance to the other Rangers and said: "No offense meant."
"None taken, it's true," Lucas said, looking at the young couple. Jen shook her head and got to her feet.
"No," she said. "I'm not letting you use this to get us back," she yelled. "I'm going to take a shower, I'm still covered in my own milk, and I'm sticky." She looked at Alex, her eyes reddened and her face desperate. "Besides, it's too early for me to deal with this, I need to rest, I can't deal with this now," she said and left towards the bedroom.
Alex got to his feet and looked at the officers. "You can look around as much as you want, search for clues or anything you want." He looked at his father, his face a mask of stone. "But don't you ever dare to bring this up again." He followed Jen towards the bedroom.
********************************
Jen was standing in the middle of the room, her eyes closed, when Alex walked in. She opened her eyes, and turned to him as she ran her hand through her hair. "Did you find any thoughts that might give us clues?" he asked.
"Nothing interesting. Lots of thoughts about us and other stupid unimportant things. They know how to lock what's truly important out of their minds," she answered, sounding hopeless.
He approached her and hugged her tightly, needing the feeling of her body against his. "It'll be okay," he said, not truly believing it. "We'll get them back."
"Are you willing to go through those tasks they talk about in the note?" she asked.
"All the way," he answered. "Let's go and take that shower now, we'll think better when we are clean and fed," he predicted. She nodded and they both entered the bathroom.
He opened the shower, letting the water warm a bit, while they undressed. Jen winced when she released her breasts from her bra. They were big and looked full, Alex knew it hurt her to see and feel them like that. He took off his own clothes and stepped in the shower stall, closely followed by his wife, who seemed completely out of it. Her gaze was lost and her face was saddened. He took her in his arms and they held each other silently under the warm water, both lost in their thoughts and their misery.
'Everything.' Alex thought. 'We gave up everything, except each other, for those children, and still some people we don't know have the nerve to doubt we are worthy of raising them. As if our love for them wasn't enough to lead us to the right path.'
'I wonder if they are feeding them, and changing them, you know?' Jen answered his thoughts with her own. They were sharing their thoughts as they were now used to. 'I wonder if they talk to them, or play them music. I wonder if they are massaging them and caressing them. Why would this brotherhood, whoever they are, think they are better fit to take care of Adam and Andrew than us?'
'I don't know', he thought and sighed.
They broke apart and began cleaning themselves. Out on their bedroom, a furtive and silent hand left them another message.
*************************************
Katie and Trip cooked some breakfast for the young parents while they were taking their shower. Lucas, Mr. Drake and Logan were sitting on the kitchen table, savoring some coffee.
"I wonder who's behind this," Trip said as he prepared the eggs.
"Me too, it's really unfair for them," Katie said. "They are cut out to be good parents."
Even in their conversation they were all startled by the sound of the bedroom door slamming open. "GUYS!!" they heard Jen call as she ran towards the kitchen.
"What is it?" they asked immediately.
"Another letter," she said excitedly. "We have to be somewhere at some point," she said, showing them the letter.
It said:
Where goodbyes are said
Where the loves are awaited
It's where you will say goodbye
And wait.
In that place that's been soaked
In the waters of the Lethe.
The eternal kiss
The eternal dance
The immense beauty and
The imposing mystery
Will be your hosts
During your wait for the Son of Nyx
Be there when the child of Hyperion and Theia
Returns to the Islands of the Blessed
Bring with you what you feel you'll need
We will respect your wishes
But be warned, the Styx will keep you
From breaking the pact you've sealed with an oath
And like Cerberus once did to the living
We will eliminate the ones that don't belong.
"Not very good with rhymes, are they?" Logan commented.
"It doesn't matter," Alex said. "This is what we were waiting for, the directions to start our journey to get our children back."
"It would be a lot more useful if it was written in English though," Katie said bitterly.
"I understand this quite a bit," Alex said simply. "I just need to check some things on the computer," he said and left the room.
Jen and the others stayed in the kitchen with the note, trying to decipher what it said. "I also understand a bit," Trip said. "You can take with you whatever you want, and you have to go alone, or your companions will be killed."
"I understand this," Jen said. "Alex and I have been reading lots of Greek mythology lately, we found it incredibly interesting, and this isn't very encouraging," she said sadly.
Alex returned to the room. "Okay, I got it now," he said. "Do you, Jen?"
"Well, I think we have to be at this place, wherever it is, by dusk," she said. "Be there when the child of Hyperion and Theia returns to the Islands of the Blessed," she read again. "The children of Hyperion and Theia are Eos and Helios, Eos is the goddess of dawn, and she announced the arrival of her brother, Helios."
"How do you know they are not referring to dawn?" Katie interrupted.
"The next verse," Jen said simply. "Helios was the sun, and he traveled around the world in his golden chariot, every night, at dusk, when Nyx took over, he returned to the Islands of the Blessed until the next day."
"So you have to be in this place at dusk, but where?"
"The old harbor," Alex said matter-of-factly.
"How do you know that?" Jen asked, amazed.
"Where goodbyes are said; where the loves are awaited; it's where you will say goodbye and wait. In that place that's been soaked in the waters of the Lethe. The eternal kiss, the eternal dance, the immense beauty and the imposing mystery will be your hosts during your wait for the Son of Nyx," Alex read.
"Very poetic way to describe a harbor, the whole goodbye and awaited loves thing. The eternal kiss and dance is a metaphor for the waves and the sand, and the beauty and mystery are references to the sea, all of them truly unnecessary, if you ask me. Often romantic poems include women waiting by the sea for their loves until they turn into statues or stuff like the waves kissing the sand. That's where we have to be, in a harbor. Which harbor? The one that's been soaked in the waters of the Lethe. The Lethe is the river of forgetfulness, and it goes through the underworld, so it has to be a harbor that's often forgotten, an old one that nobody uses anymore," Alex explained.
"The next line is the one I don't like," he warned.
"Waiting for the son of Nyx," Jen said. "I don't like it either."
"Why not?" Logan asked.
"Because the children of Nyx are Hypnos, Thanatos, and Moros, who are 'sleep', 'death' and 'doom' respectively," Alex answered. "That's what I was checking."
"So," Katie began. "Will you be waiting for sleep, death or doom?"
"Sleep," Jen said. "They mention we have to await the son of Nyx in a place soaked by the Lethe. The Lethe's sound was the only sound heard in the deep valley where Hypnos lived."
"Thanatos lived with him," Alex reminded her.
"But we were supposedly chosen to go through some tasks, they can't kill us so early," Jen argued. "I think we'll be put to sleep and taken to wherever we have to go to pass these tasks."
"I think you're right," he agreed after a minute of consideration. "We better start packing, we don't have much time."
"Have your breakfast," Drake said. "I'll get you anything you might need," he offered.
"For now all I can think of is a large and complete first aid kit, with lots of bandages, weapons, some basic tools and one of those foldable laptops, with all the information you can find on Heracles, or Hercules, and his labors, Greek mythology and anything that relates to that, in other mythologies, renaissance, numerology, Byzantine stuff, zodiac, etc," he instructed. He turned to Jen. "Anything you want to add?"
"Hygiene stuff, please. Razor, clean underwear, a change of clothes, and of course portable toilets, please," she demanded, blushing slightly. "Also blankets and pillows, oxygen tanks." She said the last suddenly.
"Oxygen tanks?" Alex asked.
She nodded. "Yes, scuba diving stuff in general," she said, and turning to him she added, "We need equipment to do everything we can't do by ourselves, like scuba diving or climbing."
"True," he agreed. "Don't forget lamps and lanterns."
"And FOOD!" Katie added, amazed at their total disregard for the basic necessities. "Food and water, and supplements."
"I'll get all of that and put it in your dimensional pockets," Drake said. They both opened their mouths. "Yes, you are getting an officer glove each," he said, stopping them in their tracks. "I'll add anything else I can think of, so eat well, put on comfortable clothes, remember to protect yourselves against the cold," he reminded them. "And good luck."
"We'll see you again before we leave," Alex promised, getting up. His father hugged him.
"Be careful, son, and I don't mean just for her, take care of yourself," he pleaded.
"I will," Alex promised.
Jen stood up and was hugged by her father-in-law too. "Take care, Jen. Try to get through this alive," he recommended.
"We'll do more than try, Mr. Drake," Jen promised with tears in her eyes. She turned to see her friends looking back at her, their faces sad and worried. "We'll see ourselves through this, guys," she promised. "We'll come back with our children."
"We know, Jen," Katie said. "We know you can go through this, but we are still scared," she admitted.
"Don't worry, guys," Alex said. "I'll give my life for her if I have to." Jen shook her head and put her fingers on his lips.
"Nobody is giving his or her life for anybody," she chided. "Besides, I wouldn't want to live without you." He smiled at her and she returned the smile, but their eyes were filled with fear and sadness. And even through that, shone determination.
**********************************
The last hugs were given a few meters away from the harbor, only ten minutes before dusk. Jen and Alex were wearing comfortable and warm clothes, and their officer gloves were packed with all kinds of stuff. They held hands as they walked towards the harbor building and went inside. They didn't know if they had to wait there or on the dock, so they stood by the door that led there, but still inside of the building.
Alex wrapped his arms around her shoulders lovingly and she held his wrists where they hung by her neck with her own shaky hands. They stood there, staring towards the skies, which began turning grey and then bluish purple, as Helios returned to the Islands of the Blessed. In what seemed no time at all, Nyx -the night- took over the skies, but the Drakes didn't see it. Hypnos got to them first, silently, fast and mercilessly.
To be continued.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 2: Letters.
The brotherhood of Heracles,
Protectors of the Zodiac,
Has taken your children to their Paradise on Earth
For they have been chosen to become part of our ancient brotherhood.
If you pass our tasks and prove yourselves worthy of raising them,
You will be given your children back.
If not, you will lose your children forever
You'll be contacted again.
Alex and Jen read the note over and over, trying to find a clue. However, they could only wait until they were contacted again.
The door bell rang and Alex left Jen's side to get it. Captain Logan, high Commandant Drake (Alex's father), Katie, Lucas and Trip entered the house when he stepped to the side of the open door. Katie ran to Jen, and hugged her, trying to offer her comfort and support. Jen began sobbing on her friends shoulder again.
"Jen," Katie whispered, caressing her hair.
"My babies," she sobbed. "They were supposed to be safe now!" she complained.
"What happened?" Logan asked.
"We woke up late, which we never do, and the babies were gone." Alex gave him the note and the envelope. "This was on the crib," he said.
Logan looked silently at the note and read it. His face seemed somber. "Do you remember anything else? Anything out of the ordinary?"
"A sweet smell," Jen said softly. "A smell like flowers, very sweet, last night before we fell asleep."
"A drug probably," Drake said. "To put you both to sleep deeply while they took the children."
"That's what we thought. Last night I was drowsy suddenly, and I blamed it on my tiredness, and I blamed the smell on Alex's soap," Jen explained.
"And I blamed it on her shampoo, we really didn't think there was nothing to worry about," Alex added.
"This may sound a bit cold and cruel," Logan began, looking at the young parents. "But the best thing you can do is prepare funeral services for your twins and have another child," he said bluntly.
Katie had to hold Jen back, as she jumped towards the man with an angry yell. "HAVE ANOTHER CHILD?!" she yelled in disbelief. "Do you know how hard it was for us to have these babies? Do you know how much we love them?" she asked; anger leaking out of her through her voice, her eyes and her clenched fists.
"Do you know how many pairs of dead bodies we have found of parents that received this letter after their children were kidnapped?" Logan asked back.
"But why our children?" Alex asked suddenly, his voice surprisingly broken. "Why us? There's nothing special about us anymore!" He ran his hands through his hair, which was considerably longer, but well cared for.
Jen broke free from Katie and sat next to her husband. She held his hand and they pressed their foreheads together, as if combining their minds, trying to find a reason, a light in this mess.
"It was never clear why they took any of the children," Logan said. "But the children were never seen again."
Drake sat next to his son and put a hand on his shoulder affectionately. Alex and his father had grown closer during the trial of Alex's mother. It had been a hard time, but Alex and Jen had quickly blown the dark clouds away through their babies. And now, this.
"Alex, it will be all right," Drake said.
"How, Dad?!" Alex asked, exasperated. "How will it be all right? If we let go and have another child? We won't do that!"
"I never said that," Drake said. "I meant to say, I have a great trust in you two, and if there is anyone that can get through this, it's you two."
"What are you getting at?" Alex asked.
"I'm suggesting you and Jen could study this case for a while, and then try to solve it, try to figure out where your children are," Drake said slowly.
"We can't," Jen said. "Time Force files are classified to civilians."
"Precisely," Alex said, looking into his father's eyes. "He wants us back in the Force," he said.
"What?" Jen asked, surprised. "No way, we would never go back to the Force!"
"You don't understand," Drake began.
"The Force hasn't been the same since you guys quit!" Katie interrupted him.
"It's been a mess, failure after failure, the Power Rangers aren't half as good without you," Drake said. Then he threw a side glance to the other Rangers and said: "No offense meant."
"None taken, it's true," Lucas said, looking at the young couple. Jen shook her head and got to her feet.
"No," she said. "I'm not letting you use this to get us back," she yelled. "I'm going to take a shower, I'm still covered in my own milk, and I'm sticky." She looked at Alex, her eyes reddened and her face desperate. "Besides, it's too early for me to deal with this, I need to rest, I can't deal with this now," she said and left towards the bedroom.
Alex got to his feet and looked at the officers. "You can look around as much as you want, search for clues or anything you want." He looked at his father, his face a mask of stone. "But don't you ever dare to bring this up again." He followed Jen towards the bedroom.
********************************
Jen was standing in the middle of the room, her eyes closed, when Alex walked in. She opened her eyes, and turned to him as she ran her hand through her hair. "Did you find any thoughts that might give us clues?" he asked.
"Nothing interesting. Lots of thoughts about us and other stupid unimportant things. They know how to lock what's truly important out of their minds," she answered, sounding hopeless.
He approached her and hugged her tightly, needing the feeling of her body against his. "It'll be okay," he said, not truly believing it. "We'll get them back."
"Are you willing to go through those tasks they talk about in the note?" she asked.
"All the way," he answered. "Let's go and take that shower now, we'll think better when we are clean and fed," he predicted. She nodded and they both entered the bathroom.
He opened the shower, letting the water warm a bit, while they undressed. Jen winced when she released her breasts from her bra. They were big and looked full, Alex knew it hurt her to see and feel them like that. He took off his own clothes and stepped in the shower stall, closely followed by his wife, who seemed completely out of it. Her gaze was lost and her face was saddened. He took her in his arms and they held each other silently under the warm water, both lost in their thoughts and their misery.
'Everything.' Alex thought. 'We gave up everything, except each other, for those children, and still some people we don't know have the nerve to doubt we are worthy of raising them. As if our love for them wasn't enough to lead us to the right path.'
'I wonder if they are feeding them, and changing them, you know?' Jen answered his thoughts with her own. They were sharing their thoughts as they were now used to. 'I wonder if they talk to them, or play them music. I wonder if they are massaging them and caressing them. Why would this brotherhood, whoever they are, think they are better fit to take care of Adam and Andrew than us?'
'I don't know', he thought and sighed.
They broke apart and began cleaning themselves. Out on their bedroom, a furtive and silent hand left them another message.
*************************************
Katie and Trip cooked some breakfast for the young parents while they were taking their shower. Lucas, Mr. Drake and Logan were sitting on the kitchen table, savoring some coffee.
"I wonder who's behind this," Trip said as he prepared the eggs.
"Me too, it's really unfair for them," Katie said. "They are cut out to be good parents."
Even in their conversation they were all startled by the sound of the bedroom door slamming open. "GUYS!!" they heard Jen call as she ran towards the kitchen.
"What is it?" they asked immediately.
"Another letter," she said excitedly. "We have to be somewhere at some point," she said, showing them the letter.
It said:
Where goodbyes are said
Where the loves are awaited
It's where you will say goodbye
And wait.
In that place that's been soaked
In the waters of the Lethe.
The eternal kiss
The eternal dance
The immense beauty and
The imposing mystery
Will be your hosts
During your wait for the Son of Nyx
Be there when the child of Hyperion and Theia
Returns to the Islands of the Blessed
Bring with you what you feel you'll need
We will respect your wishes
But be warned, the Styx will keep you
From breaking the pact you've sealed with an oath
And like Cerberus once did to the living
We will eliminate the ones that don't belong.
"Not very good with rhymes, are they?" Logan commented.
"It doesn't matter," Alex said. "This is what we were waiting for, the directions to start our journey to get our children back."
"It would be a lot more useful if it was written in English though," Katie said bitterly.
"I understand this quite a bit," Alex said simply. "I just need to check some things on the computer," he said and left the room.
Jen and the others stayed in the kitchen with the note, trying to decipher what it said. "I also understand a bit," Trip said. "You can take with you whatever you want, and you have to go alone, or your companions will be killed."
"I understand this," Jen said. "Alex and I have been reading lots of Greek mythology lately, we found it incredibly interesting, and this isn't very encouraging," she said sadly.
Alex returned to the room. "Okay, I got it now," he said. "Do you, Jen?"
"Well, I think we have to be at this place, wherever it is, by dusk," she said. "Be there when the child of Hyperion and Theia returns to the Islands of the Blessed," she read again. "The children of Hyperion and Theia are Eos and Helios, Eos is the goddess of dawn, and she announced the arrival of her brother, Helios."
"How do you know they are not referring to dawn?" Katie interrupted.
"The next verse," Jen said simply. "Helios was the sun, and he traveled around the world in his golden chariot, every night, at dusk, when Nyx took over, he returned to the Islands of the Blessed until the next day."
"So you have to be in this place at dusk, but where?"
"The old harbor," Alex said matter-of-factly.
"How do you know that?" Jen asked, amazed.
"Where goodbyes are said; where the loves are awaited; it's where you will say goodbye and wait. In that place that's been soaked in the waters of the Lethe. The eternal kiss, the eternal dance, the immense beauty and the imposing mystery will be your hosts during your wait for the Son of Nyx," Alex read.
"Very poetic way to describe a harbor, the whole goodbye and awaited loves thing. The eternal kiss and dance is a metaphor for the waves and the sand, and the beauty and mystery are references to the sea, all of them truly unnecessary, if you ask me. Often romantic poems include women waiting by the sea for their loves until they turn into statues or stuff like the waves kissing the sand. That's where we have to be, in a harbor. Which harbor? The one that's been soaked in the waters of the Lethe. The Lethe is the river of forgetfulness, and it goes through the underworld, so it has to be a harbor that's often forgotten, an old one that nobody uses anymore," Alex explained.
"The next line is the one I don't like," he warned.
"Waiting for the son of Nyx," Jen said. "I don't like it either."
"Why not?" Logan asked.
"Because the children of Nyx are Hypnos, Thanatos, and Moros, who are 'sleep', 'death' and 'doom' respectively," Alex answered. "That's what I was checking."
"So," Katie began. "Will you be waiting for sleep, death or doom?"
"Sleep," Jen said. "They mention we have to await the son of Nyx in a place soaked by the Lethe. The Lethe's sound was the only sound heard in the deep valley where Hypnos lived."
"Thanatos lived with him," Alex reminded her.
"But we were supposedly chosen to go through some tasks, they can't kill us so early," Jen argued. "I think we'll be put to sleep and taken to wherever we have to go to pass these tasks."
"I think you're right," he agreed after a minute of consideration. "We better start packing, we don't have much time."
"Have your breakfast," Drake said. "I'll get you anything you might need," he offered.
"For now all I can think of is a large and complete first aid kit, with lots of bandages, weapons, some basic tools and one of those foldable laptops, with all the information you can find on Heracles, or Hercules, and his labors, Greek mythology and anything that relates to that, in other mythologies, renaissance, numerology, Byzantine stuff, zodiac, etc," he instructed. He turned to Jen. "Anything you want to add?"
"Hygiene stuff, please. Razor, clean underwear, a change of clothes, and of course portable toilets, please," she demanded, blushing slightly. "Also blankets and pillows, oxygen tanks." She said the last suddenly.
"Oxygen tanks?" Alex asked.
She nodded. "Yes, scuba diving stuff in general," she said, and turning to him she added, "We need equipment to do everything we can't do by ourselves, like scuba diving or climbing."
"True," he agreed. "Don't forget lamps and lanterns."
"And FOOD!" Katie added, amazed at their total disregard for the basic necessities. "Food and water, and supplements."
"I'll get all of that and put it in your dimensional pockets," Drake said. They both opened their mouths. "Yes, you are getting an officer glove each," he said, stopping them in their tracks. "I'll add anything else I can think of, so eat well, put on comfortable clothes, remember to protect yourselves against the cold," he reminded them. "And good luck."
"We'll see you again before we leave," Alex promised, getting up. His father hugged him.
"Be careful, son, and I don't mean just for her, take care of yourself," he pleaded.
"I will," Alex promised.
Jen stood up and was hugged by her father-in-law too. "Take care, Jen. Try to get through this alive," he recommended.
"We'll do more than try, Mr. Drake," Jen promised with tears in her eyes. She turned to see her friends looking back at her, their faces sad and worried. "We'll see ourselves through this, guys," she promised. "We'll come back with our children."
"We know, Jen," Katie said. "We know you can go through this, but we are still scared," she admitted.
"Don't worry, guys," Alex said. "I'll give my life for her if I have to." Jen shook her head and put her fingers on his lips.
"Nobody is giving his or her life for anybody," she chided. "Besides, I wouldn't want to live without you." He smiled at her and she returned the smile, but their eyes were filled with fear and sadness. And even through that, shone determination.
**********************************
The last hugs were given a few meters away from the harbor, only ten minutes before dusk. Jen and Alex were wearing comfortable and warm clothes, and their officer gloves were packed with all kinds of stuff. They held hands as they walked towards the harbor building and went inside. They didn't know if they had to wait there or on the dock, so they stood by the door that led there, but still inside of the building.
Alex wrapped his arms around her shoulders lovingly and she held his wrists where they hung by her neck with her own shaky hands. They stood there, staring towards the skies, which began turning grey and then bluish purple, as Helios returned to the Islands of the Blessed. In what seemed no time at all, Nyx -the night- took over the skies, but the Drakes didn't see it. Hypnos got to them first, silently, fast and mercilessly.
To be continued.
