AN: Hey guys, thanks again for the reviews and ideas! This chapter was written primarily for all you John/Sarah fans out there :)
CHAPTER SEVEN
Love.
A Lorien can only love once, and it lasts forever. One match, one companion, for eternity. Once their partner is found, they share with them a bond that cannot be broken, one that goes far deeper then an emotional and physical connection. It cannot be explained in words, it can only be experienced. They become devoted to one another over anybody or anything else. The greatest love a human can feel pales in comparison to the Lorien Bond. It is without an end.
These were just a few statements Henri had told me about the way my species loves. He had been trying to describe to me why I found the thought of leaving Sarah behind so impossible to fathom. His words were powerful, sure, and they helped me in a small way to understand what was happening to me. But they came no where close to explaining why at night as I try to sleep, all I see in is Sarah's almond shaped eyes looking up at me through her long dark eyelashes, smiling despite her lips not moving an inch. Why, when I wake up every single morning, I have this insatiable need to see her, to talk to her.
And why, as I walk side by side with her out the back of the small motel I'm staying at, my skin is buzzing like electricity and I can't seem to tear my eyes away from her face. She is my match, my partner, my equal. I can't live in a world where Sarah Hart doesn't exist. "I can't believe you're actually here," she says to me.
"The feeling is mutual, believe me. I've wanted to come see you the moment I left, Sarah, it's been absolute hell being apart. You know, I've been all over the world, seen some of the most amazing places earth has to offer, but none of them compare to Paradise, Ohio."
"Well," she tilts her head up at me for a moment, "a wise man once told me that a place is only as good as the people in it." I smile down at her, taking her hand in mine, our fingers linked with each other. "Where have you been?" she asks me, her eyes facing forward.
"Europe, mostly," I reply. "We went there as soon as we left Ohio. You know that tracking stone we used…" Sarah nods, and I continue on, "it gave us the location of the remaining members of my kind. We tracked Number 5 all over the place, before he finally settled in London. It still took us a few months to find him though."
"But you did?" She tilts her head up to me in question.
"Six did. I met him for about a minute, then I came here." I pull her close. "And I don't plan on going back anytime soon."
She spots the old swing set, angling her walk towards it. "You know, before you turned up tonight, Mark was saying how I had created this image in my head about you being the perfect man, and how you could end up nothing like the guy I fell in love with." She sits down on one of the swings, rocking it back and forth slightly with her toe. "He was wrong."
I sit down on the other swing beside her, my hands holding the chain links. "I'm not perfect, Sarah. Not even close."
"You're perfect for me," she replies without missing a beat. "I know you make mistakes, and sometimes you might say or do the wrong thing, but it doesn't make you any less of an amazing person. You give so much of yourself, John, and nobody knows about it. You're fighting to end a war that hasn't started yet, and I love you for that." She drops her eyes. "You're such an incredible guy, I get scared that you'll end up finding someone else who is as remarkable as you and forget all about me."
"Sarah," I turn her face to mine with a finger on her chin. "There is nobody in this entire world or the next that can replace you. I wonder everyday if maybe you'll wake up one morning and realize that I'm not good enough for you, and you decide to leave and find someone else. You're smart and undeniably beautiful and there are literally hundreds of guys that would kill to be your boyfriend. I thank everyday that you chose me. So you never ever have to worry about me finding someone else, because there is no one else to find. You're it for me. You're the girl I want to be with for the rest of my life." I've wanted to say that to her from the beginning, and it comes out in a rush of words.
She smiles at me, her eyes sparkling brightly. "You're the guy I want to be with for the rest of my life."
We sit on the swings in relative silence. Her eyes are facing forwards over the horizon, and mine are locked to her face, drinking in every inch of her as I can. I know as I look at her now that I'm never ever going to take a moment I spend with her for granted. She turns to me, and smiles, her eyes tilting up at the sides beneath her long lashes. "What?" she asks me.
In answer, I reach over, running my finger along her hairline, capturing her hair and tucking it behind her ear softly. Her eyes close as my hand moves, opening again as I say, "I've dreamed about doing that every night for an entire year, Sarah."
She leans in close when I finish talking, and my heart starts pounding in my ears in anticipation. I meet her halfway, our lips touching tentatively like both us had never kissed before. It's a delicate kiss, and far too brief for my liking. Our lips part slightly, and she's breathing deeply, looking at me with wide eyes.
"What?" I smile at her, our foreheads pressed together.
She frowns at me, shaking her head as her eyes look downward at my mouth. "You have no idea what you do to me, John."
I take her head in my hands, kissing her again. There's nothing delicate or hesitant about this kiss, our lips are moving rough and quick against each other. I'm tugging at the bottom of her shirt, pulling her closer and her hands are running all over my back, and up into my hair. It feels so good, but I have to pull away. Sarah moans at our distance, moving towards me again. I duck out of her embrace, giving her a sheepish little smile. "Uh, we should maybe…"
Sarah looks around, she'd almost forgotten where we were. The back lawn of a motel wasn't really an appropriate place to share kisses like the ones we had just been sharing. She turns back to face me, her cheeks a burning red. "Maybe we should go inside."
Montreal, Canada
A day has past since Damien broke the news to Sam about his father, but he still walks around with a beaming smile on his face. Six notices, and it makes her happy for him. She had her doubts about his dad, and she had truthfully thought that maybe Malcolm had abandoned his son. But she'd always been a bit 'glass-half-empty' and she was glad that she'd been proved wrong in this instance. Today was the first day that Damien was going to train Six and Five how to combine their legacies. She was intrigued at the thought, after all, anything that took the Mogadorians down brought a smile to her face.
"Hey Six, come check this out," Sam calls to her from his spot in front of his laptop. As she does, she realizes the camera sitting on top is switched on, and as she walks into frame, Sam snaps a photo of them. "What the hell are you…" she pauses when she sees it. Their faces are distorted and pulled, and she starts laughing despite herself. "You look like a fish."
"And you look like a giraffe. It's the perfect match, don't you think?" he tilts his head up to look at her.
"You're crazy, Sam. Has anyone ever told you that?"
"I tell myself that all the time," he replies easily.
"Six, come on."
Sam turns to Number Five as he walks in, feeling that tiny bit more insecure, especially when he sees Six's eyes light up at Ben. Five walks into the lounge, motioning her over. "Damien has summoned us," he made quotation marks with his fingers. "Ready to get your ass beaten?" he smiles. Six rolls her eyes, gives Sam's shoulder a small squeeze and then leaves the room with the other Lorien.
Sam watches in silence as the two aliens head out the back door. He wants to follow, to watch, but he doesn't move. No matter how close he is to John and Six, they're still aliens, and he's a human. There are things that he doesn't understand about them, no matter how much he wants to know. He thinks about his dad again. Despite Damien not knowing about the second ship, Sam isn't going to give up hope that his father is alive until the end. If there were even a chance at getting his dad back, he would take it, no question. This wasn't just a Lorien/Mogadorian war anymore. Like Father, like Son. The Mogs were going down, and Sam wouldn't be watching from the sidelines either.
Outside the cabin, in the bitter cold, Six and Ben stand side-by-side as Damien wanders about, setting up blocks of wood as targets and obstacles. It reminds Six of her own training days with her Cepan. Katerina had pushed her pretty hard from early on, but Six didn't regret it at all. If it wasn't for her Cepan's strict training, Six would be dead, no question about it.
"So, what do you think about the whole 'Lorien match-making thing' we're supposed to be doing?" Ben asks, nudging her shoulder with his.
"I don't think about it," Six replies without looking at him.
"Right." The two stand there in silence for a long while, eyes ahead, before Six sighs, facing the guy next to her. "I'm not going to let someone else dictate how I should live out my life, or who I should live out my life with. Our grandparents and parents may have wanted us to match up with one another and have little alien babies, but I'm not going to let that govern who I end up with. And that's if I end up with anyone at all."
"Oh, you'll end up with someone, trust me."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Ben shrugs at her, giving Six a smile that makes her cheeks go warm. "You're confident in almost every way. I'm not going to believe you if you tell me you don't think you're beautiful. You know you are, Six."
"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"
Ben scratches the back of his head. "It was supposed to be, but it kind of came out as an insult, didn't it?"
"A little bit."
"Sorry. Let me rephrase my sentence. You're an extraordinarily beautiful girl, and a guy would be absolutely crazy not to be into you. How's that?"
Six doesn't reply at first, but she's blushing and she hates it. "I'm not interested," she tells him after a while. "I don't care if we're predestined to be together or not." She walks forward, leaving Ben behind her. Okay, so when he smiled at her, she blushed, it didn't mean anything. And sure, she might be possibly, maybe, mildly attracted to him, but it was only because he was unfairly good-looking in those jeans and black tee shirt.
"Alright. Basically, I set these first blocks up to test what you can already do," Damien walks towards the two and points out three wooden planks stabbed into the ground. "Once I know what you're capable of, I can assess how to combine your legacies together in the most effective ways. So, Six, do you're worst."
Six, glad for the distraction, held out her hand to the first plank. A few seconds later, the wood burst into hot orange flames, with the smoke burning high into the sky. She kept the pressure on until the wood was completely gone. She moved her hand to the next one, taking a breath in to focus, just as Katerina taught her. The wooden plank shattered in half with a crack as her telekinesis snapped it to pieces. For the last, she starts sprinting towards the remaining block, disappearing with ease in mid run. She leaps from the ground, her footprints disappearing from the snow. Six takes hold of the wood, and runs up one of the huge heavy pine trees without breaking her stride. She loves this, the wind rushing in her hair, roaring in her ears as she moves, invisible to everyone. No one can touch her.
She balances her way along one of the branches to the end, looking down at Damien and Ben. They are searching around for her, their eyes fixed in completely the wrong place. With a smile, she hurls the wood down so that it lands in front of the Cepan's feet, showering him with snow. Six appears to them, standing up on the high branch with her hands on her hips. So she's a show-off, sue her. She knows she's got awesome legacies, why not flaunt them? Damien looks up at her, smiling. "Very impressive, Six."
"You haven't seen the half of it yet," she flips from the tree, landing on her feet back on the ground easily and strolling back towards the two.
"You tire easy?" he asks her.
"No. The invisibility drains my energy the most out of all my legacies, but I can handle a lot before I wear out. In battle, I'm never constantly hidden, I just use it to gain a vantage point."
"And the elemental manipulation?"
"I barely use it in battle, unless I have to take out a lot of soldiers at once. It takes a lot more concentration then my other legacies," she gives the Cepan a shrug. "Most of the time, a dagger and a pistol are enough for me."
Damien nods his head. "Ben, you're turn."
Ben smiles at Six, holding up his own hand to the wooden planks before him, before saying, "you have no idea how hot what you just did was."
Six turns to watch the targets. "You have no idea how little that means to me," she replies back in a teasing voice, folding her arms. She watches the planks before her, and nothing happens for a long while. She looks from them to Ben, whose normally bright eyes are dark with concentration. Almost a minutes passes in complete silence, and still nothing. Just as Six opens her mouth to say something, all three wooden planks shatter into a million pieces with a loud bang, like a grenade had hit them. Snow and debris are flying everywhere, and as the mist cleared, Six saw there were just deep black holes in the snow were the wood had been. "How the hell did you…?" she begins, not bothering to hide her amazement from him.
Ben lowers his hand slowly, exhaling a long breath. "I can channel my telekinesis into kinetic energy, focus it on certain things."
"In short, Ben can turn any object into a live bomb, in a way. It's a dangerous legacy if you don't use it correctly. You're getting better, Five." Damien puts a hand on his shoulder. "Let's keep practicing. We've got an hour or so of good daylight left, we might as well make use of it."
"How are we supposed to combine our powers?" Six asks.
"I know that both of you have seen your share of Mogadorians and their weapons and pets, but in all honesty, they have got masses of additional weapons and tricks up their sleeves. The biggest asset you two have is Six's invisibility, it truly is such a rare legacy, and Ben, your strength will be able to knock out some of their strongest defense and offensive weapons, but getting to them is a problem… unless," he points to Six, "you hitch a ride along with her. If you can hide from the Mogadorians long enough, you can waltz right up to them and punch a hole straight through their defenses. Another important thing to know about Mogadorians is that they're very militarized. They've got ranks, just like the human armies do. Scouts report to soldiers, soldiers to Commando's, Commando's to Generals, and so on and so forth. In every group, there is a leader, the Mogadorian who shouts the orders. If you locate this Mog, and take him out, picking off the others will be a walk in the park."
Six crosses her arms. "How can we find the leader? They all like the same ugly creatures to me."
"He's generally armed heavier then the other Mogadorians, but there's no hard or fast rule."
"Sounds promising," Ben grins.
"Now, if you do manage to spot the leader, you want to take him down fast and hard, do not give him a chance to get away," he motions Six closer. "Are you comfortable with flying through the air at an incredibly fast rate with a high chance of injury?"
"Please, I live for it," she smiles.
"Good. You have to let Ben pick you up."
"Wait, what?" Six shoots a look at a smirking Ben.
"You heard him, beautiful. Come on over," he holds his arms wide.
"Alright, say that shrub over there is the commando," Damien points to a bush a good 30 meters from where they're standing. "You want to get to him, take him out, but there's 6 soldiers standing in your way. You wanna know how to get passed them?"
"Kill them all?" Six asks.
"Or, you go invisible, and let Ben throw you straight at him. The commando won't even know what's hit him. One moment, he'll be alive, the next he'll be dead. You stay invisible, you can basically fly a dagger straight through that bastard's chest without him even knowing he's dead. Now, trail run. Make sure you roll out of the move, it couldn't snap your neck if you land incorrectly. But I've seen what you can do, and I guarantee you can do this."
Six walks over to Ben, giving him a stare. "You get grabby, and you're dead."
"Yes ma'am," he picks her up by the waist, his strong hands keeping her stable in the air. "You ready to fly?"
"I'm ready to get out of your arms," she says back.
"Alrighty…" Ben spins once, releasing Six like a rugby player passes a ball. Six goes hurtling through the air, and she disappears from sight. The shrub is coming at her so fast, and she barely has time to think. Roll out of the move, right. She folds herself forward, hitting the ground in a roll. It still feels like she's landed on concrete. She turns visible, spinning onto her feet. The velocity of her movement has her trip, landing with a crunch onto the shrub. For a moment, all she can do is lie there. "Owe…" she mumbles, lying flat on her back in the bush and snow.
"Whoo hoo!" Six lifts a head to see Ben jumping on the spot. "Six, that was awesome! I have a newfound respect for you. And that bail could have totally won America's Funniest Home Videos!" Damien slaps Ben upside his head.
"You alright, Six?"
She gets to her feet, walking back towards them. "Let's do it again," she says.
"Really?" the two guys raise their eyebrows.
"It's a decent move… I just need to stick the landing." She walks over to Ben, jumping lithely into his arms. "Ready?"
"Always…" he smiles at her.
Paradise, Ohio
I'm kind of freaking out.
Sarah and I both head inside after we leave the swing set, walking down the dimly lit hallway to my room. We are walking a foot apart from each other, and I feel almost guilty for some reason, like we were doing something wrong. When we reach my room, and I open the door gingerly, I realize my palms are sweating. I have no clue whether it's from excitement or fear, could be both, I guess. I had a pretty clear idea about what was going to happen between us inside, or what I wanted to happen. If I were right, this would be my first time, so I presume I'm just suffering from your usual bout of nervousness. I didn't know if Sarah was a virgin, she might have done it with Mark before. This wasn't exactly the most appropriate time to ask her.
Once we're inside the room, and the door is locked behind me, the tension between her and I springs up again like an elastic band being pulled to it's breaking point. I turn on my heel to look at her.
Sarah's is sitting on the edge of the double bed, taking in her surroundings leisurely. The golden light of the setting sun outside is streaming through the blinds right onto her, and she is so gorgeous it hurts. I walk over and sit beside her, angling so that the only thing touching between us is our knees. She looks at me, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips, and lifts her hand to my face. I feel her thumb run over the cut on my hairline that I'd gotten back in the fight in London. It stings a little bit, and I wince. She notices, biting her bottom lip and flinching as well. I watch as her eyes scan over my face for any other scars or cuts, her fingers moving over my skin. 'She making sure I'm alright,' I realize, and it makes me happy that she cares about me so much. I never thought a human could love me like she did.
Her thumb traces over my eyebrow, slides down my cheek and runs along my bottom lip, her eyes following it as it draws a path over my skin. The tension mounts, and my lungs feel heavy. I realize with a start that I'm breathing like I'd run marathon, and she's breathing much the same.
I think we both know we were about to step into unknown territory for a whole lot of people.
I lean in, resting my forehead against hers again, shutting my eyes and listening to her shaky breaths, in and out. Her hands run from my cheeks to the side of my neck and back again, giving me goosebumps, making me shiver in exhilaration. My body was clearly sensitive to her touch, and as I run a hand down her bare arm, I see goosebumps appear on her skin beneath my touch. It makes me smile.
She releases a breath, her lips a breath from mine, and whispers, "I'm on fire, John…" The back of her hand slides down my cheek as she rocks slightly back and forth, driving me crazy. It gets to the point that if I don't kiss her I feel like I'm going to explode, and if I do I probably will. She dips her head, pulling me into her embrace with her hands behind my neck. This kiss isn't anything like the others we have shared before. A year's worth of want and need and love comes rushing from me immediately, and I bend into her hungrily, my hands running down her sides, up her back, finally resting on her hips as I pull her closer still. She responds just as eagerly as me, and suddenly all the fear and anxiety that I had been feeling about us and this moment is gone. My love was in my arms. Sarah was here, finally, after an entire year of waiting and wishing and hoping. There was nothing keeping us apart now.
I'm desperate to feel her skin on mine, and I look down to see her hands already unbuttoning my shirt. She is not fast enough though, and I pause, tearing my shirt apart roughly. Buttons go flying but I could care less. I break off our kiss just long enough to pull her tee up over her head, tossing it over my shoulder. It lands in a heap in the corner. We join together again, both of us smiling against each other as we go falling back onto the motel bed with a squeak of springs. For a while, there is no sound but us kissing. I tear my lips from hers so I can taste her neck for the first time, bracing myself on either side of her on my arms. She's breathless, so am I as her hands tickle my bare back, driving me wild. I move my mouth to her collarbone, running my lips across to her smooth shoulder blade. She moans, I feel her nails dig into my skin. I lift up head from her shoulder, and she follows me up, claiming my mouth again. Things heat up, I'm about to explode, and then she drops away.
"John, stop."
For a moment, I can't hear her, I'm so caught up in the taste of her lips. She kisses me back once, twice, and then pulls away again. "John stop, we have to stop," she whispers again breathlessly. She puts a hand to my chest, pushing me up.
I lift my head immediately. "What is it, am I hurting you?" She shakes her head, but her eyes go distant, and she begins gasping, moving.
I panic, laying a hand on her cheek. "Sarah… Sarah!" She lies there, but it's like she's not even in the room with me anymore. I say her name again, tilting her face up by her chin. What the hell was going on?
10 heart stopping seconds later, her eyes came alive again, and she blinks a few times like she's adjusting to her surroundings. I roll off of her to the side, sitting up on my knees. "What happened?" I demand, running my hand over her cheek frantically. "Are you okay?"
Sarah's eyes were wide in amazement, and she smiles up at me. "John, I saw something."
"You saw something?" What the hell, I think. "What did you see?"
She props herself up on her elbows, her eyes fixed to mine. "I saw stars."
AN: I know I might get flamed for that last bit, buts what's the point of an alien/human relationship if you can't have a bit of fun with it. Let me know what you think : )