Chapter Twelve: Til Death Do We Part

For several minutes, all Alia could do was stand still and stare. She was back. And as she looked around the Makani Air Church and surrounding camp, it was if everything and nothing had changed.

There was the white church with red hibiscus flowers growing all around. There were the cabins and the cabin – the one in which she had spent her one and only night of married life. There was Rono's plane – still sitting on the runway, waiting for its owner to return. And there in the grass was a cross with flowers and other memorials at its foot.

Slowly, Alia moved toward that cross. Each step was painful. For each step brought back memories she wished she could forget. This place was not and could no longer be the sanctuary it once was.

Sinking to the ground, she reached out a hand to touch the rough wood. The outpouring of love for the priest affected her deeply. Father Jack was a good man. A good priest. He had taken a bullet for her. He had died for her. And he had barely even known her.

A man was dead because of her.

Father Jack wouldn't have married them without her promise that Rono had changed, without her convincing him that Rono had left his father. But Rono had; he had promised her that. Five-O had just never given him time to prove it. Except…

Expect would a changed man have shot a priest in cold blood?

Alia shook her head. She didn't like the direction her thoughts were headed. She had to believe that Rono had changed, had wanted to change, would have changed. If she didn't, then what did that make her? The wife of a monster?

"Someone who truly loves another person would be willing to take a bullet for that person."

Leon's words came back to her in a rush. She remembered those panicked moments after Koa had left the cabin when Rono had desperately tried to come up with a plan to get them safely away. She had been in shock. Hearing her husband admit that he killed Pam had hurt. But she had still loved him. So when he proposed that she play the human shield so they could escape in the plane, she hadn't said a word. She had been so willing to die to save her love that she had never even considered whether Rono would have done the same for her.

"I told a lot of girls that I loved them but there wasn't a single girl that I would have been willing to die for."

Father Jack, not Rono, had taken a bullet for her. Her father had almost suffered the same fate. Father Jack, who barely even knew her, had loved her. Loved her not because anything she had done, but because of what he was called to do: to love all of God's children.

Alia rose and began to step back. What was she doing? This wasn't helping. She had come back to find peace, but all she was finding was more grief. More regrets. More guilt.

She needed time. Space. A place to clear her head. As she looked around, the church beckoned, and with a slow uncertain stride, she stepped inside. The church was empty but the presence of something other lingered in the flickering of candlelight.

As she stood in that church, memories of the wedding came flooding back. Of her hands in Rono's, of the vows, the promises they had made to each other. To be with each other for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. Til death do we part…

How could have she had known that she was going to experience a lifetime of the highs and lows of marriage in one short day? Yet, as she twisted the ring on her finger, she knew that one thing was true. Her husband was dead; death had come, but they had not yet parted. Alia was still as much a part of Rono now as she was the day she had made that vow. Til death do we part…

Death had come, but they still hadn't parted.

Here she was, still trying to be faithful to her vows when Rono … Why was this so hard to admit? …when Rono had broken his long before he had died. He had broken them with his lies to her and to himself. He never wanted to change, just to make everyone believe that he had. And in the moment when he should have put his new wife's needs before his own, he had held a gun to her head and made her father believe that he would shoot.

God, he would have killed her if given the choice between his life and hers. Because every time he'd been offered that choice before he died, he had chosen to kill someone else to safe his own skin. How had she not seen that? How had she not listened to Pam's final words, her father's warnings, Father Jack's concerns?

Rono lied. He lied to everyone and anyone he met. And he had lied to her. The question was, how much of the man she knew was the real Rono and how much was the lie? Did it even matter?

Alia lifted her chin and began a slow and steady march toward the altar. The last time she had taken this trip, she had changed her life forever. She had become a married woman. This trip down the aisle would be no different. It was time for her life to change once again. Til death do we part. Well, death had come and it was time that they parted.

Removing the ring from her finger, Alia clasped it in her hand. Raising that hand to her lips, she kissed the back of her hand and then laid the ring down on the altar. "Goodbye, Rono."

Then, without another word, she turned and walked out of the church and back into her life.

Alia woke with a smile and shook the sand from her hair. She had just lain down on the beach to relax and set her worries aside for a few moments. But it wasn't long before the waves had lulled her into the most peaceful sleep she had had in a long time.

Sitting up, Alia glanced at the sun and figured it to be late afternoon. She had slept for several hours. She rose and stretched. She had a good hike ahead of her to reach the closest town. Once there, she would decide what to do next.

A flicker of movement caught her eye. Someone – a man, by the looks of it – was poking around Rono's plane.

Had they found her? No, that wasn't possible. She told no one where she was going. It must be a parishioner stopping by to pay his respects to Father Jack, now curious about the plane.

However, she would still be careful. She was quiet as she tiptoed closer. But when he saw the man's face, she couldn't help but smile. "Koa!" she called out in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

Koa turned as a second man stepped out from behind the closest cabin. "Looking for you."

Alia's heart sank as she met the gaze of Michael Ryder. She should have been shocked but she wasn't. She should have known. Koa had called him a friend. She should have expected her brother-in-law to betray her again. After all, he had turned in his own brother – a move that had kept him out of jail.

This was it. It seemed fitting that she die in the same place as her husband. It seemed that they hadn't parted after all. But she would remain calm. She was no longer the scared, desperate, easy girl that Michael thought she was. She had made peace with her life. If she was going to die, it was going to be with her head held high.

"So, Michael, what happens now?"