20

To Infinity & Beyond

They were sitting in the living room, playing cards. Speed. Somehow, Park remembered how to play. The memory must have been in his muscles somewhere, hidden in his fingertips just under the skin. Because even though Park felt younger and more alive than he ever had in the last twenty-six years, (and he really did. Seriously, it was as if the youthful blood of his sixteen year old self had suddenly seeped into his veins and pumped the life back into the rotting corpse of his forty-two year old self. Talk about a blast from the past. He felt like he just materialized from the big screen of Back To The Future but in reverse, like Back To The Past), he just wasn't as sharp around the edges as he once was. So that left his mind to catch up with his hands before he ran out of cards. His fingers were all up in knots by the end. But where Park was blunt and dull, Levi was sharp. And he seemed to do everything with ease... And while leaning. (Everything he did was while leaning). Life was like Sunday morning in Levi's hands. But his long fingers, gangly limbs, and lanky frame were all built more for a marathon rather than a sprint. But with Park's strategy and Levi's stamina, they made a good team.

But even in her old age, Eleanor still had it though. Her hands moved in a blur of skin and freckles. Like lightening. Or a flash. Like a flash of lightening. And she kept surprising him when he thought he already knew all there was to know about her. She kept revealing buried secrets under the skin and opening doors for him where the hinges were rusted shut. And If Eleanor was the hands, then Cath was the mind. She saw things before they occurred. She felt it in the twitch of her eyelids and the tremble of her fingertips. Everything just clicked inside. And where the pieces were jagged and cracked along the edges on the inside, they came together on the outside. She played like she'd never played before. Like she was on the edge of her seat, on the edge period. Like she wasn't afraid of playing the game wrong. Eleanor was the speed and Cath was the mind. Eleanor was the lightning and Cath was the thunder. They were one mind and a pair of hands operating in two different bodies.

The front door swung open, (because that's how Reagan always entered the room, with her hands full), and in flounced Wren with her hips swaying and short hair swishing followed by Reagan.

"Wren and Reagan in the house!" Wren shouted, a little too loudly.

"Did you really just say that? Tell me you didn't just say that. I'd much rather like to hear you tell me that my ability to hear is wavering with my age." Eleanor said, rubbing her fingertips all up and down her temples.

"No, she said it." Levi confirmed for her, taking a handful of Dorito chips from the bowl in the middle of their semicircle, which had shifted into an oval. Or maybe a rectanlge? Or was it a square? Apparently kindergarten didn't teach you all there was to know about shapes.

"Thought I'd try something new. You know, shake things up a bit." Wren argued indignantly before jumping onto the couch and knocking Cath off balance in the process.

Cath grunted, shoving her sister off of her. "Ugh, you're heavier than you look."

"That is the art of misdirection my dear," She replied with a cherry-lipsticked grin that even Levi couldn't pull off. "Now why aren't you guys arguing? This is serious stuff people! Where are the snarky retorts and bad puns? The blood and the guts?"

"What does she want us killing each over?" Park asked without looking up from the game at hand.

"Never mind her, what are we playing?" Reagan asked, taking a seat on the floor.

"Speed." Levi answered, licking the Dorito dust off all ten of his fingers.

"Deal me in." Reagan ran her fingers through her red hair, (but it wasn't really red. Because nobody had red hair sitting next to Eleanor), and nudged Levi with her elbow.

"Can't, there are no deals in Speed. It's kill or be killed." Levi said, stretching a long arm through the circle to reach the chips.

"You'll have to wait until next round." Eleanor said, slipping a seven, eight, nine, and eight into the stack.

"Slow down!" Park said, flipping his cards frantically for a seven or nine. He pulled out a seven and slid it into the pile.

"You speed up!" Eleanor retaliated with an additional six, five, and four.

"Is no one concerned in even the slightest about our great dilemma here? Or is it just me? The reasonably logical one with a stable mental health?" Wren demanded, her voice prodding into the game.

"It's just you." Reagan muttered, shuffling the cards.

"What's she going on about?" Eleanor asked without glancing up from her cards.

"Just the priemere of Simon Snow and the Eighth Dance going on tonight." Levi said around a mouthful of pretzels, (because they were the first thing he could reach from the nearly empty bowl).

"There is no 'just' with Simon." Cath said, flicking her eyebrows up at him. He replied with some eyebrow action of his own, which only made her laugh out loud. Like she wasn't afraid to. And that only made him laugh too.

"Is that the series with the kid who goes to wizard school?" Park asked, his hands hover over the cards with a nervous twitch to his fingers.

"Oh my God, where have you been educated? First of all, Simon is not a kid, he's the chosen one. Second of all, it's called the Watford School of Magiks. And they're not wizards, they're magicians. There's a difference." Wren informed him, her words sharp and dangerous and perhaps even a little menacing.

"What, one has a stick and the other a pointy hat?" Park continued, just to see how far he could push the button before the whole nuclear plant went up in a mushroom cloud.

"It's a wand, and no. Any shmuk can get their hands on a hat."

"I'm pretty sure the difference between a magician and a wizard is that a magician entertains with magic by performing illusions and card tricks, while a wizard practices the education of magic." Eleanor said, crossing her legs beneath her.

"Oh my Lord, you did not just compare Simon Snow to a card-playing, illusion-inducing, entertainer who extracts bunnies from hats did you?" Cath demanded, trying hard to take the offensive approach instead of the defensive.

"You can't hide from the truth." Eleanor told her, easing the words out of her mouth gently as she lay her cards on the carpet. "Like Park, Levi, and Reagan here for instance; they can't hide from the truth of their defeat." She didn't get sloppy after a couple rounds anymore. Because, whenever she felt like she was starting to mess up, she thought of Maisie. Of Ben and Mouse and Little Richie and even Mom. It didn't really help her get better but it kept her from playing worse.

"People, focus!" Wren shouted, (louder than she needed to be but not quite as loud as she wanted to be). "We need to decide on our costumes and we need to do so immediately. Dibs on Penelope."

"I call Baz!" Park spoke up.

"Why should you get to be the bloodsucking parasite?" Eleanor asked.

"Well, there's no way in hell I'm going as Agatha." Park said, slapping his cards down on the top of the pile.

"Don't get so hung up on gender roles." Eleanor said, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Fine," He said, hooking an arm around her waist and pulling her close until she couldn't get any closer. "You can be Baz, and I'll be Simon. I'll slay the moon for you."

And in his ear she whispered, "Not before I slay it first."

She would be the end of him.

When everyone cleared out, Cath switched on the faucet and let it run as she scrubbed at the dirty glasses and smudged cutlery and stained plates. Levi picked up the trash lying around and dumped in all in a plastic bag before grabbing a towel and wiping the dishes dry.

"Read me something." He said.

"What?"

"Read something to me, I want to hear your voice."

"My phone's dead."

"It doesn't have to be fan fiction." He said, pursing his lips as he tried to think of what there was. And then he thought of it. He dashed up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and disappeared for a minute before returning withSimon Snow and the Eighth Dance.

"We never read the last chapter..." He spoke the words gently, like he was afraid of cutting open old wounds that never properly healed.

Cath stared at the book like it was radioactive. Like the sky was fallling. Like she couldn't quite grasp the idea of peanuts and butter fitting together in the same jar. Like it was a living thing that she didn't quite know how to handle. Or if she could handle it at all for that matter. She looked like she was afraid it might bite her hand clean off.

"And I figure, if we're going to see the movie tonight, we better finish it while we can."

He was afraid he'd crossed a boundary. A boundary that was put there for a reason. A boundary that wasn't supposed to be for crossing. Like her burned every bridge that stood between them, and he didn't know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. He felt like he just committed murder - like the murder of Simon Snow - and was smuggled out of the country with the blood still staining his hands red.

The book lay open on the counter. Their page still marked. It was over four hundred pages of spells cast and curses spat. Of danger lurking around every corner with anticipation hiding in every paragraph. But somewhere in those pages was what Cath dreaded most. Was what kept her awake at night like the kid who couldn't get to sleep because of the Boogie man waiting under her bed to come and find her in her nightmares. It was what woke her up in the morning, two hours before her alarm clock went off. It was what pulled at her insides, made her organs twist her into knots, and her stomach churn. Which was why she couldn't bring herself to turn the page. It was what she feared most. But also what she needed most. And maybe this was it. Maybe this was the end. But even if Simon ended. Even if the world of Magiks ended when she read the last words ever written in those books, it didn't mean her world would.

Cath cleared her throat, and took a deep breath before starting, almost like she was expecting the sky to crumble on top of her. She was waiting for the sky to flatten her. She was waiting for the sky to fall, for clouds to shatter with the thunder that never came, and the sun to collapse. But none of it ever happened. So was it crazy of her to still be expecting that when she read the last word? Probably.

But even still, the crazy kept coming. The anger revealed itself in her clenched teeth when the Insidius Humdrum prevailed. The tears flooded her eyes when dear characters were lost. But the smile plastered itself to her face when victory was won. And, once she'd spoken the last word, she flipped all the way back to the beginning and started over again. And over and over and over again. She read that book all the way to infinity and beyond and back again. Water began to fleck the pages as she read, but it didn't really matter. She had more than one copy anyway. And she never ran out of words to say nor write because they were always there. Her words were magic. She just had to find the right ones. And here they were;

The End

Well, that's it folks. Crossing The Skies has come to its conclusion. I want to thank everyone for their outstanding support throughout this story;

Thank you to my favorites; 2bleu4u, hipsterism, acciounicorn9412, thereadingturtle, fandombox, Nadia . Alvarado . 543

To my followers; 2bleu4u, hipsterism, acciounicorn9412, thereadingturtle, fandombox, Nadia . Alvarado . 543, nerd . com, manateeliz10

And a very special thank you goes out to all my reviewers; freezeon98, hipsterism, nerd . com, acciounicorn9412, mylifeisfangirling, Beasbeth, Suki, riversong

Thank you so much you guys, your support means the world to me and I hope you stay tuned for some of my other stories. I not quite done with Rainbow's characters, I still have some ideas in mind for them. One of the being a crossover of Landline and Attachments, and if you haven't yet read this two books then I highly suggest you go do so right now! And I'm still working on the story about Park's parents too;) other than that, if you like Rise of the Guardians and Frozen crossovers I have written a few Jelsa fanfictions. And I am planning a Fault in Our Stars story about Augustus and the untold story of Caroline Mathers called 'These Fallen Stars'. So if you like Fault in Our Stars, be sure to check it out!

Other than that, please please please review because they make me happy and I want to know everyone's thoughts on the ending of course:)

Thanks again everyone and happy reading!

-birdywings