"Salvage"

38. Life Has A Way

The Eastern Shores of Mesphoria – in the year 2049

Her name was Ilsy, and today was her ninth birthday. In a year or two, she would be of a height with her father, but it had been expected; her father was a human, come from Earth and a place called America. She had never seen it herself, and when she would ask him if they could ever visit it, he would tell her the same thing: Maybe someday. She knew the people there would look like him, not like her mother, and so not like her. Her skin was a lighter shade of that sea green the Mesphorite had, but this was where the differences ended. When it came to the natural height of her mother's people, she had not found her own height stunted at all.

"She'll be taller than you someday," her father had told her mother before, and it had made them both laugh.

Her family had all put on its finest clothes that day before they left home on their way to the palace. She loved to hear her mother's stories, about her days as one of the Queen's Guard. She had left service when she and her father had married, but she always made sure to tell her she had not regretted this decision one bit. She had served Orielle with great pride for those years, but she needed to move on and start a new life. She had rejoined her family's work, and then within a few short years had become mother to the girl they had called Ilsy. The girl had been blessed with her mother, her father, and of course with her aunt. Ilsy's mother and father had taken her in to their home, as she had lost her own parents in an earthquake that had happened years before. She had become much more of a little sister to them than a daughter. Now she worked with the rest of the family.

Today the four of them would be honored guests at the palace, and if it had meant putting off her birthday until later in the day, Ilsy didn't mind. She wanted to see the princess.

The Queen and the King had summoned their friends near and far so that they may officially present them with their firstborn daughter and heir to the Mesphorite throne.

X

Sam had been keeping an eye out for his daughter. She was off running around with some of the other children present for the ceremony, while Mersi was off to greet her older sister. Loria and Rufus had rung in their own anniversary with a journey out to a nearby moon. The years had been good for the sisters. The distance which had grown in between them had shrunk away so much he couldn't remember what that had been like.

But there was something he remembered, a face he had seen at two previous points in his life, and every time it looked exactly the same. Now he'd spotted it again, peering out from behind a tree in the palace gardens where they stood. Rada had an eye on the children, so he discreetly walked up toward the time travelling woman.

"Sam Evans," she smiled.

"Gemma Lucas," he bowed his head.

"I know what you'll say, long time no see. If it makes you feel any better, I saw you just a minute ago."

"Been longer on this side," he pointed out.

"Big turnout," she commented, looking at the gathered guests. She could see the Queen, greeting some of them, just as her husband did, next to her. "Hold on, I remember him. He was some kind of official, wasn't he?"

"Councilman," Sam confirmed.

"And now he's King," Gemma was impressed. The heiress, all of twenty days old, was being proudly carried by the once-again nanny Ada, trailing alongside Orielle and Dollen.

"A lot can happen in sixteen years," Sam turned back to her.

"You know it was already something, to see you at seventeen one moment and thirty-eight the next… I saw you only minutes ago when you were seventeen and now…"

"Fifty-four," he nodded.

"Gold flecks, too?" she observed his face.

"They come from prolonged exposure to the Mesphorite sun," he explained. His binding had never gone away. Lacking only the skin tone and the stature, he was a proper Mesphorite man in every way; he didn't even notice the differences anymore, except maybe now, standing with another human.

"Well, they suit you," she declared.

"You knew all this time then?" he asked. "You knew I would stay here."

"I couldn't exactly tell you, could I? You might have done something different, you might not have fallen in love with her…"

"That wouldn't have changed," he promised her, and she smiled.

"You look happy," she told him. He looked over his shoulder, to his wife chatting with her sister, his daughter chasing her aunt Rada around.

"The night before I had to fly out to Cardiff, I wasn't going to go. Why would I fly that far, even if it was for the Doctor, after everything… If I hadn't changed my mind, I wouldn't have them, and I can't even imagine what kind of life that would be. I don't want to know." He turned back to look at her, exactly as he'd seen her sixteen years before. "Where are you now, when you're…" he gestured.

"Two thousand and twelve. January," she nodded.

"Right," he remembered. Just a few more months before everything else. "So you came here today…"

"Call it a follow-up," Gemma shrugged. "I had to see how you were doing." Whether or not that was the whole truth of it, he didn't know, and he wasn't going to try. If he knew anything about Gemma Lucas, it was that she had the world's best poker face. "I should get going, actually. Got a class to teach," she sighed.

"So is this goodbye then? For good?"

"Afraid it might be, but I'm not making any promises. Any parting words?" I keep getting older, and you stay the same, where do I begin?

"Just… be careful out there."

TO BE CONCLUDED (TUESDAY)