This is another long, long chapter so this will be the only one posted of this story this week.
If you are in the mood for something lighter check my other story "In the beginning" on this site.
Thank you for reading and reviewing (!) and extra thanks to TOWDNWTBN and Vale for their support during the long, long time this story was written.
Stay safe!
A time bomb.
Christine closed the file and opened the next one with the distinct feeling she was dealing with a bomb waiting to go off. Resting her elbows on the kitchen table, she tried to figure out what to do with Phase II. She couldn't just pretend she didn't know. But what she did know was blurry and inconclusive.
Still, everything was there in numbers, test results and vital signs measured hourly, illustrating every moment of Kepler's agony, of his excruciating pain in dry doctors' and nurses' notes, and in Dylan's handwriting which she could now recognize anywhere. Before he left, Dylan had said that Kepler had been on the "edge of life" for days. She had dismissed it as a meaningless expression, almost poetic and desperate in his attempt to persuade her not to risk exposing Kepler's identity. Now she could see it was true.
Cruel numbers, charts, medical reports, independent prognoses…. They had a sobering quality as they offered a clinical view of what had happened, sterile of emotion but with a far more frightening reality: Kepler had been on the edge of death for days.
She fought the urge to crumple the piece of paper in her hand. No man with such low blood pressure would have survived the night. Even she could see that. But Kepler had survived. And Dylan had taken a major gamble with Kepler's life. Following the patient's wishes not to have the bioprinted skin removed was inexcusable for a doctor. A man's life came first but Dylan gambled on Kepler's willpower. On his strength, on his determination to keep the promise he had made to her—the one she didn't even remember!—and they had all won the bet.
She hid the papers under the file, trying to send the images away. What was her role in his torture? How could she have missed that someone tried to hurt him during Phase I? Why didn't she stop it? Frustrated, she pulled her hair into a tight ponytail, trying to focus on her task. She needed to talk to someone. Raoul would probably be the only one who could understand her, who could make some sense out of this maze of reports, but how could she gamble Kepler's life again?
As if summoned, the elevator doors of Kepler's apartment slid open and he walked in with his mask in hand. She could see the fresh marks of the straps on his nape before his palm covered them, massaging the spots.
"I thought I would find you asleep." There was humor and reprimand in his raised brow.
"I took a nap. It's not sleep I need. I need more brain cells," she muttered, sighing, letting her head fall on the paper-covered kitchen table.
"That's not a problem for you, Doc."
He threw the mask and his gloves on a coffee table and moved towards her. The gesture was simple yet surreal. Was it a kind of prop? Kepler came back from work and instead of a briefcase, he left his mask on the table?
"You don't look very pleased yourself," she risked, taking in his tense movements as he filled a glass with water.
"Dan was right. The latest trace we have of Spencer is in the last place he ought to be. New York," he elaborated after a pause. Her eyes were fixed on the way his neck moved swallowing the water. Bioprinting had succeeded beyond imagination. The result was immaculate.
"Is it dangerous?"
"There is no warrant out for him in the States but if the word that he's back spreads around—"
She couldn't avert her eyes from his face as he circled the table and crouched beside her chair. His mismatched eyes were looking straight into hers.
"Are we good, Christine? We…you and me—" He was serious, his stare probing. She could see a hint of the fear she had caught in his eyes in the small bathroom when he asked her forgiveness after that awful video.
"We're good," she rushed to break the moment and his scrutiny. This time she wasn't sure whether the sigh she heard was hers. "I can't describe to you what kind of a miracle looking at your face is for me, Kepler." She brushed his cheek with her hand, amazed at the feeling. There was no emotion in his hazel eyes. Only Raoul could have comprehended her excitement even though he had not shared the burden of P8's death.
Her lips found his, soft, full, warm, parting as he kissed her back, but he made no attempt to bring her closer. She was kissing Bioprinting's miracle and it was unbearably delicious. And unbelievable.
"As long as he was in the unit, he, his face, was BDS property." Raoul's words spoken that night at the bistro where he had announced her promotion came back and bit her. She winced as Kepler stopped the kiss, obviously sensing her withdrawal. How could she even think of trusting Raoul? Of risking Kepler's life?
Her gaze followed him as he retreated to the bedroom, pulling off the turtleneck and his gray long-sleeved undershirt in one frustrated movement. His sinewy muscled back, the way he carried himself, evoked an aching longing…I need Kepler back. She needed his dry wisdom, his unshakable logic.
She pushed the strange thought away. She was losing it. She gathered the papers and stuffed them in the box, feeling suffocated amidst the different realities she had to combine.
Yes, his face was a miracle, but were even all the miracles in the world worth the sacrifice of one man? Especially the man she loved? What kind of miracles would these be, if not tainted? During Phase I she didn't know of the danger he was facing. Now she couldn't claim that. She was not that innocent anymore. Nor that naïve.
Kepler emerged in the kitchen area after a quick shower wearing fresh clothes that brought a smile to her face.
"You do know that is grey, too—"
"This is a shirt," he offered. "And jeans. Something Radek would wear," he joined in the smile.
"If all his scary T-shirts had accidentally caught fire and burned up."
"That was just a distraction." Still, he looked at his shirt as if examining whether it was "too Kepler" looking. Shaking his head he opened the fridge and examined the options. "There is nothing here."
"My fridge was never that full."
"There is nothing interesting here," he explained with the patience one would show to a child.
"You are too picky with your food."
Closing the fridge, he turned to face her. She loved the gleam in his eyes.
"Let's go out!" He leaned against the sink. "Let's go for a coffee and scones—"
"I take it back. You are not too picky with your food." She smiled at his enthusiasm even though she couldn't see the point. Scones?
"Let's go out. It's still early. It's so early we could do anything. We could pretend we're tourists, go to a museum, go for a walk, grab a bite. We could even go to the theater or to the movies. Dancing! We could go dancing!"
"I don't really dance. I don't have rhythm—"
"I don't dance either. Forget dancing. But let's do stuff we never did before. Together."
The realization amazed her: with him as Radek they could go out, share a life she could never have with Kepler. His excitement was contagious. If only their reality was not such a mess….
"We're running out of time, Kepler. You yourself said that. And there's so much we should talk about—"
"I'll tell you everything. I'll answer every one of your questions no matter how irrelevant or crazy it may sound." He deliberately evoked her scowl and, resting his forearms on the kitchen table, he leaned forward towards her. "Just give us some time. Give me some time. I've never lived anything like this before. I want to taste it even if it is only for a few hours." His eyes were smiling.
"You can hold time still the way you did with BDS?"
"No, I can't." His smile evaporated.
"Why do you still wear the mask?" She glanced at the disregarded item before focusing on him again. On his face.
"It's a way for Spencer to resume his life when he comes back to London. Kepler…a rich, eccentric man wearing a mask is an established persona now. He has lawyers, investment consultants. He has hosted business meetings, dinners in private, exclusive restaurants. He even has a box in the theater." He winked at her.
"Box Five?" she mocked, trying to hide her shudder. Another man behind that mask? Pretending to be Kepler? More than any other time, it felt that Kepler was slipping through her fingers, reduced to nothing but a voice.
"No, but he could pay for the box to be renamed."
She couldn't smile.
"It won't be easy. To have Spencer appear as Kepler. There will be problems—" How could anyone who had heard that voice miss it?
"We'll deal with them at the time."
"And what about you? What about Radek?" It felt foreign on her tongue.
"Radek will finally have a life."
"And what will he do? Will he walk into the sunset?"
He shrugged.
"So you're doing this for Spencer—" she pressured.
"You know that I always feel better wearing a mask." His voice had lowered to a whisper.
"But you finally have to get used to this. Being Radek."
"If you help me," he heard her sharp intake, "—with some coffee and scones. Perhaps eating in public is not as embarrassing as it sounds." In true Kepler mode he defused the moment. Did he realize she was in no condition to take another burden on her shoulders, or was he using this to tie her to him even more? Using her guilt, her concern, even her scientific interest?
"Did you buy the Modigliani painting because it reminded you of me?" The question was out there before she had time to regret it or feel embarrassed by his possible denial.
His faint blush was all the answer she needed. He moved back against the sink, studying her.
She didn't know what to believe about the man who spent tens of millions on a painting for the reason Dylan implied. The man who bought "only the art he needed" according to Kepler's own words. Should she allow a man his "eccentricities", even though they were very different from not wanting to leave your backpack on the floor in order to avoid dirt?
Damn you, Dylan! Why did she let his words rattle her so much? Had she allowed him to play tricks with her mind?
Damn you, Jeanne Hebuterne! She was to blame for this. She had haunted her nights with her obsessed passion.
She shut her eyes at the thought. Was it his obsession that had led them to where they were now? The way he acted around her, as if he always had known they would become lovers, was that what had manipulated her into believing it herself? But how stupid was she to have been manipulated like that? And still, wasn't Kepler the most attractive, the most fascinating man she had ever met? Was she less obsessed with him, risking her career to become part of his life? It had been like that for her since the moment they stood before that Francis Bacon painting showing a man violently transformed.
Her eyes were forced wide open at hearing his determined steps to the bedroom. She rushed to him as she heard him taking down the painting.
"Do you want me to get rid of this?" Jeanne Hebuterne was in his hands.
"What are you doing?" There was dread in her voice.
"I won't destroy it! Who do you think I am?" His expression was fierce. "Don't answer that," he ordered with a weary look in his eyes. "I'll just take it to the other room as it obviously disturbs you."
She didn't follow him this time.
"What if I had a Georgia O'Keeffe painting in my bedroom? Would that make me a sex addict?" There was frustration but also defense in the way he shoved his hands in his back pockets.
"Georgia O'Keeffe?"
"She was an artist famous for her enlarged flower paintings. They bring to mind female genitalia—Google her—" he offered when her ignorance became obvious. "That's it then." He took a deep breath to calm himself. "If you can't deal with what you've learned the last 24 hours…I understand it's too much to process but don't use this…this painting as an excuse. I'm right here. You don't need excuses to drive us apart. You have very good reasons to do that. Solid reasons."
"I don't want to drive us apart." Her voice was miserable.
"Then give us some time. Give us a chance to see what we have here."
"The secrets will spoil it."
"They will bring us back to reality. I don't want reality right now. Even if it's for a few hours. Please." He obviously didn't know what his voice did to her.
"So what is this?"
"This is a relationship," he made the "introductions" in a teasing, light tone that didn't reach his serious eyes.
"So, we're now in a relationship?"
"If you had a Facebook account you should change your status." He shook his head in thought. "I'd probably change it for you."
"You'd hack my Facebook account?"
"Kid's stuff." He waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. Now his eyes were smiling, too, and this gave him an almost boyish charm. He looked like a happy, confident man who wanted to spend some time with her. Nothing dangerous, nothing sick. Not a man falling in love with a woman in a painting and recruiting the next best thing, not a man trying to shape her to his expectations, or a man who felt grateful for his new face and believed he had fallen for the woman who helped him get it. She stopped that train of thought. She remembered the way her mind had tricked her the Friday night she ended up with Radek. Who was she to throw the first stone? She could be equally unbalanced.
"So, what is it going to be, Christine?" A male voice dragged her back to reality.
'It seems I have a free day…or two." She honestly tried to sound reprimanding.
"Not my fault the BDS IT department sucks." Another smug smile.
"What do you want us to do?"
"Grab some scones, of course!"
.
.
"My turn: do you speak Latin?" She wondered if he knew the third verb in the "veni, vidi, …" quote.
"Of course I don't speak Latin!"
They had finished their coffee amid people who spoke all kind of languages. Christine had asked him about a Czech-speaking couple and Kepler had started translating what they said, leaning close to her ear. His deep voice related where the couple had been so far and what the woman had bought for their children from Harrods. The presents were simple and cheap, but the bag had the Harrods logo on it and that made all the difference in the world. Kepler had wrapped his arm around her shoulders, whispering his translation, making comments that made Christine's smile linger. His warm breath against her skin was what made all the difference in the world for her and at some point the couple turned and looked at them, certain that Kepler was whispering words of love. The couple shared an intimate glance full of promise before the man lowered his head and briefly kissed the smiling woman.
"We made them kiss," Christine had whispered conspiratorially against Kepler's chest and he had gently pulled off the elastic band that held her ponytail. He combed her hair with his fingers in a gesture that spoke of intimacy.
Now they were aimlessly strolling down the most crowded London streets. They looked like tourists but they didn't act like them. They walked past the store windows, not wasting a glance. They didn't take photos to share with their family. But Kepler was in an amazingly good mood. His face was serious but his eyes were gleaming.
"I only speak living languages. I'm afraid I'm not the scholar you imagined me to be."
She recalled the psithurism and Kepler's insatiable thirst for knowledge.
"But you speak Italian." She dared a glance at their laced fingers as they crossed the street. It felt surreal and yet so natural.
"I speak Italian," he confirmed with a faint smile. "I speak languages I've learned in the places I've lived. And some more because they were interesting—"
Her phone rang in her backpack—now thrown over Kepler's shoulder—and Christine rushed to mute the call upon seeing Raoul's face on the screen.
"I'll call them later," she offered vaguely, slipping it in her pocket. She didn't need any reminder of the ticking bomb in her life and somehow losing another minute she could spend with Kepler seemed like an inexcusable waste of time. In spite of his blank expression she could sense her reaction satisfied him.
"So, tell me: what's the worse thing that can happen in a relationship? Besides cheating and lying?" His tone was light but it was obvious he referred to her outburst from when he had showed her the super luxurious apartment OKTO had rented for her. She had been overwhelmed, bitter, cynical and confused at the time. At the moment she was only confused, which—she hoped—could be regarded as an improvement.
"I'm clueless when it comes to relationships," he went on. "It's embarrassing but understandable I guess."
Christine didn't understand it at all. Certain that his voice alone was enough to give a woman multiple orgasms, she concluded that it was he who didn't allow any woman to get close. It wasn't the woman's fault. Christine had had to find him…well, not chained, but certainly immobilized in a hospital bed with the potential for either a new face or death to make an impression on him.
"Not caring, I suppose. To stop caring." That had certainly happened in her relationship with Paul. "Finding out ugly truths about yourself. That could happen, too." Her hand missed his, she missed the connection, but she didn't dare reach for him. "Cassie says that relationships are great 'know thyself' tools. If you're smart enough. If you don't think that it's always the other's fault and you're the only wounded party."
He nodded his understanding.
"Of course that didn't save me from the humiliation." She grimaced. "There are always humiliating moments but if you survive them they can bring two people closer. You see, in a relationship everything counts. Every little thing, but more than words of passion—they're surely needed!—it's the other moments, the shared embarrassment, the laughter, revealing the secret part of oneself everyone keeps shielded at first when he wants to look his best…. So don't be afraid of embarrassing moments. They could even be funny. Unless they make only one person look ridiculous."
He frowned. A loose strand fell on his forehead. Radek's wavy hair was better than Kepler's combed back look.
"It's like when I found out you are Radek. I think if you had told me yourself I would have felt very silly. I don't know if I could overcome that."
His frown grew deeper.
"The one who's been fooled needs to somehow regain his dignity and that's hard. It's like in cheating. If you find out before the other tells you, you reclaim some part of your lost dignity."
"And you forgive him?"
"Hardly. I'm mainly talking about damage control when it comes to a person. The relationship is another matter. It's a very fragile, delicate thing. Some relationships, though, do survive cheating."
"Yours did?" Kepler's uncanny intuition was not so surprising anymore.
"Not really, but it was the least of its problems. The result of them."
"Which were—?"
"I wasn't in love with Paul. I liked him but I wasn't crazy about him."
"I don't believe that. You were with a man for two years and you didn't love him?" He shook his head as his eyes were fixed on the pavement.
"Paul was a good man. Cassie says that one needs his love life to support him, not cause him trouble."
"Wise words from wise women."
"Ha, ha, ha," she mocked his irony. "Paul liked to surprise me. I don't like surprises but I always played along—"
"Because you loved him." He didn't look at her.
"I had two reasons: one self-serving and one noble but neither of them was love."
"The self-serving one first," he demanded but his expression was less troubled now, more curious.
"People who like to surprise you go to extremes to succeed. If I made it difficult for him, he'd make it more complicated. Stage fights and arguments between us so that I wouldn't suspect him and stuff like that. I wanted things simple."
Kepler's shoulders hunched at her words. "The noble reason now."
"He was a good man. I owed it to him."
"You loved him."
"No, I didn't. That's why I owed him." She wasn't lying. She had felt comfortable with Paul, he didn't disrupt her work at BDS, he was fun. She didn't need more. Not until she realized there was more. Whatever triggered her feelings for Kepler—gratitude, mystery, desire—the outcome was an explosive feeling she hadn't felt before. Even love seemed a rather mediocre term to describe it.
"I didn't say you still love him. But now that you don't love him anymore it seems that you never had—" When did he become such an expert on feelings?
"I knew he was cheating on me but I didn't care enough to do something." Sometimes she hated her lack of self-restraint, especially towards an irritating Kepler. "And this is a humiliating moment from my life that I doubt will bring us closer." She used irony to cover her dread. Condoning cheating was not the best way to start an affair!
"This is where I share one, too? I'd comply if I could see the 'humiliating' part in this. You said that if one knows, his dignity is intact and no harm done."
"No harm done?" she exclaimed, incredulous.
"You know I don't share your liberal views on infidelity," he offered dryly.
"Paul cheated on me but I was too involved with my work, my Ph.D. at BDS, research and wanting to be a success…. One day, I found him packing up his stuff. He said, 'Sorry, JC, I tried to tell you but you were never here and the few times I saw you I didn't have the heart,'" she mimicked Paul's stupid, helpless tone at the time.
Kepler snorted but he was clearly not impressed by her "humiliating" moment.
"The embarrassing part was that I wasn't even angry at him."
"You're right. You didn't love him."
"And the really humiliating moment was when I visited a doctor for some tests. You know…HIV and other STDs—" She grimaced in disgust.
"My ever practical Christine." He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and she relished the feel of his warm body against hers as they kept walking.
"The doctor looked at me as if I were a slut and just had had a one-night stand with a football team."
"Why didn't you ask your boyfriend?"
"Since there was no trust anymore…. What could he say that I'd believe?" She shook her frown away. "Your turn!"
Kepler stopped in the middle of the crowded pavement and pulled her closer to him so she was facing him. He wasn't fazed by the people passing by them or stealing glances at the lazy way his hands rested around her waist.
"You didn't love him." A pause. "But you love me." A statement.
In true Kepler form and excellent articulation, in the way Kepler's statements always were: stating facts but also with a hint of extracting them by force. Christine remembered his words the day she had accepted his blackmail. He had "conquered" his first name basis with her and that had been—no wonder!—his most passionate moment during their meeting. Everything was a battle for Kepler. A constant struggle.
"You fell in love with Kepler," he repeated and they both knew it was true, "but now you're having doubts." She flinched at his matter-of-fact tone. It was uncanny how transparent she was to him.
"Not about us," she lied, knowing she didn't fool him. "Your turn now!" She attempted the deflection, breaking from the embrace. They started walking again.
He seemed deep in thought for a while. "I got my first kiss when I was fourteen—I was a late bloomer. It was worth ten dollars."
"Oh, you paid the…girl?" She wondered whether it was a woman but she didn't dare to ask.
"No, the girl—she was my age!—got the money from her friends. It was a bet. A kind of dare."
Christine wanted to take hold of his hand but she knew he wouldn't appreciate the gesture.
"At first, I didn't understand why she didn't wait to run to her friends to collect her money. She could have walked away and I might not have seen any of it."
"Kids are harsh. Compassion has to be taught." And she was talking nonsense just to say something.
"I believe she was afraid that I'd fall for her and follow her around and that would have been very embarrassing."
"Did you like her? I mean before—"
"God, no! She wasn't even pretty!" he exclaimed, mocking himself. "And for the record: I have paid for sex and I don't consider it one of my 'most humiliating moments.'"
"Anything you need to share?" she asked more to tease him and make him feel uncomfortable. Kepler had a clear-cut, uncomplicated regard of sex she envied.
"I've slept with women I didn't have to pay. The mask wasn't a problem. Sometimes it added something," he made a face at this. "Once I was even close to a 'relationship' with a woman I met online but I figured she was more interested in what I had accomplished with Spencer—we were notorious at the time—than me. She wanted to team up with us and looked at me as if I was Batman." He shook his head. "Not the best foundation for a sane relationship." He stole a glance at her. "I've slept with women but till that Friday…I hadn't slept with anyone since before Phase I. A few months before that, actually—"
His words were left hanging between them. Christine did the math and it was worse than her own situation before him. More than three years? For a man like Kepler it was difficult to believe. And disturbing because it resurrected another painful question: why had he entered Phase I? What drove him to surrender himself to a situation so out of his control when he obviously valued it so dearly? Could it have been a woman? A woman's rejection?
"I'm telling you this to save you from another embarrassing doctor appointment," he teased to send away her frown. "Nothing can beat BDS protocol on tests—"
Three whole years and more…she couldn't deal with this now. She couldn't add jealousy into the mixture of her crazy feelings. She pretended to look at the decorated shops—Christmas was coming earlier each year in London.
"My first sexual experience was not really sex," she heard him say but didn't dare to turn and face him. "I had heard of this woman—she was a professional—who was gorgeous, model like, certainly not cheap and I went for it. A friend had described her apartment to me but when I went there I couldn't see anything but her. I still don't remember anything about the place.
Madeleine—that was her name, like those little cakes that look like scallop shells in Proust's In Search Of Lost Time—was waiting for me. I was all nerves and I had memorized a passage from the book. 'No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me.'
"I shuddered all right. And I still remember the excerpt. How ridiculous is that?" He chuckled, shaking his head. "I had a hunch that Madeleine wouldn't appreciate Proust so I kept it to myself. Not that I fully controlled my ability to speak." Another self-sarcastic chuckle.
"Anyway, Mandy—she asked me to call her Mandy—said that she could arrange for her man to give me back my money and call the whole thing off but she had another proposal for me. She said I'd like it. I'd be fully satisfied as long as I agreed not to touch her. I was young. I took it." Christine risked a glance at his face but she couldn't make out his expression.
"So, she masturbated before me. She said I could do whatever I wanted to myself as long as I didn't touch her. She hardly threw a glance at me. Don't look at me like that!"
Christine rushed to avert her eyes. It wasn't pity. It was exasperation and Kepler chuckled at her reaction.
"Rejection was never so sweet," he carried on, unaffected by her frustration. "My eyes were locked on her and I couldn't move. She wasn't looking at me but she was talking to me. She explained what she was doing, what was where, what she liked, what other women usually liked. What they hated. I couldn't move a muscle. Not that I would have done anything in front of her." He shook his head, for the first time frowning at the memory. Christine knew the reason for that: pride. Kepler's pride was a force to reckon with. "I left the room with an erection harder than I thought possible. I thought I'd die of a heart attack trying to keep myself under control. I was seventeen years old. My worst fear was that I'd die before I had sex." He snorted at the thought. "It's ludicrous. I know it now but these are landmarks in a man's life."
"Did you see her again?"
"I saw her a few years later. It didn't work out for a whole different reason this time but I was okay with it. I knew that a masked man, an eccentric rich man who booked a suite in a hotel and wanted his identity hidden would not be denied the way I was denied before. My body had no blemish." He shrugged. "I don't blame Mandy. My face was a mess. I needed new skin grafts. As I grew up the skin stretched. It was painful. I had two more operations before I looked like what you saw in the photos."
Christine took hold of his hand.
"Kepler, you know I was attracted to you even before…even when I thought—"
"—that I was deformed," he completed the phrase for her. "You never ceased to amaze me. From the time I started talking to you, you proved to be more than I expected, many times over. I changed my plans every goddamn day…. Do you think I expected all this to happen? I couldn't believe it. The way you stood by me when your father died—"
"At least you're good at improvisation." She smiled, cupping their joined hands, tracing the scars on his knuckles, when her phone started ringing again in her pocket. Christine made a face at Raoul's photo on the screen before she ignored his call again, sighing. He had a sobering tendency to bring reality back into the picture. She bit a nail and silently urged them to keep walking. They were leaving Leicester Square behind them. They must have been walking more than an hour.
"I wish you could talk to me like you did before—" She knew what he meant. Before all the secrets were out and more were threatening to raise their ugly heads and bite them. "I wish I was less part of the problem and more part of the solution. I never wanted to be a problem for you, Christine. Anything but a problem." His resonant voice spoke of regret. He looked tired and defeated and once more she felt that need to wrap herself around him and protect him from this mood. She even felt privileged he let her see that tired part of him, certain it wasn't something he allowed anyone else.
"I feel guilty," she blurted out. He was right. Before, she would have rushed to Kepler. Not to ask his advice but needing to talk to him about her predicament. Now without realizing it, she had kept a distance. A mental distance he hadn't missed. "I feel guilty about BDS—they paid for my Ph.D.—about my team, people who trusted me," she avoided mentioning Raoul. She couldn't bring herself to tell him about the ticking bomb in her hands. "I'm afraid that will intensify later and I don't know how I'm going to handle it—"
"Guilt is not what people think. I took people's money—okay, that's hardly the right word— and I knew it was wrong. I felt the guilt but it gradually faded. Life comes in and it blurs everything—good or bad.
Don't get me wrong. When I relieved people of their money I also felt satisfied…at first. After a while, the lack of challenge bored me. I've done things that I'm not proud of. If you knew them I'd be ashamed but I wouldn't regret them. Doing something you used to regard as wrong isn't quite what you think it is. No Furies attack you at night. Sleep is easy as always and you feel you found out another aspect of yourself you knew nothing about—a 'know thyself' tool as Cassie would call it."
Was he trying to make her feel better regarding her guilt? Was he honest? Would it pass away, fade with time? But Kepler went on.
"You draw a line and slowly without even realizing it you move it, thinking 'this can't be so bad, can it?' You find excuses. 'I did this to protect myself or a person I cared for.' The line keeps moving until you don't see it anymore. The first time I realized I did something I would never have done in the past I thought 'now I'm free.' Free even from myself, from my own limitations. It doesn't work that way. Guilt is pointless and the way it's advertised," he offered a bitter ghost of a smile, "it's scarier to think about it than actually feel it, but you need to draw a line. And not cross it. Or at some point you risk losing yourself."
Christine winced at his grave tone. "I did feel guilty when I thought I slept with Radek. It wasn't fun."
"I did feel guilty I allowed it to happen. That's because we both disappointed ourselves, our expectations. It wasn't the moral downfall we couldn't handle."
He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.
"Christine, I didn't tell you about Mandy or my first kiss to evoke your pity."
As if she didn't know….
"I don't blame the violence in my life on my face. It didn't help, but I believe it's a part of me that would have somehow come out anyway and my face situation made it easier. I don't blame my life on my face, but the way people see me…used to see me…the first impression my face evoked, the one I needed eight good impressions to shake away," he chuckled at the memory of the psychological research claiming that. "I didn't have the patience to give people those eight good impressions." She brushed her thumb over the back of his palm, sensing how tense he was.
"I know I could have made a life for myself despite my deformity. But you do good, Christine." He stopped in the middle of the pavement, his stare on her fierce, unyielding. "Don't allow anyone, not me, not Dylan—especially not Dylan!—to influence your decision about Bioprinting. A man with no face may adjust, seek a happy life. Who knows? He may even get it, but it's not a picnic out there. You did good, Doc. You still do good."
"Kepler, what are you talking about?"
"You should use those files. You can do so much good with them. I trust you and I trust that you'll put them to good use." His ungloved hand stroked her arm. A mischievous half smile curled his perfectly-shaped lips before they found her mouth for a short, lazy kiss. She was too stunned to kiss him back. "In a few years' time I'll say I've kissed the Christiaan Barnard of Bioprinting and everyone will have his own heart copies because of her."
He was honest. He was proud of her and all she wanted to do was punch his bioprinted face.
"It doesn't work like that, Kepler!" She didn't have the patience to explain that his files did not include any instant, miraculous answer, that she had no clue what had worked for him or that decades could be needed between the thought of copying a heart and the actual deal. She didn't have the mind for a rational discussion with the man who had just given a lecture on guilt, on the guilt she'd feel when she'd surrender him to Raoul to become "BDS property". She pushed at his chest with her palm but she failed to move him. "Tell me you're not suggesting what I think you're suggesting right now." She didn't suppress the irritation in her voice. So, there would be no betrayal because he gave her permission, guilt was exaggerated and she had to draw a line, leaving him on the other side. Did he know her at all?
"At this point, I don't give a damn about BDS, Dr. Reyes or Bioprinting's success," he spat the words. "I can't even bring myself to care about Gallagher. Whatever you decide makes no difference to me, Christine. I don't give a damn about any of this." His eyes, the vein twitching under his eye portrayed his anger more than his words did but Christine was too angry herself to let them register.
"Then what do you give a damn about, Kepler? What do you want?" she challenged him.
"I want you to look at me the way you did before. I'm the same man I was two days ago."
"You know it's more complicated than that—"
"I know. Let's un-complicate it! So, what is it going to be, Christine? It's your choice. If all you see in me is your P8 resurrected from the dead, let's go to BDS right now. I have no problem with that. I can handle BDS, Dr. Reyes. I can handle it all except for this." He waved a frustrated hand between them. "Don't let Dylan intimidate you with his medical mumbo jumbo. I'm not his or your patient anymore. I can deal with BDS."
"You're not serious!"
"I'm more than serious! If that's what's getting between us, if that's keeping us apart, I want to deal with it and move on. I want us to move on. So, what is it going to be?"
Only Kepler could take a ticking bomb and move its timer forward.
And regardless of her frustration, she felt a sense of peace wash over her. Suddenly everything was crispy clear. Didn't he know that she'd rather have Bioprinting stop altogether than risk his safety?
"You know my answer to this. If you don't know it, all this is pointless and you'd better place your interest in Modi's wife. Not me." His hands on her shoulders forced her to look at him but it wasn't satisfaction or relief that she read on his face. Only sadness.
"If you know who I am, Kepler, you know there is only one way for me to move on—"
"You need answers to your questions." She loved his voice. "You have questions about us?"
"About us, too, and more."
"Start now, then."
She grabbed his hand. Her stare focused on their entwined fingers. Where should she start?
"Dylan told me you made it alive out of Phase I because of a promise you'd given me. I don't remember any such promise." To be honest, except for his question about her book she didn't remember any other time they actually talked.
His palm cupped her cheek and the street lights flashed in his hazel eyes.
"Sometimes, we say things and we never know, never imagine the gravity they'll have on others. Or how lightly they'll dismiss them." His eyes were smiling. "I do owe you my life, you know." His eyes kept smiling. "Beyond the nights you spent by my bed reading…you kept me safe but it was more than that. When I entered Phase I, I was in a bad place and after I was separated from the others and assigned to your team…it didn't take a genius to get that things were not progressing as they should have been. Spencer was already screwed. I realized this was my turn. At some point, I thought I should just let go. The pain was not a treat, I knew this was not going to work, they—you—would eventually decide to operate, take off the skin—my skin—as if it was one more rejected graft and I would have to start from the beginning.
"I didn't have the courage for that. Then one night you left your chair and came by my bed thinking I was asleep. I didn't have the energy to open my eyes but I knew you'd look at me with those blue-grey eyes of yours—the only thing I had clearly seen of you since you always wore the surgical mask and the cap.
"You leaned over me and told me, 'Please do this for me. This is my big chance so if you could just put up a good fight and pull through you'll make me look SO good!'"
Christine gasped and brought her hands to her mouth, embarrassed. Even though she didn't have any recollection of the event, it was something she could imagine herself saying.
"I'm awful!"
He wrapped his arms around her and brought her closer to him. "No you weren't. You gave me strength. Something to fight for and there is more. You said, 'If you do your best, I'll do my best to give you the face of a movie star. Well, not exactly a movie star because it all depends on your bone structure, but I'll give you the best face I can. That's a promise. You'll walk down the street and women will look at you in admiration, many women, or only one, or guys—whatever you like, I'm not judging—'"
"Oh, my God!" She buried her face in his chest. This was too embarrassing.
"'—but this will change your life.' That's what you said," he concluded. "And just like that, we became a team."
"So much for my 'a new face is not a life-changer' lecture," she moaned against his shirt.
"The circumstances were different," he chuckled. "There was no point telling me what a sucker I was for thinking I could change my life with a new face. Even though you did change my life. And after that night I never thought of letting go again."
Christine squeezed his waist with her arms, never wanting to let him go. His palm pressed against the small of her back, and she moaned. She arched her body to take a good look at him. What was it about this gesture of Kepler's that always triggered her desire? She felt protected in his arms, but was it the possessiveness? The utter possessiveness? Or was it that it felt like the prelude to a dance that was about to begin and no matter how much they tried to postpone it, it had to start soon?
His hand was on her skin now, her coat inadequate to hide his bold gesture.
"I hope we're not risking being arrested for public indecency."
"I've never been arrested on this side of the Atlantic." Her curiosity was piqued at his comment but the sensation was greater. His hand moved to safer grounds.
"I don't care much about the London Eye," she murmured.
"I've seen Big Ben more times than I remember," Kepler responded, instantly attuned to her mood.
"I know the National Gallery is closing later today, but—" She made a face of indifference.
"I believe the Parthenon Marbles' rightful place is with the Parthenon. I don't visit the British Museum," he offered next.
"So you boycott it?" She was certain the museum was closed at this hour but teasing him was fun.
"I do." He sounded adamant but there was a gleam of mischief in his eyes.
"I'm bored with the Tate Modern. Cassie takes me there twice a month—" she nagged, smiling.
"Some people are tourists, Christine. We are not. It's not in our nature." Suddenly his eyes were serious.
"I want to go home."
He nodded and looked around for a taxi.
"To talk," she added.
"To talk," Kepler's deep, husky voice confirmed.
Review… (said in Kepler's hypnotic voice…)