In 1822, Baltor Edward Thomas, the future Marquess of Chatsworth, was born in Derbyshire, England. As befitting a gentleman of his wealth and station, he attended Eton, then Oxford, and claimed his father's seat in the House of Lords after the Marquess's untimely death in 1850.
In 1851, he married Lady Katherine Hartwell, the nineteen-year-old daughter of the Earl of Ainsley. It was an advantageous marriage, but not a love match. Unlike many of his peers, he never kept a mistress, instead devoting his life to his duty, both in Parliament and to the people of Derbyshire.
Seven months later, Baltor was on his way back to their country estate, having decided to ride rather than engage the carriage for a one-day journey into town. It was dark and had unexpectedly begun to rain when he made a fatal miscalculation about which path to take at the fork in the road.
For the one he chose was not a path, after all, but led to a racing river at the bottom of a steep ravine.
By some miracle, he wasn't trampled by his horse, but was unable to avoid being thrown from the beast's back into the river. Between the shock of impact and the freezing cold water, he quickly lost the fight with consciousness, drifting like dead weight toward the bottom of the river. It would have been a peaceful, mostly painless death.
What happened instead was truly extraordinary.
One minute later, lightning struck the surface of the water, jumpstarting his heart with one thousand amperes of electric current. It revived him, yes, but also did something quite curious to the cells of his body.
Though he did not know it when he emerged, dripping wet and gasping, onto the bank of the river, his life's path had been irreparably altered.
Henceforth, he will be immune to the ravages of time. He will never age another day.
"You're not Roxy."
The young woman in the pink scrubs stepped into the room and shut the door behind her, seemingly unfazed by his curt tone of voice. "No, I'm not," she said brightly, glancing down at her clipboard before holding out her hand for him to shake. "My name's Bloom. I'll be doing Lucy's physical today."
He ignored her offered hand in favor of staring her down. "Where's Roxy? She always works this shift. Did something happen to her?"
"She's fine." Bloom set the clipboard down on a nearby counter and crossed her arms over her chest, holding his piercing gaze with her own. "I assure you, Mr. Daniels, I'm perfectly capable of looking after your cat." There was an edge to her voice that made him realize the steel behind her sweetness, which was…quite attractive, actually.
Baltor finally took a moment to really look at the woman standing in front of him. Long, bright red hair half-spilling out of a messy ponytail, a few streaks of orangey-blond near her face; big, almost doll-like blue eyes set into a heart-shaped face; tall for a woman, but still almost a head shorter than he was, and skinny without being gangly, a hint of feminine curves hidden under the baggy fabric of her work clothes.
"I'm sure you are," he said hurriedly, embarrassment for his rudeness setting in. "It's just…Lucy, she doesn't really like new people."
He'd rescued the gray shorthaired cat from a storm drain several years ago, soaking wet and looking like something had used her as a chew toy. Somehow he'd wrangled her, spitting and hissing and trying to claw him every two seconds, into the nearest clinic to get checked out.
Roxy was on duty that night, still a student at the time, and managed to calm the feline down to the point of being able to examine her. And that was the beginning of his rather unconventional not-quite-friendship with the quirky, pink-haired vet tech.
Despite change being the one thing that was constant in his nearly two centuries of life, at heart he was still a creature of habit; he had his routines, he stuck to them, and didn't do well with unexpected wrenches being thrown into the plan.
Though this was shaping up to be a rather less unwelcome surprise than most of them were.
Quickly, he ran through a brief version of the story with Bloom, watching her expression change from wary guardedness to the more open, friendly look she'd worn when she first walked in the room.
"Roxy did always know exactly what to do with an animal in distress." She smiled softly. "I'm sorry I got so defensive a minute ago. I just figured if you actually knew her, you would have known about her moving to LA. Her boyfriend's band just signed with a record label."
Something in the way she talked about Roxy with such familiarity made him wonder. "How long have you two been friends?"
"We met in the vet tech program, and we lived together for a couple years before she moved in with Andy. She actually told Dr. Dennis to hire me when she found out they were leaving. I'm not complaining—this is a hell of a lot closer to my place than the clinic in the Mission where I used to work."
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her where she lived, to find out more about her, but a yowl from the corner reminded them both that Lucy was still inside the cat carrier, waiting to be let out.
"Aw, I'm sorry, little lady," Bloom cooed to the cat through the bars. "Let's get you out of here, shall we?"
"Be careful," Baltor warned as she reached her arms inside the carrier. "She still doesn't like most people—"
His words trailed off abruptly when she came out with Lucy cradled in her arms, purring like a motor.
"You little traitor," he said to the cat, shaking his head. "I fed you and scooped your shit for a year before you'd let me do that without scratching my arms up. What'd she have to do—flutter her lashes at you?"
Bloom laughed, a sweet, bell-like chime, before setting Lucy gently onto the table. "I'm no Roxy, but this is my job, after all. I have a couple of tricks up my sleeve. Maybe if you're really nice to me, I can show you sometime."
A flash of heat raced through him at the thought of certain other things he'd like to show her. Thankfully, she'd turned her back to him in order to set Lucy down on the scale.
"So, Mr. Daniels, what do you do?"
"Call me Morgan. Please." He swallowed thickly, needing to wet his suddenly dry throat. "I'm an adjunct professor at SF State."
"Very cool." Bloom put on her stethoscope to listen to Lucy's heartbeat, then made a note on her chart. "What do you teach?"
"This semester I've got two sections of intro to British literature and one upper-level seminar called The Victorian Novel in Context." She seemed genuinely interested, unlike some people whose eyes glazed over whenever he brought up the subjects he taught, so he continued, "It's half history class and half lit class, examining the way different elements of the era—politics, social movements, economics—affected the literature being written and vice versa."
"That's really interesting." She stroked her hands down the fur on Lucy's back, soothing the cat in order to take her temperature. "And a lot of extra work to put together, I'll bet."
"Well, I did do a double master's at Stanford," Baltor said conversationally, forgetting for a moment how people usually reacted to that until he heard her choked sound of disbelief.
"Holy shit, that's impressive," Bloom said finally, after she'd regained her ability to speak.
"It really isn't," he mumbled under his breath, wishing he'd never said anything. "Just means I spent a lot of sleepless nights in the library drinking more caffeine than is probably healthy."
Over the many decades of his existence, he'd accumulated more than a dozen advanced degrees, enough that the idea of higher education as some kind of grand achievement no longer resonated with him. He kept going back because he genuinely enjoyed learning, and he felt more at home in academia than any other career he'd ever tried, but the inherent elitism still rubbed him the wrong way. He'd also met enough people from all walks of life to know that the smartest people weren't always and exclusively those with a fancy degree or title to their name.
"I mean, I did that in college, and I still think it's really cool that… Oh my God!" Bloom exclaimed suddenly, snapping her fingers and looking up with a shocked expression. "You're that professor. The one who was always finding Roxy those weird books."
Now it was his turn to choke on his next breath. "It's rare to find people who appreciate nineteenth-century literature beyond just what's taught in schools," he stuttered out after a moment.
From the way Bloom was looking at him now, he wondered if that was the only thing the pink-haired vet tech had ever said about him. His gut said no, probably not, but before he could ask, the door opened and the portly Dr. Dennis stepped in.
"Ah, Morgan, good to see you again. Bloom, would you mind taking Lucy to get some blood and urine samples?"
"Of course, Dr. D." Deftly scooping Lucy into her arms, Bloom looked back over her shoulder at Baltor and said, "It was really nice to meet you, Morgan."
"You…you too," he said to her retreating form. He spent the entirety of his perfectly boring chat with Dr. Dennis about Lucy's health and fitness waiting to see if Bloom would come back, but it ended up being another vet tech who came in with a grumpy-looking Lucy after the blood draw.
No, Baltor did not do well with changes to his routine. But as any learned man knew, there were always exceptions to any rule.
The charming redhead remained on his mind through the rest of his day—running a few more errands and lecturing on Milton to a room full of bored freshmen—until that night when he found himself at his usual table at the little French-style bistro a few blocks away from his apartment.
Though the new semester was only a few weeks old, his advanced class had already had to turn in one five-page paper on Wuthering Heights, which meant, of course, that he had to grade them. Which was always made much more palatable with a couple glasses of pinot noir. And while he was a fairly good cook, a skill honed out of necessity from his bachelor lifestyle, this restaurant had the best steak frites he'd ever had outside of France.
Baltor drained the last sip of wine and made a note on the paper, impressed with how the student had eloquently connected the differences in treatment of Heathcliff versus Hareton to the new concept of social mobility created by the First Industrial Revolution. He was about to signal to the waiter for more wine when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of bright red near the door.
She had on jeans and a blue sweater instead of her scrubs, but that smile, that bell-like laugh…it was Bloom. It had to be. What were the odds she'd find her way here, to his favorite spot? Astronomically low, probably, unless it was fate.
He was just about to wave her over when a preppy blond guy walked in behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. Her face lit up when she saw him, and she threw her arms around his neck, the hug lasting for just a little too long.
Baltor clenched his jaw, heat rising in his face the longer he stared at the happy couple in the doorway.
Of course she had a boyfriend. Of course, he'd only imagined that spark between them at the clinic.
The overhead lights flickered ominously. Looking down, he saw his hands had unconsciously clenched into fists, and he forced himself to relax them, take a deep breath, and then let it out even more slowly. No need to blow the power grid over a bit of misplaced jealousy.
Because there was no reason to be jealous that Bloom had someone else, no matter how intriguing he found her.
His rules existed for a reason—both to protect himself, and to protect anyone else from the heartbreak of getting too deeply involved with someone who could never live a normal life. Never grow old with the one they love.
London, 1851
Nearly a month had passed before he got the first inkling that the man who came out of the river might not be exactly the same as the one who went into it.
It started, as many things do, with a game of poker.
Springtime meant the reopening of Parliament, but more importantly to the hordes of aristocrats who descended on London from their country manors, the start of the London Season. Tonight's party was thrown by the Duke of Kensington to welcome his daughter, Amelia, into society.
While Katherine flitted about the ballroom, resplendent in aquamarine silk and sparkling diamonds, Baltor had danced the customary first dance with his new wife and then retreated with several of the married men to the drawing room for cigars, cards, and conversation.
Now, Baltor was normally a very good poker player, but the application of several glasses of brandy had distorted both his facilities and his temper. After losing nearly fifty pounds, having upped the ante assuming the other fellow was bluffing, he slammed his fist against the table out of anger—and strange blue sparks seemed to come out of his fingers.
Thankfully, he appeared to be the only one who could see them, but the shock was enough to sober him up. He quickly paid out and left the game, hoping it was only a figment of his imagination.
A week later, it happened again: this time in Westminster, while passionately arguing in favor of a bill to provide public support for young widows and their children. He flung an accusatory finger at the Earl of Mayberry, the prime opponent of the bill, and then watched in horror as a spark of something that almost looked like lightning leaped from his finger into the other man's chest. No one else seemed to have seen it, as Baltor was all but ignored while the others crowded around the collapsed Mayberry and called for a doctor, but he was horrified by what he'd done.
That night, he packed his things and left a brief note for Katherine claiming he'd fallen ill and would be spending the rest of the Season recuperating in the country. He didn't expect her to follow him; they both knew from the start that it was a marriage of convenience and nothing more. She would likely be happy to have him out of the way, to enjoy the freedoms now permitted to her as a married woman.
He spent the next several months drowning himself in enough alcohol to fell an elephant, trying to pretend he didn't know what he was now capable of. Sometimes, when he was truly drunk, he would go out wandering in the woods behind Chatsworth Park, shouting and cursing his misfortune at the sky, or attempting to shoot lightning at the trees, with varying levels of success.
Katherine returned around midsummer, horrified to find her husband in such a state of disrepair; face gaunt, dark shadows like bruises under his eyes, his hair grown out almost to his waist. With what little energy he had left to care, he told her in no uncertain terms that she was free to do as she pleased, so long as she left him alone and didn't expect anything of him.
For a while, it worked, the two of them both inhabiting Chatsworth Park but living entirely separate lives. But eventually, she grew tired of the isolation.
She begged him to let her invite her sisters and their families, along with some of the nearby gentry, to come and stay for a week—to ride horses and plan dinner parties and take walks through the garden—a social gathering worthy of a young, charming Marchioness. Baltor refused to consider the possibility, afraid that someone would discover his secret. It became a source of extreme contention between them.
One night, they had a terrible screaming fight. Katherine hurled a vase at his head, yelling that having a recluse for a husband was not what she had signed up for. As soon as the vase hit the wall behind him, he felt his fingers warm with that horrible energy, but somehow, he managed to keep from unleashing it, walked away, and went to bed.
He awoke in the middle of the night to a room on fire.
In a state of panic, he tried to use his abilities to douse the flames. That only seemed to cause them to leap higher toward the ceiling, spreading further and faster than before. Still, he kept at it, attempting to extinguish them through more conventional methods, until it was clear that it was a lost cause and his only hope was to run.
It wasn't until he was a safe distance away, watching the entire house go up in smoke and flames, that he realized he'd entirely forgotten Katherine in his mad dash to escape. Gazing in horror at the burning building, he knew there was no way anyone still inside could have survived.
He'd never really liked her, was quite certain he hated her by the end for the way she'd pushed and pushed at the boundaries of his sanity, and yet he'd never wanted her to die.
These powers hadn't just made him a freak. Now he was a monster, too.
He stayed to watch for far longer than he knew he should, to watch as the only home he'd ever truly known burned. Until the sight had been thoroughly imprinted upon his mind and he was certain he would never forget this night, or the consequences of this devil's curse.
To the rest of the world, both the Marquess and the Marchioness of Chatsworth perished that night.
Years later, in his darkest moments, Baltor would sometimes wish he could have met such a merciful end.
Walking into Laurel Court at the Fairmont Hotel felt a bit like stepping back in time. The room was huge and oval, with a high rounded ceiling that let in tons of natural light, marble columns, and a dramatic crystal chandelier. A pianist in the corner played classical music as high-society matrons took their tea and scones while seated on plush couches and loveseats.
Though Baltor would be the first to ridicule anyone who tried to claim technological innovation had brought nothing but trouble—clearly, that person had never lived without indoor plumbing, airplanes, or Starbucks—he did occasionally miss the more formal social conventions of bygone eras. Fortunately for him, the concept of afternoon tea had made a revival several odd years ago.
He wove his way between the maze of tables to the woman sitting all the way in the back corner. At nearly seventy-five, she still wore her thick, glossy silver hair nearly to her waist, refusing to cut it short like so many of her peers. Her face had grown rounder, softer with age, but he could see hints of the sharper, more angular features she'd had in her youth. Though her blue eyes might be lined with wrinkles, they were as intelligent and penetrating as they'd always been, like she could see right through him.
"I hate this place, you know," she declared by way of greeting, as he sat down in the opposite seat. "Especially the way the other women look at me, like they're acknowledging my membership in their little Aged Stepford Wife club." She shuddered in horror.
"Thank you for humoring me, then." He unfolded his napkin with a flourish and set it on his lap. "Whenever I try to come here by myself, I get too many dirty looks."
Vivian rolled her eyes, but her expression almost immediately softened into something fonder and more familiar, as she reached across the table to put her hand on his arm. "How are you, Dad?"
"Oh, you know, the usual—it's a new semester, so the freshmen are trying to make me rip my hair out with their ignorance and apathy. There seem to be a few more than usual with an actual brain in my upper-level seminar, so that's nice."
She gave him a mildly exasperated look, shaking her head. "I didn't ask about your job," she said. "I want to know about your life."
A waiter came by and deposited a new pot of tea, along with their three-tiered tray of sandwiches, scones, and sweets. Baltor poured himself a cup of what turned out to be Earl Grey, the scent of bergamot perfuming the air. His favorite, though Vivian had never taken to it.
"There really isn't that much to talk about," he said after a moment, taking a few thin cucumber sandwiches off the tray. "Besides, I'm much more interested in what's going on with you."
Her lips twitched like she was fighting the urge to reprimand him, but instead, she started telling a funny story about the people at a new action organization whose benefit party she was helping to plan.
After burning through a series of dead-end jobs, Vivian had moved to San Francisco in the eighties and went on to have a wonderful, decades-long career in charity fundraising, mainly for human rights groups and political action campaigns. Even now that she'd been retired for years, she still got asked to help out in what ways she could.
The work she'd done, the causes she'd helped fund and legislation she'd helped get off the ground, had created a legacy that would remain long after she was gone. He was so fiercely proud of her and all she'd accomplished.
Then she reached out to pick a macaroon off the tea tray, her hand shaking ever so slightly. When she caught him staring, she shot him an icy glare.
"How's Lucy?" she asked.
"A little skinny, but otherwise in pretty good shape for her age, according to the vet. I think he's amazed she's lasted this long, honestly."
"Just like someone else at this table, hmm?" She raised her eyebrows pointedly.
He exhaled, bracing himself for the familiar argument. "I just don't understand why you're so against it. You know I'd love to have you live with me. It's not like I'm retired, either—I'd have my own life, you'd have yours. Very little would have to change."
"No offense, Dad, but we've never lived together, and I don't think it would end well. For either of us."
She was right, they were probably too similar to deal with cohabitation; especially now, with them both so set in their ways. But he'd never dealt with this before, watching the slow decline of a loved one as they marched toward that supposed light at the end of the tunnel, and he hated how helpless he felt.
He'd been one half-step behind her for most of her life—since he learned of her existence, that is—and now before he knew it, she'd be going somewhere he couldn't follow.
"It's not like I think you're incapable of fending for yourself. I just…want you nearby. In case something did happen." Laying his palms flat on the table, he looked her in the eyes and said, "I'm worried about you, sweetie."
"Well I worry about you, but you don't listen to me either," she shot back. "When's the last time you had a date? If the problem is that you don't want to deal with crowded bars, I hear there's this wonderful new invention called Tinder."
He wrinkled his nose. "You know very well why I don't date. Besides, that's not strictly what Tinder is for, and I've never had much trouble in that particular arena."
Vivian made a face. "Ugh. I thought we agreed back in '73 to never talk about our sex lives."
"You started it." Under his breath, he muttered, "Fucking Tinder," and she giggled, a sound much more suited to a teenage girl than the stately older woman who sat across from him.
Baltor poured himself some more tea, this time adding a single cube of sugar and stirring it in slowly. "I can't have a real relationship," he said finally. "You know why not."
"I know, I know. You can't grow old with someone because of your 'curse'." The air quotes made it clear how little she thought of that opinion. "Because you think it's not fair to them. Well, what about being fair to yourself for once in your insufferably long life?"
He was taken aback by the sudden intensity in her tone. They'd had variations on this fight dozens of times across the years, but this was new.
"Have you ever thought that maybe there's more to romance than the 'till death do us part' bits? You don't need to imagine a forever with someone in order to be happy with them in the present."
He eyed her curiously. "Not to be unkind, but love and family never seemed to be high priorities for you, either."
It had been at one point, he remembered; she'd found love and heartbreak almost in the same breath, and he was the one to pick up the pieces when it all came crashing down around her. Vivian hadn't seriously dated since, and he never pushed.
It would be a few more decades before her kind of love would be legalized, after all.
"Maybe not, but I've lived a wonderful, long, full life," she countered. "Can you say the same?"
He pressed his lips together.
Of course, because she was his daughter, she couldn't just leave well enough alone. "I'm worried about what's going to happen to you when I'm gone."
Baltor gritted his teeth. "Oh, so I can't talk about your impending mortality when it's about your health and safety, but you can bring it up to ridicule my rules? The ones that have kept me sane over twice a normal person's lifespan?"
She winced, and he instantly regretted it. Normally he tried to tone down the most acerbic parts of his personality around Vivian, perhaps out of some vestigial sense of propriety, even though theirs was by far the most unconventional father-daughter relationship he could imagine.
"I know I'll never understand what it's like…to deal with the things you deal with," she said finally, looking down at the table. "I'm not trying to belittle that. I know you think it's for the best, closing yourself off to any chance of connecting too deeply with another person. But human interaction is vital to our wellbeing."
He scoffed. "I interact with plenty of humans on a daily basis."
"Your students don't count." She rolled her eyes, biting into a petit-four. "What are you going to do in ten, fifteen years when I'm not around to force you out of the house every couple weeks? To make sure you see the sunlight aside from just going to work?"
"Please don't make me think about you…not being around." He pressed his fingers to his temples and closed his eyes, as if to stave off a migraine. "But the answer is—I'll survive. I spent plenty of years that way, and I can do it again." Though the thought of a life without Vivian made him feel like someone had a fist clenched around his heart.
Since discovering the curse, he'd never thought he wanted children, never wanted to bring someone into the world only to watch them age and die while he stayed forever young. If Vivian's mother hadn't perished at such an early age, he likely never would have known about her. Perhaps her life would have been better for it.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.
"You," he said honestly. "How lucky I am that I got to know you. How grateful I am to have had the opportunity."
Her eyes got a little misty. "I feel lucky to have had you too, Dad. Which is why I hate thinking about you going on when I'm gone, existing but not truly living. Truly getting to know another person, sharing in their hopes and their fears and their joy…that's the stuff that makes life worth living. All the rest is just window dressing."
Baltor considered her words, finding himself unable to deny the way they resonated with him—no matter how much he might want to. "How'd you get to be so wise, huh?"
She smiled softly. "I had an excellent teacher."
Paris, 1872
Compared to staid, proper London, where anything interesting or scandalous happened behind closed doors, Paris was a city of decadence and mystery. The perfect place to reinvent himself.
For certain, it hadn't been easy—especially when he was accustomed to a certain type of lifestyle, one he could scarce afford without access to the Chatsworth coffers. But even without money, land, or a title, he still had his keenly educated mind and the skills with money that were necessary for running an estate. Along with proper penmanship and a passable fluency in French, it was enough for him to secure a job as a clerk inside a bank.
His days were spent writing up invoices and ledgers until he felt as though his fingers would bleed ink by the day's end. He'd kept the longer hair—the French didn't seem to mind it nearly so much as the English—and grew a small mustache and goatee. And so Baltor Thomas became Edouard Durand, the last name chosen because it meant "to endure."
From his low-level job, he'd worked his way up within the structure of the bank in only a few years, now trusted to manage the money and authorize loans. While he did still have to work for his money, which was not something he would have done in his previous life, it allowed him to live more than comfortably, with a nice apartment in the huitieme arrondissement, nights spent dining at fine restaurants, and a mistress named Simone, a beautiful, golden-haired actress.
After the disastrous end to his English marriage, Baltor had no desire to ever find another wife. Thankfully, the French were far more forgiving of a man who indulged in the pleasures of the flesh outside the confines of holy matrimony. He had been Simone's patron for several years now, and saw no reason to dissolve the arrangement, not when it suited them both so well.
"You continue to surprise me, mon cheri," she remarked idly, seated at her dressing table, her body loosely covered by a thin silk robe. He himself was still naked as the day he was born, laying in sheets that still smelled of sex and her perfume. Late afternoon sun poured through the windows, turning her light-colored hair to white gold.
"I beg your pardon?" he asked, eyes drooping slightly with the after-effects of the pleasure coursing through his veins.
"Most of us do not get so lucky with the protectors we must accept." Simone stood and walked back toward the bed, untying the robe as she did so it fell nearly off one shoulder to expose her voluptuous curves and the hint of a bite mark at the base of her neck. "To find yourself a man who is wealthy, young, handsome, virile…"
Baltor sat up against the bedframe as she settled herself nearly in his lap, pulling him in for a kiss. "Mmm," she sighed when their lips parted, an expression of pure lust in her jade-green eyes. "As I said. Lucky."
He wasted little time in flipping her onto her back, the robe discarded over the side of the bed, and for the next hour or so, lost himself in the warm, welcoming embrace of her body. But when he returned home that night, looking at himself in front of the mirror, her words floated back to him and gave him pause.
A few months from now would be his fiftieth birthday, yet unlike the rest of his peers, he had no wrinkles, no gray hairs, no visible signs of aging at all. It was as if he'd simply been frozen in time from…from the moment he'd almost drowned.
In the years since he'd left England, the cursed lightning powers had only shown themselves a few times. Begrudgingly, he'd mastered the basics of how to control them, but only so he could be reasonably certain of never burning down another house. He'd planned to live a normal, otherwise unremarkable life, never dipping into the terrifying well of power that lived underneath his skin.
It seemed that was not what fate had in the cards for him.
If Simone had noticed his failure to show signs of aging, others would as well. It would draw too much suspicion. People would ask questions, and perhaps someone would even connect the dots to a house fire in England and a life he thought he'd buried long ago.
That night he packed a bag and slipped out of the city under cover of darkness. By morning, no trace of Edouard Durand remained in Paris, as though he had never even existed.
Baltor spent the next few decades wandering the world, desperately seeking an explanation for his state of being. He started with the great universities—even with France and England both off-limits, there was still Heidelberg, Salamanca, even Moscow and Istanbul to learn from experts in biology, biochemistry, and human anatomy.
When science failed to offer sufficient answers, he turned to other sources. Paid pilgrimage to Mecca, the Vatican, and Jerusalem to seek answers from the holiest of holy men, but also traversed the most remote jungles of Asia to commune with shamans in trees. He dove headfirst into mythology and folklore from all around the world, devouring anything he could find that mentioned lightning or people becoming frozen in time.
All roads eventually led to the same place—a dead end.
Finally, close to the turn of the new century, he had to concede defeat. Nothing he had read or seen suggested an explanation for how he'd become this way. He could either spend the rest of his unending life seeking answers that might not exist…or he could figure out how to best make use of this chance he'd been granted.
No amount of hoping and praying to find a third option—something that would take away this burdensome curse and let him age and die—was going to make it into reality.
Baltor threw open the doors to the clinic and set Lucy's carrier on the nearest chair, thankful when she ceased her high-pitched yowling. "I had a five o'clock appointment," he announced distractedly, checking his phone for any student emails; there were likely to be a few, since he'd unexpectedly canceled class a few days before the midterm, in order to bring Lucy to the vet.
"Give me one minute to get the forms in— oh hi, Morgan, how's it going?"
"What are you doing out here?" he blurted out before he could stop himself. In the chaos of having to upend his routines in order to care for his cat, he hadn't forgotten about the pretty, redheaded surprise from the last time he went to the clinic. He'd just sort of hoped she wouldn't be working today, or at least that he wouldn't have to see her.
Bloom giggled, thankfully not perturbed by his bluntness. "Amanda—the regular receptionist—went home after lunch. Morning sickness got the best of her. It's been pretty slow today, so Dr. D asked me to watch the front instead of having to call someone else for only a few hours." She got to her feet, fingers absently playing with a loose thread near the hem of her scrub top. "I wasn't expecting to see you back so soon, honestly. Is everything okay with Lucy?"
Baltor pressed his lips together. "No, actually," he admitted. "The last few days I can barely get her to eat."
"I'm sorry." Bloom's face was a perfectly composed mask, which made his stomach drop. If she was trying this hard not to show emotion, that meant she probably didn't think the prognosis was good. It wasn't like he didn't know that Lucy's days were likely numbered, he just…didn't want to think about it.
"I'm sure Dr. D will do everything he can to help her," she offered after a moment.
"Thank you." He didn't know why he said that.
"How about you? Have you been eating?"
His eyebrows shot up.
"Don't give me that look," Bloom said, before he could fire back a snappy retort. "I've seen too many people fall apart when their pets get near the end of their life. It doesn't do Lucy any good if you stop taking care of yourself to care for her."
He considered her words carefully. "It's about to be midterm season," he said finally. "A lot of things start to go by the wayside, regardless of my cat's health."
She chuckled. "Just make sure you're remembering to think about yourself every now and then. But I bet your students love your dedication."
Baltor gave a small smile, then turned his attention to filling out the small mountain of paperwork.
Halfway through, he heard Bloom ask, "Hey, do you know that place Le Papillion?"
He froze, pen poised over the next field he had to fill in. "Yes, but…why do you ask?"
"I thought I saw you there a couple weeks ago." He detected a note of studied indifference to her voice, which meant she really wasn't indifferent at all. "I would've gone over to say hi, but…you looked like you didn't want to be disturbed."
"Yes, I've been told I have something of a 'grading bitch face'."
Bloom giggled, and he should have just left it at that. Instead, before he could stop himself, he added, "Besides, it seemed like you were having a fine time with your companion. I didn't want to intrude."
"My…companion?" She blinked.
He cursed under his breath, realizing he'd just admitted not only to seeing her there, but paying attention to the guy with her—both indications of interest he would rather she not know about. Still, he was in this now; might as well go on as he'd begun. "The preppy blond guy?"
Her mouth hung partway open for a moment, eyes lost in thought, and then she abruptly threw her head back in laughter. "You're talking about Sky?" she said finally, when she'd recovered her breath again. "Oh my God. You thought we were dating, didn't you?"
His lips twitched, but he forced himself to keep his head down, scribbling out the last of the paperwork.
"We are definitely just friends," Bloom said emphatically. "I mean, we did date for a little bit in college, but that's been over for years. He actually just got engaged to a real-life princess."
Baltor would be lying to himself if he said he didn't feel some measure of relief. Then he immediately reminded himself it didn't matter; she still was off-limits, because he had the rules.
A spark of mischief danced in her eyes. "I'm definitely single. What about you?"
"The same. I'm afraid my schedule doesn't afford much time for long-term romantic entanglements."
She either failed to pick up on his hint or willfully ignored it. "Anyway, so you like Le Papillion, huh? Me too, I just don't go enough. Can't get people to go with me—I really don't have many friends left around here anymore. Sky's living somewhere in Europe with his fiancée, and Roxy just moved to LA…"
The only way she could have been more obvious was if she'd held up an actual neon sign blaring ASK ME ON A DATE. For a moment, Baltor even considered it. Her eyes were so wide and hopeful, and he could almost hear a voice in the back of his head (one that sounded suspiciously like Vivian) whispering what's the harm in one dinner date?
But before he had the chance to do something he would most certainly regret later, the door behind the receptionist's desk opened and Dr. Dennis poked his head out. "Bloom? Is my five o'clock— Oh, hello. Why don't you come on back now?"
He managed to put the whole encounter out of his mind during the exam. Poor Lucy barely even hissed, like she usually did, a sure sign something was wrong. When all the vet could conclude was that she was probably approaching the end of her days, Baltor was too anxious to entertain the notion of a date.
At least, until he reemerged into the lobby and found a sticky note with his name and a phone number attached to the front of the now-empty receptionist's desk. Curious, he picked it up and turned it over, discovering a second note scribbled on the back.
"In case you change your mind about dinner. –Bloom"
Chicago, 1967
Baltor shut the door behind him and fished through his pocket for the key. The sound of the door against the jamb seemed to startle the young woman sitting against the wall a few feet away. She scrambled to her feet, clutching her hands to her chest as she looked at him aghast.
"Can I help you?" he asked finally. She looked a bit familiar; maybe one of his students? Though if she was, and had somehow come across his home address, that was a bit worrisome…
Her eyes were as wide as dinner plates, mouth just hanging open in stunned awe. After a moment, he realized she was clearly incapable of forming a response and muttered, "Never mind," under his breath. His door now locked, he spun on his heel and headed toward the stairs.
"No, wait!" she called, followed by the sound of racing footsteps. Baltor whirled around just as she stopped running, and she jerked back slightly when forced to meet his gaze head-on.
"Are you…are you Thomas Keller?" she asked after a moment.
That was, in fact, the alias he'd been using for the last several years, although he'd been thinking that it was about time to retire it and choose a new one.
The last few decades had brought with it more advances in technology than he'd known was possible in such a short span. Discarding and picking up new identities wasn't as easy as it once had been, though thankfully there was a burgeoning black market for that sort of thing. As long as the scoundrels kept pace with the rate of innovation, he shouldn't have any problem continuing in a series of ephemeral lives, the way he'd always done.
"I am," Baltor said coolly, giving her a more thorough look-over. "Who wants to know?"
She didn't answer the question. "Do you remember a woman named Laura Bowman?"
He'd arrived in America at the tail end of the second Great War, after having been strangely compelled to fight in it. Perhaps a part of him had hoped, with all of the death and carnage laying waste across Europe, he might finally be able to put an end to his eternal suffering. Instead, he survived, and went in search of a fresh start.
Laura was a young woman he'd met shortly after getting off the boat in New York City. She grieved for the loss of her high school sweetheart, another casualty of the war. They'd come together for a few short weeks, seeking comfort in the arms of another person in order to make the world a little less bleak. Eventually, they'd gone their separate ways, and he'd more or less forgotten about her until this moment.
Baltor blinked, forcing himself back to the present. "I'm not answering any more questions until you tell me who you are and what you want," he said sharply. The young woman cringed, and he exhaled, trying to remember what he was dealing with. "Can I at least get your name, since you somehow know mine?"
She wouldn't quite look him in the eye, but it was better than nothing. "Vivian," she said finally, her voice wavering slightly. "Vivian Bowman."
Now that he was really seeing her for her, not just some strange woman accosting him in the hall, the resemblance to Laura was quite striking. Except it was more than that. Her long dark hair had definitely come from Laura, but the high cheekbones, sharp features, and blue-gray eyes…
In the very back of his mind, he could almost hear the click as two pieces of the puzzle slotted together.
"Laura's daughter, I presume?" Even as his unconscious mind knew exactly where this was going, the rational part of him refused to believe it. "How is she?"
"Dead." Vivian's bottom lip wobbled. "As of six months ago."
"I…I'm sorry for your loss."
Vivian lifted her chin, a determined look in her eyes. "When I was cleaning out the house, I found this box in the attic. It had a bunch of photos of my mom when she was about my age, and letters she wrote to her sister about this charming stranger from Europe who made her feel alive again. She never liked to talk about my dad, always shied away from my questions even on her deathbed, but when I saw this picture, I just knew…"
Instead of finishing her thought, she brandished a photograph in front of his face. Baltor felt as though the floor had dropped out from beneath his feet as he realized why poor Vivian had gawped like a fish out of water when she first laid eyes on him.
More than a confirmation of her paternity, the seemingly innocent photograph of him and Laura was tangible, visual proof that he hadn't aged a day since 1945.
(That was, incidentally, why he tried to avoid letting anyone take his picture, but Laura's eyes had lit up when the nice man with the camera had asked them to pose, and he would have gone along with just about anything to make her smile like that.)
Baltor closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, pressing his fingers to his temples as if to stave off the headache he could feel coming. "How did you find me?" he asked finally.
"At the bottom of the box was a letter you wrote her, with the return address as here. I thought it was worth at least checking to see if you were still in Chicago." Tucking the photograph away, she looked up at him with an expression that was part wonder and part fear. "How…how is this possible?"
"If I may…?" It felt like there was an elephant sitting on his chest, but he managed to get the words out. "Walk away right now and forget you ever saw me. Please. Your life will be infinitely easier for it."
"You mean your life will be easier, right? If you don't ever have to let someone else see more to you than what's on the surface, like you did for Mom?"
He was taken aback at the sudden spark of defiance.
"If I've learned anything in the last year, watching her die slowly from the tumor in her head that made her forget who I was and shit her pants on the couch, it's that I can handle a lot more than I ever thought I could. So yes, this is fucking weird, and I have a ton of questions, but you're all the family I have left. I'm not going anywhere unless you physically make me leave."
She was brash, candid, curious, impetuous, persistent; honestly, she was entirely too much like him. It shouldn't have impressed him this much, but…it did.
With the weight of a century and a half's worth of mostly solitary life heavy on his shoulders, Baltor took a deep breath and said, "I must warn you, then—even I don't have all of the answers to your questions. I never expected to be in this position, to have a child of my own blood, and perhaps that was my cowardice, but I just want to make sure you understand what you're getting into. Think what you may about me, but I gave you the chance to leave as an offering of mercy. This life I've lived is a curse, not a blessing."
Her face was pale and drawn, but still so determined. "Does that mean you're going to tell me the truth?"
"If you stay, I'll tell you whatever you want to know."
"I want to know everything."
He shook his head. Definitely his daughter.
One way or another, this was bound to end in catastrophe, but perhaps in the meantime, it could be that fresh start he'd been seeking.
So he took a deep breath, preparing to speak the words he'd thought he would never tell another living soul.
"I was born in 1822…"
He meant to throw away her number. He really did. The rules didn't exactly forbid keeping it, but he wasn't in the habit of being cruel, and that's what it would have been, to entertain such a notion. He told himself he was going to forget about it.
But grief made liars out of even the best of men, as Baltor knew all too well.
"Hello?" Even with the wariness in her tone, her voice was like a soothing balm over his ragged nerves. "Who is—"
"She's gone."
"Morgan? Is that you?" Taking his silence as a confirmation, Bloom pressed forward. "Are you okay? What's going on?"
"I just…she didn't come greet me like she always does. And when I saw her on the bed, I thought she was just sleeping, but she was…so cold…" A sob threatened to escape his throat, and he swallowed harshly, tears stinging at the corners of his eyes.
"Lucy," he said finally. "She's gone. She's dead."
He heard her sharp intake of breath. "Oh Morgan, I'm so sorry for your loss." Over the years, he'd become very familiar with the way people sounded when they were feigning sympathy; Bloom's compassion was undeniably genuine. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
Baltor's stomach twisted sharply.
The rules. Remember the rules, his rational mind all but screamed.
"I was hoping maybe I could collect on that dinner? If you're still interested?"
A choked sort of laugh came from the other end of the phone before she said, "Of course. No one should have to be alone when they're grieving." A breath, and then, "Should we meet at Le Papillion, then? I don't know where you live, but I can get there in about thirty."
"I actually live right around the corner from there, but…would you mind coming here instead?"
There was a moment of hesitation, and then she said, "If that's what you need, then sure."
Baltor rattled off his address and, after hanging up the phone, made a beeline for the kitchen and poured a large glass of chardonnay, which he drank in two big gulps. Then he called up his favorite Thai place and ordered enough for two, with some extra spring rolls for good measure.
The food showed up right when Bloom did, a bottle of wine clutched in her hands, water dripping off the ends of her red curls and bright blue rain jacket. He almost kissed her cheek when he went to take the bottle from her, and then they both stuttered awkwardly through an apology. Watching her shake off the water and hang up her coat made his stomach do funny little flips.
Initially, they sat down at the table to eat, but the awkward silence was almost deafening. It was her idea to put on a movie; "to take your mind off things for a while," she said. He let her pick some dumb romantic comedy off Netflix and settled into the recliner with a plate of food, wishing he were brave enough to share the couch with her.
About halfway into the film, she made some comment about the pad Thai and he said absently "outside of Chiang Mai, it's the best I've ever found." That caused her to sit up straight with an almost-shriek of "you've been to Thailand?" From that moment on, the movie was fully ignored, as they traded stories back and forth.
He was careful, as always, to edit just enough of the details to keep her from realizing there was no way someone could have lived a normal lifespan, gotten a double master's, and still explored the world as much as he had. But he told her about riding camels through the Egyptian desert, dancing in the streets of Rio during Carnival, and sleeping in a tent on the wild plains of Africa. He told her about the tiny, uninhabited island within the Indonesian archipelago where he'd once spent almost a year in total solitude—just himself, a stack of books, the birds and the fish—and watched her eyes go wide with barely restrained awe.
And he learned more about her than he ever would have expected on a first date. Beyond just that she was twenty-eight, the daughter of a clean energy tycoon, and grew up in a wealthy suburb right outside of San Francisco. That she rebelled against her parents when she decided to become a vet tech instead of going to work for the family firm. That she'd dated Roxy's Andy for about two weeks in high school, that the reason she and Sky didn't last was that he came from her parents' world and enjoyed that life a little too much for them to make it work long-term.
That underneath the bright pink scrubs and cheery smiles, she was, in fact, a lot like him—tired, a little bit lost, and desperately afraid of being alone.
At some point after they'd finished the second bottle of wine, he'd migrated to lie on the floor next to the couch. One of Bloom's arms was spilling off the side of the couch, their fingertips almost close enough to touch, and the light floral scent of her shampoo was more intoxicating than the wine.
"Can I ask you a question?" she asked, her voice slightly scratchy from how much they'd been talking.
The movie had long since ended without either of them paying the slightest bit of attention. Outside, the sky was pitch black, the rain having whipped itself into a proper thunderstorm, and the only light in the room came from the faint, dim glow of the TV screen.
"Go ahead."
She hesitated. "How did Lucy get her name?"
When he didn't respond right away, she rushed to fill the silence. "You don't have to answer. I'm just curious. I've always thought it said a lot about people, what they choose to name their pets."
"No, no, it's okay." It didn't hurt so much to think about the cat now, compared to just a couple hours before. If he didn't know better, he would have thought Bloom had some kind of magic healing energy.
"I told you how I found her in a ditch, right? Well, she really didn't want to go anywhere with me, even though her leg was too badly hurt to get around by herself. She damn near scratched my arms off, so I started calling her Lucifer in my head—I assumed she was a boy at that point. Then when Roxy convinced me to take her home, and said she was a girl…I don't know, I shortened that to Lucy and it just seemed to fit."
Bloom laughed, turning her head onto the side so she could look him in the eye. "Are you religious, Morgan?"
For some reason, the sound of his alias made him wince internally. He thought he'd accepted long ago that he would never hear his birth name said aloud again—Vivian knew it, yet mostly called him Dad—yet he couldn't help but wonder what it would sound like on her lips.
Baltor blinked, realizing she'd asked him a question. "I was, at one point," he admitted, sitting up and tucking his legs underneath him as he rested his back against the coffee table. "I had this…accident, when I was younger, with consequences that reached farther than I could have ever predicted they would. I used to think if I could only figure out how to prove myself worthy of forgiveness, to repent for whatever sins I'd unknowingly committed, then I would finally be able to find peace."
"And?" she prompted.
He sighed. "Then I got older, still wrestling with the same demons, and I started to wonder if the problem wasn't with me or my faith, but rather that no one was up there listening to my prayers."
Bloom pulled herself up into a seated position, eyes almost aglow as they locked onto his. "I obviously don't know what you're dealing with, and it's all right if you never want to tell me, but please, even if religion isn't doing it for you anymore, don't ever lose hope. I know that sounds cheesy as all hell, but I've seen where people end up when that happens, so just promise me you won't—"
She never got to finish her sentence, because he surged forward to kiss her out of pure instinct.
For a few breathless, terrifying seconds, she was still against him, and Baltor feared he'd made a terrible mistake. But then she breathed in, tilting her head and opening her mouth to deepen the kiss, her arms going around his neck to steady herself. She tasted like the wine they'd been drinking, but underneath that, something uniquely sweet and utterly addictive.
Neither of them bothered coming up for air as they moved together so he could settle on top of her on the couch, her face cupped in his hands. Her hands were all over the place, tugging at his hair and running over his shoulders and down his back, urging him closer, closer, and so he slotted one of his legs between her own, so they were all but rutting together. His entire body felt electrified with the intensity of these sensations, and he wasn't sure he'd ever felt like this before…
Electricity. Fuck.
As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he broke the kiss and pulled his hands away from her body, discreetly pressing his fingertips together to check for the warming sensation that always proceeded a power surge. He hadn't lost control of the lightning in decades, but whenever he had, it was always at a moment of heavy emotion.
But there was nothing unusual about the way his hands felt, no charge in the air like before a storm.
Bloom blinked up at him with heavy-lidded eyes, her hair mussed, lips swollen and kiss-bruised. "Is everything—"
"Fine," he said hurriedly, placing one hand on the curve of her neck as he bent to kiss her again. "Everything's fine."
This time, she was the one to pull back. "Should we—"
"Yeah," he said, already climbing off the couch and offering a hand to help her up. She nearly tripped over her own feet, falling against his chest as she stood, and it was so endearingly awkward that he just had to kiss her again.
Together, they stumbled through the apartment toward the bedroom, two sets of legs attempting to move in sync, still attached at the lips. When Bloom's legs hit the edge of the bed, she giggled and fell back onto it, her hands clutched in his shirt to drag him down on top of her again. They picked up right where they'd left off on the couch, kissing and touching, enjoying the luxury of the extra space to roll around and explore each other's bodies.
Eventually, clothes started to come off, though there was a moment where Baltor's hands were almost shaking too much to undo the button of his jeans. Despite his crack to Vivian about not needing Tinder, it had, in fact, been a while, and he prided himself on being a gentleman with any woman he took to his bed. Fear of inadequacy caused him to slide down to the end of the bed and work her over thoroughly with his fingers and tongue, until she was shaking from overstimulation and yanking him back up to kiss her, well-satisfied but still eager for more.
When they finally came together, he almost couldn't breathe with the intensity of it. Even with anonymous hookups, there was something very intimate about this particular act, and yet this felt like something he hadn't had in a very long time, possibly ever.
He reached out to lace his fingers through hers, needing something to ground him in reality. Bloom looked up almost as if in shock, before her expression melted into a soft smile. Their bodies moved in tandem with a seemingly practiced rhythm, as though they'd done this dozens of times before. White-hot heat raced down his spine, but Baltor forced himself to wait, until he heard the soft cries and felt her body tense up around him, before giving in to the harsh pulses of pleasure that seemed to break him open.
He remembered very little after that, until morning sunlight streaming through the open window roused him to consciousness. Bloom was already awake, lying on her side facing him, bright red curls in spectacular disarray. A small curl of heat stirred in his stomach to see the mark he'd left on her neck.
When their eyes met, she reached over to brush a piece of hair out of his face. "Good morning," she said, a pleasantly raspy edge to her voice.
"Good morning," he said, feeling a bit raw and vulnerable in ways that had nothing to do with the physical. It had been well over two decades since the last time he'd woken up next to another person. This was so against the rules he might as well have burned the playbook, but strangely, it was also the most at peace he'd felt in a very long time.
Bloom took a deep breath, as though steeling herself for what she was about to say. "You know, I did the one-night thing for a while, after I ended things with Sky, and I really don't like it. It just leaves me feeling kind of empty the next morning. But you said you don't do relationships. I knew that and I slept with you anyway, so that's on me."
"Bloom, I—"
She put a finger to his lips. "I did a lot of soul-searching after the breakup, actually, and I know I have a tendency to project onto people who I want them to be, ignoring all signs of who they actually are. I like you, and I think your life will be a lot better if you can get past whatever's keeping you from letting someone in. But I'm not asking you to change for me. I know better now than to think that will ever work out in my favor."
Baltor was amazed, and more than a little bit in awe, at her ability to analyze herself to that degree. It was more than he could have said about himself, and he'd had almost two hundred years to work things out.
Though he hadn't given it much conscious thought, until this very moment he had planned to treat this like any other one-night stand. That was what the rules mandated, after all. He couldn't be with her in any real sense, and a quick, clean break like this was much better than dragging it out for months. That was ultimately why he preferred anonymous sex, although what she'd said about it leaving her feeling empty definitely struck a chord.
"I guess what I'm asking is…can I see you again? Or was this only for one night?"
He swallowed thickly, and for some reason, thought of Vivian; how she'd barged right into his life and refused to listen to any of his well-meaning reasons as to why she ought not to stay. Bloom might not have had the same delivery methods, but with her quiet self-assuredness, the effect was more or less the same.
Without having to take Lucy to the clinic—and he didn't want another cat yet, maybe not for a long time—it would be easy enough to never see her again.
But that was the very opposite of what he wanted to do, consequences be damned.
"No," Baltor said softly. He trailed his fingers over her bare shoulder and watched as the light started in her eyes and spread across her entire face, like a ripple effect. "That's not what this was."
Author's Note: This was meant to be a one-shot, but I have no self-control. Part 2 should be up within a few weeks (I hope).
Title comes from the song "When We Were Young" by Adele.