She was gone for 5 long weeks.
She'd called him at least once a week, if for no other reason than to tell him that she was okay. Sometimes they would talk for a long time, and sometimes the call would only last a minute. Twice he had offered to fly 'Sarah' out to where she was, and meet up with her. Both times she had declined.
He understood her need to work things out on her own, but that didn't stop him from missing her. From what he had gathered she had gone to several different places in different parts of the country, staying only a few days in each place. She'd told him she was trying to look at things through different eyes. He wasn't sure exactly what she meant by that, but he didn't care. He only hoped whatever she was doing, for whatever reasons; it would bring her home to him safe and healthy. On her last call she told him that she wouldn't be talking to him again until she was home. Where she was going, she would be unreachable. When he asked if she knew how long that would be, she told him 'no.' Then she quietly told him she loved him, and before he could respond, the line went dead.
Mac sat perfectly still on a blanket at the edge of the campfire. Holding a bottle of clear, intoxicating liquid in her hands. The fire gleamed brightly through the glass. Casting distorted angles of shape and shadow on her skin. Her eyes were fixed on the light, her vision warped by the tears that streamed down her face. That bottle had held so many of her dreams. Like Pandora's box, once opened, the power of it sucked everything she was inside it. Drowning all of her potential into the bargain, no matter how she gasped and fought and floundered against it. Those dreams were gone now. Dead. Buried with a friend, whom, she had never really let herself mourn. Every hope she'd ever had, had settled on the bottom of the bottle like thick grimy sediment. She had tried to get them back so many times over the years, to hold on to them, but it was futile. Her eyes took on a look of determination, of realization, of acceptance. Those hopes and dreams didn't define her anymore. That bottle and the destruction it brought, didn't own her any longer. She was her own woman. It was time to hope for something more. She stood, and walked over to the edge of the cliff. Staring down at the black shadows of the valley below, her face contorted with regret, with pain, and finally with triumph. She closed her eyes, threw back her head, and roared a song of victory, as her hands tightened on the neck of the bottle, and she shattered it against the sheer black rock of the cliff.
Her journey was complete.
Harm was sitting in nothing but a pair of athletic shorts, flicking playing cards, one by one, into a large wooden bowl, when the knock sounded at the door. His heart leapt to his throat. He knew without a doubt who was standing on the other side. It took him less than a second to be up and heading toward the door. When he opened it, their eyes met, and they both stood frozen.
TBC…