Chapter 8: 25 or 6 to 4

A/N: National Novel Writer's Month officially claims a novel to be 10,000 words. It seems quite strange and wild to me that I've nearly met that mark at what appears to be 8,597. Anyhow, without further ado, James, Pamina, and Carmen spend one last day of their Labor Day weekend together, before I launch into the epilogue, making it a nice 9 chapter story.

I lay on my bed, next to James, feeling low to the ground as I followed the dots on the ceiling with my eyes. He had his arm around my shoulder and we were just thinking out loud to each other. It was a bit of an exercise for James, who kept frequently silent when he was unsure of his opinion.

"What was it that led you to me?" I asked him.

He stared hard at the ceiling. He was searching for an answer.

"I mean," I continued, "Rosa was prettier, and Pamina more stable than I. Why me out of everyone in this dimension?"

Pensive, pensive, he was so pensive looking. I admired the smooth chiseled face poking straight into the air. "I suppose it was your compassion and bravery that won me over, Carmen."

"Pish," I said, thinking of my harsh exterior that ate the faint of heart for breakfast. "I find that difficult to believe."

"I'm not kidding with you. I never felt so safe as when you sang that lullaby to me, you holding me in your arms, and for the while after that when you kept watch over me."

"You were awake?"

"Of course. I couldn't sleep after that nightmare, so I lay there and watched you."

"What of bravery then? I've not got that for sure."

"You've fought off pirates with nothing but swift words. It takes bravery not to solve everything at the edge of a sword. I've made that mistake all too often."

"You sound as if you regret what happened in the Caribbean."

"Parts of it maybe. The loss of my career certainly. I'm not sure that I'm all there when I've not something to work hard at, like pirate chasing or deck swabbing or whatever."

"So, you're not all here now?"

"Sadly...no. I'd love to feel as lucid as I do at the helm of a ship, when I'm just loafing around here, but I'm afraid I can't."

"Do you have any ideas as to what you'd set your mind to here? In a landlocked state with no pirates?"

"I really don't know. Someday I'd like to be a musician, but I'm afraid those years are long past. Do you have any ideas?"

"I don't know. Pam's considering opening a restaurant near campus. We could always work there."

He sighed meditatively and kissed me on the cheek. "Worth a try," he said.

Pam knocked on the door and asked if she could come in. I answered in the affirmative. She brought more soda. I sipped mine gently, and Pam took hers in great gasping gulps. James, still wary from his last experience, just stared at it.

"Here's how it works, hon," Pam instructed. "Take a little bit in and let the bubbles die out, then swallow. Works nigh on every time." (Get your head out of the gutter. What are you, 8?)

James wore a bitter grimace as he launched himself once again at his greatest challenge here. To his surprise, it worked; his self-satisfied smirk lighting up his eyes.

"Good," he remarked. "A bit like rum, a bit like wine."

"Goes good with both!" Pam joked. I looked at her with a foolish grin. We hadn't been this way together since Mum and Dad died. "Anyhow, it's 10 and I need to be at Entrepreneurship early to ask the Doc something."

"Good luck, Mina."

We were alone again. In other stories told about this particular gent, or men of his style, we would have found more unsuitable manners of entertainment. However, I introduced him to my music collection. The jambox whirred to my favorite CD, Picaresque. "Eli the Barrow Boy" filled the room. He listened intently, his eyes sweet and stormy.

"Would I could afford to buy my love a fine gown, made from gold and silk Arabian thread, but I am dead and gone, and lying in a pine grove, but still I push my barrow all the day." I lay back across the bed.

"A haunting song," he said to himself as it ended.

"Love after death is a popular theme, I guess. I quite like haunting songs in that fashion."

"I've died before. It doesn't erase so much as you might think," he chuckled, flopping down on the bed next to me.

"Oh really? What does it do?"

"Hmm. It sort of hurts, and then the hurt goes to a tickle. After I fell in the water, it just felt like living." He sighed.

"That'd be the 5th dimension randomizing. It's the one in charge of death versus not-death."

"How do you know so much?" he asked in wonder.

"School's a big thing now. Compulsory for 13 years. College is essentially expected."

"No way. You're at the beginning of the 13th year then?"

"Yes." Again with the mumbling. I thought I was past this.

"The Golden Age" whirled through the CD changer. "Big Dipper" thrummed in a loose, dancing sort of groove.

"Would you like to dance?" I mumbled.

He sat up, hair shimmering behind him. He had left it down today. "But of course!"

He held my hand gently as we kicked pillows and things out of the way. My free hand clung to the thin camouflage shirt. Round and round we went, as time passed and he held me close. One thing led to another again, and I'm still too modest to mention it.

I shifted, bleary-eyed and tired, to drape my head over the edge of the bed, deciphering the hands of the clock upside down.

"What time is it?" James groaned.

"Twenty-five or six to four," I replied, for 'twas the truth. Early afternoon had come quickly. I put the covers back over my head and slept. The next day would definitely be a shock to me, going from relations with fictional characters back to the dull world of higher algebra and chemistry. James sat there, wide awake. Time would go slowly for him while he waited for me. Part of me knew that as I slipped into the subconscious.

I suppose an "I love you" slipped out as my sleepy mind meandered into the unknown.