Chapter six- Two halves of a whole

It was early in the morning; only the first rays of sunlight were illuminating Iggy's face. We were standing half a foot away from each other looking at each other face to face. Iggy touched my cheek. We had gotten up before dawn to get things prepared for my departure. I was leaving before anyone else got up. Things would be easier that was. Though I hated leaving Iggy to explain everything... well I hated leaving him anyway.

"Stay safe. Don't do anything that puts you in danger."

"I'll try."

"You don't have to do this you know. There will be other ways."

"I want to do it. It will be good closure for me too."

"I love you."

"I love you too." He pulled me closer and kissed me tenderly.

"I won't be happy until you're back."

"I'll be back in a couple of weeks everything will be good after that. Oh crap there's a light that's just turned on I've got to go. Get inside." I unfolded my wings and pushed myself into the air.

"See you. Miss you already." Iggy waved as it flew higher and higher into the air. I didn't have time to look back. I had to get away although there was so much pulling me back. My heart was slowly breaking as I left Iggy. A day after we had gotten together. I had never found anyone in the world that I was in tune with. My other half. Okay cheese fest over.

I flew over Arizona. It was amazingly hot. I tried to use my wings to fan myself but I ended dropping about 10 feet so I gave up on that. I kept going through the sweltering heat. At about midday I brought an ice cream from a shop on the outskirts of a small town. I sat in a tree and began to eat it. Then I heard cracking branches above me. The sound was getting closer and closer as I threw my arms over my head to protect myself from the falling branches. I had to drop my ice cream in the process. Then something landed beside me on the branches heavily with a 'thump'

I gasped at what I saw. The thing was over six feet tall, had messy strawberry blond hair that had twigs sticking out of it at odd angels. The thing was Iggy.

"Iggy! What the hell?!" I shrieked jumping up. "What are you doing here?!"

"I missed you. You were gone for about ten minutes and I started thinking I should have gone with you. So I told Gazzy where I was going and left before anyone could stop me."

"That's great and I'm glad you're here. But if something happened to you, I don't think I could live with myself"

"And if something happened to you I couldn't live with myself. I'm coming to keep you safe. I brought bombs."

"Of course. How can I resist your bombs?" I sat back down next to him and started to pick the twigs and leaves out of his hair.

"So what's the plan?"

"We fly to Florida, break into the Itex headquarters, get some information and leave."

"Sounds good. Do you want to keep going?"

"Yeah we should find some lunch."

"Oh yeah, sorry about the ice cream."

"It's okay. Let's go."

"I'll take the bag." I jumped off the branch unfolding my wings as I fell and started to get higher in the air. Iggy grabbed the backpack which contained blankets, spare clothes, a saucepan, matches, money and other basic survival things. If something happened to it we were screwed. He unfurled his golden wings and took off. I felt a lot more relaxed when I had him flying with me. We stopped for lunch in a little diner in New Mexico. We sat together at one of the Formica topped tables planning on where to spend the night. We went into the internet cafe next door and did a search of the area. We found a group of mountains on the Texas- New Mexico border that had some caves that we could stay in.

"So if we get to these caves tonight, we'll stay there and then tomorrow we need to get to Louisiana. If all goes to plan we'll be in Florida in two days time." I told Iggy as I analysed a map on the computer screen. He nodded.

"Should we stop at a supermarket to get some food to cook on a fire?" Iggy asked.

"Yeah, better than dessert rat." After loading up with enough food for an army, we flew for the mountains where the caves were. By the time we got there the sun was setting and the sky was different shades of red, orange and yellow. It was kind of beautiful. Iggy got to work immediately starting a fire. As it was his area of expertise, I decided to leave him to it and went for a walk around the mountain. I wandered across a group of boy scouts who were having a camp fire and making s'mores. There was a stray unopened bag lying not far from the rock that I was observing them from behind. I couldn't resist grabbing it and taking it back to our cave. I picked up two perfect sticks to roast them on.

"Hey Ig, I stole some marshmallows from a group of boy scouts. I thought we could roast them." The fire was already crackling away and Iggy was cooking some bacon and eggs over it in a pan.

"You stole from boy scouts?" Iggy asked in mock horror.

"Shut up. They weren't using them." I threw the marshmallows and the sticks on top of the pile of blankets and sat down next to Iggy. I leaned my head on his shoulder. He put his arm that wasn't holding the pan around my shoulder.

"That smells good." I commented gesturing to the cooking bacon.

"Yeah, well no one cooks in the wilderness like me." Iggy grinned. He took the pan off the fire and started dividing the food onto two plates. We ate ravenously. It tasted as good as if smelt. Another thing to add to the rapidly growing list of things I love about Iggy, he could seriously cook with next to no supplies. As he was washing the dishes I opened the bag of marshmallows. I impaled one on a stick and held it over the over the fire. I got Iggy's one ready with my other hand.

"Come and get your marshmallow." I waved it in his direction. He came over and took it from me. We sat together roasting marshmallow after marshmallow, occasionally feeding one to each other. When the bag was empty, we lay on top of one of the blankets. Iggy was sort of leaning up against the cave wall. My head was on his chest. His arms were wrapped around me. We talked quietly about things. How we're going to get into the probably shut down Itex Iggy told me about his parents and what they had done to him.

"It just sucked. I thought I had found them, but they just wanted to exploit me."

"I can't imagine what you would have gone through."

"Oh well it's all in the past. Anyway I've got you now." We lay in silence for a while. After a few minutes I asked Iggy a question. He didn't respond. I looked up. His eyes were shut and his lips slightly parted. He was breathing heavily and evenly. He looked so peaceful and cute when he was asleep. Angelic almost. I leaned my head back on his chest and pulled a blanket over us. I let the calm sounds of Iggy's breathing lull me to sleep.

*~*~*~*~*

A couple of days later were relaxing on an empty beach in Florida. I know. Infiltrating evil companies is such hard work. We were waiting for the cover of darkness before we broke in. we brought bathing suits, sunglasses from a cute beachfront store. I was soaking up some sunshine and Iggy was working his tan.

"It's not going to work." I told him.

"It will." He said.

"Just don't come crying to me when you're as red as a lobster." He gave me a dark look from behind his sunglasses. "Put some sun block on." I threw the bottle in his direction.

"No."

"I'll put it on for you." I said sort of seductively. He paused before answering weighing up the pluses and minuses in his head.

"No." he sighed. "I don't wanna be albino anymore. No matter how appealing that idea is."

"Pale people don't tan they burn."

"How do you know, you're naturally tanned."

"It's a well known fact. Whatever I'm going swimming." I pulled of my t-shirt and shorts. Iggy sat up eagerly.

"Are you..."

"Am I what?"

"Wearing a bikini?"

"Um yeah why?"

"Cause it's hot. Can you describe it to me... or better yet I could feel it."

"I would hate to know what's going on inside your mind."

"You know you love it." Yeah I did. I kind of felt like talking dirty to him considering how amazingly good he looked in just his board shorts. For someone as tall and skinny as he was, Iggy was rather muscular.

"I might." I threw my sunglasses onto my towel. "Are you coming?" he nodded and jumped to his feet. I ran down the water and splashed through it. Iggy was right behind me. I dived under the water. When I resurfaced I felt two hands on my back.

"Ooh red bikini." Iggy said. "I think you should wear that all the time." I turned around to face him.

"Um thanks, I guess." He wrapped his arms around me.

"I bet you're beautiful, I mean you sound beautiful, you smell beautiful, you feel beautiful and last but not least you taste beautiful." He leaned down and kissed me. I wrapped my arms around his neck. She were making out until a wave crashed over us and we got thrown around in the surf. We bobbed up laughing. We swam back over to each other.

"I love you." I told him.

"I love you too."