The South African Airlines A380 took off from Cairo at 19:30 GMT +2. The flight wasn't full, and Steve insisted that Jane sit by the window in the three-seater row they had to themselves. He'd glanced around when they started taxying down the runway, and the rows in front and behind them were empty. He was grateful, to say the least, he barely fit with his knees digging into the back of the coach seat in front of him. Flight time was eleven hours and forty minutes.
This is gonna be fun, he thought.
Once they reached cruising altitude and the seatbelt signs switched off, Jane looked away from the window for the first time.
"So this is how people travel," she said, more to herself as she observed how cramped Steve was.
"I think we should switch seats," she started the seating argument again.
Steve sighed. "The best seat is the one you're in."
"We can put up the armrests," she said, doing just that, "and you can put the pillows behind you against the side and have more legroom if you sit at an angle."
A grin spread on her face. "And I can use you as a pillow."
He couldn't deny that that sounded far better than his current situation.
"You sure?"
She sucked in her cheeks with a look that said, "of course I'm sure."
They made the switch, and she smiled at the look of relief evident on his face.
"Thank you." He sighed.
"Anytime."
Dinner and coffee had been served and cleared when Steve intertwined his fingers with Jane's, and he felt Alice's ring.
"Jane..." he began.
"Hmmm..." she responded sleepily where her head rested on his shoulder.
"Have you given any thought to what you wanna do after..." he trailed off.
She sat up, intrigued by his question, sleep falling away from her.
"After the box?"
"Yeah."
She turned, so she was facing him.
"I thought that I'd go with you, wherever you went."
"Are you sure you know what that means?"
She tilted her head slightly, frowning at his question.
"It means that we go back to doing what you were doing before you came to help with me in Wakanda," she answered, "but what do you want?"
Steve looked down at his lap, his face growing serious.
I want to give you the life you deserve, he thought.
"I want you to be happy," he said.
"But what do you want, for you?" she pushed, knowing he'd put the whole world before himself, every time.
He searched her eyes, his face still stern. "I want to disappear after the box."
She misunderstood him, thinking he wanted to disappear by himself and hurt etched her features. He realised immediately he'd been too vague.
"No, I want to disappear with you." He corrected.
The stark change in her expression made him wish he had his notebook so he could capture her in a drawing.
A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. "Where do you want to disappear to?" she asked shyly.
"Anywhere," he said, touching her cheek. "As long as it's with you."
She leaned into his touch, closing her eyes.
"Jane," he said in a low voice, making her look at him again. "I want to give you the world, and I want to be with you, for as long as you want me to be."
She frowned slightly. "Why would I ever want you to leave?"
"I dunno, we don't know the future." He replied.
"But we can decide it," she said, "like Irving and Alice."
He felt like the wind being knocked out of him.
"We can... but we can never be that on paper, to the world."
Her face grew serious as she thought about it, and the roller coaster he was on took him down a steep incline.
"Why does it matter what we are to the world?" She asked, and the rollercoaster started climbing again.
"I just..." he stumbled, "I just wanted to do it right and do right by you."
She smiled, but there was rue in her eyes. "The worlds of your and my time are gone, and we can't go back. The world of this time is where you found me... I don't care what we are to it - this world. All I care about is what I am to you."
The rollercoaster slung around a tight bend into a further upward curve. The exhilaration that her words sent through his body had him stuck with only the cheesiest things in his brain and the words evaporated on his tongue.
She searched his eyes, waiting for his response.
He finally came unstuck; "Before I found you I'd given up hope of ever finding this," he motioned with his hand from him to her, "I was lost, and I didn't care to admit it to myself. You've led me to a place where the sun is warm on my face." He paused around a quick smile. "You've given me somethin' that I thought I'd lost forever."
She was rapt with his words.
"I waited too long to do many things in my life, but I regret none of them more than waiting to tell you that I love you."
She smiled and then a small frown sprouted between her brows. "What does that mean for us?"
Steve grinned through a blush before he grew serious again. "I want it to mean that we are together," he paused and swallowed, "like Alice and Irving."
Jane registered his intent immediately, and her face lit up in a beautifully subtle way like a candle lights up a paper lantern. He wanted her to be his partner. His other half, for better or worse.
With her heart exploding in her chest, she pulled herself closer to him, finding his mouth with a deep kiss. "I would love nothing more," she whispered, and the rollercoaster flew off the rails, but kept flying, like Santa's sleigh on the Christmas cards he remembered as a child.
"Excuse me," came the voice of an air hostess from behind Jane, "would you like an extra blanket?"
"Yes, thank you," said Jane as she turned to take it from her.
As she turned back to Steve, he felt the change between them, the connection they had was secured somehow by some invisible knot.
"I love you," he said earnestly, as he pulled her into another kiss.
"I love you too," she returned when they finally came up for air.
Steve sat back with a warm, full heart as Jane snuggled up against him, covering them as best she could with the blanket in the cramped space.
She fell asleep almost immediately, but Steve's mind raced with plans, plans for a future with the woman he loved.
The plane touched down at 07:15 am on the tarmac of Cape Town International Airport. Disembarking was slow and collecting their luggage even slower. Once they'd cleared customs, Steve bought them some coffee before heading to rent a car. By the time they'd finished all the paperwork and headed out on the highway, it was just after 09:00 am.
They both felt exhausted. Steve hadn't slept at all and Jane had been awake often with intermittent spells of turbulence. They drove mostly in silence as Table Mountain came into view, followed shortly by the deep blue of the Atlantic Ocean. The city was a tangle of brightly painted houses of all shapes and sizes, semi-derelict apartment blocks, hipster hangouts, a few high rises, shacks, shipping companies, railyards and shipping containers.
Jane felt the atmosphere of the place seep through the windows and she understood why everything seemed to move slower here. The mountain extending into the ocean above the city was breathtaking.
"Where are we staying?" she asked.
"On the other side of the mountain," replied Steve, focussing on the minibus taxi that had just cut him off.
They drove past Greenpoint stadium and through Clifton beach, where huge mansions were tightly packed up the foot of the mountain. It all came to an abrupt end as they headed out through Chapmans Peak, a narrow road precariously winding around the skirt of the mountain, a sheer drop on the side of the ocean. The morning sun sparkled off the calm water and the horizon extended so far that the water seemed to bleed into the sky. Jane was completely hypnotised by it, and Steve stole a glance as often as he could.
Just as it seemed like the winding road would never end. Steve drove into a place with a wrought iron gate with a design on it that read; 'Tintswalo Atlantic.'
It was offseason, so it was quiet in the reception area, and they checked in without a wait and were shown to their suite down another winding road. When the hostess finally closed the door of the room behind her, both Steve and Jane breathed an audible sigh of relief.
Jane was desperate for a shower, and Steve insisted that she go first. Once the water was running, he opened the sliding glass doors, and salty sea air breezed in with the ocean right at the edge of the wooden deck, washing over the rocks. He collapsed on one of the wingback chairs looking out onto the deck and was just drifting off when Jane touched his shoulder.
"Your turn," she smiled, nothing but a white towel wrapped around her. His heart sprang into his throat, and he focussed on getting to the shower without any detours. Once he was done, he pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a white T-shirt and found Jane sleeping on the bed. He smiled and slid on behind her, pulling the loose blanket over them and fell asleep the instant his head hit the pillow.
It was just after 16:00 pm when Steve opened his eyes for the first time. He felt cold and rolled over, looking for her and realised she wasn't there.
He sat up. "Jane?" he asked conversationally, knowing she'd be able to hear him even if she was outside, but there was no answer. He was up and out on the deck in the blink of an eye, but she wasn't there either. He looked around outside and saw quite a way down to where the beach started, a figure walking in the breakwater. It was her. Relief washed over him as he turned to brush his teeth and put on a pair of slacks.
Ten minutes later, he walked towards her across the sand. She heard him approaching, turning to greet him with a wistful smile. He walked straight into her embrace and hugged her tightly.
"I thought you were gone," he said gently.
"Where would I go?" She smiled against his chest, and he kissed her hair.
"You must be starving." She said up to him as she leaned back.
"I can eat," he said with a grin.
As they were coming to expect, the leisurely pace of their new destination had their meal stretch over a good two and a half hours. The food at the Atlantic was amazing, and they returned to their suite as the sun began to set, well satisfied.
There was a bottle of Champagne on ice waiting for them, and candles lit between the two swing-chairs on the deck. Steve followed Jane out and took a seat next to her to watch the sunset.
The sound of the waves crashing at their feet and the warmth of the setting sun soon found them deep in conversation, first speculating where Nat and Sam might be and joking about what they would likely be up to and then about where they might end up after 'the box' as they now referred to it. The conversation got deeper as they talked about Steve's time and then about Jane's memories. Steve quieted her fears as his own clenched his stomach and before they knew it, three hours had passed.
They were interrupted by a knock on the door and Steve got up to get it. Jane got up and stretched, the private spa-pool to the right of the room catching her eye.
Steve returned from answering the door to tell her they'd brought a refill for the Champagne they'd not touched yet, to find her, once again, gone.
He found her quickly this time as he looked in the direction of the pool, she was up to her neck in the water, her hair wet.
He walked over to and sat down on the raised deck. "How's the water?"
"There's only one way to find out," she said with a loaded glance.
"I'll be right back," he grinned and returned a few minutes later in a pair of board shorts hanging low around his hips, two towels in hand. He stepped into the pool to find the water pleasantly warm.
She turned to face him and stood up from where she'd been floating. She was wearing a very scant string bikini, and Steve felt a blush rise to his ears. She bit her cheek and took a step closer, and he let the lost galaxies in her eyes draw him in. Her fingers played through his beard as she stretched up to kiss him. Her wet body was cold against him, and his mind was swimming with all the skin he could feel against his.
In no time at all, his heart was hammering in his chest and his body burned in the water. Her hands explored his chest, and as they travelled down, he picked her up by her waist, and she put her legs around his hips. He crouched until they were submerged nearly neck deep. His one hand was under her knee, letting his fingers play over the soft skin, making her moan.
Remember that, he thought.
Slowly he ran his hand up her thigh in the fever of the kiss until his fingers were absentmindedly playing with the bow on her hip. Her fingers were playing down the oblique muscle that leads into his shorts, and he felt himself teeter on the edge. His other hand moved firmly up her side until he could run his thumb over the fabric of her bikini top and her grip around him tightened as she gasped.
He pulled back, out of breath, taking her face gently in his hands and looked at her earnestly.
Without him having to ask, she nodded 'yes' with a shy smile.
The simple gesture sent all the breath audibly out of his lungs.
He stood up and stepped out of the pool with her in his arms, picking up a towel to throw over her as he walked back to the room.
Someone had been in and turned out the lights, leaving only a few candles burning here and there. He put her down at the foot of the bed and walked over to the door, locking it.
Turning back to look at her standing there in the candlelight, he watched her smile at the expression on his face.
He seemed frozen to the spot, and she began walking toward him slowly. When she stopped in front of him, she slid her fingers slowly over the top of his shorts and pulled him towards her. She took his hand and placed it where she wanted it, and he was falling, the edge suddenly lost from his grasp.
"Are you ready, darlin'?" He breathed in a husky whisper.
"Yes, Captain."