Eve did not see Jehovah for a long time after that, although he would still make himself seen to Adam, and take him adventuring as usual. Eve knew that he would still come for Adam, but this did not trouble her greatly at first, as she assumed that he was busy, and that he would be back. To her, everything that Jehovah did was right, and natural. Sometimes she missed Adam when he was gone, but that was all right, because he always came back to her, and she knew that he loved her, and that was enough.

"There is only one thing I ask of you," Jehovah said to Adam one day, as they were tilling some new fields that Adam had discovered. The latter gazed back at him with his fresh, clear gaze.

"You remember the cove," Jehovah said. The other boy nodded. Eve loved it, and therefore so did he, but he remembered now that Jehovah had been the one to discover that cove with her, and for some reason that cast a shadow upon his heart, although he had never spoken of this to Eve. They would go there together from time to time, although Jehovah never accompanied them on these visits.

"There is a cliff there, and upon that cliff, there is a tree," Jehovah said. "Neither you nor Eve must eat of that tree."

Adam accepted it without question, as he always did, and they continued to till the field.

Several days later, he returned to Eve, and when he had completed their organ-searching ritual, he told her what Jehovah had instructed. Eve knew the cliff, and the tree. The cliff had appeared shortly after Jehovah had taken her there for the very first time, and then the tree too. Both were unlike anything she had ever seen before; the cliff with its vertically precipitous, sheer face, and the tree, resplendent and lone and majestic, its shade cool and dark, and unlike any of the other trees in this land. It had not borne fruit yet.

Eve did not know how long she had walked the earth, but she perceived that it had been no short time; and much as she loved every corner of it, the cove was the place that she loved best, which she would go to sometimes when Adam was indisposed. Adam knew that she loved that place, and they returned there together more frequently now, and the shadow in his heart lessened, till he had almost forgotten that this cove had been found by Jehovah and Eve first, rather than himself and Eve. He split up all of his time equally between Eve and Jehovah now, and rarely if ever wandered off by himself or spent any of his time alone, as had been his wont when he had first awoken under the stars of this land, and in the early days of his love with Eve.

The days lengthened, the cliff grew higher and sheerer, the trees grew taller, and the terrain of the land grew more majestic and more brittle. Many times did the trees shed their leaves; and Adam and Eve learnt more and more about the earth and the animals that they lived with. Jehovah made himself known to Adam, as he always did, but he did not come to Eve, and there gradually grew a shadow on her heart.

And just like that, he was waiting for her there, in the cove, when she had retreated there again. She saw him, and at first she thought it was Adam, but then she saw it was Jehovah, and she let out a cry of joy and embraced him, and to her surprise she found tears pouring down her cheeks and a strange emotion in her heart that she could not comprehend.

He did not explain his absence, and Eve did not ask him. They spent the entire day in the cove, and the next day he took her swimming far out to the sea, and they dove together into the deep trenches of the ocean, where the sunlight did not go. Eve was not enamoured of the dark there, nor of the shadows of the great sea creatures that roamed the deep cavernous depths of the sea, to which she and Adam had never even thought to go to before. But she knew that she was with Jehovah, and she did not fear anything when she was with him, and she knew that he would protect her, and indeed whenever he sensed her discomfort he would immediately draw her up to the surface to the light of the world that she knew and loved. She knew that Adam had never come here before, because if he had, he would have told her, and taken her with him. There was nothing, no experience or feeling or thought that he did not share with her, nor she with him.

She grew less afraid of the sea as she became more acquainted with it, and Jehovah would take her swimming with the fish, and they would leap together into the world of light with the dolphins, and she found that she could understand their high-pitched language and shrieks of delight, and she took delight in their joy of being in two worlds at once.

How long they were away, Eve did not know, only that when she and Jehovah finally returned to the cove, the cliff was higher and the landscape was changed. The cove had widened out and melded as one with the coastline now, many of the rocks now had faded into sand, and the tree was now full with fruit that hung heavily from its branches. Her gaze was drawn to the tree, almost against her will, and as she considered it, she saw the silhouette of a person, moving beneath its great canopies, a fleeting shadow that was there but was now gone.

"Jehovah!" she cried, turning to her companion, but he was gone. Eve frowned in vexation. She had wanted to tell him that she'd seen someone there. She was certain that the person she'd seen was not Adam, although she did not know why she was so sure of this fact. It struck her that it had been very long since she'd seen Adam.

She swam her way back to the other side of the shore, and the two people she loved best were there waiting for her. Everything that had troubled her about the tree was temporarily forgotten as she and Adam embraced, and Jehovah smiled quietly beside them.

"I've missed you," Adam said, his voice raw and heartfelt. "You, and Jehovah," and the other boy inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment.

"Jehovah took me to the ocean, Adam," she said. "There's a whole new world there, like nothing we've seen before. We can all go there."

The two of them looked at Jehovah, and seeing him stirred in Eve's mind the memory of the silhouette beneath the tree.

"Jehovah," she asked, "are there any other people here, besides us?"

Adam looked at his lover, remembering that he had once asked Jehovah this same question, many eons ago.

Jehovah's expression was composed, and nothing on his face betrayed any of the emotions he might have felt, as he replied, "No. There are no other people. Just the three of us."

Adam accepted the answer placidly and without argument, but now Eve spoke.

"Can we, would we be able to make other people in our image?" she asked Jehovah.

The latter laughed, and Eve was reminded suddenly of how she had felt when she first beheld the ocean trenches.

"Yes," he said. "You may."

"I thought only you were able to make other people," Adam said, and Eve turned to him.

"I was," Jehovah said, and his voice was merry and mild again, and Adam and Eve hearkened to him and his warmth. He put his arms around them and they cuddled up to him, feeling safer than they had ever felt. "But that was before I made Eve. She is your wife, Adam, and from her loins and yours, will spring all of mankind."

Adam did not understand Jehovah's last sentence, and he was about to ask him what he meant, when Eve turned to their benefactor, her eyes shining. "If I am Adam's wife, then what is he to I?"

"He is your husband," Jehovah said.

"And you?" she pressed, and Adam looked at her and then him, his question forgotten and the old shadow creeping back over his heart. Was Jehovah also Eve's husband?

Jehovah gazed at Eve, and then at Adam, who felt a great calm settle over his heart and over the shadow that lay upon it.

"I am Jehovah," he said.

The shadow did not pass from Adam's heart, but rather lay dormant, for the time being. He settled into Jehovah's embrace comfortably and closed his eyes, overwhelmed with the desire to sleep, feeling truly safe and at home as he had not felt in a long time, but there was just one last thing he needed to be sure of.

"So Eve is not your wife, only mine," he said. Eve was already fast asleep upon Jehovah's other arm.

"Only yours," Jehovah said, "but you are both mine."

Adam liked that. He wondered if Jehovah would still be here when they woke up, and hoped that he wouldn't disappear as he sometimes did, but then all sleep overtook Adam, and he thought no more.


A/N: Thank you for the lovely review, Chaos, and for staying with me over the past three years! I appreciate it, I really do. Second new chapter in two days, woohoo. I hope I can finish this before the end of the season, or at least before the end of the year. I have some of the later chapters written out already.