"Why are you up so early" Spencer asks, peeking her head out of the tent. "Everything okay?" She asks as she comes and stands next to me.
"Everything is fine." I turn to her and smile. But I know she can see right through my lie.
"No it's not." She shakes her head. "Tell me what's on your mind." She leans her head on my shoulder, wrapping her arms around my right one.
I sigh, not wanting to bring this up just yet. But all not I couldn't think of anything else. Dr. Johnson's words played on a loop in my head, over and over last night. "We're almost done with the cure. A couple days maybe, at the most." I tell her. She nods and smiles.
"I know, you guys are moving really fast. But that's not what's bothering you Ashley."
"When Rebecca wakes up," I start, glancing down to see Spencer's reaction. Her facial expression doesn't change. I guess she knew this conversation was coming. "Spencer I don't want you to think that I want anyone but you, because I don't. You're it for me. I love you and when this is over, when the world goes back to how it's supposed to be, I want you at my side." I explain.
"I know." She smiles. "I know that you love me, but I also know that you love her too, Ashley. I'm not blind to that." She says and takes a deep breath. "We don't..." She pauses and shakes her head. "We don't have to talk about this right now. Let's just finish the cure and then we'll discuss it okay." She suggests, I nod even though I'd rather get it all out now. There's not a doubt in my mind that Spencer is the girl I want to spend my forever with, that isn't the issue. The issue is that everyone is right, I never got the chance to grieve the loss of Rebecca, I never got the chance to get over her. And now that's she's here, back in my life and soon enough she's gonna be the old Rebecca again, I don't know how I'm going to take it. How things will be between us. Will she remember me? Everything that we had? Will she remember that I left her to die, that I ran like a coward instead of trying to save her? Will she be the same person I remember her as?
So many questions and so many answers that I'm terrified to find out.
–
"What's this and why are you giving it to me?" Rebecca smiles as I hold out the bouquet of roses in front of her. She glances around the lab and out the windows to make sure no one is watching.
"There's roses and I'm giving them to you because I want to. I like to do nice things for my girlfriend." I reply with a smile.
"I never said I would be your girlfriend Ashley." She rebuttals, matching my smile.
"You also never said you wouldn't." I retort.
"You're gonna get me in trouble, okay sure, your mom is fine with this but what about her boss? And my granddad. You know he works here, right?" She asks as she leans forward to sniff the roses.
"Yes, I know." I say rolling my eyes. "I don't care what other people think, Beccs. I just want to be with you and I know you want the same thing." I take the flowers from her and place them on the counter. Taking her hands in mine. "This..." I say moving closer to her, eliminating any space that was between us. "This is so good." I whisper. "What we have, it only comes around once in a lifetime. We're so lucky to have found each other at such a young age because when I'm with you Beccs, time stands still. No one else exists but us."
She closes her eyes and smiles. "Time can't stand still Ashley, then you'd be sixteen forever." She says and chuckles. "And I'd be in jail probably." She adds after a moment.
"Here you go with the age jokes." I chuckle before kissing her lips.
"Well you opened the door for it." She replies.
"By now I would have thought that-"
"The flowers are lovely, Ashley." She says, cutting me off, looking behind me at the flowers on the counter.
"I thought you would like them." I smile.
"You've always had impeccable taste."
"Toot your own horn much?" I joke, pulling her towards the door with me.
"Where are we going?" She asks confused.
"To the roof." I reply.
"Um... why?" She asks with a raised brow, pulling us to a stop before we reach the door.
I roll my eyes playfully, pulling her closer to me, "So I can shout to the world that I'm in love with Rebecca Alex Johnson." I reply sweetly.
"Ashley..." She shakes her head and smiles.
"Well they ought to know." I reply with a shrug.
"Love?" She inquires.
"Yes." I turn back around to face her. Moving as close as I possibly can to her. "I love you." I say softly.
"Ashley." She says, pausing as I see the tears well up in her eyes. "I don't care to admit this, to myself or to you really." She pauses again. A sigh escapes her lips before she starts again. "I love you, too." She finally gets out and I can't help the smile that creeps onto my lips.
"Come on let's go." I kiss her quickly then pull her out the door.
"Ashley we're not doing this." She says as I lead her down the hall to the stairwell.
We so are...
–
"What are you doing up here?" Angel asks me as she closes the door to the roof.
"I needed some air." I reply, turning back to the city. I don't know why we never came up here before, we can see most the city from up here.
"Everything okay Ashley?" She asks as she comes and stands next to me.
"Yeah." I nod. "Just thinking." I answer honestly.
"About what you're gonna do when Rebecca wakes up now that you have Spencer?"
"How is it that everyone has given this thought but me?" I ask, turning to her.
She shrugs and smiles, "You've been dealing with a lot."
"Yeah, I guess."
"Dr. Johnson said that he's in the purification stage. He thinks he'll have it ready to add the adjuvant within a couple of hours."
"He's moving so fast on all this, I still can't believe it." I say as we turn to head back towards the roof door.
"That's the same thing I said." Angel turns to me and says in a high pitch voice. "He told me welcome to the 21st century and thank you for joining us." She adds after a moment, dropping her head. Angel and I burst into laughter as we head back down the stairwell. Dr. Johnson has been full of jokes these past couple of days.
As we were descending the stairs we heard a noise, like a crackling, or static on the tenth floor. We glanced at each other, making sure we both heard it.
"Yeah." I whisper softly, nodding. Answering the question she hadn't asked.
"Should we-"
"Yeah." I whisper again, cutting her off. I pull her behind me as I reach to open the door slowly. I take my gun off my clip just in case, even though I'm not sure how anyone could have gotten into the building and up to the tenth floor without our knowledge. I put a finger up to my mouth and signal for Angel to stay low as we make our way up to the first door. I peek into it quickly, not seeing anyone, I move down to the next one. I move to the other side as Angel squats on the other side. The noise is extremely loud so we know this is where it's coming from. As we go to stand we hear a voice, a familiar voice.
"Miller to base, Miller to base."
"Eric!" I burst into the room and say. He looks like a deer caught in headlights as he cradles a radio in his right hand and reaches for his gun with the other. "Touch it and I'll kill you myself."
"Ashley." Angel says, confused at what's going on and why I'm threatening Eric. A guy that's never done anything wrong to me.
"Who are you?" I ask him in a cold and calculated voice as I move closer to him. I knew something was off about him and I think I just caught him red handed.
"This is not what you think Ashley, I'm here to help you." He replies, taking his hand away from his gun, placing the radio down on the desk.
"Tell me who you are right now before I blow your kneecaps off."
"Ashley!" Angel scolds me.
"He's not who we think he is, Angel." I turn to her and say quickly, not wanting to take my eyes off of Eric for too long.
"Ashley you have this all wrong, I-"
"Who were you talking to on the radio?" I ask, moving closer to him, my weapon still pointing at his head.
"I can't-"
"I see it this way Eric, if that is even your real name." I snap. "You can either tell me who you are and why you're here or I can kill you right now." I shrug, knowing it would be no problem to put a bullet in his brain. I move closer to him, the barrel of my gun now touching his temple.
"I'm on your side." He tries.
"I find it hard to believe that." I reply quickly.
"Ashley maybe you should just put the gun down." Angel tells me.
"I'm not doing anything until he tells me who he was talking to on the radio. Who's base? Are you trying to steal the cure from us once it's finished? What do you want?" I throw out all these different questions.
"Ashley just put the gun down." Angel says again.
"You should listen to her." Eric speaks up.
"You don't say anything unless you're answering one of my questions." I snap at him.
"Ashley this isn't the right way."
"Yeah Ashley, this isn't wise." Eric speaks again.
"I'm warning you Eric." I tell him, taking the safety off my weapon.
"Ashley don't do this." Angel pleads with me.
"Tell me who you are!" I half shout to him.
"I'm on your side, Ashley!" He tells me again, matching my tone.
"Ashley put the gun down."
"What do you want from us?"
"I've been helping since I got here, if I wanted anything, I would have taken it already."
"Ashley."
"You have five seconds to tell me who you were talking to on the radio." I inform him.
"This isn't what you want to do Ashley, I promise you that you're gonna-"
"Five." I start counting down.
"Ashley please just-"
"Four."
"You're not getting it, I'm here to help you."
"Three."
"Ashley you can't be serious right now, this is Eric we're talking about, Eric!" She says his name again like that's supposed to change something.
"Two." I say then cock my gun.
"Okay, I didn't want to do this." Eric says. The next thing that happened was blur. He ducked and spun around, clipping me and snatching the gun from my sound of my head hitting the floor was unmistakeable. Like a loud thud, followed by ringing in my ears. I heard Angel call my name as I blinked out the tears. The pain becoming unbearable.
"What are you?" I breathe out, my eyes fluttering shut right before the blackness took over.