Chapter 10

Alice had been looking forward to Holi for weeks. She'd heard about the festival, seen pictures of the colors and the energy that seemed to pour out of every nook and cranny of the city, but she was eager to experience it for herself. So despite her misgivings about spending the day with Bruce, she woke up early and excited. She had bought some colored powders a few days before, and as she was packing them into her bag, a certain one caught her eye. She turned the packet over in her hand, considering the implications of the idea that was nudging its way to the forefront of her mind. A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. She put the packet in a side pocket of her bag, in easy reach, and then headed out.

By the time she made it to Bruce's house, she was already covered in bright blue powder. A child on the street had tagged her and run off before she could retaliate. She was grinning widely when she stepped through the doorway, but Bruce had his back to her and apparently hadn't heard her come in. She clutched the packet of color behind her back, and spoke calmly and evenly.

"Bruce."

He turned and took in her distinctly blue appearance with a raised eyebrow.

"I see you got started without me."

She smiled and took a few steps closer.

"Yep. It was a vicious attack, came out of nowhere. Sort of like…"

She whipped the packet out from behind her back and dumped the contents over his head. Bright green powder exploded into the air and covered Bruce from his curly hair to his shoulders. It stuck to everything, including Alice, but the look of dumbfounded shock on Bruce's face made the entire thing worth it. She had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Slowly, Bruce reached up and smeared a hand over his face, leaving streaks of bare skin in the green pigment. He rubbed his fingers together, and then smirked at Alice.

"Nice," he said, "Very nice."

"I think its your color," she said, reaching out and ruffling a hand through his hair, sending a puff of green dust into the air.

"You think so, do you?"

He was grinning broadly and Alice allowed herself a giggle. He shook his head, sending even more powder flying.

"Come on," he said, "Let's go."

The city was just starting to fully wake and people were pouring out of their homes. Laughter and color filled the air and before they knew it, Alice and Bruce were both soaking wet and covered in all the colors of the rainbow. As the streets filled with people, Bruce reached out and took Alice's hand so they wouldn't lose one another in the crowds. Once again, she noticed how much bigger his hands were than hers. He enveloped her fingers and held on tightly, and she remembered how safe he'd made her feel, just by holding her hand.

They wandered the streets of Kolkata, mingling with the crowds, eating from street vendors, never stopping for very long. There was so much to see, Alice felt overwhelmed by it. She thought that if she stayed a thousand lifetimes in Kolkata, she would never see all there was to see of the Holi celebrations. There was music being blasted through speakers into the streets, people laughing and dancing through colors that seemed to appear out of nowhere. The crowds pressed in on them in a happy throng and Alice gripped Bruce's arm, pulling herself close to his side, not wanting to lose him in the crowds, but also not wanting to miss anything, trying to soak the color and the energy in through her eyes, her nose, her skin. Bruce looked down at her and smiled. Alice was struck again by how handsome he was, even slathered in colored mud and drenched to the bone. She had never seen him look so happy. She smiled back.

When the sky began to darken, Alice was surprised. The day had whirled by in an explosion of color, and not once had she felt the dark cloud that she had been expecting to hang over them. As they walked through the streets, watching groups of people pile up wood and scraps for bonfires, Alice found herself walking a little closer to Bruce, gripping his hand a little tighter, hoping against everything she knew to be true that she could hold on to this day for just a little while longer.

When the sun set the bonfires leapt into the sky, flames dancing and flickering in the cool evening. The two of them sat on the sidewalk near one of the fires and for a few minutes they just stared into it. Bruce had still not let go of her hand and Alice hadn't tried to take it away. She didn't want to let go of Bruce's hand. She didn't want to let go of Bruce.

As she stared into the fire she felt something deep inside her shift, a belief that until now had been steady and unchanging. It was the belief that her life was an island, harsh, unforgiving, and circled by an impassable reef. She had built this reef to protect anyone who might try to settle the island and change it into a habitable environment, to keep others safe by turning them away. But now, for the first time, someone was trying to breech the reef that Alice didn't want to turn away. But if she let Bruce through the wall, if she introduced him to the lonely island that was her life and it went badly, she didn't know if she would be able to recover.

"Holi is all about new beginnings…"

She remembered the words Bruce had said yesterday, and now she thought he might be right. She felt like her life was ending tonight and something else was starting, something new, something bigger, and something she couldn't control. It was frightening. This life was all she'd ever known. Was she really ready to let that go, to start over? Would she lose herself? She didn't think she could bear that. No matter what happened, she was who she was. Nothing, not even a new life, would change that. The only question that remained was whether or not her life would still be a deserted island when it was over.

"I grew up in Oklahoma."

The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She felt Bruce tense beside her, but she didn't look at him, didn't dare. She just stared into the fire and let the words keep pouring out.

"My parents had a little farm about an hour outside of Tulsa. My father was an auto mechanic, but he wanted more than anything to be self-sufficient, to not have to rely on anyone else. We had a couple of cows, some chickens and a huge garden. My mother had this green thumb, and every year she tried to grow something new. When I was little I spent my summers out in the garden with her, and when my brother was born, I sort of took over for a while, but I wasn't nearly as good with it as she was. She was a master."

Alice could see her mother's round, freckled face shaded from the sun by her favorite straw hat, her father grinning with an oil smudge across his forehead where he'd wiped sweat from his brow. Alice reached up and gripped the wedding rings dangling from her neck, but she kept talking.

"My brother was a snot nosed little kid. My parents hadn't planned on him, but when he was born it was like something that had been missing in our family finally fell into place. I didn't get that until later, but I knew that we were happy, happier than we had ever been, even when the little monster drove me crazy."

She paused, not sure if she could keep going. Faces and voices and laughter whirled through her memory and a little voice in her head told her she could stop now, she didn't have to go on. But that voice was an echo of a past life, something that was over and done with now. Something stronger urged her on.

"The summer I turned fifteen was a crazy time. I was going through this phase where all I wanted was to stay inside or hang out with my friends. I didn't want to go camping with my family, or hang out in the garden, or help dad with the new calf. That was lame. My whole family was lame, as far as I was concerned. So I was in my room, staring up at the ceiling and thinking about how awful my life was, when I heard the front door bang open. There were some raised voices, but no one was talking to me, so I ignored it… until there was a gun shot."

Alice felt like her lungs might collapse when she spoke those words. She stopped for a moment and closed her eyes, trying to breathe, but in the darkness behind her eyelids she was fifteen again, in her bedroom, hearing that shot and her mother's screams.

"My mother kept screaming and screaming, and I could hear Jacob crying and screaming, and I… I was so scared. I got in my closet and shut the door, curled up in a corner in the dark. I could hear a man's voice, but it wasn't my father, it was another man and he kept yelling at Jacob to just shut up, shut the hell up, and I kept wishing that he would, that he would just stop screaming. And then there were two more shots and after that it was quiet, so quiet I could hear myself breathing and I put a hand over my mouth to keep from breathing so loud."

She could feel the dark heat of the closet pressing in on her, the suffocating fear that froze her.

"I was too scared to move, too scared to do anything for a long time. I don't know how long I was in that closet, but it must have been hours because when I was finally able to make myself move again, it was dark outside. But it was a full moon that night. Moonlight came through the open front door. And I saw…"

Her throat closed up. She could feel the cold metal of the rings cutting into her palm. She relaxed her grip and breathed in through her nose a few times before she started again.

"The police said the guy was crazy when they caught him. He was just a few miles up the road, some drifter that happened to pass through our part of the world when he had some sort of schizophrenic breakdown. He thought my family were monsters. So he shot them. He thought he was saving the world."

There was a pause. Alice looked at Bruce for the first time since she'd started to speak. He was watching her closely, waiting to hear what else she might say. But she didn't see any judgment in his eyes, only kindness and patience. Clearly, he was missing her point and she could feel the beginning of frustration start to build up inside her.

"You asked me why I wished they'd killed me. This is why! I was supposed to die ten years ago. If I hadn't been such a coward, or if I had been helping Mom with the laundry, or Dad with the feed, or playing with Jacob, like I should have been, I would have died right there with them. I hid when I should have tried to do something! So I'm waiting for it to catch up with me. I've been waiting my whole life, waiting to die, and sometimes I get so tired of waiting, but when it finally happens I won't leave anyone behind to hurt the way I hurt! I can't do that, I just can't…"

She dropped her eyes and tried to catch her breath, her grip on her parent's wedding rings pressing the metal deep into her palm, the pinching pain grounding her in the present. She took deep breaths, in through her nose, out through her mouth, and waited for Bruce to speak.

When he finally did, it was slowly and precisely.

"Why did you try to save me, Alice?"

Alice was startled by the simplicity of the question.

"Well, because… I mean, you're important. You saved Mika's life, you've saved a lot of lives…"

"So have you."

Alice paused. Then the weight of her disappointment hit her like a sack of bricks to the gut. He was comparing her to him. He didn't understand. She should have known that he wouldn't understand. She pulled her knees up to her chest and tried to make herself as small as possible. She just wanted to crawl into a hole. She should never have told him this…

"I'm not suicidal, Bruce," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I know."

His quick, confident response made her look up, surprised. He was looking down at her calmly, like he was trying to puzzle through her.

"I know you aren't. If you wanted to kill yourself, you would have done it already, I think. I'm sure you've had plenty of opportunity. But that doesn't mean you get to go around throwing yourself in Death's general direction and pretending that doesn't matter to anyone because it does."

"I tried!" Alice said, her voice desperate with the guilt she felt, "I tried to stay isolated, unattached! Why do you think I've moved around so much? I haven't stopped moving since I was sixteen! The only reason I've stayed here this long is because I thought…"

She swallowed her words, but it was too late.

"Because you thought I might solve your problem for you," he said.

He wasn't angry, or upset. His facial expression didn't change. He still looked like he was trying to work through a puzzle, just listening and working through everything she was saying, everything that had happened since they'd met. He shook his head and Alice was surprised to see a smile tugging at his lips.

"Well, I guess that explains a lot, following me to my house, spying on me. I bet you could smell crazy on me a mile away."

"I never thought you were crazy," Alice said, "Just dangerous."

"I'm still dangerous, you know," he said, a playful smirk on his face.

"I know," she said, "It just doesn't matter anymore."

The words surprised Alice almost as much as she could tell they surprised Bruce. But it was true. She'd stopped thinking of Bruce as dangerous a long time ago. She knew it in the back of her head, the way she knew that his hair was curly and his eyes were brown, but it just… didn't matter. There was so much more to him than that, and that was so much more important.

Bruce's mind was working again. Alice could see it, the wheels turning, his eyes flicking back and forth across her face. She would have felt uncomfortable under his scrutiny, but she had already exposed everything to him. She had nothing else to hide.

"You know," he said, finally, "You're the only reason I'm still here too."

Alice managed a small smile.

"That's not true. All the people you help, they need you."

"And I wouldn't have helped a single soul if it weren't for you," he insisted, "When I came here, I was alone and depressed and terrified of myself. I couldn't see past who I'd become, the things I'd done, the damage I'd caused. I was just trying to keep my head down, to stay out of the way. And then I met you."

Alice sighed, really failing to see the point in any of this.

"Yeah, I know, I stalked you."

Bruce laughed.

"No, no before the stalking. The first time I met you, when you were crying in the shop. I'd been looking through you for weeks, but that was the first time I really saw you. It was the first time I'd really seen anyone in years."

Alice stared at him. She had never really thought about that. In her mind, their entire relationship was centered around the night Bruce had come home late and revealed his big secret. The day he'd seen her cry had simply been a means to that end. She had never considered that it might hold any more significance for him. Bruce smiled at her.

"That night, saving Mika, that was the beginning of the end for me. I couldn't stop seeing. I saw people dying all around me when I could have saved them. And I wanted to. I wanted so much to end the suffering I saw every day. But I was trapped, shackled with the knowledge that everything I touched, I destroyed. I couldn't take that chance. And then you showed up again. And even though I tried to push you away, you showed up again. And again, and again. And every time I saw you moving in the shadows, it reminded me how helpless I was to save anyone. I couldn't even keep you away, keep you safe. I thought that eventually you would give it up. But you never did. And I was so tired of running. So, one night, I got drunk, waited until I thought you'd be gone, and…"

He shrugged.

"Well you know what happened then."

Alice didn't know what to say. None of this had ever occurred to her. She had never dreamed that she might have been the cause of Bruce's downward spiral.

"I'm not telling you this to make you feel guilty," Bruce said, as if reading her mind, "I'm telling you so that you can understand a little better how much it meant for me to agree to work with you. You were the first person in a long time that hadn't backed down from who I really was, and you were still in one piece. If I believed in signs, that would have been one for me. If you could come so close to the Other Guy and come away unscathed and unafraid, then maybe there was a chance, a chance for me to help people without destroying them. I started to find myself again, Alice. I had spent so much of my time and energy focusing on the Other Guy, that I had forgotten there was anything else. You reminded me that even though I've changed, I'm still me, and I'm not a destructive monster. I'm a scientist. I started out wanting to help people and now I'm finally doing exactly that."

He took both her hands in his and held them tightly. His eyes were so intense that she thought she might catch fire.

"You saved my life, Alice," he said softly, "The Hulk kept me breathing, but you saved my life."

Alice didn't know what to say. It was so much that she had never considered before.

"I just want you to know that everything that you are, your past, what you believe, I would never try to change any of it."

Alice felt a jolt of shock that must have shown on her face. Bruce grinned.

"Alice, I like you exactly the way you are! What you've been through, what you believe, has made you into the kind of person that would follow home a dangerous man and hide in a tree outside his house. It made you brave enough to try to save someone so lost and broken that he couldn't see the meaning in his own life. It made you strong enough to withstand the monster, to stay when anyone else would've run."

He reached up and brushed her cheek with his finger tips.

"There is nothing about you that I would ever want to change, Alice. So, if you still feel like you need to run, that's okay. Because no matter how far or how long you run, you will always be the woman who helped make my life worth living again. That will never change. So I'm not going to try to make you stay. But, Alice…"

He closed his eyes, and Alice saw anxiousness in the lines of his face.

"Alice, please stay," he whispered.

She stared at him for a long time, his face glowing in the dying firelight. His hand enveloped hers in warmth and she felt safe. She didn't feel threatened or misunderstood or outcast. For the first time, she believed that someone got it, accepted who she was without question. Slowly, she reached up and gripped her parents' rings again, but the metal in her palm didn't give her the same reassurance that it had before. She felt that sense of newness again, that overwhelming feeling of an old life ending and another growing out of the ashes. It was scary. She had been alone and cut off for so long, she didn't know if she knew how to live any other way. But she thought that now, maybe, she could try.

"Okay."

She opened her hand and the two gold bands dropped to her chest, clinked once, and were still.