1980
25 years married.
Kronos pulled himself up out of the icy water.
Spend a couple weeks out in the middle of nowhere, they said. The perfect getaway for their anniversary, they decided, sure.
Next he pulled the body of his wife out of the icy water.
He had known the location, Roberta had had the idea, a nice, quiet place to be by themselves and enjoy it.
All had gone well in the beginning, they arrived, they unlocked the cabin out towards the lake, made themselves at home, and then they'd gone out to explore the area and make sure they were alone.
It wasn't as simple as just walk outside and there was the lake, the cabin actually rested on a small incline up from the lake, and past the cabin, the incline kept going up until you could come to a set of cliffs that stood 80 feet over the lake. They had just made it to the top, and were taking in the scenery around them, when the ground under them started shaking. It figured earthquakes never took a season off, it wasn't a large enough one to do any actual damage, except some of the ground under Roberta's foot broke away and she lost her balance and fell off the cliff and plummeted into the frigid water below.
At this time of the year the water's temperature was probably 45 at best. Kronos dove in after her, finding her however was not as easy as he'd figured. Water was always deceivingly deep, and always looked so nice and innocent, you'd never guess what sort of things lay under the surface just waiting to grab hold of unsuspecting swimmers and drag them down to their fate. Roberta had gotten caught on the aged remains of a car somebody had sunk probably 40 years ago, and in the time it took for Kronos to find her, she had already all but submitted to hypothermia and drowning. When he finally reached her to get her loose, her head dropped to the side and her eyes closed, and suddenly there was nothing.
Small favors indeed, he thought. He didn't know how the hell she'd gotten caught on this heap of junk, but now that she was unresponsive he had to break a couple of her bones to get her loose from it. Then it was just one long race to the surface and break through. He surfaced first, taking in all the air his lungs could hold after they'd felt just about ready to burst on him. Then he pulled Roberta to the surface and dragged her over towards the shore. Already her bones had repaired themselves and it seemed it wouldn't be long until she was revived. After a minute to catch his breath, it suddenly dawned on Kronos how freezing cold the water actually was, and how much the cold damp air out of the water was not helping. He lifted Roberta up in his arms and carried her back towards the cabin, he was sure, the two of them looking like the scene from some old bad horror movie.
In all his years, in all the times he'd been married, his wives had always had plenty of things to call him, one thing they'd never been able to say about him though was that he didn't think of everything or at least come close to it. He'd let Roberta think that she was all the real brains behind this trip, but he'd had a few ideas of his own. Before they'd gone to check around the grounds, he'd made a few arrangements for when they came back in. And everything was still in place; a large fire burning steadily in the fireplace, set right in front of it on the large living room floor, a full sized mattress covered by Egyptian cotton sheets (his foot they were Egyptian, but that was irrelevant) and large pillows, a chilled bottle of wine nearby with two glasses ready to fill.
Not exactly what he'd planned on but it seemed his idea wouldn't entirely go to waste either. He laid Roberta down on the mattress by the fire, and after tossing off his jacket that was weighted down with water, started to remove Roberta's sopping wet clothes, her skin still ice cold to the touch. He'd just gotten her out of her jeans and her shirt off over her head when she suddenly came back to life sucking in a hard breath, and in the next instant when she realized where they were and that he was on top of her, she reached up and hit him.
"Get off of me!" she told him as she started to get up, "I might be cold but I'm not that cold you…"
He grabbed her by the arm and pinned her back down and said to her, "Roberta, what do you remember?"
"What?" she asked him as if he'd lost his mind.
"Roberta," he pressed his weight against her and told her, "Think back, what's the last thing you remember?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" she asked, "We were…" then something changed in her eyes as she started to realize something.
"There, you see?" he said, "Ice fishing at this time of the year is not my idea of a good time, especially considering the size of the bait," he added as he condescendingly patted her stomach.
"Oh be quiet," she replied as she rubbed her hands over her gooseflesh covered arms. She tilted her head back to get a better look at their surroundings and told him, "Well, you certainly seemed to have this all planned out."
"Yeah almost," Kronos responded, "I would've preferred not having to take the aqua detour along the way, but there it is."
Roberta flopped her head flat against the pillows and looked up at him, and started to laugh. She reached up and put her hand on the top of his head, grabbed him by his short hair and told him, "Come here," and pulled him down towards her.
A couple hours passed, the fire continued to burn, and Roberta opened her eyes and realized they'd been asleep, the two of them pressed tight against each other, even their breathing had almost become synchronized. She turned over and dug deeper under the covers and reveled in the warmth. Well, thus far this had proved to be one of their livelier anniversaries, she supposed if she had it to do over again she would, though she certainly could've done without that 80 foot plunge off the cliff. Still, she supposed it did turn out well in the end.
Roberta turned over to look at her husband who, so far as she could tell, was still dead to the world, she tested that theory by reaching over and poking him, first on top of his head, then harder against his chest, nothing. She pushed the sheets back and got up and walked over to where she'd put her suitcase and dug out a dry change of clothes. She looked back to the other Immortal still out cold on the mattress, and decided she'd get dressed in another room. It would be just her luck she'd turn her back on him and the next thing she knew, she'd be getting tackled to the floor. Evidently even after 5000 years, subtleness was not a strong suit for some people, her husband included, maybe even especially in his case.
Turning on the light in the bathroom, Roberta saw herself in the mirror as she put her clothes on the sink counter and started to get dressed.
Hello, friend, she thought as she looked at her reflection.
The same face that had been staring back at her for more than 25 years, in a way it was surreal, in another it was very real. Time moved on, everything else changed, but they stayed the same, physically anyway. Mentally, intellectually, she doubted very much that she was the same person that she was back then. So much had happened since she became Immortal, some things she expected she'd live to see, but plenty of others she hadn't.
She'd seen the troops come home from Korea, just so the next decade they could ship out for Vietnam, where they would stay well into the decade after that. She'd seen one president assassinated, up closer and more personal than 99.99% of the American population had seen it. She'd seen the Civil Rights movement, the hippie age, man landing and walking on the moon, the Summer of Love, the traumatic end to the whole peace and love era brought down by a few psychopaths out in greater California, also seen a maniacal lunatic take 900 people out to the jungle and the bodies topped on each other like a pile of laundry thanks to some cyanide, some grape Kool-Aid, a few guns and one certified loon who convinced many, but only kept hold on few enough to carry out the greatest massacre known to America. She'd also seen Watergate, the draft ending, domestic terrorists like the Weathermen popping up and trying to blow up law enforcement, sometimes blowing up their own people in the process.
It had been a long and bloody road to get from her old life when she was just a drag racer and a self-certified night watchman for her sleepy little town. Had she never become Immortal, had Kronos never wandered into the place and into her own life, it seemed very likely she never would've gotten out of there, and instead would've stayed there until she grew old or died, whichever came first. She had never been a particularly ambitious person about much of anything, least of all anything that didn't include tunnel runs and chicken races. And her life since that time had been one continuous roller coaster: up, down, left, right, turn, turn, turn, upside-down, a lot of good, a lot of bad and plenty more ugly. If she could choose now, would she have had it any other way? She didn't know. All she did know was that it was becoming more and more surreal seeing this face staring back at her every day, as a reminder that her natural life had crashed and burnt out back in the 1950s.
Truth be told, there were some aspects of her old life that she did miss, not from being mortal, but just from the time changes. She guessed it was inevitable, everybody longs for what they had earlier in life, whether it was better or not, just because they remembered it, and nostalgia could whitewash the reality from the memories. For the most part, she wouldn't go back if she had the chance and she knew it. She'd seen too much, she'd lived too much. She'd seen the world go from Korea, to Vietnam, to the Middle East, seen the world go from black and white to bright bloody colors, heard it go from crooners and bubble gum groups to rock and roll, and from rock and roll to hard rock, and heavy metal, and from psychedelic rock to punk rock into new wave, new heavy metal, new everything, once again. New of course was only relative, given enough time nothing was new anymore, only reinvented, revived, recycled, still, the change was generally welcomed.
What a world, what a life. Roberta found herself wondering what she might come to witness in the next 25 years, then the 25 after that, and after that, provided she lived that long. Living forever wasn't without its perks, but it also wasn't without its headaches, overall though she figured out living forever was doable as long as you had somebody to do it with. 25 years she'd been married to that insane man in the living room, 25 years their marriage had been about as smooth as a neverending bumper car game, and the bulk of that 25 years, Kronos had certainly made sure it was worth it. That man, that crazy, demented, insane man, had proven over the years to be nothing short of full of surprises. Anytime she thought she'd finally figured him out, he had something else up his sleeve, this trip certainly being no exception.
Roberta looked herself over in the mirror one more time, then turned and exited the bathroom. She rounded the corner and felt something throw her up against the wall, the next thing she became aware of was one hand pressed against the nape of her neck running up to the side of her face, another hand slinking under the neck of her shirt, and one very familiar body pressed tight against hers.
"You never give up, do you?" she asked.
She would swear she could actually hear him growling as he thrust his hand under her shirt and told her, "Take this off", though he was clearly more than happy to do it himself.
Roberta pushed Kronos back and responded coyly, "Boy when you get in a mood, any place suddenly becomes a nudist colony, doesn't it?"
His only form of response was to grab her shirt again and this time he was ready to rip it clear down the middle, but she pushed him off of her again and told him, "Oh no you don't, you're going to have to catch me first."
Kronos' response to that was to grab her as tightly as he could short of breaking her ribs.
"Not here, stupid," she told him, "Outside, where it'll be a bit more of a challenge."
He only laughed, "Catching you has never been a challenge."
"Yeah well things are going to be a little different this time," Roberta said to him, "If you catch me, you win, if you don't catch me, then I win."
"We'll see about that," Kronos didn't sound convinced.
"Yes we will," Roberta pushed away from him and made her way towards the back door, she pulled the door open, looked back at him and told him, "Five seconds," and ran out into the wooded area behind the cabin.
Five seconds and Kronos was out the back door and after her. She had already managed to get out of sight but he had a good suspicion he was hot on her trail. There was too much debris on the ground to find too many footprints, not that that mattered anyway because they'd already been out here earlier and got them all over the ground, and wherever she was, she was good not to brush up against anything that could make a noise, no twigs snapping, no old dead leaves rustling, the area wasn't quiet between the wind and the birds off in a distant, but there were no human noises that he could pick up on.
He had expected the chase to be over with in a mere matter of minutes, but time stretched on and he still couldn't find any sign of his wife anywhere. After half an hour, he was starting to get annoyed, and stopped for a moment against a large old tree and started to consider his options, when it occurred to him he was overlooking something very simplistic. He looked up, but too late, Roberta had jumped off a higher branch and came crashing down on him and knocked him to the ground.
"I told you you'd lose," she said with a big grin on her face as she kept Kronos' arms pinned high above his head.
"What in the hell are you talking about?" he asked, "I caught you."
"Wrong, I caught you," she told him in response.
"Get off of me," he told her.
"Make me," she replied.
In two seconds he flipped her onto her back on the ground and was on top of her, in two more seconds she flipped him back and sat on him again.
"If anybody would've ever told me 30 years ago that I'd ever get married, least of all to you," Roberta told him, "I would've said they were out of their damn mind."
"And now?" Kronos asked as he slinked one hand up the back of her shirt.
"I think we were the ones out of our minds," she answered, "But overall it hasn't been horribly unpleasant."
"And people complain I'm the miserable excuse for a romantic," he remarked.
"Generally you are," Roberta replied, "You turned out to be a bit more full of surprises than usual this time."
In two more seconds, Roberta was flipped on her back again and Kronos had her pinned down once again.
"And don't you forget it," he told her as he leaned down and kissed her.