The sun still had not set in Playa Cocles, owing to the time difference between Costa Rica and New York City. Puerto Viejo Town was just two miles north, and Aric said there were lots of places to eat there if anyone was hungry. Luke had stayed behind to straighten up and clean his bar, but everyone else had taken the plunge. It didn't hurt that when the bubble had formed again and Aric had called Tyler the oversized mutt had jumped right up and sprinted into the bubble like a pro.

"You've done this before, right?" Jess asked Rita as she stood an inch from the membrane separating New York and Playa Cocles, her eyes fixed on the glowing sphere.

"Lots of times."

"How many times?" Trish asked.

"Let's see," Rita said as she began to count on her fingers, "Paris, London, Berlin, Lisbon, Edinburgh, Rotan, Bali, Bangkok. So eight times I guess."

"Come on, you big baby. We'll go together," Trish said.

Rita waited until everyone else had gone through, taking as much time as possible to prepare herself to see Aric again.

Who's the big baby now? Aric asked.

Oh, fuck you, Rita answered right before stepping through.

"You forgot Monterrico and Coahuila," Aric called to her from a short distance away just as she was feeling the first caress of the Caribbean ocean breeze on her face.

Tyler's not the only one who hasn't aged a day.

"Right. Ten times."

He had picked a beautiful section of beach. The surfers that were still going out were all collected on a more profitable spot further north and had not noticed the handful of people, and one dog, that suddenly appeared out of thin air.

"There are bottles of Imperial in the cooler if anybody's thirsty," Aric said as he scratched the one-hundred-pound fur baby that was using him as a leaning post before exchanging one adopted parent for another by running back to Rita.

Beth, Julia, Trish, and Jessica had all had the same reaction to their first trip through folded space, which was to stop in their tracks and look around at the landscape that was 2200 miles from the spot where they had stepped into the bubble. Their eyes all eventually came to rest on the man who had just offered all of them a beer.

"OK, now I can see why she dated him," Jessica said.

"The question now is, why the fuck did she stop," Beth said.

"Hi," Rita said quietly as she stopped in front of Aric, her approach temporarily blocked by a panting roadblock whose ears were just as big as his paws.

"Hi," he replied just as quietly as they looked at each other for the first time in over a decade, both of them a bit stunned, and at a loss for words.

"You look good."

"You look great," he answered.

"Wow, this is just like Body Heat," Jessica said as she watched the two, which earned her a shoulder bump from Trish.

Rita removed her shoes before walking closer to Aric. He was wearing a loose pair of shorts and a white linen shirt that was open to the middle of his chest. Rita knew the shirt (and the chest beneath it) well. It had traveled the world, those parts of it that had beaches at least, with Aric and Rita, and seemed just as untouched by time as Aric and Tyler were.

"You smell like coconut," she said as she moved her hand upwards before placing it on an exposed patch of Aric's chest. His own hand came up and found hers, his fingers wrapping around her hand so his fingertips caressed her palm.

"It's the lotion," he said softly as his hand applied gentle pressure to hers, his lips moving in that sensual manner Rita also remembered well. They both took a moment to take each other in, but neither attempted to make the connection that, now that they were together, would only lead to one place and one thing.

"I could find you a bathing suit if you'd like?" he said after they had released each other's hands.

"Find me?"

"Okay, buy you. Some of the shops are still open."

"Where's the bottle opener?" Beth called from the cooler that sat a short distance away from Rita and Aric.

"Follow the string on the cooler," Aric replied without moving his eyes from Rita.

"Found it!"

"Glad to hear it."

"Bottle openers are for suckers," Jessica said as she opened her beer and Trish's with her thumbs.

"Show it to me," Aric said to Rita after a moment longer feasting his eyes on the woman in front of him.

Rita paused and looked around before answering.

"Here? With everyone watching?"

"Perv," he answered with a laugh, "your new shield."

"Oh, that," Rita said before reaching into her pocket and producing the item.

Aric studied it for a moment. "It's beautiful. Is this the real one, or the duplicate?"

"The real one. I haven't had a chance to get a dup yet."

"Not worried about losing it?"

"I've got the imprint of it permanently pressed into my left palm," Rita said with the smile and laugh that had been the first two of her attributes that Aric had fallen in love with.

Julia and Beth were standing at the water's edge drinking their beer and looking out across the expanse of water.

"Just violated my parole," Beth said as she looked out at the water, "not supposed to leave the country."

"I don't remember crossing any borders. Do you?" Julia asked.

"It's not a question I usually ask, but what the fuck have we gotten ourselves into?"

"We're not in Kansas anymore, that's for sure. But I still think we're on the right side of this."

"There's no right and wrong. There's only what we do," Beth said.

"Evan Meekins?" Julia asked.

"Doc Holliday."

Nearby Trish and Jessica had found a spot to sit and drink, and to throw a petrified stick for Tyler to retrieve out of the surf, which proved almost immediately to be a mistake.

"Fucking dog is dripping water all over me!" Jessica complained.

"Then you shouldn't have thrown his stick in the water," Trish said.

"Christ, now he's wiping his face on my crotch! Great! It looks like I pissed myself."

"It happens to women when they get to your age," Trish said through her laughter.

"Fuck you," Jessica said just before pouring some of her beer onto Trish's pants, "There, we're even."

"What the fuck?! Asshole."

"It's a party now," Aric said as he picked up his phone. "Heather. Hi. I have guests, and I'm gonna miss tonight's class. Does the clubhouse have any women's bathing suits? Great. We'll be by."

"Those of you who would like to change into something more appropriate or, you know, dryer, we can head up to the retreat."

"My phone's not working for some reason," Trish said, "Is the service here bad?"

"Neither is mine," Julia said as she looked at her own phone.

"No, that's the shortcut. It does that to cell phones. The gravitons cause a static charge of antiprotons. It disrupts cell service. It's like having Sprint as your carrier."

"Jesus, that bad?" Jessica asked as she looked at the phone in Trish's hand.

"Give it a few minutes."

Trish placed her phone back in her pocket and picked up a flier that Aric had been using as a coaster.

"Hey look, they have a sober yoga class in the mornings," she said before looking at Jess.

"Why the fuck are you looking at me?"

"No reason."

"Come on, it's this way," Aric said as he picked up his cooler, "You can lock your gun and shield in the safe in my room."

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Jessica said as Tyler ran up to her and wiped his face and head on her crotch again.

The moon was climbing the warm night sky. Rita was sitting by the water, staring out at the glowing figure that hovered above the dark water about a half mile from shore. Tyler had flopped done next to her before rolling onto his side with a sigh and falling asleep. He had sat more of these vigils than Rita and learned during his extended life to take his naps where he could find them. Never turn down a nap, a meal, or a chance to go pee. That would have been Tyler's motto if he had one.

"Figures we'd find you two here," Trish said as she and Beth approached Rita before sitting on the sand next to her.

"What's that?" Beth asked, her chin extending out to sea and towards the glowing object that was shedding pearls of light, and glowing tendrils that moved as if they were alive before breaking free and flying away.

"Aric," Rita said simply. The sound of his lifelong companion's name caused Tyler to open his eyes and raise his head, but only so long as it took him to see that the vigil was nowhere near completed.

"Come again?" Trish said.

"He'll be back out there at sunrise. Twice a day communing with the universe, or whatever. Sunrise and sunset, as near as he can get, given everything else in his life."

Both women were staring at the figure a half-mile away, their mouths open slightly.

"No fucking way," Trish said finally.

"It's a necessity for him. Trust me, you don't want to see what happens if he waits too long to regen."

"Regen?"

"It's what I call it. There's a technical description of what it is, but I just call it regeneration, or regen."

"The last technical description was more than enough for me," Beth said before asking, "What happens if he waits too long?"

"The universe forces one onto him. It happened in Mexico once, when we took my mom to visit her hometown. It was at night, like now, in the middle of Coahuila. And it wasn't pretty. It's really painful for him when it happens, and he can't completely control it. We were talking to my Uncle Esteban when it happened. It came on real sudden. He tried to get out of sight, but he ended up balled up on the ground, in a shitload of pain, with a parking lot full of strangers watching the whole fucking thing," Rita continued as she wiped the tears from her face, "it was hard to watch."

"Holy shit."

"Yeah. They hold a vigil every year on the spot where it happened. La vigilia del hombre luminoso."

"What does that mean?"

"The vigil of the glowing man."

"Why a vigil?" Beth asked.

"Everyone close enough to him when it happened was affected. People noticed afterward."

"Affected?" Beth asked.

"Close enough?" Trish asked as she looked out over the water again at the glowing figure.

"Aric called it, being caught in the penumbra," Rita said, "Remember, he wasn't in control, not totally, he was sending out waves of energy, much larger than what you see now. About a dozen people, mostly my Mom's family - her mom, her brothers, her sister, her cousins, my cousins, people who had met us both earlier in the day - we were outside the restaurant where we ate dinner, came over to see what was wrong with him. When it started for real we were all caught in the penumbra."

"We."

"I was right next to him. I was much closer than anyone else."

Rita was quiet for a moment.

"Everyone who was caught in it has been super healthy ever since. That was in 2005, for my abuela's 90th birthday celebration. She's 107, about to turn 108 in April. She doesn't look it. She's as healthy as an ox."

"2005," Trish said as she looked at the woman who looked about the same age as she was, "what were you, like 18, 19?"

"I was 39 when it happened."

It took a moment for Beth to do the math. It took her a moment longer to double-check.

"No fucking way you're 56 now," Beth said.

"57," Rita said, "remember, I was right next to him when it happened."

She was silent for a moment before continuing.

"During the vigil, all the families that can make the trip bring their old or sick to the exact spot behind that restaurant where it happened and wait for the glowing man to come and heal them."

"How many people make the trip?" Trish asked.

"A lot."

"And does he come?"

"Not anymore, not that I've heard. Not for a while now. It got to be too much for him, emotionally, and psychologically. The last time he showed up five thousand people were there in that fucking parking lot waiting, looking to him to cure everything that they thought was wrong with them, or their lives. Money, happiness, love, success, a new truck, a bigger cock, you name it, they asked for it. You know how many people asked him to bring back a dead child, or husband, or wife? And the looks on their faces when they find out that he can't do that breaks his heart. That's why he lives in places like this. That's why he hides from the world. He can't look at any more of those faces and tell them that their five-year-old little girl is gone for good. They think he's a god or something. And he's not. He's just a man. He can do some extraordinary things, but he's still just a man, with a man's emotions, and it was killing him."

Trish and Beth exchanged a look before turning back to view the glowing figure hovering above the water. They sat quietly, giving Rita a moment of privacy to wipe the water from her eyes before she closed them and reached a thin mental tendril out to Aric.

Jesus fucking Christ, Beth thought as she tried to digest the story that she had just heard, and I thought my life was fucked up.

The sound of Rita's voice, and the recognition of a soul in pain, had gotten Tyler's attention, and he had resorted to the one thing that he knew would help.

"Where's Julia and Jessica?" Rita asked eventually as her hand continued to stroke Tyler's head where it now lay in her lap.

"There was a pool table at the resort. Jessica's teaching Julia to shoot pool," Trish said.

"I'm sorry, what? Jessica is teaching Julia to shoot pool?" Beth asked.

"Yeah. Why?"

"No reason," Beth said with a shake of her head and a pair of pursed lips.

Another moment of silence preceded a question that Rita had been expecting since they had arrived.

"Can I ask you a question?" Beth asked.

"Depends on the question."

"Why did you two break up?"

Rita took in a deep breath and released it much in the same manner Tyler had done a few minutes before.

"I was in too deep. I thought if I stayed any longer I would never get out."

"Out of what?"

Rita's eyes had drifted downward. Her hand followed a second later, and it continued to gently stroke the large, furry head as she looked back across the water before answering.

"Aric."

"I don't understand," Trish said.

"You can't," Rita said before taking a moment, "you can't understand what it's like to want a thing so badly that you're willing to surrender your existence to it; to be connected so completely to something, body, soul, mind; physically, emotionally, the two of you becoming one. Intimacy isn't the right word for it. I don't know if there is a right word for so total a merging. He warned me. When we got serious, he warned me that there was a line I should never cross. But I didn't listen. I wanted more. And when he gave it to me I still wanted more."

Trish had some inkling of what Rita meant. She felt something similar when her own gifts had begun to manifest. Feeling the power, and wanting more, and still more. But, unlike the glowing form in front of them, Trish didn't tap into an unlimited energy source. And unlike the woman sitting next to her, Trish was in no danger of being consumed by her gift.

"It was summer and my partner Laura Murphy and I were on a call. Aric was off somewhere, I don't remember where. It was a really windy day, and a uniform was handing me his notes, but before I got a hold of them the wind took them. I reached out with my hand to grab them but missed."

Rita was quiet for a few seconds.

"What happened next I hadn't intended or attempted. There was nothing conscious about it. All that was going through my mind was fuck, there go his notes when I felt that part of my mind that connects with Aric reach out. The notes had to be fifty feet away when they shot straight back into my hand. Laura saw it happen. The uniform saw it happen. Other people saw it happen. Word got around. People would stop talking when I came into the squad room. That's when I knew I had crossed the line that shouldn't be crossed."

"Was it Aric?" Trish asked.

"No. We weren't connected when it happened. I did it. But he felt it. And even though we weren't connected I could tell he was worried."

"Were you worried?" Beth asked.

"At first. Then I wanted more. I was addicted, you understand? I'm an addict. That was the beginning of the end for us. It was self-preservation that finally drove us apart. Who knows what would be walking around in my body if I had stayed, wanting and taking more, and more, and more?"

"Jesus," Trish said as two women approached.

"How did it go?" Beth asked innocently, breaking the spell of Rita's words.

"I lost a hundred bucks," Jessica said as she looked at the woman standing next to her.

"Really?" Trish asked as her eyes shifted from Jessica to Julia.

"It was beginner's luck," Julia said shyly.

"Bull. fucking. shit, it was. I got hustled, is what it was. Fucking British accent, what's this, a billiard table? I've never played billiards before, yes, please I would love to learn. Am I holding the stick properly?

"Jesus Christ, give her the money back, Jules," Beth said as Rita and Trish laughed, "it's like stealing from kids. Have a little self-respect."

"I can't do that, I wouldn't want to insult her."

"Insult me. Please. Pretty fucking please, with sugar on top, insult the shit out of me," Jessica said before finally noticing the glowing form out across the water.

"What the fuck is that?"