43.
I left Akiyama sitting there, staring into the sunset, motionless, speechless. He seemed like a vegetable, for all intents and purposes, and I would have felt bad about leaving him as such except I didn’t want to disturb him, either. I was pretty sure he knew, in general, what I’d done to him, and poking the bear after you’ve ripped apart his memories? Didn’t seem like either the smart or the kind move.
“Man, my head feels like someone decided to have a hell of a bender,” Harry said as I walked back into the ruined corridor outside the ward. He was sitting up now, looking at Kat, who was similarly sitting up, leaning against the doorframe to the trauma room. “Makes me sorry I missed it.”
“The only thing that got bent was time,” I said, trying to disguise my relief that he appeared to be more or less back to normal. Play it cool, that’s the Sienna way. Or at least play it cool until you get pissed, then unload a vengeful rain of hell upon your foes. That’s maybe more the actual Sienna way.
“So … is time all better, then?” Kat asked, looking around. “Did it get … fixed? In the non-pet, spaying/neutering sort of way?”
“Time remains intact, so far as I can tell,” I said, looking around for any of those obvious fractures that Akiyama had produced when he’d gotten overly emotive. “It certainly seems to be chugging along normally—”
Of course I shouldn’t have said that, because tempting time was apparently as smart an idea as tempting fate. The world went psychedelic around me, and once more I found myself in that other Japanese hospital room, with Kat on the bed, baby laid atop her chest, and Harry’s broad shoulders stooping over her.
“Why the hell did I have to go and open my big yap?” I mumbled, standing just outside the little family circle, over Harry’s shoulder. “Because of course I’ve now got to be treated to a nice dose of jealousy-inducing flashback to the time when my friend Kat was schtuping my current boyfriend—”
“What should we name him?” the man was asking, and I realized, with a little bit of a chill—
That was not Harry’s voice. It wasn’t totally dissimilar, but it wasn’t Harry.
“Harrison,” Kat said, staring in obvious, googly-eyed glee at her newborn baby joy. “Harrison Aleksandr Graves.” She looked up. “I want to name him after my brother.”
“Holy shit,” I said, as the kaleidoscope of colors blew past me with a fury once more, and I was deposited back at the entry to the trauma room in the present day. I hit my knees, totally from the passage of time travel and the flashback and not at all from the touching tribute to my friend Aleksandr, now lost, that Kat had performed some sixty years ago.
“Holy shit, indeed,” Kat muttered. She did not seem that taken aback; a little smile perched on her lips.
I stared at her, she met my gaze evenly, and I caught a hint of knowing in her eyes. “You remember?”
She nodded, once. “The stuff Omega gave me, before I was ‘retrieved’ by the Directorate? Whenever I use enough of my powers to trigger memory loss … some old memories come bubbling back up. I kinda recalled this, but now that I’ve seen it, in living color …” Her voice drifted off, and she looked at Harry, who was staring back at her in a very restrained sort of way … “I remember you … Harry.”
Harry choked back a little sniffle. “Good,” he managed to get out. “That … that’s good. What all do you, uh … do you remember?”
Kat settled her head back against the wall, as if drifting back into a pool of soothing memory, a peaceful smile on her face. “I remember raising you around the world. I remember spending a winter in Smolensk. I remember a summer in Oslo … a year in Yokohama.” She opened her eyes, and her smile turned sad. “I remember losing your father in Ulaanbaatar.” Now the smile faded. “And almost losing you in Prague.”
Harry sniffled. “That was where, uh … where you used your powers and—”
“And forgot you,” Kat said, and her eyes were full. “I’m so sorry, Harry. I tried to save your life and—I forgot you.”
“You did save my life,” Harry said, nodding, but not looking up. “You did. I would have died if you hadn’t. And because of what you did …” He threw his arms wide and forced a smile. “Here I am. Alive and kicking. Still moving about the world. And—”
“Sleeping with Sienna,” Kat said, and her lips tightened together.
Oh.
Oh, shit.
Whoops.
“Hey, I totally did not know he was your kid,” I said, finally inserting myself into this blissfully sweet and tear-filled family reunion. “I mean, I don’t know that it would have stopped me, especially at certain, uh … junctures … of our relationship, but still … didn’t know.”
“I’m just ragging on you, Sienna,” Kat said, shoulders shaking with amusement, her smile telling me that she was totally busting my ass. “He’s a big boy. Older than you.” She turned her gaze to Harry. “I’d tell you to find someone your own age, but … I don’t think you could do much better than her.”
That sounded like a compliment. Or maybe an insult to Harry. “Thanks,” was all he said, and it was kinda strained.
“Need a hand?” I asked Kat, offering her one.
“Sure,” she said, and seized my arm up the sleeve in order to lever herself up with my help. Once she was on her feet, she leaned against the wall. “I’ll be back up and running here in just a minute. I think.”
“Take your time,” I said, looking around a little warily as I made my way over to Harry and helped him up. I kept a hand on his elbow as I walked him over to the wall next to Kat. They kept their eyes on each other the whole time, as I leaned him to next to her, and I reflected …
Oh, what a difference a few minutes made. If they’d been looking at each other like this before that last little flashback … I’d have been pissed.
Now, it was hard not to be happy for them, because …
Well, hell. How could you not want to see a sixty-plus-year reunion between … uh … my boyfriend and … geez … his mother, my good friend Kat.
Man, my life was weird.