Chapter Fourteen: Begin Again
When the dust settled, there were plenty of things still to take care of. The governments of Earth wanted to sit down with the government of the Independent colonies and work out some kind of plan to ensure that this wouldn't happen again. It was the first time that someone from Earth and someone from another planet would sit down at some sort of summit and try to come to an arrangement, but Abby thought it boded well for everyone. It had already been proven that humans and aliens could work together, and establishing trade and safety between Earth and other planets, honestly just seemed like the next step when it came to progress. So that was good.
Kaleth was being hailed as a hero. Not by her own people, of course, but by the humans she had saved. Her actions kept the death toll relatively low on all sides that mattered, and people were endlessly grateful. Seeing as she'd come from a place where she hadn't been appreciated, much less celebrated, her smile was bright every time someone thanked her.
Abby was pleased for her. Honestly, they couldn't have done it without her help, and it was good that everyone knew that.
Her family was coming for a visit, bringing her little sister and the new dog they'd acquired. But primarily coming to make sure she was all in one piece. Abby was more than a little grateful to Sorrin for giving her the push she needed to call them that first time since they wouldn't have to mourn anymore. Having her family back was going to be wonderful. A good step on the path to getting her life back on track. All of those goals she'd had before this had all happened had never gone away, she still wanted them badly. Now she would have the time to work on achieving them.
Sorrin had played a part in making sure she still had that time. As surprised as she'd been at the time, Abby wasn't shocked that Sorrin had saved her life during the battle.
He'd told her that he didn't want anyone else to die at the hands of the Camadors, and apparently that included her. The look of fear in his eyes as that wall of fire had come hurtling at her had been very real, as had the rage in his eyes when he'd whirled on the Caran to take her on directly.
Never had she seen anyone fight like that before, and the fact that a little of it was for her had warmed her inside as she’d gone back to helping Kaleth in order to get the humans out of the cells and then down the ladder to safety.
It had been a team effort all around, and the smoking ruins of the floating city were still in the middle of the lake, a testament to a battle hard fought. If there were any remaining Camadors lurking in the shadows, Halphia’s men were on the job of capturing them. The Senator had gone so far as to promise that she and her people would stay until everything was secure. The American military was backing them up, and while things were going to be chaotic for quite some time, it was a good chaos. It was a chaos that meant things were going to get better.
At least that was what she hoped it meant.
Even with things being resolved around her, there was still unfinished business between her and Sorrin. Even after he had saved her life, there hadn’t been time to thank him. There hadn’t been time for much of anything other than making sure he wouldn’t have to jump in the line of fire for her again, and when things had settled down some and the battle had been declared over, she wasn’t surprised that Sorrin wasn’t waiting for her.
The problem was that she didn’t know where to find him. Even if he wasn’t going to forgive her for what she had done, she at least wanted to know that. She wanted to thank him for saving her life and then say goodbye to him with one last apology. If she could have that, then she’d let go of everything else.
In the end, he was where she should have expected him to be.
She walked up to the lake where the floating city was currently half submerged and saw Sorrin standing there with Senator Halphia. The woman was so lovely and put together, but in a completely different way from how Theolette had been. She was much more approachable, and it was clear that she cared about her people very much.
At the moment, she was standing with Sorrin, both of them facing the city with their backs to Abby. As Abby watched, she reached out a hand and rested it on Sorrin’s shoulder. Abby was close enough that she could hear most of their conversation, and she knew she should turn around and leave or make her presence known, but she stood there, waiting.
“You know you still have a home in Gollen Par,” the Senator said softly. “You’ve always had a home there.”
“I know,” Sorrin replied. “I just...I feel like it’s too late to go back now. I’d be trying to recreate what I had there before, and that’s impossible.”
“Yes,” Halphia agreed. “It is. But you don’t have to try to recreate it. You can move forward. There are still people there who love you. Who want good things for you.”
Abby swallowed hard. Somehow, she hadn't even considered the reality of Sorrin going back home. He had completed his mission, so there was no reason for him to stay here any longer. It sounded like Halphia cared about him, more than Abby had realized, and it would make sense for them to go back together. Sorrin could be a warrior again, and Halphia could be his...whatever.
She tried to push back the jealousy and sadness that wanted to burst free by reminding herself that Sorrin had never been hers. She'd been living a lie the entire time, and he didn't owe her anything.
"I know that," Sorrin was saying. "It just. Does not feel like the right answer."
"Then what is the answer, Sorrin? Staying here? I know that for so long your life was devoted to getting vengeance, and now you've had it. What comes next for you now that you haven't died with your grudge?"
He was shaking his head, fingers clenching and unclenching by his sides. "I wish that I knew."
"That human woman seems to care for you."
Sorrin's head turned sharply, and he looked at her. "What?"
"The human woman. The one you saved who was working with Kaleth to free the other humans. She seemed concerned about you. She's the reason you changed your mind, is she not? About accepting help?"
He nodded. "She is. But that's...it's over now."
Abby's heart sank. She needed to leave. She didn't want to hear Sorrin tell his friend all about her betrayal and how hurt he was and how he never wanted to see Abby again. That would kill her inside to hear that. She turned on her heel, ready to leave as quickly as possible, but then Sorrin spoke again, and she couldn't help slowing her pace to listen and then turning back around completely so she could see them.
"We were both in the wrong. I do not know how to tell her that."
"Have you tried using your words?" Halphia asked, sounding amused.
Sorrin glared at her. "You would think it's that simple."
"Sorrin, it is that simple. You have always made bigger problems out of smaller ones. You let things consume you to the point where you forget to look around and see that not everything is as bad as you expect it to be. You can simply speak to her and tell her you were wrong."
"She was wrong, too," Sorrin was quick to say.
"And I believe she knows that." A smile lit that lovely face, and she turned her head. "Don't you, my dear?"
Abby froze, eyes wide as Halphia made eye contact with her. Apparently she was not nearly as stealthy as she thought she was. Either that, or Halphia had some sort of enhanced senses, which, honestly, she wouldn't doubt.
She swallowed hard as Sorrin turned to look at her as well, and she held his gaze for a moment, waiting for the point where he got mad and closed himself off again.
It didn't happen, though, and she blinked in surprise.
"I believe there are things I must see to elsewhere," Halphia said. "I'll speak with you again before I leave, Sorrin." And then she was gone, gliding off to the other side of the lake to finish her examination of the city or whatever it was that had brought her here.
Sorrin just kept looking at her, and it became clear that he was waiting for her to make the first move. That was fair. Abby kept walking until she was closer. "I'm sorry," she said immediately. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop on your conversation, I was just...I was looking for you, and then..."
"And then you stayed to see what we said."
She couldn't parse the tone of Sorrin's voice, so she just lowered her head and nodded. "Yes. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry about everything, Sorrin. I should have told you from the start. I should have told Theolette to go hang instead of agreeing to do her bidding. I'm so sorry."
For a long moment, Sorrin didn’t say anything. His blue eyes raked over her face, and Abby held still, letting him look for whatever it was he wanted to see there. Or didn’t want to see.
“No,” he said finally. “If you had denied Theolette then you would have been killed, and I never would have met you.”
“Would that have been so bad?” Abby asked weakly.
“Yes,” Sorrin said. “It would have. This victory is because of you.”
“Sorrin, that’s not—”
“It is,” he said firmly. “I was thinking only of my vengeance and my mission. If not for you, then I would have continued thinking like that, and I would have rushed in again and been killed in the process. Because of you, I considered an alliance with the humans. Because of you, I was amenable to calling Halphia and asking for help. Because I wanted to keep you safe.”
“You did keep me safe,” Abby murmured. “You saved my life.”
“I had no other choice.”
Their eye contact was intense, and neither of them seemed inclined to look away. “Are you going back?” Abby asked. “With everyone else?”
Sorrin shook his head. “I haven’t decided.”
“Well. Before you go. Or...if you stay, do you think we could start over?”
“Start over?”
Abby nodded. “Honestly, this time. I’d like...I’d like to be on good terms.”
Slowly, a smile spread over Sorrin’s face and he inclined his head. “I would like that.”
“Great.” Abby grinned back and held out her hand for him to shake. “Hi. My name is Abby. I was a prisoner and a spy, and now I’m just a person trying to get her life back in order. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Sorrin,” he said, shaking her hand. “I was a warrior and then I was consumed with the thought of revenge, and now I’m just trying to figure out where to go from here. The pleasure’s all mine.”
“You know,” Abby said. “There’s plenty of opportunity here. The government sort of owes you at this point, and you could use that to your advantage. You could be whatever you wanted.”
Sorrin looked around and then licked his lips, nodding. “It’s something to consider.”
Halphia didn’t seem at all surprised when Sorrin declared that he would be staying. Abby was by his side when he told her, and she’d just smiled and hugged him close, reminding him that he could always come and visit and that there would always be a place for him at her side. As a show of how much she meant that, she made him the ambassador from Gollen Par to Earth, a show of good faith that the Independent colonies meant to hold up their end of the deal with Earth. Others would be sending their own ambassadors, she told them, but Sorrin would be the first. He would be there to make sure the people were safe.
Kaleth also stayed on Earth. She said she wanted to help make up for some of the things her people had done, and no one told her she couldn’t. Sorrin wasn’t at all pleased about sharing a planet with a Camador, but he let it go. Holding grudges, he told her, wasn’t worth it.
"I'm proud of you," she told him with a warm smile, nuzzling against his shoulder where they were wrapped up together. They were lying on a blanket in the grass outside of the apartment building that felt amazingly like home now, watching the stars.
"Mm," Sorrin replied, but he tightened his arm around her. "Because you think I am unreasonable and resistant to change?"
Abby laughed. "No, no. Never that." Her tone was teasing, and Sorrin pinched her lightly, making her yelp with surprise.
Things were good. It was different than she had been expecting this to go, but moving slow, to a point, was good for them. There were so many things they didn't know about each other, and learning them would only help them grow stronger. After all, Abby reasoned, if Sorrin was going to move down here, leave his planet and his people behind and start a new life here, then the least she could do was make it worth his while.
He kissed the top of her head, and a sound in the distance made her look up.
"Is that a car?" she asked.
Even with everything that had happened and the Camadors being defeated, they'd still had the building mostly to themselves. Some people had come back, mostly to get their things and then leave again, and a couple had moved back in, but it had still been quiet and cozy for them.
Abby lifted her head more, and her eyes widened when she saw that she definitely recognized the car in question. It stood to reason that she would, considering how many family vacations and trips to the grocery store or some manner of school activity had seen her in the back of it. She slapped a hand over her mouth to stop the helpless noise of surprise from spilling out.
Sorrin, to add to her surprise, didn't say anything. He just withdrew his arm so she could get up and make her way over to the car at a full tilt run.
Her mother was out of the car and opening her arms in a heartbeat, and Abby practically flew into them, crying openly now as she was wrapped up in her embrace. Neither of them spoke, they just clung to each other, crying and holding on and then laughing breathlessly.
"Oh, my little girl," her mother said, stroking her hair. "You're okay, you're okay."
Her sister and father joined in until they were wrapped in a huge family hug, the likes of which hadn't been seen since her sister had graduated from high school.
It took several long minutes before any of them could get themselves together enough to form coherent sentences, and all Abby could do was stare. This was her family, and she’d missed them. How could she have thought that she could live without this? How could she have even hesitated to call them as soon as she was free? This was what she’d needed this whole time, her family to ground her and make her feel like this.
"I thought you weren't coming for a couple more weeks," she said, leaning back so she could see them all properly. Her mother was exactly the same, greying hair, a bit portly, but beautiful. Her father was still tall and firm, his eyes crinkling at the corners when he smiled, and her sister was the spitting image of her at that age, though there were subtle differences that spoke to how they had grown up differently.
"We wanted to see you," her father said. "And your...Sorrin, over there, called and said now would be a good time."
Shocked, Abby turned to see Sorrin standing at the edge of the parking lot, watching them with a wistful smile on his face. "Sorrin?" she asked, wonder in her tone. She hadn’t even known he knew how to contact them, but she supposed that wasn’t hard for someone like him to figure out. And he had connections.
He inclined his head as was his way. "I wanted you to remember how much you care for them," he said softly.
It showed her how much she cared for him, too.
It was little things like that that showed her this would work. Sometimes Sorrin was moody and unhappy, but for the most part, he was learning how Earth worked in earnest and finding his place in it. He had many calls with Halphia about the state of things and how they needed to progress, but as weeks turned to months, it became clear that the Camador threat was as good as gone and everything was going back to normal.
Abby went back to her life, working at starting up her own business. It was hard, but with so many things in flux in the city as people came back or decided they were done with city life for good, there were plenty of spaces to fill.
And of course, no matter how hard her day had been, there was nothing better than coming home to Sorrin and the new extra-large bed they had purchased so he’d be more comfortable, and letting him take care of her.
In more ways than one.
When the evening ended with him holding her while they watched a movie, she was fine with that. And when it ended with him spreading her out on the bed, his head between her legs as he pleasured her long and slow, well, she was more than okay with that.
Her fingers tightened in the short strands of his hair that he was growing out (specifically for this reason, he’d said), and she arched her back, head pressing harder into the pillows as she moaned for him.
“Sorrin. God, right there.”
He had a mouth on him, and knew how to seek out those places on her body that made her sing for him. His hands smoothed up her thighs to her hips, and his reach was long enough that he could play with her nipples while his mouth worked, pressing kisses and just the slightest edge of teeth to her sensitive places.
She was breathless with the pleasure of it, practically grinding against his face in her urge to get more, please, now. So close to her peak while he teased her.
Eventually her soft whimpers and moans turned into begging, and she felt Sorrin grin against her. He pushed one finger inside her warm wetness and then followed it with another, working her until she was spilling over his fingers in a wet rush and crying out for him.
He made a show of licking his lips, and then he slid his fingers into his mouth, tongue running over each digit in a slow caress that made her blush to see it. Sorrin just smirked.
“Better?” he asked, tilting his head to one side.
Abby nodded. “Better,” she agreed. Her soft, satisfied smile turned just the slightest bit predatory, and she hauled him up to kiss him properly. She could feel him hard and wanting in his pants, and she wasn’t going to let that stand. “But we’re only half done here,” she teased him and then pushed until he rolled over onto his back. She moved to straddle him, legs spread wide and hands planted firmly on his chest. “It’s my turn now.”
One year later
Time, Abby was learning, could change a lot of things. It could heal over old wounds, change someone’s perception of you, and make things that had once seemed impossible completely possible. It allowed room for growth, space to figure things out, wiggle room for adding new ideas and new people in your life. It brought people together.
A routine could be thrown off by something as small as a bad hair day, or as large as an alien invasion. Going with the flow was important.
“Thank you for dinner, Mrs. Warren,” Sorrin said, ducking his head as he and Abby stepped out of her parents’ house. His absurd height made it hard for him to manage without knocking his head against the doorframe, unless he stooped. Abby still found this funny.
“Oh, please call me Marilyn,” Abby’s mother replied, flapping a hand at him. “And it’s no trouble. You’re always so enthusiastic about my cooking.”
“He’s enthusiastic about food in general, Mom,” Abby said. “How do you think he maintains that svelte figure?”
“Now, Abby, don’t tease your mother,” her father cut in, walking them out. “But it was good to see you both. Thanks for making the drive out here.”
Both of her parents hugged her, and then, in a surprise show of familiarity, her mother threw her arms around Sorrin. Sorrin looked shocked, and he awkwardly patted Marilyn on the back until she let go.
Abby was still laughing as they made their way down the driveway to where the truck was parked. Sorrin, she knew, was dreading the drive back, being big enough that he had to duck his head in the truck, too, and she appreciated him coming out with her all the more because of it.
It had been a year, and he was still there. Still by her side. When she woke up in the middle of the night, dreaming of screeching and horribly twisted faces, he was there, reaching for her before she could even say anything. With her face tucked against his chest and his arms around her, she felt that same feeling of safety and security that she’d felt the first time he’d wrapped her up, and it made her even happier that he’d decided to stay with her.
The drive back was quiet, but comfortably so, and by now Abby recognized the look Sorrin got on his face when he was lost in thought. She played the radio softly, humming along to a popular song, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel as she drove.
“Your parents are bonded, yes?” Sorrin asked suddenly, and she looked up.
“Bonded? I guess so. Married, we call it here.”
“Married,” Sorrin repeated. “That’s for life?”
Abby chuckled. “Supposedly. That’s what the promise is supposed to be, but it doesn’t always work out, you know? Some people just don’t work together.”
“And when they do?”
“Then they’re like my parents, I guess. Married—or bonded—for life.”
Sorrin was quiet for a moment more before he spoke again. “Did you think about getting...married when you were younger?”
“Mm, sometimes. I think everyone does. Especially little girls, I guess. You dream about your dress and your flowers and what your husband will look like. Everyone I knew when I was like ten had at least one fake wedding. Why, did you?”
He inclined his head, more so than it was already. “In a way. I thought about having someone to protect. Someone who would need me. Who I would die to keep safe.”
“Jeez. You warrior types are always so extreme.”
Sorrin shrugged a shoulder. “It is our way.”
“Apparently. Anyway, why?”
“Would you like to get married?”
Honestly, it was a wonder she didn’t swerve off the road at the question. “What?”
“To me, specifically,” Sorrin clarified. “We’ve been...close for a long time.”
“We have…” Abby admitted, chancing a glance over at him before she put her eyes back on the road. “I’m not sure you know what you’re asking.”
He gave her a look. “I’m not ignorant,” Sorrin said. “I know what it means to be bonded where I come from, and I have seen your parents. I understand, I think, how it works here. It is for life. That’s what I want here. Earth is a place of opportunity and growth and change, but I am still here for you. Because I want to be with you. Is that not what marriage is supposed to be based on?”
Abby was speechless, but she couldn’t deny that he had the gist of it. She let her breath out in a messy whoosh of air, unsure of what to say. Did she want to stay with Sorrin? Yes, yes she did. He was everything she could have dreamed of in a fantasy husband. Strong, kind, protecting. He listened to her and made her feel like she mattered. Even after what she had done, he’d let her back into his life and trusted her again. What they had now was beyond her wildest dreams for how this would have turned out.
Her, the one with the plans and goals and ambitions, caught off guard by how things had ended up.
She realized Sorrin was still waiting for an answer.
“Yeah,” Abby said finally, a smile spreading across her face. “I think I’d like that a lot.”