Post by Skyfire on Apr 7, 2010 11:28:51 GMT -5
Author’s Note:
I wrote this story both to celebrate my faith and to celebrate the day that is the core of that faith: Easter Sunday. (Albeit a bit late, but hey, who’s counting, right?
)
I don’t always pour out so much of my heart and soul into a work, but this one really… For those of you familiar with shipping fic “2. Life,” writing this was like writing that. The only difference is that I didn’t actually cry over this one… my eyes remained strangely dry, and I still can’t figure it out.
The Easter service is actually less than half of the story, and while people might accuse me of “preaching,” the fact is that the focus is on the characters, not the message. The message is just a nice bonus. Y’see, you need to understand why they react the way they do, and you need to understand why they react so strongly. For that reason, I delve into the sermon and the surrounding service. Like I said, it’s really less than half of the story – the first part shows the problem, the second part shows the action, and the final part shows the resolution. …I FINALLY WROTE A THREE-ACT STORY I CANNOT BELIEVE IT!
If anyone has a problem with the explicit Christianity, all I can say is that I have a right to write my stories the way that I want to write them, and I have a right to write my opinions – and my faith – into them. I do not dishonor the characters in writing this – I merely deepen their characterizations.
This is the first time I’ve ever written a story like this. The fact that it’s a BLoSC story just goes to show how much I really love that show – I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t.
If anyone has a problem with the pastor’s closing prayer, I didn’t make it up. That’s the way my pastor prays – and for that matter, the sermon is similar to the way he preaches, too. I’m emulating my pastor for realism. …Not to mention that, for those here who only know Catholicism or Orthodoxy, this is a good way for them to get a glimpse of a Reformer (Protestant) church. (Note: my pastor actually stutters sometimes when he speaks: like saying “uh” and “um” and repeating a word – all without actually slowing in what he’s saying. However, to duplicate that here would be much more distracting for the reader, so I left the flow uninterrupted. ;D)
I hold to all the statements I have just made. Nothing anyone can possibly say will change my mind or make me back down.
All that being said, I hope you still read this, if only out of curiosity to see how I can possibly write an explicitly Christian story without messing up the characters.
Hope you all had a much better Easter than I did! (I came down with a bad cold – worst possible day for it to happen…)
To the One Who gave me the gift of writing in the first place
Easter, A.D. 3011
Erin’s gaze continued to sweep the sanctuary, searching. Standing next to her and holding the hymnal they were sharing was Buzz, and he sighed. “Erin, stop fidgeting,” he whispered, as the rest of the congregation sang “Amazing Grace.”
“I can’t see Warp,” she whispered back mournfully. “I thought for sure he’d come.”
“Sis, you can’t force him.”
“I know, I –”
“Hey, can you guys stop?” a voice whispered from behind. “I’m trying to pay attention to the song.”
“Warp!” Erin half-whispered, whirling around.
He flashed her a grin. “Hey, kiddo. Still the same old songs, huh? See, I told you nothing changed.”
Buzz twisted around slightly to smile at his old partner. “One thing did. You’re here.”
“Yeah, well…” Warp shrugged. “Can’t hurt.”
Buzz’s smile softened. “Nooo, can’t hurt at all…”
…When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright-shining as the sun,
We’ve none less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’ve first begun~!
~*~
As it turned out, it actually did hurt… in a sense.
Pastor Collins delivered a sermon that went from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection, and at one point, he played a clip from a film – the thousand-year-old Passion of the Christ. Before playing the clip, he explained that so often the pain of the Savior is taken for granted, and he wanted to give the congregation a brief look at what the event had really been like.
Before one minute had passed, Erin squeezed her eyes shut, her fists clenched – unable to watch anymore. Mira quickly followed. Buzz and Warp flinched and grimaced in-tandem, though neither realized it. As much as they had seen and experienced, as much as they knew that these were actors and that they were acting…
As the 2:39 clip ended, Buzz finally shuddered, and Warp gasped in relief. Buzz brushed at Erin’s hand and whispered, “It’s over now.”
Warp comfortingly squeezed Mira’s shoulder with his flesh hand, and she gave him a wan but grateful smile.
~*~
“Jesus Christ was a real Person,” said Pastor Collins, “and His death is a historical fact verified by several extra-biblical sources, such as Josephus, Pliny the Younger, and Tacticus. Now the question is…”
Warp mouthed it as the pastor spoke it: Was Christ truly the Son of God? He believed it. And he understood that there was a difference between believing and trusting.
“Perhaps the most powerful evidence of Christ’s deity is in the Apostles themselves,” Pastor Collins continued. “Only one was not executed for his faith, and that was John. Simon Peter was crucified, and tradition holds that he was crucified upside-down because he thought himself unworthy to die in the same manner as his Lord. Paul was beheaded. All the others were tortured and killed, as well. What did they have to gain by it if Christ had not risen from the grave?”
You’re proving that Christ really was the Son of God, Warp thought, somewhere between mournful and angry. But, Pastor…
“They gained thousands of followers,” said the pastor, “but no popularity, no riches, no power. They were despised and persecuted among both their own people and the Romans. They were often beaten when they witnessed, and afterwards, they continued to speak out. Even as Stephen was being stoned to death by his own people for alleged blasphemy, he said, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge! Other ancient historians record these deaths and persecutions as historical, verifiable facts.”
…what if…
“The Apostles had no motive to hold to a mere possibility or a lie through ridicule, rejection, and torture, all the way to death. To the end, their faith was strong.”
…someone truly believes that…
“Jesus Himself claimed to be God many times. Even when the soldiers came to arrest Him in Gethsemane, He asked them whom they were seeking, and they said, Jesus of Nazareth. He said, I am He. They back-stepped and bowed to the ground – they knew that He was linking Himself with the Voice in the Burning Bush that told Moses, I am. Just as Jesus had done earlier in the Temple after the Feast of Tabernacles, He claimed to be the same God that had spoken to Moses. And of course, it was blasphemy to claim to be one with God.”
…but just…
“C.S. Lewis once put it this way, in his book Mere Christianity: I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him for a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
…doesn’t want to commit?
“No one who is a lunatic or a liar would submit to the most painful form of death imaginable. It would be enough either to break the illusion or to break the lie. Only One Who was absolutely what He claimed to be could willingly die and say, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Pastor… what happens then?
“And if Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God, crucified and resurrected of His own power, we are faced with an interesting decision. What are we to do with that fact? Do we acknowledge it and continue on with our lives, or do we acknowledge it and trust in it?”
…“I was alone, Erin. Absolutely alone in this… this burning blackness, and I’ve had nothing but nightmares ever since!”
“If Buzz got a tiny taste of Heaven, maybe you got a tiny taste of Hell.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“With all my heart.”
“…Then I think you’d better explain it to me. In detail…”
~*~
Wonderful, merciful Savior,
Precious Redeemer, and Friend,
Who would have thought that a Lamb could
Rescue the souls of men?
Oh-oh, You rescue the souls of men
Warp sang the closing hymn with the rest of the congregation. Feeling like a liar and a hypocrite was not a new sensation, but for it to stab this deeply…
Counselor, Comforter, Keeper,
Spirit we long to embrace,
You offer hope when our hearts have
Hopelessly lost our way,
Oh-oh, we’ve hopeless lost the way~
You are the One that we praise,
You are the One we adore,
You give the healing and grace our
Hearts always hunger for,
Oh-oh, our hearts always hunger for
Almighty, Infinite Father,
Faithfully loving Your own,
Here in our weakness You find us
Falling before Your throne,
Oh-oh, we’re falling before Your throne~
You are the One that we praise,
You are the One we adore,
You give the healing and grace our
Hearts always hunger for,
Oh-oh, our hearts always hunger for
You are the One that we praise,
You are the One we adore,
You give the healing and grace our
Hearts always hunger for,
Oh-oh, our hearts always hunger for~
Pastor Collins said, “Normally at this time, I would say the closing prayer, but today, I want us to sing one more song.” He looked to his wife sitting at the piano and waiting – she just shook her head and smiled. The pastor turned back to the congregation. “She’s so good to put up with me.” There was a ripple of light laughter. “All right, we’re going to do that song that Mira and Erin sang for the offertory – ‘Above All.’”
Warp remembered Erin singing that, when they had first met.
Above all powers
Above all kings
Above all nature and all created things
Above all wisdom and all the ways of man
You were here before the world began
Above all kingdoms
Above all thrones
Above all wonders the world has ever known
Above all wealth and treasures of the earth
There's no way to measure what You're worth
Warp grimaced and closed his eyes. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so… dirty… in his life. He was lying as he sang this song – he was lying because he didn’t mean it.
And he was sick of lying.
So he stopped singing.
Crucified
Laid behind a stone
You lived to die
Rejected and alone
Like a rose
Trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all
The piano music faded away, and the pastor said, “Let’s all bow our heads and close our eyes in prayer. Dear Lord, we thank You for this Easter Sunday – we thank You for all the people that have come here today. Thank You for Your incredible sacrifice on the cross to clear our sins if we accept You, and thank You for Your resurrection from the dead to give us life. Father, I pray that if there is anyone here today who has not accepted Christ, that You would just lay it on their hearts to say, ‘Lord, I know that I’m a sinner in need of salvation. Please forgive all my sins and nail them to Your cross. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.’ Lord, I know that You will accept them. And, Lord, I just pray that You will give us a wonderful day with friends and family as we celebrate Your greatest gift in Your Son, Christ Jesus. And in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.” Pastor Collins looked up and smiled. “We are dismissed. Have a blessed Easter.”
The sanctuary emptied slowly, people milling around and chatting with each other. As usual, Buzz, Mira, and Erin opted to move out into the foyer rather than to linger.
Warp didn’t follow them.
He just sat there in the pew, leaning forward, hands clasped on his knees. Stared at the cross on the low stand before the pulpit.
Before stepping out of the sanctuary, Erin turned to see him still sitting. She sensed… something. Then she stepped out. Not heeding Buzz or Mira, she practically ran out of the building and onto the parking lot, heart pounding as if she were being chased. She looked up at the sky. “God, be with him right now,” she pleaded softly. “I know he’s hurting, and I know why. Show him Your love. Draw him to You, Lord.”
A lone drop of saltwater fell to the permacrete.
~*~
Warp was still there when everyone else had walked out.
Brooding.
That the pastor could deliver a very convicting sermon that went from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection in just forty-five minutes was an impressive feat in and of itself.
But that the sermon could be bothering Warp Darkmatter this much was even more impressive.
He didn’t want to trust. He didn’t want to surrender to a God Who let so many bad things happen – not only to himself, but to Buzz, to Erin, to Mira, to Zomega… craters, even to Zurg himself!
The cross seemed to stare back at him, intently.
Growling, he stood, picked up a pew Bible, and hurled it at the cross. It slammed perfectly at the center, knocked the cross back against the pulpit, and fell to the floor.
No one in the foyer beyond seemed to notice.
“You have the power,” he bit out. “If You’re so all-powerful, why don’t You… I hate You, God! Do You hear me?? I hate You!”
He slumped to the floor as if just saying that had drained him of energy.
He clutched at the end of the nearest pew, leaned his forehead against it.
If anyone would have been paying attention the sounds coming from the sanctuary, they would have noticed the quiet sobs.
~*~
“Argh, where did she go?” Mira growled.
“Probably went outside,” Buzz reasoned, “though I have no idea why. I’ll check.”
Mira nodded. “I’ll check the library just in case.”
“Right.” Buzz jogged out to the parking lot and instantly found his sister. “Erin, what’re you…” He stopped. “Sis, what’s the matter?”
Tears had formed visible tracks down her face. She shook her head and mutely latched onto him, with that quiet intensity she had, as if her life depended on it.
~*~
A figure stood in the doorway to the sanctuary, silhouetted by the light from the foyer beyond. “Warp?”
Warp stiffened and straightened, brushing his tears away with the back of his flesh hand. “Yeah?” The single word came out in an embarrassing croak.
“Are you all right?”
He was sick of lying. “No.”
The figure moved fully into the sanctuary and approached him. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re the expert,” Warp said shortly, “you figure it out.”
Pastor Collins sighed. “If I have to guess, then I’d say that it’s because the sermon bothered you – and not just a little bit. A lot.”
“Like I said – you’re the expert.”
The pastor said nothing – just stood there, waiting.
He stood there for a long time.
At last, Warp broke the silence once more. “If God really loves us so much that He went through…” he shook his head and waved his hand expressively, “all that… then why…”
“Would He let your parents and sister die?” Pastor Collins finished frankly.
Warp didn’t have enough energy left to glare. “You’ve been talking with either Buzz or Erin. Or both.”
“But that’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”
Warp nodded mutely. “And… and not just my own family. What about Buzz’s mom and grandma? Mira’s mom? Erin’s family? Other people that I know who’ve lost loved ones before their time?”
The pastor sank to the floor and sat Indian-style. “Well, for starters, you know that Erin is a special case. If you know her full story, then you know that she chose to stay here and give up her family.” Warp shrugged one-shouldered. “As for the rest… Warp, being a believer, like your parents and sister, like Buzz’s mother and grandmother, like Mira’s mother… does not necessitate that bad things won’t happen. They will. We live in a fallen universe, and you know that very well. Because it’s fallen, bad things happen. Because it’s fallen, we have disease and death… and people who do the wrong thing, like the drunk driver that crashed into your family’s car.”
“But if God is God, why doesn’t He stop all that?” Warp persisted.
“Because we have free will.”
Warp closed his eyes in pain. The one thing that he valued above his own life was freedom…
“And we have free will – the freedom to choose – because God loves us. Because He wants us to follow Him because we want to, not because He forces us to. If God were to stop all the bad things from happening –”
“But doesn’t He stop some of them?”
“Yes.”
“So it’s just… if it works in His big plan, He lets it go?”
The pastor sighed again and turned to the side, staring out the window. “Warp, let me ask you something. What would have happened if your family hadn’t died?”
The reply was cold and hard. “I wouldn’t have wasted twenty-four years of my life.”
The pastor turned back to him then, returning Warp’s gaze fully and sternly. “What else?”
“I…” He saw where this was headed, and he didn’t want to answer. He didn’t want to answer because he could follow it through to conclusion, and if he acknowledged it, then he was so very wrong…
“You wouldn’t have become a Space Ranger,” the pastor said firmly. “You would never have met Buzz, never have helped all the people that you did even when you were working as a spy, never have brought Team Lightyear together by reason of your faked death. Do you see how much good God brought out of your family’s death? God does that – He can bring good out of any situation. Is that really a God that you want to rebel against?”
Silence.
Eventually, the pastor said quietly, “Warp, you’ve been running for a long time. It’s time to run home.”
Warp stood abruptly. “I have to go.”
“Warp…”
“Bye, Pastor.”
The pastor sighed and stood, as well. “Goodbye, Warp.” He moved over to pick up the thrown Bible and the cross.
Warp’s gaze lingered on the cross for a long moment. Some churches put Jesus on their crosses – crucifixes, he remembered. This cross was empty. Empty because… Jesus was no longer on the cross. No more sacrifices, nothing else required for salvation.
“It is finished,” he quoted quietly, then left.
~*~
Buzz shook his head, heart aching. “Erin, I… I wish I knew what to say.”
“I don’t know that there’s anything you can really say for something like this,” Erin said softly. “Except for a prayer.” She brushed a loose curl away from her eyes, red from crying, and coughed.
Buzz conceded that with a slight nod. “You still getting over that cold?”
“Yeah.” Erin coughed again. “I can’t seem to shake it.”
Mira wrapped an arm around Erin’s slim shoulders and held her close. “We’ll just keep on praying, all right?” She looked up at Buzz with a rueful smile. “You know, it’s been a long time since I’ve prayed so much.”
Buzz nodded again, pensively this time. “I know what you mean.” He sighed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “It’s been a long time for me, too – since my nana died, I guess.” Then he noted someone stepping out of the church building. Warp.
The other man wore that expression that, in recent years, Buzz had come to understand was his “cover-up” expression. That something was eating at Warp and he was trying not to dwell on it.
“Hey, guys – sorry about the wait,” Warp said with forced cheerfulness. “We’re gonna do dinner, right?”
Buzz nodded slowly. “At my house.”
“’Kay, then – let’s get this show on the road.”
The four of them split up for their cars, the girls walking over to Mira’s Firespitter. The princess’s arm was still around the younger woman. “Some things take time,” Mira said softly.
Erin stopped, coughed, and looked Mira in the eye. “What if he was to die in a car crash tomorrow? Where would he be?”
Mira could not answer that.
~*~
The following Saturday…
“‘Let’s go hiking!’ you said. ‘It’ll be fun!’ you said. …I shoulda stayed put with Buzz and Mira.”
Erin laughed as she glanced over her shoulder at Warp. “Ahhh, quit your moanin’ and groanin’! You walked into this one with both eyes open, so you have no one to blame but yourself.”
“Ohhh!” Warp groaned dramatically, placing his biomechanical right hand over his heart. “You wound me, Your Worshipfulness!”
She gave him The Look. “One of these days, I’m really gonna give it to you for calling me that.”
He straightened and grinned. “You’ll hafta catch me first.”
“I think I can handle that.” Of course, the effect was ruined just a moment later when she coughed.
Warp shook his head disappointedly. “’Tis the pride that cometh before the fall.”
“And a haughty spirit before destruction,” Erin finished, shrugging when Warp stared at her. “Hey, not my fault everybody leaves out that second half.”
He rolled his eyes and pushed on past her. Shrugging again, she followed him.
“So,” he said finally, “how far do you want to go? I know this one lookout point that has a terrific view – it’s not that far up, either.”
“Really? Sounds great!”
“Uh-huh.” Warp added in an undertone just loud enough for Erin to hear: “I still shoulda stayed put.”
Erin half-sighed, half-growled in exasperation. “And done what? All Buzz and Mira are doing is watching a movie at Buzz’s house. On the other hand, I have one of my rare cases of spring fever. I wanted to get out of the house, and you agreed to join me.”
Warp shrugged. “Can’t let you go it on your own.”
Erin halted. “What, I can’t take care of myself?”
“You’re too chicken to, remember?”
The sad thing was that she really had said that and meant it. “Argh! I hate it when you throw my words back at me!”
Warp chuckled. “Relax, angelita.”
Erin shook her head and exhaled forcefully, holding back another cough. “Incorrigible,” she muttered.
~*~
“You know, it’s getting kinda dark,” Erin frowned, looking up at the sky. “Which is weird, ‘cause the forecast said that there was only a small chance of rain.”
Warp shrugged. “Sometimes those small chances happen, y’know?”
“Yeah,” she coughed. “Maybe… we should head back…”
“Hold on, we’re almost there. Come on.” He took her hand and led her up a steeper trail than the one they’d been following. They came out onto a cliff that had a truly magnificent view of the American Rockies.
Erin’s breath caught as she drank in the view. The blue-tinged mountains blurred into the darkening sky in the distance, and the forest spread out below them, already lush and green. She finally managed to murmur, “It’s beautiful…”
“My dad used to bring me up here,” Warp said quietly. His flesh hand came up to hold her right hand, and he squeezed it gently.
She gave him a soft smile. “It’s perfect.”
They stood there in silence for a while, until at last, Warp tentatively remarked, “You know, it’s been two years now since we first met.”
“Has it really?” Coughing slightly, Erin shook her head and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “That wasn’t long after I first arrived. Seems more like forever.”
“Is that good, or…”
“It’s good, it’s good,” she assured him.
He nodded pensively. “You really did seem like an angel, you know. I was…” He hesitated, then forged ahead. “I was captivated by you, even then.”
Erin didn’t stiffen. If anything, she seemed to crumple. She pulled her hand out of Warp’s and suddenly felt cold. “Warp, don’t…”
“You know that I love you, Erin,” he persisted. “I love you. And you love me – I know you do.”
“Warp, please…”
Warp took both her small, small hands in his big ones. “I promise I’ll do things right this time – I will. Just… just don’t pull back. Don’t leave.”
“Warp, I… I can’t!” Erin protested, feeling the words dragged out of her. “You know I can’t! Please, don’t make this worse!”
She tried to pull her hands away, but he gripped them tightly – desperately, almost. “Erin, please! I won’t make you give up your faith – I wouldn’t want you to! But we… we can work this out. Please, just listen to me!”
“No,” she moaned quietly. “Warp, there would always be a part of my life – a huge part of my life – that you couldn’t share. And I need you to.”
His grip slackened, and she gently withdrew her hands, only to raise one up to brush at his cheek. “I can’t marry you,” she whispered. Tears welled in her eyes, and the lump in her throat nearly choked her. “I’m sorry.”
Suddenly, a lance of lightning split the sky in two, and thunder quickly followed. Warp stiffened, drawing himself up. “We need to get to shelter.”
Erin coughed and nodded, understanding. Warp could shift gears almost instantaneously as the situation demanded. Survival was foremost, and if his heart was going to break… well, he could wait until they were at least safe before he would let it happen.
~*~
“If your dad brought you to the area,” she asked as they arrived at the small cabin, “did you stay here overnight?”
“Yeah.” Warp fished a key out of his pocket and unlocked the padlock on the door. “C’mon, let’s get out of the rain.” He put his arm around her and drew her in.
She shivered and pulled her jacket tighter around her. “Great, I’m gonna catch pneumonia now.”
“Let’s hope not.” Warp moved over to an old-fashioned fireplace to get a fire started. “We’ll get you warmed up in just a sec, here…”
Erin hugged herself as she sat on one of the wooden chairs. “I’m gonna call Mira and tell her we got caught out here.”
“Doesn’t that sound familiar?” he smirked, tossing a piece of wood into the fire.
“Yeah.” She pulled out her cell-phone and dialed Mira’s number. An error message flashed on the screen. “Oh great – ‘your phone service is out of order in your area’! Terrific!”
“Lemme see if mine’ll work…” Warp tried his own phone. “Nooope, no such luck. Craters.” He tucked the phone back into his pocket and sighed. “Looks like we’re stuck here for the night.”
“Doesn’t that sound familiar?” Erin parroted.
“Yeah, yeah, very funny…” He pulled off his coat and hung it on the coat rack.
Erin shivered and coughed again.
Warp turned to her in concern. “Are you all right?”
“I’ve got pneumonia now, remember?”
Warp stood, looming over her. “I’m serious, Erin,” he frowned.
She shook her head. “I don’t know, Warp.” There was just the faintest tinge of fear in her voice.
Warp shook his head and settled onto his haunches on the floor, taking Erin’s small hands in his own. “You’re so cold,” he murmured.
“I always have cold hands,” she said quietly.
He gave her a frank look. “This is worse than that, and you know it.”
“Real *cough* comforting there, hotshot,” she retorted.
He didn’t respond verbally – instead, pulled her down onto his lap as he folded his legs Indian-style. Then he pressed her close, hoping to give her some of his body heat.
She buried her face in his chest, trying to hide the emotion welling up inside her. She wanted this. She wanted to marry him, to be with him till Death did them part, to have children with him. She couldn’t even imagine ever loving anyone else as much.
But she couldn’t. It was a Biblical command, and it was more than that – her faith would always be between them. There really would be a huge part of her life that he just would not be able to share.
Her breath hitched, and her body shuddered further. Warp held her tighter and rocked back and forth. “Shh. Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
After a couple of minutes, he gazed down at her, noting the tear-tracks on her face. And he just knew.
Bending down, he lifted her tear-stained face to his and pressed his lips against hers. Another tremor ran through her body as she returned the kiss. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and his real hand carefully held her head while his biomech hand pressed the small of her back. Somehow, Warp was both gentle and desperate, and Erin… Erin was all fire. Burning and passionate.
A tear rolled down her cheek and touched their lips. And another.
It was a kiss that they should not be having, a kiss that they could not have again. And they wanted to make it last for eternity.
Everything that really matters does last forever, if only in a memory.
All too soon, though, she couldn’t breathe, and he was having difficulty doing so. She broke away, gasping for air and coughing. He just stared at her, as if unable to believe what they had just done.
Anger and hurt passed over her features as she scrambled to her feet. “How dare you!” she hissed, voice thick. She turned and ran back out of the cabin.
For a few moments, Warp continued to process everything that had just happened. Despite her rejection, she kisses him – kisses him perhaps even passionately than he was kissing her – then immediately after, she gets mad and storms out. He was… never going to understand women. Ever.
He leapt to his feet and ran out to Erin, who was just standing there in the rain. She turned to him as he approached and shouted over the rain, “You should never have kissed me!” Her tears mingled with the rainwater on her face.
“It takes two to kiss like that, sweetheart!” he retorted, eyebrows drawing together. “And I’m not sorry we did!”
“You are DESPICABLE!” she nearly screamed, storming off into the woods.
“ERIN! COME BACK HERE!” he shouted after her. “Aargh…” He ducked back into the cabin to get his jacket and pull up the hood, then ran after her. “Fool woman,” he muttered. “Erin!”
But she didn’t listen, dodging the various tree limbs, fallen branches, and stones in her way as she ran. She had to get away from him! She feared to think of what could happen if she didn’t.
Lightning flashed across the world, blinding her. In the same moment, her foot struck a tree branch, and she fell. And fell. She tumbled down a bank and landed facedown in the liquid mud.
She didn’t get back up.
~*~
“ERIN?? ERIN!!” A couple of tree limbs had left scrapes across his face, but he hardly even noticed. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted again. “ERIN!!” He continued to run forward, doubting that Erin would zigzag in unfamiliar territory. “ERIN!!” He stopped short at the edge of a bank and peered down. “Oh, Erin…” he moaned.
She was sprawled on her stomach in the mud, at least a dozen feet below.
Warp searched for a gentler way down and found it, scrambling – and sliding – as fast as he could to the bottom. “Erin!” He lifted her out of the mud, turning her over to face him. Her eyes were closed. Panicked, he checked her pulse and found that it was still there. He shook her gently. “Erin!”
Her right eye opened a crack before closing again. “Waaarr…” she murmured, almost inaudibly.
“That’s good enough for me, sweetheart. C’mon.” He slung her right arm over his shoulder and carried her like a baby, beginning to make the trek back to the cabin.
~*~
He gently laid her on the smaller cot in the cabin, and proceeded to strip her down to… Maaan, it had to be the first time in his life he’d ever wished that women still wore all the layers of underclothes they wore back in the nineteenth century. He could admit that he had fantasized a couple of times, but when it came to an emergency situation like this, it was totally different. He wasn’t seeing her body as her husband – he was seeing her body as her rescuer and emergency medic. He felt as if he was violating her, even though he knew her clothes had to be taken off before she could warm up.
He quickly covered her in one of the blankets.
Her eyes opened slightly then. “Waaarp?”
“I’m here, angelita,” he replied softly.
“What…”
“You fell. I brought you back to the cabin.”
She shifted, then realized that her clothes were gone. Something akin to horror washed over her face, and Warp hurried to her side.
“I’m sorry. I had to get you out of those wet clothes.”
Her face relaxed, and she nodded slightly, shifting again till she was lying on her left, facing him fully. He pressed his flesh hand to her forehead – it was burning. “You have a fever,” he whispered.
She nodded mutely.
Warp nodded back, then returned to the fire to stoke it.
Her gaze wandered over the room and came to rest on one of the windows. To her surprise, she saw a face in the window – her mother’s. “Mama,” she murmured brokenly. “Warp, let her in. She’ll catch her death out there.”
Alarmed, Warp glanced at the window, then back at the girl on the cot. “Erin, there’s nobody there,” he soothed, somehow managing to keep the panic out of his voice. “You’re hallucinating. Shh, there’s nobody there.” He took her right hand in his real one and began to stroke it with his thumb.
~*~
She was running.
She didn’t know why or from whom… she was just running.
Shadows tangled all around her, voices that she vaguely recognized but couldn’t identify or understand.
She had to get free of the shadows, of the voices.
She broke out into light, and immediately threw up her arms to shield her eyes. When she could look again, she gasped in horror.
Buzz and Warp stood against each other, faces hard, stances tense. Warp was back in his Zurg uniform, and still had his cybernetic arm.
No! No, this wouldn’t happen, this hadn’t happened before and it wouldn’t happen now because Warp had come home…
She tried to rush toward them – get in the way, anything – but the world seemed to be caught in some kind of thick, syrupy motion.
Warp brought his arm-cannon up to bear, but Buzz seemed faster. His wrist-ray was aimed directly for Warp’s heart, and he fired.
“NO, BUZZ – DON’T KILL HIM!!” she screamed, bolting upright in bed.
Warp hurried to her side and gripped her bare shoulders, trying to restrain her. “Erin! Erin, shh –”
“Don’t kill him!” she moaned tearfully, struggling in Warp’s grip.
“Erin, shh – it’s just a bad dream…”
“Don’t kill him. He’s your brother, don’t kill him…”
Pain passed over Warp’s features. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that he and Buzz had been fighting in her nightmare. The feverish energy seemed to seep quickly out of her, and he gently pushed her back down onto the cot. He smoothed her hair back from her face. “Shh, angelita… it’s okay. I’m right here, I’m okay. I’m not going to leave you.” A tear fell onto the blanket, and it was not Erin’s. “Do you hear me? I am not going to leave you.”
She shifted to one side, then the other. “It’s so hot,” she whispered, feebly trying to push down the blanket.
Warp gripped the blanket and held it firmly in place. “Shh, we have to break the fever.”
Her face was pale, her skin covered in a sheen of sweat. Her dark damp hair plastered the pillow, and her brown eyes were glazed and bloodshot. She seemed to be only half aware of his presence now.
Warring against Death was nothing new. It seemed as if he’d been beating it back all his life. But for the first time, he was truly afraid that this was the one battle he would not be able to win.
~*~
It was well into the wee hours of the morning, and Erin had long since drifted into a comatose slumber.
Warp knelt beside the cot, clasping her right hand in both his hands, feeling the claddagh ring she always wore brand itself into the prosthetic skin of his right hand.
“Erin…” he murmured brokenly.
~*~
I was running.
I felt so… so light. Like I felt in Outer Space, only… uncovered.
Weightless and… I think I was unclothed, but there was no shame in it.
I practically flew of my own accord over the green, green grass, my feet hardly ever touching the ground.
The world was golden. So golden. It was as if the sun were casting its warm golden glow over the world, and not harming it. The sky remained a flawless blue, but even the clouds had a golden tinge.
The grass, the tree bark, the leaves, the flowers… they all had a sort of golden hue to them, though their natural color did not diminish in the least. The flowers… oh, the flowers! They were veritable explosions of color, so bright and rich and deep that the eyes ached to see them in all their glory.
The world was deliciously warm and all golden. Not the cold color of metal gold, nor the flat color of paint. It was a rich, vibrant, living gold. It caressed the world and embraced it.
Yeshua, is this Heaven?
My dark curls drifted around her in a balmy, gentle breeze, as if I were underwater in a flowing current. My skin glowed in the living light, warm and shining.
I was alone, but it was sweet kind of lonely, where I wasn’t mournful, didn’t want for company. There was a… a presence… to this place. It kept me from feeling alone.
It was silent, no sound of birds chirping or animals scampering or even water running… but it was a rich, deep kind of silence. The kind that you don’t want to break. It had a life all of its own.
It was all so breathtakingly beautiful, so much beauty that it could break my heart if I had to exist in it much longer. But I wanted to. I wanted my heart to break, I wanted to remain in this place where I was alone but surrounded, where it was silent but alive.
My heart would break if I had to leave.
I came to settle at the shore of a brook. Here, at last, there was some sound in the bubbling of the brook, though it was a quiet bubbling as if in reverence to the silence everywhere else. I stretched out in the velvety grass with a silent sigh of pleasure. Even the ground was soft – not spongy, like over-damp soil, but soft, like a feather mattress.
I stared up at the sky, watching the clouds drift lazily overhead. They actually seemed close enough that I could reach out and take hold of them. I wondered what a cloud felt like in this place.
Eventually, I rolled over and peered down into the water… then drew back, startled. That wasn’t my reflection! I leaned back down…
Yeees, it was me, in a way… But it wasn’t the obviously early-twenties face that I saw every day in the mirror, the same not-quite-eye-catching features…
It was as if a sculptor had taken my face and worked at it, smoothing out the worry lines that were already just beginning to take shape, softening the features that had angled in recent years, deepening and arching the eyebrows to perfection, filling the already-thick lips to completion, darkening and filling out the eyelashes, enlarging the already-expressive brown eyes…
I looked like a Tolkien Elf. Or an angel.
That was the only way I could think to describe the changes that had taken place in my appearance.
My face was absolutely flawless, not so much stunning as it was simply perfect.
Even my normally recalcitrant curls were smooth to a level that I could never seem to attain, a rich and lustrous sepia-and-golden brown.
I dared to reach down into the glistening water. It felt refreshingly cold, and… There was something about it, a sensation that I couldn’t put my finger on.
I reached both hands down, cupped to draw up water. As I drank, I felt incredibly… aware and… alive. More so than I had ever been in my life, more so than even since finding myself in this golden world.
Living water…
I took only three cupfuls of the radiant liquid, the water rushing down through me and satisfying a thirst I had not known I had.
“Yeshua,” I whispered, daring to break the silence. “Is this Heaven?”
I had to know. It was beyond my most vivid and wonderful dreams, this world, but something felt missing. Maybe it was the lack of Yeshua’s visible presence… though as my mind reached out, I felt His presence just as strongly as I had years ago, back in that MedBay room.
Stronger, even.
I had to know.
I flew over the ground once more, compelled this time by an urgency that I did not fully understand myself.
I had to know.
And suddenly, I stopped.
I did not stop of my own free will, but neither did I slam into anything. I simply… stopped.
There was a barrier there. I could not see it, could not touch it… I just knew.
And I had to decide whether I was going to cross that barrier or not. I sensed that decision just as surely as if it were written in the air before me.
It was even more radiant there, on the other side of the barrier.
I would not have thought it possible, but it was. The light was… prismatic… glittering over the world beyond. Everything shone with a light that surely would have blinded me had I been in my former, frail body.
But it was not the light that captured my attention – it was the children.
Let me amend that: they behaved like children, joyful and carefree. But their ages could not be identified – they were neither child nor adult. They simply were. For the first time, I understood the meaning of ageless.
Then with a start, I recognized them, beyond their forms that were as flawless as my own.
A tall boy with browned skin, black hair, and dark eyes… a boy of average height with dark blond hair, brown eyes, and creamy skin… a petite girl with long, straight hair the color of dark copper, brown eyes, olive-toned skin… another tall boy, dark copper hair, brown eyes, olive skin… yet another tall boy, copper hair, hazel eyes, creamy skin… a girl of average height with red-gold hair, creamy skin, and hazel eyes…
Paul. Paul and Samuel and Rebekah and Jonathan and Liam and… Joyce. My baby sister that I never got to see grow up, except for in carefully-preserved photos.
I felt my heart breaking, though whether from sorrow or joy I still don’t know.
There were three more “children” there, though, faces and features that I could not identify, but seemed to recognize all the same.
Then my breath caught as realization dawned.
They were my siblings-in-Heaven, the brothers and sisters that had never been born.
They were dancing and running and singing and laughing, all so full of joy. A serene, pure joy, untainted by grief or wrongdoing or any form of darkness – a joy that can never be had in our first lifetime.
They were in Heaven.
And I was just outside.
And I had to decide whether to step inside, or to stay outside.
“Erin, whatever you decide, it will be your final choice. There will be no going back.”
“How can You ask me to make that choice? I don’t know!” I heard my own voice – my voice in memory – cry out in despair. “I don’t know!”
“Oh, Erin. My Erin.” I could feel His arms fold around me once more. “I have a plan for you here, a future. It will not be easy, Dearest, but there is always difficulty in following My will. If you truly wish, you will be sent back home, but if you do…”
“If I do, I’ll never know what could have happened to me here. I could have something wonderful here, and if I go back, I… I’ll never know.”
“Yes, Dear One.”
I knew what He wanted me to say. The same words I had spoken three years ago, He wanted to me to speak again.
But, O dear Father in Heaven, how could I??
How could I willingly return to pain and grief and darkness and loss? I wanted the Light! How I wanted that Light…
But I heard a voice calling my name. It was not His voice, nor was it the voice of any of my brothers or sisters. It was a voice that I knew – I just could not place it.
The voice was full of love. Love like the love that I could plainly see among my brothers and sisters.
But I wanted to ignore it. I wanted to continue into that Light, and leave the Darkness behind.
And yet… there was… a need in that voice. Someone back there… still loved me. Still needed me.
Tearing my gaze away from the children was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. Harder, even, than when I had chosen to remain in the future.
But I did.
I murmured in a language that I would swear was not English but that I understood all the same: “I’ll do what You want me to do.” Already, I began to feel heavier, no longer weightless… the light receded around me…
Erin.
And this time, it really was His voice.
“Yeshua? Yeshua, don’t leave me!”
I am with you, Erin. Even unto the ending of the world…
~*~
“Erin? Erin, can you hear me?” His voice was rough and thick and hoarse. “Erin, mi angelita, I love you. Did you ever realized just how much I love you? You gave me back my life, Erin, my soul. I’m here right now because of you. Not because of Buzz or friendship or goodness or freedom or anything else in the universe… you.”
Her ring had left a noticeable mark on his prosthetic palm, and it hurt. But not so much as the mark left on his heart – nothing else could hurt like that.
“Erin, you showed me that life was worth living – was worth living right. I can never thank you enough for that. Your laugh, your smile, your courage…” His breath hitched. “You’re strong, Erin. You’re stronger than I ever was. I want that strength that you have.
“You can’t leave me,” he whispered. “I need you too much. I’ve been living on empty for way too long. God can’t take you away, not now. Please, Erin, don’t leave me. I need you. I need you.”
He lowered his head to the cot, burying his face in the blanket. His right hand never left hers.
He was crying.
“God… Father God, I… You… you can bring good… even out of death. But don’t… don’t let Erin die. Don’t take her away. It’s my stupidity that put her on this cot. God, don’t let her pay for my mistakes. You can take me, and I know I deserve it. But don’t let her pay in my stead.
“God, don’t heal her for my sake – heal her for her own. If… if I can’t be with her… I’ll accept that. Just so long as she lives. Just let her live.”
Breath still hitching every few words, he raised his head slightly, looked up. “I’ve fought against You, been a rebel… cursed Your name. I hated You. Hated You like I never… never thought I could hate. But all along… You’ve shown such… incredible mercy… and grace. You showed it in Buzz’s friendship, the way he never gave up on me… You showed it in the Commander’s pardon… You showed it in the love of a young woman.
“There’s so much that I still don’t understand. All I know… all I know is that You are Love. I see it in the lives… of people all around me… and I know… it cannot come from them alone. Your love has to be in them first. And this love in my heart… when I thought I could never love again… God, it’s too much. It’s too big. I can’t contain it all – I could never contain it all. It could only come from You. You Who created the universe – created everything in it… You created this love that I have for Erin, placed it in my heart. So now I offer You back this love – mine and Erin’s – and do with it what You will.”
Fully intent now on his words to his Maker, he never noticed a pair of brown eyes opening ever-so-slightly, as if the eyelids were too heavy to lift completely.
“I have been stiff-necked, and prideful, and rebellious, and even self-righteous. When You took my family away, I thought that I was justified in turning on You, in doing so much wrong. I lied, swore falsely, betrayed, hurt other people… and I believed that I was justified in my actions. God, I was so wrong – so far wrong. Father, I confess to You that I am a sinner, a rebel against You. Take my wrongdoing – all of it. Let it be washed away in the blood Your Son shed for me. I don’t deserve it – I never have. But I accept the Lord Jesus Christ to be my Savior… to come into my heart, and change it.”
There was still so much pain that he felt as if he could drown in it. But there was also a rising… peace. A peace that began to fill a heart that had been empty for so many years.
“All I have to give You… is my love, and my life. You strip me of the one thing that’s more important to me than anything else… and all I can do is just… surrender. I’m not going to run anymore, God. I promise. I’m not going to run anymore.”
He felt… sleepy. He had been awake all night, the longest night of his life… He let his head fall on the cot, let sleep begin to over take him…
A small, pale hand slowly moved across the blanket and came to rest on his biomech hand. Startled, hardly daring to hope, he jerked his head up.
A pair of big, beautiful brown eyes was gazing back at him, full of love and joy.
“Erin!”
The joy of the children was in his voice.
~*~
The following Tuesday…
“Hey, sick-chick!” he grinned cheerfully as he jogged into her room. Right away, he had to duck the pillow hurled at him.
She glared at him. “Sick-chick is the nickname my family used – I’ll thank you not to desecrate it.”
He clutched at his heart and staggered back. “Ohhh, you wound me, Your Worshipfulness!”
She ground her teeth. “Your… teasing… is not conducive to my recovery.”
He nodded ruefully. “Fair enough – I’ll stop.”
“Thanks.”
He sighed and sat on the edge of her bed. “So, how are you doing?”
“Oh, okay. It’s nice to be back out of the MedBay – I swear I’ve spent a lifetime in there.”
He snorted a brief laugh. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”
“How about you?”
He considered that question before responding. “I’ve been… talking… with the pastor a lot. You know, asking him a lot of questions, doing some study…”
She nodded slowly.
“I still hate homework,” he added with a grin.
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Incorrigible.”
“Yep, that’s me.” He started drumming his flesh fingers on the bed, and glanced briefly at his right palm. The mark left by Erin’s ring was just beginning to fade. He bit his lip back briefly, then decided to just take the plunge. “Erin?”
“Hmm?”
“Just three days ago, I asked you a question – well, okay, I asked indirectly. Aaand you said no. But… a lot has changed since then. And… I’m not asking for an immediate commitment or anything, I just… I just want to know…” He gently took her hands in his, his dark blue eyes intense in their sincerity, their depth of feeling. “Erin Elisheba Frame… will you marry me?”
The final barrier had been stripped away, leaving behind nothing but Light.
…Even so, she wasn’t to let him off the hook completely. “No?” She smiled and squeezed his hands. “Don’t even think about taking that seriously.” Her brown eyes fully returned his intensity. “Yes. I’ll marry you.”
He tried to give her a stern look but failed. He didn’t smile, though – neither of them did. Some things were just too perfect for smiles.
He scooted over to her side and wrapped his arm around her, holding her close. She drifted towards sleep in his warm embrace, but before she did, she murmured something that he had been waiting a long time to hear.
“I love you.”
My chains are gone
I’ve been set free!
My God, my Savior
Has ransomed me!
And like a flood
His mercy rains
Unending love
Amazing grace
Author’s Note:
I think I would be hard-pressed to break my “longest one-shot” record after this – including all the lyrics and the C. S. Lewis quote, it was over 8,700 words. Oy vey! Count in the two author’s notes, and it’s well over 9,700! Eeee~!
The writing of this story was “fast and furious” – it was just pouring out of me, and the ending scene was the only part that actually surprised me. I had thought that it was going to end with Erin waking up, but I decided that it needed a little more closure than that. I hope that adding that last scene didn’t wreck the climax.
Well, KJ, we’ve role-played this topic a couple of times… now you finally know how it really happens.
Now for the credits! None of the songs are my own genius, unfortunately – they are the genius of John Newton (“Amazing Grace”), Selah (“Wonderful, Merciful Savior”), Lenny LeBlanc (“Above All”), and Chris Tomlin (“Amazing Grace: My Chains Are Gone”). And we all know that I don’t own C. S. Lewis, lol… or, for that matter, The Passion of the Christ. Also, all but one of the Apostles really did die for their faith – their martyrdom is attested to by ancient historians.
Now, down to the story elements and lines that were used here! ^^ A couple of things came from the Christian family radio drama Adventures in Odyssey, or AIO (fyi, the voices of Brent Starkisser, Keno Kentrix, and Santa are all longtime VAs on this show). The first is the opening scene with Buzz, Erin, and Warp – that’s from an ooold AIO episode, the name of which I can no longer remember, unfortunately. Warp’s brief memory during the sermon of a conversation with Erin is from another old episode, “The Mortal Coil, Part II.”
The entire second half of the story is based on a wonderful, semi-biographical novel called Christy, by Catherine Marshall. I once said it was like a nitty-gritty version of Little House on the Prairie, but it truly is a beautiful story – so go read it! ;D Actually, my story follows the film adaptation closer than it does the actual book – but the funny thing is this: Warp and Erin’s relationship resembles Neil and Christy’s relationship, and that sure wasn’t intentional on my part. xD In the final installment of a film trilogy, all the things that happen to Erin really do happen to Christy, barring the vision of Heaven – that was based on the book, though not entirely a cop-off. Actually, the way I wrote the Heaven-scene was heavily influenced by C. S. Lewis’s incredibly imaginative writing in Perelandra and The Last Battle.
Warp uses two pet names for Erin here: angelita, and Your Worshipfulness. The first is Spanish for “Little Angel”; the second is him purposefully copying Han Solo. Why? Erin’s not the princess in this gang – Mira is. Okay, it’s because of her name – Erin is the anglicized form of Eire, the Celtic goddess for which Ireland is named. Erin once made the mistake of mentioning that to Warp, and from there, the opportunity was just too good to pass up. …I swear, that man can be a real pain sometimes. xD
The “doesn’t-that-sound-familiar” bit is from an unwritten chapter of Breakaway. Don’t worry – it’ll be released to the public someday! ^^
Aaand that’s all I can think of! Shalom! <3 <>< AND PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE REVIEW!!!
I wrote this story both to celebrate my faith and to celebrate the day that is the core of that faith: Easter Sunday. (Albeit a bit late, but hey, who’s counting, right?
)I don’t always pour out so much of my heart and soul into a work, but this one really… For those of you familiar with shipping fic “2. Life,” writing this was like writing that. The only difference is that I didn’t actually cry over this one… my eyes remained strangely dry, and I still can’t figure it out.
The Easter service is actually less than half of the story, and while people might accuse me of “preaching,” the fact is that the focus is on the characters, not the message. The message is just a nice bonus.
Y’see, you need to understand why they react the way they do, and you need to understand why they react so strongly. For that reason, I delve into the sermon and the surrounding service. Like I said, it’s really less than half of the story – the first part shows the problem, the second part shows the action, and the final part shows the resolution. …I FINALLY WROTE A THREE-ACT STORY I CANNOT BELIEVE IT!If anyone has a problem with the explicit Christianity, all I can say is that I have a right to write my stories the way that I want to write them, and I have a right to write my opinions – and my faith – into them. I do not dishonor the characters in writing this – I merely deepen their characterizations.
This is the first time I’ve ever written a story like this. The fact that it’s a BLoSC story just goes to show how much I really love that show – I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t.
If anyone has a problem with the pastor’s closing prayer, I didn’t make it up. That’s the way my pastor prays – and for that matter, the sermon is similar to the way he preaches, too. I’m emulating my pastor for realism. …Not to mention that, for those here who only know Catholicism or Orthodoxy, this is a good way for them to get a glimpse of a Reformer (Protestant) church. (Note: my pastor actually stutters sometimes when he speaks: like saying “uh” and “um” and repeating a word – all without actually slowing in what he’s saying. However, to duplicate that here would be much more distracting for the reader, so I left the flow uninterrupted. ;D)
I hold to all the statements I have just made. Nothing anyone can possibly say will change my mind or make me back down.
All that being said, I hope you still read this, if only out of curiosity to see how I can possibly write an explicitly Christian story without messing up the characters.
Hope you all had a much better Easter than I did! (I came down with a bad cold – worst possible day for it to happen…)
==100. Miracle==
To the One Who gave me the gift of writing in the first place
Easter, A.D. 3011
Erin’s gaze continued to sweep the sanctuary, searching. Standing next to her and holding the hymnal they were sharing was Buzz, and he sighed. “Erin, stop fidgeting,” he whispered, as the rest of the congregation sang “Amazing Grace.”
“I can’t see Warp,” she whispered back mournfully. “I thought for sure he’d come.”
“Sis, you can’t force him.”
“I know, I –”
“Hey, can you guys stop?” a voice whispered from behind. “I’m trying to pay attention to the song.”
“Warp!” Erin half-whispered, whirling around.
He flashed her a grin. “Hey, kiddo. Still the same old songs, huh? See, I told you nothing changed.”
Buzz twisted around slightly to smile at his old partner. “One thing did. You’re here.”
“Yeah, well…” Warp shrugged. “Can’t hurt.”
Buzz’s smile softened. “Nooo, can’t hurt at all…”
…When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright-shining as the sun,
We’ve none less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we’ve first begun~!
~*~
As it turned out, it actually did hurt… in a sense.
Pastor Collins delivered a sermon that went from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection, and at one point, he played a clip from a film – the thousand-year-old Passion of the Christ. Before playing the clip, he explained that so often the pain of the Savior is taken for granted, and he wanted to give the congregation a brief look at what the event had really been like.
Before one minute had passed, Erin squeezed her eyes shut, her fists clenched – unable to watch anymore. Mira quickly followed. Buzz and Warp flinched and grimaced in-tandem, though neither realized it. As much as they had seen and experienced, as much as they knew that these were actors and that they were acting…
As the 2:39 clip ended, Buzz finally shuddered, and Warp gasped in relief. Buzz brushed at Erin’s hand and whispered, “It’s over now.”
Warp comfortingly squeezed Mira’s shoulder with his flesh hand, and she gave him a wan but grateful smile.
~*~
“Jesus Christ was a real Person,” said Pastor Collins, “and His death is a historical fact verified by several extra-biblical sources, such as Josephus, Pliny the Younger, and Tacticus. Now the question is…”
Warp mouthed it as the pastor spoke it: Was Christ truly the Son of God? He believed it. And he understood that there was a difference between believing and trusting.
“Perhaps the most powerful evidence of Christ’s deity is in the Apostles themselves,” Pastor Collins continued. “Only one was not executed for his faith, and that was John. Simon Peter was crucified, and tradition holds that he was crucified upside-down because he thought himself unworthy to die in the same manner as his Lord. Paul was beheaded. All the others were tortured and killed, as well. What did they have to gain by it if Christ had not risen from the grave?”
You’re proving that Christ really was the Son of God, Warp thought, somewhere between mournful and angry. But, Pastor…
“They gained thousands of followers,” said the pastor, “but no popularity, no riches, no power. They were despised and persecuted among both their own people and the Romans. They were often beaten when they witnessed, and afterwards, they continued to speak out. Even as Stephen was being stoned to death by his own people for alleged blasphemy, he said, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge! Other ancient historians record these deaths and persecutions as historical, verifiable facts.”
…what if…
“The Apostles had no motive to hold to a mere possibility or a lie through ridicule, rejection, and torture, all the way to death. To the end, their faith was strong.”
…someone truly believes that…
“Jesus Himself claimed to be God many times. Even when the soldiers came to arrest Him in Gethsemane, He asked them whom they were seeking, and they said, Jesus of Nazareth. He said, I am He. They back-stepped and bowed to the ground – they knew that He was linking Himself with the Voice in the Burning Bush that told Moses, I am. Just as Jesus had done earlier in the Temple after the Feast of Tabernacles, He claimed to be the same God that had spoken to Moses. And of course, it was blasphemy to claim to be one with God.”
…but just…
“C.S. Lewis once put it this way, in his book Mere Christianity: I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him for a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
…doesn’t want to commit?
“No one who is a lunatic or a liar would submit to the most painful form of death imaginable. It would be enough either to break the illusion or to break the lie. Only One Who was absolutely what He claimed to be could willingly die and say, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Pastor… what happens then?
“And if Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God, crucified and resurrected of His own power, we are faced with an interesting decision. What are we to do with that fact? Do we acknowledge it and continue on with our lives, or do we acknowledge it and trust in it?”
…“I was alone, Erin. Absolutely alone in this… this burning blackness, and I’ve had nothing but nightmares ever since!”
“If Buzz got a tiny taste of Heaven, maybe you got a tiny taste of Hell.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“With all my heart.”
“…Then I think you’d better explain it to me. In detail…”
~*~
Wonderful, merciful Savior,
Precious Redeemer, and Friend,
Who would have thought that a Lamb could
Rescue the souls of men?
Oh-oh, You rescue the souls of men
Warp sang the closing hymn with the rest of the congregation. Feeling like a liar and a hypocrite was not a new sensation, but for it to stab this deeply…
Counselor, Comforter, Keeper,
Spirit we long to embrace,
You offer hope when our hearts have
Hopelessly lost our way,
Oh-oh, we’ve hopeless lost the way~
You are the One that we praise,
You are the One we adore,
You give the healing and grace our
Hearts always hunger for,
Oh-oh, our hearts always hunger for
Almighty, Infinite Father,
Faithfully loving Your own,
Here in our weakness You find us
Falling before Your throne,
Oh-oh, we’re falling before Your throne~
You are the One that we praise,
You are the One we adore,
You give the healing and grace our
Hearts always hunger for,
Oh-oh, our hearts always hunger for
You are the One that we praise,
You are the One we adore,
You give the healing and grace our
Hearts always hunger for,
Oh-oh, our hearts always hunger for~
Pastor Collins said, “Normally at this time, I would say the closing prayer, but today, I want us to sing one more song.” He looked to his wife sitting at the piano and waiting – she just shook her head and smiled. The pastor turned back to the congregation. “She’s so good to put up with me.” There was a ripple of light laughter. “All right, we’re going to do that song that Mira and Erin sang for the offertory – ‘Above All.’”
Warp remembered Erin singing that, when they had first met.
Above all powers
Above all kings
Above all nature and all created things
Above all wisdom and all the ways of man
You were here before the world began
Above all kingdoms
Above all thrones
Above all wonders the world has ever known
Above all wealth and treasures of the earth
There's no way to measure what You're worth
Warp grimaced and closed his eyes. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so… dirty… in his life. He was lying as he sang this song – he was lying because he didn’t mean it.
And he was sick of lying.
So he stopped singing.
Crucified
Laid behind a stone
You lived to die
Rejected and alone
Like a rose
Trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all
The piano music faded away, and the pastor said, “Let’s all bow our heads and close our eyes in prayer. Dear Lord, we thank You for this Easter Sunday – we thank You for all the people that have come here today. Thank You for Your incredible sacrifice on the cross to clear our sins if we accept You, and thank You for Your resurrection from the dead to give us life. Father, I pray that if there is anyone here today who has not accepted Christ, that You would just lay it on their hearts to say, ‘Lord, I know that I’m a sinner in need of salvation. Please forgive all my sins and nail them to Your cross. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus.’ Lord, I know that You will accept them. And, Lord, I just pray that You will give us a wonderful day with friends and family as we celebrate Your greatest gift in Your Son, Christ Jesus. And in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.” Pastor Collins looked up and smiled. “We are dismissed. Have a blessed Easter.”
The sanctuary emptied slowly, people milling around and chatting with each other. As usual, Buzz, Mira, and Erin opted to move out into the foyer rather than to linger.
Warp didn’t follow them.
He just sat there in the pew, leaning forward, hands clasped on his knees. Stared at the cross on the low stand before the pulpit.
Before stepping out of the sanctuary, Erin turned to see him still sitting. She sensed… something. Then she stepped out. Not heeding Buzz or Mira, she practically ran out of the building and onto the parking lot, heart pounding as if she were being chased. She looked up at the sky. “God, be with him right now,” she pleaded softly. “I know he’s hurting, and I know why. Show him Your love. Draw him to You, Lord.”
A lone drop of saltwater fell to the permacrete.
~*~
Warp was still there when everyone else had walked out.
Brooding.
That the pastor could deliver a very convicting sermon that went from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection in just forty-five minutes was an impressive feat in and of itself.
But that the sermon could be bothering Warp Darkmatter this much was even more impressive.
He didn’t want to trust. He didn’t want to surrender to a God Who let so many bad things happen – not only to himself, but to Buzz, to Erin, to Mira, to Zomega… craters, even to Zurg himself!
The cross seemed to stare back at him, intently.
Growling, he stood, picked up a pew Bible, and hurled it at the cross. It slammed perfectly at the center, knocked the cross back against the pulpit, and fell to the floor.
No one in the foyer beyond seemed to notice.
“You have the power,” he bit out. “If You’re so all-powerful, why don’t You… I hate You, God! Do You hear me?? I hate You!”
He slumped to the floor as if just saying that had drained him of energy.
He clutched at the end of the nearest pew, leaned his forehead against it.
If anyone would have been paying attention the sounds coming from the sanctuary, they would have noticed the quiet sobs.
~*~
“Argh, where did she go?” Mira growled.
“Probably went outside,” Buzz reasoned, “though I have no idea why. I’ll check.”
Mira nodded. “I’ll check the library just in case.”
“Right.” Buzz jogged out to the parking lot and instantly found his sister. “Erin, what’re you…” He stopped. “Sis, what’s the matter?”
Tears had formed visible tracks down her face. She shook her head and mutely latched onto him, with that quiet intensity she had, as if her life depended on it.
~*~
A figure stood in the doorway to the sanctuary, silhouetted by the light from the foyer beyond. “Warp?”
Warp stiffened and straightened, brushing his tears away with the back of his flesh hand. “Yeah?” The single word came out in an embarrassing croak.
“Are you all right?”
He was sick of lying. “No.”
The figure moved fully into the sanctuary and approached him. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re the expert,” Warp said shortly, “you figure it out.”
Pastor Collins sighed. “If I have to guess, then I’d say that it’s because the sermon bothered you – and not just a little bit. A lot.”
“Like I said – you’re the expert.”
The pastor said nothing – just stood there, waiting.
He stood there for a long time.
At last, Warp broke the silence once more. “If God really loves us so much that He went through…” he shook his head and waved his hand expressively, “all that… then why…”
“Would He let your parents and sister die?” Pastor Collins finished frankly.
Warp didn’t have enough energy left to glare. “You’ve been talking with either Buzz or Erin. Or both.”
“But that’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”
Warp nodded mutely. “And… and not just my own family. What about Buzz’s mom and grandma? Mira’s mom? Erin’s family? Other people that I know who’ve lost loved ones before their time?”
The pastor sank to the floor and sat Indian-style. “Well, for starters, you know that Erin is a special case. If you know her full story, then you know that she chose to stay here and give up her family.” Warp shrugged one-shouldered. “As for the rest… Warp, being a believer, like your parents and sister, like Buzz’s mother and grandmother, like Mira’s mother… does not necessitate that bad things won’t happen. They will. We live in a fallen universe, and you know that very well. Because it’s fallen, bad things happen. Because it’s fallen, we have disease and death… and people who do the wrong thing, like the drunk driver that crashed into your family’s car.”
“But if God is God, why doesn’t He stop all that?” Warp persisted.
“Because we have free will.”
Warp closed his eyes in pain. The one thing that he valued above his own life was freedom…
“And we have free will – the freedom to choose – because God loves us. Because He wants us to follow Him because we want to, not because He forces us to. If God were to stop all the bad things from happening –”
“But doesn’t He stop some of them?”
“Yes.”
“So it’s just… if it works in His big plan, He lets it go?”
The pastor sighed again and turned to the side, staring out the window. “Warp, let me ask you something. What would have happened if your family hadn’t died?”
The reply was cold and hard. “I wouldn’t have wasted twenty-four years of my life.”
The pastor turned back to him then, returning Warp’s gaze fully and sternly. “What else?”
“I…” He saw where this was headed, and he didn’t want to answer. He didn’t want to answer because he could follow it through to conclusion, and if he acknowledged it, then he was so very wrong…
“You wouldn’t have become a Space Ranger,” the pastor said firmly. “You would never have met Buzz, never have helped all the people that you did even when you were working as a spy, never have brought Team Lightyear together by reason of your faked death. Do you see how much good God brought out of your family’s death? God does that – He can bring good out of any situation. Is that really a God that you want to rebel against?”
Silence.
Eventually, the pastor said quietly, “Warp, you’ve been running for a long time. It’s time to run home.”
Warp stood abruptly. “I have to go.”
“Warp…”
“Bye, Pastor.”
The pastor sighed and stood, as well. “Goodbye, Warp.” He moved over to pick up the thrown Bible and the cross.
Warp’s gaze lingered on the cross for a long moment. Some churches put Jesus on their crosses – crucifixes, he remembered. This cross was empty. Empty because… Jesus was no longer on the cross. No more sacrifices, nothing else required for salvation.
“It is finished,” he quoted quietly, then left.
~*~
Buzz shook his head, heart aching. “Erin, I… I wish I knew what to say.”
“I don’t know that there’s anything you can really say for something like this,” Erin said softly. “Except for a prayer.” She brushed a loose curl away from her eyes, red from crying, and coughed.
Buzz conceded that with a slight nod. “You still getting over that cold?”
“Yeah.” Erin coughed again. “I can’t seem to shake it.”
Mira wrapped an arm around Erin’s slim shoulders and held her close. “We’ll just keep on praying, all right?” She looked up at Buzz with a rueful smile. “You know, it’s been a long time since I’ve prayed so much.”
Buzz nodded again, pensively this time. “I know what you mean.” He sighed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “It’s been a long time for me, too – since my nana died, I guess.” Then he noted someone stepping out of the church building. Warp.
The other man wore that expression that, in recent years, Buzz had come to understand was his “cover-up” expression. That something was eating at Warp and he was trying not to dwell on it.
“Hey, guys – sorry about the wait,” Warp said with forced cheerfulness. “We’re gonna do dinner, right?”
Buzz nodded slowly. “At my house.”
“’Kay, then – let’s get this show on the road.”
The four of them split up for their cars, the girls walking over to Mira’s Firespitter. The princess’s arm was still around the younger woman. “Some things take time,” Mira said softly.
Erin stopped, coughed, and looked Mira in the eye. “What if he was to die in a car crash tomorrow? Where would he be?”
Mira could not answer that.
~*~
The following Saturday…
“‘Let’s go hiking!’ you said. ‘It’ll be fun!’ you said. …I shoulda stayed put with Buzz and Mira.”
Erin laughed as she glanced over her shoulder at Warp. “Ahhh, quit your moanin’ and groanin’! You walked into this one with both eyes open, so you have no one to blame but yourself.”
“Ohhh!” Warp groaned dramatically, placing his biomechanical right hand over his heart. “You wound me, Your Worshipfulness!”
She gave him The Look. “One of these days, I’m really gonna give it to you for calling me that.”
He straightened and grinned. “You’ll hafta catch me first.”
“I think I can handle that.” Of course, the effect was ruined just a moment later when she coughed.
Warp shook his head disappointedly. “’Tis the pride that cometh before the fall.”
“And a haughty spirit before destruction,” Erin finished, shrugging when Warp stared at her. “Hey, not my fault everybody leaves out that second half.”
He rolled his eyes and pushed on past her. Shrugging again, she followed him.
“So,” he said finally, “how far do you want to go? I know this one lookout point that has a terrific view – it’s not that far up, either.”
“Really? Sounds great!”
“Uh-huh.” Warp added in an undertone just loud enough for Erin to hear: “I still shoulda stayed put.”
Erin half-sighed, half-growled in exasperation. “And done what? All Buzz and Mira are doing is watching a movie at Buzz’s house. On the other hand, I have one of my rare cases of spring fever. I wanted to get out of the house, and you agreed to join me.”
Warp shrugged. “Can’t let you go it on your own.”
Erin halted. “What, I can’t take care of myself?”
“You’re too chicken to, remember?”
The sad thing was that she really had said that and meant it. “Argh! I hate it when you throw my words back at me!”
Warp chuckled. “Relax, angelita.”
Erin shook her head and exhaled forcefully, holding back another cough. “Incorrigible,” she muttered.
~*~
“You know, it’s getting kinda dark,” Erin frowned, looking up at the sky. “Which is weird, ‘cause the forecast said that there was only a small chance of rain.”
Warp shrugged. “Sometimes those small chances happen, y’know?”
“Yeah,” she coughed. “Maybe… we should head back…”
“Hold on, we’re almost there. Come on.” He took her hand and led her up a steeper trail than the one they’d been following. They came out onto a cliff that had a truly magnificent view of the American Rockies.
Erin’s breath caught as she drank in the view. The blue-tinged mountains blurred into the darkening sky in the distance, and the forest spread out below them, already lush and green. She finally managed to murmur, “It’s beautiful…”
“My dad used to bring me up here,” Warp said quietly. His flesh hand came up to hold her right hand, and he squeezed it gently.
She gave him a soft smile. “It’s perfect.”
They stood there in silence for a while, until at last, Warp tentatively remarked, “You know, it’s been two years now since we first met.”
“Has it really?” Coughing slightly, Erin shook her head and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “That wasn’t long after I first arrived. Seems more like forever.”
“Is that good, or…”
“It’s good, it’s good,” she assured him.
He nodded pensively. “You really did seem like an angel, you know. I was…” He hesitated, then forged ahead. “I was captivated by you, even then.”
Erin didn’t stiffen. If anything, she seemed to crumple. She pulled her hand out of Warp’s and suddenly felt cold. “Warp, don’t…”
“You know that I love you, Erin,” he persisted. “I love you. And you love me – I know you do.”
“Warp, please…”
Warp took both her small, small hands in his big ones. “I promise I’ll do things right this time – I will. Just… just don’t pull back. Don’t leave.”
“Warp, I… I can’t!” Erin protested, feeling the words dragged out of her. “You know I can’t! Please, don’t make this worse!”
She tried to pull her hands away, but he gripped them tightly – desperately, almost. “Erin, please! I won’t make you give up your faith – I wouldn’t want you to! But we… we can work this out. Please, just listen to me!”
“No,” she moaned quietly. “Warp, there would always be a part of my life – a huge part of my life – that you couldn’t share. And I need you to.”
His grip slackened, and she gently withdrew her hands, only to raise one up to brush at his cheek. “I can’t marry you,” she whispered. Tears welled in her eyes, and the lump in her throat nearly choked her. “I’m sorry.”
Suddenly, a lance of lightning split the sky in two, and thunder quickly followed. Warp stiffened, drawing himself up. “We need to get to shelter.”
Erin coughed and nodded, understanding. Warp could shift gears almost instantaneously as the situation demanded. Survival was foremost, and if his heart was going to break… well, he could wait until they were at least safe before he would let it happen.
~*~
“If your dad brought you to the area,” she asked as they arrived at the small cabin, “did you stay here overnight?”
“Yeah.” Warp fished a key out of his pocket and unlocked the padlock on the door. “C’mon, let’s get out of the rain.” He put his arm around her and drew her in.
She shivered and pulled her jacket tighter around her. “Great, I’m gonna catch pneumonia now.”
“Let’s hope not.” Warp moved over to an old-fashioned fireplace to get a fire started. “We’ll get you warmed up in just a sec, here…”
Erin hugged herself as she sat on one of the wooden chairs. “I’m gonna call Mira and tell her we got caught out here.”
“Doesn’t that sound familiar?” he smirked, tossing a piece of wood into the fire.
“Yeah.” She pulled out her cell-phone and dialed Mira’s number. An error message flashed on the screen. “Oh great – ‘your phone service is out of order in your area’! Terrific!”
“Lemme see if mine’ll work…” Warp tried his own phone. “Nooope, no such luck. Craters.” He tucked the phone back into his pocket and sighed. “Looks like we’re stuck here for the night.”
“Doesn’t that sound familiar?” Erin parroted.
“Yeah, yeah, very funny…” He pulled off his coat and hung it on the coat rack.
Erin shivered and coughed again.
Warp turned to her in concern. “Are you all right?”
“I’ve got pneumonia now, remember?”
Warp stood, looming over her. “I’m serious, Erin,” he frowned.
She shook her head. “I don’t know, Warp.” There was just the faintest tinge of fear in her voice.
Warp shook his head and settled onto his haunches on the floor, taking Erin’s small hands in his own. “You’re so cold,” he murmured.
“I always have cold hands,” she said quietly.
He gave her a frank look. “This is worse than that, and you know it.”
“Real *cough* comforting there, hotshot,” she retorted.
He didn’t respond verbally – instead, pulled her down onto his lap as he folded his legs Indian-style. Then he pressed her close, hoping to give her some of his body heat.
She buried her face in his chest, trying to hide the emotion welling up inside her. She wanted this. She wanted to marry him, to be with him till Death did them part, to have children with him. She couldn’t even imagine ever loving anyone else as much.
But she couldn’t. It was a Biblical command, and it was more than that – her faith would always be between them. There really would be a huge part of her life that he just would not be able to share.
Her breath hitched, and her body shuddered further. Warp held her tighter and rocked back and forth. “Shh. Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
After a couple of minutes, he gazed down at her, noting the tear-tracks on her face. And he just knew.
Bending down, he lifted her tear-stained face to his and pressed his lips against hers. Another tremor ran through her body as she returned the kiss. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and his real hand carefully held her head while his biomech hand pressed the small of her back. Somehow, Warp was both gentle and desperate, and Erin… Erin was all fire. Burning and passionate.
A tear rolled down her cheek and touched their lips. And another.
It was a kiss that they should not be having, a kiss that they could not have again. And they wanted to make it last for eternity.
Everything that really matters does last forever, if only in a memory.
All too soon, though, she couldn’t breathe, and he was having difficulty doing so. She broke away, gasping for air and coughing. He just stared at her, as if unable to believe what they had just done.
Anger and hurt passed over her features as she scrambled to her feet. “How dare you!” she hissed, voice thick. She turned and ran back out of the cabin.
For a few moments, Warp continued to process everything that had just happened. Despite her rejection, she kisses him – kisses him perhaps even passionately than he was kissing her – then immediately after, she gets mad and storms out. He was… never going to understand women. Ever.
He leapt to his feet and ran out to Erin, who was just standing there in the rain. She turned to him as he approached and shouted over the rain, “You should never have kissed me!” Her tears mingled with the rainwater on her face.
“It takes two to kiss like that, sweetheart!” he retorted, eyebrows drawing together. “And I’m not sorry we did!”
“You are DESPICABLE!” she nearly screamed, storming off into the woods.
“ERIN! COME BACK HERE!” he shouted after her. “Aargh…” He ducked back into the cabin to get his jacket and pull up the hood, then ran after her. “Fool woman,” he muttered. “Erin!”
But she didn’t listen, dodging the various tree limbs, fallen branches, and stones in her way as she ran. She had to get away from him! She feared to think of what could happen if she didn’t.
Lightning flashed across the world, blinding her. In the same moment, her foot struck a tree branch, and she fell. And fell. She tumbled down a bank and landed facedown in the liquid mud.
She didn’t get back up.
~*~
“ERIN?? ERIN!!” A couple of tree limbs had left scrapes across his face, but he hardly even noticed. He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted again. “ERIN!!” He continued to run forward, doubting that Erin would zigzag in unfamiliar territory. “ERIN!!” He stopped short at the edge of a bank and peered down. “Oh, Erin…” he moaned.
She was sprawled on her stomach in the mud, at least a dozen feet below.
Warp searched for a gentler way down and found it, scrambling – and sliding – as fast as he could to the bottom. “Erin!” He lifted her out of the mud, turning her over to face him. Her eyes were closed. Panicked, he checked her pulse and found that it was still there. He shook her gently. “Erin!”
Her right eye opened a crack before closing again. “Waaarr…” she murmured, almost inaudibly.
“That’s good enough for me, sweetheart. C’mon.” He slung her right arm over his shoulder and carried her like a baby, beginning to make the trek back to the cabin.
~*~
He gently laid her on the smaller cot in the cabin, and proceeded to strip her down to… Maaan, it had to be the first time in his life he’d ever wished that women still wore all the layers of underclothes they wore back in the nineteenth century. He could admit that he had fantasized a couple of times, but when it came to an emergency situation like this, it was totally different. He wasn’t seeing her body as her husband – he was seeing her body as her rescuer and emergency medic. He felt as if he was violating her, even though he knew her clothes had to be taken off before she could warm up.
He quickly covered her in one of the blankets.
Her eyes opened slightly then. “Waaarp?”
“I’m here, angelita,” he replied softly.
“What…”
“You fell. I brought you back to the cabin.”
She shifted, then realized that her clothes were gone. Something akin to horror washed over her face, and Warp hurried to her side.
“I’m sorry. I had to get you out of those wet clothes.”
Her face relaxed, and she nodded slightly, shifting again till she was lying on her left, facing him fully. He pressed his flesh hand to her forehead – it was burning. “You have a fever,” he whispered.
She nodded mutely.
Warp nodded back, then returned to the fire to stoke it.
Her gaze wandered over the room and came to rest on one of the windows. To her surprise, she saw a face in the window – her mother’s. “Mama,” she murmured brokenly. “Warp, let her in. She’ll catch her death out there.”
Alarmed, Warp glanced at the window, then back at the girl on the cot. “Erin, there’s nobody there,” he soothed, somehow managing to keep the panic out of his voice. “You’re hallucinating. Shh, there’s nobody there.” He took her right hand in his real one and began to stroke it with his thumb.
~*~
She was running.
She didn’t know why or from whom… she was just running.
Shadows tangled all around her, voices that she vaguely recognized but couldn’t identify or understand.
She had to get free of the shadows, of the voices.
She broke out into light, and immediately threw up her arms to shield her eyes. When she could look again, she gasped in horror.
Buzz and Warp stood against each other, faces hard, stances tense. Warp was back in his Zurg uniform, and still had his cybernetic arm.
No! No, this wouldn’t happen, this hadn’t happened before and it wouldn’t happen now because Warp had come home…
She tried to rush toward them – get in the way, anything – but the world seemed to be caught in some kind of thick, syrupy motion.
Warp brought his arm-cannon up to bear, but Buzz seemed faster. His wrist-ray was aimed directly for Warp’s heart, and he fired.
“NO, BUZZ – DON’T KILL HIM!!” she screamed, bolting upright in bed.
Warp hurried to her side and gripped her bare shoulders, trying to restrain her. “Erin! Erin, shh –”
“Don’t kill him!” she moaned tearfully, struggling in Warp’s grip.
“Erin, shh – it’s just a bad dream…”
“Don’t kill him. He’s your brother, don’t kill him…”
Pain passed over Warp’s features. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that he and Buzz had been fighting in her nightmare. The feverish energy seemed to seep quickly out of her, and he gently pushed her back down onto the cot. He smoothed her hair back from her face. “Shh, angelita… it’s okay. I’m right here, I’m okay. I’m not going to leave you.” A tear fell onto the blanket, and it was not Erin’s. “Do you hear me? I am not going to leave you.”
She shifted to one side, then the other. “It’s so hot,” she whispered, feebly trying to push down the blanket.
Warp gripped the blanket and held it firmly in place. “Shh, we have to break the fever.”
Her face was pale, her skin covered in a sheen of sweat. Her dark damp hair plastered the pillow, and her brown eyes were glazed and bloodshot. She seemed to be only half aware of his presence now.
Warring against Death was nothing new. It seemed as if he’d been beating it back all his life. But for the first time, he was truly afraid that this was the one battle he would not be able to win.
~*~
It was well into the wee hours of the morning, and Erin had long since drifted into a comatose slumber.
Warp knelt beside the cot, clasping her right hand in both his hands, feeling the claddagh ring she always wore brand itself into the prosthetic skin of his right hand.
“Erin…” he murmured brokenly.
~*~
I was running.
I felt so… so light. Like I felt in Outer Space, only… uncovered.
Weightless and… I think I was unclothed, but there was no shame in it.
I practically flew of my own accord over the green, green grass, my feet hardly ever touching the ground.
The world was golden. So golden. It was as if the sun were casting its warm golden glow over the world, and not harming it. The sky remained a flawless blue, but even the clouds had a golden tinge.
The grass, the tree bark, the leaves, the flowers… they all had a sort of golden hue to them, though their natural color did not diminish in the least. The flowers… oh, the flowers! They were veritable explosions of color, so bright and rich and deep that the eyes ached to see them in all their glory.
The world was deliciously warm and all golden. Not the cold color of metal gold, nor the flat color of paint. It was a rich, vibrant, living gold. It caressed the world and embraced it.
Yeshua, is this Heaven?
My dark curls drifted around her in a balmy, gentle breeze, as if I were underwater in a flowing current. My skin glowed in the living light, warm and shining.
I was alone, but it was sweet kind of lonely, where I wasn’t mournful, didn’t want for company. There was a… a presence… to this place. It kept me from feeling alone.
It was silent, no sound of birds chirping or animals scampering or even water running… but it was a rich, deep kind of silence. The kind that you don’t want to break. It had a life all of its own.
It was all so breathtakingly beautiful, so much beauty that it could break my heart if I had to exist in it much longer. But I wanted to. I wanted my heart to break, I wanted to remain in this place where I was alone but surrounded, where it was silent but alive.
My heart would break if I had to leave.
I came to settle at the shore of a brook. Here, at last, there was some sound in the bubbling of the brook, though it was a quiet bubbling as if in reverence to the silence everywhere else. I stretched out in the velvety grass with a silent sigh of pleasure. Even the ground was soft – not spongy, like over-damp soil, but soft, like a feather mattress.
I stared up at the sky, watching the clouds drift lazily overhead. They actually seemed close enough that I could reach out and take hold of them. I wondered what a cloud felt like in this place.
Eventually, I rolled over and peered down into the water… then drew back, startled. That wasn’t my reflection! I leaned back down…
Yeees, it was me, in a way… But it wasn’t the obviously early-twenties face that I saw every day in the mirror, the same not-quite-eye-catching features…
It was as if a sculptor had taken my face and worked at it, smoothing out the worry lines that were already just beginning to take shape, softening the features that had angled in recent years, deepening and arching the eyebrows to perfection, filling the already-thick lips to completion, darkening and filling out the eyelashes, enlarging the already-expressive brown eyes…
I looked like a Tolkien Elf. Or an angel.
That was the only way I could think to describe the changes that had taken place in my appearance.
My face was absolutely flawless, not so much stunning as it was simply perfect.
Even my normally recalcitrant curls were smooth to a level that I could never seem to attain, a rich and lustrous sepia-and-golden brown.
I dared to reach down into the glistening water. It felt refreshingly cold, and… There was something about it, a sensation that I couldn’t put my finger on.
I reached both hands down, cupped to draw up water. As I drank, I felt incredibly… aware and… alive. More so than I had ever been in my life, more so than even since finding myself in this golden world.
Living water…
I took only three cupfuls of the radiant liquid, the water rushing down through me and satisfying a thirst I had not known I had.
“Yeshua,” I whispered, daring to break the silence. “Is this Heaven?”
I had to know. It was beyond my most vivid and wonderful dreams, this world, but something felt missing. Maybe it was the lack of Yeshua’s visible presence… though as my mind reached out, I felt His presence just as strongly as I had years ago, back in that MedBay room.
Stronger, even.
I had to know.
I flew over the ground once more, compelled this time by an urgency that I did not fully understand myself.
I had to know.
And suddenly, I stopped.
I did not stop of my own free will, but neither did I slam into anything. I simply… stopped.
There was a barrier there. I could not see it, could not touch it… I just knew.
And I had to decide whether I was going to cross that barrier or not. I sensed that decision just as surely as if it were written in the air before me.
It was even more radiant there, on the other side of the barrier.
I would not have thought it possible, but it was. The light was… prismatic… glittering over the world beyond. Everything shone with a light that surely would have blinded me had I been in my former, frail body.
But it was not the light that captured my attention – it was the children.
Let me amend that: they behaved like children, joyful and carefree. But their ages could not be identified – they were neither child nor adult. They simply were. For the first time, I understood the meaning of ageless.
Then with a start, I recognized them, beyond their forms that were as flawless as my own.
A tall boy with browned skin, black hair, and dark eyes… a boy of average height with dark blond hair, brown eyes, and creamy skin… a petite girl with long, straight hair the color of dark copper, brown eyes, olive-toned skin… another tall boy, dark copper hair, brown eyes, olive skin… yet another tall boy, copper hair, hazel eyes, creamy skin… a girl of average height with red-gold hair, creamy skin, and hazel eyes…
Paul. Paul and Samuel and Rebekah and Jonathan and Liam and… Joyce. My baby sister that I never got to see grow up, except for in carefully-preserved photos.
I felt my heart breaking, though whether from sorrow or joy I still don’t know.
There were three more “children” there, though, faces and features that I could not identify, but seemed to recognize all the same.
Then my breath caught as realization dawned.
They were my siblings-in-Heaven, the brothers and sisters that had never been born.
They were dancing and running and singing and laughing, all so full of joy. A serene, pure joy, untainted by grief or wrongdoing or any form of darkness – a joy that can never be had in our first lifetime.
They were in Heaven.
And I was just outside.
And I had to decide whether to step inside, or to stay outside.
“Erin, whatever you decide, it will be your final choice. There will be no going back.”
“How can You ask me to make that choice? I don’t know!” I heard my own voice – my voice in memory – cry out in despair. “I don’t know!”
“Oh, Erin. My Erin.” I could feel His arms fold around me once more. “I have a plan for you here, a future. It will not be easy, Dearest, but there is always difficulty in following My will. If you truly wish, you will be sent back home, but if you do…”
“If I do, I’ll never know what could have happened to me here. I could have something wonderful here, and if I go back, I… I’ll never know.”
“Yes, Dear One.”
I knew what He wanted me to say. The same words I had spoken three years ago, He wanted to me to speak again.
But, O dear Father in Heaven, how could I??
How could I willingly return to pain and grief and darkness and loss? I wanted the Light! How I wanted that Light…
But I heard a voice calling my name. It was not His voice, nor was it the voice of any of my brothers or sisters. It was a voice that I knew – I just could not place it.
The voice was full of love. Love like the love that I could plainly see among my brothers and sisters.
But I wanted to ignore it. I wanted to continue into that Light, and leave the Darkness behind.
And yet… there was… a need in that voice. Someone back there… still loved me. Still needed me.
Tearing my gaze away from the children was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. Harder, even, than when I had chosen to remain in the future.
But I did.
I murmured in a language that I would swear was not English but that I understood all the same: “I’ll do what You want me to do.” Already, I began to feel heavier, no longer weightless… the light receded around me…
Erin.
And this time, it really was His voice.
“Yeshua? Yeshua, don’t leave me!”
I am with you, Erin. Even unto the ending of the world…
~*~
“Erin? Erin, can you hear me?” His voice was rough and thick and hoarse. “Erin, mi angelita, I love you. Did you ever realized just how much I love you? You gave me back my life, Erin, my soul. I’m here right now because of you. Not because of Buzz or friendship or goodness or freedom or anything else in the universe… you.”
Her ring had left a noticeable mark on his prosthetic palm, and it hurt. But not so much as the mark left on his heart – nothing else could hurt like that.
“Erin, you showed me that life was worth living – was worth living right. I can never thank you enough for that. Your laugh, your smile, your courage…” His breath hitched. “You’re strong, Erin. You’re stronger than I ever was. I want that strength that you have.
“You can’t leave me,” he whispered. “I need you too much. I’ve been living on empty for way too long. God can’t take you away, not now. Please, Erin, don’t leave me. I need you. I need you.”
He lowered his head to the cot, burying his face in the blanket. His right hand never left hers.
He was crying.
“God… Father God, I… You… you can bring good… even out of death. But don’t… don’t let Erin die. Don’t take her away. It’s my stupidity that put her on this cot. God, don’t let her pay for my mistakes. You can take me, and I know I deserve it. But don’t let her pay in my stead.
“God, don’t heal her for my sake – heal her for her own. If… if I can’t be with her… I’ll accept that. Just so long as she lives. Just let her live.”
Breath still hitching every few words, he raised his head slightly, looked up. “I’ve fought against You, been a rebel… cursed Your name. I hated You. Hated You like I never… never thought I could hate. But all along… You’ve shown such… incredible mercy… and grace. You showed it in Buzz’s friendship, the way he never gave up on me… You showed it in the Commander’s pardon… You showed it in the love of a young woman.
“There’s so much that I still don’t understand. All I know… all I know is that You are Love. I see it in the lives… of people all around me… and I know… it cannot come from them alone. Your love has to be in them first. And this love in my heart… when I thought I could never love again… God, it’s too much. It’s too big. I can’t contain it all – I could never contain it all. It could only come from You. You Who created the universe – created everything in it… You created this love that I have for Erin, placed it in my heart. So now I offer You back this love – mine and Erin’s – and do with it what You will.”
Fully intent now on his words to his Maker, he never noticed a pair of brown eyes opening ever-so-slightly, as if the eyelids were too heavy to lift completely.
“I have been stiff-necked, and prideful, and rebellious, and even self-righteous. When You took my family away, I thought that I was justified in turning on You, in doing so much wrong. I lied, swore falsely, betrayed, hurt other people… and I believed that I was justified in my actions. God, I was so wrong – so far wrong. Father, I confess to You that I am a sinner, a rebel against You. Take my wrongdoing – all of it. Let it be washed away in the blood Your Son shed for me. I don’t deserve it – I never have. But I accept the Lord Jesus Christ to be my Savior… to come into my heart, and change it.”
There was still so much pain that he felt as if he could drown in it. But there was also a rising… peace. A peace that began to fill a heart that had been empty for so many years.
“All I have to give You… is my love, and my life. You strip me of the one thing that’s more important to me than anything else… and all I can do is just… surrender. I’m not going to run anymore, God. I promise. I’m not going to run anymore.”
He felt… sleepy. He had been awake all night, the longest night of his life… He let his head fall on the cot, let sleep begin to over take him…
A small, pale hand slowly moved across the blanket and came to rest on his biomech hand. Startled, hardly daring to hope, he jerked his head up.
A pair of big, beautiful brown eyes was gazing back at him, full of love and joy.
“Erin!”
The joy of the children was in his voice.
~*~
The following Tuesday…
“Hey, sick-chick!” he grinned cheerfully as he jogged into her room. Right away, he had to duck the pillow hurled at him.
She glared at him. “Sick-chick is the nickname my family used – I’ll thank you not to desecrate it.”
He clutched at his heart and staggered back. “Ohhh, you wound me, Your Worshipfulness!”
She ground her teeth. “Your… teasing… is not conducive to my recovery.”
He nodded ruefully. “Fair enough – I’ll stop.”
“Thanks.”
He sighed and sat on the edge of her bed. “So, how are you doing?”
“Oh, okay. It’s nice to be back out of the MedBay – I swear I’ve spent a lifetime in there.”
He snorted a brief laugh. “Yeah, I’ll bet.”
“How about you?”
He considered that question before responding. “I’ve been… talking… with the pastor a lot. You know, asking him a lot of questions, doing some study…”
She nodded slowly.
“I still hate homework,” he added with a grin.
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Incorrigible.”
“Yep, that’s me.” He started drumming his flesh fingers on the bed, and glanced briefly at his right palm. The mark left by Erin’s ring was just beginning to fade. He bit his lip back briefly, then decided to just take the plunge. “Erin?”
“Hmm?”
“Just three days ago, I asked you a question – well, okay, I asked indirectly. Aaand you said no. But… a lot has changed since then. And… I’m not asking for an immediate commitment or anything, I just… I just want to know…” He gently took her hands in his, his dark blue eyes intense in their sincerity, their depth of feeling. “Erin Elisheba Frame… will you marry me?”
The final barrier had been stripped away, leaving behind nothing but Light.
…Even so, she wasn’t to let him off the hook completely. “No?” She smiled and squeezed his hands. “Don’t even think about taking that seriously.” Her brown eyes fully returned his intensity. “Yes. I’ll marry you.”
He tried to give her a stern look but failed. He didn’t smile, though – neither of them did. Some things were just too perfect for smiles.
He scooted over to her side and wrapped his arm around her, holding her close. She drifted towards sleep in his warm embrace, but before she did, she murmured something that he had been waiting a long time to hear.
“I love you.”
My chains are gone
I’ve been set free!
My God, my Savior
Has ransomed me!
And like a flood
His mercy rains
Unending love
Amazing grace
==Just the Beginning==
Author’s Note:
I think I would be hard-pressed to break my “longest one-shot” record after this – including all the lyrics and the C. S. Lewis quote, it was over 8,700 words. Oy vey! Count in the two author’s notes, and it’s well over 9,700! Eeee~!
The writing of this story was “fast and furious” – it was just pouring out of me, and the ending scene was the only part that actually surprised me. I had thought that it was going to end with Erin waking up, but I decided that it needed a little more closure than that. I hope that adding that last scene didn’t wreck the climax.
Well, KJ, we’ve role-played this topic a couple of times… now you finally know how it really happens.
Now for the credits! None of the songs are my own genius, unfortunately – they are the genius of John Newton (“Amazing Grace”), Selah (“Wonderful, Merciful Savior”), Lenny LeBlanc (“Above All”), and Chris Tomlin (“Amazing Grace: My Chains Are Gone”). And we all know that I don’t own C. S. Lewis, lol… or, for that matter, The Passion of the Christ. Also, all but one of the Apostles really did die for their faith – their martyrdom is attested to by ancient historians.
Now, down to the story elements and lines that were used here! ^^ A couple of things came from the Christian family radio drama Adventures in Odyssey, or AIO (fyi, the voices of Brent Starkisser, Keno Kentrix, and Santa are all longtime VAs on this show). The first is the opening scene with Buzz, Erin, and Warp – that’s from an ooold AIO episode, the name of which I can no longer remember, unfortunately. Warp’s brief memory during the sermon of a conversation with Erin is from another old episode, “The Mortal Coil, Part II.”
The entire second half of the story is based on a wonderful, semi-biographical novel called Christy, by Catherine Marshall. I once said it was like a nitty-gritty version of Little House on the Prairie, but it truly is a beautiful story – so go read it! ;D Actually, my story follows the film adaptation closer than it does the actual book – but the funny thing is this: Warp and Erin’s relationship resembles Neil and Christy’s relationship, and that sure wasn’t intentional on my part. xD In the final installment of a film trilogy, all the things that happen to Erin really do happen to Christy, barring the vision of Heaven – that was based on the book, though not entirely a cop-off. Actually, the way I wrote the Heaven-scene was heavily influenced by C. S. Lewis’s incredibly imaginative writing in Perelandra and The Last Battle.
Warp uses two pet names for Erin here: angelita, and Your Worshipfulness. The first is Spanish for “Little Angel”; the second is him purposefully copying Han Solo. Why? Erin’s not the princess in this gang – Mira is. Okay, it’s because of her name – Erin is the anglicized form of Eire, the Celtic goddess for which Ireland is named. Erin once made the mistake of mentioning that to Warp, and from there, the opportunity was just too good to pass up. …I swear, that man can be a real pain sometimes. xD
The “doesn’t-that-sound-familiar” bit is from an unwritten chapter of Breakaway. Don’t worry – it’ll be released to the public someday! ^^
Aaand that’s all I can think of! Shalom! <3 <>< AND PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE REVIEW!!!
BG FTW!!
XDDDDDD No comment, folks
Even Strawberry/Fledge, the first flying horse, understands things about Aslan that two human British children don’t realize. The Narnians, in their own special way, recognize Aslan as God – even the Calormens understand that Aslan is more powerful than their demon-god Tash. Even Queen Jadis, the White Witch, at her first arrival in Narnia realizes that Aslan is a powerful being of Good, and in her own way, recognizes Him as the Creator. (Just as an off-the-side note, Jadis could actually be compared to Satan. She wants to rule everything – which is really saying that she wants to be God – and yet she recognizes the fact that Aslan is still ultimately more powerful, and she settles for ruling Narnia for a period of time, until Aslan returns and then she fights back. Just something interesting I just thought of.)