by Christy Shorey and you

ARCHIVE: NOV. 24 edited for spelling and grammar

1274 words

Logan lay in his bed, staring at the lights playing across the ceiling from the flickering of a neighbor's TV. It had shaken him to see Lacey crying genuine tears, not those calculated to get her something or deceive someone. Through the telling of her past, Logan found his sympathy for her growing; she really had been through a lot. Through it all, however, he could not help at being skeptical. The story of telling the truth that lead to devastation for a little girl seemed so much like a story designed to get him to reveal his own past, that he had a hard time believing her.

Yet every word she spoke rang true. Something in his gut told Logan that this wasn't a lie, and it made the story that much harder to comprehend. He held his hand up, creating a five-fingered silhouette against the blue-green flickering light. He had stood behind Lacey, his hand on her back, for several moments at a loss for what to do, then something in him urged him to rub her back, to tell her it was all right, and he understood. It seemed like something one of his past lives was encouraging him to do, something one of the woman he had been would suggest. But it wasn't a memory. Maybe it was just himself.

Even as he comforted her, he was growing worried about his own past - he was going to have to share with Lacey what he knew about why and how he was now trapped in a cycle of lives, doomed to remember each one previous, and being haunted by the feeling that someone was responsible for it. He would have to reveal that he now knew who it was that had cursed him to this existence, and why. He wasn't sure he was ready to face those demons; ready to admit to himself the truth, much less tell someone else.

Yet when she was done crying, and had settled down, Lacey had looked over at Logan. "I'm going to bed. I've had a long day."

She stood and started to leave the room; turning back she gave a small smile. "Thank you," she said. Then over her shoulder "I left the necklace on the nightstand in case you didn't want a dreamless night."

Logan let out a sigh, realizing how much it must have pained Lacey to share the secret of her past that she had hidden over eighteen years. When her mother had died, so too died everyone who knew the truth of Lacey - until him. He didn't understand why they had this connection, but was beyond the point of questioning things any more. He closed his fingers, and pulled his arm to his chest. The flickering lights stopped eventually, and Logan rolled on his side.

He now knew who had caused him to be trapped in this cycle of life, but he didn't know how his nightmare would appear now. It was clear that he could not escape a confrontation with the one who had been his rival through the ages - the last memories he had before what Lacey had been able to see were the last moments of his previous lives, the preparation for the confrontation that seemed inevitable. The reason he continued on, life after life, was because somehow he had lost at the confrontations. But those memories, the final efforts of each life to stop the cycle, were gone.

He knew it was time to prepare again, but he was still uncertain who would be his foe. Nothing from his memories granted him this insight, and the only thing he was relatively sure of was that it wasn't Lacey. He hoped.

****

Margot was impressed with Dresden's research, and what he had turned up was interesting, but not exactly what Margot wanted to hear. She listened to the excitement in his voice when he explained what he had found, pointing out cross references to different sources, and pointing out the commonality of the moral between different stories and different cultures. But when he wasn't speaking about his research, he grew cold, suddenly wary of her.

His attitude didn't surprise her, but it was frustrating. If she had her way, she'd gloss over the animosity that had suddenly been thrust into their relationship, but she knew that with Dresden, that would only make things worse. Unlike Kyle, he had a strong will, and was fighting even the most subtle suggestions she had thrown at him, determined to not be swayed again by her power. That meant she would have to rely on rebuilding trust, a task which would not be easy, given his confrontational attitude, currently. But he was intelligent, and even though his research had not turned up what she wanted to hear, it might be useful. Especially if she could combine it with research she hoped to get from the medical center.

She only wondered if she had time to win Dresden's trust. She could feel her power weakening more rapidly than it had in the past, and knew she was in a dreadful decline. If she didn't find a solution soon, she might be unable to even return to human guise, and eventually even the form of a dog would be too difficult for her to maintain. She would either be forced into hiding, or to leave the planet and try to make the journey to her home, across the galaxy. But with her power waning, she wasn't certain she could even make that trip now, much less once she had lost more strength.

After Dresden had finished sharing his research, she sent him home. It was too tiring to try to deal with him when he was being so obstinate, clutching the jar of peanut butter as if it were a lifeline. She asked him to return in a few days, to give him a chance to cool off. He looked at her in disbelief. "You aren't going to demand I return tomorrow and keep looking?"

Margot shook her head, causing her curls to sway and fall across her face. She brushed them away with a strained smile. "Not if you don't want to. It does me no good if you return, but are afraid of me. You can come back when you feel like it. Or not. But I ask, as a favor, that if you don't come back, please don't tell anyone about... well about my true nature."

Kyle let Dresden out and locked the door behind him. He turned to Margot, with a frown half-formed on his face. "Do you think he'll come back?"

"I hope so," Margot said.

"Me too. I like him, he's nice to me, and he's smart, too."

"Indeed."

Margot returned to her room, and settled into the form of the retriever for the night, wanting to conserve as much energy as she could, without fear of ruining more of the furniture.

****

Lacey left the house before Logan was awake. She didn't want him to feel pressured into sharing his past lives; sharing her own had been difficult enough, she wasn't sure she could handle any emotional outbursts that might arise from him revealing his own memories. She wasn't sure she could face him so soon after revealing her own.

The early morning light painted the streets pale, and she decided to walk to work. No one she knew would be on a bus this early. Without other people around to define her, she wasn't sure who she was anymore. So she settled into a comfortable pace, and decided to find out.