The Tribunal

Moving on

    “See I told you we were the only ones left,” Dennis hissed as they sat in the room farthest from the lobby which just so happened to be an arcade.

     Del gnawed on the inside of her cheek, “That doesn’t prove we’re dead. I mean death isn’t supposed to hurt is it? And those activities weren’t exactly a fun time.”

     Dennis shrugged, “I think we’re somewhere between being all the way dead and alive.”

     Del shook her head noncommittally but didn’t answer. Her mind kept drifting back to the strange man; Memori. When she thought of him she was deluged with a rush of memories that couldn’t possibly belong to her. She was bombarded with images from times she never lived in wearing faces that were not her own, and he was there in all of them. Like her, he wasn’t who he was now, but deep in her gut she knew that somehow it was the same person.

     In the sharpest and clearest memories of them all his build and features were the same, but his eyes and hair were as different as his demeanor, still she knew Memori and the memory were one in the same.

    “Oi, you two,” the sharp voice of the grey haired woman rang across the room, “It’s time for you to go.”

     Dennis stiffened; spine rod straight, face pallid, “No, I think we're okay right here,” his voice was an octave too high. “Right Del? We kind of like it here,” the nervous laugh did nothing to prove his point.

     Del was too caught up trying to sort through the mess in her mind to answer him.

     Sors snorted, “You don’t get to decide that.”

     Still Dennis didn’t move.

     She cocked a grey brow, “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way,” she warned, “it doesn’t really matter to me, and either way you’re going to wind up in that elevator.”

     “There’s not much you can do to me if I’m already dead,” he ventured, face still ashen but his jaw was set.

     Her lips curled into a sharp smile, “Now I see what Mori and Tempus were talking about,” she said more to herself than to them. “You would be surprised at what l can do to someone who is already dead,” she informed him cheerily. “A dead person can’t die or pass out if the pain gets bad, it can be an eternity of never ending torture.”

     Dennis swallowed hard. Even Del’s attention was drawn at that statement.

     “Now, are you going to come with me?” she asked sweetly.

     Stiff and apprehensive Dennis finally stood.

     Del got shakily to her feet as well beside him.

     “Perfect,” Sors cheered with a clap, “follow me.” She spun on her heel and marched out of the room.

     Dennis and Del exchanged glances before following reluctantly behind her.

     Del’s heart beat frantically against her chest as they approached the lobby – a small piece of her wondered idly how it could if she was dead. Ten feet from the doorway she realized it wasn’t racing out of fear, but excitement. The memories of countless lifetimes – that she now presumed were once her own – flashed through her mind’s eye more familiar now. She remembered living time and time again, remembered all the faces she’d worn and all the names she’d had; she remembered his names too.

     Dennis was trying to quietly whisper an escape plan to her, but the only thing she could focus on as she entered the lobby were the pair of navy blue eyes boring into her. She was swept up in the sorrow and longing in them; she felt them look into the memories that played in her mind’s eye. They peered right into her Soul.

     “Danny?” the call had bubbled up from her throat without her volition just as her feet stumbled forward to his desk.

     “What did you call me?” he barely managed to choke out the question as the name stole the air from his lungs.

     She had been right in her theory, seeing him again opened the door in her mind to memories that had been just out of reach. “Danny, Daniel Way,” she whispered. “That was your name a very long time ago. It was the name you had last time we lived together.”

     He shuddered at the intensity of her gaze. Determination pushed back the tumult of emotions that had been rioting inside his chest; she’d never remembered this much before. “Yes, it was.”

     She stepped closer, stopping when she was toe to toe with him. Her hand reached up to cup his cheek and he melted into her touch. “I never got to say thank you, did I?” Her thumb stroked across his cheek and his eyes fluttered shut, “I never thanked you for sacrificing yourself for me all those lives ago.”

     “I would do it again,” he promised, twisting his face in her hand to press a kiss to her palm. Her touch loosened the strangle hold the thread of Fate had gripped him in for nearly a century; it was like a balm to the frayed parts of his Soul. “I would do anything for you in any life, I just wish you hadn’t gotten stuck like me.”

     Her vision wavered with tears. She could see the toll – the weight – that his existence between life and death had had on him. She could see it in the slope of his shoulders, and the twist of his lips, most of all she could see it in the hollowness just behind his eyes. “You never should have had to suffer like this, it’s not fair.”

     He cupped his hands over her own and squeezed them gently before pulling her into a hug.

      Every time she passed through his realm she had recognized him, felt their connection through the Thread of Fate; every time she ended up loving him on some level even though she never knew why. 

This time was different. This time she knew, she remembered; who he was and who he had been to her over all their lives; best friend, family member, or significant other. Now he could not fathom her leaving him again. He could feel the thread between them tightening, though not uncomfortably.

…

     On the other side of the room Sors and Dennis stood side by side entirely baffled. Sors watched the exchange slack jawed and bug eyed as her cool, aloof partner melted into this human Soul. Dennis had lost his eyebrows into his bangs sometime around when Del touched the strange man’s face.

     The two pulled apart.

     His eyes were soft and a strange marbling of navy and green – the pupils round and human – and his hair fading from navy to powder blue as it began turning back to blonde. He looked over Del’s head at his stunned partner with a wide grin, “Dennis is heading to Reincarnation, I trust you can see him on his way?”

     Sors nodded mutely, she could barely recognize the figure before her as the Vitari she’d worked alongside with for the last seventeen years. It wasn’t just the changing hair and eye colors throwing her off. It was as if he’d gone from two dimensional to three dimensional while she was watching, as if he’d suddenly woken up from sleepwalking and she realized that despite all the time she’d spent with him she didn’t really know him at all.

     He beamed down at the girl before him, slipping his hand down from her cheek to her hand, “Ready?”

     She grinned back, “As long as I get to go with you this time.”

     He reached behind him and scooped up a bouquet – different from the one he’d made before – and handed it to her, “I think we both deserve that.”

     Hand in hand they walked across the lobby and her hand in his made the last eighty seven years fade away like a nightmare. They stepped into the elevator and he pressed the button for the Beyond; he never wanted to set foot in another Tribunal again.

     The doors slid shut and they were gone.