Phoenix's Lies

Memorial Day

Phoenix

Almost 31 Years Later

"Hey, don't run so fast!" Riv's shout from behind me has a laugh bubbling up inside me as a couple of our kids race ahead of me. Four of them playing around and I can see Max, Gabi, and Chase all playing with Fallon. Little Rina was behind my legs and Courtney was somewhere tucked away with a book no doubt since she was somehow quieter and tamer than the other five of her siblings. Something that sometimes makes me question if she's our kid if not for when she gets involved with what we ended up doing.

After she woke up the nurse was right, Riv did need to relearn several things but I stuck at it with her. Helping her re-learn to walk, talk, and regain certain sections of memory that had been pushed out of conscious reach given what happened to her. Even the bad memories that despite her not consciously remembering all of at the start the ones she did remember she chased until they all came back. But it was hard to see her like that when everything seemed to drop on her head at once. But she was strong and she made it through. Coming out the other end mostly ok.

After finishing school and graduating Riv and I made it through college with little difficulty despite not going too far from home, only as far as Lakewood, a nearby college close to home since I wanted to be near my dad and Libby as she grows up and we both had Angels duties to do from time to time since I officially joined once it all smoothed out. Once we dealt with the dead and moved on as best we could without forgetting those we'd lost.

Hunt didn't make it, something that drove Ari to move out of town to Mountain View where she stayed with Michael through college, a tricky starting relationship but one that after many years and a fair few problems lead to the two eventually getting married, something a lot of us had seen coming. But she refused to live in Ayrith after her twin's death and I don't blame her given how hard it was knowing what I did.

Riv and I stayed near where we both grew up since we wanted to be close to family. Something that proved well when my dad got sick a year after we finished college, dying shortly after. Libby was old enough by then that I could look after her while dad was ill and then when he passed before she got a place of her own once Riv and I started having kids, complaining that she couldn't work with all the noise. All our friends were also building families so she couldn't stay with them. Instead, she ends up staying somewhere between Ayrith and Mountain View so she can visit all of us. Sometimes helping out with Angels stuff but staying out of initiation. Something I was thankful for.

Now almost seven years later Riv and I have six beautiful kids of our own and built the forever house we used to talk about as kids. The life we always said we'd have, hoped for when we were kids. I'd proposed properly to her a year out of college but when I told Ari my plan she just smiled and asked what the hell took me so long. I'd laughed but the pain in the memories I had of after everything was done made it harder to react as she did.

Riv catches up to me then with a sigh and a smile. Seeing Rina run around us both to join her siblings, Courtney sat atop a wall with her nose in a book, eyes racing feverishly across the pages in a way that had a rare smile come to me. Even as Riv put an arm around me and rested her head on my shoulder, looking more tired than usual. "Everything ok Riv?"

"Just tired, bad headache." I flash her a worried look and she sighs, "I'll be ok I'm sure it's not that." I'd told her what the doctor said and we'd been careful, but it was still possible, despite her being over twenty-five, given that neither of us had stepped away from the Angels after it all. Nor had we left the underground world of racing and – for her – fighting. Even when I told her what could happen. I gave her another look. "I'll be ok." She sighs, looking back at the kids as she continues. "Just a hard day."