Chapter 5

I got home a little later than I had planned, but Dillon had dinner waiting. A light pasta, some wine, even candles. He’s a sweetie.

Here’s the weird part. For me, tonight was my last night home for what could be as long as a couple of weeks. I figured it would take me at the very least a few days to find the non-lin and bring him home. But for Dillon, it was just another evening. See, when I come back, it’ll only be a few hours or so after I left. So, for him, very little time will have passed. Tonight was no big deal.

But for me, I was off to another world. And I would be there for a while. And it was dangerous and exciting and I was getting myself amped up. I spent a substantial part of my life in a world other than this one. Dillon knew that intellectually, but without having actually experienced it, he didn’t really understand what it was like. This had often been a source of…well, not contention, but discussion between us.

He watched me get in a box and come out a few hours later. Meantime, I’d lived many days in a different timeline, in a different culture, experiencing a whole different world, and sometimes fighting for my life. We had completely different views on “a day’s work”.

The weirdest part was that this made me a bit older than him biologically, even though we were born within a few months of each other. Because of my time in the past, I’d spent years of my life outside of the current timeline. A few hours in the present went by, but a few days, even weeks, went by for me in the past. Over the course of the eight years I’d been chasing, 225 or so trips, add that on to my chronological age and I was closer to 32 than 28. It made things weird. I’d lived years more than he had even though we were supposedly the same age. And the life I’d lived was so very different from his.

But here we were, eating our pasta in companionable silence. He turned some sports vids on and I loaded the dishwasher (he cooked after all). It was the first chance I’d had to catch up on my viewing in a while. Between jobs, reports, training, etc. just seemed I only ever took these few hours right before leaving to really relax. I cuddled up in a soft blanket and snuggled next to Dillon.

“Have you seen the data on the mission?” Dillon asked quietly during a timeout.

“Most of it, but I think they’ve got a few more details they’re scraping together tonight. I’ll get a briefing in the morning”.

“Lots of…ummm” He hesitated.

“Yeah?”

“Just be careful. It was rough back then for a woman.”

I pushed myself up so I could look him in the eyes. Not this again.

“You really want to do this tonight?”

“Do what?”

“Have this discussion.”

Dillon started to say something then shut his mouth and turned back to the wallscreen. I waited for a minute then cuddled back into him.

“I was just saying be careful.”

Fuck.

I uncurled and stood up. I guess it had been about a year. We were due.

“No, you were saying that you were concerned that I was going back to a time where women weren’t respected and that a woman alone would be in danger and, knowing how I operate, you were, in a painfully passive aggressive way, telling me that you were worried about my tendency to find an ally, a male ally, to help me get through the landscape, and you were expressing your distaste that I often manage to find such an ally by giving him what a guy usually wants from a woman. And it ain’t money.”

Dillon said nothing. He continued to stare at the screen, pissed off, but not denying anything. If you haven’t guessed, this wasn’t the first time we’d had this conversation.

All right, don’t hate me. I get it. But that’s why I was giving you my perspective before. Like I said, from Dillon’s perspective, I was disappearing for a few hours in a box. Me, I’m back in another time, trying to find a needle in a haystack, knowing that the clock was always ticking. I’m often tripped up by things we didn’t know about other times or other cultures. I’m often tripped up because I’m just a person, out of their natural element, trying to hunt down and kill someone who is very determined to kill me first. Sometimes I need help. And I get that help however I can.

Could I hire men? Sure, but how exactly do you go about explaining what it is you want them to do, why you want them to do it, oh and don’t kill or maim anyone trying to do it. Sure, I could try Mercenaries-R-Us and see who might be hanging out looking for a job? But let me tell you, those types of shop aren’t as easy to find as you might think.

So I appeal to a different desire in men. One that tends to bring out their protective nature. You show them some affection, they tend to consider you part of their property, something that must now be protected.

It’s not entirely my fault. I was built this way. I’m much more sensitive to pheromones in others so that I can identify emotions…fear, anger, horniness. And my sweat contains an inordinate amount of pheromones, which I can increase at will, so I can take advantage of these emotions.

Back to the sourpuss sitting on my couch, pouting because he’s worried that I’m going to roll with someone in the past. Again. And he’s probably right.

“You’re right; I don’t want to do this tonight. I’m sorry.” Dillon scanned through the menu to see if there were any more events I’d want to see before we went to bed.

I grabbed the controller out of his hand and shut the vid off, turned and stared at him. “Too late”.

He rubbed his eyes. Probably as close as he comes to expressing himself angrily. “I’ve told you before, I’m okay with it. And I am. I just want you to be careful. Really. You do what you have to do to stay healthy and get the job done. What happens back there isn’t real. It’s another time, another place. Those men are dead. It’s just a fantasy. As long as you come back to me, that’s all that matters.”

And there was the crux of it. The thing I’d never been able to say to him. To him, all that stuff that happened back then was a movie in a report that he watched when I got back from a job. Might as well have been rented vid. He couldn’t see me, after all. Everything was from my perspective. It was just like watching the latest action vid, except no soundtrack.

For me, what happened back then was the real world, where I lived and breathed and worked and truly experienced my life. “Then” is my reality. This, the present, Dillon, the N.S.I. All this was the fantasy the calm, the escape from the real world.

I’ve never been able to say that. I’m pretty sure that would be the end of us. And I don’t think I could blame him. And I don’t think I could live without him. So I keep that little bit of info to myself.

I turned the vid back on, put the controller down between us and sat next to him. I didn’t touch him. He had to let me know we were ok. He bumped me with his elbow. I bumped him back. He hit me harder. I tackled him and had my way with him.

Yeah, I know. Avoidance, anyone? But it works for us.