Author's website: http://www.learnlink.emory.edu/~clyoung

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This story is a sequel to: Motionless/Out of time

Well, here we are again.
I guess it must be fate.

Socks, underwear, jeans, and shirts. Two red uniforms and a brown one, two tin plates, forks, knives, and spoons, Diefenbaker's food dish, and ninety-six small leather-bound journals went neatly into their assigned places in the trunk. A folding razor and strap, a bar of soap, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a pair of clean underwear, a stick of deodorant, a passport, a wallet, and an envelope containing transfer papers to the Canadian Consulate in Chicago, Illinois, went into the knapsack.

We've tried it on our own,
But deep inside we've known
We'd be back to set things straight.

Ben glanced around the cabin. That was it, really. Everything he needed to take, everything he'd brought back with him, was packed and ready to go. He'd left everything else in the Consulate basement, intending to have it shipped North eventually, but he'd never gotten around to it. There had always been something-- some firewood that needed chopping, a chink in the newly-rebuilt walls that let in a draft, some bushes by the creek that would only bear ripe fruit for a few weeks-- more important than severing the last ties with Chicago. Granted, sometimes it had been a bit of a stretch, but he'd managed to keep busy between patrols, and if he had sometimes lain awake at night with the nagging feeling that there was something he'd left undone, it wasn't that particular letter troubling his conscience.

I still remember when
Your touch was so brand-new.

The truth was, he'd found something in Chicago that he'd never had up here. In the Yukon, everyone was interconnected, important, necessary. People needed him, and he performed his duties well. Nobody could possibly deny that, but on the other hand, nobody really wanted him, either. He was a fact of life; for better or worse, there he was.

Then he'd taken that fateful transfer, and suddenly, things were different. Nobody needed him in Chicago, and they'd frequently gone to great lengths to point out that fact. They made sure he knew that he was strange and superfluous, and out of that superfluity had come the great gift of being wanted. Nobody had to spend time with him. It would have been quite easy to avoid him in a city of that size, even without trying, so when somebody actually took the trouble to seek him out, it meant something.

Every memory repeats.
Every step I take retreats.

And so here he was, standing in the same place with the same luggage packed in the same way, headed to the same destination as he had been almost five years ago.

Every journey always brings me back to you.

Only one thing was different. This time, Ray would be there waiting for him.

After all that we've been through,
It all comes down to me and you.

That was the really fundamental thing. Lots of people wanted him, to varying extents. What mattered was that Ray wanted him. In spite of everything, no matter how much trouble he caused or how irritating he was, Ray wanted him.

I guess it's meant to be
Forever, you and me
After all.

How had this happened? Five years ago, he couldn't have imagined a future in Chicago; now, he couldn't imagine anything else. When had "home" changed from endless miles of snow and ice, a vitally important job, and all the things he'd grown up with, to a single big-nosed, balding man?

When love is truly right,
It lives from year to year.
It changes as it goes,
And on the way it grows,
But it never disappears.

Five years. He'd barely seen Ray for the last two of them, but he knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that they'd make it work. Things would be different, but not in any way that mattered.

After all that we've been through,
It all comes down to me and you.
I guess it's meant to be
Forever, you and me
After all.

He loaded the trunk into the back of the jeep, pocketing both sets of keys. The new owner would be waiting at the airport to pick it up. Swinging the knapsack over his shoulder and whistling for Dief, Ben locked the cabin door and set off on the long journey home.

End After all by Acer canadensis: rpt813@hotmail.com

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