Chapter 14: The Only Light We’ll See

“H-hey, Sierra? Yeah, it--it’s me. I don’t know, like, what, two in the morning? Yeah. No, yeah. Just a couple of be- Listen, that’s not important right now. No, just listen to me. I bumped int-- Yeah. Yeah. Look, he-- I know. I know. Will you let me finish? Look, things got ugly. Yeah. He tripped on a bottle and hit his head. No, I -- No. No. Sierra, listen. He tripped, hit his head, and then there was this… I don’t know, like a flash of light? Yeah. Anyway something happened. I think you better come see this.”

Morris Guthrie hung up the phone and turned around just in time to see Sam sit up, rubbing her temple. Everything hurt. Her head hurt, worse than her usual hospital wake-up, and instead of antiseptic everything smelled like beer and what happened to beer after it was beer. She looked up at Abraham Douglas’ brother-in-law-to-be. 

“Abe?” Morris asked. Sam shook her head, which felt a bit like tumble-drying a lump of dough. Her brain clung to the inside of her skull. 

“Not anymore,” she said, and reached for her throat. Her voice sounded different. Squeezed, somehow. Nothing like Abraham’s raspy baritone. It was technically the same voice, she could tell that much. But it was different. Different enough. Maybe even more importantly, when her fingers touched her neck, the expected grating texture of the beard remained absent. The skin was far from smooth, Abe’s lifestyle had seen to that, but it wasn’t sandpaper. She cleared her throat. “Abe’s dead. Sorry, Morris.” She frowned. Did she look that different?

“What is -- Who are -- What --”

“That,” Sam said as she carefully pushed herself up off the damp ground, steadying herself against the wall, “is a long and complicated story. I’ll be more than happy to explain everything to you, once I get a painkiller inside me.” She carefully touched the back of her head. The skin was raw, but that was the worst of it. “I think you gave me a concussion,” Sam groaned. She caught his eye.

“Who are you?”

“Sam,” Sam said. “Good to formally meet you, Morris. Is your sister on her way?” She tried not to sound too eager. It was probably bad form to be actively interested in someone’s sister in front of them. Morris nodded. 

“Good,” Sam said. “Good. I hope she remembers, at least.” She looked at him. “Sit down, you look like you’re about to fall over. Can I use your phone?”

“What for?” Morris asked as he handed her the phone. “Who… What happened?!” He leaned against the wall at the corner of the street, and then slowly slid down. Sam realized she wasn’t going to get out of this without an explanation. She looked up at the sky. The stars twinkled mischievously. Thanks, Sammaël, she thought. Could have left me in a less awkward position. Then she looked at her hands and didn’t mind all that much anymore. They were technically still the same hands. Long thin fingers, but now they looked slender instead of bony. The hair on the back of them was downy instead of coarse. 

“I just need to see something,” Sam said. Abe’s memories were slipping fast now, but she knew how to work a phone at least. She turned on the front-facing camera. “Holy…” she mumbled. The person looking back at her was… beyond different. The eyes seemed bigger. The face had rounded out, the lips were fuller, and the mean streak that seemed to have been baked into the eyes was gone. There had been a sense of scowl that was now absent. She looked like Abraham Douglas' sister, or maybe his cousin. Even the hairline seemed to have filled in a little bit. She looked down. Well, it wasn’t perfect, but she had her whole life ahead of her. She had time. 

Sam handed Morris his phone back and sat down next to him. “What’s happening?” he asked quietly. He sounded confused, tired, a little scared, and drunk. Sam looked at him, then patted him on the arm. 

“Keep an open mind,” she said, and told him. She told him everything. Of who she once was. How she didn’t know if she was born the moment Sammaël had put a piece of itself in a human body, or if this part of it had always existed. She told Morris about her first time dying, and about waking up in the hospital. 

She told him about Sierra. About Sierra’s deaths and how Sam had accidentally given her the ability to perceive time across five dimensions. How Sierra had helped her grow to become her own person. How they’d escaped and then succumbed to calamity over and over again. How Sam had fallen in love with Sierra. Their first kiss. Her first kiss. 

She told him about her identity. How it had started and how she’d grown. Who she was and wasn’t. The memories she had of Abraham Douglas and who that was to her. How a part of her existence had stemmed from a desire, first to listen to music, then to make amends for mistakes Abraham had made, and then, finally, just to fit in her own skin and figure out who Sam was. 

And she told him about Squeemp, as best she could. How the world had always looked to her and, if she squinted and concentrated really hard, she could still see it, like making out a complex geometric shape through murky water. But it was there. Time and Space and That Other Stuff, all stacked on top of each other. 

A car stopped in front of them, and the door was thrown open. A vision of annoyed confusion and impossible beauty stepped out. Sam remembered swimming through the universe. Molding nebulae into pleasing shapes. Ripping stars apart until they collapsed in a system-destroying mess of fission and fusion, gravity rippling out and warping space and time. And none of it compared to her. 

“Sierra!” Sam said as she jumped up, her throbbing headache pushed to the background. Sierra looked at her in confusion, and then looked at Morris on the floor. 

“Is he…” she started. Sam shook her head. 

“He fell asleep,” she said. “I’m not sure at what point.”

“Who are you?” Sierra asked, her brow furrowed in confusion, studying Sam’s face. Of course this had been a possibility. Sammaël had fixed everything. Rewound the clock of the universe to before her first loop. It made sense that Sierra didn’t remember. Sam sighed, but tried to smile. Maybe this meant they could start over. And, if not, she wouldn’t have to deal with everything Abraham had been. Just some of it. 

“I’m—”

“Sam,” Sierra said, and then looked down, cross-eyed, like she was confused at her own mouth speaking without consulting the brain first. “Why do I know…”

“Sierra?”

“Sam. I… But that wasn’t… It makes no…”

Sam smiled. “Not really, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

“I remember you,” Sierra said, and studied Sam’s face, looking into her soul. “Why are there stars in your eyes?” She reached out almost tentatively, like Sam was a bubble that was going to pop if Sierra got too close.

“You know the answer to that one, Sierra.” A part of her was so very tempted to push, but she knew that not only was it wrong to try and force Sierra to see something she wasn’t ready to see, it was also wholly ineffective.

“Sam,” Sierra said, and then grabbed Sam’s face and kissed her so hard it nearly knocked them both off their feet. It lasted for an eternity and five seconds. Stars formed and collapsed. The universe was born and died. Their lips touched each other and Sam felt her own heartbeat pulse through her skin, Sierra’s chest rising and falling with their breaths. Then they pulled away and the magic was… well, it wasn’t broken. But it was temporarily less powerful. They could think again. “It’s you,” Sierra said. 

“It’s me,” Sam said, then looked off to the side. “We should get your brother in the car.”

“Oh my God, Morris,” Sierra said with a little giggle, and rushed over to him. “How much did he have to drink?” 

“Enough,” Sam said and helped Sierra lift him up. He just mumbled as they walked him over to Sierra’s car and tossed him in the back seat. “I’m glad it got rid of the alcohol in my system.”

“You mean… going back again?” Sierra asked as she got into the driver’s seat. Sam shook her head. 

“This might take a moment to explain but…” She paused and looked out the window. There was a distinct lack of things falling apart. “I think we have time.”

“What changed?” 

“Sammaël left,” Sam said. “It’s gone.”

“Wait, but I thought you were…” 

“Yes,” Sam said, “it’s going to take a moment to explain." And she did. The entire drive home, Sam explained what’d happened. How she understood it, at least. Rewinding for Sierra’s sake had ripped a hole in reality that had brought possibility cascading down on them, and human bodies weren’t very resistant to random things happening to them. 

And Sammaël had turned back the clock on all of it, to before it had all started, and to add insult to injury, had given Sam complete immunity. She was cut off. Fully her own person now. No longer a cosmically powerful entity. Alone. Well, as alone as anyone is. And there was some tether there. The understanding that, one day, Sammaël would return to request a payment of music heard.

The next day, Morris was confused, and then confused again as Sam explained everything. He didn’t seem to believe her entirely, but he had to admit that he’d seen “Abraham” suddenly change in front of him, and the woman he’d turned into was a drastically different person. He definitely couldn’t deny the fact that the two of them seemed extremely taken with each other, either. 

“So now what?” Sierra asked a few days later at breakfast.

“Well, I’d like to go see this endocrinologist,” Sam said, holding up the piece of paper. “And I’m going to have to find a way to explain how ‘Abraham’ got on hormone replacement therapy for several years in secret and how that source of hormones suddenly ran out. After that? Who knows.” She smiled at the words on the page. There was so much to do already. It was exciting.

“I didn’t mean the transition,” Sierra said, “although I’m glad to see you’re taking steps there.” She reached over and took Sam’s hand, their fingers entwined. “I meant… for you. Won’t it bother you that you can’t swim across the stars anymore or whatever? That you’re human now? Mortal?”

Sam squeezed her hand. “I have a lot to figure out about being a human being, Sierra. I don’t know how to do most things. Abraham’s memories are mostly gone. I’m starting from zero, and after billions of years of knowing everything there is to know, understanding everything there is to understand… I quite like having to figure out how to turn on the dishwasher.” She laughed softly. “No, it doesn’t bother me. I’m not Sammaël. I’m Sam. And I’m going to figure out what that means, too.”

“Well, you’re not going to have to do it alone,” Sierra said and sat a little closer so their shoulders and hips were touching. “I’m here, as long as you’ll have me.”

“How much time do you have?” Sam said with a happy smile and kissed her softly. 

“All the time in the world, I think,” Sierra responded, in both word and kiss. Another eternity, a short one, went by. “So, are you really just a mortal human now? How does that feel?” 

“It feels… strange. Exciting. But then again,” Sam said, “I’m only mostly human.”

“What does that mean?”

Sam’s smile turned into a grin, and for a brief moment, her eyes reflected the deepest darkness of space, black empty pools that contained the universe. And at the bottom, a sea of stars. 

“Oh,” Sierra said and bit her lip.