Find Me – Chapter 165

Sleep deprivation comes with a price Steve and Kayla paid for a solid week.  It was a week of living their lives but also filled late into the night with the ten questions every day that Kayla promised to answer and (mostly) followed through on. This resulted in this time’s rightful Steve understanding the nature of both Kayla’s existence and his own better than Kayla ever thought would be possible.  It also resulted in the most bedraggled, exhausted, bleary-eyed existence of their entire lives. 

This awakening of Destination Steve was the lifting of an enormous burden from Kayla.  But it was also the onset of a new one.

Do you think I can be enough?

Kayla knew Steve would be affected with the self-awareness of his temporary nature, but she hadn’t realized just how affected she, herself, would be, too.  She’d had a taste of it just once; that investment into the destination version of her husband.  But in 1982 when he dissolved into the unknown, he didn’t know what was coming; what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.  This Steve did know what was coming, and this knowledge did hurt him.  The result was an added a layer of guilt and emotionality that Kayla was not expecting.  And she would never know for sure if the monumental reveal would ultimately prove to be the right choice for him or the wrong one.

The first thing Kayla did to assure Steve that he would be enough was to throw herself into what she would have done if this was her proper 1990 existence and make it her primary activity.  Raising her daughter, loving her husband, and supporting him as his wife.  Steve responded by going to the Emergency Center every day and trying to be a manager, and this was, perhaps, her first misstep, because Steve was not administrative management material.  This was different than his Community Center antics where he treated his gang outreach like a godfather playing house; this time he was truly an administrator, and to say this was not his calling was an understatement.  Primary Steve could have done this job well with all the years he had behind him; destination Steve struggled. Marcus arranged to be there every single day of that first week, which helped, and working with his best friend was easy.  Working with the people was easy.  Having a supervisor and following already established procedures was a lot harder for him.  But he knew that Kayla had never gotten to be a stay-at-home mom, and he wanted to do this for her.  So, he did his best to learn how to manage a, thankfully, small healthcare clinic and came home at the end of each day.

During these days, Kayla was reminded what it was like to be the sole caretaker of an infant.  Stephanie was not even three months old, she was still in need of care every minute of every day.  Kayla ached to breastfeed her and, again, considered trying to re-lactate her breasts but knew it was going to just add more stress to an already stressful existence for a payoff that may never come.  When she held Stephanie she’d often get weepy for Joey.  She knew that he was still asleep in his crib way back in a time that was just hours from the last time he saw his parents; but for her it had been more than a decade of actual real time since she’d jumped away from him, and she couldn’t help imagining what her teenaged son would be like now.  In real time he was closer 16 than infancy.  The same amount of years his father had been taken from her before he could be conceived.  That’s how long they’d been gone.  Kayla imagined the sandy brown hair on his little head would grow into thick waves wavy, and his rugged good looks would attract all the girls.  Or maybe the boys.  Or maybe both.  But the baby she was mothering right now was her first born.  She smiled as she looked at her baby girl in her arms and remembered how a grown version of Stephanie understood just how much Kayla loved her while she watched her mother feed her brother in this very position the night they started jumping.  “I do, Baby Girl,” she whispered.  “I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

Steve and Kayla’s dual exhaustion did not stop them from debriefing their days, nor did it stop them from debriefing the ten questions Steve came up with after Stephanie went down for the night.  He asked, she answered, she got annoyed when he badgered her for the answer to the Stockholm question, and he got just as annoyed when she refused to provide it.  Steve’s crazy ex-girlfriends and the word, “complicated,” were avoided.

Kayla wrote in her diary just about every night, and Steve gave her the privacy to do that.  She had reason to doubt his willingness to truly not read her entries, but somehow she had a solid faith that he wouldn’t.  Given this new opportunity, she wrote with a very specific purpose.  That purpose gave her hope, and the catharsis it provided gave her grounding.  And she needed both of those, because despite their comfort, Primary Steve’s absence was nerve-wracking.  It wasn’t her first time at the rodeo on waiting for his arrival, but the concept of the years-long wait that he’d been subjected to terrified her, and no amount of journaling truly abated that.

April 16^th was a Monday.  It marked a month in this jump without the arrival of her Steve, and she didn’t cope well that entire day.  Stephanie fussed, the phone rang on an endless loop of needy friends and family, Kimberly and Shane each showed up separately to seek her advice about each other, and it was during the visit of the latter that Steve unfortunately walked in the door earlier than expected from work. 

“Oh, hello, Steve,” Shane said warily, as he could see that his brother-in-law’s face was as inexplicably cold today as it had been last week. 

Sure enough, Steve became immediately incensed when he walked in on Shane bouncing Steve’s cranky daughter in their living room.  “Don’t you have somewhere to be, Donovan?”

“I was just – keeping counsel with Kayla for a bit this afternoon.”

“Oh, I didn’t know she was a barrister, now, too, old chap,” Steve scoffed in a mocking British accent.

Before Shane could react to this behavior he would never understand, let alone allow Steve to manifest more jealous anger he had no practical experience to control, Kayla had hit her last nerve.

“Save it!” she spat

“What did I do, Kay?”

“You don’t need any pet names for her!” Steve griped.

“What?!”

“Oh my God, this is so damned old,” Kayla whined.  She took Stephanie from her sister’s husband and placed her in her father’s arms.  “You take her and try to control yourself,” she said.  “And you,” she said to Shane as she took his elbow, “I’m sorry, time to go.”  Shane looked at her with serious confusion but did as he was asked and allowed himself to be walked to the front door.

“Why is he so mad at me all the time?” he demanded as she opened the door.

Kayla shook her head in dismissal.  “We’re exhausted, Shane.”

He seemed to accept this with a vaguely appeasing smile.  “Of course, I can imagine.”

“Listen, I know you’re at a loss for what’s happening with Kimmie.  But I can’t be your marriage counselor right now.”

Shane looked to the ground.  “Both of us are coming to you for help, and—and she’s your sister.”

Kayla was thankful for this convenient out.  “Yes, right.  She’s going through a lot with your return from the dead, because she went through hell, and now she feels like she’s betrayed you.  She’s confused, and my best advice is this: go to therapy together.  Don’t let her hide—anything—from you.  If you suspect anything weird, it’s probably spot on.  Focus on her and Andrew, don’t give Cal any room to stick around, and it’ll all be ok.  Just don’t give up, ok?” she asked rhetorically, “Ok.”

Kaya had no idea if it was really going to be ok, but she wasn’t willing to lead him directly to water and do any breaking of the slipstream without her whole husband’s arrival. 

When Kayla returned to her husband and daughter, the latter was still crying while the former was still pissed off. 

“So, you’re all mad at me now?”

“Little bit, yeah,” she replied with the exact level of annoyance his refusal to be contrite drove in her.

“Why was he even here?”

“Because he needed a friend.”

“So, you’re his only friend?”

“I’ve been here, I’ve done this, and I don’t wanna do it again, Steve!  Grow up!  Seriously, grow the fuck up!”

It wasn’t Kayla’s words that silenced Steve; her tone was so foreign to him that he didn’t know how to react.  Kayla could see immediately that at this moment she was looking very much like a stranger to him and wished she could take that back.

“Steve, I—”

“No.  Now you’re the one who can save it.”  He placed Stephanie in her bassinet, turned on his heel, and plodded his heavy footfalls out of the room and up the stairs.

They avoided each other for the next hour while Kayla fed their daughter, who’d finally calmed.  She heard Steve’s  self-soothing harmonica from their bedroom just at the top of the back stairs, and he heard her below preparing a simple dinner of baked chicken, green beans, and potatoes on a single sheet pan. 

“Hi,” she said softly from their bedroom doorway. 

Steve was sitting up against the headboard, his legs crossed in front of him with his boots still on.  “Hi,” Steve replied neutrally, letting his hands gently cupping the ends of his favorite ten-hole harp drop gently to his lap. 

“She’s in the bassinet.”  Kayla waved the monitor between them.

“Fussy time, eh?”  Kayla nodded.  “Still awake?”

“Yeah.  I think it’s out of her system for the night, now.” 

Steve nodded back but didn’t drop his gaze.  “Here to tell me soup’s on?”

“Here to tell you I’m sorry,” she replied meaningfully. 

Steve placed his harmonica on the nightstand.  “Soup’s on though, right?” he said avoidantly.  “Belly’s grumblin’.”

“Yes,” she chuckled.  “Soup’s on.”  She went to him and sat on the edge of the bed next to him.  Steve took her hand.

“The other Steve over you two, Sweetness, but I’m not.”

Kayla shrugged a nod.  “I know.  I’m sorry,” she repeated.  “Sometimes I forget,” she said softly.

“That I’m not him?”

Kayla tilted her head in how much pain he clearly felt in that statement.  “No,” she insisted.  “That this is just as hard on you as it is on me.”

In the four weeks Kayla had been here, they had engaged in no sexual activity.  They held each other, they kissed, they let their hands roam in loving touches.  But they were mostly chaste.  But in this moment, Kayla could feel how badly Steve wanted a physical connection to her.  She wanted it, too.  She wanted his love on her and inside of her.  And she wanted to make how he was feeling better by covering him in hers. 

Kayla had explained how murky the rules around sex with their destination counterparts were.  They’d spent one whole night of ten questions talking about it, and while it helped Steve understand his wife’s hesitance to cross that line, it also seemed to push him slightly farther away from her.  He was still kissing her, but he wasn’t letting his mouth taste her skin.  He was still holding her, but he wasn’t allowing himself to grope her.  And he was still giving her appreciative stares, but he wasn’t allowing himself to seduce her.  All of those things were extensions of their love.  Holding back on them was palpable, and Kayla was surprised at how much she didn’t like it.  Now sitting beside Steve on the bed, Kayla felt the pull to show him that physical love.  And not doing so hurt. 

Kayla was still awake when Stephanie woke up for her overnight feeding.  Turning off the monitor very quickly so as not to wake Steve, Kayla fed and changed their daughter, stared into the baby’s eyes, and felt very conflicted.  She was so lucky to be here at this time, safe with a Steve who would not only remain safe, himself, but that proved to her that his devotion included believing the unbelievable.  Kayla settled Stephanie back into her crib, settled herself back into her own bed beside the Steve that was here, and looked for solace in writing to the Steve that was not.

April 16, 1990

Dear Steve,

Today is a month.  I just fed Stephanie while you sleep.  I’m feeling pretty upset about pretty much everything all the time.  You’re hurting so badly.  You know you’re not you.  I’d say “he” but he’s not someone else, he’s you.  And I don’t know anymore if I did the right thing.  If telling you was right.  You’re suffering.  You don’t know if I love you or if Iove YOU.  You don’t know where you stand with me.  And you’re so jealous of Shane.  You hate him so much.  For touching me.  for being with me at all.  You feel betrayed by him.  And also by me.  And explaining to this you is so weirdly different than last time.  I fixed that mistake, and I’m not sorry I did.  Lying to you all those years was something between us that shouldn’t have been there.  But remember when you told me you would have understood?  You were right, you understood.  But in a way you also don’t.  And now it’s like a broken record, I’m dealing with these feelings you haven’t shown in years again, and it makes me really short and bitchy.  It’s all very messy.  But there are reasons to be grateful, too.  Like because we’re safe.  Not just me out of jail, but you out of the way of Lawrence’s bomb.  We’re not being chased.  There aren’t weird complications.  We don’t have to pretend.  And I never get tired of watching you with your Little Sweetness.  That really does give me so much joy.

And honestly I’m just so tired of crying.  So, I’ve decided not to anymore.  There are times we’re walking on eggshells, and there is pain.  But we have life to live while I’m here without you.  And if I’m spending all of it just crying all the time it’s not going to do a thing for you now or you once you get here.  I screamed at you to grow up today.  I’m sorry about that.  And I’m going to show that to you by growing up myself.  I am not breaking the slipstream when you’re still in it and haven’t arrived yet.  Not letting you go through the bomb and appear to die and then get taken is definitely not following the timeline, so the effect of that worries me.  But I’m not going to try like mad to break the slipstream when you haven’t arrived yet.  So, I made that choice to wait and I’m going to live with that instead of crying over it.  You knowing everything is a gift, Steve.  So, time for me to grow up, too, and stop crying.

Love, Kayla.

Kayla closed the beautiful diary and let out a deep breath.  The lemon yellow leather was so soft.  Like the touch of her husband’s gentle hands upon her skin.  He loved her more than his own life, and she knew it.  His belief in her proved that.  This diary represented that.  For a few moments, Kayla watched her husband sleep.  Then she placed the gorgeous pen beside the diary in the drawer of her nightstand, scooted down under the covers, and reached for Steve’s hand.  He grasped it and mumbled something in his sleep before slipping back into slumber.

Before she woke in the morning, Kayla had a version of the dream that recurred for both of them.  A disembodied version of him was nearby as she stood with bare feet in a garden beside the very four-poster bed she was actually sleeping in.  Whether it was her mind protecting her, the slipstream interacting with her, or her real Steve reaching for her she would never know.  The anxiety, however, was clear when her crying whimpers woke Steve in the very early hours of the morning.  He would have been alarmed, but it was not the first time she’d had bad dreams since her reveal to him, and it wouldn’t be the last.  He gently caressed her out of her nightmare, and felt deep disappointment when she swallowed her pain and insisted she was ok rather than allow him to console her.  They fell back asleep, and the days continued into weeks.

Exactly one month passed.  Kayla didn’t shed a single tear in those days.  Things came to a head with Kim and Shane, but she refused to engage in their issues.  Roman and Isabella’s relationship seemed to follow the same trajectory that it had the first time.  Victor was Victor, Jencon happened without them, and without Steve being a cop this time, Lawrence had no investment in them.  Stephanie was safe at home instead of knee-deep in kidnap status down under, so Steve didn’t cross paths with Bo, and that kept him from Salem for now.  Kayla’s friends and family were, however, concerned at how withdrawn from them she and Steve seemed to be since she’d been released from prison.  She used the sleep deprivation newborn at home excuse every time and just moved on one day at a time. 

Steve was fairly miserable at the Emergency Center.  Kayla could tell, because she knew her husband.  But she also couldn’t miss it, because he was honest with her on a daily basis.  He hated the paperwork, he hated the people management skills that he didn’t actually possess as fully as he needed, and he really hated being told what to do.  But what Steve didn’t hate was working with Marcus.  He didn’t hate interacting with the people of the riverfront.  And he didn’t hate making his tortured wife as happy as he could.  And on May 16^th when he came home from work in a foul mood, he turned that mood around on a dime when he came upon her on the livingroom couch.  She was staring out the back window, her knees drawn up to her chest, oblivious to the fact that he was home. 

“Baby?”

Kayla snapped her head toward Steve.  “Hi!” she said.  “When did you get home?”

“I just walked in.  You look a million miles away.”

Kayla smiled at him as appeasingly as she could.  “Sorry, I was just—daydreaming.”

“What is it?” he asked, unconvinced.

“I’m fine,” she chuckled, I’m just tired.”

“You were thinking about our son.”

Kayla felt an instant stab of pain.  She didn’t ask how he knew, because her husband was wise.  And also he was absorbing all he things she’d said since the day she’d started saying them.  That included all the things she’d said to him about Joey.  She shrugged a nod.  “It’s his birthday today.”

Steve nodded back.  “I know.”  Kayla smiled sadly as he sat heavily beside her.  He put his arm around her, and she scooted to lean her back against his strong body.  “He’s gonna be a year old?”

“In the amount of time it’s been for me, more like … I don’t know, actually.  We’ve seen a lot of May 16ths. I guess it depends on how you count time.  For me it feels like he’s already a teenager.”  Kayla shrugged.  “I just honestly don’t even know anymore.”

They sat like that in silence for a few moments before Kayla exhaled with compartmentalized resolve and asked Steve about his day.  She tilted her face up at him when she felt him tense against her. 

“Don’t worry your pretty little head, baby.  It was a busy day at the office, lots of paper shuffling and triplicating and mimeographing.”

Kayla snorted.  “Mimeographing?”  I commit a lot of anachronism crimes, but that one’s ancient here in 1990.

Steve smiled with obvious gratification that he’d made her laugh.  “Well, we might have to pull the thing out of the tombs or wherever it lives, the xerox machine might be dead.”

“Uh oh.  That’s trouble.”

“Good trouble.  Best part of my day was having the thing in pieces in the back room so I could figure out what the hell was wrong with it.”

“That sounds like the worst kind of hell.”

It was Steve’s turn to snort.  “Not if you’re me.”  Steve pawed at the back of his head and winked at his wife.  But Kayla saw very clearly that Steve was being quite literal, here.

“You hate that job,” she said with knowing sympathy.

“Naw, baby.  I love pushing papers around.” 

She gave him a look that said she knew better.  “I shouldn’t have pushed you toward the Emergency Center.”  She failed to keep the guilt from her voice.

“It’s fine.”

“Only it’s not.”  She turned toward him and brought her left leg up under her, pulling his hand into hers.  “You’re not happy.”

“Lots of people are unhappy at work.”

“Yeah.  But, you’re not just not happy; you’re struggling.”

Now Steve looked offended.  “I can do it, Kayla.”

“Of course, you can.  I don’t mean you’re struggling to—understand.  I mean, you hate it so much you’re struggling to find the joy in it at all.”  Steve started to protest, but Kayla kept going.  ‘You love working with Marcus, I know that.  But there’s so much more to it all.  I’m asking too much of you.”

“Sweetness.  Stop.  I got this.”

“Ya know what?  I know you do.  But I don’t think I want you to anymore.  I think—you should find—”

“No.  Kayla, you’re right, ok, I don’t like it.  But I want you to have this with Stephanie.  If it’s that bad I’ll just find a new job.  Maybe work with your pop again.”

“You hated that, too.”

“But didn’t you say I loved it in ’79?  Maybe I can try again.”

They continued the discussion of where Steve should work through dinner and came back to it off and on.  Ultimately, they kind of got nowhere on it, and settled into the routine of the evening.  They played with Stephanie, they cuddled on the couch while watching Unsolved Mysteries, and they went to sleep with uneasy feelings of sadness.

Kayla sat bolt upright in bed and knew immediately that she was dreaming. 

Hey baby, Steve said staring right at her from the foot of the bed. 

Steve, she replied with a startled breathiness.

No, that’s him, he pointed to her left where another Steve was lying on his back sleeping soundly. 

Kayla did a double take.  There’s two of you?

No, just one. 

Kayla got up from bed and went to the Steve that was wide awake and looking very much like the one she went to bed with so many years ago in March of 2009.  She took his hand and teared up.  It’s you!  You’re lost in time!  You have to come back to me!

He squeezed her hand back but shook his head.  Baby, I’m not lost, I’m right there.  That’s me.  And I’m hurting.

I—

Because I know I’m not enough.

That’s not true!

Somewhere that sounded very far away but also very nearby, Joey started crying.  Kayla turned toward the sound of her son.

Look at me, Kayla.

But Joey—

–Is not here.  Now Kayla looked toward him, her eyes etched with pain.  But I am.

No, you’re not.  Not this you.  And I need you to come home to me.

Baby, I don’t know when I’m coming back.  It might be tomorrow, but it might be years.  And I don’t want you to live without the love he’s trying to give you.  Steve turned her around by the shoulders to look at the other Steve still sleeping in their bed.  Joey’s cries got louder and also fainter as the Steve behind her wrapped his arms around her and tightly held her against him.   Why can’t you let him in?

Because I’m scared, she admitted as she held on to his arms across her chest.  I’m so scared you’re never going to come back to me, and every day I feel like I’m betraying you.  Like you’ll never get over it that I love this you that’s with me.  Steve started swaying her but didn’t speak.  I know we’re both walking on eggshells.  I can tell that we both feel it.  There’s so much pain in your eyes.  Every day I just hope you’ll come home, and I won’t have to see how much I’m hurting you.  But then when you come home, I lose this you.  He dies.  I lose you all over again.  I’m hurting you now, and I’m going to hurt you when you get here.

Steve turned Kayla back around and held her face in his palm.  I don’t want this for you. 

I’m going crazy.  My God, Steve, I’m so lost.

He is me.  And it’s time you to let me find you.

The sun wasn’t yet up when Steve opened his eyes to his wife lying on her side facing him as she cried in her sleep.  He had watched her refuse to shed a tear in more than a month, but her sleep had now betrayed her.  Normally, Steve would be on high alert, wondering what was wrong and if she was alright.  But he knew what was wrong.  And Kayla was not alright.

Sweetness, the Steve in her dream said.  She closed her eyes to him.  “Sweetness” the Steve lying beside her repeated. 

Kayla opened her eyes.  He caressed his palm against her cheek and swept his thumb across her tears.  Kayla immediately stopped crying and started to raise that hard shell of stoicism that she’d been surrounding herself with for weeks.  “I-I-I—sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Sweetness.”  Steve kissed her damp cheek.  “Talk to me.”

“I’m fine, it was just a dream.”  The forlorn look of rejection on her husband’s face hurt so much that she couldn’t stop the tears from reforming in her eyes.  “I’m trying to be strong for you,” she said softly.

“You don’t have to be strong for me.  You just have to trust me.”

She didn’t know why those words moved her so much, but they did, and Kayla finally let herself cry for the first time in weeks.  Steve took her face in his hands and kissed her tears away.  “I love you, baby,” he whispered between his kisses.  “I love you so much.”  She didn’t sob, but she let the emotions that had played out in her dream steal over her.  And she let her husband console her.

Steve’s lips found hers with gentle kisses that she returned.  His embrace was warm, and Kayla felt how badly he wanted to ease her pain.  Soon their kisses deepened.  No words needed to be spoken for Kayla to hear him.  I can make it better.  I want to make it better. 

Kayla pulled herself into Steve’s bare chest and dug her head into him.  Steve inhaled sharply with the immense pleasure that brought him.  He palmed the back of her head, swept his other hand down Kayla’s back, and felt her tears on his skin.  His touch was so loving that it felt almost unbearable.  She kissed his chest and when he hardened against her, she felt him start to pull back.  Kayla looked up into his eye and saw the tentative doubt damaging his soul. 

It’s time to let him find you.

With silent instinct that only the truly bonded possess, Steve helped Kayla lift her nightshirt over her head and let it drop over the side of the bed to the floor.  He bent his head to her breast and took her nipple into his mouth.  Bathing it in the warm strokes of his tongue and inhaling her scent elicited a gasp pleasure from her that sent a surge of gratification through Steve that he hadn’t felt since before she gave birth to Stephanie.  Steve caressed her bottom and pulled her into the length of his body.  She responded to the rub of his groin against her in equal measure, and soon the hand caressing her was inside her underwear, pushing the waistband down over her bottom.  She pulled them off the rest of the way as he did the same with his own before they reached again for each other’s naked bodies. 

No words were spoken as Kayla wrapped her leg around Steve’s thigh.  No words were spoken as he shifted to position himself perfectly with her.  And no words were spoken as Steve slipped gently inside his wife.  This Steve and this Kayla had never been naked in each other’s arms.  But their souls had, those souls knew their partner, and their intimate connection felt instantly right.  The readiness Steve felt in the wetness that surrounded him matched the truth that he saw in her eyes.  That she loved him. 

“Sweetness,” Steve barely whispered.  Kayla nodded, her lips parted, and she let him find her.

Their lips met in loving kisses as they gently began moving as one.  This joining wasn’t about taking pleasure or even giving it; in this moment, their lovemaking was about forging the connection they both needed.  But there was pleasure.  The stroke of Steve’s shaft felt good against Kayla’s clitoris, the desire evident in their soft gasps and whimpers.  Steve fondled Kayla’s breast, bent to kiss her neck, and delighted in the wetness she released at the sensation. 

The sensations were good, but the emotions were better.  Kayla had spent so long terrified of where her Steve was that she was damaging the Steve that was there.  Steve had seen how badly she was hurting, and all he wanted to do was make the hurt stop.  Letting him do that now in their lovemaking was a healing act for them both.

Steve’s strokes came faster, and Kayla couldn’t help the moans that escaped her lips.  Steve loved hearing them.  He loved hearing that sounds of her pleasure, and he tore himself away from her eyes to place wet kisses from behind her ear down to her clavicle.  When he sucked wetly against the spot that had always made her arch against him he smiled.  “You love that, baby,” he panted as his penis enjoyed the feeling of her slick walls.  “You still love that.”  It was the first reference to her not being of this time.

“I’m your wife.”  She moaned hotly as her orgasm built.  “You know what I love.”

Her words were validation.  The orgasm nearly upon her was proof that what she said was true.

“Oh, baby,” he gasped into her neck.  “Baby!”  Steve trailed his kisses back to her lips, tenderly brushing them with his own. 

Kayla passed the point of no return, whimpering he pleasure.  Watching her coital need on the cusp of release was Steve’s emotional ecstasy, and his eye watered at the meaning behind this act of absolute intimacy and trust.  Kayla felt the duality of what making love to Steve without all of him here really meant.  It meant betrayal, but it also meant succor.  It meant pain, but it also meant relief.  From the moment she’d come into herself, the only thing this man inside of her ever tried to do was give himself to her to make the hurt stop.  Now Kayla acted purely on instinct; and her instinct was to let her husband’s love find her.

Kayla tightened her grip on Steve as she came.  The rush coursing through her felt so good.  She panted his name with the waves that washed over her.  “Steve—I—I—love—love you!”  She knew he needed to hear it as much as she needed to say it, and she wasn’t going to deny either of them.  Her husband rewarded her with not just his sexual rapture, but his emotional elation. 

Steve crushed his lips to Kayla’s, held her tightly as he thrust into her three more times, then came inside her.  He lurched with the pulsing of his seed, the feeling of euphoria settling over him with a wholeness he didn’t know he’d been missing.  “Thank you, Kayla,” he whispered into her ear like a secret.  “Thank you for letting me love you.”  Kayla pulled away and held his face in her hands as she let her own eyes rim with tears.  “Sweetness … are you sorry we did that?”  They were still connected, so he started to pull out of her.

“No,” she said, answering his question and stopping him from leaving her.  Then she kissed his patch.  “I’m only sorry we didn’t do it sooner.”

“You feel so good like this.  I missed you so much.”  They kissed again, and there was promise behind her kiss that he hadn’t felt in a long time.  Finally, they allowed themselves to separate, and Kayla snuggled against him.  They snoozed quietly on and off for another hour until Steve broke the silence.

“He’s going to be upset.”  Kayla had been on the cusp of falling back asleep but now opened her eyes, her eyelashes fluttering against Steve’s chest.  “When he gets here.  He’s going to be upset.”  Kayla exhaled deeply, and Steve was crestfallen when she nodded in agreement.

“But he is you.  And making love to you is what you’d want for me.” 

“I’m selfish, and I know me.  I’ll be jealous.”

“I’ve been jealous, too.”  Steve knew about his time in LA when their roles were reversed.  And he felt the strangest sense of secondary guilt.  “It hurt.  But I understood.  And I hope you will too.  Because I need you.”  She leaned up on her elbow to face him, and Steve did the same.  “You wanted to make me better.”  Steve nodded.  “And you did.”  

“You’re not sad anymore?”

Memories of their only real jump to Joey flashed through Kayla’s head.  And a brief stabbing pain of the day she jumped away from Emily squeezed at her heart.  But they were fleeting, and in this moment she was able to persevere through them.  “I think … I’m always going to be a little sad.  But I am better.  Because no matter what, you always find a way to make me happy.”

“I want to keep making you happy, Kayla.”  The sheet had shifted to expose her bare breasts.  Steve took one in his hand and fondled it, rolling her rosy tip in his fingers.  Kayla smiled playfully, and Steve said, “I can’t help it, I want you.  And I don’t want that to be the last time I make you happy.”

This time when Kayla took Steve’s hardened shaft inside of her, Steve was the one who gasped. “Is this how you want to make me happy?” she said sexily straddled atop him.

Steve’s answer was to take handfuls of her ass and guide her over his erection as he thrust up into her.  Kayla gripped the headboard and rolled her hips to meet his thrusts.  Steve leaned up just enough to capture her breast in his mouth, his tongue flicking her sensitive nipple a path to her ecstasy.  She expertly found the exact contact her clitoris needed, and the orgasm that erupted caused her to cry out in sexual fulfillment.

Steve thought she would collapse on top of him, but instead she moved even harder and faster. “Are you trying to make me come, Kayla?  Is that what you want?”

“Yes!  Yes, I want to watch how happy I can make you!”

“Come on, baby,” he rose to the occasion, “ride me!  Make me come!” 

Kayla brought him to the very edge of his climax when she had her second.  She shook on top of him, the view positively intoxicating for him.  She squeezed her vagina around his cock, and Steve grunted as his orgasm crashed through him.  He held onto her hips as his semen left his body in powerful jets that made him whimper.

“Kayla … baby … you’re so beautiful.  When you come … you’re so damned beautiful.”

Now Kayla did collapse on top of him in post-coital bonelessness.  “Because that’s what I look like when you make me happy.” 

Steve wrapped his arms around his wife and nuzzled his face into her bosom.  No man had ever loved someone as much as he loved her.

It was now Thursday morning.  Steve went to work at the Emergency Center, and Kayla didn’t know how to feel.  She was happy, she was sad, and she was every bit as confused as Steve had been the day after he’d made love to a not quite complete Kayla.  She wrote in her diary and was able to find the therapy it provided.  Ultimately, Kayla was acting on the instinct that her impossible circumstance had brought her to.  They’d both known for years now that they might make love to each other when only one of them was present.  It had already happened to Steve.  Now all these years later it had finally happened to Kayla.  And she was … not sorry.  She was conflicted, she was terrified that she’d never see her primary Steve again, and she was aware that she was unable to prevent herself from treating destination Steve as real.  The slipstream had to be broken so this could end, but her primary Steve’s delayed arrival had put that plan on hold.  So for now she was aware that she was forging new ground.  Old rules weren’t applying, new rules were unclear.  But this destination Steve absolutely mattered.  So, what she, therefore, wasn’t going to allow herself to be, was sorry.

“Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday dear Stephanie!
Happy birthday to you!”

A dining room full to the absolute gills of family and friends smiled with joy and excitement as Steve and Kayla’s little girl sat on her father’s lap and clapped excitedly at all the attention directed at her, not to mention the very delicious looking cake sitting just inches from her grasp.

“I think my grandbaby wants that cake!” Jo said while looking adoringly upon her son and his daughter.

“Ya think, mama?” Adrienne said.  “She’s not the only one.”  Before she could wrangle him, Alexander ran full speed into his uncle.  “Caaaaaake!”

“Ok, big dude, hold your horses, now, we got one of these a little bigger just for you.”

The room laughed as Justin scooped up his son and chastised him with a look that was only half-hearted in its discipline.  “Sorry, guys,” he said, “Terrible twos.”

“That’s ok,” Kayla laughed.  “it’s there to smash, after all.”

“It’s there for Stephanie to smash,” he directed to Alexander.

The dark-haired boy had only a year on his cousin, yet he seemed to be so much older than Stephanie, who at a freshly turned one year old today seemed to be very much still just a baby.  An older baby, but definitely a baby.  Jeannie was the infant in the room, and cake was the furthest thing from her mind as she fussed in Shane’s arms.  He didn’t mind the incessant bouncing and pacing and full attention she required of him, because he’d felt awkward in Steve and Kayla’s presence for months; so, the distraction of his needy daughter was fine with him.  It was Max and Andrew Donovan who were the youngest generation’s elder statesmen.  Max was a little older, but Andrew had a strange wisdom about him that Kayla was reminded of from the last time she saw him in their Los Angeles timeline when the current four-year-old went to Alex and convinced him to come play.  Being the biggest boys in the room, Alex had been following both Andrew and Max around all afternoon and was more than happy to play with whatever they suggested.

“She’s about to claw her way outta my arms, here, Sweetness,” Steve said of his squirming daughter as he nodded to the camera in his wife’s hand, “you wanna get the show on the road, please?”  

“It’s the Irish in ‘er,” Shawn said.  “Brady women.  None of ‘em were born with a lick of patience.”

It was basic chaos in the house with three generations of Johnsons, Bradys, a few Hortons, and a bunch of honoraries inside Steve and Kayla’s house on this freezing cold February 11^th.  When there’s that many people around, it’s easy to hide in plain sight.  Which is why no one noticed that Kayla was not entirely as festive as a mom celebrating her daughter’s first birthday should be.  No one really quite got that Kayla was introspective and feeling the poignancy of every moment of the day.  No one noticed that she was taking mental photographs of their daughter so that she could keep them with her forever.  No one except for Steve.  Who knew who those mental photographs were for.

Kayla’s reaction to being rushed along was so minute that no one caught it.  But Steve caught it.  So he backpedaled a bit.  He repositioned Stephanie on his lap so that now she was standing up and facing him as he held her securely around her middle.  “Ya know what, Little Sweetness?”

“Papa!” she squealed as he kissed her baby neck.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Papa!”

“And where’s Mama?”  Stephanie turned and pointed to Kayla with a huge smile on her face as she bent her knees in excitement.

Kayla made lovey noises back to her before saying, “And who’s my baby girl?”

“Muh muh!”  But that sweet smelling thing was on the table directly in her line of sight to her mother, and she instinctively started lunging for it.  Steve redirected her with tickling kisses to her neck.

“Mama is gonna take her sweet time, and we’re gonna let her,” Steve turned his head to the crowd, who groaned; they wanted to see a cake-smeared baby.  And they also wanted a piece of their own cake.  “Ya know why?” He made more kissy noises in her neck, then he held her high above his head like an airplane, her little lavender dress hanging down from her belly.  “I’m gonna tell you why.  ‘Cause Mama wants to savor every minute, that’s why.” 

“I wanna savor my niece with frosting in her hair!” Adrienne whined.

“I want cake!” Alex yelled from the corner with Shawn-D.

Steve ignored everyone.  He lowered her so that he could tickle her belly with his nose, and everyone was momentarily appeased when she squealed in delight.  “Ok, Little Sweetness, how ‘bout we see if Mama’s ready now, or if she needs to take it in some more.  Ok?”  Then Steve turned his head while still craned up toward his airborne daughter.  His expression did all the asking, and Kayla was grateful for his patience.  He wasn’t always patient about his very accurate analysis of these sloth-paced incidents; but today he was, and he wasn’t going to let the crowd rush her. 

“I think I got what I need,” she smiled at them.

“Girl, ye haven’t even pointed the camera at her, let alone taken the picture.  D’ye need yer sister to show ye how it’s done then?”

“I think she’s got this,” Kimberly said from the other side of the room where she was chatting with Kayla’s friend, Carrie.

“Well then let the girl go to town on it already, Sis, jeez.”

“That’s enough out of you, Beauregard,” Steve admonished.  “She really is about to dive into the thing, Sweetness …”

Kayla centered herself on the opposite side of the table, and said, “Ok, baby girl, you want some cake?  Go ahead, smash it!”

Steve sat her back down and Stephanie wasted no time as she plopped her hand right into the small, Stephanie-sized chocolate cake covered in purple frosting, then she brought that cake-covered hand directly to her mouth and ate as much of it as she could fit in her mouth. 

Everyone cheered, but Steve got a suddenly far away look in his eye.  “Sweetness?”

Kayla smiled at the sight and looked up at Steve.  “Yeah?” she chuckled.

“I …”

“Eat too fast?” she asked absently.

“I feel really weird.”  Then he went pale and gripped the table fast and hard. 

Kayla’s stomach dropped into the basement.  “You—what?!”

“Oh, Jesus.”  No one heard him, they were all cheering for Stephanie.  He’d long ago promised to tell her what leaving his destination body – what being replaced with a new imprint from another version of himself – felt like. He’d vowed to push through whatever it was like and tell her.  He owed her that.  Now it felt almost impossible.  He looked at Stephanie in his arms, kissed her head, and teared up.  “Sweetness,” he stage whispered. 

“Steve!”

He forced himself to focus, because he didn’t know if he’d have seconds or minutes.  “It feels like someone’s pulling me out of my—” Steve swallowed hard and instinctively gripped his daughter tightly.  And that’s when he knew it was going to be the seconds; not the minutes.  “Tell me you love me.”  They were the last words he’d ever say.  Kayla was in a panic, but Steve’s eye was in a bigger one.  I don’t want to go.  Please don’t let me go, Kayla! 

Kayla grabbed Steve’s free hand.  Tears had started pouring down Kayla’s face very, very quickly.  “I love you!” she said in a voice only he could hear.  “Thank you for my life!”  They were words she’d saved this Steve from ever having to say to her.  Now she said them to him as she, once again, loved him into another kind of death all over again.  And she saw when the light left his eye.

Only one person in that room saw when something drastically changed with Kayla.  And that was her mother.  “Kayla, dear, what’s wrong?”  Instead of answering her, Kayla held her daughter securely by the back of her dress even with Steve’s stiffened arm around her.  She was still holding Steve’s hand tightly when he sucked in air like he hadn’t had a breath in a year.

“Kayla?” he choked out over the gorge that was about to rise.

“Steve … I’m here,” she sobbed.

“Crying?  Are—you—God I’m gonna be sick.”

“Do you remember Stockholm?”

Steve looked up and tried to focus.  That was a mistake.  He felt his daughter on his knee, he saw Kayla sobbing in front of him, and he registered that the immediate world was in the dining room of his house.  But the room was still spinning, and the smell of the cake was one stimulus too much.  Steve threw up the Portillo’s Italian beef sandwich he’d just eaten not ten minutes before and somehow managed to do it onto the paper plate that was in front of him, saving the carpet and all the friends and family in his path.  Kayla took Stephanie in her arms, who was extremely displeased to be separated from her cake.  Her shrieking cries mixed with the gasps of concern, so no one but Kayla heard him when Steve finally answered his wife’s question.

“Something tells me this is gonna take a lot more than 20 Questions.”

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