Chloé Wallace sat on one of the
benches placed along the walking path of the park-like, open-air center area of
her Grade 4-5 HTC christened ‘Pleasant Towers’.
She
gave a look over to her eleven-month-old son, the latter being sound asleep in
the roller set before her, all snug and warm in baby fall clothes whilst
covered by thick blankets. In the same moment, she sent heartfelt thoughts to
her beloved daughter enjoying herself in preschool and her loving husband
Robert busy at his UMD Supervisor’s job.
Wearing
proper fall clothing herself, Chloé gazed at the numerous trees adorning said
outdoors space of Pleasant Towers, their leaves displaying various hues of
bright yellow, orange, or red, as was typical for this time of the year—except
for pines and evergreens, of course. In a similar way, decorative bushes and
floral arrangements had browned or withered, whereas the living pond was
already in slumbering quietude, in evident expectation of the winter season
awaiting its turn to settle over not only the Québec Capital District, but the
whole of the world’s northern hemisphere as well.
Thankfully,
the excited chirping chatter of sparrows enlivened what would have been a melancholic
autumn stillness.
She
cast a quick glimpse at her ewatch. 10/23/2071; 10:28—he should arrive at any
moment, now, she assessed, not without tenseness.
Chloé
inhaled and exhaled deeply to steady herself, in so doing releasing a small
cloud of condensed breath due to the chill temperature prevailing on this
cloudy morning of late October.
She
spotted him the next moment walking through the archway leading into the HTC’s
open-air center area. Sporting nondescript jeans and a fall jacket zipped all
the way up to his scarf-wrapped neck, he adjusted the shades he wore with one
of his gloved hands. Because of the light breeze sweeping around and about, numerous
strands of his chin-length, slightly wavy brown hair lifted themselves in
seeming insurgency against remaining coiffed in a right-parted fashion.
Even
out of his Psion attire as he was, he looked to her very much like the noble
Arcane-Knight she had been seeing on news streams over the past five years or
so.
Moreover,
seeing his face after all those years, and aside from his overall frame being
somewhat more muscular than she recalled, she couldn’t help but be surprised at
how little he had changed, let alone aged.
As
he approached her further, a timid Chloé smiled in response to his genial grin.
“Thanks
for agreeing to meet on such short notice and ‘out of the blue’, as they say,”
Trajan said in his soft-spoken tenor timbre, on purpose murmuring loud enough
to be heard yet ensuring he wouldn’t disturb the sleeping baby. He opted to
remain standing.
“Of
course, no problem,” a nervous Chloé replied in kind, placing reflexively a part
of her shoulder-length, auburn straight hair behind one ear while casting her
eyes downward in a bout of shyness. Her silky soprano voice quivered, betraying
her racing heart.
Although
she looked older than he remembered, Trajan couldn’t deny he found
her as beautiful as ever. With her angular face and delicate chin, her small
pointed nose above full lips, and her bright-blue eyes underneath thin auburn
arches, the diminutive and dainty sylph-like woman had remained comely and attractive
over the years, indeed.
“Like
I said on the phone, this will be short,” he reassured, seeking to avoid as
much awkwardness as possible.
“This… This is Nathan–my baby boy,” she
offered, her demeanor tentative.
“How
old is he?” Trajan asked in a conversational fashion.
“Eleven
months. I’m still on maternal leave. Sylvie, his rambunctious older sister, is
in kindergarten right now,” she specified in meek tone, for all she spoke as a
proud and loving mother.
Trajan
nodded in affable acquiescence. He was buoyed by the fact that talking about
children with Chloé—her children, in
particular—left him as unaffected as if he was conversing on the same subject
with an acquaintance.
“I
wanted to see you so I could tell you, out of personal courtesy, TransAm CSS
special agents will be contacting you within a day or two—discreetly, of course,”
he prefaced with as much tact as he could muster. “It’s to put you under what
they call Omega Secret-level protocols, because you know about me and my
abilities. It’s to ensure my privacy and safety. Don’t ask how they’ve known
about me, to begin with. They’re the ones who supplied me with your ephone number when I asked, in case you’re
wondering.”
It
was Chloé’s turn to nod in complete acceptance. “Abilities—plural, huh?” she retorted in good-humor at length,
having learned of his telepathy like everyone else during the Puppeteer
Incident.
“Yeah…
I’m very sorry about this,” a now-embarrassed Trajan offered, putting his
usual hand to the back of his neck. “I didn’t… I mean, I never peeked into your
mind or anything like that and—”
She
shook her head. “Don’t be—and I know,” she interjected, her voice all the more unsteady
whilst tears welled up in her reddening bright-blue eyes.
“I was quite
angry at that shrilling Wicked Witch on the news show, by the way,” she managed to throw in a casual manner.
Trajan
nodded in appreciation. “My understanding is she’s in trouble of sorts for it. However, I’ve been told a whole lot of folks
agree with her sentiments—way more than what was expected,” he disclosed in
reference to the latest update of Danilo’s ‘post-News Forum appearance analytics’,
which indicated an upsurge of activity on all known FHF discussion boards and
VR agoras.
To his consequent
demurred smile, he brushed the matter aside with a curt wave of a gloved hand:
“Well, never mind all that. I’m digressing.”
Chloé exhaled
aloud at this, having at last gathered the courage for what she needed to do,
for what she felt she owed him: “I’ve to tell you something—something big and very
bad, for which you’ll surely hate me, and justly so…”
“You
don’t have to,” Trajan cut in, his tone gentle. “I already found out the truth
of what actually happened. It’s why I mean it when I say I really contacted you to tell you about the CSS—nothing else,
nothing more.”
An
aghast Chloé raised her teary eyes toward him. “H-how …?”
Trajan
shrugged. “It’s not important,” he dismissed with nonchalance, not wishing to
reveal Mira as his source, for all the latter had asserted she didn’t mind it.
“Again, I came
here just to let you know about the CSS and the Omega protocols,” he insisted
congenially.
“I’m
so sorry… I-I don’t see how you could
ever forgive me,” a remorseful Chloé apologized between sniffles, struggling to
keep her weeping voice low so as to not awaken her son.
Sighing,
Trajan shrugged anew. “There’s nothing to forgive. What was done was done and
the past is the past. For what it’s worth, I hold no resentment whatsoever. I’ve
moved on long ago and so have you: in the end, it’s what truly matters,” he said,
sincerity permeating his words.
Chloé
steadied her gaze onto him, her reddened eyes filled with sadness mixed with
gratitude… and regret. In this instant, she wished she could see those deep-blue
eyes of his she had memorized so well.
“A-are
you married or anything?” she inquired in a half-hearted light mood, along with
an uneasy snicker. A sniffle or two followed.
Trajan
lowered his head to a self-effaced grin on his part. “I’m… seeing someone, at
the present time. We’ll see where it goes, I guess,” he answered with yet
another shrug, again wishing to leave Mira out of the short conversation.
And truth be
told—although Chloé had once been a very important part of his life, he didn’t
feel like sharing anything private with her, just as he was at best faintly
interested in her personal affairs.
We must remain perfect strangers, he
reflected with honesty.
He gave a swift look at his ewatch. “Well,
I better go; I’ve got lunch coming up soon with my father, with me being here
in Québec City and having to oblige him with a visit or be disowned,” he
announced good-naturedly. “Just be sure to disclose everything to the CSS special
agents, including telling them about anyone to whom you may have talked about
me. It’s OK—they’ll also act with utmost discretion to put those folks in turn
under Omega protocols.”
“I
never told anyone, not even my husband or my parents–except to the single one
person, on the night when you first came out as Psion,” Chloé assured. “But yes—I’ll
tell them about this.”
With a silent
acknowledgement of the head, Trajan half-turned to get on his way. “Have a
good one, Chloé,” he said in pleasant tone, to a quick wave of his gloved hand.
Her
heart sinking, she accepted his conveyance while wiping tears with her scarf. She
wanted very much for the two of them to share more.
Deep down,
however, she understood why it was best they refrained from doing so.
“Will
I ever see you again, other than on the news and all?” she asked, nonetheless.
“I
doubt it,” he replied in a matter-of-fact manner. There was not a trace of
frostiness or bitterness in his words.
“Be happy, Chloé. I
mean it,” he added in parting.
“You
too, Tristan. You too,” she tendered back in kind, wiping the last of her
tears.
As
Chloé watched him stroll away in his typical unassuming-yet-confident stride,
the secret part of herself which had remained in love with Trajan after all
these years sought to compel her to call out and plead with insistence for him
to stay, so he could fulfill her long-buried yearning to know more about his
hopes, his loves, his life.
This
was when Nathan let out a little coo of contentment followed by a tiny yawn, his
pale-blue eyes wide open after awakening from his nap.
A
precious reminder, as it were, that life did go on. Always.
Thank you, my wonderful Wizard-Prince; starting
today, I’ll let myself be happy without reservation. I promise, she resolved
to one final glance at the gallant Arcane-Knight walking further away and out
of her life for good, before joyfully mollycoddling her roused baby boy.
