Chapter 16 Eternal Vows #2

"I've been sitting with it for six weeks," she said.

"I told Odin I needed more time. I've had more time.

I've done honest accounting, which is the only accounting I know how to do.

And the answer is" she paused, not for drama, to make sure the words were the right words “yes. I'm going to say yes to the council."

The morning was around them. The mountains. The birds.

"Elara," he said again.

"Not for operational reasons," she said.

"Not because of the command source or the ongoing engagement or the unprecedented perception capacity that Odin wants to preserve.

Not even for" she stopped “not because of you.

Not because of what I feel, which is what I feel is significant and it's real and it's a factor in every calculation I run, but it's not the reason. "

"Then what is?" he asked.

"Because I'm not finished," she said. "I looked at the honest accounting of my life, what I've built, what I've developed, what the work is, and what it needs from me.

And I'm not finished with it. I've spent five years building something that I can see is in its early stages, that is the integrated model.

The human divine operational structure, the development of the perception capacity and what that might mean for other hunters who might develop it" she stopped.

"It's early work. I can see where it goes and I can see that the distance between where it is and where it could be is the distance of more time than I have in mortal life. "

"And?" he said. Knowing there was more.

"And I want the time," she said. Simply.

"I made the time honestly. The honest answer is that I want more time to do the work and to be here.

To be in this. Whatever this is." She looked at him.

"That's the whole answer. Work and being here.

Both parts. And I'm not going to pretend one part doesn't include you. "

He looked at her for a long time. The full unguarded face, the face she had been accumulating since the Port Melbourne alley. The face of someone who was fully present to what was being said and making no effort to be otherwise. "You said not because of me," he said.

"Not only because of you," she said.

"That's different," he said.

"Yes," she said. "It's different."

He breathed. "I've been" he started. Stopped. Started again. "I've been rehearsing what I was going to say if you said no. I've been running the rehearsal since the morning after Freyja told me about the council discussion. Six weeks of the rehearsal." He paused. "I haven't rehearsed this."

"You don't need to rehearse," she said. "Just say it."

He looked at her. "I love you," he said.

Three words in the honest register, the low one, carrying the weight of everything he was and every year of it, the weight of someone for whom words had accumulated meaning across a timeline that made the accumulation significant in a way that mortal word use didn't quite achieve.

Not a simple declaration. Not the first articulation of a feeling that had just arrived.

The formal acknowledgment of something that had been true for long enough that saying it was arriving, finally, at the right words for the right thing.

"I know," she said. And then, because honesty was always the right approach: "I love you."

He closed his eyes for a moment.

She watched this. She watched him hold it and she let him hold it. All of it simultaneously. The love and the loss and the morning and the mountains. Both things. Full weight. Both.

"The council meeting," he said. His eyes were open. Looking at her.

"When we're back in Melbourne," she said. "When the operational situation is stable. We'll go to Odin."

"Together," he said. Not a request. An intention.

"Together," she confirmed.

He reached out and took her left hand. The functional hand, the careful awareness of the right arm's state present in every physical decision he made around her, and he held it with the grip of someone who is holding something they intend to keep.

She let him. They stood in the South Island morning with the mountains and the birds and the ongoing world, holding hands like two people who have decided something important.

She was going to hold it, and file it in the place where the things that mattered went. His hand and her hand and the morning.

She looked at the ridgeline one more time. The Southern Alps. The rock. Then she looked at him. "I have approximately forty minutes before Pita physically puts me in a vehicle," she said.

He looked at her arm. "Less than that," he said. "I've been watching the arm since the central section."

"I know," she said. "You've been very restrained about it."

"It's taken significant effort," he said.

"I'm going to the hospital," she said.

"Yes," he said.

"And then we're going back to Melbourne," she said.

"Yes," he said.

"And then," she said.

He looked at her. "And then," he confirmed.

The hospital was Queenstown's, which was small by city standards and entirely adequate, and Pita drove them with the satisfaction of a medical professional who has achieved a necessary outcome and is not going to make a big deal about it.

The radiology confirmed what Elara had suspected: the fracture site had been restressed, which was the clinical phrasing, and the clinical recommendation was a new cast and six weeks of actual compliance this time, which Pita communicated with the voice of a person who has already made this recommendation once and is aware of how it was received and is making it again with full professional conviction and without expectation.

"Six weeks," Elara said.

"Minimum," Pita said.

Thor was in the waiting area. She came out with the new cast and found him there. Sitting in a Queenstown hospital waiting area with a paper cup of tea. He looked at the cast.

"Six weeks," she said.

"Minimum," he said, because he had been listening.

"Yes," she said.

He stood. Took the cast side gently the careful awareness, always and they walked out of the hospital into the Queenstown morning, and his hand was warm around her.