EPILOGUE

Wendy watched the bus roll away, taking the Lundgrens back to Gloria. Van stood beside her, watching the bus, too. But whereas Wendy was wondering when the next bus to Evergreen would be leaving, and whether they should see about getting tickets, Van apparently had something else on his mind. "When we have kids, are they going to scream as much as that Ray kid does?"

"I don't know," Wendy admitted. "Maybe."

Van sighed. "I'd better get earplugs," he muttered. But that was all that he said. Despite his grumbling, Wendy guessed that he had probably gotten along with the baby better than he was letting on. She thought that was a good sign, but decided not to push the issue of children any further for now.

They turned and walked back up the street. By mutual consent, they turned in the direction of the park. Wendy couldn't think of anywhere else to walk to, unless they wanted to go back to their cabin in the abandoned campground. That wasn't a particularly appealing idea at the moment. After having spent a couple of days sharing the space with the Lundgrens, she was rather glad to be out in the fresh air.

"The ocean looks lovely today," Wendy said at last, feeling that someone ought to break the silence. She realized that she had not really been alone with Van for any extended period of time since the morning after the wedding. Was that why things felt so awkward?

"I hate the ocean."

She sighed, but decided not to argue. To tell the truth, she wasn't all that enthusiastic about Harbor Parade's ocean views anymore, either. This tropical paradise seemed to come at too high a cost. "Maybe we should just go home," she suggested at last. She hated to be the one to say it. It felt like giving up. But she wasn't sure how much aimless wandering around the park she could stand, especially with Van in one of his crankier moods.

"Maybe." Van paused to eye the hot dog stand thoughtfully. To her surprise, he went on to say: "We could go camping."

"Aren't we already camping?" What else did you call squatting in an abandoned campground?

"It isn't camping if you have a roof over your head," he retorted. "Why don't we just walk back to Evergreen? We could sleep under the stars. That would be really roughing it."

"Walk back to Evergreen? That'd take weeks!" Wendy was aghast. They were talking about hundreds of miles. "We have to be back at work in a few days." And that was depressing. They hadn't really had a honeymoon at all.

"They'd be fine without us," Van grumbled.

"That's not true," Wendy muttered back. "Not in my case anyway." Her assistant managers were having to cover all her shifts, with occasional assistance from Jean-Jacques, who owned the restaurant she managed. She was pretty sure that they'd be upset if they had to keep working overtime for longer than they had agreed. She didn't think that Sheriff Cooper would be all that thrilled about having his Special Armor Division out of action for weeks, either.

"We could start walking, then catch a train or something when we ran out of time. Beats staying here."

"Well, that could work," Wendy said slowly. She wasn't all that keen on this idea. But they'd tried things her way, and look how that had turned out. Maybe it was time to try what Van wanted.

"It's not like we have anything else to do."

"We could take a cruise!" Wendy suggested. "There are some short ones that only last a few days." That would get them out of town for awhile, and still leave them time to get back to Evergreen.

"I don't like boats." This was the first time Wendy had heard this one, and she was a little skeptical. She had a feeling that Van was going to claim not to like anything she suggested . . . except maybe lunch.

"You'd really rather just walk back?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"All right," she decided. "We'll do that. But let's get lunch first," she added quickly. She was getting tired of eating sandwiches on stale bread.

Finding a diner and eating lunch was easy. Everything else seemed to take forever. Wendy had quite a bit of luggage, and she didn't particular want to cart all of it along behind her. Some of it she took with her, and some of it she mailed back to Evergreen—which meant one last walk into town so that she could stop at the post office. She also had to buy a pair of good walking shoes, because the boots she'd been wearing were putting blisters on her feet. After that, Van thought they needed a mid-afternoon snack.

By the time they set out for real, it was late in the afternoon, and Wendy was already tired of walking. She was sure that they weren't going to get very far before nightfall. She was wrong about that: they got several miles further than she had expected, because Van kept rejecting possible camping sites. This one was too close to the road; that one was too near a farm. The sun was almost completely beneath the horizon by the time he found a grove of trees that was sufficiently far from civilization to satisfy his tastes. There was a creek at hand, so they had running water to wash in. On the whole, it wasn't a bad place to spend the night, if you liked open air camping.

Wendy slipped off her new shoes and sat on the creek bank, dangling her sore feet in the water. The creek was fast-running, so the water was cold, but just then that felt good. She didn't think she would enjoy the temperature nearly as much when it came time to wash up, though.

Van had found a thick clump of grass to serve as a pillow. He was lounging on the ground, looking up at the evening sky. "It's good to be alone," he said. "Weren't you tired of all those people?"

"A little," she admitted. The silence that fell between them now was a comfortable one. Van's cranky mood, whatever its origins, seemed to have passed. "Are you hungry?" Wendy asked at last, wondering if she should start digging through the supplies for something to eat.

"Not really," Van said. "But why are you sitting so far away?"

"What on earth are you talking about?" Wendy twisted around so that she could see Van's face. It was not like him to not want dinner.

"Come over here," he suggested.

"Why?" It seemed like an odd request. She had no idea what Van was thinking. His hat hid most of his face, so she couldn't see his expression.

"We're alone now, aren't we?" This time she saw the glint in his eye as he peered up at her from under the brim of his hat, and she suddenly realized what he had in mind. To her embarrassment, she blushed.

"But we're out in the open!"

"So? We're the only people for miles!" Which, Wendy realized, was probably why he had chosen this place to camp.

"I guess that's true," she admitted, still blushing a little. "Let me grab a couple of blankets." Maybe making love under the open sky appealed to some people, but all Wendy could think of was how exposed they were.

As it happened, her attention was soon so completely occupied that she forgot to worry about exposure. Still, the blankets were useful later, as the night grew darker and the temperature dropped. "We didn't even make a campfire," Wendy pointed out, yawning a little. "It think it's going to be cold tonight."

"It'll be warm enough," Van insisted. Wendy was not sure that she trusted his judgment on this point. He had spent years of his life sleeping outside in all kinds of weather, so his definition of "too cold" was probably not the same as hers. But she didn't want to be the one to crawl out from under a warm blanket to gather firewood, so she didn't protest.

"It is nice to be heading home," she murmured, resting her head on her husband's shoulder. Then she felt compelled to add: "Look, I'm really sorry about all this."

"Huh? All what?"

"You know. All this trouble. The mafia trying to steal your armor; the baby being kidnapped; the police wanting to question us. None of that would have happened if we'd just gotten married at the courthouse in Evergreen, like you wanted. It really has been a terrible wedding."

"No," Van said, to her surprise. "We all came out of it alive." He turned his head a little so that he could brush his lips against her hair. "I have you," he said, sounding a little smug. "That makes it a good wedding."

"At least we'll have an interesting story to tell," she said, smiling a bit at the thought. She had heard tales of wedding disasters before, but she didn't know anyone with a story like this one.

Overhead, the stars were starting to come out. There were only a few clouds, so Wendy could see most of the heavens. "I wonder if one of those stars is really Dann's satellite," she murmured. She wasn't sure quite how Dann's orbital pattern worked, but she thought the satellite must be somewhere overhead. She felt Van shift a little, as if he was startled by what she'd said, though she couldn't imagine why.

"Wendy. . ."

"Yes?" she prompted, when he fell silent.

"I should have told you this earlier . . ." Wendy had a hunch that she knew what he was going to say, but she stayed quiet, wanting him to have a chance to finally say it. "You know how Dann's healing function works?"

"Yes," she prompted. "It heals your injuries and keeps you from getting sick. And keeps you from aging."

"Well, that's how it used to work . . . but we changed it. Joshua and I. I mean, he reprogrammed it, but I asked him to do it. It still heals me . . . well, you know that . . . but only when I'm injured. It won't stop me from aging."

Wendy wondered if she should admit to him that she already knew that. She decided that this would just add to the awkwardness of an already tense situation. Instead, she asked: "Why did you do that? You know that I would never have asked you to give up immortality for me."

"I didn't do it for you."

"You didn't? Then why . . . ?"

"I did it for me," he said, speaking very softly. "I didn't think that I could stand watching you grow old and die if I had to keep living. I didn't want . . . I didn't think I could stand to be alone again."

"Oh, Van," Wendy said. She propped herself up on one arm, leaned over him, and kissed him. It was hard to know what else to say, but she did her best. "You know that people die for all kinds of reasons," she pointed out. "They die young, sometimes, like my parents. They get killed in accidents or catch illnesses or die in childbirth. There's no guarantee that I'll even live to grow old. You might still end up alone." She said the last line softly. She didn't want to alarm him, but it was something that he needed to consider.

"So? None of those things are certain," Van said. "But aging is. At least this way we have a chance." He reached up to stroke her face. "It's not like I ever wanted to live forever," he said gruffly. "All I ever wanted was to be with the woman I loved." Wendy closed her eyes, hearing the pain behind his words.

"You should have told me this earlier," she said. "This is something I had a right to know."

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled. She opened her mouth to protest a little more, but he kissed her into silence.

"Van, I'm serious," she said, once she had moved away from him a little. "We're married now. We shouldn't keep secrets from each other."

"You might be right," he admitted, "but this is hard."

"What is?" Once again, she wasn't following his train of thought.

"Having someone to share everything with," he explained. "It's not like it's bad," he added quickly. "But it takes practice. I'm not trying to hide things from you, but I'm not used to being this close to anyone. Look, I can't promise to be a perfect husband, okay?"

Wendy very nearly retorted that she of all people knew quite well that he wasn't perfect. Instead, she said: "I'm not asking you to be a perfect husband. I'm just asking you to be my husband. I mean, I just want us to be unified . . . not to let anything come between us . . . I mean, I want us to really be together." This wasn't quite what she meant to say, but she didn't know how to say what she really meant.

"We are," he assured her. "For as long as we live." He drew her back into his arms and sealed his words with a kiss.

THE END

Sorry for the delay; endings always seem to give me more trouble than I expect. As you can see, this is mostly just emotional fluffiness, but I hope it gave enough closure to the story.

Thanks for reading, everyone, and thanks for all the reviews!