Alien in the Family

you got hurt.”
    “Hardly. That crazy chick was the reason.” He closed his eyes.
    “I’m sorry.” I bent and kissed his cheek. “I’ll get Paul back in here.”
    Reader tightened his hold on my hand. “No. Just you right now. I . . . need to tell you something.”
    My throat got tight. “Okay.”
    He opened his eyes and managed about half of his standard cover-boy grin. It was still great. “I was dead, you know.”
    “No, you were close.”
    “No. I was dead. I saw the light, I heard . . . voices. And I heard you, you and ACE. Then I heard ACE tell Tito what to do to bring me back.” He swallowed. “I know you think, and ACE thinks, that it was what ACE told Tito to do that saved me. It helped, of course, but . . . I was already dead.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    He reached his other hand up to my face. “God decided you needed to have someone around you could talk to.”
    The tears rolled down my face. “He chose well.”
    Reader tugged at my hand. “Come here, you need to rest.”
    I figured the medical team would throw a fit, but I’d handle that when they came in screaming at me. I crawled onto the bed next to him. It was an A-C facility so the bed, like everything else, was top of the line, and it was large for a hospital bed, easily fitting two on it.
    Reader put his arm around me and gently put my head onto his chest. “Relax. Nothing hurts but my head.”
    I managed a laugh, though I was still crying. “Jeff and Paul are going to wonder about this.”
    “They wonder about us already.” He stroked my arm. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to kill her.”
    “I know. But I would have anyway.”
    “Yeah, I know. I shouldn’t complain, I think it’s why I’m back, so to speak.”
    “Why?” I closed my eyes. I wasn’t used to leaning on a chest with a single heartbeat in it anymore, but it always felt good when Reader held me.
    “One act can change someone. If you’d killed her, or any of the others had done it, it would have made you what she is, just like ACE was afraid of.” He hugged me. “We’re here for a reason. It’s not always a clear reason, and we’re never going to win every time, but our reason is to stop evil, not become just like it.”
    “She’s still alive and wants to kill every man in the universe. And she’s not alone.”
    “Not saying evil’s got a pass, girlfriend. Just saying I don’t want you to go to that side of the house.”
    “Good thing you’re still alive and functioning then.”
    “Like I said.” He hugged me again. “You know, it was interesting.”
    “Being dead, or almost dead?”
    “Yeah. I saw a lot of things.”
    “Like what?”
    “Can’t remember them all—they’re fading more the longer I’m conscious. I think I’ll forget this, what I’ve been telling you, soon. Maybe not the light, but most of the rest. You might forget it, too. Consciously. But I think it’ll always be inside us.”
    “Okay. Do you remember anything else?”
    “Yeah.” He laughed softly. “I saw a lot of universes . . . I saw myself reflected in a lot of them.”
    “What were you like?”
    “Pretty much me.” He hugged me tighter. “You were in all of them. We were always together, in some way.”
    “Good.”
    “We were married in about half of them.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah. Happily, too.”
    “I don’t think we want to share that with Jeff or Paul.”
    “Nope. I just want you to know, though . . . if something happens to me here, and I’m not with you, I’ll be with you in all those other universes.”
    “I love you, James.”
    “I love you, too, Kitty.”
    We lay there together, and I let the hatred for Moira and what she’d done subside and ebb away. It was hard to hold onto the hatred, lying here, next to Reader, knowing he was alive and going to be okay. I started to get sleepy. “James?”
    “Yeah, babe?” He sounded as drowsy as I felt.
    “I’m not buying my wedding dress without you.”
    He chuckled. “Good. I want you looking like the hottest thing on two legs. No one I trust with that job besides myself, other than Jeff, and he’s not supposed to see the dress beforehand. A-Cs have the custom just like we do.”
    “You really think mermaid style would look okay?”
    “I think you’ll look beyond beautiful. Just like always.”
    “Coming from the best-looking human in the world, that means a lot.”
    “Good. Go to sleep now, you need the rest.”
    “You too, but . . . I don’t want to. I don’t want to