Chapter Fourteen
Forgive Me?
It had grown dark and Sparky and Ellanara were still working on the chopper. Talaric stared at where Eva still held a sleeping Rafael in her arms.
He felt his mother’s presence and turned to her. She was as beautiful as ever and as perceptive too. She took his hands holding them for a moment.
“Got yourself a girl and a family didn’t we.” She said softly studying him.
He looked away towards Eva, “I thought I had.”
“And you still do!” His mother said firmly shaking his hands a little to get his attention back to her. Talaric spoke his thoughts.
“I get the feeling that she doesn’t like me right now. I can see why she would feel like that, but I had no other choice.”
Krista was silent for a moment and then spoke her tone, softly assuring in its confidence.
“Talaric relationships are complex to say the least. It’s very much possible to be angry even perhaps hate in a way, someone you love and are committed to in a relationship. No matter how loving or cherishing a relationship between any one man or woman may be there are bound to be circumstances that seek to draw them apart. Your father and I haven’t always gotten along smoothly with each other. We’ve had our share of fights, cold silences, and personal dislikes of each other in amidst the joys of our marriage. What sets a good relationship apart from one that’s not is the underlying love that has to be there in order for a relationship to not only survive adversity, but to also thrive in the midst of it. That deep shared love is what will help both of you work past your differences. To forgive or ask forgiveness, if need be and even to change as a person. Communication is key to working through the harder times together; however it usually has to be started by one of you before it becomes a team activity.”
“That sounds hard.” Talaric intoned softly.
“It can be very hard, but the question you have to ask yourself is, is she worth it? Is your relationship worth enough to risk being hurt further?”
Krista pressed gently on her son’s back and he did the rest by stepping out toward where Eva sat with Rafael in her arms.
I looked up to see Talaric walking towards me in the gloom of the evening. He came to a stop directly in front of me and I looked upward.
“I’m sorry that my actions of holding you back caused you to suffer in the anxiousness you had to reach your son, but I’d do it all over again, because you could have been killed if I’d let you go down there along with the rest of us.”
“I know. Thank you. I was mad at you, but I’ll get over it.” I finished softly looking back down at Rafael still sleeping in my arms.
My arms hurt from holding him, but I wasn’t ready to let him go yet. I had been lonely ever since he had fallen asleep tormented by my thoughts and actions.
“Would you care to sit down for a while?” I asked almost too softly to be heard.
Quick as a cat he was sitting beside me in the sand and I knew relief inside.
“Could I hold him for a while?”
Surprised at his offer I let go of Rafael, as Talaric basically pulled him from me over onto his lap. Somewhat relieved feeling I couldn’t hold back the tiredness from the days actions or the heavy emotions of it and I leaned against Talaric’s side and let my head fall over against his big shoulder. The fingers of one of his hands found and intertwined with mine.
“I love him too.” Talaric said softly.
“I know you do.”
There was something I had been going to tell him.
“I want to come with you to help rescue Eleanor.”
I could feel that he wanted to say no to me, but instead I heard him mutter, “Okay.”, but it came very grudgingly out of him. I closed my eyes glad to have my warrior back by my side.
Sparky pushed his glasses back up from where they had slipped down onto his nose, “Well it is good to see that at least something has been fixed this night.”
Ellanara followed his gaze to where Talaric and Eva were sitting together. She was happy for her big brother. He had never had much time for her back on their world, but he had changed while here on Earth.
She was looking forward to interacting with this new side of her brother. He was more like father now and that was a very good thing in her book. She directed her attention back to the scattered pieces of what remained of the navigational equipment.
They had cannibalized it and most of the backup safety systems to provide what they needed to fix the damaged chopper. Sparky observed as she made the last few minor adjustments to the jury rigged patch job.
“You never really needed my help did you my dear? You were just graciously trying to give me a purpose to distract me from my grave error of judgment.”
Ellanara shrugged slightly, “You’ve been a lot of help Sparky, but yes I did manipulate the situation a little.”
She worked quietly for a moment, “We all make mistakes Sparky. You and I are a lot alike in that we don’t usually make mistakes in the realm of our interest, which is our work. So when we do mess up, which is inevitable at some point, we feel like the world is lost and everything has been a pointless waste of time. It’s an emotional response that’s aggravated by how much we hate to be wrong about anything much less at fault for anything. We’re slightly immature in this area of our natures Sparky. Unlike my father or even Talaric, who when faced with this type of situation choose to doggedly press on, we on the other hand choose to dwell in our mistake and flounder about in self pity, with the repercussions of wasting our thought and imagination in the process.”
She glanced up to see if Sparky was being made angry by her words, but he wasn’t. He was smiling and nodding his head along with her words.
“Yes, yes, I’ve had this lesson before, but never from one so young and astute as you.”
Ellanara smiled, “I have a good teacher. She’s showed me my weaknesses and how best to deal with them, but it still isn’t easy.” Ellanara finished with an emphatic shake of her head.
Sparky studied her curiously, “Just what is it you do on your world my dear?”
She stopped working and looked up, “I suppose you could say that I’m preparing in advance for the surprises and circumstances of the future.” She smiled mysteriously.
He would have asked more, but she cut him off, “How about we try this thing out?”
I was jarred awake by the firing of the engines coming to life. It was all quick paced then. We packed into the helicopter with barely enough room to spare. Titus with his great bulk squeezed into the copilot’s chair, while Sparky kneeled between him and Ellanara, who was going to fly the chopper.
Three of Roric’s men sat across from me, with Katie stretched out across their laps. She looked very happy with her seating arrangement and I had to shake my head at her obvious satisfaction. I sat on top of Talaric’s lap while Roric’s fourth man sat beside us holding Rafael. Krista sat on top of Roric on the other side; it was tight, but manageable.
The ride was bumpy taking off and I shifted slightly on Talaric’s lap and noticed a problem. Cautiously I turned my head slightly in order to get a look at Talaric. He wasn’t looking at me, but instead he was looking out the window as if his eyes were glued to it. The muscles of his neck were sharply tensed. I straightened back around forward and tried to hold myself still, but it was nearly impossible to.
I felt sorry for his obvious discomfort. Truly I did, but I couldn’t help derive some amusement from his predicament. Carefully I scanned around the faces of those in the cargo hold to see if they had noticed Talaric’s impassioned tenseness.
The three men across from us were completely engrossed with the blond laying across their laps and she with them. The warrior beside us was fully engrossed in showing Rafael how to whittle an animal out of a piece of wood with a small knife, which wasn’t something I considered safe as bumpy as the fight was, but I let it pass upon seeing how engrossed Rafael was in what the man was showing him.
My eyes drifted over to Roric only to see him also looking out the window his neck muscles acutely tensed. Father like son apparently, I thought to myself with a quirk of an eyebrow.
My eyes flickered to Krista to see that she was looking directly at me, with a knowing smile. I blush slightly; it was awkward that she knew what I knew, especially since it was her son I was sitting on.
She gave me a suggestive wink and shocked me completely, when she deliberately shifted her rear resting on her husband’s lap, ever so slightly. The visible pulse in Roric’s neck pounded hard for several seconds, but his focus remained on the window.
My hand flew to my mouth to help hold back the chortling laugh that I managed to turn into a believable hacked out cough. I hoped that everyone else would think my cough was the cause of my red face. I avoided looking at Talaric’s mother again. She was so bad!
What she’d done was almost mean. The truth though was that I could barely resist tormenting Talaric in the same way Krista had her husband. Talaric wasn’t my husband yet so I had to resist the impulse to torment him in such a fashion, but when he was my husband….. Oh how I wished that he was mine to openly torment and be tormented by in return by him! It was going to be a long flight.