Roads Not Traveled/Spell Broken

It was night in the western hemisphere.

Stephen and Jenna laid in the sand, surf crashing at their feet – chilling but delightful in contrast to the warm regulated air.  Technology made lives easier in the 24th century, and that included weather control, but it didn't replace anything.  The extensive ribbons of concrete that crisscrossed the Earth a few centuries back, "roads", had been removed for the most part, as travel was facilitated by air or transporter.  Great swaths of natural forestation covered the continents between cities and historical landmarks; most of the technology which kept the planet running was underground.  Here on St. Thomas, it was as natural and unspoiled as the first time European explorers set foot.

They said nothing for a time, just laid there, holding each other, looking at the stars – each thinking about their times together, in this life and the previous... places they'd been, wonders they'd seen... places they had yet to see, the time when they would hopefully come back together again.  One never knew what the future held.  The undiscovered country, as Shakespeare put it.  Stephen thought back to their first meeting in this life, their first morning together on the Arcadia.  They'd had breakfast.  He'd immediately felt something for her then – a connection which neither knew, until learning of their previous lives, was an effect of reincarnation.  Would they ever explore that world of their origins together?  Time alone would tell.  He was Menteptah, in that past life, pharaoh of a forgotten world; she was Osira, the assassin sent to destroy him.  Stephen April, starry-eyed captain who fell to earth... Starr, engineered soldier who rose above, embracing life instead of death, and became a doctor.  How far they had come since then.  The love had weathered the storm of obstacles, and grown.

And now he had to let her go.

"I'll miss you, Jenna."  It seemed silly to say.  Obvious.  He wanted to say, 'I don't want you to go, I won't let you go without me, I won't leave your side' – but they had already been through that, and it would be simply childish to keep insisting.  April was once a man used to getting his way.  He would have turned the universe upside down to achieve an objective.  His experiences humbled him: The death of Chance, the death of Cassy Evans (for whom he wanted to go back in time and change the outcome, but Vor'ok Nir prevented it, until he had learned better than to try).  Vor'ok Nir itself; then learning the truth behind Arcadia's existence.  All of it brought April down in stature.  Throwing Ringo out on his butt proved the assertive April still laid inside, but it was an instinctive part of him, now, not easily willed to the surface.  He was no longer king of the world.  He felt... smaller.

Jenna turned on her side and ran a hand over his chest.  "I know you will.  I'll miss you too, Stephen.  Please don't talk like that; I'm depressed enough as it is.  We still have the next several hours to spend together.  What are we going to do first?"

April shrugged.  "I don't like always being the one calling the shots," he said.  "Why don't you decide.  Whatever you want to do is fine with me."

He turned his head to look up at hers, propped on her hand, her arm bent in the sand.  A breeze blew strands of dark hair over her cheek.  The crashing roar of the midnight surf lulled them into a sense of complacency, and for a moment, they forgot about everything, Vulcan, Arcadia, the world, and just looked into each other's eyes.  For all the time they had known each other, none of it seemed enough.

The chirp of April's com-badge broke the spell of wind and surf.  He sighed.  He'd forgotten he'd left it on.

Turning in the sand, he fished through his heaped uniform and found it.  "April here."

It was Jallez, calling with an odd sort of request concerning Drake and a personal tour of the world... on dragon-back.  April wondered why he was calling him with this.  "Suit yourself, old man," he told the Vulcan.  "As long as the authorities are clear on your flight pattern.  Make sure Carter doesn't doze off and crash into a shuttle.  We both remember the time an accident like that happened, where we were involved."