Ghost Living (Alice)

[Helena Rahal]

Three months, it was still hard for Claudia to believe that it was real even if in a week it would have been three months. How had she been so lucky, how had they managed to work out the issues that had come between them? It all seemed so surreal and even a bit mystical, and yet here they were, three months since Claudia and Alice had said their "I do's" and then took their romantic honeymoon in Paris. She could not even remember whose idea it was to go to the French capital but she was glad that they had, it had been the most romantic week of her life.

However the question for Claudia was what was she supposed to be doing now with her life. She had been a ghost in a shell before being brought to life and then she had been left to her own devices which had nearly ended poorly. It was not that she was not intelligent, that was far from the case, but she could not seem to find her own direction. Being with and around Alice seemed to ground and center her but she could not ask Alice to be her life and compass, at some point Claudia knew she had to take control of her own fate.

At least to that end, an associate of hers and Alice had been able to procure her identification. Claudia was not sure she wanted to know exactly how the man had been able to get a birth certificate, social security number, and driver's license for a person who had not truly been born. However she was grateful for the act all the same, even if she suspected that the methods for obtaining them had been quite less than lawful or the rightful channels for getting them.

Today she was lounging around the loft in a baby blue silk teddy, staring out the window at the rising sun. Claudia could say that she was definitely comfortable and perhaps even content with life, she was most definitely happy with her marriage, but something hungered inside her for something more. Was that merely being human, to not be satisfied with what she currently had and wanted something more than that? Would she ever stay just a ghost of the two others who had provided her being? How could she ask Alice about it without coming off as ungrateful or not happy, when she truly was happy with her?

[Alice Taylor]

Alice didn't have too many role models in her life in terms of marriage. She knew very few people that had the idea of a perfect household, complete with husband and wife, one older boy and younger girl for children, and a Golden Retriever for a pet, all living in a beautiful house complete with that white picketed fence. The kind that you only find on television in the past, with everyone smiling way too much for it to be passed as sanity. Modern families are far more complicated. Take her life for example. Alice was a twenty-five-year-old former actress with a wife that was technically not that much older than her three-year-old daughter, and somehow associated with some of the most powerful people and families in the world. Compared to her friends, Alice's own family was quite overshadowed, but she was very grateful for it. She could do what was best for those she love, without the judgements from those that knew little about their lives.

What had been difficult was to marry a woman that hadn't existed until just a handful of years ago. Fortunately, while Alice had no family remaining on this green earth, Claudia's family included the all-influencing Rahal clan, and obtaining legal papers for her was even simpler than Alice thought.

Even so, Alice could feel that despite being a properly real person, something was still off for her wife. She had guessed that it was because of the adjustment to the married life, but it took Alice nearly three months to notice that Claudia must be yearning for being more than a wife. At least Alice had full time employment with Ark Industries. Claudia certainly has her own aspirations too, but Alice would never try to find out the easy way and dig through her head. If there was anything that Alice did learn from a loving married couple, her own parents (before the Company took Alice, of course), it was that married people talk, and they could talk to each other about anything, be it a pleasant or stressful conversation.

Alice was still in her onesie pajamas, peppered by pictures of Emojis, when she had finished cooking breakfast. She noticed that Claudia was awake already, and found her admiring the morning light in the loft. She gently placed a hand on Claudia's shoulder before giving her a light kiss on the cheek.

"Good morning, Sweetheart. Do you want to have breakfast here this morning?"

[Helena Rahal]

Claudia felt the stroke of Alice's hand along her shoulder before the soft embrace of a light kiss made its way to her cheek. It brought a bright smile to Claudia and she turned into her wife's tender lips, nuzzling her cheek against Alice's. She enjoyed small moments of comfort and tenderness like this, it kept her grounded and let her enjoy life instead of always fretting about what was to come. Of all those in the world, it had been Alice who had seen Claudia as someone more than merely the circumstances of her creation.

"Good morning hunny. Breakfast here would be lovely indeed!" A good start to the day, one where she could daydream or do more, she was not sure if there was any plans on the agenda really. Her focus had not been so much on the day to day affairs, even if the moments in the in between were the most important and recently the sweetest of all the moments she could have.

At which Claudia could not help but laugh a little at Alice's emoji themed choice of pajamas. Claudia recalled seeing something about there even an Emoji movie, which seemed a bit odd to her, how would you made silly icons be the subject of a movie? Granted at least it was something of an original ideal when all other movies seemed to be reboots or sequels. All the same, the pajamas still seemed devilishly funny for Claudia and the laughter simply could not be contained.

Sitting up, Claudia pulled her hands around Alice's waist and then blew a raspberry on her hip before letting her wife go. "What is the dearest wifey of mine got planned for our breakfast and day? I assume you must be off, with those pajamas you're still in, tehee!"

[Alice Taylor]

It had taken years, but Alice finally had a home filled with love and laughter. For so long her life seemed to be dragged along by the currents of greater powers, powers like the Company, her country, and all the important people she found herself constantly being surrounded by. After all this hard work, Alice had found her soulmate, a person to walk the paths of life and grow old with. No more fighting, no more politics... it was just a couple enjoying everything this wonderful world had to offer. To live, and live on... Alice had been musing over how long they would possibly live for. Claudia was a being of cosmic powers, and while Alice never asked, she was well aware that there's a high possibility that her wife may be able to last until the end of time itself. In contrast, Alice was but flesh and bone, a consciousness in a shell that will one day rot away.

All of these thoughts flashed through the young woman's head as she stared blankly out the window, where Claudia was viewing until Alice interrupted the serenity of the moment. Looking back at Claudia, who couldn't stop laughing at how childishly she had dressed herself, she gently smiled and nodded in agreement, acknowledging how funny she looked. Alice was fine being funny-looking. Claudia being as radiant as she was after waking up was good enough for the both of them. Seeing how happy her wife was gave Alice a moment of peace and serenity where she forgot about all the thoughts on death and decay earlier, a moment that was interrupted suddenly when the same wife grabbed Alice by the waist, and ---

"EEK!!! That's silly, you're silly! I'm going to get breakfast..."



As the newlyweds slowly enjoyed their meals sitting together in front of the window, fork and plate in hand with the sun warming the two in the otherwise slightly chilly room, Alice spoke up. She leaned over to Claudia, resting the side of her head on her wife's shoulder.

"Sweetheart, if you had never met me, what do you imagine you'd be doing today?" Alice wasn't sure how else she could have phrased it. Being able to read minds was beginning to dull her vocabulary.

[Helena Rahal]

Claudia happily watched as Alice went and fetched the tray with their breakfast on it, a little happy step in her wife' walk. It was happy moments that made all the stress of wondering about the what ifs in life flow away off of her as if but water. She had found a happiness in living that had been absent in her first few years of existence, that she was not sure if normal or natural. Though her entire being likely went against the very rules that nature had set up, so if her happiness to was not natural, then so be it!

It was an extravagant breakfast and one that Claudia knew she would have trouble in eating it all. She paced herself with slow bites with smiles and teasing faces at Alice in between those bites. Love and laughter was a good way to spend the morning, to spend a life if one could figure out the way how to. At least she had the love part down, as the ring on her right hand showed to all the world.

Alice's question caught Claudia off guard and she had to pause to think about how to answer the query from her wife. How do you tell the person that you are in love with about a feeling of restlessness that you did not know how to cure yourself. That there was a burning passion to do something more with the time that you were given but that something was being elusive and evasive to your musings. Claudia felt a calling to greatness, even if that greatness was small in its returns, but yet she could not find the pull of that attraction.

"I honestly do not know what my life would be had we not come together. I imagine that it would be like a ship without her captain to guide her to the next destination."