From Time [Maurelle]

[Christian Moynahan]

I feel a love light rush over me
I feel a love turn to me
And then your love just creeps over me
Over me
-Sade, “Flow”

Sunday, 9 November, 2014
5:00 AM

A small wristlet vibrated noiselessly. Christian opened his eyes slowly. The sky was dark, but the sun would rise in about an hour and a half. He had an innate sense for time. Even if the wristlet had not specifically set for five A.M., he would have known more or less what the time was. He would not woken in time, however. Normally, as long as he did not have pressing work that needed to be done, he slept in on Sundays.

He turned quietly to his left. Maurelle was there, sleeping peacefully. As he often did, Christian had spent the night with her. This house, situated in the metroplex just beyond a thicket of trees, was listed as his official home, for tax purposes. He had, of course, his original home, Áine, in Los Angeles, where he stayed when he would be immediately needed at Ark Industries’ headquarters, or was working on such projects, or when he and Maurelle simply needed some space. Christian was always careful not to overstay his welcome.

This past night, though, he had wanted to be with her. He had wanted to be in her presence, in her arms, to give his body over to her to use as she pleased. Christian was not sure how he measured up for her, but Maurelle was easily the best partner Christian had ever had. That was not the only reason why he cared so deeply for her, of course. There were too many for him to lay out in line in his mind.

During the final battle at the National Mall, Christian had told Maurelle that he loved her. It had been by accident, a slip of the tongue in the midst of an urgent moment. Still, Christian would not have taken those words back. His only regret was that he had not told her in a better setting. He had repeated them, those words, a few times since then, and meant them more earnestly each time.

I love you.

Christian gazed at her silently for some time. She was absolutely beautiful, as he had always thought. But, at their first meeting, if someone had told him that he would fall in love with the woman, he would have twisted his lips in doubt. She was not his usual type. That is to say, Christian did not have a type. He was asexual, and, while he had slept with a few women over his younger years, he had never felt an attraction to it. How interesting, then, that he should feel such a strong desire for Maurelle. He had never felt anything like it in his life.

He resisted the urge to kiss her forehead in fear of waking her and then carefully drew up from from the bed. Despite being naked from head to toe, he made his way downstairs in the glass house, to use one of the downstairs bathrooms. The area around them had exactly zero neighbors, which was another plus to living there. They could do what they wanted; they could each scream as loudly as they needed to.

Normally, he did not take showers this early in the morning, but he had decided to make breakfast for the two of them this morning, so they could sit outside and enjoy the sunrise. He was not sure that Maurelle would appreciate being woken up so early, but they could always always sleep later. Or she could sleep later; he was going to work on “Project Zion,” which had to do with Specials and the regulation of their abilities; and “Project Meridian,” which… well it would support Lucius’ goals if worse ever came to worst. Neither project would be announced to the public; as far as they knew, Ark and the Kilvayne Corporation were working on ways to derive fuel from water.

Once he had showered and washed his hair - still unruly as ever - he dressed, picked up a few items, and moved to kitchen, where he started preparing breakfast. On the menu were omelets and crepes, strawberry cheesecake and Nutella flavors. He hummed softly as he cooked, seldom one to work in a completely silent environment.

[Maurelle Lacroix]

Maurelle usually slept quite comfortably but she had found it even easier the past few months. The threats that had plagued her and the lands that she operated in had been put to pasture. There was little to worry about, little to keep her up at night, except whatever foray into the passionate realms she decided to have. Aside from that, her life had become simple and silent compared to the months and years leading up to this. Maurelle was unsure if this was a good or a bad thing, part of her enjoyed the thrill and adrenaline, the other did enjoy how quiet things had become.

There was always things for her to do, but the expansion of her empire now seemed... a muted point. Those in power were her allies, even if some were only by necessity rather than any sort of fondness. Expanding upon what she had already developed would have cut into their authority, undermining their own lofty goals and expectations. Perhaps the time would come when her empire would need be ready to stretch out and cover the entirety of the nation, but for now its was better to consolidate her holdings and establish newer connections elsewhere.

Newer connections, perhaps those who might one day be able to purify the toxins that were a part of Christian. Taking in the toxicity of a nuclear explosion had left him... somewhere where Maurelle did not want him to be. Control was her forte, it was what she knew, and those toxins threatened the control that Christian had upon his body and abilities as far as she was concerned. Whatever mastery over it, them, that Christian claimed he might have had, Maurelle wanted to purge the toxins out of him and restore him to his former state.

He was up to something though, she had peeked into the future and seen him away from her, though for whatever amount of time she was unsure. Perhaps it was a day, perhaps a week, perhaps a month, she hadn't dared look to far forward. There was a certain line she had learned to walk when it came to dealing with her powers, she knew all too well how the future was constantly in flux and any slight deviation to the present could spin it a completely other way. All the same, she knew he was up to something, especially when she awoke to the smell of the kitchen being used.

Wrapping a silk robe around her, she ventured forth from her bedroom and into the kitchen, noticing that Christian still had driplets of water behind his ears. He must have been up for awhile yet, having had the time to shower before starting to prepare a breakfast. Was she so at ease now that she had not awoken right after he had left her bed?

"You know that it is better to dry your hair with a tee shirt rather than a towel, less damage to the hair and easier to clean behind the ears to, you goose."

[Christian Moynahan]

And I just got broken
Broken into two
Still I call it magic
when I’m next to you
-Coldplay, “Magic”

This was the strange thing about it. So much of what Christian had believed, had been, had morphed into something new in the past few months. He was still the same man, but there was another side to him now as well, one only Maurelle truly saw. Or perhaps it had been there long enough and it had taken her to dust it off. Change or no, it was all new to him… and he did not mind it at all.

He could not help but smile when he heard Maurelle approaching. He had often teased her about her height, but the truth was that she was just about average height for a woman and it was he who, at six foot two, was the abnormality. No, there was nothing “small” about her at all. Indeed, Christian was certain she could run the entire country from the comfort of her living room.

He would be thirty-five years old soon. It was time he started putting his life in order. Fallon's Ark tour would give him an opportunity to see more of the world, and the position of CEO afforded him more power than he had ever expected. What else had he wanted from life? He had always known he would not be the man to live quietly and achieve nothing, but what he had gained so far went beyond his past dreams.

Christian had been the best in every field he had touched, had designed products that still held records for indestructibility. Then he had completely turned around the image of the world's most reviled corporation, and vastly increased profits and productivity while he was at it. He was Time Magazine's Person of the Year. And he had saved the country a few times over. What more could he want? How could he top that?

He glanced toward Maurelle and chuckled at her comment. "Of course. What was I thinking?" he asked with a teasing grin. "My hair will never forgive me." He was almost joking. Christian's hair was unruly enough that it probably had its own mind for real.

"Shall we breakfast outside?" He had some news she deserved to hear directly from him. For Ark, it was excellent news. For the two of them... well, they would see.

Christian had considered the tour from several angles. He had even considered the possibility of Maurelle joining him. But Maurelle had her own work to do, and it was not the sort that she could take away months at a time… no matter how much he told her he loved her. Reality was what it was.

The omelets and crepes having been made, Christian led Maurelle outside and sat her down at the porch table while he served the breakfast. This was his way of cushioning the blow, if indeed a blow it was. Perhaps he was only exaggerating the situation, and they would be perfectly fine. He did occasionally overthink things that were this unfamiliar to him.

"Ark's PR department has worked out a world tour for me," he said to her, merely in a manner of relating information, without hinting at an opinion one way or another. "They want more of the positive exposure I've been generating. I'll be gone for three months."

He paused to consider his next words and to study Maurelle’s reaction. Would she be disappointed? Annoyed? Or would it be just another day at the office?

“I thought you should be the first to know.” He reached for his glass of orange juice but barely took a sip of it.

[Maurelle Lacroix]

"Your hair will find itself at my whims if you do not get control of it." Maurelle teased back at Christian and his unruly mess of hair. Maurelle wondered if any salon or product could truly get that set of hair to settle down into something that looked decent. It seemed to have a rebellious spirit, maybe not that so different from the body that it was attached to in the end.

Maurelle give a small nod as Christian suggested that they take their meal outdoors, following him to the outside dining area. It occurred to Maurelle that Christian was definitely trying to sweeten her up from whatever it was that he needed to tell her. Why did men think that women needed to be sweetened up before some sort of bad news or news that they thought the wooman wouldn't like? It was better just to get it out there in the open and hash through it than trying to build up some false sense of happiness as a barrier for the forthcoming blow.

Maurelle took her seat and ate as merely a means to an end, waiting for Christian to man up and finally tell her what it was that he needed to tell her. The food was decent, but the waiting was making her a bit annoyed and kept her from truly enjoying the meal. Then it started with an excuse, that Ark's PR department made up this trip. Maybe they did, but was he not the CEO who could have simply said no or sent someone else in his stead? A part of Christian wanted to be on this trip and the departure it brought.

"I already knew you were going to be gone." Maurelle said calmly, taking a drink very slowly as she tried to decide how to attack this. She could feel the annoyance raising within herself, which spelt trouble for all, as a series of agitated flowed through her mind. Still she kept her calm demeanor as she held on to a string of her more rational side rather than riding on the train of the impulse emotions.

"I am always the first to know, but you already knew that. So this is theatrics basically." That sounded more harsh than it did in her head, but oh well it was said now. She thought about offering to rearrange her schedule, but the way Christian was acting with his body language and the visions of the future told her it would be futile to pursue that course of action.

"The course is set, the engineer and conducter have performed their checks, all that remains is for the passenger to board then."

[Christian Moynahan]

A simple spell cast is broken through
The force of life decides to bend
You lay below the sacred stormy skies
and you will write the end for me
-Ra, “Walking and Thinking”

There was a sudden tension between them that Christian had not anticipated. He had planned for this moment for some time now, and he had thought he had known Maurelle well enough to pull this off. As it turned out, that was not the case. He felt her annoyance rising, and began to wonder whether this was the right moment for this. His right hand absently went to his right pocket, his fingers grazing against the object he had slipped into it while getting dressed. How much did she know already? Dating a precognitive… it was more challenging than he had imagined.

Of course, for a very long time, Maurelle had been without her abilities, and that, perhaps, had made it easier for him. He had taken that time to get to know her and break past those walls she had been so determined to keep up. Now… things were different. Now… he didn’t know what to do.

“Theatrics,” he said softly. “Yes, I suppose they are.” He should have expected that she knew. There was no sense in fighting over it; at first, given the way she had uttered those words, he had expected to grow angry, but all he felt now was… exhaustion. Frustration, with himself. No, he had imagined himself too far above his place with her, had started moving too quickly. Then again, he had never been here before, had never felt this way about anyone, and he had no clue what to do. All he knew was that he wanted Maurelle to be his, for as long as she would have him.

That time seemed to be exhausting itself.

He studied her as she likened his trip to boarding a train. Running? Perhaps he was. He had never let Fallon chart his course before, so why was he doing so now? Uncertainty. This, he recognized, was familiar. He had a habit of running when things became too uncertain. There was a difference between uncertainty and spontaneity. One of the two made him extremely nervous.

“I had wanted…” What had he wanted? For her to come with him, for one. But what would that have meant? And he knew he had wanted… well, that was out the window for now. If they could survive this fight - their first one, he thought - then perhaps he could salvage it all. Or was he making too much of this? He really did not know.

How could he tell Maurelle that he might have been running away from what he was feeling? That would only have made matters worse, he was certain of it. He had two choices: He could either take the trip, or he could cancel it. His mind raced through all of the possible outcomes. Leaving meant being away from her… and that was something he did not want. Might it even threaten the strength of their relationship?

Then again, what did canceling the tour mean? Was that what Maurelle wanted him to do? It certainly sounded as though she did, based on her tone. Christian had always prided himself on his ability to read others. Now, though, he suspected his own desires were bleeding into his perception. He had to start over. Blank slate. All right.

What do I know? I know that I am set to take a world tour. I know that Maurelle is upset. I know that I do not want to leave. I know that I love her.

What don’t I know? I don’t know whether she loves me. I don’t know what the outcome will be if I leave. I don’t know what the outcome will be if I don’t. I don’t know…

…whether I should be looking at this from a logical perspective or an emotional one.

And there it was. His fundamental mistake. He never knew when logic had to step aside for what he really felt. Now, he decided, he would gamble on the latter. He took a deep breath. Roll ‘em.

“I don’t want to take this tour.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I won’t. I have other plans. Plans that require me to be here.”

He reached into his pocket, knowing that he was about to make either the greatest mistake of his life… or the best.

Christian placed the object, a small velvet box, on the table, but kept his palm resting over it, concealing it largely from view.

“It’s time I stopped running.”

[Maurelle Lacroix]

Maurelle raised an eyebrow as Christian spoke those words, sure she was not hearing him right. Had her short sighted fool just grew a spine and actually decided to do something about this hurdle that he was setting up? Of course though, he was being his typical short sighted fool, since cancelling the tour was totally a horrible move, but it seemed that something unmentionable had just dropped from their hiding place. It was near enough that she felt she could have laughed or slapped him right in the face, both seemed fairly pleasurable at this point.

Oh he was so nervous about doing as well as he hand kept fidgeting and going inside his jacket pocket. Was she that intimidating to him, was her opinion and wants truly that instrumental to his own happiness? That gave her a momentary pause and cooled off some of the fires that were burning deep inside of her. The implications of that would be of a large magnitude and something that she did not foresee, even without her powers. Did she feel the same for this fool that had decided to team up with her and if she did, what did that mean?

Where she should have been smirking as Christian came to grips with his own reality and the power that was his, instead she pouted. This was an uncomfortable situation all of a sudden as she did not know herself or what it was that she desired, where she stood in this moment. Would she have rearranged all that was on her plate simply to have more time with Christian, even if it meant that the repercussions of such a move would eventually bite her in the ass? She gasped as she realized that she had already done so. "Oh..."

Quit running... what did that even mean, was he doing what she thought he was... was there something in his jacket? No, that could not be, could it? There were an item but it was just a fling was it not, a mutually beneficial fling that kept... other items and matters at bay. That was what she had told herself, though for a fling it had persisted far longer than most of her previous ones. Christian had not been so easily pushed aside whenever she felt the threat of danger or thought that things had escalated too much.

"You really are a fool aren't you?" Maurelle shook her head and laughed a little. Oh what a day this was going to be if this was merely the start of it. "We both know that cancelling the trip is a total mistake, however..." Could she be so bold?


"I think there is something else that you wanted to talk to me today about. What's in your pocket precious?"

[Christian Moynahan]

Sleight of hand has made amends
Let us lay the rest
Screaming sirens sing the blues
We play to lose
-10 Years, “Miscellanea”

Things seemed to be spiraling out of control as whatever command Christian had had over the conversation was slipping away from him. It was probably what he deserved for trying to plan ahead; but then again, how would this have gone had he not come into it with a plan? He would have been far less comfortable, far less confident. But comfort and confidence were both running out quickly right now.

His mind was slowly phasing into panic mode. What was he supposed to do now? Everything was wrong, he’d judged everything so wrong, so wrong. Or was it that he had done something wrong? Was there some little hitch in his plan that he had not pulled off, or the opposite? He knew he should have consulted Gabriel before going into this, but he still did not see the use of making too much of their relationship known publicly, even to his friends.

That was pretending, of course, that no one knew. His friends all knew or suspected it. Some of his coworkers suspected it. Even the media liked to guess at it, while calling him “the world’s most eligible bachelor.” There were times that he just really doubted that. In fact, he doubted himself. He was doubting and judging himself harshly at just that moment.

Being called a fool did not help in the slightest. Christian sighed and rested his head in his palms. He was a fool, then. Fine. He could handle that. He could own that. But he wasn’t sure what to do with it. The last thing he wanted to do was alienate Maurelle and damage their relationship, whatever that meant. She seemed to be taking it all rather lightly, however. Was that a good thing?

And canceling the trip? Wasn’t that what she had wanted him to do? Or had he misread her? That was entirely possible. He had no clue what Maurelle wanted from him. If anything at all. “It may be a mistake, but it’s what I’d rather do. I don’t want to be trotted around like a pony at a show.” He also did not want to be away from Maurelle, but he was not certain whether that was a wise thing to say. There was so clearly a disconnect between them.

Apparently she had noticed that something else was on his mind. Well… it was too late to back out now, wasn’t it? A coward would have lied and denied that he wanted to talk about anything else, and Christian knew he was not a coward. He shifted his hand slightly, letting it fall away to expose the box.

“I was going to talk about the future,” he said. “I want to know what you want from it… because I know what I want.”

[Maurelle Lacroix]

Maurelle grew a sinister grin as he mentioned being trotted around like a showpony. "Oh I don't know, perhaps you would look good with a bit between your teeth, a blinder harness, and some pony shoes." Whether that little jest would actually lighten the mood Maurelle was unsure but it certainly proved an amusing mental image. The giant goofball needed to quit trying to get everything so perfect, the world was too chaotic to create something perfect. What you needed to do was simply control what you could and roll with whatever was beyond your measure and scope.

That was her purview, the concept and functionality of control in a world that was sinning on a choatic axis. Even now, in the supposed tranquility that the Kilvayne presidency was bringing, the world was still weaving chaotic webs. Only now, those that were crafting the chaos were out of sight, but those were words best left unspoken given how the current regime came about. It was not her place to topple what they had gone to such great lengths to build, so she played her part as Gabriel and Christian asked. Yet Maurelle knew better than to suspect the world would remain in a constant state that was not flux.

Maurelle tilted her head curiously as Christian finally admitted to the truest thing he wanted to talk about, the future. That made Maurelle feel a bit uneasy, as she suspected what it was that was in his pocket and what would be coming if she said the right things. There was always the option of blowing it all up in Christian's face, to continue to be aloof and confound him, yet that would be undeserving amount of cruel at this moment. Yet her question to herself was could she settle down, could she ultimately be a one person woman?

"What I want from the future is clouded by the strings of passions and the pulls of desire. You do not know what it is you ask when you ask a precognitive what it is they want from the future. They already know what is to be..." It was perhaps harsh and a bit aloof but she was uncertain as to what it was she actually desired from the forthcoming days, weeks, and years. Christian was a capable mate but was he the sort that was worth forgoing other ventures for?

"I want what I want when I want it. I am the master of control of everything... but myself. I do not have control over what it is I desire. So if you intend to get on your knee and ask me that question, then I suggest to you that you know that you are gambling on a wildcard. Are you a gambling man, Christian?"

[Christian Moynahan]

I love me
I love me enough for the both of us
That’s why you trust me
I know you’ve been through more than most of us
So what are you,
what are you, what are you so afraid of?
Darling you
you give but you cannot take love
-Drake (Jhene Aiko), “From Time”

At her comment about his being dolled up like a pony, Christian chuckled and shook his head. The crack did help to ease the tension a bit, but only for a moment. It did give him a chance to smile briefly; like a ray of sun slipping through a rain-soaked canopy. He tilted his head slightly and regarded her as though trying to read her thoughts. It was no easy task, of course. It had taken months for him to break past that wall she had built around herself, for her own protection; and now he was beginning to feel as though he had broken the wall so much as scraped at it.

He was a perfectionist. He also believed there was no such thing as perfection. He was working endlessly toward an ideal he did not even believe in himself. It had taken years to realize that the imperfections in himself were what led to this external battle; he did not know how to fix himself, so he built engines, he designed pharmaceutical drugs, he worked on everything that he could touch.

Now he closed his eyes. Had he screwed up again, overstepped his bounds? When he opened his eyes again, his gaze was searching, but his mind working, as always, faster than sound. He knew exactly what this was, although he had usually been on the “winning” side of it. This was a case of ”I love you, but I’m not in love with you.” He may have secured a place in Maurelle’s life, but in her heart? Of that… he was less certain.

He read a touch of uneasiness in Maurelle’s expression. This brought him to his next question. He could give up everything, could refrain from all other relationships, could build a life and perhaps even a family with this woman… he knew he could be completely happy spending the rest of his life with her. He was ready for that. She… wasn’t.

Her answer, at first, seemed very vague and a bit escapist. Of course she could see the threads of what could be, so many different versions of events with just the slightest variance, but it was no kind of answer… until he considered that knowing what the future might bring was not the same as wanting what the future might bring. She was telling him that she was biased this time… by her own desires, which she, like anyone else, could not simply ignore or set aside.

“I’ll ask you simply as a woman, not as a precognitive.” His voice was soft, much more so than he would have liked it to be, but his heart was nearly in his throat and his sight was beginning to narrow. “I will not expect you to bind yourself to me. This is a trial of sorts.” Now it was he who was being a bit aloof, but it was fair enough. He felt.

He was a propulsion engineer. Of course he was a gambler. And, like any good gambler, he could recognize tells. He had already seen her uncertainty, in her eyes. He could hear the same in her voice. Most of all, though, he noted that she addressed him as “Christian.” In serious conversations like this one, he was accustomed to hearing her refer to him as “Mister Moynahan.” This was going to be a difficult move… but he knew he had already decided on his response.

“Let’s find out what kind of hand I have.” His heart was beating so hard that he was certain Maurelle could hear it, and inwardly he had to take a breath to steady himself. He stood up, then took a knee before her, opening the little velvet box.

Inside was a slender ring, a rose gold band, diamond pavé all the way around, except for the center stone, which was a stunning shade of orangeish-pink, like a sunrise. This was morganite, a fairly rare precious stone.

“Maurelle Lacroix,” he said softly, his gaze meeting hers, “will you give this short-sighted fool a chance to start a new life with you?”

[Maurelle Lacroix]

Asking her as a woman and not a precognitive, she should have expected that he would pull out that card, it was what she would have done. Comparing it to a trial seemed silly as well, a trial was a difficult and often came with one party feeling the worse for it. "This is no trial, this is a test." The question though was though who would pass the test? Would just one of them find the answers that came with the riddle, would both of them, or would neither find the right equation to solve this question before them?

Were people like Christian inept at the interactions between their fellow human beings, was the puzzle of humanity not one for them to solve? All the decisions he seemed to take when dealing with matters of the heart seemed to be trying to approach it like it was just another experiment he was attempting to perfect. She was no puzzle to be solved, no formula that he needed to find missing variables for as much as he would try. What she was was a human being with all the chaos that came with what it meant to be human, with what emotion brought to the world.

She rolled her eyes as he remarked about finding out about the strength of his hand, oh she already could guess what it was. It was no surprise then when he pulled out the velvet box and got to a new and asked in his own way for her hand in marriage. It seemed that he was in fact willing to gamble on the wildcard, though for good or ill she could not tell. As much as she preached about seeing the future, she did not look into her own, because she could not look past her own choices, not the ones she did not understand. A movie once tried to establish that...

"Oh get up off your knee you bafoon, I wont have you acting like we're in the 1800s, gosh." She said as she physically pulled him up off his feet. Despite her smaller stature compared to Christian, she was deceptively strong and could easily pull him to his feet. However she decided not to go and dust his shoulders off as the look on his face was just too... much. Somehow she knew she was going to never live this down.

"I suppose every queen's court needs its fool or jester. Oh, we live by my rules now, hope you can keep up."

[Christian Moynahan]

I’m taking it slow
feeding my flame
shuffling the cards of your game
And just in time,
in the right place
suddenly I will play my ace…
-Blue Foundation, “Eyes on Fire”

Was it a test? Christian preferred to think it was not. A test was something one could fail or pass, while a trial was simply a chance to see what happened when two elements came together. Or, at least, that was the way he looked at it. He approached everything with a scientist’s eye. He always had, even as a child.

And ah, his heart… he never heard it speak to him. Or if it did, it spoke in theorems, in functions, in algorithms. Those were things he could understand. That was his language. But not everything translated well; just as with any other language, there were… things that no other language could express. The language of the heart was filled with those.

Was this the trade-off, then? She could show him how to be a better man, how to be whole, not part man and part computer. Through her, he could finally begin to unravel the mystery that had always confounded him: the irrationalities of a human being. And he… he could teach her to love… him.

He knew he was still facing one final wall, at least one final wall, and that was the one that barricaded her heart. She did not love him, not yet. He could read it in her tone, her actions, her response. Perhaps her cavalier reaction was simply a ploy, to hide her true feelings. He suspected it was not. All the same, as he let her pull him to his feet, he saw that the balance was off, and that the scales of their relationship were tipped heavily in Maurelle’s favor.

That was not something he had ever minded before, but now, it felt off. One engaged and one playing at being engaged would just not fit, trial or test or none. How serious was she about this? He needed to know, because the commitment he had just made was, to him, very, very serious.

As he slipped the ring onto her finger, he remembered having the ring made, how he had “borrowed” a ring from her collection to size it correctly, how he had inspected every jewel personally before the craftsman put it all together. That was how serious he was. Christian Moynahan never did anything by halves.

“When did we never live by your rules?” He gave her cheek a little peck, then wrapped his arms around her. Was this what newly engaged couples were meant to do? He hardly knew where to start.

He would have to learn.