Fog Bastards 2 Destination

by Bill Robinson

  She looks at me funny.

  "I'm serious, Perez. Call the FBI? Destroy everything and leave them to their fate? Rip their fucking arms off? You tell me, and it will happen."

  "For now," she says, "let's leave their arms attached to their bodies. Once we know what evidence we have, we'll know whether or not giving them to the feds will work."

  "Yes sir. No arm detaching. How about a couple fingers?"

  "Air Force." It's her exasperated voice. "Anger leads to the dark side."

  "Thank you Obi-Wan."

  We go back to talking options, including the nagging issue of becoming alive once again. I have been dead for nine weeks, and I am totally happy about it, but I can't save the world and be dead all at the same time. I have another week off from work I can use any time, my second and last vacation week of the year, so I can deal with the bad guys, but that does not mean I necessarily have to go public right away.

  Before we can reach any conclusions, Maria brings us lunch, and there are eight of us (Perez, parents, me and four brothers) and two dogs enjoying sandwiches in the afternoon sun.

  I spend the afternoon engaged in backyard football with the brothers and dogs, the evening eating and getting my ass kicked by Perez playing Combat Alert III on the family game console. She shoots just as well in cyber space as she does in real life.

  Mr. Perez offers me a room of my own, the older brothers' room, but the younger brothers convince me to bunk with them. They want to talk flying, the youngest thinking about violating the family code and going to the Air Force Academy instead of the police academy.

  We go out for brunch Monday, then back to her house, and everyone leaves us alone for the afternoon. Perez tells me she reached a conclusion during our shooting adventure, and we finish a plan not long after dark, gather the pages into a nice neat pile, and sit back in our chairs.

  "I didn't thank you for saving my life." Out of the blue, no prep.

  I use my best Batman voice. "And you'll never have to." She smiles.

  "Do you know how much time you lost?"

  "No. Don't care. Doesn't matter."

  "It does to me."

  "My clock was ticking anyway, Perez. You deserve a long and happy life."

  Then her dad's at the back door, reminding us it's time to go. She grabs her crutches and hobbles off with me. It's big hug time, and Mr. Perez is driving me to the airport so I can catch a flight home.

  "You and Kiana are up to something," he says when we're nearly there. It was obvious he had something he wanted to say, but it took a long time before he said it.

  "Yes. The FBI and DEA are no closer to finding out who set the bomb then they were a month ago. Kiana is smarter than them, and she has me doing leg work. We have something hard now which we can hand to the feds. They ought to trust her given her track record."

  "Be careful. I don't want to have to sit next to your hospital bed."

  "With your daughter after them, they're the ones that need to worry."

  He laughs. "Still, I worry."

  "And I'm glad you do. But we are done investigating, assuming the FBI gets off it's ass now."

  Then he gets serious on a different track.

  "My daughter needs to start a new life once she's able. She may need your help."

  "I already told her that I will do anything I can. She's family. She's more than that. But I wouldn't count her out of going back to her old life yet. No one is más fuerte than her."

  "She says the same about you. It's a shame you won't be partners any more."

  "No matter what happens, sir, your daughter and I will always be partners."

  He doesn't say anything else until we get to the airport, then simply reminds me to thank my mom and dad again for all their help.

  On the flight home, I make a decision. The light stands and applauds.

  Chapter 17

  In a way, it's stupid. I fly home in the jump seat of a 757, then drive to Upland so I can fly back to San Francisco without an airplane.

  It's 10:30, or thereabout, by the time I get back to the Perez house and land quietly on the roof. Her window is cracked open a touch, but the screen is blocking. A little push on the molecules, and I am hanging in the air outside. Quietly, knowing the trouble I'm in if I wake her up, I slide the window the rest of the way open, then push on the screen, both in and up at the same time. It conveniently comes out of its tracks, I slide it to the floor, and am free to enter.

  As gently as I possibly can I fly over to her bed, and land beside it. Bending over, I repeat the light kiss on her forehead that worked last time I wanted to fix her. Just as before, a little piece of light jumps between us as my lips finish the kiss. She doesn't stir, and I am out the window, float, replace the screen, bail for home and my flight out.

  We land in Kona just before noon local time, about 15 minutes late, the ocean breeze and sun perfect complements to my mood. There's a text on my phone that uses some bad words. It makes me happier, if that is possible. I may not be around to see Kiana Perez back at work, living a full life, eventually teaching little Perez's how to clean a Glok, but I know it will happen and that's all I need.

  I'm flying with a new captain, fresh to the company from another airline, and he seems like a decent guy, especially when I take him for $50 on the golf course. He flies straighter than he putts.

  Early evening I change in my room, sneak down to the beach, make sure no one is looking, dive into the ocean, push underwater molecules until I'm a couple miles off shore, then breach and jet to San Francisco, Mach speed but not fast enough to leave a trail or destroy my underwear.

  Her house is dark, but she's sitting on the bed in her room, obviously still awake. I slide the window up, loud enough that she can hear, and she's there, helping me take the screen off. As soon as I'm in the room, she wacks me on the arm, hard, not hard enough that I feel it, but hard enough that it hurts her.

  Then she's crying, pounding on my chest with both fists, chanting, "Fuck you, Air Force, Fuck you, Fuck you," over and over and over again.

  I let her hit me a dozen times, then wrap my arms around her and pull her into as comforting a hug as I can manage, she puts her head against my chest, stops talking, but keeps crying.

  Eventually, I take my arms from around her, put a hand on each upper arm, and push her slightly away from me. She picks her head up and looks me in the eye, which was my intention.

  "I love you, Kiana Perez. I know there can't be anything between us, but I don't care. I know what I said, but I couldn't leave you in pain."

  "You believe what Ali said about me?"

  "And Jen."

  "Jen told you about us?"

  I give her a little nod.

  "Simon, I pretended to be gay when I moved to LA to avoid wrestling matches at work. I like girls, I play with girls, but I am not...."

  She never gets the last word out. Our lips meet, and we're kissing, crying, smiling, teardrops rolling off both our cheeks.

  "You should have said something." Probably not the best thing for me to say at the moment, but all that came out.

  "You could have asked, instead of listening to a terrorist."

  I answer that with another long, slow kiss. When we're done, she pushes me back a little.

  "Air Force, you should have listened to me. Six months now. Six months."

  I must have had my usual stupid look on my face, because she asks a question.

  "You haven't visited with your fog friend, have you?"

  "No. No need. I told him I didn't care what the price was, and I don't. If tomorrow is my last day, today was worth it."

  She hits my arm, softly.

  "He came to see me again tonight. Colorful fog, blue and yellow and red."

  "That's the mad fog."

  "Mad fog?" She laughs a puzzled laugh. "He told me you have until the first of the year, maybe into January."

  "I really need to get you a cat."

  "Air Force." She's using her exasperated voice again.<
br />
  "I love you Kiana Perez."

  She falls into my arms again and goes back to crying.

  I wait a couple minutes, then I whisper. "Come to LA for the weekend."

  "I.... Ok."

  "Good. I need to get back to Hawai'i."

  We exchange another kiss, warm on my skin even though I'm him, something else on the long list of things I can't explain.

  Now it's her turn. "I love you Simon Packer." A quick kiss, and I am gone out the window. How is it that I just found out I have maybe seven months to live, and I am happier than I have ever been in my life?

  Get home from Kona after 10 on Wednesday night, and go to sleep, anxious to have my chat with Fog Dude. I don't get the technicolor angry fog, I get the original. Dark and white at the same time, swirling, the evil grass mowed back to two inches tall, the sound of boots, the tall man with his pet fog balls in tow.

  "You should have listened to us."

  "She'd be dead, and don't give me any Yoda I should let Han and Leia die if I honor what they believe in crap."

  He stops to think for a minute. Mistake. Halloween lets him have it and I am awake, alert, and in love.

  I eat, go running, shower, and get dressed, head in to the airport. Bradford and I are riding bikes in the parking lots today. I call Perez while on break, but get her voice mail.

  She calls just as I finish my lunch, and we finalize details for her visit. I paid her rent for her, so her place is still her place, and still full of her stuff. Her Mustang is still parked there. After she hangs up, I call dad to get her on a plane tomorrow.

  She spent her morning with two astonished doctors, one not believing that her vision was starting to return, the other amazed that her knee had so little damage when he took the cast off. She pretended not to have full vision back, and limped a lot.

  We end our conversation with an exchange of "I love you's." Can't get enough of those.

  Chapter 18

  Friday I am at the gate at 11 to meet her as she gets off the 10 a.m. from San Francisco, advantage of my life that I am not bound by normalcy. In fact, after the semi-awkward first public hug and kiss (which is also technically the first time I've kissed her, he kissed her last night), she tells me she's hungry, and we grab some tacos and eat on the flight deck of a parked 757. She hits me a couple times, complaining jokingly about the size of my smile.

  A dozen times during the course of lunch I feel compelled to reach out, touch her, make sure she's real.

  We walk together to the main LAPD offices, holding hands, though it occurs to me that we will never be able to do this once she is back at full strength. After a month of muscle atrophy, I can still barely keep up with her.

  It takes us an hour to get out of there, everyone so happy to see her up and well, then we grab Starbuck and head to her apartment, where we spend the afternoon cleaning before we take Starbuck over to her tia's restaurant, with another half hour of tears and hugs before we can eat. Perez is clearly exhausted by the time we're done, and she probably should have skipped the wine.

  Back to her place, park Starbuck next to the Mustang, walk hand in hand to the door, me more nervous than I ever remember being. I stop her at the threshold.

  "You should make me go home, get a good night's sleep, and take me out tomorrow."

  She laughs. "You're coming in. We're not doing anything but sleeping, but I'm not sending you home."

  And that's the way it is. Her in her night shirt, me in my underwear, she falling asleep almost instantly when her head hits the pillow, me staring at her for a long time, then dropping off myself. Fog Dude, for once, showing some decency and staying away.

  I am up before her, slip as quietly as I can into the bathroom to get rid of my excess fluids, and swirl mouthwash. I hear her before I finish, and wander back out. She's got breakfast cooking, we eat and make a plan for the day.

  Turns out she's staying for a week. Turns out she wants to stock her place with my stuff and my place with her stuff before she goes. Turns out she'll be back permanently the instant her doctors give permission. Turns out I can't get the smile off of my face.

  We spend the day out shopping and eating, buying two sets of clothes for her place (his and mine) and one set of hers for my place. Early evening we meet up to eat with a couple of her friends. She's in worse shape by the time we get to my place than she was last night. We curl up together on my lumpy bed and go off to sleep, Halloween happily joining us.

  Sunday we walk the beach, hand in hand, clean my place, and generally do nothing until it's time to go visit mom and dad, where we eat barbeque and play with the dog. Mom and dad are so protective they won't even let her get up to refill her own drink.

  Part way through a thought occurs to me.

  "Perez, come to Hawai'i with me tomorrow."

  "Ok." That was way too easy, she's clearly not herself. Dad gets on the phone and fixes it while we watch. Eventually we head back to my place, grab my flight bag and uniform, then head to her place to spend the night. For better or worse, it's the third straight night of plain old ordinary fogless sleep.

  The alarm goes off on time, we both reach to turn it off, Perez wins, and then we engage in a long kiss.

  "I'm not avoiding you, Air Force," she says after we get our tongues back into the mouths they were born in.

  "Didn't think you were. I'm more worried that I made you come down here too soon than I am about us not having had sex."

  She brushes the hair off my forehead and looks me in the eye.

  "Don't be. I am where I want to be."

  I kiss her again. "Then let's be in Hawai'i."

  She calls first in the shower, I cook breakfast while she's there, then I get clean, we clean up, and grab her Mustang. She hasn't driven in six weeks, and wants to give it a try. Unfortunately, rush hour in LA is no test of the Perez driving method. We never get above 40 miles an hour, and she's pretty frustrated by the whole thing. Plus her car needs a bath, bad.

  She drops me at dispatch, and takes herself over to the LAPD offices so that she can avoid security. We meet at the top of the terminal, and she walks to the gate with me, Captain Don the Perfectionist, and the flight attendants. She had complained at first about having to sit in first class and not the cockpit, but in the three minutes it takes all of us to walk to the gate, the flight attendants have convinced her that she does not want to spend six hours in the tiny cockpit jump seat when she can spend it in a big first class seat getting waited on hand and foot.

  We sneak her on board with us, Captain Don less than happy about it, and the drinks start early. I go down and do my walk around, stop to talk to her after I finish and board the aircraft, give her a quick kiss, and get to work.

  I peek at her once during the flight on the excuse of having to use the restroom, and she's sound asleep. I make a perfect landing (to everyone except my captain), collect Perez, and together we walk out into the gorgeous Hawai'i day.

  She and the first class flight attendants have already made plans to go snorkeling, so it's check into the hotel, eat lunch at the ocean side bar, and then up to Kahalu`u Bay. My first time seeing Perez in a bikini.

  "Can I say, officer Perez, how stupid I have been to not get you here sooner?"

  She laughs, taunts me with various body parts, and slips into the ocean. We swim for an hour before I make her exit and sit on the beach, not wanting to let her overexert herself. It's the smart move, except it's a mistake, in that I spend the rest of the afternoon staring at her. She's firm where she should be firm, with certain nicely curvy parts. Much larger nicely curvy parts than I had expected. There are also at least a dozen visible scars, each a reminder of my failures.

  The shuttle carries us back to the hotel, and we go upstairs to shower. She tells me to go first. It's a trick, because as soon as I am in with the water all adjusted right, she joins me. I finally get to see her nekked.

  "Can I say, officer Perez, that you are the most magnificent woman I have ever seen?"

/>   "Yes, you can," she says, laughing. Then we start kissing, and don't stop for a good long while, the water pouring off of us. Finally, I push her back, grab the bottle of liquid soap I always carry, and wash every perfect inch of her with my bare hand. She doesn't return the favor, instead, she makes sure the soap is gone, turns the water off, takes me by that hand and leads me to the bed.

  We're on the spread, wet, slippery, I kiss her lips for a second, then kiss every perfectly clean inch of her until I bury my head between her legs for a good 15 minutes, and she makes serious enough squeals that I know she is done, more than once. This time she returns the favor, then, leaving me on my back, climbs on top. I shouldn't let the injured woman do all the work, but I do, blissfully finishing inside of a woman I love for the first time in my life.