Alex sighed. “I never thought I’d see this place again,” he said softly. “Thank you.” He squeezed my hand again. “I’m home. I’m… home.”
I knew the moment was coming, and there was no way I was prepared. I knew the second his hand relaxed and his head fell to my shoulder.
I gasped, struggling to catch my breath.
“Let’s get out, buddy,” Sonny said, reaching through the window, tapping Alex.
Beck put the truck in park. “I’ll give you a hand. I know you want to see…”
He stopped talking when I lifted my hand. I lifted it as if to tell him to stop. Just stop. At that second, he too knew.
Alex was gone.
Silence engulfed the truck and Beck’s head dropped to the steering wheel.
I reached around Alex and pulled him into me, wrapping both my arms tightly around his lifeless body. I held him tight against me, burying my head into him, and I wept like I hadn’t done in a long time. The pull of loss from my soul was great. It burned in my stomach, shot up through my chest, and literally choked me. I wanted to scream, to make a noise as I cried, as if that would release some of the ache I felt. But nothing would come out, just air laced with my agony.
I couldn’t stop crying, I couldn’t stop holding him. I didn’t want to let go. My heart was broken. It didn’t matter. No amount of holding him, weeping, praying would make a difference.
Alex was gone, and he wasn’t coming back.
* * *
It was early afternoon. A cool autumn breeze swept in but with it came a sense of peace I did not believe would be there. The most surprising thing about being around someone that leaves this earth is the amount of serenity that surrounds him. It is the one thing that can make you truly believe there’s a better place that we all go.
Alex just wanted to go home. So many times since we first met, he said he wanted to get back to the Survival Haven. He wanted to see it one more time.
Prior to meeting us, he had given up all of his normal life and put it into his dream of the Haven. Then he gave all that up to trek across the country with me to help me find my child.
It was only fitting that he made it home in more ways than one.
He’d be laid to rest in a place he loved.
I stayed with Alex in the truck until they were ready to bury him. Beck wanted to dig the grave himself.
I asked Sonny what it was that Alex had to tell him on the bus.
“I can’t tell you,” Sonny told me. “I promised him I wouldn’t. You’ll find out. It’s something he needed me to put in the Doctrines.”
“It’s important?”
“Yes. Yes it is.”
Beck returned, simply stating, “It’s time.”
I placed my lips to Alex’s head and then stepped from the truck.
Beck reached inside, slid his hands under Alex’s body, and lifted him. He exhaled an emotional ache as he adjusted his friend in his arms.
I couldn’t watch them put him in the ground. It was hard enough to watch Beck carry our friend in his arms to his final resting place.
While they buried him, I went inside the Haven. I walked around Alex’s home. When I was there before, I was so distraught over the loss of Jeremy, Daniel, and trying to find Jessie that I never noticed how much there was about Alex in that place. How much I didn’t know.
I gathered things for me and for the children. Pictures, items that were probably important to Alex. Things that told a story about a different Alex, one that existed before the world turned.
A world before the Sleepers. A carefree man who laughed and lived life to the fullest.
I smiled at a picture of him in the Navy. He was thin and young and it was way before the long hair and tattoos. There was cigar box full of pictures. I took that. His music player was on the nightstand. What did he listen to? Country music, that’s right.
Anything and everything I could think of, I took as my way to hold on to him. Preserve him. It hurt me more than I ever thought possible. Losing Alex was losing a part of me. He was my partner with the kids, my rock, my nemesis at times, my hero, and my friend.
There would forever be an emptiness no one could fill. I wouldn’t let them. That spot was reserved for Alex Sans.
Alex was gone, but I had to remember, really, he wasn’t. The Haven wasn’t far from our new home. Perhaps I couldn’t touch him or hear him, but I knew when I needed an ‘Alex’ fix and more than the items I retrieved, I could come here. I could always find a piece of Alex.
Things would forever be different. We were all changed people. Grace was behind us but still with us. Our struggles were far from over; the Sleepers were still out there, on the other side of the Great Divide, but still there, waiting, one day crossing over. One day challenging us. That day could be tomorrow, next year, no one knew. A war was before us and we were ill-prepared. It was one we didn’t want to fight. Not yet. Eventually we would. Eventually.
How ironic that we had, indeed, in a sense, come full circle. Nearly two years ago, we arrived at the Haven lost and sad and in the throes of one heartbreak only to return in the throes of another.
Beck called for me.
Alex was placed in his final resting place. It was done.
It was time to go. Time to leave the Haven. Time to return to our new home.
Filled with sadness as we left the Haven, I had to remind myself, that it wasn’t just the end of one man’s legacy, it was the start of a new beginning, and I had to embrace and share the legacy Alex left behind.
As we slowly pulled away from the Survival Haven, I took a deep breath and braced myself for embarking on the next chapter of life, sadly, one without Alex.
All three of us were quiet. No one felt like talking. Laying my hand over Beck’s, I glanced back, just one more time and watched that chapter, the chapter of the Survival Haven, get smaller and smaller as we drove down the road. I watched until I couldn’t see it any longer.
Then I closed my eyes and a single tear rolled down my cheek.
It was over.
Time to move forward.
But not without remembering, always remembering.
Not without loss.
Goodbye, Alex. I will never forget you.
Table of Contents
Prologue – The Teacher
The Doctrines 13: 9-11
Part One – The Second Year
1. Mera Stevens
2. Alex Sans
3. Mera Stevens
4. Alex Sans
5. Mera Stevens
6. Alex Sans
7. Mera Stevens
8. Alex Sans
9. Mera Stevens
10. Alex Sans
11. Mera Stevens
12. Alex Sans
13. Mera Stevens
14. Alex Sans
15. Mera Stevens
16. Alex Sans
Part Two – A New Order
17. Mera Stevens
18. Alex Sans
19. Sonny
20. Mera Stevens
21. Alex Sans
22. Mera Stevens
23. Alex Sans
24. Sonny
25. Mera Stevens
26. Alex Sans
27. Mera Stevens
28. Alex Sans
29. Mera Stevens
30. Sonny
31. Alex Sans
32. Mera Stevens
33. Alex Sans
34. Mera Stevens
35. Alex Sans
36. Mera Stevens
37. Alex Sans
38. Mera Stevens
39. Sonny
40. Mera Stevens
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