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“So how long do humans live, anyway?” Gura asked, idly, one day as they were relaxing on a couch together, mostly pawing at their phones while letting the television fill the air with amiable background noise.
“Maybe, eighty years, if we’re lucky?” Amelia replied. She adjusted her monocle hairpin, sending a wave along her blonde locks.
Gura blinked. “That short?”
“C’mon, you’ve been here for, what, nine thousand years?” Amelia waved the air and hiccupped as she did, “Surely you’ve met enough humans to know how we work?”
“Yeah, but,” Gura made herself smile, to reassure her friend and herself, “Never anyone I’ve actually wanted to hang out with, during all that time.”
“Awww,” Amelia said. She scooched across the couch to put her arm around Gura’s shoulder, and Gura adjusted her shark tail on the couch to better cushion Amelia. “But I’m a time traveler, you know. I can visit you whenever I want.”
Gura nodded, “That's true-”
“To tell you that you smell! Ah heh heh he-” Amelia chuckled.
Gura’s expression flattened as Amelia pulled out her pocket-watch and then, vanished-
And then reappeared a moment later.
And Gura found herself gazing into the human’s bright blue eyes, in reverent silence, as Amelia’s mouth turned up into an awkward smile and then an awkward chuckle-
“Anyway,” Gura said after she broke eye contact, “Don’t call me Shirley.”
Amelia blinked twice, and then she laughed that sunshine laugh of hers, that always brought a smile to Gura’s face. Eventually Gura started laughing as well.
Amelia rested her head against Gura’s. “Buuuut, yeah,” she nodded twice, “I’m glad we’re on this journey together.
Gura wasn’t sure exactly when the banter turned into flirting, or when she started seeing Watson and thinking that the detective might be someone she’d want to spend her life with, or when she started looking at Ame and thinking that the human was just enough taller than her that standing up slightly on her toes to close in for a smooch was something she thought would be cute.
“I think I like you,” Gura said, when she and Amelia found a moment to themselves on a happy Christmas night in a room away from the crowds.
“So liiiiike,” Amelia grinned, “‘Like’ like? Or, like, like like?”
“What kind of stupid are you?” Gura said, softly.
And she grabbed Amelia’s tie to pull her down just slightly as Gura stood on her tiptoes to press her lips against the cute blondie.
Amelia froze for just a second before she touched her hand to the back of Gura’s head to pull her more into the smooch, and they held that pose together.
Every so often, Amelia would disappear for a while.
And every so often, those absences would be months, or years. In these moments, Gura felt inclined to keep track of the passage of time for this particular person, for these particular moments.
Atlanteans had long memories, so Gura was used to the amiable phantasms of mortals drifting in and out of her life. She treasured all the moments she made along the way, and the friendships she had with both humans and those supernatural beings, but each tended to only be temporary.
“Hey there, my sunshine,” Gura said. She ran up to her lover and gently touched her hands to Amelia’s forearms, and as Ame smiled back Gura leaned up on her tiptoes to plant a soft smooch to her lips. “You know, I always ask if you missed me but I'm just gonna come right out and say that I missed you,” she tapped the tip of Amelia’s nose.
“Awww,” Ame said, “I missed you too, you bozo.” She planted a soft smooch on Gura’s forehead.
And Gura jumped up and wrapped her arms around the taller girl and squeezed as tightly as she could.
Ame returned the hug and hefted Gura up and spun her around, once.
“So, I got you something,” Gura said, bashfully. She stepped out of the hug and towards a box she placed on her living room table.
Amelia’s face widened into an exaggerated expression of wonder as she accepted the box and unwrapped the box and opened the lid and pulled out a lemon.
“Wait, this is fake,” Amelia said, as she shook the vase filler next to her ear.
“Yeah, so it’ll last,” Gura said.
Ame’s eyes narrowed.
Her face reddened as she glanced at the ground. “I dunno, I just found it in the store at the same time I was randomly thinking of you and-”
Gura tried to take the box back. “I’ll get a better gift-”
“No no, I love it,” Amelia said. She picked up the plastic lemon, and rubbed it against her shirt. “It symbolizes your love for me, right?”
“Yeah,” Gura nodded. “Eterna-”
“Fake!” Amelia said, suddenly, “Ah heh heh heh-”
Gura jumped on the detective. Ame squealed in terror, or perhaps delight, as she failed to fight off the shark.
And having pinned Amelia down, Gura closed in for a smooch, that turned into another smooch, that turned into a deep and needy kiss as Amelia ran her hands through Gura’s hair.
And the smooches made their way over to Gura’s bedroom, and then on her bed.
And the smooches continued, whenever Gura could find a place for them, in between a frenzied, inelegant disrobing, in between licking salt off of Amelia’s delicate skin, and throughout moans and whimpers and a breathless exaltation and, finally, a punctuating desperate ‘I love you’, and they kicked enough blankets off enough of their bodies to stay comfortable through the night.
Gura drifted off to sleep, next to her beloved, still feeling Ame’s warmth by her side.
Gura sat by Amelia’s side at a solemn hospital bed.
The rhythmic beep of a heart rate monitor hung frozen in the still air of a third-story room as clouded sunlight flooded in through a half-shuttered window.
Gura held Amelia’s hand as the mortal slowly did that thing all mortals did, that Gura always knew in the back of her brain but which never felt particularly present until this moment, when it occupied the entirety of her disquiet mind.
“This is so soon,” Gura whispered, as if afraid that to disturb the air would break the delicate tether that kept Amelia in her life.
“It’s okay,” Amelia managed to say. She gave a squeeze to Gura’s hand. “It’s been so much fun, hanging out together.”
“Yeah,” Gura said.
Amelia smiled her sunshine smile, “And I’m so glad to have met you.”
“Yeah-” Gura managed to say, before her voice cracked and she had to choke back tears.
Amelia cured Gura’s tears with her smile, once again, as always.
And Gura lay her head next to Amelia’s, on that solemn hospital bed.
Amelia’s breathing steadied.
Gura drifted off to sleep, next to her beloved, still feeling Ame’s warmth by her side.
And by the next morning, Ame was gone.
Amid the black umbrellas on a hill amid a garden of stone idols, Amelia’s family and found family oversaw her internment into earth.
Gura sang her most beautiful song as one last tribute to the memory of her dearest.
Nobody blamed her when she had to stop to cry,
“This is ridiculous, I'm sorry-” Gura wiped the idle tears from the corners of her eyes.
You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When clouds are grey
You’ll never know, dear
How much I love you
Please don’t take my sunshine away
Gura went home to an emptier house. She turned her key in her lock and let the door fall open and she shuffled into the hollow greyness so thick as fog.
And she hung her coat upon the rack and slowly meandered into a quiet living room more empty than she was used to, to sit on her side of the couch.
There was a tinny squeak once she sat down-
Gura reached into her hand to pull out Ame’s personal effects. It was agreed that Gura should be the one to keep them.
A faded monocle hair clip. A pocketwatch that didn’t run. An old plastic lemon.
And Amelia- youthful and attentive, reached from behind her to pocket the lemon. “Did you miss me?”
“Ame!” Gura called out.
And she turned and leapt out of the couch and wrapped her arms around the taller girl, as tightly as she could.
“Woah, hey,” Amelia said, “You’re pretty clingy today.”
“What kind of stupid are you?” Gura mumbled into Amelia’s stomach. “I just lost you.”
“You’ll never lose me,” Amelia patted Gura’s head, “As long as you live. I’m a time traveler, you know?”
Gura sniffled. “Really?”
“Really really,” Amelia soothed.
And the next kiss was desperate in a different way than Gura was used to.
There was another night together, planting desperate smooches along each other’s faces and bodies.
Gura drifted off to sleep next to her beloved, still feeling Ame’s warmth by her side.
And by the next morning, Ame was gone.
Gura clutched the broken stopwatch and the bedsheets that still smelled of salt and daffodils and inevitable mortality, and she allowed herself a moment to weep, before she pulled herself out of bed and slowly meandered into a quiet living room more empty than she was used to.
Gura kept Amelia’s broken stopwatch in its exalted place around her neck.
And throughout all the tragedies that life begets as a result of the inevitability of mortality- not just of people but of ideas, and communities, and relationships- Amelia never failed to appear, to comfort her, to remind her of the strength to be found in other people.
And of course, they always took the time to catch up, to relay the moments of each other's lives they'd missed (Gura certainly had more than Amelia, but not so many more as she might have thought)- and they even made new moments together.
“So it's been three hundred years,” Gura said, during one of the moments Amelia walked with her. “When do you show up to tell me I smell?“
“Oh, you always smell, Ah heh heh heh,” Amelia said. She narrowed her eyes and grinned with her teeth.
Gura puffed out her cheek. “Hey now-”
“But I’ve gotten used to it,” Amelia said. She put her hand around Gura’s shoulder and pulled her close, to nuzzle the top of her head.
Another loss.
The biggest one yet.
Some might say, the biggest possible.
Can you even recover from something that guts you so entirely? That ends so much of what you have?
It's impossible to see how in the moments after.
Gura hugged her knees alone in the darkness of a home that no longer felt like home, not even mustering the energy to sob to disturb the suffocating loneliness.
And warm sunshine arms wrapped around Gura’s broken frame and gently held her together.
“It’s not fair,” Gura said, without looking up, “That you’re only there when I’m at my lowest.”
“That’s when you need me most,” Amelia said. “And besides, at your highest, I’m still there with you,” Amelia lowered her hand to tap the left side of Gura’s chest. “Just not physically, not all the time.”
Gura turned around, to look her lover in the eyes. “And why not?”
“I-,” Amelia bit her lip and looked at the wall. “There’s only a certain amount of time I have, you know? I’m a time traveler, not a time creator.”
“So, you planned out exactly when you need to jump to, for all your eighty years?” Gura said.
“I- yes,” Amelia glanced at the wall. “But I want to. I want to be here, when you need me.”
“So, what if I want more of you?” Gura said. She pressed her face into the curve of Amelia’s neck. “Is that selfish of me to ask?”
“You already have all of me, Gura,” Ame whispered.
“Then,” Gura breathed. “What about, we try to make some happy moments instead?”
The most special time of the year was always Christmas, for Gura, despite having predated Christmas for most of her life.
And this instance of the special holiday was extra special because it was also a special reunion. Special because it had no external reason to occur, and because of the events forever ago that had eventually precluded it from happening.
And in a way, the losses along the way made it matter more, this time.
So in preparation to reunite with the other immortal beings in her life, Gura decorated her house with a renewed effort, the blinking lights and festive decorations keeping the air alive and the room full of color.
And the doorbell rang, and Gura ran up to greet a Shinigami wearing a human body and a normal human who was also, simultaneously, some sort of tentacle monster.
“Heeyyyy~” Gura said to her old friends, “Did ya miss me?”
Ina nodded, “I did.”
“Daw, of course I did, buddy,” Callie said. They both took off their hats and coats to place alongside Gura’s warm weather gear on the coat rack next to the door.
And Gura escorted the two of them to her dining room table where the turkey and meatloaf and mashed potatoes and cookies were arrayed as best as Gura could make them.
“I always nibble on my food as soon as its done, so I figured we could catch up while we did so?"
“Guh-” Callie sputtered, sputtering out a mouthful from her 200 yen bottle of pinot noir, “I forgot how terrible these are.” She immediately took another drink.
And the doorbell rang.
And when Gura opened it a phoenix squealed in delight and jumped in place with her, before coming inside and taking off her coat and scarf.
“Callie's getting drunk again?” Kiara scrunched her mouth to the side.
“Hey, now listen,” Calliope said. “This is how it always used to be, right? And the point is to have fun, like we used to?”
“Like we used to, yes,” Kiara said. She nodded.
Callie scrunched her mouth to the side and stared at the wall and rubbed the back of her head. “How’s the tyke?”
“She asks about you often,” Kiara said. “I warned her against committing murders to try to see you, though."
Callie nodded again. “That’s, good….” And she nodded more, having run out of things to say-
“Kiaraaa~” Ina called out. She said. “I saw your talk show last week!”
“I, also saw your talk show, every week for the past century,” Callie mumbled.
“Aww, thank you! Your latest painting was great as always,” Kiara said. “Still working on your world domination?” she tilted her head to the side, “Sorry Dom-IN-at-, uh- dom-ina-tion.” she nodded to herself.
Ina nodded. “As well as can be expected. And- how about you, Ame?” Ina said.
The four of them turned to the detective who was suddenly in the fifth spot at the table.
“Or is this weird to ask?” Kiara said.
“Well, it’s certainly been longer for you than it has for me, heh heh,” Amelia said. “And I think I've been about as good as I can be. It's been a very eventful life, and now I can finally stop pretending I don't know what you all look like when you're old."
And there was a chorus of oohs, and some more playful banter as each of them settled into their old routine, of chit-chat and resolution and minor pranks.
“But, in all seriousness for a moment,” Gura said, at the head of the table, right before they all started to eat. “It’s really good to see you all again, one more time.”
And the next year, the Christmas party was at Ina’s place.
And after that it was at Kiara’s home, and the year after that Callie rented out some hotel space in the underworld, and Gura kept her garden ready and her cooking skills up to date and her closet stocked with random festive decorations that caught her eye, as the annual Christmas party became a happy thing to look forward to, in the twilight years of her existence.
And then one year, the party didn’t happen.
Life (and the state of existing but without life, in Calliope’s case) gets in the way sometimes.
But that just meant that the year after the Christmas party was sure to happen- and it did, and the five of them were extra festive in order to make up for lost time-
But that also meant that, it was that much easier for life to get in the way again.
And one year, it was the last time they ever gathered together.
And the subsequent Christmases were slightly less of a special moment, as Gura started spending them alone, again.
“But I’ll be here with you, when you need me,” Amelia said, one dark Christmas morning, after all Gura's other friendships faded. Amelia, too, was more weathered as the years went by, even on her end.
Gura turned and leapt and wrapped her arms around the taller girl, squeezing with all her might. “Even when you’re only here in my heart, right?”
Amelia’s smile softened. “Unfortunately, by necessity.” she said, “I’m not a time creator, and it's your fault for being so old, heh heh heh!“
Gura’s expression flattened but she didn’t otherwise react as Amelia booped her forehead.
Amelia planted a smooch over the spot she booped. “So we have to make the most of what we have.”
Gura’s nose sniffled. “Well, in that case- Is it too much to ask for you to stay with me a bit longer?”
Ame ran her hand through Gura’s hair. “This time? I’ll see what I can do.”
And this time, Gura and Ame spent the rest of the holidays together, just the two of them. They toured the town Gura had settled down in, they spent nights looking at the stars and reminiscing about their adventures both together and apart, they ate the yummiest food Gura could find- or Ame could pluck from points in time-
And the week culminated with Gura and Amelia sitting next to a window watching the snowfall as the clock ticked closer to midnight to mark the arbitrary moment they’d need to throw out their calendars.
Gura had her ukulele in her lap as Ame nursed a cup of hot cocoa as she watched her favorite singer and her favorite person perform a song with her siren voice, just for her.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind,
Should auld acquaintance
And days of Auld Lang Syne
For Auld Lang Syne my dear
For Auld Lang Syne
We’ll take a cup of kindness yet
Gura was on her own deathbed, on a solemn hospital bed, her disquiet mind focused on the rhythmic beep of a heart rate monitor hung frozen in the still air of an iridescent tomb as clouded charnal sunlight flooded in through the external viewports.
Gura’s eyes were heavy with the weight of mortality- slower than that of most, but she too did that thing that all mortals did and right now it consumed the whole of her being.
“Are you there?” Gura whispered.
“Of course,” Amelia’s voice came, cracked with the dents of age.
“This is the remainder of my Time,” Amelia said. “My last jump, and then I’ll go back and spend the rest of my life with you.”
“Just like I’ve spent the rest of mine with you, huh?” Gura said.
“But I’ll be here as long as you need me,” Amelia said.
“Yeah?” Gura said.
“And-” Amelia inhaled, and moisture gathered in the corners of her bright blue eyes, “As long as I need you, I’ll find you.”
“Yeah-” Gura’s voice cracked, again.
Ame held her hand.
“I love you, Amelia Watson,” Gura said.
“Like, 'love' love?” Amelia said.
Gura chuckled, softly. “What kind of stupid are you?”
“Nah, I know what you mean,” Amelia said, “I love you too, Gawr Gura.”
Amelia planted a smooch on Gura’s forehead. She pulled out a plastic lemon, and placed it on the bedside alcove, next to its future self, next to a faded monocle hairpin, next to a broken stopwatch. “Eternally.”
And Gura drifted off one last time, still feeling Amelia’s warmth by her side.
A pallid wind howled with a noise that wasn’t noise as Gura stood at the center of an endless desert of black sand under a dying twilight sun.
A sun-bleached skeleton stood before her.
“Callie?” Gura ventured.
The skeleton paused.
Gura? She closed in for a hug.
“It’s good to see you,” Gura kept her voice from cracking. “One more time."
Callie didn’t have to breathe anymore, but Gura could picture her old friend's signature sharp intake of air as the skeleton nodded.
There’s, someone here to see you. The reaper pointed to a figure, behind her.
And Gura turned but her sight that wasn’t what it used to be.
“Hey,” said a woman, before she hiccuped.
And Gura ran up and wrapped her arms around the taller girl and squeezed as tightly as she could.
“You waited, all this time?”
“Well, not all this time- I skipped a bunch,” Amelia’s smile shone even now, “I’m a time traveler, after all.”
“So, what do you say,” Amelia held out her hand. “One last journey together?”
And hand in hand, Gura and Amelia crossed the black desert, into an unseen horizon.