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Fifteen years is not all that long in the course of a life. Maybe once, on Earth, fifteen years would have been the good part of a lifetime, but Earth is long gone, and medicine has progressed so far since then that fifteen years could have been the blink of an eye.
To Vespa, fifteen years has lasted an eternity.
She had convinced herself that she was past the hallucinations, that the images of Buddy were all just fake, that she would save herself, and she would never need nor want for anyone ever again. Radiation sickness is a powerful enemy.
Vespa Ilkay is strong, but even she has her limits. Fifteen years of radiation, years of indentured servitude, and an eternity without her Buddy… well, that wouldn’t be her limit. It couldn’t be.
And yet, when she arrives at the lighthouse for the first time in years, she almost breaks. The sun has set, though the air remains toxic, and Buddy - her Buddy - waits at the top. Her red hair blazes in the glow of the lighthouse.
It’s a cliche, to be sure, but Vespa is not one for poetry, and Buddy has always been a classic type of woman.
Then Buddy turns her face upward, toward Vespa, and Vespa almost crashes her car in her attempt to scramble out.
It’s only been a few hours since Vespa saw her. The dead stay dead, she tries to remind herself. She shouldn’t have come, even with the Curemother, even with the stupid hope that somehow, she could get back those fifteen years.
Hope, Vespa knows, is even more dangerous than radiation poisoning. She’s been battling sickness and indignity and imprisonment for years now, but she has battled hope for far longer, and she knows how sharp it cuts.
Buddy looks different. Older.
Of course she does, Vespa chides herself as she exits the vehicle.
She doesn’t want to think about how she must look now, doesn’t want to consider how much she must have aged because despite all the years, Buddy still looks timeless and radiant, and Vespa is afraid, just as she’s always been.
So she stops, just feet away from Buddy. She is so close to running to her, to embracing her, to letting the years melt away until are once again Buddy and Vespa, always a unit, just as they were before everything went wrong, but she can’t. They’re only two feet away from each other. Vespa could reach out easily and touch Buddy’s shoulder.
She doesn’t.
There are fifteen years of hardship and missed moments and change crammed into the space between them, and this Buddy could still just be a hallucination: this Buddy might be nothing more than a hope that she is still waiting, that she’s still Vespa’s Buddy.
“Vespa… you’re really here.”
Her voice is husky and sweet, and despite everything, she still says Vespa’s name with the same tenderness, the same cadences. This voice has haunted Vespa’s dreams and waking moments for almost two decades, but it is clearer now than ever. This time, her voice is real .
“Buddy… it’s really you,” because after all the uncertainty and her own mind attacking her and the new lines that show on Buddy’s face, it’s still her.
And then the distance between them is gone, and Buddy is in her arms once more, solid and true, and this time, Vespa is sure of it. They’ve both changed, and Buddy’s body is unfamiliar now, a different shape in Vespa’s arms, but she hugs Buddy tighter, and she feels her wife’s arms around her cling and tighten, as well, and they settle into each other as easily as they once did.
When Buddy draws away, Vespa almost feels that same familiar panic set in, that fear that maybe Buddy didn’t want her back after all, that hope had lied to her one too many times, but then Buddy sighs, and all her fears vanish. There is contentment in her sigh, a contentment that Vespa knows because she has memorized this sigh, has felt it in her bones, and she recognizes it from when they were young.
Vespa sighs, too, with relief, or giddiness, although she’d never admit to it, or perhaps even contentment, as well, because even if everything is to vanish in the next two minutes, at least now, she is with Buddy again.
It always comes back to Buddy, she thinks, as that pesky hope stirs in her chest again, and Vespa doesn’t want to squash it down this time.
The night is dark except for the few pinpricks of stars and the low light from the lighthouse behind them. Buddy, standing in front of the lighthouse, seems to glow golden. Vespa can’t quite see her face, although from the lighting, or from the shadows from Buddy’s hair, Vespa isn’t sure. She wants to brush those curls out of Buddy’s face, but Buddy looks away suddenly.
To Vespa’s amusement, she detects shyness, which is so uncharacteristic of Buddy that Vespa might even call it ‘cute,’ except that whenever she looks at Buddy, she can only remember the word ‘beautiful.’
“ Vespa, I’m not assuming…” Buddy begins when she turns back. Vespa can hear Buddy’s heart pounding, can feel it against her own chest, two hearts that beat in sync once, and are now trying to attune themselves to each other again.
“...A kiss, it doesn’t have to mean anything, darling.” Buddy always called everyone ‘darling.’ It’s the way she said Vespa that disarmed Vespa so utterly and completely.
Still does, Vespa thinks as she listens to Buddy go on. Her voice never wavers, but she talks faster than if she was at ease, as if she, too, is afraid of what Vespa might say.
“We’re just going to try this, see if it works, and—”
“Oh, save it, Bud.”
Buddy’s lips against hers are exactly as she remembers them. It’s not the texture of them, not the wetness on one side of her cheek, not Buddy’s hair brushing against her face, but the sensation is so familiar that, for a moment, it’s easy for Vespa to forget all the years.
When they pull away from each other, they can only beam, brimming with a million things they had wanted to say to each other, but now can’t seem to find the words.
Instead, Vespa places her hand on Buddy’s cheek, wiping away the tears on her right side. She can see now, the angry scars on Buddy’s left, hiding behind her red curls. She holds Buddy because after so much time apart, she isn’t quite ready to let go.
Years and years ago, they would have held each other like this the night before a job, Buddy assuaging her fears. The fears she has now are too big to voice, but even so, holding Buddy helps.
“You look beautiful,” she wants to say, because it’s true, and it’s always been true, for as long as she has known Buddy.
“I’m sorry,” she wants to say, because she couldn’t have found Buddy again earlier than she had.
“I’ve never heard you so quiet,” she says instead, because she can see in Buddy’s eyes all the things Buddy wants to say to her, too.
Buddy laughs, and Vespa feels every regret from the last lifetime melt away.
“Darling. You wouldn’t be hungry, would you? I know a wonderful place around the corner…”
In turn, Vespa laughs, too.
They have spent fifteen years apart, but what is fifteen years with a lifetime left together? Vespa and Buddy walk down from the lighthouse, hand in hand.