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"I killed her," Lena says. He…it…whoever he is says nothing and watches her. "He made you. I made one too. But I killed her the same way he killed himself. That's what destroyed the Shimmer. The whole thing. The tunnel, the crystals, all of it."
He just watches.
"I thought you should know. If I killed…your family, or your home, or…" She takes a deep breath.
"Family," he repeats. "I. I don't think so."
"How long were you with him before he died?"
"I don't know."
She should be used to that answer. She understands it better now.
"Fifteen sunrises."
Two weeks. Lena imagines spending two weeks with the thing she killed.
"He was dying."
She knew that.
"So much of him," the creature says, "is you. And so much is not."
Lena should have millions of questions. The Lena before would have. What are you? Do you know where you come from? How do you mimic? Are you even carbon based? What do your people want? Are they people? Why mimic us?
But she is not that Lena, as he is not that Kane. He is a strange Shimmer being shaped by humanity, and she is a human shaped by the Shimmer. And so they have only each other, for as long as they are allowed to live. He is not her husband, but she is not Kane's wife. He is what's left of Kane. She is what's become of Lena.
Her questions are different now.
"Do you feel them? His emotions?"
"He loves you," not-Kane says.
She looks up at him. He wouldn't have the answer to any of those other questions anyway. They want it to be some kind of storybook, or a Star Trek episode, where he is an ambassador or an agent of the enemy, something they can interrogate so they can know What are they? What do they want? How do we stop them? But there is no they. Not really. No malice, no mass invasion. All that's left is the mutated plants and creatures, including her, and a person trying to carry out the wishes of a dead man.
Because he is a person. A strange, confused one who still seems perplexed by his own body, but a person.
"I would never ask you to be him," Lena says, "but maybe…" When he held her, they were one, entwined as something not human. Not higher or lower, but something different. Maybe something transcendent before she takes root like Josie. That's what happened to her, isn't it? She transcended the limitations of animals to join another kingdom, roots and runners reaching to each other, mycelial networks connecting her to others, breathing in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen, a mirror of what she once was.
When he held her, it was more than an attempt to understand the man he'd become. The creature she killed was looking for the same thing, or it would have been, if Lena had stayed with it. Connection.
"You and I," she says. "We can find a way forward."
"We're not like the others," he says.
She shakes her head.
"That scares them."
"Oldest story ever written."
He takes this in, and then says, "We can't be anything else."
"No. But we're not alone. We have each other."
His dark eyes shine silver. Change is beautiful. You aren't Kane, are you? His fingers slide across hers and lace with them. I don't think so. He is not Kane, but Kane is in there, in his hands, in his eyes, and there, in the hint of a smile he is trying. Are you Lena?