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If there was one thing Charlie hated, it was having to say goodbye. One would’ve thought that being immortal would’ve helped get used to it, but it seemed like it was one of those things that no matter how much you practised, you never got better at it. So a few centuries ago, Charlie decided to stop making themselves go through that again and leave beforehand. They never felt particularly good about it; actually, it made them feel pretty crappy, but at least they weren’t sad and suffering, and the guilt that came with it normally went away in a few years, which was nothing for an immortal being.
Everything changed when Charlie met the Legends, though. They changed. To be honest, they had never believed that was possible since most life lessons couldn’t really be applied to somebody whose life was endless, but to their surprise, they actually managed to show some personal growth and improve, in their own way. Then, the team discovered that having two Zaris was unmanageable, which meant that Zari 1.0 had to go, and Charlie’s automatic flight response lid up.
“You know I installed a security code on there, right?” Zari caught them red-handed trying to unlock the jumpship.
Charlie slowly turned around. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“So you weren’t going to steal the jumpship and escape?”
“Kind of, but—”
“Don’t. I—you know what? I can’t deal with you right now. If you wanna leave, just leave.” Zari turned around, but before she could go, Charlie reached for her arm.
“Come with me.”
“What?”
“Come with me, please. Just for a few minutes. An hour, maximum.”
“You know I can’t do that, Charlie. Every minute I’m still here, Behrad—”
“will be fine, trust me. So please, just come with me. It’s literally now or never.”
A bit cynical, Zari unlocked the ship, and they both got on it.
“So where are we going?” Zari asked.
“The safest place for you right now,” Charlie said as they typed it in. “To the end of the world.”
The jumpship landed on a little volcanic island that looked pretty much deserted. The ocean water was the clearest Charlie had ever seen, and the vegetation looked exotic. It was almost paradise.
“What—what is this? I don’t understand.”
“C’mon.” Charlie offered her their hand to get off the little pod.
When Zari got down, Charlie saw how she took a deep breath, taking the view in.
“It’s so beautiful.”
“For now,” Charlie said. “Cause in exactly twelve hours, that volcano is going to erupt, and it will be so wild it’s going to create a tsunami, which will destroy the entire island.”
“Okay.” They could tell Zari’s mind was trying to make sense of all of it.
“So if we stay, we’ll surely die. In the past.”
Then, it clicked for Zari. “And Behrad will be safe.”
Charlie nodded. “So, what do you say? A dead girl for a dead island?”
Zari smiled. “I guess I could spare a few minutes.”
They spent the next couple of hours there, walking around and exploring nature as they enjoyed the paradisiac view. They even found a few coconuts and drank a bit of coconut water.
“It’s crazy how in just a few hours all of this is going to be gone,” Zari said as they walked barefoot on the beach.
“And we’ll be the last and only people to have ever seen it.”
Zari nodded. “Makes me a bit sad.”
“We could stay, you know,” Charlie suggested. “We go from one catastrophe to another, island to island.”
“We’d always have coconut water to spare,” Zari added.
“And most importantly, you’d be alive, Z.”
Zari chuckled. “Please,” She said ironically.
Charlie stopped walking and faced her. “I’m serious. I know it’s not the most perfect life, but what if—what if we stayed here?”
“You don’t mean that.”
“But I do.”
“Charlie, you’d get bored in a day.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” They cleared their throat. “Listen, I’ve lived more than a thousand lives, and the vast majority of them, do you know how they ended? With me leaving. When things got tough, or I thought I was getting too involved with someone, I ran, no exception. But now, when I’m with you, somehow, I just—I never want to leave. I don’t want you to leave.”
“But Charlie,” Zari had tears in her eyes. “Living like this is running away.”
Charlie hadn’t thought about it like that. At that moment, they felt so powerless. They were an immortal time-travelling God, how were they running out of time? How could they not fix it? The volcano’s imminent eruption was nothing compared to the rage they felt.
“If you truly have stopped running away, you’ll come back with me to the ship, and you’ll be with me until I have to go,” Zari said, controlling the crack in her voice as much as she could.
Charlie looked at her, teary-eyed. “There’s nothing I can say that’ll get you to change your mind, is there?”
Zari didn’t say anything, but Charlie already knew the answer, and it broke their heart.
“Then, I’ll be with you,” Charlie finally said. “Until the very end.”