The Explorer's Apprentice

96:A Second Chance

Alison Lovett

Alison stares down at her hands, as if she can’t believe they are real. Alison pinches her palm experimentally. She feels real enough. After the light, and the wind, and the earthquake… she can’t be sure.

She may be dreaming.

Yes, she must be dreaming. She must be dreaming because a smooth, dark hand envelops her own, preventing her from pinching herself again. Not again, she thinks angrily. She’s not sure what she’s mad at. Herself. The strange time-traveling earthquakes. I refuse to have this dream again. I refuse to watch him die again. It may look like I’m back in the auditorium, but I’m not. It may feel like it’s 1998, but it’s not. I may feel like I’m wearing normal pants, but I’m not. It’s all fake, all over again.

But this time, I will not be tricked.

Alison forces herself to turn in her seat. She forces herself to look at this apparition, this figment of her imagination, this fabrication with the beautiful green eyes. They’re captivating. Perfect, even when stinging with tears. She’s only dimply aware of the people moving around her, picking themselves up from stage, eyes glistening with tears and arms trembling with fear, or excitement.

Danny—or Fabrizio, whatever her mind calls him—leans forward in the armrests, but his eyes never leave Alison’s. “I died,” he says. His voice is like a jolt of adrenaline, and Alison shivers all over.

This feels real. But Titanic, that was real too. Can they both be real?

“I watched you die.”

Her hands go to her throat, to her locket. But there’s no locket there. Instead, she strokes a little wooden dolphin, her fingers perfectly fitting the familiar shape. Were they both real?

Who cares?

She squeezes his hand. “Don’t leave me.”

“Never.”

Alison kisses Danny softly, in the darkness of the auditorium, in 2011, and tells him something decades overdue. “I love you.”