Lysette's Gift

And yet, some mornings, for some unknown reason, he would awaken refreshed, rested, untroubled by his night, one thought uppermost in his mind.

"Not long now, it won't be long now..." although he didn't know what he meant, or why it made so much sense, and felt so right.

It was awakenings like that that kept his mind and soul together, that gave him hope. Slowly but surely, the healing begun at the Wake was working itself through him.

*

The year was turning again towards Christmas, inexorably dragging him closer to a day Michael dreaded the most; almost a year had gone, the anniversary of THAT day was approaching, and he truly didn't know how to face it. Going home was meaningless; he and his mother had lost whatever connection they'd had when he lost Lissa, and he couldn't see his father in any light other than that it was his fault; if she hadn't walked out, she wouldn't have been there at those lights when that truck came out of nowhere and rendered all their hopes and plans moot.

Mike knew what do on this day, what he did every week; he'd go and see her, and take her some flowers, and tell her how much he loved her, how much he missed her, and he'd ask her to wait for him, because it wouldn't be long; he felt it in the dark places of his heart; one day soon this would all be over, this he knew with rock-solid certainty, and she would be there for him when it came time to go home. He was just picking up his keys when the doorbell rang.

Mike opened the door to see a pretty brunette, her long hair pulled into a ponytail under a baseball cap, with startling blue eyes and a fresh complexion.

"Michael Sheridan?" she asked in a soft Border burr, and when Mike nodded, she held-up a package.

"Special delivery. Sign here, please."

Mike spotted she was wearing a 'City Delivery' bomber jacket, and noted, without really seeing, the name tag 'Melissa'.

Melissa handed him the electronic receipt machine, and showed him where to print and sign his name. As she took it back from him, he saw, on the palm of her left hand, a tattoo of stars in a fanciful constellation: seven stars. Without conscious thought, he grabbed her hand and pressed it against his, their two hands pressed palm to palm, touching the stars, the last thing his Lissa had asked of him.

"Hoi, what the Hell...!" she snarled, trying to snatch her hand from his, but then she froze, her eyes wide, far away.

Mike was in no better state; a series of soundless, silvery-white explosions were bursting in his head, seven in all, and as he sank to his knees with the intensity of it, the girl flopped bonelessly down against him, sprawling on him with her eyes rolled back so far all he could see were the whites, two crescent moons under her slitted lids.

Mike somehow managed to get the girl's dead-weight into the nearest chair, wondering what the hell had just happened, then staggered on rubber legs into the kitchen to get her some water. While he was there, he splashed his face with icy water from the cold tap, the shock of the cold water reviving him a little. With hands still slightly shaking, he ran a glass of water and weaved back into the sitting room to find Melissa gone. As he looked around in bewilderment, he saw movement in the hall, followed it, and dropped the glass in shock, not even hearing the crash as the glass exploded on the polished floor.

"Hello Mikey!" breathed Lissa, and it was Lissa, perfect in every detail, wearing Melissa's uniform, but his Lissa, standing there as real as real.

Mike staggered back against the door frame, his heart pounding like a steam-engine. This was...impossible; Lissa was...today, a year ago today...this couldn't be happening. It was the strain, that's what it was, it had to be! Anything else was just...not possible...

"Mikey, stop it, you'll have a seizure!" grinned Lissa (correction, this hallucination, what else could it be?), walking towards him, while he backed away until the wall stopped him. She reached out to touch him, and Mike screwed up his eyes, trying to make this terrible apparition, or hallucination, or lucid dream, wherever it was, just go away and leave him to his grief.

And then the soft warmth of her hand, a finger tracing the line of his nose and down across his lips, to gently scratch his chin, just as Lissa would do to make him smile. He opened his eyes and she was still there, still smiling up at him, those beautiful dove-grey eyes, and that mass of blazing copper hair.

"What...how...please...!" he stammered. Lissa smiled once more, and leaned in close to kiss him on the chin, before stepping back slightly to look him once more in the eyes.

"I told you right at the beginning, Mikey, and I kept telling you; time is the simplest thing!" she smiled, before hugging him. Mike, in his heightened state of awareness, could feel her heart beating against his, feel her breath soft against his neck, the pressure of her fingers on the small of his back, the awareness that she was real, and alive, and here, in his arms, gradually flooding through him.

"But you were...the hospital...the burial...I don't understand!" he finally managed to blurt out, and Lissa grinned.

"Come with me, Mikey, I want to show you something."

So saying, she led him unresisting into the hallway, and turned him to face the large mirror there, making him gasp at what he saw; in the mirror, the pretty brunette was standing next to him, smiling at her reflection, but when Mike turned away from the mirror, it was Lissa standing there next to him.

"How...?" he began, but Lissa hushed him.

"That is who people will see, all they will ever see. Only you can see me as I really am; that is the gift I was allowed to give you. It's really me, Mikey, I promise, and I'm here, I'm real, I'm not some zombie or vampire or whatever; Mikey, it's me, and I came back, I've been returned to you, just as I promised I would!"

Mike leaned back against the wall, and slowly slid to his knees as his legs gave way, shaking his head in denial; these things happen in Poe novels, not real life; how could any of this not be some kind of brain-injury, an aneurism, or a stroke-induced fantasy. He slumped forward, his head in his hands, willing this bizarre situation to be over, that he would wake-up in a nice quiet room somewhere, with the nice, soft padded walls, walls almost as soft and sweet-smelling as the phantom dream-girl beside him...

"Mikey!" Lissa's voice lashed across his maunderings, jerking his head upright. She held his face between her hands (soft, warm, live hands, he noted absently), then slid across him, sitting astride him on the floor, to look straight into his eyes.

"Mikey, it's me, really!" she smiled, but Mike only shook his head.

"So if you're...you, who the hell was that in the mirror?" he managed to croak, and Lissa grinned even wider.

"Also me; you just have to understand what's happened here, Mikey. Now, are you going to shut-up and listen?"

Mike nodded mutely; might as well let this whole crazy fantasy spin even further out of control; he'd already lost his mind...

Lissa cocked her head, studying him for a second or two, then nodded in satisfaction at something.

"Mikey, do you remember what I said to you, the last thing I said to you before I...left? I told you that time is only a thing, and it's a very simple thing, too, once you understand it. When I...died, I moved out of time, I was no longer part of time, and I could see it all, be anywhere, go anywhere, and see anything!"

Her smile faltered, and a tear trailed down her cheek as she spoke, her voice little more than a hushed whisper, but trembling with emotion.

"I watched you being born, Mikey; I watched you being born and growing-up, and falling in love with me; I went back and watched countless times, because you are my darling Mikey-Boy and I loved you so, and I loved you more each time I saw it. I've watched over you all through your life; that time when you were seven, and that car nearly hit you on the Hungerford Road? It was me that pushed you out of the way. I have been ranging up and down your life, Mikey, my own, darling Michael-boy, I have seen our first night together, and every night since then; I felt your pain spiking in my heart as you suffered alone, and I've seen our future...and our children, and so I knew what I had to do."

Fascinated in spite of himself, Mike reached out to stroke her hair, his fingers thrilling again at the remembered feel of her silky copper tresses. She was here, somehow, impossibly, against all reason, she had come back, and she was no revenant, no risen, reanimated corpse, no creature of night and evil. She was real, it really was her!

"So how is this...all this, possible?" he whispered, "and who is that other girl, and how did she get mixed-up in this?"

Lissa leaned forward, resting her head against his chest, her favorite pose when she was thinking. At first, Mike thought she wasn't going to continue, but then she spoke, her voice so low he had to strain to hear what she was saying.

"The other girl is called Melissa Summers; she was born the same day as me, near Carlisle, in the Borders. When we were born, my soul, spirit, whatever, was allowed to occupy her body as well as my own; there were two of us, at opposite ends of the country, but only one soul. I took nothing from her; for whatever reasons there are for these things, she was destined to be still-born, and so I, me, the discarnate soul of Lysette, was allowed to warp time so I could exist both as me and as her at the same time, two bodies, but only one soul. I made the paradox that allowed two versions of me to exist at once, although, from my point of view, outside of time as I was, there was no such thing, just two aspects of the same thing; as I kept telling you, time is the simplest thing, if you understand it. I was able to ensure we both lived and grew, and became people in our own right. But the soul of Melissa Summers was always me; we were the same person, just two very different lives."

She paused, collecting her thoughts.

"When I, the part that is me, Lysette, died, it collapsed the paradox, and created a new one, one where there was only one version of me, my Melissa alter ego, still with one soul, but now existing in two places at once; one, outside time, and the other, unknowingly, inside Melissa, waiting for the time that I had created to be right, that would bring her here, where you could touch the stars and release me. That was the price I agreed to pay; part of the agreement was that only you could bring me back; if she had never met you, if she had never come here, if you had never touched the stars, Melissa would have remained Melissa, with a life and future all of her own."

Mike stirred.

"Agreement with who...Lissa, if that's who you are? How do I know I'm not strapped to a hospital bed somewhere, drugged to the eyeballs and that this isn't just a psychotic fantasy?"

Lissa stared levelly at him until he turned away.

"Just for the sake of argument, let's assume I'm not insane, and this is really happening. Who did you bargain with? God? The Devil? The Grim Reaper? Shazam? Who, Lissa?"

Lissa smiled as she nodded slightly, as if glad he'd asked the question.

"I don't know, Mikey; not God, I think; somehow I don't think the King of the Universe goes and hunts around for a wrench when he gets the equivalent of a leaky toilet; one of his people takes care of it, I think; he may see the fall of every sparrow; I don't think he actually feels compelled to anything about it every time it happens. In my case, there was obviously a higher plan, so I was offered this chance, and only this once, to get it right."

"So who made you this offer?" he persisted, and Lissa grinned.

"Well, Mikey, I really don't know; the potential for the deal was suddenly there, and then suddenly it had always been there; somehow I knew what to do, I always had, like the deal had always existed, just waiting for me to show up, and I knew what to do to make it all fall into place; if I'd been breaking any rules, I think something might have showed-up to put a stop to it, so yes, sanction came from somewhere higher up, of that I'm sure."

She giggled, that same, throaty chuckle that had always made the short hairs on his neck stand on end.

"I took care of both of you, did you know that? I had to make sure that Melissa would live, that no harm would come to her, to keep gently nudging her so that she could be here today; I had to watch over you, Michael-boy, and I had to keep an eye on her, and one on me too, as I grew up. Believe me, I've been busy this last year; a year has passed for you, but I've been around for two parallel lifetimes, making sure nothing happened to Melissa, you, or me to make sure we all got to this point!"

Lissa leaned back slightly and rested her hands on his shoulders.

"Mikey, I have loved you every day of my life. Now I know why. I was born to ensure that you would be happy and safe every day of your life; I have died and seen what the future holds for us, and I know now that love does endure beyond death, and it will overcome death if it has reason to. That I did, and so I'm back with you, where I was destined to be. Will you love me again, Michael-Fionn Cormac Sheridan?"

Mike tried to answer, but his mouth could only work as the swelling in his breast locked the words in his throat. His arms encircled her, dragging her against him as a storm of harsh, braying sobs burst from him, all the rage and pain, despair and need finally venting, finally releasing him. Lissa clung to him as he cried out all his loss and grief.

"Mike..." she whispered as he crushed her against him, one hand buried in her hair as his other held her tightly, deep, shuddering sobs wracking him.

"I lost you, I lost you, I needed you so much, and you were gone, I wanted to die too..." he sobbed, and all she could do was stroke his hair as his long-held grief poured out of him.

"Ssshh Mikey, it's all over now, I'm here Mikey-boy, I'm back, and I'm never leaving you again, I promise!" she breathed as she stroked and caressed his hair, his face, the small of his back where her arms encircled him. "I'm never leaving you, not for one second, that I promise you, Mikey!"

They remained motionless for long seconds, Lissa holding him tightly as tremors shook him, growing less with every minute as catharsis set in, her caresses becoming gentle kisses on his cheeks, his neck, and on his lips.

As his paroxysm of grief calmed, Mike became aware of another feeling altogether; it had been a year since Lissa's death, and he'd had no intimate contact of any sort since that day, nor any wish for it, but now, as he cuddled her on his lap, he could feel the stirrings of another sort of need. Lissa felt it too, squirming happily in that way she'd always had.

"Feels like you finally believe me, Mikey-boy!" she grinned, and Mike, on a sudden impulse, pulled her close, his lips finding hers as his tongue rubbed gently against her tongue. As they kissed, Mike could feel that old frisson, the subtle tells from her kiss that gave her identity away. My God, he thought, it really is her; somehow, it really is her!

Lissa broke their kiss to smile at him once again, watching him as all the barriers he'd erected finally crumbled. She scrambled to her feet and held her hand out to him, grinning all the while.

"Come with me, Mikey, there's something I want to do," she whispered, once more tugging him to his feet. He looked quizzically at her and she grinned her old, mischievous grin.

"Race you to the bedroom!" she taunted, grinning as Mike once more smiled at her challenge, one he'd heard so many times before. As he too scrambled to his feet, he glimpsed her in the mirror; the brunette was gone, and only Lissa was there next to him. He quirked an eyebrow at her, and smiled as she reached up to lightly pinch his chin.

"Where is she...?" he began, and Lissa's smile broadened.

"She's still there, Mikey; the rest of the world can see her; all they'll ever see is her; only you will ever see me as I truly am. It has to be this way; Lissa Sheridan is dead, so it might raise a few eyebrows for her to be seen wandering around Newbury with you, don'cha think? To you, I'll always be me; the rest of the world will see Melissa, and hear her voice. This is also part of the price, and I think I can live with it. Now come with me; we have one more fence to mend."

Mike still held back, staring in the mirror.

"So what about her? Really? What about who she was, her family? Is she still anywhere at all, or did you just swamp her and take her over?"

Lissa held his face in her two hands, looking up at him.

"Mikey, no-one took anything; without me, Melissa would never have been. She lived a full life; she has no living family in her home town, which is why she came to London, but she had a happy life, and she loved her parents, and I remember that, because she was me and they were my parents too, and I loved them as much as she did; parallel lives, remember? She lost her parents and I couldn't do anything to stop it, because sometimes there isn't any way to stop these things, and so I grieved for them with her, and I grieve and feel their loss even now. So I will keep their memory alive for Melissa, it's the very least I can do for her. All she was, it's all here, in me. Don't forget; we're both the same person, and all she was, or remembers, or wanted, those were me too; she'll always be a part of me, here inside me."

Lissa paused to watch him take this all in, then resumed talking.

"Melissa never really existed in her own right; she was born to be part of me, but she's being rewarded for her part in this; don't worry about her; something bigger than me is watching over her, over who she could have, would have, should have been, and I know, without knowing how I know, that the soul that was denied her is being reborn, and she will have a proper life and destiny this time around, one that's completely hers. I have a feeling she will be a very special person; when you play by the rules, you reap the rewards, and I can feel her happiness; believe me, she's being rewarded. Now come with me, baby-boy!"

As Mike followed her up the stairs, his eyes were fixed on her bottom, twinkling enticingly at him in tight jeans, and once again he marvelled at the fact she was here, alive again, against all hope or expectation. He could feel himself responding more overtly to her body, his need for her suddenly leaping high inside him. As they reached the top of the stairs, she turned to say something, and Mike pulled her close, unable to stop himself as his lips crushed against hers.

Lissa squeaked in surprise, then her lips curved against his as she smiled, and her hand curled around his neck to hold him tightly against her as she kissed him back with equal vigour.

"Whew, that came out of the bank!" she gasped when Mike broke their kiss, smiling broadly, his expression unreadable, as true happiness, something he'd thought he'd lost forever, flooded through him. Lissa nodded, a faint smile on her lips.

"Make love to me, Mikey," she whispered, "I've waited a whole lifetime to be with you again, Michael-Fionn, will you take me back?"

Mike was almost trembling with need as he gently pulled her close, feeling her soft, remembered body moulding itself to him. His hands slipped down to cup and squeeze her taut, neat little buttocks, making her sigh even as she wriggled contentedly against him. He fumbled with the button of her jeans as she shrugged-off the delivery company bomber jacket, and then he was pulling her t-shirt over her head even as she tugged his shirt open.

Lips locked together, they tumbled out of their clothes and dropped onto the bed naked, hands holding, touching, squeezing and caressing, remembering with their fingers, lips and tongues, until finally Mike found himself on his back, Lissa straddling him. Her hand sought him out, and with their eyes locked together, she sank down on him even as he thrust up into her, joining with her, her sleek moistness enfolding him as she clasped and squeezed him with her internal muscles. They began the well-remembered rhythm, the silence of the room broken only by the slap of flesh on flesh, and the muted sighs and gasps of lovers making love.