Martha stared at Seamus in front of her, but her mind was back in Berkeley. She bit her lip and swallowed back tears at the thought of James' face going pale and then slack. She barely remembered relaying her epiphany. It all happened so fast - and I was kind of distracted by James bleeding out in my arms.

Presently, James broke the silence. "Why didn't you just go back further... to one of my first lives? Leave Martha out of it and just tell me what I needed to do?"

"A fine idea, but impossible, unfortunately," Seamus said. "Even though all of your lives are technically happening simultaneously, our anchor only works chronologically, alongside your consciousness. Once we have analyzed a particular point in time, we cannot go back without breaking our connection. No, the only choice we had was to look forward. So after twenty-four hours of contentious and... heated debate, a pair of volunteers were chosen."

"Why a pair?" Martha asked.

"If we had simply traveled to your next life and lay an anchor under your bassinet, your loop would have begun then and there. You wouldn't remember anything from the previous life and it would have played out as any of your other first lives. You and Mr Quinn could resume your search for the cure, now armed with your recent, essential insight. Success would be likely and we could not take that chance."

Seamus paused for a moment, his eyes working out a memory. "So we first sent a volunteer to Berkeley just after Mr Quinn's death. It took her an hour to make it to the scene. The police had just finished questioning you and you were sitting on the curb of the street, shaking and in shock. You didn't appear to notice as... as Amara wrapped a blanket embedded with neural scanners around your shoulders to capture your consciousness."

"You sent your wife?" Martha exclaimed. "To... certain death?"

Seamus' eyes stayed distant. "I begged her not to. But her response was 'Everyone has someone to mourn them. Why should we be exempt?'" He winced in pain for a moment. "I truly believe she was trying to force me to call it off. But yes..." He looked at Martha. "On top of everything else, I authorized my wife's suicide mission."

Martha again thought of James dying in her lap; of standing at his doorstep and learning he'd killed himself. "That must have been unbearable. I'm so sorry..."

"He doesn't deserve your sympathy," James spat.

"Of course he deserves our sympathy," Martha countered.

"They had to restrain me as they sent the second volunteer to place the anchor, I so badly wanted it to be me," Seamus continued to no one in particular. "But they were right. We couldn't afford to lose our top two scientific officers at that point. And perhaps I wasn't done paying for my crimes." He looked at Martha and she felt a sudden kinship.

"So then why are you here now?" James asked. "Are you taking another unwitting soul? Bringing someone else to our nightmare?"

"No. No, we felt it necessary for me to come out of concern for Miss Beckett."

James looked at Martha with a modicum of surprise. She dropped her head with none. Deep down, she'd known the answer before Seamus had given it.

"She's been a beacon for you to circle through the dark expanse, Mr Quinn. We feared..." His face clenched and Martha noticed a trail of blood dripping from one of his ears. "That she was nearing a level of moral compromise from which she would not return. And then all would be lost once more and our extinction would be nigh."

Then it hit Martha. It wasn't just Berkeley he'd observed. Nan... Ramirez...

And not only had Seamus seen them, but dozens - hundreds? - of his peers, as well. In fact, they were watching right then, 197 years later, through a composite of their consciences. Her apartment would be projected onto The Arena. Would she be facing the God's Eye terminal or the gallery or... She felt dizzy. It was too much to take all at once.

"Are you okay," James asked, putting a hand to her shoulder.

His words and touch were enough to jolt her back. "Yeah, I think so." She needed to focus on the here and now. The big picture's just too damn big...

Namely, she needed to focus on the man sitting in front of James and herself, fully aware of her crimes in gruesome, vivid detail. There was no avoiding it. She would have to tell James. But... how can I?

Martha's thoughts were interrupted by a loud beeping.

The green lights beneath Seamus' wrist flashed red and he began to convulse. "It's... almost... here," he stammered painfully. "You must listen... to me... You must... You must have a... ch-ch-child... You must have a child..." Blood leaked from his ears, nose, and eyes as the convulsions amplified. "Forgive... me... Amar..."

The convulsions stopped and Seamus went limp.

Martha and James stared in silence at his corpse as it, along with his clothing, continued to slowly erode. It was a fascinating and terrifying phenomenon to behold, but her scientific curiosity took a back seat to Seamus' dying command. She turned to James who, from the look on his face, shared her shock and confusion.

James won't agree to this. Martha was certain.

But then he said, "Let's do it."

"What?"

"Have a child. Like he said." There was hope in his eyes she hadn't seen in a very long time. Then it dropped away. "Unless... Sorry." He began to pace the room. "I don't know if any of this changes anything. If you still need time or..."

Martha still wasn't sure how to answer. "But... What about your rule? What about the children you've lost?"

"I don't know," he said. "I... guess Dr Tanaka just changed the rules. Maybe it's impulsive. Maybe I'll sober up next life, but... It feels right."

A small part of her ignited at his words. It does feel right. Still, a larger part...

"We can't," she whispered.

"Why?"

"I can't."

"Why?"

She had to tell him. He'll tell me it's okay. He'll tell me to move on. Then murder becomes as common as tying your shoe in our amoral existence. No, I sure as hell cannot tell him.

But had the rules changed on this as well? No! Apples and murders - this is not the same!

Nevertheless, there was an undeniable impulse within her, superseding her ethics and caution; breaking through layer after ossified layer of shame and fear until spilling forth as, "I killed her!"

James blinked in confusion. "What was that?"

"Nan. In Hawaii. After you fell. Everything shut off. She... She..." Martha couldn't catch her breath. She wanted to tell him all of it at once and none of it at all.

James walked to her then took her hand. "Calm down. It's okay. I'm here. I'm listening."

Martha took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and remembered the look on Nan's face. "She was in a panic because we'd failed and because billions of people were going to die including her family. And she was angry because I wasn't. And she rightly accused me of not caring. And... the gun was in my hand and..." She opened her eyes and tears blurred her vision before falling. "I swear it was an accident. I swear I didn't mean to. But..."

"But what?"

"But I... I remember wishing, right before it happened, that she would just... shut up..." Tears flowed down her cheeks now as her insides felt scraped clean.

James looked to the side and appeared to be working something out in his head. Then suddenly he reached out and hugged Martha. She hugged back instinctively, her grip surprisingly tight. She shook with tears, but his touch soothed her pain. The relief was bittersweet, however. Here we go. Now we'll hear his rationalizations.

James released her, then said, "So you're not sure if you killed her intentionally?"

Martha nodded.

"Then we need to assume that it was intentional."

Now it was Martha's turn to blink in confusion. "What?"

"If you think there's a chance you did it, then you did it."

Martha lowered her head and nodded. He was right. The all consuming guilt she'd carried since killing Nan was proof enough and avoiding that truth had given her no peace.

"And she trusted you," he continued, his words a punch to her stomach. "She believed in you. You promised her everything was going to be okay. Then you took her life." He spoke as if comforting Martha, even as his words gouged her wound.

"You betrayed her in the greatest way possible."

"Okay! I get it!" Martha snapped through tears. "Are you enjoying this?"

"I'm not," he said calmly. Then he took both of her shoulders in his hands and, as if transferring that calm through touch, quelled her panic. "Denial festers, Martha. Denial hides and spreads like a cancer. You did a horrible thing. Committed the greatest sin. You're going to have to live with that for... for as long as we're here."

His hands slid down her arms to hers, sweaty and trembling. "But you can continue on. Morality is alive and kicking and you can choose to walk its path from this point forward." He paused for a moment and his eyes went distant. "They ask too much of us. Eternity is too great a burden to bear. The years stack on top of one another on top of our backs. You stumbled from the weight and killing Nan was the consequence. And that crime will forever be a part of who you are. But so will Berkeley... and Disneyland... and Belize... and... maybe motherhood?"

James looked away and shook his head slightly. "Sorry. Whatever you decide to do... If you're ever ready to take me back or... want to take me back... or neither... Martha, know that I will always love you-"

The words were barely out before an impulse from her center launched the rest towards James and into an embrace, wrapping him in her arms with the strength she had left. She wept uncontrollably into his shoulder and felt anger, hatred, shame, and nausea.

It was true. I'm a murderer and always will be.

Then, as if a long sleeping giant roused within her, she remembered something that far exceeded her self-contempt. The man holding her now... The boy she'd fallen in love with... The bonds they'd forged in the blaze of a phoenix, time and time again...

She released him, sniffled back a tear, then, looking into those hazel eyes that had first enchanted her, nodded yes to it all - to guilt, to forgiveness, to love...

And yes to a child. Our child...

Exhilarated and exhausted, she kissed him gently and felt, for the first time in over a century, as if she inhabited her own body. Then she noticed her couch.

"Holy shit!"

Seamus' body was gone. More accurately, the vast majority of his body was gone. A thin layer of what looked like ash lay across the couch in the vague shape of a man.

James' eyebrows raised. "Well that's one way to dispose of a dead body."

"You an expert in dead body disposal?" Martha teased.

He curled a sheepish grin. "Not for a while."

Martha smiled. The sensation was so foreign, it made her chuckle. "So... what now?"

"I've got a lake house. Wanna break your lease and hang with me till we die?"

"But what about my credit score?"

"Good point. Guess we should call it off."

"Guess we should," she said, then kissed her love again.

When she released him, his eyes went wide and he looked around her apartment. "Hey, where's your mirror?"

"Just in the bathroom?" she said, pointing him to it.

"Come with me," he said and led her there.

Toiletries cluttered the sink, the trash can overflowed, and pantyhose hung from the shower rod. "Oh god. I don't ever... have people over," she said, mortified and pulling the pantyhose down.

James shot her an incredulous look. Really, Martha? So she let them hang as he directed her toward the mirror.

Martha looked haggard. In addition to a lifetime and a half of depression and neglect, her face was pink and bloated from tears. But he's right. We're well past vanity.

The two stared silently at the mirror and suddenly she understood his intention.

James raised a hand to wave. "Hello. People of the Northwest Quadrosphere... low level God's Eye technicians... Rosa perhaps... Martha and I are going to go chill in Wisconsin for the rest of this life. Nothing noteworthy is going to happen there. So you can go ahead and fast forward to the next, kay?"

He took Martha's hand and started to leave but she stopped him. "Wait." She addressed the mirror in earnest. "I'm sorry for your loss. For Dr Tanaka and... for anyone else."

James smiled at her. "There she is."

He kissed her forehead and they walked out of the bathroom and then the apartment, towards another end and another beginning along the infinite spring, together once again.

Author's note:

I do feel a weight off my shoulders now that Martha can move on. Anyone else?

Thanks again for reading!!