Chapter 17: All Souls

Under Grandpa A.J. And Dad's careful guidance, Proto-Tech and the McKesson group caused Obsidian Research to spawn Obsidian Energy Systems. We were poised to revolutionize the automobile industry and finally make the electric car a practical object. Early efforts to paint myself as the reclusive mad genius type had paid off, and I was able to minimize the usual endless rounds of PR appearances and interviews. Minimize did not mean eliminate, however, and I spent the month before the wedding very busy with OES appearances and wedding-related activities. It did mean that my fledgling beard had to go though. To be honest, I didn't really miss it.

As a practical matter it had been decided that it would be easier, given the number of people who knew Ginny and I in Angel's Camp who were not privy to our secrets, to have the wedding there. The folks from Chocowinity would 'fly in' on McKesson chartered flights, most of which were actually real. The remainder were fictitious flights as select small groups were arriving scattered throughout the week leading up to the wedding courtesy of 'Davey Express'.

I woke up early on the morning of Sunday, July 16th, one week away from my wedding, with my bride-to-be in my arms. I kissed the tip of her nose and watched as her eyes fluttered open. While her eyes were still trying to focus, her mind reached out and we merged our thoughts.

With eyes focused, and a tender smile, Ginny pulled me to her and whispered in my thoughts

<Davey/beggar boy/sweetie! I need you in me!>

A quick scan told me she was ready, and that, along with the mental wave of desire she projected had me ready. I cheated and used my gift to remove her panties and my boxers in a blink. As I moved over her her thoughts whispered again.

<I'm not on the pill anymore Davey. I could be fertile today. Make a baby in me beggar boy!>

Oh man! Talk about your incentives! With our desires and dreams driving us, we merged, Bodies, Minds and Souls. Our passion reignited that diamond/silver fusion that we had been able to experience in such fleeting measure since we had discovered it. We were bathed in Light, and as we peaked, for just a brief second it seemed as if we were Light!!

And then the world pulled us back, reclaiming us once again.

Reality dimmed into its mundane version and we collapsed, gasping for breath and a bit in shock at what we had just experienced.

"Oh Davey!" Ginny said out loud.

"Yeah!" I echoed, followed by a "Damn!"

"What?" Ginny responded.

"I just realized how hard this is going to be to top on our wedding night!"

We woke a couple of hours later, feeling more alive and energetic than either of us could ever remember. It was as if our joining had charged us both full of life. In the shower, as we played and cleaned and reveled in each other's proximity, I had a thought.

<Join me again, Blossom, lets reach for that place again. But just to touch it. It takes too much energy to stay within it.>

We joined, merged and went beyond into a fusion. Once again we saw and felt and lived as a single consciousness — almost. Just a thread of ourselves touched the Light and held. The rest of us, the part that did not quite fuse into a single 'I' remained attached to reality.

In this nearly-there, nearly-gone place, the world was not awash in that silver/diamond light. Rather we caught glimpses of it in certain angles, a drip here, a running ripple of it there, The world was itself, and we alive in it, but through our senses we kept catching glimpses of the Light behind and within it. In our almost-oneness, our thoughts were a a new, simple inner dialog.

<<We can maintain this without pulling energy from the Light!>>

<<We can do this indefinitely then?>>

<<We'll see. We have to know how others perceive us.>>

<<We'll limit it if it makes them uncomfortable.>>

I could not tell you where each thought originated, it was simply like thinking to oneself rather than to another person. We got dressed and headed down for breakfast. I caught the thought as we hit the second floor landing.

<<Go ahead. Do it>>

The part of us that was Ginny reached out with our gift and jumped us into the kitchen.

Loretta, Con, Eru, Chet and Mike were already in the kitchen. The rest of the Legion were in the new Montecristo station, happily building our database of information on the peoples of the Mediterranean region. Pete had been unable to deny his inner marine biologist, and was gleefully taking water samples and doing other basic research on the marine ecology around our island base. We poured ourselves coffee and sat at the table with everyone. We said our good mornings and exchanged pleasantries, until finally Eru spoke up.

"I am not sure what you two have achieved, but I am glad I was sitting when you arrived. Looking at you with my internal eye is making me dizzy!"

"We are somewhat joined." Ginny and I both said, in perfect synchronization.

"So it would seem!" Con stated in his best 'I-am-not-impressed' Spock tone, complete with raised eyebrow.

"We are not quite at the place where we went when we healed Borthun's wound, but we have found it possible to keep a part of ourselves touching that place." Once again we spoke in perfect synchronization.

We saw that this was causing a slight amount of confusion, especially in Loretta, so we actively tried to pull our speech centers apart a little.

"It is a new thing, as of about an hour ago, so forgive us if we seem... odd for a while." I said.

"We see that the little stereo act is hard to follow, so we'll work on avoiding that, okay?" Ginny added.

"What's for breakfast?" I asked. "I'm starved!"

That broke the tension, and we quickly joined the rest of the crew in appreciating the pancakes, fried eggs and sausages that Loretta had fixed.

Mike, Con and Chet left well before we were finished, as they were busy helping Hoot, Beau and Asa with the building of the Jenkin's new house. We had 'swarmed' the foundation and framing part of the project with the same crew from Chocowinity that had helped with the finish work on Montecristo. With that kind of boost they had managed to get the roof and walls up in less than a month, and were busy doing interior work, with Con doing a lot of the 'jiggering' as Hoot described it, that allowed some of our Taluatan and Seeker advancements to blend in with the more traditional American construction and furnishings. Mike was actually doing all the hardwood floors, as he had spent most of his summers during high school and college working for a flooring contractor in Stockton.

I had taken note of how enthused Asa was to learn the flooring craft, and Mike's willingness to teach him, and how it seemed that this required an inordinate amount of private time. Perhaps Mike was going to find that little slice of happiness he had been looking such a long time to find. But I wasn't going to peek to see. Some of life's surprises needed to remain surprises.

With the construction crew off to their work, and Eru headed to Mom and Dad's to help with some wedding preparations, I had the perfect chore for Ginny and I. Ginny agreed as soon as the thought formed in us. Hah!, even I caught myself sometimes struggling with the awkward ways our new state of mind forced us to think and speak in describing things.

I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and called Grandpa A.J.

"Hello Dave! Good morning!"

"Good afternoon, Grandpa." I replied. "Up for a little company?"

"Of Course! I'm in the library with Aaron, come on ahead!"

I hung up and put the phone back in its pocket, and Ginny and I jumped through.

"Hi Grandpa!" She said as soon as we were there, bending down to give him a hug. "Hi Uncle Aaron!" She said giving him a hug also.

"Couldn't wait until Friday to see me Dave?" Grandpa asked.

"Special trip, just for you!" Ginny and I said in synchronization.

"You too have been experimenting, I take it?" Grandpa asked.

"Yes, in a way." I answered. "Do you remember my telling you about Borthun and Yela, and the night I rescued them from Maldre's Crossing, and how Ginny and I managed to join ourselves in a new way, and heal his spear wound?"

"Yes?" They both answered.

"We want to take a look at your bad leg, grandpa, and I won't even ask to you to get naked!" Ginny said.

Grandpa and Aaron both laughed at that. "Well, you do know how to disappoint an old man, young lady!" Grandpa said.

We sat beside Grandpa, one on each side of him, and with a boost from a wave of Light that I sucked into our almost-one consciousness, we were quickly able to move into it fully.

With the world once again draped in its silver and diamond mantle, we turned our senses to Grandpa's bad leg. We ran along blood vessels and nerves and tissue until we finally found a place where things were jarringly out of agreement with their Light-selves. We washed them in light and coaxed the cells of bone, nerve and muscle to return to their normal, healthy state. I let Ginny's sure touch deal with other little knots of disturbance here and there while I guided a smaller portion of us to sweep Grandpa's veins and arteries, removing built up plaque and other deposits, and generally 'cleaning out the pipes'. We joined efforts again to guide the Light memories of healthy, calcium rich bones to restore their physical counterparts.