Star-Crossed

     The full moon floated just above the indigo horizon. Beneath it silver rippled the South Pacific in a band that stretched toward the two of them on the shore.
     Their world had narrowed to this: cool moonlight and two warm bodies wrapped around each other. It was all Lina O’Kelly had ever wanted, ever needed: a snug cocoon of absolute safety. Having Londo beside her was the fulfillment of a wish she’d never dared make.
     Londo lounged propped against a palm tree. He was shirtless but otherwise dressed in his famous black-on-black Valiant uniform, the vest loose over his wide, toasty-brown chest. He held Lina in his arms. She was half-clad in that terribly sexy black lingerie, wearing his gray-striped shirt with its torn right sleeve like a jacket against the comparative chill of the tropical night.
     Lina could hear Londo’s warm heart beating, punctuated by the beaching waves. His skin pulsed under her fingers as she immersed herself in the one-on-one human contact that they both had been denied all their lives. Until now.
     He’d been much too powerful to touch anyone intimately, and she’d had that paralyzing phobia to touch. Now she wasn’t afraid of him anymore. She welcomed the brash masculinity that held all that surprising tenderness inside.
     They’d worked together using her schooled skills at psychic healing to communicate deeply with his megapowered cells. After this morning’s deep massage, they didn’t fear her. They didn’t put up any mega- or even para-defenses to deflect her presence. Instead they were flooded with her love.
     Londo’s heart was as well. He truly knew how she felt about him. It was so very much more than the wonder of touching and the delirium of first-time sex. That white chemise she’d started out in was tucked securely into one of the pockets in Londo’s vest as a souvenir of this precious time together.
     “I love you,” Londo’s deep voice seemed that of the sea and sky. “Ma chérie.”
     How miraculous that anyone would ever love her, stupid old Muttbutt! It was a day of miracles, a week, a lifetime. “I love you,” she told him with all her heart.
     She sighed and snuggled, so safe from the universe in his powerful arms. His brown eyes seemed even sweeter when he gazed at her. That famous face with its commanding chin and noble nose, the wide lips and the piercing scowl that now lay so relaxed -- all that no longer belonged to some megahero icon, but rather to her Londo.
     They watched the moon rise up over the ocean and night settle upon the land. A hypnotic languor settled over them. Maybe another hour here like this, Lina thought, and then Londo would take her home. To his home, that was, to Montreal for a romantic day of who knew what? Their lives were just beginning again. The universe was an incredibly beautiful and peaceful place when you knew how to look at it. Love let you see it in the right light.
     Today had been even better than yesterday. Instead of desperation as they did everything they could before Londo’s stolen powers returned, today had been slow, lingering, and very, very thorough with words of love twining between both of them. This was how it was supposed to be. This was what all the fuss, all the wars, all the poetry and art, all the hope of humanity was about. Love.
     And yet a tiny, insidious worm of a thought squirmed through Lina’s brain: Londo was Valiant, the most famous man ever. Television news hours devoted themselves to him. Entire newspapers existed just to chronicle his deeds. Who was Lina O’Kelly compared to that? Hers was a quiet, introverted life. Even if she was the only woman in the universe he could have sex with, how long could this love affair go on before he became bored with her?
     The thought gave her too much pain so she shoved it hard away, and when Londo’s hand rubbed her shoulder, the thought disappeared as if it had never existed.  The only thing that mattered now was Londo.
     He lightly twisted a long lock of her curly auburn hair in his fingers. “I have a friend who’s never going to believe this.” Lon murmured in his French-Canadian accent, his rich brown eyes half-closed.
     “Oh! He’s blue!” Lina exclaimed. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean that to sound racist. But... he’s blue, love.” The mental picture indeed held a medium blue-skinned, violet-haired man in a baggy yellow jumpsuit -- very colorful, like TV from the Sixties. The vision Londo held of him showed him standing in what could only be a laboratory. It had that kind of feel, antiseptic and yet messy at the same time, tick-tick-tick with a machinery vibe. Very futuristic.
     “Yeah, that’s Wiley. Wilder Mem-Bazer,” Lon nodded. “It means ‘Five Minds.’ He’s got them all tucked away in that brilliant head of his.”
     Funny. He didn’t look like an overbearing mental giant. He looked like he should be mowing his yard in a suburban neighborhood before the weekend family barbecue. Darrin Stevens without the attitude.
     Lon smiled at her mental simile. “Eh, he’s a real funny guy. You’d like him. He’s crazy in his own way -- not like the nutty professor crazy. A normal guy kind of crazy.”
     “Schizoid? I mean, with five minds...”
     “Not schizoid -- although he does talk to himself. But never, ever hint to him that he might be.” Londo chuckled at a memory. “He and I are members of an interstellar--”
     Lina clenched his arm hard. “Something’s wrong!”
     A finger-thin bolt of lightning streaked by inches away from her face, blinding her for an instant.
     Before she could even think Lon shoved her behind himself and leapt to his feet. Just in time -- more lightning bolts crashed through the clearing. They ricocheted off Lon without affecting him. He was Valiant now.
     Lina’s first instinct was to roll up like a bug and hide away from the world, but she was also very okay with cowering behind his protection. She clamped down upon a whimper before it could escape her mouth and blinked wide-eyed at the situation.
     There was no time to hyperventilate, though she would if she released her lips from their hard pinch. Instead she hugged herself into as small a target as she could. Less for Lon to have to protect.
     Londo reached out and sank his fingers into their palm tree. He gave kick to its trunk and it caved in so he could snatch the entire tree as if he were grabbing a paper towel off its roll. He tossed it with a whirling motion so it caught the brunt of four more lightnings. The tree blasted into shreds. Lina wrapped her arms around her head.
     Strange how the lightning buzzed and crackled, but never thundered. Through her daze it seemed time had come to a standstill.
     But not for Lon. He’d jumped up and hovered in the air, tossing more trees at targets she couldn’t see. The lightnings targeted him at an apex of hellish fury, but other than his hair standing on end -- or at least through the glare Lina thought it was -- he was unscathed.
     But behind his cool professionalism, she could tell that he was also struggling to switch gears from the mental state he’d just been in. He searched for a more effective weapon to use.
     “Hah,” he said. Only Lina could hear because he’d thought the triumph as well. He darted down and came back up with a cannon that he used as a baseball bat to the lightning.
     Screams from the northern edge of the woods answered his attack. Wood shrapnel filled the air as more trees got caught in the crossfire.
     Lina had a power of her own. For some mysterious reason for the past two days she could teleport things, even herself. But what about Lon? She’d never tried to port him before. Not consciously. She dug her fingers into the calming sand and set herself to forget about the commotion, the danger, as she tuned into his body to prepare for the port.
     He sensed what she was doing. “Just port yourself! Now!”
     But she almost had it! Then suddenly the cold, hard barrel of a gun pressed into her cheek. Someone grabbed her around the waist and lifted her up. She let out a squeal in spite of herself. Londo spun around in mid-air.
     “Back off, Valiant!” the man who held her yelled. “I’ve got your girlfriend. Just take it nice and slow.”
     The man had the grip of a sasquatch and stood about as tall as one -- a para? Though she was six feet tall, Lina’s feet kicked in the air.
     “Don’t try any of your Valiant tricks. There are a dozen guns trained on her. You take one of us out and she gets it before you can blink.”
     Lon’s eyes locked with hers. He telepathed, **Lina, I mean it. I can get more done with you not here. Go home if you can. Call the ParaNet. I’ll meet you later.**
     **Okay.** She prepared for the port by taking a breath -- only to have it knocked out of her as a yellow-white energy bolt blasted her in her shoulder.
     “Don’t move, Valiant!” someone cried out.
     Lina yelped as the burning pain shattered her concentration, like grabbing a hot pan on the stove and holding on. The brute who had her squeezed tighter and laughed. He hadn’t even flinched at the blast. Now his touch made her skin crawl. Lights began to flash in front of her eyes and she felt faint. The white curtain of unthinking panic threatened to descend. Her phobia to touch -- Not now! Not now!
     Londo eased back down to earth, facing her and her captor. His snarl caught the moonlight. He twisted the half-slagged remains of the cannon into a pretzel and then dropped it on the sand. Its dead bulk was three times as large as he. Slowly he flexed his dangerous body in a futile challenge.

     A woman’s voice called, “Good boy, Londo. Stay.”