It's the first day of Junior year and Idaia's feeling pretty good. She likes her classes so far, it's a beautiful day, and she just has an indescribable positive feeling. Her last class of the day has just let out and she has an entirely tolerable amount of homework.
Her phone rings.
"Hello?"
"Or, I don't know who exactly survived, but it's at least Curufinwe, Tyelcormo and Feanaro."
Idaia sits down, abruptly. Well. Her legs sort of crumple out from under her, but she lands in a sitting-ish position on an object appropriate for sitting on, so close enough. Her sister's fucking with her. Her sister wouldn't fuck with her. Not about this. Her family--"What?" she can only repeat, hoarsely.
"They're alive. And Curufinwe assures me they would've come back for us if they'd known we'd missed the boats, which, kudos to us, if your husband hadn't had a major head wound we'd have averted a tragedy by fucking up."
"And Curufinwe is my TA, which is how I found out any of this stuff."
"Didn't ask. Not the important bit. The important bit's that Tyelcormo's working at Zion National Park."
Her breathing comes shallowly. Her husband--it's been, how long, too fucking long, humanity hadn't been properly born when she saw him last and now it's old, old, old, and he's, alive, somehow, and, and, how, how long has he been missing her--
He has to still love her. He promised.
"Where--no, I can look it up--get a plane ticket or something--" it doesn't occur to her that she might be best served to wait until some more academically opportune time, and if it had she would have dismissed the notion. Her husband. "Love you bye." She hangs up. She pulls out her laptop. She googles "Zion National Park." She grits her teeth when it turns out to be more complicated than "fly to this city." She impatiently flits around the website to find what she actually needs to do, and books the most immediate makeable plane ticket.
It's not until she's waiting in the airport with a hastily packed bag that it occurs to her that once she's there she doesn't really know what name to ask for. She seriously doubts they're going by their actual names. She calls her sister back.
"Thanks again bye."
She gets on her plane. She flies to Utah. She rents a car. She drives. She finds the Visitor Center.
He's leading a tour in a quarter-hour. It'll start late, no one's on time when they're on vacation. He's sitting and staring blankly at the wall in the meantime.
She looks exactly like her, it's not just the feeling he gets when someone looks a lot like her, this is identical, the memories haven't faded enough that he's anything less than completely certain - "Gaaraarghble," he says.
"...I'm not going to ask if you're okay, that...seems...pretty...clear...are you...I just..." she shakes her head. Her heart feels like it's going a thousand miles an hour which doesn't even make any sense because that's not even how you measure heart rate but what the fuck ever. "I. I don't. I thought. I thought you were dead."
"You were dead, I felt you be dead - how did I not feel that you were alive -" but oh, he feels it now -
"I don't know how I'm alive, we got--reincarnated--somehow--oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry--"
"I wasn't--thinking, I was just hurting, and--taking what felt like the path of least resistance, and I got myself killed and I left you all alone and the last--the last time you saw me you were trying to protect me and when you woke up I was--I was--and I don't know how long it's been but you really don't look okay to me and I thought I had literally killed you, and I have no idea how I'm alive and I could so easily just--not have--and then--"
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