Sunshine… Parts 9 and 10. The Finale

Part 9

*Joel………………..

It’s sex, its great sex and not a huge marathon but somewhere between a quickie and normal sex. It’s always good. I get a triple play this morning one for her by oral and two the old fashioned way before she gets me to my own home run.

We spend a few minutes kissing before she goes to shower and I take a sheet and tie it around my waist and make breakfast. That’s just coffee and I get some ricotta and some berries from the fridge to fill the crepes and some sprouts for the center of the omelet and I nuke six slices of bacon while that is going and have it all set out by the time she’s out of the shower.

We smile and share the paper while eating together the patios doors open and the smells drifting in with the sun and the wind and just taking these perfect twenty minutes together to just be us.
Sonya does the dishes while I go get showered and then we’re both getting ready for our day.

*And Now…

It’s hard not to be happy.

Sonya’s an absolute dream really she’s so nothing like anyone that I have been with in my life and no that’s not memories returning just feelings.

And yeah she can be really odd and quirky especially when it comes with her homework and how focused she gets about it. If you get to where you’re bugging her while she’s in paper writing or study mode she gets really irate.

Okay actually she’s really cute when she’s like that but I value my life and I’ll never tell her that.

And she’s not just obsessed with that but in learning Russian too.

And like things about it all and Russian history and I’m not really going to point out that she wasn’t likely that culturally Russian but with the whole blank slate stuff it.

It well comes with your own obsessions.

Mine’s my family.

No we’re not really talking outside of like a little social media once in a blue moon. But I do keep tabs on them and I follow whatever I can find and I’m building a virtual scrapbook.

I’m a dad still and I’m a grad dad and I’m a great granddad so I really do feel like I have to do this.

I want to at least be that much of a parent even though I lost out on so much of things.

I dropped Sonya off and we shared a great kiss and made plans to meet later and I went to the institute to do more of the work and tests and things with the researchers for the project.

It’s work that I’m willing to do and there’s so much potential too and not just for people the way that I was but quite possibly for humanity.

Yeah, yeah I know that there’s a lot of interest in this for the military and even more than that for rich assholes that don’t want to die yet.

But this is still huge and they are so trying to get past that reset hurdle.

Or around it.

There’s some people I guess are now working with human re-programming that we’ve caught wind of and that’s like using a mixture of a cyber like implant that has like a person’s brain patterns on it that have been recorded over time and then there’s like actual encoded memories?

Yeah I know it’s like spy level stuff and bad science fiction like that ancient book that had all those movies made off of it called Total recall.

We’re not thinking too much of that especially since it might actually be a military thing and all but the rich…the rich are all like ultra-paranoid and they’d never set themselves up to be that vulnerable.

And me it’s brain scans and doing tests that measure function and doing things over and over to measure how my brain works and some other tests for blood and other things looking at gene stuff and I’m okay with that since I’m really involved in this.

But it was just another day of this.

And another day of no answers that point to why Sonya and I came out of this as well as we did. I mean no, we’re not intact but we didn’t get wiped and we’re not vegetables either.

We all kind of want to know.

Well maybe not Sonya, she really just seems to want to get on with her life.

I was looking at more of the tests again with the lab people just seeing more of the same when I get a call from Sonya on my phone.

“Hey, you I’m nearly done here so we can meet and spend lunch together.”

She sounds odd. “Uhm can we rain check that? I was involved in an accident and I’m at the hospital.”

“Are you okay?” Yeah I’m worried.

“Uhm yeah sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“Well I went and I helped out after there was a crash and I was sick after that so the EMT’s brought me into get checked out and we’re fine. But we need a drive home.”

“Okay I’ll be right there…okay who else is with you that we’re taking home?”

“I don’t know Joel we have almost seven months though to figure it all out.”

“………You’re pregnant?”

“Yes, I didn’t know honestly I didn’t and I don’t think that I wanted to tell you this over the phone but yeah…you’re going to be a daddy.”

I’m crying and I’m actually grinning from ear to ear and I’m wiping away some of the tears and I’m getting looks from the techs and lab people and some of the one’s that have overheard are smiling and I say into the phone. “I’ll be right there.”

“Okay Daddy I’ll see you soon.”

Daddy, I’m going to be a father!

I’m getting handshakes from the people and I know that they might want to talk to me when I see the head of the division and I look at him and I cut him off before he says anything.

“I know, I know that you want in on this and I do too. I want to make sure that the baby is okay and that this whole process isn’t going to do anything to her or the baby but I want time with her first.”

He nods. “Okay Joel all of that but I was honestly just going to say congratulations first and that’s another milestone for you and us is that your little guys actually work after the rejuvenation and her’s as well that alone is a big answer that we’ve been waiting for we can wait on the rest.”

“You go to Sonya and give her our best.”

“Okay I’ll do that.”

I get in the truck and it takes me a few sets of lights to chill out and not drive so fast to get to the hospital. I do stop at one of her favorite coffee places and I get her a green tea that she likes and I stop at a flower place and I get a card and flowers and even a balloon.

Yes I’m going overboard and I don’t care I’m going to do this right.

Part 10

*Sonya………………..

When I see…

Someone looking the wrong way…she doesn’t see the oncoming truck.
I see them hit and her car gets flipped and rolls and rolls and rolls.
I’m running towards her even before she comes to a stop.

I get there and it’s full of airbags and I try the door and it’s jammed and I dig through my purse for my nail file.

Modern cars have this gas bladder that is a safety feature for anti-impacts by keeping the car frame under a pressure seal of sorts. It’s also able to be used if hit right to pop off parts of the car if you know where to pop the seals.

No…car thieves don’t use this because it takes more stuff than they have to put the parts back on.

I sink my nail file in and pop the seal and pull the door off and the side airbag hisses going flat. She looks freaked out and scared, maybe in shock.

“Are you alright!?” I ask her.
“No…I think I broke my arm.”
“Stay here, until the paramedics show…”

She nods and I take a few steps back...and…and…ow…ow…my head hurts and I’m sweating and I very suddenly need to use the garbage can.

Not good…PTSD?

So much for lunch…. Yuck.

*And Now…

I’m still spitting when the EMT’s and the fire department show up with the police and I’m getting checked out because they seen me being sick and I had to sit down right after all of this and my head was spinning.

And there’s this killer headache too.

Then it was into the ambulance or into another ambulance and we were off to the hospital so I could get checked out.

It was a lot of waiting at first.

And time thinking.

I didn’t expect to move like that, to actually step up and help.

And I guess the new me is really different.

But it’s…

It’s really, really just odd that it seemed to be instinct.

Like it’s something that just felt like I’d been there before.

And I’m mulling that all over when I get called into medical imaging for my scan.

There were a few tests and it wasn’t anything that I wasn’t used to by now then they stopped doing the 3-D internal scan thing and the tech looks at me.

“You were pretty brave doing that in your condition.”

“My condition?”

“Oh…well…uhm…”

Okay I’m actually not so spun as to not clue into what she found.

“I’m pregnant?”

“You didn’t know?”

“I didn’t know.”

Actually I’m fairly stunned by the whole thing and I’m thinking a whole lot as I’m sent to see some other people for an OBGYN checkup just to be sure.

I was in the waiting room there when this girl comes up to me.

“Excuse me are you the lady that help my mom?”

“I’m not sure there’s a whole lot of people here that help other people here.”

“You got her out of her car a few hours ago when she had the accident?”

“Oh…uhm yes I was there.”

She passed me some flowers from the gift shop. “I know it’s not much but thank you. It really means a lot that you did that. I hope you and your baby are okay.”

I took the flowers and shook her hand. “It seems everyone knows I’m pregnant before me.”

She looked around. “Oh it’s just we’re here so I figured.”

“Ah…okay, that actually makes sense.”

“Do you need anything?”

“No I’m good I’m just glad that your mom’s safe.”

She nodded and she hugged me and then she headed off to be with her mother and that has me thinking about me and being a mom and that actually had me feeling a little misty.

I moved to one of the love seats and put my feet up and touched my belly and tears slid down as I hummed you are my sunshine to them.

And…

And it’s this feeling, this feeling like there’s things sort of sliding into place.

How I reacted.

Why I reacted.

Why I don’t remember my life.

Why Joel doesn’t remember his life either.

I close my eyes and I think, I think and think and I try really, really hard and it’s making the headache come back.

But I remember something…I remember wrapping my arms around her.

Not him wrapping his arms around me.

Oh….

You can’t remember what’s not there.

But trying hard I’m starting to remember what is there.

And Joel’s not going to remember being her…not with the huge differences between him and the first Sonya.

But this whole accident, I think it triggered me.

The process does work, it totally works.

Only something happened with him and I.

Switched in the tanks.

Or the treatment was switched in all that had screwed up back then.

What do I do?

I feel my stomach.

No…no there will be tests and tests and more tests if I tell them. And who knows if they’d let us be us, let Joel and I be free?

And then there’s our baby?

I’m kind of out of it through the check up and by the time I’m calling Joel my mind’s made up.

I’m Sonya.

And I’m going to keep this secret.

It’s the only way we can be safe.