The crowd shifts, and they are swept along on the tide of bodies to Buckingham Palace. Chants of “We want the king!” bring the royal family to the balcony. Beatrix and Oliver wave to them, along with the rest of the crowd.
The celebration stretches into the evening hours. They cross the city, crawling from pub to pub until they find one that hasn’t run out of glasses. They share the one chair they can find.
With no distance between them, Beatrix can’t miss the shadows beneath Oliver’s eyes, how pale he looks under the smoky lights of the bar. She leans into him, practically shouts in his ear to be heard over the crowd. “Do you want to rest here for a while?”
Oliver shakes his head. He winces, tries to cover it with a smile. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m fine,” he says, low in her ear. He downs his pint, as if that will prove it, and rises to his feet. “What’s next?”
Beatrix pushes away the sinking feeling in her guts. She takes his hand and tries not to think about what comes next. Not today. Not now.
The sun sinks, and bonfires spring up in parks around the city. Beatrix swears she dances around every one. Her feet ache. She is exhausted. She is happy.
A pair of men playing their fiddles in the shadow of a fountain finish their song, and Beatrix pulls Oliver away before they can strike up the next one. She sits on the fountain’s edge, Oliver beside her.
“I can’t dance another step,” she groans.
“Can you manage walking?” he asks. “There’s something I think you’d enjoy seeing, but I’m not sure how far it is…”
Beatrix nudges him playfully with her shoulder. “You’re lost, aren’t you?”
Oliver returns the nudge. “Hopelessly. Good thing I’ve got you with me.”
“All right,” Beatrix says. She stands and pulls Oliver to his feet. “Where to?”
“St. Paul’s.”
“We’ve already been to St. Paul’s,” she says.
“Trust me,” Oliver says. So she does.
Beatrix leads the way until they are close enough to see the cathedral. The crowd is thinner than it was in Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, but it still thrums with activity. The clock tower strikes half past the hour. Oliver will be gone before it strikes again. Her heart sinks. “You’re nearly out of time.”
“I know,” he says. “But I have enough time for this.” He nods toward St. Paul’s, an inky, looming shadow against the night sky. “Watch.”
Floodlights flick on, one after the other, from somewhere on the hill, and beams of blinding light slash through the darkness. Tonight, they don’t search the skies for enemy planes. In an instant, St. Paul’s is aglow in white light, no longer a target but a beacon. It has survived. They all have. The sight sends a shiver through her.
“Thank you for sharing your day with me,” Oliver whispers in her ear.
The weight of his arm around her vanishes, the warmth of him replaced by chill night air, before she can reply.
July 31, 2202Boston, Massachusetts
Oliver wakes to someone shaking his shoulder, his heartbeat throbbing an echo in his skull, his body stiff from the cold tile floor beneath it. Slowly, he opens his eyes.
Theo leans over him, his face inches from his, out of focus and then lined with worry. He slumps back in relief as Oliver struggles to sit up. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“What happened?” Oliver leans back against his kitchen cabinets, the effort to stand too much.
“I don’t know,” his brother says. “You were on the floor when I got here. Do you remember anything?”
Oliver shakes his head, but that sends the room tipping. He closes his eyes. He hears Theo shift and pull himself to his feet. His refrigerator door opens. “What are you doing here?”
“I couldn’t get ahold of you. Which is nothing new,” Theo says pointedly. “But Luke called me and said he and Zoë hadn’t heard from you, either. I came over to check if everything was all right. You didn’t answer the door, so I let myself in. Here.”
Oliver opens his eyes. Theo stands over him, a cold can of beer in his extended hand. “For your head,” he clarifies.
“Thanks.” Oliver winces as the chilled aluminum makes contact with the lump rising on his forehead.
Theo sits on the kitchen floor next to him. He rests his arms across his knees. “I think I should take you over to the hospital to get checked out.”
