And here it is—the final chapter. Enjoy! Bobby’s POV.

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Chapter 16:

I woke up slowly and in a daze. I noticed two things immediately. The first was that I was on Second Earth. The second was that Spader wasn’t there. The latter scared me to death. Spader always woke me up once he was awake or he let me sleep and would just lie in my arms till I awoke. Other times I’d wake up and he’d still be asleep. Point was that he was always there when I woke up!

I sat up and looked around frantically. When I didn’t spot him anywhere in the room, I quickly got up and tugged some boxers on. I left our room and found my aquaneer curled up on the couch, sound asleep. He even had a loose black shirt on as well as a pair of boxers. I poked him a few times and his eyes slowly opened. “Bobby?”

“Why are you on the couch?” I asked anxiously.

Spader stared at me in confusion for a moment and looked around the room. “I don’t know…” I grinned, yanking him into my arms.

“Have fun last night?” I asked hopefully.

Spader lowered his eyes in thought for a moment before looking back up at me and nodding. “It made me think a little,” he explained. Last night I’d made rather passionate love to him.

I was a little upset he wasn’t showing as much enthusiasm as I’d hoped for. Then I decided it was just because he was probably still tired. Spader was a sleepy little thing. But he was acting so strange. Maybe it was because we’d been on Second Earth too long. We’d been dating for 4 years now and we were always switching between Cloral and Second Earth. By now I was 22 and Spader was 24. All the Travelers knew we were together. “What did you think about?”

Spader reached his hand up and gentle gripped the necklace he wore. The gift I’d given him three years ago. I looked at him in confusion. “I know that you just gave me this as a regular gift but,” he paused and gently reached into the loose black shirt he wore and quietly pulled out a small box, holding it up toward me.

I looked at him in confusion and hesitantly took if from him. He was watching me anxiously, so I slowly opened it, pulling out a braded silver chain with a large orb-like pendent. The orb was beautiful, it was silver, blue, purple, and green all at the same time and it shone beautifully. I looked at Spader is slight confusion, “Why are you giving me this? Spader, it’s absolutely amazing.”

“It’s called an abalone pearl and… it’s my union gift to you, Bobby.”

I looked at Spader in slight awe. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want. You know that, right? Spader, we have forever to get married. It’s been 4 years. You don’t have to.”

Spader lowered his gaze away from mine. “I just… I want to. I want to be marked as yours and you as mine. I want you to have my gift to you, so I can wear yours properly. I love you, Pendragon. Please, can we be united forever?”

I smiled tenderly, pulling Spader into my arms. “Of course. As long as you want it, you can have it.”

Spader looked up at me and winked, “Oh, yeah, I own Halla, don’t I?”

Both of us laughed. Loor and Courtney peeked into the room to see what was going on. “We’re getting married,” I explained, still laughing slightly. When Spader and I came to Second Earth, we always stayed with Courtney and Loor. They weren’t always on Second Earth, though. They spent more time on Zadaa now.

Spader gently reached out and laid his hand on my shoulder, making me look at him. “Bobby, after we exchange gifts, we usually…”

I grinned. “You’ll have to excuse us, though.” Spader and I really didn’t make love that often anymore. Maybe once every two weeks. But when we did make love, it was still as amazing as our first time. Two times so close together was pretty unusual, but I was completely up for it.

Loor and Courtney both looked at me in confusion. They’d congratulated us already and had been saying something about a celebration until Spader had previously captured my attention. I picked Spader up in my arms and made my way into our room, laying him down on our bed. I drew the drapes and closed the door so we could have some privacy, then I turned my gaze to my soon to be mate. Spader smiled at me, slipping off the loose black shirt he’d been wearing. You can pretty much guess the rest. It was fun, very fun.

After we recovered, we explained to Loor and Courtney about going to Cloral to get marked. Both of them quickly decided they were coming with Spader and me. We had to call Mark as well. How embarrassing.

Mark was freaking out at us getting married. He was really excited for us. The five of us went to Cloral and Spader hooked us up with someone so we could get marked. He always seemed to know the right people. But, Spader was pretty popular.

I was a little nervous. I’d never gotten a tattoo before. I’d heard they hurt. When we were in the room to get marked, Spader showed me all of the types of symbols. There were hundreds. On top of that, you used two symbols put together. Not side-by-side either. They were interlocking, and depending on the artist, the interlocking was different. So, you and your partner’s symbols were truly unique.

Spader’s first name’s character, Vo, meant freedom. That was our first symbol. My name didn’t have a character (because it wasn’t Cloran), so Spader chose one for me. It meant traveling. That made me smile, and I liked it.

The letters were very pretty. The artist sketched it out for us first, and both Spader and I loved it. Spader went first. Usually the dominant partner went first, but Spader wanted to because he knew I was nervous.

He lifted his shirt up and he laid down. The artist cleansed Spader’s skin with some solution and let it dry. Apparently it numbed and cleaned the skin. Then the artist began to work. He did the thin outline first. We were having our symbol done in black, Spader’s favorite color. Pure black was a rare color, royal blue was the most common color.

After the outline was done, the artist outlined the shine marks and began to fill in the rest of the symbol. Spader’s skin was red around the area and I knew he was feeling a bit of pain, but he didn’t even blink an eye. He had a pretty good pain tolerance.

It looked very pretty. The artist covered Spader’s finished tattoo with another kind of solution and told him to stay away from water for at least 36 pecks (12 hours). He then looked at me, “Your turn.”

Spader smiled reassuringly. “It’s okay. It really doesn’t hurt.” Spader went ahead and took his shirt off before he stood up. He was supposed to let the solution dry completely before having anything rub against his brand new tattoo (like a shirt).

I took a nervous breath and laid down. Spader sat beside me. He was delighted I was going to be marked as his. Actually, he was just delighted in general. “It’s actually pretty rare to do same sex unions,” the guy said as he cleansed the area. “Really common to see same sexes dating, but they usually don’t go though a union. Probably because of children.”

Spader smiled. “We’re either going to adopt or get a carrier. Well, when I’m ready,” he laughed nervously.

The artist looked up with a smile. “Yeah, you’ve got to calm down a bit yet. But it’s sweet the two of you are considering adopting. There aren’t many orphans, but with a father or mother as an aquaneer, it’s not uncommon to have that parent die in an accident. Sometimes the single parent left can’t always cope too well and the child gets passed to another family member. Or a plague can wipe out the parents, but the child manages to live. Still, I can understand wanting your child to be of your own blood.”

Spader nodded. “Bobby wants it to be from me, but…”

The artist grinned. “You’re the jealous type, aren’t you?” he teased, “you are always going for all the attention. I can understand a baby taking some of your lover’s attention off you. But, if it helps, you won’t notice at all. You’ll be too busy taking care of the baby as well.”

Spader was gazing at the ground. My eyes were wide. That was it? He didn’t want a child for fear of the baby taking away some of my love for him? “Spader,” I snapped firmly. He looked at me anxiously. “You’re an idiot,” I growled. The look on his face was sort of comical. It was a mix of confusion, hurt, and anger. “You think I’d stop paying attention to you? Geez! You’d probably take more work than the baby! Nothing can come between my love for you. A baby can only make it stronger, which isn’t possible because I love you as much as physically possible right now.”

Spader had a light blush covering his cheeks. “Will your love die for me if we had a baby?” I asked.

“Of course not.”

“Exactly.”

Spader shifted anxiously. The artist spoke up, “I love my wife just as much as I always did before my son was born. We don’t express it as must in actions, but that’s nothing to do with our relationship. It’s just age. Think about you’re first weeks with your lover, you were probably on a high and making love three times a day. It’s not the same now, is it? But you obviously don’t notice or mind, because your getting unified with him. Spader, there’s nothing to worry about.”

Spader sighed softly and smiled nervously at me. “But I’m still not ready.”

I smiled back. “I understand. When you’re ready. Just don’t let any fear get in the way, okay?”

He nodded and the artist smiled. “Now, let’s try to finish you.” I flinched as he started on the outline. A lot of the numbing had worn off while we’d been talking. I endured it though. It wasn’t too bad. It hurt, but I survived. I looked down and smiled as it began to take shape. It was an amazing feeling. I looked at Spader and the mark on him. I liked this Cloran tradition.

Once we were both done, he headed back home to Spader’s apartment. Mark, Courtney, and Loor were all there. We showed off our marks and Spader explained about the symbols for them. Then well… they made Spader and I take off our shirts and take pictures together so our marks were visible and our gifts to each other stood out against our skin.

We weren’t advised to make love because it’d be hard to lay on top of each other with our skin stinging where our new tattoos were. Oh well, that didn’t stop me from playing with Spader at least a little.

The next day, Yenza showed up and congratulated us. On top of that, several of Spader’s friends from other habitats went out of their way to visit as well. They threw a huge bash for us at Grolo’s. It was fun, but pretty embarrassing considering unions were a bit personal on Cloral. But, yeah, I can assure you the whole territory of Cloral knew about us. Even Faar. They called upon us to personally congratulate us. I guess that was appropriate, because Spader and I were the ones that saved them.

Loor and Courtney had a child about a year after Spader and I got married. Courtney was the one that carried the baby. Spader and I were always visiting them and we’d been lucky enough to be there for the birth. The father had been a trusted Batu friend of Loor’s. The baby was very beautiful, with Courtney’s eyes, Loor’s hair color, and their mixed skin colors, a sweet baby girl. When we’d gotten a nervous Spader to hold the child, I gasped. He was so gentle and nervous… it had my desire for a baby of our own spike off the charts. Spader noticed it too, considering how aggressive I started to get when we made love. It didn’t start with our usual kissing and gentle touching. It started with me slamming him down onto of bed and just being so desperate to release my seed into him. I was trying to get him pregnant; even though I knew it’d never work. I never hurt him, but I was really rough. In fact, it was almost the end of us until I forced myself to face the truth that it just wasn’t time and that my roughness was just making my chances for a child even smaller.

And, much to my surprise, a month or two after Loor and Courtney’s child, Spader nervously grabbed my hand and told me about something that had happened that day. One of his close friend’s wife had passed away giving birth. His friend had committed suicide. Spader had been asked if he would take the child. And… he’d said yes.

I flinched, not wanting it to have happened like this. But, Spader assured me it was okay. We had to make some preparations of course. We moved into an apartment with two rooms so the baby would have a room. Spader and I were well off financially with Spader being both a field aquaneer and on the pilot’s crew. I even helped out the vators sometimes for old time’s sake or if I got bored, not that the money was really needed.

And when I saw Spader holding our baby, I couldn’t help smiling. He was actually a very protective parent. And, the child was beautiful. It was a baby girl and she had wide blue eyes that looked the color of the ocean. She had black hair and ivory skin. Obviously her skin would darken when she got older though.

We decided when she grew up that we won’t tell her the full truth. We’d let her know she was adopted, but tell her that her parents had died of illness. We’d love her a ton, which we already did, and we’d keep her healthy and happy. She was named Kaoru after her birth parents, but her first name had never been chosen. I let Spader pick, and he choose Ta for calm because she slept so much. It was kind of funny actually. I’d walk into her room and Spader would be in there wanting to play with the baby but she wouldn’t wake up. So he’d be having a bit of a fit himself. I’d hit the nail on the head when I’d said Spader would need more care then the baby.

He was more in the parent mind frame, but he was still the same old Spader. Things were forever happening to him and he was the same cheerful excitable person he’d always been. He was still jealous, too. Not just for me though. If someone was holding the baby a bit too long for Spader’s taste he got jealous at that. Even at me for holding the baby too much. He was a playful jealous though, so I always had to laugh when he’d snatch Kaoru back.

But, I was true to my word and my love for Spader was always strong. We almost never had a disagreement, except over the whole Traveler business. Spader didn’t want her to know, but I knew it was impossible to hide. We lived on Cloral now, rarely visiting Second Earth. The apartment Courtney and Loor had shared had been sold because they’d moved to Zadaa.

Spader and I managed to make an agreement. We wouldn’t tell her unless she got suspicious when she was older. And I had a feeling she might, but Spader was confident that our Traveling days were over and that the Traveler legacy and Saint Dane would fade away.

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I really hope that’s a good ending! It’s so hard ending such a long story. But, I had to put little Kaoru in there. Well, it’s over D: Wow… I’ll still be going back and editing old chapters so they’re grammar is better. But, if you’ve been around from the beginning and bothered to read my whole story: thank you and I hope you liked it. Every if you’re one of those anonymous reads that doesn’t feel like reviewing/doesn’t have an account to review with. I love looking at my view count, and I do know you guys are out there, and it makes me happy :D Even though the story is over, I’ll still love getting reviews. I even have it set up to obtain reviews from someone who doesn’t have an account. So, thank you for being a reader, and I hope you liked it!