One Candle Burns

I almost can’t believe I really finished it. But I did! I finished the entire One Candle Burns Series. This is the epilogue. The final installment. It marks the end of a series, and also the end of my ER fanfiction writing. If you want to read the little note about my “retirement” you can go here. I’m gonna miss you all soooo much!!!!

I’m rating this one R, I think, for a little bitty bit of sex, and a few bad words, but nothing horrendous. I think most of you can put up with my rebellious side <g>.

Since this is the end of the series, I’m gonna take the time to thank a few people.

First of all, Emily, who has beta-read for me on a moments notice, offered me way more encouragement than I deserve, and sufficiently pumped up my ego enough to get me to write the last bits of this series. This one, Em, is for you.

Also, big thank you to Kelly, who’s read every part of this series and helped me get through it, even though she’s crossed over to the dark side and become a Luby <g>. Kelly was one of my first friends in the ER fandom, and I can remember many chat sessions that went on late into the night, discussing everything from ER to... well, everything! You rock, girl, I love ya.

A third thank you goes to Kitty, my first beta editor, who’s tireless editing services and wonderful sense of humour kept me laughing and on my toes. Kitty is one of the most fabulous fanfiction authors I’ve ever come across, and I feel truly honored that she took the time to beta-read for little ol’ me.

To my real life friends, Tara and Catherine and Jessica, who don’t all watch ER but who  still helped me write this by putting up with my constant jabbering about Doug and Carol, and even by offering suggestions and ideas from time to time.

Thank you, finally, to everyone on my mailing list. A lot of you have sent me feedback every single time I post a fic. You have no idea how much that means to me, how much I appreciate you guys. Sara, Julie, Trigg, Melissa, Joanne, Nikki, S.B.J., Robbie, Maddie, Falconer, and everyone I’m forgetting (you know who you are!) – your loyal feedback, suggestions, and compliments are what kept me writing, and ultimately what finished this series. You all deserve credit for the One Candle Burns series, and now I’m giving it to ya.

Thanks, guys, from the bottom of my little heart =)

And now, for one last time, on with the show....
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Previously:

“Doug...” the stunned plea tumbled from her lips as her hand cupped the side of his face. Nothing mattered– not how he got there, not where he’d been, not what had happened– nothing. All that mattered was that he was alive. Alive, alive, alive.

In one, sudden movement she let herself fall into his embrace. The sensation of his strong arms tightening around her back, the smell of his skin, and the sound of his hitched breathing as he wept into her hair was too much for her to handle, and she erupted into sobs, shaking against him as he softly chanted her name like a prayer, “Carol, Carol, Carol...”


One Candle Burns - Part 8

Epilogue

How sweet the days gone by
How sharp the corners
How blue the canvas sky
That set you free

– Godspeed, Beth Neilson Chapman

May 12th, 2000
________________________________________________________________________

Time is something most people never think about. It passes by them without any more acknowledgment then a few quick glances at a wrist watch afford. They feed off of it in frenzied madness, perpetually rushing, oblivious to the fragile nature of the one thing never regarded. They recognize it only when they curse it; when they’re late, when it’s affects on their physicality appear in wrinkles and grey hair and sagging bust lines.

Or when it runs out.

Working in the emergency room, Carol Hathaway had many chances to ponder the truth of time, and in realizing it’s fleeting frailty, had always tried to embrace it. She was again confronted with this recognition when she was recovering from a suicide attempt. When she had decided that time was really what she wanted, and that she wouldn’t waste any more of it.

Carol would be aware of it’s fallible presence once more when the man she loved was taken away. She would curse it’s impotence and wonder at it’s deceptiveness again and again, waiting for answers to be revealed, and receiving none.

Until one night, time was returned to her.

And she would believe, until the very last moment of her life, that this was the most precious gift of all.
________________________________________________________________________



For long moments everything stilled. Their hearts stopped beating, their lungs stopped breathing. The world had fallen into a frozen lull, where heartache and sorrow and loneliness ceased to exist, and they were filled with only awe. Carol held him as the magnitude of what was happening, settled over her. She buried her face in the warm hollow of his neck as she wept with a sense of stupefied relief. And when the world again began to turn, when her heart again began to thump in her chest, he was still there, still in her arms, still wrapped around her wonderfully.

Slowly, shock began to drip away, until realization came fully upon her, the emotions beating through her so utterly raw she had to pull away. And when she did, she held his face in her hands, stroking the familiar stubble there, feeling his warm tears flow over her fingers, unaware that her own sobs still echoed around them.

She struggled to find her voice, and when she spoke it was soft and dry and hoarse from crying. “Is it really you?”

It was Doug’s shaky grin that pulled her from the remnants of shock. The smile transformed him, and the face that had looked strangely unlike the one she’d grown to know so well was suddenly the same familiar, beautiful face of the man she loved.

Abruptly, confusion gripped her, dashing her incredible relief with icy fingers. With a stinging sense of reality, Carol extricated herself from his arms, and took a step backwards. Crossing her arms over her chest, she felt the great, heaving sobs of alleviation cease and merge into a more bitter sort of weeping. She knew she must have looked ridiculous standing in the landing of her home in her pajamas, her hair ruffled from sleeping, her face stained with tears, her eyes red and puffy, her shoulders shaking with confusion and anger and relief. But she didn’t care. He was home, and she didn’t understand why.

“Carol...” he repeated the only word he’d uttered since she’d opened the door, and he reached out to her, laying a hand gently on her arm, trying to assuage her. “It’s alright. It’s me. Just... just listen for a minute...”

She shrugged him off and shook her head, dark curls flying, eyes flashing with building anger. “How can this be? Doug... God, I thought you were dead. They... they told me.... for so long... I though you were *dead*.” She spat out the word like it was a curse.  “Do you have any idea what that did to me?” Her last words were heavier with sadness than with anger, and she took his hand when he again reached for her. She wiped at her eyes with her other hand, her fury fading as quickly as it had accumulated. “Doug...” she choked in a bitter whisper, suddenly desperate for the answers to the questions flying around in her head. “Why did you leave me?”

He closed his eyes against the sharp-edged pain of her question, and shook his head softly. Then, with her hand still held tightly in his, he led her into the living room. She followed him wordlessly, staring at him with wide-eyed bewilderment. He sat her down on the sofa, and sat beside her, their knees touching as he turned towards her. He took both of her hands in his, slowly stroking her cold fingers with his thumbs.

“I didn’t leave you Carol,” his voice was steady and intense, and he shook his head again, his eyes locked upon hers fiercely. “I would never leave you. I told you that, the day before I left. Do you remember?”

Carol nodded. She remembered everything about that day. Every second, every moment, every touch, every word, every glance. She’d committed them all to memory and visualized them so often that they had become like a black-and-white movie, playing every time she closed her eyes.

His eyelids fluttered shut again, and with a deep sigh, he began to relay what he’d been through in the last 16 months. He told her what he’d seen, what he’d experienced, what he’d learned.

He told her his story.

He told of how his troop was taken prisoner for trying to kidnap a little girl they had only been trying to save. He told her of how they were going to be executed, until a kind man named Vladimir Zoback set the prison on fire to save them.

At this, Carol’s brow furrowed. “Vladimir Zoback. I know him.” And with a sad smile of recollection she told him a story of her own.

“Oh, Carol,” Doug sighed when she’d finished, shaking his head softly. “You went to Kosovo.”


“Yes. I was safe, though, Doug. I was alright. It was something I needed to do.” She let one hand slip from his and trail down to rest on his knee, which she patted gently in reassurance. “But tell me what happened at the prison. Tell me why it didn’t work, why you weren’t saved.”

He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “We were almost out of the building when a plank fell in front of the window– the only way out. Vladimir had already gotten out, but... Tony and I were still trapped. Another plank had fallen on Tony. I was... I was trying so hard to lift it off of him... he was such a good guy... with a family and a little boy... I was trying so damn hard...” Doug trailed off, lost in the memory of burning embers falling onto his clothes and skin, the memory thick smoke stinging his lungs, the memory of feeling utterly helpless.

“Doug,” Carol said softly, not knowing how to relieve him of his obvious grief. “It’s okay...” The magnitude of his story, of what it meant, of what had happened to him was settling like a heavy blanket over her shoulders. But she shook it off, determined to listen, determined to know, to understand.

Doug nodded and let go of her hands. Then, palms up, he held them out to her. It took her a moment to realize that the deep pink and white ridges and discoloring on his palms were scars. She gasped softly, reaching out to run a gentle finger over the marks.

“The beam was burning my hands as I tried to lift it,” He explained. “I didn’t even notice. The building was starting to collapse though, and I think I passed out.” He sighed heavily, looking at the cold fireplace on the other side of the room. “I was so sure I wasn’t going to make it, Carol, so certain of my death. All I could think was that I’d promised you I’d make it home safely, and I’d broken that promise. I’d broken another promise to you, Carol, another one, after so many, after I’d vowed never to let you down again.” He stopped, realizing she was crying again. “I’m so sorry, Carol. So very sorry.”

“But you’re here, Doug.” she shook her head incredulously, blinking away the tears clouding her vision. “You’re here and you’re whole and you’re alive. You’re safe. I don’t understand it. Its... it’s impossible. It’s a miracle, even.”

“Not quite a miracle,” he smiled, reaching up to tenderly wipe away the torrent of tears cascading down her soft cheeks. “I woke up in a cell much like I had been in before, with burns on my chest and my feet and on my hands. Vladimir came to me three days later, and explained to me that after the beam fell in front of the window he told the Serb Guards that I was a spy who knew invaluable information, and that they were to save me, that their lives depended on it. He saved my life. The guards came back into the burning prison to get me, and Tony.” He bit his lip, concentrating on Carol’s face. She looked so beautifully sad that his heart jumped into his throat, and he had to wait a moment before continuing. “Tony was already dead. I never saw him after the fire. I suppose Vlad told the rest of the Serbian council that I’d confessed whatever secret he’d pretended I was keeping, and convinced them not to kill me. I was placed in an underground Serbian prison. I worked for them as a medic to their wounded soldiers through, and even after the war. I never left the prison. For sixteen months I moved from that dark, cold little cell to the small infirmary down the hall, at all times of the day and night, working on their soldiers. My feet were bound in chains so I couldn’t escape. I– I did try, once. I almost got out, too. But a guard heard my chains scratching against the concrete floor and caught me.” He was absently fingering a tiny pink line than peeked over the neck of his T-shirt, and Carol realized he had probably been beaten for trying to escape. She sighed, caught between wanting desperately to take him into her arms and comfort him and needing to hear the rest of his story. Doug began to speak again, making the decision for her.

“I tried so hard to get back to you, Carol. I thought that If I did what they told me until the war was over, they might let me go. Or that Vlad would find a way to get me out. But he– he couldn’t. He would have been killed if anyone found out, which was likely in the high security prison.”

“What about after the war? Why weren’t you released then?”

“It was an underground prison. It was not under normal operation or normal circulation. They guards and feds were either not in authorization, or illegal. No one knew about the prison. When the rest of the hostages and prisoners were released by the United Nations and NATO, we were still held because they didn’t know. They didn’t know about us, about the prison. They really thought I was dead. That I’d died in that fire.”

“But you got out...?”

“Yes. I did.” He grinned then, his eyes finally exhibiting the first spark of happiness she’d seen since she’d first opened the door. “The troops who were secretly running the underground prison were finally discovered by a UN party travelling through the area.”

“But... how?”

“I made a kind of flare out of peroxide and rubbing alcohol and a match and threw it out the window. The prison was liberated a half hour later, and... I was free.”

Carol couldn’t help smiling warmly at the beautiful word. *Free...*

“They booked me a flight after brining me back to their headquarters and letting me have a shower and some food. Hamburger and biscuits and butter. God... after a year and a half of... of fucking gruel, it tasted like heaven.” He chuckled, and she laughed too.
But confusion again disrupted the joyful moment.

“Why didn’t you call?”

“I got off at O’hare and took the taxi straight here. I was afraid... I don’t know, I guess I was afraid you’d hang up on me or something. Or you’d have an MI or...” he smiled humourlessly, “or you wouldn’t believe it was really me. I figured they’d told you I was dead.”

“You’re not dead,” she said quietly, almost as if she was convincing herself.

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t expect anything from you, Carol. I was gone a long time, and I know you must have a life now, a life... that doesn’t involve me. I just...” He took her hands again, unable to resist bringing them up to his lips to kiss her delicate fingers softly. “I just needed to see you, needed to feel you, to touch you... But I don’t want you to feel obligated to...“

She quieted him with a finger to his lips. “I Love you.”

He blinked at her incredulously. “Carol–...”

“I’ve always loved you.” She smiled through the tears that had again began to collect. “Since the day you came to county. Since the first time you kissed me. I fell in love with you all over again when you showed up on my doorstep three years ago. Not a day went by, these last months, when I didn’t think about you. When I didn’t think about how in love with you I was. And it killed me, Doug. It killed me, because I thought I was loving in vain. I thought I was in love with a ghost. But I’m not in love with a ghost. I’m in love with you. And you’re here... and you’re alive.... and I can’t believe it, I can’t...” She trailed off, laughing and crying and wiping away her tears furiously. She wanted to see him. She wanted to see his face.

“You’re not involved?” A thousand emotions passed over his face; surprise and relief and shame and regret, until only one remained. Hope.

Carol shook her head. “I couldn’t, Doug, I just couldn’t. I didn’t...” Her smile faded and her voice was reduced to a strained whisper. “I don’t know how to let you go.”

He took her wet face in his scarred hands, letting his fingers tangle in her soft curls as he leaned in close. “Then don’t. Don’t let go....”

Carol could do nothing but obey, and happily took him into her arms and buried her face in his hair. He pulled back after a moment, smiling, his eyes moist. He pressed his lips to her face, littering soft little kissing on her chin and her nose and her cheeks, his fingers trailing their path, rediscovering the contours of her features and the plains of her pale skin, tasting the salty wetness there.

“I never thought I’d have this again, Carol. I never thought I have you again. I missed you.... I love you,” he whispered the words reverently. “ Every second I was in that prison, I was thinking about you. You, your memory, it kept me going. It kept me alive. The hope that one day I’d see you again was enough. It was all I had. You’re all I have.”

Shaking her head softly, she kissed his soft lips. He didn’t know. He didn’t know about them.

She pulled him tightly against her, letting his head rest in the crevice of her neck, rocking slowly. She wished desperately to be able to erase the memories of his horrible experience. Passions burned through her, and she was overwhelmed, happy and sad and overjoyed and heartbroken all at once.

Suddenly, a loud wail emanated from upstairs. Doug pulled back, startled, to look into her eyes. She offered a small smile, and took his hand.

“Come with me.”

She lead him up the stairs and to the nursery. At the door covered with bunny rabbit cut-outs, he stopped.

“Carol... I...” He was lost, confused, shocked. His heart stopped for a long moment, and then resumed it’s pounding, sending blood rushing into his head, thrumming incessantly in his ears.

Carol smiled softly, urging him into the room. She bent over one crib, and picked up Kate, who’s crying stopped immediately at the sight of her mother’s face.

Doug couldn’t keep his mouth from hanging open. They were a lot bigger than he’d expected. They looked about six months old...

He couldn’t keep the prickly feeling of heartbreak from creeping into his gut.

“This is Kate,” Carol told him, balancing the baby on her hip as she stepped closer to him.

“Twins?” he whispered, looking at the other crib, where the other child lay sleeping.

She nodded, reaching up to smooth a hand over Kate’s wayward baby curls. The baby was already falling asleep under her mother’s gentle ministrations. “The other is Tess.”

He placed a hand on Kate’s head. “Beautiful,” his voice wavered almost sadly. “She’s just beautiful.”

Carol furrowed her brow as she realized her mistake. He didn’t understand.

“They look like you, Doug.”

His head snapped up, his eyes filling with tears of shock and joy and regret and relief as realization flooded through him.

“Carol...” He said her name so softly she barely heard him. Then he took his hand from the baby’s soft head, and quickly left the room.

Confused, Carol placed a sleeping Kate back in her crib and stepped out into the hallway. Doug wasn’t there. With a frown, she went down the hall, to the bathroom, and pushed open the door.

He was standing over the sink, his hands clutching the edge, tears flowing over his cheeks mercilessly. His shoulders shook violently with great, gut-wrenching sobs that broke her heart and stabbed tauntingly at her soul.

Slowly, she went to him. She placed a hand on his shoulder, slowly moving it down his back, hoping to offer some sort of solace, some sort of condolence, until she realized he was speaking.

Carol leaned in closer, trying to understand his jumbled words.

“So sorry, God, Carol.... I’m...so fucking sorry, those babies... we tried so hard for them... I missed it... .Carol, God... I’m so...., I– I... I’m sorry. Carol, I didn’t know. I wouldn’t.... wouldn’t have left if I’d have known...” His words were laden with guilt and shame, and mingled with tears.

Unable to suppress the urge to comfort him, she slowly pulled him away from the sink, wrapping her arms around his torso, resting her head against him, speaking into his chest.

“I didn’t know either, Doug. I didn’t know until after you... after they told me you weren’t coming home. I was devastated, Doug... I wanted so badly to have a baby with you. But all the time I was pregnant, I felt like a still had a part of you with me... you’ll love them so much. I knew you would... I always knew you would....”

“I wish I could have been there. I’m so sorry. I should have been there,” he mumbled into her hair, his voice muffled with pain.

“You’re here now. And that’s enough. It’s more than enough.”

Slowly, reluctantly, he nodded, and without completely disentangling himself from her, he started back towards the nursery.

“They’re perfect. I’ve never seen anything so completely perfect,” he whispered, standing over Tess’ crib, reaching out to stroke her cheek. A final tear fell reluctantly down his face and he wiped it away with the back of his hand.  “Thank you.”

“For what, Doug?” She smiled, taking his hand and weaving her fingers through his.

“For giving them to me. For waiting for me. I truly believed I’d never have this with you.”

She nodded, looking down at their sleeping daughter. “We can be a family, Doug.”

“I’d like that. God, Carol, I’d... I’d love that.” He grinned, following her out of the room and shutting the nursery door behind them so that they wouldn’t wake the girls. With one last glance at the bunny rabbit pictures on the door, he shook his head sadly.

“It must have been so hard, Carol. With them, all alone, for so long...”

She nodded, shrugging softly. “It wasn’t easy. But it was worth it, Doug. They’re worth it. And I had help. Mark and Elizabeth and my mom, and you’re mom...”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that alone, Carol.”

“It isn’t you fault Doug.” She squeezed his hand. “You have to know that. And it was nothing compared to what you went through. I did okay. We were okay.”

He sighed, his shoulders heaving with the effort, and Carol reached up to brush a lock of hair out of his forehead. “It’s going to be alright now,” she nodded with certainty. “You’re here. We’re together.”

He nodded, pulling her into his arms again, holding her so tightly he was nearly crushing her, but she didn’t pull away, didn’t want to. Didn’t ever want to.

“Every time I closed my eyes, I saw you,”he whispered against her cheek, a tender confession. “You were in my dreams, in my thoughts. You were everything to me, in Kosovo. You are everything. You and those babies, you’re all I have in the world. You’re all I want. Every day I was in that prison I would wake up and know that you were going on without me. Finding someone new. Making a new life. I was devastated. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I’m so thankful for this, Carol. So thankful.”

“I know,” she breathed softly. “I know.

*~*~*~*

“Do you want anything, Doug? Something to eat, something to drink?”

He sat down on the edge of the bed they’d once shared, shaking his head with a small smile.

“Are you sure?” She grinned. “You don’t even want alcohol? Mark taught me how to make a pretty mean Zombie last winter...”

“You’re all I want.” His voice was low, beckoning, his smile demure and content.

Carol glanced down at the carpet as a tinge of crimson crept up her neck and settled lightly over her cheekbones. Then she looked back up at the man perched comfortably on her bed, and went to him.

He happily nestled his face against the soft pajamas covering her flat stomach, trying to imagine what it had looked like 6 months ago, and grimacing as he felt another pang of regret.

“You know, I kept most of your stuff, Doug.”

She felt the tremours of his laughter against her stomach. “You always were a packrat.”

She sighed, content for the first time in a year and a half, running her hands through his hair. She smiled at the way they just couldn’t seem to stop touching each other. She wanted to touch him forever.

Softly, tunelessly, she began to hum, feeling her heart swell. Her children were sleeping soundly in the next room. The man she loved was in her arms. She felt... complete.

His hands moved slowly from around her waist to her hips, then back up again, underneath her pajama top, lightly stroking the soft skin there. He looked up at her as his thumbs brushed against her ribcage. “Is this okay?”

She smiled in answer, taking the hem of her shirt and lifting it over her head. He sighed faintly, closing his eyes briefly, as if the sight of her was too much, to good, to bear.

When she moved to toss the shirt aside, something fell from the breast pocket to the floor with a clatter. Doug bent to pick it up.

It was the locket.

“‘Love will never come to an end,’” he read after opening it. “Where’d you get this?” His question was not possessive, or jealous, but simply curious. Carol smiled wistfully, remembering a sweet man who’d offered her solace when she’d needed it so desperately.

“An old man, a patient, gave it to me at work. He told me that if I loved you enough, we’d never really be apart.”

“He was right.” Doug opened the clasp and reached up to put the chain around her neck, securing it with gentle hands. When the clasp was fastened, he let his fingers follow the thin gold trail over her slender shoulders until they came to rest at the heart-shaped locket lying just above the soft swell of her breasts. Then down, his fingers stroking lightly, simply relishing the feel of her gossamer skin under the pads of his fingers. Between the fact that the burns from the fire had left the skin of his hands over-sensitized, and the expanse of time since he’d held her like this, seen her like this, he was getting light headed. Wonderfully so. Finally, when his hands found the thin pink line running horizontally over her lower abdomen, he looked up.

“You had a C-section?”

She nodded. “For Kate. Prolapsed cord.”

He sucked in his breath, biting his lip... as if the words stung him.

“We got through it, Doug. Mark was there. He took good care of us. All three of us.”

Doug nodded. Then suddenly, he drew back and pulled his own T-shirt over his head.

Carol stifled a gasp when she saw the jagged scars covering his chest and shoulders. It looked like healed welts. And burns. And... God. She closed her eyes briefly, taking a breath.

“What did they do to you...” It was more of a whispered execration than a question. The pain in her voice relaid the hatred flooding through her as she reached out to him, tracing his scars with gentle fingers, as he’d done to her only moments before.

“When I tried to escape...” his voice was light, almost sheepish. She shuddered involuntarily. “We’ve always had scars, Carol.” he said quietly. “Only now we can see them.”

She stared at him, unabashedly, her eyes glistening. She could hardly believe she was standing in front of him. Simply concentrating on the fact sent a wave of astonishment and gratitude and awe straight through her, and caused the tears that had been so abundant all night to return to her eyes. But... she didn’t want to cry, then. She didn’t want to think about it. She would in the morning. There would be time for tears in the morning. Their would by time for laughter in the morning. There would be time for everything there hadn’t been time for before.

For this she was eternally grateful.

Time was the preciousness she’d believed they’d lost. But somehow they had found it again, and with it recaptured a lifetime of tender moments and happy kisses and a love and a life and a freedom of spirit that she had formerly surrendered.

This novel gift she would also contemplate with overwhelming awe in the morning, when he was settled, when she was certain, when her heart stopped pounding beneath her flesh.

For now, she wanted only to love him.

And for this, there was all the time in the world.

With the low, rumbling chuckle she’d missed so much, he pulled her into his lap, her legs straddling his hips and her arms wrapped tightly around his torso so that her breasts were pressed against his bare chest. She laid her head on his shoulder for a moment, basking in the feel of him– his familiar scent, his velvety-warm skin pressed against hers, his hot, rapid breath fluttering against her shoulder, his erection pressing against her stomach. Then she lifted her head, touching her forehead to his before finding his lips. “Don’t ever leave me again, Doug” Carol implored softly, her voice catching on his name. “Please...”

He shook his head fiercely and spoke with determination, “Never again. I promise,” his voice was grave and serious and steady. “I promise.”

“Okay,” she confirmed in a whisper, and kissed him. She kissed him deeply, kissed him soundly, kissed him for all the times she longed to kiss him and couldn’t. She reveled in his salty-sweet taste, in his warmth, in his strength.

They broke away when they ran out of air, and she rested her forehead against his again, breathing heavily.

“I love you, Carol.”

She felt his words– a gentle whisper against her face, more than heard them, and she pulled back with a smile. And when she looked at his face, at his eyes, when she saw the familiar fire burning there, all warm and rich and chocolate-brown, she remembered.

Kissing him again lightly, she slipped off his lap and stood up.

“Carol? You ok...?”

She turned back to him on her way across the room and nodded, grinning even as tears of finally culminated joy and relief fell down her face, and made her way to the dresser in the corner of her room.

“I’ll just be a second...”

She stared at the candle for a moment, then, closing her eyes, offered a silent prayer of gratitude to the redundant flame, to God, to Mark, to everyone who’d helped her through the most difficult journey of her life.

Then she stooped over the candle, took a breath, and let it out with a swift sigh of contentment.

Carol Hathaway turned back to the man she loved, the father of her children, the one she’d called her soulmate, and as she cradled his head in her hands, she let him finish undressing her.

She let him love her.

Back in the dark corner of her bedroom, the candle that had provided one woman with so much hope flickered out, unneeded.

A prayer had been answered.
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For love is as strong as death,
Its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like a blazing fire,
Like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love;
Rivers cannot wash it away.

– Song of Solomon, Chapter 8:6-7

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The End




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