“Yeah. I know. But even evil me?”
I take a moment to word this correctly, because it’s a hard thing to accept, and probably even harder if you’ve been through what Theo has. “Evil you is still you,” I say as gently as I can. “He actually thought he was helping me. The guy’s not a monster. He’s just a . . . slightly inferior version.”
Theo sighs. “If you say so.”
Silence falls between us. I keep staring at the door, willing Paul to suddenly appear on the other side and open it for me. Nothing happens.
The storm was getting worse. What if Paul’s sub wasn’t able to dock? What if he crashed like Theo and I did? Maybe they’re both drowning, even now, or being crushed by the impossible pressure—
“Tell me one thing,” Theo says.
I never stop staring at Paul’s door. “Sure, okay. What?”
“This other Theo—he cost me my chance with you, didn’t he?”
Stricken, I turn back toward Theo, who smiles at me unevenly.
“Because I did have a chance, didn’t I? For a little while there? Could’ve sworn I did.” He shrugs. “But now you’re standing here looking at Paul’s freakin’ door the way I always used to wish you’d look at me.”
A few months ago, if Theo had said something—would it have changed who I fell for? I don’t know; I’ll never know.
So I say only, “I’m sorry.”
“Me too. But if I have to let somebody else have you, at least it’s him.” Theo nods toward the door.
And within that room, something moves.
I suck in a breath. Theo and I exchange glances, and then I call out, “Paul? Paul, are you in there?” Quickly I knock. “It’s me. It’s—”
The door opens, and my fist makes contact with Paul’s chest.In that first instant, I can’t speak. I can only stare up at him as he slowly smiles. I launch myself into his arms. Paul hugs me back fiercely, like he never wants to let me go.
“Happy endings all around, almost,” Theo says as he takes a couple of steps backward. “I’m going to head out, you guys.”
“Theo?” Paul never lets go of me, but he looks over my shoulder, only slightly less happy about this second reunion. “It’s really you?”
“The one and only,” Theo says. “Accept no substitutes. Which I realize is easier said than done, these days.” He sounds like his old self, and I have to grin.
Paul reaches one hand out to Theo, who clasps it in something that’s more than a handshake—it looks like old paintings of Romans swearing allegiance to each other, swearing to die by each other’s side. Their bond is too powerful to be destroyed by their feelings for me, or their rivalry.
But Theo can’t keep up the pretense that it doesn’t bother him, seeing us wrapped together like this. As he lets go of Paul and takes a few steps back, his smile is strained. “I’m gonna—I’m grabbing the good Dr. Kovalenka and the resurrected Dr. Caine and the soon-to-be-doctor Josephine and bringing them over this way. Soon we’ll have the band back together.”
I whisper, “Thank you, Theo.”
“You crazy kids have fun,” he says, and then he turns around to go.
For a moment we watch him leave—but then Paul pulls me into his room and closes the door.
As soon as he does, though, reality intrudes. Everything I know about Paul, everything I feel for him, is swallowed up in uncertainty. In the love I felt for Lieutenant Markov, who lies dead a universe away.
I don’t say a word, but Paul understands. He takes a deep breath as he steps slightly closer. “I’m not the one you loved. I know that.”
“How can you know when I don’t?”
He shakes his head, not denying what I’m saying but moving past it. “Something in us has to be the same, Marguerite. I know we both feel the same way about you. After the way you lost him, I don’t expect you to—to rush into anything, to know your own heart right away. But I’d like for us to find out if what you felt . . . if it wasn’t for him alone. If anything you felt was for me.”
Some of it was. Is. I know that; I always have.
Paul says, “Will you give me a chance, Marguerite?”
I feel the smile spreading over my face, lighting me up inside. “Yeah,” I whisper as I take his hand. “Oh, yeah.”