eight
.
September 5th
“I just get this feeling she doesn’t remember anything in Egypt, Syd,” Christen laments to her best friend. She’s on the phone, talking to her while she lets the dogs in from the backyard.
“That’s okay though, isn’t it?” Syd questions, “Because she’s here now, like, a living person and not a ghost.”
“But she spoke Coptic,” Christen counters, “and I swear she said ‘I can’t believe I found you at last’, like she said she would.”
“Well, she could just be referring to just finding her soulmate,” Syd reasons, “and she might not know a thing about Egypt,”
Christen hums as she considers that new little idea. “That’s a possibility,” she admits, “but she continued talking to me in Coptic until we got interrupted.”
“But you said Ashlyn said something about her talking in her weird language when she was stoned,” Syd reminds her, “maybe that has something to do with it.”
Christen sighs, “I don’t know what to do,” she frets, “I feel like I should tell her,”
Sydney chuckles, “You just met her,” she states, “just slow down and get to know her and then I’m sure the perfect opportunity will come to talk about it,” she assures her.
“Yeah,” Christen agrees, “that sounds like the best idea,” she says, “I think that’s what I’ll do,”
“Yeah,” Syd encourages her, “it also gives Tobin time to get to know you and if she does know something, maybe she’ll bring it up first,” she says and then breathes in quickly.
“You know what?”
“What?”
“Maybe Tobin knows and feels like you wouldn’t believe her,” she wonders aloud, “maybe she thinks you’ll think she’s crazy or something.”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” Christen frowns, not liking the idea of Tobin feeling she couldn’t talk to her about anything. Then again, they’ve only just met and even though she knows they are soulmates, she’s taking her own time to share with her as well.
“Maybe just talk about some of the crazier soulmate stories you’ve heard or something,” Syd suggests, “or like talk about believing in the fantastic.”
“Yeah,” Christen smiles to herself, “I like that,”
“When are you seeing her again?” Syd inquires curiously.
“Saturday for sure,” Christen states, “she has a busy week, so she’s not sure if she can get together. Ashlyn has a race and she’s training her and some friends for it.”
“Oh yeah? That sounds cool,”
“Yeah,” Christen is smiling, “I’m going to meet Ali and we’ll watch it together Saturday morning. Tobin is racing too,”
“Cool.” Sydney states and Christen knows her friend is grinning right now. “Oh, Dom is home, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“Yeah, bright and early,” Christen says and they hang up.
An hour later she’s on her couch with her laptop, reading an article about the cleaning processes of an ancient unknown metal surface without submerging it an electrolysis bath when her phone rings. She’s refreshing herself with the different tests to perform to discover what the metal is. They have two metal boxes from KV60, one Becky is working on and the other they won’t get to until after she completes the preservation of the chalice she’s working on. She smiles when she sees it’s Tobin.
“Hi, you,” she greets.
“Hey,” Tobin says cheerfully, “how’s it going?”
“Good, just doing some reading,” she replies, “how about you? How was your workout?”
“Today was a tough day,” Tobin admits, “we taper off after today so the group can peak on Saturday.”
“How many is in your group?”
“About fifteen,” Tobin replies and then yawns, “sorry, I’m beat.”
“Are you in your car?”
“Yeah, on my way home,” Tobin confirms, “but I was wondering,” she hesitates a moment, “would you be open to getting together this week? I don’t have to supervise every workout with them, so I thought maybe we could do something,”
“Well,” Christen considers, knowing her evening schedule is free for the week, “would you like to come over for dinner tomorrow night?”
“Yeah, I would,” Tobin answers, “what can I bring?”
They chatter on Tobin’s drive until she arrives home, they continue to chatter while Tobin unloads her gear and finally end the call when Tobin sounds like she’s going to fall asleep.
September 9th
“Go Ash! Go Tobin!” Ali cheers loudly as the two whisk past them on the road. The two are in racing wheelchairs, doing a 30 mile race. It’s very early on a Saturday morning and Ali and Christen are in the scattered crowd, now moving to the next spot they’ll have a chance of viewing them before the going to the bleachers at the finish line.
“So, this is what Ash does in her off season before the hockey season starts,” Ali explains, “this is her last race until spring. She’ll do a couple of races then to get in condition for basketball.”
“I’d love to come to a hockey game,” Christen enthuses, “I’ve never been to one before,”
“Even the NHL?” Ali questions.
Christen shakes her head, “It’s so violent,” she frowns and shivers, “and cold.”
Ali laughs, “Well, you’d need to bring layers and don’t forget gloves,” she says.
“Seriously, though,” Christen persists, “I’d love to go.”
“I’ll send you the schedule when it comes out.” Ali promises as they follow the crowd. They are quiet for a moment. “So, you and Tobin seem to be hitting it off pretty good,”
Christen smiles, “Yeah,” she breathes out dreamily. “She’s really sweet,”
“She’s a good person Chris,” Ali states seriously, “she’s helped Ash so much, it’s been incredible.”
“They went to college together, right?” she asks, remembering she heard that but not from where.
Ali nods, “They did.” She confirms, “They were in a very serious car accident their senior year,” she continues, “you should ask her about it sometime, it really affected her and Ash.”
Christen nods, curious if that was how Ashlyn ended up in the wheelchair. It would have had to be a very serious crash for that to happen, she thinks. She wonders if Tobin will bring it up to her on conversation some time.
“You did so good!” Ali gushes, wrapping her arms around a sweaty and obviously exhausted Ashlyn.
“Thanks, babe,” she says, lifting a water bottle to her lips.
“Yo, Ash,” Tobin wheels up, glancing down to look at her phone that’s balanced on her lap, “I think you took off at least ten minutes on your PR,” she says proudly.
Ashlyn brings her hand up and grips Tobin’s hand hard, “Couldn’t have done it without you, man,” she says gratefully, “if you weren’t pushing me,” she shakes her head, “thanks, bro.” Tobin leans over and they hug.
Ash turns and looks at Christen and Ali, “Let’s get some food, I’m starving!”
After the two racers towel off and change clothes, they head out. Brunch is festive and full of laughs with Ashlyn and Tobin sharing some of the strange encounters they had on their race. “She totally flashed us!” Ashlyn giggles, shaking her head and then chugging the rest of her beer.
Tobin looks over to Christen and grimaces as she shakes her head, “That woman really shouldn’t have been flashing anyone,” she shivers at the memory.
“Oh and what about the crash?” Ashlyn laughs, “that dude was so pissed,”
“He was talking crap to us the whole race,” Tobin explains, “just being a jerk about everything,” she sighs with frustration, “and some of the guys were telling him to shut up. We were in a pack of about ten racers and we were the only chicks.”
“So, then he starts in on one of the other guys,” Ashlyn says and turns to Ali, “he was talking shit to Robbie.”
“Ooh, Robbie is not someone you do that to,” Ali states with large eyes and looks at Christen, “he’s a large man and is so sweet and nice as can be unless you are rude. Then he lets you have it.” Christen nods.
“Robbie gets next to the guy and tells him to stop it,” Tobin states, “he told him he was being rude to us and if he didn’t stop, he would regret it.”
“The guy told him to fuck off and pushed away from him,” Ashlyn shares, “but he kept close and waited.”
“What happened?” Christen asks, feeling bad they had to put up with someone being an asshole to them.
“He waited until there were no race marshalls around and got close to him and stuck his water bottle in his wheel,” Ashlyn smirks, “the dude totally ate it and slid off the road.”
“Was he okay?” Christen asks worriedly, her face scrunched up, not liking the idea of Robbie intentionally doing that.
“He was a little scraped up but fine,” Tobin assures her, “in fact, he was at the finish line and apologized to us for being an asshole.”
“Really?” Ali asks, rather surprised.
“Apparently he told his girlfriend exactly what happened and she was super pissed. Then she told him who he was fucking around with and when he realized it was Ashlyn, he was really upset.” Tobin explains, “Ash is his little sister’s idol and I guess he realized what a dick he was being.”
“Who told him?” Ali asks.
A sly grin comes across Ashlyn’s face, “His little sister Lisa was there. She was awesome,” she chuckles, “talk about instant karma and learning a life lesson.”
“So then what happened?” Ali questions, finding it weird that neither Tobin or Ashlyn are upset with the guy being such a jerk.
Tobin offers her knuckles across the table to bump them with Ashlyn’s, “Ol’ Ash here pulled out the old kill ‘em with kindness card,” she grins proudly at them, “and she took photos with little Lisa and invited her to come see her play with the Steel,”
Ashlyn is blushing and focusing on her food while Ali puts her arm around her. “When they go low, you went high, huh?”
“She’s such an ambassador for sport,” Tobin continues, her pride in her friend evident, “she even invited the dude to come train with us sometime,”
“That’s pretty cool,” Christen smiles, liking how it ended. Since she’s known Ali and Ashlyn, she’s found Ashlyn to be such an uplifting person, one who really likes to help others.
There’s been many times when Christen and Ali plan something, Ashlyn misses out sometimes due to an appearance somewhere or she’s doing her podcast or at a fundraiser speaking on behalf of wheelchair users and making places more handicapped accessible. Ali has told her a couple of time that when she’s in season for hockey, her schedule gets even more hectic.
It’s a couple of hours later and Tobin is relaxing in Christen’s backyard, Morena lying next to her on the chaise lounge on the patio. She’s nearly asleep, the big brunch and her exertion in the morning have her ready for a nap. She’s been to Christen’s house once already earlier in the week and Christen’s been to her place once as well. Since Christen’s house was closer to their brunch spot, Tobin readily accepted her invitation to relax at her place for a while.
They’ve enjoyed one another’s company and both are feeling how compatible they are. They’ve spoken about their faith, Tobin believing in God and a personal relationship with Jesus, Christen preferring to see the universe as Mother Earth and leaning more towards Eastern beliefs. Tobin likes how Christen can speak intelligently on a variety of religions due to her extensive education. Christen is impressed with Tobin’s deep knowledge of the Bible and how well versed she is about other religions. They have great discussions about learning religion from their parents and how they’ve struck out on their own to expand their own world view. It’s been interesting and Tobin always learns something from each talk they’ve had.
She gets this feeling that Christen knows more about them being soulmates than she does. She can’t exactly explain it, but it feels like Christen sometimes acts like she’s known her more than she should. Like, sometimes she’ll say something that Tobin knows for sure she hasn’t told her. It’s weird, but it’s mostly about things like how she likes to draw sometimes or paint or how she feels about sunsets. Not like, concrete facts, just like Christen seems to her opinions on things sometimes. She’s told her all the basics and then some, how she’s a physical therapist, where she went to college and how she’s known Ashlyn and Ali since then. She’s told her about her family, her two sisters, her brother and her parents. How close they are. Tobin gets this feeling in her chest when Christen speaks of Egypt. It’s as if she knows exactly what she’s talking about yet can’t pull it up in her mind. It reminds her of the time immediately after her the accident and she wasn’t herself.
Likewise, Christen has been just as open on those topics freely offering up details of her childhood and her obsession with all things Egyptian and learning languages. She hasn’t pushed Tobin about knowing how to speak Coptic since the night they met and Tobin’s lame excuse that she doesn’t know. Tobin isn’t lying about that, she doesn’t know why. She hasn’t told her yet about the accident, she doesn’t like to talk about it for a variety of reasons. She’s told her she gets migraines sometimes and it’s something that started after her accident.
She thinks maybe she’ll bring it up after her nap, wanting to know why Christen seems like she’s holding something back. Something she should know. But for now, the sun is warming her skin, Morena is sleeping next to her leg and Christen is settling down on the chaise next to her, intent on taking her own nap for a bit. She’s a patient person and she knows she’ll find out soon what she seeks.
Tobin looks like she’s fast asleep, resting comfortably on the lounge chair, breathing easily with her legs splayed out, Morena now cuddled in between them. Christen studies her while she sleeps, wondering if Tobin is aware of her past. Their past. She’s wondering how or even if she should bring it up. She wonders if it will bring back positive or negative memories for her. She wonders if Tobin remembers somewhere in her mind about her time in the Underground or the Field of Reeds. She wonders how Tobin got the scar on her neck in this life, what traumatic incident occurred to leave her with it, thinking maybe it’s from the car accident she was in with Ashlyn. Heather had mentioned an accident the night they met, also saying Tobin only spoke that other language (Coptic) when she was drunk or high. Tobin hasn’t mentioned it to her yet, so she’s unsure why she doesn’t want to talk about it. She feels it’s most likely because it had to be pretty traumatic.
She thinks they’ve built up enough trust between them that Tobin might be comfortable to talk to her about an obviously difficult topic. Perhaps she’ll probe Tobin’s mood after their nap and if Tobin seems agreeable, she’ll bring it up. She’s so curious, there has got to be some answers to her questions.
After they get up, Tobin and Christen each chicken out from trying to seek any answers, deciding it’s too soon for such a deep discussion, soulmates or not. Tobin states she thinks she’s going to go home, claiming she’s pretty sore from the race and wants to go home and soak in her tub and get high to help with the muscle tightness and pain. When she shares her plan with Christen, the woman has other ideas.
“Why don’t you stay here?” she questions, giving her sly look, “I’ve got some edibles, I might even have something to smoke, you can take a nice hot bath, I’ve got a jacuzzi tub and then I’d be happy to give you a massage. You could stay for dinner and be fine to drive home and it wouldn’t be too late.”
Tobin gulps at the offer. Christen is offering a massage? Holy shit, she thinks, hell yeah, I want her hands on me. I’ve got to be cool, though. She lightly coughs into her arm, “S-s-s-sure,” she stutters, rolling her eyes at herself. She nods, “That would cool,” she agrees, “I’d really appreciate it. We could order out dinner, my treat.”
Christen smiles eagerly at her, “Perfect,” she says, her white teeth showing, “let me go get my stash. You can pick out what you want.”
XXXX
September 12th
It’s Tuesday and Tobin is running just a little behind, traffic was awful and she knows she’s late and trying to find parking is a bitch. She runs across the campus, faster than a jog but slower than a sprint, locating the building and entering it with the jerk of the door and smoothing her hair with hand. She’s just come from work with no time to stop for dinner, eating a granola bar as she drove, cursing the cars in front of her.
She hurriedly shoves her phone at the worker, displaying her e-ticket and watches as the woman scans it and she’s moving before the woman can tell her to enjoy. She enters the theater quietly having heard voices speaking when she neared the door and she doesn’t want to be a distraction. She finds a seat in the back, luckily on the end of the aisle, thankful to not have to excuse herself in front of a bunch of people to get to an interior seat. She sits straight up, leaning to left to see if there are any vacant seats closer up but the only ones she sees are in the front row and she’s definitely not going to walk up there and sit down. She slouches back in her seat, now paying attention to the voice that is speaking.
“- to tell the story of Hatshepsut. Let’s give a warm welcome to Dr. Christen Press, Archeologist, Author and Stanford’s main expedition leader.” A round of applause fills the theater and Tobin lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding when she realizes she hasn’t missed Christen speaking tonight. She readily agreed to come to tonight’s lecture, wanting to support Christen and hear firsthand about the work she’s been doing. Her own interest in Egyptian culture made it a very easy decision. Not getting out of work on time and the unexpected traffic issues have made her miss the first twenty minutes.
She watches as Christen strolls gracefully to the lectern on the left side of the stage, perfectly in view for her. She’s wearing a flowing simple black dress, understated and professional, not too revealing yet making her look amazing. Her hair is long and curly and Tobin’s finds it extremely attractive. She leans in her seat when she sees the necklace she’s wearing. It has small colorful beads connecting to a golden ankh pendant that lies flat against her smooth skin. Tobin looks up at the large screen on the left side of the stage to get a better look at it, seeing the closer image of Christen and it makes her inhale sharply.
That necklace.
There’s something about it.
Tobin blinks rapidly a few times as she tries to conjure up the feeling she’s experiencing but nothing comes. She knows something about that necklace though. She just can’t put the pieces together. She sits back further in her seat and tries to focus and listen to what Christen is talking about.
“Thank you all for attending our second update on the Luxor Expedition to KV20 and KV60. Tonight, I’m excited to give you an overview of our progress in our preservation efforts and identification of the artifacts we’ve been lucky enough to bring to Stanford. As an added bonus, we’ll take a look at some images of the other artifacts from our expedition that are being worked on over at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo under the direction of Dr. Ari Sweiss who accompanied us.” Christen takes a few long, confident strides towards the large projection screen hung from the ceiling over the stage. Tobin realizes Christen is wearing a headset as she speaks, moving her hands as she speaks about each slide.
At first, Tobin thought the items she was looking at on the screen looked familiar because she’d seen similar ones in the books she’s read. But when the slide turns to show a comb that is marked with Hatshepsut’s cartouche, Tobin breaks out in a cold sweat. She swears she’s handled that comb before. She can’t shake the feeling. When Christen states this item was recovered from the tomb of Sitre In in KC60, Tobin begins to tremble.
When the hour and a half presentation is concluded, Tobin joins the others to stand and applaud. She’s shaky and a little sweaty and feeling slightly nauseous. The symptoms increased with every slide and Tobin is feeling like she’s going a little crazy right now. But she’s brimming with pride for Christen who ended the presentation with an educational and humorous question and answer time. She figures she has a couple of minutes before approaching Chris who would undoubtedly be approached by many of the people in the crowd, so she darts out to get some fresh air.
There is one thing she feels certain about tonight and that is she used some of the items Christen spoke about.
“Babe?” Christen asks with concern when she sees her standing against the interior wall of the theater a few minutes later. “Are you okay, honey?” The theater has thinned out, a few others are speaking with the woman who had spoken first.
Tobin just shakes her head, not trusting her voice at the amount. She pushes off the wall and offers her hand to lead her out to the hall. It’s not until they’re outside that Christen stops walking, tugging on Tobin’s hand.
“Babe,” she says worriedly, “talk to me. Are you okay? Did something happen?” she’s looking at her carefully.
“No, I’m not okay,” Tobin say shakily, dropping Christen’s hand and hugging herself, “something super weird happened to me,” she says unevenly.
“Did it happen here or at work or on your way here?”
“It was during your presentation, Chris,” Tobin answers, growing agitated, “and it’s going to sound crazy and you’ll probably think I’m some sort of lunatic but it was like I knew the stuff you were showing. Like I used those items. The comb? I could swear I brushed my hair with it. The jar with the cream, the tools from that nurse, Sitter In.”
“Sitre In,” Christen corrects quietly, realizing the impact this is having on Tobin. She has to tell her what is going on, she’s never seen the easy going woman so frantic.
“Yeah, that nurse,” Tobin says, starting to pace, “it’s like this enormous sense of déjà vu,” she says “but I feel it, like I was totally there.” She’s breathing heavily and looks at her and steps closer to place two fingers on the ankh pendant, “This necklace, Chris,” she whispers, panic appearing on her face, “I feel like I wore it.” She says unevenly, her chin quivering, “I feel like I’m going crazy.”
Christen steps close and pulls her in her arms, squeezing her tight, feeling how Tobin’s chest hitches as she struggles not to cry. “You’re not going crazy,” she assures her tenderly, “having déjà vu is normal.”
“It’s so real, I feel it so deeply,” Tobin sniffles, “like, I know someone I loved gave me that necklace,” she says quickly, her words rushed and full of emotion, “it’s messing with my head,”
Christen can feel how Tobin is trembling as she holds her and she slowly feels guilt wash over her. She had thought about telling Tobin about seeing her in Egypt but she was unsure of how she would respond. They’ve talked about many topics but soulbonds hasn’t been one of them. She knows they’re soulmates, but she didn’t want Tobin to think she had gone crazy out in the desert talking to ghosts. She truly didn’t believe this lecture would trigger her like this and she feels awful for how Tobin is feeling right now.
She slowly slips from Tobin’s grasp, angling her arm around her shoulder, “Why don’t you come to my place,” she offers, “we can talk more about this, okay?”
Tobin nods her head rapidly, unable to speak at the moment.
“Where did you park? I’ll leave my car here,” Christen says, allowing Tobin to lead her to her vehicle.
Christen drives since Tobin is in no shape to get behind the wheel. It’s silent in the car, Tobin trying to calm herself down by doing some deep breathing and holding tightly onto Christen’s hand. Just as they turn onto Christen’s street, she speaks.
“I’m sorry for freaking out,” she says quietly, “this hasn’t ever happened before,”
“It’s okay,” Christen assures her, “I have an idea why this triggered you so much,”
Tobin looks at her curiously but says nothing. But now she feels certain that Christen definitely knows more than she’s shared with her.
Kahlessi and Morena provide Tobin with a happy distraction while Christen changes out of her dress and into comfortable clothes. When she exits her bedroom, she finds Tobin in the yard with the animals, throwing a ball for them to retrieve under the lights from the patio.
She studies Tobin as she plays with the dogs, admiring the way her khaki pants fit her perfectly, how her work polo shirt rides up just a little to expose her abs when she throws a ball. Christen feels a twinge of desire surface, thinking back to when she gave Tobin a massage this past weekend. How her hands felt the muscles under her smooth and soft skin. The soft moans Tobin made when Christen’s hands worked out a particularly hard knot. Those same soft moans that echoed in her head on the nights since while she laid in bed alone, her fingers bringing herself to the brink and the memory of Tobin’s low throaty moan sending her over the edge.
She shakes her head to clear her thoughts, knowing this isn’t the time for seducing her soulmate. She’s hoping this conversation goes well, that Tobin has an open mind. The idea of reincarnation isn’t something discussed every day. She doesn’t even know if Tobin is aware of the soulbond phenomenon.
Tobin turns and looks at her, offering her a soft smile. Her smile it doesn’t meet her eyes, her brown orbs cloudy with emotion. She walks across the grass to her, coming close to embrace her. As Christen holds her, she feels how Tobin’s body relaxes against, using her arms to hold her weight when Tobin leans into her. She strokes Tobin’s back, smiling to herself when she hears a sigh the woman utters against her neck.
“Do you want to change into something else before we talk?” Christen asks her quietly.
“I’m good with this,” Tobin replies, pulling back to look at her, “do you want to talk now?”
Christen nods and takes her hand and leads her inside to the couch in the living room. Once settled on the couch next to each other, holding hands, Christen begins.
“What I have to say is pretty farfetched if you haven’t heard of soulbonds before,” she says, looking at Tobin for her reaction. She looks open and is nodding at her and giving her an encouraging smile.
“Tobin," she says looks her in the eyes, "what you’re feeling is real,” she states seriously, “you are Sitre In.”
XXXX