“While Destiny Sleeps”

Zack sat out on the back stoop of the boarding house, thinking about his life now that Destiny was back in it. She’d agreed to think things over, sleep on it, as she put it. He couldn’t help but wonder to himself if she was just biding her time until she could run off again. Well, he wasn’t going to let that happen again, not if he could help it.

She’d come into his life at a time when he’d given up all hope of ever loving again. His wife was gone, died during childbirth, and Mary, well... theirs had been an odd relationship to begin with. She was... interesting, to say the least. Mary had been good for Zack and his son, Erik – brought them closer, something they really needed at the time. Now, Mary had moved on and Erik, well, he was hardly a boy anymore, had his own life to live.

Zack took a deep breath of the night air, felt the gentle breeze against his face. Destiny was right about one thing, if the F.B.I. ever did catch up with her, they’d lock them both up and throw away the key. Which is why, of course, he’d quit the job.

When he’d found out that Destiny, the woman he’d been tracking for months, was in fact innocent, well... he just couldn’t live with himself if he’d brought her in anyway. No one else believed her story, no one but him. He could see it in her eyes, felt it in his heart. She’d been set up, made to look like she’d killed the guy in cold blood. Zack had, in fact, tried to clear her name, but his boss took him off the case.

Now, 6 months later, here he sat, halfway across the world, in some little blip of a town, Destiny asleep upstairs in his bed. Hopefully, in the morning, she’d give him the answer he was hoping for. Looking up at the sky, the night stars shining, Zack smiled, then stood up, walked back inside and laid down beside her, holding on to his Destiny.