literature

Elevator Girl's Last Act, Part 4

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A short time later, Dakota tipped the cabbie once he and his suitcase were out at the hotel. The fare, as always, seemed high to Dakota; even after nearly 10 years back, he still hadn't gotten used to what inflation had done to prices.

Dakota entered the hotel and checked in. He looked around the lobby. Seeing neither Kellie nor April, he texted the latter, since she'd been his contact throughout this trip. "Where r u?" he typed.

The reply came within a few seconds. "In your room. Come on up."

Dakota sighed. He still didn't understand why he was being made to go through this. Other people he knew had huge parties for their 50th birthday. Kellie hadn't, but that wasn't her style, and, besides, she was still grieving for Gill at the time. He had no big party either; just brunch with his family and then a flight to a strange city to meet with the woman he loved and who loved him, but who wouldn't act on that love -- and her daughter.

Dakota patted his pocket. It would all be worth it, if only his idea worked. And, in any event, he had to try.

When he got to the room, Dakota used the card key to enter. He found April in the outer room of the two-room suite, with the door to what was presumably the bedroom closed. He looked around and saw no sign of Kellie; then again, with her powers, she might just be shrunken out of sight for some sort of surprise moment.

"Hi, Dakota. If you're looking for Mom, she went in there," April said, pointing with her thumb toward the bedroom door. "Your present's in there, too."

Dakota walked over and opened the door, then froze in shock.

Standing before him was the most beautiful 14-year-old girl he'd ever seen, wearing what looked like the same dress she'd worn on their first dates, with her using two different names, more than 35 years ago. It was unmistakably Kellie, but not the Kellie he saw last week; this was the Kellie he last saw before Dr. Dekker kidnapped him 35 years ago.

Kellie smiled up at him. She was the happiest he'd seen her since his return, even though her cheeks were flushed and she looked like she'd been crying. "Oh, hey, mister," she said. "I'm looking for my boyfriend, Dakota Greene. Have you seen him? He looks a lot like you, only he's closer to my age. He's handsome, but not a grown-up man like you."

Dakota's eyes and mouth kept widening, but he couldn't get out a sound.

Kellie bit her lip, then smiled at Dakota's reaction. "Oh, wait! I know how to find him this time!" she said. She touched the up button on what looked like her Elevator Girl bracelet, and she grew into a woman in her mid-twenties. The dress scaled up to fit her. "Oh, there you are!" she said. She flung herself at him, and he caught her instinctively.

Suddenly Dakota was on the receiving end of a very ardent kiss and hug. He returned them, embracing Kellie with a passion he'd longed to share with her for almost a decade.

After a few minutes, Dakota pulled back slightly, looking into the youthful face of the woman he loved. She was crying, but he knew her well enough to know these were happy tears.

"Kellie! How?" was all Dakota could ask.

Kellie sniffled. "It's all her doing," she said, pointing toward April, who stood just behind them him. "She spent a lot of time over the last 10 years working on this new bracelet."

"It, uh, uses the space-time warping effect of the Elevator Woman tech to create a field that alters the wearer's age, instead of size," April said.

"I thought that was impossible," Dakota said.

"For me, yes," Kellie said, "but April's a tech wizard. What's my reading, April?"

April glanced at her cell comp. "Twenty-five years, 273 days," she said.

"I'm a hair off the mark, but the controls aren't that precise," Kellie said.

"Anyway, making the time warp tech may not be impossible for me, but it has been very difficult, and this contraption is jury-rigged. That much power through that small a gizmo still can't hold up. It's not going to last long. That's why I had to wait until the last minute to spring it on Mom."

Dakota looked at Kellie. "You just found out about this?"

Kellie nodded. "Within the last half-hour. From what April tells me, when this thing goes out, I'll age normally from whatever age I am at the time. It'll be as if that was my right age."

Dakota brushed back Kellie's blonde hair. "Does this mean the barrier between is gone now?"

Kellie took a step back and hit the up button again. She stopped when she looked as she had a week ago.

April looked at the cell comp, which read "50 years, 54 days."
"Mom, what are you doing?"

Kellie stepped forward and took Dakota's hands in hers. "I need to say this at this age, so we're clear on it," she said. "Yes, Dakota, the barrier is gone. I want to be with you. I love you, and I'd be a fool to hold out and let Dr. Dekker win. April and Gill reminded me of that today."

"Gill?" said Dakota

"This was all his idea," Kellie said, smiling wistfully. "I got a message from him just today. He said that, if anything happened to him, he wanted me to go to the one man he knew would love me as much as he did. Guess who that was?"

Dakota hugged Kellie again. "I always liked Gill, even though I wanted to not like him because he got you while I was gone."

"The bracelet was Dad's idea, too," April said with growing urgency. "But it's an idea that will be wasted if you stay 50 now! The idea here was to undo Dr. Dekker's victory!"

Kellie pulled back and held up a finger. Then she got down on one knee -- no small accomplishment in her dress. "There's something I need to ask. Dakota Greene, will you marry me?"

"From what Lakota told me, I know the answer," April said.

Dakota raised an eyebrow at April. "Sis was in on this?"

"The whole family was," April said. She gestured to her mother. "Don't keep her waiting. The suspense is killing her."

"So are my knees," Kellie said. "I should have done this at 25."

Dakota pulled out the ring box and opened it to reveal a wonderful gold ring topped with a blue diamond. "Does this answer your question?"

Kellie leapt up like a much younger woman and surrounded Dakota in a hug. They kissed again.

After a long moment, Kellie stepped back slightly and slipped on the ring. "All right," she said, "that just leaves the question of my age. How old do you want me to be?"

Dakota chuckled. "That sounds weird. OK, I don't care how old you are, as long as you're mine."

Kellie smiled coyly. "You've got that part."

"I would rather you weren't older than your natural age," Dakota said. "I want to keep you around for as long as I can."

Kellie's expression became serious. "I want to have all the time I can have with you, too. Would you mind being married to a younger woman?"

"As long as she's you, and you're of age," Dakota said.

Kellie grinned and hit the down button. Her age plummeted until she looked to be somewhere around late high school or early college age. "April, what's the reading?"

April looked at the cell comp, grinning. "18 years, 200 days. That's about as well as you could do it, with that thing's controls."

April looked up at Dakota. She placed her hand just above the bracelet, but not touching it. "Are you ready?" she asked.

Dakota pulled her hand back. "Just one thing, before you do this," he said. "Before we start on this, we've got something we need to talk out."

Kellie's brow furrowed in confusion. April chuckled at the sight. She was used to seeing a lot more wrinkles on her Mom's forehead when she got those little facial muscles into this position. She looked so cute like this.

Dakota sat down on the edge of the bed, holding Kellie's hands. She joined him.

"Kel, here's the thing," Dakota said. "If we're going to be married, … Well, marriage is between equal partners, or at least partners who can each allow themselves to be weak or strong based on what the other one needs.

"I know that," Kellie said. "I was married for a long time, you know, and I like to think rather successfully."

Dakota smiled. "Yeah, it was successful," he said. "I was always glad that, if I couldn't have you, you had someone like Gill. But that's kind of part of the point."

"I don't understand," Kellie said.

"Kel, you still tend to treat me like someone you need to rescue," Dakota said. "That's not all bad; I love your superheroine side, and I always will. But I'm a grown man now, and you still tend to treat me like I'm a victim who needs to be saved."

He patted his new fiancee's hand and smiled at her. "Kel, I'm not that little boy you knew when we were kids anymore. I'm not dying of cancer now, and I've been out of suspended animation now for 10 years, so I'm plugged back into the world again. I don't need saving all the time, or protecting … and I really don't want to be protected from you. Stop being afraid for me, and let me be strong for you sometimes."

Kellie smiled as tears welled in her eyes. "There may be an advantage for that purpose in you being the older one now," she said. "There's a strength in you now. It's always been there, but it's more fully realized. I think you are a man I can lean on, Kota. I want to work to find out." Her smile turned to a playful grin. "Besides, my mother told me to always respect my elders."

Dakota smiled and playfully wagged a finger at Kellie. "Now, you remember that, young lady."

"I said respect, not obey," Kellie said.

Dakota laughed. "I might have known," he said.

Kellie's expression sobered, but she still had a hint of a smile. "You're absolutely right, Kota. I do tend to try to protect you. If I do that again, call me on it, like you did just now. And … I need someone to be my strength.  You've always given me strength, even when you were sick, or missing, or when  I was keeping you at a distance. But I need to let you actively do that, not just passively. And I need to let myself lean on someone, and I want that someone to be you."

"It'll take work on both our parts," Dakota said. "We've got a lot of disconnections like that to work through."

"I love you enough to do that work," Kellie said.

Dakota's smile widened. "I love you that much, too," he said.

Kellie held up her left arm, the one with the bracelet on the wrist. "Now can I take this thing off?' she asked.

"Please do!" said April. "I've got this recurring image of you bumping a button right before it shorts out and getting stuck at 82 years old, or six months."

"Allow me," said Dakota. He guided Kelli's arm over in front of him. Being careful to avoid the nearly-invisible buttons, he gently slid the bracelet from her wrist, leaving her age unchanged as the connection was broken.

Kellie beamed at him. "I liked you doing that," she said, "and I love you, Mr. Greene."

Dakota caressed Kellie's cheek. "I love you, Mrs. Greene," he said.

Kellie and April laughed at the same time. Dakota looked back and forth between them. "What is it?" he asked.

"I've told April about this, but never you until now," Kellie said. "When we were dating back in the day, I used to fantasize about marrying you, but I really agonized about the name thing."

"I don't understand," Dakota said.

"I'd be Kellie Greene," Kellie said. "It's a  homonym for a color."

Dakota looked around as that sank in. "So it is," he said. "Well, you could be Trudeau-Greene, or Ross-Greene, or --"

Kellie softly placed two fingers to Dakota's lips. "That was a long time ago," she said. "I'll gladly be Kellie Greene now. A part of me has wanted to be Kellie Greene since the evening after you were kidnapped."  Kellie got quiet for a moment as she looked down. "That night, and for so many nights over the next few years, I prayed that, if God would just bring you back to me, I'd happily be Kellie Greene. I've … even prayed it a few times in the last couple of months."

Dakota leaned over so his face was in front of hers. "Can I still call you my Kel?"

Kellie laughed the lightest, happiest laugh April ever remembered hearing her laugh. "Oh, yes, my Kota, yes!" she said. They kissed some more.

April walked into the front room to give her mother and soon-to-be-stepfather some privacy.

After a few minutes, the couple came out, his arm around her shoulders. They walked over to April. Dakota and Kellie each extended their free arms toward April. "We want a family hug," he said.

April stood up and enfolded them in her arms. "You've got it," she said. "Congratulations."

"Thank you," said Dakota. "This really is the best birthday gift I've ever gotten, or ever will get."

"You are very welcome," April said. "Just keep loving her like I know you do, and don't take any guff from her if she gets too protective."

All three laughed.

Kellie took both of April's hands in hers. "April, thank you so much," she said. "Your career as Elevator Woman is off to a fantastic start."

"Actually, Mom, this was my last act as Elevator Girl," April said, a tear stain along her cheek. "I was wearing that uniform when I finished the project; it's the reason I was late to your retirement celebration."

"Why are you crying?" Kellie asked. "Is that important?"

April grinned through her tears. "Don't you remember what Dad said in the holovid?" she asked. "Elevator Girl had a very old score to settle, and a very big loss to undo."

Kellie's eyes darted back and forth as she processed what she'd just heard, connecting it to Gill's message. Her eyes went wide as they could. "Oh, my God," she said quietly. "April, you --"

April grabbed her mother's shoulders. "April Jimenez didn't do anything. Elevator Girl finally, fully undid her greatest defeat, and finally guaranteed that Dr. Dekker's damage was undone. It took a long time -- a really long time -- but the cold lost this one, and Elevator Girl's last act was her greatest victory -- for both of us."

Kellie flung herself onto her daughter. They hugged tearfully as Dakota smiled at the two of them.

Once they pulled apart, Kellie, her voice shaking, said, "Thank you, Girl."

April grinned naughtily. "You're welcome … Girl," she said. When Kellie raised an eyebrow to her, April said, "Well, you are younger than me now."

Kellie looked aghast. "Oh, no! April, I may outlive you! And you and Gill are still trying to have children! I'll be a grandma who's younger than their mother!"

"Mom," said April in a tone that snapped Kellie out of her emotional state, "Do you think you and Dakota are the only ones who benefit from getting a younger you? Everybody who loves you gets to keep you around, potentially for decades longer. I get to have my mom and battle-partner longer, and any kids Gabe and I have will have their grandma that much longer, too. The way I -- and the whole family, by the way -- see it, that's a win for everybody."

Dakota was smiling, partly because he saw now why Kellie was brought in on the plan late; she'd have overthought it and talked herself out of it with logic like she had just tried to use. The other part was a connection he'd just made in his mind. "So, Lakota really will be your Aunt Lakota now," he said to April,  "and Cody and Rosie will be your nephew and niece by marriage, not just in an honorary way, Kel."

"So, we're officially a family," Kellie said.

"We were anyway," April said, "even when you two felt awkward around each other."

Kellie smiled at her daughter. "And the crazy-sounding explanation at the outgoing Elevator Woman's retirement was to set up explaining my age change."

April nodded. "The accident exposed you to chronal radiation. You went through a traumatic experience that left you transformed into an 18-year-old again. And, speaking of your age, if Gabe and I succeed in starting a family, I'll need a backup to cover for me. Care to become Elevator Girl again, since you're the kid of the group now?"

Kellie shook her head. "That ship has sailed," she said. "I don't know what code name I'll use, but let Elevator Girl's last act be her greatest victory."

"Fair enough," April said.

"There is one thing I don't get," said Dakota. "Why did we do this here? Why did you have me come all the way to Pittsburgh? I mean, it's nice enough, I guess, but I don't get it."

"I've figured out this one," said Kellie. "Kota, my cabin's near here. Our cabin, if you'll have it, share it with me. It's a great place to start a relationship, or rebuild one. We can work together, play together and grow together, and only have contact with the outside world when we want to."

Dakota looked at April, who placed her index finger on her nose. Then he looked at Kellie. "We're not married yet," he said.

"We're both of age now," she said. "It's easier to get a marriage license in West Virginia, and we can establish residency there together until the big day … and enjoy our isolation in the ways only adults who love each other can."

April slapped her thighs. "OK, we're starting to get a little racy here," she said. "Why don't I get you two to the cabin as Elevator G-- Woman, and let you have your fun without my having to hear about it? I'll even carry your car, Mom."

Kellie looked into Dakota's eyes. Each knew what the other was thinking. She turned to April. "I think we'd rather drive there and start our time together that way, if that's all right."

"Fine by me," April said. She hugged them each.

"Thank you so much," Dakota said, "and thank the rest of the family for me, until I can do it myself."

"You're welcome, and I will," April said.

Kellie hugged her daughter and kissed her cheek. "You are the best daughter a mother could have," Kellie said.

"You're not so bad yourself," April said. "Take care of him, and let him do the same back. Both of you deserve that."

"We will," Kellie and Dakota said in unison.

"I love you both," April said.

More "I love yous" came back to April. Then Kellie and Dakota exited.

A quick glance between the couple told them they each wanted Dakota to drive, with Kellie co-piloting. She handed him the keys to her car. "These roads are windier than you're used to," she said. "Just allow a little extra time and you'll be fine."

"Will do," Dakota said.

As they pulled out, Kellie beamed up at Dakota. "This is real," she said. "This is really real."

Dakota's grin was huge. "Yep," he said. "This is, and you are, the best birthday present ever."

"I'll never let you forget that," she said.

"Please don't," he said.

Kellie sighed. "I can't wait to show you the cabin," she said. "I can't wait to show you the sunset from the front porch … and the sunrise from the back porch."

Dakota raised an eyebrow, keeping his eyes on the road. "And what will you show me in between the sunset and the sunrise, Mrs. Greene?"

Kellie grinned confidently. "I'll show you what a size-changer can do to share love with her husband, Mr. Greene," she said.

Dakota's grin broadened. "Sounds like my kind of night."

"The first of many," Kellie said. She sighed with a contentment she had never thought possible. "I love you, my Kota."

Dakota's grin softened into the happiest smile Kellie had ever seen. "I love you, my Kel."

Back at the hotel, April had been about to call Lakota with the news when her Elevator Woman cell comp buzzed with two different tones. It showed Mammoth II attacking an Indians game in Cleveland on one side of the screen, and a notation that she had an incoming call from Cleveland's mayor on the other. Cleveland was a distance, but one she could walk with her powers. She answered the call. "Elevator Woman. What's up?"
The plan is completed, as is Elevator Girl's last act.

This concludes the adventures of Elevator Girl.
© 2012 - 2024 macromega
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ChildFromtheFlower's avatar
Wonderful story, I have enjoyed ever part of it.