They waited until morning for an explanation, primarily because both Dia and Lev looked dead on their feet. Betty and Bobbie bundled Dia off to bed and Lev stumbled into his own tent to sleep for hours.

When Dia finally emerged from her tent the others were sitting around the camp fire trying to be patient. Lev hadn't made an appearance yet.

"So, it's been four days. We were beginning to get a bit worried." Ian finally said to Dia, as she sipped on a cup of tea and watched as Betty Jo heated her up some oatmeal.

"Four days?" she repeated.  "I hadn't realized."

Lev came out of his tent, yawning, and accepted a cup of coffee gratefully.  

"Yeah, four days," Smitty said resentfully. "Stuck here, in the middle of nowhere."

"It seemed... only hours to us," Lev replied.  "Well, Dia, you said we were in what, a place without time?"

"Outside of time is more accurate," she said.  "Something akin to an eternal now.  I'm really sorry Smitty, I had no idea.  It seemed like less than a day to us."

"So, what happened?" Simon asked. "Don't just sit there.  Tell us!"

"Oh, not much," Lev replied.

"We met Solomon, saw the gates to Eden and fixed it so that Miryam and Elihu will be there forever instead of us," Dia said.

"Uhm, would you elaborate on that last bit?" Ian asked, while Jonah frowned over the part about Miryam.

"Apparently when all this started Elihu messed up Solomon's plans to leave, he was effectively trapped outside the gates of Eden.  So Solomon set it up so that whoever came to take his place could get out of it by making Elihu and Miryam take theirs," Dia said.

"Ah," Ian said frowning. "So, uhm, you left your mother stranded in ... wherever it was, so you and Lev could be free. And where is Solomon?"

"Now that is a very good question," Dia said.  "I don't know.  It's possible he's back in this reality or that he entered Eden or did something else altogether."  She swallowed a last bite of oatmeal and reached for her tea cup.  "I can't at the moment think of anyway to trace him, either."

"So, you've finished your quest?" Simon asked.

"One never finishes, I suppose.  It just moves on.  And there's still the issue of the people who want the book."

"Is it still worth protecting?" Ian asked. "I'd think you'd still want to study it.  And the tapestry. I suppose we could return that to the Zoo?"

"I'd like to keep both, but not if it means they're going to keep trying to take them.  And now, they're just a book and a tapestry, the power's moved on," she said.

"Perhaps we can show them that," Ian said frowning. "Surely they'll sense the loss of power in them.  We could set up a meet. They're still here, or were. Perhaps they've even left and figured it out already."

"Jonah, do you think you could contact them?"

"Me?  I guess so," he said.

"Sorry. Are you feeling a bit conflicted about Miryam?" Ian asked, frowning.

"No, not particularly," Jonah said.  "Should I be?"

Ian's eyebrow rose. "Never mind. I'm just trying to figure out how to convince the Golden Dawn to leave us and ours alone."

Jonah nodded and finished his coffee.  "How about I take a walk over there and see what's going on, maybe invite them over for a late breakfast if they're still around."

"I'll walk with you," Lev offered.

"Sure," Jonah said.  "Let's go."  He headed out of camp in the direction of the  other camp.  "So, that must have been quite something, what you and Dia saw," he said.

Lev shrugged. "It was pretty cliché actually. Angels with horns. Pearly gates." Lev snorted. "I think the whole thing was an illusion."

Jonah laughed.  "Cliché's have to start somewhere," he said.  "An illusion, huh?  Why?"

"Dia said it was a place outside of time. But time passed there. I mean, otherwise movements and decisions and actions couldn't happen, could they?"

"Time is a construct, an intellectual concept that describes a sensory and perceptual movement from the then to the now or the now to the next now.  That movement only has validity because we perceive it, we experience.  So time, as we've conceptualized it, isn't required for something to happen, but rather allows us to experience it and describe it, make sense of it, as it were.  A seed growing into a tree doesn't require time for that to happen.  We require it to make sense of it as it happens," Jonah said.  "Which is also why it was four days for us, but less than a day for you and her."

"Well, that's pretty much what I'm saying, I think.  What we saw was something our minds constructed to make sense of the place.  Looks like they've gone," Lev said, extending his senses outward ahead of them, questing over the side of the plateau to where the other camp had been set up.

"That would be my preference," Jonah said.  "Are you saying that the pearly gates was just the picture your brain said you were seeing but that I might have seen something different?"

"Well, it was, so far as I can tell, a shared vision, but yes, I think what we saw was a construct to hide what was really there."  Lev walked fearlessly to the edge of the plateau and looked down on an abandoned camp.  "Didn't even bother to clean up after themselves."

"Bunch of self important jack-asses," Jonah said.  "A sort of folie a deux? Any idea what might have been really there?"

Lev used his Awakened abilities to clean up the mess. "Well, I'm not sure how much I can trust my senses from that interlude. But there was a moment or two, between a sleeping state and fully awake when I thought.. The place seemed to melt, or shift, in and out of focus."

Jonah nodded.  "That makes sense.  One of the theories of Eden has always been that it exists simultaneously here and in wherever the eternal is, what is commonly referred to as heaven."

"Well, I don't pay much attention to the theological.  Not any more.  I guess we might as well head back and then head home. Not much point hanging around here."

"Sounds about right.  Though I wonder if..." he broke off the thought and shrugged.  "I'll be glad to get back."

"Yeah, me too. I might actually get some sleep. You wonder if what?" Lev asked as they headed back to the camp.

"If the way there is closed from this end," Jonah said. 

"I certainly hope it is. I'd hate to think of them getting free and sticking someone else in there forever. Or are you volunteering?"

"No.  Just wondering where to send the Christmas cards this year, that's all."

They were both snickering when they made it back to the camp. "Nobody's home," Lev reported.  "I guess maybe they figured out that either they were too late, or it was over."

"Or they figured out they'd stake out the house before we get there," Ian replied grunting. "So, Dia. Do we have a reason to stay here, or shall we go home and act civilized again?"

"I'm all for going home," she said.  "A hot bath and a real bed."

"Sounds like a plan," Ian agreed.

"You all go on. I'll see that the Land Rovers get back to their owners and make sure everything else is taken care of," Lev announced.

Dia waited while the others went to pack and they had some privacy.  "Is everything okay?" she asked him.

"Shouldn't it be?" Lev asked her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry," she said, taking a step back. 

"Dia.... Nothing has to change. It was necessary. It's all right."
 
"No, it's not that.  It's fine.  I should go pack."

He grabbed her arm to stop her. "What is it then?" he asked quietly. "I won't tell anyone if that's what you're worried about."

"Can't it just be that it matters to me if you're okay or not?" she asked.

"I'd think it's more ... You're the one who gave up something important, not me. And I'm pretty confused about my part in that. I'm not sure if you resent me, or .. or what."

"Resent you?" she repeated, stunned.  "I don't resent you at all, quite the contrary."  She studied him for a moment.  "You and I, we never really talk, do you know that?  I mean it may be we've nothing whatever to talk about and that's why we seem to just have these glancing exchanges totally devoid of communication and each of us goes off thinking we know what's going on and we're wrong.  Like me thinking you couldn't stand to touch me when it was exactly the opposite.  So why don't you just tell me what you 'think it's more' of and why you're confused."

He let go of her arm surprised he'd even touched her apparently. "It's ... you've kept yourself pure all these years, so it must have been important to you. And there, there trapped in that place, there you had no choice but to surrender your virginity not with someone you loved but with me. Why wouldn't you resent me?"

"You want me to count all the wrong assumptions in there or will it be okay if I just say you're wrong?"  She shook her head.  "I don't resent you because there's nothing to resent.  I mean do you resent me because it was you it happened with?  That you had, in your view, no choice?"

He frowned at her. "Well, it's not the same thing. I .. It was just sex for me. And, well, I find you attractive, so... Had it been your mother, well..."

"I see," she said.  "Here's the bottom line," she went on after a moment.  "I don't resent you.  I'm not worried about you telling anyone.  I find you attractive.  I appreciate your willingness to perform the necessary chore." 

He flushed. "It was a chore. For the both of us. Not a choice we made freely. I tried to make it as .. I wanted you to not feel ... Argh," He added in frustration.

She went white.  "Fine," she hissed.  "Until you told me I wasn't aware it had been a chore for me."

"It wasn't?" he asked.

"No,"  she said, struggling not to scream. 

"But you didn't choose to lie with me," he replied. "I ..."  He ran a hand through his hair. "I confess I have no idea what you feel about it all. Would you tell me?"

"I'm glad it happened.  I'm glad it happened with you.  I'd be glad if it happened again.  Is any of that not clear?"

"Oh. No, it's quite clear. Thank you. If, when we all get back to London, or Averyton or wherever, and it's safe, would you go to dinner with me?"

"Yes," she said.

"Good. Pack. I'll see you when I get back."

"Good," she said.

He watched her walk off to her tent, then, after a sigh, he disappeared.