Time of Your Life

Sasha sat sipping a cup of coffee while reading her favorite novel in her cousin's cafe. She ran out of coffee, so when she reached the end of the chapter, the folded the corner of the page and got up. She walked over to the counter and noticed a tall man with chaotically wavy hair wearing a trench coat. She stood behind him and noticed he smelled like a mix of grass, smoke and lightening.

Her mind jumped to the fictional character she was just reading about. She was so lost in thought, she didn't notice the line had moved forward, until the lady behind her very politely poked her back and asked her to move on in a pleasant manner. She walked forward while giving the old lady a sour look and almost crashed into the tall man that smelled nice.

"Oh! Umm...Sorry." She stammered out apologies. When she saw him, she had a Deja vu feeling that had her fumbling even more. After getting her coffee and sitting back at her seat, she started reading again. But no matter what she did, the book simply was not engaging as it was before. She kept thinking about the Man she almost walked into.

She shook her head when she realized the tall man who smelled nice had become the Man in few short minutes. Her mind kept drifting to his scent and his eyes, and how they had an immense amount of grief , joy and tiredness.

She suddenly realized she had been staring at the Man for the past 10 minutes. She shook herself and decided to go over and talk to him. It took her another half an hour to find her courage. By the time she had psyched herself up, the man got up and started walking out of the cafe. She hurriedly paid her bill and ran out of the cafe. 

She found him near the bus stop. She walked up to him but before she could say anything, the Man said, "Sasha, we have had this conversation over a thousand times. And for every conversation we have made a thousand different timelines. This time, I  came back just to see you once before going back and creating a timeline where I never met you."

".........Umm, okay? What?" She tried making sense, but failed miserably.

The Man sighed and said to her," Come on. Walk with me."

"Why?" She asked. "If you want to understand, walk with me." He said exasperatedly. 

She absentmindedly started walking beside him and kept staring at him. 

"I don't know who I was born as. I don't know when I was born as. I don't have a fixed name. Don't interrupt me." He said without needing to see her about to say something. She promptly and audibly shut her mouth.

The Man sighed and said, " I am a time traveller. I can jump across space-time as easily as you walk. I have seen History being made and I've seen futures change due to coin tosses. I live a lonely and apathetic life. If it can be called that." He laughed with no warmth at the last part.

Sasha suddenly understood the deep seated grief in his eyes.

"I started calling myself Azazel sometime during my teenages in the 12th Century Middle East. But I went into the past and mucked up the timeline so much, I never found that timeline again. Eventually, Azazel became a legend. A story. A myth. Like me." ,He said.

By this point they had reached the park. They sat on the bench and she asked," What happened then?"
He was looking the ground, but still somewhere far off, when a smile slowly dawned on his face. He slowly looked at her and kept gazing. His gaze was so intense, she couldn't look away either. Then, he said one word, in such a way, that changed her world but at the same time she knew exactly how it changed.

"You"

He paused and continued, " I walked into a coffee shop, almost had a girl crash into me, who then kept staring at me. When I first saw you, it was only because you kept staring. I asked you what you were looking at. And all you had to to say was and I quote "You smell nice. Can I have your perfume?"."

The Man laughed to himself, this time with warmth.

"Wow, your laugh is nice"

It slipped out of her. Completely unintentionally. She clapped a hand over her mouth. The Man started laughing really loudly this time. He almost fell off the bench due to his shaking. When he got his laughter under control, all he could say was ,"A thousand times I have met you. And every time I have laughed, it has been the same response every time." Before chuckling away for some more time.

"Stop laughing!" She said, while whacking him with her novel again and again with both hands.

"Okay! Okay." He surrendered to her. "Right. Where were we?". He said with a laugh.

"Me asking for your perfume?" She prompted, still a bit confused.
"Right." He sobered up." We dated for a while and got engaged after a couple of years." He said with a chocked voice," And then one night, we were walking home after watching a movie. We were mugged. The gunman was startled by a bystanders shout and accidentally shot you in the neck. I tried everything I could to save you from being shot. But no matter what I tried, I couldn't keep you safe. The best I could ever do was keep you alive till the ambulance came and take you to the hospital. You then spent the next six months in a coma while I waited. I spend up time because I couldn't wait for you to wake up. But you never did."

" I went crazy. I went back in time to the coffee shop. But this time, it was a car accident before I could ask you to marry me." He continued with a white face. Like he was reliving his hell. "Then, like Lemony Snicket's story gone to an extreme, every time I went back to change our story, something or the other would ruin it. You would come to harm and I could do nothing about it. Ever."

His haunted eyes were looking so far away, it couldn't be measured. In that glance, he was seeing all of his failures to keep his beloved from harm.

She didn't know what to say. The thought of her dying a million times had her skeptical. She asked, "Why did you keep trying? Why did you keep coming back?"

He turned to her with an expression she couldn't describe, and said, "How could I not?"

A lone tear dropped from his right eye and suddenly, she was aware of her own tear that had escaped. She wiped it off with a vengeance, as if punishing it for escaping without her permission.

"The seventh time, we tried having a child before marrying. It didn't work. You died giving birth and our son didn't live long enough for me to hold him." He said, "That is the closest we ever got to having a child."

"How many times did you try to save me?" She asked. She almost did not recognize her voice. Usually full of some emotion or the other but now sounded hollow and robotic.

"Two thousand, seven hundred and fifty eight times I came back to meet you back at the coffee shop. I don't know how many times I jumped back to save you from harm. That goes in the billions.", Azazel said with shame.

Sasha couldn't stop herself. She rushed over to him slapped him and almost hugged the life out of him.

"Asha! Air!!" He rasped out.

She let him go, and turned around and looked at her shoes for some time. She then turned around and gave him his wallet.

"How do I know that your driving license is not forged to be 30 years into the future? How do I know, that anything you've said is true?" She asked with an inscrutable look on her face.

"You don't" , He said. "This time I'm not convincing you. I just came to say goodbye one last time. I'm leaving this timeline and making a new timeline where you don't exist."

"Well. This timeline? That you've made is pretty much ruined. So, go back, and when I try to talk to you at the bus stop, respond like a normal human being and not an all knowing douchebag. Let our relationship develop like normal People. Forget everything you knew about me. If we are destined to not have a happy ending, enjoy what time we have before you never meet me again. Jeez! This time travel is confusing! Anyway, you have the power of time on your side. You're practically a god. Go out there and do some good in the world.", Sasha ranted without a break.

Azazel looked at his shoes dejectedly, and said," I can't lose you again."

Sasha said to him angrily, "You can't! YOU CAN'T!! I WAS TOLD I COULDN'T BE A MOTHER EVEN IF I TRIED A THOUSAND TIMES! STOP GIVING ME THAT SENTIMENTAL CRAP AND JUST DO WHAT I'VE SAID! Sasha yelled at him.

"Alright. One more time." Azazel said hopelessly. He never could make Sasha see his point of view when she was in Dragon lady mode. Usually she was right most of the time. "One more time. For you. I tried to make us work in every timeline. But in every timeline we find a new reason to be torn apart."

A huge swirling portal opened up behind him. His tears were flowing unchecked as if letting out his anguish through his eyes. He turned around and walked to the portal. He threw one last glance at Sasha, and walked into the portal. As soon as he passed through, the portal disappeared.

Sasha kept staring at the spot where he vanished for what felt like hours to her. She suddenly tasted her own tears and furiously wiped them away as if punishing for escaping her control. She knew her life would never be the same again. But then again, her life had changed drastically because she apparently wasn't meant to live for a long time.

Azazel had jumped through the portal, but only through space. Not time. He jumped to the top of the building nearby. He kept watching Sasha as she wiped her tears and walked away. He knew he had promised Sasha to try again a new timeline. She never specified when he had to do that.

Azazel watched over Sasha. He saw how she changed the way she saw the world. He saw her set out to see the world. He followed her in the shadows. He protected her preemptively from any and every threat he saw. His immortal, ever youthful face developed wrinkles from worrying too much about her. He kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. He constantly expected her to die. He didn't eat for years together. He ignored his thirst for even longer. But his vigilance over Sasha never wavered. 

His pride knew no bounds when Sasha adopted a pair of kids. He knew she wanted to adopt a child for years before she actually decided to adopt. He was very surprised when she went into a poor orphanage and came out with two kids. After watching them for a few days, he realised the two kids were the best of friends. No wonder Sasha adopted them both. The boy, Jake, had an adventurer's spirit with the heart of a lion. The girl, Mina, was a bookworm. and frighteningly intelligent. Mina was the first to see him, but Jake was the first to talk to him.

Time passed by and he grew to love them as if they were his own. The children grew up and left to live their own lives. It was perhaps the worst time of his life to watch over all three members of his family. Jake worked in a travel company. Whereas Mina opened up her own chain of bookstores. Azazel's only respite was the weekends when they would visit Sasha. 

His heart ached when he saw the three of them laughing and enjoying at Christmas and Thanksgiving. He felt his heart break every time any of them were hurt or injure. But he stayed away. He had a promise to keep.

Years flew by and in the middle of the night the sound of an ambulance woke him up. He suddenly woke up to full alertness. The few moments it took for the stretcher to come out were the worst of his life. He knew both of his kids and their families were in the house. His heart almost stopped when he saw it was Sasha on the stretcher. He followed the ambulance from rooftop to rooftop. He disguised himself as a doctor and went to her room. She lay sleeping there peacefully. The disaster averted.

All the tension in his body sagged. He leaned on the wall near him as he gazed at her. Her eyes gradually fluttered open. he didn't realize she was looking at him until she said," You were wrong."

Azazel froze. He had almost forgotten the sound of her gentle voice. He could only hear her yelling at the kids, whenever he could. His shoulders dropped and he said,"I know. I was watching over you." 

"I know", she said weakly. "You look like shit, by the way."

He chuckled at that and said," And you still look beautiful."

She laughed weakly at that and started coughing harshly. He rushed to fill a glass of water and help her drink it. Once her coughing subsided, she said,

"Stay with me"

"For as long as you'll have me", He said.

"Unfortunately, it won't be long"

" Don't say that", he begged.

"It's alright. I lived a long happy life."She said with a smile.

"Please don't go", he begged again.

"Azazel. Its been 78 years since we met. It's time you let me go and try to go back once more"

Tears streamed down Azazel's face as he said," One more time. For you." His voice broke at the end and he started crying unabashedly.

"Azazel. I'm tired. Let me go to sleep now."

"No. NO! Don't go!" Azazel cried desperately, but it was too late. Sasha was no more. Azazel broke down completely. He cried and wept for hours into the night.

The next morning, a nurse found them both. Neither had a pulse. Azazel's grief had finally broken his immortality.