I'd Give Up The World For You

Rukelion was on edge for a day and a half. Every time his phone rang he jumped for it but it was always a robocall. That was something about this new world that was particularly annoying. It was the worst expecting an important call and getting your hopes dashed by a voice that didn't even sound fully human. 

He had just about given up hope on hearing back for the day when it was finally Maxwell. "Is this Leo Blaze?"

"Yes!" 

"I have the results of your investigation. Come on down to the office and I'll give you the file. I take either cash or card so have your payment ready when you come."

"I will! Thank you!" 

Rukelion hung up the phone and sprinted out the door without remembering a jacket. Not that it mattered since he was a fire mage and was perfectly capable of keeping himself warm. But he usually wore one anyway for the sake of appearances. 

He sprinted all the way there, unable to wait for a bus to arrive. He had run much longer distances during his training when he was younger but it had been a while since he had to do it so he arrived a bit winded. 

"Who is she?" he panted when he arrived. 

Maxwell let out a small laugh seeing the state he was in. "Why don't you sit down first?" 

Rukelion did so impatiently and sat on the edge of his seat waiting to hear what he had been wanting to know since the moment he arrived in this world more than four months ago. He couldn't wait a second more!

"Her name is Daisy Miller," Maxwell told him as he set a file down in front of his client that he opened eagerly. "It took a bit of digging to work around the whole hospital records thing. I found her because she sued a trucking company, and understandably so. She was hurt pretty badly when a semitruck smashed into the driver's side of her car. 

"There wasn't any permanent damage but there were an awful lot of hospital bills, among other things. She was awarded $75,000 for her trouble and that was how I found her. Court cases are public records once they're resolved and hers wrapped up a couple of months ago.

"She's a Cincinnati native, born and raised. Spent most of her childhood in foster care after her mother was proven unfit due to a drug addiction and dangerous lifestyle and ran away several times to live on the streets until she was caught again. 

"But because of that she was able to go to the University of Cincinnati on a scholarship especially for former foster kids and majored in accounting. She's worked at the same firm since graduating more than two and a half years ago. 

"Poor girl's had a rough go of it. I've included everything I could find on her in the file. It's not exactly fun reading. The court case with her mother was particularly nasty… What did you want to find this girl for, anyway?"

Rukelion didn't answer right away. His conflicting emotions were swirling around inside of him to the point it nearly made him dizzy. 

Daisy. This was his Daisy! Daisy Miller. 

Her driver's license photo had been included in the file and she wasn't smiling in it, the same way he had been told not to smile in his when Juliet took it. She had wideset light brown eyes, a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, and straight dirty blonde hair parted to the left that hung just below her shoulders. 

Something she said once about how dirty blonde was her least favorite hair color suddenly came back to him. At the time he had thought it seemed oddly personal and now he understood why. She didn't like her own hair color. 

But why? There wasn't anything wrong with it. 

Daisy looked very different from Veronica but there was absolutely nothing wrong with that at all. Rukelion was so happy to see her—the real her—that she could have had a third eye for all he cared!

He had never seen anything so beautiful in his life even if she wasn't smiling in her picture. Seeing her face filled him with inexpressible joy but there was also crushing sadness from listening to what Maxwell said. 

She hadn't talked about what her childhood was like much but he had known it was difficult even if he never would have guessed the extent of that difficulty. And her accident! She was seriously hurt before she ever came to his world and then had to come back and deal with the consequences. 

Rukelion finally tore his gaze away from the most wonderful picture in the world and looked up at Maxwell with a sad smile. "She's the love of my life."

The private investigator blinked at him, stunned. He was probably wondering why someone would have so little information about the love of their life but wisely didn't say anything as he pushed a bill toward him. 

"Here's your total. Would you like to pay cash or card today?"

"Card."

Rukelion pulled out his debit card and stuck the chip into the little reader he had learned was the standard in most stores in this world. They shook hands one more time and he left with his precious file hugged tightly against his chest. 

This time he had the patience to wait for a bus so he read the file more thoroughly as he waited. The only information that was available other than her school and work history were from her the court cases she had been involved in both recently and when she was a child.

Reading about the extent of her recent injuries made his heart ache. Poor Daisy had to deal with being in so much pain on her own with no one to take care of her. It was all Juliet's fault! If she hadn't blown him off course he would have found his wife immediately and he could have helped nurse her back to health the same way she once did for him. 

That wasn't the worst of it either. Her childhood may not have involved death the way his did but after looking through every terrible detail of what she went through when she was younger he was beginning to understand why she didn't believe in promises. 

Rukelion managed to hold it in while on the bus but once he was back safely inside Juliet's apartment he broke down sobbing. He had never known!

All Daisy's life no one had cared about what happened to her and shunted her to the side and then he had gone and done the same thing, albeit unintentionally, because of his goals. How could he ever make that up to her?

He might not know that yet but he knew one thing for sure. He had to go see her. Today. He didn't care what it cost him since the private investigator hadn't been nearly as expensive as he had been led to believe. He supposed it was because Maxwell had been able to find her so quickly. 

Rukelion resolutely packed what little he owned into a used suitcase Juliet had gotten for him and looked up the first flight to Cincinnati since he didn't have a car he could use to drive himself. Luckily for him, there was one leaving in three hours. That would give him enough time to take a bus to the airport and go find his wife. 

He left a note for Juliet to let her know he wouldn't be coming back and left immediately, locking the door behind him. He would figure out what to do next once he was with Daisy. All he cared about now was getting there. 

Waiting to board the plane and the plane ride itself was torturous. And not only because it was completely unnatural to be flying through the air. He clutched the seat handles during takeoff and whenever there was the slightest bit of turbulence for dear life.

That anxiety aside, his mind was full of nothing but Daisy and how soon he was going to see her. He grabbed his suitcase off the rotating carousel and took a ride share to the address Maxwell had given him. 

Rukelion practically sprinted up the stairs to her apartment number and desperately knocked on the door. She answered it a few moments that felt like an entire lifetime later.

She was taller than he would have expected—only a few inches shorter than he was—and wore a baggy sweater and a pair of fuzzy pajama pants very similar to the kind Juliet usually wore covered in pink patterns. She looked at him blankly. 

"Uh…can I help you?"

His entire world came crashing down. This was Daisy—it was definitely Daisy; the heat signature was identical—but she didn't recognize him at all. 

What had happened? Was it because of her injuries? Why couldn't she remember everything they had been through together when he and Juliet could? Was it because she died in the other world instead of being transported here alive the way they had been?