By Any Other Name

By Wesa

Series: Crossover War of the Worlds/ The People

Rating: PG

Category: Angst

Disclaimers: War of the Worlds characters belong to Paramount and Strangis & Strangis. The concept of The People belonged to the late Zenna Henderson until her death; I don't know who owns it now. I have nothing but admiration for those who created these characters and concepts, and I mean no disrespect. I'm not making any money from this; this is just for my own entertainment and for the entertainment of those who want to read it.

By Wesa.

"Rain-dancing?" Remy laughed. "Don't you think it's raining hard enough, Randie?"

She rolled her eyes, then smiled at Paul and tugged at his hand. "He's teasing again," she told Paul. "Come on. It doesn't really make it rain any harder."

Paul smiled wryly at Remy as he followed Randie out into the thunderstorm.

Harrison watched them through the window, heaving a sigh of resignation. Shadow cocked her head to one side. "Harrison?" she asked. "Do you disapprove?"

"We have to leave," he told her. "Paul's going to be impossible to live with, let alone work with. And we can't take Randie with us."

"Don't you think that should be Randie's decision?" Remy asked. "Or Randie's and Paul's together?"

Harrison looked from Shadow to Lytha to Remy. "Under normal circumstances, yes," he agreed, "but these are not normal times. Paul said he'd told you about the Mortaxian invasion." His serious expression softened at Lytha's worried expression. "No, Lytha, I won't make that mistake again. But because Randie couldn't even defend herself, because she might not even be able to warn us because of what she knows we would do if we discovered an alien near us, it's safer for her to stay here. Safer for her, safer for us. Safer for Paul."

Remy and Shadow exchanged glances, and Lytha drooped visibly. "They still must work it out for themselves," Shadow murmured. "Even the Old Ones won't interfere in the first sparks of Love. They must light their candle themselves, together."

"I hope the winds of the invasion don't make it impossible to light it," Harrison murmured morosely.

**************************************************************************************

Thunder crashed almost constantly around them, and lightning flickered like a strobe light. Randie had her shield up to protect them from the hail that flew crazily around them as if uncertain which way to fall. Her body was warm against his side, within the circle of his arm, and when he looked down at her, she looked joyfully back up at him. Paul felt himself smile; it was a good thing, making her happy. For himself, if he could keep her in his arms, he would hold her forever.

"Did you arrange this for my benefit?" he shouted, trying to make his words audible over the thunder.

"Arrange it?" Randie repeated, shouting too.

"You did say you could cloud-herd, didn't you?"

She laughed and pummeled him gently on the chest. He liked it. "I don't have to cloud-herd this time of year," she told him. "This is thunderstorm season! It can really rain buckets."

"Would you have, if there wasn't a storm handy?"

"Of course!" she laughed. "I'm not going to pass up the chance to rain-dance with - with you."

Paul got the impression she had been about to say something else. "Don't start censoring yourself on my account," he told her. "What were you going to say?"

In the flickering lightnings she seemed to blush in an instant. She ducked her head a little and said something, but Paul couldn't make it out over the constant thunder. "What?" he asked again.

"'With my Love,'" Randie shouted into a moment of stillness. The abrupt silence startled them, and they laughed together as they were blown upward, caught like a feather in one of the great updrafts of the towering storm.

Suddenly they were above the clouds, hovering in the purple twilight sky with the first stars breaking through the last light of day above them. Paul let his mouth drop open in astonishment. "How high are we?" he wondered. "You can't go into space without a ship, can you?"

"Not very far, and not for very long," Randie replied softly, wonder coloring her voice as she watched the millions of pinpricks of light appear. "To Lift, we have to have something to Lift against. If we were to get out far enough to be weightless, we'd be in trouble. A Motiver with an amplifier can manage, but even Motivers need oxygen. We're not that high. We can't stay long or our oxygen will run out - my shield doesn't hold very much - but I wouldn't think gravity had been cut by more than a quarter. But I do like to come up here at night; it's so beautiful. Too bad the moon isn't up. When it's full, you can almost reach out and touch it."

"If I could reach it, I'd have to pull it down and give it to you," Paul said.

Randie smiled and ducked her head. "Where in the world would I put it?" she wondered. "No, it's better if it stays just out of reach, so everyone can enjoy it. Besides, with it in the sky, I can look up at it, and know that wherever you are, you're looking up at the same moon. It'll make me feel as if you're not so terribly far away."

"I don't want to leave you here," Paul said.

"I know."

"I'd find some way around the security regulations, if you'd come with us tomorrow," he promised.

Randie moved closer, so that her head rested on his shoulder, her forehead nestled against his throat. "I want to be with you," she murmured, "but I can't risk the Group. The Mortaxians worry us a little. But we don't have to keep them from the knowledge that we aren't them. We do have to keep your people from learning that we aren't you. Most of them just aren't ready. Many would react just as they did a hundred years ago."

Paul thought about his first reactions the day Remy had brought him to Bendo in Harrison's Bronco, flying through the upper reaches of the clouds, and nodded. "I wasn't ready, either," he agreed, "but I learned, Randie. Harrison and I have discussed this, and we want to tell Suzanne and Norton. They're good people; they won't need to hurt you if they don't understand. And if things go badly for us in the war, Suzanne needs a place to be able to bring Debi where she'll be safe."

Randie nodded. "I understand. I can't tell you to tell them, Paul. But I know that if they came here, we wouldn't make them leave, though we would probably not make our ancestry known until they started to figure it out for themselves. Shadow and Lytha would not have Lifted in front of you had Harrison not needed immediate medical attention," she told him.

"I suspected as much." Paul tightened his arm around her shoulders, then rested his chin on top of her head. "Will you come for a visit, at least?"

Though she was comfortable where she was, Randie raised her head and looked up at him. "Just try to keep me away," she challenged softly.

Silhouetted against the stars, with clouds swirling about their feet, two shadows merged.

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Harrison rose early, showered, dressed, and packed his bag before he went downstairs to the breakfast he smelled cooking. He paused at Paul's door, but decided against disturbing the Colonel - and anyone who might be with him. Let them have what little time they could together; there were aliens in the kitchen he could talk to for a while before time to leave.

He was a little confused when Shadow met him at the top of the stairs, one finger pressed to her lips. She slipped an arm around his middle and Lifted with him, descending without using the steps. Harrison wanted to ask why, but as they passed through the living room he got his answer.

Paul and Randie sat on the floor in front of the couch, a handmade blanket wrapped around their shoulders as they slumped toward each other in sleep. Harrison grinned, but kept quiet until they reached the kitchen. "They couldn't find somewhere more comfortable than that?" he laughed softly.

Shadow gave him a sideways look as she handed him a stack of plates to put on the table. "Unlike Outsiders, the People save that kind of intimacy for marriage," she murmured. "Paul wouldn't suggest such a thing, and Randie wouldn't agree to it. You should know that, even if it's not the way you would behave."

Suitably chastised, Harrison apologized. "I do know," he agreed. "I don't understand why, though. They may never get another chance to be together."

"Trust, Harrison," Shadow advised. "Trust their Love to the Power that suggested love to them in the first place."

Harrison sighed. "Shadow, I don't even know if there is a God."

"Oh, there's a God, all right," Shadow assured him. "Are you going to set the table, or not?"

"But how can you know?" he persisted, placing the plates around the table. "You can't see Him, you can't hear Him."

"There are other ways of knowing, Harrison. Don't you know anyone who knows? Don't you know, deep inside somewhere?" Shadow persisted.

"If God exists, why did He send the Mortaxians here?" Harrison asked. "Quinn said their world was dying."

"Like the Home did," Shadow murmured. "Harrison, we take without question when the Power gives us happiness and love, but when we have to take fear and sorrow for a while, we want to refuse, like a child who won't eat carrots. We cry and ask why? Or in your case, question the existence of God.

"There is a plan, Harrison, but God doesn't tell anyone everything. Like you, He wants us to trust Him."

Harrison paused in placing flatware beside each plate, frowning at Shadow. "Like me?" he repeated.

"Don't read too much into it," Shadow laughed. "Go tell Paul and Randie that breakfast's ready."

**************************************************************************************

"I don't want to say good-bye," Randie said.

"Then don't," Paul murmured. Beyond the lilacs Harrison, with Lytha's help, was loading the last of his things into the Bronco, which Johannan had brought over just after breakfast. "Come with us. I'll explain you somehow."

She shook her head. "Not yet. The Power is telling me it isn't time for me to join with you yet. I don't know why."

"But we are going to be together. Right?" he asked.

Randie smiled sadly. "I can't See the future, Paul. There is nothing I want more than to be with you, but I don't know if that will be what the Power wills for us. But believe this: you are, and have always been, my Love. There can be no one else for me, even if we do not see each other again until we reach Otherside."

"Our time has been too short," he said.

"Too much like lightning," she agreed. "Brilliantly radiant, and far too brief."

He kissed her tenderly.

Harrison cleared his throat, and they turned to see him standing on their side of the lilac bushes. "Sorry, Colonel. It's time to go," he said apologetically.

Paul turned back to Randie. "You'll come for a visit, at least. Soon."

She nodded. "So your friends will know who to find when and if they ever need Bendo as a refuge."

"Colonel?" Harrison insisted.

Paul kissed Randie briefly one more time, then caressed her lips with his finger, his eyes gazing deep into hers for a long moment before he turned and went to the Bronco.

Harrison drove away, and Randie stood and looked silently after them for a long time.

End of part 9.