“I came to Imam Youssef during the incident.” They’d taken to calling the week of Dan’s scheming, his plan to destroy DC and ignite a war to engulf the world,the incident. “I had questions. I didn’t know what my jihad was anymore. I didn’t know if I should keep on the path Allah was showing me and then die, exposing the mole. Or, if I should abandon the path, go to you, be with you. Forget about everything else.”
“Youdidn’tchoose me?” Kris’s eyebrow arched high.
Dawood flushed. “Imam Youssef helped me see that following the path would lead me to you. In this life or the next. That the battle I was fighting against Dan wasn’t just of this world. But it was a battle for the next, as well. And for millions of souls. Millions of lives hung in the balance. Especially yours. If I died, I would wait for you in the next life. But no matter what… We would be together again.”
“He did choose you,habibi,” Imam Youssef said, smiling. “He always chooses you. For this life, and for eternity. And he chose to save so many lives.”
Kris tried to swallow. His vision blurred. “He is a hero.” Kris smiled, and kissed Dawood’s cheek. “He’s my hero.”
“Imam, I want to show Kris the beauty of our faith. Everything good. Everything that is love. We’ve both been in the darkness for too long. We’ve been around too much hatred. We’ve walked our paths, and now we want to rest. I want him to see what I see, feel what I feel, from Allah.”
Imam Youssef turned to Kris. “Is this what you want?”
“I want to understand. I want to walk with my husband. Be a part of his life in every way.”
Imam Youssef beamed. “Then I will expect to see you both make a home in this mosque. Kris, you may join in prayers, or you may watch. Whatever you are comfortable with. But you both willalwaysbe welcome here.”
They stayed for tea, and Imam Youssef gave them a blessing for their new life. After, Kris stood on the masjid’s steps and turned his face up to Dawood, kissing his husband as the setting sun beamed down on them.
“We’ll have to buy a new house. Somewhere around here.” Dawood wrapped his arm around Kris’s waist.
“I’ll sell the studio.” They’d been staying at Kris’s place for now, but it felt wrong. Dawood didn’t belong there, high in the sky in the ultra-modern studio with the white leather lounge sofas. They needed something new, something that was theirs, again. “And I have savings, too.”
“And we have my back pay.”
Kris laced his fingers through Dawood’s, behind his back. “Do you want Behroze to move here? Come join us?”
Dawood’s eyes glittered, joy bursting outward. “I would love for him to study at our mosque. Learn to be an imam from Youssef. I want to work there, too. I want to help people, Kris. For the rest of my life, just help people.”
Kris smiled. That was his husband. The hippie. The lover. The soul of the universe and all that was good in the world inside his bones, inside his heart. Like his father before him. And like Behroze would be, after him. “Let’s ask Behroze to come to the US. Move in with us. Let’s be afamily.” He hesitated. “A Muslim family. I’m… not ready to convert, but I want to support your faith. And Behroze.”
“Laa yumkinu lilkalimati an tasifa hubbi laki,” Dawood breathed.Words cannot describe my love for you.“Ya rouhi.”
“I love you, Dawood. Always.”
Dawood kissed the top of Kris’s head as they started walking, arms laced around each other’s waists. Kris closed his eyes, letting the sun, the warmth of Dawood, the peace of the late afternoon, fill his soul.
Sixteen years of war.
A thousand decisions made, creating a path that carved through time. Connections upon connections, the waters of reality spinning onward, ripples from the past and the future finally syncing. More patterns would emerge, more destinies. More paths to walk.
But for today, they had this.
The sunlight.
Each other in their arms.
A new life.
The future, their path together, belonged tothem.
THE END
