Singularly Imperfect

Mr. Murry might be short-sighted but not short-sighted enough to have missed the kiss on Ixchel.

Days, months and years later, whenever he looked back on this extraordinary adventure, Calvin would insist the most extraordinary, the most magical of it all happened on Ixchel, when the Mrs. W's whisked Meg away into a tesseract. He knew what it was like to tesser, but to see a tesser was another experience. When the ladies first appeared on this planet, they had brought on a faint, shimmering sort of light, though he would never know where such light came from, seeing as Ixchel's sun gave no actual light. In any case, for a moment, Calvin could see again. It was faint, but it was sight. Then, when the ladies slowly faded away with Meg with them, it was like seeing a candle go out, but somehow, without the same hopelessness which that implied. For a moment, Calvin could see Meg, her glasses and braces glinting a little in the shimmer that was Mrs. Which. Her eyes, otherwise so beautiful, looked positively terrified but there was a determined set about her jaws. Calvin almost reached out at the last moment to pull her back, to offer again to go in her place, but Mrs. Which had already tessered. The image of Meg shook and shimmered into a whirlwind of colours, and then all was dark again. Calvin let out the breath he wasn't even aware he was holding.

Now, they wait.

He stood, unable to move for a long moment. It didn't matter how long; considering light didn't have meaning on this planet, he doubted the notion of time made more sense. The silence and the darkness stretched on. The next moment that Calvin became aware of things around him, he realised that the Beasts had somehow withdrew, leaving him and Mr. Murry together, waiting for Meg.

An odd sense of nervousness he had never felt before flooded Calvin. When they first appeared on Ixchel, Calvin had been so focused on finding Meg, making sure she was all right and conscious, that he never got the chance to realise that he was in the presence of Mr. Murry, the man who the whole village had for years assumed ran off with some woman, leaving his family to the ridicule of everyone. And now, they were suddenly left alone, probably millions of light years from Earth, with just each other for company, unable to see anything and so unsure of what the next seconds, or minutes, or hours held.

He could feel Mr. Murry sit down on the ground, and almost by instinct, Calvin sank down beside him. After all, if they must resign to waiting for Meg to return from Camazotz, then they might as well do it comfortably.

"Tell me," Mr. Murry started speaking, and Calvin felt startled at how loud his voice sounded in the silence, "how long have you known my daughter?"

Was he just making small talk, Calvin wondered. The answer - the truth - came automatically to Calvin's lips before he could think to lie, "Actually, I spoke to her for the first time today." The silence had somehow turned almost omnimous. It was enough to make Calvin feel defensive. "At least, I think it was today. I mean, I first met Meg and Charles Wallace after school and had dinner at her - I mean, your place and then just after Charles Wallace's bedtime, we were swept into gallactic space and who knows how much time had passed?"

"So you've known her for all of half a day?"

"Well, no. I knew of her for a long time - "

"Things people know of my family most of the time are not true." Calvin had expected this answer as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but he had expected the answer to be sharp and reproachful, as if Calvin should have known this, having experienced this whole adventure with Meg and Charles Wallace. Yet there was no sense of regret in Mr. Murry's tone. It seemed this was a fact that he was content to let exist. It wasn't that he was above correcting it; perhaps he understood that people in such a small village as theirs needed something to talk about, and a family of two odd scientists, two even odder children, even when offset by the normal twins, would always provide ample things to gossip about. "You have known her for half a day, correct?"

"Yes, sir." There was another proverbial shoe waiting to drop, Calvin was sure of it. The stillness and darkness of the planet pressed in on him as he waited for Mr. Murry's reply.

"And you think such an aquaintance allows you to kiss my daughter?" Mr. Murry's voice was calm. If it wasn't for what he actually said, such a tone would had been appropriate for asking Calvin whether he prefered chocolate or vanilla ice-cream.

Calvin was glad that neither of them could see, because he was sure that his face now matched his hair and he probably would not be able to form anything like a coherent reply if he had to look at Mr. Murry. He had kissed Meg on an impulse; it was a compulsion, like he felt compulsed to visit the haunted house that afternoon and he didn't regret it. It wasn't an unpleasant experience by any mean. No, if it was another situation, he would had thoroughly enjoyed it. He was too worried for Meg to form words and the kiss been the natural way to remind her to be careful, to let Meg know that she brought his love with her. Calvin had not considered that Mr. Murry had been there and certainly he was not short-sighted enough to have missed it. Not that it would had mattered; it might had been a little more awkward, but Calvin would have kissed Meg nonetheless. When evil itself stood between Meg and death, and decided whether they would ever see each other again, awkwardness seemed suddenly trivial.

"I think...I think traveling through galaxies and facing brain-like monsters together create a sort...bond, an...understanding that would not exist even if we knew each other our whole lives. Considering the distance we've traveled together, it would be fair to say that we are years away from Earth. And the strange thing is, I feel like I've known her my whole life. It's as if everything that's ever happened in my life had been a part of a process to wait until it was time for us to meet."

"What were you doing before meeting Meg?"

Calvin pondered for a moment. Even though it wasn't long since he saw his home through the Happy Medium's orb, Earth and home - wherever that was - seemed far away. Well, he almost laughed to himself, they were far away. Literally. They almost didn't seem real here and he had to think hard to remember life before Meg. "I suppose it was everything that Meg was doing before she met me. School, finding out where I fit in. The only difference is, Meg is terrible at pretending to fit in at school whereas I am a little too good at it."

Mr. Murry chuckled, not an offensive sort of laugh, but one to indicate that he understood what Calvin meant. Then quite suddenly, the subject swirved back to the original question. "Any other young man would had thought first to apologise when asked what gave them the right to kiss a girl by her father."

"But I am not sorry, sir. To apologise would defeat the purpose."

"Which was?"

"That Meg goes to Camazotz not just with Mrs. Whatsit's love, sir, but with mine and yours. It is the thing that will allow her to save Charles Wallace, to save herself."

"You love her?"

It was then that Calvin understood what the Beasts meant when saying their language was so simple to the point of complication. Love, it was so simple and yet at the same time multi-faceted. To explain it, to put everything he felt into words seemed suddenly extraordinarily complex when it should not be. There were words but they were not enough, and then there were no words to describe what he felt. So he only said, "I think it's hard not to love Meg, once you know her. She's so singularly imperfect."

"What a strange reason to love somebody."

"It is." Calvin couldn't think of a further explanation that could elaborate on the strange feelings he had for Meg, even before they started on this adventure. Somehow, he felt sure that Mr. Murry understood what he meant.

The silence resumed between them. It was a comfortable state now, and Calvin almost wondered why they were not more worried about Meg and about Charles Wallace. But it was as if the understanding that appeared between them had given them both an inexplicable faith that Meg would pull through, with Charles Wallace, and Mr. Murry, and Calvin, and the whole world with her. After all, life on Camazotz was frighteningly perfect and Meg was so endearingly imperfect. Imperfection would win, because imperfection was not static, it was capable of change, not locked in a single fragile state. Meg, so insecure, so imperfect, was still capable of learning, of seeing herself differently, whereas IT had only one vision of itself, as the destroyer.

Just before both of them were lost in the silence again, Mr. Murry spoke. "And yet I don't even know your surname."

It was true, he did not. Meg had never got around to tell her father Calvin's last name and Calvin had not thought to inform him. After all, his last name had always been the thing with which other people had judged him, before they even knew him, just as they judged Meg and Charles Wallace for being the "weird Murry kids" without knowing them. Calvin was never truly ashamed of his family, because he loved them and love did not have room for shame, but he did not enjoy being judged according to them either. However, other people might judge him for his name, he knew Mr. Murry would not. After all, Mr. Murry had known Calvin the person before he knew him as Calvin O'Keefe.

"O'Keefe, sir, Calvin O'Keefe."

"Calvin O'Keefe."

It was the last thing that Calvin heard Mr. Murry say before his vision and his head started to swim, a different kind of darkness swept over him, forcing his eyes shut.

When he opened his eyes again, the familiar sights and sounds of Earth numbed Calvin's senses. It took him a few seconds to realise there was a garden, and there was Charles Wallace's voice crying, and there was Meg.

There was Meg and Calvin ran towards her. "Meg!"

A/N: The kiss always stayed with me as the sweetest part of Calvin and of A Wrinkle in Time. I get pretty frustrated with the lack of development of romance between Calvin and Meg, but that kiss on Ixchel may just tell us that nothing needs to be spelled out.

I wrote this without having read the book in a while and I didn't have the book on hand to check facts so there might be some details that were not accurate. I can't remember whether they actually can't see through all the time they were on Ixchel or not.