Hephaestus bowed slightly to Aphrodite. “Declare the terms of your victory.”

Aphrodite smiled triumphantly. There had been times when she doubted this moment would come.

“You will work for women. You will treat them equally to men. And you will grant me my freedom.”

Hephaestus looked at his wife, and sighed. He looked down at the ground, and wiped a tear from his eye.

“I only ever loved you, Aphrodite. But I gave you my word. And so it is. You are free.”

Aphrodite let loose a big sigh, three thousand years' worth of guilt exiting with it.

She walked over to her ex-husband, and gave him a peck on the cheek.

“What was that for?” Hephaestus asked.

“Because I did love you, once,” Aphrodite said, “despite your flaws. And because maybe, some day, you may realize the error of your ways. When you do...come back to Olympus, Hephaestus. I may be willing to greet you there, if not as a wife, then as a friend.”

Hephaestus frowned. “My place is in Hell.”

“For now,” she said. “For now. But you know the Unspoken Principum. You know you may one day return.

“But now is not the time to discuss that. For now...I have one last duty to attend to.”

“Give them choice,” Hephaestus said.

“I will,” Aphrodite said. “I will.”

*  *  *

Adam wondered how long he would last in the forest of Stephanie. He both hoped and feared it could be some time. If he could stick to cover, he might just avoid being washed away by the shower. A bath or a swim would be different – but the small canyon in the distance held the possibility of air pockets. Even a tiny one could sustain his tiny self.

He wondered if he could survive for weeks. Months. Even years. He shuddered. After years, she'd be the size of a planet. Would he even remember that once, he had been married to the world?

He started to panic at the idea. No. He'd rather die than that.

“Would you, really?”

He spun around, quite amazed to have heard anything approaching speech in this world. A beautiful woman stood before him. An angel? A hallucination? He didn't care.

“Would I what?” he asked.

“Rather die than live like a mite on your wife. Die, rather than stay on her forever.”

Adam sighed. The woman was achingly beautiful, and naked. He wondered, idly, if he'd dreamed her up in his grief.

No. If he'd imagined a woman to be his companion, it would be the woman he inhabited.

“That's another answer,” the woman said.

“What's another answer? Who are you?”

“It doesn't matter. In a few minutes, you will either know who I am – or you will not remember me at all. Adam, what do you want?”

Adam White looked at the woman – the hallucination – the angel. And he inhaled, breathing in the sweet scent of his wife.

“I just want to be back with her. To be her husband. That's all.”

“If you die,” the angel said, “you will go to a better place than this world.”

“I will die someday,” Adam said. “And it isn't better without her.”

“You could make love to women who surpass me in beauty, any time you wanted.”

“Are they Stephanie?”

“They could look like her.”

“But are they her?”

“You couldn't tell.”

“But are they her?”

“No.”

“Then no,” Adam said. “Or if I've got to die – then put me on ice. Let me wake up when she gets there.”

“Stubborn,” the woman said. But she smiled.

“All right, Adam. What if I told you that you could only get back to an inch or two tall?”

“An inch? That would make all the difference in the world,” Adam said.

“It would, would it? You'd live with her at an inch high, because you could be with her and she would know?”

“I would give my soul for that,” he said.

“I don't work for Lucifer,” the angel said. “And lucky for you. Because He would take your soul and give you an inch. I will do better.”

“Who are you?” Adam asked the woman. “Are you an angel? A dream?”

“A God,” the woman said. “But you won't remember me until we meet in the next life. And now, Adam, a gift. A head start. You will have to get the rest of the way on your own.”

 *  *  *

Adam wondered how long he would last in the forest of Stephanie. He both hoped and feared it could be some time. If he could stick to cover, he might just avoid being washed away by the shower. A bath or a swim would be different – but the small canyon in the distance held the possibility of air pockets. Even a tiny one could sustain his tiny self.

He wondered if he could survive for weeks. Months. Even years. He shuddered. After years, she'd be the size of a planet. Would he even remember that once, he had been married to the world?

He started to panic at the idea. No. He'd rather die than that.

And then abruptly, the panic subsided. No. It would be okay. He didn't know why. But it would be okay.

And suddenly, he felt very much as if a switch had been flipped. As if something wonderful was going to happen.

And then it did.

*  *  *

“If there is anyone up there, anyone at all...he's a good man. And I love him. Please...I've prayed every night. Every night. And I don't know if anyone's listening. But if he could just be big enough for me to talk to – just big enough to see him. I don't need him restored. I don't need him back to normal. I just ask for him to be just an inch or two tall. And I will love him and be faithful to him and protect him until death do us part. Please. Amen.”

Stephanie cried until tears wouldn't come any more. She wondered how much longer she could lie on the couch. She didn't feel him down there, but that didn't mean he didn't still live – and that she could kill him by accident if she wasn't careful.

That he wanted that – that he was counting on it – did not make it easier.

She didn't want to call his parents. She didn't want to call the county. She didn't want to alert the media. That would make it real. And she didn't want it to be real. She wanted to give the Gods a chance.

And then, something happened.

It wasn't a big something. Just a sudden feeling, a weight. A tiny one – far less than a gram. But enough that she felt it.

It was the biggest thing there could be.

Carefully, she pushed herself up, keeping her hips in place. She looked down, stomach doing somersaults. Maybe it was her imagination. Maybe it was desperation. She would probably be disappointed. She knew it.

But she had to see.

She carefully lifted the waistbands of her shorts and panties, and peered inside.

And down in the forest of her pubic hair, she saw something. It was tiny – oh so tiny. But it was getting bigger.

And bigger.

And bigger, until it was gigantic compared to what it had been. Twenty-five times bigger than it had been. Like a normal man suddenly growing to 150 feet tall.

Of course, it was still just an inch tall. But it had been very, very small to begin with.

With a trembling hand, she reached down to him. He was already staring up at her, as if disbelieving. She plucked him out of her bush and raised him up to her face, barely daring to believe that this was real.

For a long, long time, they just stared at each other, slack-jawed, as if seeing each other for the very first time. In a way, they were.

When they finally spoke – and they would argue about who said it first for years, though good-naturedly – they both said the same thing, to nothing and everything there was.

“Thank you.”

*  *  *

It would take three more months, the journey back. Adam didn't grow quite as quickly as he shrunk, but he grew. A week later, he'd been about an inch-and-a-half tall; it took him three weeks to reach three inches. But about a month and a half later, he was as tall as he'd been when they'd married, and in two months he'd grown to three feet tall, as tall as he'd been the night he'd almost given up, before discovering that his life was worth living.

And today, five months later – today Adam stood five feet, five inches tall – 166 centimeters flat. He had stopped a bit shy of Stephanie's height – he wasn't sure why, nobody was, but he didn't care, and neither did she. It had stopped. It was over. If she was a couple inches taller than he – he could live with that.

“So now that you've recovered – do you think you've learned anything from the experience?”

Jayne Jordan had loved it, of course – his rebirth had meant more specials, including this one. And they'd show back up from time to time for decades to come, she hoped – this was the kind of story that always had legs.

Especially since a few others had come forward with White's Disease since he had made his miraculous recovery.

“I've learned – I've learned so much I don't even know how to describe it,” Adam said. “I mean – I can't put into words how I feel about Steph. I know now that she'll be with me through anything. Anything. And I am so, so grateful to her. What we've been through – God, I don't know if anything can top it. But I'm looking forward to trying.”

“Well, maybe you can. Stephanie, you told my producer that you had an announcement to make?”

Stephanie smiled at her husband. “Yeah. I, uh – Adam, you remember, when you were about three feet tall – going downward – you remember the picture we got from the girl?”

Adam frowned, then snapped his fingers. “The drawing, you mean? The get well card?”

“Yeah. Well, remember what we talked about right after that?”

Adam's eyes went a bit wide, and a slow smile played across his face.

“No,” he said, but not in answer to the question. “Seriously?”

Stephanie nodded, emphatically.

“Oh...that's awesome!” Adam said, leaping out of his seat and embracing his wife in a big bear hug.

They held each other for a while, not caring they were on national television. Of course, they hugged often these days. They loved being able to hug each other.

They always would.

“Adam, would you like to translate for the viewers out there?”

Adam grinned widely. “We're – Stephanie – Stephanie's pregnant. We're gonna be parents!”

He held her hand, and she squeezed it. He looked at her, and she at him.

It was the beginning of another adventure. A different one. With less nearly-being-crushed and more changing of diapers. And about the same mix of tears and laughter.

Okay, a lot more of the laughter.

Half a continent away, in a hotel bar in Las Vegas, a woman watched the events on television, and smiled.

All the eyes were on her.

She was used to it, of course. She was made to be desired. She was desire.

She had proposed a good couple, she supposed. But this was really their victory. Adam and Stephanie had chosen wisely. She had given them the hurdle. They had cleared it.

“Shit,” said a man watching the show alongside her, as Stephanie and Adam mooned over each other.

She turned and looked at him. “Don't like what you see?”

“I us'd to know that girl, y'know,” the man slurred. “She wanted me, when he's gone, y'know? But now, now it's like she never kissed me. Fuck!”

Aphrodite considered for a moment, than looked more carefully at the man. “No,” she muttered, “you're Lucifer's problem. He'll be here soon enough.”

“What?”

“Nothing, Michael” Aphrodite said, getting up to leave. “Good luck.”

His was a different story. This story – the story of Adam and Stephanie White – had more chapters to be written. But they would be written by someone else. Aphrodite had done her part.

She laughed at that, laughed out loud. And muttered, as she exited the bar, “This is my story which I have related. If it be sweet, or if it be not sweet, take some elsewhere, and let some come back to me.”