Causality: Part Six
2029
Two days later
Stef wondered hazily whether he'd actually reemerged out of the timeline, or whether this was some nightmare he was having during the transition. He was leaning towards the latter, because this hardly seemed real. It looked like his destination, the UN building - the new, vaguely cathedral-esque one that had been built after the old one had been destroyed in the Sentinel War - but very strange things were happening.
It was like something out of a horror movie. The lights flickered on and off, over and over in a strobe effect that only made everything he was seeing look more unreal. Some of the people in the hallway appeared to be dead. Messily so, in a number of cases. Others were alive, though most seemed--catatonic, or something similar.
The ones who weren't were--alarming, in a distant sort of way. One woman was painting on the walls in her own blood, giggling as she worked. Farther down the hall, a man methodically stabbed a corpse with his ballpoint pen, over and over again. Stef stepped around a couple fucking frantically on the floor. They didn't notice him. He had to wonder how the man was so intent on what he was doing that he didn't realize the woman was trying to strangle him with his own necktie.
Very, very strange. Most of the doors he passed were open, gateways yawning into madness. What he saw beyond only served to reinforce his growing belief that this had to be some delusion on his part. It was too--baroque. Sex and violence, torture, mutilation, blood--some rather innovative uses of office equipment. It was every dark fantasy no one wanted to admit they had.
The constant screaming was beginning to bother him, though. He was trying very hard not to let it, because if he did, he might start thinking this was real, and be concerned for his own safety. It was better this way. He could--watch.
#There's something to be said for voyeurism.# The voice in his mind was deep and amused and--dark, somehow. It fit in perfectly with everything around him. He didn't know where it was coming from. Everywhere, maybe. Or nowhere. #Do you like what you see?#
Like--wasn't the word that he'd use. But there was something about being in the middle of this, something--gratifying. They were all losing control, except for him. He could watch, and be above it all. It felt--good. Stef smiled faintly, and imagined faces he knew on the bodies around them--because that was all they were, wasn't it? Rutting, writhing, screaming bodies. Not people at all.
#Interesting,# the voice purred, and darkness slithered into his mind like a snake. Stef felt his memories being sifted through, examined one by one.
It didn't occur to him to protest. In the last room, there'd been a woman tied in the most interesting position, and he was too busy imagining that she was Clare, and that he was the artist who'd arranged her, just so--
#Very interesting,# the voice said. There was less amusement in it now and more of a dangerous edge, as if the owner of the voice had seen something he didn't like. #Quite surprisingly enlightening. I believe you'll be very useful, Stefano DaCosta.#
"I don't have the time," Stef muttered absently. A stout, gray-haired man wearing nothing but a suit jacket rushed at him, gibbering about clowns coming to eat his fingers. Without stopping to think about it, Stef raised his gun and shot him between the eyes. The corpse crumpled to the ground, and Stef stepped over it calmly.
#I think you've got more time than you know what to do with.# The voice sounded amused again. Very amused. #Shall we come to an arrangement, you and I? You might be surprised at what I could offer.#
"I don't want anything from you." Stef wasn't precisely sure who he was talking to, but he was very definite about that. He didn't need anything from anyone, not when he was the one holding all the cards here. Nate was gone. No one on his trail, anymore. The hunter was dead, and now it was time for the prey to be--free? Stef shook his head irritably. He was having trouble thinking. All this bloody screaming was distracting him. "I don't want anything you can give me," he muttered, not sure why he was repeating himself.
#Oh, but you have no idea what I could give you, little timewalker.# The darkness swelled, and images started to glimmer tantalizingly at the edges of his mind.
Stef stopped, shivering as he saw himself standing at the head of an empire, power personified, laughing at those who'd pushed him away and dismissed him as a useless flatscan. Not just out of his father's shadow, but--more than his father had even been. It was instantly intoxicating.
#To your liking is it? I'm not surprised.#
"I can--I will have that," Stef muttered, resisting the urge to sink into the image. "That's why I'm here. Don't need help from some voice in my head--"
The voice laughed. #Is that all I am?#
"Just--leave me alone," Stef said raggedly, not sure. There was something--something he was forgetting about the nexus window. He was having trouble remembering the plan of attack--
--but this wasn't the nexus window. Hadn't he settled that? This was just a dream, some sort of hallucination. For all he knew he was still in the timestream, imagining all of this.
The darkness undulated inside his mind, probing into every memory, every thought. #Consider this, boy. You can change history, but you can't change people,# the voice continued, amused. #You can't make the people who wronged you crawl to you on their bellies and grovel for your forgiveness. I can.# A sly note colored the voice as it continued. #You can't make the woman you want want you in return. I can.#
Stef shook his head, perplexed. "I don't want her anymore," he muttered, pushing thoughts of Nariah away with both hands. She wasn't anything to him, anymore. Just a memory. A chapter of his life he was going to unwrite with the rest of it.
The voice laughed heartily. # I wasn't talking about that pretty little flower you married, young DaCosta.# It paused, then continued almost slyly. #We both know who I mean.#
Stef shivered again as Nariah danced through his mind again, tiny and perfect, a golden-haired porcelain doll of a woman. Everything he wanted in a woman.
So much like his mother. He reached out to grasp at the image--
--and Clare stepped between them, Clare as she'd been that night, at the ball, tall and elegant in her shimmering black dress. And he was flat on his back again, looking up at her.
You will never do anything to hurt her again, Clare said coldly. Stef opened his mouth to protest, to point out that he would never have raised a hand to Nariah if she'd understood her place, been what she was supposed to be. But his wife was already dwindling, a bright shadow receding into the distance.
Leaving him alone with Clare. This wasn't how it happened, Stef thought distantly. But it seemed so real. He was THERE, inside the image. Back in that night, as everything that had happened, everything he remembered began to change--
Would you like to try that with me? Clare asked coldly. She was still there. She hadn't left with Nariah. Go ahead, DaCosta. Just try and slap me around. Her gray eyes were cold as winter in that pale, beautiful face--
--beautiful? Stef thought dazedly, surfacing for a moment. Where had that come from? Clare was a bitch, a vicious slut--
--but the puzzlement faded and he was back in the hallway outside the ballroom. Shaking with anger, anger that gave him strength. Stef stood up, holding his head high as he glared at her. She might have nearly taken his head off with that punch, but he wasn't going to show weakness in front of her.
You're just like her, he growled. You need to learn your place. He lashed out, then, and she fell into a stunned heap at his feet. You don't raise your hand to me. You don't raise your VOICE to me, woman, he went on baring his teeth as he reached down and pulled her up by the hair. Cursing, struggling, Clare tried to pull away, but he held on to her easily. Glorying in the fact that he was the strong one this time, just like he should be. Do you understand me? He grabbed her by the throat and shook her. Do you?
Those glorious eyes were wide as he'd ever seen them, blazing with rage. But when she spoke, her voice was low, a husky whisper. Let go of me.
Stef slammed her into the wall, pinning her there with the weight of his body. Or what? he hissed as she strained against him. You'll kill me?
I'll kill you. But she didn't lash out at him. Not with her powers. Not with her fists. There was fear in her eyes now, crowding out the hate. She was trembling violently, and something close to a whimper escaped her as he pressed even closer. Her heart was racing. He could hear it, they were that close.
The fear excited him. Her helplessness stirred something in him, something dark and exultant. I don't think you want to kill me, he whispered, and laughed softly as she moaned. I think I know what you want--
Fuck you, she breathed, but there was no defiance in the words. No strength in her voice. She seemed smaller, somehow. Small and frightened.
That wasn't what I had in mind. He ran a hand along her thigh, feeling the heat of her skin through the thin material of her dress. Don't fight me, Clare. She closed her eyes, turning her face away, and he felt a surge of anger. Look at me, he growled, grabbing her chin. Her eyes flew open, fixing on his face, staring at him like a deer caught in the headlights of a truck, and he smiled lazily. That's better, he said roughly, and leaned in to capture her lips in a hard, bruising kiss--
--and Stef was snapped out of the moment so abruptly that he stumbled. Catching himself, his breath coming fast and ragged, he looked around wildly. This wasn't the hallway outside the ballroom, it was the hallway at the UN, complete with flickering lights and the occasional corpse. He was back where he'd been.
Not real, he thought weakly. All in his head. Stupid, really. He knew how that night had ended. Clare had walked away, left him lying on the floor like a piece of garbage.
None of it had been real. But he was still aroused by the memory, even if it had been--wrong, altered somehow. It had been so vivid. So--
#Tempting? I do hope we're past the point of self-delusion, now,# the voice said silkily. #That whole sequence was terribly pedestrian, though. I know you have more imagination than that, Stefano--#
And all his darkest dreams came flooding back to mind, all the images he'd willed away in waking life. He fought against it, but felt himself starting to sink into those locked-away fantasies--
#You want her as much as you hate her,# the voice said conversationally, as a montage of his dreams played through Stef's mind's eye. #Imagine hurting her until she screams for you to stop. Fucking her while she begs for more.# The voice laughed again. #I'm not sure which you'd prefer.#
He was sweating. Both! part of him wanted to scream. It was just--too much. Too vivid. His whole body ached with it.
#I'll give her to you,# the voice said. #Do something for me, and you can have her.#
"What?" Stef managed weakly.
Nathan Summers' face flashed in front of his eyes for a moment. #He'll be here soon,# the voice murmured. Stef, despite the distracting images of Clare in his bed that still danced through his mind, felt a surge of desperate hate, and the voice laughed again, as if in delight. #Yes--you have good reason to hate him, don't you? You had it right, little timewalker. He's at the root of all your problems. He's Atlas, and this whole world rests on his shoulders.#
"His fault," Stef murmured, swaying a little.
#Save me the bother of disposing of him myself.# The voice rippled with amusement. #Find yourself a nice little perch and shoot him in the head while his attention's elsewhere.#
If it was just a dream, it didn't matter. If this wasn't the nexus window, he didn't need to worry about his plan of attack. He could do what the voice asked, and never wake up--
#Forget the future,# the voice said. #All that matters is the now--and I can make it everything you want it to be.# The darkness in his mind pulsed, a reddish glow burning somewhere within the black, and Stef's thoughts started to dissolve into haze. #Everything you want,# the voice said lazily. #Everything you dreamed.#
Everything he dreamed. Stef nodded slowly, and went to find himself a perch.
*
The transition was just as instantaneous as it had been the last time. The difference between Uncle Nathan's level of skill and Clare's, Nate supposed--and staggered, gasping, as the hideous, murky weight of what was going on here, what was being done to the people in this building and this city, hit him all at once.
The screaming he heard with his ears was nothing compared to the howling in his mind. He'd forgotten how terrible it had been. Nate took a deep, shuddering breath, and put most of his concentration into keeping his shields steady. If he let them down, even for an instant, he was dead--or worse. There was no merge to protect him this time.
The darkness pressing against his shields suddenly took on weight and shape and a strange, oily texture. #Another timewalker!# the Shadow King exclaimed. #How very delightful!#
Nate's skin crawled as Farouk brushed against his shields, almost teasingly. Swallowing past a throat dry as sandpaper, he started down the hall, trying to scan for Stef without compromising his shields. It was next to impossible. There was just too much noise, too much pain and anger and misery all around him. Farouk was feeding off it, he knew, using it to swell his reserves so that he'd be at full strength when Uncle Nathan arrived.
#There's no need to be so antisocial,# Farouk whispered, almost gleefully. He sounded drunk, part of Nate reflected distantly. Drunk on power. #I know who you are, Guthrie. Stefano didn't expect you to be here. He really thinks he killed you. Isn't that quaint?#
Nate tried very, very hard not to react, but it was a losing battle. Stef--thought he'd killed him? Why would--
Stef shot me? Nate staggered to a stop, breathing raggedly. Stef had shot him? But--
It made sense. Much as he didn't want to admit it, it made perfect sense. Stef had tried to shoot him back on the command ship. If he'd been willing to do it then, how much more so, after what Nate had done to him in the hive to take out his shields?
Nate swallowed. It was in the past. What was pertinent was that Farouk knew him, presumably from scanning Stef's mind. And that had bad implications. VERY bad implications.
Farouk nudged at his shields again, emanating a vast, sadistic amusement. #Let me in. Or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down.# The next nudge was more of a poke, and Nate flinched at the sudden, sharp pain.
He's toying with me. Why the hell is he toying with me? "Fuck you," Nate grated aloud, and started down the hall again. He had to get to the nearest security post. The bioscanners were his only way of finding Stef--if they were even still working.
Farouk withdrew a little. #Well, that was rude. But I'll forgive you. You're only rude because you're afraid--I can sense that much. And I am the forgiving sort--#
"I know you, bastard," Nate spat, again using his voice, instead of his mind. Telepathic communication was out of the question. The Shadow King would use that to get in, past his shields. It would be like opening the door for him. "I know what you are."
Why WAS Farouk toying with him? It didn't make any sense. If he'd scanned Stef's mind, found out what was going to happen here today, logically he should have been trying to eliminate random factors. Leaving Nate running around trying to keep events on track would NOT be in his interests.
Unless--was it overconfidence? Uncle Nathan had always said that was Farouk's Achilles heel. The forest and the trees, Nate thought wildly, Uncle Nathan's metaphor coming back to him suddenly. All he cares about is the big picture--beating Uncle Nathan--
#You've got those wonderful Askani shields, I see,# Farouk said idly, and Nate stumbled, gasping with pain as something sliced into his shields. #Did that hurt?# Farouk asked, his voice oozing sympathy, and stabbed at his shields again.
Nate reeled, but lurched desperately onwards. Shit--this isn't good-- He'd overestimated his own ability to defend himself. The merge with Clare and the others the first time he'd lived through this day must have been more protection than he'd realized. "Go--to hell," he gasped out.
Farouk chuckled and continued to jab at his shields, deftly carving them away. Flaying his mind with consummate skill. #Passive defenses will only take you so far, boy. Weren't you taught that?#
He wasn't going to make it to the security post. He wasn't going to make it to the end of the corridor at this rate.
#I've always liked to play with my food.#
The outer layers of his shields cracked and Nate tottered, fighting to keep his balance. His breath was coming in ragged gasps, and he could hear his own heartbeat, too fast and erratic.
This wasn't working. Farouk would rip his mind apart before he had the chance to find Stef, let alone stop him. Timing. It was--all about timing, Nate thought, and managed a feeble smile as an idea came to him. Not a great idea, but he was rapidly running out of options.
"He's going to kick your ass, you know," he said raggedly. "You had to have seen that, in Stef's mind." Farouk was silent, and Nate worked feverishly to reshape his shields. "You're going to be nothing but a memory by the end of today, you piece of astral trash--"
He'd never done this before. Uncle Nathan had taught him this trick long ago, likening it to a swordsman being willing to take a blade in the shoulder in order to land a killing blow on his opponent. Except Nate knew that wasn't an option, not with Farouk. The insect didn't kill the man with the fly-swatter.
And he was going to get swatted. He knew that.
"What's the matter?" he snarled, using the wall for support and forcing himself to straighten. The picture of defiance, a distant part of him thought with a wry little chuckle. "Don't like the image? Tough shit, you fucking psychopath!"
And he threw his memories of this day at Farouk with all his strength. Maybe he'd been watching from the telepathic equivalent of the sidelines, but he remembered every detail. The scope of the combat, how it had bled over into the real world until the whole lobby of the UN building had been blazing with light.
The sun rising over the astral plane.
#A little foreknowledge of the future is a dangerous thing," Farouk said, not sounding nearly as amused. #Don't you think?# With that, he struck.
Nate had been prepared. This was exactly what he'd wanted--but a scream of pain escaped him as Farouk smashed through the outer 'shell' of his shields--
And got stuck. Between the layers of his shields, Nate had woven spiderwebs of psionic energy, carefully constructed to create jarring feedback and absorb energy from whatever mind came in contact with it. Farouk roared in frustration, struggling. The trap would have stunned a lesser telepath, but Nate knew that Farouk would break through again almost immediately.
But a moment was all he needed. Nate closed his eyes and slipped through the brief opening that surprise had opened in Farouk's shields. He didn't try to attack, but descended into that sewer-dark mind, seeking what he wanted.
For a moment he was lost, falling into the endless darkness. It would have been so easy to let go. His own shields were burning away already, withering beneath the blazing heat of Farouk's power. A heartbeat longer and he'd be defenseless. He'd burn down to ashes, turn into a shadow lost in the Shadow King's mind--
Then, he saw it. The memory of Farouk's conversation with Stef, and a flash of where Stef was now, what he was doing. So simple, Nate thought. So very simple--why hadn't he guessed it?
In the lobby. Stef was in the lobby, on a level above the atrium where the battle would take place. Nate drew on his last reserves of strength and struggled to reverse his fall, to rise back out of the morass.
Somehow, inexplicably, it was enough.
As he soared towards escape, Nate thought of all the images that had plagued him during his transitions through the timestream. Of Clare walking across a dusty plain to the M'Kraan crystal and then rising above it, transfigured, transformed into everything he'd known she was. All the shadows that haunted her gone forever.
A symbol, he thought feverishly. A symbol, and a promise. Light out of the darkness, validating everything he and Clare and all the people they cared about had gone through in the last ten years. All the death and battle and loss.
His future. Their future. And he wasn't letting anyone rob them of it. Not Stef, not Farouk.
No one.
Free of Farouk's mind, Nate visualized Stef's location and teleported.
He saw Stef kneeling at the railing in a perfect position to fire into the lobby below. Farouk was already snarling in his mind, and Nate, without hesitation, threw himself forward, right at Stef.
#Time to die, Guthrie!# Farouk growled.
Nate slammed into Stef at the same moment that the Shadow King slammed into his now-unprotected mind.
The pain was indescribable. Nate screamed, aloud this time, as his thoughts shattered into countless bloody splinters beneath the impact of Farouk's attack. Agony tore through him, threatening to carry away rational thought in a white-hot haze, but Nate held on to Stef as they fell against the railing.
And Stef's gun fell, over the railing and down to the floor far below. Nate gasped, the relief almost as strong as the pain.
But Farouk howled and lashed out again, all malice and fury building into an acid-green fireball that blazed through the wreckage of Nate's mind, leaving a charred void in its wake.
Nate felt himself starting to crumple, but held on to Stef. Promise me, Uncle Nathan's voice echoed in his mind, and Nate reached out with the last flicker of telekinesis left to him, directing it at the stabilizer unit on Stef's belt, smashing it.
The world shattered around them one last time as they were pulled into the timestream.
2041
No images. No sense of the timeline. Nothing but the feel of a cold floor beneath him, the taste of blood at the back of his throat, and the agony inside his skull. Everything else was numb. Silent.
Gone. It was gone. The place in his mind where there should be light and sound, the thoughts of everyone within the range of his powers, was utterly dark. Nate drew in a breath that was more than half a sob. No--no, it was just feedback, his powers had shut down in self-defense--
But he could feel something broken deep inside his mind, and a different sort of anguish was mingling with the pain. A sense of loss too powerful to deny--
"No--damn you!" someone was shouting from what seemed like an impossible distance. "Damn you to hell!"
A kick slammed into his side, and the distance was gone, crossed in an instant. Nate shuddered and coughed, but before he could try to defend himself, another kick landed in his ribs. Something cracked, and a new pain stabbed through his chest. A cracked moan escaped him, and Nate tried feebly to crawl away. It hurt to move, but it was all he could do. His TK was gone, too. Gone--empty. Nothing left.
"Wait! What the hell are you doing?" another voice shouted. "What's going on?"
Another voice. The same voice. Nate raised his head, blinking at the two blurred forms he saw standing over him. His vision cleared a little. Enough to let him see that this was, impossibly, the Tinex chamber, the very place he'd left from.
Enough for him to see that the two people standing over him were Stef. Mirror images of Stef.
Two Stefs. Somewhere amid the pain, numb understanding started to surface. A way out--Uncle Nathan said there was--
He had to think. Nate let his head sag back to the floor and struggled to breathe. The stabilizer unit--if that was what had been keeping Stef on his course, moving him through the nexus windows, breaking it meant ending the program. Ending it--
Or short-circuiting it. There were two Stefs, because--because one hadn't left yet. The only way out. Stop it from happening in the first place--undo a branch point. Do a favor for the timestream.
Nate wondered distantly if it was tears trickling down his face, or blood.
"You two appeared as soon as I stepped on the platform!" the less-disheveled Stef was saying loudly. "What the hell happened?"
"Ask him!" the wild-eyed Stef snarled. "Ask our FRIEND. Ask him what he did when he came back after us!"
"I've--already gone?" The other Stef looked confused, then appalled. "Wait!" he snapped, shock and anger twisting his features. "Nate came back after you--after me?"
"Clare's faithful dog," Stef snarled, and grabbed the other Stef's gun, drawing it from its holster in one smooth move and pointing it at Nate's head. The eyes that met Nate's were--indescribable. Nothing human in them, nothing left of Stef but the hatred. "I think it's time to put Ol'Blue down--"
"Wait!" the other Stef protested half-heartedly.
Stef gave him a disbelieving look. "Wait?" he hissed. "Do you know what he did? He ripped our mind apart and left us to die!" He laughed wildly, but the gun never wavering. "We didn't like that! We didn't like that at all! And then he came back to make sure we were dead!" Stef looked back at Nate and smiled, a hard, bright, obscenely cheerful smile. "I'm glad you're not dead," he said through his teeth. "It's going to feel so good to watch."
Nate sucked in a desperate breath and hauled himself up to a sitting position. The room spun around him, and his head lolled to the side before he could stop it. There was nothing he wanted more than to let himself fall back to the floor, to let himself go limp, but he couldn't. *Can't--pass out,* he thought weakly, spots swimming in his vision. It wasn't finished. He hadn't stopped Stef yet.
He ignored the Stef who'd gone back. "Listen--to me," he said faintly to the Stef who was still standing there watching, wide-eyed. "You can't--you can't go back. Look at him--"
"Shut up!" the Stef who'd gone back screamed, and pulled the trigger.
Nate's knee exploded in pain, and he slumped backwards, biting back a scream. Breathe, he told himself frantically. "Look at him!" he finally managed to gasp out, blinking rapidly as darkness crept in at the edges of his vision. "Look what--Farouk did to him!"
Stef looked at his slightly older self, doubt in his eyes. "Farouk," he murmured. "But--my shields--"
"Your shields were--gone," Nate whispered, choking back a groan as he tried to straighten his leg. He didn't want to look at it. He stared right at Stef instead, ignoring the way the room was spinning around him again. "Do you want--to take THAT much of a risk, Stef? Do you?"
"Shut up! Don't talk to him!" the other Stef howled, stepping between them. "Get on the platform and go!"
Nate closed his eyes, just for a moment. Help me, he thought desperately. Please--
If Stef got to the platform and went back, it would all happen again. Maybe worse. There would be no way to stop him. No way to save him--
Nate opened his eyes and stared at the two Stefs, feeling strangely lightheaded. The pain was still there, a vast ocean waiting to drown him, but it had receded, just a little.
Change history, he told himself. Nate breathed deeply once, twice, three times, and gathered his good leg beneath him and rose, thanking everything that was holy that he was already in a position to block the platform. There was no way he'd have been able to walk.
The two Stefs gaped at him as he stood there, swaying dangerously. His balance was gone, but he knew that if he put any weight on the other leg, he'd collapse. That would be it. Over.
And he wasn't finished. "No, Stef," he whispered raggedly. "Don't. You think--you've got all the variable calculated. You don't."
Stef looked down at him, his expression pale and set. "The only thing I know is that I've obviously got to be a little more careful in 2029," he said tightly, and Nate couldn't read him, couldn't see past the mask without his telepathy. "And that I need to watch my back, if you're going to be after me."
"Get away from the platform," the other Stef hissed.
Nate shook his head. "No," he murmured feebly.
"Damn you!" that Stef snarled and abruptly lunged at him. The attack was so sudden that Nate had no time to react--and would have had no way to defend himself, even if he had. They wound up on the ground, Stef on top, and as he slammed a fist into Nate's jaw, Nate saw stars. Darkness reached up and tried to swallow him once more, but he fought against it, trying to push Stef away.
"Why can't you just die?" Stef shouted and hit him again. Nate's head snapped sideways, and he swallowed blood, choking on it. "Because of her? Because she asked you to do this?"
"Stop it, damn it--" Stef said from behind him.
"SHUT UP!" the Stef on top of him screamed, and Nate coughed, then gasped futilely for breath as Stef's hands closed around his throat and started to squeeze. "Nothing you did mattered," he hissed down at Nate, his eyes burning with berserk fury. "Nothing! I'm going back again, Nate, and this time I'll kill you as soon as you show up! You won't stop me! I'll change the world, get everything that I want, and I'll have Clare too!"
Clare.
It was like cold water had been thrown on him. Clare. Why had he never seen it, never understood? The way Stef had looked at her, the way he'd talked about her, right from the time they'd all been children--
And now this. Farouk, Nate thought weakly. Farouk reached inside your mind and yanked out your darkest thoughts. That was what had happened to Stef--
Stef's face twisted into a horrific mask of hatred and lust and desperate, painful need. "I'll have everything," he grated. "The world in my pocket and Clare IN MY BED!"
The image hurt, worse than anything. Nate made a massive effort and got his hands free, somehow. Stef didn't seem to see. "Never," Nate wheezed, a swell of primal fury rising up from somewhere so deep inside him that he hadn't known it existed. "Never--never let you!"
"I'll think of you when I'm making her scream my name," Stef whispered harshly, then choked on whatever he'd been about to say next as Nate grabbed him, one hand on his throat, the other at the back of his head.
"Go--to hell--" Nate gasped out.
And broke Stef's neck.
The next moments passed in slow motion. Stef crumpled forward, ever so slowly, to sprawl atop him. Nate laid there, fighting for breath for a long moment as Stef's body went still. He felt sick to his stomach and numb at the same time--and so very, very cold. Shock, maybe.
It came to him that this wasn't it. There was still more to do--he hadn't finished anything. For all he knew, he'd just made things worse.
Swallowing painfully - he could feel the bruises on his throat - Nate heaved the corpse off him and sat back up, trembling violent.
The body of the Stef he'd killed laid beside him, eyes wide open and staring blankly at the ceiling. Empty eyes.
Dead eyes. Nate doubled over, struggling to hold back the nausea. Tears were trickling down his face, and he wanted to ascribe them to exhaustion and pain, but he knew he couldn't. I killed him--I killed Stef--
The other Stef stared at him for what seemed like a very long time. Then, moving like an automaton, he bent and retrieved his gun from where the other Stef had dropped it.
"Get--get out of the way, Nate," he said unsteadily, rising and taking aim.
Nate shook his head. "Won't--" he whispered unevenly. His head tried to sag to his chest, but he didn't let it. "Won't--let you."
Stef gave a bark of laughter. It sounded shaky, disbelieving. "You--killed me."
"If you go back, I'll--do it again," Nate rasped, wiping the tears away from his eyes and then letting his hand fall back to his side. The gun was still pointed at him. "I'll--have to. Or maybe it'll be--my dad. Or Uncle N-Nathan."
He really was going to pass out, he thought, trying very hard to stay upright. The lightheadedness was growing, and he wanted so much to close his eyes, to go to sleep--
"Bastard," Stef said, biting off the end of the word, savagery underlying his tone. "You bastard--I thought you were my friend. I never dreamed you'd do this--"
"Won't let you throw your life away," Nate murmured.
Stef laughed again. It was such a harsh sound. "You're somewhere up there helping them take my life away from me!" He shook his head violently. "I never knew you were such a hypocrite."
There was another harsh noise. Stef's gun. Something smashed into his shoulder and Nate went over backwards. Can't--breathe, he thought dizzily, staring up at the ceiling.
Floating. He felt like he could just--let go and fly away from his body. The urge to stay, to fight, was dwindling, fading away into the distance.
Stef appeared above him, gun still aimed at him. "Maybe I did screw up somehow in 2029," he murmured. "Nothing's inevitable. I knew the risks going in, Nate."
Nate managed somehow to roll over onto his side. Pure instinct, that was all it was. The flee half of the flight-or-flee urge. He tried, futilely, to crawl away.
"Better dead than nothing, anyway," Stef said very quietly, and fired again.
The shot hit him in the midsection, knocking him back onto his back. Nate couldn't make a sound. Strangely enough, the pain wasn't that bad. All the heat was draining out of him, and he could feel a spreading pool of something wet and burning hot beneath him.
This is getting to be--repetitive, Nate thought, absurdly, as Stef leaned over him, his eyes wide and somehow strained as he watched him.
"What does it feel like?" Stef asked in a strange, small voice. "I always wondered."
Nate wished he could have found the breath to curse at him.
"Does it hurt?" Stef asked. "I always wondered if my father felt anything, when he died." A tremor went across his expression. "It'll--be okay, Nate. I'll change things. None of this will ever happen--" He trailed off, his head whipping around. His expression changed completely, and as he looked back down at Nate, his eyes went flat. "Someone's trying to teleport through the shields. Is that your other self? Or Clare?"
Nate managed somehow to turn his head. There was a soft silver-blue glow in the air, growing steadily. Clare, he thought. Clare had found the Tinex.
Clare.
There was something burning in this Stef's eyes. "If I kill her as she materializes," he murmured, "she'll never get the chance to send you." He gave a shaky laugh and turned. "This is--easier than I thought," he said, taking aim.
"NO!" The scream erupted from him, a hoarse, ravaged sound that tore through the air, and Nate kicked out desperately with his good leg as Stef fired.
Clare materialized--and went down as the shot struck her.
Stef lost his balance and did the same, his head smashing against the floor.
Neither moved.
Gasping, Nate slumped back against the ground. No, he thought, tears pouring down his face. No--Clare-- He rolled onto his stomach, a moan of pain escaping him. But he had one good arm, and one good leg, and he used them to drag himself forward, right through his own blood.
A lot of blood. Too much, Nate thought faintly, but he let the fear fall away. The gun was in front of him, on the floor. He picked it up in a shaking hand, and shot the console. It exploded in a shower of sparks, and the lights in the room went down for a moment, before coming up again halfway.
In the dimness, Nate dragged himself forward, all the way to the place where Clare had fallen.
She was lying on her back, her eyes closed. Nate laid a trembling hand against her throat, and moaned again, this time in relief, as he felt a pulse, rapid but steady. He let his hand slid down to the scorched patch on her vest, right over her heart.
The shot had gone through the first couple of levels of material, but that was it. The vest was still intact.
Nate slumped to the floor and laid there beside her, watching her breathe. Remembering his visions in the timestream. How beautiful she had been, transformed by the M'Kraan crystal.
Beautiful--but he thought, maybe, that he liked her better as she was. Human.
The bright, happy girl she'd been. The driven, wounded young woman who'd forged him and the rest of them into a team, as well as a family, and led them into a war she'd been so determined to win that none of them had even for a moment dared to entertain the possibility of defeat.
The woman she was now. His commanding officer. His partner in the field. Strategist to his tactician, devil's advocate to his eternal optimist. His friend. His--
Nate let his breath out on a shuddering sigh, and smiled wanly, limply at her. He reached out and traced the streak of blood on her cheek. It was strange. She looked--so peaceful.
He wished she'd wake up, before he fell asleep. It would be so good--to see her smile.
*
On the fortieth floor, Nate Guthrie cursed plasma fire suddenly bit into the wall above his head. Nate reinforced the shield around his team and then levitated himself rapidly up the next flight of stairs, charging his psimitar as he flew. He wound up face to face with a surprising-looking security guard struggling to reload his weapon.
"Drop it," Nate said grimly, holding his glowing psimitar a couple of centimetres away from the visor of the man's helmet. "Now." The gun clattered on the floor. "Now take your helmet off." The man hesitated, and Nate pushed the psimitar a little closer. "Do I need to repeat myself?"
Once the psi-bafflers were out of the way, Nate swiftly implanted a suggestion in the man's mind to walk down to the first floor and into the prisoner transport with his hands up. Pastorelli appeared beside him, grimacing as the blank-faced security officer marched obediently down the stairs, apparently completely unaware of the nasty looks he was getting from the other members of Nate's team.
"I wish you wouldn't do that, sir," he muttered. "Hard on my blood pressure."
Nate raised an eyebrow at him. "And I wish that you wouldn't nag like an old woman, Ben, but--"
The flash hit him like a kick to the gut, and Nate staggered, the color draining from his face. #CLARE!# he shouted, and Pastorelli just barely managed to catch him before he fell down the stairs.
"Nate! What is it?" Pastorelli was shouting at him. "Nate!"
#CLARE! Answer me!# Pushing Pastorelli away frantically, Nate straightened, grasping desperately at that fading thread of shock, using it as a tether.
He teleported, rematerializing in a small, almost featureless room. There was a burned-out console to his left, and four bodies.
Two of them were Stef. One of them was Clare. And the other, the one at the end of the trail of blood--
Was him. "Oh, damn," Nate breathed, staring down at himself. "What--" He swallowed, then knelt down, checking Clare's pulse first, and then turned to his doppleganger, who stared up at him with hazy blue eyes. "What--what happened--" he started unevenly, and then shook his head, sending out a desperate call for a medic and applying telekinetic pressure to his other self's wounds. "Medic's--on the way," he said helplessly. "Just hold on."
"No--point," the other Nate breathed. "It's--done. He didn't go back. None of this will happen."
Nate hesitantly touched the other's mind, and then stiffened, a moan escaping him as he saw everything. Himself and Clare in this very room, her sending him back to stop Stef. The timestream, each moment that this other him had lived in the past. He experienced it at the speed of thought, blurring through the infirmary to the UN building. His parents, Alison, Sulven, Uncle Nathan--
It left him dazed, stunned. Feeling sick. "But--it did," he croaked. He was watching himself die--a him who'd been crippled, burned out by Farouk. A him who'd had to kill Stef, and then stop the other Stef from killing Clare--
"Yeah," the other Nate whispered, a faint ghost of a smile flickering across his face. "Today's--really sucked." He swallowed visibly, turning his head towards Clare. "Is she--still out?"
"Yeah," Nate said raggedly. "She's okay, though--"
"I--I know. Stef?" The other Nate gave a breathless, bitter chuckle. "T-The one that's still alive, I mean."
"He's breathing. I--"
"Was supposed to save him," the other Nate murmured, closing his eyes. "Still--has a role to play. Change a heart, change a world."
"Stay with me, here--" Nate muttered miserably, reaching into the other's mind again and trying feverishly to suppress some of the pain. It was all he could do for him. #Where's that medic?# he shouted at the top of his telepathic lungs. "Stay," he said again, to his other self. "Don't--don't go."
The other's body seemed to relax a little, his breathing slowing to a deep, regular rhythm. "No need--for there to be two of us, here," he murmured, very softly. He opened his eyes again and met Nate's, the haziness ebbing a little, replaced by a brief, burning intensity. "Don't--know who'll remember. If Dad and Mom--and Al--do, tell them I love them--"
"I will," Nate stammered. "I--"
The other him looked sideways at Clare again, smiled with a sudden wistfulness, and murmured something. His voice was almost inaudible. Almost. But the words were still clear to Nate.
"Venrhia, mi'laryan," his other self whispered in Askani. And died.
'Venhria, mi'laryan.' Goodnight, love.
Nate felt the tears trickling down his cheeks, and didn't move to brush them away. Across the chamber, the Stef who was still alive moaned, and Nate reached out telepathically and swatted him back down into unconsciousness.
He reached out, closing the other Nate's eyes, and then shifted over, taking Clare in his arms. She stirred a little, but was still mostly limp against him. Nate closed his eyes and held her to him, stricken to the core by what he'd just seen.
Mi'laryan. He'd never--it wasn't a conventional thing, the way he felt about Clare. It wasn't anything that would threaten the incredible bond she had with Harry. It wasn't anything he would ever use to demand anything of her, or hurt her in any way.
It was just--there. It always had been. It always would be. She was in his life, in his heart, and he loved her.
Nate opened his eyes, blinking back tears, and stared intently at the two dead bodies, focusing hard. They started to glow softly, as he poured all of his telekinetic power into the task and took them apart at the molecular level. Standard procedure. The Askani prayer he whispered as he destroyed the bodies wasn't.
They dissolved into light, and faded.
Don't know--who'll remember, his other self's words echoed in his mind.
"I will," Nate murmured hoarsely. "I promise." He looked at Stef, swallowing painfully. Change a heart, change the world, he thought. "I promise," he whispered again. But he wouldn't forget what he'd seen in his other self's mind.
'What is, is.' What had happened, had happened. The only way you could truly change the world was to accept that, and find the courage to keep fighting. You couldn't create light without shadow.
You couldn't change your future without accepting your past.
Clare murmured something and opened her eyes. "What--happened?" she asked softly, blinking up at him. Her eyes were ever so slightly luminous in the dimness.
"You don't remember?" he asked hoarsely, wild hope leaping up in his chest. It crumbled an instant later as he reminded himself of all the others who might remember. His parents and Alison especially--how could he tell them that the Nate they'd seen in the past had died? How would they react?
This could be--very complicated. But he'd have to deal with the problem if it arose.
Clare bit her lip. "No," she muttered. "I don't remember. I was trying to teleport through the shields around this room--" She refocused on him and blinked worriedly, reaching up to touch his cheek. "Nate? You're--crying."
"It's okay," Nate whispered, and hugged her tightly for a moment. He sensed her surprise and brief bewilderment, but closed his eyes against more tears as she returned the embrace and soothing emotions flowing from her mind to his. She must have figured he needed to be comforted. "Everything's going to be okay," he said, and started to believe it.
*
To everything
There is a season
And a time for every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together
A time of war, a time of peace
A time of love, a time of hate
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time of love, a time of hate
A time of peace--I swear it's not too late.
----Ecclesiastes/Pete Seeger
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