#and my time traveling horse theory needs a little more evidence so if she could get some more horses that would actually be really helpful

[soup-or-who-lock]

My dream for season 3 of The Way Home is simply that Sam goes away forever (because he is boring to me and I am sick of him) and Del gets TWO horses instead of one

[five-rivers]

Stars Aligned Chapter 2

Here’s the thing.  Danny knew this was a dumb decision.  At least as dumb as stepping into the ghost portal (but at least he’d gotten some nifty powers out of that, hey?).  Whatever reason his bio-dad had for chucking him out the door within days of his birth couldn’t be good.  Putting himself within reach of the man…  Yeah.  Not his brightest thought.  

(Not to mention the wizards.  And witches.  That was so weird, how they had two different names for essentially the same thing. Then again… actor, actress…  Why were people so weird?)

On the other hand, twin brother.  Twin brother who had to live with aforementioned baby-abandoning bio-dad.  Twin brother who wasn’t allowed to visit America.  Or, Danny suspected, a family of squibs.  

Yeah.  

Yeah.  

So, here he was.  Getting everything in order for a wizard passport and wizard international travel, because bio-family refused to even look at an airport.  

Danny had a suspicion that, based on how they spelled the word and a few other comments in that particular letter, that they weren’t entirely clear on what an airport was.  

Fun.  

On the other hand, in comparison to the actual, normal, legal passport he’d gotten, just in case bio-family left him somewhere, wizard passports were much, much easier to get.  The wait times were practically nonexistent.  He could, in theory, get the passport on the same day he traveled.  All that was needed was proof he was a wizard and his adoption papers.  

Of course, ‘proof he was a wizard’ actually meant ‘wand.’  Wands being something they used as personal ID, despite the fact that they were a) sticks, and b) didn’t actually carry any personally identifiable information.  Sure, Jack said that they were somehow connected to their owners, but unless there were, like, giant books of details about everyone’s wands at every place that would, conceivably, need ID, and had people trained to identify all those tiny little characteristics…  Danny just couldn’t see how it would work.

Danny’s current theory was that all wizards were just insane, which meant that his twin would most likely fit right in with the rest of Danny’s family, right as soon as Danny figured out how to legally kidnap him.

(No, Danny didn’t have a ghostly Obsession, and it definitely wasn’t family related.  He was only half-ghost, after all.  Why do you ask?)

Anyway.  Wizard passport.  Wizard ID. Wizard sticks.  

Wands.  

Wands meant a nerve-wracking trip to the nearest wizarding town with Jack.  Evidently, he’d lived there a couple of years after his parents sent him away from Britain when he was around fourteen because of ‘the war.’

Abruptly, many of Jack’s stories about his childhood made more sense.

(It had always been something of a joke between Jazz and Danny to try and figure out what ‘the war’ was supposed to be, and if Jack’s parents had just… Conned him into thinking he’d eaten horse meat.  For some reason.  Even if the Fentons hadn’t seemed like that kind of people, no matter how eccentric.)

(Also, evidently Jazz and Danny had never met Jack’s biological parents, who were not named Fenton, although his adopted mother was also a witch.)

(Why was everything so complicated?)

 The “wizarding community” was a small town accessible only by a train line invisible to ‘no-majs.’  And also flying brooms.  Which wizards used.  Danny had seen the train before, not realizing that he wasn’t supposed to. Several times.  Usually while flying to Wisconsin to deal with whatever Vlad had done that week.  

If Danny was a wizard, was Vlad?  Was being half-ghost somehow tied up in being magical? What did that mean for Dani?

(Hey, maybe this whole affair could be used to bring Dani into the family safely.  Who was to say that he didn’t have a secret twin sister?)

Danny could admit that the town itself, which had almost a Ghost Zone vibe with how all the architecture seemed to be from fifty plus to a hundred years ago and also the physics breaking magic, was sort of cool. It was… cute, he guessed.  He didn’t really like how everyone was staring at Jack, their clothes were just as weird, but it wasn’t a new thing.  People always stared at Jack.  

That’s what happened when you wore hazard-orange jumpsuits twenty-four seven.  

The shops all had names out of a fantasy novel, and at one point they got turned around and wound up on a residential street where they had to ask for directions, but eventually they made it to ‘Willoughby’s Wand Emporium.’

The interior of Willoughby’s Wand Emporium reminded Danny strongly of a shoe store.  The shelves were all lined with boxes of approximately that size, and the employees all carried measuring tape.  It also smelled like a shoe store: musty and dry, with a hint of polish.  Or maybe it was wood varnish?  Or some kind of paint.  

A young woman bounced up.  “Hi, how can we help you today?  Replacement wand?”

“First time, actually,” said Jack.  

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said the woman.  “You’re just so tall for your age.”

“I’m fourteen,” said Danny.  

The woman began to turn red.

“He was missed,” said Jack.  “It happens.”  He smiled, but it looked far more strained than usual.  

“Oh,” said the woman.  “Ahem.  Well, if you’ll come right this way, I can start taking measurements, and start trying out wands.  The wand chooses the wizard, they say!”

“Okay,” said Danny, shrugging.  That was… interesting.  Were the wands sentient?  Did that somehow make them acceptable IDs?

Seemed really weird to keep sentient things stored in boxes.

… Said the kid who stored sentient beings in a soup thermos.

A really high-tech soup thermos.

Didn’t make it better.  

Except he didn’t keep them in the thermos indefinitely.  Except for Dan.  

Danny didn’t know if the wizards kept the wands in boxes indefinitely, either.  Maybe he should stop assuming things.  That had gotten him in trouble with ghosts more than once.

The woman took her measuring tape from where it hung around her shoulders, held it out in front of herself, and promptly dropped it. It did not fall.  

As basic as levitation was for ghosts, it was really weird to see a human do it.  (Especially when it always took so much concentration for him to levitate things other than himself—Hence why he never really used the ability in battle.)

The measuring tape flitted around Danny’s head, shoulders, arms, and body, taking measurements.  He had to sit on his reflexes hard to prevent himself from trying to catch it or knock it out of the air.  

He was so nervous.  Was it normal to be nervous?

The measuring tape snaked back through the air to the woman, who smiled.  “Alright,” she said, “we can start with that.  Uh, to explain the process, we usually start out with wands in the appropriate size range and try and zero in on the ones that respond best to you from there.”  She flicked her own wand, and several thin boxes slid themselves off the shelves.  “We use a wide variety of wand woods from a variety of wandmakers.  Just about any tree that grows in North America is probably represented here.” She paused.  “Except for palm trees.”

“That makes sense,” said Danny.  Palm trees were quite different from other trees.  

“Alright.  Let’s start with pine.  The core of this one is dragon heartstring—Harvested humanely, of course!”

“Core?” said Danny, latching on to the familiar word even as he regarded the wand itself dubiously.  

“Yes.  As with our woods, we also stock a wide range of wand cores.  Each wand has a core made of a small part of a magical creature.  Dragon heartstring, unicorn hair, and phoenix feather are the standard ones…  But that standardization is rather British.  We have a few others available.  Thunderbird tail feather—Only taken during molt.  Wampus cat hair.  Dittany. Rougarou hair.  Jackalope antler…  Those are the more common ones, though we do have others.  Even some kneazle whisker, although most people don’t want those.”

“Why not?”

“Ah, they tend not to be very strong.  But sheer power isn’t everything.  Some prefer control, need lower power output…  or are worried about accidents while they’re learning.  We do see some adult learners every now and then.”

That actually sounded sort of appealing to Danny, but he supposed he’d better go about this normally.  At least at first.  

He picked up the pine wand and immediately dropped it.  

“Ow,” he said.  

“Ow?” repeated the woman.  “Oh,” she said, catching sight of the burn on his hand.  “That’s… not supposed to happen.”

“Y’know,” said Danny, conversationally, “I’ve only held, like, two magical things in my life, and both of them have damaged my hands. Is this, like, a common thing, or am I just ridiculously unlucky.”

“Second one, I think,” said the woman.  “Cynthia’s good at minor healing charms.  I’m going to go get her.  Okay?  Okay.”

Shortly thereafter, phoenix feather wands were also eliminated as a possibility, not because they burned Danny, but because they seemed intent on burning everything else around him.  Pine wands were also a definite no-go (“Don’t worry about the lifespan thing,” said the woman, “that’s a myth.”).  As was everything but elder, apple, pear, hornbeam, thorn, and yew (this list got another mention of myths from the shop assistant).  

At this point, the shop owner, Mrs. Willoughby, was drawn out from the back room to observe the mess Danny was making.  

“My,” she said, “I haven’t seen anyone have this much trouble in a while.  Heather, why don’t you go get some of the specialty cores.”

“I thought the unicorn was working well,” protested the woman who’d been helping Danny so far.  She winced as Danny picked up a new wand and exploded a light.  “Comparatively.”

“Yes, we could probably eventually find a unicorn hair wand that would work for him, but all things considered…  I feel like we should explore other avenues.”  She sniffed.  “Nothing associated with fire.  Perhaps kelpie mane?”

“I’ll check,” said Heather.  

.

Kelpie mane, it turned out, did the same sort of thing as phoenix tail feather when it came to Danny.  Only with a lot more water involved.  

“I didn’t think that would work, anyway,” said Mrs. Willoughby.

“Then why,” said Danny, wringing water out of his shirt, “did you have me try it?”

“Oh, cases like you greatly improve our understanding of wandlore,” said Mrs. Willoughby.  “You’re not likely to have noticed this yet, but the population of wizards and witches is so small compared to the no-maj population that everyone who gets very far in a profession has to be a bit of an innovator.  I’m recording this for future reference, and I’ll be looking forward to seeing what you do in life.  If anything.  It would be very helpful to me if you became famous.”

“Hard pass on that,” said Danny.  

“Or at least come back at some point.”

“I’ll consider it,” said Danny.  “But, like, we were really hoping to do other things today, so maybe…”  He made a circular motion with his hand.  “Or at least, ugh, I don’t know.  I feel like everything you give me is trying to kill me.”

It was a very familiar feeling, and a very unwelcome one, nonetheless.  

“We really aren’t,” said Mrs. Willoughby.  “But perhaps… from now on, we’ll limit to the woods to the Rosaceaes.  The others tend to be called unlucky.  Well, except for the hornbeam.  Is there anything you’re singularly passionate about?”

Singularly passionate?  “Not really,” said Danny, who did not think about ghosts or helping people or space. He shifted, uncomfortable, and squelched.  

Screw it.  He was supposedly a wizard, now, right?

He phased the water off himself.  

“Oh my god!” shouted Heather.  “Did you do that on purpose?”

“Uh,” said Danny.  “No?”

“Calm down, Heather.  Don’t act like you’ve never seen accidental magic before.”

“Not with a teenager doing it!”

They were now attracting a crowd.  Yay.  

“He’s not trained, yet,” said Mrs. Willoughby, unconcerned.  “Don’t be rude.”

“Yeah, can we get back on track, here?”

After a few more tries, Mrs. Willoughby had determined that the wood that reacted the least badly to Danny was hawthorn.  Then she sent Heather into the storage room to fetch more.  

“I don’t know why we even have these,” said Heather, under her breath, carrying several boxes marked with stamps that read ‘THESTRAL.’

“Because some people have trauma, Heather.”

“He’s a teenager.  I seriously doubt he has deep personal experiences with death.”

“Wow, way to assume, Heather,” said another shop assistant, who was passing by with a far-too-curious customer.  

“Here,” said Mrs. Willoughby, handing Danny a box.  “Try this one.  It’s hawthorn.”

With some suspicion, Danny slid the cover off the box and gingerly picked up the wand inside.  

It didn’t do anything like what the other wands had. Instead, the slender length of wood gave him a faint echo of the feeling he got when he was on an emotional high and engaging in either extreme mischief or obsession-adjacent activities (because he did not have a real, ghostly, capital-O Obsession).

Danny declined to hold it with all five fingers, lest he be overcome with mania.

Yes, he was paranoid.  But when touching things can go as badly for you as they did for Danny, paranoia was justified.  

“Oh, it looks like you’ve found your match,” said Mrs. Willoughby, clapping.  

With the ease of practice, Danny did not let any trace of horror or unease show on his face.  He ignored the surge of glee from the wand, and carefully placed it back in the box.  

Yeah.  He needed a wand for passport purposes, but there was no way he was going to use that.  He’d just fake magic with ghost powers.  It had been working out okay so far.  

What was the worst that could happen?

A rather relieved Jack paid for the wand, and they made their way, slowly, to the government building.  

“So,” said Jack.  “You want to save getting those beginner magic manuals for another day?”

“Absolutely,” said Danny.  He wondered if his twin had gone through anything even remotely like this and if it was really worth all this trouble to meet a person he would have basically nothing in common with other than blood.  

Blood that likely meant less than usual, considering that his was diluted with ectoplasm.  A fact he would have to hide.  With no allies or back up.  In England.

(Again, this whole endeavor was not his greatest idea.)

.

Draco supervised the house-elves as they cleaned out the room next to his own, feeling rather blank.  He had campaigned vigorously for his twin to come, but now that he was…

The boy, for all that he was as much a Malfoy as Draco, was an American for all intents and purposes.  What did Americans even like?  What did they call their bastardized version of Quidditch?  Would Deneb even know about wizard games?  According to the woman from the agency, he’d been raised as a muggle by those squibs he’d been placed with.  

Slowly but surely, Draco’s heart sank.  He had no idea what his twin would be like.  Deneb, despite being his brother, would essentially be a stranger.  

He was beginning to understand why his mother was so angry at his father.  

[mattzerella-sticks]

Stubborn, Coda to 15x03 “The Rapture”

Sam finds Dean after causing the rupture in his and Cas's relationship, trying to heal the wound with a familiar potion. When Dean can't answer a very easy answer, tensions finally boil over and Sam says a few things that Dean needs to hear. Needed to hear for years. Surprising how it takes only one domino to fall for an entire structure to collapse.

Sam softly closes his bedroom door, wincing as the hinges squeak. Echoing in the too empty hallway. Once he hears the small click of his lock Sam steps away. Then he shuffles down towards the kitchen. Each step brings with it a small jolt of cold as his bare feet connect with the tile. He welcomes the distraction as it pushes the more troubling thoughts from the front of his mind.

His path would lead him to the kitchen, if he kept on course. Seeing as the day’s theme is the opposite of that, Sam finds himself following the clattering sounds of the alcohol decanters and his brother’s growling in the War Room.

Dean sits hunched over the glow of the world map. Arms splayed across the surface, one traveling up the length of South America where his pinkie finger gently rubs against Middle America. The other hand clutches to the glass of half-drunk whiskey floating in the Pacific.

Sighing, Sam moves closer. The mutterings he could barely hear earlier become full sentences, a familiar name popping up every few words. He clears his throat. Announcing his presence before Dean could say anything he might regret. That he wasn’t ready for.

His brother tenses, head turning to where Sam entered. Glassy, bloodshot eyes swim in a sea of liquor as they try to focus on him. When the flash of recognition dimly lights up his gaze, the frown smeared across Dean’s face lightens into a harsh line. “What’re y’doin up?”

Great. Slurring means Dean drank enough to kill a horse. The empty row of containers scattered across the map provides enough evidence for his theory.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Sam says, “Figured I’d make some coffee… what about you?”

Dean rolls his eyes, lazily saluting with his glass. Whiskey sloshing inside. “Drinkin’.”

“I can see that.”

“Good f’you…”

Sam leans on one of the chairs, sour mood curdling further. His brother takes the barbed silence as an end to their conversation, sipping at his drink and laying his head across the map again without care.

Not ready to leave yet, Sam searches for something to say. Looks in every corner of the War Room, past the archways and into every shadow. The overwhelming absence needles him. “Where’s Cas?”

Scoffing, Dean tucks himself further into his arm.

Sam repeats himself. “Where’s Cas?” Then he scrapes the chair across the floor. Dean stiffens into a seated position, posture straight and face wrenched in pain.

He glares at him, “What was that for?”

“Where’s… Cas ?”

“Why you wanna know, huh?” Dean asks instead, shifting awkwardly. Wobbling to and fro in his seat. “You think you mean that much to him? I got news Sam - you don’t . None of us do.” He empties his glass, slamming it onto the map. “Where’s Cas?” he mocks, snarling, “Who cares - how’s that for an answer?”

Sam’s lips twisted in disgust at the sheer ugliness marring his brother’s features. Gone was the smooth mask of professionalism. With nothing weighing on his shoulders, all the hurt and pain from days ago could swim to surface and take their wretched breaths.

“I care, Dean,” Sam starts, “and so do you -”

Dean scoffs. “I care… maybe once, maybe…” He swallows roughly, gaze darting to his lap. “I don’t anymore. S’all that matters. Cas could go off himself in some stupid way or,” the next part comes out rough, dragged through his clenched teeth. “Or give up this whole rotten business and settle down with some pretty young thing. He made it perfectly clear where the line’s drawn… Us on one side, him on the other.”

Sam glares, Dean’s tantrum eating at his already frayed nerves. “What did you say to him?”

“ Me ?” he splutters, “Why’re you sticking up for that little punk , huh? What’s he ever done for us?”

“What’s he ever - Dean . Do you even hear yourself?” His grip on the chair tightens, the wood biting into his skin. “Cas has given everything to help us. To help you . Sacrificed himself time and time again for the greater good, doing what he thinks right -”

“Yeah, right ,” Dean chuckles darkly, “What he thinks is right . Like smiting the useful demon and forcing Rowena to off herself - he thought that was right .”

Sam sees white. The anger passes, vision sharpening as his teeth press so fiercely against each other they might shatter. “Plans change,” he says, “We didn’t have any other choice -”

Dean rushes to his feet, chair clamoring as it falls backwards. Every muscle wired and ready to pounce, sobriety hemming the steely green of his iris. “Because he didn’t give us a choice, Sammy. He went AWOL and did this to us. Every damn time something goes wrong Cas is there, red-fucking-handed.”

Shocked, Sam distances himself from the brother he barely knows. Anger possessing him like a demented spirit. “If you really think that,” he says, “then it’s your fault. You taught him about free will, about how to make choices. Even if they’re the tough ones, like today’s.”

“Well that was a fucking mistake,” he says with no hesitation. “ He’s a mistake. A lost cause. A - what did he call Bel-bel-bel-whatever? Abomination? Sure let’s go with that.”

“Dean, he’s your best friend -”

“He’s not my -” Dean teeters, so close to falling over. Sam reaches out, ready to catch him. His brother shakes off the stupor and bats Sam’s hand away. More tentative than last time, Dean continues, “Wasn’t my best friend… not for a long time… he was - and now he’s not really…” Nose scrunching in confusion, Dean wipes at his teary eyes and growls. “It doesn’t matter anymore Sam! He never mattered, never cared . Castiel is an angel, and like every other feathery bastard like him all he did was interfere .”

Vein throbbing, Sam sucks a deep breath low into his gut to try and smother the rising flames of his temper. They only fan it. The fire rages across his conscious and turns any remaining patience inside to ash. “I’m fucking tired of this, Dean.”

“So am I. Finally something we can agree on.”

“No, I’m tired of you ,” Sam says, startling Dean. “I’m tired of this .”

“Oh, so you’re gonna move on from me too, Sam?” Dean asks, fear visibly paling his expression. “Leave like Cas, like Chuck -”

“Enough!” Sam roars, “Stop pushing all of your problems onto other people! I’m not Chuck, Cas isn’t Chuck. We actually fucking care about you. The sooner you stop taking your anger out on us - on him - the better all our lives will be.”

“But I am angry with Cas,” Dean argues still, “Sam, Cas he - he let mom die -”

“Yes, mom died,” he says, “Mom died. Jack died. Ketch died, and too many innocent people died… Rowena died, Dean.” Sam stutters a shaky sigh, heart clenching. “I had to kill someone I was getting so close… someone I loved and could see myself loving for a long time. She followed the plan Billie set out perfectly for us, and look how it turned out. Another woman I loved who ended up dead at my hands .”

Dean stares with precise focus at the ground, unable to meet Sam’s gaze. He carries on. “Rowena and me though… we didn’t get a choice. At least there’s some comfort in that, knowing she went out saving the world. Giving other people the chance to decide how they’ll spend their next day. But if you expect me to throw you a fucking pity party for pushing Cas away then you’re skunked. No one held a gun to your head and forced you to hold this ridiculous grudge against him, you pushed away someone you loved all on your own.”

Flustered, Dean meeks out a response. “I didn’t lo… I didn’t… Cas left on his own -”

“Cas left because you gave him no choice,” Sam tells him. “You took away any option he had and when he could only do what was left you blamed him for it. Would you blame the car in front of you for traffic if it was construction’s fault for blocking out the other lanes? No! Then why Cas?”

Sam answers for Dean. “Because you figured Cas would stay. This isn’t the first time you’ve done this but it’s the first time Cas called you on your bluff.”

Dean holds his ground. “There is no bluff -”

“Don’t,” he warns, “Do not… you can lie to everyone, lie to Cas - hell, lie to yourself. But don’t look me in the eye and tell me it isn’t exactly what we both know it is.”

His brother opens his mouth as if to speak, only to snap it shut with enough force to bite the head off a snake.

“You never learn… you lash out at the easiest targets. Probably thought you could get away with it because it was Cas. Cas never leaves you, Cas is always there. Cas will come back - even if it shouldn’t be possible. You had so many chances,” Sam’s voice breaks, a tear slipping free. “And you wasted each one. This isn’t on Cas, man. It’s on you. You’re the reason your world’s falling apart. You’re Chuck. And if you keep on acting this way you’ll end up just like him… miserable, depressed, and alone.”

No more steam left in his engine Sam spins on his heel. Coffee forgotten, he stomps towards his room without glancing back. Not when Dean calls for him, demands he stay. Nor when curses echo in the Bunker’s halls, followed by the smashing of glass against stone.

Sam keeps moving forward, hoping Dean will see the light soon and follow.

He needs to, because with Cas gone there’s one less star brightening his darkness.

[darkanachronism]

Keziah Mason Meets the Whateley’s

"Who 're yew an' what're yew doin' in my lab?"  Wilbur demanded, looking down at the old woman.

"Depends," she started, "on why you smell like Yuggoth."

~~~~~

What’s this, me posting writing on main?  More likely then you think.  Anyways have the Lovecraft crossover no one asked for. 

Wilbur had been preparing the shed for some time now.  He didn't have to yet, but he would eventually with Twin getting as big as it was.  

For now though, he just wanted a bit of space.  A little respite from his mother, from his brother.  From the Byhakee it had upstairs.

Just a quiet place to read, to write, to study.  

Admittedly it was a rather sad little makeshift lab, but it was his nonetheless.  The chairs and tables fit him, he barely had to stoop to get in the door, yes this was as comfortable as he could hope to get.  

Wilbur was just about to enter with another armful of books when he heard a crash from inside.

The crash, and accompanying string of curse words belonged to an old woman stumbling out of a corner, tripping over a pile of books and face planting onto the floor.

Keziah Mason has taken a wrong turn on her trip back to Arkham.  Something she immediately decided not to tell anyone about, in a rush or not this was an amateur mistake.  

She rolled onto her back and cussed again.  Being fairly certain she'd heard some bone or other make a noise it shouldn't.  And took in her surroundings, digging in the pockets of her robe for something to throw at whoever owned the place.  

The door creaked open and Keziah was staring down the barrel of a revolver.  

Fuck.

"Who 're yew an' what're yew doin' in my lab?"  Wilbur demanded, looking down at the old woman.  She looked harmless.  

So did lots of things.

Keziah blinked in surprise, trying to take in all of the massive figure that loomed above her, to place the unearthly stink that came off him, and come up with an answer to his questions all at once.  

"Depends," she started, "on why you smell like Yuggoth."

She managed two out of three, and to stall for time on the third. The gun lowered just a little, Wilbur's brows furrowing in surprise.  Not the answer he’d been expecting. Or for that matter one he’d accept.

"I’ll answer yew once yew answer me seein’ as I asked first an' I've got the gun."

No point in distracting himself.

"Both valid points.  I'm Keziah Mason, and I took a wrong turn.  Now you."  

Cryptic and sort of a non answer, but in certain circles her name preceded her, and in others bothering to explain that you were not just a common burglar but an fiendishly intelligent witch who could use her knowledge of advanced physics and arcane secrets to travel long distances via interdimensional shortcuts, well that sort of talk was just as likely to earn you a bullet as keeping quiet.  Even if the man towering above her could barely pass for human himself.  

" 's just how I smell is all."  He answered her first question.  "And I'm Wilbur Whateley."  She hadn’t asked for a name, but it seemed polite to give one.

Whateley, of course, everything clicked into place.

“Yog-Sothoth’s kid then?”  She asked quirking a wiry brow.  She’d expected more...Tentacles?  Maybe a tail or something.  Still, something around the eyes put her in mind of the fathomless space beyond spaces.  

The revolver dropped to Wilbur's side as he tried to puzzle through how to respond to being called out so casually.  He nodded.  Not sure what else to do.

"Help an old lady up would you?"  

Wilbur did, hauling Keziah rather artlessly to her feet, still baffled into silence.

"How'd yew know that?"

Keziah shrugged. “Your family’s been at this for a while.  Honestly I’m surprised things lined up."

"Yeah, guess et were a bit 've wurk on granpa's part."  Wilbur trailed off mumbling, scratching the back of his neck and looking around for something else to discuss.  The topic of his conception was awkward, he imagined that was one of the few things he had in common with any other teenager.

"Sorry, didn't catch that.  Tinnitus."  Keziah said, adding the explanation with a grimace.  It was a small price to pay for visiting The Court of course, but a deuced nuisance most of the time.  

"Uhh, Nuthin'."  Wilbur said, before changing the topic abruptly.

"Yew still didn’t explain why yer here."  

"Told you I took a wrong turn.”  She was trying to sound casual, but perhaps came off as a tiny bit defensive.  “Just a tiny miscalculation on my part.  We are in New England aren’t we?"

"Dunnich."

Keziah pulled a face and Wilbur laughed.

"Take et yew've visited before?"  

"Not if I can help it.  Is it still as painfully backwoods as it was in...1786?"  

Wilbur quirked a brow, sure, she looked old, but not that old.

"Nah, et's wurse."  

"You poor thing."  Keziah patted him on the arm, it was about all she could reach.

The condescension wasn't appreciated, nor was the physical contact, Wilbur pulled away from that, but since she evidently loathed Dunwich, he let it slide.

"Where were yew tryin' t' get then?"

"Arkham."

"That ain’t far,” Wilbur started helpfully.  “Yew culd take our horse, Long as yew return et."  

It’s not that he was a particularly generous man, he had no natural inclination to help a stranger out.  But it wasn’t as if he was planning to ride anywhere any time soon.

Keziah chuckled.  

"Thanks for the offer, but I can get there faster."  Keziah glanced around the makeshift magical laboratory, looking for something.  

"Do you have some graph paper I could borrow?"  She asked after a moment.  

"Uh, yeah I c-" Wilbur was cut off by a tentative knock on the half opened door.  

"Wilbur, dinner's rea-," Lavnia called out, opening the door as she did so.  Ordinarily she wouldn't but in like that, Wilbur had been so insistent on his privacy lately.  But he’d left it ajar, so she didn’t see any harm.

She paused mid step to stare. In what world did Wilbur have company?  And how had she missed the woman showing up in the first place.  

"Who's yer friend?" .

Wilbur looked between the two and stepped out of the way to make introductions.

"Uh, hi Ma, this is-"

"Keziah Mason.  One of Nyarlathotep's Thousand Favoured."  she said, brushing past Wilbur and offering the other woman a hand to shake.  No need to be cagey about who she was now.  

Lavinia very quickly wiped her hands on her skirts before accepting, clearly flustered by the title drop.  

"I'm Lavinia Whateley, pleased t' meet yew."  

Wilbur wasn't half so impressed, actually he had to wonder what she did to earn the Crawling Chaos' attention.  Or if she wasn't just full of shit like so many magicians turned out to be.

 "I'm sure it's mutual.  Don't let you keep you from Dinner though, I was just about to leave."

"Yew dun half tew, ef yew dun want. I mean, yew culd stay fer diner ef yew'd lak.  We dun often have guests, 'specially 'un so destingished."  

Wilbur winced at his mother's gushing and hand wringing.  She was special enough in her own right that she shouldn't be tripping over herself to impress some witch who couldn’t even keep her angles right.  

Admittedly Wilbur’s understanding of interdimensional travel and the mathematics involved in them were shaky at best. But he could make an educated guess as to what a wrong turn meant.  

Keziah considered the invitation, taking a quick look at each of the Whateley’s to guess at how much of an intrusion she’d be before answering.

“Why not, I don’t really need to be back until Sunday.”  She gave a casual shrug.

Lavinia positively beamed when the older woman accepted her invitation.  A reaction that made Keziah question the other woman’s sanity just a bit.  

“Well, house es this way ef yew tew want t’ follow me.  Sorry ‘bout the house bein’ in a state, et’s ain’t usually this much ‘ve a mess.”  Lavinia gestured for the other two to do just that, before backing out of the door way.  

Wilbur let Keziah go out ahead of him and locked up behind the trio.  

Dinner at the Whateley house was usually an awkward affair, consisting of strained attempts at small talk from Lavinia and increasingly successful attempts to avoid that small talk on Wilbur’s part.  So a third party was appreciated, and it really didn’t take much to set Keziah off.   

An idle question about how exactly she knew the Whateley’s from Lavinia prompted wild stories about Wilbur’s great great grandparents, questions about Yuggoth from Wilbur earned an even more energetic response.  All the while Keziah displayed the kind of table manners that startled even Wilbur.   

It was increasingly difficult to imagine the hunched old woman tearing into a drumstick with clawed hands and trying to explain the Dho Formula through a mouthful of chicken rubbing elbows with The Outer Gods, acting as a messenger for Nyarlathotep himself.  

But she did know things.  Gods did she know things.  His grandpa has known some and read some, and Wilbur had done his best with that meager tutelage and a plethora of crumbling books.  But Keziah, she rattled off facts and incantations and corrections to his magical theory like other people talked about the weather.   

The conversation was beyond Lavinia’s grasp, she nodded when she thought it was appropriate.  And was quickly forgotten by the other two.  She didn’t mind though.  It was a rare treat to see Wilbur so animated.   

Dinner ended with everyone in a good mood, Lavinia offered to clear up and let the other two retreat to Wilbur’s lab, Keziah still had to work out exactly where she’d gone wrong in her calculations earlier, and Wilbur was eager for a crash course traveling the space between spaces.

“Don’t worry kid, I’ll work slow so you can keep up.”  

The teasing earned her a sour look.  Even as Wilbur bent over the desk to see what she was working on.  

“I’m sure I’ll manage just fine, I’m sharper ‘en most folks.”

“So am I.”  

If Keziah made things a little unnecessarily complicated just to show off who could blame her.  Wilbur was a nice enough kid.  But she couldn’t let him think he was smart just because his dad knew absolutely everything there was to know.  

Still, she helped.  More than slaving over his books alone could.  And after some untold hours.  Keziah stood up, stretching and cracking her back and knuckles as she did.  

“I think that’s enough for the night.  I’ve got to get back to Arkham, and I really hate to travel when I’m tired.”  

Wilbur looked down at her with a frown.  

“S’pose ef yew’ve got tew.  Like ma said, yew can come back whenever yew like.  Jus’ use a door next time.”  

Keziah let out a low scoff and rolled her eyes.  “Absolutely not kid, doors are for people with no imagination.”  

She traced a quick sign in the air,  lines lingering that glowed a shade no human eyes could really appreciate, and without another word Keziah stepped through the corner of Wilbur’s laboratory and was presumably back in Arkham.  The space she just occupied tilting strangely before folding in and righting itself.  

Wilbur stared and wished he’d had his better eyes out to watch that.  Probably would have been quite impressive to see in five dimensions.

[technicallycleverdetective]

Inspired by the outsider POV fic prompts by @mewbotz. On this occasion I have written a fic based on this one: -people at a market that the immortals frequent who gossip about the strange group of travellers and have betting pools on who’s together. people fight over their favorite ships. the blacksmith thinks andy and nicky are together. the baker is set on andy and quynh. homophobia does not exist.

It’s not exactly as the prompt says...but close enough :D I hope you enjoy.

Iliana glanced across the room, ducking her head upon noticing that the Greek man was looking around.

 “I tell you, they came into the jewellery shop together,” she whispered to her companions. “He complimented her on every piece she tried. When I asked about the bracelet on her arm, she told me that it was a gift from her beloved.”

 “Why do you assume that he is her beloved? Because they bought jewellery together?” Markos asked, irritably tossing a few coins into the centre of the table. “I saw her with the other girl in the weapon smith’s shop. Tell me why two women would be looking for axes and spears if they had men to do it for them.”

 Iliana scoffed and rolled her eyes. “It is not so far-fetched. Between the two of us, I am the better at wielding a knife. Why shouldn’t the same be true of them?”

 Markos glared at her from beneath his thick eyebrows as Katina put a hand over her mouth, concealing a smile.

 “I must say,” Giannis piped up. “When they booked into the guest house, the two Greeks did take a room together. I thought the other woman was their maid.”

 Markos blew air between his lips. “She must be a highly trusted maid, very close to her mistress, from what I saw. I doubt she is the sort who cleans and sews.”

 “That has been established, Markos,” Iliana remarked, sarcasm dripping from her tongue. “They are all evidently warriors. The matter at hand is the exact nature of their relationships to each other.”

 “And you think the two Greeks are a couple? How original, Iliana. Do you suppose the other two make a second pair?” “I’ve never seen them together so I’m not sure” she retorted with dignity.

 “I actually think the Greek man and the…” Katina paused and looked over her shoulder, her head turning back swiftly and her cheeks pinking. “And the dark-haired woman may be a couple. They were in the wood-carver’s shop together and seemed to enjoy one another’s company greatly. They were like a pair of children exploring the wooden horses and the board games.”

 “That speaks to friendship” Markos muttered.

 “You’re only saying that because you don’t want to lose” Antonios accused. Markos gasped aloud at his insolence.

 “My sister and I would play with toys. I would not embrace anyone but my wife” he declared, a little loudly considering the need to be clandestine.

 “Did you see them embrace?” Antonios asked, leaning forward with interest. This was new information and he was glad that he had held off on placing his money into the pool.

 “I did” Markos said proudly.

 “What was the nature of it?” Christos asked, speaking up for the first time.

 “Well,” Markos screwed his face up as he sought to recall. “They were looking at the axes. The Greek one was testing the weight of them and her companion said something…I don’t know, I was far away and I think she spoke in another language. Anyway the Greek one laughed and put an arm around her shoulders. I think she kissed her.” “Really?” Christos asked, alarmed. His money had been placed elsewhere.

 “Where? Cheek, head, lips?” Antonios demanded.

 Markos typically liked to be the centre of attention, and even more so to be right, but he was uncomfortable with this interrogation.

 “They were turned away from me,” he protested. “It was on the face somewhere.”

 “It could be sisterhood” Christos said. Markos fixed his dark eyes on him.

 “That is nonsense. Why would you say such a thing?”

 “Because,” Christos declared triumphantly. “I saw her embrace the other man, the one with curly hair.”

 He smiled at the thrill that went around the table. The only news of the second man had come from Giannis, who saw him tending the horses in the stable by the guest house, and Antonios who sold him leather coats and shoes. He was alone on both occasions and so no-one else had yet factored him into their bets.

 “Do you think…?” Katina began, her voice trailing off.

 “I knew it,” Giannis interrupted. “Even when the Greek was speaking, I could tell she was the power behind the throne. He kept looking for her approval.”

 “You think she has…All of them in her bed?” Markos spluttered.

 “It would explain why they took the younger girl to the room with them. The man was taking care of the horses, but he could have joined them later” Giannis replied confidently.

 Iliana allowed her eyes to wander across the room, running her gaze across the table of visitors. The older man had the dark skin of an outdoorsman, the kind she had always been attracted to, and a head of dark curls that she would love to run her fingers through. The younger one had the most impeccable manners she’d ever encountered in a man, endlessly generous to his companion and polite to her. The girl had a wicked smile and an air of mischief that Iliana was endeared to. And the tall, elegant woman held the attention of them all. What a woman, she thought, travelling the world with three lovers. It was the stuff of dreams.

 “Don’t look so admiring” Markos remarked. She turned away from the scene and smiled at him. Her life might be boring in comparison to the mysterious strangers, but at least it was steady and comfortable. It was a good exchange.

 “Does this mean you win the bet, dear?” she asked.

 “There’s no proof,” Christos stepped in quickly. “It’s just a theory. Why would the Greeks pretend to be a couple when they arrived if they’re all together?”

 “Travelling so much, I’m sure they must have encountered areas less welcoming to their lifestyle,” Iliana said. “I too would be cautious when entering a new place.”

 Christos grumbled and took a swig from his mug, his frown growing at the discovery that it was empty.

 “Giannis, be a good host” he requested, pushing it towards him. Giannis dutifully gathered the mugs and brought them to the bar, setting about the task of refilling them.

 “We should ask Eva,” Iliana suggested. “The men were working with her today. She might have more information."

 “I hope so, because with how much they bought today, I think they’re preparing to leave,” Antonios warned. “This is the last night that the bet can be won.”

 Markos tapped his fingers on the table and then turned. “The nature of this embrace you saw, Christos, what was it?”

 “He picked her up off the ground and spun her around.”

 “That is not an embrace. That is a game I play with my children. None of you have seen anything more compelling than I have, and since this is the last night of our bet…”

 Markos grinned and started to pull the money towards him.

 “The men are kissing” Giannis reported, coming back with two mugs in each hand.

 The group of six looked, careless of subtlety, and saw that Giannis had spoken true. The curly-haired man had moved around the table to sit beside the Greek, kissing him on the mouth. The two women were standing to leave, talking in their strange language and laughing as they said goodbye. The Greek woman slipped an arm around her companion’s shoulders as they walked past the table and disappeared upstairs.

 “Does that count?” Markos asked hopefully.

 “Oh, that is not proof,” Christos said, clearly enjoying having the sandal on the other foot. “Did anyone bet on the men?”

 A guilty silence followed and Markos groaned, burying his face in his hands.

 “I’ll take this to cover the drinks” Giannis said mischievously, pulling the pile of coins towards him.

 Iliana reached over and petted her husband’s arm. “Never mind, dear, you were closer than I was” she said comfortingly.

 They finished their drinks and the married couples bid their friends goodnight. Giannis rested his head against Antonios’ shoulder as he waited for his last guests to go to bed and let him do the same, his partner idly playing with his fingers.

 Markos kindly held the door open for Katina and Christos, and Iliana followed them, joining them on the street for farewell embraces and turning to find that her husband hadn’t quite made it out after them. She was about to inquire about his whereabouts when he appeared, face flushed with pleasure as he embraced their friends.

 “They told me that my bet was correct” he said as he and his wife took their leave.

 “Who did?”

 “The two men. They must have heard us. They said I was right and the women are a couple.”

 He sounded so happy and Iliana smiled. Her husband always liked to be the most intelligent man in the room.

 “I’m glad for you, my love,” she said, looping her arm through his. “But I’m afraid that glory will be your only prize on this occasion.”

 **

 “You told them?” Andromache asked incredulously, laughing as she passed the wine to Quynh.

 “What harm does it do?” Yusuf asked. “We’re leaving tomorrow. And he was so invested in it. I don’t want him to lose his house over it.” “If he loses his house over a bet, he had it coming” Andromache replied, with her usual brand of tough love.

 “Did you hear them? They took it so seriously,” Quynh said, pressing a hand to her chest. “My heart! It was adorable.”

 “They’re good people,” Nicolo said sincerely. “They have been so kind to us, even if they do treat us like horses.”

 That raised a laugh from his companions.

 “Speaking of horses,” Andromache said, levering herself up from the semi-horizontal position she found herself in and fixing the boys with a slightly bleary warning look. “We have to set off early tomorrow so do not stay up late.”

 “We won’t if you won’t” Yusuf said cheerfully.

 “We haven’t been missing anything” Nicolo added, sticking the knife in further.

 Andromache sighed and looked between the three people she loved most in the world. “You were all sent to torture me,” she declared. “Quynh, come on. Time to go.”

 Her partner lifted herself off the floor in one elegant move that made Andromache’s stomach flip a little. Despite her steadily growing desire to get to bed and not sleep, Quynh saw fit to prolong the torture by kissing the boys’ heads and wishing them a good night before following Andromache. She practically pulled her beloved across the hall by her arm.

 Quynh was laughing when the door of their room finally closed behind them.

 “You are a terror” Andromache accused, pushing her against the wood and caging Quynh between her arms.

 “I know” she said unapologetically.

 “I cannot believe you forbid me to touch you for an entire week just to stop some peasants from winning a bet.”

 “You went along with it, dear,” Quynh pointed out. “Besides, I’m all yours now.”

 Andromache growled without meaning to, the last of her already thin restraint snapping.

 “You’re damn right” she said, pulling Quynh over to the bed as her lover’s giggles filled the air.

 Despite her stern warnings of the previous night, it was the girls who were subjected to the embarrassing knocks on the door and the calls of “Wake up, we have to go” come morning.

  Andromache thought it was worth the price.

[darkmindsthinktwistedthoughts]

Echo pt4

@forallyourikemensengokuneeds

Warning: This is a little dark. There is blood, death, Strong Language and yeah … please read with caution. **Still not sure what direction this is taking so I should add a warning for Author with no plot **

Masterlist

—

Echo part 4

The ground crunched slightly underfoot here. It was darker than twilight should have been but that was because the trees were so dense, it was casting a darker light over the area. Perfect for moving around unseen, not so good if you are the one being followed.

Tentatively picking its way through the undergrowth a Doe appeared as if on cue. It wasn’t exactly the quarry they were after but life essence was life essence and whilst it was different, it was no less potent. They had been unlucky in locating anyone else around here and venturing too far from the rift was never a good thing. Time was against them once they had the necessary ingredient it was a race to make the elixir before what was needed was lost.  

*Snap*

A twig, about the size of a finger broken underfoot. Dammit! The Doe’s head jerked up and its ears began twitching and swivelling around with its dark eyes searching for possible danger. The scout could feel the shift in energy. The Doe’s blood was pumping faster as its heart rate picked up in preparation to bolt at a moment’s notice. They removed a pellet from their thigh pocket and loaded it into a small pipe. A sharp exhale later and the soft plug from the blowgun had splattered onto the neck of the creature. The sticky substance disappearing into the flesh like butter melting on hot toast.

---

Her body felt like it was pulsing all over when she climbed back in her car. The conversation with her Dad had taken a lot longer then she had thought and the story he was telling her seemed like he was flat out delusional for the most part. Still, the fight between rational logic and sense of self seemed to be raging inside her and it was not one she could ignore.

The headache was full-blown now causing some of her peripheral vision to shimmy and blur. The files on the passenger seat were scattered around a little and she could see the map reference for the area of concern. If it was happening again as it was last time to have it occurring in the same area couldn’t just be a coincidence. Her dad and Col never said where the exact location for this rift was but something was telling her it was close to where this whole mess was happening.

Call it reckless, call it dangerous. It was naturally all of that and more but Kit had never been one to ignore a fact or to shy away from a lead that could help. She still wasn’t sure how much of what was being told was truth or fiction but she could go with facts at hand. Bodies were turning up in that area. It was confirmed it is same as before. She had some training in self-defence so she could join teams on deployment and was confident in her skills enough to know she could put up a fight if she had too. If Col was here, he’d be screaming at her to get her butt back to base. A wry smile on her face she turned on the ignition and pulled her car out of her dad’s drive.

---

Wide black eyes once blowgun and full of life were now fixed frozen, their gaze lingering somewhere in the distance. The warm body growing colder by the second fell like a puppet with its strings cut as it became part of the harvest.

The long incision tracked the carotid artery in the beasts neck the warm fluid ran in a river, pulsing with each beat of the heart as it left its confinement within the flesh. A smooth polished stone the size of a palm was placed near the laceration. The crimson colour growing deeper as it absorbed the flowing liquid as if it were a sponge of some sort. Not a drop was to be wasted. As the flow slowed down you could see the power of this curious palm stone. The blood, the life energy of the deceased creature was vanishing, every last drop sucked deep within the stone and trapped there until nothing remained either inside the creature or visibly on the flesh outside it. Removing the stone, the scout put it inside a black velvet bag covered in runic enchantments. A singular gloved hand swept over the wound closing it seamlessly, a sign of thanks in an ancient ritual for life taken.

Making their way back to the rift the felt a tremor. The Queen’s crystal began to hum with an almost inaudible noise. It was like someone had made a noise in a cave full of fragile glass. The citrine colour was turning clouded.

---

She had no idea what she thought she would find from doing a drive-by of a scene that was so organic. Evidence of nearly everything was pretty much lost the minute you found it in the wilds. You couldn’t control mother nature, it reclaimed everything it could. Pulling over to the verge she let the engine tick over while she turned on the internal cabin light for the car.

Met files in hand she started to look at the survey map and compared it to the copy of the one from work she had snapped on her cell. She was definitely in the right area but from what she could see nothing looked out of place.

“Well, what did you expect Kit?” She muttered to herself sighing. She was tired, her mind was going a mile a minute and she knew she should be at home right now. She put the files down and turned off the light inside the car. Plunging herself into darkness with only the dash lights to illuminate her hands she pulled on the steering wheel and made the car turn back on the woodland road.

A few minutes later travelling back along the uneventful road home something holy unexpected happened. Something dropped right out of the sky and landed with a sickeningly loud thud on the hood of her car. Her clear view of the road ahead obstructed completely by whatever it was caused her to slam on the brakes and the car jolted to a sudden stop.

“What the Hell!?” The object rolled and slid from the car leaving a massive indentation in the warped metal. A hissing sound came from the car as funnels of twisting steam leaked from it. “Fan – fucking – tastic.” She looked around outside the car.

The road was close enough to the tree line and mountain range behind it that it had her wondering about large cats. It had been known for them to drag a kill up high into a tree to protect it whilst they enjoyed a meal and it was that thought that had her checking for anything that was going to tell her there was a mountain lion or something. She reached into her bag and removed a handgun before leaving the relative safety of her vehicle.

Keeping an observant eye out over her surroundings she edged towards the front of the car her foot found the limp limb of a very dead deer. That mountain lion theory was looking pretty good about now, at least it would be if there had been a missing throat or something. The barrel of her gun dipped a little as her eyes roamed over the unblemished pelt of the poor creature.

The hairs on the back of her neck were already raised but for some reason she felt her skin prickle as the rest of her body joined in with the silent call to high alert. A crackling sound like a fire had her shift her gaze quickly in the direction of what looked like a floating yellow orb. It looked as if it was floating towards her in the darkness unhindered. It wasn’t until it got closer that she could make out the hand holding it. Her body naturally tensed and muscle memory had her training her weapon on the approaching suspicious figure.

“Stay where you are.” Her voice came out a lot more confident than she thought it would. That crackling fire sound was stronger.

The figure stopped standing statuesque in the bleak landscape. The light from the headlights picked out some details. Muted dull coloured fabric with binding wrapped tight around the extremities giving the appearance of a rather badly dressed Egyptian mummy.

“Who are you?”

“That’s my line.”

The yellow light looked like it was cracking with some sore of trapped electric. It flared brightly like a miniature clap of lightning.  “What is that thing?”

“Nothing of importance. Unlike you.” She didn’t have to be familiar with what the curious yellow storm trapped in glass was to know that the pointed words from the individual in front of her meant trouble. Her dad’s warning played on a loop in her mind. “Danger is coming. And it’s coming for you.”

She felt infinitely stupid. She had allowed her own curiosity to get her right in the danger zone and whatever happened now. How many times Col would have screamed at her telling her she was a reckless moron. She knew she had no one else to blame but herself and all she could do was accept that. Her grip tightened as the muscles in her hand contracted. The cold metal feeling heavier the longer she held it aloft. Just over 33 grams of metal versus a life never felt like it balanced out very well to her. But if it was life or death, she was sure she would rather go down fighting than just let herself become a target.

Oblivious to the internal struggle going on in her mind the figure holding the luminous object moved closer. The sound of crackling electric increased as the yellow light arched and flashed.

“Stay still. I will shoot.” She angled the barrel a little too far left and fired. The bullet from her firearm sunk into the bark of a tree right next to the figure but they ignored it as if it were little more than a fly on a windscreen and continued closing the distance.

“Who are you?”

“Not someone you want to test.”

The light flashed brighter. She felt sick, a wave of nausea was washing over her with the yellow glow. She squinted against it trying to keep a clear view and failed. The barrel of her gun was covered and effortlessly held away. Close enough now to see the figure for what it was she felt like she was in an episode of the X files. The eyes were black as glass. No colour or iris definition. The skin was pale but also had some faint markings on it like the mottling on a horse but it looked faintly green and leaf-shaped. The ears that were on visible because the hood of their outfit had fallen back seemed to be almost animal-like. If it was a fancy-dress workshop, she might have called them elven but there was definitely evidence of them having fur.

As she took in and tried to process her observations the creature in front of her gasped. For the first time a flicker of what looked like genuine fear and panic showed on their face.

“You!”

“Me? You know me?” Her words seemed to cause the creature to snap back to reality. Quicker than she could blink she felt pressure on her wrist. Something almost paste-like has been spread on the inside of her wrist and was melting into her arm. “What did you just--?” Her body stopped responding to basic commands. Her knees gave out and the arms of the creature near her caught her before she could become acquainted with the floor.

---

It was taking longer than they expected. The body they had left unconscious and propped up near the rift site was beginning to stir and come back to life. There wasn’t much that could be gathered that they didn’t already know from searching the scout. Everything was almost frustratingly banal.

With a flash and an unusual sizzling sound, the second scout returned. The black bag hanging from their belt was swinging in a way that told him the contents had become heavier. Successful hunt I suppose. They looked around for a few seconds before their eyes adjusted enough to the gloom to pick out the feet of their friend. Striding over they gave the soft souled boots a kick waking the semi-conscious man up properly.

“No sleeping on the job.”

“Ssorry” they apologised as they yawned. “Get everything?”

“And then some. Help me with this one, would you?”

The two disappeared and returned just as quickly. A small female was being carried between the two her hair was a mess of spun gold and her eyes that were as blue as ocean water had a fixed doll-like gaze towards the heavens. They watched as the scouts made their way to their horses hoisting up the paralysed woman.

“I don’t get why you bought back a live one. What are we doing with her?” The taller one asked ducking to avoid a low branch.

“Trust me there’s something weird bout this one. The Queen’s gem went insane around her.” They replied, suppressing a shudder as they looked at the girl trapped between the saddle and their own body.

“What does that mean?”

“No idea. But I can tell you one thing she looks just like her highness when angry.”

Snippets of conversation carried in the wind as they left the clearing. Resting their hand against the rough bark of a tree trunk two saffron-coloured eyes glowed in the darkness. the rest of their features hidden from the moonlight by the hood of their cloak.

“Well now, this is an interesting development. I wonder how this will improve our little game.”

---

[hmspogue]

Anne With An E season 2 trailer shot by shot rundown

these are screenshot’s from Netflix’s trailer for Anne With An E season 2...i own nothing.

MY CHILD IS BACK AND GREEN GABLES IS AS BEAUTIFUL AS EVER.

for some reason, Anne’s blanket confuses me? i’m not sure why she has it or needs it, like maybe she stepped into the water? but she looks so cute i just wanna hug her.

i completely agree with Ophelia ( @lydias--stiles ), i also think that the sea is going to be important this season or hold a lot of symbolism.

“I love looking out at the horizon and imagining all the possibilities...”

i’m going to try and handle this next part as calmly as possible but-

1) THIS PARALLEL? THE LIGHTING EVEN MATCHES OKAY AND 

2) THE FACT THAT THEY CUT TO GILBERT AS SOON AS ANNE SAYS THAT LAST LINE AND THEN DO NOT CONTINUE SHOWING HIM AFTER THE CUT 100% TELLS ME THAT SHES ALLUDING TO THINKING OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF WHERE GILBERT IS OKAY NEXT-

ah yes i missed both you so much (it’s also so nice to see Matthew healthy and walking around without a cane even. what a man).

the bags on the back and the fact that she’s with Diana make me think that they may be going to that poetry concert they travel to with Miss. Barry in the books. i am all for this we love a girls trip.

thank you.

building the Diana x Rubyx Anne friendship? yes please, carry on. they’re so happy, i’m not crying, you are.

aw the hideout i love this whole set up with the story club.

okay, this scene actually concerned me a little...why does Anne look so frazzled i’m not going to suggest shirbert reunions for every one of these scenes i will not do it i hope she’s okay.

as concerning as Anne’s entrance was, Ruby and Diana’s faces make me even more !!! Diana’s especially. Ruby looks almost afraid and Diana looks extremely worried. it looks to me like they’ve been waiting for Anne in regards to some sort of news? because as seen in the last frame, it looks like they were there before she was.

my prediction is that this is one of the first scenes of episode 1. i recall a post Amybeth had on instagram of her on a beach that looks EXTREMELY similar to this with the caption “Cuthbert on a stroll”. this was towards the very very beginning of filming and from what i could see it looks like they filmed in chronological order. this goes along with the theory that everything is going to start and end with the sea. 

i’m also just going to continue pretending that i didn’t start sobbing at the Cuthberts having a beach picnic. 

Matthew and Anne’s relationship is so important and I’m so excited for this scene (which seems to be the same one from the very beginning of the trailer as you’ll notice).

so obviously the two girls in the front are Anne and Diana being so cute i really cannot breathe, and the one in the back in the pink hat is Ruby...so i would say the other girl is Jane perhaps? just going off of her hair?

“We’re going to get in so much trouble”

1. i love this dynamic so much and i really will never stop stressing that...

2. i think that this is where they were headed off to in the shot above? my theory is that it’s linked to the scene of them watching Mr. Philips in the play which comes later in the trailer (maybe they were not supposed to know about it). it would also make sense that Jane is tagging along since she is Prissy’s sister and heard about it from her.

“Don’t be late for school” 

oh we love a good mother.

“Understood” 

translation: Anne is most definitely going to be late to school at some point-

“And don’t burn down the house” 

translation: a huge disaster is guaranteed to take place-

and Matthew is fully aware of this fact.

“I want Green Gables still standing when i come back tomorrow”

why is she leaving? ANNE SHIRLEY-CUTHBERT YOU ARE THE SUN AND YOU DESERVE EVERYTHING.

i’m obviously curious as to what they’re laughing so hard at, but also as to why they are sitting on what appears to be the floor of the school house (also it’s important to note that i would die for both of them).

JERRY MY BOY I’M SO GLAD YOU LOOK HAPPY AND WELL AND YOU LOOK SO GROWN UP!!!

aaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

I LIVE FOR THIS SIBLING RELATIONSHIP OH MY GOD. though, Anne looks either like she is comforting Jerry or seeking comfort which is never a...reassuring thing...especially when the voice over quote is:

“I believe there’s always a bit of good in any situation”

ah yes, the man we have all been waiting for, here is Cole. i have heard a lot of people (including myself before Amybeth’s live a few months ago) very concerned about the role he will be playing in the grand scheme of things this season (such as the possibility of him being a love interest for Anne), and i think production knew that because they put in scenes like this to try and make people worried. 

however, my prediction is that this is certainly going to be a nice brotp and (as ophelia and i have mentioned numerous times) i don’t think Cole is straight (as Amybeth said he brings in a lot of discussions that Amybeth is “an advocate for”). this trailer further solidified my beliefs as you’ll see in a moment-

oh....you’re....still here....

this scene is one of the ways i see them hinting that Cole might possibly be gay. Diana’s face looks like Philips just said something characteristically horrible so i’ll just go ahead and prepare my hands for this disgusting teacher to cATCH THEM.

oh yOURE STILL HERE??????? (seemingly laughing at Cole being able to braid hair get out).

“I think it builds character”

it looks like she’s talking to someone at the kitchen table. also i love her.

LOOK AT MY GROWN AND MATURE SON OUT HAVING ADVENTURES IN SOME TROPICAL PLACE please come home soon

for those of you who don’t know, the man walking with him is named Sebastian and it’s been heavily speculated that he will fill a sort of father role for Gilbert in this coming season.

AGAIN WITH THE AFRAID AND CONCERNED LOOKS PLEASE STOP THAT.

i’m betting this has something to do with he thieves that came at the end of last season, which you’ll notice have not been mentioned at all this trailer. it’s also important to note that the voice over to this clip is Matthew saying:

“Whatever we’re facing...we’ll face it as a family”.

Ophelia pointed this out to me, but it looks like Marilla has a gash over her eye so i stg if one of the thieves hurt her you can catch me on a war path (-:

“The three of us”

...................ow.

she’s looking over to the boys side of the classroom (you can tell they’re at school because of Diana’s positioning next to her). and she is looking in the general vicinity of Gilbert’s seat so my guess is she is either smiling at Gilbert !!!!!!!!!or Cole who now sits in Gilbert’s empty seat.

THERE IS A BALL THIS IS NOT A MF DRILL THERE IS A BALL WITH BEAUTIFUL DRESSES AND LIGHTING AND DECORATION AND FLOWER CROWNS AND IF GILBERT BLYTHE IS NOT BACK IN TIME FOR IT I PROMISE, I PROMISE, NETFLIX AND MOIRA WILL BE HEARING FROM MY LAWYER.

not to read too much into things, but Cole dancing with Miss. Barry (who is gay in canon) is certianly interesting. i’m thinking a sort of conversation goes down where Miss. Barry helps him start to sort everything out that he has been confused about.

“There’s nothing wrong with being different”.

again with the supporting evidence that they’re dropping hints about Cole.

“You’re unique”.

The world does not deserve Anne Shirley. i’m assuming this is him confiding in her a little bit immediately after whatever went down in the classroom with the hair braiding and Mr. Philips and Billy.

“Unique means weird”.

MORE HINTS.

the whole class applauding Cole for something while Anne and Cole laugh. even Billy and his little friend seem amused and they’re present for whatever this event is. Josie looks pressed and bitter but what else is new.

shes so happy for him!!! 

this seems to be a little bow of gratitude i’m ready for this brotp.

Sebastian and a love interest that i am fully ready to ship. 

i also think that Sebastian being involved in a romantic relationship opens up the opportunity for him and Gilbert to talk about romance and feelings and a certain person back home that Gilbert has feelings for. they’ll get a chance to talk about things Gilbert never really got to learn about from his father go ahead and just leave me here to die.

this shot was quite jarring in the context of the whole mood of the trailer which is interesting.

Matthew appears to be kneeling over somebody on the ground? i’m assuming he was part of the group going out on horses. so perhaps they were searching for this person to begin with?

“There are more important things than beauty...” 

i can’t wait to see what this conversation relates to.

can we all just take a moment and acknowledge how they’re already transitioning Amybeth’s hair to more of an auburn color? 

“-we must try and remember what’s real and good”.

Anne continuing to learn about the real and good things that love and family brings as she become more and more a part of the Cuthbert family, rt if you cried.

my son looking so grown and mature and having fun. 

(im just going choose and ignore the fact that they immediately cut to Gilbert after that last quote and the fact that coincidentally two of the biggest reasons he’s so drawn to Anne is because she’s so real and so good.)

PLEASE TAKE CARE OF MY SON WHILE HE IS AWAY THANK YOU GOOD SIR.

could the scenery directors be more brilliant? like this is so beautiful.

i’m-

yeS CINEMATOGRAPHY YES. 

these last few shots of Anne with the ocean are feeding into the theory that the sea is going to be a big symbol this season. i think that this whole sequence is going to be the very last scene of the finale (i remember Amybeth posting a thing about the final adr she was doing where Anne breathes out and laughs but i could be reaching).

i think that the Cuthberts on the beach will be the first scene in episode 1 and this will be the last.....the ocean tying everything together, including Gilbert’s story line.

this...

...it is what he deserves.

peep my earlier theory of the girls sneaking into the show to watch Mr. Philips make a fool of himself. Diana doesn’t look too amused however. 

this whole expert Anne is reading (which ophelia has confirmed for me is from Jane Eyre) is not only beautiful-

- but i think it’s meant to be Anne subconsciously relating it to Gilbert and what he is doing (who is apparently on a boat!!!!)

“Now I remembered that the real world is wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils”

this is literally exactly what Gilbert’s whole arc is this season. he went out into the world amidst the peril of losing his last family member to seek out all these things, including himself. this, paired with the fact that it’s the voice over they are using for shots of Gilbert traveling, tells me its connected to the reason Anne is reading the excerpt to begin with.

if this cinematography don’t stOP.

i already stan this scene and i’ve seen .0000384792 seconds of it. 

also there is a dark haired boy present as well that could either be Jerry or Gilbert and i’m good with either because i would chop off my right arm for either to have further relational development with Diana.

i wrOTE A SLEEPOVER INTO MY LAST FIC DEAR GOD LET THE REST OF THE SCENE PLAY OUT LIKE I WROTE. i think this has to be the girls unloading after the poetry reading or whatever they were going on that trip for.

yes just be happy it is literally all i will ever ask of you.

yeah  so i stan Sebastian already, oops.

the way i read Anne’s face in this is almost like she WAS crying but then Diana made her laugh. OR she looks like she’s just been embarrassed by something. either way...?????

i would die for this friendship.

i’m not going to make outrageous assumptions about what Gilbert could be staring at with such awe and wonder. i will not do it.

this is the same scene as the opening one. and i’m guessing Anne is running towards Diana all smiley and adorable.

well at least knowing the exact date of my death is somewhat comforting.

guys this season looks so amazing and happy. i cannot wait to see what they do with it. 

[cksmart-world]

The completely unnecessary news analysis

by Christopher Smart

May 19, 2020

IT'S THE TESTING, STUPID

OK, this whole thing with testing is getting ridiculous. One day you can test negative and the very next day you could be positive. So what good is that? And another thing, the more testing we do, the more cases of Covid 19 we have. So, it's simple isn't it, just don't do so many tests. The official death toll is said to be over 90,000 in this country. But we know that's way too high. How could so many people be dead? It's actually a lot less and if we stop the stupid testing, we'll have even fewer deaths. As the White House now tells us, Operation Pumpkin will yield a vaccine by Halloween and we can all go trick-or-treating safely right before RE-ELECTION DAY. And everyone who wants, can get vaccinated except in blue states. This whole coronavirus thing has been blown way out of proportion and its time to get America back to work and continue the greatest economy that ever existed in history — except for the last three years of Obama. And those bastards in the Obama administration left the cupboard bare, except for that 69-page playbook on how to deal with pandemics and the Global Health Security and Biodefense office, which had to be eliminated. Anyway, don't listen to guys like Dr. Anthony Fauci, they're only scientists and know nothing about politics.

FUN THINGS TO DO WHILE SELF-ISOLATING

-Pretend your living room is a dancehall and do the western swing to Choo Choo Ch'Boogie by Asleep At The Wheel.

-Pretend your sofa is an airplane, dress up in an Elvis suit and parachute into Vegas singing “Only Fools Rush In.”

-Recreate the Death Valley Marathon in an empty lot wearing only shorts, a hijab and a camelback  canteen while singing, “I've been through the desert on a horse with no name... ”

-Drink three cups of strong coffee and ride your bicycle around the block (wearing a mask, of course) pretending that you're Lance Armstrong doping in the Tour de France.

-Line up six dining chairs in three rows of two and put on “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, while pretending you're a safari driver in the Serengeti, pointing to your kid's stuffed animals and warning passengers, “No pee breaks because you'll be eaten by lions or teddy bears.” (Wilson and the band loved this one, especially after a few beers.)

-And finally, pretend your sofa is a Bugatti and dress up like Isadora Duncan and accidentally strangle yourself when your long scarfs get caught in the spokes. (Editor's note: don't really strangle yourself to death.)

-Next week, we'll have a fun list of things you can do while locked down with your kids.

INSPECTORS GENERAL SUCK

Inspectors general are a pain in the ass. They find stuff that doesn't work or people who are ripping stuff off and report it. It's always bitch, bitch, bitch. And so President Trump had a good idea: fire the bastards. White House aides opened a file called “Fire the Bastards Project.” On April 3, Trump shit-canned Michael Atkinson who declared as credible a complaint that Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to get dirt on Joe Biden. They should have hung him for treason. Then on April 6, Trump sent Glen Fine packing. He was supposed to oversee $2 trillion in spending Congress allotted to mitigate coronavirus impacts. But the president didn't want old Glen Fine sticking his nose where it don't belong. And, of course, the president had to dump HHS Deputy Inspector General Christi Grimm after she had the temerity to report that hospitals were struggling to keep up with the onslaught of coronavirus patients. Stupid woman. And then, the president had to boot Steve Linick, the State Department IG, because he was snooping around in Secretary Mike Pompeo's dirty laundry. What a pervert. It's like this: What you don't know can't hurt you — and it helps at election time, too.

DID BODY SNATCHERS INVADE FOX ?

The new U.S. Space Force has identified alien intruders that seek to upend American politics. Insiders say new evidence indicates that aliens most likely invaded the bodies of Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram and Jeanine Pirro. Smart Bomb's sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because President Trump loves Fox and would go batshit if the theory proves to be true. Here are the facts: Some of the so-called “Fox hosts” are broadcasting from home during the pandemic and one evening, Jeanine Pirro got absolutely shit-faced and then went on air. New findings suggest that when androids imbibe they may give away valuable intel and Pirro had blurted out, “I must be quart low.” Analysts believe she was referring to hydraulic fluid that is necessary for android mobility. The artificial intelligence, or AI, that runs their mouths is separate and programmed with special software. It all looks to be a Mandalorian plot to destroy the Neo-Trump movement from within by making it's most famous purveyors appear completely insane. Some investigators, however, believe the plot may not have succeeded because some Americans think the androids are right: There is a vast left-wing conspiracy to create a virus, pretend 90,000 have died and make them wear masks to the beach. So much for advanced intelligence.

Post script — Swimsuit season is upon us and the latest fashion trend for women is the trikini. That's right, ladies, you can now get face masks to match the rest of your string bikinis. In fact, depending on the style, the face mask may cover more skin than the rest of the outfit. And think of it, you can strut your stuff and no one will recognize you. At this point we're dangerously close to being labeled sexist, so we'll change the subject. Now the question becomes, do you need face masks for golfing, cycling or Rollerblading? With enough social distancing, maybe not. We know President Trump doesn't wear a mask when he goes Rollerblading in shorts and knee socks at the Trump Skate Park. But we digress. Summer vacation time is almost here and American families must decide how to take a Covid 19-safe vacation. Disneyland is not the best option. And the beaches may be too crowded, whether or not you've got the latest trikini. Camping would be safe except every other American has the same idea. And it's a definite ixnay on a Princess Cruise with 3,000 would-be virus carriers on a floating petri dish. But here's an idea from the Smart Bomb travel desk: volunteer sheepherding on the Falkland Islands. Yes, it's windswept and rainy and it will be winter down there 670 miles east of the southern tip of Argentina. But it does have an upside. There will be no coronavirus and no price-gouging. Think of all the fun you and the kids would have herding those woolies around the island. It's something they could tell their kids about. And the best part: No news from the United States. Totally Trump-free. We knew we could convince you.

Alright Wilson, wake up the band and take us out of here with a little something to get us in vacation escape mode:

Everybody's talking at me I don't hear a word they're saying Only the echoes of my mind  

People stopping, staring I can't see their faces Only the shadows of their eyes

I'm going where the sun keeps shining Through the pouring rain Going where the weather suits my clothes

Banking off of the northeast winds Sailing on a summer breeze And skipping over the ocean like a stone

(Everybody's Talkin, Harry Nilsson)

[theoriginalkidwithapen]

Principia – De Motu Corporum X

CW:  foul language, colonialism, references to the Troubles and the Vietnam War

“Every body, that by a radius drawn to the centre of another body, how soever moved, describes areas about that centre proportional to the times, is urged by a force compounded out of the centripetal force tending to that other body, and of all the accelerative force by which that other body is impelled.”

– Sir Isaac Newton, “Philosophae Naturalis Principia Mathematica”

Jon and Misty finished recounting the details of the incident at Fasal.  Although they did their best to hide their emotions behind stoic facades, the human officers of the board could not conceal them from Jon’s non-verbal signals analysis suite – only the android’s were secreted behind that bronze mask of hers.  About half of them, including the Kerepunu colonel, were satisfied with his report and his command decisions, the others, including the Lithuanian, questioned his handling of the situation. A nearly even split.  Jon was nothing if not consistent. “Commander,” the Lithuanian asked sternly, “how would you characterize this Earther woman, Reynolds?” “Strong, tough, determined, disaffected,” Jon replied, “she’d probably be astute with the right upgrades and remedial education.  Chief Olayinka thinks she has a lot of emotional baggage that needs to be unpacked, but her low self-esteem and confidence most likely result from a lifetime living in a society that places no value on her life.  She should make a valuable addition to this commander’s team.” “But you couldn’t have known of her existence beforehand,” the Lithuanian pressed, “It sounds to me like you’re just trying to justify a poor command decision after the fact. “Besides,” he continued, “if you’re not careful with your recruitment choices, your unit could acquire a reputation as a haven for salvage jobs.” Jon and Misty bristled at his inflammatory remark, but said nothing.

“I assume that you acquired something of value to make up for this egregious error of yours?” the Lithuanian concluded with stoic mockery. Jon slapped an MSD labeled “Insurance” onto the table and slid it over to the android.  “Would this do?” he asked with feigned cluelessness. The android inspected the MSD.  “What is this?” she asked. “Intelligence acquired through sources and methods indicating that someone is secretly experimenting with advanced technology,” Jon replied, “Someone who has somehow escaped O7’s notice.” “Is that new threat attempting to copy our technology?” the android inquired. “Not unless O5 has constructed a working hyperspace propulsion drive,” Jon clarified, “I thought they were still a few decades away from perfecting the theory behind hyperspace translation.” The rest of the board stared at him in disbelief.  “That’s impossible,” another member of the board, an Ojibwe-descended major exclaimed, “O5 canceled that project last year.  Their Estimate Of The Situation concluded that higher dimensions could only exist as mathematical curiosities, and that the science had no real-world applications.” “Indeed,” the android continued, “it would take nothing less than successfully formulating a complete grand unified theory to realize it.  What you’re saying is that an agent unknown has developed superior science to our own and is experimenting with applications of that science for purposes unknown.” “That is correct, General,” Jon said, “And if this evidence is substantiated, it would represent an existential threat to Mars.” “You’ll forgive me if I don’t find your explanation compelling,” the Lithuanian countered, “Hyperspace travel?  Grand unified theory?  This is science fiction, not intelligence!” “Agreed,” a captain of Cubeo ancestry concurred, “It’s far more likely that this is part of a new disinformation campaign of Earth’s to tie up and expose Martian Intelligence assets.  I recommend that this ‘evidence’ be disregarded as irrelevant.” “The evidence will go to O7 for analysis,” the android declared, “For now, Commander Orvar, your team is on standby until further notice.  Do nothing to draw attention to yourselves and remain here on Luna. “Of course,” she appended, “you should maintain situational monitoring, in case something interesting happens your way.  Dismissed.” Jon and Misty stood up, saluted the board, and marched out of the room. “For being such an uncomplicated man,” Misty said to Jon after they were out of earshot, “you never fail to surprise me, anata.” “Maybe I’m a little more complicated than you give me credit for,” Jon joked. “I doubt it,” Misty said with a smile.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Finchley and Nguyen returned to the Governor’s Residence to continue their investigation into the Governor’s murder.  The entire area was, if anything, even more heavily secured than it was when they left.  Twice the number of MCVs, double the garrison, sharpshooter teams on the rooftops and upper floor, and security scanners at every checkpoint – they were taking every precaution against another assassin striking at the Interim Governor-General of the Lunar Colonies. Not that any of these measures would have prevented the last murder, of course, but this security theater was deemed necessary as a show of force, to convince the Selenites that the colonial government wasn’t weakened by the attack. Poor bloody Loonies, Finchley thought to himself as a Selenite butler was pulled aside by security for questioning. Nguyen could see the pity on Finchley’s face.  “What is it, Ewan?” she asked him. “I worry about what the response will be,” Finchley mulled, “I know how the Ministry of Public Safety operate – whether through the force of their Department of Harmony, or the persuasion of their Department of Veracity, they will respond.  Either way, it will end poorly for the Selenites.” “If they’d stop complaining like spoiled children, we wouldn’t have to put them back in their place so often,” Nguyen opined, “They should be fucking grateful for everything Earth does for them.  Between the docks, the Peacekeeper bases, the factories, and the tourism, they’ve got jobs, they’ve got an economy, and they’ve got protection from the Outers and Martians.  We provide them with the supplies and equipment they need to keep their domes running.  They should be parading in the streets for all we do for them, instead they’re bitching about problems of their own making like the whiny little shits they are.” “Strange that you’d come to Amsha’s defence so passionately when you hold her people in such little regard,” Finchley noted. “Just because I didn’t like how that asshole was beating the shit out of that Loonie,” Nguyen retorted, “it doesn’t mean I think she’s innocent.  Killing the Governor with anatoxin was a political statement, make no mistake.” “The history of my people is full of events similar to what’s happened here on the Moon,” Finchley began as they finally approached the shed which contained the Residence’s life support machinery.  The shed stylized as a horse stable on the outside – its 19th century design belying its 23rd century contents. “The English colonised my home country of Ireland some 600 years ago,” Finchley continued as he led Nguyen to the clean water connection to the station’s plumbing, “and what followed was nearly 400 years of bloodshed and misery at the hands of English conquerors.  Here we are – Clean Water Intake Junction Monitoring Panel.  Computer, run diagnostic programme and report levels of cyanobacteria for the last 36 hours.”  The computer began forming its diagnostic report. “What’s your point, Ewan?” Nguyen asked impatiently. “That they probably have legitimate grievances against the colonial government,” Finchley answered, “You’ve seen how they live here – whole sectors of the city are full of jobless Selenites while most of the work goes to resettled Earthers due to the policies of the Ministries of Labour and Extraterrestrial Affairs.  It’s no wonder that some of them have turned to crime or political violence.” “Diagnostic report complete,” the vaguely feminine synthetic voice of the computer announced, “No cyanobacterial contamination found.  No trace amount of anatoxin-a or anatoxin-s found.  Clean Water Intake Junction operating at nominal efficacy.” “No malfunctions here,” Nguyen reported, “Economic issues are no excuse to cause trouble.” “Say someone whose nation responded to famine caused by decades of French, Japanese, and American colonisation with armed communist revolution,” Finchley observed facetiously, “We’ll check the water reclamation unit next.” “Computer,” Nguyen ordered at the next station, “run diagnostic program and report level of cyanobacteria for the last 36 hours.  I don’t see the connection.  My ancestors fought the resistance war against American imperialism to bring about the reunification of the Vietnamese people, not to complain about our living conditions.” “But your ancestors still chose violence to end the rule by colonist fiat,” Finchley remarked, “so isn’t there a hint of hypocrisy in your position, now that you’re on the other side?” “Diagnostic report complete,” the computer reported, “No cyanobacteria contamination found.  Trace amounts of anatoxin-a detected in Main Filtration Manifold B on 22930112 from 08:17:47 to 14:39:11.  Peak concentration:  481 parts per million.  Be advised that the contaminant sensors in this unit have been reporting false positives since 22930112, 08:17:47.  Additional maintenance servicing required.” “I think I’ve got something,” Nguyen called out, “No cyanobacteria, but for 6 hours and 12 minutes, the unit recorded lethal levels of anatoxin in one of the filtration manifolds.” “Which manifold?” Finchley asked. “Main Manifold B,” Nguyen replied, “Computer, display schematic of Main Filtration Manifold B and all connected systems.” The systems monitor displayed the appropriate diagram.  Nguyen traced her finger back up the flow path to the algaculture panels of the air recycling system.  “Computer,” she dictated, “run diagnostic program on Air Recycling System Algaculture Panels.  Report cyanobacteria level for the last 36 hours.” Nguyen turned to face Finchley.  “I don’t think there’s any hypocrisy,” she continued, “the Lunar colonies are only a couple centuries old – they haven’t been around long enough to have a national identity.  Vietnamese civilization has endured for more than 5,000 years.  Even the ICP predated the first Lunar landings by nearly 30 years.  Most Loonies are only a generation or two removed from malcontents who felt that life on Earth wasn’t good enough for them.” “Diagnostic report complete,” the computer stated, “No cyanobacterial contamination found.  No trace of anatoxin-a or anatoxin-s found.  Air Recycling System Algaculture Panels operating at nominal efficacy.” “That can’t be right,” Finchley exclaimed, “Computer, confirm diagnostic report.” “Diagnostic report confirmed,” the computer replied, “No contamination or malfunctions found in the past 36 hours.” “I don’t understand how this is possible,” Nguyen puzzled, “Why would the computer show anatoxin in the filtration manifold, but not in the algaculture panels it drains from?” “Maybe it is a sensor malfunction,” Finchley said, “The computer did mention that as a possibility.” “I’d think that you’d want to do something you can to prove your pet Loonie innocent,” Nguyen remarked snidely, “Wouldn’t a sensor malfunction suggest that she was the one who poisoned the Governor?” “Good point,” Finchley agreed, “I guess there’s nothing for it but to open that panel up and take a look ourselves.” “I want to try something first,” Nguyen said, “Computer, open maintenance log.  When was the last time the access panel to Main Filtration Manifold B opened?” “22921010, 07:51:18,” the computer replied. “Three months ago,” Finchley deduced, “What about the algae panels themselves?  Computer, when was the last time the access panel to the Air Recycling System Algaculture Panels opened?” “22930112, 08:12:02,” the computer reported. “Five minutes before the manifold recorded its first anatoxin levels,” Finchley commented, “How’s that for timing?” “Sounds pretty suspicious to me,” Nguyen concurred, “Let’s get that panel off.” Together, the two pressed the buttons in the top two corners and lifted the now-unfastened panel away from its housing.  Inside the compartment was a rack of 12 panels, each composed of winding and branching transparent piping filled with a sickly green froth.  Each rack had two of these raceways, with a matrix of artificial light diodes sandwiched between them.  The churning jade effervescence was what kept the air from growing toxic – an aerated algae concoction which used photosynthesis to turn the carbon dioxide humans exhaled into the oxygen they needed to avoid suffocation.  It was not a pretty sight, but few of those things which make life possible are. Nguyen pulled out one of the panels, revealing the santorum within the pipes to be a turquoise color, rather than the lichen green of the other panels.  The corner of her mouth twitched in irritation. “This had better not be what I think it is,” Nguyen grumbled, “Computer, identify cause of crop discoloration in panel 4.” “No discoloration detected,” the computer reported, “Algaculture Panel 4 is functioning within established parameters.” “How is that possible!?” Nguyen exclaimed as she banged her palm on the rack’s housing in frustration, “I’m telling you, the crop is the wrong color!” “Please restate as a question,” the computer requested. “Oh, fuck this piece of scrap!” Nguyen roared as she gave the housing a good, hard kick before storming out of the room. Finchley pulled out his handset and placed a call.  “Yes, it’s Finchley,” he said, “I need a forensics team at the Governor’s Residence, life support building.  We’ve discovered a possible malfunction in the life support system that may be connected to the murder of Governor Najjar.”

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Despite being the first day on a new job, especially one that involved a lot of heavy lifting and on-the-job training, Sara felt it was a good day.  She had worked just hard enough to feel the satisfaction of a day’s manual labor, and she was surprised to discover that she liked it. Admittedly, she found it a little difficult to fit in with the others – all of them were Selenites, and most of them were Aboriginals like Tahlia.  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to assimilate, but rather that they had such a different way of doing things – their own social cues, nicknames, their penchant for laughing and making jokes, their own way of speaking that she could barely follow – it was a lot for her to adjust to all at once. “Gee, I’m dry,” a Cockney woman about Sara’s age who she learned was called Rosie Leah sighed as she removed her helmet, “Who wants to go get charged up after shift?” “Gorn den, auntie girl,” an Aboriginal man called Charles goaded playfully, “You get deadly cheeky every time you have a sip.  Shame job ay, blackfullas?” “Ay, tidda,” another Aboriginal man about Sara’s age called out, “I’m tonguing for a drink myself.  Gotta lend, captain?” “Nah, on me off week,” Rosie answered as she peeled her pressure suit off, revealing functional underwear beneath, “‘Sides, you’re such a cadja, Dennis!” Charles stripped his suit off, and wearing nothing but his long briefs placed it in the laundry hamper.  “You’re always on your off week, Rosie,” he chastised her jocularly, “It’s like you sign a form every fortnight and you’re just gammon here.  Rosie, you make me weak!” “Ay, don’t try to be a blackman now,” Rosie said as she pulled on her coverall, “You wanna get slapped up, buddah boy?” “Come at me, sista!” Charles challenged, and Rosie pounced on him.  Sara watched them playfully grapple distantly, their physical separation from her dwarfed by the social gap between them.  She wished that she could join in in their fun and camaraderie, but she didn’t know how, or if she’d even be welcome among them. Tahlia clapped her hand on Sara’s back and sat down next to her on the bench.  “Minding some sorry business, darlen?” she asked, “You’re a deadly serious one, ay?” “No…  auntie?” Sara replied, subdued and trying out some of the Aboriginal slang she heard used on the docks all day, “I…  I’m not sure how I’m supposed to fit in here.  I mean, today’s been great… deadly? great, and this place is better than anywhere I’ve ever worked at, but you…  fullas…  do things so differently around here, and I don’t know how, or if, I can be a part of that.” “Ayy, darlen,” Tahlia said sympathetically, “you’re no fringe dweller, no need to get low.  Tell you what – my mob here’s gonna knock about at a hospitality district in the southeast corridor.  You wanna party up with us, auntie girl?” “I don’t have any cash,” Sara said. “You can fix me up later,” Tahlia dismissed, “Let’s get you outta that suit and cleaned up, then we’ll hump it to my unc’s – he’s got a steakhouse down that way.  The meat may be fake, but he makes a deadly chicken fried steak dinner.” Tahlia stood up, then climbed atop the bench so that she stood above the rest.  “Listen up now, fullas!” she called out, “Me and this one are gonna party up at my uncle’s.  You lot comin’ or what?” “Ay, look out, big shot now,” Dennis retorted loudly, “Tahlia’s flashin’ black for the Earthfulla girl, true?” “You got jelly beans there, baby cousin,” Tahlia taunted, “at the end of the day, we’re all just blackfullas, true?” “True that!” the rest of the room shouted.  Tahlia brushed her hands together in a specific way, and the others began to file out of the locker room as they finished dressing. Sara stopped for a moment after putting her suit into the hamper.  “Tahlia,” she said, “‘deadly’ means ‘good,’ right?” Tahlia smiled.  “We’ll make a goodfulla outta you yet, sistagirl,” she asserted.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Finchley had lost count of the number of cups of coffee he’d poured while waiting for the forensics team to finish going over the Residence’s life support system with a fine-toothed comb.  However many he had had, it was enough to make the cheap shit LSS normally stocked in their offices almost palatable.

Of course, the stuff would probably give him cancer in 10 years, but Finchley never had any illusions that he would live a long, full life.  In fact, he always imagined that he’d wind up face down in some dark tunnel somewhere, far from home.

The forensics officer exited the life support building, their LSS windbreaker more of an affectation than a practical uniform in an environment without weather of any kind.  Even now, centuries after widespread acceptance of genders other than male and female, Finchley still reflexively thought of them as “she,” but caught himself before that line of thought continued.

The officer could be described as mostly gynetypical – they had a feminine pointed jaw and narrow shoulders, and their flat bust and square hips lent them a boyish figure; they almost looked too young to be in that uniform.

“LSS forensics specialist Tomomi Maeda, they/them/theirs,” the officer reported, “Here’s the report you asked for.”

Finchley took the tablet they offered as Officer Maeda continued.  “In summary,” they said, “Panel 4 of the air recycling system has a severe case of cyanobacteria contamination, species Planktothrix Agardhii, caused by an uncontrolled algal bloom.  Judging by the unusual spread of the contamination as well as its concentration, it would appear that it was placed there deliberately through the secondary pressure release valve.”

“Why didn’t the sensors pick it up?” Finchley asked.

“Someone had altered the sensor config file to report false readings,” Maeda answered, “We discovered this when the diagnostic report indicated anomalously high levels of dihydroanatoxin-a and epoxyanatoxin-a, which are non-toxic products of the photodegradation of anatoxin-a.”

“How was this accomplished?” Finchley asked.

“As you can imagine,” Maeda explained, “It’s not as simple a matter of sending a false system patch from a remote location.  In order to update the config file, it has to be installed on a secure MSD dongle.”

“Who has the ability to do something like this?” Finchley inquired.

“Well,” Maeda professed, “the MSDs used for systems like this are write-once encrypted units manufactured to be incompatible with standard MSD formats – your average logic jockey couldn’t have done this.  Apart from the manufacturer and the life support utility company, it’s nearly impossible to acquire one, let alone the 15 needed to hide an algal bloom like this one.”

“Fifteen?” Finchley exclaimed, “So the file wasn’t simply copied to all the other systems?”

“No,” Maeda answered, “Each module has its own dedicated diagnostic and reporting computer, with its own bank of config dongles.  The only people who would have both the skills and the access privileges would be CELSS engineers and LSU technicians.”

“There was an LSU technician who serviced the system just hours before the Governor was killed,” Finchley mused, “This is a lead that could be worth pursuing.  Is there any reason why Main Manifold B wasn’t affected?”

“It wasn’t on the inspection ticket,” Maeda replied, “Besides, the manifold itself is laborious to service – in order to get to the MSD bank, the entire manifold would have to be removed, which requires the closure of 18 separate green water valves and the disconnection of 23 pipes and conduit.  That would be an unexplained gap 20 minutes long, which would arouse suspicion.”

“Thanks,” Finchley said as he handed back the tablet.  He choked down the last of his coffee, set his cup down, and went over to the front gate where Nguyen was fuming.

“When you feel like working,” Finchley admonished, “it looks like LSU might have something to do with this.”

“LSU is a union contractor,” Nguyen began, “affiliated with the Lunar Labor League.  The LLT has discreet ties with the Selenite Liberation Front–”

“...And by extension,” Finchley finished, “the Organisation.”

[sidrisa-blog]

Power and Magic

Read it here on AO3

Pairings: Loki x Reader and the lightest Sif X Thor

Chapter: 9/104 Borrowed and Returned

Warnings: the usual: sex, death, and violence with light smatterings of misogynoir

Summary: The princes come with their exalted Father arriving amidst a hail of pomp and pageantry all parties would rather forgo. This is war, where men die, their blood purchasing land and peace until it’s time for more men and more blood. But your mother adheres to the old rules of hearth and hospitality. The Lords of Asgard must be given their due despite the grim business precipitating their arrival. It is too bad they don’t deserve it. There is nothing to recommend him, Loki, Prince of Asgard. He is rude and cold and childish. You try to find some merit in him. You find none. Exactly none. But maybe, after trial and tribulation,

You will.

You wake in your bed the next morning and it's moved, now instead of across the room from the window it’s right by it. You wake with bright sunshine in your face, greeted by clear open sky dotted ice white clouds. You wake with an empty hand, your father’s dagger gone--replaced with a folded note.

Tit for tat Earn it back Horse Girl Prince Loki

Even his script is pompous, embellishments stretching to fill the paper.

You crush the note with a sigh but a smile. You can play this game.

And if you are, you must regain your strength.

Today you try walking, hoping you can remain on your feet for longer than a few heartbeats. Your knees knock together and you can’t help the laughter.

“When you’re right.” You mumble to yourself, acknowledging Loki’s jest wasn’t too far off the mark. You do walk like a newborn foal. But like newborn foals, you steady quickly, at the end of an hour you’re panting, worn out nearly completely.

But you’re standing.

You think of Loki, planning how you'll take your dagger from him. You won’t be able to physically wrest it back from him, not yet. But you think you might be able to catch him off guard with how fast you’ve improved your strength today. He won’t be expecting it, you might be able to use that to your advantage.

You’re excited for nightfall, to test your theory and your better legs. When the nurses take their leave of you at dusk, you watch the door from your perch in the window sill, waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting.

You wait until your candles gutter out, until you can’t keep your eyes open anymore. You fall asleep against your window, back turned to the sky.

**

He will not inherit, but he is still a Prince, and being Prince means having responsibilities beyond entertaining the delusions of an exiled Princess. The dagger tempts him from its home in his pocket and he can’t resist brandishing it during his meeting with the palace comptroller. Thor gets the war meetings, gets to greet the dignitaries, and discuss policy.

Loki gets the budget meetings.

The Prince spins your dagger in his open hand, noting its exceptional balance and wicked sharpness.

‘This is very well made.’

The handle is wrapped in leather, the intricate designs the Horse Lords are known for are etched into the red-tan hide. He traces the pattern as the coin counter drones on and notices some patterns repeat in recognizable shapes.

Words.

For my Little Princess. Love Papa

The words look like swirl patterns that extend around the length of the handle, a cursory look and one could only tell they were mere designs. Deeper inspection reveals the hidden message--known only between father and daughter. A puzzle pieces fits home in his mind.

No wonder she hates when I call her that, the moniker is special.

“Sentimental fool.” Loki’s dry chuckle makes the comptroller stutter, thinking the Prince is threatening him with the way he’s twirling that wicked looking blade.

“I..uh...My Lord...I will...don’t worry about the shortfall, I’m...sure it's nothing!”

He’s startled from his thoughts of you forcing him to acknowledge the man bungling his presentation.

“Fine! Carry on!” Loki rises and stretches, he’s been here blathering with these peons for far longer than intended.

It makes him late for the family dinner which Thor doesn’t let slide without comment.

“It seems the princess is taking up all of my brother’s coveted time.”

Loki bristles but says nothing, answering only his mother when she asks, “Is she well today?”

“I have not seen her.”

“Will you?”

“Of course he will!” Thor booms. “He cannot stay away. She is the most diverting company in the palace. Isn’t that what you said?”

“Her silence is far more intelligent the sum of all words you’ve ever uttered. So yes, I meant what I said!”

“You two fools can’t go an hour without fighting.” Odin sighs. “Loki, from what your mother tells me the princess will be well soon.”

“Yes. The filly will be kicking and neighing within the fortnight, I suspect.”

“Good, then we must consider returning her to her uncle. Have the healers assess when she will be ready to travel.”

“What?”

His father is not known for his sentimentality. Odin is efficient, effective. He is iron handed and iron willed. He has to be to keep Asgard protected from within and without. He’s also a cruel, petty, shortsighted, bastard but that's his own bias speaking. Objectively, Loki never thinks his father is abjectly cruel, not without good reason. At least he didn’t until now. “We’ll return her in a fortnight, sooner if she's well.”

You'll die. He thinks with icy clarity. Not right away. Maybe not even violently. You're royalty, maybe you'll get the kinder, gentler deaths that feel like silk scarves wrapped around necks or tastes like poison slipped into wine.

But if you go back, you will die. And Loki, no matter how much he doesn’t understand whatever he feels about you, he knows this:

You cannot die.

“No.”

His hands are under the table, in his pocket, squeezing your dagger.

“What did you say boy?”

Incurring Odin’s wrath means nothing to him. He presses his argument further. “You cannot just return her like a borrowed book.”

“Nor is she your toy!” Odin thunders, rage ignited like a storm making landfall. “She is the subject of a foreign sovereign nation, one who’s asked for her back. Asgard cannot keep her!”

“Brother?” Thor has to swallow a mouthful of mutton before he can continue. “Why does this matter so much? She’s a princess. She’s well. She has to go home. I daresay it’s what she wants.”

“Because her uncle will kill her you simpleton! You sending her back is the same as condemning her to die!”

Thor and Odin are so obviously son and father, the evidence clear in the same way their brows furrow in confusion.

“But the letter,” Thor starts. “When I was there, her uncle…”

“Is a liar and who better to know them than I?”

“Loki calm yourself. You overreach and overreact. We will send her back as soon as she is healthy. Heed your father boy!”

Loki rises from the dinner table, fury burning away his better senses. He screams at his family.

“Do either of you ever think for one moment beyond what’s put in front of your face?! That letter, that show he put on for Thor is all a fabrication to disarm you, make you think his actions the night of the coup were the will of the people. But if you had an ounce of cunning you’d realize--”

Loki huffs when his words receive no traction, his family simply stares at him. “Am I talking too fast? Do I need to slow down father? Fine. Listen.” Loki measures his voice, reins in his flashfire anger and cools it to a low simmer.

“The Uncle returns home. The queen is dead. By rights her daughter should assume the throne. But...he is of royal blood, circumstance of birth order denying him a throne. He could never forcibly usurp power because the army, though he commands it, is mostly loyal to his sister. That army is decimated now, its remains loyal to the brother and the others who aren’t, are now far outnumbered. The kingdom is guarded sparsely by the Royal Cavalry and Palace Guards--the former can be taken easily unawares by the latter commanded by his own daughter!”

“Son,” Frigga tries and fails to calm him. “How do you know all this? We’ve no reason to believe…”

“Because it’s what I would have done!”

“Brother please, calm yourself.”

“Send her back and you kill her. What did you say mother, that it is our honor to care for her in her hour of need. How about now?”

“SILENCE!” Odin has had enough, he’s tolerated his youngest son’s disrespect for long enough. “You’ve forgotten, my son, the basics of respect. You are confined to your chambers under magic ward until such time as you remember. Use that time to also reflect upon who rules Asgard and where final decisions ultimately lie.”

His face falls slack, stricken as though by one of his brother’s thunderbolts. You’re as good as dead and there’s nothing he can do.

“Guards!” Odin calls before a gentle hand from Frigga stops him.

“We don’t need the guards to escort our son unless you mean to lock him in the dungeon.”

“If he continues, I may. You coddle him Frigga.”

“Nevertheless, I will be his guard and I will take him to his rooms.”

“See to it then that he has wards placed on door so he can’t practice any mischief. He is not to see that girl either do you hear?”

“Of course.” Frigga’s smile is indulgent but Loki catches the slight roll of her eyes.

Frigga Allmother rises and waves away the guards that have heeded Odin’s call. “Come Loki. Or do you require the chains?”

He bows his head and follows, seething in his silence.

[ayankun]

the second hand unwinds

Fandom: The Flash Type: Drama with a side of angst and a dash of humor Characters: Eobard Thawne/Barry Allen, also featuring Sara Lance, Ray Palmer, Nate Heywood, Martin Stein, Cisco Ramon, H.R. Wells, Harrison Wells, and Barry Allen :| (and Jefferson “Jax” Jackson) Warnings: Super spoilers for past and current seasons, as usual; canon-typical violence, canon-typical spurious pseudo-science, canon-atypical sexualities Word Count: 17562 Tag: This is just one of those stories that leads with an unexpected twist, ends in the way everyone saw coming, and leaves its beginning unwritten.  In that order.

Note: I have to say that this feels less like a sequel to the ostentatiously titled Barry Allen and Eobard Thawne Walk into a Bar (or, He'll Have the Temporal Mobius Strip, on the Rocks) than Temporal Mobius Strip feels like a preface to this  If you have a few minutes, I'd recommend checking that out before starting this one.  But I'm not your real dad so do as you like.  Also all poetry reproduced in this work belongs to Maya Angelou, as credited.

the second hand unwinds

WE THIEVES OF TIME

Your skin like dawn

Mine like musk

One paints the beginning

of a certain end.

The other, the end of a

sure beginning.

Passing Time - Maya Angelou

PART I.a

Canyon City, Yukon Territory - 1902 - Winter

It's cold.  Cold enough almost to stop a speedster in his tracks.  Even so, it's not the sub-zero conditions that stall Eobard's pace.  The natural contrarian in him refuses to rush this, preferring to take the long way round to meet fate -- a fate, at long last, of his own choosing.

Ever since he dropped out of the time stream into this frozen frontier wilderness, a perverse sense of pleasure has been crackling across his nerve endings, every inch of him a livewire.  It's not unlike the high-octane punch of the speed force firing through his veins.  Not better than, not by a long shot, but it's intoxicating and heady and powerful all the same.

For the first time in a long, long time, Eobard Thawne has no idea what's about to happen.  For the first time in his entire life, perhaps, he is acting on a decision he has made for himself, without the guiding hand of destiny pointing the way.  Can he be faulted for wanting to savor such a precious novelty?

He turns inland from the whitewater rapids of Miles Canyon and follows the trail south through a copse of thin, bare aspens, which stretch skeletal towards a slate gray sky.  They stand solemn and still like pallbearers to the hollowed-out carcass of the gutted township ahead, all sunken roofs and gaping windows, the wind whistling a funeral dirge through the bones of this ghost town.

The implacable forward motion of the industrial revolution will overrun countless frontier towns such as this before all is said and done.  The arrival of the railroad signed Canyon City's death warrant, siphoning the life force out of what had otherwise been a bustling settlement and diverting human history a tad north to what will become the Yukon's capital (and only city), leaving this one to wither right off the map.  

Eobard's not one to judge; as a seasoned time traveler, he's learned to remain objective about events that take place centuries before his own timeline begins.  Besides, the town, abandoned, and the climate, extremely unforgiving, provide a lonesome environment suited exactly to their needs.

His heart absolutely and completely does not jump into his throat when he crunches down onto the frost-crusted main street and sees the warm lamplight streaming out from the windows of the former Canyon City Hotel farther on up the road.

Eobard keeps his boots moving forward through the snow at an even pace, using all his self-control to do so, relishing the final few minutes of uncertainty and freedom before he opens that door and discovers what Barry Allen -- and not fate, for a change -- has in store for him.

(Also, he's fairly certain these borrowed period clothes would be reduced to smoldering scraps if he attempted to run flat out to the door.  The dawning 20th century does not have the technology; they cannot rebuild them.

For a brief, insane second, he imagines Barry's reaction to a naked Eobard Thawne gracing his doorstep.  He's lucky he has the subzero temperatures to blame for his ruddy cheeks.)

Taking a moment more under the wind-shredded hotel awning to revel in the luxury of second first impressions, cocooned in a winter silence only disturbed by the murmur of the White Horse rapids and an icy gale slicing overhead, Eobard calmly wraps his hand around the rusted door latch and lets himself into the hotel.

A welcome warmth greets him as he quickly slides into the small front room and closes the door firmly behind him.  From the look of it, the hotel's lobby had also served as a saloon, complete with a short counter running down the length of the left-hand wall and a pair of rustic plank booths set into the wall opposite.  Presumably, these booths had sported table tops in the saloon's heyday, but these have been roughly torn out by scavengers most likely, and the warped stock shelves behind the bar are dusty and bare.

He doesn't see Barry at first.  But there are snow-damp boots by the door, and a painfully anachronistic S.T.A.R. Labs branded space heater humming away atop the counter's peeling lacquer.

In the back right corner, beside a door that leads deeper into the hotel, there's a much more period-appropriate fire crackling inside the sooty black belly of a cast iron parlor stove.  In the space between the stove and the farthest booth, a bonafide grizzly bear skin rug hugs the floorboards, and sprawled out on this monstrosity, cuddled up in a CCPD hoodie and using his balled up parka as a pillow, is the one and only Barry Allen.

Barry's got a thin paperback held aloft, but this sinks to his chest when Eobard spots him.  Neither man says a word, and Eobard's excuse is the way his throat has closed up at the sight of idol-rival-frenemy tipping his head back to peer across the room with firelight in his eyes.  By everything that is holy, he was not ready for this.

"Eobard," Barry says, and the name rolls almost too casually from his lips in a way that is painfully perfect, "You're late."

He says it like it's his favorite joke, like it means more than it does.  Those upside-down eyes squeeze to joyous crevasses deep and dark with fathomless humor.  The room feels suddenly far too warm.

Eobard responds to this with the harsh sound of him clearing his throat, and follows that up with the self-conscious business of divesting himself of top hat and gloves and fur-lined overcoat and the like.

"The train from White Horse was delayed due to difficult weather conditions and the rail company almost postponed the return trip until next week.  You're lucky I'm here at all."  He detects a note of petulant defensiveness in his own voice that he's not proud of, but he chalks it up to the combative nature of their relationship to date.  He leans into the curve and presses the offensive.  "Of course, I could have just run straight here, if only preserving the sanctity of the timeline didn't happen to be chief among my concerns."

Eobard side-eyes the space heater's sunburst logo hard to make his point, but Barry just laughs.

"It's not like I can't clean up after myself," Barry retorts, waving the paperback as if it were a suitable piece of evidence to support his argument.  "Last thing I want is a time wraith showing up to crash the party."

Meddling with the timeline is fraught with such sobering and unpleasant considerations, and Eobard's flickering hope about the immediate future gutters at the prospect.  He licks his dry lips and watches the dust pile up as he sweeps a finger down the bar top's pitted surface.

"What are you reading?" he changes the subject, his voice low.

Something of a cagey look supplants Barry's easy grin.  He rolls fluidly upwards into a seated position, shifting around on the grizzly skin to face Eobard the right way up for the first time.  His thumb never leaves the crook of yellowed pages, like he's loath to lose his place.  The hood of his sweatshirt falls to his shoulders and he paws a bit at his cowlicks with his free hand before leaning back to prop himself up with his fingers tangled deep in the thick fur.

"Seeing as you know so much about me from the history books, I might have taken the liberty of some future-reconnaissance of my own."

Eobard's lips twitch.  "I'm flattered," he says wryly but meaning it all the same.  "And the sordid details you uncovered lead you to a little light reading?"

Barry squints, that crooked sunbeam smile breaking across his face like the dawn.  "You made the front page once by publishing a white paper outlining how the Aristotelian concept of poetic diction could be applied to quantum theory."

"And you believe everything you read in newspapers?" Eobard asks, adjusting the high, starchy collar of his gentleman's costume.  His ascot seems to be suffocating him all of a sudden.  "You of all people, I suppose you would."

"They even printed the white paper itself as a special addition," Barry continues, brow going stern with mock gravitas, "Riveting stuff.  Your propositions were very compelling."

Eobard sighs, ducking his head and flourishing a hand in equally affected acceptance of the complement.  "The product of sheer boredom and rebellious teenage spirit.  Ms. Cotsis' Advanced English class was not nearly as challenging as she believed.  I hope you didn't waste your time on any more of my erstwhile endeavors."

His eyes are sharp on the small motions Barry is making as a clear preamble to inviting him to a seat on the bear skin.  As the parka-pillow is shoved aside, Barry tilts the cover of the book towards Eobard, his handy bookmark still firmly wedged between the pages.

"Just a second-hand poetry book my mom picked up at a thrift store once," he explains, "I was afraid of looking uncultured next to a bonafide student of literature such as yourself, Professor."

There's now an Eobard-shaped vacancy on the rug in front of the fire and Eobard knows how to capitalize on an opportunity when he sees one.

With a mix of suave confidence and endorphin-rich recklessness, the same kind of tantalizing what-if electricity thrumming through him as he had experienced on the cold lonely walk into town, Eobard drops himself to Barry's side and indulges in his wildest dreams.

"As if anything could ever make me think less of you, Barry Allen," he all but purrs, laying a hand on Barry's narrow chin in a way that would have been impossible in any prior context.  When Eobard kisses him, it feels exactly as though all the time in the universe is at his command, infinite possibility distilled down into this singular golden moment.

The subarctic wind shrieks over the splintered roofs and the fire sputters from the draft down the stove pipe.  Eobard almost misses the quiet, helpless noise Barry makes in the back of his throat.

Instantly the gilt tarnishes over and Eobard goes as cold as the abandoned winter wasteland and his heart seems to stop beating in his chest.

One of the benefits of super-speed is the extended time frame a speedster has to think and react to the relatively sluggish goings-on occurring around them in real time.  That's why even though it's probably only a span of seconds, to Eobard it feels like an eternal nightmare; how horrifyingly slowly he seems to detach himself from Barry, how chilling it is to spend a lifetime staring at Barry's blank, neutral expression.

His heart hasn't stopped at all, it's just slowed to a comic ice age crawl, the bone-shaking pound of it reverberating in his ears only once an eon.  A billion galaxies are born in flame and wink out in the frozen, silent void in the time it takes him to fully consider the depth of his mistake.

"Eobard," Barry says, and time resumes with all the finesse of a smoking locomotive barreling down a mountain pass.

Barry hasn't moved a muscle since Eobard invited himself into his personal space, but now a cloudy concern has settled on his face, though perhaps that's an improvement over the utter non-reaction he'd had to Eobard's advance.

"I obviously misread the situation," Eobard says tightly, "I'm only meta-human, after all."  He shifts to get his feet under him -- and look at him, farcical in spats and waistcoat, some kind of gentleman clown all dressed up and ready for his pie in the face -- but Barry's quick hand on his arm stays him from running straight out of this century.

"No, it's my bad," Barry insists, his hand dropping back to the bear skin when Eobard's knee-jerk grasp on the Speed Force diminishes, "It's been a while since I had to explain to anybody, and I didn't want to assume that it was something I needed to state up front."

His one eye scrunches up into an apologetic grin and he palms the back of his neck in that endearing (infuriating) way of his.  "One of the things you probably didn't learn about me from the history books is that I'm asexual?"

Eobard Thawne, celebrated genius and criminal mastermind, blinks at Barry like a dullard.  "Ah."

"Yeah," Barry nods.  "Surprise."

A thin smile plays on Eobard's lips as he tries to tuck this new information into the matrix of Things He Knows About The Flash.  "So you're comfortable meeting me in a romantic fire-lit greeting card of a setting, but you're not comfortable with me kissing you."

Barry's hand falls Freudianly to his mouth and Eobard finds enough common decency within him to tear his eyes away.  "Well.  It's not that it makes me uncomfortable -- I can see where we are, and you didn't misread anything -- I just don't have the natural instincts to respond to that kind of … thing ... the way someone else might."

For a moment Eobard doesn't have a response to this revelation.  Then something slightly caustic rises and drips bitterly from his tongue.  "So it doesn't count as cheating on Mrs. West-Allen if there's no sex, is that it?"

He naturally expects Barry to take the defensive or to be riled into meeting this confrontation head-on, and they share an unnaturally long second observing the glint of firelight off his wedding band, but the surprises don't stop coming as Barry relaxes with a carefree laugh.

"Dude," he says, side-eyeing Eobard with gentle disapproval, "isn't polyamory a thing in the twenty-second century?"

Eobard closes his eyes and runs his teeth over his bottom lip, staving off the lingering panic and disappointment in exchange for acceptance of this sudden swerve off the tracks.  He tries to anchor himself with perspective; this is what he wanted, wasn't it?  To experience the novelty of the unexpected?

"I suppose I should have expected as much from a Millennial," he finishes his thought aloud.  "The Flash: polyamorous asexual."

Eobard cracks an eye open and catches Barry shaking his head with a relieved smile.  "For real though, don't you have these things in your time?"

Eobard shrugs, uncoiling his restless legs towards the fire and leaning back on both his hands.  Settling in.  "The concepts, sure.  Your era's incessant need for labels, I'm happy to report, went the way of the dodo a while back."

"Huh," Barry rejoins, considering.  He matches Eobard's sprawl, although his right hand is still faithfully entwined with that beautifully archaic paperback that won't be printed for another hundred years.

"So we're good though, right?"  Barry's question isn't even half-formed before Eobard starts nodding his head slowly, definitively.

"My previously imparted sentiment remains intact," he says, ignoring the little flip his heart gives.  Funny how the admission, stripped of its red-blooded ulterior motive of the moment, now makes him feel vulnerable, like he's a little kid again, peering up at his hero from the cool and vast expanse of his shadow.

Only this hero isn't some unreachable myth anymore -- this is the one and only Barry Allen, alive and warm and real and boldly scooting closer so that they sit shoulder to shoulder the way equals might.  The way lovers (or, at the very least, frenemies with open-for-discussion benefits) might.

Eobard clears his throat and grabs onto the here and now with both hands.  "The way I see it, Barry Allen, we have a fire, we have a beast of a rug, and we have all the time in the world.  I think you're going to have to start reading me poetry before I embarrass myself again."

Barry's eyes twinkle with a special kind of light.  Beyond the walls of their hideaway, the wind blows relentlessly through the frozen canyons, and the river tumbles headlong over the rapids, but time itself crystallizes, silent and glacial, on behalf of two speedsters and however many moments they can together conspire to steal.

PART I.b

Canyon City, Yukon Territory - 1903 - Summer

With the Waverider nestled within the safety of the deserted alpine foothills, the intrepid away team picked their way cautiously down the weedy main street of the ghost town, peering into dark broken windows and ignoring the wind's ominous whispers rustling through the aspens guarding the trail behind them.

"This is the right time and place, boys," Sara said, looking up from the blipping chronograph to squint through the pale northern sunlight at the sagging skeletons of the ruins.  It was hard to tell what they might be hiding under all the moss and rot.

A sudden banging clatter drew her suspicious attention over to one of the larger buildings, but it was just Ray heaving a fallen weather-bleached sign up against the side of what was now identified as the town's hotel-slash-saloon.

"Are we sure?"  Ray was squinting as well, stepping back and brushing off his hands.  "Seems a little rustic for Thawne's tastes."

Stein sniffed, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket to ward off the rising dust.  "You'll remember, Raymond, that Eobard Thawne was -- or is, I unfortunately must say -- a man of many hidden facets.  For all we know, he might have found such a setting, er … quaint."

"He must have been one hell of a chameleon," Nate interjected, idly testing the latch of the hotel door.  The whole thing broke off in his hand.  "If he was able to keep his cover as Harrison Wells for as long as he did, what with a half dozen geniuses watching his every move from over his shoulder."

"You have a knack for making compliments difficult to accept, Dr. Heywood," Stein murmured to himself behind his handkerchief.  Nate didn't hear him, too busy off-loading the rusted door latch into a clump of wild flowers pushing sunnily up through the boards of the sidewalk.

Ray came around the side of the hotel, shrugging like a defensive toddler.  "They don't put out PSAs about how to spot the tell-tale signs of a time-traveling body-snatching mad scientist or anything, you know."

Sara cocked an eye at the chronograph and then gave the dusty road another once-over.  Nothing to be seen hiding in the shadows -- so far.

"Settle down, kids.  Let's just find whatever it is Future-Cisco sent us here to find so we can get back to tracking our version of Thawne before he gets his hands on the Spear."  She stepped lightly up to the boardwalk between Ray and Nate, while Stein shuffled after her as though wary of straying too far from the group.

"Ray, Martin, you're looking for anything that strikes you as something that Thawne could have left behind.  Nate, you're looking for anything that doesn't fit the time period.  Future-Cisco said there were twenty-second century energy signatures coming from this location, so it's probably tech, but we won't know for sure until we find it."  She glanced over her shoulder.  "Nice work, He-Man.  You plan on deconstructing the whole place?"  

This last piece was said in response to Nate's discovery of the hotel door's equally dilapidated hinges.  He grunted as he set the newly liberated door off to one side.

"Ladies first," he said as if he hadn't just ripped the door bodily from the frame.

"Question," Ray piped up, ducking through the doorway after Sara as she disappeared into the dingy remains of the hotel, "How do we know Future-Cisco is right?  Or even that he's telling the truth, for that matter?  What if we're walking into a trap?"

Sara spun on him in the dusty darkness -- most of the room's light came from the cracks in the roof -- jabbing the center of his broad chest with the chronograph.  "You really think now is a good time to be having these questions, Ray?"

He rubbed at the spot where she poked him, frowning.  "Well, yeah, I guess.  No one else had  brought it up yet."

Sara held back a sigh.  "Just assume, at all times, that you're walking into a trap, and then you won't have to wonder about it, okay?"  She flicked a finger around the room.  "Now spread out and help me look for whatever it is Thawne left here."  

Ray's frown melted into something of a pout, and he raised a stiff hand in a small salute of acknowledgement.  Sara turned to move deeper into the dim space, partially to let the guys filter in behind, but mostly to hide her fond smile.

The light from the street dimmed as Nate and then Stein, the latter still breathing through his hanky, passed through the gaping entryway.  Ray turned and edged back behind the bar, looking dutifully under shelves for the boogeyman's hidden treasure.

"My question is," Nate said, crossing the length of the room towards Sara, "if Thawne was erased from reality -- his current existence notwithstanding -- then how was he able to leave anything behind at all?  Shouldn't it never have happened in this timeline?"

Sara stepped back into the corner as he leaned past her to try his luck with the inner door.  It didn't disintegrate at his touch this time and he poked his head into the far room for a moment.  

"Well we're talking about the Thawne that originally traveled back in time and altered the course of history to begin with," Ray was saying when Nate ducked back into the main room, "Thawne-prime, as it were.  All of the things he did or had happen to him before that juncture would remain intact in that original timeline.  Or am I wrong, Dr. Stein?"

He leaned over the dusty countertop, scratching his head.  The uncertain wood shifted under his weight.

Stein cleared his throat, tentatively dropping the handkerchief an inch or two.  "Yes, I believe you're on the right track, Raymond.  Cisco and I discussed the matter briefly some time ago and we came to the loose conclusion that there must exist a sort of temporal graft that occurs when objects -- or people, in practice -- move between time periods."

Sara, crouched beside the rat-eaten bearskin rug, shook her head at the three slackers and continued the search for the twenty-second century item.  It wasn't under the rug.  No, of course not, that'd be too easy.

"How do you mean, 'graft'?" Nate asked, stepping back to the end of the bar and crossing his arms.

Stein wet his lips in preparation of the symposium he was about to give.  "Think of the timeline as a trunk, of a tree, with every infinite variation of the timeline as its branches.  To keep it simple, let's look at a tree with only two such branches forking from the trunk.  Imagine that a person -- in this case Eobard Thawne -- experiences time as movement along one of the branches.  As a speedster, he then doubles back to a point along the trunk, makes his way to the fork and travels up the second branch, as we know, for fifteen years.  Even though he originated in the first branch, he has now 'grafted' himself onto the second.  Remove the second branch from the tree and you excise Eobard Thawne from that section of the timeline -- but the removal of that section alone does not invalidate the path he traveled along the trunk, which is a constant and immutable past for both timelines."

Ray nodded as he followed along.  "So it's like this point in 1903 is somewhere on the trunk, and the timeline we're protecting from aberrations is actually the one he created in the year 2000, which includes the trunk, and even though Eobard Thawne will never be born in the 22nd century in this timeline, we can still find evidence of the one who was born in that timeline….right?"

"Something like that," Stein agreed.

Nate sucked on his lip, considering.  "Sounds like one of the side effects of staying too long in an alternate or altered timeline is having time catch up to you.  Like, the way we see changes in time start to set if an aberration hasn't been corrected quickly enough.  Otherwise why would the death of Thawne's ancestor in this timeline have any effect on him if that other timeline still exists separately from ours?"

"Quite," Stein agreed, a touch more reluctantly.  "As I said, this theory was the product of a brief discussion.  A very brief discussion, really.  More of a casual chat, now that I think of it."

Ray leaned his elbow on the countertop and the wood groaned a warning note.  "Taking what Barry said about his months in the Flashpoint timeline into account, it makes sense.  His memories from this timeline were being overwritten by the ones that belonged to the him that should have experienced natural time between 2000 and 2016.  That does make sense, right?"

"Or how memories of having a daughter can oust memories of not having one, once the change has been made and time has set," Stein added quietly.

"Sure, sure," Nate said, drawing attention off that sore subject, "The era Thawne ended up grafting into, the early twenty-first century, he had no existing self to merge with.  He must have fused into the timeline of his future self, while still retaining his individuality."

Ray tipped his head to the side, his brow knit in amicable consideration.  "It's a working theory, at least."

"Hate to interrupt the egghead convention," Sara called, rising fluidly from her crouch.  She stepped around the crumbling saloon furniture to Nate's side, clapping a thin rectangular object to his chest and her dusty ashy hand to his back.  "Found this lodged behind the stove, something tells me it didn't belong there."

Nate briefly tried to eye over his shoulder at the cosmetic damage done to his shirt, but the pressing mystery of the object in his arms very quickly commandeered his attention.  It was, the geek squad were surprised to see, the unassuming and familiar shape of a worn paperback book.

"They had books in 1903," Ray said, craning dangerously over the rickety countertop to get a better look at the thing.  His statement sounded suspiciously like a question.

"While it's true that the paperback book dates back to the early 1800s," Nate said thoughtfully, "this one was published in 1994.  Also, there's an inscription:  'Henry, you are the verse in my heart, happy anniversary - Nora.'  Dated 2004."

He held up the book to show them the title page.  A small white envelope slipped from between pages yellowed and warped with exposure to the elements, and fell to the floor with a small clatter.

Ray instantly reared back from his slouch, the foundations of the bar cracking under the force of his recoil.  "Is that the trap?!"

"Could be," Sara replied, cavalier.  She grinned up at Nate.  "Why d'you think I palmed it off on the iron man?"

"I see how it is," Nate grumbled, steeling up his arm to the elbow and stooping to retrieve the fallen item.  "I thought you brought me along for my wealth of experience as a time detective, but really I'm just here to do all your heavy lifting."

"Literally!" Ray chimed in, his self-appreciative chuckle a little on the nervous side as he warily ogled what was most certainly a trap.

Said trap, upon closer inspection, turned out to be a plain white envelope, the unsealed flap tucked in along one of the narrow ends.  "That's weird," Nate mused, turning it over in his metallic hand, "It's addressed to Barry."

The crew exchanged concerned looks.  "That would seem to weigh in on the side of trap, wouldn't you think?"  Stein proposed.  If he edged a little closer to the bright gap of the doorway, nobody blamed him.

"Wait a minute," Ray said, "Are we one hundred percent sure that Thawne left this?  Wasn't Nora Barry's mom's name?"

"Nora and Henry Allen," Stein said thoughtfully, "Why yes, yes those were their names.  May I see the book, Nathaniel?"

Nate passed the book over the counter to Ray, who leaned the remaining distance to pass the book obligingly to Stein.  Then Nate thumbed open the envelope and dropped its contents into his palm.  The futuristic round data chip plinked into his hand, metal on metal.

Sara passed the chronograph over the chip, and the device pinged a series of assertive tones.  "Unless Mrs. Allen had a secret supplier of twenty-second century tech, my money's still on Thawne."

"So, what does this mean?" Ray asked the room.  "Barry -- Barry-Prime from the timeline where his mom lived -- brings the book back in time to here, and Thawne-Prime brings this tech back in time and ... leaves it in the book for Barry to find?"

Sara narrowed her eyes, sweeping her considering gaze between Stein's book and Nate's chip.  "Yeah, I'm not seeing the angle here, either."

"One man's aberration is another man's book of poems," Stein said absently, flicking through the pages.

Nate cleared his throat, an obvious attention-grabber.  When he proceeded to say nothing at all, Sara humored him with a short, "Yes, Nate?"

"Well," he started, slowly, uncommonly shy or characteristically dramatic, "I have to admit I've seen this sort of thing before."

Ray and Sara exchanged a quick look.  She crossed her arms, squaring her stance.  "Out with it."

"You know the way I found you guys in 1942, right?  I collected data on the past and noticed the inconsistencies -- inconsistencies exactly like finding a book out in the middle of nowhere, a hundred years before it's been published.  Some of those inconsistencies led me to the Legends; but the rest of them, well, let's just say they painted a very specific picture of two time-travelers meeting up in various out of the way places.  Places and times where they wouldn't draw attention to themselves."

"Two time-travelers, you mean two speedsters."  

"Guess so."

"Barry- and Thawne-Prime."

"Looks like."

"And you didn't feel like sharing this information because…?"  Sara flipped a hand outward in an irritated shrug.

Again Nate hemmed and hawed, stubbing the toe of his boot into a warped knot in one of the floor boards.  "Ok, well I wasn't sure, until just now, that the evidence pointed to the Flash and the Reverse-Flash.  And anyway, I always assumed these things were left by a man and a woman, on account of said evidence only ever showing up in these secret ... love nests."

Sara snorted.  "Some love nest."

Nate waved her off.  "Sure, it's nothing but a derelict ghost town now, but that book wasn't left here yesterday.  Picture it, I don't know, six months ago, the dead of winter, a remote little hideaway where they won't be disturbed.  There's a bearskin rug in front of the fireplace, for crying out loud.  It's not hard to imagine that a little poetry would go a long way in that scenario."

"Are you saying that the Flash and the Reverse-Flash...."  Ray trailed off, groping visibly for a phrase he was comfortable using in public, not finding it, and eventually settling on the all but unintelligible pantomime of tapping the tips of his two pointer fingers together.

Sara's eyes narrowed to a bright, considering gleam, her leer one of quiet astonishment as she beheld the miracle that was Dr. Raymond Palmer, actual adult.

"I'm not saying anything, but it all makes sense now that I've met Thawne in person.  You can't tell me you haven't seen those leather pants of his," Nate intoned, ducking his chin to look knowingly up at Ray.  He swung this look around on Sara to get her confirmation.  "Sara, back me up on this."

Sara's leer deepened, even as she wagged a finger at him.  "Normally I wouldn't condone your use of stereotypes, but I feel you on this one.  Our boy rocks his leather and doesn't care who knows it."

As this strand of conversation spun on, Stein looked more and more like he was going to be sick.  Finally he snapped the book shut as if continued exposure to it might reveal something too risque for his sensibilities, and rounded on the other three with a stuffy flap of his handkerchief.

"Please let me remind you that this is Eobard Thawne we're talking about, none other than the Reverse-Flash and founder of the so-called Legion of Doom -- a man who has ruined countless innocent lives and will continue to do so unless we stop him from getting the Spear of Destiny.  Forgive me if I don't feel like gossiping about his romantic inclinations while reality itself hangs in the balance."  He balled up his handkerchief and returned it roughly to his pocket as if to make a point.

The others cast sheepish looks at one another.  Sara tucked the chronograph into a back pocket and held out a hand to take the envelope and chip back from Nate.  He powered down and handed it over without a word.

"Martin's right," Sara said, securing the chip in a jacket pocket.  "Whatever happened in the other timeline, all that's out of our hands.  Let's get back to the Waverider so we can deliver this to Future-Cisco and then get back to stopping our Thawne from messing up our timestream."

IN MEDIA RES

PART II.a

Central City, Missouri - 2024 - SPRING

So this is what the collapse of reality itself looks like.

He can feel it in the periphery of his senses, this supernatural gravitational force that softly yet insistently tugs at his bones to join it in infinite oblivion.  Running back towards it, back to 2024 at Barry's urgent summons, it had loomed ahead of him like a cold dark spot in the Speed Force, foreboding with all the the grim surety of a brick wall and cut brakes.  He hasn't even seen it yet but he doesn't particularly feel the need to; he's well aware of the old adage about staring into the abyss.  He's afraid he'll recognize himself in the void.

It hangs up there over his head like a guillotine blade, silent, impossible, unforgiving:  Eobard Thawne's long overdue date with destiny.  

The pinprick singularity, a rapidly unraveling rip in the fabric of space-time, is up there, too.

The midnight sky he can see as he dashes through ground zero, downtown Central City, is a vicious blood red.  No stars, no moon, just the blood of a thousand trillion lifetimes being syphoned out of the past-present-future and funneling into the bottomless nothingness like so much dirty water circling the drain.

For some reason, Eobard can't stop laughing.

That is, until Barry banks up the side of a pedestrian overpass to circle back around and punch him in the face at mach speeds.

(In a dim, semi-rational corner of his brain, he realizes how this will look to the history books.  The Reverse-Flash chasing the city's very own Scarlet Speedster until something gives and the two hated rivals come to blows.  He can see the headline now -- but maybe that's because it's a headline he's had seared into his memory for the last thirty-five years.)

"You do have quite the fondness for a dramatic gesture," he drawls through his bloodied smile once he's extracted himself from the overturned tanker truck which had so kindly broken his fall.  "It's one of the things I've always loved about you."

Barry stalks forward and shoves a hand down to help him up.  Eobard readily takes him up on the offer, clasping Barry's arm in his own and flowing to his feet to stand toe to toe and eye to eye with the Flash.  He won't have many chances to get this close again.  He's out of time.  They're out of time.

"This is not a joke, Eobard," Barry growls.  He tries to pull his arm away but Eobard just comes with it, silent, intent, smiling blood.  Barry has to tear out of his grip, leaving them both reeling.

"What about this is funny to you?"  Oh no, Barry's mad.  He's got lightning in his eyes.  Bits of the city are crumbling around them, distorted into nothingness as the periphery of the singularity's event horizon laps outwards in rolling waves.  Like footprints washed away in the surf.  Like they never even existed.

The humor drops off Eobard's face in a heartbeat.  The blood is rushing in his ears and he swears he can hear the nothing-nowhen drone of the void calling to him, a voice that wicks under his skin like oil, urging him up and up into the gentle cradling arms of perdition.

"Funny?  I can't think of anything about this that's funny."  He can't even hear himself.  He doesn't know if he's whispering or if he's shouting.  There's lightning in Barry's eyes and his world is falling down around him and there's a speck of pure non-existence growing in the sky that wants to invite him home.  If he can't laugh about it, he's not sure what he could do to relieve the suffocating pressure of the situation.

Barry's lightning arcs from his eyes into the air around him as he flickers forward a step to grab a fistful of Eobard's suit front.  He rocks him, attempting to shake Eobard out of his nihilistic trance.  "I get it, you're angry.  You think I'm not?  I'm leaving everything behind -- Iris, my family, the city, my entire life.  Iris," he repeats, his head and shoulders drooping.  The fist on Eobard's suit clenches tight.  "I didn't say goodbye."

Eobard wraps a hand around Barry's wrist, clinging to this lifeline while it lasts.  He should shove Barry off, should face fate with dignity and tell him that he's right, tell him that what the universe is asking of them is righteous.  Noble, even.  He should lie and tell Barry that whatever happens, they didn't have a choice.  That their sacrifice will mean something -- everything, even -- to those left to carry on in their wake.

Righteous?  Noble?  No, he's Eobard Thawne.  He's the Reverse-Flash.  If this is actually the promised end to life as he knows it, then he's going to claw every last shred of Barry Allen out of this existence until all that remains is a hollowed-out husk -- that's all a life without Barry Allen has ever been, or could ever hope to be.

The rumble of existential chaos spins down to a muted background whine as he holds on to Barry.  This time, when he speaks, it feels as though his words travel through rarified air, crystal clear and sharp as daggers.

"We don't have to go through with it," he whispers.  It's a useless, selfish plea.  He can't imagine a world where the Flash forsakes his heroic duties, but Eobard's never held himself to such limitations.  He can freely give voice to blasphemous thoughts.  Still, he doesn't want to see Barry's inevitable look of betrayal, so he pulls the Flash close and breathes words of cosmic treason into his ear.

"There's nothing keeping us from staying right here," he's saying, and he suddenly feels a crazed conviction in the errant thought.  A punch-drunk fervor to damn the world a million times over in exchange for a few more moments with Barry.  "Just the two of us.  Nobody will know once it's all over."

Crushed tight against him, Barry shudders.  Eobard wonders -- horrified -- if Barry could possibly consider taking him up on the offer.

It takes an unnaturally long moment to realize that Barry's shaking his head against his shoulder.  Then, before he can react, Barry's shoving violently out of the cage of Eobard's arms.  Electricity still dances along the long lithe line of him, but his stormy eyes are dulled now by impotent remorse and fury.  Eobard suspects he mirrors the emotion, dutifully playing his assigned role as Barry's foil until the very end.

The full weight of this unfolding moment lays squarely on Eobard's shoulders.  He looks up, craning his head back slowly as though the action costs him more than he's willing to give.  Finally, achingly, he acknowledges the infinite pitmark in the blood-red sky that winks down on him like a inverse star.

"I've been such a fool," Eobard admits to the End of All Things, "thinking I could make deals with destiny."

He tears his eyes away from the singularity and drops his gaze to Barry.  His Barry.  "I should have known I would never be able to pay this debt, when it came time to settle."

"Thawne," Barry warns, and it's exactly the right move in all the wrong ways.  "Do what you have to do."

Eobard rolls his neck, almost a drunken, unhinged maneuver.  In answer, whether he's aware of it or not, Barry starts shifting his weight from one foot to the other.  Eobard thinks it's like being thrown into a long-forgotten dream.  He knows, as he has always known, exactly how this ends.

"Maybe I will," Eobard tells him, his eyes sharp and his smile wicked.  "Maybe I won't.  Maybe thinking you could trust me all these years was your greatest mistake, Barry Allen."

Too quick for the average observer to catch, the Flash and the Reverse-Flash fly for each other's throats.

This is probably right, Eobard thinks.  This is probably poetic.  Ending this in violence, same as it began all those years from now.  As it still must begin so many years ago.

This old dance is nostalgic, nothing like the show fights they'd endeavored to stage whenever Eobard came to town, a playful attempt to keep the wool over the eyes of history.  The steps are familiar and bittersweet, each bloodthirsty blow a reminder to each of what it was like to live back-to-front with his rival, trembling in the other's shadow until the day the tables turned and their roles reversed.  Only this time they're both meeting at the peak of their ability, with unfathomable reservoirs of skill and endurance, and both with everything left to lose.

Eobard feels each passing second slip away from him forever as he forces himself on the Flash in the only way he's ever felt entitled to, with fists and lightning and an unspoken understanding that he fills a niche in Barry's life that no one else in all of the multiverse ever could.  His old tired anger at his scripted destiny flares up hotter and hotter as he confirms with a leaden certainty that the reverse has also always been true.

He'd always known this day would come.  Only, he had naively envisioned his part in doomsday as limited to walking Barry to the door and waving him off with a tear in his eye.  (And somehow this whole time he thought that scenario would be simple, easy?  That he could just walk away from Barry Allen?)  How hilariously mistaken he's been to think that fate would ever release him from its grand production.  The role might have changed, but the script remains the same.

Be Barry Allen's undertaker, the multiverse keeps insisting, be the tool of the Flash's final and complete destruction.

A world without the Flash -- unimaginable.  Incomprehensible.  He'd rather no world at all.

Hadn't he always wanted the choice?  Wasn't his deepest desire to choose the course of his own destiny?  To believe, even for a second, that Eobard Thawne lived for himself?

Silently, the singularity whispers the kind of sweet nothings that reverberate through the darkest chambers of his heart.  It would be so easy to refuse his marching orders, to play the mutineer for the first and last time, and choose to let the eternal and infinite swallow him up.  The alternative --

Eobard realizes he's stopped running.  Under the all-seeing eye of absolute undoing, he's got the Flash hoisted by the throat against the plate glass window of an evacuated Jitters.  The brick wall on either side, the lamp post on the corner, the boxed shrubberies in the corner of his vision are all wavering in and out of existence, tenuous as a candle about to burn itself out.  It won't be long now.

Barry looks down on him with unreadable eyes.  He reaches -- not to pry Eobard off, not to claw for his release -- a gloved hand coming to rest tenderly on the exposed skin of Eobard's cheek below the cowl.

"Please," Barry gasps, "Eobard, please."

Eobard curses everyone and everything he's ever known, but none more fiercely than Barry Allen.  He sets Barry back on his feet, every fiber of him livid as he submits unwillingly to this angelic avatar of virtue.  He never had a choice.  Not with Barry Allen.

And now his time has run out.

"See if you can keep up, Flash," he sneers, wild and heartsick and furious beyond reason.  He doesn't wait to see if Barry's fit to follow as he tears his own hole in space and time with the sole purpose of murdering the mother of the man he loves, the result of which will be his personally authoring an infinite number of destinies; excluding, of course, his own.

PART II.b

Central City, Missouri - 2024 - SPRING

"Hit it, H.R."

Cisco rolled his shoulders, shaking out his arms and legs, the segmented lenses of his shades lighting up in preparation of the temporal shift.

H.R., stationed at the back of the breach room at one of the consoles, winked at an un-cowled Barry, who stood observing with his arms crossed at the bottom of the steps.  "I'm hitting it.  If you know what I mean."

Barry obliged him with a wan smile and a brief lift of his eyebrows.  Cisco froze and then looked stiffly over shoulder, his eyes hidden from view but the line of his mouth more than adequately expressing his irritation.  "H.R., mi amado, I'm about to vibe across timelines in a way that's going to tear a hole in the multiverse -- and that's only if we're lucky.  A little focus, please?"

"Of course, of course," H.R. said, ducking his head apologetically.  "I am also hitting the switch.  I'm hitting the switch now."  He waved his drumstick with a imperious flourish.  "Once more, into the breach!"

"Thank y--ou," Cisco started to say.  Before he could finish voicing the thought, reality warped itself around him and he scrabbled to wring the correct chronographic coordinates from the totem he held.  He sank in a stomach-turning freefall of infinite potentiality until the psychic line he cast out into the cosmic roil caught something solid and pulled tight.

With an effect like an elastic band stretched to its limits and then being violently released, Cisco snapped out of the temporal corridor back into real fluid time.  Back into S.T.A.R. Labs, too, the homey Cortex by the look of it, although the Team Flash he found there was the bizarro kind of familiar.

Dr. Wells threw a handful of papers over his head and swore fluently at Cisco's unannounced arrival.  Barry took his appearing out of thin air with a modicum of grace, although he had his cowl back on in a flash.  They stared at him from behind the Cortex's main computer bay.

"Thanks but no thanks, H.R.," Cisco grumbled to himself.  He slid the shades off his face, trying to appear as non-threatening as possible off the tail end of that entrance.

"Mr. Ramon?" this Barry asked, recognizing the face at least, tentative relief coloring his surprise.  

Dr. Wells had a hand to his forehead, sharp eyes behind his glasses darting all over Cisco's vibing gear, probing for answers without deigning to ask the questions.  "My first guess would be that Ramon Industries is breaking new ground in teleportation technology."

Barry -- or, more appropriately, the Flash -- wheeled on Dr. Wells, "What, for real?"

Dr. Wells didn't hear the question.  "But something tells me our visitor has nothing to do with Ramon Industries."  His steely blue eyes hadn't flickered off Cisco for even a second.

Cisco smiled, a little tightly.  "Sharp as ever, Dr. Wells.  Let me get this out of the way because I have a lot of crazy stuff to explain and not a lot of time to do it -- I know that you're Barry Allen, because in my timeline Barry Allen aka the Flash is my best friend.  And also, yeah, I'm Cisco Ramon from another timeline.  A divergent timeline that I need your help to create."

Upon hearing this last bit, Dr. Wells removed his studious gaze from Cisco and turned it on the Flash.  Something unspoken passed between them, and Barry carefully pushed his cowl off his face.

"This is about the singularity, then," Barry guessed, visible tension gathering in his shoulders as he crossed his arms.

Cisco sighed in relief.  "Okay, so you've been tracking the singularity.  Great, but, you know, also not great.  Just leaves me less to explain."

"You still have plenty to explain, Mr. Ramon," Dr. Wells said shortly.  He sifted some of the disarrayed papers on the desk and waved a handful at Cisco with deliberate meaning.  "By what means could you possibly have been able to detect a singularity from an alternate timeline, and why, for instance, does it fall to us to create said timeline?"

Raising his hands -- one holding his shades and the other the totem he'd used to vibe this timeline -- Cisco was about to answer to the best of his ability when Barry pointed and snapped, "That book, where did you get it?"

All eyes went to the unassuming and fairly decrepit paperback.  Cisco's brow furrowed.  "Is that the question you want me to answer first?"

Dr. Wells looked quietly over at Barry, as if waiting for his confirmation.  After a moment Barry dropped his arm and shook his head once.

"Proceed as you wish, Mr. Ramon," Dr. Wells allowed.  He kept his watchful eye on Barry for a heartbeat longer, only directing his attention back to Cisco when he began to speak.

"It's like this," Cisco started, tucking a stem of his shades behind his jacket collar, "in the year 2000, Eobard Thawne aka the Reverse-Flash, murdered Nora Allen."

Barry barked an overly loud scoff.  "Never happened.  Never gonna happen."

"I hear you on that, I really do, Barry, and I'm sorry.  You have no idea how sorry I am to have to lay this on you."  Cisco's tone rode a line between sympathetic and persuasive, moving increasingly towards the latter as he went on.  "But for the sake of reality itself -- both our realities -- it has to happen.  You and the Reverse-Flash have a huge street fight tonight.  It ends with him going back in time to kill you, but you stop him, so he kills your mother instead.  This is fact in the timeline I'm from."

"Eobard would never--" Barry cut himself off, biting back the rest of the thought.  He looked to Dr. Wells for assistance.  "That's crazy, right?"

Dr. Wells' voice was low, somber.  "Hear the man out, Barry.  We know the cause of the singularity is a temporal paradox; this Mr. Ramon may very well be presenting us with the resolution we have heretofore been unable to identify."

Cisco looked around the Cortex and spotted the glass diagram board.  "Some things never change," he muttered.  Addressing Dr. Wells, he pointed to it.  "Do you mind if I…?"

Dr. Wells waved a hand.  "Be my guest."

Barry had an agitated hand worrying his jaw, and Dr. Wells put a calming hand on his shoulder as they watched Cisco squeak a cap off one of the pens and sketched a horizontal line that stretched from one end of the board to the other.

"You know the theory of temporal grafting, right?"  Cisco looked over his shoulder to see Dr. Wells' small nod.  "Okay.  So we know that if you travel in time and spend a significant duration in another era, then you eventually merge with the you that already existed in that timeline.  If this graft doesn't take, then you experience the multiverse's immune system response, which manifests as time quakes and time wraiths and so on."

He exemplified the act of traveling back in time and altering it by drawing a loop that lifted off the right-hand side of the line, connecting it to a point at the far left and continuing through in a slant that forked down and away from the trunk line

"Antibodies that reject and attack the grafted individual," Dr. Wells agreed.  "You've had some luck avoiding those, haven't you, Barry?"

Barry just ground his teeth and threw a hand angrily at Cisco.  "So the singularity is the next level defense response from the multiverse.  Now you're trying to tell me that screwing up the timeline -- killing my mom -- is going to make it go away?"

Cisco dipped his head placatingly, his hands held up to bid them to wait a moment longer.  "That's where it gets tricky, I understand.  But creating a timeline where your mom is killed when you're a little kid isn't screwing anything up.  It has to happen.  It has happened.  I couldn't be here if it didn't.  But I'm here, aren't I?"

Barry balled his fists on his hips, shaking his head with a barely concealed sound of disdain.  He half turned away, unready and unwilling to believe any of this.

"If you'll allow me to make a supposition," Dr. Wells said, letting Barry step out of the conversation for the time being, "if this singularity we've detected is the collapse of all realities due to a temporal paradox, then your belief is the murder of Nora Allen in 2000 by Eobard Thawne from this timeline's future will close the open loop, averting the paradox.  Now, granting that, how did you conclude that the relevant parties originated in this particular timeline?"

"Ah, that," Cisco started, "It's all very timey-wimey, if I'm being honest."

Barry shot him a dirty look at his use of less than scientific language, but Cisco quickly continued.  "It has to do with the flat timeline theory, which I was getting to," he explained.

Dr. Wells winced, a faint deepening of his crow's feet.  "I'm afraid you'll have to enlighten me, Mr. Ramon."

"Okay, so if you think of each separate timeline as a strict linear progression of cause and effect," Cisco gestured with the pen along the length of the trunk and then again along the branching line, "then you run into some wild scenarios in the case that these discrete cause-effect strings start forming closed loops between timelines."

He pointed to the fork off the main line.  "This is Eobard Thawne from your future traveling to both our pasts and directly creating this divergent timeline.  Now this is today--" he drew a vertical line that cut down through both the trunk and the branch, "--April 24th, 2024."

On each of the points where the vertical line intersected the other two, he scribbled a messy dot.

"And this is the singularity.  One in your timeline, one in mine."

"Very artistic, Mr. Ramon," Dr. Wells interjected, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Cisco took it in stride.  "So now if we look at the cause-effect structure of the alpha timeline and the divergent beta timeline, we can say that this conversation we're having right now is Event A, Eobard Thawne in the year 2000 is Event B, and the singularity in my timeline is Event C."  He wrote the letters in the appropriate places before capping the pen.  

"To answer your question, getting from C to A involved a little time excavation to dig up this book, which had Thawne's temporal fingerprints all over it, and a little of my own personal mojo to trace its origin back to your timeline.  But that's all academic.  Now get ready for this."

Cisco held the pen against the board, along the vertical line between that ran between A and C, and carefully swung the bottom of the glass up so that the pen rested on the flat surface with only its bright red cap visible.

"In the flat timeline theory," he said, tracing the bottom frame of the board that faced the room, "this is your timeline.  A view of time-space where the only thing that matters is the linear cause-effect structure; any self-contained loops are compressed into 1-D."  

Cisco motioned to the pen's red cap.  "And this is your singularity.  Our singularity, I should say.  Just one, located at the point where the consolidated timeline reaches lethal levels of quantum flux due to the unclosed loop."  

"The result of the unstable paradox," Dr. Wells hummed appreciatively.  "Each one of these events cause the next, A causing B, and B causing C, and C causing A.  If any of these links break, the whole chain breaks."

"And you get a temporal paradox with a side of reality-dissolving singularity," Cisco finished with a shrug.

"And you brought the singularity from your timeline, didn't you?"  Dr. Wells' eyes flashed with serene accusation behind his glasses, his hands folded carefully under his chin.  "You ruptured time-space just by coming here."

"I had to," Cisco said simply.  "The singularity in your timeline is a point of fact.  They'll call it the Crisis.  It has happened, and it will always happen and it's happening right now."

Dr. Wells only nodded, crunching the numbers and finding them sound.  "And the only way to keep both our realities from collapsing like a house of cards is for Eobard Thawne to run back to the year 2000 and murder Nora Allen.  If he's not already on his way, you can bring him here, can't you, Barry?"

Barry dropped a startled look on Dr. Wells, who met it evenly.  "Why are you talking about this like it's a done deal?  Don't we need to, you know, verify this claim?"

Cisco stepped towards him, a hand outstretched to placate, to plead.  "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry that I dropped this on you out of the blue, but you don't have a lot of time.  As we speak, both our timelines are in a state of elevated quantum flux that will continue to wreck space-time until the loop is closed.  It's going to be bad.  The city's going to take a hit.  You're going to need to call for backup, because on top of evacuating the city, you're going to have your hands full with Thawne."

Dr. Wells arched one eyebrow.  "You're right about that, Mr. Ramon.  I'll send a blast out to the JLA to let them know what we're in for."

Barry's eyes went to the ceiling, and he chewed his lip while shaking his head in tiny motions as he remained unconvinced.  

"I have a feeling the Green Arrow, Hawkgirl, and the Atom are free," Cisco suggested helpfully.  "But again, I hate to sound like a broken record, you need to act fast.  We all have until midnight tonight, then it's game over, man."

"I just -- I need a second."  Barry threw a dark look in Cisco's direction, not even seeing him, and stalked from the room.

Dr. Wells, already tapping away at the screens in front of him, glanced up at Cisco and then back down at his work.  "Forgive him.  He knows what he has to do, and he'll do it.  You'll agree that this is an upsetting turn of events for him."

Cisco chewed the inside of his cheek, digging a flashdrive from his pocket.  He wagged it in his fingertips for a second, then reached over the back of the console desk to drop it near Dr. Wells' keyboard.

"It gets worse," Cisco told him, his voice flat.  "Barry -- the Flash -- doesn't come back from this.  Not to your timeline, anyway."

Dr. Wells met his solemn gaze, slowly straightening up from the desk and crossing his arms over his chest.  "I'm sure you're aware that you are asking a lot of us, Mr. Ramon."

Cisco broke the stare first, dropping his eyes, guilty.  He motioned to the flashdrive.  "There's more information on that.  Everything about the Crisis we could transfer from Thawne's twenty-second century copy of Gideon."

"Evidence that the Thawne with whom we're familiar did indeed wind up in your timeline," Dr. Wells mused.  He put a hand over the flashdrive, slipping it off the desk and into his pocket.  "I'll make sure Barry sees it.  It won't make it any easier for him, but it may speed things along."

"Thank you, Dr. Wells.  This won't … mean anything to you, but I've always wanted to thank you in person."  Cisco shrugged, self-conscious, and a crooked smile wound its way across his face.  He lifted a hand over the back of the desk, offering it to Dr. Wells.

Dr. Wells' sharp blue eyes fixed on it for a long second.  Then he raised his own hand and firmly accepted Cisco's handshake.  "Goodbye, Mr. Ramon."

Cisco nodded, letting go of Dr. Wells' hand and the alpha timeline with the same motion.  The bright lights of the Cortex swirled away into the chaotic always-everywhere of the time stream, and then Cisco was staggering back into the cavern of the breach room.

"Cisco, how was it, did you make it?"  This was Barry, his best friend, reaching out with a steadying hand on his shoulder.

Blinking hard at the transition, Cisco allowed himself to be lead a few steps towards the console platform.  His bearings returned after a handful of moments, and he very nearly leapt away from Barry and up the steps, careening around the railing to crash into the computers there.

"Alpha Barry wasn't too thrilled by the news," he said, glancing down at Barry with something like apology in his eyes, "But Dr. Wells was pretty certain that they'd be able to grab Thawne and prevent the singularity."

"That's great -- Cisco, you did it," Barry clapped his hands to the back of his head, relieved and impressed.

Cisco kept working away at the computer, focus glued to the information scrolling down the screens.  "Checking on the state of our singularity now.  But yeah.  I think we did it."

H.R., slouching over the other console, scratched his temple with the end of his drumstick.  "You met Dr. Wells, then."

"Yep."

"The real Dr. Harrison Wells from this Earth."

"A version of Earth-1 Harrison Wells, yes."

"I bet he isn't as much as a silver fox as me," H.R. supposed, frowning.

Cisco's hands froze in midair over the keyboard, and he cocked his head, as if considering.  "Don't be too sure of that, he had this kind of sweater-vest headmaster vibe that was working for him.  You know, not too soft, not too stern."

H.R. stepped away from his console, squaring his shoulders like a man about to face a firing squad.

"I could -- I could wear a sweater-vest."

Barry hid his grin behind his hand, and Cisco didn't even look up.  "Uh-huh.  You look like you stole your entire wardrobe from a hipster indie band roadie that's half your age.  Yahtzee, baby, quantum flux has reached negligible levels; not getting any readings on the singularity.  It's almost like it never happened, which, in a sense, it didn't."

Cisco dropped his head back with a wild shout that reverberated around the breach room.  "I can't believe that actually worked.  I need an aspirin and a handle of tequila."

"You did good, Cisco," Barry applauded.  He started to come up the steps but he paused with his hand on the rail.  A heartbeat, and then, behind him, the familiar blue whirlpool of causality swirled open over the breach pad.  

"I had to go and jinx it, didn't I," Cisco groaned.

Barry turned back towards the breach, holding up a cautioning hand.  "I think --" he said, haltingly, "I'm coming."

H.R.'s jaw dropped.  He furiously stabbed his drumstick towards Barry and glared across at Cisco.  "How come he gets to make rude jokes and I don't?"

His question was ignored.  Out from the wormhole came the Flash, weary and worn.  His suit was ripped and bloodied, smelling faintly of diesel and smoke.  His feet hit the floor and he stumbled, nearly going over if it weren't for Barry's quick blink forward to catch him.

"Hey, easy," Barry said, helping the Flash right himself.  "You did it, we got you."

The Flash looked at Barry, staring through him.  Then recognition visibly set in, and he pushed Barry off roughly.  "I didn't do anything," he spat.  "He did.  He really killed her."

"Yeah, yeah he did," Barry said, glancing back to Cisco and H.R. for backup.  They stared down at the two Barrys from the platform, stock still, utterly out of their depth.  Barry turned back to the Flash, his hands up to settle, to soothe.  "And I've had to live with that every day for the last twenty-four years.  But it's okay.  Really, it's okay.  He only did what he had to do."

The Flash waved off Barry's consoling reach, turning to pace around the empty space in front of the breach pad.  His hands went to his face, and the other three pretended not to see him wipe away his tears.  After a minute of this, the Flash turned searching eyes on the room, stopping at last on Cisco.

"Mr. Ramon--"

Two voices answered him:  "Yes?"  Cisco shot H.R. a dirty look.

"Please, call me Cisco.  Mr. Ramon is my husband."  He made a dismissive gesture towards the man in question.

"We don't hyphenate on my Earth," H.R. told the Flash, as if any explanation had been asked for or needed.

Cisco snapped his fingers several times to get H.R.'s attention.  "Sweetheart, how about you let the grown-ups talk now, alright?"

This trivial exchange washed on over the Flash, completely unheeded.  "Cisco," he said earnestly, stalking past Barry and up to the console platform, "The Reverse-Flash -- Eobard Thawne -- what happened to him, is he here?"

It was Cisco's turn to look to Barry for guidance.  At Barry's small helpless shrug, Cisco spread his hands and offered the Flash a reassuring smile.  "No worries there, my friend.  We took care of him ages ago."

A thunderstorm of emotion passed over the Flash's face.  "What do you mean?" he asked, his voice low and cold.

Again Cisco looked to Barry, a trifle started this time around.  "We … it's complicated because we didn't know who we were dealing with until it was too late.  But to make a long story short, we fought him, and we won."

Barry shuffled forward and put a foot on the bottom step, looking up at his alternate timeline doppelganger.  "He lost his speed in the Crisis so he built the particle accelerator and created me, the Flash, just so I could open a wormhole and send him back to the future."

The Flash ducked his head down and to the side, putting Barry in his peripheral vision without really looking at him.  "And you stopped him from going back?"

Barry rolled his shoulders, defensive and a little proud.  "He gave me a choice, he wanted me to choose between saving my mother or stopping him.  Obviously I had to stop him."

A heavy silence filled the breach room as the Flash processed this information.  "He's dead?"  A flat monotone question.

Cisco sucked both his lips in and let them go with a pop.  "Functionally, yes.  If you want to get specific, due to temporal grafting we were able to erase Eobard Thawne from this timeline entirely."

The Flash startled everyone present by attempting to put his fist through the console's steel desktop.  The force of it knocked the book, Cisco's alpha timeline totem, to the floor.  In the shocked silence that followed, the Flash calmly bent and retrieved it, thumbing the yellowed pages with infinite tenderness.

"I took his speed," the Flash said after a moment.  He didn't look up from the book he held.  "Most of it.  The second she died, the exact instant the divergent timeline was created, I felt myself start to merge with that version of me.  I didn't know if I would stay connected to the Speed Force long enough to make it out.  I took his speed, thinking he'd find another way back."

While Cisco and Barry exchanged another volley of nonverbal communicaes, H.R. raised his hand.  "Forgive me for interrupting, but I think I must be missing something.  I never met the guy, but I always understood that the Reverse-Flash was nasty business.  I'm H.R., by the way.  Originally Earth-19 Harrison Wells, although don't be alarmed if you don't see the resemblance.  Facial transmogrification and all that."

H.R. extended his hand to the Flash, who just looked at it dully without moving.

"You were wrong about him."  The Flash slowly lifted his eyes to look at H.R., Cisco, and finally Barry in turn.  "He played his part in the Crisis because I asked him to, and in return for saving the multiverse, he gets erased from it?"

In the uneasy silence that followed, only one man was brave enough to speak.

"I lobbied hard to call it the 'Alpha-Beta-Crisis' because then it spells A-B-C," H.R. said brightly.  "Nifty, right?  Like that alphabet soup you have here, gosh I love that soup; on my Earth all we had was Roman numeral soup -- can you say booooring."

Cisco shook his head, eyes locked on the floor.  "H.R., love of my life, shut your mouth before I divorce you again," he warned quietly.

H.R. just chuckled nervously.  "You're joking -- he's just joking.  What a jokester, my Francesco.  Really keen on his jokes, this one.  Always with the jokes!"

"Keep flappin' that trap and we'll see if I'm joking, won't we?"  When Cisco looked up at him, there was fire in his eyes.

H.R. paled.  He twiddled his drumstick and edged towards the exit.  "Why don't I just go grab us a couple of coffees?  You still a decaf man, A.B.A?  The first A stands for--"

"H.R.!"

In the wake of the echoes of Cisco's outburst dying down around them in the cavernous stillness of the breach room, H.R. effected his escape.  "Right, I'll let you unpack that one on your own time.  H.R. out."

Barry stirred, making to follow him.  "Nate was right," he said, bitterly, enigmatically, to Cisco as he passed the Flash on the way to the door.  "Nate was right all along."

Cisco was left alone with the grieving Flash, who stood there holding that book like a ghost of a man.  He cleared his throat.  "Look.  I don't know who Eobard Thawne was before he got here, other than what he told us about his rivalry with you.  But while he was here, lying to us every day, he did a lot of terrible things.  Hurt a lot of people.  I'm sorry if we got it wrong, but he didn't leave us a choice."

Very, very slowly, Barry lifted his head.

"Didn't he?"

A Last love,

proper in conclusion,

should snip the wings

forbidding further flight.

But I, now,

reft of that confusion,

am lifted up

and speeding toward the light.

Recovery - Maya Angelou

MAN OUT OF TIME

PART III.b

Central City, Missouri - 2015 - SPRING

Harrison Wells leaned back in his chair, slid his glasses back off his face, and became Eobard Thawne.

"While we're on the subject of confessions," he told the blank glassy lens of the holo-recorder, "I'll admit that sometimes I've wondered if you were ever real."

Eobard chewed over the admission, irritable, shifting in his chair like he might stand up and turn the recorder off.  He looked down at the glasses in his hands, and when he looked up, there was something rueful twisting in his lips, some dark humor glinting in his borrowed eyes.  He leaned forward, towards the lens.

"There was one--" here he stopped for a barking laugh, little more than a scoff, one elbow on the table and Wells' glasses dangling from his fingers, "--one truly chilling moment I remember, just a few years back, just after construction of the pipeline had broken ground.  The days -- and most, if not all, of the nights -- were bleeding together with the crush of meetings and inspections and deadlines and what have you; in the thick of it one would think that the place was operating on snap decisions and caffeine alone.  It wasn't, obviously.  A decade of carefully laid plans were being executed by the most proficient workforce money could buy, but I remember it felt like the whole thing could come spinning off the axle at any moment."

Eobard's grin threatened to bend towards nostalgic.  Catching it in time, he narrowed his eyes and tipped the scales of his expression in favor of bitter and away from sweet.

"Well.  One of these endlessly late nights I'm walking through the corridors, alone, and because there's a brief turnover of the crews working below, for a moment everything's silent.  A real, haunting silence.  Now me, I hardly notice.  I've got a hundred and one issues rumbling in my head, you know, the sort of overwhelming minutia that keeps the average industrialist up at night.  Nothing new there, to be honest," he shrugs, "But here I am, Dr. Harrison Wells, completely lost in the business of setting up S.T.A.R Labs, and that's when it hits me."

Eobard settled evenly on his elbows, shoulders hunched, staring down at the plastic frames he held.  Positioning these in view of the lens, he shook his head.  His voice, when he continued, held an anger that ran quiet and deep like the ocean.

"In that moment, I am Dr. Harrison Wells.  I am the inspired mind responsible for all this -- for everything S.T.A.R Labs could and will be, I, Dr. Harrison Wells, will be recognized and held responsible.  I hadn't noticed when it had become such a natural and effortless feeling to be wearing this man's name and to be standing in his place, forging his legacy.  So natural, in fact, that I had to stop and seriously consider the possibility that Eobard Thawne didn't exist."

He set the glasses on the table with infinite care, looking as though all he wanted in the world was to smash them into splinters with his fists.

Eobard looked back up, staring dead at the lens, and tersely wet his lips.  "And if he didn't exist, what guarantee did I have of your being real?"

He exhaled, another scornful almost-laugh, devoid of anything approaching humor.  He stared into the lens for a long stretch, unblinking.  Then he clicked his tongue and sat back in his chair again.

"Having come to the conclusion that none of this would mean a damn thing if you weren't out there, I soldiered on.  Every day since our last … meeting, I have done, as you so rightly insisted, what I had to do.  Every day spent working towards …."  Here Eobard shook his head with his fingers pressed to his lips, musing for a thought that either wouldn't come or he couldn't voice.  

He left that sentence unfinished, moving his hand up to scrub his forehead and eyes.  Resetting his train of thought.

"I am a man out of time, Barry," he told the middle distance to the left of the recorder, somewhere off to his right.  "In every delicate and calculated nuance of the phrase.  I am out of time."

Eobard swung his head back around to fix the lens with a half-manic grin, his shoulders twitching with jumpy shrug that was echoed in the lift of his brows.  

"'So what?' I suppose.  I was never deluded enough to believe this story had a happy ending.  Not any story that involves you and me.  Not ours."

He shook his head, the mania hardening into a grim sobriety.  "Our narrative is built on spite and is written in blood and there can be no plausible ending where both you and I find the salvation promised to all good and faithful servants.  There is no clockwork deus ex machina waiting to swoop down from the wings and deliver us from our tragedy.  That's not the kind of story we are, and I've accepted that.  I've known from the start that there was no looking you in the eye when all was said and done.  I wouldn't be recording this if I didn't know, for a fact, that this is the only chance I have to…."

Eobard grimaced, a thinning of the lips and a deepening of the crow's feet at the sides of his eyes.  Maybe Harrison Wells was a man who could apologize.  This man was not Harrison Wells.

"Maybe I got ahead of myself.  Clearly, if you're watching this, then I managed to get myself killed."  He paused to let this sink in, an ironic smile directed at the lens.  "I can't be too upset about it, because if you're watching this, then I also managed to close the last loop in making this message available to you.  Playing Russian Roulette against the multiverse is a thrilling prospect, I assure you."  He winked while saying this.

"In any case, since this is a message from a dead man, I want to ask you not to blame these people for what they've done.  In this reality it's not too egotistical to say that each one of them is a masterpiece sculpted by yours truly, so in the end, if they were able to outwit me and orchestrate my death, then the appropriate response should be pride.  Forgive them, if you can.  And as for this timeline's Barry Allen, I wonder if you can forgive me."

Eobard spoke these last words directly to the lens, and as they faded from his lips he dropped his gaze as if to study the lab table a while.  At last he sighed and lifted his head to address the the invisible future recipient of the message.

"Barry Allen."  He said the name like a prayer, resonant with awe and holy fervor.  "Words alone cannot express the width and depth of the many varied sentiments I carry for you.  I face my destiny with the assumption that my actions have been eloquent enough."

His gaze went soft, turned inward, focused on something he couldn't share with the lens.  The flicker of a real smile danced across his face, there and gone in a heartbeat, easy to miss.  "See you around, Flash.  When the time is right, I'll be there."  

Eobard Thawne leaned forward and switched the recording off.

The events that unfolded before the end went more or less according to plan.

First, the truth about Harrison Wells was uncovered (exhumed might be a better word, given the circumstances), exposing Eobard as the charlatan he had been since the inception of this timeline.  He was ready for this.  He had more than a few trump cards hidden up his sleeve.  Fifteen years of preparation and a genius intellect weren't so easily bested.

"Then face me now!" an impotent Barry shouted, just a voice in his ear, all bark and no bite.

"Oh," Eobard breathed, "We will face each other again, I promise you.  Soon.  Very, very soon."  Whether he addressed a ghost or a what-if or a never-was, or even the wounded Barry Allen to whom he currently spoke, he couldn't be certain.

Second, Eobard collected his insurance, stealing Eddie Thawne away until the final key to restoring the particle accelerator could be completed.  It didn't surprise him that Team Flash took their sweet time mounting a rescue for this relative (that's a pun) waste of space, but then again they were preoccupied with monkeying around and booking rogue international flights.

"I'm impressed you went to such great lengths to keep those people from harm.  Ever the hero, huh, Barry?"  The sentiment came out far less sarcastic than the situation required.

Barry didn't notice.  He stood there with his shoulders squared and his brow set, full indignant tantrum mode.  "You've hurt enough people."

"I know, you see me as the villain.  But Barry, if you were to look back -- look back carefully -- at everything I've done, every wheel I have set in motion, you would realize I have only done what I had to do.  Nothing more.  Nothing less."  Only what another Barry Allen, from another time and place, had asked him to do.  Not that he expected this Barry Allen to ever understand.

Then he was outgunned by a trio of kids who looked like they'd be more comfortable at a Halloween party than on a battlefield, and thrown into a dungeon of his own creation.  The proverbial key, he presumed, was thrown away.  It stung, the indignity of his capture, but imprisonment wasn't all bad; his request for Big Belly Burgers was respected for some reason, and even if he didn't have much room to stretch his legs, he'd had plenty of time as Harrison Wells to get used to that restless tingle.

Furthermore, Eobard had resumed his position of power, effortlessly continuing the manipulation of his team from the safety of his cell.  Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon.  Joe West.  Barry Allen.  Children unable to take care of themselves, craving his direction, his attention, even as they despised and distrusted him.  He was more than willing to cater to their bad habits.

Barry, of course, came to him armed with a lifetime of thorny questions, the answers to which would only drive the barbs deeper.  Eobard didn't mind watching his would-be-once-was rival buckle under the words Eobard had ready for him.  This, too, was all part of the plan.

"Why were we enemies?"

"It doesn't matter.  It doesn't matter -- anymore." Eobard spun some villainous lies, suited to the part.  The myth of the Flash-Reverse-Flash feud, as dictated by fate, had always been destined to outlive them both.  "I'm giving you a chance to undo all the evil I've done."

Then there was Joe, coming to reprise his performance of Bad Cop slash Overly Protective Father, having no idea that Eobard had already been subjected to a very similar lecture in another lifetime, albeit under a wholly different context.

"There are people you care about.  Isn't there."  The phrasing of the question was a formality, rhetorical almost, an answer unnecessary to confirm what Joe already knew.  Eobard wouldn't lie to him at this juncture anyway.  "In the future I mean.  I don't think you'd be this eager, go as far as you have, to get back to your time unless there were people there that you held dear.  As dear as I hold Barry, and Iris."

"I do."  Eobard wouldn't lie, but he felt free to omit.  This Joe, with his finely honed detective instincts, had hit the nail square on the head, although he could never have guessed the exact nature of Eobard's relationship with his daughter and son-in-law in that other life.  Probably for the best not to mention it now.

And Cisco.  Oh, Cisco, Cisco, Cisco.  

Cisco came, with anger and betrayal eating gaping holes in his own defenses, walls built against the boogeyman too cheaply and too late, just to confirm for Eobard that the future was as yet on the right track.  A to B to C to A, blood begetting blood and violence begetting violence, the Vicious Cycle in its purest form.

"Don't be afraid, Cisco.  A great and …. honorable… destiny awaits you now.  I only hope that as you're living your great adventure, that you remember who gave you that life, and that it was given out of love."

Soon he had them wrapped around his finger, working like the well oiled machine he had built them to be, propelling his plans headlong into their final stages.  There was a wormhole to create and a time sphere to construct.  There were choices to make, and Barry made them, as only Barry knew how -- with blistering spontaneity and a staggering minimum of forethought that made Eobard want to scream.

And that was as far as Eobard's plans took him, in this series of events.  A lifetime of work, fifteen years in the making, crumbled into dust because favorite son Barry Allen willed it to be so.  It was like Eobard had bet his entire fortune on black, and the House -- that two-faced siren called Destiny -- had spun the wheel and laughed when it landed on red.

In the end, there would be no grand homecoming for Eobard Thawne.  (Bummer.)

Finally, a stray coincidence beyond all reckoning, like the trivial and all-important flap of a butterfly's wing, and, incidentally, part of no one's plan whatsoever:  a choice made, unasked, by a nobody named Eddie Thawne.

Well.  That's how this iteration of cause-and-effect played out, anyway.  But you'd embarrass yourself in underestimating Eobard Thawne if you believed for a second that his plan ended along with him.

Beloved,

In what other lives or lands

Have I known your lips

Your Hands

Your Laughter brave

Irreverent.

Those sweet excesses that

I do adore.

What surety is there

That we will meet again,

On other worlds some

Future time undated.

I defy my body's haste.

Without the promise

Of one more sweet encounter

I will not deign to die.

Refusal - Maya Angelou

PART III.a

Central City, Missouri - 2025 - Winter

It's cold.

Cold enough to stop a speedster in his tracks?  The man jingling keys out of the pocket of his genuine leather overcoat wouldn't know.  He's not the right guy to ask.  Not anymore.

It's cold enough to make him impatient, at the very least.  He fumbles the key into the padlock on the second try, the frozen metal sticking, and the padlock arm springs open with a click.  He reclaims the key and hooks the open arm of the padlock on one of the links of the security gate that keeps the hoodlums from smashing the plate glass windows.  Pulling the loose end of the chain from the frame set into the wall, he checks his footing for ice before heaving the gate to one side with the shredding screech of metal on concrete.

Keys in hand again, he unlocks the door handle and the deadbolt above it.  He looks over his shoulder before depressing the latch and letting himself in -- the twilit street is grayscale with muddy asphalt and smog-stained piles of snow lumped up around the streetlights.  The frost-crusted sidewalks are empty and the motor traffic rumbles down roads more attractive than this one.

Maybe he suffers from a touch of paranoia, always watching his back for unseen agents spying from the shadows.  Then again, maybe he wants to be followed; maybe he's waiting for someone to catch up.

You could ask him which one it is, but he won't answer.  Nobody appears out of the evening gloom, anyhow, and he pushes his way on inside.  The door closes.  The neon signs in the windows sputter to life.  They depict the colorful logos of major beer brands, mostly.  Front and center, though, in a curving script that glows a vivid red, is the word "Joe's."

Inside the bar, the man occupies himself with the minutiae that comes with opening up shop.  He may not be the fastest man alive, but he gets through all this in time.  He is methodical and diligent, and a place like this affords him precious few distractions.

Whether it should be considered lucky or not, he isn't bothered by a single customer for most of the night.

He's finished organizing the display bottles behind the bar by relative opaqueness and is about to re-order them by label size when the annoying little bell over the door jingles brightly.  It's probably one of his greatest regrets, sticking with the period (contemporary, he reminds himself) theme for the bar.  But something had warned him that it wouldn't do any good to negotiate with fate; it certainly hadn't gone his way last time he had tried.

He turns towards the counter with a bottle of what happens to be a single malt whiskey in his hand, and his heart clambers up into his throat to see a blood-red windbreaker thrown carelessly over the bar.

The face it belongs to, though, leaves much to be desired.  Sandy-haired, round in the cheeks, a little soft when it comes to the chin.  Just some guy.  Just some guy with eyes that glow with a secret he obviously wants to share.

The cost of owning a bar would be the drunks, wouldn't it, he reminds himself.

The guy's voice matches the face, plain, unexciting, nothing to write home about.  "Been out of town a while," he says, like it's the funniest joke in the world.  "Last time I was here this was a coffee shop or something."

"Jitters, sure," he nods, setting the whiskey down on the lower counter on his side of the bar, "Place closed up after the Crisis, been empty ever since.  Landlady says she doesn't know whatever happened to the previous owners.  Leased it for a song."

"Lotta people went missing after the Crisis."  Red-windbreaker guy says.  His mouth does this half-hearted shrug which manages to be both infuriating and charming.  He gives the empty interior of the bar a lazy once-over.  "Business hasn't picked up, yet, huh?  How long you been open?"

The answer is a laugh, a single "Ha."  To better explain this answer, he adds, "All told, about three hours.  You're my first customer, in fact."

The guy's eyebrows raise slowly, an out of place look of disappointment glancing from his wide eyes.  "For real?  This is your grand opening?  It's supposed to be a party."

"The last time I arranged for a grand unveiling, the whole thing blew up in my face."  He wonders how long it'll take him to shake this incessant need to couch trivial statements in private riddles.  Maybe it's just a part of him now, like so many things from that other lifetime are.  "Tell you what.  How about my first customer's first round is half off, is that more in the spirit of things?"

"I'll drink to that," the guy smiles.  He's got a sunburst smile that looks like it comes easy.  "To Joe's."

"To Joe's.  What are you having?"  He inclines his head slightly.  "I'll beg your pardon for not asking sooner -- it's my first day on the job, you see."

The guy magnanimously shrugs it off, and then, in a move that's flat-out audacious, winks.  "I'll take a shot of that whiskey you were fondling when I came in."

A shot glass is procured and the whiskey is uncapped without a word.  His hand steady, he pours the guy his discounted drink.  He sets it in front of his customer, but the guy just grins that foolhardy grin at him and ups the ante.

"Now I'm going to be all self-conscious, sitting at the bar by myself.  Bad form to drink alone, after all.  Let me buy you a drink," the guy says, cheerful, "You know, since we're catering to the spirit of things?  To celebrate your un-grand opening and all."

"I think you had one too many sales pitches in there," he says in response, dry as ice.  Still, it isn't like he can get drunk on the job.  "But a sale's a sale."

A second shot glass procured and filled, he raises his glass towards his customer, who mirrors the gesture.  "To Joe's," they say, one as bright as the other is dark, and then together they drink.

"Don't take this the wrong way," the guy says, slamming his glass back onto the counter and wincing around the burn in his throat, "but you don't exactly look like a Joe."  He leans a round cheek against his fist, his eyes watery from the sting of the alcohol.  Not a man well-versed in his liquor, this one.

In the other corner, fifteen years of business lunches and industry meet-and-greets and charitable cocktail galas have forged him into a veritable master in the art of drinking.  His shot glass meets the counter with a demure click of glass on wood.  "That would probably be because I'm not a Joe.  Though some people have told me I bear a passing resemblance to one Harrison Wells."

The guy squints, coy.  "I don't see it."

"It's something about the eyes," he offers, deadpan.  "The other guy wears glasses.  The smug old bastard thinks they make him look smarter than he is."

The other guy snorts and says under his breath, "I'm going to tell him you said that."  Raising his voice to directly address his not-Joe bartender, he asks, "If not Joe, then…?"

He crosses his arms, chewing on the question briefly.  "Haven't decided yet," he replies, just as brief, still deadpan.  There's a hard line burrowed in his brow.

"Ok, well," the guy laughs, flopping his hand to the countertop and leaning forward curiously, "Why call it Joe's, then?"

His eyes narrow a fraction, surveying this nosy Chatty Kathy with a hint of something that might soon become annoyance.  "I thought it was the bartender who was supposed to listen to boring life stories," he drawls, his voice gravel.  The other guy just waves a hand flippantly to indicate that he's not bothered by this role reversal, so he grabs the shot glasses and turns towards the small sink basin set under the far end of the counter.  

"I knew a Joe once," he explains, running the glasses under the tap.  "Long time ago.  Owed the guy a drink and unfortunately had trouble getting around to delivering on that promise."

From the other end of the bar comes a set of words that hit him the wrong way.  "That's a recurring problem for you."

"What--" he turns, slowly.  He slides the green-checked dish towel from his shoulder automatically, drying his hands by rote.  His mind is elsewhere, churning,  "--would you know about that?"

He walks mechanically back to stand across the counter from his one and only customer, glaring into this sunny round face and not seeing it at all.  "Who are you?"

The guy obligingly proffers his hand over the bar.  "Call me Bart."

He reaches forward to accept the handshake against his better judgement.  It's like he's suddenly been knocked underwater and he's not certain which way it is to the surface, the light wavy and the sound distorted and the unyielding pressure squeezing in on all sides.

The second their hands meet, Eobard feels like a drowned man who has had his life breathed back into his lungs.  Like a man on his deathbed who has been told it's all been a mistake and he's fine, he can go home now.  Hell, he feels like goddamn Sleeping Beauty herself, roused from her eternal sleep by true love's kiss.

The Speed Force arcs into him -- floods into him -- sparking along his dusty nerve endings and eddying into long-dry reservoirs.  The heat of it is astounding, raw electricity charging through this human conduit at an impossible amperage, and the experience of taking it in all at once is almost as terrifying as that first lightning strike had been all those years from now.

It probably only takes a few scant seconds, jumping his dead battery like this, but when Eobard snaps back into his surroundings with a gasp, it feels like he's been gone a lifetime.  (In the grand scheme of things, he's not wrong.)

"I'm sorry," he says, light-headed, shaking, holding onto this familiar-unfamiliar hand for dear life, "What did you say your name was."

"Bart," Barry says, that stupid beautiful grin plastered ear to ear on his stupid fake face, "Bart Allen.  I've got family in town, you may know them."

"I may -- ha, your family," Eobard mutters incoherently.  He's still holding Barry's hand and when he notices this he very nearly throws it out of his grasp.  He can feel the lightning in his eyes and he's afraid what he might do with all this newfound power.

"Barry Allen," he growls, planting both hands firmly on the counter top.  "You're late."

Barry puts his head back and laughs.

"And where on earth did you acquire that face?" Eobard roars over the laughter, "I thought being stuck with this pruney mug until the end of time was as bad as it gets, but then you come waltzing in here looking like that.  You're never happy unless you're proving me wrong, aren't you?"

"Oh that, I've got a -- hold on a second," Barry says, flicking a mirthful tear from the corner of his eye.  He rummages through the pockets of his windbreaker for a moment, ultimately retrieving a brass stylus of some sort.  "A gift from a little place called Earth-19, to answer your question."

Barry activates the stylus, casting a flash of blue light onto his round face.  There's a flicker of visual tearing, which, in three dimensions, is hard on the eyes -- but then there he is, the one and only Barry Allen.  He looks about ten years older than he should be, but that would be due to Eobard's memory being topped off with fresh memories of the wrong Barry Allen.

"Smoke and mirrors, then," Eobard nods.  "Lucky you've got options."

Barry shrugs.  "Light refraction technology, actually.  I know the face will take some getting used to, but the newspaper says the CCPD's CSI director's been missing since the crisis, and, as far as anybody knows, the Flash has vanished for good.  Bart Allen won't raise too many questions if he's moved back to town to be closer to his bereaved family in these troubled times."

"I knew a guy who believed everything he read in the newspaper," Eobard says, tossing Barry his top-shelf side-eye.

"It's a bias, I'll admit to that," Barry grins.

Eobard drops his attention to the spotless counter top below the bar, running the dishrag over it in a ploy to appear unconcerned.  "And how is Iris?  I shudder to think you came straight here without stopping home first."

Barry shifts and rustles with his jacket again, and Eobard glances up to see him tugging a thin rectangular object from another of his pockets.  The weather-stained book goes onto the bar top between them, and they both ignore it after that.

"She's good, Iris is fine," Barry tells him, a series of bobbing nods accenting his words.  "Happy I'm not dead, or not trapped in an alternate timeline, at least."

Barry stops himself, ducking his head with an embarrassed huff.  He squints back up at Eobard, a hand anxiously smoothing down the already-smooth hair on the back of his head.  "Which reminds me I owe you an apology for both of those things happening to you."

Eobard laughs, a single silent exhale that rocks his upper body with its force.  His eyelids flutter closed for a heartbeat and he's shaking his head without intending to move at all.  "You don't owe me a goddamn thing, Barry Allen.  You saw him there, didn't you?  I told him he could save her, even knowing the multiverse wouldn't allow him to.  He ran all the way back there just to listen to her die."

That narrow chin wobbles while Barry's jaw works, and Eobard knows the effect won't be at all the same on the droll soft face he's chosen to wear for the rest of his life.  "You only did what you had to do.  I won't be your judge.  You know I can't."

Eyes narrowed still, Eobard tosses his head to indicate the battered relic on the bar.  "You watched it, then?"

"Nah," Barry says.

It's not at all the answer Eobard was expecting, so it doesn't quite take the first time.  "No?"

Barry spreads his hands.  "I have a good enough guess what it says.  But as far as I'm concerned, whatever's on that disc is the last message of a dead man.  Wouldn't be right to watch it while the man's still alive."

"You're too smart for your own good, you know that."  It's not even a question.  A hesitant smile is threatening to break out over Eobard's face and he wonders if, in fighting it, he doesn't just end up looking twice as undignified.  "Here I thought I'd leave you a trail of breadcrumbs to follow -- that is, if you so chose.  Looks like I couldn't stop you from showing up on my doorstep even if I tried."

Barry leans his angular cheek against his fist again, looking up at Eobard with a hint of dreaminess in his partially lidded eyes.  "I don't know what you're talking about breadcrumbs for.  You left the hugest 'this way to Eobard' sign possible.  When I saw Cisco had this book, and when he'd gotten it from, I knew instantly you'd found a way back here."  

Eobard rolls one shoulder.  "Like I said, I told him he could save her.  I gave him that choice."

"Counting on that one-in-infinity chance that the timeline created as a result of his choice would be the one to take you home."  Barry shakes his head.  "Those are some odds to play against.  If it were me, I wouldn't take 'em."

Eobard leans forward onto the bar.  "An infinite number of Eobards were destined not to make it out of there," he says, the familiar existential ache settling over him, "The only risk was in being one of them."

"But you're you," Barry says, voice low, eyes bright.  "Behind that face -- which I don't mind at all, I have to say -- you're still you.  And here you are."

"Here we are," Eobard agrees.  He's not sure what there is left to say.  

Barry taps the warped cover of his mother's book with a thoughtful fingertip.  "All that stuff they found that we have to leave behind -- we've got our work cut out for us, don't we?  If you've got the holo-recording on you, we can run back home and get my copy of this," he drums his fingers on the book, "out of the den.  I know Iris would be thrilled to see you."

He's suddenly bashful, unable to lift his eyes from where they rest on the book cover.  Their work's cut out for them indeed.  They both have some battle scars that will need to mend before everything's back to the way it was before fate took them down two very different paths.

Eobard licks his lips.  He reaches out and puts his hand on Barry's, on top of the book.  He waits until Barry looks up.  

"I intend to take you up on your offer at some point, so don't take this the wrong way:  there's no rush.  Now that I've got my speed back -- by the way I'm not angry with you for taking it and I'll have to find some really creative and probably filthy way of thanking you properly for returning it -- I'll close these last loops when I get to them.  If I've learned anything from this life of mine, it's that everything happens in its own time.  Whether you want it to or not."

Barry just nods, silent.  Eobard slips his hand off and bends to pull two more shot glasses from the shelf below the counter.  Barry watches him pour the whiskey, and flicks his eyes up to Eobard when one of the full glasses is placed in front of him.

"Besides," Eobard says, lifting his glass.  "You can't just casually mention an 'Earth-19' and leave it at that.  I've been away for fifteen years, remember, I believe we have some catching up to do."

The corner of Barry's mouth screws up into a chewed-on smile.  He takes his glass in his thin fingers and lifts it in kind.  "It's a long story, you sure you've got the time?"

Eobard's smile flashes brighter than lightning.  "Barry Allen, who do you think I am?  I've got all the time in the world."

in the infinite multiverse theory, this happens at least once

Checking the corridor was clear before he entered, Nate slipped into the study, loot in hand.

"Gideon, open a log for me, will ya?  I've got to record the details of this alpha timeline artifact before we ship it off to Cisco."  He squeezed himself behind the curved desk in the center of the room, setting the small worn paperback reverently on the table top between a carved stone bowl and the little magnetic globe.

"Certainly, Dr. Heywood," Gideon's ephemeral voice replied.  "Will this be an addition to your series of speculations on the possible events that lead these artifacts to be strewn about the timeline?"

"You got it, Gideon," Nate told the room, his focus already scoping in towards the book and the mystery it contained.

"Very well.  You may begin recording at any time."

Nate pulled the thin white envelope from its place nestled between the pages, and settled back in his chair, running a thumb over the inked letters.  He cleared his throat.

"Canyon City, Yukon Territory.  Nineteen-oh-two.  Winter."

Here he paused, abruptly leaning forward over the desk to peer out through the door and into what he could see of the corridor beyond.  All clear.  He sat back again and resumed his "log."

"It's cold.  Cold enough to stop a speedster in his tracks…."

Elsewhere on the Waverider, Jax put his hand on the bulkhead and poked his head into the kitchen.  Empty.  "Yo Gideon."

"Yes, Mr. Jackson?"

"You seen Nate anywhere?  We're gonna hit up 1943 Chicago for the invention of the deep dish, wanna see if he's in."

There was a pause before Gideon answered.  "Dr. Heywood is currently in the study recording a log of the artifact the team recovered from 1903.  I can notify him of your plans, if you wish."

Jax crossed his arms, leaning back against the bulkhead in the kitchen doorway.  "A log, huh?  More of his sappy time traveler fanfiction?"

There was an even longer pause.  Long enough to cause concern about Gideon's continued operation.  But her voice eventually echoed down an answer.  "Yes."

"That's cool," Jax shrugged.  "Don't bother him on account of me.  Just let me know when he's done, alright?  I'm dying to see what happens next.

[travelworldnetwork]

By Stacey McKenna

29 January 2019

I read the highway signs aloud as I whizzed past, trying to mimic the sing-songy Québécois twang on the radio. It was early May, and I chattered to myself in French as I cut north out of Québec City, through Jacques-Cartier National Park, passing signs warning against collisions with moose and signalling turnoffs to lakes still cloaked in patchworks of ice. I was headed towards the shores and clifftops of one of the world’s longest fjords, hoping to glimpse whales, ride horses and practice a language that I’ve spoken for most of my life, but never quite embraced as my own.

French wasn’t something I chose for myself. The daughter of a Francophile father, I learned it through the Martine storybooks my dad read to me at bedtime, a toddlerhood spent in Strasbourg and endless dad-mandated classes at summer camps and schools in the US, where I grew up. My dad has loved France since he was young. He’s spent years in the country since his first stay as a high-school exchange student, and when I ask him what he loves about the place, he waxes on about friendships and food, beautiful cities and a particular joie de vivre. I now understand that he always wanted to share that with me.

View image of Writer Stacey McKenna travelled to Québec in hopes of practicing the French language (Credit: Credit: Ken Gillespie Photography/Alamy)

My parents tell me that when I was two or three years old, I did have my own relationship with the language: I refused to speak it with them, yet happily babbled on with my babysitter in Strasbourg. But most of the French interactions I recall from my childhood happened in Paris during my self-conscious adolescence. I would tag along with my dad during holidays, bored by the same long meals and adult conversations he so enjoyed. And when I tried setting out on my own, even my most basic attempts to buy a croissant and talk to people were marked by brusque corrections of my American accent.

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I kept returning to France with my dad well into adulthood, but I did so reluctantly, no longer wanting to talk for myself or explore on my own. I had lost confidence in my ability to get the language right, so I let go of my desire to speak it.

That is until the first time I visited Québec 14 years ago as a graduate student. My decision to study in Montréal had less to do with French itself than with my romantic notion of life in a bilingual city where I could, in theory, speak English too.

A relic of pre-revolutionary France, Canadian French retains old qualities that make it difficult for the uninitiated to grasp. “We use words [the French] don’t use anymore, and make distinctions between sounds they’ve flattened,” explained Emilie Nicolas, a Québec-born linguistic anthropology graduate student at the University of Toronto.

Although my classes were in English, I lived in a French neighbourhood and was met with patience and smiles as I struggled with the mellifluous accent and unfamiliar local words. Something about the Québécois diphthongs and nasally vowels lured me in. My interest in French was piqued – even if my painful linguistic past caused my confidence to remain low.

View image of McKenna’s father, a Francophile, had taught her French as a child, when they temporarily lived in Strasbourg (Credit: Credit: Stacey McKenna)

Québec’s own fraught linguistic history dates back to 1763, when France ceded the area to Britain. For the next 200 years, the local government filtered French out of schools and adopted measures that benefitted English speakers. By the 1960s, francophones remained worse off economically and socially than their anglophone counterparts, and a distinct cultural and class divide permeated the province.

The 1970s brought a push for pro-French language planning, and with it bills – like the Charter of the French Language – that explicitly linked French to Québécois identity and made it the only official language of the province. But, for some, the fear that French will once again come under attack lingers. That tension was palpable for me in the nine months I lived in Montréal. I never knew which language I was supposed to speak in a given situation, and each choice felt rife with culturally charged meaning that piled on my pre-existing anxiety.

So when I returned last spring, the irony wasn’t lost on me. Here I was, searching for personal peace with French in a region where the language has been mired in discord for centuries. But this time, rather than staying in Montréal, I headed deeper into the province and forced myself to plough through my timidity in a place where most people are monolingual.

View image of Although McKenna continued to travel to France with her father, she lost the desire to speak the language (Credit: Credit: Stacey McKenna)

As I stepped up to the car rental counter at Québec City’s Jean Lesage International Airport, I rehearsed my lines with the trepidation that comes from an upbringing of terse correction: "Je m'appelle Stacey McKenna. J'ai réservé une voiture." I forced the words through the lump of nerves in my throat. The woman behind the counter beamed and began rattling off details – all in French. By the time I settled into my little red Volkswagen and set out on the road, I felt ready.

As I traced a loop from Québec City to the Saguenay Fjord and through the region of Charlevoix, French started to feel like a key to the region’s secrets. I arrived in the little town of L’Anse-Saint-Jean just ahead of sea kayaking and whale watching season, so in the morning over breakfast, I asked my bilingual host (guiltily, in English) for advice. He suggested a nearby hike, then asked whether I spoke any French. “I do,” I replied, staring at my plate and pushing my egg around with my fork. “But not nearly as well as you speak English."

“Don’t be shy,” he said. “We like hearing your English accent.”

I felt my belly warm with a newfound affection for the tiny but significant experiences that French – even my imperfect French – might unlock here

According to Richard Bourhis, linguistic psychologist at Université du Québec à Montréal, schooling on pronunciation tends to be less rigid in Québec than in France, which likely creates a difference in how foreign speakers are perceived. “[In France] they're taught that they can’t make mistakes in French, so they don't want you to make a mistake,” he said. “Francophones all over Canada don't mind using English or French with all kinds of accents… so long as we can understand each other.”

As my host had warned, the trail was still slick with snowmelt. I followed it upward – scanning the forest for signs of moose as I went – and soon found myself tromping through lingering drifts.

I turned back before the snow got too deep to cross in trainers, and on my descent, I ran into a group dressed far more appropriately for the muddy spring terrain than I. They asked me in French if there was still snow on top, and to my surprise, I didn’t hesitate. “Je ne sais pas. Je ne suis pas allée au sommet.” (“I don’t know. I didn’t go to the summit.”) They smiled, thanked me and continued their ascent. I felt my belly warm with a newfound affection for the tiny but significant experiences that French – even my imperfect French – might unlock here.

View image of Rather than staying in the bilingual city of Montréal, McKenna travelled deeper into Québec where most people are monolingual (Credit: Credit: Stacey McKenna)

The next day, I headed to Baie-Sainte-Catherine, where I caught a whale-watching boat through the Saguenay-St Lawrence Marine Park. Bracing against the wind and the rocking waves, I squinted, hoping to spot the tell-tale spray from a blowhole. As I listened to the on-board scientist talking easily in French and English about the underwater ecosystems, I wondered whether, by resisting for all these years, I’d squandered my own chance at bilingualism.

It’s a mistake French-Canadians seem less likely to make, as Québec’s French-speaking population is currently driving an increase in Canada’s bilingualism rate. “We’re very francophone still, but we don’t see speaking multiple languages as an either/or thing,” Nicolas said. “It adds. It doesn’t erase or threaten who you are in the same way it once did.”

This attitude was evident all over the province: at the Musée du Fjord in Saguenay; the cafe in Baie-Saint-Paul; the restaurant in Québec City. Over and over again, people encouraged me with their patience, asked where I had learned French and complimented my efforts. Inspired by the chance to practice this familiar language in a new, friendlier setting, I suddenly found myself overwhelmed by the pleasure of speaking French. I started drawing out conversations and asking for directions and recommendations I didn’t need. French had lost its tarnish. But more than that, it was becoming mine.

View image of Stacey McKenna: “I suddenly found myself overwhelmed by the pleasure of speaking French” (Credit: Credit: Pierre Rochon photography/Alamy)

When I returned to Québec City, I walked cobbled streets below matte metal roofs. The sky was grey, and I was reminded of days dawdling around Paris with my father. Grateful for the years he had insisted I learn his favourite language, I pulled out my phone and texted: "Je suis à Québec. C'est bon, mais ça serait mieux si tu étais ici." (“I’m in Québec. It's good, but it would be better if you were here.”) He agreed, and suggested we visit Québec together one day.

French had lost its tarnish – but more than that, it was becoming mine

After five days on the mostly francophone roads of rural Québec, I hopped a train to Montréal, home to the majority of the province’s bilingual residents and much of its linguistic tension. Six months prior, provincial legislators had unanimously approved a motion banning the city’s ubiquitous ‘bonjour-hi’ greeting. For nationalists, the phrase is a symbolic threat against French. But according to Bourhis, it’s an embrace of bilingualism, and a way to welcome people of either mother tongue. And despite the resolution, it isn’t going anywhere.

I dropped my bags at my hotel and headed to a glass-fronted restaurant near Old Montréal for lunch. As I took my seat, the server offered a cheery “Bonjour, hi!”. I returned the greeting, and in French free from fear, asked to see a menu.

Travel Journeys is a BBC Travel series exploring travellers’ inner journeys of transformation and growth as they experience the world.

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BBC Travel – Adventure Experience

[travelworldnetwork]

By Stacey McKenna

29 January 2019

I read the highway signs aloud as I whizzed past, trying to mimic the sing-songy Québécois twang on the radio. It was early May, and I chattered to myself in French as I cut north out of Québec City, through Jacques-Cartier National Park, passing signs warning against collisions with moose and signalling turnoffs to lakes still cloaked in patchworks of ice. I was headed towards the shores and clifftops of one of the world’s longest fjords, hoping to glimpse whales, ride horses and practice a language that I’ve spoken for most of my life, but never quite embraced as my own.

French wasn’t something I chose for myself. The daughter of a Francophile father, I learned it through the Martine storybooks my dad read to me at bedtime, a toddlerhood spent in Strasbourg and endless dad-mandated classes at summer camps and schools in the US, where I grew up. My dad has loved France since he was young. He’s spent years in the country since his first stay as a high-school exchange student, and when I ask him what he loves about the place, he waxes on about friendships and food, beautiful cities and a particular joie de vivre. I now understand that he always wanted to share that with me.

View image of Writer Stacey McKenna travelled to Québec in hopes of practicing the French language (Credit: Credit: Ken Gillespie Photography/Alamy)

My parents tell me that when I was two or three years old, I did have my own relationship with the language: I refused to speak it with them, yet happily babbled on with my babysitter in Strasbourg. But most of the French interactions I recall from my childhood happened in Paris during my self-conscious adolescence. I would tag along with my dad during holidays, bored by the same long meals and adult conversations he so enjoyed. And when I tried setting out on my own, even my most basic attempts to buy a croissant and talk to people were marked by brusque corrections of my American accent.

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I kept returning to France with my dad well into adulthood, but I did so reluctantly, no longer wanting to talk for myself or explore on my own. I had lost confidence in my ability to get the language right, so I let go of my desire to speak it.

That is until the first time I visited Québec 14 years ago as a graduate student. My decision to study in Montréal had less to do with French itself than with my romantic notion of life in a bilingual city where I could, in theory, speak English too.

A relic of pre-revolutionary France, Canadian French retains old qualities that make it difficult for the uninitiated to grasp. “We use words [the French] don’t use anymore, and make distinctions between sounds they’ve flattened,” explained Emilie Nicolas, a Québec-born linguistic anthropology graduate student at the University of Toronto.

Although my classes were in English, I lived in a French neighbourhood and was met with patience and smiles as I struggled with the mellifluous accent and unfamiliar local words. Something about the Québécois diphthongs and nasally vowels lured me in. My interest in French was piqued – even if my painful linguistic past caused my confidence to remain low.

View image of McKenna’s father, a Francophile, had taught her French as a child, when they temporarily lived in Strasbourg (Credit: Credit: Stacey McKenna)

Québec’s own fraught linguistic history dates back to 1763, when France ceded the area to Britain. For the next 200 years, the local government filtered French out of schools and adopted measures that benefitted English speakers. By the 1960s, francophones remained worse off economically and socially than their anglophone counterparts, and a distinct cultural and class divide permeated the province.

The 1970s brought a push for pro-French language planning, and with it bills – like the Charter of the French Language – that explicitly linked French to Québécois identity and made it the only official language of the province. But, for some, the fear that French will once again come under attack lingers. That tension was palpable for me in the nine months I lived in Montréal. I never knew which language I was supposed to speak in a given situation, and each choice felt rife with culturally charged meaning that piled on my pre-existing anxiety.

So when I returned last spring, the irony wasn’t lost on me. Here I was, searching for personal peace with French in a region where the language has been mired in discord for centuries. But this time, rather than staying in Montréal, I headed deeper into the province and forced myself to plough through my timidity in a place where most people are monolingual.

View image of Although McKenna continued to travel to France with her father, she lost the desire to speak the language (Credit: Credit: Stacey McKenna)

As I stepped up to the car rental counter at Québec City’s Jean Lesage International Airport, I rehearsed my lines with the trepidation that comes from an upbringing of terse correction: "Je m'appelle Stacey McKenna. J'ai réservé une voiture." I forced the words through the lump of nerves in my throat. The woman behind the counter beamed and began rattling off details – all in French. By the time I settled into my little red Volkswagen and set out on the road, I felt ready.

As I traced a loop from Québec City to the Saguenay Fjord and through the region of Charlevoix, French started to feel like a key to the region’s secrets. I arrived in the little town of L’Anse-Saint-Jean just ahead of sea kayaking and whale watching season, so in the morning over breakfast, I asked my bilingual host (guiltily, in English) for advice. He suggested a nearby hike, then asked whether I spoke any French. “I do,” I replied, staring at my plate and pushing my egg around with my fork. “But not nearly as well as you speak English."

“Don’t be shy,” he said. “We like hearing your English accent.”

I felt my belly warm with a newfound affection for the tiny but significant experiences that French – even my imperfect French – might unlock here

According to Richard Bourhis, linguistic psychologist at Université du Québec à Montréal, schooling on pronunciation tends to be less rigid in Québec than in France, which likely creates a difference in how foreign speakers are perceived. “[In France] they're taught that they can’t make mistakes in French, so they don't want you to make a mistake,” he said. “Francophones all over Canada don't mind using English or French with all kinds of accents… so long as we can understand each other.”

As my host had warned, the trail was still slick with snowmelt. I followed it upward – scanning the forest for signs of moose as I went – and soon found myself tromping through lingering drifts.

I turned back before the snow got too deep to cross in trainers, and on my descent, I ran into a group dressed far more appropriately for the muddy spring terrain than I. They asked me in French if there was still snow on top, and to my surprise, I didn’t hesitate. “Je ne sais pas. Je ne suis pas allée au sommet.” (“I don’t know. I didn’t go to the summit.”) They smiled, thanked me and continued their ascent. I felt my belly warm with a newfound affection for the tiny but significant experiences that French – even my imperfect French – might unlock here.

View image of Rather than staying in the bilingual city of Montréal, McKenna travelled deeper into Québec where most people are monolingual (Credit: Credit: Stacey McKenna)

The next day, I headed to Baie-Sainte-Catherine, where I caught a whale-watching boat through the Saguenay-St Lawrence Marine Park. Bracing against the wind and the rocking waves, I squinted, hoping to spot the tell-tale spray from a blowhole. As I listened to the on-board scientist talking easily in French and English about the underwater ecosystems, I wondered whether, by resisting for all these years, I’d squandered my own chance at bilingualism.

It’s a mistake French-Canadians seem less likely to make, as Québec’s French-speaking population is currently driving an increase in Canada’s bilingualism rate. “We’re very francophone still, but we don’t see speaking multiple languages as an either/or thing,” Nicolas said. “It adds. It doesn’t erase or threaten who you are in the same way it once did.”

This attitude was evident all over the province: at the Musée du Fjord in Saguenay; the cafe in Baie-Saint-Paul; the restaurant in Québec City. Over and over again, people encouraged me with their patience, asked where I had learned French and complimented my efforts. Inspired by the chance to practice this familiar language in a new, friendlier setting, I suddenly found myself overwhelmed by the pleasure of speaking French. I started drawing out conversations and asking for directions and recommendations I didn’t need. French had lost its tarnish. But more than that, it was becoming mine.

View image of Stacey McKenna: “I suddenly found myself overwhelmed by the pleasure of speaking French” (Credit: Credit: Pierre Rochon photography/Alamy)

When I returned to Québec City, I walked cobbled streets below matte metal roofs. The sky was grey, and I was reminded of days dawdling around Paris with my father. Grateful for the years he had insisted I learn his favourite language, I pulled out my phone and texted: "Je suis à Québec. C'est bon, mais ça serait mieux si tu étais ici." (“I’m in Québec. It's good, but it would be better if you were here.”) He agreed, and suggested we visit Québec together one day.

French had lost its tarnish – but more than that, it was becoming mine

After five days on the mostly francophone roads of rural Québec, I hopped a train to Montréal, home to the majority of the province’s bilingual residents and much of its linguistic tension. Six months prior, provincial legislators had unanimously approved a motion banning the city’s ubiquitous ‘bonjour-hi’ greeting. For nationalists, the phrase is a symbolic threat against French. But according to Bourhis, it’s an embrace of bilingualism, and a way to welcome people of either mother tongue. And despite the resolution, it isn’t going anywhere.

I dropped my bags at my hotel and headed to a glass-fronted restaurant near Old Montréal for lunch. As I took my seat, the server offered a cheery “Bonjour, hi!”. I returned the greeting, and in French free from fear, asked to see a menu.

Travel Journeys is a BBC Travel series exploring travellers’ inner journeys of transformation and growth as they experience the world.

Join more than three million BBC Travel fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

BBC Travel – Adventure Experience