#moved the readmore up for this section to avoid spoilers for anyone who hasn't read other sections

[youhearstatic]

{10}

After being missing for three days, Barry has been mysteriously de-aged. Now he looks 20 years old and doesn’t remember anyone. Lup, Kravitz, and Taako are trying to figure things out.

Now officially called “Losing Time” and up on AO3 if you’d prefer to read there.

Part One  | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven | Part Eight | Part Nine | Part Ten | Part Eleven | Part Twelve | Part Thirteen | Part Fourteen | Part Fifteen

Part Ten:

Sildar’s fingers pass through the bounds of Lup’s portal and it’s as if a star goes supernova in the space. Light crashes through both sides of the portal, splintering through the room around Sildar and Lup. She grabs his other hand to pull him back but he’s frozen, completely immovable. His face is etched in pain, eyes wide and unseeing, mouth a torn grimace of agony.

“Push him through!” Kravitz yells from the other side. “Get him on this side NOW!”

Lup changes position, struggling to push him forward instead of pulling him back. “Babe, can you hear me?” she pleads, “Help me.”

He’s still frozen, a statue with one arm disappearing into an explosion of light. Lup’s heart nearly stops as she realizes his skin is shimmering in a familiar way: the way bodies do as their souls are cut free. But he’s alive! Lup thinks with horror, This can’t…

“Go!” she screams at him, “You have to go through!”

She can’t see Kravitz or Taako through the portal for the light erupting around her and Sildar. Another sick twist of fear grips her as she realizes something else; the light is no longer coming from just the place where his fingers breach the portal. Now it’s seeping from his skin, his eyes, his mouth, everywhere on him.

“This isn’t working!” she screams through the portal. “Let go of him!” she yells, “I’m gonna…” she doesn’t finish the thought, just wraps her hand around his and casts Plane Shift to pull them to the Astral Plane.

She is propelled into the demispace between the Material Plane and the Astral and feels his essence wrenching away from her like it’s tied to an anchor that can’t break loose. She uses all her will and determination and every desperate ounce of strength to summon him through with her. For one interminable moment it seems impossible. In that space between planes she screams in a voice that isn’t a voice, “I won’t lose you!” Softly, in a whisper of sound that isn’t sound she hears him respond as if from a great distance, “Lup…”

The hold on him breaks at last and they crash to the ground on the Astral Plane near Kravitz and Taako.

Lup scrambles to his side. He’s lying face down and the light is still pouring out of him. “Kravitz,” she begs, “help me.”

“Talk to him,” Kravitz commands. His scythe appears in his hands and he uses it to tear through thousands of cobweb-like strands that connect to Sildar and stretch out into the boundless space around them. The threads are pulling at him, pulling at the light still bleeding away from him.

“Babe,” Lup demands, “I told you I’m not losing you but you have to hold on to me too. Wherever you are you have to listen to me and come back, right now. I…” Lup’s voice is thick with tears even here on the Astral Plane where tears and air are only instinct. Lup struggles to turn him over and pull him into her lap.

Taako kneels beside his sister and brother-in-law. “Hey!” Taako says in a voice more suited to rebuking an unwelcome interloper in his kitchen than speaking to a friend whose very soul is draining away in front of their eyes. “If you even think of disappearing I’m never gonna forgive you. So unless you want that on your shoulders, you better get your shit together right now.”

“Babe,” Lup says again and again, “Babe, please.” She’s rocking him in her lap, clutching him tightly to her.

Kravitz finishes severing the fibers and joins them at his side. “This is up to you,” he informs Sildar. “You have to fight.”

“Fight,” Lup repeats. “Fight this right now and come back to me,” she demands.

Time moves differently in the Astral Plane. Some moments are years, some years are moments. Both measures of time seem to pass before they are rewarded with a ragged, “Lup…”

Taako sags back with relief and Lup barks out a strangled laugh. “Fuck, you scared me,” she manages to say, swiping the back of her hand across her eyes. “Fuck.”

“That test failed,” he tells her weakly. The light pooling around him and the shimmer beneath his skin have disappeared but he looks muted somehow - far more pale than usual.

“I’m starting to think you’re not a very good scientist after all,” Taako informs him as he stands and adjusts his hat. “No more science for you today,” he adds.

“Deal,” Sildar responds.

“What the fuck was that, Kravitz? Was that what I think…”

Kravitz meets her eyes and gives her a single, small nod.

“What?” Taako asks.

“His soul,” Lup says, helping her husband slowly stand.

“What?” Sildar asks.

“That light,” she answers softly. “It was your soul.” Lup pulls Sildar’s hand into hers again. His color is returning but he still seems faded. She rubs her hands over his as if warming his fingers will help somehow.

“Krav, I’ve been with you on a job and it was nothing like that,” Taako insists.

“Not for our usual jobs, no,” Kravitz answers. “Not for bounties.”

“So a regular death looks like that?”

“No,” Kravitz answers again. “That was…explosive. That was his soul being torn out while he’s still alive.”

“When that Wonderland lich tried that with Magnus…” Taako argues.

“This wasn’t someone trying to move in. This was… whatever did this must have been tied to the Astral Plane so that when he tried to cross over….” He holds up his hands in two closed fists and then flings them open, fingers spreading to pantomime an explosion. “Like setting off a bomb.”

“Which was probably supposed to happen three days ago,” Lup points out.

Kravitz nods. “The de-aging was probably unintended. Barry… Sildar…” Kravitz frowns. “Barry-of-three-days-ago was likely expected to portal through the Astral Plane as usual after the bounty and be caught unaware. But I’d guess he suspected something was fishy with that bounty and was investigating the situation instead.”

“If he’d gone through then…” Lup says with a shiver.

Words tumble from Taako in a flurry, “But if his soul is torn out while he’s still alive, couldn’t he get it back? Especially if he’s on the Astral Plane? Even if he’s not a lich right now? Is that what just happened?”

“Not exactly. That was messy and, well, I’m not sure he could have made it through the portal… intact. Lup only got him here by spell and even then… If he made it through the portal and if he got clear of the threads trying to tie him to the Sea of Souls and if he’d somehow known how to anchor his soul inside himself again despite losing all his knowledge on the subject…” Kravitz pauses, trying to find the words to explain this unusual situation. “Who knows? He’s off the books, so to speak. He and Istus decide.”

“Except there’s another person trying to make the decision, too,” Lup says.

“Exactly,” Kravitz agrees.

“Well, fuck,” Taako responds impatiently, “with Istus and Bluejeans here, it’s already two to one. We just have to cut this mystery villain out of the equation!”

Sildar has been watching this exchange without comment. After Taako speaks, he looks at the elf and says, “Nerd.”

Taako’s eyes bulge. “Did Sildar Hallwinter just call me, Taako from TV a ‘nerd’? Did that really just happen?”

Lup is half collapsing beside her husband, nearly boneless with an all-encompassing and slightly hysterical laughter. “Oh my gods, babe, that… That was priceless.”

Kravitz is biting back a grin as well.

“Sorry,” Sildar says, not looking especially apologetic. “Lup suggested it earlier, before we came out to talk to you both, and…”

“Okay, it was my suggestion, yes, but that timing!” Lup wipes her eyes again. “I told you you’re a badass,” she adds.

“Well, I’m glad the conversation about your soul was so boring to you…” Taako says. “Okay, yeah, I’ll be honest, I’m a little bit proud, Barold. Er, Sildar. But if the science thing doesn’t work out I still wouldn’t recommend you for the comedy circuit, ya feel?”

Sildar nods.

Kravitz tilts his head as if listening to a voice only he hears. A moment later, Lup’s attention is similarly caught.

Sildar looks back and forth between them but it’s Taako who explains. “I’ve seen that look before. The Raven Queen has summoned them.”

Part Eleven