Work Text:
YEAR
2010
Hannah goes back to the Emerson because she has nowhere else to go. The little apartment in Philadelphia, where she spent seven months alone, would only remind her of what she’s given up: the child she might never see again. The man whose arms felt so much like home, but whose eyes only reflected sadness and confusion in the end.
The Emerson isn’t home, but it’s the closest thing she has. Her steps are heavy with exhaustion when she opens the door of suite 607, but she still slides her gun out of her jeans as she enters, checking the room. It’s habit more than anything; there isn’t much left in her that cares what happens to her. But the room is untouched, everything where she left it more than a year ago. The calendar on the desk still says March 8, 2009.
Hannah closes the door and sits down on the bed. She lays the gun down beside her, and thinks about a little trailer in the woods. About a man with gentle hands who will raise a boy with kind eyes and a brave heart.
It’s the last thing she knows for a while. When she wakes, it’s a new day.
* * *
Hannah’s used to moving through this world like a ghost. The first year she was here, she used to wonder whether she was even real. People would often look right through her, it seemed, and sometimes she’d go through a whole day without talking to a single person.
Eventually, she made friends of a sort. She’d found a job waiting tables because she’d heard a woman on the subway talking about how every girl who came to New York—from Kansas City, or Kentucky, or Des Moines (or the apocalyptic future, Hannah had thought)—waited tables her first year in the city. She’d met Kerry, and Isis, and Allie, and they’d taken her out with them to bars or clubs or sales at Macy’s.
What would she say, if she saw them now? How would she explain? It feels like that girl is a different person from some other lifetime.
Her stomach growls. She can’t remember the last time she ate, so for lack of a better plan, she showers, gets dressed, and leaves the hotel in search of breakfast. While she eats, she scans the want ads on her phone. There’s still some money left in the safe, but it won’t last forever, and she knows she needs to come up with some sort of plan, since there’s no telling how long she might have to wait for the others to come for her.
Instead of following up on any of the ads, though, she finds herself in the North Woods of Central Park. It’s where she used to go sometimes in the old days to feel more like herself, where the sound of the water and the wind in the trees could drown out the city for a little while. And it’s there that she curls up small on the rocky stream bank, wrapping her arms around her shins and resting her forehead on her knees.
It’s nightfall by the time she returns to the Emerson. She slides the key in the lock and opens the door, thinking only about crawling under the covers and pulling them up over her—and then her gun is in her hand, and she’s pointing it at the figure standing by the window.
“Please don’t shoot,” says a woman’s voice. She moves forward slowly, her hands raised, until the lamp light falls across her face. “It’s me.”
* * *
“I don’t understand,” Hannah says, pouring them both a drink and coming to sit on the couch beside Emma. “How is this possible?”
“I kept slipping in and out of consciousness on the way to the hospital, and every time I would come around, he would talk to me, try to get me to stay awake. He told me his name. Matthew Cole. I didn’t understand at first. Not until I woke up from the surgery, and they told me what they'd had to do.” Emma lays a hand against her stomach, on the left side where the bullet went in. “I never imagined having a child. When you told me I was going to be a mother, a part of me knew it wasn’t meant to be. Whatever chance there might have been, it ended that night.”
Hannah's own stomach aches in sympathy. "I'm sorry."
Emma is matter-of fact when she says, "I'm not. Given my history, it's probably for the best."
There are things Hannah wants to say about that, but it's not her place, and she doesn't know Emma well enough yet to know whether she wants to hear them. Before the moment can stretch on too long, she says, "So, you let him believe I was Marion."
"It wasn't until he asked my name that I realized I'd never told him. And then I knew what I had to do."
“He told me you died,” Hannah says, still having trouble believing that Matthew had lied to her.
“I begged him to. I knew my mother would keep coming, and I knew you would give your life trying to protect me. I said, no matter what happened, he had to forget about me, and never tell anyone what happened that night. He refused at first, but I told him it was the only way to keep us both alive.”
"And your mother's operatives? They never found you?"
Emma shakes her head and takes a sip of the whiskey. “After he was gone, I lay there thinking, it would have been better if I had died. I’d lost what little hope I had. But the funniest thing...I kept thinking about what you'd said. That maybe I was supposed to help save the world, not destroy it. All I had to do was wait and let them find me, and it would be over—but then I'd never have the chance to make up for what I'd done. I guess a part of me still wanted to live.” She drains her glass, and Hannah refills it. “So, I slipped out of the hospital the next day, and I ran.”
Hannah digests that. “All this time,” she says.
“I didn’t dare try to contact you,” Emma says, as if she’s afraid Hannah will be angry with her. “At least, not until I was sure the baby was safe. But now—”
“Now, no one’s hunting for me,” Hannah finishes. “There’s only Marion Woods.” She meets Emma’s gaze, and Emma nods. “I put her name on the birth certificate,” she says, and then has to fight a sudden tightness in her throat. She covers by emptying her own glass.
“I’m sorry,” Emma says, but Hannah shakes her head. She doesn’t want to talk about James.
“What do I call you?” she asks instead.
The question catches Emma off guard. Thoughtful, she says, “The truth is, I never felt like a Marion. According to my ID, I’m Judith, now—not that it matters. Emma is who I’ve been all my life, and no matter what I call myself, I’ll always be Emma.”
A year has passed since Hannah last saw her. Emma’s hair is longer, softer around her face, but the bitterness is the same. Hannah can see it now for the self-loathing that it is. She understands better, now.
She suggests, “Maybe I can call you Em.”
“I’d like that.”
* * *
Some time later, they sit on the floor side by side, rye bottle between them, the slumber party neither of them ever had. Hannah thinks about how many nights she spent alone in this room trying to understand why her mother had sent her away. Wondering what she’d done wrong. Even though she knew that it was an act of love in some way she didn’t understand, it had felt like a punishment.
“I have to find a place to live,” she says after a while. The alcohol is a pleasant heat in her veins.
“Can’t you stay here?”
“Too risky. Can’t take the chance of running into one of the others on an earlier splinter. Plus, the night I met you, I…kind of stabbed a guy.”
“You what?”
Hannah winces. “With a broken bottle.”
“Hard core,” Emma says, impressed.
Her accent makes it especially charming, and together, they laugh. “Trust me,” Hannah tells her, “he deserved it.”
“I’m sure he did.” Emma studies her. “For how long? I mean, how long until you can go home?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just have to hope that one day they’ll come for me.”
“Why would you want to go back there?” Emma asks, genuinely curious. “It’s so…empty.”
“It’s my home,” Hannah says. It’s where my family is, she thinks, but she doesn’t say that out loud. The only family Emma has is worse than no family at all.
“I can help you,” Emma offers. When Hannah frowns in puzzlement, she explains, “You’ll need a new ID. I can help with that.”
“You still think they might come after me?” She’d been certain that Olivia and her army would stay clear of James and Matthew, lest they interfere with the events that would lead to Matthew’s eventual death and everything connected to it. And thanks to Emma, they're the only two people who know the true identity of Marion Woods.
“Probably not,” Emma says, “but better safe than sorry. Not to mention, it’ll save you having to answer any questions from the police.”
Hannah nods. She glances at Emma sidelong, searching for the best way to ask. “What about you? Do you think they’re still looking for you?”
Emma lays her head back on the sofa, studying the ceiling. “I don’t know, to be honest. A part of me thinks, I’ve already done what she made me for. I’m meaningless to her now. Why would she try to find me? Why would she think of me at all?” Shame stains her cheeks, and she sits up and takes a drink, wiping her mouth before going on. They’re sitting cross-legged now, facing each other. “But then I think, in her mind, she owns me. If she knew I were alive, that I’d managed to escape her grasp, who knows what she’d do? So, I keep off the radar.” Hannah isn’t sure what expression is on her face, exactly, but Emma frowns and says, “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t deserve it. Not after what I’ve done.”
Hannah shakes her head sharply. “I don’t believe that. Nobody asked you whether you wanted the life they forced you into. You didn’t have a choice.”
Emma makes a sound of derision. “Of course I did. I had a choice. I could have jumped off that tower the first day she brought me to Titan.”
Hannah leans forward before she knows she means to, brushing Emma’s hair back from her face. “Em. Look at me.” When she does at last, Hannah looks her in the eyes and says, “I’m glad you didn’t.”
A long moment passes between them, Emma searching Hannah’s gaze as if she wants to believe her. Hannah realizes she’s cupping Emma’s face with her hand, the soft strands of her hair falling between Hannah’s fingers, and it feels surprisingly natural, in the same way every other moment between them has been.
Emma’s lips part. She leans in the rest of the way and watches Hannah’s reaction as she does. Then her eyes close, and her mouth presses warm and soft against Hannah’s.
Hannah’s fingers flex. For a second, surprise keeps her from responding, but then she finds herself reaching for Emma, holding her head steady as they kiss.
Hannah closes her eyes. Surprise gives way to heat, and a sense of inevitability that feels solid, grounding—the first thing that’s felt that way since she put James into Matthew’s arms and fled.
When they finally break apart, a flush rides high on Emma’s cheeks. “I’m sorry, she says. I shouldn’t have done that without—”
“Don’t,” Hannah says. “It’s okay.” She lets her eyes roam over Emma’s face. They’ve barely spent a day together, but she already feels as though they’re connected, like maybe there will never be anyone who can understand her as well as Emma can. Like they’re the two opposite sides of a coin. She strokes Emma’s hair back, loving the way it feels. “Will you stay with me tonight?”
Eyes wide, beautiful in the firelight, Emma nods.
They don’t move from the floor. The thick rug is cushion enough, and when they’ve shed most of their clothing, Emma pushes the heavy coffee table aside, spreading Hannah out beneath her and laying a warm hand on Hannah’s belly. When she touches Hannah’s breasts, Hannah flinches a little from the sensitivity, so she reaches instead for the back of Hannah’s neck. There, she tangles her fingers in Hannah’s hair as they kiss until Hannah is panting from it. Emma’s breasts are full, soft, her body lithe and strong against Hannah’s. Emma pushes her thigh between Hannah’s legs, and it feels so good, Hannah can’t help riding against it.
“Yeah?” Emma asks, watching her face.
“You feel good,” Hannah says, her breathing hectic. She squeezes her thighs around Emma’s, giving the other woman something to push against, too. They scissor their hips together, watching each other’s reactions until Hannah shudders and reaches for Emma’s hips.
Emma’s lips quirk upward in a wicked not-quite-smile. She shifts her weight off Hannah and back, and Hannah pushes herself up on one elbow in protest until Emma reaches for Hannah’s panties and starts to pull them off.
Hannah knows what she’s in for, then, and breathes a curse. It makes Emma smile a little wider, and jesus, Hannah is wet. She can feel it when Emma strips the panties off her, and she fumbles above her head, looking for something to grab onto. She finds the leg of the coffee table as Emma bends her head between Hannah’s thighs.
Hannah’s been drawn to Emma’s mouth from the first time they met. Her full lips, the ironic twist that was sometimes sadness, sometimes humor, sometimes anger…often a little of all three. Kissing her was even better. But this—
Emma goes down on her like it’s the best thing that ever happened to her. Like Hannah is a gift that she wants to take her time unwrapping, and she has no purpose in life beyond making Hannah feel good in every way she knows how.
The first time Emma makes her come, Hannah cries out before she can stop herself, then muffles herself with her own hand. Emma slips two fingers inside her, and Hannah clenches around them, back arching as she shudders. Emma sits back for a second to let her ride it out; a second later she has her hand around Hannah’s wrist, and she pulls Hannah’s fist away from her mouth. Still in the grip of orgasm, Hannah opens her eyes and sees Emma kneeling over her, expression fixed and color high, her face glistening wet. Emma scissors her fingers inside Hannah, and Hannah comes again, helpless to stop herself.
That is, she learns, just the beginning of what her body is capable of, when teased, coaxed, and played expertly by Emma’s mouth and fingers. By the time she begs for mercy, shuddering and trembling, her thighs are wet and she’s got her fingers tangled in her own hair in a hopeless attempt to keep herself from shaking apart. “I can’t, I can’t,” she manages.
“Fuck,” Emma says, and Hannah looks down to see Emma has her hand between her own thighs at last, working herself fast. Hannah wets two fingers and reaches down to help, slipping them inside. Emma is slick and open, her folds swollen from arousal. Their eyes catch and hold, and Emma comes hard, muscles going taut. She throws her head back and rides it out, squeezing Hannah’s fingers and moaning, “fuck, fuck.”
When it’s over, she drops onto one hand and hovers over Hannah, her face alight with wild triumph. She flashes a grin, then bends down and kisses Hannah thoroughly, messily sharing the taste and slick of her. At last she collapses down into the narrow space between Hannah and the couch, letting Hannah’s fingers slip out of her, and gives a satisfied sigh.
They wriggle and adjust slightly so they fit comfortably side-by-side, their heads close together, covered in sweat and other fluids, until Hannah finally finds the strength for words.
“You are,” she says, “incredibly good at that.”
Emma laughs, a low, soft chuckle. She pushes herself up for a second and reaches for her drink, taking a healthy sip and licking her lips before lying back down.
“Most of my life, I lived in a cloister. Like, literally. A cloister. But they had to send me to university to set my cover for when I went to work for Elliot and Katarina. I made up for lost time.”
Hannah turns on her side so she can see Emma’s face. They’re warm from the fire, Emma’s skin sweating lightly against hers where they touch. “My mother used to talk about you sometimes,” she says.
Emma smiles to herself. She shifts her head so she can see Hannah, too. “Can I tell you a secret?” At Hannah’s nod, she confesses, “I know she always thought I had a thing for Elliot, but she was the one I had a crush on.”
“You serious?”
Emma nods. “Kat had no idea how much I wanted to be her. How much I wanted her to respect me. To see me.” She searches Hannah’s face from her close vantage point, contemplative. “You remind me more of him, though. Your father.”
“I miss him,” Hannah admits. “I wish we’d gotten more time to get to know each other.” She toys with Emma’s long, elegant fingers where they rest against her thigh, tracing each one between her thumb and forefinger. “It’s strange, thinking of them out there right now. They haven’t even met yet. My mother’s just a few years older than I am.” A thought occurs to her. “Wait, where are you right now, in this timeline?”
“Berkeley. Finishing my PhD.”
There’s a bleak sadness in her voice. Hannah, who thinks she’s beginning to understand, says, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.”
“It’s all right,” Emma says, even though Hannah can tell it’s not.
“Matthew was…kind of my first,” she confesses. “I mean, in the sisterhood, we—” She hesitates. “We take care of each other, but it isn’t like that.”
“What’s it like?”
“We don’t usually take our clothes off, for one thing,” she says, and for some reason it makes Emma laugh—which makes Hannah laugh, too. “It’s true, though,” she says at last. “In the world I come from, you can’t often afford to take your time.”
“Well,” Emma says, “I suppose it’s never too late to learn.”
Hannah pushes herself up onto one elbow. Emma is all the colors of the forest, she thinks. Her hair is the rich red-copper-gold of fall leaves in the firelight, and her eyes are the color of green moss under a clear blue stream. No wonder she feels so familiar.
Hannah takes Emma’s hand in hers, and brings Emma’s fingers to her lips, holding her gaze as she sucks the tip of each of them gently in turn. Emma’s breath comes faster as the heat kindles again low in Hannah’s belly.
Hannah says, “Teach me?”
* * *
“I wish you could come with me,” Emma says the next afternoon. They walk through the park in the summer sunshine, holding hands. They shouldn’t, Hannah knows. They should avoid doing anything that would call attention to them—but it’s New York, and—in this decade at least—it’s not the worst thing they could do.
She says, “I wish you could stay.”
They’ve already talked about it. Emma’s got a little place in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It’s not much, she says. An apartment near the river. She grows flowers and herbs on the balcony, and she pays for what she needs by working as a waitress at a place that pays her in cash.
The problem, though, is that Emma’s mother has seen them together. Neither of them know what it’s like to be Primary, nor whether Olivia knows Emma is still alive. Apart, their chances of avoiding her notice are almost certainly greater than they would be if they stayed together.
Each of them would be willing to risk it, if it didn’t mean risking each other. Hannah can’t stand the idea of Emma never having a chance to live her own life for however long they have. Hannah wants to see her family again; she wants to help them stop the Witness. But it’s the thought of how she’d felt when she’d thought Emma had died that makes up her mind once and for all.
Emma, for her part, flat out refuses to accept the possibility that Olivia might get her hands on Hannah because of her. Her eyes are hollow wells of imagined horror when she says, “I’d rather die and never see you again.”
And so.
Under her new assumed name, Hannah finds work as a line cook in an Italian restaurant in the Garment District. She likes the adrenaline rush of working the busy line. Her skills with a knife come in handy, and it pays enough for a studio, utilities, and a cheap cell phone. Once a week, she volunteers at the soup kitchen. Growing up in a world where everyone was always hungry, it’s the one thing she can never get used to; she’s adjusted to nearly everything else about life in the past—the noise, the chaos, the constant flood of information—but how can food be so plentiful, so rich and varied and easily obtained, and yet so many still go without?
She stays in Manhattan for the most part, living her life within a square mile or two of the Emerson Hotel. But twice a year, she saves up a little money and takes three days for herself.
They don’t go anywhere to speak of, usually, just hole up together in a motel room or a one-room apartment Emma finds on something called Airbnb. Once, they go to the beach in Norwalk. Every time, it’s like no time at all has passed since they saw each other last, and every time, they tell each other it’s enough.
It isn’t, but it gives them both a reason to keep going.
A year turns into three, then five. When the day comes, Emma is there in Philadelphia, waiting in her car when Hannah steps off the bus. Hannah has been calm thus far, but when she sees Emma, her hair pulled back in a bun and her face hidden behind big sunglasses, emotion wells up hard in her throat. Emma gets out of the car and takes Hannah in her arms, heedless of the whirling snow, of anyone looking at them, until Hannah gets herself under control.
“It’s going to be okay,” Emma says.
Hannah nods, and wipes her face. “I know.”
She gets in the passenger side, and Emma takes her gloved hand while they settle in to wait.
Matthew’s been dead since yesterday, killed by the Tall Man. In five years, she’d never dared check on him, nor let herself wonder for more than a minute where they were or what they were doing. But even though she’s known since before James was born that this day was coming, it takes everything she has not to cross the street and do something stupid, something that would probably get all of them killed.
Just being here is risky, but Emma hadn’t tried to talk her out of it. From a safe distance down the block, they watch Cassie and Katarina arrive with James, the little boy bundled up and holding on to Cassie’s hand. Hannah realizes she’s squeezing Emma’s hand in a near-death grip, and forces herself to relax as much as she can. An eternity passes, her heartbeat too loud in her own ears—and then, finally, the two women emerge and walk past the yard where the children are playing. Her mother is pregnant, Hannah remembers belatedly, which is a strange thing to think about. Katarina’s not close enough for Hannah to feel the warning of paradox, but the little hairs on the back of her neck raise anyway.
The adult James Cole gets out of a white car, and he and the two women stand in the street talking. Hannah must make a sound, however soft, because Emma squeezes her hand. Katarina leaves a moment later in a taxi, while James and Cassie stand watching Cole's younger self as he’s brought out to join the other children. At last, they, too, get into their car and drive away.
When they’re gone, Emma starts the car and moves it closer without asking. They can’t stay long; even Hannah knows it’s a bad idea to loiter around a Child Protective Services facility watching children play. But they stay long enough for her to catch a glimpse of James’s face. Long enough to see the dark-haired older boy befriend him and take him under his arm like he’s been waiting for him.
Both to Emma, and to Ramse, Hannah murmurs, “Thank you.”
* * *
YEAR
2017
The phone wakes Hannah early on a Sunday morning in late November. The night before, she’d worked a long and hectic shift at the restaurant, and she fumbles for her phone on the nightstand, annoyed. She’d been looking forward to sleeping in.
She looks at the number, but it’s no one caller ID recognizes. Probably spam; it’s not like she gets a lot of phone calls. She sends it to voice mail, and flops back down on the bed, burrowing back into the pillows.
It rings again.
“Yes?” she answers, her tone less than welcoming.
“Hey, stranger,” says a woman’s voice, “Now, don’t hang up. I’ve got an important message for you.”
Hannah frowns. “Who is this?”
“I know, long time no see! Get it? Never mind, just a little psychic humor for your Sunday morning. I know it’s been a while, but you know who this is.”
Hannah sits up, pushing her unruly hair out of her face. “Mother?” she says, before she's fully awake.
“Ding ding ding! You miss me?”
The last time Hannah saw the younger Jennifer had been back at the facility in 2043. Hannah doesn’t pretend to understand the twists and turns of Jennifer’s psyche, but she’s been with Mother her whole life, and she knows that Jennifer’s phrasing is never an accident. What looks like madness from the outside is in fact a clear grasp of causality and the infinite loops and twists of time travel. Asking if Hannah missed her means this is some version of her Jennifer—future Jennifer—not the one from this timeline.
“Where are you?” she asks. She’s already getting up, pulling clothes from her dresser.
“Doesn’t matter,” Jennifer says. “And you can relax. Nothing’s on fire.” Jennifer sounds happy, Hannah thinks. Pleased with herself. The last time Hannah saw her, the visions had inexplicably left her and she’d been inconsolable, believing that her Primary abilities were the only value she offered to the rest of them.
“You're the Jennifer they sent home. The one who saved Athan."
“Ten points to the winner,” Jennifer crows. “If I could hug you, I would, but I’m kinda busy saving the world right now, one lost traveler at a time. And speaking of, that’s what I called to tell you. It’s almost time for you to go home.”
It takes Hannah a second to absorb what she’s saying. Her eyes go to the Sierra Club calendar on the wall, where two weeks from now, three days are circled in red, the first one marked with an E.
She sinks down to sit on the edge of the bed. “Hey,” says Jennifer gently, “don’t worry, kiddo. You’ve got time. Figured you might need a few weeks’ notice to, you know.”
“When?” Hannah asks, when she can find her voice again.
* * *
She expects James and Cassie. When the knock comes at the door of suite 607, and Hannah sees James and her mother instead, in that moment, she knows. She thinks some part of her has always known.
It’s a small comfort, knowing that she’ll get to see James one more time, but for her and Katarina, this is the last good-bye.
The good-bye that comes a few days later is harder still.
* * *
Hannah waits until the second night to tell her. Emma has sensed something is wrong since the moment Hannah opened the door, but she hasn’t pushed. They’ve known they were running out of time for a few months now, anyway, as news reports of strange storms and red skies became increasingly more common, so she probably assumes that’s what’s on Hannah’s mind. The fact that Hannah’s back at the Emerson could only lend credence to that.
When Hannah finally tells her the truth, when Emma understands what she’s saying—that Hannah will die in three months, and that it will be Olivia, through one of her followers, who kills her—Emma begins to tremble in denial. She rises to her feet, unable to sit still, blood draining from her face and leaving her pale as the winter sky.
“No.” She’s shaking her head, the glass in her hand trembling along with her. “No, no, no. I won’t allow it.”
“Em—"
“No, goddamnit!” Emma throws the glass across the room, smashing it to bits. Hannah can barely stand to look at her, at her beautiful face contorted in rage and anguish. “She’s taken everything from me! I will not let her take you, too!”
Hannah fights tears, wishing more than anything that she could have spared Emma this, but she owes her the truth. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m so sorry. I wish there was another way. But it’s James,” she pleads, hoping Emma can understand. Hoping that she can somehow forgive her.
Emma stares at her, and Hannah’s heart breaks for the betrayal that flashes in her eyes. It’s there for only a moment, as Emma stands there looking like her whole world has been pulled out from under her. She keeps staring at Hannah for a few seconds more. And then her face changes, as understanding sinks in, and she nods slightly and turns away—but not before Hannah sees the tears rise.
Hannah gets up and starts to go to her, but she isn’t sure she has the right. She sees Emma’s shoulders heave and fall as she fights to get herself under control.
“We always knew there would be an end,” Hannah says at last. “We chose this. We chose each other. I’ll never regret that.” Emma makes a sharp sound halfway between laughter and tears, but when Hannah lays a hand against her arm, she doesn’t pull away. “I’d do it again.”
Emma is crying in earnest now, tears spilling down her cheeks, but she nods. “Yeah,” she says. And she turns into Hannah’s arms, and bends to rest her head on Hannah’s shoulder, holding on. “Yeah, me, too.”
* * *
Together, they clean up the broken glass. Later, they make love in the shower, letting the hot water wash away the inevitable tears, and then they curl up in robes and soft throws on the ornate sofa, sipping whiskey and watching the fire, each lost in their own thoughts.
Hannah looks over when Emma says, “Shit.”
“What is it?”
Emma's brow is furrowed. “I just realized—” She looks at Hannah with unease. “What if she goes back earlier? If she sees you at the airport, she’ll know you’re here. In New York. What if she—"
Hannah shakes her head. “I don’t think so.” Emma’s frown deepens, but Hannah makes a gesture between them. “For James and my mother, it’s already happened, and look at us—no nosebleeds. Besides, I think Jennifer would have known. She would have warned me.” Hannah thinks back to what she looked like ten years before. The feral Daughter of the Apocalypse, the Hannah that Olivia knew—hair covered, bristling with weapons and cloaked in armor, eyes blackened for night work. “I don’t think she’ll recognize me.”
Emma considers that. “Maybe you’re right. An act of love…is so far outside her understanding, maybe she can’t see it.”
Their eyes meet as they each hear the ring of truth. Then Emma starts to cry. Hannah pulls her into her arms.
“It’s okay,” says Hannah. “This is what I was meant to do. After all this time, I found my purpose.”
“I know,” Emma says, her hands wound in Hannah’s hair. “I understand. It’s your choice.”
Hannah holds her tight and buries her face in Emma’s neck, closing her eyes and breathing in so she won’t forget.
Later that night, when Emma is asleep at last, Hannah finds a pen and paper and sits down at the desk to write.
Dear James,
I don’t know if you’ll ever find this. If there will come a time when you know the truth…
* * *
YEAR
2042
The memories come gradually, not all at once. Hannah was five years old the first time she dreamed of the forest. She was thirteen, on a camping trip with her dad, the first time she held a knife and remembered killing a man. It’s okay, he told her then, holding her as she shook with the memory. Sometimes I remember things, too.
When she’s twenty-six, a lot becomes clearer. She remembers that her mother once broke the world to save her, and then made a terrible sacrifice to undo it. She remembers the name James, but doesn’t know why—only that the memory of it opens a deep well of sadness at the heart of her, a loss she can’t explain. But her mother, when Hannah goes to her with tears in her eyes, tells her the rest.
Katarina’s theory is that it’s because everyone remembers at the age they were when they freed Time from the twists and turns of the damage they’d done. The memories are imperfect, but together, she and Elliot and Hannah piece the story together over the days that follow, until the day Elliot comes home with the news that he found it: the house of cedar and pine.
Cassie and James have been together for twenty-seven years when the Joneses arrive on their doorstep. There are tears, and laughter—so much of both—and they stay up late, remembering. James was always older than Hannah, but now he’s the same age as her mother and father. It should be strange, and it is, but also doesn’t matter at all. He’s still hers, and he’s alive. It’s enough.
Matthew lived to be seventy-eight, James tells her. He never knew James, of course, but he lived a good life. He married a woman named Angie, and though they never had kids, they were happy together, as far as James can tell.
James and Cassie have a son, a few years younger than Hannah. His name is Thomas, and he’s not Primary. He’s studying to be a veterinarian.
* * *
They leave a few days later with embraces and more tears, and promises to visit again. It isn’t until they’re on the way home, traveling along a two-lane highway through a red-gold forest of changing leaves, that Hannah remembers Emma.
When she asks her mother and father about her, they don’t know who she means. And though she tries, nothing Hannah says changes that.
“I’m sorry, liebchen,” her mother says. “You obviously cared for her.”
Hannah nods, wiping her face. She knows the answer, but she has to ask, “Mother, could she have…is there any way she could still be alive?”
Katarina considers it. “I don’t see how. James was a jinn, but so was Olivia. A child born of time travel. What we did…it must have erased every version of Olivia Kirschner from existence, just as it would have erased James if I hadn't interfered. And with her, Emma.”
* * *
Emma said once that Time was sentient. That it had a will, and a purpose of its own. That what Hannah called Fate, Emma called reason. Hannah’s mother has told her she believes that was why she was allowed to save James—that Time allowed it, because he was owed. Because they all were. And if that’s true, then despite what Katarina says, Hannah can’t help thinking that there might still be the smallest sliver of a reason to hope.
It’s a few days after they return home that she borrows Elliot’s car and sets it to drive west, towards Pittsburgh. It takes her the better part of a day, and she has to take over manual controls once she gets close, following nothing more than instinct born of a vivid memory she never lived. But the road is still there—a worn and narrow asphalt track through the woods.
The trailer is gone, of course. Matthew, too. But there’s a little house on the spot where the trailer stood, and flowers in a box on the porch railing. A ginger tabby cat sits in the afternoon sun by the door, washing its paw. And as Hannah crosses the grass, a woman steps out through the screen door, her hair the color of autumn, a smile breaking over her face.
~ end ~