Title: "Of Duplications and Reconstructions"

Author: bipolypesca

Archive: ask first, please

Rating: R (barely.  eventually.)

Disclaimer: The following piece of writing is a fantasy.  It never happened.  It has nothing to do with The 4400 or the USA Network or any of the creators of the characters mentioned.  It is no different than writing down a dream I had about a TV show in my dream journal and then sharing that dream journal with my friends via an LJ post.  It is no different than talking in a public forum about how much better a movie would have been if it had ended a different way than it did and then lining out that different way.  I don't make money from my fantasies, nor any other gain but to hear what other people of like mind think of said fantasies.  And no one has domain over my fantasies nor how I choose to express them.

Feedback: Only if you're honest. Chocolate and champagne are always nice, but only if it's honest chocolate and champagne. I'm a sucker for good constructive criticism.

Warnings: Het!  (nooo! whyyyyy?! dear gods, whyyyy?!)  Some mildly disturbing imagery.  Some mild raciness.  Convoluted plot.

Random copout note: I believe I've made Maia slightly younger in the fic than she really is on the show.  ::shrug::  Call it retribution for all those soap operas that age kids 10 years in the space of 4 months so that they can start having sex.  ^_^

Sequels: 13 chapters.  That's it.

Spoilers: Through "Blink."  Plot points revealed on The 4400 after "Blink" are not addressed, making this a true AU.

Summary: The story of Diana's difficult personal journey from the woman she is... to the woman she's meant to become.







Of Duplications and Reconstructions
byline: bipolypesca
creation date: July 26 - November 5, 2006

*      *      *      *      *      *

Go To Chapter:
1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13

*      *      *      *      *      *

~

1. Disorientation

The look in his eyes when she'd told him would probably haunt her for the rest of her life.

Diana had known for years—in a peripheral kind of way—that Marco cared for her.  She'd known for at least many months that that care went a bit farther than just friendship.  But it wasn't until the moment directly after she'd said, ‘I don't think this is going to work,’ that she'd truly suspected his care went so very, very far.

Ending things between them had obviously been devastating for Marco, but it was seeing him so hurt that had really devastated Diana.  Though she had never been playing with Marco nor with his feelings for her, the guilt she felt now was just as poignant as if she had been.

She was glad to have Maia down for the night, and no excuses or explanations to make to anyone until morning.  Climbing under the covers, she was just starting to think that she'd be lucky to still be awake when her head hit the pillow.  She fell asleep before she'd reached the end of the thought.

*

It was pitch black in Diana's bedroom when she next woke, and she didn't even bother to turn and look at the clock.  She felt dead tired, and couldn't imagine why she should have even awoken at all.

Warmth permeated through the sheets from behind her, and she realized she must have been awakened when Maia crawled into bed with her, as she sometimes did.  Maia was curled up just behind her, warm tickle of breath dancing across the nape of Diana's neck as she dreamed the dreams of the young and precognitive.

Diana stretched without moving, and began to turn over to take her daughter in her arms.  But when she moved, her body became more aware of the form wrapped around it.

And it was too big to be Maia.

With a quiet gasp, not quite certain she was correct, Diana reached quickly behind her to click on the bedside light.  Her hand knocked a glass of water off the table that she didn't remember putting there, but she gave that little to no thought.  Because once she'd blinked away the momentary blindness, she was greeted by the sight of a slightly stubbled, unmistakeably male face blinking itself awake.

Diana screamed.

A leftover hallucination of her ex-fiancé, she'd expected.  But this?   This?  This was—  

"You bastard!"  She shot forward and angrily slapped him as hard as she could across the face, then immediately backed up to her edge of the bed.  "How dare you!"

Marco's face was in the pillow, where it stayed for a long, still beat before he gasped loudly, lifted his head, and looked at her as if she'd lost her mind.  "What the hell—?"

"Do you think this is funny?" Diana hissed, finally remembering to keep her voice down for Maia's sake.

She watched him with wide eyes as he pulled himself to a sitting position, alternating between staring at her open-mouthed and dazed, and squinting toward her as if trying to make her out without his glasses on.  "Baby, what's the matter?" he said softly, and tried to reach for her.

Diana slapped his hands away angrily.  "Don't you—!"  With difficulty, she hushed herself.

Marco's hands stayed away, but up in the air, palms out, as if he was trying to tame a wild animal.  He shifted forward the smallest bit and a bare knee slid out from under the comforter.

Diana gasped, sounding ridiculous even to herself, and she clutched the sheet—ignoring that it seemed not to be the right colour—tight to her chest.  "You're naked!" she shouted as quietly as she could.

Suddenly seeming self-conscious, Marco glanced down, shot her an odd look, and gathered the comforter a bit tighter around his waist.  "Okaaay," he said carefully.  "Diana... I think you've just had a nightmare.  That's all.  Okay, baby?  Now it's all right, I'm—"

He reached for her again, but she dodged him, bending backwards at an uncomfortable angle.  She wanted nothing more than to jump out of the bed, but no matter how she yanked at the sheet, it stayed tucked in, and she'd come to the confusing and embarrassing realization that she, too, was quite nude.

"Stop calling me that!" she growled.

Marco stopped with his hands in the air again, his eyes getting wider and wider, his mouth the same, as he seemed to become ever more worried about her reaction to his presence.  It was asinine.  Did he honestly believe that she wouldn't mind if he crawled into bed with her, uninvited, only hours after she'd ended their relationship?

"Calling you what?" he asked gently.

"That—that pet name!" she sputtered.  "I am not your ‘baby’!  Get the hell out of my bed!"

"Your bed?  Ba—Diana.  Diana, what are you talking about?"

The entire situation was inconceivable.  But there was something about his voice—there had always been something about his voice—that helped her relax, if just a little.  And just a little was all she was going to achieve right then.

"When did you get here?  How did you get in?  What are you doing here?  Are you insane?"

"Baby... I came from work," he enunciated carefully.  He acted as if he was sure that at any moment, Diana would say, Oh, that's right.  You're supposed to be here.  Please forgive me.  "I said I'd be late... I got in about two hours ago.  You woke up when I got into bed.  You said hello.  You kissed me.  We..." he gestured circularly with a hand, and Diana's jaw dropped.  "Don't you remember?"

"That's ridiculous!" she hissed.  "Nothing like that—!  You're sick, Marco!  You obviously need help!"  Looking around wildly, she grabbed her pillow off the bed and hit him with it twice, catching only the crown of his head, and the arm he'd raised to block with.  "Go get help!"

"Diana, stop it!" he demanded, hissing as well, and actually having the gall to sound angry with her.

He was quicker than she'd expected, and on her next swat with the pillow, he grabbed it and yanked.  She very nearly lost her grip, but held on just tightly enough not to.  She yanked back, achieving little, and he wrapped both hands around the pillow and pulled hard.

He was also stronger than she'd expected, because he ripped it right out of her hands and tossed it behind him.  It landed on a chair that was definitely in the wrong place in her room, but she didn't take much time to think about that, because she was busy stopping the sheet from falling and exposing her.

"Diana," Marco whispered, his voice quiet and gentle all over again.  "Baby, please.  Just tell me what's wrong.  Okay?  Just talk to me."

With an angry roll of her eyes, Diana snapped her head up to tell him again to not call her by that ridiculous nickname, but something caught her attention and stopped her cold.

Marco's left hand.  Marco was wearing a ring on his left hand.  It was white gold and caught the light beautifully and was positioned quite perfectly on his third finger.

It was a wedding band.

"Since when—"

She cut herself off and just remained silent for a moment.  She'd been rightfully angry since she'd turned on the light, but it was starting to fade a bit.  Now, overtaking it with impressive speed, was pure, unadulterated fear.

When she'd said Marco was sick, she hadn't meant it like this.  She hadn't honestly believed he needed psychological help or even hospitalization.  She'd spoken in anger and shock, but what she'd really meant was, ‘Marco, this was bad judgment and is not funny.’

But looking at the ring, looking at the perfect performance he was putting on, even looking around the room and noticing that he'd added things to it, moved things around, and made small male-based changes that one might make if one had moved in with—

Now Diana was beginning to wonder if he truly was mentally ill.

Her voice fell in timbre and she began to watch him very carefully.  "Marco... I don't know... what you think you're doing.  But I need you to understand... that this... is not acceptable."

His head turned slowly to the left as he listened until he was watching her out of the corner of his right eye.  Then his brow furrowed as the look he gave her became almost comically concerned.  "Diana?  Why... are you talking... to me... like that?"

She refused to be baited.  She had a child in the house to be concerned about.  "I want you to get out of my bed.  Put your clothes on.  And leave.  Now, Marco.  I am not joking."

Marco's mouth opened and closed, and then he threw his hands out as if flummoxed.  They dropped to the bed with a dull sound.  "Baby, what did I do?"

She flinched at the word, but refrained from commenting on it.  "Marco.  Leave."

He paused a long time, then let out a very sudden incredulous scoff, and it made her jump.  He looked on the verge of saying something biting or sarcastic, but when she jerked in place, he softened.  His expression went from confusion and irritation to confusion and sympathy.

Marco leaned slightly forward, but made a show of keeping his hands back when she flinched.  "Diana, I am not going to walk out of here until you tell me what's wrong.  Okay?"  He paused, but she offered him only a glare.  "Baby, I am your husband.  If you can't talk t—"

"WHAT?"

He flew forward so fast, she had no time to react—she was still busy reacting to the last thing that had happened.  One hand went firmly around the nape of her neck; the other—and its ring—was pressed tightly against her lips, squishing them up and keeping her silent.  Belatedly, she clawed her fury out on his arms, but though she left angry red lines, ripped skin, and even some blood in her wake, he didn't flinch away.

"Diana—Maia!" he whispered angrily.  "Will you stop?  You're gonna scare the hell out of her!"

His face filled her whole vision, stubble noticeable on his cheeks, eyes burning with confused anger, lips thinned out and pulled back.  She heard the door open, but couldn't see who had done it.

"Mom?"

Maia's voice sent adrenaline surging through her veins at breakneck speeds.  Diana began to fight Marco furiously.  He gripped her harder, obviously a crazed man, but Maia was calling for her, and she'd be damned if anyone was going to hurt or frighten her little girl!

Marco's head turned, as much to stop her frantic slapping and punching toward his face as to talk to her daughter.

"It's okay, honey.  Your mom just had a bad dream," he said, sounding eerily calm and soothing.  "Just go back to bed, okay?"

Diana began to scream repeatedly out her nose, barely making a sound, as her legs struggled for purchase to kick him somewhere soft—somewhere vulnerable—but he had her tightly pinned down with his knees.

"Is she okay?"

"She's fine, honey.  It's okay.  Will you please go back to bed for me, Maia?"

A pause from Maia's end of the conversation spurred Diana on even more than her voice had, and she yanked at Marco's hair, scratched at his neck and managed to get a leg free all at one time.

He cried out in pain and tried to pull away, but only succeeded in pushing them both against the headboard, the back of Diana's head making a loud crack! against the wood.

She was seconds from getting her free leg just where it needed to be to kick Marco where she knew it would hurt the most, when his head finally cleared her line of sight and she got to see her little girl.

Only it wasn't her little girl.  It could have been Maia's older sister.  It had to have been Maia's older sister.  But it wasn't Diana's little girl.

Diana's little girl was nowhere near that tall.  Diana's little girl had much longer hair.  Diana's little girl didn't have... breasts.

"Mom?  Are you all right?"

"Ohh..."

That voice, she'd know anywhere.  That was her Maia's voice.  The girl—the young woman—took a step closer to the bed, and the light fell more fully across her face, and Diana knew it was Maia.  It couldn't have been anyone but Maia.

With eyes that were really seeing for the first time since she'd awoken, Diana took another look around the room.  She looked at all the men's clothes hanging in her half-open closet.  She looked at the wrong colour sheets and wrong design comforter and wrongly placed chair and dresser.  She looked at the upset glass on the floor in the middle of its dark stain of water and knew she'd never bought any glassware with that pattern.  She looked at Marco... and saw light lines on his face that she'd never noticed before.

But the thing that really did it for her was when she looked at her own left hand.  It was when she got an eyeful of the gorgeous tri-diamond engagement ring and white gold wedding band she wore together on her left ring finger.

That was the thing that did it.  That was the thing that made her finally pass out.

~

2. Duplication

Diana opened her eyes slowly to the brightness of the day.  The bedroom was lit up gold already, telling her it would be stifling by noon.

She automatically reached behind her, but felt nothing in the immediate area.  With a quiet groan followed by an eye-watering yawn, she turned to wrap her husband in her arms.  Only he wasn't there.

Still blinking sleep away, she slowly sat up and looked toward the door, but it was closed.  A deep inhale told her coffee wasn't brewing, which surprised her, since her husband started every morning the same way—with a bleary-eyed stumble toward the coffee maker, where he stood like a zombie until he got his first cup poured and first sip drank.  That same deep breath in also told her that something wasn't quite right about their bedroom, but she couldn't think what it was at the moment.

"Marco?" she called.

She waited a few seconds.  When there was no answer, she called his name once more.  But when there was still only silence, she snorted softly, took the hint, and got out of bed.

When did I put clothes back on? she thought to herself, then just shook her head at the thought of Alzheimer's setting in already.

When she reached the door, she was driven to look back at the bed for some reason, and she realized that it looked out of place.  It was in the right place, it was just... hadn't she gotten rid of that old comforter?  Why would Marco have put it back on the bed?  She wondered if they'd messed up the other too badly earlier that morning to continue to use it for sleeping.

Hand over her lips to hold in a quiet chuckle at racy thoughts, Diana padded out of the bedroom and into...

...a world she didn't know.

She stood stock still, gaping.

Where was Marco's computer and desk?  Where was Maia's studying desk?  Hadn't they given that cushy chair to Marco's younger cousin and her husband when they had moved into their new place?  Where was Marco's sleek flat screen TV and why was Diana's old boxy one in its place?  Why was the dining table so small?  Where were all of their wedding pictures?  What about Maia's pictures from the last three years of school?

Moving numbly forward, Diana tripped over a rug that wasn't supposed to be where it was, and turned in a stumbling circle, flabbergasted at the strangeness of her home.  Had Marco been up all night rearranging everything?  These were their things—the whole setup looked vaguely familiar—but so many things were missing, and old objects that she could have sworn she'd thrown out or given away long ago were in the places of two year old items she couldn't find.

"What—?"

Diana's hand flew to her mouth when she suddenly realized just how mistaken she'd been.  These weren't their things.  These were... these were her things!

"Marco!" she called in a choked panic, and ran quickly through the apartment—kitchen, bathroom, guest room, laundry room—but he wasn't to be found.  "Mar—... Mar—..."

She was seconds from hyperventilating.  With difficulty, she forced herself to sit down on the out of place sofa and just breathe for a minute.

This doesn't make any sense.  If Marco was going to le—  If he was going to leav—

She couldn't even finish the thought in her own head.  Her husband, leave her?  Marco?  She couldn't believe it.  Not in a million years; not for any reason.  Not her Marco.  Never.

But where were his things?  Even if all of his belongings had been taken out of the apartment—for whatever reason—where had so much of her old stuff come from?  Was it some kind of—?

Diana couldn't help but let out a startled little yell and jump to her feet in shock.  She had a very specific repetitive gesture she always made when nervous—the same gesture that many married women tend to make—but had been unable to complete it just now.  She stared with saucer-wide eyes at her bare left hand.  Her rings!  Someone had stolen her rings!

"Marco!" she screamed, and spun on her heel toward the sound of Maia's bedroom door opening.

She had been trying to keep her voice at least moderately quiet so as to not wake her daughter too early on a Saturday morning, but that last word had come loud and unbidden.

Her next did too, though it was less of a word and more of an ejaculation.

"AGH!"

Maia—little Maia!—jumped in place, started to back up, then suddenly charged forward straight to her.  "Mommy, what's wrong?" she asked in a high, scared little girl voice.

Diana couldn't speak.  ‘Mommy.’  Maia had called her ‘Mommy’!  Maia hadn't called her ‘Mommy’ in at least two years.

And her hair was all back!  Her silky, long blond hair she had insisted get cut off.  It had all grown back!  And other things had... stopped growing altogether.  Shrunk, even.

My god, this wasn't her beautiful young lady.  This was her little girl!

"Maia," Diana whispered, and dropped to her knees, her light cotton robe brushing the rug that shouldn't have been there.  "Maia, honey, you look so..."

Her young daughter gave her a strange look.

Diana struggled to calm her voice and expression, but wasn't sure how much she succeeded.  "Oh, honey," she breathed.  "You look so pretty.  So young.  Look at your beautiful hair!"  Diana just couldn't stop running her fingers through the silky soft strands.

Like any mother, she felt and continued to feel pride at watching her little girl grow up.  But to see her back as a child again?  Diana had to admit often wishing she could live a few of Maia's younger years over.  It was literally a mother's dream come true.

Right on the tail of that feeling of wonderment, however, was one of worry.  What was happening to Maia?  Why would her little girl suddenly start to de-age?  And why didn't she seem concerned about it?

Diana took her lightly by the shoulders and looked deeply into her confused eyes.  "Maia, honey, have you looked in a mirror yet this morning?"

Maia looked at her askance.  "Nnnooo..." she said carefully.  "Why, is there something wrong?"  She started to touch her own face, as if looking for an out of place protrusion.

"No, baby, you look beautiful!  Such a beautiful little girl..."  Diana whispered this last almost to herself, carding through her young daughter's soft hair yet again.  "You just look... so young to-day."

"But I'm only nine.  Don't I look young every day?"

Diana had been balancing on the balls of her feet.  She very suddenly lost her balance and fell back against the sofa.  "N—  Maia... n—?"

"...Nine, Mommy.  Is that what you're trying to say?  Nine?"

With a shaking hand, Diana reached out and touched gently at Maia's face.  "Oh, baby.  What's..."  Getting her wits suddenly back about her, she led Maia gently to the sofa and sat her down.  "I want you to stay right here for me, okay, honey?  You just stay put while Mommy makes a phone call.  Will you do that?"

Maia nodded seriously, her bright eyes wide and interested, but thankfully not frightened.

"That's good, honey."  She patted at Maia's leg and then hoisted herself up off the floor.

The cordless phone was in the completely wrong place in the apartment, and it took Diana a moment to find it.  As soon as she did, she showed it to Maia and smiled.  "Everything's going to be okay, honey.  I'm just going to call your father."

"...What?"

Maia's voice didn't really penetrate because Diana was too busy being incredibly confused about her speed dial.  She'd quite certainly pressed #1, but instead of her husband answering his cell phone, she got the front desk at NTAC.  "I'm sorry," she said to the monotoned receptionist.  "Wrong number."

She pressed the phone off, then back on, and pressed speed dial #1 again.  This time, she watched the display.  The phone was dialing NTAC again.  She turned it back off.

"Mommy, who are you trying to call?"

"I'm trying to call Daddy, honey, but something's wrong with the phone."

"You're trying to call Grandpa?"

Diana sighed internally, trying not to get visibly agitated, and briefly smiled at her unusually young daughter.  "Not my daddy, sweetie.  Your daddy."

"But—"

"Just give me a minute, honey.  Please."

Utterly irritated with the screwed up speed dial, Diana quickly typed Marco's cell number in and waited impatiently while it rang.

"...Hello?"

Fear shot up into Diana's throat.  Marco always checked the caller ID before he answered his phone.  His practice had always been to greet her with something cheery and warm, like, ‘Hey, babe.  What's up?’ or, ‘Oh good, my favourite person,’ or, ‘I was just thinking about you.’  She wasn't sure she'd ever heard him sound so hesitant when answering her call.

"Marco?" she asked carefully.  Horrifying thoughts raced through her head—kidnapping, torture, fingers mailed in manila envelopes...

"Yes.  Uh... hi.  W-What's up?"

"I—"  Diana took a deep breath and settled into the chair they'd given away before her knees just gave out on her.  "Marco, answer me ‘yes’ or ‘no.’  Are you in danger?"

"Huh?  Uh... no.  Why?"

He sounded surprised at that suggestion, and Diana breathed a little easier.  "Oh, good.  God.  I'm sorry, it's just—everything's so strange!  Where are you?"

"I'm... just going into work.  I'm in the parking garage.  What do you mean everything is strange?"

For the first time that morning, Diana thought to check a clock and realized it was quite a bit later than she had originally thought.  "You're working on a Saturday?" she asked incredulously.  "Why didn't you tell me?  We had plans!"

"It's not Satur—  Plans?  Wh—?  ...Diana, what are you talking about?  Is this some kind of a joke?  ’Cause if it is, I'm not laughing."

Diana gritted her teeth, irritated as hell.  She wasn't sure how to breach the subject of their daughter being suddenly four years younger than she should be, but she was definitely sure how to call her husband on his odd behaviour.

"Well, if it is, it's not my joke!  Where are all of your things?  Why did you rearrange the whole house?"

There was a long silent pause, but Diana knew they hadn't been disconnected.  She knew Marco well enough to recognize the sound of his wheels turning.

"...Riiight.  Diana, you know, maybe you should get yourself checked out by a doctor.  Because I'm thinking: That drug?  It hasn't quite worn off yet."

"Drug?  What drug?  What are you talking ab—  What is going on to-day?"

A quick glance at her daughter told her that concern was quickly dominating Maia's face, and she immediately curbed the stress in her voice.  She covered up the mouthpiece with her hand and showed Maia a sweet smile.  "It's okay, honey.  Daddy and I are just playing a game."

But instead of soothing Maia's worries, Diana's words only made her eyes widen further.  She seemed to go from mild concern to abject terror.

"No—honey, it's okay!  Everything's okay.  It's just a game.  Just wait..."

That seemed to calm her just a little, and Diana took her hand off the phone.  "Okay, Marco, let's start at the beginning.  Why did I wake up this morning to an empty bed, with not a note, a message, or anything?"

His voice came sputtering over the line.  "W-What?  You—You told me to go!"

"That's ridiculous!  Why would I tell you to go?"

"You don't remember?  You don't remember the things you—"  He broke off very suddenly, and when he began to speak again, his voice was devoid of the strange bitterness that had been lacing it, and brimming instead with hopefulness.  "You mean you don't remember anything you said last night?"

"Last night?  Honey, I didn't even see you last night!  You were working all night long—I didn't see your face until you came home at three in the morning!"

"Came home?  I don't—"

She couldn't have heard his head shaking anymore clearly if it had been filled with glass marbles.  Whatever was going on, Marco was obviously just as confused as she was.

"Look, forget all this for now.  Marco, I called because... well, it's Maia."  She quickly smiled big at her too young daughter and pointed at her, mouthing, Your turn!, in keeping with her assertion that it was all just a game.  Maia smiled back and bounced a little in her seat, obviously happy to be included, though she clearly didn't understand.

Far away voices became audible over their phone conversation, and she realized Marco had made his way into the hub of NTAC.  "What about Maia?" he asked, sounding appropriately concerned.  "Is she okay?"

"Oh, she's... perfectly happy.  But, um..."  She considered how to phrase her concerns without scaring her daughter.  Whatever was going on, Maia seemed oblivious to it.  She had been playing with her own hair while her parents talked on the phone, so she obviously knew it was long again, and seemed to think it was normal.  She'd also said quite clearly that she was only nine.  Diana decided that just stating the obvious facts might be the best way to go.

"Well," she said into the phone, "brace yourself.  Okay?"

In her mind's eye, she could actually see Marco stop and lean up against a hard surface for support.  "Wow.  Um.  Okay.  I'm braced."

"Maia is... just... nine."

She fell silent and waited for his reaction.  About ten seconds went by before he said anything.  And then it wasn't what she had been expecting.

"...Okay."  Not as if he was trying to digest it, or he didn't believe her, but as if he was confirming that he'd heard what she said, and expected her to go on with something more interesting.

"She's... nine, Marco.  Maia is nine.  ...Years old!"

"I know that, Diana.  Everyone knows that.  What is the problem?"

Diana's hand went suddenly numb, and she dropped the phone.

"Mommy?"  Maia began to get off the sofa, but Diana just shook her head, and she sat back down.  Diana's eyebrows went up at how quickly she was obeyed.  She'd forgotten how easy nine truly was compared to thirteen.

"It's just a game, honey," Diana said, her own voice so wispy, she could barely hear herself.  "Mommy and D—"  Oh.  Oh, oh, oh...  "Mommy and... Marco.  Are just playing a game."

With shaking fingers, Diana reached down and picked up the phone again.

"—llo?  Hello?... Diana?  Are you there?"

"I'm here."

"Look, if this—"

"Marco," Diana interrupted, her voice tight and low.  "Please tell me the truth.  All right?  No jokes; no more playing with Diana, okay?  Just tell me the truth."

"...What?"

"Marco..." she took a deep breath, bracing herself for any answer other than the one she should be about to receive.  "...What year is it?"

"D—"  Marco sighed shortly, and she could hear him rolling his eyes.  "2006.  Okay?  It is 2006.  I'm going to hang up this phone now.  This isn't funny."

She wanted to beg him not to hang up, but at first, she couldn't speak.  The implication of where she was—when she was—was tearing through her heart and filling her eyes rapidly with tears.  If and when the click came, she wasn't sure she could hold back the sobs, even though she knew how it would terrify her beautiful Maia.

But the click didn't come as quickly as he'd suggested it might.  She opened her mouth.  Before she'd said a word, she knew it was pointless.  Who would ever believe her?  Even Marco—Marco who she knew loved her even then—even he couldn't possibly...

But she couldn't stop herself.

"Please, Marco," she whispered, her voice cracking.  "Please just come home."

"Are you—?  ...Diana, I don't understand."

Unable to look her daughter in the eye, Diana let her forehead fall into her hand so she could hide her face from Maia's view.  "Please come home, Marco," she cried into the phone, unable to control the pitch of her voice.  "I need you.  Please don't leave me alone like this."

"But I..."

"Marco, please," she insisted.  "Please, just... believe me when I say that I don't know or remember what it was I said to you last night to make you angry."

"I'm not an—"

"And please believe me that this isn't some sick joke on my part."  She sniffled loudly, unwilling to cross the room for a tissue—not even sure if she knew where the tissues were.

"I believe you."

"And please just come home."

"...Your home?"

A sharp sob escaped her throat and she clamped a hand over her lips.  It took a few seconds to get control of herself, and even once she did, she could only squeak, "Yes," into the receiver.

A steadying sigh came across the phone line, and she saw her husband stand up straighter in her mind's eye.  It was the sound of him settling on a decision he was hesitant to make.  "Okay.  I'll be there as soon as I can.  Let me just tell Tom what's going on—um, what I know about what's going on—so he can make any needed excuses, okay?"

"Tom?  But, Marco, Tom's dea—"  Diana's clamped her teeth shut so hard, it sent sharp pains through her temples.  2006.  This was 2006 and she had to remember that.

"Tom's what?"

"Nothing.  Tell him.  But hurry.  Okay?  I can't handle this without you, Marco."

There was a long pause before he spoke, telling her that he was seriously considering pressing the issue, but he finally didn't.  "Uh, okay.  I'll be there as soon as I can.  Just... try not to scare Maia.  All right?"

Diana smiled despite her sadness and fear.  Even then, his concern for Maia had been as intense as a father's.  Sometimes she wondered how she hadn't known he was for her from the very first moment she laid eyes on him.

"I promise."  She let the ‘I love you’ remain unspoken because she wasn't sure how he would take it.  Besides, if she was truly in her own past, she would prefer not change any memories of the two of them.  And she rather liked the way she'd first told him ‘I love you.’  She wanted to still remember that look on his face when—if—when... she got back to her own time.

Clutching the phone to her chest, she braved a smile to Maia, who only winced back at her.

"It's gonna be okay, honey.  Daddy's coming home."

*

Marco stared at his cell phone as if the display surely held some secret clue he hadn't seen yet.  It was obvious that Diana was experiencing a further effect of the drug, but this was less like hallucination and more like well-developed delusion.  Besides that, it should have worn off by now.

Clutching the phone tightly in his hand for fear it would ring again and he would miss it, he jogged down the hall to the office Tom and Diana shared.  Sure enough, Tom was already inside, looking worn out and even more pissy than usual.

"Tom."

He sighed heavily before he even lifted his head.  "What is it, Marco?  Diana's not in yet."

"I know.  She's home.  Something's up.  I'm going over there right now."

Tom's brow furrowed more deeply than it already had been.  "‘Something's up?’  What's up?  Is something wrong?"

"I'm not sure exactly.  Uh... she seems to still be suffering from the effects of the drug."

"What, still?"

Marco spread his hands.  "I really don't know.  She wants me to go over there.  She was talking about... Maia being nine and the year being 2006... I mean, like those are strange things to be."

"Really?  Did she—"

"Look, I have to go.  I said I was on my way.  Just—would you explain to Jarvis?  Only if necessary, I mean."

"Uh, sure.  But maybe I should go with you."

He was already halfway out of the chair, but Marco held his hands out to stave him off.  "I, uh... I don't think you'd better do that, Tom.  Diana... seems to think you're dead."

Tom's jaw dropped and Marco struggled not to smirk.  He shrugged casually.  "The drug is making her see things, I guess.  I don't know.  But she asked for me, so I think I should probably go alone.  All right?"

Tom sat back down with obvious irritation—not that he wasn't always obviously irritated—and made a flippant motion with one hand.  "Fine.  But call and tell me what the hell's going on as soon as you know."

Marco decided to pretend he'd heard the invisible ‘please,’ and nodded.  "Sure thing.  Thanks."

Hurrying back down to the garage and his little blue sports car, Marco was conflicted by his emotions regarding the situation.  Of course he didn't want Diana to still be suffering from her exposure to that drug...  But on the other hand, she seemed to have no memory of breaking up with him last night.

He couldn't help but wonder if everything she had said to him about ‘going nowhere’ and ‘lack of spark’ had been funny-cookie-related, no matter how lucid she had seemed at the time.  Maybe his long, rough night of tears, sobs, and punching of his pillows was all unnecessary.  Maybe he didn't have to try to get Diana to take him back, because she'd never meant to let him go in the first place!

He felt guilty about feeling elated, worried about being mistaken, and concerned about Diana's condition.

Conflicted definitely covered it.

~

3. Conversation

Marco had been standing in the hall with his fist raised for nearly a minute.  He was, quite frankly, terrified to knock on that door.

He'd been half concerned and half elated while he drove to Diana's apartment building and, despite all the strangeness, eager for another chance.

But she'd broken up with him last night, then berated him for not being in her bed this morning—which he'd only suggested as a joke to begin with, as it wasn't as if he'd ever woken up in Diana's bed, but that was beside the point.  The point was: What the hell was she going to do to him now?  Skewer him with a kitchen knife?  Give him a tongue bath?  Not even know who he was?

He might have stood there with his fist in the air ready to knock for a whole lot longer if Diana hadn't flung open the door just then, charged him, and yanked him into a hug that literally squeezed the breath right out of his body.

With the sudden change in balance and weight, he was having a hard time staying vertical, and stumbled past the doorjamb into her, and into the apartment, sputtering something unintelligible even to himself.

"Oh, thank god," she breathed into his neck, then let out a long, steady exhale that seemed to unknot every muscle of her body.  "Marco, honey, let me tell you: This... has been the weirdest morning of my life."

'Honey'?

"Uh... ditto," he wheezed.  Though startled—because how could he not be?—Diana's fervent hug sent happy tingles all over Marco's skin, and he couldn't have not hugged her back if his life had depended on it.

So, arms wrapped around her in kind, his heel probed the air behind him with uncoordinated motions until he managed to clip the door, and he gave it a push.  It slammed shut rather loudly, but Diana didn't seem to notice.

"If you just tell me this is a very complex practical joke right now, I swear I won't be mad.  I'll just be so incredibly relieved that I won't even be able to be mad.  Please just tell me that this is an awful, awful joke!" she said, her words muffling into his lapel, and her voice beginning to break.

He realized with a start that she was going to cry.

"Oh, please don't," he whispered, already feeling a lump rise in his throat in response.  "It's okay.  I don't know what's going on, Diana, but I promise we'll figure it out together, okay?"  He took her by the shoulders and gently pried her from him so he could catch her gaze.  "Hey," he said softly, and waited until she looked at him with watery, bloodshot eyes.  "Let's just start at the beginning, all right?  We'll figure it out.  Come on, let's sit down and talk about it."

When she brought her hands back to herself, her fingernails scraped across his shoulders as if she didn't want to let go, and a rash of goose bumps spread across the back of his neck.  She wiped gingerly at wet cheeks and nodded.  "Yeah.  Yeah, okay," she said, offering a small smile.

He smiled back and slowly led her to the sofa.  Taking a quick look around the apartment, he couldn't pinpoint anything as being out of place.  "Didn't you say that someone rearranged everything?"

"Yeah!" she said, suddenly wide-eyed, and she gestured around with helpless hands.  "Look at this place!  All of your stuff—"  Diana broke off and sighed heavily.  "God, I can't believe this," she whispered, not looking at him.

"Okay.  But... exactly what is it that you can't believe?  Here, sit down and just tell me what's going on, okay?"  He moved to the sofa and encouraged her to join him.

She nodded and quickly got herself settled, then spent a few seconds looking down at her own clasped hands as she gathered her thoughts.  Finally, she looked up at him with a tender expression in her eyes he was certain he'd only ever seen her direct at Maia.  Marco felt a pleased flush creep over his face.

"You're going to think I'm crazy..." Diana said quietly, her eyes on him, but far away, almost as if she was speaking to herself.  "Maybe you already think I'm crazy."

Marco gently laid his hand over hers on her knee.  "Come on, I know you're not crazy.  Something weird is obviously going on.  Just tell me about it and we'll figure it out from there.  Okay?"

Diana took a deep breath and nodded once more.  "Okay.  Okay."  She met his eyes with determination.  "Marco, I know that this is going to be difficult for you to grasp right away, but... we're married."

Marco didn't even try to speak.  He had forgotten how to breathe anyway, so couldn't have possibly achieved it.

"We've been married for slightly more than three years; Maia is your daughter as much as she is mine; we live here together and have done since before our engagement.  When I went to bed last night—"

Marco very suddenly found his voice—or one like his, though it was too high-pitched for his taste.  "Wait, wait, wait!  W—  When—  H—  ...  Married?" he finished, feeling his eyes too wide in his face.

Diana nodded.

"But—I mean—" he gestured quickly between them, "you and me?"

She nodded again, with a slight smile quirking her lips.

"For three years?  I mean, you're telling me that you have three years of new memories?"

"They're not ‘new’ to me, Marco.  I've been building them up all this time that we've been together—and it's been four years, actually.  To me, it's... 2010, Marco.  Not 2006.  But, I, uh, I seem to be the only one who thinks so."  She looked around, eying her furniture and walls as if they were planning an attack on her.  "At first I barely recognized this place.  But I realize now that the apartment is set up exactly the way I had it in 2006.  Isn't it?  That's why it looks so familiar: These aren't just my things scattered about, these are my things precisely as I had them arranged four years ago."

"But—  Diana, do you remember blink?"

Diana's eyes went blank, then confused.  "Blink?  You mean that band Maia liked for all of two months?  Blink135 or whatever?"

Marco snorted unexpectedly and wiped a hand down his lips, both trying to stop himself from smiling and to get his wits about him.

"They're Blink182.  But no.  Blink.  The drug?  You ingested it.  You've been hallucinating your ex-fiancé.  I can't help but think that... maybe all of this stuff you're talking about is an hallucination too, Diana.  Although... I do have to admit that I like this one a lot better than the last."

He was smiling about his admission, but she was only looking at him as if he was speaking Greek in Russia.  "Marco, I have no idea what you're talking about.  I was never affected by any drug called 'blink.'  Not even in 2006.  I've never even heard of it!  Why would I ingest some drug to make myself hallucinate?"

"You didn't do it intentionally.  It was sent to you baked in cookies.  In fact—  Wait, you really don't remember any of this?"

Diana shook her head sincerely and shrugged.

"And... you also don't remember what you said to me last night?"

"Honey, I swear: Last night, we only talked on the phone.  I mean, of course I saw you at work when I left in the evening, but last night, I only spoke to you on the phone when you said you were in the middle of something important, possibly making a breakthrough, and were going to be very late coming home.  You finally got in around three AM and I woke up when you got into bed."

Marco's head was swimming and he had to look away.  It felt as if the entire room was floating and swaying around him.  Leaning back into the support of the cushions, he took his glasses off to rub quickly at his eyes before replacing the frames.  "Wow," he said, and at the moment, he just didn't have anything else to say.

Diana sighed very sharply.  "Look!" she snapped.  "The last four years of my life were not an hallucination!  I've lived them, Marco; I know every little thing that's happened!  An hallucination of Josh Sandler of all people—for whatever twisted reason, I can't imagine—is one thing.  But there is just no way some ‘blink’ drug baked in a few cookies is going to make me imagine the last four years of my life!"

"Okay, okay."  Marco held his hands up to calm her tone, because she was obviously getting upset.  But who wouldn't?  "So... what are you saying?  I mean, it sounds to me like you're trying to say you've traveled four years back into your past.  But if you don't remember ever being affected by blink, then how could that be?  Surely, even if somehow, for some reason, you forgot the entire episode somewhere along the way, I would think that somebody would have told you what had happened then, right?  I mean, wouldn't I have recounted it for you?  So, if you can't recall things that I know for certain happened in 2006, then how can you be from the future?"

Diana threw her hands in the air and practically growled.  "God, I don't know!  I just want to go back home to my husband!"  She buried her face suddenly in her palms, and Marco's hands glanced toward her for comfort, but he restrained himself.

"Please don't cry," he said thickly.

"I know, I know," she said, the words echoing through her hands.  She pressed her fingertips into her eyes and sniffled.  "‘If I cry, you'll cry, and that's just embarrassing.’  I know.  I'm trying."

Though that was exactly what he was thinking, he wasn't sure why she grasped it so quickly, but he was grateful.  He went silent for a few seconds, letting her get control of herself.  His hands, having nothing to do, and desperately wanting to comfort her, though he was too conflicted to do it, went about picking nonexistent lint from his jeans.  After a good amount of time had passed and Diana no longer seemed to be sniffling, he quietly asked, "Where's Maia, anyway?"

"Oh, she decided to take herself down to that old neighbor of ours who used to babysit her sometimes."

"Oh.  Good."  The thought of Maia sitting in her room, ear against the door, or maybe face down on her bed, trying to block out the sound of her mother's confused cries with a pillow would have twisted Marco's gut into knots.  For not the first time, he wondered if maybe he was cut out to be Maia's father.  Sometimes it felt to him like he wanted that more than almost anything else in the world, second only to his desire for the woman beside him.

His thoughts caused a little smile to curl his lips, and he looked over at Diana askance.  "So, uh... we get married, huh?"

She laughed—a real, tangible thing—and shook her head at him.  "Oh, that would be the thing that would catch your attention!" she admonished with a grin.

Marco shrugged sheepishly and looked away.  "It's just that I find that so hard to..." he shrugged again, "picture.  I mean, realistically picture."

There was a slight movement on the sofa, and Marco felt Diana's presence getting closer without having to see it.  To him, it felt as if the heat of her body was positively scorching his right arm, though she was still at least four inches from touching him.

When she spoke, her voice was quiet and gentle, and it moved like warm liquid through Marco's chest.

"Yeah, baby.  We get married.  Maybe it's hard to take in right now... but, Marco, when I went to bed last night, I was emphatically—"

*

"—single!  Maia was nine, it was 2006, I was definitely single, and you did not come waltzing into my bedroom in the middle of the night to sleep with me!  ...Nude!"

"All right," Marco said quietly, and backed up the smallest bit more, feeling ever more self-conscious about his nakedness.  If he'd had any idea where his underwear had ended up last night, he would have been trying to wiggle into them under the blanket.  "I'm sure this must be quite a shock for you," he said, and he knew how sarcastic he sounded, but he could still feel his wife's burning hot handprint on his face, so at the moment, he didn't care.

"Yes, Marco!  As a matter of fact, it is!"

"Shh!" he hissed.  "Please keep your voice down.  Do I need to remind you Maia is just down that hall?"

Diana gasped and clapped her own hand over her mouth.  "I'm sorry," she whispered through her fingers.  "I just—  I don't—"

Her voice cracked and Marco dropped his gaze to the bed, forcing the prickling behind his eyes away with difficulty.  "It's okay," he said quietly.  "Let's just try to remain calm about this, all right?"

She nodded, wide-eyed, her hair bouncing around her shoulders, fingers still tight to her own lips.

Marco sighed to steady himself and tried to approach the situation logically.  His logic and his love for Diana, unfortunately, tended not to share residence very often.  But he tried anyway.  "All right.  I know you've said that when you went to bed, it was 2006.  But I want you to try to really think.  Take a minute and try to look back over everything that happened before you went to bed.  Does anything... seem out of place?  A flash of memory that doesn't make sense?  Something that doesn't fit into what should have happened that night in July in 2006?"

Diana's wide eyes darted back and forth as her expression became progressively more panicked.

"It's okay," Marco soothed.  "Just take your time."

He watched as she took a few deep breaths, and looked as if she was really trying to remember.  But at length, she only met his eyes again and shook her head.

"Do you remember making flatbread pizza with Maia just after you got home?"

Her eyes darted some more, and she shook her head again.

"Okay.  Do you remember talking on the phone with me at all last night?  When I told you I'd be late?  And... then later, and then later, each time we talked."

"I don't remember anything like that!  When I went to bed, it was 2006!  I know it was!"

"All right, shh..." his hands itched to touch Diana's skin, to soothe her fears away, to comfort her—that's what he did, it's what he was made for—but right now, the last thing she seemed to want was to be touched by him.  It felt like a dull knife in his heart, but he refrained from placing even a finger on her.  "Listen, I know that this is scary, but I think it's pretty obvious what's happened here.  You must have fallen, hit your head, you probably have a concussion, and you've got retrograde amnesia."

"Amnesia?" she exclaimed quietly.  "But I remember everything perfectly clearly!"

"Everything except the past four years," he said with an incredulous chuckle.  "It's a bit of a gap, Diana."

"But—  But—..."

Just her arm.  He just wanted to rub comfortingly at her arm so badly...  He gathered the quilt more securely at his waist instead.  "All we need to do is just get you dressed and get to a hospital.  They'll do a CAT-SCAN and EEG; they'll find out what's wrong.  Then we can work on getting things back to normal, okay?  Baby, I promise, it's going to be all right."

Diana scoffed and shook her head.

"...What?"

"I just can't imagine that being called ‘baby’ is something that I will ever accept as normality."

Marco chuckled and slid off the bed finally, taking the blanket with him.  He tried desperately to ignore how vulnerable and beautiful and perfect Diana looked, sitting up worrying, wrapped in nothing but their bedsheets.  "I guess a lot of things change when you decide to spend the rest of your life with someone," he murmured.

She turned to look at him consideringly, and for the shortest of moments, he wondered if she was remembering.

"Di...?"

"The last thing I remember saying to you, Marco, is that it was over.  How in the world did we get from that point to this?  I was certain there should be no romance between us."

Marco's face dropped.  "What the hell are you talking about?" he asked, feeling and sounding utterly defensive.

"The last night I remember is the night in July 2006 that we broke up."

"We never broke up in 2006," he spat derisively.  He didn't even want to consider that that could have happened.  Hearing it fall from his wife's lips dropped a big, cold stone into the pit of his stomach.

Diana's irritation came rushing back, if it had ever left, and she slapped a hand down onto the mattress.  "Damn it, Marco!  I was seeing Josh—you knew all about it.  And when it was over, I told you what had happened and you—"

"Who the hell is Josh?  You were seeing someone else while we were dating?" he cried.  It was inconceivable to him that Diana would have ever cheated on him—but the thought that perhaps she'd been hiding an affair all these years...

"Oh, g—not seeing as in dating, I was hallucinating him!"

"I—"  Rendered suddenly speechless, he could only manage:  "Uh.  Huh."

"How can you not remember this?  Blink?  In the cookies?"  Marco continued to stare at her.  Diana rolled her eyes dramatically.  "Oh, fine!  Go ask Tom!  He got hit with it too!  I'm sure he'll remember even if you don't."

Unsteadily, Marco lowered himself to sit on the edge of the bed, his right side to Diana.  "I don't, uh... I don't think asking Tom is a viable solution, really," he said quietly, and swallowed.  "Diana, there was no drug, no cookies, no hallucination.  There was, quite definitely, no break-up.  I mean, we've had the occasional fight over the years like anyone else, but we've never truly broken up.  Not for a day, not for an hour.  I hope to God we never do.  But right now, baby, I'm really starting to get worried."

He paused and looked back at her, but she said nothing, just went on looking terrified.  God, how he longed to take her in his arms.

"Diana, you've not only forgotten the last four years, but now you're ‘remembering’ things that never even happened?  Amnesia and delusion?  I'm not even sure what to call that."

"I—  I don't know, I—"  Her gaze fell to the bed and she went quiet for a while.  Finally, she raised red-rimmed eyes to him, and his chest tightened.  "I was drugged, I... I imagined quite a bit, actually.  Maybe... I thought it was real, Marco, I was sure it was real, but maybe I hallucinated breaking up with you, too."

Marco had begun to nod, but Diana's eyes went suddenly wide and she gasped loudly.

"Maybe I'm imagining all of this!" she exclaimed.  "Maybe none of this is real at all!  Maybe I'm in my room, talking to myself, and the drug just hasn't worn off yet!"

Marco dropped his face into his hands and rubbed tiredly at his eyes.  "Diana... I can assure you that you are not imagining this."  He looked back over at her and let a beat pass.  "Though I find it a distinct possibility that I am."

"Well, I'm real!"

"Well, so am I."

They eyed one another.

Eventually, Diana scoffed and looked away.  "So... what?  The reigning theory is that I hit my head, got four-year amnesia, ingested something hallucinogenic unbeknownst to you, and imagined in a scene right after the point where my memory got cut off?"

Marco paused.  "Well, when you say it like that, it sounds stupid," he deadpanned.

"It is stupid!"

"Right."  In all the time that had gone by, Marco had managed to forget that in the beginning, Diana hadn't always quite grasped his quirky sense of humour, especially in high-stress situations such as the one they found themselves in now.  "Look, I still think the best thing to do is to get you to a doctor as soon as possible.  So why don't you get dressed, I'll call Gracie over to watch Maia, and we'll—"

"Who's Gracie?"

Marco sighed heavily, and tried to smile encouragement at his better half.  "One of many long stories you'll remember just as soon as we get this all cleared up."  Fighting the urge to lay a comforting hand on the nape of his wife's neck, he walked around the bed to their closet and opened up her side of it.  He was reaching in to pull out a comfortable pair of jeans and her favourite comfy sweater for her, when Diana's icily angry voice behind him stopped him cold.

"I can dress myself, thank you."

He carefully placed the hangers back where they'd been.  "Of course," he said.  It was a struggle to not become offended at her tone, nor visibly distressed at his lack of ability to do anything to make her feel better, but the last thing he wanted was to pile more stress upon her.  He backed away from the closet to let her do as she liked.

He had to smirk when she reached for the same clothes he'd been getting for her, then quite obviously skewed that intention, and began to pick something else.

Without direction for the moment, his gaze fell unbidden to her left shoulder showing above the sheet she had wrapped around her.  All of his self-restraint gone to waste, his hand flew forward to stroke over flawless skin.

Diana tensed.  "What—"

"Wait a minute," Marco interrupted softly, and gently tugged the sheet down to look more closely at her shoulder blade.

Diana yanked it tighter to her and spun around.  She looked furious, but that had no effect on him.

He stumbled backwards until he fell ass-first onto the bed.

She looked confused and took a step toward him, but he begged off with one raised hand.  After a long beat of silence had gone by, and the situation became no less muddled in Marco's mind, he finally had to ask.

"Who are you?"

~

4. Realization

"Oh, great.  Now you've got amnesia too?"  The arm that wasn't holding the sheet up flailed helplessly and landed with a slap against her thigh.  "What's the last thing you remember?"

"This isn't funny.  And you are not my wife.  Who are you?"

"That's what I've been trying to tell you!" Diana exclaimed, frustrated as ever.  "I never married you!  I just broke up with you!  I don't know where the hell I am, and I don't belong here."

She watched as Marco slowly put his head into his hands, and stared at the floor between his bare feet.

He'd been so much calmer than her through all of this that it had really been starting to piss her off.  But now, it was like all this distress had just hit him all at once.  He looked utterly defeated.  But instead of feeling a little better about her own incredibly obvious emotions, she only felt worse.  Something had just changed about their situation, and though she wasn't sure what it was, she was pretty sure that it wasn't good.

"I thought it was just..."

He trailed off, and she took a couple of steps closer.  "What?"

Marco sighed and finally looked up, but his eyes were guarded instead of open and supportive like they had been.  She hadn't noticed just how comforting that look had been until it was gone.  Now she rather missed it.

"I thought it was just... in your head.  Memory... concussion, I...  But you're not even..."

"I'm not even what?"

"...Diana."

"I am Diana Skouris."

Marco smiled wanly.  "Right.  Skouris.  Not Pacella."

"Well, no!  That's what I—  Hey, what's with the sudden opinion change anyway?  Half a minute ago, you were all gung ho about EEGs and such."

"Your shoulder."

Diana glanced over it, and trailed her fingers over the spot, but noticed nothing odd.  "What about it?"

"It's... Diana, you got shot.  Two years ago.  There's a scar there—there should be a scar there.  Small, circular, pretty well hidden because the surgeon was damn good, but it's there.  Only... it isn't."

Diana sighed, and cinched her sheet up a little tighter.  She walked over to sit beside Marco on the bed, leaving at least six inches of space between them.  "So... do you believe me now?"

"That you're not my wife?  Yes."

"That I belong in 2006."

"...Yes.  Well, maybe."

"So what do we do about it?"

Marco's hands separated in a helpless gesture, then clasped between his knees again.  He looked over at her seriously.  "You've traveled forward through time," he said, and chuckled once, dry and humourless.  "And if there's one place in the whole of the world that has even a modicum of knowledge about dealing with that..."

Diana nodded once.  "It's NTAC.  Let's go."

*

"Sorry.  With everything that happened between when you called me and when we decided to come here, I had forgotten all about it."

Diana wiped sweaty palms on her blue jeans.  "It's okay.  I... I kind of forgot too.  I should have been expecting it."

"We'll do most of the research down here, anyway.  It's shouldn't be too hard to—"

"No, it's okay."  Diana stood up straight from the desk she'd been leaning against and tried to look a little stronger than she felt.  "I can handle it."

"Well, just the same, I think I'll ask him to keep his distance.  You've got enough to worry about."

She sighed with relief and nodded.  "Truthfully, I'd appreciate that.  It's hard... seeing him.  Seeing him and knowing that—"

Marco raised his hands.  "Say no more.  I understand.  We'll just make sure to keep Tom out of your line of sight as much as possible, okay?"

Diana nodded again and smiled her appreciation.

"Okay."  Marco clapped his hands together and rubbed them briskly.  "So, let's get started.  First off, uh... what date was it when you went to bed?"

"May 21st—er, May 22nd by the last time I fell asleep, 2010."

"So, not quite four years, then," he added, and wrote the information down on the transparent equation board.

"Right.  Um, it was a Friday night, early Saturday morning.  The last time I saw before I conked out was about ten after four."

Marco started to write 03:10 down, then looked back over his shoulder at her.  "Don't you mean ten after three?  I thought you'd said the future me woke you up coming in at three."

Diana blinked.  "He did," she said simply, then let a beat go by before one corner of her mouth quirked up lecherously.

It could have been automated, at the speed with which Marco's cheeks went dark red.  He whipped his head back to the board, wiped away the beginning of a three with the tip of his finger and wrote a four there instead.

She struggled not to laugh while he cleared his throat and went about too casually asking as many technical questions as he had room for answers.  By the time they were done, information about her jump in time filled one half of the board.

When Marco finally turned to look at her again, he seemed to have gotten control of his embarrassment.  "In your time, do you still work with the 4400?"

Diana nodded.

"You probably would have mentioned this, I guess, but do you happen to know of any 4400s who have the ability to move individuals through time?"

"Oh.  That's a good thought—but, no.  As far as I know, there are no 4400s with that ability."

Marco shrugged and capped the dry erase pen as he sat down on the nearest desk.  "Well, uh... how many returnees’ abilities have you catalogued by 2010?  Is it possible that there's someone out there who could have this ability, but NTAC of the future doesn't know about it yet?"

Diana opened her mouth, closed it, and remained silent for a moment.  Since their original discussion on her out of place sofa, she wasn't positive anymore that she had traveled backward through time.  Everything seemed about the same as she remembered it, but she had absolutely no memory of this whole ‘blink’ incident Marco had described.  However, she was pretty sure that if she had, in fact, traveled back along her own timeline, she had the ability to change it.  Whether or not that was a good thing was still to be determined.

"You know, Marco, I was thinking that... perhaps I shouldn't tell you too much about your future.  I'd hate to see anything I said change our lives together, or Maia's life, or something even bigger than the three of us.  Let's just say that there's always a possibility that someone or something exists that we don't know about in 2010, and so we probably shouldn't discount any theory just yet."

"Fair enough."  Marco slowly put the pen down, got off the desk and walked over to her.  "But, uh, you might want to consider the theory that you were purposefully sent back precisely so you could change the future—or, the past.  I mean, imagine: You've already said that in your time, Tom is, uh... no longer among the living.  If you could part with a few more details about that, maybe it could be prevent—"

Diana's body lurched forward before she could think to control it.  "No!"

Marco broke off in the middle of a word, his eyes and mouth wide in surprise.

"I mean... I'm sorry.  But I can't.  Oh god," she moaned, and buried her face in her hands to hide for second.  "Look, there's no way you can understand this without me telling you the things I specifically can't tell you.  But just... please.  Don't ask me.  I can't tell you.  I shouldn't tell you.  I won't."

"Uh, all right."  Marco spread his hands and offered a confused, but amiable, smile.  "Hey, no worries.  I'm sure being in your own past must be pretty conflicting.  I'm not sure how I'd handle being thrown back four years, either."

"Yeah," Diana said with a scoff.  "It's even more conflicting considering I'm not even sure it is my past."

He was nodding before she was even finished.  "Blink."

"Yeah.  And my breaking up with you?  Why would I do that?  I mean, I didn't do that.  So..."

"All right."  Marco turned and went back to the board, uncapping the pen again.  "So, alternate theory, right?"  He drew a straight horizontal line from left to right, then after a few inches, branched it off into two.  He labeled one 'yours' and one 'mine.'  Then he drew a little vertical slash far on the right of the 'yours' line and labeled it '2010,' and another close to the fork on the 'mine' line and labeled it '2006.'

"So let's say you were pulled out of this timeline in 2010, brought back, but instead of being put into your own 2006, or even back here," he pressed the pen against the fork, "a few days ago, where we share a 2006, you were put up here, into my 2006, just after the timelines branched off into two separate futures."

"Assuming that it's possible that two separate timelines can exist at once."

"Is it really an assumption?  You remember a different past than I do.  We know for a fact that the future—some future, whichever timeline it is—manipulates what we think of as the one timeline with impunity.  Who's to say they're not actually manipulating just one timeline, but rather, making different timeline after different timeline with each change they cause?"

"By separate timelines, don't you actually mean separate universes?  I mean, you're talking about an interacting multiverse, right?"

Marco shrugged, recapping the pen once more.  "Hey, I'm not the first.  In theoretical physics, it's a pretty hot topic at the moment."

"I know.  Okay, so somehow, I jumped from one timeline—mine—to a different timeline—yours—and further back in it at that.  How could that happen?  Why would that happen?"

"I can't help you with the why—actually, if chaos theory is right, there is no why.  But the how could be described by the bubble theory—if your timeline, or universe, and mine, collided at just the right point in just the right way, I suppose it would be possible for a breach to open up just enough to switch you with my Dia—er, with the Diana from here."

Diana smirked and watched with barely disguised delight as Marco tried to get the rest of his words out through his fluster and failed miserably.

"I mean, from now.  I mean, Diana Skouris, not Pac—I mean, assuming you even took my na—his name—I mean, not that I would expect—or that he would—or that you sh—"  He finally stopped, cheeks veritably burning, and let out a sharp sigh.  "Uh... help?"

Diana waited a moment as if she was considering whether or not to save him.  Then, "Bubble theory.  Collisions.  Multiversal breach."

"Right.  Uh... yeah."  He turned back to the board as if he needed the visual to keep talking.  "Anyway, it's about a trillion trillion trillion billion to one that two bubble universes should collide in such a specific and gentle way as to not only not destroy each of them, but to actually make an opening stable enough to switch out two versions of the same person on the same planet within years of one another.  And it's probably another trillion trillion trillion billion to one chance that the two universes that would do that would have the same laws of physics, which they obviously must have, or else you would have melted or stretched out into spaghetti or something as soon as you hit our atmosphere."

"So, basically, it's a theory, but..."

"It's a really, really unlikely one."

"So we're back to the time-altering returnee theory."

Marco nodded a few times, then looked over his shoulder.  "Or... there's always the future human faction who took the 4400 to begin with.  We know for a fact they have the ability to move people around in time.  Although, this would be, as far as I know, the first time they took someone and put them back into a past that was actually different than the recorded one."

"Which would mean they were either using a new technology or just showing us one they hadn't yet."

"Right."

"Which brings us back to the question we couldn't answer.  Why?"

"Which brings me back to wondering..." Marco turned fully and his eyes met hers, "...what it is you're here to change."

Diana held his gaze for a long beat, but finally decided not to answer the not-quite-question.  "So, you seem to think that I've 'switched out' with your Diana.  You believe that she's in my life—in my 2010 with my Marco?"

Pleasure flared in Marco's eyes on both the phrases 'your Diana' and 'my Marco,' though he tried to drop them fast enough to hide it.  He obviously hadn't figured out yet that there really was no hiding from her.  It had been too long and she knew him too well.  "Not that any of this follows any form of logic whatsoever... but, it seems logical to me that if you're here and she's not here, then she's probably there where you're not."

"Hm."  Diana let that sink in for a moment, then chuckled mirthlessly.  "God, I just had a horrible thought."

"Do I want to know?"

"What if it isn't just her and me?  What if I'm switching places with earlier and later versions of myself all up and down the timeline?  Or timelines?  What if I'm here in 2006, and 2006 me is somewhere in 1998, and—"

"1998 you is somewhere in 2024 and 2024 you is going through high school for the second time?  Yeah, you're right: That is a horrible thought.  But, if this had happened to you before, shouldn't I have memory of you telling me about it?"

"I don't know.  How quickly do changes move down the timeline?  The future put the 4400 here, and it took them quite a while to realize it wasn't working.  If the changes were immediate, they should have realized two seconds after they dropped them off that things weren't going as planned and changed it all over again immediately."

"But instead they waited almost two years."

"Exactly."

Marco fell silent, head down and obviously working at high speeds.

"Marco?" Diana asked quietly after some time had gone by.

"Hm?"

"Even if we hit on the right theory... what good is it going to do?"

Marco's head snapped up.  "Sorry?"

She met his eyes, feeling a sad smile sit on her own lips.  "We're decades, if not centuries, from figuring out time travel.  Even if we figure out how the hell I got here, we don't have the technology to get me back.  Baby, I know better than anyone what a genius you are, but you're not going to invent time travel in the next couple of days, you know?"

Marco was apparently bothered enough by her observation that he didn't even blush at the compliment.

"Or, what if it is bubble universes colliding just right at impossible odds?  What are we gonna do?  Lasso it and make it come back?"

"Hey, I know it seems insurmountable right now, but... most big things do in the beginning.  It's not... well.  Hopeless.  We've figured a lot of seemingly impossible things out in this room, Diana.  Done a lot of seemingly impossible things.  I don't see any reason to expect this wouldn't be the same."

Warmth spread out from Diana's belly all the way to the tips of her fingers and toes.  Logically, Marco's words changed nothing.  Emotionally, they were everything.

"She's so stupid."

He cocked his head slightly.  "Who?"

"Your me.  How could she possibly just... let you go?  Kind of ironic that the drug she blamed it on is called 'blink.'  She must've had her eyes closed since the moment she met you."

Marco was apparently stunned into silence, and he didn't move as she approached him, but he did make a small sound when she wrapped her arms around him and placed her head on his shoulder.  She smiled, her vision filled with the scrawlings on the board he'd made in preparations to help her.

As his hands crept hesitantly over her back, she got the illogical but comforting feeling that everything was going to be okay.

*

"What do you mean I can't see Tom?  Maybe he could help.  I at least want to see if he remembers the drug we both got sent."

Marco and Jarvis exchanged their umpteenth glance, and Diana was starting to lose her patience.

Jarvis licked her lips and started carefully.  "Uh, Tom's—"

"—on an extended vacation.  He's unreachable.  Um, he's... out of the country."

Diana rolled her eyes and scoffed at her rotten luck.  "Figures," she muttered.  At least it explained why Marco had said that asking Tom wasn't 'a viable solution.'

The three of them fell silent for a moment and Diana's eyes swept over the very few people milling around.  "Where is everyone, anyway?"

"Oh.  Uh, it's Saturday," Marco said.

"Is it?  What's the date again?"

"May 22nd."

"2010?"

"2010."

Diana sighed.  "Just checking."

"Look, I'd like to get into the theory room, do some brainstorming with you.  Up for that?"

"Something that might actually get me out of here?  Lead the way."

*

Diana had a bitch of a headache.

She was sitting in Marco's chair, head in one hand, eyes squinted as she focused on the transparent board he wrote undecipherable characters on.

"Bubbles?"

"Well, bubble universes.  A multiverse."

Diana sighed and squinted harder.  "Multiverse?"

"You know inflationary theory?" he threw back over his shoulder, as if he was certain she would say, Why, yes.  I'm quite versed in it, in fact.

"Marco," Diana said slowly, and leaned forward in her chair, clasping her hands tightly together between her knees.  "I do not know the difference between a white hole and a black hole.  My specialty is disease vectors, not space/time vectors.  Please, I beg you, dumb it down for me."

Marco suddenly stopped writing and hung his head.  "That's right," he muttered.  "You didn't start those existential courses until 2007."

"Existe—  Look, not to sound cranky, but what, exactly, is this doing to help me get out of here and back home to my Maia?"

Marco looked over his shoulder at her with a pained sympathy.  "In order to reverse anything, one has to know how it happened in the first place.  Your specialty is disease vectors: You know that."

"And you think that once you figure out how I got here, you'll be able to figure out how to get me back?"

Marco licked his lips, then bared his teeth with a slight grimace.  "Well... I'm honestly not sure.  But I do know that I can't do the latter without the former.  So, unfortunately, all this really is necessary."

Despite her mood, Diana had to smile at his careful reassurances.  "So you're not just putting me through this torture as payback for my kicking the crap out of you this morning?"

Marco wryly fingered the scratches on his neck.  "Nah.  I'm still planning my revenge for that.  Trust me, it'll be way more sinister than some technical mumbo-jumbo in the theory room."

Diana snorted softly.  "I look forward to it."

Her smile didn't last long and after she'd spent a few seconds scowling at the shoes she was wearing (which, incidentally, she'd never seen before in her life), Marco was suddenly kneeling in front of her and struggling to meet her eyes.

She was still getting used to seeing him without his glasses, though she had to wonder why the Marco of her time hadn't already opted for the LASIK surgery.  His eyes were huge and dark and soulful and it almost seemed a shame to hide them behind dark frames all day long.

"Hey, try not to get discouraged, okay?  We're gonna figure this out.  Remember, I have just as much stake in this as you do.  Nice as it is to be able to confuse the hell out of you without having to make a concerted effort, I really do want my wife back.  I'm sure your Marco misses you too."

Diana scoffed.  "The Marco of my time probably has no idea this is happening.  I broke up with him, remember?  It's not like he's expecting my call."

Marco's smile faltered, then came back something less than it was.  "It doesn't matter what year it is, Diana.  I was, am, and will always be there for you.  You can slap me awake and break up with me as many times as you want..."

He paused while Diana chuckled softly.

"...But I'll still help you when you need me.  Jump all around our respective timelines—you'll be able to count on that everywhere."

"If you don't mind, I think I'll just take your word for it."

The smile came back for real this time.  "Even better."

He moved, and she thought he was just rising to his feet again, but then she jerked back with a quiet gasp when she realized he was closing in for a kiss.

She was immediately embarrassed for both of them, and struggled to apologize as he pressed his lips together and looked away.  "Marco, I—"

"Sorry.  Forgot."  He moved quickly back to the board, uncapped his pen, and began jotting more undecipherable symbols.

"It's just that I—"

"What did the clock say the last time you remember looking at it before you woke up here?"

With a defeated sigh, and feeling a complete fool, Diana went on answering each question Marco put to her to the best of her ability.

Anything to get out of there.  She felt more out of place with every direct, openly loving look Marco sent her way.

~

5. Consolation

"Hey, thanks for doing this.  I know it's uncomfortable for you."

Diana stood by the closet, robe cinched tight around her waist, long flannel pyjamas under that, and arms crossed defensively over her chest.  "I'm doing it for Maia."

Marco avoided her gaze and tossed the last of the throw pillows onto the chair.  "I know," he said quietly.

"How long do you think we can convince her that I'm the mother she remembers?"

"Assuming she doesn't have, or hasn't already had, a vision about it?"

"Assuming."

Marco shrugged, pulling the covers down.  "If we encourage her to keep busy with her friends and activities away from home... few days, max."

"And then?"

"And then... we find a way to deal with it.  Maia's strong.  You'd be surprised what she can handle."

Diana scoffed derisively.  "I don't need you to tell me what my daughter can deal with.  I've—"

Marco cut her off with a strong voice and an intense stare.  "You have no... idea."

Diana's swallow was visible and audible.  Her gaze dropped and she began to look both contrite and concerned as she processed Marco's meaning.

Marco hung his head, feeling boorish.  Their entire situation was, of course, horribly irritating.  But ever since Diana had dodged his kiss that morning, he'd found himself with even shorter of a fuse than he had expected he would.  Even four years ago, in his past, Diana would never have flinched from him.  That any Diana would was a bitter pill to swallow, and he was having some trouble stomaching it.

"Look, I'm sorry.  I know you know your own daughter, and I don't mean to make you worry about what's to come.  Hard times are ahead—they always are.  But we got—we'll get—through them just fine: You, Maia... and me.  We'll get through this too."

She only stood there, staring down at her own feet, as he climbed into the bed and threw back the covers for her.  She glanced up, but made no move to advance.

Marco smirked.  "Feel free to wear that bulky thing all night if you want," he said, gesturing at her heavy terrycloth robe, "but I promise I know how to keep my hands to myself."

Diana sighed and dragged her feet toward the bed.  "We couldn't have had a bedroom with a comfy little couch in it?"

Marco gestured at the smallish area.  "No room."

"Yeah, well, that's a little strange," she said, climbing into bed more casually with the conversation.  "We've supposedly been married three years and we're still living in my old apartment?  Kind of small all the way around for three people, isn't it?  We both take in very comfortable salaries at NTAC—or at least we did in 2006.  Why haven't we gotten a house?"

"Oh.  That's a decision we mostly made for Maia.  She's always loved this place.  And as it seemed like something was always happening to upset her world—our world—uprooting her at any point was just never very much of a good idea.  We had a talk about it not long after the wedding, and decided we'd wait until Maia showed interest for more space on her own.  Great timing this jump of yours has had, actually.  We started looking for a place last month; found one we're very interested in last week.  In fact," he finished with a sigh, arranging himself comfortably back on his pillows, "we had plans to-day to get an in-depth tour of the house from the agent.  Plans which are understandably on hold for the moment."

He was finished, but when no further conversation greeted his silence, he finally looked over to find Diana watching him with careful interest.

"What?"

"...We're buying a house?"

"It's not final yet.  But if I know my wife—and I do—yes.  We're buying a house."

"That's," she swallowed hard, "pretty permanent."

Amused laughter bubbled out of Marco's chest.  "Diana," he said with a shake of his head, "we're married.  It's already pretty permanent, babe."

Diana offered a small smile, but her gaze trailed off into the distance, and Marco decided she'd probably heard enough for one day of a life she couldn't seem to imagine.

"Hey," he said quietly, and tapped her shoulder in a friendly, but not too intimate way.  "Try to get some sleep, okay?  We'll work on it some more to-morrow.  Then on Monday, we'll have access to a lot more brains to pick."  He waited until she nodded slightly, then smiled and turned his back to her, firmly lodging his itching hands under his pillow.  "Good night."

"Good night," she repeated pleasantly.

The previous night, Marco had gotten approximately one hour of sleep, been slapped awake, scratched, punched, and fought with, then spent fourteen hours running theories, asking questions, and trying to keep two highly stressed volatile tempers under control and, at the least, cordial.  So, in only minutes, he was drifting into a well-deserved deep sleep.

But he was just awake enough to smirk when Diana flicked off the light, then shuffled about removing her robe before settling in.

Small step for you, Diana.  Giant leap for us.

*

"I don't think it's a very good idea."

"Marco, please.  I haven't slept alone in years.  And in this strange apartment?  With Maia gone?  I won't even be able to close my eyes without you here."

Marco shifted on his feet, the back of his neck feeling hot, and the two sides of his brain screaming arguments at one another.  "I don't think my Diana would want me to."

"Your Diana isn't here.  I am."

Marco made a pained, uncertain sound, and soon Diana was right in front of him, hands on his shoulders, and an adorable, convincing smile beaming into his eyes.

"Hey, it's not like I'm asking you to make sweet, hot love to me all night long.  Okay?  Just sleep here.  To comfort me.  That's all."

A single bark of high-pitched laughter escaped Marco's throat and his jeans became suddenly two sizes too small.

Right.  Operative word is not.  Not asking for the sweet, hot loving...

"Um..."

Diana shook him playfully.  "What are you so afraid of?  Worried I'm just so enamoured of you that I can't control myself not to jump your bones in the middle of the night?  I'm a big girl, Marco.  I think I've got a handle on it."

Sure, maybe you do...

"Yeaaah.  Something like that."

Diana's smile faded a bit and her next words were dead serious.  "Marco.  I'm begging you: Please do not make me stay all alone in this strange place.  You are the only part of this life I recognize.  Don't take that away from me now."

The idea already had Marco's libido on fire, and now these words were melting his heart.  How was he supposed to say no to that?

"Um... yeah, okay."

"Oh, thank you!"

Diana wrapped him in a tight hug, and he pushed his hips backwards as unostentatiously as possible.  Intellectually, he knew this wasn't his Diana—this woman had experiences with him that he knew nothing about, and had lived a life with him that he'd only ever dreamed.  But his body just did not know the difference.  If anything, this older Diana was pushing his amoré buttons even more than the Diana who belonged to him.

Belongs now.  Not 'to me.'  Just... now.

Diana placed a loud, smacking kiss on the side of his neck, and he might have actually groaned.  He did his best to turn it into quiet laughter, but his success was questionable.  If she noticed his distress, she didn't betray it when she pulled away smiling.

"Are you hungry?  Thirsty?  Do you need anything before bed?"

Marco shook his head mutely, and before he knew it, was being led to Diana's bedroom by the hand.

Of all the fantasies and all the hopes and all the dreaming, if he'd ever actually managed to make his way into this room, this was one situation he'd never expected.  He almost wanted to roll his eyes at himself.  It took her jumping back four years into the past, with a relationship with him already settled into her memory, for him to weasel himself into Diana Skouris' bedroom.  If that wasn't a neat, pathetic summing up of his seduction abilities, he didn't know what was.

He stood silently just inside the door, staring with wide eyes at Diana's unmade bed, and shifting from one foot to the other, trying desperately to relieve the pressure built up in his groin.  When he chanced glancing up, his breath caught in his throat at the sight of what Diana was pulling out of her closet.

"Uhhh..." he managed.

She turned toward him with her eyebrows raised in question, a red satin and lace nightie in one hand, and matching thong in the other.  "Problem?"

Marco's eyes might have been making a break for it, they felt so wide in his face.  He tried to speak, but could only squeak.

Diana's straight face suddenly broke and she laughed heartily.  "You should see the look on your face!  I'm kidding!" she exclaimed through her laughs, and put the titillating material back where she'd found it.  "Oh wow, if I only had a camera..."

Marco chuckled goodnaturedly to hide his sigh of immense relief, then nodded his approval when she wiggled two hangers at him that held a matching set of light blue sweatpants and sweatshirt.

With a slight roll of her eyes, she walked over to the air conditioner control and cranked it up.  "Middle of July.  I'm going to swelter," she muttered, but tossed a wink in his direction.

He fought down his smile and refocused on staring at the floor.  Even when she walked by and announced she'd change in the bathroom, he didn't look up.

The few minutes he was alone in Diana's bedroom were nothing less than surreal.  He stood in one place, looking around at her things, but not daring to go touch any of them.  It didn't feel right, somehow.  He wondered, if the Diana from his time knew he was there, knew what he was planning on doing to-night, if she wouldn't feel violated by his very presence.

The future Diana didn't seem to draw all that much of a line between him and her husband—almost as if she thought his lack of the memories she had changed nothing about their relationship together.  But she and his Diana were worlds apart, and he didn't mean that in a theoretical physics kind of way.

This Diana was more open, more affectionate, and, odd as it seemed to him considering her situation, miles happier than the Diana he knew.  After her initial normal freak-out about her shift in time, she'd seemed to begin to take things in stride.  It was almost as if she'd spent those four years of her life going through strange occurrence after strange occurrence, so that even something so weird as ending up in a past that wasn't quite her own, couldn't throw her too far or for too long.  He couldn't imagine what a person might have to go through to get to a point like that in their life.

Yet, despite all of that, she was insistent that the simple lack of his presence in her bedroom while she slept would be enough to undo her.  How could a woman so strong depend so completely on another to keep her sane?  Was he even up to such a task?  For not the first time since she'd arrived, he wondered just how he would measure up to his future self.  Something told him he had a helluva lot to learn.

Deeply lost in reverie, he jumped when Diana's warm hand was placed over his spine.

"Hey.  You all right?  You haven't moved."

"Just thinking," he said flippantly, and moved casually out of her reach before the simple warmth of her touch traveled to places it shouldn't.

"Well, maybe you've done enough thinking for to-day," she suggested, walking around to climb into bed.  "Maybe it's time to give that brilliant mind of yours a rest for a while."

What the hell kind of designer makes sweat clothes that accentuate a figure?  What kind of sick bastard would come up with that?

Marco blinked his gaze away from Diana's form crawling under the covers, and was glad to take his glasses off so that he couldn't make her out so well.  "I'm sure it'll help to have a fresh perspective in the morning," he said as he toed off his shoes.

"I'm sure—Marco," Diana said, interrupting herself, and holding out a hand to stop his getting into the bed.  She gestured at his jeans.  "You're sleeping in those?  Be a little uncomfortable, won't it?"

Marco glanced down at himself, then shrugged and continued crawling into the bed.  "A little uncomfortable is good, I think," he said wryly, and made sure to pull the blankets up to his chin, and keep his arms out.

His head hadn't fully settled into the pillow before Diana had sidled up to him, wrapped an arm over his chest, and a leg over his knee.  His momentarily cooled desire went flooding right back to his crotch and made it throb a painfully hard demand.

"Uh... what're you doing?"

"Going to sleep."

"Like that?"

Diana looked up at him, eyes twinkling knowingly.  "We could sleep head-to-toe if you wanted."

The sentence was innocent enough, it was the low-pitched, suggestive way she said it.

Marco struggled to close his gaping mouth.  "Y-y—  You're doing this on purpose!" he sputtered.

Diana smiled and bit her bottom lip coyly.

"Hey, I distinctly recall you saying, 'Sleep.  That's all.'"

"Ooh, since when are you so prudish?" she teased, and slapped gently at his chest.

"Uh, since I've never been married to you, never spent the night at your apartment, and definitely never been in your bed.  Diana, I'm sorry," he said seriously, and began to sit up, "but this doesn't feel right.  If my Diana had any idea—"

"Okay, okay," Diana rushed, and began tugging him back down.  "I'm sorry.  I'll stop teasing.  Please don't go.  I meant what I said: I can't sleep here without you."

He paused and looked down at her with narrowed, suspicious eyes.  "No more flirting?  I'm serious, Diana—I'm trying to do the right thing here, but I'm just a man, and you're... well.  Perfect."

A pleased smile lit up her face before she tamed it and nodded seriously.  "No more flirting.  I promise."

He stayed still for a few moments longer, asking himself it really mattered whether she flirted or not.  It was still going to be one hell of a struggle to just lie there all night.

But finally, with carefully controlled motions, Marco settled back down.  Diana remained close to him, with her arm over his chest, but she somehow turned it into something more relaxed and comfortable rather than overtly flirtatious.  She exhaled softly against his striped shirt, heating up a spot on it, and seemed to be sliding into sleep already.

It was disconcerting how well her body fit against him, as if she'd been made to lie there in the crook of his arm; as if they'd been doing it for years.  Even when she wasn't purposefully arousing him, she was arousing.  Just the thought of spending his life with her—with someone who could make him feel like this—made a satiated smile spread over his lips.

"Can I ask you something?" he whispered, not sure if she was asleep yet.

"Mmm?"

"Why does your husband ever leave the house?"

Diana snorted softly against his chest, and patted at his left ribcage where her hand was resting.  "Oh, I do have to kick him out most of the time."

He was nodding before she was even finished.  "I thought you might, yeah."

Then she looked up, eyes closed, smiling softly, and unexpectedly found his lips without a hitch.  Her kiss was soft and gentle, and as sweet as anything he'd ever experienced.  He'd known from the first time Diana put her lips on his in the middle of her kitchen that her kiss had the ability to undo him all on its own.  Lucky him: This Diana seemed to have honed that skill.  If he would've tried to stand, his knees would surely have turned to water under him.

When she pulled back and looked at him with hooded eyes, he wondered just how obvious it was to her what she was doing to him.

"That was a good night kiss," she said softly.  "Not flirting."

"Right."

"Good night, Marco."

"Good night."

Then her head was back on his chest, and he reached shakily over to out the light, but her hand intercepted him on the way there.  "Leave it on.  Please."

"...Why?"

"If I wake up in the middle of the night, I want to see you here."

Marco's smile grew.  "You know, I kind of look a mess in the mornings."

"Mmm," Diana chuckled.  "I know."

Smile still in place, his eyes closed against the light.  And as he fought his way toward sleep through his own insistent libido, he made sure to thank the heavens for those really uncomfortable jeans he was sleeping in.

~

6. Vexation

When Diana woke up, it was a struggle not to whip around and play out a repeat of yesterday morning.  It was only iron will and a frantic silent repeating to herself of what the situation was that kept her from doing it.

It would have been easier if the future's Marco didn't have such an incredibly annoying habit of spooning her in his sleep.  And it would have been even easier, still, if she hadn't been able to so plainly feel his ample erection digging into her tailbone.

His breathing told her he was sound asleep, and she wanted nothing more than to get out of the line of fire before he woke up and became consciously aware of his... predicament.  Embarrassed enough on her own, she had no desire to share in his as well.

Unfortunately, their position had her on the very edge of her side of the bed.  If she tried to slide forward, she was going to fall right off the mattress.  Or probably not, because both of Marco's arms were wrapped tightly around her, one at the shoulders, one at the belly, and so she doubted she would actually fall.  Which brought her back to the problem of him waking while they were in this undignified situation.

What was it with guys and their morning wood, anyway?  Was it some universal constant that kept the planets spinning in their orbits?  If at least ten thousand erections didn't go up at precisely five AM on every corner of the world on every morning in time, would space consequently fold in on itself and crush all life to death in a singularity of infinite mass?

Well, fine.  But why did she have to end up on the business end of this one?

Carefully testing her options, Diana tried to shift her legs forward, but they were all tangled up in Marco's as well.  He moved slightly at her motion and made a quiet 'mm' sound into her ear, then fell silent and still again.

She was irritated enough to seriously consider slamming her tailbone back into him as hard as she could to get her point across.  But as patient as he'd been with her yesterday, and as hard as he was trying to help her and comfort her, even when she was completely unresponsive to him, she just didn't have the heart to cause him any more physical pain than she already had.  Besides, it wasn't his fault.  He was a guy.  Nobody's perfect.

"Marco," she finally droned in monotone.

There was no response.

Diana sighed as deeply as she could while being held so securely.  "Marco," she said again, slightly louder.

Marco's body came to life all at once: His hand slid warmly over her belly, his legs nimbly intertwined more tightly with hers, his hips pressed him more fully against her backside, and his soft lips nuzzled into her neck while he hummed a pleasurable little sound against her skin.

Diana was stunned speechless for a moment at the symphony of sleepy skill he demonstrated.  Whenever she looked at Marco, she never thought to herself, My goodness, I bet he's a wonderful lover.  Perhaps it was time to rethink that assessment.

Regardless of the little hairs on the back of her neck standing up and taking notice, she stiffened and cleared her throat.

Marco had just begun to gently turn her toward him when he very suddenly went still, mouth softly open against her neck, stiff groin pressing into her left butt cheek, and one hand trailing dangerously close to a breast.

"Get.  Off.  Of me."

He made a choked sound and slid away so quickly, she very nearly did fall off the mattress.

"Oh god, I'm sorry," he breathed from the other side of the bed.

"I could have sworn you said you knew how to keep your hands to yourself," she said wryly to the opposite wall.

"I'm sorry.  I was asleep.  I thought—  I'm sorry."

Diana sat up and looked back at him, but he was already getting up, reaching for his robe, and tying it securely over his thin light blue and white striped pyjamas.

"I need a shower," he mumbled, and was out the bedroom door before she could say another word.  He closed it quickly but quietly behind him without ever meeting her eyes.

With a sigh and a shake of her head, Diana got up to get dressed, trying very hard not to think about what he would likely do in the shower to take care of his... not so little problem.  She decided to busy herself making breakfast for the three of them, as she figured that was probably something the Diana she'd displaced tended to do on Sunday mornings.

To her eyes, the entire kitchen was rearranged, with dishes, glassware, and silverware she'd never bought placed in cupboards and drawers she'd never chosen to put them in.  There was food she'd never tried in a refrigerator she'd never seen.  There was a wok.  What in the world would she ever do with a wok?

But kitchens are kitchens, and with a little time, she figured things out without too much trouble.  She was lost in thought deeply enough that when Marco spoke from behind her just as she was starting to fold the omelet she was making, she started, and a big glob of egg and cheddar jumped the pan and landed on the flat stovetop.

"Jesus, you scared me!" she hissed.

"Sorry, sorry," Marco rushed, cleaning it up before she'd even figured out where the paper towels were.

She listened with heightened senses as he threw the mess away somewhere behind her in a hidden trashcan. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and it was quickly becoming obvious to her that she needed to try to calm her frayed nerves.

The truth was, she wasn't being fair.  None of this was Marco's fault, and if she really thought about it, he seemed to have lost a lot more in her arrival than she'd lost with going missing.  She didn't want to snap and be short of temper with him while he struggled to help her get home, she just didn't know how she was supposed to act.

Internally, she cursed herself.  How should I act?  Why don't you try acting like a friend, Diana?  You've been friends for years.  Should it be so difficult now?

Sighing, she glanced down at the rings on her finger, which, though they felt odd there, she'd not removed because they anchored her to the idea of where she was.  As long as those out of place circles of metal were touching her skin... she knew she wasn't home.

It is difficult.  I can't pretend that it isn't.  ...But I could at least try not to be such a bitch.

"Marco, I'm sor—"

She choked off before she'd finished.  She was turning to face him as she spoke, not giving any consideration to the fact that he might not yet be fully dressed from his shower.  It shouldn't have mattered.  When she'd arrived here, he was as naked as the day he was born.

Only, it did.  There was something different.  Maybe her lack of fear and adrenaline.  Maybe his dark hair clinging wetly to his forehead and curling against his ears.  Maybe the sheepishly apologetic smile on his freshly shaven face that reminded her so very much of the Marco she knew.  Whatever it was, it made the simple sight of him standing there in only thin grey sweatpants and nothing else incredibly disconcerting.

"—ry.  Uh...  Sorry.  I'm sorry for snapping at you, I mean."

Marco shrugged a shoulder and walked toward her, his eyes on something behind her.  She realized with relief that he was headed for the omelet, and she casually backed slightly away from the stove.

"It's understandable.  Could this situation be anymore stressful?" he asked.  Then he narrowed his eyes at the omelet as if it had done something wrong, and began to lightly season it.

Diana searched for something to say.  "Um... Maia doesn't like cayenne."

Marco smirked up at her for a second, then returned his attention to the pan.  "Maia's a vegetarian.  She wouldn't touch an omelet with bacon in it with a ten-foot pole."

Diana's jaw dropped.

Was it so shocking that a thirteen year old girl would experiment with vegetarianism?  Not at all.  It was just scary not to already know about it.  Though there wasn't any magical way for her to instantly learn all of the ways Maia had changed in the last four years, she still felt like a bad mother for not even being aware of her own daughter's eating habits.

She scoffed at herself as Marco pulled another pan out and began preheating it.  "Don't worry about it.  We'll just make another for her."  He glanced up and smiled winningly.  "I, fortunately, count small quantities of bacon among one of my favourite vices."

Diana offered a wan smile back.  "Yeah, me too."

"I know," he said casually, and went about whipping half and half into Maia's eggs.

*

Marco was having a really great dream.

It was clear and bright and as real as one could hope for in a fantasy.  He was in Diana's room (as he imagined it), lying on his back on her bed (as he imagined it), holding her in his arms, her head on his chest as she slept and he gazed sleepily at her blurry ceiling (as he imagined it).

Only it wasn't a dream, he wasn't imagining anything, and Diana's extremely warm hand was wrapped very high up around his thigh.

Marco's eyes snapped open all the way.

Instantaneously, he went lightheaded and wondered if all of his blood suddenly rushing south was to blame.  His heart began slamming wildly in his chest and his breathing was starting, to his ears, to sound more like panting.

Then everything—breath, heart, and thought—stopped when Diana made a small sound and shifted against his body, sliding her hand ever further under his thigh.

His face felt on fire, and he was starting to sweat.

"Diana?" he whispered, his throat tight.

"Mm.  Morning," she slurred back, and pressed a kiss on the shirt over his chest.

He was just getting ready with a viable excuse of why he had to get out of the bed now—right now!—when the hand buried under his leg began sliding up the inside of it instead.  Diana nuzzled against his side, pressing firm kisses along the curve of his pectoral muscle, and after some deftly quick navigation, her fingernails caught on the denim over his fly.

With a choked gasp, Marco drew his legs up, knocking her hand away with his right knee.  "Please don't," he begged, voice wispy and weak.

Diana's arm hovered in the air over his stomach for a good long time before she brought it carefully down to run her fingertips over the left side of his ribcage.  With a sleepy roll of her head, she turned to look up at him.

He could feel the pain on his own face—the position he was in didn't really work for certain inflamed portions of his anatomy—but she only smiled softly at him in response.

"You do love her," she said, as if she was answering a question she had, but hadn't asked.

Marco wasn't sure what to say to that, so he just continued to watch her carefully, and slowly lowered his legs back to the bed.

"Your Diana," she clarified.  "You love her.  Even now.  Even after... 'blink.'"

His first instinct was to deny it.  After all, who wanted to admit love for someone who had never given indication of feeling the same way, and had, indeed, just done their best to break one's heart?

But there was something about the way this Diana—this older, wiser Diana—looked at him, that told him his lie would be both transparent and hollow.

So he nodded.

Diana's smile got only slightly wider, and the fingers on his ribcage went still.  "It's nice to see that some things are universal."

He had to smile back, if only a little, at the sentiment.  "Multiversal, even," he said.

He knew that she was going to kiss him.  He even maybe knew that he should say 'no.'  But he didn't.  He kissed her back.  And he was very gratified when she kept her fingers well above his waistline.

"Mommy?"

Marco jumped, clashing their teeth together, and only managing to not bolt out of the bed, room, and apartment because Diana had him held so tightly around the middle.

Blushing hotly, he looked past their feet to see Maia standing in the doorjamb, staring at him with confusion in her wide eyes.

"Marco?  I didn't know you slept over."

"Um..."  Maybe it would have been just as embarrassing to be standing beside the bed instead of lying in it, but he would have really liked to give it a try.  And he would have if Diana hadn't kept holding him fast.

Before either of them had said a word to her, Maia came bounding over.  "Are you gonna stay and have breakfast with us?" she asked, bouncing and smiling, and grabbing his free arm without concern.

"Well, of course he is, honey," Diana was saying before he'd even begun to think about forming a reply.

"Yay!" Maia jumped up and down a couple of times, and Marco couldn't help but laugh.  Life was was beginning to tread so close to fantasy, it was making him dizzy.

Once Maia had a grip on him, Diana finally let go and got out of the other side of the bed.  He took that as his cue to get up as well.  That, and the fact that Maia was tugging on him without mercy.

"Will you make pancakes?" Maia asked happily.  "I love your pancakes!"

Marco shot a confused look toward Diana, but she, of course, didn't know it was an odd comment.  He focused back down to Maia.  "But... I've never made pancakes for you, Maia," he explained gently.

Maia stopped pulling impatiently on his arm for just a second and looked up at him, confused, then immediately happy again.  "Oh, I know, Marco," she said, yanking like she was determined to get his arm out of its socket.  "But you do later, and I love them!"

Diana only laughed as if she was used to Maia saying those kinds of things—which Marco was sure she probably was—but he wanted to know more.  "Oh, do I?" he asked, finally letting her drag him forward a few steps.  "When does that happen?"

"After you get married!"  She let his hand go suddenly so that she could clap joyfully, then ran to the door, looked back, and waved for him to follow.  "Come on, Marco, come on!"

Marco had no intellectual resource but to simply stare after her.  "When... when did you see that, Maia?"

"This morning!" she said, smile huge on her face.  But then it faded a little. "I think."  Diana and Marco both waited quietly while Maia thought it through.  "I mean... I'm not sure.  It was fuzzy.  You were married and making pancakes, and then... Mommy and I were living way out in the country alone."  She pouted for a second, then brightened again.  "But then we were back here and we all went to the zoo!" she finished excitedly.

Marco started to ask another question, but before he could, she was gone in a yellow pyjama flash.  The next thing the two of them heard was pots banging around in the kitchen.

After a moment of stunned silence, Marco turned to Diana, who was pulling clothes out of her closet.

"Do you think she—?"

"You had better get out there before she starts without you.  You know what she does when she's left alone with flour."

Marco laughed nervously as he put his glasses on.  "Uh... no.  Actually I don't."

A cacophonous clatter came from the kitchen.  Diana smiled over her shoulder.  "Well, believe me, it isn't pretty."

"But—"

He ducked just in time as a pair of jean shorts came flying toward his head.  "Get out there!" Diana said through a laugh.  "Before we don't have a kitchen left!"

Marco's mouth opened to automatically correct the 'we' in her sentence, before he belatedly realized he just hadn't the energy to combat the weirdness.  With a heavy sigh, he trekked out to Diana's kitchen and tried to remember how the hell one makes pancakes.

*

'Awkward' didn't even begin to cover it.

Diana had no idea what she should ask; what they would talk about.  She kept glancing over toward Marco for help, but he just smiled encouragingly at her and went on eating his breakfast.

Maia wasn't exactly picking at her food, but she was eating it very slowly.

"Um... how's school going, honey?" she tried, glancing constantly at Marco for any sign that her questions weren't applicable.

Maia shrugged.  "S'okay."

"It's... just about to let out, isn't it?"

"Uh-huh."  Another small bite went into her mouth.

Diana almost asked what her favourite subject was.  Then she realized she should already know that, and remained silent.  What she really wanted to ask was why Maia seemed so downtrodden this morning.  But truth be told, Diana was terrified about what the answer might be.

So, for a while, awkward silence reigned.

Maia took a particularly small bite of her vegetarian omelet and sighed heavily.  "I tried to look, you know.  But I can't see."

Diana's eyes darted to Marco to find him already glancing at her.  Then he leaned slightly forward toward Maia.  "What can't you see, honey?" he asked carefully.

Maia looked up at him and blinked wide eyes.  "When she gets to go back home," she said, as if he had asked a silly question.  "When Mom's coming back."

Diana's fork slipped from her fingers and it clattered loudly onto her plate.  She saw Marco tense out of the corner of her eye, whether from the noise or Maia's words, she wasn't sure, and Diana apologized softly.  Forcing the bite in her mouth down her throat took half a glass of water and some very vigorous swallowing.

"Maia—" Marco started.

But Maia paid no heed, breaking in and talking directly to Diana.  "I looked really, really hard.  Almost all night long.  I mean, I even kinda got a headache from it."

Diana's eyes closed as motherly guilt washed over her.  "Oh, Maia—"

"But for some weird reason, I just can't see anything very clearly.  Like, I can see two people, and I guess maybe they could be you and Dad, but I can't be sure, 'cause they're so blurry.  You know?  Whoever they are, I can tell they're doing stuff together, but sometimes it's like they're doing two or more things at once.  In different places, too.  And sometimes there's just one person doing lots of stuff, or doing one thing, or not doing anything at all.  I'm not even sure if they're really you guys or just some people.  But I'm trying real hard to see you guys, so it has to be you, right?"

Diana had no idea what to say, and Marco didn't seem to have anything, either.  They both just stared at her.

All Diana could think was what a wonderful, strong daughter she had, and how strange it was to hear her speak like a young woman instead of like her little girl.  But she was afraid that if she tried to say that aloud, she'd just break down crying.

Maia sighed again and looked down at her food as if she was disappointed.  "I'm sorry, Mom.  I know you want to know when you get to go home.  I really tried hard.  I'll keep trying if you want."

"Oh, Maia; no, honey," Diana rushed.  "It's okay.  Just don't you worry about it.  Marco and I will figure it out."

There was a still moment, and then Marco cleared his throat.  "Maia?"  She looked up as if she knew what was coming.  "I'm sorry we didn't tell you.  You know how I don't like keeping things from you."

She shrugged, and looked back down to play with her food.  "I understand.  You were afraid I'd freak out like last year."

Diana's head whipped toward Marco for clarification, but he only slightly tossed his head at her as if she should just let it go.  It was a struggle not to demand details, but she managed to hold back the urge.

"I mean, it is totally weird, but... it's okay.  I mean," Maia looked up at her, "you're still my mom, right?  Even when you're from, you're still my mom.  I still love you."

She said it so matter of fact, like it should be the easiest thing to understand in the universe, and Diana's eyes pricked with hot tears.  Whatever it was Maia had gone through, it was obvious Marco was right about her strength.  And it was such a beautiful feeling to know that strength didn't overshadow her daughter's loving nature.  With a child so young and a power so strong, Diana had often fretted over what it might do to her development.

She reached across the dining table she didn't remember buying, and took her daughter's hand in both of hers.  "Maia, honey... I love you too."

Maia smiled: A knowing, adult smile with wisdom and understanding and tenderness in it, in addition to the love and joy Diana was used to seeing.  Then she looked at Marco with that same perfect smile, and he directed it back to her.

After a few seconds of silence, Maia turned to Diana again.  She leaned slightly forward and whispered to her mother as if she was telling an important secret.  "Dad still loves you, too," she said.

Diana couldn't think of anything appropriate to say.  So she just swallowed silently and tried not to let her hesitance show in her eyes.

~

7. Revelation

Breakfast went well.  Marco's pancakes weren't quite what they would become, but they were still better than most she'd tasted.  Maia ate three of the huge, fluffy discs drowned in syrup.  Diana had forgotten what an appetite that girl used to have, especially for white flour and sugar of all kinds.

Everything was as pleasant as she could have possibly hoped.  But when Maia ran off to wash her face and brush her teeth, Marco's mind went right to where it didn't need to be.

Diana tried to remain quiet as he ran down the list of things they should try to do later that day at NTAC while helping her clear the table.  His enthusiasm was obviously getting the best of him, and she was tempted to just let it go and support him in his attempts.

But in the end, she didn't have the heart to let him waste his time and energy.

"And then maybe we could—"

"Marco, I'm sorry, honey, but I just don't see the point."

Marco froze, sticky plate halfway lowered into the sink.  "Sorry?"

Diana shrugged, looking for the right way to break the news.  "I'm just saying that... if your theory is correct—which I believe it probably is—and your Diana is in 2010 with my Marco, then that would mean that they're working on this problem from their end."

"Well, exactly," he said, finally putting the plate down.  "If all four of us work on it, there's a better chance someone is going to hit on something."

"Right.  It's just..."  With a sigh, she turned to face him and took his arms gently in her hands.  "Don't take this the wrong way, okay?"

He shook his head slightly as if to indicate she should go on.

"It's just that my husband is quite a bit, well... smarter than you."

A little flash of shock went across Marco's face and then he just looked at her curiously.

"Baby, believe me, I know better than anyone that you're a genius," she soothed.  "But my Marco has four years of experience, temperament, education, and technology on you.  If anyone is going to figure this out, it's going to be him."

"But I—"

"Anything you and I do here and now is going to be paltry compared to what can be done in 2010.  I mean, look at us, honey.  We don't even have holographic chips in our computers yet."

Marco's eyes went momentarily wide.  "Wow, holographics?  That soon?"

Diana rolled her eyes a little and offered an indulgent smirk.  "The point is..." she said, shaking him slightly in a playful way, "that the technology is less advanced here, and my knowledge and yours together can't even begin to match my husband's on his own."  She let go of him and took a step back, symbolically offering him his space.  "If you really want to work on it, I'm not going to stop you.  But I just don't see any logical reason for you and I to kill ourselves over something we can only ever hope to trail four years behind on.  As far as I'm concerned, we should just go about our daily lives—you, yours, and me, your Diana's—until either my husband fixes this, or it reverts back on its own."

She was thankful that he didn't look too hurt.  There was understanding in his eyes, and he nodded a little toward the floor.  Then, after a moment, he looked up at her with a sympathetic wince.  "...What if it doesn't?"

Diana shot a longing look toward the closed bathroom door at the sound of water running.  Then she met Marco's gaze with a weak smile.  "I'm honestly trying to not think about that very much.  But... if it comes to that, I can think of a lot worse of a life than to be allowed to experience Maia's growing up and our growing closer all over again from almost the beginning."

Marco glanced shyly away, then back; shrugged and pocketed his hands like he wasn't sure what he should be doing with them.  "So... we just... sit and wait?"

The corner of Diana's mouth turned up and she tilted her head toward the bathroom door.  "I don't know if you missed the incredibly subtle hinting," she said dryly, "but I think Maia's up for the zoo to-day.  What do you say?"

Marco's eyebrows went up.  "What, call off work altogether?  In the middle of the week?  When there's a potentially future-altering time shift in the works and we're quite literally ground zero?"

Diana leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially.  "Let's be rebels."

Marco laughed and looked down at his feet.  After a few seconds, he greeted her with a wickedly charming grin.  "You know, I do have this weird desire to feed some tropical birds a cup of nectar all of a sudden."

*

"So, let me get this straight: We're married.  But I let you keep this chick-magnet of a sports car?"

Marco snorted and glanced over at her with disbelieving eyes.  "‘Let me keep’?  Di, you're my spouse.  You're not my mother," he said, and laughed.

"Hmm..."

"Hey, besides, you love this little car."

"Do I?" Diana sounded quite unconvinced.

"Oh, come on!" Marco said, changing lanes to pass the truck in front of them.  "You love this car even more than I do."

He looked over at her quickly, but she was only shaking her head.

"Look—you're always borrowing it throughout the week.  Whenever we need milk, you want to use my car to go pick it up.  Maia needs dropped off at T’ai Chi, and you want to use my car to drive her there.  We're due for a vacation, and you want to go somewhere within driving distance, and then sit in this seat the entire way.  Hell, the car even likes you better than it likes me.  ...The traitor."

It was surprising to him when she really laughed at that.  He glanced over and saw her head thrown back a bit, exposing the smooth skin of her throat; a few locks of hair loose from its clip blowing around her face; the fine lines around her eyes visible with mirth, and he probably stared a few seconds longer than he should have.  He switched smoothly back over to the right lane.

He felt a relaxed, happy smile settle onto his face for what felt like the first time since she'd arrived.  All for a laugh.

"I guess we'll practically be the only two people in the building other than the security guys."

Marco chuckled and shook his head.  "I can't even remember the last time I went into work on a Sunday."

"I hope Maia doesn't feel abandoned..." Diana said quietly, and trailed off.

"Are you kidding?  She loves Gracie," Marco said, turning gently to take their exit.  "They have way too much fun together; that girl shouldn't even be paid."

Diana laughed again, a softer one this time, but heartening nonetheless.  "You never did tell me that long story I was supposed to remember."

"Yeah, well... maybe it's best you don't learn too many of those long stories.  No offense, but I don't need you going back and, well... for lack of an appropriate euphemism, screwing up our lives."

Diana chuckled, looking over at him almost fondly as he pulled into the parking garage.

"What?"

"Isn't there anything you would want to change?"  She shrugged her left shoulder toward him.  "What about the bullet that made that scar you mentioned?  I'm surprised you haven't drawn diagrams by now telling me how to avoid that in a couple years."

Marco hit the brakes a little too rough as he found a parking spot, and the engine stalled on him.  He cleared his throat, embarrassed.  "Uh, sorry."

He hurriedly pulled the parking brake, and was just about to get out of the car without another word when Diana placed a hand on his wrist, stilling him.

"Well?  What about it?"

Marco couldn't take his eyes off the fingers on his arm.  He didn't want to say anything, and yet he felt guilty for not wanting to say anything, and yet he was frightened that something worse might happen if he said anything, and yet...

"I'm not sure what will happen... if I tell you," he mumbled.

"What will happen?  Hmm..."  Diana pretended to think about it.  "Here's a thought: Maybe I'll avoid getting shot."

"In the shoulder."  He met her eyes suddenly and she almost jerked back when she caught his meaning.

Again, he considered simply vacating the vehicle.  But the frightened look in her eyes spurred him to part with what he hoped would be just enough.

After a steadying sigh, he kept his words clipped, his sentences short, and his voice as even as he could.  "It was pointed at me.  You saw it.  I didn't.  You tried to throw us both down.  Fast, but not fast enough, and it caught your shoulder.  Your scapula stopped it."

Diana's jaw had dropped before he'd gotten very far.  It took her a few seconds to think to respond.  "...I took a bullet for you?"

Marco nodded carefully, wary both of saying too much and saying not quite enough.  "More than that.  You took me down with a shoulder-block to the chest.  That shoulder.  If you hadn't been where you'd been, I'm pretty damn sure it would have pierced my heart."

"I..."  Diana blinked a few times and swallowed thickly.  "So I saved your life."

"Yes.  You did."

"...Oh."

Feeling like he hadn't breathed in days, Marco inhaled deeply and let it out very slowly.  "Or, more accurately: You will."  He flashed a quick smile.  "I hope."

With that, he was out of the car and shoving the keys into his pocket with trembling fingers.  It was several seconds before the passenger door closing behind him told him Diana had begun to follow.

He just started to walk numbly, but she hurried up beside him and stopped him, turning him toward her.

"Hey.  I know you won't ask, so I'll just tell you.  Okay?  It's worth it.  You're right.  You shouldn't tell me anything else about what happened.  When the time comes, I'll do the same."

Marco swallowed against a dry throat, managing to feel both relieved and nervous at the same time.  "Look... most things in our life are like that, Di.  The stuff that on the surface seems like it might be good to change has important details underneath that should probably stay as they are.  So I hope you can forgive me if on occasion you find me too tight-lipped for your taste."

She smirked.  "I think I'll get over it," she said flippantly, and he relaxed.  "Come on, let's get to work."

They walked the rest of the way into the building side by side.

*

"Diana, as much fun as playing hooky yesterday was, I really have to go in to-day.  I can't just not try."

"I had a feeling you might say that," Diana said, and sighed heavily.

Marco shrugged, looking slightly apologetic.  "No offense, but... while it's great to know about all of these good things that are coming for us—and especially to know how close we end up—I'd much rather make those memories with the Diana I know than to simply have them recounted to me by you."

He'd said it gently so that it sounded sweet instead of offensive, while it very easily could have done the latter.  Diana had to smile.  She wanted the same.

The idea of living any life other than the one she knew with a Marco who remembered all of the things she did—what they'd been through, what they'd learned about life and one another, what it was like watching Maia grow up—it was difficult to swallow.  While seeing Maia as a little girl and having a chance to do it all, all over again, was tempting, what she really wanted more than anything was to wake up right now, at home, with her husband's arms around her, his chest at her back, and his nose pressed softly into the nape of her neck.

While she had faith in her husband's abilities and, truthfully, not much of the same in the knowledge and technology of the time she was in, she too found it difficult to 'just not try.'

"No offense taken.  I really don't want to live the next four years of my life with an acute case of deja vu, either."

Marco winced sympathetically.  "Yeaaah.  I can imagine that would get irritating after a while."

"So... we're going?"

Marco shrugged again, smiling.  "Hey, who knows what might happen, right?  Maybe I'll accidentally stumble on something the future me is just too intellectually superior to even bother with."

Diana laughed heartily, swatting at his chest, and fell into his arms for a quick hug before heading for her jacket.  "That's what I love about you, Marco," she tossed over her shoulder on the way.  "The self-deprecating humour with the subtle twist in it that somehow manages to compliment you..."

"It's a gift."

Diana chuckled all the way out of the apartment.

*

Marco greeted his co-workers with a silent two-fingered wave as he and the future's Diana walked through the door of the theory room.

"Hey, Pacella," Brady said, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose when he looked up.  "Glad you've decided to join us—what's all this?"  He gestured behind him at the board, which still had all of the information and diagrams from two days ago scrawled over half of it.  "I came a micrometer from erasing it yesterday, ’cause it was constantly in my way, but Carmichael said we'd better wait to be sure you didn't still need it."

"Don't touch that board, Brady.  Top priority right now is getting Diana home, and that information's all we have to go on."

Brady turned back to give it a once-over, tugging his fingers through his shaggy, uncombed hair.  "Wow.  That's pretty pathetic."

Marco rolled his eyes and gestured for Diana to have a seat.  "Yeah, well.  I'm sure now that we've got you on the case, she'll be out of here in no time."  He directed his words toward Diana, and they shared a secret patronizing smirk.

Brady nodded at the board as if he agreed, then turned toward them with what might have been mischief behind his thick wire-rimmed glasses.  "So, uh... married, huh?"

Marco held down the blush that tried to break free.  Top secret status or no top secret status, it was impossible to keep anything private in that building.  He shrugged casually as if it was unimportant.  "Yeah, I guess so."

Carmichael's bald head popped out from behind a piece of equipment, where he'd apparently been monitoring their exchange.  "Married to Skouris?" he clarified.

Marco shrugged again, losing his grip on the smile, but still managing to not blush.  "Apparently."

Brady walked over and clapped him on the shoulder.  He grinned what might have been his male camaraderie grin, if Marco had ever known Brady to engage in anything resembling male camaraderie.  "All right, Pacella!" he said.  "Striking a blow for geeks everywhere."

Marco was just about to roll his eyes again when Diana burst into laughter behind him.  He and everyone in the room turned to look at her.

She sobered quickly, pressing her lips tight behind her fingers to quiet herself.  "I'm sorry," she strained around her hand, and cleared her throat.  "Uh, sorry.  I just..."

Her gaze slid to Brady and Marco heard him swallow.

"That's... exactly what you said when he proposed," she said through a chuckle.

"Huh."  To his credit, Brady sounded relatively cool.  But Marco knew better than anyone that the guy's knees were jelly.  He was pretty sure Diana had never directed a solitary sentence at Brady before.  "Well, uh... at least I'm consistent."

"You are that."

Brady lost it a little, his single laugh slightly high-pitched.  But he covered it pretty well, scrambling off to work on something that was suddenly overwhelming to him in its importance.

Diana's sparkling eyes settled on Marco.  She leaned slightly forward as if to take him into her confidence.  "He gets a lot better with me in a year or so."

"I look forward to watching the progress," Marco whispered back, and then casually turned toward his staff.  "All right, listen up.  Here's the deal."

Everyone stopped what they were doing (including Brady) and moved just slightly closer.  Getting brilliant minds to actually gather around one was an almost hopeless cause, but this was close enough.

"Judging by recent comments, I'll assume everyone's already heard the story of Agent Skouris’s situation.  If by some small miracle you haven't, I'm sure you can get it from someone who has—Brady comes to mind."  Everyone glanced in his direction, and Brady's head ducked farther.  "Our objective here is to get this Agent Skouris back where she belongs in 2010, and bring our Agent Skouris home.  In order to achieve that objective, we've got to figure out what the hell is going on in the first place.  Then, we need to figure out how it happened.  Then, most importantly, we need to duplicate it."

"So, invent time travel, then?  That's... what you're asking us to do.  Am I right?"

Marco directed a glare at Carmichael's smug face.  "Yeah.  Is there a problem?"

He shrugged, already beginning to grin.  "Nope.  Just anxious to get started."

Marco scoffed quietly, glad to hear the enthusiasm, but mostly just hoping it wasn't misplaced.  He clapped his hands loudly and rubbed them together.  "All right, then!  Let's get started."  

Just like that, everyone was off to their respective stations, and theoretical chatter began droning around him.  If there was one thing to be said for the staff of the theory room, it was that their self-confidence knew no boundaries.

Marco turned to Diana and found her smiling at him fondly, and that blush he'd been holding down for the last ten minutes finally won.  "Maybe we don't have holographics," he said, smiling back, "but we've got a helluva lot of egomaniacs."

She nodded seriously, but her eyes only sparkled more.  "Practically as good."

*

Fourteen hours later, even the most enthusiastic of Marco's staff had left, Diana was slumped over in a chair, her head on her arms on the desk, and Marco was having a hard time focusing on the handwritten calculations on the board in the centre of the room, though that wasn't holding him back much.

"You should eat something," Diana mumbled into her arms.

"I had lunch," Marco answered absently, slurring around the pen cap in his mouth, and then made a few minor changes to the parameters of variables T and L.

Diana must have raised her head, her voice coming clearer this time.  "Marco, that was eight hours ago."

"Uh-huh."  He had heard what she said, he just wasn't concentrating on processing it.  The range of solutions he got didn't please him, so considered how much more he could realistically expand the possible value of variable Q.

"Marco."

"Hm?"

Diana sighed, and it was the defeated sound of it that got him to stop writing.  "Honey, how about we go home, and I make you some risotto?"

Marco craned his neck around, and finally took the pen cap out of his mouth.  "You know how to make risotto?"

"No clue, babe.  I'm just trying to get your attention."

A slight pause, and then Marco chuckled as he recapped the pen.  "Yeah.  Sorry, I'm—"

"Obsessed?  Possessed?  Desperate to be rid of me?" she suggested, managing to sound both playful and exhausted.

"Hardly," he said honestly, and joined her at the desk.  "I think it's kind of nice to see you from a different perspective, really."

"Mm."  Diana reached out, sliding her hand down his arm and finally clasping his fingers in hers.  "But you want your Diana back."

Marco nodded.  "Very much."

"I know the feeling," she said quietly, not meeting his eyes.

Marco sat back into his chair hard.  "I just wish we had more to go on."

"Yeah.  So your reigning theory is currently...?"

"I still think it's just a single switch—you here, our Diana there.  Two separate timelines.  But I haven't settled yet on whether it's a 4400 who did this—field agents are working on that angle—or if it's the future human faction's doing, or if it's a random rip in time."

"Which is best for us, do you think?"

"Personally?  I hope it's a 4400.  Firstly because if a single person can do this, then he or she can probably do it again, and that solves our problem of inventing time travel by the seat of our pants.  If it's random, it's going to be really hard to study and duplicate, and if it's the future..."

"God only knows."

"Yeah."

They both sighed and looked down at their hands on the desk, thinking.  At length, Marco postulated a wild theory.  "Hey, did you ever see that show, Quantum Leap?"

"With Scott Bakula?  Gee, am I an American female with a healthy sex drive?"

Marco's lips twisted wryly, and he shook his head.  "What is the fascination with that guy?  I mean, I've seen him—I don't think there's anything particularly special about the way he looks.  He just looks like a regular guy."

Diana held her bottom lip between her teeth and her eyes got distant for a few seconds while she mulled it over.  "Hm.  It was the diaper episode."

"Yeah.  That's my mom's postulation, too."

Diana chuckled.

"Anyway, I only bring it up because I was thinking: What if it's like that?  I mean, regardless of exactly how it's happening, maybe you've been sent back to fix something that's happening now.  Maybe once you fix whatever it is to whomever's satisfaction, you'll just spring back into your own time again without further interference from anyone."

"Hm," Diana said again, and nodded slowly.  "That's a pretty interesting theory.  But it begs the question... how are we supposed to know what the something is that I'm supposed to fix?"

"Yeah.  Well, you know, I've thought about this quite a bit to-day, and... I have to admit," he said, and leaned forward a little, "my mind keeps going back to what you mentioned about Tom."

Diana let go of his hand suddenly, leaning all the way back in her chair and crossing her arms over her chest.  "Marco, no."

He wasn't sure what her avoidance of the Tom issue was about, but he wasn't ready to be put off the subject just yet.  "I just mean: Maybe if there's something you could tell us—some little piece of information you could share about how it happened—maybe there's some way we could avoid—"

"NO!"

Marco jumped at the tone and volume of her voice.  Her eyes blazed at him angrily.  He simply didn't understand.  Didn't she want to try to get home?  Was Tom going to become someone so horrible that it would be better for everyone if he didn't survive?  "Diana," he said quietly, careful not to sound too confrontational, "please don't take this the wrong way, but... I'm starting to get the impression that you... want Tom to die."

Diana softened immediately, leaning forward, grasping his hand, and gazing at him with an expression of genuine pain and apology.  "I don't, baby.  I never did.  I swear it."

Marco glanced down at her hand around his, squeezing it tight as if she was desperate for him to believe her.  "Um, okay.  But, then... why are you so averse to trying to avoid it?"

Diana sighed heavily, focusing on their fingers as she took Marco's hand in both of hers and began to rub her thumbs idly over his knuckles.  "I never wanted Tom to die," she said, sounding far away.

"But...?"

"But.  I... need..."

Marco leaned forward, speaking gently.  "What is it?"

"I need..."

She looked up then, tears welling in her eyes, which surprised Marco to no end.  She looked as if she was about to start begging his forgiveness at any moment.  His throat tightened and his eyes burned immediately, and he would have done anything to make her not want to cry anymore.  "What do you need, Diana?" he asked, turning his hand to grasp at hers.  "You know I'll do anything I can to help you."

She shook her head.  "Oh Marco, Tom has to die."

"But w—"

"Because I need Maia to live."

~

8. Affirmation

"Please don't ask me—I can't."

"Whoa.  Diana..."  Marco leaned back in his chair as if for support.  He moved as if he expected to get his hand back, but Diana only moved with him to keep gripping it tight.  "'You can't?'  I mean, come on.  You can't just throw something like that out there and then tell me sorry, but you can't elucidate it."

He paused, but Diana only shook her head, expressing her intention to keep silent.

"I mean, what exactly are you telling me?  That if Tom should live, Maia would have to die?"

"I don't know.  All I know is that if Maia is to live, Tom has to die."

"Well, then the reverse would follow, wouldn't it?"

Diana shrugged, having a hard time meeting Marco's eyes.  There was so much she wanted to say, and she wasn't sure if she should say any of it.

Marco's next words were tentative and disbelieving.  "...Is he going to try to hurt her?"

"No," Diana said softly, feeling bad about even making Marco consider that thought.  "No, not ever.  Not Tom."

"Then what?  I don't understand."

"Oh, Marco."  Diana couldn't tear her eyes away from Marco's hand in hers.  His skin had a wonderful olive complexion to it even when he stayed out of the sun, but the hand she held now was noticeably paler than her husband's.  The Marco of her time spent a lot more time outdoors, playing with Maia, taking walks in the park with the both of them, going to the zoo and amusement parks and anything else Maia wanted, as he spoiled her as rotten as he possibly could.

She knew one day he would love Maia so much that he would never take any chance with her safety.  She even knew that he loved her enough now that he wouldn't consciously put her in danger.  But what she wasn't sure of was if she could convince him that if he didn't allow things to happen as they had—or would—that Maia would surely die or suffer some worse fate that Diana didn't even want to contemplate.

"I'm afraid that if I tell you... something will go wrong."

"Something worse than Tom dying?"

"Oh, forgive me for saying this," Diana whispered under her breath, and dropped her head further.  "But, yes."

"My god," Marco breathed, almost too low to be heard.

His hand was limp and unresponsive in hers, his arm stretched out straight as he leaned heavily into the back of his chair.  After a long, quiet, tense moment, he finally moved, sitting slightly forward, and spoke to her in a hushed, careful tone.

"Look, Diana, there's got to be something we can do.  I mean, you were sent back here, right?  There must be some reason.  I can't think of any better one than to find some way to save both Tom and Maia.  Can you?"

"Marco, I'm telling you, there is no way to save them both."

"I don't believe that."  He shook his head with determination.  "I can't honestly believe that if we know every little thing that's going to happen—if you lay it all out for us so we can be perfectly prepared—that the past you remember will go on without change.  The fact that we have the knowledge and will act on it has to change something."

"Yes!  It will!" Diana shouted, not from anger, but from fear.  "We'll lose Maia instead of Tom!  I'm sorry, Marco, and I'm sorry more for Tom... but that is a trade I am not willing to make."

Marco's voice became even softer, his grip on her hand firmer and more steadying.  "I would never ask you do that.  No one would.  I don't think even Tom would.  Diana... if there is truly no way to save Tom without injuring Maia in some way, I wouldn't ask you to say a word.  I'm just saying that I think there must be a way.  Now, I'm sure in your head, here alone with your memories, knowing what you know about the past you lived, that it seems and feels to you that there really is no way to keep them both.  Maybe you think you need to keep quiet in order to protect your daughter.  But I'm telling you now that you can trust me."

Diana glanced away.

"Hey.  You know you can trust me, right?"

"Of course," she said, her voice choked.

"So... why don't you just tell me what happens?  Okay?  We'll sit here and we'll talk about it, and we'll try to figure out how to fix it.  And if we can't... If we can't, Diana, I promise I'll never say a word to anyone about what you told me here to-night."

Diana met his eyes, feeling her own pain set into her face.  "Is that really what you want?  The blood on your hands?  Do you want to go through the rest of your life, knowing that you had the ability to save Tom, but that you sacrificed him for another?"

"...Do you?"

"Oh, believe me, I'm dreading it already."

Diana dropped his hand angrily and crossed to the problem board, looking both at it and through it, seeing nothing and everything.  She had a hundred scenarios in her head, and they all ended badly.

"If you just—"

"Maia saw it, anyway.  You and I both know we're powerless to stop her visions from coming to fruition—especially when they're as clear and intense as the one she had about Tom."

"If we change something now, maybe it won't be so 'clear and intense' when the time comes.  Maybe by then, we'll be able to influence something.  I mean, if we start planning now.  Please tell me, Diana.  I promise I won't repeat a word without your agreeing to it."

Diana's gaze turned outwards and she took a moment to look over the scrawlings about her predicament all over the board.  "Do you really think trying to make a change like this might get me home?"

"I don't know.  Since I can't be sure how it happened, I can't be sure what will reverse it."

"If anything."

Marco only sighed softly behind her, and she heard the unspoken plea to not think that way.

She wasn't sure why she went on.  She had perhaps skewed the subject just enough that she could get out of talking about it for the moment.  But she did trust Marco.  And, perhaps selfishly, she knew that shouldering the burden of letting Tom die—even for the preservation of her own daughter—had the power to emotionally cripple her in time, and that perhaps they could more easily bear it together.  So she did go on.

"It was a woman with an unusual ability."

"A 4400?"

Diana sighed silently and tried to find a way around that particular bit of information.  "She's not on your list.  But for the sake of argument, yes.  A 4400."

"Uh... all right.  What happened?"

Diana wanted to turn and face Marco while she told him, but her fear wouldn't let her move.  So she simply stared at and through the board; looked back in memory, and forward through time.

"NTAC received a warning—a threat.  It said quite clearly that Maia was going to be abducted.  She would be kidnapped.  It even gave the date when it would happen.  We almost didn't want to take it seriously.  It seemed like it had to be a prank.  Too detailed, too specific, too arrogant.  How could someone give us all this information and then still feel confident they could implement their plan?"

"Sounds like they were trying to throw you off their real track."

Diana nodded.  "That's what we thought, too.  They were trying to distract us from something we probably couldn't afford to not be paying attention to.  But, just the same, we brought Maia in.  We made up rooms for her, brought her studies to her, made sure she was watched and guarded at all times.  It was like quarantine for her; she hated it.  But we stayed down there with her, had our meals there, slept there in a recreation of our own room.  It was strange and intrusive, but we just wanted to keep her safe and that seemed the best way to do it."

"How long did she have to stay in there?"  He sounded distressed for the future and past Maia, his voice the picture of concerned fatherhood.

Diana had expected no less, but it still made her smile—briefly.  "We got the warning two weeks before the date it quoted.  On the off chance they were giving a date later than the one they were planning on actually using, we hid her away immediately."

"Sounds stifling."

"Oh, it was.  While she was down there, we expended every resource we had to try to trace the threat, but it was like it had written itself and appeared out of thin air.  We couldn't find anything to go on.  The closer the date loomed, the more frenzied our searching became.  But... nothing.  We were beginning to think it was all just a prank.  And let me tell you, if it had been, and I'd ever come across the little bastard who masterminded it, I would have had to murder him in cold blood for putting Maia through two weeks of absolute hell."

Marco chuckled.  "I doubt many would have tried to stop you."

"Yeah.  Well... The date we were given arrived.  You and I were both nervous wrecks.  Maia, as usual, was unreasonably calm.  I was in there with her, talking to her, just trying to spend time with her without her noticing the fact that I was shaking like a leaf.  I think she was comforting me more than I was comforting her."

"Yeah, that'd be Maia," he said softly, his smile in his voice.

Diana smiled in response, though he couldn't see her.  "It had begun to work, too.  I was starting to think everything was going to be okay..."  Her smile fell.  "That was when she started screaming."  Diana dropped her head, her eyes filling with tears at merely the memory of Maia's distress.  "'Tom,' she kept screaming.  'Save Tom!  Save Tom!  Please don't let him die...'"

"Oh god."

"I was trying to hold her; to calm her down; to figure out what it was she was seeing—was Tom in trouble right now?  Was this what it was all about?  Get us all worried about protecting Maia so that we forget about protecting our own agents?  She didn't want to be comforted, though.  She pulled away from me, pushed at me, and started trying to crawl under the bed.  I didn't know what to do for her.  You had just left to get us all something to eat, and I ran down the corridor, screaming for you.  I hadn't gone but a few steps when you were walking through the door, and you threw the food down, and came running, and we ran back into Maia's room, and... she was gone.  She was alone for about three seconds, Marco, and she was just gone."

"What?  How—"

"I didn't know.  I didn't know how.  At first we thought she'd just found a different hiding place, but there weren't that many, and she wasn't in any of them.  A few minutes later, we were looking at the security tapes, and, oh my god, she just disappeared!  She was crawling under the bed, about halfway there, and this glow built around her body and then she just... dissolved."

Marco was silent behind her, and Diana was glad for the respite.  She needed a moment to gather her wits back around her.  It had all happened nearly a year ago to her, but to examine the details so closely—to tell it all so concisely—was really taking it out of her.  It wasn't all that far from actually living it all over again.

"That's why they sent the warning," Marco murmured.

Diana nodded weakly.

"To show NTAC that even if we knew exactly what was going to happen, we were still powerless to stop them."

"Yes.  And they were right."  She glanced back over her shoulder meaningfully.  "They still are, Marco."

His face hardened for a moment, but then he offered her a small encouraging smile.  "Go on."

Diana turned her focus back through the board.  "Well, it didn't take us long to realize that what we'd seen was a demonstration of a new 4400 ability.  This woman, she was literally able to transport people from one place to another at will.  Security measures didn't matter—even the depth of the building didn't matter, we later realized.  This woman was able to use her power from a very respectable distance.  Though we didn't know it at the time, we later found out that she had transported Maia out of quarantine from almost five miles away."

"Jesus, that's frightening."

"Yeah, you're telling me.  I was, of course, in a complete panic, and you weren't much better.  Tom was the only one of us who kept his cool.  While we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off, checking every stop light, every intersection, every highway, doing door-to-door searches, knocking on the doors of known collaborators—"

"Of the Nova group?"

Diana stuttered to a standstill.  "Uh... for sake of argument... yes."

"So... something that isn't the Nova group, but that I would equate with the Nova group if I knew it?"

She tossed a small smirk in his direction.  "Yes."

"I see."

"Anyway... Tom, he had his own methods.  They didn't always mesh with procedure—in fact, they usually didn't—but they could get results.  He found an informer... maybe not a willing informer, but he found the guy nonetheless.  I don't know why he didn't come back to us and go in with a team.  I can only imagine that time was of the essence.  Perhaps he'd learned that Maia was soon to be moved and he just didn't have the time left to gather a team together.  He called us on his way to the building where she was being held, and we sent backup right away, but by the time they got there, it was all over."

She sighed and wiped at her eyes, reaching for the strength to go on.  "She was being kept in a closed warehouse that had been used to store, as fate would have it, Black Armour products.  Anywhere else, and it might not have happened the way that it did.  There was gunfire—a lot of it.  The scariest part is, there was gunfire even before Tom had arrived.  Maia later told us there was some kind of fight over her.  Someone didn't pay enough, apparently, and a very volatile shootout was the result."

"Jesus..."

"I don't think Tom even knew the bullets were coming at him.  He just wrapped himself around her, protecting her.  She said he didn't fire a single shot, so I can only assume he was trying to get them out of there without calling any attention to himself.  Ammo was flying all over the place—some of it managing to ricochet off of armoured car parts—and he ended up taking more than one bullet for her.  By the time the smoke cleared, most of the people who were involved lay dead.  Only a few managed to escape those random shots.  Tom wasn't one of them.  When we walked in, Maia was hugging him tight around the shoulders, crying so hard, and screaming...  'Save Tom.  Save Tom.  Please don't let him die.'"

She could almost hear the hair on the back of Marco's neck stand up—she knew her own had when she'd seen it—and it was a long time before he said anything.  "She had to watch him die for her."

Diana nodded jerkily.  "Weeks later, when she started talking again, she told us that the last thing he'd said to her was that she was supposed to take care of you."

Marco laughed one soft, disbelieving laugh.  "Me?"

Diana's tears finally overwhelmed her, and she tried to wipe them away without him noticing.  "Because you were so hopeless and I couldn't do it all myself."

He let out a breathy sound of amusement.

"And to take care of me... because I was so hopeless and you couldn't do it all yourself."

When she thought she had herself enough under control, and managed to turn around to finally face him, she found him in rather the same condition she was in.  Tears tracked down both cheeks, but it looked as though he had long since given up on trying to swipe them away.

"How old was she?" he asked, voice wispy and choked.

Diana tried to swallow down her anguish.  "Twelve."

"God."

"That year, we found out just how strong our little girl could be.  I wish to God I didn't know.  It was like the guilt was this big, concrete monster that was trying to consume her.  A few times, I really thought it was going to succeed.  But in the end, our baby pulled through.  She was sort of thrust into understanding how important she is to the future.  To everyone.  Important enough that the one man who had a direct line into understanding the future's plan was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to keep her from harm."

"Tom...?"

Diana shrugged.  "Even in your time, Tom has communications with the future.  His importance to them only grows."

"But they let him die?"

"It's more than that, Marco...  I think they directed him to die."

Marco shook his head, his eyes wide, but not defeated.  "There's got to be some way he can do the same thing and live.  What if... what if we just made sure he was wearing a bulletproof vest that day?"

Diana laughed harshly.  "Marco, he was!  These people were not your run-of-the-mill inner city thugs, baby.  They were professionals.  Most of them were using armour-piercing ammunition—that's why only some of the bullets were ricocheting.  My god, they found pieces of Tom's vest inside his heart."

Marco went suddenly green, and she regretted the unnecessary graphic detail.  But he just as quickly composed himself.  She could practically hear his wheels turning.

"What about this 4400 who has the transporting power?  What if we just find her before she does it?  Stop her?"

"How?  She uses the power with her will.  What are we going to do?  Kill her?"

He hesitated as if not feeling right about what he wanted to say.  "...Didn't she die in the gunfire anyway?"

"And who's to say when Tom would have died if he didn't just then?  I thought the point was to not sacrifice one life for another."

"Well, then, restrain her.  Sedate her.  Make sure she's not conscious to use the power when the time comes."

"And when she wakes up?  Or do we keep her sedated forever?"

He chewed briefly on his bottom lip.  "Okay, well, we know where the warehouse is where Maia was kept.  We could just go there as soon as she's abducted.  We could be there waiting for her; rescue her before it goes any further."

"And start the shootout ourselves.  What if no one's in the right place to save Maia this time?  We still have to get to her."

Marco threw his hands in the air.  "There's got to be something we can do!"

"I wish there was!" she shouted back.  Then her strength just leeched out of her, and all she could do was sink into a chair in defeat.  "But I just don't think there is, Marco.  Maia has to live.  And so Tom has to die.  I've never wanted to accept that.  But I have to.  You, too."

"There must be some reason you're here, Diana.  I just can't believe it's random, and I still think this is the best bet."

"Maybe.  But I'm not willing to take a chance with Maia's life.  I'd rather raise her again and again than ever lose her once."

"I know, Diana.  You know I wouldn't ever do anything to jeopardize Maia, right?"

Diana's shaking hand closed over his, which had gone cold and pale during her story.  She gripped it as tightly as she could, feeling the connection warm them both.

"I know, baby.  I've always known."

*

Two weeks.

Two weeks and not a single bit of uplifting news.

Marco was still at NTAC, running scenarios and composing theories, but Diana had tired of watching him and biting her nails to the quick days ago.  Not only did she not understand what he was saying ninety percent of the time, she also couldn't figure out how the hell to work their computers.  Apparently sometime in the last four years, Microsoft had taken over Apple like the mega-monopolizing corporation it was, and now every computer in the country—possibly the world—ran some complicated hybrid programme that made Diana dizzy to even look at, much less work with.

She'd tried to step in and fill her future self's shoes at NTAC, but was quickly discouraged from that for too many reasons to count: She shouldn't know too much about her own future so the timeline could be preserved; she wouldn't understand the cases anyway; she didn't have Diana's passwords, and so on and so forth.

Spending time with Maia made her evenings and weekends go by with lightning speed, but during the weekday, she was ready to kill herself from boredom.  Television got old fast, Seattle hadn't had enough major changes to its scenery to keep her interested for more than a day or so... yesterday, she'd come across Maia's diary and had to tell herself out loud that she wasn't to look at it.  It was getting bad.

That's why she started cleaning and rearranging and going through closets full of junk.  That's what had brought her to this treasure trove of a box.  That's what had her sitting on the floor, items scattered around her, completely immersed in a past she had no experience of, for hours.

Maia rode horses.  Judging by the ribbons, she wasn't the best at it, but seemed to be improving.  She looked perfect up there in the saddle, riding crop in her hand, hunt cap on her head, chinstrap hanging free, while she smiled at the camera with complete elation.

T’ai Chi, she was much better at: A story that was told by the veritable mountain of certificates in her name.

Her schoolwork spoke volumes of the direction her life was headed, and Diana could practically feel her daughter's first best-selling novel in her hands.  If the short stories with the big As all over them were anything to judge by, Diana might even garner the dedication.

Loathe to reach the bottom of the box, Diana tried to slow down, but couldn't.  Her appetite for learning about Maia was ravenous.  When she finally came to the last paper—dated from late 2006 and touting most improved math skills—her eyes began to fill with tears.  She wished she had never found the box.  Then she could find it again and go through it for the first time.

She began to turn, looking at the spread she'd made around her, but when her foot hit the box, she realized it was still rather heavy.  Glancing inside, she could see the bottom was too high, and when she reached in, she was able to pull out a thick piece of cardboard that was apparently in place to separate the top section—all the papers—from the bottom section, which was several neat, ordered lines of mini-DVD cases.

"Oh..." Diana breathed, fascinated.  She ran a fingertip over the labels.  Some were cryptic, and, lacking the memories that made them, she didn't understand what they were.  Others simply had dates on them.  But some were patently clear about what they contained.

She nearly jogged to the DVD player with Maia's 12th b-day in her hand, and hurriedly sat, already mesmerized, on the sofa, waiting for it to start.

The thought did cross her mind that perhaps she shouldn't look, because if she knew how it was going to happen, then perhaps it wouldn't happen that way.  Or, worse yet, she'd end up living it like it was a rerun.  But then she settled for the flimsy excuse that if Maia could stand to live life like a rerun half the time, Diana could do the same, and she decided to watch with her conscience, if not clear, at least turned off.

She was only a few minutes into it, however, when she unexpectedly felt the need to stop the player.  It was just too strange, seeing Maia blow the candles out on a cake Diana hadn't made.  Or, had made, but had no recollection of doing so.  It was disturbing, as well, to see the stark difference between Maia then and the Maia she'd met now.  Diana hadn't specifically noticed that her older daughter was sad, just that she seemed more mature, and Diana had chalked it up to becoming a teenager.

But now Marco's dark warning that Diana had no idea what Maia was in for came flooding back to her, following close on the heels of Maia mentioning 'freaking out last year,' and she wondered if, in such a short time, her daughter had changed so much from whatever it was life had thrown at her.

She went back to the box and tried to look for something from an earlier time; something that might at least feel more familiar to her, though she wouldn't remember it.

There was a disc marked Swing, Nov. '06 and Diana smiled softly at the thought of pushing Maia on a swing on the park, something she loved to do and, quite frankly, missed right now.  She settled herself back onto the sofa, curled her legs up under her, and pressed Play.

When the picture started, her face fell suddenly, and then she heard herself laughing her disbelief.

That wasn't Maia on a swing in the park.  That was Maia swing dancing.  She wasn't bad, either.  Only that wasn't the part that made Diana feel her disbelief so much as the fact that the person Maia was swing dancing with was Marco.  In fact, Marco seemed to be teaching her the moves, though it seemed she'd done at least some of them before.

They were both laughing and kidding around, and the future's Diana was apparently holding the camera, because her own voice came over the feed many times, sounding closer than the dancing couple.

"Mo-om!  Don't tape this—I'm not very good yet!" Maia said through a giggle as Marco spun her out, then back in.

"Oh, you're wonderful, sweetie!  Just you wait till you see yourself on here."

"Come on, Maia, you're gonna be the coolest cat at the dance," Marco added, and lifted her in his arms horizontally while she stiffened her body so that when they spun, it looked incredible.

Maia squealed her approval, and looked dizzy when he finally put her down.  "Yeah, right!" she said, laughing.  "Tyler doesn't know how to do this stuff.  I'm gonna look pretty stupid swing dancing—whoa!" Marco spun her in, then out, and held onto her arm while she fell backwards, then pulled her back up quickly.  It was hardly perfect form, but they looked like they were having a blast.  "Doing this alone," she finally finished.

Marco didn't seem deterred.  "That's all right—invite him over.  Your mom'll teach him."

Diana snorted loudly as the future her behind the camera laughed at the suggestion as well.

"I most certainly will not.  I can't do that stuff, Marco."

Marco's eyebrows went up in the camera's direction.  "What?" he said incredulously, and lifted Maia over his head, then down between his ankles, then back up to her feet again while she squealed the whole way.  When she was standing again, she looked dazed enough that he just steadied her there for the moment.

"What, ‘what’?  I can't dance like that.  I'll happily leave anything that takes coordination to you and Maia."

He stooped down suddenly and whispered something in Maia's ear that made her giggle and cross over to the sofa, which was pushed far out of the way to make room for their antics.

The camera began backing away.

"Where do you think you're going?"  Marco was a little out of breath, but his smile never faded, and he was advancing faster than the camera was retreating.  "Put the camera down," he said, gesturing at the countertop.

The picture shook left to right.

"Diiiii... put the camera down."

It shook more vigorously, Diana's quiet laughter coming over the speakers.

All at once, Marco charged, the picture went all over the place, and Diana's chorus of 'no's' through her high-pitched laughter left little to the imagination about what was happening.

The next clear thing the video showed was Marco's chest as he placed the camera up on the counter, then his back as he walked away from it.  The entire room was visible from that angle, from Marco near the television to Diana creeping backwards toward the bedrooms, to Maia jumping and clapping happily by the sofa.

"You can do it, Mom!  Just let Marco fling you around!"

Marco only smiled wider, and Diana shook her head and tried circling away.  "Nooo, I don't think I will just let Marco fling me around," she said, laughing.

"Come on, Diana.  You're a great dancer," Marco said sincerely as he manoeuvred to cut her off at the pass.

"Come on, yourself!  I can't do all that spinning, twirling, flinging around stuff!  I'll break my neck."

There was a pause and a quick stare-down, and then Diana made a lunge toward the kitchen.  But Marco moved faster and had her in his arms before she'd made it the end of the sofa.

Diana both protested and laughed at the same time, squirming as if to get free of him, but visibly not making a true effort.

They were standing very close to the camera, so when Marco bent to murmur in her ear, Don't worry, baby.  I won't let you fall, it came through with crystal clarity.

The screen went black.

Diana stared at it for a few seconds, the remote control in her hand still pointed directly at it.

Though everything else in that box had been Maia-related, none of it had explicitly had to do with Marco.  While she looked through it, she imagined watching Maia riding that horse, but not with Marco by her side.  She imagined going to martial arts presentations, but of course she would be there alone to watch Maia demonstrate her skill.  The video had quite bluntly told her how wrong she was about it all.

Marco had probably helped Maia up onto her first horse.  He probably took the pictures of her Scooping the Sea that Diana had gazed at so lovingly.  He'd even taught her how to dance.  And apparently not only her.

She'd turned it off because she was still processing Marco with Maia, and wasn't ready to slide into contemplating Marco with her.  She'd been watching Marco with the older Maia for the past two weeks, but it didn't actually seem real.  Marco was so much different than she knew him to be, and Maia was almost a new person.  Add to that the fact that neither of them remembered some things from the past that Diana did, and Diana was almost thinking it was all some crazy dream, or an illusion someone had stuck her in.

But the video disc verified, to some extent, the past that Marco had hastily sketched for her.  First it verified that he had truly built a relationship with Maia, and then it began to verify the one he'd built with Diana.

The scariest part was, she recognized herself on that film.  That wasn't the Diana she'd replaced: Married and settled and buying a house with her husband of three years.  That Diana she couldn't even conceive of being connected to.  But the one in the video, the one who was afraid to dance: Her, she knew.

A little chill crept over Diana's skin, and she hastily rose to remove the DVD from the player and go get something else to watch.  She still wanted something with an earlier date, where she would recognize Maia, and maybe even herself.  But she wanted something that was less likely to include Marco with such brazenness.

She found a group from late 2006 and early 2007, many of them around the holidays, and most of them including members of her own family.  She watched Maia with Aunt April and Uncle Ben (whom Diana had never seen before, but it was nice to see April married and looking happy), with Gracie (who was fantastic with her), with Tom (which made her miss his presence during this trying time, even if he would be different than she remembered), and also with many people whose names escaped her right after she'd heard them because she'd never met them before.

She was working her way up in date, and was excited to have the one marked Daddy, Apr. '07 in her hands.  Diana had a hard time keeping her relationship with her father civil, but she'd always hoped that some day, somehow, Maia could have a real relationship with her grandfather.

That's why when the video started and instead of Maia and Dad, she saw Maia, Marco, and herself horsing around in the living room, she was a little disappointed.  She very nearly pressed fast-forward to get to the part she wanted when Maia's droning Mommyyy! stilled her hand.

Marco and Diana were apparently keeping something from her, and after a few tosses back and forth, and an appropriately timed pause, Diana was able to make out a small square box, wrapped in glittery paper and tied with a thin white ribbon.  It looked as if it held a small piece of jewelry inside of it, probably a ring, and Maia seemed determined to get her hands on it.

All three of them were laughing, even though Maia's obvious determination was outshining her enjoyment of Monkey In the Middle.

"Mommy, give it here!"

The camera showed Diana was holding the gift behind her back.  "I don't have it—Marco has it."

Maia glanced back at him, and Diana threw it over her head, but before he'd caught it, Maia was looking back at Diana.  "No, he doesn't.  Give!"

"Maiaaa..."  Marco shook the box tantalizingly at her, and she zoomed to him, reaching for it.  He laughed and catapulted over the sofa, tossing it back to Diana before he landed, but doing it behind his back so Maia didn't see.

She ran around the couch and pulled at his arms as he was holding his hands behind his back.  "Come on, give it!  I want my present!" she said, laughing, though she seemed to be trying not to.

"I don't have your present."

"You do so!  I saw you!"  She tugged mercilessly on his forearms.

He finally showed her how empty his hands were and after a quick look behind him, she jetted back to her mom.

Diana had bad timing when she tossed it back to Marco, and Maia saw it go.  She ran toward him again, but he dodged her, crossing behind her with it clasped in his hands.

She swatted at the air he'd just cleared and, laughing, blurted out, "Come on, Dad, give it here!"

Diana on the television and Diana on the couch gasped at the same time.

Marco spun to look at Maia, stumbling back a couple of steps, and he just stared, slack-jawed.

Maia's fingers were on her lips, her eyes the size of walnuts.  "I'm sorry," she whispered in shock.  "I'm sorry—I meant ‘Marco.’  I did."

Marco only shook his head mutely, and the Diana on the film put her hand to her mouth much like her daughter had done.

Maia began to look distressed.  "I'm really sorry," she said in a cracking voice.

Suddenly Marco dropped the present, went to her, and knelt before her, her thin shoulders in his hands.  "Maia, you can call me... that.  If you want to."  He shook his head.  "But you don't have to.  Okay?"

Maia's fingers fell slowly from her lips and her eyes cleared up almost immediately.  She nodded slowly.  "Okay."

There were a few seconds of silence, as Maia and Marco stared back and forth at one another, and Diana just stood there, seemingly frozen, watching them both.

At length, Marco began to look slightly defeated, nodded, and started to get to his feet.

"Okay, Dad."

Marco froze.

Maia's smile grew exponentially, and she tapped his shoulder.  "Um, Daddy," she tried, and Marco let out a breathy laugh.

When she threw herself into his arms, hugging him tight around his neck, he looked simply stunned over her shoulder.  Then when he finally moved, and found the strength to hug her back, his face went red and tight, his eyes closed, and Diana felt a lump rise in her throat.  Her future self on the screen seemed to be in much the same shape.

Diana watched Marco cry silently over her daughter's shoulder for what felt like a long, long time.  Eventually, he made a small sound that might have been a choked sob, and then quickly but gently pulled himself from Maia's grasp, and rose to his feet, keeping his face from her view.  When he spoke, his voice was much steadier than Diana would have thought it could be.

"I'll be right back, okay?  Right back, Maia," he said, and went straight into the bathroom, closing the door behind him quietly.

Maia turned to her mom, looking concerned.  "Mommy?  Is he all right?"

Diana nodded, her smile visible in her eyes first, before she finally took her hand away from her mouth.  "He's fine, baby.  You've just... made him very happy, I think."

Maia veritably beamed, and Diana smiled back at her, happiness sparkling plainly in her eyes for the world to see.  Her arms opened an invitation, and Maia went running to her.  Diana made a muffled sound when they collided rather forcefully, and had begun to bend as if she was going to kiss the crown of Maia's head when—

"Where did you find that?"

With a startled gasp, Diana fumbled with the remote control, accidentally pressing Rewind before she managed to turn it off.  "I thought you were working!" she exclaimed without looking back at Marco standing behind her.

"Came home for lunch, and to see how you're doing.  Where did you find that disc?"

Diana hung her head, and tossed the remote gently onto the coffee table.  "I'm so sorry.  I didn't mean to snoop or pry.  I—"

Marco chuckled softly.  "They're just our home movies, Diana.  You're allowed to watch them."

"...Oh.  Right, I..."  She trailed off, not sure what she should say; not sure what there was to say.  Finally, she decided to simply say what she'd been thinking all afternoon.  "It's just so strange, Marco.  I mean... disconcerting.  Seeing her... seeing myself... say things, do things that... I have no recollection of.  It's surreal.  It just feels like this can't possibly be reality."

"I wish I could say I know how you feel, but I don't."

She nodded.  Maybe that shouldn't have been comforting, but it was.  She was sure she would have felt like lashing out if he'd said he knew how she felt.

They were both quiet, and Diana stared at the blank screen, thinking about her situation and all of the strange things she was learning from it.  At length, she noticed that the screen she was staring at wasn't blank at all.  The two of them were reflected in it, she looking defeated on the sofa, and he looking supportive and patient behind her.

He was watching her steadily; silently; not fidgeting or visibly looking for something to say; just waiting.

"You cried."

He continued to look at her openly.

"When she called you..." Diana had to laugh quietly before she could even say the word.  "When she called you 'Daddy.'"

Marco's reflection smiled softly and he shrugged a shoulder.  His eyes went far away as if he was fondly remembering the moment.  "So did you," he said.

"Oh, really?  When did she call me Daddy?"

Marco rolled his eyes at her lame attempt to cut the tension.  "Very funny," he said, and used the moment to walk around and join her on the sofa, keeping a respectable distance between them.  She wasn't sure if it was just so obvious that she needed it, or if he was simply so tuned to her that he could that easily pick up on it.

"It was a pretty amazing moment for us both," he went on.  "I mean, knowing that she accepted me, not only as your husband, but as a father."  He paused.  "Do you know: A week later, we sat her down and asked her what she would think about my adopting her; making it official."

Diana's head snapped toward him, but he was obviously serious.  He laughed softly.

"She couldn't get to the courthouse fast enough.  'A real family,' she kept calling us.  A real family."  He looked down at his hands clasped between his knees, falling silent, and his smile slowly faded from his face.

Diana felt a short flare of happiness at hearing of her daughter's own, but it quickly fell into a dark sensation of despair in the pit of her stomach.  Where was Maia's real family now?  What the hell was this supposed to be?

"Yeah," she said bitterly, unable to keep it to herself.  "And look at us now."

Though Marco hadn't been moving, he seemed to still beside her, and the next thing she knew, he was taking her cold hand in his warm, soft fingers.  "We're still a family, Di.  Then, now, and always."

Her first instinct was to argue, and vociferously.  But one look in his eyes told her he really believed what he said.  She didn't know why or how it had happened, but somehow, somewhere along the way, Marco had managed to believe that he'd found a family strong enough to last through anything.  Even her.

Diana smiled sadly.  "Yeah.  Only I don't remember becoming one," she said.  Her voice sounded wistful even to herself.

Marco moved the slightest bit closer, his aura of support seeming to gather more closely around her shoulders, though he still touched nothing but her hand.

"You don't need to remember it, Diana.  I promise: You're going to live it."

~

9. Consummation

Four weeks.

Four weeks and they hadn't honestly advanced a step.

Judging by the fact that she was still there, she had to assume her husband hadn't made any ground-breaking discoveries in the future just yet; NTAC couldn't find any 4400 who could be responsible; and though the Marco of the past was trying so hard that Diana was becoming concerned for his health, he wasn't making any progress beyond solidifying theories, any of which could be or not be accurate.

Diana didn't want to think about having to resign herself to being stuck in the past, but she was quietly trying to prepare herself for it.

Marco had been staring at his computer screen for a very long time.  He hadn't typed or moved the mouse in minutes.  Diana wasn't sure if he was thinking or just stuck, but decided remaining quiet was the best thing to do.

Eventually he sighed, and slumped.

"Getting tired, babe?"

Marco shook his head; said nothing.

"Do you want—"

"I think we should tell him."

Diana tossed her pen into the air, and it landed on the desk, then promptly rolled off.  "Oh, Marco!  Not this again."

"Look, I don't know what else to do!  You said it yourself, and you were right: I can't just invent time travel."

"We just have to have faith in my husband.  He'll figure this out."

"When?  I mean, if he figured it out whenever, shouldn't you have disappeared by now?  It isn't like as we live a month, he lives a month.  He could figure it out in 2020 or 2025, but shouldn't you still disappear from now?  Or from last month sometime?  Or even two seconds after you flashed in?"

"I know you're not asking me to explain temporal mechanics to you."

He sighed harshly and slammed himself back into his seat.  "This has gone on long enough," he muttered.  "I want my Diana back."

"I know, baby.  I know it's hard."  She reached for his hand, but he pulled it back to himself and crossed his arms over his chest.  "Marco, please remember that I love you.  And I—"

"I don't care!" he shouted, lurching forward in his seat.  "I don't want you to just love me.  I want to fight for it!  I want to earn it.  I want to look up into your eyes one day and realize I've finally done the right thing, said the right words, showed the right feelings at the right time to convince you of my worth, of my love for you, of my devotion to you.  I don't just want to be handed my perfect life on a silver platter!  It cheapens it!  I want my Diana back," he said intensely, pressing his fingers hard into his own chest.  Then all at once, he softened.  "I... Diana, I want the memories that you take for granted."

Though tempers had been running high for at least the past week or so, he'd never made such a speech before.  But Diana would be showing disingenuity to act surprised or offended or hurt.  Every word he'd said had been in his eyes since the beginning.  She was no fool.

And she had no comfort to offer.

"I know, baby...  I know."

*

Four weeks.

Four weeks, and Diana was seriously considering looking for work.

The DVDs had only kept her busy for so long, even though she had eventually felt together enough to view the ones dated 2010.  She found it odd that there weren't many at all for 2009.  However, once she'd come across the discs well hidden behind a wooden shoe tree in her (their) closet, she'd decided to give video watching a rest.  And, if anyone would have asked, she would have strongly denied that she'd ever be kinky enough to videot—

"Diana!"

She jumped in her seat.  She'd been hanging out in the future's version of the theory room for most of the day, staring blankly at a computer screen that made no sense and seemed rather haughty about how effortlessly it confused her.  She'd been peripherally aware of Marco leaving some time ago, but not aware of very much else since.  His suddenly shouting her name from the open door gave her quite a start.

She turned quickly to face him with wide eyes.

His were wider.

"I think we got him."

*

Number five hundred and twelve.  Steven Trent from Bokhoma, Oklahoma, a small town just east of Arkansas.  Abducted July 9th, 2001, and returned to a world with much tighter airport security.  He came from an honest part of town, worked an honest job, and had a family just a little too honest for his own good.  When his sister-in-law had heard that NTAC was looking for a 4400 able to shuffle people around in time, she'd sheepishly called the hotline and reported him.  Oddly enough, he didn't seem offended.

"I swear, ya'll: I've only ever used it on my family.  And even then, only a couple times!"

"Only a couple of times is good enough.  All we're worried about is this once, Steve."

Diana stood with her back against a corner of the interrogation room, watching the surreal vision of Marco questioning a suspect.  Since when did Marco ever question a suspect?  She knew he was in charge of the case and that everyone reported to him regarding it, but still: It was too strange.

"I didn't have nothin' to do with it!  Look, alls I ever done is to put people back into their past to relive some of their happiest memories.  It kept my brother and his wife together when they was seriously thinking about gettin' a divorce," he pronounced it 'dee-vorce,' and Diana had to hide her smile.  "My mama got to look back at when my daddy was still alive, but...  I can't bring no one back to the now, sir.  I ain't never done that."

Marco raised and dropped his arms, as if he was gesturing at the entire situation.  "Current events tell me different, Steve.  Now why don't you give me a little more detail about this ability of yours?"

Steve ran a slightly shaking hand over his dry lips and leaned forward in his chair, perhaps as much to rest his weight on the table as to actually look sincere when he spoke.  "I've told ya'll everything I know.  I swear to God.  I ain't got nothing to do with this pretty lady here being out of her time.  I wish I could help ya, I really do.  But I cain't."

Marco sighed steadily and lowered himself into the chair across from the suspect.  "Why don't we just start at the beginning, okay?  Tell me how it works, Steve.  Tell me what you did to keep your brother and his wife together."

Steve sighed with no steadiness at all, and looked down at his clasped hands.  "I just concentrate real hard is all.  I don't even see nothing happening.  I concentrate real hard, and a little time goes by, and the next thing I know, there's my brother standing in front of me with a big grin on his face when just a few minutes before, he was all sad and wobbly-lipped.  I don't even get to see what happens!  He stands there, tellin' me he just watched some of the best months of their life together, and now he knows he don't wanna go through with this divorce after all.  Hell, next thing I know, the two of 'em are renewing their vows."

"How did you bring him back?"

"Well, that's just it, there, sir.  I don't think I really 'sent him back' like you say.  I think I just, you know, put him back in his own memories.  I mean, 'cause his wife, now, she don't remember him showing up some six years back and watching the two of 'em live out their lives.  And he says he was watching, not that he was in the place of his own younger self."

Diana's gaze slid swiftly to Marco, who looked as calm as could be, and continued to sit there with a small smile on his face.  "Now, why would you think that bit of information would be important to me, Steve?"

Steve swallowed, his prominent larynx bobbing worriedly.  "What bit would that be, sir?"

"The last bit."

"I, uh... I don't know.  I just thought that..."  He looked up at Diana, then back to Marco, and then focussed quite strongly and quite silently on his own hands.

Marco leaned slowly back into his chair, a small smirk of victory on his face.  "I see," he said simply.

Then, after a long minute of staring at Steve's bowed head, he rose gracefully to his feet, never losing the pleased look on his face.  "Come on, Di," he said toward the suspect.  "Let's take a break and get some coffee."

Diana's jaw dropped, and she took a step toward them.  "But, Marco—"

Only his hand was already around her biceps, silencing her with its firm grip.  "I could really use some coffee, Di.  Come with me."

Diana's strongest instinct was to pounce.  This man was the answer, this man was the reason, this man was why it was all happening—she knew it!  Why would Marco want to walk away now?  Now, when they seemed only moments from discovering all this man's secrets?

With irritation, she allowed herself to be led out into the hall for the sake of putting forth the illusion of a united front.  But the moment the door closed behind them, she wrenched her arm from Marco's grip.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Marco shushed her, and dragged her farther down the hall, away from the door.  She came along only because he had her so flummoxed.

"Shh, shh, shh... Trust me; I know what I'm doing."

"Good for you!  May I repeat: What are you doing?"

He chuckled softly, and flashed her a mischievous little grin.  "Letting him sweat."

*

"I just find it hard to believe that you still can't stand to sleep here without me.  Come on, Diana, it's been a month now.  I could have sublet my apartment."

"So sublet it," she said, sounding less and less cheery all the time, though she seemed determined not to budge on his staying the night.

"Honestly, I'd much rather just have use out of it."

Suddenly, she stopped in her pulling back of the covers, and stood there with her head bowed, a stray throw pillow in her hand.  "Is it... is it so incredibly distasteful to you to sleep with me?"

Marco's head fell back in what he knew was a melodramatic gesture, but which he couldn't stop anyway.  "Oh god," he said, drawing it out as he stumbled his way to a chair and all but fell into it.  "You can not possibly think," he said to the ceiling, "that I have ever looked at you or thought of you or been in your presence and even considered the word ‘distasteful.’  You can't think that."

"Then what's the problem?"

"You know what the problem is!  Or should I say problems?"

"We're not married."

"Nope."

"I'm not your Diana."

"Definitely not."

"We're not having sex."

"That'd be a negative."

"I can fix that last one."

"And that would be problem number four."

Diana turned toward him finally, pillow clutched to her belly, tentative smile trying to turn her lips up.  Her thick cotton full length nightgown was supposed to be drab and non-titillating.  Instead, it made her look like an angel standing there.  "I miss my husband horribly, Marco."

"I know that.  I'm sorry."

"Just..."

Marco sighed heavily and sat forward, elbows on knees.  Over the last several weeks, he'd come to the definitive conclusion that he hated being the one who said 'no.'  "I can't just stand in for him.  It's not right.  If my Diana were here, she'd throttle me for what's gone down already."

The corner of Diana's mouth twitched.  "What's gone down?"

"I shouldn't be kissing you."

"I kiss you."

"Well," he fell back into his seat.  "I shouldn't let you."

Diana shrugged, playing idly with the cushion in her hands.  "You could tell her I forced you."

He laughed.  "To have sex with you?  Wow.  Yeah.  Any woman would be sure to believe that one.  'No, honey, I swear: I was just on my way home to you when she threw me on the desk and had her way with me.  It was rape, I tell you!'"

The tension had perhaps not broken entirely, but it had been dented enough that Diana was laughing a little.  She finally got rid of that pillow she'd been clutching, and sat down heavily onto the bed.  "Marco..." she started, and the genuine tone of her voice got his attention.  "I know you can't really understand.  At this point in your life, you've never spent enough time with another human being to not only get used to sleeping beside them, but to actually surpass that and move into not being able to sleep without them beside you.  You've never even been in love.  How can I exp—"

"No, you're wrong.  The whole reason I'm so adamant about this is that I am in love: With my Diana."

She smiled sweetly, but shook her head fondly at him.  "No, you're not," she said, not unkindly.  "You're in love at her."

Marco was sure the neighbors could have heard him swallow.  It was a bit too painful of a truth.

"What we have... that comes later.  That comes after my heart opens up to you.  I know it was foolish of me, I know I should have known from the beginning, but I didn't.  It took me a while.  But once it hit, I... well.  You see how I am now."  She shrugged as if unable to help herself and unapologetic for it.  "I can't live without you."

"You mean without him."

"Maybe you can't see me as the Diana you know, Marco.  But I still see my husband in you."

Marco watched her carefully for several long moments, but in his heart, he knew she was right: He couldn't ever fully understand.  He sighed harshly out his nose and fell into the back of his chair with all his weight.

"I'm not having sex with you," he decreed.

Diana smirked.  "Yes, I know."

"And I'm leaving my jeans on."

"Yes, I know."

"And I swear, if you try what you did last Tuesday—"

Diana showed the palms of her hands, then clasped them behind her back.  "Hands to myself, I promise."

He glared at her mock-sternly.  "The guys at the office are starting to talk, you know."

"Starting?  Oh, honey.  They've been talking for years."  Diana slid her way under the covers, and patted the side of the bed she'd designated as his the day she'd arrived.

Certain he was the world's most frustrated man, Marco took his glasses off and climbed into bed beside her.  As always, she immediately cuddled against him, but she did at least keep her hands and legs away from any hot zones.

With small variations, they had the same conversation every night, and every night, it ended the same way: With them in bed together, Marco still in his day clothes and putting forth an heroic effort to control himself; Diana in something thick and shapeless, and shamelessly wrapping herself around him, heedless of his inner turmoil.  It was an odd ritual, yet somehow comfortable.

As hot and restrained as all the clothes made them feel, sleep came swiftly.

*

When Marco awoke several hours later to the sound of someone crying, his first instinct was to run and check on Maia.

But once his eyes opened in the dark, and his mind caught up with his ears, he realized those quiet sounds were coming from beside him: From Diana.

"Diana?" he whispered thickly, his voice still half asleep.

She gasped and very suddenly stopped making noises.  "Yeah?"

Marco wasn't sure what to say.  He knew she'd been crying.  Did she think that he would think he'd imagined or dreamed it?  Or maybe just act like he had?  ...Was that what he was supposed to do?

"I... Were you...?"  He swallowed nervously, afraid to ask the wrong thing and make it worse.  "Are you okay?"

She didn't say anything for a long time, and he wondered if he was supposed to pretend she'd fallen back to sleep.  When she finally spoke, the break in her voice squeezed his throat shut.  "I miss my husband," she said, all but crying again, and pressed her face tightly against his chest.

Marco tried to turn toward her on instinct, but due to how close and how tightly she was holding him, he couldn't move much.  So he tried to wrap his arms more fully around her, though the right was still stubbornly snoozing, and he wasn't sure where or how it landed on her back.

"Shh," he soothed quietly, sounding choked, himself, through the lump in his throat.  "I know, I know.  It's okay."  He ran his good hand through her silky soft hair and pressed gentle kisses on the crown of her head.

"Maybe you're right," she said, her words muffled into his shirt, her head shaking in the negative.  "Maybe... maybe we should tell Tom."  She gasped suddenly, and her head flew from under his mouth.  Though Marco couldn't see her, he was certain she was staring right at him.  "You wouldn't let anything happen to Maia, would you?  If the time came and you had to... let him die... you'd do it.  Wouldn't you?"  She shook him lightly on this last, her fingers digging deeply into his arms.

"No one's going to let Maia get hurt," Marco promised quietly, and flexed his arms so she'd realize what she was doing.  Her grip let up suddenly.  "If I had to... I'd let him die, Diana.  If I had to, I'd—"  He broke off, unable to finish the sentence out loud, though the thought was clear.

"...You'd do it yourself."

Though sure she couldn't see him, he nodded, and hoped it would be enough.  He didn't want to have to say aloud that he'd take Tom's life with his bare hands if it meant saving Maia.  It was painful enough just knowing it inside himself.  But if Diana forced it out of him, he'd say it.

But she did no such thing.  Instead, she fell into him suddenly, surprising him, her mouth hungry and insistent on his, her leg hitching farther up his body until she was softly nudging his groin with her knee.

He came to life painfully fast, hating every horrible little metal tooth of his zipper.  His breath was hissed in through his teeth as he tore his lips away from her and stilled her leg with shaking fingers on her bare knee.  "Diana, please don't."

There had been so many nights like this, he'd lost count.  Never the crying, but always the touching, the kissing, and his desperate grasp at the last thread of his morality.  It was wearing microscopically thin.

At his words, she fell still and heavy, her leg limp between his thighs, resting only inches from his heated crotch.  Marco concentrated all his thought on breathing steadily: Inhale, hold, exhale, pause; inhale, hold, exhale, pause...

"Marco, I..."  In lieu of further conversation, her hand landed warmly over his on her knee, and electricity seemed to shoot up his arm, down his body, and right to his erection, which needed no help whatsoever staying interested.

She threaded their fingers together, holding on firmly for what he thought was support, and only belatedly realized was actually to slide his hand ever further up her thigh.  Her nightgown had apparently ridden up during the night, as the heat and dampness his fingers felt had increased quite a bit before the feel of fabric on the back of his hand startled him into pulling away.

"Diana," he scolded in a heated whisper.  He tried hard to get his breath back, but could only pant and shudder.

"I want you," she breathed, lips brushing the shell of his ear, warm breath sending gooseflesh down his neck, down his spine, everywhere.  "You're just for me.  You know that, don't you?"  She began to lay soft, wet kisses in a trail behind his ear, and along his throat, and though he wanted to push her away, he was afraid that if he should direct himself to move at all, he would only crush her to him and go about doing so many of the things he shouldn't.

"You want me, too," she murmured against his collarbone between kisses.  "Don't try to pretend you don't."

Blood rushed in Marco's ears, letting nothing through but Diana's voice, and then, amplifying it.  His hands were fists, one tingling against her back where it was still coming to life, the other clasped tight against his own hip, where the denim felt rough as burlap on his skin.  He couldn't feel her hands on him, only her soft body pressed against his side, her thigh lying over his hip, squeezing and releasing in a hypnotizing rhythm, kneading his groin so perfectly that in a few more minutes, he wouldn't have had to worry about controlling himself, because he'd be done.

"I've never tried to pretend I didn't," he strained out amongst gasps and shuddering exhales.  "But..."

Diana's leg hitched a little more fully over his hip until her knee pressed against his fist with a quiet suggestion.  Without Marco having directed it to, his hand unfurled and cupped her knee in itself, running its fingers over petal soft skin.

"But," he tried again, his words slurring together and hardly making any sense to him anymore, "it's... not right."

Her hot tongue swept over the hollow of his throat, and then she shifted up, so that, without being able to see her, he knew she was hovering over him as she spoke.  "Then why does it feel so good?" she breathed, and took his mouth again before he'd begun devising an answer.

As she breached his lips with embarrassingly little effort, Marco became suddenly aware of a swath of hot, wet cotton pressing against his side where his own shirt had ridden up in the night.  He moaned loudly into Diana's mouth when realization hit, and launched a mentally frantic scramble toward one last ditch effort at saying no.

But then her hips hitched forward, pressing herself more fully against his side, and squeezing her leg more tightly against his crotch, and Marco's will broke like the toothpick it had long since become.  The thread of his morality snapped and went with it, and his clothes were quickly following.

With a guttural growl into her softly open mouth, he yanked his jeans open, only peripherally aware of Diana's quiet chant of yes, yes, yes as she slid out of her underwear.  She moved like lightning, and was helping push his jeans and briefs halfway down his thighs before she'd finished hiking her gown up.

Marco heard himself whimper when cool air rushed over him, and lost strength, his fingers slipping on the denim.  Before he'd recovered enough to try again, his shirt was shoved roughly up, Diana's short nails scraping burning lines along his skin, and the bed shifted as she climbed atop him.  "Dia—"  He choked off with a high-pitched sound as she, without preamble or warning, just suddenly impaled herself on him.

Entire body seizing up with sensation, his fingers gripped uselessly at the air.  It was only when she began to rock and rhythmically moan his name that he found the presence of mind to wrap his arms around her and clasp her tightly to his body.

She moved on him with erotic grace he couldn't have imagined, like she'd been planning precisely how to drive him insane from the moment they'd met.  His groin and inner thighs were already soaked, and it made sticky, wet sounds as she gripped and thrust and churned around him, making his legs tighten up and bend behind her, and his hands curl into painfully tight fists on her back.

Throat closed, he couldn't breathe or speak, but could only lie there, holding her what might have been too tight, and making choked, incomplete animal sounds to the fast rhythm her hips picked out.

She was sweet heat above him and around him, a love goddess, a succubus come to him in the night, draining his will, taking him as she wanted, moving to music she brought with her, being soft and wet and strong and perfect and god, he was going to come right now.

Burying his face against the side of her neck, he let out a hot grunt that was supposed to be a warning, but that got lost somewhere among her frantic, high-pitched, repetitive whispers of Marco and yes.  Her speed doubled as he emptied himself inside her, and then she went suddenly still and tense, and bit him hard on the shoulder.  He cried out wordlessly at the white flash of pleasure meeting pain, then had to struggle to breathe through his nose when Diana's hand slapped over his mouth to keep him quiet.

Eventually, she fell limply upon him, lips moving wetly against his neck as she said nothing but, Oh god, oh god, over and over again.  Her sweaty hand slid off of his mouth when she was apparently assured he wouldn't shout again, and he spent what felt like an eternity getting his breath back.

Her hair felt hot against his cheek, her body heavy atop him, her juices sticky on his skin, and it was all but perfect and he didn't want to come back.

"Oh, Marco, I love you," she whispered breathlessly, and pressed kisses along his shoulder and the tender bruise she'd made.

On the tail of her words, out of place in his experience, Marco's eyes snapped open in the dark.  What was left of his morality came crashing into his chest, a heavy stone slab of guilt.

"I love you so much.  So much, baby," Diana went on, kissing him, and licking the salt sweat from his skin.

The most intense shame he'd ever felt washed over him, making him feel sick at himself, and he rushed to cover his eyes with his hand, though he knew she already couldn't see him crying.

After a few seconds, the murmurings and the kisses stopped, and Diana stayed very still for a minute before quietly asking, "Marco?  ...Are you okay, honey?"

His answer was a choked sob he hadn't meant to let out.  "Oh god," he groaned, and shook his head.  "God, this wasn't how it was supposed to be!"

It was one hell of an understatement.  He knew exactly how it was supposed to be.  There would be flowers and music, dinner and dancing, and a moment when they kissed and looked at one another and knew it was time.  They would take hours to explore each other and try everything until they'd found the perfect position, the perfect rhythm, the perfect moment.  He'd watch Diana's face at the end, and she'd be so beautiful and surprising—because she was always so beautiful and surprising—that he'd be right there with her.  They'd collapse from exhaustion, not simple relief, and they'd fall asleep smiling into one another's eyes, both completely secure in the knowledge that this was what was right for them.

It was never meant to be like this.  An animalistic, three-quarters clothed, five minute fumble in the dark with a Diana he didn't even understand was never supposed to be in the cards.

"Please don't cry," Diana whispered against his cheek, and kissed away a tear that escaped his hand.  She tilted her hips forward, letting him slip finally out of her, then slid off his lap and back against his side where she'd started.

As he pressed his fingertips hard enough into his eyes that he saw multicoloured spots, she gently swiped him off with a tissue from the bedside dispenser, pulled his underwear and pants back into place with the help of his tilted hips, and fastened his fly.

"It's okay," she said, and kissed his chest through his sweat-damp shirt.

"It's not okay," he insisted.  "Do you know how disappointed Diana is going to be in me?  She'll be beyond disappointed; she'll be furious!"

A soft sigh warmed the fabric over his chest, and Diana's damp fingers stroked his damper cheek.

When he didn't respond, but only struggled to breathe steadily and stop his tears, she gripped his chin firmly but gently, and turned his face away from the solace of his hand.  She kissed his forehead and his wet cheekbones, only making him want to cry harder, but giving him just enough strength not to.

"It's okay," she shushed again, and kissed his mouth sweetly.  "Hey, you know what?"

Marco opened his mouth, but knew he couldn't speak without crying, so shut it again.  Sniffling, he pressed his own hand over hers on his cheek, and shook his head no.

She chuckled quietly, and Marco imagined he could see her eyes sparkling.  "I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that your Diana and my Marco gave in weeks ago."

Maybe that shouldn't have helped.  But somehow, the very thought that he might be going through the exact same thing some time in the distant future, and yet failing just as miserably, managed to cheer him up just a little.

*

Marco watched with a furrowed brow as Diana followed her nightly routine of making up the sofa for sleep.  "Diana, I really wish you'd reconsider sleeping in the bed."

She shook her head, but didn't look back at him.  "Maia knows," she said, tucking the sheet under the corners of the cushions, "and, as I told you, I was only doing it for her."

Marco spread his arms helplessly, and let them drop to his sides with a slap.  "And that was fine for a few days or a week, but it's been almost a month now!  Believe me, I know how uncomfortable that sofa is."

"Sleep here a lot, do you?"

He shot a wry look at her back.

At the silence, she finally turned to smile delightedly at him, and he rolled his eyes.  "Very funny.  Occasionally.  I sleep there occasionally."

"Hm."  She sounded less than convinced.

Marco sighed, letting it go.  "Look, why don't you take the bed, and I'll take the sofa for a change, hm?"

"It's your bed, Marco."

"It's my couch too."

She sighed shortly while she looked for something else to say.  "But you're the host."

He was already nodding and crossing behind her, taking her biceps in his hands and steering her toward the bedroom.  "And you're the guest, and you're sleeping in the bed."

"All right, all right, don't get pushy!" she said, though she allowed him to take her the rest of the way into the bedroom.  "We wouldn't even be having this discussion if we were where I wanted to be.  I still think grilling him all night would have gotten us a lot further than questioning him to-morrow after he's had a nice, restful night of sleep!"

"You honestly think he's going to be feeling very restful?" Marco asked, tossing the throw pillows off the bed.  "I guarantee you, Diana: He knows we're on to him, and he's scared.  He'll look like hell to-morrow morning, just wait and see."

"Yeah, because he'll be up all night long, going over his story again and again, making sure he's got it airtight."  She stood there by the door, her arms crossed over her chest, and all but pouted.

With a quiet sigh, Marco pulled back the covers and offered the bed to her with a gesture.  She only glared at him.  "Diana... I'm just as anxious as you are.  Okay?"

When she didn't respond, he closed at least the physical distance between them, and carefully placed his hands upon her tight shoulders.  "I know you miss home, and the life you remember.  We're gonna get you back there.  Soon."

She watched him for a long moment, then looked away and sighed.  "It's going to be strange, you know?  When I finally get back.  I mean, having seen all this... what am I supposed to say to Marco when I see him?  How am I supposed to act around him?"

"Do you want my suggestion?"

Diana met his gaze, paused, then hesitantly nodded.

The corner of Marco's mouth twitched up.  "Warmer than this," he suggested wryly, and was relieved when she laughed instead of becoming angry.

Her head hung forward, and she made a groaning sound as if mortified.  "Oh god, I'm a bitch, aren't I?" she droned, and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes.

"Aw," Marco soothed through a chuckle, and gathered her up in his arms.  Warm, comfortable tingles spread out from the center of his back where her hands eventually landed lightly.  "You're just homesick.  I know," he said softly.

She rested her head on his shoulder, and he pressed his cheek against her hair.  It smelled sweetly of cherry bark, almonds, and vanilla, Diana having been using his wife's shampoo for the entire time she'd been there.  It had run out last week, and rather than chance she might buy something different, Marco had hurried to do the grocery shopping himself.

It was only the small comforts that were carrying him through.

Diana let him hold her for much longer than he had expected, and at length, her hands began sliding down his back.  He experienced a short spark of disbelief, but then quickly realized she wasn't getting amorous, she was just literally falling asleep in his arms.

She leaned heavily into him, and when her knees started to bend, he quickly reached down and swept her up into his grasp.

She gasped awake and wrapped her arms around his neck on what seemed to be instinct.  "What—?"

"You're falling asleep," he explained softly, and carried her to the bed.

Expecting argument, he was relieved when she only made a quiet sound and rested her head back on his shoulder.  But he was more than a little surprised when after he'd put her down and covered her with the sheet, she wouldn't let up on the grip around his neck.

After a few seconds, he stopped the gentle tugging at her arms, and just met her sleepy, half-lidded gaze.  "Di...?"

"It's a big bed," she slurred sleepily.

He watched her very carefully, and was soon certain she, unfortunately, wasn't coming on to him.  She was just exhausted, and probably aching for the companionship of someone who was at least moderately familiar to her.  "Are you sure?" he asked.

She nodded and tugged on his neck.

With a deep breath and a minimum of rustling, he slid into bed beside her, and soon they were wrapped in one another's arms, facing each other on the pillow.  Diana's eyes looked just slightly more alert, but as sad as ever.

"I miss home so much."

"I know."

"Promise me we're going to crack that son of a bitch to-morrow."

Marco smirked.  "Like a soft-boiled egg."

His words brought the smallest of smiles to Diana's lips, and then she was moving forward and pressing her face into the hollow of his throat.  Within minutes, she went still and her breathing evened out.

It was more comfortable than he'd felt in weeks, but still not quite right.  They were on the wrong sides of the bed, wearing more than they ever did for sleep, and Diana was holding him in an unusual and awkward position.

But it was plenty to give him the best night's sleep he'd had in a month.

*

Marco woke up completely happy for almost a full minute before he felt his chest crushed by guilt.

He made a quiet sound of distress before he managed to press his lips to the nape of Diana's neck to silence himself.  She moved at his touch, apparently mistaking it for a kiss, and stretched languidly against him.

His sense of touch told him she was nude in his arms, and his memory told him that she'd managed to talk him out of everything except his briefs before going to sleep because ‘it's just too hot for all this fabric.’  God, he was pathetic.

Diana turned in his arms just then, smiling face filling his vision, and soft, warm breasts pressing against his chest.  The guilt was tearing him apart, but he hadn't the strength to move away from her.  He'd never had it.

"Morning, babe," she said, and kissed him close-mouthed and with a moan of approval.

"Hey," he said back when she'd released his lips.

She tilted her head farther back to see him more clearly, and her brow knitted.  "You okay?"

Marco shrugged.

His melancholy didn't put her off, it only made her pout playfully at him.  "Aww, come on, don't be sad."  She smirked, her eyes sparkling with mischief.  "I promise that if I don't understand, I'll have a serious talk with me."

Marco snorted.  It was just too ridiculous.  He'd fought for so long not to sleep with Diana because Diana might not understand, and now that he and Diana had had sex, he was sure Diana would be furious with him.  He'd considered calling them Diana1 and Diana2 in his head just to keep it all straight, but the thought of numbering the woman he loved was disagreeable at best.

"Hey," Diana said softly, and ran her fingers through his unruly morning hair.  "I love you, you know."

Marco's tongue seemed to paste itself to the roof of his mouth.  Nothing else had gone the way it was supposed to.  But, "I love you too, Diana," at least this was right.

*

Marco woke to an empty bed.

Diana's pillow (normally his pillow) hadn't much of a dent in it, and her side of the bed (also normally his) was cold from disuse.

Marco sighed heavily and turned to lie face-down in the pillows.  Apparently she'd woken up in the night and come to her senses, and rather than kicking him out of bed as she should have rightfully done, she went to sleep on that damn couch again.

That did it: To-night, he'd just go to bed very, very early, and make sure he got to the sofa first.  That, of course, was assuming that they didn't convince dear old Steve to give up the charade and put things right once and for all.  Which they would.  They had to, and they probably were, quite frankly, the two most determined people in the world.  More than anything, Marco wanted his wife back.  And more than anything, Diana wanted her... well, her old life back.

He tried not to think too deeply on what his roll was or was not in this Diana's past.  Whatever their relationship was there and then, it apparently had no effect on the here and now, so he logically shouldn't worry about it.  Yet it was somehow disquieting that there could be any place and any time after their meeting that he and Diana weren't on a path to be together.  If it was the life he knew his soul was destined for, then what did that say for destiny?  What did it even say for his soul?

The need for oxygen finally forced Marco onto his side, where he curled up, brought the blanket more securely around him, attempted to quiet his mind, and gave back into sleep.

Or at least, he tried to do, but the sound of a clattering pan and a girlish shriek brought him to his feet in record time.  He had taken a hurried step toward the door before the laughter got through to his processing center, and he realized it was just Diana and Maia playing around in the kitchen.  If he was forced to make a guess, he would have said handfuls of flour were involved.

With a quiet sigh, he fell back into bed.  Option A, getting up, suggested he'd be roped into making pancakes.  Option B, staying in bed and feigning sleep for about ten to twenty more minutes, almost guaranteed him french toast or waffles without having to lift a finger.

He opted for B.

*

"Shh!" Diana tried to scold, but wasn't doing very well through her laughter.  "You'll wake Marco."

Maia clamped a hand over her own mouth as she helped clean up the mess they'd made.  "Sorry," she whispered, and giggled some more.

They both glanced toward the bedroom door, but it remained firmly shut.

Diana shook her head as she swiped up the flour from the floor.  The dusting of it still stuck to her face invaded her nose and made her sneeze, which caused a cloud of flour to lift up into the air, and Maia collapsed in giggles yet again.  Diana laughed with her, trying desperately to be quiet, and went for a tissue.

"I can't believe," she said after she'd blown her nose, "that he didn't wake up.  He must sleep like the dead."

Maia snorted and snickered some more, then went to wash out the pan they'd dropped so it could be used.  "Dad?  Believe me, he's awake.  He's just pretending he's not 'cause he doesn't want to cook."

Diana looked back at the door as if this devious information was written upon it.  "That's horrible," she said in her regular voice.

"Yeah," Maia said through a giggle.  "Dad's always saying I get my superior loafing ability from his side of the family."

Diana's smile tried to slip from her face, and she had to hold it in place with a force of sheer will.  Her cleaning of the floor became slightly more violent.  "Yes, well," she said, her words clipped and humourless.  "That's silly.  You're adopted."

She was scrubbing for another good twenty seconds before the silence made her look up and the expression on Maia's face chased her once stubborn smile far away.

"I know that," Maia said stonily.  "But you both raised me.  It's just a joke."

Shame settled in Diana's gut and she had the sudden desire to melt away into the cracks of the floor.  "Oh, Maia..."  She busied herself refolding her cleaning cloth.  "I... I'm sorry."  With a sigh and a shake of her head, she finally got the guts to meet her daughter's too-old, too-wise, flour-framed eyes.  "This whole thing has been very difficult for me.  I'm... not used to sharing you."

That at least made Maia smile slightly, and she ducked her head, then knelt down to help clean up the last bit of mess from the linoleum.  "I know.  It's hard on him too, though.  I mean, he's not used to..."

Maia trailed off, and Diana waited expectantly.  But all she was finally offered was an uncomfortable look and Maia standing and turning her back to wash out the rag she was using.

"What isn't he used to?"

Maia's shoulders lifted and dropped, but she didn't speak or turn around.

Diana sighed, getting to her feet.  Before she'd said a word, Maia had turned to face her, apparently ready to enlighten her.

"He's not used to you," she said honestly.  "He's used to Mom.  He's not used to sleeping alone; he's not used to not hugging you.  He's used to...  He's just not used to not being loved back."

Diana's jaw hung slack.  Speechless and likely to remain that way for quite some time, she was thankfully saved from having to answer by the bedroom door opening, and Marco padding out, trying to ruffle his disastrous hair down.

"I trust that breakfast is nearly ready."

Maia snickered.  "Haven't even turned the stove on yet, Dad."

Without a hitch, Marco pivoted on his heel and headed back for the bedroom.

"Pancakes, pancakes!" Maia called, and went zooming past Diana, running after him.

That was a strange sensation, and not one Diana was sure she could ever get used to.

She turned to watch them, expecting to see Maia pulling Marco from the bedroom by his hand, and using all her strength to do it.  But instead, she was greeted with the sight of her stopped in the middle of the living room, standing stock still, and Marco standing in the doorjamb, looking back at Maia with a concerned expression on his face.

"Maia?" he asked quietly.

When she continued to just stand there, both Marco and Diana rushed to her in a panic.  They knelt before her, watching her carefully, and both of them holding her arms.

"Maia, baby, talk to me!"  Diana cried.

Marco's, "Honey, are you all right?" walked right over her.

Maia blinked suddenly, and awareness came back into her eyes.  Diana's muscles relaxed on cue.  But they tensed again when Maia finally spoke.  "Steven Trent," she said, her voice flat and almost mechanical.

Marco and Diana shared a look, and at the same moment, both began to help Maia to the sofa.  "It's okay," Marco said as the two of them sat on either side of her.  "We've got him, baby.  We know it's him."

Maia continued to look straight ahead, but her head began to shake in the negative.  "No, it isn't," she said.

Marco's panicked gaze met Diana's over her daughter's too-short head of hair.  "It isn't... what, Maia?" Marco asked carefully.

All at once, Maia shot to her feet and ran toward the kitchen.  She only stopped and turned back to them when Diana called her name incredulously.  "It isn't him, Dad!" she said, as if it pained her to say, and then she hung her head sadly.

Diana got to her feet to go to her, but Marco stopped her with a hand on her wrist.  His eyes were wide and worried, but his worry didn't seem directed at Maia just then.  "Are you... sure, baby?  Are you absolutely sure?"

Maia nodded, nothing but apology in her eyes.  "I'm sorry, Dad... but you've got the wrong guy."

There was the most ominous beat of silence, and then Diana saw Marco do something she'd never seen him come even close to.

His eyes began to fill with tears.  With the violent hiss of an inhale through his teeth, he pushed harshly back into the sofa, and covered his face with his hands.

The hope that had infused her for the last fourteen hours slid sickly from Diana's body.

~

10. Desolation

Diana's false cheerfulness was getting her nowhere fast.

It had been three days.  Three days of awkward silences and three nights of a cold, empty bed and little to no sleep.  Two nights prior, when Maia'd had a nightmare and asked to crawl into bed with her for the remainder of the night, had been the only solid three hour block of rest Diana had gotten.

Three days, and Marco seemed as if he would never forgive her, nor himself, for the weakness they'd shown that night.  Five, maybe ten minutes of comfort, of home, of release, of relief, of love, and they were both still paying for it.

Diana was not ashamed of what they had done.  She had no recourse to be.  She and he were meant to be together in any timeline they were given, and in any way they could find, and she'd accepted that long, long ago.

The guilt she felt came from her silence, her ineloquence, her inability to explain why she felt as she did, why she'd acted as she had, and what it all—what Marco—meant to her.  Perhaps she'd become so used to his presence in her life and to his understanding of their love and what it meant to both of them that she'd lost the ability to describe it in words.  Or maybe she'd never had it.  Maybe it was just something she knew how to feel.

Now, she feared he looked upon her as a seductress, perhaps even an adulteress, and to have the man she loved look upon her this way, even though he'd not said such a thing aloud, was quite a bit more shame than she could bear.

Yet, she still hadn't the words to explain herself.  His hope still dominated his every day; his every waking moment he fought and scraped and studied to find some clue, some way, to get back the life he knew.  How could she begin to tell him that she'd decided to try to accept her lot and find a way to live within it; within him?  How to explain to him that she wasn't turning her back on her old life, but rather was doing all that was possible to resecure it?  Because if she had to live it all over again, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was incapable of achieving it without him.  She was sure she didn't have the words, but if she continued to say nothing, would she only drive him even further away than she had done?  Would she make them unsalvageable?

The irony didn't escape her, as she was already in the past, but she wished she could go back and erase what they'd done.  Not because it was wrong or because she felt guilt over their harried lovemaking, but because she hadn't taken the time to help him to understand where she was coming from.

In all the time she'd been there, she couldn't seem to stop herself from looking upon him as if he had the wisdom and experience of her husband, but the truth was that he did not.  It had been so difficult in the dark, feeling him against her just as she remembered, feeling his skin just as warm as it had always been, feeling his lips as perfectly matched to hers as she'd always found them to be.  In her mind, he was her husband, now and forever.  Even stuck here in the past, she knew he was for her; though when she'd lived it the first time, her opinion had differed greatly, or perhaps she hadn't had one at all.  Or perhaps she'd not allowed herself one.

Viewing the results of her ill-devised grasp at the life she knew, she wondered if it wasn't time to stop seeing into the future and trying to force it into his present here in the past.  What she needed was to find a way to dive headfirst into the past—into what was now, into what he knew—and make it her own again.  She had the memories, she had the surroundings, and she had him plainly trying to show her the way.

With a steadying breath, and a silent prayer that it wasn't too little too late, Diana allowed the false smile she'd held for days in his presence to slip off of her face.  She walked carefully and silently up behind Marco working at his computer, and tapped him gently upon the shoulder.

He froze, then turned, eyes not able to keep her gaze for even a full second, guilt his constant companion.

"Marco," she started gently, "we need to talk."

*

"Go finish your homework, honey.  I'm sure she'll be home soon."

Maia turned from helping him clear off the table, and looked up at him with steady eyes.  "She'll be okay, Dad.  I mean, I didn't see it or anything, but... she will be.  It'll be all right."

Marco forced a smile, and indulged himself in grazing his knuckles along Maia's cheek.  "You don't always have to be the grown-up, you know," he said fondly.

"Maybe not," she said, and shrugged, but it was obvious she didn't believe it.

She crossed to the sink, putting the dishes carefully into it, and he knew it was going to be a bit of a struggle to get her to not clean them.

He leaned back into the countertop with a sigh, and crossed his arms over his chest.  Sometimes, he knew that if he ever came face to face with the person who was putting so much weight on his daughter, he'd have no recourse but to throttle that person with his bare hands.  Who had the right to lean so hard on a young girl?  She should be out having fun and staving off slavering boys, not heavily contemplating her importance to the continuing existence of the human race.

She hadn't said it, not in so many words, but her concern about her place in history was painfully plain in most of the words she spoke.  As her father, he was thankfully able to read a pretty good percentage of what she didn't say.

"Maia... the future sent you back because they wanted to change the future.  Now, that tells me that they didn't get everything right.  Who's to say they're right now?  Who's to say they have the right to stop you from living a normal life?"

"But, Dad, the way they sent me back makes it so that I can't live a normal life.  Whatever it is I'm destined to do, I have to do it.  I have to be there to do it.  No matter what it is.  And something tells me it's not going to be the easiest decision I ever made."

He wished desperately that she'd turn to look at him as she spoke.  But over the past year, he'd come to learn that when Maia had something very important to say about herself or her ability, she preferred to do it without facing you.  He knew how terrified she was that whatever it was she was saying was going to hurt the person she was saying it to, even if she had no discernible reason to have that fear.  Her ability was to see the future, and yet it was her own past that wouldn't let go of her.

"I know, baby.  But believe me, your mother and I are going to be right there beside you, helping you make those hard decisions as they come."

With wide, worried eyes, Maia looked back over her shoulder at him.  "Will you?"

Marco was speechless for the moment that she had to ask, and she went on before he was able to recover.

"Because I have to tell you, Dad, with the visions I've been having lately, I'm really not so sure."

"Maia," Marco said incredulously.  "How could you say that?  What... what have you been seeing?"

"So many things.  So many things that don't even fit.  It's like I'm..." she gestured circularly, helplessly, "seeing everything.  All these different possibilities, none of them really clear.  Some of them are happy, but... it really scares me how many of them aren't."

"Are you talking about the future in general?  Or about..."

"Us.  All of us.  And how it effects everyone else.  Dad, if you and Mom aren't both there for me, to help me through some things, I... I'm so scared I'm going to make the wrong decision when it's time.  When whatever's supposed to happen happens.  I need you both so much."

Her voice began to crack, and Marco had her in his arms in a second, his own eyes already reddening at her fears and his stark inability to soothe them.  He didn't understand exactly what it was that she was seeing, or thinking she was seeing, but what he did understand was that it was frightening her, and he hated it.

"You'll always have us," he whispered into her hair.  "We'll always love you."

"I know," she said, her words muffled against his shoulder.  "That's not what I'm worried about."

Gently, he took her by the shoulders, pulled back just enough so that he could see her sad face and downcast eyes.  "What is it?"

"What if... what if you stop loving each other?"

The lump in Marco's throat seemed to sink, and cold fear made a tight, ugly knot in his stomach.  "I could never stop loving your mom," he said sincerely.

"It's got to go both ways, though, doesn't it?  And she..."

Marco shook his head, cutting her off.  "No.  She's just... out of place, Maia.  That's all it is.  I mean, imagine if you were suddenly thrust four years forward, and every relationship you'd built had surpassed anything you remembered.  Everything you knew about your life had changed.  Everything... everything was different.  Wouldn't you be scared like Mom?  Wouldn't you feel like a stranger in your own life?"

Maia sniffled and shrugged one shoulder.  "I'd still love you, though."

He tried to swallow several times, but the thickness didn't go away.  "Yeah..."

"Where is she?"

"I don't know, babe.  But wherever she is, I'm sure she's fine.  She'll be home any minute.  Let me clean this up, okay?  I want you to go into your room and try to practice your T’ai Chi, okay?  Just go try to focus, and before you know it, all your poses will be done, and Mom'll be home.  All right?"

She nodded, her eyes on their feet, and Marco placed a tender kiss on the crown of her head.  "Go on."

"...Can I have some soda?"

He had to hold back an amused snort.  She was the future's trump card, but she was still a teenager.  "Yeah.  One.  And take one of the small cans, not that monster of a plastic cup."

Maia rifled around in the fridge, finding a cola and breaking into it right away with several satisfied gulps.  "The diet kind doesn't have any sugar.  If you'd buy me that, I could drink more, couldn't I?"

"The diet kind is loaded with carcinogenic chemicals.  Drink your can of empty calories without complaint, please."

He smiled when she smirked good-naturedly at the old, familiar argument before she left for her room.  It faded from his face once her door was closed, and he fell back against the counter again.

Evading disaster with Maia's conflicting emotions about her destiny was little less than a minefield.  His wife had possibly more than half of the map and Marco wasn't sure how much longer he could stumble about on his own and not blow something.  Maia was right: She needed them both.  And he needed Diana.  The version of her he usually had access to these days might not have held all, or even any, of the answers to Maia's problems, but she was at least a very comforting presence, and he missed that right then.

"Where the hell is she?" he whispered to himself.

With a sigh, he got started on the dishes, wondering if there was a single person he had forgotten about who had been a friend of Diana's in 2006 and was still close enough for her to visit now.  He'd already touched base with half a dozen people he hadn't seen in months to years, and he wasn't averse to making a score more phone calls or knocking on a dozen more doors if that's what it took to bring her home.

He just needed her home.

*

Marco rose from his seat, looking shaken already, and crossed to the problem board, though he plainly had little to do there.  "Please, Diana.  Can we just not talk about it?  I just don't wanna..." he shook his head, "talk about it."

She took in a deep breath and let it out very slowly.  "Marco," she said, "I'm sorry."

He paused at the slightly faded numbers he was retracing, and stared for a long, silent moment at the board.  Then, very slowly, he looked back at her over his left shoulder.

She was surprised when he held her gaze for several seconds before he downcast his eyes and looked away.  "Please don't say that.  Please just... don't apologize to me for it.  I swear to god, you're just going to make it worse."

Diana's brow furrowed in confusion.  "Make... what worse?"

"The way I feel," he said, sounding choked as he turned his face away again.  "The... guilt."

"Oh, Marco... you don't have any reason to feel bad.  People make love all the time.  I'm sorry that I—"

"Just don't!" he shouted, making her jump.

With a harsh sigh, he tossed the pen away heedlessly, and stumbled toward her.  She was ready to open her arms, welcoming him into a hug, but he passed by her and crashed into a chair instead.  Pushing down awkwardness and disappointment, she settled into one near him, the two of them only separated by the corner of his desk.

He hid his eyes in his hands for a long, long time, saying nothing.  Then, just as she'd begun to try something else, any attempt to alleviate his pain, he began speaking quietly, almost as if he was afraid she might hear him.  "I don't want you to apologize because it wasn't you.  You didn't do anything wrong.  It was me, okay?  I... It was..."  He sighed heavily.  "In the dark, and... the way you kissed me, I... there's always been something about the way you kiss me..."

It was less his words than his body language and his tone.  The way he was hunched over, the way he shook his head, the way the shame permeated his every move.  It wasn't just their simple physical act that bothered him so.  Realization flooded Diana's body and she sat back in her chair with a quiet intake of breath.  "You were... able to imagine for the moment.  Weren't you?  That I was... your Diana."

Past his hand, she saw his face tighten up quickly as if he had winced in pain, and then he nodded.

If she hadn't thought he would take it completely the wrong way, she would have laughed.  There they both were, he trying to relive the past, she trying to relive the future, and neither of them with the right version of the right person to do it with.  They were a farce.

"I'm still Diana, Marco," she said gently.

"I know that.  That's why..."  He dropped his hand finally, and sat back into his chair and sighed at the ceiling.  "I just feel so bad because it's like... I'm reaping the rewards of something some other version of me spent years tending, and I haven't done anything to earn it.  It's not fair."

"To whom?"

He raised his head from the chair back and looked at her quizzically.

"I mean, to whom is it not fair?"

"Not... to anyone, I guess.  I mean, I just don't feel like I... deserve you.  Or something.  I've never won you over and yet here you are.  It's like I've got your love before I'm worthy of having it.  It makes me feel like such a cheater."  He sighed, looking down at his hands, and Diana remained quiet for a moment, sensing he was getting ready to go on.  "I mean, you're from some other universe or something along those lines, right?  What if, in this one, in mine, I'm not destined to be with you?  Then I'm just... stealing.  Not just... that, but, every moment.  I'm stealing it.  Aren't I?"

She felt her lips twitch into a smirk.  "Well, in your defence, someone left the door open, encouraged you to go inside, then snuck up behind you and put the merchandise in your pocket."

He laughed—a real laugh, his first in days—and though it was a short-lived, it was lovely to hear.

"Maybe there's enough blame to go around," she suggested gently.  "Maybe we both have reason to feel guilty.  Or maybe, honestly, neither of us do.  But I think it's good we're talking about it.  Don't you?"

He nodded, still focussed on his own hands, and making no motion to meet her gaze, though it was steady.  "I've actually wanted to ask you... do you feel as if you've cheated on your husband?"

Diana chuckled quietly.  "I guess the paradox of time travel has a lot of other little paradoxes wrapped up in itself.  Imagine, being able to cheat on your husband with your husband before he was your husband.  Is it somehow ‘cheating’?  Or is it some ultimate form of fidelity?"  She shook her head at her own waxing philosophical.  "I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about being with you here and now, Marco, but... I can honestly say that I have no sensation that I've committed adultery.  You're... Marco.  The one I want.  The one I love.  The only reason I've felt guilt about any of this happening was because I saw how it affected you and I realized I hadn't been clear about my feelings or about my motivations.  I thought maybe I'd... pressured you into something you didn't want."

Marco snorted softly.  "Hardly.  You know how badly I wanted...want... well.  You know."

She nodded her understanding, saving him from having to go on.  "...Do you feel like you've cheated on your Diana?"

"No, not cheated, I... well, Diana and I broke up.  I mean, we weren't even a couple anymore when this whole thing started.  Besides, it's like you said, you're the same person, just like he and I are the same person.  In order to feel like you've cheated, it would have to be with a whole different individual, right?  I feel more like... I've invaded her privacy or something.  Snuck in and looked at some side of herself she wasn't ready for me to see yet, maybe never would be.  I feel like when I see her again and she learns what's happened, not just the other night, but this entire time you've been here... she'll feel violated.  I just don't want her to feel like that: Like I have no respect for her person."

Diana nodded slowly, churning his words around in her mind.  "You're afraid that what we've done has made me vulnerable to you before I was prepared to be vulnerable to you."

"Will make.  And her, not you."  He laughed.  "This is so hard to talk about with any kind of clarity."

"It really is.  It's even harder to live it."

"Amen."

They both smiled softly, focussing on their own hands.  Diana let the silence rest comfortably for a little while.  Then, carefully, "So you don't feel I... pressured you into doing something you didn't want?"

"No, not at all," he said tenderly, and smiled at her.  "It was a decision I made.  I just don't think it was a very good one.  ...I just wish there was some way I could forget all this.  Not just the other night: Everything.  When Diana comes back—and Diana is coming back if I have anything to say about it—I just want it to all be new again.  I want us all, her and Maia and I, to eat breakfast together for the first time.  I want to sleep with her in her bed for the first time.  I want us to... well, everything.  For the first time.  But now... now it's all going to feel like the second time.  Or the third, or more.  Isn't it?"

"It won't feel like the first time for her, either.  Remember, she's experiencing something like this with my husband just as we're here experiencing it together—well, we think, anyway."

"I don't know if you're right about that, about what they're experiencing together.  But if you are... it's actually kind of a comforting thought."

"I can't imagine it's going any other way there.  There would be far too much around her for her to deny where she's meant to be.  And if—I mean, when—she comes back, then it'll be something else we'll—" she broke off, having to chuckle a moment at the confusion of words before she went on, "I mean, you'll—have in common.  Some odd shared experience that no other two people in the world will have."

He nodded slightly, looking as if he was mulling it over.  "Could even bring us closer together..."

"I think it would have to."

"Maybe this is all some kind of blessing, guilt included.  I mean, aside from whatever reason this actually happened, maybe it could even help Diana and I see eye to eye."

Diana watched him, his eyes glazed over and far away, and she had to wonder at his uncertainty about her.  Had her Marco ever been so uncertain of their future together?  "Hm.  You know, I've been meaning to ask you: Why exactly did you break up?  You've mentioned this ‘blink’ episode to me, and that I—or, she—was the instigator, but what was the actual reason?  Did she give you one?"

Marco shrugged noncommittally.  "Well, you know she was hallucinating her ex-fiancé.  She said that they'd talked.  She said that he'd helped her realize some things about herself."

Diana rolled her eyes, stifling a groan.  "The only thing Josh Sandler ever helped me realize was that I have an astonishing ability to build armour around myself so thickly that few can penetrate it.  You were the first man—the only man—in eleven years who made me feel something..." she trailed off, remembering.  "God, that scared the hell out of me in the beginning, Marco.  You scared the living hell out of me."

Marco held her gaze steadily, finally something in them unconnected to guilt, before he tilted his head as if dismissing what she'd said.  "I guess you and she have quite a few differences.  Because she said that talking with Josh made her admit to herself that she and I had no chemistry together; no future.  That she was just using me as a kind of buffer between herself and her emotions because I was always nice to her, and would probably never try to hurt her, and because she didn't feel anything but friendship for me and knew she never would."

A strange fluttery feeling that she didn't like settled into Diana's chest, and she found herself leaning heavily back into her chair.  "I... I said these things to you?"

"Well... my Diana did.  Yeah."

"This is so..." she shook her head once, trying to clear it.  "Wow.  I feel like I'm having déjà vu inside déjà vu."

Marco looked at her askance.  "What do you mean?  I thought you said you never broke up with your me."

"I didn't.  I didn't, but... Marco, when I started to become consciously aware that you were making me feel things I hadn't felt in over a decade, I panicked inside.  I mean, I... I seriously considered breaking up with you.  I even practiced breaking up with you, and those were exactly the kinds of things I was going to say.  But Maia said the strangest thing to me.  The strangest thing and I... I came to realize that I was just trying to stop myself from feeling."

Marco opened and closed his hands once when she stopped.  "Well... what did she say?"

Diana blinked rapidly, trying to stop being so thrown by the whole thing, and remember what had happened so that she could explain it properly.  "Well, let's see, I... Hm.  I was standing in front of the full length mirror in my bedroom... and I think I was just watching my own lips move as I practiced what I might say to you to end it, and... well, she was suddenly right there.  I remember that she scared me, I hadn't heard her come in.  And she just looked up at me—with those big eyes, you know?  And I'll never forget what she said, exactly how she said it, like it was the simplest question she had ever asked.  She looked up at me and she said, ‘Mommy?  Why are you hiding?’"

The sudden flare of Marco's eyes and then the look that settled onto his face showed her he fully understood the implication of Maia's words.  But he didn't utter a sound.

"And I just remember realizing... ‘Oh my god.  My ten year old daughter can tell I'm afraid to let someone love me.’  And I knew I couldn't let her grow up watching that.  Watching me hide.  Maybe she'd think love was something to hide from.  Maybe she'd hide from it.  I just couldn't bear that."

"So you faced this fear you had...this... fear of intimacy?" Diana nodded.  "Because you didn't want to pass it on to Maia."

"Partly, yes.  And it was partly just the realization that I had the fear; admitting it.  Oh, I'd been fooling myself for so long, Marco.  It was a shock to see myself through anyone else's eyes by my own closed ones."

"Do you think... that Diana's afraid of me because I love her?  Because she can tell that I love her?"

Diana smiled; shook her head minutely.  "No.  I think she's probably afraid of you because she can tell that she could very easily love you back.  If she'd just let herself."

*

The door opened, making not a sound on well-oiled hinges, but Marco sensed it from the kitchen anyway.

Fingers dripping, he grabbed a hand towel and darted for the living room, wiping his hands haphazardly.

Diana was standing just inside of it, eyes looking far, far away, and was numbly removing her jacket.

"Where the hell have you been?" he hissed.

She made a startled little sound when he grabbed her arm and pulled her with him as far from Maia's room as possible, which was the far side of the kitchen.

"I have been calling all of Seattle!" he snapped, as quietly, yet as angrily, as he could.  "I left half a dozen messages on your cell phone, and we've both been worried sick!"

She was only staring at him, looking dumbfounded, and the silence let Marco get a slightly better grip on himself.

He tossed the towel harshly on the counter and managed to remove his hand from her arm, where he was gripping her far too tight just to make sure she was real.  "You're all right?" he asked quietly.  "You're not hurt..."

"No, I'm..."  She paused, then looked slightly confused.  "Was I supposed to do something?  I thought you were picking Maia up from riding."

Marco felt his lips thin out.  He was not going to shout.  "I did," he said through clenched teeth.  "That is hardly the issue.  Where were you?"

"Nowhere, just... walking.  Around.  Thinking, I..." she gestured toward her jacket in the living room, and the cell phone apparently inside it.  "I went to a movie when I left NTAC this afternoon, and I turned my cell phone off in there.  I guess I forgot about turning it back on."

Marco stared stonily at her.  "You were walking.  For seven hours."

"Thinking," Diana added defensively.

He tossed his hands in the air, then crossed his arms angrily over his chest to avoid breaking anything with them.  "That's just great.  While you were out there walking and thinking, did you think for a second about Maia or me?  Did you think for even an instant of what we might be wondering while you were oh so busy walking and thinking?"

Diana spread her arms, suddenly incredulous.  "What is your problem?  I told you I was going out—"

"At two!  I assumed for a late lunch or a quick walk or something!  It's nine o'clock, Diana!"

She stared for a long moment as if she expected realization to hit her, then finally dropped her arms and scoffed, shaking her head.  "What...?  I do not understand.  You picked up Maia, you said you were making dinner... I thought things were taken care of."

A wave of hot anger flared across Marco's gut.  He clamped down every instinct he had.  "Yeah, Di," he said, his voice dark and low, "things were taken care of.  It was just the people that weren't."

A flicker of something crossed Diana's face.  For a moment, she began to look just slightly contrite, as if perhaps she had started to understand what he was trying to say, but he was beyond that now.  He was hurt.

"Believe me... anyone who knows anything about this situation is quite clear on the fact that you don't want to be here," he spat.  "And we're all real sorry you got stuck with us.  But would it kill you to show just the slightest bit of concern for the rest of the human population?  Maybe you couldn't care less about the Marco you know, but in my life, in my time, you are my wife.  I have loved you always, I will love you always, and when you disappear without a note, a message, or a clue, for seven hours, I worry.  That is what I do.  That is what Maia has been doing.  You might not give a rat's ass about me, but I know you care about her!"

Diana's head fell further with every sentence that crossed his lips, and she finally backed into the island countertop opposite him as if she was too weak to hold her own weight.  She only glanced up when he pointed in the direction of Maia's bedroom to emphasize his point.

Her voice was barely there when she spoke.  "I didn't even think that—"

"That is obvious."

Her head snapped up at his tone, not in anger, but in a surprised expression of guilt, and Marco felt the anger stiffening his spine melt a little.  It still hurt.  But it was at least nice to know she'd started to get the point.

"I'm sorry," she said, so sincerely, he had to start slightly backwards at the power of it.  "I don't know what I... I'm not used to..."

It was difficult to uncross his arms and lean, instead, on the counter behind him, but he did, just to show he was open to whatever it was she was trying to say.

Diana was gesturing weakly with one hand.  "In the time I'm from, when someone's taking care of Maia, there's not usually a set schedule.  Work takes me away, I often don't know for how long it's going to be, and my babysitters don't... worry."

"I'm not your—"

"I know.  Believe me.  I realize that.  But it just never crossed my mind to-night that... you two might... think something bad had happened."

"Well, we did."  He made a conscious effort to stop spitting out one-liners, and sighed softly.  "You know, you could have just called if you needed some time alone."

She nodded at her shoes in agreement.  "I should have.  I... It was insensitive."  Finally, she raised her head, making honest eye contact with him, and she nodded once with finality.  "I'm truly sorry.  It won't happen again."

The anger puddled and drained away.

But it still hurt.  No apology was going to take that away.

He wasn't going to say that it was okay, because it wasn't.  But he could let it go.  "What were you thinking about?" he asked conversationally, and shrugged when she only looked at him with a hesitant question in her eyes.  "For seven hours?  Must have been big."

Diana shrugged, looking both thoughtful and vulnerable, and something in the helplessness of her manner helped Marco understand, if only slightly, how she could have possibly forgotten about them.  "Everything.  This whole situation.  You, Maia, me... those three words being grouped together."  She finished with a quiet chuckle, and Marco smiled along.  "It's just so hard for me to envision the path that led to this future."

Marco's fingers dug into the countertop under his hands as her confused words settled over him.  He was loathe to say what he was about to try to.  He didn't want to believe it.  He didn't want to consider it.  But circumstances being as they were, he'd only be fooling himself if he didn't.

"Maybe you're not... meant to travel this path, Diana.  This future is my future, it's my Diana's future, it's our Maia's future, but maybe it isn't yours.  Maybe, where you're from, things are going to be different."

She sank finally onto a breakfast stool, looking as though the weight of the world rested on her shoulders.

Marco felt one of his blunt nails split painfully against the increasing pressure of the counter, but he couldn't let up if he was going to keep talking like this.  "Maia's been telling me about some visions she's been having," he went on.  "All these different futures.  Seems to me there are a lot of paths for you to choose from.  I'd be willing to bet that down some of them are other... men.  Men who could be a father to Maia."  A lump rose rapidly in his throat, and he struggled to force it down.  "Men who could be a husband to you."  It was like ripping his own heart out, but he felt it was the right thing to say.

Diana was not meeting his gaze, seeming to be considering what he'd said, and then she finally looked up at him.  "Do you believe that?"

He tried to just say yes, because he thought it was what she needed to hear.  But he couldn't have gripped anything hard enough to be able to get those words past his lips without collapsing in tears.  "God, I don't want to."

She nodded slowly, almost as if she understood, and he wondered if maybe she did.  "It's just I... I don't see that.  I don't see marriage to anyone.  I don't see a father for Maia.  Not really.  I mean, I've always seen myself as the single mom.  The single, working mom."  Her gaze dropped, and she focussed on her own hands fidgeting in her lap.  "Even when we were dating," she said carefully, "that was how I saw myself."

He could tell she was trying to speak gently, trying not to hurt him anymore, but her success was less than moderate.  Still, he appreciated that she cared enough to try.  "Well, that might be.  But, I'm sorry, Diana, I just don't think you can do it all yourself.  And I don't think Maia thinks so, either."

"Maia."  Diana stood up suddenly.  "Shouldn't we tell her I'm home if she's been worried?"

"She's not deaf: She knows.  Sit down."

To his surprise, she did so with little hesitation.

After a moment, Diana shrugged.  "Marco, Maia is just a little girl.  She doesn't know—"

"Maia," he broke in, "knows more than you think.  Don't disregard her opinion as that of a child; don't even disregard it as that of a special child.  She's more mature than most adults we know."

"Maybe... but it's hard for me to see her like that.  The Maia I know sees things, and sometimes they scare her, and sometimes they help her understand what's going on around her, but she never has... specific opinions about them, or about the people they involve.  She just takes in the images and says or writes what she sees."

"Well.  She's grown up a bit."  He would have liked to expand upon that, but there were some things he was too terrified to change in any timeline.

"And she believes that I can't raise her alone?"

"Maybe it's better to say... she thinks that throughout her life, it's going to be good for her to have a second opinion she can trust."  He shrugged, trying to expound.  "Maia needs more than one parent.  People say that about kids all the time, I know, and in most cases, it's really not true: Most kids do just fine in a single-parent household.  But for Maia, it's different; she's different.  She needs more than only one person she can trust implicitly to go to for advice.  She's going to have very important things to do, and she's going to have to answer some very tough questions.  Experience tells us both that she'll need all the help she can get."  He leaned closer, making sure he had her attention.  "I'm just saying: Please don't decide to limit her to yourself just because you want to limit you to yourself."

Diana spread her hands.  "I can't help that I never met the right guy."

Dull stabs in his heart, over and over.  She didn't mean them, and he couldn't be angry with her for being truthful with him, but he couldn't stop feeling them, either.  "Yeah, well... when you do, do yourself and your daughter a favour, and don't let him slip through your fingers.  Maybe Maia isn't the only one who needs someone else in her life."

Diana looked down, shaking her head as if she didn't buy it.

"What?"

"You're not talking about me.  You're talking about the Diana you know, the person in those videos.  But I'm not her.  I mean, tell me the truth: Aside from the way I look, can you honestly see her in me anywhere?  At all?  She's like a completely different person."

"It was hard at first," Marco admitted.  "But I've learned—or maybe I've remembered—how to look deeper.  Your shell is good, Diana, it's almost opaque, but... if you stand just the right way, and the light's just right... I can see through it.  She's in there, Di."

"But she's so..."

"...Happy?"

Diana watched him carefully, and Marco let a ghost of a smile slip across his lips.

"I guess maybe that really is," she shrugged, "what it is.  But it looks so strange on me..."

Marco had to sigh as he moved from his place at the counter and crossed to her.  He remembered it being difficult to reach her in the beginning, but not this difficult.  If the Marco this Diana knew was ever going to get through to her, he was going to need all the help he could get.  Because whatever small differences there were in her life compared to his wife's life, it had apparently been enough to thicken her steel exponentially.  And while he could never bring himself to lose hope that Diana would somehow be happy—with or without him—he had to admit that he found her certainty of perpetual loneliness disheartening at best.

How was he supposed to convince her of the opposite of what she'd already so thoroughly convinced herself?

Carefully, he hunkered down before her, looking up to catch her gaze.  Even that, she didn't make easy.  But once he did have her attention, he smiled softly, and she did manage a small one back.

"Diana..."  He took her hands in his own, smiling encouragement and honesty. "It looks beautiful on you."


*


For several moments after Diana had last spoken, she could see Marco trying to remain placid at her suggestion, but the sparkling in his eyes finally forced its way across his face in a satiated smile.  "God, I'd love it if you were right."

Carefully, Diana reached out and placed a hand on his knee.  "I'm sure I am, Marco.  Honestly."

He didn't look discomfited by her gesture, but rather looked up and smiled sweetly.  It felt somehow like a small victory to her.

"Well," he said, "there's only one way to find out."

Diana nodded.  "We've got to get this fixed."

"Any ideas?"

Diana paused for a long time, afraid to speak and afraid not to.

She'd been stuck for nearly five weeks.  She had to assume her husband was no closer to fixing this than she and the past's Marco were.  Though she'd come to realize that she could do this: Be stuck here, relive her life, start over in a sense, she also knew that she was willing to do just about anything to get home.  She loved Marco anywhere and at any time, but spending the next several years of her life rebuilding what she'd already built was going to be tedious at best.  Truth be told, she'd rather leave it to the version of herself who was better suited to it: The one who was even more uncertain than he was.  She wasn't sure she could become that person again.  In fact, she was sure she couldn't.

But what were her choices?  Wait.  Or wait.  Or...

When Diana finally found the courage to speak, her voice was not nearly as steady as she would have liked.

"I think we need to go talk to Tom."

*

When they walked into the office Tom and the other Diana normally shared, they very nearly got bowled over by Tom's temporary partner, who was all but running out of the office as Tom shouted at him for some probably perfectly innocent breach of conduct.  Diana easily recalled Tom's prickly nature with fondness, remembering the pride involved in being one of the tiny handful of people he could actually stand to spend large amounts of time with.

"Hey, Tom," she said, smiling as they entered the office.

Tom shot to his feet, eyes wide with hope, smile threatening to make itself apparent.

Diana and Marco held out their hands toward him at the same time, staving off early celebration.

"Sorry.  I'm still... me," Diana said apologetically.

Tom's face fell, and, as he collapsed back into his chair, he looked possibly even more irritated than he had when shouting at his partner.  "Thought you were keeping your distance from me."

"We're thinking that might not be the best thing to do anymore," Marco said quietly, and pulled Diana's chair out for her.

She settled into it gratefully.

"Really?  And why's that?"  He never took his eyes off of Diana, even when Marco spoke to him, but she still got the distinct impression that he was not asking the questions of her.

"Diana has something she'd like to tell you about.  That's why we're here."

Something in Tom's eyes shifted then, and she knew his attention was truly on her.  "I'm all ears."

It was strange, looking at him.  The man she remembered was hard, sometimes sad, but he wasn't quite this bitter and defeated.  It was amazing the changes only a couple of years could bring.  And it was heartbreaking to think of that man—of this man—stopping before he'd fully reached potential.

But that was why she was here.

Carefully, her heart slamming against her ribcage, she sat forward, and met his eyes as steadily as she could manage.  "You see, Tom... something's going to happen.  Something horrible.  Marco thinks, and I think I agree with him, that perhaps if we can stop it before it happens, I might just find my way home."

Warm emotion found its way into his eyes, worry and tenderness and an intense desire to help, all just as she remembered it.  It was bittersweet to see.  "My god," he said, and sat forward.  "What is it, Diana?  Whatever I can do..."

She nodded.  "Well, it's... it's actually in regards to you."

"Me?"

"What's to happen to you, I mean."  She took a deep, deep breath, and prepared herself as well as she could.  Marco's warm hand squeezed her shoulder, strengthening her.  "What's to happen to you and M—"

Diana jumped at the sound of her cell phone ringing.  She was ridiculously jittery, her fingers slipping on the case several times before she managed to get the phone out and open.  "I'm sorry," she said, seeing her home number on the display.  "It could be the sitter, I have to take this."

Tom gestured vaguely for her to take the call, and she pressed Send and put it to her ear.

"Diana Pac—Skouris."

The line was open, but no one spoke.

She glanced back at Marco, who was watching her curiously.

"Hello?"

"...Mommy?"

"Hi, sweetie!"  Diana switched the phone to her other ear and turned her chair slightly to the right, away from Tom's careful attention, his mind still obviously contemplating her interrupted sentence.  "Is everything okay?  Why are you calling me at work, honey?"

"Mommy... please don't."

Diana's heart skipped a beat, and her mouth went dry.  She was vaguely aware of Marco saying her name gently, worried, but couldn't focus on his voice.  "...Don't what, Maia?"

"You're going to get everyone killed. Everyone.  Please don't."

With a sharp exclamation of surprise, Diana jerked back into her chair.  She only knew she'd dropped the phone because she heard it break when it hit the floor.

~

11. Transformation

"Marco!"  Maia came running toward them as soon as the door had opened, and Marco was surprised that it was his name she had called.

Diana had been far too shaken to drive herself home, but she was still desperate to get to Maia.  With Tom shouting questions at their backs, and Marco waving him off, Marco had helped her out of the building and brought her home.

Maia stopped suddenly in front of them as if she had become all at once unsure.  She looked up at him seriously, and he glanced at Diana, who didn't seem offended or bothered by the fact that Maia hadn't yet acknowledged her.

"Are you going to stay for dinner?" she asked openly.

He looked to Diana, hoping she would answer for him, but she didn't.  He shook his head gently at Maia.  "I'm sorry, I—"

"Marco," Diana said softly.  "Please stay for dinner."

He looked at her cautiously, trying to speak with his eyes, but she only smiled at him in a slightly wry way.  "Even four years in the future, Maia is less than enthusiastic about my cooking.  I'm sure neither of us would mind a little of the Pacella touch in our pasta."

Maia giggled and charged finally forward to hug her mother, who picked her up with a happy groan, holding her in the air for only a moment before having to put her down.  "Almost too big to pick up," she said, her eyes sparkling.

Marco didn't know if Maia could tell what it was her mother's words betrayed, but he could: Diana's Maia was probably far too big to be picking up, and she missed it.  As strange and awkward as this situation was most of the time, he thought it must have been nice for her to be able to have second chances at experiences she'd thought were long gone.

"You didn't tell him, right?" Maia asked, looking up at her mom.

Diana shook her head.  "I thought we'd better talk about what you saw before..."

Maia was shaking her head.  "Mommy, you can't tell him.  I'll tell you what I saw if you want, but it's real scary."

"Well, then, I think we'd better talk about it."

"...Right now?"

"Later.  I don't think I'm ready right now."

"Okay."

Marco watched as they hugged one another tight, feeling utterly out of place.  He took a shuffling step back toward the still open door, but hadn't gone far before he was noticed.

"Where've you been, Marco?" Maia asked accusingly once she'd pulled back from her mom.

"I..."  He froze in place, and found he had nothing to offer her recriminating eyes.

"I missed you," she said, as if this was something he certainly should have known.

With a painful outlet of breath, Marco hunkered down to meet her at slightly lower than eye level.  "I'm sorry, Maia," he said sincerely.

She looked as if she was considering this.  "Well... just don't do it again," she decided.

Smile teasing the corners of his mouth at her delightfully childlike audacity, he nodded.  "All right," he began to say, but before he'd finished, she was hugging him quickly around the neck.  Then, before he'd managed to respond to it, she was taking off, her mother's hand in her own.

He was still standing by the open door when they were halfway to the kitchen, and Maia stopped to look back at him.  She narrowed her eyes suspiciously.  "Close the door, Marco," she said in a leading tone.

Just barely able to hold back a laugh, he did as he was primly ordered, and then followed them both into the kitchen.  He wasn't sure why it was that Diana thought he was such a good cook, but maybe if he concentrated, he could remember some of what his mother had taught him when he was child...

*

"Do you know why?"

Maia shook her head, eyes wide, fork hanging limply from her hand and resting atop her only half-eaten plate of pasta.  "I don't know what happened.  You were there telling Tom something, and his eyes got all big, and then everything was different and everyone was dying."

They'd lasted longer than Diana had expected they might, but not as long as she would have liked.  It would have been nice to get through dinner as a family before having to bring all this back up.  "What do you mean when you say that everything was different?"

"Um, I was all grown up and the buildings looked weird and your hair was different."

"Was it still Seattle?"

Maia shook her head seriously.

Diana shared a look with Marco.  Maybe it wasn't actually all that important to the situation, but she couldn't stop herself from asking anyway.  "Was Marco there with us?"

Maia shook her head again, only this time it was very sadly, and she busied herself paying bland attention to her plate and picking at the noodles with her fork.

"Maia," Marco said softly, "you said that... all of the buildings were different.  Can you describe some of them?"

She shrugged one shoulder.  "They were just all out of place.  I don't know where it was.  But I was in this room with this man and he was wearing a suit and he was everyone's boss and he was very important."

"Do you know what his name was?" Diana asked.

Maia shook her head yet again.  "I couldn't hear anything.  But he seemed to be very upset with me—with the grown up me."

When the two of them only watched her silently, she got slightly pink and went on.  "I think I told him something wrong.  I think... maybe I had something to do with all the people dying."

Diana felt a mixture of cold fear and helpless confusion clutch her heart.  She couldn't imagine how her little girl could find herself responsible for so many losing their lives around her, and she was desperate to both find some way to stop it and to soothe Maia's fears about it.

Her mind was racing to come up with another proper question to ask in order to build her scant knowledge of the situation, when Marco's unreasonably calm voice came to life beside her.  The things he asked made her chest constrict.

"Maia, this man, the one who was wearing a suit and was very important?"  Maia nodded.  "Was he sitting at a desk?"

"He was.  He was walking around behind one.  Back and forth.  He was very upset."

Marco nodded slowly, and Diana watched his throat move roughly as he swallowed.  "And were there... any flags behind this desk?"

Maia's eyes widened exponentially and she nodded.

Marco seemed to have a difficult time getting his next question out, and it came very quietly.  "Was there maybe... a big American flag... behind his desk?"

Diana's gaze shot to her daughter, and when she nodded her agreement, Diana's breath caught painfully in her throat.  She fell back into her seat and had to try several times before she was able to suck in enough air to even softly exclaim, "Oh."

Maia's fragile veneer of calm suddenly broke.  Her eyes filled with tears and her voice came high and uncontrolled.  "I'm not gonna make everyone die, am I Mommy?" she cried.

Diana rushed around the table to take her daughter in her arms.  "No, no, sweetie.  It's okay.  You're not gonna make anyone die.  Remember?  You called me and stopped me, and now none of it is going to happen.  It's going to be okay."

"But what if I didn't?" she exclaimed through tears, her cheek tight to her mother's shoulder.  "What if everyone dies anyway?  What if I tell him the wrong thing again?"

"Oh, Maia.  You're my special little girl; you're a good girl!  I promise you're not going to make anybody die.  Marco and I won't let it happen.  Okay, baby?"

"But Marco wasn't even there!" she cried.

Diana's arms tightened reflexively around her back.  "Marco's here now, honey.  We're both here.  It's going to be okay."

She was slightly surprised and immensely relieved to feel a penetrating heat near her back that she knew quite well could only be Marco being close enough to hug her.  When his hand slid tentatively across her shoulders, she leaned back into his touch, bringing Maia slightly forward with her.  She felt only one of his hands, and hoped the other was soothing Maia in much the same way.

"Maia, your mom's right," he said gently.  "Nobody will let this happen.  And if you need me to be there when you have to talk to that man, I promise I'll be there.  Okay?"

One of Maia's little arms flew from around her mother's neck and soon Marco's heat was tight against Diana's back instead of only permeating toward her.

It was the most intense feeling of family she'd had since arriving in the past, and even if it was disaster and fear and tears that brought it out of the three of them, it was still immensely gratifying to Diana.

They stayed there a good long time, she and Marco murmuring reassurances to Maia until the tears stopped flowing and the hiccoughs slowed and Maia wiped her face and asked for ice cream.

*

Maia'd gone to bed early, and Marco wasn't sure if it was because she was really tired from all the drama that evening, or if it was because she was just a very wise little girl and knew he and her mother had things to discuss.  Learning what he had about Maia over the past several weeks, Marco privately trusted in the latter.

He and Diana had been talking for some time as they very, very slowly cleaned up after their meal, and they'd both perhaps had a little time to adjust to the fact that Maia was apparently destined to become some kind of 4400 advisor to the President of the United States of America.  Adjusting to the fact that she could, with a single wrong word, destroy a significant number of the human population was a bit more difficult to get one's teeth around, however.

"What I don't understand," Marco was saying, "is how Tom's knowing about what was to happen with Maia and his death changes something like that, that far into the future.  I mean, yes, we've always subscribed to the ripple effect theory regarding the 4400 and the things that happen with them, but I can't even think up a path that would directly lead from Tom's surviving their altercation to Maia giving the President advice that destroys the entire country."

Diana shrugged, showing she was just as in the dark as he was.  "Maybe he didn't survive.  Maybe he died anyway and Maia felt even more responsible than I remember she did.  Maybe it killed her confidence in herself.  Or maybe he survived and somehow influenced her along the way, and his influence made her think differently later.  We're talking butterfly wings here, Marco.  I have no idea."

Marco sighed heavily, unable to find anything else to add to the conversation.  Diana was right: There could be a million reasons why them telling Tom about his future would have affected the world so adversely, and without further input of what would have happened between them telling Tom and the time of the disaster Maia saw herself causing, there was no way for them to decipher the true reason.

So, in silence, the two of them worked slowly at the dishes, Diana washing, Marco drying, and both of them lost in their thoughts.

Though he felt a bit like an egotistical jerk for letting his mind wander there, he couldn't help wondering about both Diana and Maia's distress over his not being there when all of this was supposed to happen.  Maia seemed offended, almost betrayed at the thought of it, and when he'd promised to be there if she needed him, her relief was palpable.  He imagined he could still feel her little hand-print on his back, where she'd squeezed him tight to her as if she never wanted to let go.  The truth was that though he did ache at her sadness, her desire—perhaps even need—of his presence made his heart overflow with good feelings.

Diana's concerned and slightly out of place question about his being there was less of a surprise, though still incredibly heartwarming.  He didn't have to look back too far to remember just how much Diana seemed to need him around, or to remember how positive she was that they were meant to be together.  She'd told him as much just that day.  She'd showed him as much just a few days prior.

He glanced up quickly, making sure he wasn't being watched as his face heated rapidly from the memory.  Remembering every little detail of that rushed night and the surreal morning after was a very guilty pleasure, but he was loathe to give it up.  Even if he and his Diana would never come close to what this other couple shared, he would cherish that one heated expression of need and love for the rest of his days.  He could see himself at sixty and beyond, pulling out the faded memory of that night, and still feeling the emotions as strongly as they had been then, and still smiling at the past.

He turned to put the dish in his hands away, taking his time so as to coax the flush down out of his cheeks before he had to turn back to possibly being scrutinized by Diana's knowing eyes.  He almost wanted to tell her how he felt about what had happened between them, tell her how he'd always cherish it, but the night was young, and he already knew firsthand that his will was weak, so he decided not to tempt fate.

Instead, he tried to think of something else to keep his mind off of it.  Thinking about Maia's prediction was both too troubling and too frustrating, so he avoided going back to that subject just yet.  He decided to keep within the theme of their evening together several days ago and instead of reveling in it, he gave into guilt and began to consider all of the horrible consequences he might have to suffer for what he'd done.

He imagined Diana's guarded eyes, staring him down, banishing him from her life.  He wondered about his future self, considering the possibly unreasonable amount of shame he felt over the concept that perhaps he'd be disappointed in himself.  My god, he hadn't just given in to desire, he hadn't just accepted something that wasn't his to accept (no matter the sincerity of the offer), he hadn't even bothered to take the time to be safe about it.

With a nauseating twist of fear in his gut, he wandered down the path that thought led him to and wanted off of it so quickly there wasn't much he wouldn't have given to not have to deal with it.

Then, without even a hint of skill, propriety, couth, or suavity, he blurted out quite unexpectedly, "Diana, what if you're pregnant?" and the plate in her hand fell into the dishwater with a loud plop and voluminous splash.

Hands hovering over the sink and belly wet with sudsy water, she slowly turned to look at him with wide eyes and a gaping mouth.

"Uh..."  The flush in his cheeks came back with a vengeance, and he had occasion to be thankful for the length of his hair, because his ears felt so hot, he was certain they were cherry red.  "Sorry."  He lamely offered her the towel in his hands, but she reached around him for paper towels instead and began dabbing at the mess on her shirt.

"Where... in the world...?"

Marco gestured meaninglessly at his head.  "Thinking.  I just... sorry."

When she next looked up at him, her eyes were sparkling with repressed laughter, and his face went from just hot to feeling absolutely aflame.  He adjusted his glasses nervously.

"Marco, honey," she started, her words slightly terse with humour, "I promise I am not pregnant.  I might be a fool for you, but I'm not a fool altogether."

She tossed the paper towels away in the garbage, though they hadn't done much good on her soaked shirt.

Somewhere, Marco knew that the gentlemanly thing to do was to say he'd wait there while she went and changed, but his mind was now fully engaged on the disturbing possibilities an unplanned pregnancy would bring about in this mess time had made of their lives, and so he said nothing.

Would she have the baby here in 2006?  What if she had the child now, but then was yanked back to 2010 directly after, leaving the child behind?  Who would care for—well, he would.  It would be his child too.  In fact, he'd insist on helping to care for it—her.  Or him.  He and Diana would have a child together.  Not his Diana, but Diana nonetheless.

What if she didn't have the child here and now, but only was kept here for a few months as it developed and grew and Marco became attached to the idea of having a family with Diana and then she was suddenly wrenched out of his life?  God, the disappointment would absolutely crush him.

What if this was the future's entire plan?  For their child, his and the future's Diana's, to be raised back here in 2006 to change something that the child couldn't if it was raised in 2010?  What if the entire reason Diana had been sent back was specifically so that this would happen?

Marco's excitement was growing by leaps and bounds as his mind processed all this in the space of a few seconds, and he was jerked roughly out of reverie when Diana snapped his name sharply.

"Marco!  Would you stop the wheels from turning already?  I am not pregnant!"

"How can you be sure?" he asked, his voice belying a kind of hope he hadn't expected to have.

"Mar—"  Diana broke off and dropped her head, a smile teasing the corners of her mouth until she reached up and wiped at her lips to steady them.  When she met his eyes again, she was all wry indulgence.  "How long, exactly, have you been thinking about this?"

Marco shrugged.  "Couple minutes.  I just kind of started thinking about it..."

"Well, from the look on your face, honey, you've already got this kid graduating from Harvard with honours.  Could you come down here into reality with me for a minute?"

He spread his hands.  "Hey, I'm just saying you can't be sure.  What if—"

"Marco," she interrupted, her voice implying that she was trying desperately to break through his though processes and reach him, and was having a hell of a time with it.  "Listen to me very carefully: I.  Can not.  Be pregnant.  It is.  Impossible.  Stop.  Thinking."

Marco stared at her wide-eyed for several seconds before reason came back to him in a rush and he let out a sheepish, breathy laugh.  All at once, he realized what she was trying to get across.  "Tubal ligation," he muttered.

"Oh, hardly anything so severe," she said dismissively, and Marco felt his brow furrow.  Diana sighed.  "Well, I suppose you're not going to stop the things from being invented," she muttered.

Then, to his surprise, she was lifting her wet shirt.

Marco's head glanced away as he struggled not to look.  "Uh... I can wait here while you go change," he said belatedly.

With a quiet chuckle, she took his hand and began to lead it carefully to the inside of her hipbone.

"Umm..."

"Relax.  I'm just trying to show you something.  Now, feel here.  Press in a little."

She pushed lightly down at his fingertips so that he would feel around at the soft hollow on the inside of her hip.

Face still firmly turned away, he hesitantly did what she directed him to.  When he felt the smallest out of place nodule hidden deeply enough in her abdomen that he never would have found it if he hadn't been directed to look for it, his scientific curiosity got the better of him and he was able to look critically at her satin soft skin, keeping arousal just barely at bay.

"What is that?"

"A contraceptive implant.  They last five years and have an almost nonexistent instance of side effects.  I've only had mine two years."

"An implant?"  It wasn't that it was completely outrageous.  He even remembered an ill-fated attempt at a contraceptive implant in the arm that ended up getting banned some years back due to horrible, undisclosed side effects.  Now, there existed patches and injections that slowly released the appropriate amounts of hormones over days, weeks, even months worth of time.  But somehow the concept of an implant that worked without side effects for so long, for something as incredibly widespread as delayed procreation boggled his mind.  "And it lasts five years?  What if you change your mind before it wears off?"

Diana shrugged, unconcerned.  "You get it taken out.  It's a very simple procedure.  Just a local anesthetic.  And the best part is, if you do change your mind, the effects of the implant are gone practically the second it is."

Marco nodded with understanding.  "Unlike the pill, that can take months, sometimes years, to wear off fully, and end up making conception difficult for some people."

"Exactly."

"So... you can't get pregnant," he said it with realization that was delayed to an embarrassing degree.

Diana lost control over the smile she'd been holding down for quite a while.  "Mm.  And so my husband and I can be as naughty as we want, whenever we want."  She quirked her eyebrows suggestively, and Marco's hand flew from her hip and back to his side where it damn well belonged.

He cleared his throat nervously.  "Right."

"The doctors told us we were being overly cautious," she went on casually as she patted her wet shirt back into place.  "But you have one, too."

Marco looked at her questioningly.

Diana shrugged.  "Raising one precognitive 4400 daughter whose life epitomizes a dramatic existence is about all the parental stress you and I can handle right now."

"Ah."

He knew he was being watched carefully as he reached for another plate to dry, but couldn't think of anything to say to skew the path Diana's thoughts were likely taking, so he just waited for it to come.

Eventually, she gently postulated, "You were actually kind of looking forward to it, weren't you?  You look disappointed."

He shrugged.  "I was just thinking that... if the whole reason all of this happened was for you to come back and have a baby here, or now, that it would... maybe sort of alleviate the guilt.  You know?  I mean, if the the whole reason all this happened was so that we would do what we did?"

He glanced up to find her watching him with a mixture of fondness and sympathy.  He shrugged awkwardly and looked away, not able to hold her gaze.  "Yeah.  I guess it's a pretty selfish reason to want to have a kid."

He turned back to her at the feel of her hand on his shoulder, squeezing reassurance, and then felt his heart speed up on contact as her other hand closed gently on the back of his neck.  She moved them together with little effort because he hadn't the strength to resist the pull of her eyes.  But just moments before her lips would have touched his, he found a shred of resistance and whispered her name as if it was the phrase ‘please don't.’

She smiled softly into his eyes and kissed him much differently than he was sure she'd been about to, offering only comfort and understanding with softly open lips, and making no demands of anything from him.

When she pulled away, she was smiling like she found him utterly charming.  "I think it's sweet," she said softly.  "The notion that maybe our lovemaking could save the world; fix the future."

"Well, every other idea I've had has kind of fallen apart.  I guess I'm down to grasping at romanticized straws," he said with a sheepish smile.

She chuckled.  "I still think it's sweet."

He smiled gratefully, glad that she saw it that way.  When she turned to go back to the job at hand he asked if she didn't want to change out of her wet shirt.

"I'll wait till we're done here.  Who knows what else you might say that'll cause me to splash myself?"  She shot him a mischievous look, and he ducked his head and went back to drying dishes.

The subject change had caused a break in tension, and Marco's head felt suddenly clearer and better able to deal with the real problem instead of the ones he'd decided to invent.  At length, unsure she was also ready to continue the discussion, he asked, "So, um... we're not actually going to tell Tom anything.  Are we?"

Diana shook her head.  "Maia saw a horrific disaster that would come to be if he knew.  Even though neither of us can begin follow the path that goes from this to that, I think we have to trust it."

"I understand.  The kid's never wrong, right?" he said with a smirk.

Diana smiled back at him.  "Not that I know of."

Marco felt his smile slip away with a quiet sigh.  "Right, but... then where does that leave us?  Or should I say: When?"

Diana shrugged, her hands moving helplessly in the water.  "There must be some other way..."

"Not to put a damper on anyone's optimism, but: If there is?  I can't seem to find it."

She sighed and fell silent for a while.  When she spoke again, her voice was calm, her meaning sincere.  "If I have to live it again, I will, Marco.  I'm prepared for that.  I'll never stop missing the life I know, but I know this one too."

"Well, what about my Diana?  She doesn't know the life she's in.  Maybe she's not as willing to live your life as you are to live hers."

"Maybe not.  But if we can't find some way to switch things—and so far, it's not looking too good—then she might not have a choice."

Marco felt a kind of desolation settle over him at his stark inability to do anything to help her—to help either of them.  Though it was probably like putting all of one's eggs in a single basket, he was consciously aware of the fact that even the best satisfaction he achieved from his job was when his skills came in handy to help Diana with a case.  The most intense joy he'd found in the stilted relationship they'd stumbled through was when he was able to help her work through some problem in her life, or in Maia's.  Maybe in the long run, it just made him nothing more than needy, but when he found it impossible to help Diana in some way, even a small way, he seemed incapable of bringing himself to be at all satisfied with life.

He sighed heavily, rubbing a dish dry with absent, automated circles.  "I hate to think of her there... out of place... out of time.  I can't imagine how alone she must feel."

"Well.  If she does feel alone, she's doing it to herself.  She's surrounded by people who love her.  If she can't see that, Marco, I'm sorry, but it's only because she doesn't want to."

*

"Ouch!  Damn it."

Diana clutched a towel around her cut finger, blood staining the fabric on contact.

"What'd you do?"  Marco was already rushing to her, his clearing off of the table forgotten, the dishes deposited behind him on the counter.

She jerked her hands away from him.  "It's just a little cut.  I'm fine."

"Let me see it."

"I'm f—"

"Let me see it."  In no uncertain terms, Marco took her hands gently but firmly in his own and removed the cloth from her finger.

Diana winced more from the sight of it covered in smeared blood than from actual pain, and fought the urge to jerk her hand back again.  She wasn't used to being coddled.

The tap was turned on full and Marco led her to put her cut index finger under the faucet.  He hissed in sympathy when she couldn't help but jerk back from it for a second, and she rolled her eyes at the babying.  "I'll live."

"That's what I like," he muttered toward the sink, "the optimism."

She snorted a laugh, which took the pain out of her cut being patted dry, then held her clean finger in the air while Marco got a first aid kit from under the sink.  "God, I hope that's not the same one that's been under my sink since 2003."

This time it was Marco laughing, and he shook his head as he pulled out antibacterial ointment and a fingertip bandage.  "Never did trust that thing."

Trying to keep her mind off the sting, she considered his focus as he worked: Carefully applying salve with a cotton swab, and wrapping the bandage expertly around her fingertip so that it neither bunched nor cut off the circulation.  He worked like he'd done it a hundred times.  Diana wondered how many of those times had been Maia and how many had been her.

"Do I do this a lot?"  She asked the question before she'd realized she meant to ask it.

Marco smirked up at her before going about closing up the kit and putting it away.  "Those knives are a menace.  They're too sharp."

Diana examined the bandage on her finger, fascinated by the smoothness of the edges.  She'd never wrapped a bandage so cleanly in her life.  "Knives are supposed to be sharp," she said absently.

"Sharp knives are supposed to be handled carefully," he parried, leaning back against the sink and still smirking at her.

Diana shot him a dismissively wry look and turned to get more dishes to carry back to the kitchen.

"I'll do them," he said, already advancing, and all but crowding her out of the way.

She might have argued just for the principle of the thing, but she wasn't actually very keen to put her injured finger back into the water, so she let him have at it.  In a few short minutes, he had everything in place and was scrubbing diligently.

"You know... you're a pretty good caretaker," Diana said carefully, and dropped her head before he'd fully turned to look at her over his shoulder, not wanting to make eye contact just yet.

"Thanks."

She let a quiet beat go past, then raised her eyes, her gaze harder than it had been.  "But I really don't need a caretaker."

"No one said you did."

"Maybe not.  But you act like I do."

With a sigh, Marco shook his hands off over the water, then turned toward her as he dried them.  "If you've got something you want to say to me, Diana," he said wearily, "just say it."

Diana shifted in place, feeling the need to get her legs more solidly under her.  "All right.  I just... don't like... being babied.  I don't like how you seem to think I have some kind of need of you.  I'm not your wife.  Whatever made her as needy as she apparently is, that's not me.  I'm not like that."

Marco narrowed her eyes at her suspiciously and tossed the hand towel aside.  "Is that what you think of her?" he asked curiously.  "That she's weak?  That somehow having someone to share responsibility with and lean on and to not have to be so goddamn independent all the time implies she doesn't know how to take care of herself?"

Diana said nothing, just watched him.

Marco scoffed.  "Did it ever occur to you that I do the things I do not because you—or she—needs me to, but because it's just nice to have someone care about you?  Did you ever consider the concept that maybe, just maybe, it might be a nice thing to have someone around to shoulder half the weight?"

"I can handle it mys—"

"No one said you couldn't."

"Didn't they?  Then what was all that the other night about how I can't raise Maia myself?"

Marco sighed, hanging his head for a moment before he shrugged and met her eyes again.  "Maia just feels she needs more than one person she can trust.  No one meant to imply that you don't have the skills to care for your own daughter, or for yourself.  I'm just saying that there's nothing wrong with having a partner to share burdens with; to share your life with.  It doesn't make you weak.  On the contrary, I think it makes you stronger.  It certainly makes a stronger unit."

"‘A stronger unit’?" she parroted, mocking him in tone.

Marco shrugged fluidly.  "The triangle is the most stable shape in nature."

Diana quite literally shut her mouth.  If he was going to start throwing geometrical facts at her to back up his case, there was no way she was going to win this argument—if that was even what it was.

Unfortunately, he seemed to be more than just one step ahead of her.  "Hey, I don't want to fight with you.  Okay?  You might not actually be my wife, but I still love you.  I just... hate seeing you like this."

Diana crossed her arms over her chest.  "‘Like this’?  Like what?" she spat.

"Like..." he gestured at her as if she was speaking for him, "so angry.  You know, I thought you were just distant because of having to adjust to being in the future, but it's like the longer you're here, the angrier you get.  I would have thought it would be the opposite.  I don't understand why you're becoming less able to cope with this with every passing day.  I know the situation's strange, but I've always known you to be someone who could adapt to change.  What's so different this time?"

"Well, I'm terribly sorry that I'm not thrilled with this situation.  But—"

"I never asked you to be happy with the situation.  But why are you so angry?  I've never bickered with you so much in my life."  He paused a moment, and his voice became quiet and gentle.  "Four years we've been together, Di.  We've never argued like this.  I wish you'd talk to me."

To her horror, Diana felt a thick lump rise painfully into her throat at his soft, sincere words, and she was quite unable to move her gaze from the linoleum.  She became aware just then, with an ugly flash of realization, of how she was standing:  Back against the counter, body hunkered down, arms crossed tight and defensive over her chest, head bowed, and she saw a weakness beyond what she'd been implying about her future self.  She saw a sad kind of weakness that she didn't want associated with her.

She saw the weakness of a woman who was hell bent on denying every truth she saw before her.

Taking as deep a breath as she could manage, she tried desperately to say something honest for a change.  "I've been... lying."  Her voice was wispy and cracking, and it hurt to push every last word past her tight throat.

To Marco's credit, he didn't come running to her like she suspected he might.  "Have you?" he asked gently.  "Tell me."

"I keep saying that I can't... see myself in a future like this," she stopped to rub the bridge of her nose, vainly trying to stop the burning inside, "but the truth is that I... I can see it.  I mean, I can see the path.  I'm just—"  Her throat seized up on her, and she took a breath and tried again.  "I'm just—..."

"It's all right," Marco whispered.  "It's okay to be scared."

He'd said it, saving her from having to, and that was blessedly easier.  But it was also incredibly painful to acknowledge how much easier he'd made it.  It was terrifying how relieving it felt to just lean on him.

With a choked gasp, Diana lost control of her watering eyes, and felt a pair of hot tears trace their way down her cheeks.  Marco was there in a flash, warm hands sliding over her back with perfect timing, as she leaned forward to press her tensed face against his shoulder.

She began to notice little things she'd been purposefully ignoring: The soft tickle of his longish hair against her cheek, the familiar scent of his aftershave, the almost feverish warmth that constantly emanated from his body.  Mostly she noticed the way he held her: Close, but not too tight; soft, but not too weak.

And, most unexpectedly, she noticed the quiet sound of his sniffling, and the heartwarming dampness against her neck as he cried along with her.

*

He'd realized before she'd said the first choked off word that something was breaking.  He didn't know if it was her seven hour walk or their talk about Maia or the cut he'd tended or a combination of these and so many other things that did it, but something was finally bringing her walls down around her.

There was little that could have stopped his throat from constricting when she began to cry, and the understanding of what she was letting go brought just as many tears from him as she had to offer.  He felt her shell break and fall away in pieces; saw Maia's future solidify before him; knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he'd been wrong about them not being meant for one another in her universe or any other.  It was meant to be.  She just had to admit it.

She sobbed for a long time, always with a kind of dignity, never out of control, until when they lifted their faces away, they each left a soaking wet shoulder behind.  She looked at him with swollen eyes, wet cheeks, and a bright red nose, and he tried to remember the last time he'd seen anything so heartwrenchingly beautiful.

Rather belatedly, he ran the pads of his thumbs under her eyes, carefully swiping away salty wet tracks.  "Don't cry," he whispered.  "If you cry, I'll cry, and that's just embarrassing."

Diana laughed through a sob.  "Yes, I see that."

"Diana... are you going to be okay?"

Her face tensed up tight, and he was sure a second wave was coming, but then she only shook her head.  "I just want to go home so badly," she said quietly.

"I know.  I'll do anything I can to help you.  I promise."

She raised her puffy eyes to his and watched him carefully for a beat.  For the first time in what felt like a very long time, he got the tingling anticipatory sensation that he was about to be kissed.  "You really will, won't you?" she asked wonderingly, and he was sure she moved just slightly closer.

He nodded, mute.

"You've always been so kind to me," she said, as if she was remembering some time long ago, "even in the beginning.  You didn't have to be... but you always were."

"Of course.  I've always loved you, Diana."

Her eyes shifted back into focus, as if she was really seeing him again, and her gaze was heady and real.  "You've always been there for me..."

"I always will be," he whispered.

She watched him without even blinking.  Then, very slowly, she said, "You really will... won't you."  It was not a question.

And then, in the most agonizing slow-motion he could remember ever experiencing, she closed the scant distance left between them, and kissed him.

Her kiss was hesitant at first, then strong enough to melt his knees under him, and when one of her hands had begun to slide into his hair, he was genuinely surprised at the way she gasped as if startled and started slightly backward.

He loosened his grip automatically in case she wanted to pull away, but she went no farther.  He watched her blink and look confused, feeling much the same himself until he came to a very startling realization:

The woman in front of him had not been crying.

"Di...?"

There was more blinking, a slow focussing of her eyes, and then she was staring at him with open amazement.  "Marco...?"

Her fingers slid around to touch his face, and it was less the absence of the bandage than the way she touched him that solidified his world under his feet again.

"Oh my god," he breathed.

With quiet twin cries of relief and joy and love, Marco and Diana Pacella fell together in a flurry of kisses and caressing hands, and if their daughter hadn't been able to walk out of her room at any second and find them, Marco was sure they would have had to have one another right there on the kitchen counter.

Something with his name in it fell from Diana's lips in the split second they were free before he took them again, kissing her so hard neither of them could breathe.

It was the first time in weeks and the last time in eternity that Marco Pacella had his wife in his arms.  Because as they held one another there, lip to lip, tears merging on their cheeks, words muddled into hushed exclamations of joy, he and she and their entire world...

Disappeared.

*

Diana's arms were suddenly empty, the support against her back suddenly gone, and she reeled slightly in place while she got her wits about her.

She didn't recognize the place she was in, and yet it was all somehow familiar to her.  There was a white beam that came down to brightly light up only the very center of the room, and when she looked up, she could just barely make out what reminded her of sections of a beehive, one silent person standing in each alcove.

Her disorientation was thick, but when the creepy chill of recognition began to slide over her skin, it dissipated rapidly.  She knew this place.  Not from experience, but from description.  "Tom..." she muttered.

"Diana Skouris."

With a gasp, she turned on her heel and struggled to see past the beam of light to the approaching figure who had spoken her name so boldly.  She thought that perhaps she should be terrified, but felt unnaturally calm.  When the woman stepped into the light, however, Diana's adrenaline level spiked.

She knew the woman's voice, and she knew her face.  But seeing her here, in this room Tom had described so vividly, put things together that she'd never quite grasped.

The face she recognized only as an impostor and an abductor stretched into a small, smug smile.  "Welcome."

~

12. Exposition

The woman moved out of the light momentarily and came back with a Kleenex in her outstretched hand.  She walked forward fluidly until it was held only a foot away from Diana's chest.

With a start, Diana realized she must look a mess from having cried so hard, and took the tissue with a mumbled, Thank you, only out of habit.

The woman watched silently, with that same damn small smile in place, as Diana wiped her eyes and nose.

"Well, I guess this explains a lot, doesn't it?" Diana tried to snap, though her blocked nasal passages made her sound more pathetic than angry.

The woman smiled slightly more, and clasped her hands in front of her.  "I would expect it explains everything," she said simply.

Diana laughed.  "Oh, lady, you're going to have to do a hell of a lot of talking before I find everything satisfactorily explained.  You can start with what the hell—"

"Perhaps," she interrupted forcefully, "it would be more beneficial to us both if we were to establish a palaver together, rather than simply an oration on my part."

Diana paused in balling the tissue up in her fist.  She stared at the woman for a long, wry beat.  "A ‘palaver’?" she parroted.  When the woman simply stood there, Diana threw her hands out helplessly and rolled her eyes as she looked around for a wastebin to throw her tissue into.  "Yes, please do," she said sarcastically.  "Would you like to start ‘palavering’ or should I?"

"It's behind you, Miss Skouris."

It was behind her, though barely visible, as it wasn't in the light.  She tossed the tissue away, wondering who the hell would light a room like this, and why, but having far too many more important questions to consider asking that one.

"It's pretty obvious to me now that you're to blame for the hell I've been going through for the last month.  The most pressing question I have, of course, is why?"

This time, it was the other woman pausing for a long beat, as she seemed to study Diana's eyes very carefully, as if she expected to find something in them that she didn't already see.  Eventually, she said, her voice betraying a quiet disbelief, "You mean you haven't figured it out?"

Diana felt her face flush in embarrassment, then anger.  "Well, you'll have to excuse the sadly primitive woman from so far in your past, and her limited intelligence, but no.  I haven't figured it out just yet.  So why don't you do us both a favour and tell me?"

The woman's eyes widened almost imperceptibly and she began to walk slowly around the small table in the midst of the light.  "Is everyone from NTAC this confrontational?  I had assumed it was only Tom.  History shows he had a penchant for prickliness."  She turned to meet Diana's gaze, the table directly between them.  "But you are recorded quite differently."

"It's amazing how being ripped out of your time and tossed into a world you don't know for a month can put you in a bad mood."

"A world you didn't know?  Was it so strange to you?"

Diana spread her hands, certain it should be obvious.  "It was like someone had taken everyone and everything I knew and twisted them into something I could barely recognize.  Yes!  It was quite strange to me!"

The small smile reasserted itself.  "Then I suppose it's a good thing we didn't put you twenty years into that future as we had originally intended."

The very thought of it made Diana take a stumbling step backwards.  She could barely understand such a different world only four years down the line.  But twenty?  She couldn't even conceive of what it would have been like.

"My argument was always that you needed to have some basic recognition of the world around you.  If Maia was grown, if Marco had aged... I felt it would be counterproductive to what we were trying to achieve.  I see that conjecture was sound."

"What are you trying to achieve?" Diana asked helplessly.  "I didn't learn anything there that I can use to change events in my time.  Everything I came across that I thought someone—you—might want me to change, I found reason after reason why those things should stay as they were.  I can't begin to understand what it is I'm supposed to stop from happening when I get back.  What went wrong in that timeline?  What is it I'm supposed to fix?"

The woman's head tilted slightly to the right as Diana talked, and the smile on her lips slowly morphed from smugness into slight amusement.  "Miss Skouris... I'm afraid you've got things quite backwards."

"How so?"

"It wasn't that timeline that went wrong.  It was yours."

*

Maia came out of her room because she heard Marco yelling her mother's name.  It wasn't a good kind of yell like the one she'd heard him make the week before, but a scared, panicky kind of yell, and she didn't like it at all.

The ice cream was sitting wobbly in her belly when she turned the corner into the kitchen to see what was wrong.  Marco stood there, eyes almost as wide as his cool black glasses, and his hands outstretched toward the sink—or rather, toward in front of it—where there was nothing but air.  He was breathing very hard, like he'd run a very long way, and he'd stopped yelling, but was only saying, ‘Diana... Diana...’ very quietly as if it was the only word he knew.

The ice cream churned.  "Marco, where's my mom?"

His hand flew to his mouth as if he might have forgotten that it makes sounds, and he looked at her with those wide, wide eyes.

"Marco...?"  She took another step toward him, and looked carefully around the entire kitchen, though she couldn't think of any good hiding places in there that her mom could get into.  Maia was the only one who could fit in the cupboards.  "Mommy?" she called.

"Maia... I—"

"Marco, where's my mom?"  Maia was yelling now, and that was bad.  Little girls weren't supposed to yell at adults, not even adults like Marco who were really good with kids.

But Marco wasn't mad.  He was too busy being scared.  "Maia, I'm sorry... but I don't know."

It sounded like two people were breathing really hard now, and Maia realized that it was her and she just didn't feel like she could get any air into herself.  "Where did she go?" she cried.  "Where did she go?"

"In my arms..." he muttered, gesturing over and over at the stupid air that didn't have anything in it.  "She just dissolved right... out of my arms..."

Maia began to panic; her voice became little more than a screech.  "What did you do to her?" she screamed, taking a few stalking steps toward him.  "What did you do to my mom?  Mom!  Mommy!  Mommy!"

Marco was suddenly there, kneeling before her, shushing her quietly and watching her with his big, dark eyes.  She fought him at first because she thought she should, but then his hands were on her shoulders, and she knew from the gentle way he touched her and the frightened look on his face that he'd never do anything bad to her mom.  She fell into him, crying.

"Shh, shh, shh," he said into her hair, making her head warm.  "It'll be okay.  We'll fix it.  We'll fix it.  Shh, Maia..."

But he didn't sound very sure at all.  He sounded scared—as scared as Maia felt—and like he was saying what he was saying for himself as much as for her.

She buried her fingers into his back, holding him tight and still in case he tried to disappear too.  She was just a little girl, but if she held him tight enough, then he couldn't go, he just couldn't.

"I want my mommy," she cried, sobbing into his neck like a baby, but she didn't care how embarrassed she was about it later, just so that her mom came back.

"I know.  I know," he said.  His arms were big and warm and covered up her whole back.  That might have made her happy in some other time, but now all it did was remind her that he was not her mom.

The ice cream lurched.

Maia sniffed and made a sickly sound.  "I don't feel so good."

*

Diana was having a hard time keeping her feet solid underneath her, and so she moved slightly forward to steady herself on the table between them.  "Mine?" she repeated, her voice little more than a whisper.

"Of course.  If you were on the correct path, and they—in their short-lived existence—were mistaken, then what reason could we have possibly had to show it to you?"

"I—"  Diana shook her head, trying to wrap it around the situation.  "I don't know.  I thought... ‘Short-lived’?" she asked finally.  It was only one of a million things she didn't understand.

"Yes.  The timeline you've been in most recently has already ceased to exist.  It did, in fact, cease to exist almost the moment it was born."

"‘Born’?  What—?  What do you mean it's ‘ceased to exist’?"

The woman shrugged nonchalantly.  "Exactly that.  The place and time you've most recently visited has already been deconstructed."

"Deconstructed?" Diana shouted.  Anger ripped through her.

Maia?  Marco?  The mother and wife they remembered and missed so deeply?  All of their past together?  The videos?  The pictures?  Every event, every moment, every step and turn their lives had taken: Gone?

True, it was not her life.  She knew it wasn't her future and they weren't her relationships and it wasn't even her responsibility.  But they were people.  They were a family who had a history, and all three of them obviously had much love for one another.  For them to simply cease to exist at this woman's whim?  It made Diana's stomach turn.

"You mean you've destroyed them!" she accused, hitting the table hard with the flat her hand, making the flesh sting.  "Used them to meet whatever self-serving goals you have, then simply erased them!  Just like what you tried to do to Maia!  Are you people even human?"

The woman's face had darkened, and Diana became suddenly aware that she felt stifled.  It felt as if the room was closing in on her.  It became harder to move than it had been.  She felt sluggish and numb.

"Miss Skouris.  Please calm yourself.  I do not wish to have you restrained."

Anger beat through her again, but it was muted, and Diana was more easily able to push it into her gut.  She tried to gesture with a hand, but became aware that she was unable to lift it.  She tried to take a step back from the table but found she was unable to flex her knees.

"Neither do I," Diana strained, breath not coming easily.  "Please..."

Slowly, the shroud lifted from her shoulders, and she was able to flex her fingers again.  The indignation, the anger she felt, became strongly tempered with well-founded fear.

"I'm sorry for that.  I know it's unpleasant."

"Do you?" Diana gasped more than spat, still getting her breath back.

The woman smirked.  "I've been on the receiving end of The Quiet more than once, Miss Skouris."

Diana looked up, met the woman's twinkling eyes and—just for a moment—felt the slightest twinge of camaraderie.  But the memory of the righteousness of her anger chased it speedily away.  "In effect... you've killed them.  Haven't you?"

Surprisingly, the woman looked genuinely horrified.  "Of course not.  Their timeline was a rogue.  It was created as a side effect—of sorts—of the changes we introduced to the proper timeline.  It ran its course, and dissipated.  Think of us what you will, Miss Skouris, but we are not murderers."

"But all those people—"

"Will simply live their lives slightly differently: In the timeline you know as your own.  Miss Skouris, the future you create is the only... ‘real’ one."

Diana thought she felt a glimmer of understanding.  "Are you saying that what I experienced this last month... it wasn't real?  It was some kind of an illusion?"

"Of course it was real—as it happened, as it was experienced, and as it will be remembered by you.  But, for all intents and purposes, now that it is over, it is over.  It never happened because they don't exist."

Diana sighed sharply, the false understanding gone, the confusion and circular talk giving her a headache.  "Over; don't exist?  But I don't understand what you mean."

The woman sighed as well, quieter, and looked at the empty table between them for a moment before she met Diana's gaze with a soft smile again.  "I'm sorry, but this is all quite pointless.  The manipulation of time is a complicated science that takes a lifetime of dedicated study to understand.  I could no more explain it coherently to you here and now than I could teach you in an hour to perform a delicate brain surgery.  It's simply beyond our capabilities—both mine and yours."

Diana lifted and dropped her arms limply.  "Well, what can you tell me?  Anything?"

"I can tell you that we wanted you to see the rogue timeline because it was the future that was intended for you.  We wanted you to see that the path was open.  All you need to do is take it."

Diana hesitated.  "But that world is so different from everything I know.  Their lives were—"

"You are mistaken.  There is only one difference between your timeline and theirs.  One difference that caused a new path to come into being: The path you remember taking in your time, just before we pulled you from it.  There was only one change made, Miss Skouris.  Everything else you could experience that is different from what you've seen this last month... came from that."

Diana swallowed hard, feeling her heart in her throat.  There was one glaring difference.  It had caused her the most confusion in regards to what connected that 2010 with her 2006.  It had given her the most creative of her theories as to what exactly had been happening to her.  It had made her think sometimes that she was simply losing her mind.

And somehow, she'd known from the beginning... that it was the key.

"Blink."

*

Marco must have moved faster than The Flash on TV, because though Maia was sure she was going to throw up all over his back, she found the toilet right in front of her and Marco was holding her hair back before the first wave came.

She tensed and tensed, and threw up and threw up, until she couldn't breathe.  It tasted gross and felt disgusting and she wanted to keep spitting forever and ever.

Maia kept her eyes closed tight, not wanting to ever see what it all looked like when it came up.  When she thought she was done, she raised her head just a little, and Marco seemed to understand.  He closed the lid and flushed the toilet, and helped her sit back onto his lap, ’cause he was sitting on the floor right behind her.

He had a nice, cool cloth that seemed to come out of nowhere, and he washed her face with it.  When she could direct her numb arms to move just a little, she took it from him and swiped a corner of it over her tongue as far back as she could to help the taste go away faster.

"Gross," she said with feeling.

Marco smiled at her like he felt her pain.  "Yeah..."

Maia's head was too heavy, so she dropped it onto Marco's shoulder for a little while.  Letting the cloth fall to the floor behind them, she wrapped her arms around him again, weak as they were, just in case he should try to go away.

"Marco, what's gonna happen?" she asked, already feeling herself start to cry again, if she'd ever stopped.  "Is my mom gonna come back?"

"I don't..."  His throat moved against her forehead when he swallowed.  "I hope so."

"You love my mom, right?  Both of them, I mean?  You'll bring her back, won't you?"  He didn't say anything, and that was scary, so she kept talking.  "I don't care which one.  I mean, I want my mom back, but if we can only have the older one, that's okay.  I'm sorry I thought she was weird at first.  I still love her a lot.  I didn't ever want her to disappear.  Not disappear!"

Marco was shushing her again, this time against her forehead, and he kissed it too, like saying it would be okay.  "Your mom knows you love her—both of them know.  Whatever's happening here, Maia, it's not your fault."

It was hard to raise her head, but she had to.  She had to look into Marco's big eyes and make sure what he really thought.

"But what if it is about me, Marco?  What if all of this was about me?"

He was watching her carefully, as if he was thinking about something.

Maia waited silently for judgment.

*

"Yes, Miss Skouris.  Blink."

Diana's eyes narrowed.  "You're telling me... that blink is the thing that changed my future so radically?  The absence of it, I mean."

"That's correct.  Your interaction with the drug caused you to make a choice you wouldn't have otherwise made.  A choice you had considered in the correct timeline, but that you waited just long enough before implementing that it became useless to you.  Blink accelerated your thoughts in that direction and you acted more hastily than you were meant to."

Diana felt her eyes narrow down almost to slits, and she watched the woman very carefully, and very suspiciously.  At length, the insanity of what she was saying settled firmly over Diana's mind.  She began to laugh, heartily.

"Have I missed something?" the woman asked dryly.

"You're joking!  You must be!"  Diana shook her head.  "You can't possibly be telling me that you moved me around in time to try to get me back into a romantic relationship with someone."

"Not ‘with someone,’ Miss Skouris.  With Mr. Pacella."

"That's ridiculous!  Since when are you people so interested in human relationships?  I thought you were busy trying to change the timeline to avoid some disaster that killed off half the population!  What the hell does it matter to you whom I date?"

The woman's small smug smile was back.  Diana hated it.  It was a like a neon sign reminding her that she was talking to someone who had a hell of a lot more insight than Diana did, and into pretty much everything, at that.

"You seem to be forgetting so many things.  Isn't it obvious to you how you're fooling yourself?"  She paused, but Diana only continued to glare, so she went on.  "What about Alana, whom we sent back for—among others—Tom's benefit?  What about Christopher Dubov, whom we sent back with a very specific ability: To be able to ascertain which people will be happiest together throughout their lives?  From what information, exactly, do you extrapolate that we have no interest in the romantic coupling of people from your time?"

Diana wasn't so sure that she was ‘fooling herself,’ but she did, at the moment, feel like quite the fool.  The woman was right: What Diana'd said made little sense in relation to some of the things that had happened because of the 4400.  But it was still very difficult to believe that all this trouble had been gone to just because the future thought Diana and Marco would do better together than apart.

"All right.  Assuming, for the moment, that what you say is true: Why go to such melodramatic extremes?  Why take me out of my time, deliver me into another, then let me flail there for weeks?  Wouldn't it be easier to just go back and remove blink from the timeline instead?  I mean, why not just stop it from happening in the first place rather than trying to fix it later?  That's kind of you people's philosophy, isn't it?"

The woman scoffed as if Diana had said something ridiculous.  "Do you think we effect changes at random as meets our fancy?"

Diana opened her mouth to reply, but, having nothing to say, closed it again.

"Blink is just as important to the reconstruction of the timeline as Maia's ability to see possible futures, or Shawn's ability to heal the ill and injured.  If it was unnecessary, if it was unneeded, we would never have bothered to create it."

"But I thought you said that you regret the changes blink made to the timeline.  That they were wrong."

"We regret this change, Miss Skouris.  We regret it more than you know.  We've expended quite a lot of resources trying to undo the damage that single branch of the 4400s' existence did to you, your family, and the path your lives were traversing.  But that change is only one in a sea of others the creation of blink will facilitate.  We can not sacrifice everything else that is destined to occur simply in order to stop this one unfortunate reaction.  We had to find another way.  And so we took you."

"Took me to do what?  Show me what would have been if blink didn't exist.  But blink does exist.  So what is the point of any of this?"

"I would hope that would be obvious."

Diana's sigh was more of a growl.  She turned her back on the woman and walked to the very edge of the light, her arms crossed over her chest.

"I understand your confusion," the woman said softly, "and your desire to reject what I'm saying.  The conflict you feel about your future is well documented."

"Is it?" Diana spat.

The woman's voice didn't change.  "It is.  But we are not infallible, Diana.  Not even we can see every variable in the changes our adjustments of the timeline bring about.  In all the simulations we studied, even with the documentation we had, we never fully understood the depth of your subconscious desire to be alone, nor the lengths you would go to to avoid any chance of being hurt again."

Diana spun on her heel, seething.  "Look.  I don't know who the hell you think you are, but you don't know me.  I have no ‘subconscious desire’ to be alone.  That's ridiculous!  Whatever ‘documentation’ you claim to be in possession of is obviously mistaken."

"Diana..." the woman said, her voice gently scolding.  It wasn't until this second time that Diana realized the woman had gone from using her surname to using her given name.  It only made the intimacy of her words even more uncomfortable.  "You conjured up an imaginary version of an old lover to convince you as to why you should not allow the relationship you were engaged in to flourish."

"‘Conjured up’?  I was drugged!"

"Yes.  By blink.  It is a very specific drug that has only one effect: To give one the ability to talk to oneself, in the most literal sense.  Your hallucination had no relation to your ex-fiancé except in your own mind.  You brought up the memory of someone who had hurt you to convince yourself not to give another the chance to do it again.  You even thought up some very logical reasons—lack of chemistry, future, and mutual affection—that would have been proper to follow had they been true.  It was your own subconscious, Diana, that told you to stop immediately.  But the real reason you desired the separation is buried so deeply within yourself that not even blink brought it out.  We've shown you quite effectively, I think, that what you told yourself—that your relationship was going nowhere—was false to an astonishing degree.  What other reason could there be why you would so emphatically tell yourself that it was best to end things now before someone got hurt?"

Diana's mind was swimming.  Too much of it made sense, and she knew it wasn't supposed to.  "I don't understand..."

"You do.  Your fear was never that your relationship was headed nowhere.  It was that it was headed somewhere.  Somewhere from which you could fall."

"That's not true," Diana said, but her voice was embarrassingly weak.

"It is documented, Diana.  It is all true."

Diana felt her will harden.  Her back straightened, her uncertainty disappeared.  This woman did not know her.  This woman knew nothing of her.  This woman didn't even exist until after Diana was long dead.

"Well, that's very comforting," Diana said sarcastically.  "But you'll have to excuse me if I'm more likely to believe myself than I am to believe your ‘documentation.’  Why should I even believe that the 'future' you showed me was real at all?  You have the ability to move people through time at will, so you're obviously very powerful and technologically advanced.  Maybe you just built some detailed illusion to get me to do something you want—something I would never have done if you hadn't interfered.  In fact, maybe the place you sent me was into the false future you're trying to insist I build.  Maybe all of this is no more than your manipulation."

"That's a very... creative assertation, Diana."

"If you ask me," Diana said stonily, "all of this is very... creative."

The woman sighed heavily, sounding defeated, and she leaned forward with her hands flat on the table between them, and her head bowed.

Diana got the distinct impression that they'd reached some sort of impasse.

*

Marco was not a father.

He'd never learned from scratch how to raise a child, how to soothe them, how to talk to them.  He had no younger siblings from which to draw experience.

But he didn't have to be a father to look into Maia's eyes and see how thoroughly she blamed herself for everything that was happening.  And he didn't have to be a father to know how wrong she was.

"Maia... how can you even think that?  You're a wonderful little girl; you're not causing these things to happen."

"But I'm the one who's from the past, Marco.  Before I showed up, my mom never got shuffled around in time.  If she'd never adopted me, I bet this wouldn't be happening to her!"

"Maia, if your mother had never adopted you, there would be a hole in her life so big, I don't think she'd care what happened to her.  You're the most important person in her life.  Now, I know that none of this is your fault, but even if it were... I know that your mom would go through all of it a hundred times if it meant that you would be okay.  She loves you, Maia.  That's the most important thing for you to remember."

Maia's eyes were still troubled, but her panic seemed to have abated, if only slightly.  "I love her too," she said, and sniffled.

"And she knows that.  And wherever she is, she's doing everything she possibly can to get back to you."

Maia nodded.  "And you love her too.  So you'll do everything you can to get her back, too, right?"

Marco hesitated.

"...Marco?"

He laughed quietly, and playfully narrowed his eyes at Maia.  "You're a very smart little girl, Maia."

She shrugged sheepishly and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand.  Holding her securely onto his lap with one arm, he reached for the box of tissues on the sink and went to help her blow her nose.

Maia took the tissue indignantly out of his hand.  "I can do it."  She did just that, primly, efficiently, and tossed the tissue away when she was done.

"Sorry."

"That's okay..."  Her head was bowed, and before Marco's very eyes, she began to cry again, just as heavily as she had been.  "Mom tries to do that sometimes, too," she said through new sobs.

Feeling powerless, Marco continued to attempt to soothe her.  He got to his feet, trying for minimum jostle, and let her cry into his shoulder as he carried her to her room.

There were stuffed animals and throw pillows covering half the bed that Marco didn't bother to remove.  He simply climbed onto the mattress, Maia clinging to his neck for dear life, settled her back onto his lap, and held her as she continued to cry.

As she slowly tired herself out, he petted her hair and murmured soothing, and possibly untrue things like, ‘It's going to be okay,’ but for the most part, he just let her cry.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed when he suddenly realized the room was quiet.  He almost asked in a whisper if she was awake, but then realized she was still digging her little fingers into his neck and shoulder, and had his answer.

"Maia?" he said gently.

"What if she never comes back, Marco?" Maia mumbled into his shirt.  "What if neither of them ever, ever come back again?"

Marco's gut twisted into knots.  "I..."

When Maia next spoke, her words were so quiet, he had to strain to pick them up.  "...Will you take care of me?" she asked carefully.  "Will you be my dad?"

Marco's hand froze on her hair.  "Maia, we'll get her back."

"But what if we don't?" she insisted, and raised big, watery eyes to meet his gaze.  "What then?  Will you?  Please, Marco.  I don't want to be alone again."

His fingers came to life, smoothing through her hair as gently as he could manage.  "I'll take care of you, Maia," he promised through the lump in his throat.  "I know I can't do as good a job as your mom, but I'll take care of you... if it should come to that."

Maia sniffed, looking somewhat mollified for a moment before her eyes drooped in sleepiness.  "Thank you."

"Come on," he said, and helped her shift around until she got under the covers, pillows and plush toys all around her.  "Go to sleep, okay?  Things'll be clearer in the morning."

Her eyes were already closed, and her lips curled slightly to a wan smile.  "That's what Mom says."

Marco tried to pull lightly from her grasp, but she wouldn't let go.

"Please don't leave me," she whispered as if she was afraid to say it.  "Please just stay till I fall asleep."

With a sigh, Marco settled onto the edge of the bed, leaning toward her, her arms still around his neck.  "Go to sleep, Maia.  I promise I'll still be here when you wake up."

There was one last tiny smile, and then her worried face very slowly smoothed into sleep.

He stayed there long past the time he knew she'd fallen asleep, considering the implications of all that had happened, and what he'd said to her.

He would, indeed, care for Maia if it ever became necessary.  But he didn't know if he could live his life not knowing what had happened to Diana.  The concept of never seeing her face again terrified him beyond measure, and soothing Maia's panic was the only thing keeping his at bay.

He wasn't ready yet to walk out of that room and allow it to wash over him.

*

The woman had been quiet long enough that Diana was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

"Though I'm loathe to hear what else you might have to say about me and my subconscious," Diana said wryly, "I have to admit the silence is rather disturbing on its own."

"This room is never silent," the woman said to her hands.

"Yeah, well, the constant creepy whispering isn't lessening the disturbing factor, either."

From the angle of the woman's head, Diana could only barely make out that she'd smiled slightly.  "I found it annoying at first.  Even understanding the context of the noise, it bothered me.  But now, after all this time, it's about the only thing that helps me think."

Diana very nearly asked what the context of the whispering was, but was somehow positive the answer would be creepier than even the whispering itself.  Instead, she asked, "And what are you thinking about now?"

The woman sighed at the table, then finally met Diana's eyes.  "How to fix this error we've made."

Diana sighed as well, somewhat sharper, and held back a biting reply.  She was still far from convinced of the explanation she'd been given.  Instead, she adopted a tiny smile and a tone of friendly ribbing.  "You know, I have to say that all of this doesn't give me very much faith in your people and what you're doing to my time.  You're standing there, basically telling me that not only did you screw up the first time around and kill everyone, but now that you're trying to fix it, you keep screwing that up too.  Are you ever going to get it right?"

The woman tilted her head slightly as if in concession.  "I admit that sometimes the changes take... tweaking."

Diana's smile vanished and even her affected goodnaturedness went with it.  "...Tweaking?"  She struggled to close her gaping mouth.  "You... you..."  She stopped; gritted her teeth; tried not to shout.  "You take me from my daughter—not just once, but twice!—you separate that poor man from his wife of three years, put us all through more than a month of absolute torture and uncertainty, and you call it tweaking?"

"Not all of what you experienced was pleasant, I know, b—"

"Not all?" Diana cried.  "Was there anything that was?"

The woman leaned closer, the directed light playing shadow games over her face, making her eyes unreasonably intense.  "Diana... when was the last time you'd felt yourself a part of a real family?  I don't mean just you and Maia.  I mean someone that you can lean on, too."

What Diana at first thought was utter inability to answer became, in the end, utter inability to remember.  Because it had, indeed, been a very, very long time.

"You don't have to answer that question to me.  It's all documented.  I know and understand your past.  But you might consider answering it to yourself."

"It doesn't require an answer," Diana said defiantly.  "Maia is all the family I need."

"No.  She isn't.  And more to the point: You're not all the family she needs, either."  The woman sighed sharply and spread her hands.  "Stop torturing yourself, Diana!  Accept your destiny.  It is the only thing that will ever bring you happiness."

"What do you know of what brings me happiness?" Diana asked bitingly.  "You keep saying, ‘It's all documented,’ well, what the hell does that mean?  Do you expect me to believe that my emotions and ‘subconscious plots against myself’ all ended up in the future's history books?  It's preposterous!"

The woman moved back and her hand reached outside of the circle of light, and Diana felt herself begin to fall into a crouch as she anticipated a weapon of some sort being drawn.  But when the hand was reilluminated, all that was in it was a very old and weathered book.  The woman took two steps back toward the table between them, and carefully laid the volume down so that its title was right side up to Diana.

Then she said nothing, just stood there silently, waiting for Diana's reaction.  "What is that?" Diana asked after a few seconds, but received no response.

Carefully, she took a single step toward the table, just enough so that she could begin to make out the faded words on the front cover.  One more short pace, and she could see it was only one word.  It was a word that made her gasp with sudden realization.

"It is a relic, Diana," the woman whispered, sounding almost reverent.  "You can feel free to skim through it.  But please... be very careful with it."

With a trembling hand, Diana reached out to trace the first letter of the title.

Her fingertip smoothed over the tattered, peeling J in Journal.


~

13. Reconstruction

"My journal?" Diana whispered.  "But I don't even keep a journal."

"Yet."

She wanted to put the thing down; throw it away; distance herself.  It was beyond creepy: It was outright terrifying.  She should not, by any stretch of the imagination, be holding in her hand a journal she had written lifetimes ago, and yet hadn't written a word in yet.  She shouldn't even know the texture of the thing against her fingers.  Diana couldn't have been more disturbed if she was shaking the hand of one of her direct descendants.

Despite all of this, the book fell open in her hands.  Her eyes traversed the pages.  Her interest was unstoppable.  She felt her arms trembling, shaking the journal's pages slightly as she tried to read it, but that wasn't what was making it so blurry to her.

The words themselves were muddling and blurring.  Sentences were being reconstructed and smearing and disappearing and appearing right before her eyes.  Entire pages went missing, then returned whole, or almost whole, or whole but different.

"It keeps changing," Diana said, hearing wonder in her own voice.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the woman nod.  "Of course it does," she said simply.  "It changes because you've seen it.  That is the most basic property of time."

Diana swallowed against a tight, dry throat, unable to take her eyes away from the ever-changing pages for even a moment.  "Aren't you... afraid that I'll read something in here that will change some important event?  Something that could adversely affect you and your time?"

"That's impossible."

Her frank, clear voice and complete lack of hesitation made Diana finally rip her eyes away from the words and meet her gaze.  "But why?"

The woman smiled slightly; not unkindly.  "Because you know you're going to see it.  You won't leave anything in it that could harm your past."

Diana's fingers began to feel numb and clumsy, and she carefully placed the tattered, yellowing book back on the table before it fell apart in her trembling hands.  The pages remained bared, and they continued to change almost every time she looked at them and managed to read a phrase, a word, a date.

—race.  I honestly don't think that new horse likes her very much.  But she seems pretty determined to win him ov—

—king pictures.  Too many pictures.  I don't know what the hell we're going to do with all these pictures.  If the shop doesn't get the camcorder fixed soon, I'm going to have to break my husband's picture-snapping fing—

—watching him watching her, and had the strangest sensation.  I just suddenly thought to myself that one day it would be all over and we'd be little more than a footnote.  ‘Mary and Joseph,’ indeed.  I wonder if the future will look upon us so fav—

—to realize that I've always loved him.  It's hard to imagine now how I ever become so good at fool—

—remembering the exact moment I realized.  The exact moment I stopped thinking ‘it's for Maia; it's for the future.’  My entire life comes back to the moment that strange woman reached back into the darkness and handed me this very book.

A chill ran down Diana's back, and she reached out on instinct and flipped some of the pages over, hiding any mention of the moment she was living.  The book flipped many pages (maybe many months—or even many years—it was impossible to tell) backwards.

—said he loved me today.  It isn't that it was surprising: I've known for quite a long time that he has.  But it was heartening.  Because I know Marco.  And I know he wouldn't have said it if he didn't think I was ready to hear it.  And I think he's right.  Heart in my throat, I said it back—

—terrified of horses.  Marco says he's certain that once she gets past that, getting on one is going to make her feel free.  I keep wondering: If I hadn't seen what I'd seen, would I agree with him?  Would I continue to try to get her to see the beauty of the horse and not its frightening size?  I suppose these questions don't really matter in the scheme of things.  But sometimes he's so certain, I almost want to ask him if he's been where I've been.  And then sometimes, I want to turn around and kick myself in the rear end, saying, ‘If you'd had your eyes open half as wide, you wouldn't have had to be taken there.’  On the other hand, there is something surreally pleasing about those memories now that the terror in them is past.  My own private universe...  It's almost fla—

—visions are becoming increasingly clear, almost real to her.  I feel as if I want to take some action about some of them, but I don't know which to choose or where to start.  Today, she said saw Tom trying—

Before Diana was able to make out the rest of the sentence, half of the page was suddenly gone from the book, ripped out unevenly as if in a panic.  Several of the words on what remained of the page became smeared as if someone had dripped water on them.  The page behind it was suddenly bared.

—depressed.  Everyone says that's to be expected, and I know that.  It still hurts.  Marco's tried—

The book went closed before her, and Diana's eyes shot up to the face of the woman who had closed it.  She was watching Diana very carefully as if concerned about her next action.  Diana did a quick mental check of her own expression and realized she was probably looking rather intense and maybe a little crazed.  She consciously backed up a step and relaxed her muscles.

"I didn't show it to you to disturb you, Diana.  I didn't want to show it to you at all.  I know it's disconcerting."

"You got that right."

Diana pressed a flat palm against her sternum, massaging at the tightness suddenly so apparent there, and trying to calm her stampeding heart.  "You're telling me," she said when she felt she had a bit of breath back in her body, "that I'm going to write those words in a month or a year or five years, knowing that to-day, when I'm here with you, I'm going to read them."

The woman shook her head, backing out of the light and putting the book wherever it had been in the darkness.  Diana wondered how she could see anything out there.  "No.  You won't write those words.  You'll write something similar, but now that you've seen them as they are, you'll write them differently."

"But then won't I see something new when I'm here?"

"No.  But the Diana from your past will."

"What—"  Diana ground her teeth, trying hard not to yell.  The Quiet, as the woman called it, was distinctly unpleasant, and Diana fully intended to avoid it the rest of the time she was stuck there.  "I can't take all this paradox," she muttered under her breath as calmly as she could manage.  "It's nerve-wracking."

"I know."

For a long time, there was only silence.  Diana's was because she was thinking, and she could only assume that the woman's was because she was letting Diana think.

*

Arms securely around her, desire cascaded through his body.  He wanted her.  Trying to deny it to himself did no good.  Her flesh was soft and yielding against him, her face warm on his chest.  She wasn't passive, but was hugging him back just as tightly—tighter.

He'd hugged her because she was sad.  She missed her life and wanted to be home and saw cruel injustice in the fact that the person who was there taking her place probably didn't even appreciate what she had.  Marco knew he was a substitute, and an inferior one at that, but he didn't care.  For a moment, he was able to comfort her; for a moment, he was useful.  He didn't know precisely when it had begun to turn into something else.

He couldn't pinpoint the moment that her embrace became slightly more heated, or when her knee had sneaked between his.  All he knew now was how it felt, all he knew was the desire and the heat she filled him with.  His embrace shifted as well, and he sucked in a deep breath at the feel of her pressing herself more fully into him.  Lemon-scented dishsoap rushed into his senses, and underneath, perfect and warm, the organic, sweet smell of Diana's skin.

When her grip began to loosen, he thought she'd changed her mind, and he very nearly let her go.  It took a moment to realize she wasn't pulling away at all.  She was fading.

Marco clung to her more tightly, letting out a startled muttering of her name, trying to grasp at her shoulders, her face, but his fingers went right through her.  In seconds, she was gone, and he stood in the kitchen with empty arms.

He awoke stifling a scream so as to not wake Maia.

She was exhausted from the stress of her day and didn't even stir when he shot upright in her bed, dislodging her little arm resting limply on his neck.

Heedful of her silence, of her rest, when he could breathe again, he crept from her room quietly, closing her door softly behind him.  His head was spinning, and he had to take a moment to press his forehead against the cool, flat surface of the door before he could resume walking.

But a careful step, then another toward the living room told him he was not going to make it.  He spun on his heel and clambered to the bathroom, closing the door what he hoped wasn't too loud, flinging his glasses to the floor somewhere, and falling ungracefully his knees to vomit violently into the toilet.

He was done quickly, his stomach upset more about grief than nausea, and he slid quickly backwards and away, pressing his back against the tub for support and digging the palms of his hands into his eyes.

Tighter.  Should have held her tighter.  Should have been holding her in the beginning—kept her here—not let any of this happen.  Oh god—Maia, Maia!  Lost her father, her mother, then her mother again, and then again.  Maia, I'm so sorry.  Diana—let her come back.  Let her come back.  Maia needs her.  I need her.  Diana.  I'm so sorry; I'm so sorry.

He sobbed quietly, closing his forearms over his face, pressing his mouth into the skin beneath his wrists as he cried.  He would do what he could for Maia, but he was no father.  Maia needed her mother.  But Marco had no power.

No training, no theory, no NTAC sting operation was going to get Diana back.  No one had any power.  No one.  But Marco had the least of all.  Because he wanted it most.

*

Diana's eyes became opaque when she was angry.

For the last several minutes, the woman who was known to Diana's time only as ‘Sarah Rutledge,’ though it had no resemblance to her true name whatsoever, had been watching Diana's eyes slowly darken.

Now, she was staring past ‘Sarah,’ behind her, to where the journal had been placed back in its case.  There was suspicion mixed in with the anger, and the uncertainty that had been was rapidly retreating.  It was time to speak.

"You can tell yourself whatever you wish, Diana," she said honestly.  "You can decide to believe that the journal is another creation of our ‘powerful technology.’  You can believe that it is something we made simply to help convince you to do what it is we ‘selfishly’ wish you to do, and that it has no connection with your future whatever.  But I would ask you to think very hard on what you know of us before you make such a decision."

She paused, and Diana's eyes left the dark place behind her, and locked on to her gaze instead.  She paused a moment before going carefully on.

"If all we wanted was to force you to do something against your nature simply because it would benefit us, we could do that at any time.  You know that we are experts in neuroscience.  Any time we wish, we could simply abduct you, put you in stasis, open up your skull, and eradicate the fears we are now trying to help you overcome.  The use of resources would be great, but it would be no more than what we are expending to do it this way."

She paused again, watching Diana's back straighten, seeing fear creep back into the corners of her eyes.

"But we are not barbarians, Diana," she went on softly.  "One of humanity’s most celebrated gifts is our free will.  We would never take that from you.  We would not turn you into an automaton to suit our own ends.  We simply want you to make the right decision.  Not only for us, but for you, for Mr. Pacella, and, most importantly to us all, for Maia."

She hoped she didn't sound too preachy, or too sappy, or any of the multitude of other things that could so easily turn Diana against her again.  Time-shifting was a horribly finicky business, but it paled in comparison with this.  This was why ‘Sarah’ had decided to not go into counseling after all.  That, and because her world needed her expertise in other things.

"Yes, what about Maia?" Diana asked suddenly.  "Isn't there anything you want me to change in my time that isn't related to this Marco and me thing?  I mean: What happens to Maia?  Marco said that—"  Her swallow was audible.  "What happens?" she asked again, more pleadingly than before.  "Can't I stop it?"

"You can't," ‘Sarah’ said softly.  "But it will be all right.  It will be difficult, but it will be all right.  What has happened—for you, what is to happen—is what needs to be.  Let it be."

"What if Marco changes something?"

‘Sarah’ had to stop herself from shaking her head suddenly in confusion.  "I'm sorry?"

"I—well, the other Marco... his theory was that his Diana and I switched places.  That while I was with him in his 2010, she was with Marco in my 2006."

A small smile slid over ‘Sarah’s face.  She hoped intensely that before these adjustments to time were all over, she would have some reason, some excuse to meet Marco Pacella.  Everything she heard only made it clearer and clearer that he was as history recorded him: A scientist; a kindred spirit.  "Mr. Pacella was correct.  That is precisely what happened."

"Well, she would have told him things, wouldn't she?  Maybe even without meaning to.  What if he changes something based on what he's learned?  Is that—"  Diana broke off suddenly, her eyes moving quickly as they did when she thought—usually erroneously—that something was dawning on her.  "Is that what you want?  For him to change things based upon what he was told by her?"

‘Sarah’ sighed, growing weary of explanation that seemed to not advance her cause.  "No, not at all.  It would be impossible."

"Why?"

"Because we have no intention of returning you to any moment that occured after you'd left and she'd arrived.  We will return you to when we took you.  Not a second later."

"You—  Wait."  Diana paused, her eyes closing once as if in irritation, then finding ‘Sarah’ again with slightly more malice.  "You're going to erase the last month of everyone's life in my timeline?"

"You could put it that way, I suppose, but it's horribly inaccurate.  We're simply going to place you back where you were and let things continue on as they'd been."

"Then... they won't remember?  Maia, Marco, Tom, no one will remember my having been gone?"

"Diana, in effect, to everyone around you, you never will have been gone."

She was shaking her head.  "And so only I'll remember."  She scoffed.  "And spend the rest of my life wondering if I've lost my mind—if it was all some crazy dream."

‘Sarah’ met her gaze strongly.  "It is not a dream.  This I promise you."

"People in dreams always say that."

‘Absolutely infuriating.’  Those were the exact words ‘Sarah’ was going to add to the official record of Diana Pacella's known character.  Just as soon as she got her the hell out of her workroom and back into the timeline where she belonged.

"If it would make you feel better," she enunciated through clenched teeth, "we would be happy to tattoo you or something so that you can be sure it was real."

Diana didn't seem to pick up on the humour, caustic or otherwise.  "I don't get this.  Why do it like this?  Why can't you just return me to where they are?  A month after I left."

A steady sigh got ‘Sarah’ mostly back to herself, and she pressed on.  "If Mr. Pacella should continue his lifetime knowing what he now knows, there are some things that would not happen.  There are other things that would happen differently than they should.  Ultimately, the entire timeline would fall."

"Like the domino effect?"

"Perhaps.  But a better description would be: Like the butterfly effect.  A small piece, a single fact in Marco's mind that he should not posess, and he could, quite literally, without intent, without malice, without even comprehension, destroy the human race.  Time-shifting is a delicate business, Diana.  Far too delicate for my tastes, believe me."

Diana's eyes narrowed.  Not in anger, thankfully, but as if she was working through the concepts.  "Then you knew, when you placed her in my time, that you wouldn't let Marco or Maia or anyone remember what they'd experienced with her?"

"That's correct."

"So..." she spread her hands.  "Why put her there?"

‘Sarah’ chuckled quietly.  "Because it was convenient," she said.  "We might be far into your future, Diana, but resources are always scarce.  We couldn't very well have her traipsing about the compound while we waited for the changes to trickle through the rogue timeline, and keeping a person in stasis for any period of time is not a simple matter.  Do you know how long we had to prepare to take the 4400 in for even the short time they were here receiving their adjustments?  Or how long the repairs afterwards took us?  We are keen to avoid long-term guests whenever we can."

"Couldn't you have just put me into the rogue timeline at one point, and then, two seconds later in your time, but six weeks later in the time I was experiencing, take me out?"

‘Sarah’ smiled wanly.  It was nice that Diana was showing an interest and even a passable grasp of temporal mechanics, but all of this questioning was, in the greater scheme of things, pointless.  There was simply no chance for Diana—or anyone from her history—to understand the intricacies of time-shifting in the time allotted to them.  The science had barely even been thought of, much less been invented, when Diana was from.  "If only it were that simple, Diana," she said mildly.  "All our problems would be solved."

Undeterred, Diana pressed doggedly on.  "How could you be certain that the older Marco from your rogue timeline wouldn't tell me things that could change his past—my future?  How could you be certain you wouldn't have to just make me forget everything you've shown me?"

"The Marco you met had a much more intimate understanding of the sanctity of timelines and the necessity of preserving them than even the Marco you know.  This comes not only with age and further experience with the 4400, but also because he lived a life following a particular path that he believed was the proper one laid out before him.  We knew he would be averse to changing anything in it."

Diana raised a finger to the sky as if she'd heard just what she was hoping to.  "Ah!  But you said his wife—from that same path you mentioned—did say things that could change the timeline when she was in my time!  That suggests that the Marco of her timeline is considerably more dedicated to keeping things as they were for them than she is.  Now, doesn't that suggest that the whole thing is a little one-sided?"

‘Sarah’ felt her brow knit at the gaping holes in Diana's makeshift theory.  The struggle this woman was willing to put herself through to avoid accepting her destiny was really quite extraordinary, and actually rather painful to watch.  "Not at all.  If Marco had been sent back and Diana stayed in her time, their roles would have been reversed.  Whoever stayed in the time they knew would be determined to keep things as they are while whoever was sent back into a past that wasn't right to them would have been desperate to get back what they knew.  This is human nature when confronted with paradoxes of any type."

"To—"  ‘Sarah’ watched as Diana's throat worked several times before she attempted to speak again.  "To try to keep what you know."

"Yes, of c—"  It wasn't very often that ‘Sarah’ could be startled into stopping speaking mid-sentence, but she'd just been clobbered rather suddenly over the head with a realization.

Fear of intimacy, the pain of Diana's past, the influence of blink—all of this they were fighting to overcome.  In so doing, they'd managed to add to the list an inherant human stubbornness that they'd counted on in one place, yet managed to completely overlook in another.  Diana, as everyone, had it humanly built into her to not be convinced by the very types of things they had tried to convince her with.  They weren't just struggling against Diana.  They were struggling against human nature itself.

The tension rising along ‘Sarah’s back, shortening her patience, began to unfurl.  Sympathy began to emanate from her very pores.  In Diana's position, could she fight any less?  How hard would she struggle to cling to the life she knew when everything around her was a stranger?  How long would she deny change?  How perfect would an argument have to be to convince her?  Could it be perfect enough?

"Diana, I'm so sorry.  We've done you a terrible injustice."

Diana appeared to consider sarcasm, then pass it by.  "...Have you?"

"I think that for a moment, or for an eternity, we've idolized you so... that we have managed to forget that you, like we, are human."

*

It wasn't going to get him anywhere, this crying.  It wasn't going to help anything.  He had to get up off the floor, get out of the bathroom, and go make sure Maia was all right.

That was his duty now, to make sure Maia was all right.  To make sure she went to school and ate well and lived as normal a life as she possibly could in the strangeness that surrounded her.

With one last lone, quiet sound of distress from his throat, Marco pushed his way clumsily to his feet, slipping on the tub edge twice before fully rising.  He wiped his face, nose, and mouth with tissue, and flushed the whole mess away.

Careful, steady steps of clear intent carried him to the sink, where he splashed freezing cold water onto his face, rinsed the awful taste out his mouth, rubbed his eyes, and avoided looking into the mirror.  His glasses took a moment to find, but he slipped them efficiently onto his face, hand shaking only slightly, and made his way out of the room.

The hall was darker than he remembered, but that might have been because the bathroom light was so harsh.

He approached Maia's door veritably on his toes, and stood there for a long time, listening, and wondering if he was supposed to knock and ask for permission to check on her.  At length, he chose not waking her over privacy and propriety, and he cracked the door open slightly, letting a slice of light fall over her shoulders.  He watched her for a few seconds, envying her deep sleep and her steady breathing for a moment before closing the door again, satisfied she was resting comfortably.

Afterwards, Marco travelled into the living room a determinedly lost man.

Practicality was what he needed to think about now.  He had no way to get Diana back from wherever or whenever she was.  No one did.  He knew he would dedicate as much time as he could spare to discovering a way, but there were more immediate things he had to take care of for now.

First, he was certain that if Diana had a will, he wasn't listed in it to be Maia's caretaker in the event of her d—in the event Maia needed a caretaker.  As Maia was legally adopted by Diana, Child Services would likely try to contact Diana's immediate family, see if anyone could take Maia in.  This meant Marco had to work fast to make sure the two of them weren't separated.

He should contact Diana's family himself, tell them that she'd gone missing in the line of duty, speak to each of them separately about his desire to take on the responsibility of caring for Maia.  Before that, he had to contact NTAC, inform them what had happened, and get Diana's situation cleared of top secret status.  He would also have to request permission from Jarvis to be allowed to inform each of Diana's family himself rather than following normal procedure.  He would probably have some trouble getting them to agree to letting him start right away, as they would want to wait a while to see if Diana resurfaces, as well as conduct a thorough, but completely useless investigation.  He'd just have to convince them.

Marco didn't know much about the adoption process in general, but he had heard that it could be very expensive.  Luckily for him, he worked in a high-paying job, but was so slow to adapt to having money that he was still in the same modest apartment he'd been in when he was looking for work out of school.  That translated to an inflated bank account that would come in handy for just such a venture.

Thinking of his apartment made him realize he was going to have to move out of it, and quickly.  He needed a place that not only was large enough for he and Maia, but also that was suitable for raising a child.  It had never bothered him living on what most people deemed ‘the wrong side of the tracks,’ but the thought of bringing Maia into his neighborhood made him queasy all over again.  It would be best for Maia if she could stay in the apartment she knew, and with Diana gone, it would surely be up for rent—

Marco had to clamp his hand over his lips to muffle the sound that escaped him upon thinking so bluntly on Diana's disappearance.  He inhaled deeply through his nose, closed his eyes, did his best to calm himself, and after a while, finally felt secure enough to bring his hand to his side again.

"Maia," he whispered to himself.  "Think only of Maia."

Maia would benefit best from the least change possible, his thoughts continued staunchly.  Same schedule, same apartment, same sitters, same rules.  Marco had to make sure she wasn't in the apartment when NTAC came to investigate.  He had to make certain that she didn't hear about any trouble he might have with Diana's family or the adoption process.  She would have enough to deal with as it was, and he had to be vigilant in protecting her from any further upset.

"Marco?"

Marco stopped pacing suddenly, and let the determined set of his shoulders go slightly soft.  When he turned to face Maia's sleep-tousled countenence, he was careful not to wear his broken heart.

She was leaning against the jamb of the hallway entrance, fingering absently at the texturing.  "Did you say my name?" she asked quietly, watching him with wide, round, yet sleepy eyes.

Marco smiled gently and crossed to her, hunkering down to her level so she wouldn't have to look awkwardly up at him.  "Awfully quietly.  I didn't wake you up, did I?"

Maia shook her head.  "I wanted some water," she said.  "But you looked... busy."

For a moment, Marco imagined what she must have seen from her angle—a pacing, square-shouldered, whispering, occasionally sobbing man—and wondered if ‘busy’ shouldn't be replaced with ‘slightly insane.’

He placed a careful hand on her shoulder.  "I'm never too busy for you, Maia," he said.  "Let's get that water, okay?"

Rather than beginning to walk with him as he'd expected, her arms went wide.  It took a protracted moment of confusion before he realized what she wanted, and leaned farther down to let her wrap her arms around his neck.  Her legs went around his waist when he stood, and he was certain her grip would have kept her there like a monkey even if he hadn't been holding her securely in place.

He was sure he'd have to put her down in order to pour the water from the pitcher, but that very grip gave him quite a bit more manoeuvrability than he'd expected to have.  Maia didn't seem bothered by the bumpy ride Marco's constantly moving arms provided, but instead seemed like she might even be asleep on his shoulder already.  It made him smile slightly but other thoughts chased it away almost instantaneously.

Marco found himself wondering if the setting bothered Maia half as much as it did him.  The dishes Diana hadn't quite finished were still in the sink.  The entire room felt colder than the rest of the apartment.  It was also somehow more empty than any other empty room in the place.  He had an undeniable urge to avoid stepping where Diana had last stood.

Maybe keeping Maia there wouldn't be the best thing for her after all.

*

"I know you have so many questions, so many concerns, that probably grasping just one is almost impossible right now.  But I'd like to draw your attention to the journal."

Diana watched as the woman stepped slightly out of the light once again and retrieved it from the dark patch where she'd left it.  Then she walked around the table, breaking both a staunch barrier and a comfortable distance, to stand by Diana and look at it with her.  The words on the page continued to change as the woman flipped through them, and Diana struggled to avoid focussing on any of them.

"You imagine that it might be faked.  You haven't said it, but I know you've considered it.  All this time, all this disaster we claim happens, you're thinking, and why would we have it?  Why would we care enough to keep it?  Why would I call it a relic?"  She paused long enough to close the book and finger the decaying spine with careful, light touches.  "This is no stone knife or arrowhead, Diana.  If I were to compare it to something that you might be able to understand, I might compare it to the Shroud of Turin.  Not any of the proven fakes, mind you, but the true Shroud of Turin, found and real and proven to be so over and over again."

Diana opened her mouth to speak, but couldn't begin to voice her thoughts, and the woman went on before she could make what would surely have been an embarrassing attempt.

"I don't mean to say that it's religious, Diana.  I don't mean to say that we in any way worship you or Maia or any human ever, because we don't.  I'm just trying to make you understand its importance to us.  Its importance to our history.  Every person in this time knows of this book.  Every person in this time knows who you are and what your role in our past is and will be.  If I were to continue my Christian metaphor, I might liken you to Mary, and Mr. Pacella to Joseph."

Diana managed to get her tongue to work, and wisped out, "Making Maia Jesus."

The woman met her eyes suddenly.  "No," she said certainly.  "Maia is not Jesus."  Her mouth remained slightly open, her eyes wide, something there on the tip of her tongue that she almost said, but finally didn't.  Instead, she smiled softly.  "The analogy is imperfect.  Any would be.  What I mean to say is... to us, here and now, you are more this book and these words than you are even the person who stands before me.  The same could be said of Mr. Pacella if he were here with us.  As such, we have perhaps both over- and under-estimated you.  Time has stripped you of your humanity, Diana.  All we know is that you did the things you did, not that you struggled day to day, minute to minute, to simply... be."

"I don't..." Diana shook her head, "I don't understand."

"I know.  In short, we've expected you to understand now simply because we know eventually you would have."

"Are you saying that... you don't have any way to make me understand?  Are you saying that you're giving up?  That I can go home now?"

When the woman reached over and put her warm hand on Diana's biceps, it didn't seem real.  When she squeezed, it was very suddenly hyperreal.  Diana found herself mesmerized by the woman's eyes.

"What I am saying, Diana, is that we can not force you to face yourself.  That is something you must find a way to do on your own."

*

She was asleep before he'd walked them all the way to her bed.  She didn't stir much even when he unwrapped her from himself and settled her under her blankets again.

As he left the room for the second time, pulling the door closed behind him, he thought he heard her say, Thank you, Marco, but he wasn't sure.

For a while, he tried to return to his pacing and practical thinking in the living room, but couldn't seem to get back in stride, so to speak.  He looked around for something to tidy up, but the living room had already been picked up by the sitter, apparently.  In fact, the only room in the apartment that needed a little work was...

It was just a room.  Just a collection of tiles and cabinets and appliances.  It was no different than it had been hours ago or days ago.  But the memories it held were nonetheless trying to chase him right back out.

Stubbornly, he crossed to the sink and began to finish washing the dishes from what seemed to be a long-ago dinner.  The water was cold, so he let it out and ran new.  The lemon-scented dishsoap made him wince slightly, but he pushed it away and concentrated instead on the feel of ceramic under his fingertips; wet cloth against his palm; almost too hot to touch water lapping his skin.

If one looked for it, there was a kind of meditative quality to washing dishes alone.  One's mind could just as easily wander as be convinced to go completely blank.  It was three in the morning and Marco's world was upside down.  He decided quite readily on blanking out.

*

"What are you asking me to do?"

"A chance, Diana.  Only a chance.  If you don't believe that it's real, then nothing I can say can convince you of it.  But I fully believe that if you can find it in yourself to disregard what you experienced during your interaction with blink, and if you can find a way to try again, to be open to every emotion you might feel, to not hide from any of it, good or bad, that you will find not only your destiny, but true happiness in the life that comes to you.  I don't ask you to go back home suddenly and magically and fully in love with someone you haven't really gotten to know yet.  I only ask you to open yourself to possibility.  You make your future, Diana.  We just don't want you to walk away from it before it starts."

Diana scoffed more than sighed, shaking her head.  "You're asking me to go to Marco and tell him I'd like to try taking him back and see if it goes anywhere.  That's not fair to him.  I like Marco.  He's a good friend to me.  I don't want to hurt him."

"You already have."

Diana's eyes closed on her pain.  She remembered only too well hurting him that night.  The devastation in his eyes had twisted her gut.  He looked as if he'd just watched something die that he was sure had been showing signs of vital life only moments before.  She had no desire to see that look on him again—ever.

That, at least, proved that her affection for him, platonic or not, was genuine.  In seconds, when she caught herself beginning to follow the old path of logic, ‘I don't want to hurt him.  I shouldn't try to be with him because there's no guarantee it will work.  It probably won't work.  The longer I put it off, the more it will hurt him.  I shouldn't try at all so that I don't hurt him.  I should end it now so that I hurt him less,’ she had to physically shake her head.

The woman nodded minutely, seeming to understand something Diana hadn't said, and she removed her hand from Diana's biceps.

"I don't... want to be hurt."

There was a long, long pause.  At length, Diana realized she had closed her eyes before she'd been able to speak the words.  It was an effort, but she managed to open them and, blurrily, find the woman's face.

She was all sympathy and quiet, gentle words that cut.  "You already are."

Diana's lids fell closed again, and she felt an embarrassing wetness on her cheek.  She swiped at it with the back of her hand.

"You—" she broke off when her voice cracked, cleared her throat and tried again.  "You say you know my future.  You've read that book.  Tell me.  Honestly.  You say we marry, love each other, stay together, he's a good father to Maia—you say we even manage to help save humanity or something.  But after all that is said and done, after we work our way into your history books... do we have a happy ending?"

The woman's smile became slightly pained, and she stepped forward to watch Diana steadily.  "As happy an ending as anyone can have in the war that is coming," she said.

The sympathy in her eyes, the sadness in her voice, the wince in even her smile, told Diana it was, and had to be, the absolute truth.  There were no sugar-coated platitudes here.  What this woman was telling her now was what she could truly expect.

If she was strong enough to follow through on this effort.

"Do you have the ability," Diana asked, after taking another long, cleansing breath, "to send me back to the night I ended things between us?  I mean, instead of sending me back to when you'd taken me.  I'd like to... try to fix things before they break."

Slowly, the woman placed Diana's future journal on the table behind her.  The last thing she ever said to Diana, very simply, was: "You're going to feel some disorientation."

*

The dishes were long done, but he couldn't bring himself to leave the room.  The irony was clear: Not long ago, he didn't think he could force himself to enter this room, and now that he was here, he couldn't walk away.

He had this strange, persistant thought that maybe if he stared long enough and hard enough at where Diana had literally faded from his arms, she would suddenly reappear.  He was staring so hard that his vision was going blurry.

"Diana," he whispered to no one, remembering all too clearly his panicked, shouting fear at her disappearance.  "Diana?  Diana..."

He sighed heavily, watching an ocular illusion build before him as he went far, far too long without blinking.

He finally closed his eyes and rubbed harshly at them, pushing his glasses up out of the way.  He should sleep.  He would have an extremely active day starting in about four hours.  He'd have a lot of ground to cover.

Marco was just about decided to go lie down on the sofa and see what he could manage when he noticed that the ocular illusion was still there even after he replaced his glasses, blinked a few times, and looked around the kitchen.

He might have been losing his mind.  He might have been dreaming.  It was conceivable that it had all been one, long, strange dream, wasn't it?  Was he imagining the wavering of everything around him?

For one horrifying second, he thought he was about to pass out from stress, and had an ugly flash of Maia finding him collapsed and unconscious on the floor in the morning, lying over the spot where her mother had last been known to be seen.

But when he looked down at that very spot, and then found himself staring at his own hands and his body, he came to another conclusion altogether.  It wasn't that the kitchen around him was disappearing.  It was that he was disappearing.

Or maybe it was both.

*

After the few seconds it took Diana to realize that she was standing in her living room, glass of red wine in her hand, and watching Marco walk away from her with a dejected slump to his posture, she fully expected to look over her left shoulder and see Josh behind her.  But when she looked, there was nothing there but the closed door.  Already, a change had been made: She was strong enough not to imagine her escape route.

Diana wondered how many other changes she'd be strong enough to make to-night.

Whatever they were, she knew a little courage couldn't hurt, so she downed the rest of the wine in her glass in one burning swallow, sputtering quietly as she reached down to set it on the table beside her.  Rubbing her suddenly sweaty palms over her jeans, she took a deep, deep breath, and very slowly made her way to the dining table where Marco was placing a paper bag of some sort.

She walked slowly because she was trying to remember exactly what had been said directly before this moment; exactly what was in the bag; exactly what she had said next.  Marco glanced up at her just then with a painful dread in his eyes, and it all came rushing back to her:

"I picked up some Italian on the way here."

"Don't be nice to me."

"Uh... I don't like the sound of that."

She closed her eyes against the memory.  She must have stood there silently a beat too long, because Marco was speaking before she'd found anything to say.

"Is there anything I can do to change your mind right now?" he asked sullenly.

Diana opened her eyes to find him staring at, but not seeing, the paper bag.

He shook his head slightly.  "Anything at all?  I... I'll do anything, Diana."  He finished in a whisper, like he was admitting guilt or offering benediction.

Everything was still the same, and Diana didn't want to live it over again.  She vaguely remembered the things she'd said next, and staunchly avoided using any of the same words.

"I... feel like I haven't really seen you in weeks," she started.

Marco's still hurting gaze found hers in a second, confusion plain on his face.

Diana shrugged.  "Maybe not ever."

He swallowed, the light playing over his throat, accentuating every frightened detail.  "I don't know what you mean."

"I know."  She walked a little closer.  "I want to try to explain, but... I'm not sure how... lucid..."

Marco turned toward her more fully, his expression open and yet guarded, as if he expected a blow but was willing to take it on.  "Take your time."

Diana nodded, focussing on her own hands for a moment, trying to find the best way to tell him without telling him.  "You know I've been having these... strange hallucinations.  I have to say that though it's only been a couple days, it feels to me like maybe a month has gone by.  Maybe more.  I've realized a lot of things, felt a lot of things."

"What kinds of things?"

Diana sighed heavily, finally moving close enough to finger the edge of the dining room table, giving her something to focus her eyes on.  "Oh, all kinds.  Fear, mostly.  A lot of fear."

Marco made a stilted movement and out of the corner of her eye, she recognized it as almost, but not quite, reaching out a hand to her.  "Fear of what?"

They were racing to the point quite quickly, and Diana felt exposed and vulnerable, knowing where they were headed.  She crossed her arms securely over her chest.  "Myself."  She met his eyes finally.  "You."

Marco blinked stutteringly, wincing without moving.  "Me?  Diana... I'd never hurt you," he nearly whispered.

"No, I know."  She wasn't sure if she did know, but she understood what he meant by it.  That was going to have to be enough.  "You see, I... I realize that what blink makes you do is envision someone who encapsulates your problem.  If you have issues with your father, like Tom, you see your father.  If you have issues with your fiancé, then maybe you see your fiancé.  But any of these people you're seeing, they're just your mind's representations of them.  Sometimes they don't even act like the person.  And they always know things the person never knew.  It took me a while to fully accept that all I was really doing was talking to myself.  Once I did, I thought I had it all figured out.  I listened like I was listening to myself, and I even came to a conclusion, a decision, to make it all okay again."

Marco swallowed twice in succession.  He was suddenly no longer able to meet her eyes, but was focussing, much as she had, on her fingers feeling the edge of the table.

"But then, through a process that just seemed to take absolutely forever, I sort of started to think, ‘Well, that doesn't make much sense, does it?  Isn't that the decision I always make?  Why would I need to hallucinate and talk to myself to make it all over again?’  Certain things started to make me wonder if... maybe I'd managed to twist the hallucination to embody my own conscious desires rather than letting the subconscious ones shine through.  That's when the fear started to come into play.  I guess maybe that was a cue that those thoughts were hitting close to the mark."

"Your subconscious fear of... me?"

Diana shrugged.  "My subconscious fear of... really seeing you.  Really knowing you.  Really... letting you see me."

Marco's breath came out of him in a rush like he'd been holding it all night.  It sounded slightly like relief.  "You're not afraid of me.  You're afraid of... getting close."

Diana had to fight to nod, but she managed it, jerkily.  "I'm a strong woman, Marco," she said, her gaze stuck on his chest.  "But only if things stay as they are."

Marco shifted in place.  "I'll protect you," he said quietly, as if he wasn't sure how she would take it.

The corner of her mouth turned up with little humour.  "From you?"

"And from you."

Diana's eyes stung, and she had to take in a deep breath through her nose to steady herself.  "I'm... I think it might be a very big job, Marco.  And I have to tell you that I'm... terrified of falling if..."

"I haven't made a habit of failing you, Diana."

She looked up suddenly at that, saw determination in his eyes tempered with tenderness, got caught there.

"I'm not about to start now."

Diana took a shuddering breath.  "I might hurt you."

"I know."

"On purpose."

He smiled softly.  "I know."

Her chest felt constricted.  She wasn't sure if it was her heart being crushed or expanding, but it was painful either way.  "I don't ever want to make you hate me."

Marco tilted his head slightly as if she'd said something out of the ordinary.  "You can't."

His eyes were burning her.  She couldn't pull away, but had to cover her eyes with her hand to protect herself from the truth in his gaze.  The darkness only brought on a new problem, making it easier to cry with the false perception of privacy, and now she knew she couldn't take her hand away again.

Whether Marco actually sensed her distress or just had impeccable timing, she didn't know, but she was soon warmly in his arms, his shoulder right there to press her tears into, and she found herself clinging to him before she'd realized she'd moved.

He kissed the side of her neck, making her next sob come louder, and then he began to rock her side to side gently, his breath warm and moist on her skin.

It took an effort out of her that she didn't think she had, but she finally struggled her way out of the haven of his shoulder.  Pushing against an invisible weight at her back and around her neck that demanded she never appear vulnerable to another, she leaned back and let him see her red, tear-streaked face.

He didn't flinch.  He didn't pity her.  He didn't try to kiss her.  He just waited, silent, still, open, his arms still supporting her, his warmth still permeating through.

Diana remembered a similar scene with a Marco who wasn't hers.  In a time that wasn't hers.  In a place that wasn't hers.  It all felt like a dream now.  But this was real.  In her time, in her place, it was real.  And she couldn't stop herself from thinking that this Marco... was hers.

She kissed him.

For the first time in her life, she really kissed him.  It wasn't hesitant; it wasn't automatic; it wasn't an experiment; it wasn't something she did because she knew it was expected of her.  It was real.

It was, in so many respects, their first kiss.



*      *      *      *
~  The beginning. ~
*      *      *      *

*      *      *      *      *      *

Want to tell me what you think?  I'm listening.

*      *      *      *      *      *

Or would you rather go home?