Time Machines to Go and Get Us Back

[nike_ravus]

Title: Time Machines to Go and Get Us Back (Back Before We Were Brittle Sequel)

Author: Alsike

Fandom: X-Men/Criminal Minds

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Emma/Emily

Disclaimer: Not my girls. Title & Lyrics from Say Hi to Your Mom.

Word Count: ~2000

Apologies: Yeah, writing… the semester is trying to kill me and I’m not even three weeks in. *exhausted*

Summary: Emma is going to be awesome.  And nothing is going to stand between her and what she wants, not even what she wants itself.

 

Nope, no, no, no, nope, no way, oh, wait, oh.

 

Emily spun around, trying to find the source of the voice that felt like it was inside her head.  She spotted a girl, standing near the brick wall of the Manor, right around the corner from the incessant glinting glass of the United Nations.  The girl was staring at her, wide eyed.  Then she spun away and ran.

This was nuts, utterly nuts, she had barely been working at the UN for a week, but they had pounded the security codes into her head, no mutants allowed in the building, always report anything suspicious.  Emily lunged after her.

Damn the stupid UN dress code, in heels.  The kid was in sneakers, and tall, and ducked around a corner.  Emily ran after her, nearly spinning out, and then crashed into her.  Dead end.  The girl had stalled, turned to double back, and Emily had her.  She grabbed her by the shoulders, and shoved her back against the wall.

“What are you-“ Emily gasped for air and wished she wasn’t so out of shape.  “What-“

The girl was looking at her, chest heaving, face flushed, lips parted.  Her eyes were impossibly, impossibly blue.

Emily frowned.  This wasn’t the expression a terrorist was supposed to have.

The girl blinked.  Her brow furrowed.  “A terrorist?”

Emily jerked back.  She spoke?  But Emily hadn’t said anything aloud.  “You- you’re a mutant.”

The girl scowled and shrugged out of her hands.  She shrugged like a petulant teenager, and it was that more than anything that made Emily loosen her grip.  “Are you some kind of bigot, or something?  Honestly!  After you harass me for it-“

That was unfair.  And it made no sense!  “Me harass you for being a bigot?  What are you talking about?  I’ve never met you before!”

The girl blinked.  “Well, no.  Of course not.  That doesn’t mean I haven’t met you.”

Emily just stared blankly at her.  Nothing was making sense anymore.  “What?  Who the hell are you?”

The girl smiled and stuck out her hand.  “I’m Emma Frost.  I’m your future everything.”

*          *            *

Emma Frost was decidedly nuts.  She was pretty though, blonde hair dancing around chin level, pale blue eyes, an interesting nose.  And well, she still might be a terrorist, so when she offered to take Emily for a Bubble Tea (what was Bubble Tea?), the only logical thing to do was say yes.

“It’s pretty simple,” Emma said, waving her hands in rather dramatic gestures.  “I mean, at the time it was frigging weird, but really, people can get used to anything.  And what happened was there was some freaky time switch and I got pulled into the future.”

Emily nodded.

“You think I’m nuts.”

“No…”

Emma grinned, shaking her head.  “I’m a telepath.  I know you think I’m nuts.”

“Oh,” Emily grimaced.  “I wanted you to know that I’m not a bigot, really.”

“Some of your best friends are mutants?”

Emily shook her head but laughed.  “Yes, actually.  But, I just started working at the UN, and they’re really freaked about mutants.”

“As they should be.”

Emily looked at her.

“I’m a telepath,” Emma said, with a smile.  “Not great, but good enough.  And all that means is that I could walk in there and start a nuclear war if I felt like it.  Normal people can do awful shit too, but it’s easy for me.”

“You’re not… really being comforting.”  None of this was comforting.  Sure, Emily had mutant friends, but not any that could mess around with what was in your head.

“I’m not going to be dishonest.  I have an unfair advantage.”

She sounded sincere, but what did that mean if she could just walk into Emily’s head and mess with her perception?  And she couldn’t be telling the truth, not about everything.  “You can’t be from the future.”

“I’m not from the future.”  Emma rolled her eyes, as if Emily was the idiot here.  “I’m from now.  I just visited the future.”  Her eyes flicked up Emily’s body, scanning her face with something either analytical or proprietory.  “You age well.”

Emily gaped.  What was this now?  “Shut up.”  She glared at the mutant.  “I don’t believe you.”

Emma raised an eyebrow.  “You went to Yale, but your mom wanted you to go to Georgetown.  You grew up in a ton of different countries.  You prefer girls over boys, but girls make you nervous, so you go out with boys instead.”

“That's not true!”

Emma raised a questioning eyebrow.

Emily flushed red.  “And even if it were it doesn’t matter.  Telepath.”

“Fine, whatever.  Does the UN have a network for its computers?”

Emily looked blank.  “Uh, I think so.”

“So, in a couple of years, there’s going to be a network for the whole world.  And everyone’s going to have a cell phone.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“And the Soviet Union doesn’t exist.  I didn’t really ask what happened, but it seems like there wasn’t even a war or anything.  It’s just Russia and stuff.”

Emily stilled.  She couldn’t… know, Emily only barely suspected.  “You got it out of my head.”

“Got what out of your head?”  Emma’s brow furrowed.  “You seriously think about the fall of the USSR?  Because… uh, kind of boring.”

Emily considered this for a long moment.  She didn’t seem disingenuous.  She was too childlike, too much of a teenager, and yet…  “Why me?   Why did you come looking for me?”

Emma grinned, tipping her head to the side and looking at her in a way that made Emily want to cover her boobs, or her face, or preferably both at once.  “Because you’re smokin’.”

“That’s not a reason.”

Emma shrugged.  “Do you want me to tell you that in the future you’ll be a FBI agent, with a gun and shit, and a cool apartment and a couple of friends, and the most sexy awesome mutant girlfriend on the planet?”

“Why would you tell me that?” Emily asked, her voice coming out a little higher than usual.  It sounded, kind of cool, actually.  And it sounded like something that would make her mom have an aneurysm. 

“Because it’s true.  Well, generally.  And, eh, I may have fucked it up by telling you.  But you know, sometimes you got to go for the best bits early.  And that’s why I’m here.”

“Uh, why?”

“Because your super sexy awesome mutant girlfriend is me.”

Emily considered her.  The incredulity was inadvertent, really.

“Don’t think that,” Emma snapped.  “It will be me, anyway, or the me who ended up in that future.  And you have no idea how awesome I was… will be, would be, could become, whatever.”

“You’ve come to see me because in the future we could be together?”  Emily swallowed, considering what she had said more carefully.  “And you want to go for the best bits early?  You want to…”  Her stomach flipped.  She wasn’t used to being asked out, especially not by suspicious time-traveling mutants.  “You want to be… with, uh.”

“With you.  Yeah.  I want to bang you.”  Emma shrugged.  “Your future self was totally like ‘I am not shagging a teenager, thank you very much,’ and I might have been a little bit of a trial to get on with.  But she was…” An odd sweet sort of smile crossed Emma’s face.  “She was really cool.  And you might not be her yet, but you know, there’s potential.  So maybe we could, like, date or something?”

“I’m… seeing someone.”  And you’re crazy, and scruffy, and a mutant.

“Yeah, a guy, who you’re not even into.  And I’m not scruffy.”  Emma looked down at herself, at the ratty jeans and sneakers, the layered shirts and jacket with maybe a bit of duct tape along one hem.  “I’m homeless.  There’s a difference.”

“You’re homeless!”

Emma shrugged.  “Yeah, just for a couple more days, though.  The dorms don’t open until like a week before classes.  My lease in Boston was up in May, so I just hitched my way down and crashed in the park.  I need to save my cash for food and shit.  And a computer.”  She smiled, predatorily.  “I really need a computer.”

“Why do you need a computer?”

“Because that’s how I’m going to strike it rich.”

Emily shook her head.  Derailed, again.  She didn’t understand anything about this conversation.  The girl was a mutant, a terrorist, and then she wasn’t a terrorist, but still a mutant, and then she wanted to date her, and then she was homeless, and then she wanted a computer, and then she… “Wait, a dorm?  You said you were homeless, but you’re going to college?”

“NYU.” Emma grinned.  “Got mad scholarships.  It helps your funding if your dad’s thrown you out.”

“Your dad threw you out?”

For a spare moment Emily looked into the girl’s blue eyes and saw them open and pierced with an echoing pained hollow behind.  It was almost like being inside her mind.  And then the hollow snapped shut and her eyes were narrow and the girl’s chin was cocky and stubborn again.  “I’m not his pet, not anyone’s pet.”  She shook her head.  “But I am a full fledged NYU student.”  She pulled out a photo ID.  “Picked it up early, so I can get into the library.”

“You’ve been living in the park?”

“It’s summer, can’t complain.  Have you ever been down to the Freedom Tunnel?  It’s kind of awesome.”  Emma’s gaze flicked away.  “Some of the graffiti’s bright and dynamic and aggressive, but so much of it’s haunting…”

That feeling happened again, the opening up, and it felt like falling into a cloud of sweet dark smoke, a little awe, a little resignation, the electric shudders of repressed fear.  Was this kid going to sleep outside in the park?  Or in a shantytown in a subway tunnel?

Emily closed her eyes.  “Look, I don’t know if I believe any of this, about you having gone to the future, and me… having a girlfriend.”

“You’re stuck on that?”

“But if you want to stay at my apartment tonight…?”

It was stupid and foolish.  She was probably some sort of pawn.  She was going to go into work on Monday and somehow remotely start World War III.  But…  but really?  If a conspiracy of mutants wanted her as a plant, were they really going to send this kid with a farfetched tale about going to the future?  No.  Whatever was going on, it probably wasn’t that.

Emma’s face lit up.  “You’d really… Oh god, do you have a bathtub, because I haven’t had a bath since… since the future, and you don’t know how long before then.  And I know lots of NYC apartments don’t, but tell me yours does.”

Emily couldn’t hold back her amused smile.  “It does.”

“I love you!”

*          *            *

Emma dropped her bag in the front hall of Emily’s apartment.  It was different, smaller than the other one, emptier, but there were a few recognizable things, a recognizable scent.  And the weight that had been on her shoulders for so long finally seemed to melt.

Emily turned around to glance back at her, looking confused, and Emma caught sight of herself in her eyes, open and young, as young as the Emily from a long time away had seen her.  But she couldn’t smile, couldn’t harden.

Emily stepped toward her.  “Are you okay,” and she reached out, then hesitated, her hand hovering a few inches from Emma’s cheek.  She bit her lip.  Emma could feel the lean inside her head, the absurd and inexplicable care, and she couldn’t help but grin.

“I’m so much better than I would have ever been.”

Emily just looked confused, and Emma leaned in, giving her a quick peck on the lips.  Then she darted off towards the bathroom.  “Oh awesome, you already use that lavender bubble bath!”

Emily still stunned, came after her.  “How could you…”

Emma glanced up from where she crouched over the edge of the bath and smiled.

Emily breathed out.  “Oh,” she said, and Emma felt the first well of real belief rise in her mind.  Something in her face lightened, like hope.

Emma looked away before she jumped her right there.

This was going to work,

And she was so much better than she would have ever been.

 

FIN

 

Hey, remember when we could save kittens from trees?

Or lunch on skyscrapers? Bring the villains to their knees?

Maybe we should move someplace new,

and build time machines to go and get us back.

Back before we were brittle.

 

Hey, remember when all of time stood still?

And really all you'd need was a peck from her?

Maybe we should trade from some physics

or black market spines to go and get us back. 

 

Comments

[kith-koby.livejournal.com]

You wrote a sequel to this, like we asked! Thank you!
This was excellent. I loved this young, brash Emma, who's still excitable and not cynical. And young Emily who's hesitant and confused rather than depressed and pessimistic was also beautiful. It was great to have a light and uplifting piece which doesn't have to involve smut, and is just what it is due to the (almost) unblemished characters. Thanks a lot.

[nike-ravus.livejournal.com]

I am slowly, slowly working my way through all the requests from the requests round. I want to write them all, but it may take me a year.

I'm glad you liked it! (I've forgotten how to write smut. Most of the time I feel like I've forgotten how to write anything at all. *sigh*)

[scoutnabout.livejournal.com]

You remember; you're just overworked in writing assigned things. Takes the passion from the art, but only for a time.

[kith-koby.livejournal.com]

Believe me, you know how to do it. You just need to recall. Just last week, I though I forgot how to write biblical fics, and then on Thursday the muse struck me, and it came back with a vengeance.

So cheer up, head high, and get to learning, with occasional interludes to proving this to yourself again and again. just by the way - any chance for a semi-sequel to this, something like a brief summary of what happens 10-20 years in the future - basically, how Emma changed stuff?