Chapter Text
They pile up in Shahara's car, Iris in the passenger seat, Karl and Alfred in the back, struggling with their safety belts. The car keeps beeping softly about the belts not being fastened until Karl figures it out and gets both his and Alfred's right.
“It's Defoe,” Iris states, as Shahara turns right a little too sharply, following the disembodied voice of her GPS app. “All of it, it's just to get to Defoe.”
“The man who harnessed time,” Alfred says, ominously, and Karl leans forward with his eyes narrowed in distrust.
“What do they want with him?” he inquires, watching as Iris scrolls on her phone-like device at a dizzying speed.
“To convince him to join them?” Shahara offers. “With him working directly for KYAL, there's a lot they could do.”
Iris makes a tight noise of dismay, and Alfred meets her gaze in the rearview mirror. “You knew him,” he points out, more gently. “What kind of man was he?”
“He wasn't-” Iris starts and then stops, frustrated. She remembers the night they spent drinking wine and laughing, the connection she'd felt with him. She also remembers it had been a lie. Most of it, anyway. “He meant well?” It sounds more like a question than she would want it to. “He also tried to kidnap me.” She glances over to Shahara. “You worked with him, in the future. To try to reset the timeline. I think you trusted him.”
“I've been wrong before,” Shahara replies somberly.
“How often?” Karl inquires, and though the question is confrontational, the look on his face isn't.
Shahara doesn't take offense. “Often enough to cause disasters.”
“That's now,” Iris counters. “Future Shahara is harsher. She trusts less easily but she trusted Defoe.”
Alfred leans in as well, his hand on Shahara's shoulder. “We shall see. The four of us, we can decide if he is trustworthy. Together.”
Iris nods sharply and Karl settles in his seat with an agreeable noise.
“Alright,” Shahara says. “Together.” In a way, it feels a little like family.
“So how do we contact him?” Alfred asks, carefully. “How do we let him know they're plotting to get him to join?”
“I've an idea,” Iris tells them.
xxx
They stop in front of a red brick building with large windows, teens milling about in front of the gates, chatting excitedly and not-so-covertly vaping.
“This is a high school,” Shahara says, perhaps unnecessarily.
“He's fourteen right now,” Iris states. “So yeah.”
“I can flash my badge, get us in.” Shahara gets out of the car, determined.
“I'd rather not make a scene, KYAL might be watching.” Iris is looking around, holding the door open for Alfred to squeeze out of the car. “And it's almost noon, he won't be in class.” Iris taps her phone. “His parents live in the suburbs so he's definitely not going home for lunch. Cafeteria?”
Karl is watching the teens pull great clouds of steam from their brightly-colored vapes curiously. “What kind of kid is Defoe, do you think? That'd help us find him.
Shahara thinks. “A nerd, probably. I bet he already likes science.”
“And science-fiction.” Iris looks at her, her eyebrows arched.
“Library,” they deduce, at the same time.
xxx
Defoe is a scrawny kid with big glasses and unflattering hair, scrunched over his phone at one of the tables of the library. He has several textbooks opened on the table in front of him but he's not paying attention to any of them, scrolling on his phone with a rapt expression on his face instead.
They watch him from behind a huge bookshelf, not-too-discreetly peeking between the tomes of an encyclopedia.
“Do we need a plan, what are we doing here?” Karl asks, slowly. “Talking? Kidnapping?”
“Surely not kidnapping,” Alfred returns, alarmed.
“I don't think that'll be necessary,” Shahara agrees. “But we need to warn him, don't we? In a way that doesn't make him think we're insane.”
“Good luck with that,” Alfred teases, amused despite the situation.
Iris huffs, nudging him. “I managed to persuade you, didn't I? I'll talk to him. Wait outside, he's going to see you guys otherwise, you're not exactly being inconspicuous.”
xxx
They meet in the hallway, where Shahara bought Alfred and Karl a drink at the overpriced vending machine.
“Ingenious contraption,” Alfred had said, carefully pushing his hand inside to get his can, and Karl had hummed in agreement. They're sharing a co*ke, passing it back and forth and humming at the taste.
“Oddly compelling,” Alfred is observing and Karl nods, eyebrows furrowed as he sips.
“I had one of those at a fair once. It wasn't quite like this, though.” He gestures towards Iris when she comes out of the library. “Here she is. What did you tell him?”
“Enough to get him interested, I think. I've gotten good at pitching time-travel.” Iris smiles. “We were right, he's a nerd. Let's go outside.”
She leads the way to a narrow alley nearby, behind the dumpsters in which cafeteria food piles up, rats fighting over the leftovers.
“Charming,” Karl remarks. “Why are we here?”
“I told him to meet us here. Not now, when he's older.”
Alfred's eyes widen. “Do you think he'll remember?”
Iris leans her shoulder against the wall, checking her phone. “Guess we'll see,” she answers, just in time for the lamppost above her to crackle ominously. “Don't look at it directly,” she warns, hiding her eyes behind her hand and motioning for them to do the same.
She's right, from up close the light is blinding. Alfred doesn't think he's ever seen anything so bright, not even the flash of the brand-new camera Henry used. It's so powerful he can see the red of his own eyelids even with his eyes squeezed shut.
“Hello again,” Iris says, and when they all open their eyes a much-older version of Defoe is standing in the middle of the narrow alley. He pushes his glasses up his nose and gives them a lopsided smile, barely stumbling as he steps forward, holding up a small rectangle of paper. It's a piece of library stationery, old and crinkled.
“I figured it out after you left,” Defoe tells her. “Many years after, actually. It was a compelling mystery, to be given a meeting time in the past, teenage me couldn't decide if you were a time traveler or insane.”
Iris doesn't hug him but she smiles up to him, pleased. “It got you here.”
“It did.” Defoe looks up, eyebrows furrowing, and then checks his watch. “Let's keep moving, I don't have too long.”
xxx
It's a bit of a squeeze to fit Defoe in the backseat of Shahara's car with both Karl and Alfred but they manage well-enough, shoulder-to-shoulder, spanning three centuries.
“Pleasure,” Alfred says, a little wryly, and Defoe shakes his hand.
“Detective Weissman,” Defoe greets Karl, who tips his head at him, touching the edge of a hat he's not wearing right now.
“That's me. You're the one that created the blasted time-machine, then?”
Defoe smiles, shaking his head. “No, I merely found it, and understood it well enough to use it. It's not a machine, it's... something else.”
Karl frowns at him, but Alfred intervenes. “Do you know why it sent us here, after our deaths? To a timeline where we should not have died? It makes no sense.”
“Time-travel rarely does,” Defoe agrees, though he's still smiling. “And no, that I can't explain. But the Throat did always have a mind of its own.”
Shahara meets Defoe's gaze in the rearview mirror. It's odd, to remember being so close with a man she's only just met. She doesn't quite know what their relationship was, in the future, but something in her has retained a feeling of trust and appreciation that's difficult to reconcile with a near stranger. Defoe smiles to her, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
“KYAL's after you,” Iris tells him, breaking the silence after a few seconds.
“I figured,” Defoe says, somberly. “I'm the focal point of all their efforts. If they want the Throat, they have to go through me.”
“sh*tty position to be in,” Shahara remarks, watching him.
The throat? Karl mouths to Alfred, eyebrows arched high, and Alfred gives him the sternest look he can manage.
“Yeah,” Defoe confirms wryly. “There are two options, the way I see it: remove myself from this equation, which I'd rather not. Or...”
“Remove the Throat,” Iris says, contemplatively. “Is that even possible? To destroy it?”
“Unclear. But I can cut access to it for good. Overload it with so much energy, throughout all timelines, past, present and future, that it retracts entirely. I don't want to kill it, I just want it...”
“Unavailable,” Iris confirms.
There is a beat of silence, and then Karl interrupts with, “excuse me, you called the time machine the Throat? What kind of Pulp magazine fantasy is that even...”
“Karl,” Alfred hisses, but Shahara is laughing and Iris twists in her seat to look at Defoe, amused.
“Yeah, why did you call it that?”
“I don't know,” Defoe defends, amused. “It felt that way. Like it was the visible part of a greater being, a tunnel that would compress you and take you to another place.”
“A greater living being?” Alfred asks, stunned.
“Yes. I never found out what or who they might be, but I'm grateful for the opportunity to study them while I could.” Defoe's smile dims.
“Perhaps you will again, at some point,” Shahara tells him, gently. “In a different way.”
“Perhaps.”.
xxx
“Oh,” Shahara says, when Defoe directs her to turn left and park. “This is where we're going.”
Longharvest Lane, the blocky letters on the sign say. It's old and rusty, though not the one Alfred remembers. The rest of the alley is relatively similar to what he recalls still, and it sends a chill down his spine.
“You want to see the brick with your name?” Karl asks him, an aside between the two of them while Defoe walks in a slow circle, checking a device he pulled from his pocket.
“I'd rather not,” Alfred says, slowly. “Do you?”
Karl glances towards the alcove, eyebrows furrowed. “Nah. Not a good memory, if I'm honest.”
“It's here?” Shahara inquires when Defoe stops circling, disbelieving. “It was always here?”
“Yes and no,” Defoe tells her. “This is an access point.” He turns his device over, revealing a crude switch on the side. “I know it doesn't look like much, but I've spent the past twenty years working on this. It should work.”
“You're going to do it now? Destroy the Throat?” Iris prompts, sharply.
“Yes. I'll send myself back, and do it on the way. The only way to overload it is from the inside.”
“What will happen to you?” Shahara asks, her eyes concerned.
“I suppose I shall find out,” Defoe states, softly.
There is a moment of silence, before Karl steps up. “What about us? Are you sending us home before you destroy the entire thing?”
“I could,” Defoe says, frankly. “But you would be dead, wouldn't you? You died before getting here. Even time-travel cannot undo that.”
“Can't you send us to a timeline where we didn't die?”
Defoe smiles thinly, like this is a problem he knows too well. “I could do that too. But there is already one of you, there.”
Alfred can't help but flinch, noticeably enough that Shahara glances over with obvious worry.
“Disturbing, that,” Karl remarks, carefully droll.
“Could you...” Alfred has to swallow past the pain in his throat, his pale eyes intense as he stares at Defoe. “Before you destroy access to the... phenomenon. Could you send someone else here? From my timeline?”
Defoe glances back, taking in the tight despair on Alfred's face. “I could,” he acknowledges. “If they agree, of course.”
Alfred nods, something like disbelieving hope easing his frown. He turns to look at Karl, tilting his head to the side slightly.
“She's dead,” Karl tells him harshly, but Alfred doesn't let up.
“It depends when, Karl,” he says, meaningfully, and slow realization dawns on Karl's face.
“And when's not an issue,” Iris confirms
xxx
Defoe disappears.
Back in time, or forward, Shahara isn't sure.
Iris stays. She doesn't want to return to her original timeline, and she's not keen on trying another. She spends long hours monitoring any potential KYAL activity in the week that follows, hunched over on Shahara's couch. Alfred brings her cups of tea and biscuits, and Karl occasionally taunts her long enough for her to curse him and give up, taking a break. Shahara gently needles her into going jogging with her, and embarks all of them on trips to the grocery store to cook elaborate recipes she found online.
They all acclimate.
xxx
The receive a letter in the mail later that week. It's a time, and a place.
One last trip, Defoe has written underneath. It's unsigned but who else could it be from, really.
Karl's hand is shaking a little when he hands the paper over to Alfred.
They get there way too early, worried and hopeful in equal measures, the four of them ready to face whatever may happen.
The meeting place is in an abandoned parking lot. Iris kicks cans around, Karl chain-smokes his way through half a pack of cigarettes, and Shahara tries to make friends with the local flea-bitten stray cat. Alfred sits ramrod straight on an abandoned breeze block and tries not to think too much.
The flash comes at the expected time, still making them all flinch despite the warning. When it subsides Alfred is the first to step forward, blinking away the fireworks burned into his retinas until he can see. The glare subsides excruciatingly slowly, enough for Alfred to see the outline of a man, tall, blond.
Henry.
He's here, wonderfully real, his eyes squeezed shut, swaying as he struggles to remain upright. Alfred has no memory of time-travel himself but he's been told enough times about how unpleasant the roiling is to sympathize, and his first instinct is to come closer to help Henry stay up, holding him by the forearm tightly. He doesn't expect the jolt that goes through him at merely touching Henry's skin, the flood of relief and yearning unleashed at the fact that he is here, finally.
Henry blinks and shakes his head as if to clear the fog from his mind, his eyes focusing on the hand holding his arm. He pauses, his entire body going still, his gaze slowly following Alfred's arm all the way to his shoulder, his neck, his face, meeting Alfred's. Henry's eyes are very blue, and very wide.
“Alfred,” he says, so quiet it's almost silent, as if fearful that if he said it too loud, he would wake from whatever dream this is.
“Henry,” Alfred returns, and his voice cracks horribly on the name, his throat too tight with emotion to let the syllables out properly. Henry smells like cologne, shaving cream, and silver nitrate, and his arms are suddenly very tight around Alfred's shoulders, a desperate gasp tearing itself from his throat.
It's a full-body embrace, hip to hip and chest to chest, overwhelming after so long spent apart, and Alfred is powerless to do anything but hug back, his hands on Henry's shoulders, keeping him close.
He can't quite help a flinch when Henry presses desperate kisses to his cheek and neck, a tentatively buried reflex making itself known at the worst time. In his own era and with people watching, Alfred knows too well that he would have needed to keep that sort of embrace short to pass it off as a brotherly, to pretend that there was nothing untoward going on between him and Henry.
But here, in this strange time period he is still learning how to navigate, he is aware he does not need to. He is out in the open and there are at least three people looking at them right now, yet Alfred can wrap his arms around Henry's waist and bury his face into his shoulder without a single concern that he will be shunned for it.
Henry is saying something, the words rumbling against Alfred's temple and he has to lift his head to hear him. “They said you killed yourself,” Henry whispers, and now that Alfred can see his face it is obvious that Henry is crying, his eyes glistening with it.
“I didn't,” Alfred tells him, softly. He doesn't want to lie to Henry, even though he knows the truth will be painful.
Henry blinks, and the tears roll down his cheeks and over Alfred's thumbs when he cups his cheeks. “I know,” Henry returns, harshly. “It was Harker, wasn't it?” Between his palms, Alfred can feel the tension in Henry's jaw building. “Wasn't it?” He repeats, his voice lower, angrier. “I read about it in the newspapers. Considered throwing myself off a bridge, if I'm being honest.”
“It was Harker, but,” Alfred adds quickly, moving his hands to Henry's shoulders, giving him a gentle shake. “We defeated him, in the end.” Henry's nostrils flare but he nods, the rigid line of his shoulders going down slowly.
“You survived,” Henry offers, wonderingly, and Alfred doesn't have the heart to tell him otherwise just now.
“How did you get here, Henry? Do you remember?”
“I went out drinking,” Henry says, looking away for the first time. “I don't remember much. There was a man. He asked about you.” He frowns. “And a red... thing.” He takes in the abandoned parking lot, the blazing orange color of the setting sun behind it.
“Is this...” Henry's eyes are wide now. He grasps at Alfred's hands, horrified. “Is this hell?”
“Hurtful,” Karl grumbles behind them.
“It's not,” Alfred reassures, holding on to Henry's elbow as he turns to look at Karl, Shahara, and Iris. They're standing at a distance, giving them space, but even Karl's eyes are very soft. “I'll explain,” Alfred tells Henry. “It's alright.”
The broken lamppost at the corner of the parking lot sparks and they all jump, Alfred promptly moving to cover Henry's eyes. There is a second flash, no less blinding than the first, and Alfred can feel Henry's fingers go tight enough to bruise on his arm.
“Weissman,” a small voice says when the light subsides, heavily accented and very annoyed. “The hell in this?”
xxx
“So,” Iris says, hopping up to sit on the counter next to where Alfred is very gingerly frying eggs. Shahara showed him how the gas cooker works, and he's taken to making breakfast himself. It's early still and the house is quiet. Alfred's hair is curling wildly around his ears and he looks more rested than he's ever looked in Iris's presence.
“Would you like some eggs?” Alfred asks, his voice quiet.
“Yes please.” Iris considers him. “You and Henry, uh?”
Alfred only pauses for a second, glancing over to Iris and smiling at what he sees on her face.
“Yes. Do you find it odd?”
“I mean he's very handsome,” Iris teases, nudging Alfred's leg with her slipper, making him huff. “But he's a bit of a troublemaker, isn't he? And you're...” She gestures vaguely at the way Alfred is standing, shoulders squared and spine straight even in his most casual moment.
“Right,” Alfred agrees, biting down a smile. “I suppose it is a bit of an unusual match. But I love him, and I don't have to hide it anymore.”
“Cheers to that.” Iris confirms, lifting her mug of tea.
xxx
Shahara pops her head into Jawad's bedroom just in time to catch Esther hiding something behind her back. “Everything okay?” She checks in, eyebrows arched, and Esther nods, too quick.
“Yes ma'am.”
“I told you, you can call me Shahara.” She steps closer, tilting her head to see what Esther's hiding. “You can borrow a book, if you want. They're all my son's.”
Esther's eyes widen and she grins, sudden and lopsided, revealing what she was hiding. “This one?”
“If you'd like. Good choice.” Shahara considers her. “Has Karl shown you the TV yet? Jawad loves cartoons too.”
“Like at the movies?” Esther asks, clearly interested.
“Pretty much. Come take a look.”
That's how Shahara ends up sending a good two hours of her Sunday watching Spongebob and eating microwave popcorn.
xxx
“May I have one of those?” Henry asks, stepping onto the balcony with a careful expression on his face.
Karl blows smoke up towards the night sky and hands him the pack of cigarettes. He doesn't say anything while Henry carefully lights one, leaning his back against the railing, the silence between them not uncomfortable but still a little fraught, cautious on Henry's part. Karl doesn't think they've been just the two of them alone yet, and though Henry has obviously accepted him as one of Alfred's friends, he's still distant towards him.
Karl turns his head to look over and Henry meets his gaze dead on. “Say what you want to say, then,” he prompts, deceptively softly, and Karl huffs.
“I've got nothing to say,” Karl defends, his eyes narrowing a bit. “It's just... I've read your file, at the police station. Pretty thick folder.”
This is obliviously not what Henry expected and it shows, his head tilting to the side in open question. “I'm sure any crimes of mine recorded there are well past the statute of limitations,” he points out, a little less steely. “Or wrong entirely.” The corner of his lips turns up. “What did they have me on record for, exactly? I always wondered.”
Karl arches an eyebrow at him. “Aiding and abetting socialism,” he starts, his tone meaningful but light.
“Hardly a crime,” Henry deflects. “You'll find I was right all along.”
Karl huffs. “Punching a police officer.”
“Perhaps he deserved it,” Henry returns loftily, making Karl bite down a grin.
“Uh-uh. What about illegally investigating a case in order to take down a time-traveling conspiracy, young man?”
“Surely,” Henry tells him, trying not to laugh. “Surely that's not in my file. No sane police officer would record such a thing.”
“Doesn't mean you didn't do it,” Karl points out and Henry grins.
“And damn well, too.” His eyes flick over to Karl again, sly. “That's not all they had in my file, is it?”
“No,” Karl admits, droll. “There was also mention of suspected hom*osexual activity. The horror.”
Henry turns his chin up primly, his eyes amused. “That I plead guilty for. And you know what? I'll do it again.”
“Don't you mean him? Be nice to Alfred,” Karl warns, mock-sternly.
“I am,” Henry defends, laughing. “I am,” he repeats, more seriously.
“Better be,” Karl allows. “He may be a stuck up stick in the mud, but he's our stuck up stick in the mud, you know?”
Henry hums in agreement, thoughtful, and then, “say that ten times really fast?”
Alfred finds them laughing at each other, Karl's head back and Henry looking mischievous, arching his eyebrows as he steps onto the balcony. “What this?”
“Just a friendly chat with the lad,” Karl answers, clasping Henry's shoulder and crushing his cigarette in the ashtray. “He's alright.”
“Is this your blessing, Detective Weissman?” Henry inquires, amused.
“Guess so,” Karl agrees, his nose scrunching up.
“Esther wants a bedtime story,” Alfred tells him, his eyes warm.
“She already got one from Shahara,” Karl grumbles. “Kid's going to get unbearable if we keep spoiling her.”
He goes nonetheless.
xxx
It's 2024.
Karl is holding Esther by the hand, making a dramatically disgusted face at something she said. She points her little finger at him persuasively and he smiles despite himself, like he knows he's being played and is allowing it to happen.
They round the corner and Jawad comes running towards them, eager to show Esther the latest game he's got on his phone. Sharara is sitting at a narrow coffee table, watching fondly as Alfred reads the newspapers with small round glasses on the tip of his nose and a serious look on his face. Henry is leaning close, his chin almost resting on Alfred's shoulder as he reads as well, occasionally making a disparaging comment about the journalists' grammar.
Iris is standing behind them, speaking quietly on her phone, the corner of her lips curled up in amusem*nt.
It's not too bad.
