Ashes

[Jacob Foley]

"The mother and child?" The words tumbled out barely more than a whisper, but Aidan had heard them clearly enough, for they seemed to fill the entire room, "All that power. All that time. You didn't just trip over the house on the way to your great destinty, did you?"

The mask had slipped, and beneath it, an unmistakeable flicker of fear. Jake bristled, affording his friend a heartbeat to come clean. And then he moved. In two great purposeful strides he was in Aidan's face, and braced him against the wall with one hand clamped firmly upon his shoulder. This time his question became a demand.

"The mother and child!"

[Aidan Fox]

Aidan gripped Jake's arms but didn't try to throw him off. He didn't want another fight on his hands. Wasn't sure if he had the strength for it right now. All he could do was struggle to put his tortured thoughts into some kind of order and try to plot a course out of this mess he'd sailed into. For him, this was history. For everyone else, it was the coarse reality of daily life, the slow and uncertain process of turning the future into the present with nothing but their hopes and fears to guide them. How was he supposed to know any better than them? What kind of hubris did it take to sit back and pull the strings that made up the tapestry of their existence, as if he had a better idea of how to weave it?

The truth was, he didn't. And he never had. You didn't rewrite history from the outside. Aidan knew that. And that meant that, now, Jake did, too.

"It was never a complicated plan, Jake," he said. "It wasn't about changing the government, or starting a movement. It was about saving a life."

His mind returned inexorably to that quiet morning in the kitchen, just him, Tess, and Anna, when he'd heard the news for the first time. Jake went there, too, and Aidan could feel his grip weaken.

"And now it's about saving two lives."

[Jacob Foley]

Although Jake's hold on Aidan weakened, he did not fully relinquish his grip. In that moment, there was no certainty he could stand under his own power. Bearing the weight of the latest crushing revelation felt as real to him as an actual feat of physical strength. His breathing was laboured and there was an unquiet fire in his eyes. He was angry... at who or what, he did not know. Aidan, for his deception; himself, for being a fool; or perhaps some external tormentor, in whose wicked machinations they were all naught but pawns. It was childish directionless anger, which could only be turned inwards to wage a war against himself. And there was so little fight left in him. Aidan's penetrating words found no place of purchase in the foggy corners of his mind; they were alien, intangible; as abstract from his thoughts as oil from water. Whatever was resonating deep within was a feeling, coursing through his body like a virus, small and devastating. He couldn't think. Rational thought was a foreign land.

He pushed himself away from Aidan, and retreated on leaden feet. Turning, he wandered listlessly into the bathroom. There, in the silence and gloom, thoughts started to surface from the murk. At first, it was an exercise in self-deception: divining meaning from vague concepts to arrive at the most pleasing conclusions, like picturing shapes in the clouds. Making sense of time-travel would have that effect, he consoled himself. One idea, however, took root. Aidan came from a place where the worst had already happened. It became entrenched in his mind; unshakeable, because it was a reality. Aidan's reality: a place where he had failed as a brother. His eyes were stinging, and wet. The sound of the sputtering faucet spared his shame. And in the moment it took to compose himself, Jake remembered something Aidan said to him: the more he knew, the more history would change because of him. Damn right.

He washed the scorch marks from his face, and returned to Aidan.

"Dude, we need to go home. Anna will be waiting."