Work Text:
October the 16th, 1909
"There is something I must tell you."
Rosalind did not turn, her attention on a flask of liquid heating up over a Bunsen burner. This experimental infusion wasn't expected to perform as she hoped, but it would yield useful data—though only if the reagents were added at precisely the right moments. "One moment, brother. Now is not the best time."
"Never will there be a best time for this."
The unexpected gravity of this statement broke her focus. Brow furrowed, she tore her eyes from the flask to spare a glance through her goggles at Robert; in the doorway he stood, his face as impassive as one might expect from a Lutece twin. "What is going on?"
"If we do not send the girl back from where we brought her, you and I must part."
She stared at him in silence, turning the words over in her head, then turned off the burner, removed her goggles, and swiveled on the lab stool to face him directly. "You can't be serious."
It sank in that he might have never looked more serious in his life. "Why can't I?"
"You..." she started, and stopped. The words did not come easily. The very idea, that one sibling could of their own volition separate from the other... "Sixteen years of collaboration, companionship, siblinghood, and you would so readily put it all on the line?"
"I do what must be done."
And just what must be done? Rosalind wanted to know—but there was something profoundly upsetting about how her brother could regard her so stoically while discussing this, this unimaginable thing, that he could not just imagine but also speak freely. There was no malice in his look; he stared no daggers; still he might as well have stabbed her in the back.
She instead asked, seeking some way of grasping why he might turn from her, now or ever, "But were you not the first of us to say, 'We'll never have to work alone again'? Or, 'Who could understand us but us'?"
He remained unmoved. "I suppose that all goes up in smoke, if the world also does in 1984."
The girl is the flame that shall ignite the world. Of course that was his concern at hand; rather foolish of Rosalind not to have made the connection sooner. Though... only because she did not expect him to be the greater fool. "There is nought to be done for the world, you must know that. Time is more—"
"An ocean than a river, as you've stated, yes," he interrupted, suddenly weary. Had he already lost heart?
"So do you believe yourself capable of commanding the tides?"
"No. But I do believe you to be too attached to that metaphor." And his sister having made her choice, he turned and exited the room.
"So—that's it, then?" She followed him—when did she stand up? In her rising agitation, she hadn't even noticed. "Just like that, you depart?"
"Of course not. I am going to get my things first."
There was time, though far too little of it. Her heart lurched but as she pursued him upstairs she tried to gather herself. Now more than ever, remaining calm was critical. "Where will you go?" she asked, forcing her voice even. "What will you do when you get there?"
"What do you think I shall do?" he asked in return, maddeningly nonchalant.
"You don't intend to return her by yourself? To attempt alone what the two of us cannot?"
She stood outside his room, where he was donning his jacket. "As it happens, that is exactly what I intend to do," he declared, as he went to pick up a suitcase—it had to be the kit he kept prepared in case of evacuation, a nontrivial possibility given the ever-growing dysfunction of Columbia.
She was sure of it because she had done the same. Had always assumed they would be leaving together.
Robert walked past her; she hurried to stay ahead of him. "Right, and keeping in mind that such a thing is futile—"
"So you insist."
"—as well as insurmountably difficult, how will you do such a thing?"
"That which got me into this mess, will get me out." He stepped off the stairs and maneuvered past her, headed for the lab.
"And to where and when will you go with one Tear, one singular Tear?" This arrested him in the hallway—finally something slowed him down—and he turned to look at Rosalind. "Because I shan't hold the door open for you on every leg of your ill-fated journey."
Despite his initial surprise, he replied quickly, "New York City, where sixteen years, eight days ago, an event pivotal in several lives took place. Much can be done there."
"Like what? Tell me, brother," she pressed, approaching him, certain he hadn't prepared for this and now he needed to make something up on the fly. He was on the verge of realizing his folly and giving up, he must be.
"Anything at all. It would take so little for everything to come tumbling down. Perhaps I'll sabotage the device at precisely the right moment, which is to say, the wrong moment." He took a step of his own towards her, his calm demeanor and tone taking on a subtle menace. "You remember how afraid I was of being caught, do you not?"
Dread weighed on the whole of her being. That he should by his own doing never return to her—that he would not lift a finger to harm his sister yet he would so freely, so directly expend his own life—
She could only breathe, "You mustn't."
"Or perhaps I must," he said, still resolute, her anguish failing to reach him. "It remains to be seen."
She soon found her voice, though by then it had picked up a distraught edge she could not conceal. "And what of your dear sister? Hmm? Have you ever stopped and thought through all the consequences of what you hope to accomplish?"
"And if I have not? Would that come as such a shock to you?" Despite their level eyes, for a harrowing instant it felt as if he looked down upon her with a glacial stare. "We are so alike, after all..."
Then he fell silent. He blinked, blinked again, the cold in his eyes diminishing. The conversation seemed no longer to interest him in the slightest; he moved away and went to the Lutece device.
Behind that granite face... he was hiding something. "All right. All right then," Rosalind seized the last hope she had, "I call your bluff."
He put his suitcase down by the control panels and began to prepare the contraption. "My bluff."
"Yes." Maybe the timing was a bit absurd, but somewhere within herself she finally found her usual nerve, folding her arms and leaning against the doorway. "Putting on a grave air and going through the motions of departure—wonderfully performed, brother, but I'll not be the first to accede to the other's demands."
"So be it," came the quiet reply of, surely, affected determination.
"A most commendable effort, or it would be if it wasn't so shamelessly manipulative. I admit, I've underestimated the lengths to which you would go in order to secure my cooperation; I should perhaps be flattered."
She waited for his response; none came.
The seconds ticked by in silence, first awkward, then unsettling, then unbearable.
But before Rosalind could break it herself, Robert threw the final switch, filling the room with an ominous hum and the crackle of electricity. A rift of silvery light shimmered above the device's platform.
"It is ready," he said at last. He turned his head just slightly to his sister. "Farewell."
She watched him coolly as he gathered his things and neared the tear. "As far as closing remarks go, I've heard better. But, I suppose, brevity, et cetera."
Again, he did not respond, only extended a hand to open the portal to darkened city streets. And in the fleeting, terrible moment he stood motionless, silhouetted in that eerie glow, Rosalind almost believed she might still be right.
He took a step through. Whether or not he meant to actually complete his egress, she suddenly cared no longer to find out.
"Oh, stop, for heaven's sake!!"
She grabbed his arm, wrenched him back as though from the jaws of hell, the force of it sending both of them to the ground. Tears streaming down her face, she sat up to pull into her arms her brother, dear Robert, who was none and a part and the whole of herself all at once, who she very nearly let slip away from her forever. "Fine, you right bastard, we'll do it! Have it your damned, stupid, foolish way! You madman... you..."
He, too, was weeping, she realized, soft but forceful sobs shaking him even as he held onto her.
In each other's arms they remained, until her tears and his trembling abated. Once they separated, she passed him her handkerchief at the same time he offered her his. Her heart heavy, she sat by him as he held it to his face. "You really didn't want to go."
"No, but it's not about what I want," was his ragged whisper.
A rare sigh from Rosalind. "You hopeless, sentimental man," she murmured, sadly, fondly.
When he had collected himself to his satisfaction, he looked up at her and asked, "Tell me... at the very last second, what made you reconsider?"
"I'd realized that—... I was well convinced yours is a lost cause, and I kept thinking, if I could just make you see that... then you would not need to leave." She shook her head; what a ridiculous presumption, that he would not be exactly as adamant as she was. "Ultimately, I wanted you to stay more than I wanted you to see."
"But your perspective hasn't changed."
"Not at all."
"Yet you will help me?"
Her eyes met his, reddened and tired. "Well, I would rather fail alongside you than succeed alone." Pensive, she let her gaze trail to the floor. "If I could even do such a thing."
"You were doing quite well for yourself before I came along."
"Now that I know how much greater we are together, what successes could I achieve without you that would not ring so hollow?"
"Hm." A trace of his usual humor seemed to return to him when he said, "You're not so free from sentiment yourself."
"I have never claimed to be." Rosalind gave his shoulder a gentle shove, playfully. A facet of herself only her brother could bring out.
"Have you not?" He returned the push; they shared a small, bittersweet smile.
Hers faded quickly upon remembering what she had agreed to.
"It will end in tears, brother."
"Do keep your chin up, sister." He reached over to lift it for her. "For what is our purpose if not to push the boundaries of possibility?"
"We don't push any boundaries; we merely illuminate what is already within them."
"In practice, is there truly a difference?"
"There most certainly is," she stated dryly, standing up. "Now, shall we get to work, or will you just sit on your bum all night?" She offered a hand to Robert.
He took it, and was pulled up to his feet. "We shall work, of course. Together."
"Always."