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In one timeline, Carlos stays in the bunker. It's the reasonable option; there's another Carlos out there in the world, living his life far divorced from alien transporters and SHIFTing and –
Junpei and Akane. Maria. Reverie syndrome, and its apparent cure.
In one timeline, Carlos waits ten months and leaves only when he knows it's safe to rescue them both. He thinks he could SHIFT to it if he wanted to, now that he's staring down Junpei's wavering gun. If that him were suddenly shoved into this timeline, he probably wouldn't even be surprised.
"I know this sounds kind of unbelievable," Carlos says, "but I could really use your help." His hands are raised, palms empty, and he makes sure he's not crowding the door. Junpei is staring at him blankly, the half-hangover haze of a previous night's alcohol still in his eyes. Carlos swallows and says the hopefully magic words. "It involves Akane."
Junpei's eyes sharpen. His mouth twists. "What? You know Akane?"
"Sort of," Carlos says. "It's complicated. I know both of you in the future, in another timeline. Um. It has to do with the morphogenetic field – ?"
He barely manages to get his foot out of the doorframe before Junpei slams it in his face.
Carlos stares at the door and considers his options. There's Akane, of course, but other than her name and her organization (Crash Keys, right?) he has no idea what she's up to at the moment, will have no idea until Dcom, by which time it'll be too late. There's also Sigma, who was... from the future? Carlos is really regretting not listening to him more when he had the chance. Maybe he shouldn't have goaded Eric into killing him so fast.
He clears his throat and knocks on Junpei's door again. "In about nine months," he says, "Akane will be at Dcom – the Mars Mission Test Site. You told me you tracked her down to there, but if we could trace her steps back and find her earlier – "
"We?" Junpei says, eyebrows raised. The door cracks open. "That's awfully presumptuous of you."
"Just hear me out," Carlos says. "You're doing this detective gig to find her, right? If I'm telling the truth, you don't have to anymore."
Junpei bristles. "What the fuck do you know."
"Nothing - nothing!" Carlos says quickly. "Just that it's been tough on you. It... doesn't really get any better. And you and Akane – I came back to save both of you."
The blatant disbelief on Junpei's face is, at least, familiar. "What, out of the goodness of your heart?"
"We're friends," Carlos says patiently. They were friends - are friends? He's still not sure what will happen to the transported Junpei and Akane if he changes the past like this, but in another universe, he's saving them the slow way. In this one, he remembers: blood splattered across Akane's face, Junpei's head in the pantry – and he won't put them through that, not even for himself. "I met you guys at Dcom, too. You and Akane were childhood friends. You even told me about the rabbits – "
"Ugh. Please stop." Junpei sighs, but he stares at Carlos for just a moment longer, narrow-eyed, before he steps aside and gestures him in. "What was your name again?"
"Carlos," Carlos tells him. "Hey, Junpei – thanks."
"Don't think I believe you just like that," Junpei grumbles. He collapses on a couch that's seen better days, and drops his gun on the box masquerading as a side table beside it. "Time travel, what the hell. Akane's really gonna be at this Dcom?"
"Yeah." Carlos takes a seat on a chair, setting his elbows on his knees. "I think there was something about a virus pandemic in the future? I've gotta admit, I don't really know most of it – I don't think you did, either. Akane was the one who was there for a reason, you were just there looking for her."
Junpei, arms spread along the back of the couch, tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling. "Every time," he says, "I think about seeing her again – and then I'm reminded that she's like this."
The bitterness in his voice isn't as heavy as it was – as it will be – nine months in the future, with nine more months of death and the worst of humanity shoved down his throat. Still, Carlos feels the need to say, "She really does care about you, you know."
"Yeah," Junpei says, "sure she does. She just cares about other stuff more."
Carlos doesn't say, that's debatable. He remembers Akane's face when they found Junpei in the pantry, the despair that she'd funnelled directly into rage. Junpei shoots him a narrow look when Carlos opens his mouth and Carlos closes it again, knowing it won't help at all. "Uh..."
"That's Akane," Junpei says, sounding more tired than annoyed. "Whatever. Anyway, lay it on me. What do you know?"
Carlos knows he's been lucky. He doesn't exactly live a charmed life – most of the money he earns goes into Maria's hospital bills, and the first few months after she fell unresponsive were some of the hardest of his life – but he's doing okay. He's definitely not dead, and he knows, now, just how easily he could have been.
Still, it seems more like fate than mere chance that lets him find Junpei in the US. Carlos leaves the bunker with a bag full of junk he can pawn off for cash (which he feels kind of guilty about, but for everything he'd put them through, Zero deserves it) and looks up both him and Akane the moment he gets his hands on a phone. Akane's a literal dead-end, on social media and the news, but Junpei has a mostly empty account with a place of employment – and a line on a news site about a counter-terrorism operation in L.A.. Carlos follows that to an agency phone number to an older guy who seems pretty wary of giving out details until Carlos says, "I'm a friend of Akane's," after which he gets Junpei's phone number and current address with no questions asked.
He feels bad for coasting on Akane's name like that, but it's not like he's lying; he thinks Akane of the future wouldn't mind. And if it makes finding Junpei easy – if it gets his foot in the door – well, Carlos is newly undocumented, has a cash paying job at a gas station and is living in his car. He can use all the help he can get.
"Sigma and Phi, huh..." Junpei's writing into a notebook of all things, full of dense Japanese. "And you're not sure when this... time travel thing happens?"
"I don't think it was that long before Dcom," Carlos admits, "but Dcom itself – I applied for that soon. There were a few rounds of suitability tests for those of us who got in the normal way. Me, Eric, Mira, Diana – but if you found Akane through Dcom – "
"She must've been on the list in advance," Junpei finishes. "Yeah, okay, I can work with that." He taps his pen against the page, watching Carlos with razor-sharp eyes. "So, we're friends? We must've been pretty close for you to wait around for ten months."
"Waiting would've been easier," Carlos says wryly. "Maybe I'll end up SHIFTing there when all this is over - if we end up stopping Zero, I... I don't think the Junpei and Akane I'm waiting for will end up here. But yeah, we're pretty close. Life-or-death games will do that to you."
"Sure it's not more than 'friendship'?" Junpei says, sardonically enough it must be a joke. Carlos laughs.
"I don't have time for romance – and it's not like I'd get between you two. Akane... she said she can cure my sister. Even if I can't stay in this timeline, if she can help Maria, if you guys aren't trapped in Zero's game in the first place – it's worth it."
"You're a pretty genuine guy, huh," Junpei says, watching him. Carlos tries not to feel self-conscious about it, tries not to remember the horror that suffused him as Junpei collapsed on the floor of the AB game room. You killed me first didn't mean much when Junpei was still dying at Carlos's choice. "So if you're some... clone of yourself, what're you doing? For living and shit?"
"I have a job," Carlos protests. "I mean, it's not firefighting, but it'll tide me over."
"Tide you over until, what, Dcom?" Junpei sighs. "Look, I don't really know you, but I need to extend the lease on this place anyway, and it's got a couch. As long as you're not gonna kill me in my sleep..."
"Of course not!" The offer takes a moment to sink into Carlos's brain, and he's warmed through by Junpei's thoughtless consideration. "I mean, if it won't put you out – we can split the rent, too – "
"Yeah, sure," Junpei says, waving a hand lackadaisically. "You just gave me the best lead on Akane since she ditched us in Nevada, so."
Carlos hesitates. "What... happened, there? If you don't mind sharing. I got the bare bones of it, but you never really..."
"Seriously?" Junpei quirks an eyebrow at him. "Okay, better settle in, it's quite a story."
Junpei's lighter like this, still with his affected sarcasm and the bad language he's picked up at his job, but before nine months of the worst of detective work and not hearing a thing about Akane visibly ground him down to the Junpei Carlos first met. And Carlos can almost see the fracture-points: Akane's pragmatic ruthlessness butting against Junpei's care and compassion, the way the silence let him spiral into negative thoughts. But Junpei still loves puzzles and obscure trivia and when Carlos gets him to laugh, it's like they've rolled three ones all over again.
Carlos hadn't really thought about the consequences of finding them this early, of interfering in their lives before he ever really met them, but just for this he can't regret it.
It still takes them a while to settle in. Carlos knows Junpei's habits of nine months in the future, but that doesn't help him as much as it should; Junpei, on the other hand, treats Carlos with alternating suspicion, bemusement, and a tentative friendliness Carlos reciprocates with all he's got. Carlos misses Maria with an ache that's almost physical even though he knows she's got her own version of him seeing her every day he can, and he's picked up another job to while away the hours when something finally changes.
Junpei's looked up Sigma already. He appears to be just a normal college student, before his trip to the future, but Junpei's apparently not the only one who's accessed Sigma's recent files. Carlos is kept abreast of Junpei's ongoing search every evening and introduces Junpei to decent home-cooked food one meal at a time, and any money he isn't spending on living expenses he funnels into his other self's bank account, a tiny bit at a time.
But Junpei's the detective. Junpei's the one searching for Akane under every stone in the path. She shouldn't be here, now, walking into Carlos's night job at the end of his shift like she knows him.
"Akane?" he blurts, startled, and only then notices she's not alone. The white-haired guy stops at the gas station door, slouching with his hands in his pockets as a physical deterrent to anyone coming or going, and Carlos has an odd moment of deja vu.
Maybe they've had this conversation before.
"Do I know you?" Akane says, voice artificially light. It hides just how dangerous she is, but Carlos will never underestimate her, not after - Akane with a fire extinguisher, wild with fury; Akane with a chainsaw and nothing left in her but murderous purpose; Akane, eyes flat with determination, a watch in her hand --
Wait. Did that last one even happen? Carlos rubs at his temples. "Well, you will. You know about SHIFTing, right?"
"Oh." Akane's wariness fades to visible curiosity. "Do we know each other in another timeline? Is that why you're staying with Junpei?"
"Yeah, kinda." Carlos grimaces faintly. "You really should talk to him, you know. He misses you."
The white-haired guy hides a, "Told you," in a cough. Akane looks away.
"You told Junpei to look into Sigma Klim and the Dcom project," she says. "Why?"
"It's a pretty long story," Carlos says, "and I don't want to do it without both of you. I know you have your reasons, but - this isn't that timeline. Come to dinner, Akane. Please."
(Carlos can still see her body, the splatter of her blood and the light fading from her eyes. He's woken in a cold sweat thinking of it more than once. She could have SHIFTed, and maybe she did - or maybe, after seeing Junpei dead, she didn't want to.)
"'This isn't that timeline'," she repeats, and holds his gaze steadily. "How do you know?"
There's a dozen things Carlos could say. You know that movie where the protagonist uses a time machine in a car, to travel back to when his parents met? Well, imagine if he came back a little early... or something about paradoxes, the morphogenetic field and the trousers of time. Instead, only one thing comes to mind: "Because I came back to stop it."
"You're not the only one," she says.
"Sigma and Phi, right? Look, I don't know what happened exactly, but I do know what went down at Dcom. It was a trap. I came back here to save you."
"That's... nice of you," Akane says, tone laden with doubt. Carlos has definitely had this conversation before.
"You and Junpei," he clarifies. "It was this or I waited for both of you for ten months - which I probably did, in another timeline. But I have the chance to stop it this time. Just hear me out."
"I can't see Junpei," Akane says. "If he meets me here - "
"It's already happened, you not seeing him until Dcom," Carlos says. "And if you want things to change... you have to change things. The definition of folly is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."
"It's insanity," Akane says. "For your quote." Her mouth has turned up a little at the corners. "So you're our knight in shining armor?"
"Save it for Junpei," Carlos says, trying for long-suffering but not making it, with the way he's starting to smile. "C'mon, trust me for one meal. I'll even spare you his cooking."
"My hero." Akane studies him for a long moment, and Carlos spares a moment to wonder just how much she can see of him through her connection to the morphogenetic field; just how many of the futures he's lived are as clear to her as they are to him. He hopes she doesn't only see the terrible ones. "Trust, hm?"
Carlos meets her eyes and for the briefest flash, he can almost see the timelines winding out: Junpei collapsed on the elevator as Akane looks at them, her face determined and chillingly cold; Akane walking away, her mind fixed on a virus and the moon; Junpei, dying, a dozen times over, in the pantry or the rec room or at Carlos's failed choices –
Junpei, giving Akane that ring he'd carried around for a year, awkwardness suffusing him; the way he'd glanced at Carlos after like he was daring him to laugh. The easy comraderie, the way they'd worked together even at the cost of their lives; the way Carlos had taken advantage, to press Akane against the couch and get Junpei to hold him down, all to whisper a secret in their ears –
That future won't exist, this time. Maybe the Carlos native to this timeline won't participate in the Dcom experiment at all, maybe Junpei and Akane will come to terms with each other without him there. Carlos isn't sure what'll happen to him, after Junpei and Akane, after Zero and Dcom, after he fixes Maria for good – but when Akane smiles, a little wry, he remembers Junpei from this timeline, the slow friendship they've built despite Carlos's inconvenient knowledge and Junpei's occasional deja vu.
Maybe Carlos will be lucky, in this timeline. Maybe he'll get to keep them both.
"I haven't seen Junpei in a while," Akane says, finally. "He isn't mad at me, is he?"
"Junpei? Mad at you?" Carlos smiles. "You know him better than that."
"Yes," she says. "I do."