Chapter Text
Michael furiously scribbles out the final calculations, his free hand raking through hair he hasn’t stopped to wash in days. A cup of coffee sits at his elbow, so long forgotten that mold has begun to grow across the dregs.
He’s so close. An entire lifetime devoted to understanding the technology powering the bits of the wreckage they were able to salvage, to tracking the movements of stars and deciphering the symbols embossed on the iridescent fragments, and it’s all finally coming together.
He scratches out a few more numbers, checks over them with a trembling pencil, and then pushes back from the small table in his trailer that he’s been using as a desk.
That’s it. He’s done.
He can go home.
…Now he just has to decide if he really wants to.
“Fuck,” he whispers, scrubbing a hand over his face, scraping along a week-old beard grown through neglect more than intention. “Fuck.”
Max is just settling in at the counter at Crashdown after a long night on duty, his large hands wrapped around a steaming mug in the hopes that it will help chase the chill from his bones, when his phone rings.
He sighs, his heavy eyelids falling shut for a moment as he fishes it from his pocket.
Michael.
Max rubs a thumb across his bottom lip, debating whether to answer. Now that he’s left the ranch, his brother never rises before the sun. So the fact that he’s calling at this hour means that he’s been up all night — most likely drinking — and Max has never particularly enjoyed any conversation they’ve had while Michael was loaded.
Still, he feels compelled to pick up. Michael probably needs help, and there’s always the small chance that, someday, he might actually let Max be the one to give it.
“Hey,” Max says, pressing the phone against his ear, wishing his tired voice wasn’t so rough. The lack of sleep makes him sound like he’s been gargling gravel.
Michael, however, sounds like live electricity snapping down the line. “I did it. I figured it out.”
That’s all he says; it’s all he needs to say. Max is suddenly wide awake.
“I’ll get Iz. We’ll be right there.”
Max refrains from turning on his cruiser’s siren, but only because there’s not much traffic on the dusty Roswell streets this morning. Isobel hasn’t said a word since she climbed into the passenger’s seat, but it’s not hard to know what she’s thinking.
She’s trying to figure out how to let Michael down. Again.
And Max understands. He’s long wondered what he would do when this day finally came; now that it’s here, he still doesn’t have an answer. How can he leave everything he’s ever known? But then, how can he not go home now that he finally, finally can?
He pulls through the junkyard gate and up to Michael’s shiny Airstream, then cuts the engine. In the abrupt silence that follows, his hands are clenched so tightly that the knuckles are bleached bone white.
And Isobel, never afraid to charge headlong into delicate situations, climbs out long before he’s ready, her heels sinking into the sand as she walks to Michael’s door.
Max has no choice but to take a deep breath and follow.
Michael has been trying to explain his conclusions to them for forty-seven minutes, rambling and pacing the short length of the trailer like a caged animal, back and forth, back and forth. There’s a broken pencil tucked over his right ear and his left hand is tugging at the stretched-out neckline of his v-neck tee; he’s frowning and twitchy, blinking a little too much.
“Okay, so go over that again,” Max says, his palms upturned in his lap, his voice the same slow and even cadence he uses when facing armed suspects or delusional addicts. “Slower, this time, please.”
“And use fewer words,” Isobel chimes in.
Michael stops pacing and stares at them, their bewildered expressions finally registering.
“Okay,” he says, taking a deep breath and willing himself to calm, his hands dropping back down to his sides.
He hasn’t slept in more than 24 hours and is running on an unholy combination of coffee, Red Bull, and nail polish remover; now that he’s stopped moving, he realizes that if he doesn’t sit down soon his legs will fall out from under him.
So he boosts himself up onto the tiny kitchenette counter and leans forward, his forearms braced on his thighs.
“Okay,” Michael says again, quieter and slower. "It’s actually really simple — I just realized that I’ve been thinking about it wrong all these years. I don’t need to master the mechanics of interstellar travel in order to get back to our planet, because our people already did that.”
Max nods. “So what does that mean?”
“It means that they figured out how to manipulate spacetime.”
In answer, he’s met with two utterly blank stares.
“Um…hmm.” He makes a sound halfway between a hum and a groan, frustrated as he tries to find a way to explain this so they can understand. “Okay, so you guys have seen Star Trek, right? Remember wormholes? Well, they’re not just science fiction; they have a basis in theoretical physics, and whoever we came from, they created one. Right on the Foster Ranch. And all we have to do is open it back up.”
“A wormhole,” Max repeats, shifting slightly on the cramped seat, his boot scraping against the scuffed linoleum floor.
“Yup,” Michael says, popping the ‘P’ sound.
“Where does this wormhole go?”
Michael points straight up. “Back to where we came from.”
“And where is that, exactly?”
“I don’t know,” Michael answers, shrugging helplessly.
Max swallows. “Can we ever come back here?”
Michael smiles, but there’s absolutely no humor in it. “I wouldn’t count on it.”
Max bites his bottom lip and gazes out the window at the junkyard. Sunlight bounces off shiny bits of twisted metal, piles of wreckage all around.
Michael never bothers to look out at it anymore; he’s been staring at the jagged remains of a crash his whole life.
Isobel’s focus is the sharpened tip of a knife, and it’s pointed straight at Michael. “You know how to do this? To reopen this wormhole, or whatever?”
“It’s all right here,” Michael says, holding up a glowing shard of the wreckage. “I finally decoded it and then stayed up all night doing the calculations, and, yeah, I can do this. We can do this... but there’s a catch.”
And there it is, the spark of relief lighting up Max and Isobel’s faces, its flash too powerful to hide. They try to smother over it a fraction of a second later, wanting to protect his feelings, but it’s not necessary. Michael understands.
He knows that they think the catch is going to be their way out. That it’s some insurmountable obstacle whose existence is going to make this impossible choice for them, that will keep them here on Earth without any of them having to consciously decide to do so.
But they’re wrong. They’re not getting an escape clause.
They’re getting a ticking clock.
“We need access to the crash site,” Michael says. “The original wormhole opened up there, so that’s where we would have to reopen it.”
“But the crash site is on Foster Ranch,” Max says.
“Yeah,” Michael says. “That’s the catch. We can go back, but we have to do it soon — today, or tomorrow at the latest. The government owns that place now, and if we wait much longer they’ll have it behind so many layers of security we’ll never have access again.”
They have one day. A single day to decide the course of the rest of their lives.
Silence falls inside the trailer. No one speaks; no one moves.
The sun beats down on the trailer’s roof, quickly warming the still air. A bead of sweat rolls down Michael’s spine; dust motes dance in a ray of clear light.
“Michael, this is crazy,” Isobel finally says, not unkindly. “I can’t just decide to leave everything I’ve ever known. I have a husband, and a job; I have a life here.”
“I know, Iz,” Michael mutters. “And I don’t know what any of us should do about this. After all this time, I’m not even sure if I want to go.”
He surprises himself a little even as he says it, but that doesn’t make it any less true. And he knows exactly why he’s grown so uncharacteristically attached to this planet…but that’s not something he’s willing to share just yet.
There’s someone else he has to tell first.
“I just…” Michael shakes his head a little, and sighs. “I figured I owed it to all of us to figure this out. To finally have the choice of where we should be.”
Isobel stands, smoothing the wrinkles from her skirt. “I don’t need the choice. I’m not going. That place may be where I came from, but it’s not where I belong.” She rests a hand on Michael’s shoulder, her expression softening. “And I don’t think you belong there, either.”
“Well, okay then,” Michael says, “I guess that’s one vote for ‘no’. Max?”
Max has been quiet for a long time, studying his knuckles as if some ancient wisdom is to be found hidden in the creases of his skin. “If we went back… we wouldn’t have to hide anymore. We wouldn’t have to be afraid of who we are — or what we can do.”
“Max, you can’t seriously—“
“Let him talk, Iz,” Michael interrupts.
And Isobel freezes, stunned. She’s never heard Michael speak up in defense of Max, and that small action seems to be what finally breaks through the last of her defenses.
She looks between her brothers, suddenly terribly alarmed, as if she’s just now realizing that one of them might actually leave. She’d known that Michael was working on finding a way back to their home planet, but she’d never truly considered it before.
The possibility that she might lose one of them — or both — had been too horrific to imagine.
“Give me 24 hours,” Max finally says, looking up at Michael with resignation. “Give us all 24 hours. There’s a lot to consider, and we need time to think it over. I need… there are people we should talk to, first.”
He rubs at the back of his neck; he looks heavier than he did just an hour ago.
They all do.
“Fine,” Michael says. “We’ll meet back here at dawn tomorrow with our decisions.”