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Harvard, 2004
Mark went to sleep thinking of ‘and Stanford’. He had thrown Eduardo out of the room eventually, when it became apparent that he wasn’t going to get anything more sensible than “go to bed, Mark,” out of him. Eduardo was not designed for late nights like this.
But they hit 4am and by then Mark was alone in being awake. He gave in. He went to sleep thinking of Eduardo saying, ‘it’s time for them to see this in Palo Alto.’
*
Palo Alto, 2007
Mark goes to sleep thinking about their valuation. Microsoft are interested again.
Chris is about to leave, Mark can tell. He hasn’t said anything yet but it’s going to happen. Mark won’t stop him – this was never Chris’s dream. But when he leaves, Dustin won’t be far behind. Which will just leave Mark, from those first days.
Mark doesn’t tend towards introspection, but that does strike him as something worthy of note. He goes to sleep thinking about ‘I think this is us’ and how sure he had been back then.
*
Palo Alto, 2007
Eduardo woke up because his cell phone was ringing. He’s still tired from the travelling last night, so it takes him a moment or two to find the answer button. “Hello?”
Chris’s voice is frantic. “Can you call at Mark’s on your way in?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re coming in for the preliminary meetings, right?”
“Yes, but…”
“Mark’s not here. He was supposed to be here three hours ago, so we could do prep, and he’s not here. He’s not answering his phone, or his email.”
Eduardo laughs. “This is Mark. He’s just got lost in whatever coding he was doing last night.” It’s been three years since they spent any significant time together, but Eduardo remembers that part well enough.
“He knows that this is important,” Chris says, “he wouldn’t just-.”
“It’s Mark.” Knowing that something was important to somebody else has never been sufficient motivation for him to do anything.
Chris says, “Look, I’ll owe you, okay? Just drive by his place and pick him up. Drag him here if necessary.”
And because Chris is still his friend, or Facebook is still his company, Eduardo goes. He showers and dresses in more of a hurry than the situation probably warrants.
Chris sends him the directions, and the rented car has GPS, so it’s easy enough to find Mark’s place. Eduardo hasn’t seen the house before, but it’s not surprising: large but not palatial, set behind a heavy gate.
Eduardo pulls up in front of the fences and buzzes the house.
When no one has answered after a few minutes, he presses the button again, longer this time. There’s still no answer, and maybe this wasn’t all about Chris, because Eduardo is starting to feel a little concerned himself. He presses the buzzer again.
Finally, the static clicks in and Mark’s voice says, hesitantly, “Hello?”
“Open the gate,” Eduardo says. “You were supposed to be at the office four hours ago, and Chris sent me after you, which should tell you how significant these meetings are.”
The gate clicks open and Eduardo drives up to the house.
When he gets to the front door, Mark is standing in the entranceway. Mark says, “Wardo.” He leans back on the balls of his feet and his hands are stuffed in the pocket of his hoodie. It’s jarring, like the world turned black and white for a moment, Mark stepping out of an old photograph.
(The last time they spoke, Mark had been wearing a suit, with his back held unnaturally straight, and he shook Eduardo’s hand when they were ‘introduced’ to each other again.)
“Yeah,” Eduardo says, thrown off guard in the way only Mark has ever managed. “So, do you want me to drive you in?”
“I’m not- I’m not really sure that would be the best idea.”
“Okay, drive yourself then.” Eduardo turns to go.
“That’s not-.” Mark says quickly. “Not what I meant. Don’t go. Please.”
“What?”
“I’m having a…” Mark trails off, coughs, and starts again. “This is going to sound crazy. Or maybe not. I don’t really know how dream-logic works for the people in the…”
“Mark.”
“I think maybe I’m asleep.”
“Mark, I don’t have time for this.”
“Okay, see now I know I’m dreaming. Because you’re never rude like that in real life.”
“Look, I don’t understand what you’re trying to do but…”
“Yes. So I went to sleep in Harvard and woke up here. Or didn’t wake up, I suppose. I could be in a coma and this is my brain’s way of trying to deal with it. Which would raise the question of what I did to end up in a coma, and also why my brain thinks that California and a pissed-off version of you is an adequate coping mechanism.”
Eduardo exhales slowly. “This isn’t happening.”
“Wardo…”
“Okay, okay, so say I believe you,” Eduardo tries. “Tell me the last thing you do remember?”
“We were working on The Facebook.”
‘The’, Eduardo notes. It hasn’t been ‘The Facebook’ in years. It was The Facebook back when it was something that was just for them. It distracts him, knocking him off the logical paths he knows he should be working through.
Mark leans backwards again, swaying barely rooted. He looks lost.
*
Harvard, 2004
Mark woke up because the room was too cold. He had people come in to clean the house once a week, so it was possible a window had been left open, but it didn’t seem likely. He stretched out, and nearly fell off the bed. It was a narrow single. A narrow single he remembered well enough, for all that it had been three years since he last slept there.
It was cold because this was Harvard in winter, not Palo Alto in the fall.
He was dreaming. He must be dreaming. He had been thinking about that particular time and so this is what his mind had conjured up.
Mark let himself drift off again but when he woke, he was still in a cold room in Harvard.
There was noise outside. He got out of the bed and walked to the door, not sure what he was expecting to see. He felt awake, and if he was awake, and in college, then there was a limit to the kind of things that could be out there. Mark opened the door.
Eduardo leant over the arm of the chair and smiled at him. “Hi.”
Mark meant to smile back, meant to act normal. But he missed, or he had no idea what a normal person’s response to that smile would be, because Eduardo froze. “What?” Mark asked.
Eduardo shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing.”
“Are you… was I supposed to meet you?”
Eduardo’s nose crinkled, confused. “No? I mean, you threw me out of here last night, so I guess there was that. Do you want me to go?”
“No! No. Stay. Just let me grab a shower. There’s… I’m sure there’s food around here somewhere.”
“There might be pop-tarts,” Eduardo agreed solemnly. He grinned again. “Though your roommates would probably fight me for them. I swear, I don’t know how you guys don’t starve when I’m not around to feed you.”
Mark looked around the room, smaller than he remembered it being. There were bottles of beer and a couple of boxes of half-eaten pizza, but not much more evidence of food. Mark raised one shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t know either.”
Mark turned to go to the shower, but he still caught the fading look of surprise in Eduardo’s eyes.
*
Palo Alto, 2007
Eduardo should probably call a doctor. Mark is clearly not well.
“…and you said we should expand to Stanford, and we worked on the coding for a while and you were trying to get us to go to bed. You were supposed to be studying for a Philosophy test on Monday and you kept saying you were going but I don’t think you left until about three. That was last night.” Mark stops, and looks at Eduardo expectantly.
Eduardo shakes his head. “That wasn’t last night.”
“Clearly not,” Mark says. His hands are twisting in his hoodie pocket again and Eduardo wants to grab them. Mark was never this anxious back then. The Mark he remembers always knew what he was doing - knew what he wanted - and would express this with sometimes horrifying clarity. But something about the way Mark’s shoulders are pulled in is making Eduardo uncomfortable.
He’s also wondering why it is that Mark – whose perception of things outside Facebook has always been limited – remembers that Eduardo was going to take a Philosophy test. That’s surprising whether the memory is from three years ago, or from last night. Mark never remembers that kind of thing (except for those times when he does).
Mark asks, “So have we settled on dream?”
“I’m still not willing to rule out amnesia.”
“I haven’t forgotten, Wardo.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Because I know I’m fine. It’s everything else that’s messed up.”
Eduardo snorts. It’s just exactly like Mark to – even in the height of his apparent mental collapse – believe that it’s everyone else who are the figments. It’s his world, the rest of them just live there.
Mark cocks his head to the side and that’s another thing. He doesn’t like to ask when he’s confused. He prefers to wait for things to be explained to him. Eduardo had found that endearing, once upon a time.
*
Harvard, 2004
He could still be dreaming, Mark rationalised. Dream-time worked differently to real time. He was going to wake up and it would be ten minutes later and all he would remember is that he dreamt about Eduardo again.
Or maybe it had been nearly a half hour now and no one dreamt about showering and brushing their teeth and getting dressed in such detail. Mark opened the door.
Eduardo was still smiling, or possibly he smiled all over again.
Mark said, “Do you want to get breakfast?”
Eduardo nodded. “I can run and get you something, sure. I was going out to get some coffee anyway.”
“No. I mean- do you want to go out and eat breakfast somewhere? Not in this room. With me.”
Eduardo’s big eyes got wider and he was so – they were all so – young, right now. Mark was sure that if he had ever known that he could stun Eduardo like that, he would have made better use of it at the time. Eduardo asked, “What about The Facebook?”
Mark had thought about that. He remembered today, or at least he remembered the day before. They had decided to expand but nothing had happened yet. It wouldn’t be ready for another few days. Mark lifted one shoulder. “It’ll survive without us for a day.”
Eduardo ran his hands through his hair. “Okay?” he asked, and it sounded like he didn’t know if he was agreeing or checking if Mark was all right. He rubbed at his temple and looked unsure and Mark didn’t think anything he had done so far warranted this show of uncertainty. Eduardo stretched, suddenly, arms straight up as though he’d been sleeping in kinks all night. He smiled. “You want to go for breakfast with me.”
“Yes.” Mark nodded. He was sure of this part. If it was a dream, or if he had finally driven himself to a collapse, this was something he was sure about. He was in a place where he could ask Eduardo to come with him, and Eduardo would say yes. How could he not try?
*
Palo Alto, 2007
Chris calls again. Eduardo had forgotten about that. He pulls Mark into the car and drives over there on autopilot, still trying to work out what’s going on. Mark seems utterly convinced that there’s nothing wrong with him, and he had submitted to Eduardo checking his head for bumps. Nothing’s wrong except that he thinks he’s from two thousand and four and Eduardo is starting to believe him too. Mark has always been convincing.
Eduardo hasn’t been in the offices for a while, so mostly he’s focussed on just getting both of them to the door without giving away the fact that he’s leading the company CEO around because Mark doesn’t know where he’s going.
The security guy at the desk greets Mark. “Good afternoon, Mr Zuckerberg. Mr Hughes is looking for you.” He pauses, doing the kind of double take which Eduardo has never seen before in real life. “Mr Saverin.”
Eduardo nods back, and walks through to where he thinks Chris’s desk should be.
He stops because Mark says, “Wardo, look.”
Mark is gripping Eduardo’s arm tightly. He’s warm, his fingertips burning against Eduardo’s skin, even through the shirt. Mark tugs Eduardo closer, whispering like it’s a secret, “Wardo, look- look what we did.”
Eduardo looks.
It’s not ‘we’, here. These offices are what Mark built around himself when he finally could. The Facebook branded drinks machines, and the open office with all of his programmers in shouting distance. The games machines and the Wall and the conference rooms with their ridiculous names.
“Look,” Mark says, and Eduardo looks.
He looks at Mark, who is staring at the office and all these people like he’s never seen them before. Like this is his best dream come true and then he looks over like Eduardo was the one to make it happen.
Eduardo covers Mark’s hand with his own, just for a moment.
Then someone comes across to Mark with an update on translations for the new code, and someone else wants to check phrasing on a press release. Mark nods and tries to look like he knows what they want him to say.
Chris appears out of nowhere and grabs Eduardo’s arm. He drags them across the offices into a conference room.
Dustin looks up from a screen and Mark smiles. “Hey.” Mark punches Dustin’s shoulder, like he’s surprised to see him, or maybe just pleased.
“Hi?” Dustin answers. He gives Mark a strange look, and Mark steps backwards quickly, leaving distance between them again. Eduardo suspects that Dustin looks confused because he can see the difference in Mark and doesn’t know what it is. It’s nothing to do with Mark’s awkward show of affection, but Mark doesn’t know that.
Eduardo watches Mark, at his odd tight expression. He says, before he can think about it, “Mark’s not well.”
Mark turns his head to stare. “What?”
Chris says, “He’s what? This isn’t the time to-.”
“It’ll be worse if your CEO collapses during a meeting,” Eduardo points out.
“He’s not going to-.” Chris runs an assessing glance over Mark. “If he was going to pass out, you would have taken him to hospital, not here.”
“It’s Mark, what chance do you think I had of getting him into a hospital? I said I’d drive him here to check in, and then back to his place.”
Dustin coughs. “It’s great that you two are speaking again, but this is a bit…”
Mark taps Eduardo’s elbow. “We weren’t speaking?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Eduardo says. He rests his hand on Mark’s back. “Come on, I’ll drive you home.”
Chris protests, “Eduardo, you can’t just come in here after… Mark, if you need a doctor, I’ll call you one.”
Mark shrugs. “Wardo’s right here.”
And that puts an end to it. Chris holds his hand up in apparent defeat to his boss’s obstinacy, and Dustin nods as though this makes perfect sense. Eduardo is not completely sure what just happened, but he steers Mark back through to the door and into his car.
Mark taps his fingers on the dashboard. “So what now?”
*
Harvard, 2004
Mark waited while Eduardo called into the other room. “We’re going out.”
Dustin scooted his chair out of his bedroom. “You’re what?” Chris hung his head out of the doorway looking equally stunned.
“Going out?” Mark repeated. “Breakfast. Brunch, I guess, at this point.”
“It’s not the concept we’re having difficult with,” Chris said dryly, “it’s applying the concept to you.”
“What happened to expansion?” Dustin asked.
“It’ll wait until tomorrow,” Mark said. He wasn’t sure why no one believed him on this. He had been here before – he knew it would wait a day. They needed better server capacity before any coding could be fully implemented anyway.
“The last time I tried to leave,” Dustin said, “you told me I should just change my major to Ancient History, for all the use I was to you.”
Mark didn’t remember saying this, but it was three years ago. He said, “Yeah, but you know that’s not true, so…”
Dustin raised one eyebrow.
Mark sighed. “Look, you know I couldn’t do this on my own, so don’t act like I’ve never… fine. Wardo, are you coming or not?”
Eduardo followed right after him, ignoring Dustin’s mumblings about wanting that comment in writing, thank you, and Chris asking what exactly had happened last night.
They walked out together; Mark could feel the heat of Eduardo’s hand, an inch from his back. He pulled up sharply, and Eduardo stumbled against him, fingers spread on top of Mark’s shirt. Eduardo apologised and Mark smiled. “It’s fine. Is here okay?”
They had found their way to a coffee place near campus that Eduardo had always liked. Eduardo’s smile was surprised, again. Mark was starting to feel more than a little offended.
“Here’s fine,” Eduardo said.
“Do you want to… we could catch a movie, after? Wasn’t there something you wanted to see?” He remembered that Eduardo had wanted to go out somewhere after the Bill Gates lecture, before they had their run-in with Christy and Alice.
Eduardo turned Mark around. He shook his head. “Is something wrong? I meant what I said, you can tell me anything. Did the Winklevosses…?”
The Winklevoss twins were so far from what Mark was thinking at that time that he had to take a minute to figure out what Eduardo was asking. “No,” he said. “No, nothing like that.”
“So?”
“So…” Mark didn’t know. To figure out what had gone wrong, maybe. To see if there was a way he could have had Facebook without losing Eduardo, because Mark had always been greedy. It might have been less than that. Maybe it was simply that it had been a very long time since Eduardo had looked at him like that. He just wanted a day.
*
Palo Alto, 2007
Mark sits in front of him in the diner and stares. Eduardo orders lunch for both of them and when the waitress goes away again, Mark asks, “So, what was that?”
“What was what?”
“Why didn’t you want to tell them?”
“I thought you were still convinced this was a dream.”
“I am.” Mark nods sharply. “But you’re not, so I’m curious about your reasoning.”
Eduardo doesn’t know. If Mark is genuinely- if this is real then he’s not very sure what he should be doing with that information. Mark had been confused in there, stepping back into himself and maybe Eduardo had wanted that to be a secret between the two of them.
It’s a secret too, that if this is real, then some time back then, Mark had thought of Facebook as something they did together. Eduardo hadn’t invented that; he hadn’t been so completely fooled. He wishes for a moment that he could slip in time, that he could go to the deposition room and tell himself that things will not always feel that way. Mark had said ‘we’.
Mark picks up his burger in one hand and uses the other to tap the table. “Contrary to your belief, I’m not actually psychic, so if you could give some kind of insight into what you’re thinking?”
“Oh, I never thought you were psychic. Trust me on this.”
“If I didn’t trust you, I hardly think I’d have conjured you up as a guide or whatever this is.”
“Guide?”
Mark shrugged. “You know what I’m supposed to be doing.”
“I haven’t spoken to you in eight months, Mark. I have no idea what either of us are doing.”
Mark looks at the table. “Oh.”
“Mark.”
“Okay. So. We really weren’t talking.”
Eduardo leans his head back against the chair. “No. We really weren’t.”
“For eight months?”
“For a few years now. We still… I saw you eight months ago at some dinner, I think.”
“Did I-.” Mark pinches his nose. “Did I do something to upset you? I know sometimes you get…”
Eduardo doesn’t actually mean to laugh. It’s just that on one hand, there’s no way to sensibly answer that question - ‘upset you’, like they’d fought about Mark missing breakfast or something. On the other hand, Mark’s face has taken on that scarily blank expression that Eduardo recognises well enough as hurt.
Also, if this is real, Eduardo probably shouldn’t be accidentally changing history. No matter how much he thinks he wants to.
Eduardo says, “People… it was college. You don’t always stay in touch with everyone you…”
“Dustin and Chris are still there. And you’re still- you came to get me. I needed you to get me out of there… and you were-.”
“Here,” Eduardo says. “I know. Bad habit, I guess.”
“Is that all it is?” Mark asks. Eduardo had forgotten that too: how, just sometimes, Mark’s normal disregard for other people’s feelings flips into terrifying perception. He notices things when he bothers to make the effort. It was just that for a long time near the end of the things, he had decided that effort wasn’t worth his time.
*
Harvard, 2004
They went to see the movie and it was a love story and a sci-fi film all at the same time, which seemed a strange combination to Mark. Then, he didn’t remember ever seeing the film in his own time, and he didn’t usually get much time to go to the cinema. Maybe this was normal.
Eduardo stared at the sky in a kind of daze. Mark tapped his arm. “Okay?”
“Yeah. Did you like the movie?”
“Um. Yes, I suppose so. Was I supposed to think it was a happy ending?”
“It was… I think it was hopeful. There was room for a happy ending. Or maybe it’s just…” He held his arms open wide. “It’s worth the risk to try, even if you know you won’t get one.”
Mark smiled and this time felt certain that he wasn’t doing anything different from what the other him would do. With Eduardo like this, there was no response but to smile. Eduardo saw the best in everything. Or he had, back then. Mark supposed that they had both changed a little since college.
“What now?” Mark asked.
“I don’t know, what now?”
“If- tell me what you’d want to do, if it was the last time you could do it.”
“Mark.”
“I’m not dying, I promise.” He attempted another smile, to underline the joke. “I’m just curious. What would you do, Wardo?”
Eduardo took a breath, and seemed to consider the question. “I’m presuming leaving the state is out of the question.”
“You’d want to go home? See your parents?”
“You wouldn’t?”
Mark hadn’t phrased the question properly. He wouldn’t go and see his parents because they know everything he would say, or at least they do by two thousand and seven. But he can’t tell Eduardo that. “With me, I meant,” Mark said. “Global apocalypse and we’re the last survivors.”
“You’re in such a weird mood today,” Eduardo said. “Okay, so what would I do with you, if it’s just us, and I can have anything I want?” An odd expression crossed his face, and was wiped away in a moment. “I don’t know.”
Mark shook his head. This had always been part of the problem. He said, “Let’s go for a walk, okay? You can think about it.”
*
Palo Alto, 2007
Eduardo drives them back to Mark’s place because he doesn’t know where else to go. He says, “Do you think this is going to wear off soon?”
“And I wake up back in Harvard?” Mark asks. “I don’t know. I hope so.”
“Yes?”
“This is a nice vision, or whatever it is,” Mark says. “But I’d like to get back to reality.”
“This is…” Eduardo stops.
“What?” Mark asks.
This is reality, and Mark doesn’t know that yet. Eduardo had always thought that Mark was planning this, right from the start. But this Mark thinks that Eduardo made it happen, because Eduardo was the first one to say the magic words ‘Palo Alto.’ Stanford and Palo Alto and Silicon Valley and it kills Eduardo, a little bit, to have this now when he had just started to get over wanting it. He says, “You’re going to make this happen.”
“Okay, sure, but this is still…”
“I’m not sure how much of this you’re going to remember, Mark. I guess not a lot because you never mentioned it to me back then. It’s not like you were ever big on sharing but I think time-travel would have been something we talked about. Still, can you try and remember this part?”
“What?”
“You’re going to do… well you’re going to do a lot of things and I’m not sure I should try and change any of those. But you’re going to do amazing things, and change the world and I want you to remember that none of that surprised me. Okay? I always knew that about you too.”
Mark is blinking at him, young and confused and still nineteen in there somewhere and Eduardo forgets that part all the time. In his memories, he always sees Mark as he was over the deposition tables, superimposing that over the good parts because he can’t allow himself to focus on them. He wonders which parts Mark remembers.
“Come on,” Eduardo says, “let’s go explore your house. It’s like positive thinking, right? So when you get back, you can remember that this is what you’re working towards.”
“You don’t think the millions of users and the fancy office was more of an aspirational tool than the nice house? Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”
Eduardo laughs. “I already showed you the office. The house is a good side-benefit. I hear you have a fencing room in here.”
“You haven’t seen it?” Mark asks.
“No. No, I haven’t seen it.”
Mark gives him that odd blank look again.
*
Harvard, 2004
It was getting darker, and apparently they’re having a picnic, since Eduardo had decided he wanted to buy pizza and sit on the grass. Mark supposed it was his own fault – he had given Eduardo free rein over the rest of their day.
Eduardo still looked surprised to have Mark down here on the ground with him. He said, “Thanks for-.” He cut himself off.
“We’re friends,” Mark pointed out.
“You have other friends,” Eduardo said. “None of them managed to get your undivided attention for a day.”
“Okay,” Mark said. “So you’re my best friend, okay?” He still, after three years, found himself looking at the ground. He picked at the blades of grass.
Eduardo was quiet for a moment or two. Eventually he said, “I know that.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t sure you knew. For a genius, you can still be pretty…” He broke off, laughing, under Mark’s glare. “Anyway, I had a good time today.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re not worried about the work you missed?”
“No.”
“Mark…”
“Nothing’s wrong, Wardo. Can you leave it alone, please?”
Eduardo nodded sharply. He leant back into the grass, staring at the sky again. His shoulder was right by Mark’s fingers; Mark stretched them out, enough to brush the cotton of Eduardo’s shirt without him noticing.
“Looking at the clouds?” Mark asked.
Eduardo laughed. “Maybe I should be a science major instead. Give it all up and be a weatherman.”
“You’re going to do great,” Mark said. “With your economics degree, which you’re going to finish with honours. Stop worrying.”
“You think?”
“I know.”
Eduardo blinked, maybe just at the glare of the low-setting sun. Mark wished Eduardo would stop acting like this was the first time he had said any of this. Mark was starting to believe him.
*
Palo Alto, 2007
Mark keeps trying to get Eduardo to answer questions. He’s been trying to poke around his computer (but doesn’t know any of the passwords) and staring at the pictures on the wall. Eduardo’s a little surprised that Mark even has pictures on the wall, but that's probably uncharitable. He has a couple of photographs of his sisters and his parents, one huge distance shot of the Facebook employees clustered in the offices, and one of him with Dustin and Chris and a few others at some dinner.
“None of you,” Mark says.
“Like I said, we haven’t really talked much recently.”
“Are you going to tell me why?”
“No.”
Mark asks, “Why not?”
Eduardo doesn’t know if it’s just that they watched a lot of sci-fi films back at college, but he knows he can’t tell Mark. Anything could happen.
And Mark would be upset. And this Mark hasn’t done anything to deserve that so far. This Mark still thinks Eduardo is his best friend (though he hasn’t said that yet) and Eduardo had never wanted to be the one to break that.
*
Harvard, 2004
They snuck back into the dorm room at Kirkland, trying to hide the sound of clinking bottles. Eduardo had done the buying, worried that Mark would get carded, which had been a not-uncommon problem back then. It had still amused Mark this time around.
They sat on the bed in Mark’s room and got quietly drunk. Eduardo tipped backwards again, his face buried in Mark’s pillow.
Mark sat beside him and stared. Eduardo’s face was smooth and untroubled; his whole body turned towards Mark. Mark said, “If you knew…”
“What?”
He didn’t know how to phrase this. “How drunk are you right now?”
“Umm… a little. I may or may not remember this conversation in the morning.”
“Okay,” Mark said. “That actually helps. If you could see into the future, and you knew…”
Eduardo caught hold of Mark’s sleeve. “Knew what?”
“You were talking about a being a weatherman, right? Say if I knew, knew, that if you did that, we’d both be rich and successful, and… but something bad would happen too. Would you want me to stop you?”
“What happens if you stop me?”
“I don’t- is that the important part?”
“It might be. If you stop me, are you still… are you happy in the weatherman-future? I wouldn’t want you to…”
“Wardo.”
Eduardo smiled at him, loose and easy. “I don’t think I’d want you to mess with that, no.”
“Even if it was better for you?”
“But you couldn’t know that, could you? Butterfly effect.”
“It’s always meteorology with you.” Mark put no venom into the comment. “You really wouldn’t want to know?”
Eduardo blinked slowly. “No, I don’t think so. It sounds like a bad idea. I mean, how would you know what to change? Or what would happen if you did? You could just make things worse, all for the sake of…” He drifted off. Mark noted the way his breaths lengthened and evened out. He pushed Eduardo onto the other side of the bed, and climbed on top of the covers.
Mark watched him. It was March. This spring, Eduardo was going to take him to New York to talk to people and Mark would mess the meetings up. And then it would be the summer, and he’d miss meeting him in the airport and Eduardo would get pissed off and freeze the account. And then it would be November. And Eduardo was going to throw a laptop onto the desk right in front of him and the next time they speak will be over a deposition table. They had eight months left.
Mark thought about kissing him. He knew that he wouldn’t, because at no time during the lawsuit had Eduardo ever said ‘remember that time you kissed me in my sleep you fucking weirdo?’ But he wanted to. He was pretty sure he had wanted to even before this.
It would be selfish, to shake Eduardo now and tell him- what? Don’t sign the papers? Don’t freeze the account? Even Mark didn’t know what the tipping point had been. Maybe it was asking Eduardo for the money at all; maybe they had always been heading towards this. Even now, with Eduardo asleep on the bed beside him. There was nothing Mark could do to change it, and even if he knew the right words, Eduardo had already told him no.
Mark lay awake, and stared at the ceiling.
*
Palo Alto, 2007
If Mark has a head-injury, Eduardo shouldn’t be letting him drink. But Eduardo doesn’t really believe that. He doesn’t know when time-travelling consciousness became more likely, but Mark is bobbing his head to music only he can hear, and Eduardo is smiling at him. It’s just one day, but Eduardo is starting to put together a picture. He was beginning to think he could remember the other side of this.
Mark catches his eye. “Tell me what happened.”
“I can’t.”
“You must be able to tell me something. Maybe that’s the point of the dream, maybe I’m supposed to change it.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Why not? If I have- if I end up with all this money, and this phenomenal company that you say is going to change everything. Why can’t I change this too?”
“Mark. I don’t know, even if I told you, that you would try and change anything. I never thought- at the time I never thought you regretted the way it happened. But it might change something and I can’t risk that. You- if you knew everything, you wouldn’t want me to risk that either.”
Mark stares at him for a long moment. “I don’t know how you can be sure of that.”
“I know you, remember?”
“Yes, so I don’t know how this- I never imagined doing this, and not having you with me. You were always…”
Eduardo would have given anything back then, to hear Mark say that. Mark is only saying it now because he thinks he’s dreaming. It had been the depositions before Mark had even said ‘and he was my best friend’ and Eduardo hadn’t been in the room at the time.
Eduardo says, “I know. I know, okay, I know. But you do most of this without me there, and you do fine. I promise. Plus you never even mention any of this to me, so I doubt you’re going to remember it.”
“I could try.”
“You shouldn’t. Just concentrate on the good parts, all right? The Facebook is going to be a success, and you take it there. Don’t worry about the rest.”
Mark nods, though he’s clearly not happy with the situation. His head is drooping, and Eduardo catches him around the shoulders. “Go to bed,” he says. “It’s right up the stairs. Maybe you’ll wake up tomorrow in Harvard, and everything will be back to normal.”
Mark hums vague agreement and Eduardo watches him walk away.
*
Harvard, 2004
Mark woke up. His back was twisted up because of the angle he was lying on. When he turned over, Eduardo was lying passed out beside him. They must have got drunk last night. That explained the dream. He shook his head, trying to clear it.
He climbed out of bed. Mark powered up his computer and glared at the date. He had lost days coding before but they have important work to do.
He could hear Dustin crashing about in the other room. “Dustin, that better be extremely loud coding you’re doing in there!” Dustin grumbled something unintelligible in response.
Eduardo turned over on the bed. He smiled blearily at Mark. “Hey.”
“Hi. I really have to get some coding done. You can go back to sleep if you want, but if you’re looking for conversation you should probably try somewhere else.”
Eduardo’s eyebrows pulled together in a frown and he sighed. “Okay. Back to normality I guess. I suppose breakfast is out of the question?”
“Bring me back a bagel or something if you’re coming back.”
Eduardo hauled himself off the bed. “Sure. I’ll see you in a bit. I want to grab my books first.”
“For your Philosophy test.”
Eduardo paused in the doorway. “Yeah. Exactly.” He walked away, and Mark heard him murmuring something to Dustin before the suite door closed.
Mark didn’t remember much about the dream. It was something to do with The Facebook, but so are most of his thoughts right now. And Eduardo was there - he remembered that part. He remembered that he was going to have to do this on his own; Eduardo wasn’t going to stay.
Mark shook himself again, and plunged into the coding. This was going to change the world. He was sure of that.
*
Palo Alto, 2007
Mark wakes up in his own bed, stretched out across it. Early morning sunlight is filtering through the shades.
He heads downstairs, looking for something he can use to double-check the date, and make sure the world hasn’t changed in his sleep. Mark opens the door.
Eduardo leans over the arm of the chair and looks at him. “Hi.”
“Hi. Eduardo, did you… yesterday, did you…?”
“No, I stayed pretty much in my own timeline. How about you?”
Mark stares. “I swapped with him. It wasn’t just me.”
“No. You don’t remember?”
“I remember yesterday. Uh. My yesterday. Which was in two thousand and four. At Harvard. I’m guessing your yesterday went somewhat differently.”
“Yeah. I was dealing with a Mark coming from two thousand and four.” Eduardo waits for a moment. “You should- I would have thought you should remember that part too.”
Mark had been thinking about that. He remembers the day before, with the promise of Stanford and California. The day after that is a blur. He remembers that Eduardo was acting a little strange. He remembers thinking that he had slept too long, and that he had a weird dream. He says, “Not really. Like a daydream, maybe. I didn’t even remember that until I was there and started putting the pieces together.”
“It’s funny,” Eduardo says. “I was the same way. I had almost forgotten that whole day. Not really, of course, but it was such a… it was a good day. I hadn’t thought about it in a while. I just don’t understand-.”
“What?”
“What you were doing. You had a whole day and you spent it…”
“With you,” Mark says. “I spent it with you.”
“Mark.”
“What else do you think I should have done with it? Other people might, I guess, have placed bets or something? I’m already a billionaire, Eduardo, I don’t need more money.”
“I know, but you could have… you weren’t tempted to change anything?”
“I was. I asked you, you said no.”
“Mark.”
“And I’m guessing you said no here too. Why didn’t you change anything?” Mark asked.
“Because I…”
“You’re too nice, Eduardo. You could have… You don’t believe in second chances?”
“No,” Eduardo says shortly. “Not like that.”
“Oh.” He should- he should go somewhere. Away. But it’s his house and Eduardo is still here. He turns around anyway.
Eduardo grabs hold of his arm. “Mark. If I hadn’t said no. What would you have told me?”
Mark shrugs. “Not to sign the papers? Not to- I don’t know, I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. Why? What did you want to tell me?”
“I wanted to…” It’s Eduardo’s turn to look away. “Changing what happened wouldn’t be a second chance. It’s having your first chance over again.”
“Wardo. What did you want to tell me?”
“I guess… if I told you anything…” He exhales noisily. “Maybe I wanted to tell you that your best friend was in love with you, and it was going to stop him being anything like objective when it came to the company the two of you were building.”
“Wardo.”
“But I didn’t, okay? Because it wouldn’t change anything. Or we didn’t know what it would change.”
“And you don’t believe in second chances.”
“I don’t believe in taking your first chance twice. Even if it- probably what happens is you make the same mistakes over again."
“Wardo. Wardo, if I… there was something else. If I had told you. But I don’t think it would have changed anything either. I don’t think it would have helped, then, for me to tell you that.”
“Mark. What was-?”
Mark hadn’t even thought this part out loud. It would have been wrong to say it to Eduardo then, when it couldn’t have made anything different. It might not change anything now but he still thinks Eduardo should know.
Eduardo’s hand is at the side of his face, looking like he doesn’t know if Mark’s going to make a confession or try taking his shares again.
“I could have-,” Mark says. “I could have told you that your best friend is in love with you too but he’s not going to notice that for about another two years, and it’s not going to be any good to you then. I could maybe have told you that.”
Eduardo is meeting Mark’s eyes again. “You-.”
“What is a second chance?” Mark asks. “By your definition.”
“It’s… knowing what happened the first time, and trying again anyway.”
There’s something significant in that. Like Mark is supposed to be following along. And Mark has never been great with understanding the codes people use when they talk but this is Eduardo. He’s been trying to pay more attention and he knows what he missed back then.
Mark says, “I- okay. So, this is me, now, telling you. I would like to try that. If you’re still- if you’re still- with me. Because I am with you.”
There is a pause and then: “You said ‘we’,” Eduardo said. “’Look what we did.’”
“I’m sorry?”
“Chris is going to want to know where you are. I told him you were sick yesterday, you were supposed to be in those preliminary meetings before this afternoon’s…”
“I remember, Wardo, you took me to the offices?”
“Just for a minute. I didn’t mean to- Mark, we really need to get you there before the meetings.”
“It’ll wait. Eduardo, what are you-? Please.”
Eduardo takes hold of Mark’s hand. He looks down at Mark’s palm and then he – just for a second – he pulls them close together. Mark can feel his heartbeat. Eduardo says, “Okay. If- okay.”
“A second chance?”
“A second chance,” Eduardo echoes. “To see what happens. Because we don’t know that yet.”
Changing the future seems like a much better plan than changing the past. Mark drives to the office with Eduardo and smirks when Philip does a double-take at the two of them coming through security. This is going to be interesting. Everything from here on in is new.