Chapter Text
The time hops started about six months before she moved in with Hero and Leo. The first time, she thought she was just having a very intense, very lucid dream – there she was, sitting in a classroom she didn’t recognize, full of people she didn’t know. It lasted for about five minutes, and then – poof! – she was back in her bedroom in her house in Wellington, like it had never even happened at all. It wasn't until months later, when she started attending Messina High, that she remembered the first time hop and recognized it as her current English class.
After the first few times, she started to get the hang of it. It worked like this: the time hops only ever went forward. She never went back in time. They only ever lasted a few minutes, and it usually only happened two or three times a month. There weren’t two Beatrice’s running around when it happened – it was like she literally took over Future Beatrice’s life, for those few minutes. She had no knowledge of what was happening during the time hops – despite inhabiting Future Beatrice’s body, she still had Present Beatrice’s mind. Everything was new to her. Present Beatrice’s body, however, was left behind. That was the most obnoxious part – whenever it happened, Present Beatrice’s physical body fainted, remaining unconscious for the duration of the time hop. And as far as she could tell, there was no rhyme or reason to it – she had no control over when it happened, where she wound up, or why.
For a long time, Hero was the only one who knew about it. Together, they came up with a cover story to explain her random bouts of fainting. They told everyone she was iron deficient, and if she didn’t remember to take supplements, sometimes she would pass out. It kept their friends, classmates, teachers, and Leo from worrying too much, and stopped them from asking too many questions.
She’d started keeping a journal after the fourth or fifth time, just to keep track of what she’d learned. Sometimes the information clashed – the future, Bea learned, constantly changed. When she lived in Wellington, she time hopped to a future where she was in the process of graduating from a high school in Australia. But after moving to Auckland, she’d time hopped to a future where she and Meg were in the middle of taking selfies in their caps and gowns, before the ceremony. In one future, she was working as a paralegal; in another, she wasn’t sure what her job was, but she was working in some kind of government office. In another, she was attending grad school in England, somewhere by the ocean.
She could feel it coming on, usually. The edges of her vision would get fuzzy then go dark, and she’d get overcome with dizzy spells. She could feel it happening one particular afternoon, when she was in the middle of trying to convince Ben to get out of her bathtub (he was such a freak) and come downstairs to join the rest of their friends for pizza.
“If you don’t want to eat, you don’t have to.” She reached for the doorknob and was greeted with a rush of dizziness.
“Are you okay?” Ben asked from the tub, “You’ve gone all pale.”
“I think I’m gonna –” was all she could get out before her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed on the floor.
When she opened her eyes, she was lying in a bed. She immediately reached out to the bedside table in search of a calendar. If there’s one thing that Present Beatrice had learned, it was that Future Beatrice kept calendars on hand everywhere – clearly, Future Bea was anticipating the time hops. She very rarely wound up in a future where there wasn’t a calendar within a few feet of her. Sure enough, there was one lying on the bedside table, telling her the year was 2022.
“Breakfast is ready!” Someone called from down the hall. Bea snapped to attention. She knew that voice. She’d know that voice anywhere.
When the bedroom door opened and Benedick strolled in, she was rooted to the spot, frozen. He was older, of course, and he’d grown into himself more. It was almost startling, how handsome he’d gotten (and she hated herself for noticing), but he was still unmistakably Ben. When he bent down and kissed her, she screamed and shoved him away. He jumped back, surprised.
“What’s the matter? Are you alright?”
“Why are you kissing me?!” She demanded, “And why are you in my house?!”
“First of all, it’s an apartment, and it’s ours,” He stated, staring at her like she had three heads, “and I’m kissing you because you’re my fiancée, and I’ve kissed you practically every day for the past eight years. Are you feeling alright?” He reached out and pressed a hand to her forehead, checking her temperature.
“Fiancée?” She pulled away, horrified.
“Oh my God,” He marveled, understanding dawning on him, “Bea? I mean – Past Bea? Is this the first time you’ve ever time hopped to you and I as a couple?”
“How do you know about the time hops?” She asked, getting more and more worked up, “And, I’m sorry, but I’m still stuck on this – we’re a couple?”
“You told me about them. I think it was right after Hero’s birthday, after she –” He paused, clucking his tongue. “After she opened her presents.”
Beatrice narrowed her eyes, suspicious.
“That’s not what you were going to say,” She accused. “After she what?”
“Nononono,” He shook his head, “If there’s one thing you drilled into my head after telling me, it’s that you don’t mess with the past. Apparently, you haven’t had good luck with that. You specifically told me if you ever time hopped with me, I’m not allowed to tell you anything you don’t already know. So forget I said anything.”
“Well, you’ve just told me we’re apparently a couple, and I certainly didn’t already know that,” She crossed her arms, leaning back against the headboard.
“That’s different,” He insisted, “it’s one thing to spoil yourself for the future, but you can’t run around changing the past. Things get… messy. That’s what you tell me, anyway. I wouldn’t know.”
She wanted to press him further about Hero, but thought better of it.
“So I’m still time hopping?” She asked, instead.
“A little less now than you used to, but yeah.” He sat on the edge of the bed, leaving a wide berth between them. “The other day you passed out in the middle of the supermarket. You knocked over an entire display of grapefruits. It was terribly embarrassing for you when you came to.”
“Awesome,” she sighed, sinking further onto the bed. “Do I have any idea what’s causing them yet?”
“Nope,” He said, entirely too merry about it, “No idea. And you absolutely refuse to speak to someone about it – you’re convinced you’ll wind up some kind of government experiment. Or, at the very least, wind up with a crappy reality television show, and you say you’d rather die than become ‘reality tv trash’.”
“That’s true, I would,” She affirmed. Ben laughed.
“So what’s going on with Past Ben right now?” He asked, “What’s the timeline?” Bea rolled her eyes.
“I never have any idea what’s going on with you,” She complained. “You were being a real weirdo about pizza just now, though. You were filming a vlog and you wouldn’t get out of my bath.”
“Ah,” Ben looked away, smiling, “That day. I guess that was pretty weird of me, hanging out in people’s bathrooms all the time.”
“Completely,” She agreed. She rubbed at her temples – the dizziness was coming back. “I think I’ve only got a few more seconds before I go back. Any parting words of future wisdom?”
“Just – go easy on Past Ben,” He said, shaking his head fondly, “Poor kid, he’s –”
She was gone before she could hear the rest.
“Bea? Bea, are you alright?” Her eyes fluttered open. She was back in the bathroom, lying with her head in Ben’s lap. He was bent over her, eyes wide and frantic, pressing a cool cloth to her forehead. She let out a yelp and scrambled to her feet, practically flying across the room.
“Hey, hey, take it easy,” He cautioned, standing up, “I really think you should lie down for a while – you hit your head pretty hard on the floor.”
He started towards her, but she backed up even further, until she was pressed flat against the wall. He stopped, frowning at her.
“What’s gotten into you? You’re acting like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”
“I feel like I have,” She admitted. “Can you - I need to talk to Hero. Can you get her for me?”
“Yeah, of course.” He gave her one last once-over, concern evident on his face, before disappearing down the hall.
-
Futures change all the time. That’s what Bea kept telling herself. She consulted her journal for reference, noting every single time a future had changed from what it had been before. That was the nature of life – even with the time hops, nothing was a guarantee.
But as the weeks went on, as the time hops kept happening, Bea couldn’t help but notice - in every future, no matter the place, no matter the job, no matter the time, no matter what else had changed… she and Benedick were together in every single one.