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Neil opens his eyes to see a plain beige ceiling. He’s alone in a small beige room lying in a plain white bed. For a moment, all he can focus on is the texture of the thin white sheet under his fingertips. Not scratchy, not soft, a clean texture. A safehouse somewhere perhaps, one with access to medical professionals. Hospital sheets have that same clean texture.
I’m not dead .
The thought stays in his mind like smoke, present but intangible. Neil had thought he was going to die. His partner practically told him he was going to die. Neil had been ready to die: he set his past self up. What had he said? This is the end of a beautiful friendship . Casablanca. Sort of. It wasn’t their movie; they didn’t have one movie or song or place. But it was a movie. One they had watched together in the early days. Neil had dozed off a third of the way into the movie, but was woken up by a head falling onto his shoulder, dark curls tickling his cheek. At that time Neil barely dared to breathe, reveling in this new - to him at least - intimacy. In the fact that the other man trusted him enough to let his guard down.
Neil continues tracing random patterns in the clean sheets. Whatever drugs he’s on fills his mind full of fog. Thoughts and memories come and go without focus. He had had an inkling that he wouldn’t survive when his partner told him to make contact with his past self in Mumbai. To set in motion the plan to save the world from the future. But he hadn’t given his suspicion much consideration. They had time; they would always have time. Neil had lost count of how many years they had experienced together since his first meeting right after he finished his masters program. By sending his partner back to recruit his past self, they would meet anew. In a way, he would keep on living even after death. They would have time.
But I’m not dead . Neil stops his roving fingers. How? He had gone back in time at Stalks-12 a third time, back to the tunnel, had fought and...lost. Some of the smoke in his mind dissipated and he remembered being thrown against an iron gate, skull cracking against the metal. He was barely conscious at that point but he remembered, yes, being shot point blank in the chest. Those weren’t survivable wounds.
Neil raises a shaky hand to his head. He feels bare skin and a wide bandage. Someone had shaved his hair and stitched up the wound, but he doesn’t feel any pain. He looks down at his pale chest wrapped in white bandages and presses his hand lightly on his ribs. Still no pain. Neil pushes himself slowly into a sitting position. The upward movement helps clear away the fog in his mind. I’m alive ...
The door on the far side of the room opens. A dark man with warm eyes walks through and pauses just past the threshold. He mouths a word and stares. Neil thinks it looked like his own name.
“You're awake.” The man says.
Neil stares. Is he his partner? Does this man share the complementary memories of their adventures together? Can he read Neil with a glance? Neil knows the emotions in the other’s eyes: love, joy, hope. But he needs to know if he is being understood in return.
“Do I know your real name?” Neil asks.
The other man blinks; the question was unexpected. Neil fights to keep disappointment from showing on his face. The man is not his partner, not yet.
“No. I haven’t told you.” The man says slowly. “Do you want to know?"
Neil shakes his head. “Not now. How did you get me out?”
“I couldn’t let you die, Neil. I went back and replaced the live rounds with blanks. I ordered a team to pull you out of the tunnel while Ives and I were fighting to get the algorithm.” The man shakes his head. The beginning of a wry smile appears on his lips. “It was actually a lot easier than I thought.”
Neil huffs a laugh. “Instinct.”
“Instinct.” The man smiles.
The moment stretches between them, languid and not completely unlike the smoke that blanketed Neil’s mind when he first woke. But unlike the earlier, Neil feels fully present. He commits to memory the way the light falls on the dark curls of the man’s head, the way his beard is longer than usual but still kept, the deep perception of his eyes. Neil sees the man before him, and is being seen by him at the same time. It’s a deeply comfortable realization.
“I have to go back and set all this in motion, don’t I?” The man asks.
“From my perspective you already did.” Neil responds.
“Well then,” the other man says, “I guess I don’t want to disappoint you now, do I.”
“You can’t.” Neil speaks and wills him to understand the truth. You can’t disappoint me. This was always meant to happen. We were always meant to happen. When the other man inhales sharply and looks away, Neil thinks that he got through to him.
Still looking at the ground the other man says, “I tell you my name?”
“At some point.”
“I bet I tell you when I first recruit you.” The man looks back up at Neil. “You’ve always known my name.”
Neil tries to keep his face blank, but sees his smile reflected in the other man’s face.
“Just as you’ve always known mine.” Neil says.
The feeling of mutual understanding arises between them anew. Though the man standing a few feet away is not his partner, not yet, Neil knows that he in fact is. They may not share the same memories, not yet, but they see each other and know each other. The understanding is not selfishly recursive; Neil cannot see himself through the other man seeing him. Instead, it is a deep and mutual love. Even at a wrong time.
“I should go.” The man says.
“I’ll see you soon.”
“A version of me, a later me."
“No,” Neil says, “There’s only one version of you.”
The other man looks at him for a moment. Then he shakes his head. “Nope! Another headache.” He says ruefully. “I need to go back so I can know more than you.”
Neil laughs at that, “Enjoy it while it lasts!”
The other man grins at him one last time, and walks out of the room. Neil knows he will see him again soon. They have time.