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Emily knew what he was there for the moment he appeared. He stood on the other side of the counter, opposite to Emily.
She still hadn’t gotten used to how time agents randomly appeared out of thin air. She stared at him for a moment, unsure of what to say. She’d thought a lot about what had happened back in the time hollow, but that did nothing to prepare her for this.
“So you’re my brother,” she blurted eventually.
JB nodded hesitantly, seeming almost uncomfortable with the word.
“I guess I haven’t been a very good one,” he muttered sheepishly. He scratched the back of his head and sighed.
This was unbelievably awkward. It was weird to think that this random stranger from the future, someone who was probably her parents’ age, was her brother. Her little brother, too, technically. It was all so strange.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry, for... back there,” he concluded, half shrugging as his arm dropped back to his side.
He didn’t have to clarify. She knew what he meant. “Back there”, as in the time hollow when it was revealed he was Tete Einstein, her biological brother, right after he’d been so ready to try and stop his own existence.
He’d really been rather rude about the whole situation, saying that it had to be undone without stopping to think about what that would really mean for the original Tete. He’d said Tete couldn’t have become a time agent, not knowing the irony of his words. And then, after that, when he’d panicked and sent her home with no warning, no time to process, and nobody to talk to about it. She had been more than a little annoyed after she got over her shock, but she understood why he’d done it.
She’d been shocked too, and her entire worldview hadn’t been challenged.
“It’s okay,” she said, and it was.
“I just never thought any of this would be possible,” he sighed. He shook his head. “It goes against everything I ever thought I knew about time travel.”
“It’s weird for me too,” Emily agreed. “When I imagined what my biological family was like, I didn’t think my brother would be a time traveler from the future.”
He chuckled, swirling his finger on the counter.
She searched his face for some similarities between the two of them, some family resemblance. They had the same hair and similar noses. But there also seemed to be something of their mother in his features too. They had the same deep and serious eyes, and the way he furrowed his brow seemed to be an echo of Mileva. He was almost unrecognizable from the person she’d watched grow up in the time hollow.
He looked better, of course, but it was more than just that. His way of holding himself was different and so was his way of speaking. All the little mannerisms he’d picked up in his life as JB. Like the way he fiddled with his hands and drummed them against any surface he could find— in this case, the counter.
He wasn’t Tete Einstein anymore, not really. But he was still her brother, and that had to count for something.
He was her brother and yet he was a stranger. Emily wanted to change that, wanted to know this person that shared half of her DNA. She’d always wondered about her biological family, even though she was totally content with her 21st century parents, and she’d been interested in what happened to her brother when Mileva revealed what she’d done. That hadn’t changed just because he was JB.
Still, she didn’t quite know what to say to him. He was supposed to be the expert, what could she say about paradoxes and ripples and original time? Everything he seemed to be so distressed about was so abstract to Emily, where could she start?
Emily had always been pragmatic. She didn’t see the point in worrying about something that couldn’t be changed, that had (depending on when you were) already happened. JB didn’t seem to share this sentiment. She could practically see his thoughts racing a million miles a minute as he stared at the counter.
Well, she had to say something. The silence had stretched on too long at this point and Emily was afraid that if she didn’t say something now, she’d lose her chance forever. That he’d suddenly go “Well, good talk, but I have to go now and do important time travel stuff. Good luck with the rest of your life! Have fun dealing with this all on your own!”
She was afraid he’d run away like he had before.
So she had to say something. She doubted that anything she had to say about the paradox would be helpful, like she’d said, he was the expert (and he wanted you to know that).
But there was one thing Emily had over him: their mother. She’d met her, in real life, not on a screen and not in projections. She knew what she was like, a little. She even had some memories from her previous life, even if it was from the limited perspective of a child. She didn’t know much about JB, but if he was anything like her, he would be curious about Mileva too. About anything from his past life, even if he didn’t want to admit it.
“I could tell you,” she started. “About our mom, what she was like. Everything I know.”
Which wasn’t a lot, but it was something. A lot more than Emily ever thought she’d get.
“No, I don’t want to—” JB protested, clearly taken aback. He paused, composed himself.
“I don’t need another mother, I already have one,” he said finally. He sounded like he was quoting from one of those books, like, What to Tell Your Adopted and Foster Children. She would know— to Emily’s parents, that book was second only to the Bible.
So Emily could spot how fake that statement was. It was like he was saying what he thought he should say, not what he actually felt. He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
Emily had wanted to connect with him over something, maybe say something that would wipe away the creases in his brow, but this conversation clearly hadn’t started off very well. He seemed to be very uncomfortable with the topic, examining everything on the counter with more intensity than was strictly necessary. It reminded Emily of the saying she’d heard about wild animals, “they’re more afraid of you than you are of them”.
For JB, that held true. He held himself at a distance from her, like he thought the physical distance would lessen the emotional impact of their conversation. She tried again.
“Don’t you want to know what she was like?”
“I’ve watched her life, I know what she’s like,” he defended stiffly. He didn’t make eye contact.
Emily shook her head.
“It’s not the same.”
JB ran his hands through his hair and sighed in defeat. “Okay. What was she like?”
It was good to talk about it with someone, and despite his protests, JB listened intently. Emily relayed every detail, every small mannerism of their mother that she could remember. How her brow furrowed when she was thinking, how her eyes were filled with sharp intelligence, how determined she was. She told him how it felt to be in her arms, what lullabies she sang, how she could make you feel that you were the only one in the world that mattered to her.
When she was done, there was silence again. It was contemplative this time, though.
Emily may not have had any answers or clarity, but for once, neither did JB. It felt a little bit more balanced than before. Like he didn’t know all the answers, like he wasn’t the authority on everything anymore. It was kind of nice.
Even JB seemed to think so— his posture was more relaxed now, his hands not as fidgety. His expression was thoughtful, maybe even tinged with longing.
Emily tested her luck once more. She took a deep breath.
“I know it must have been hard to learn about… everything, but, you’re my brother. I’d like to get to know you if I can,” she said softly.
“Well, I don’t think that would be wise, time is so damaged as it is—” JB started but shut his mouth when he saw Emily’s face. For a moment, something like guilt flickered over his face. It was a while before he spoke again, clearly weighing his words.
“I don’t know, maybe. Everything’s so up in the air now,” he threw his hands up as if to demonstrate.
“So, maybe. I can’t—” He sighed. “You live in the 21st century now, and after all this— if we can fix this mess— we need to go back to our lives. You here, me in the future.”
That… did not sound encouraging.
Emily frowned. She opened her mouth but JB hastily put up a hand to stop her, like “I’m not done! Don’t yell at me yet!”
“But, maybe, after everything, we can have another conversation. In a time hollow, where we can talk for however long you want,” he continued. “Maybe. We don’t know how this will all turn out so I can’t—”
“Make any promises. I get it,” Emily interrupted. She had a feeling if she didn’t, she might never be able to get a word in edgewise. “Thank you for that, anyway. And for coming here, too.”
He nodded.
“It’s the least I could do, after everything,” he said. “I’m sorry I don’t have all the answers.”
She shrugged.
“It’s okay, I don’t either. I don’t think anyone does.”
JB smiled ruefully.
“That’s more true than I knew. I thought I knew the answers to everything time could throw at me, but I guess I still have a lot of learning to do,” he mused.
“Me too,” Emily said. “I don’t think that ever stops, but sometimes adults forget that.”
He laughed.
A comfortable silence fell now. He’d said what he had come to say and he was straightening up now, looking more or less at peace. She felt it too, the closure she hadn’t known she’d needed filling her up with a sense of soft satisfaction.
She felt as if she should say something more, but she didn’t know what. What could she say to this stranger, who was closer to her parents’ age than her own? She didn’t expect that this would be how she’d meet her brother, but then, she’d never expected she would have a brother or learn anything at all about her birth family. Now she knew who she was, or used to be. She’d gotten to meet some of her weird family. (Einsteins and time travelers, who knew?)
That was all much more than she ever thought she could expect. So maybe Emily could be content with that. She’d have to try.
And at least, in the future, there was a possibility of more. Like JB said, there was no telling how everything would end up. That was terrifying in a way, but also thrilling. There were so many possibilities. She hoped that they would talk again soon like he’d said. But for now, Emily was content.
It seemed JB had run out of words as well.
He stepped back.
“Take care, Emily,” he said. He searched her face, a certain tenderness in his expression that wasn’t there before.
“You too, little brother,” she said.
He shook his head, a small smile creeping up his face at her words. An inside joke, for just the two of them. Something else they now shared beyond their genes, that made the chronological and emotional distance between them seem just a bit shorter.
He waved one, hopefully not final, goodbye.
And then he was gone.