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This was surreal.
Unreal.
Not possible.
But it was happening, and Nathan had confirmed it auditorily, tactically, and visually, so that either meant that this was an extremely detailed multi-factorial delusion, some sort of advanced neural simulation, or that this was - is - real.
If this place is real, he's going to have to re-write the laws of spacetime to include matter transference due to demolecularization via disruption of the Space Time Continuum and likely convergence of some other factor that allowed him to survive. He should have just gotten ripped apart, not transported to some other fantastical place straight out of sci-fy nerd’s wildest dreams.
A simulation is - technically - possible; he has been recently consulting with a team over in Germany on advanced techniques for full immersion simulation. They were getting close to the first trials, but last he knew, the technology was still in its infancy. It’s going to take at least two years of solid work for that project to be viable – and it’s not likely to be this vivid. For something like this - something that felt real, seemed real, no lag, no disorientation - there either had been a massive leap forward in a very short amount of time, or someone else was well ahead of anything he knew about. That was possible, but unlikely.
Delusion is honestly the most probable, but … it doesn’t feel right. He feels in control, alert and aware; there's no disorientation, no hallucinations, no errors of continuality - none that he knows of, at least. He's hallucinated before – the result of some questionable choices in college – and he’s well aware of the side effects that come with them. This does not feel like that.
This feels real.
He needs to know which, needs to know with a desperation that’s too tight, too strong.
He needs to get back to Ally – if this is real, if he’s not dead – the possibility is a tight knot deep in his gut, wound like a spring. He needs to get back to her, get back to their wedding and their child. The desperation is more like a vice than he wants to admit, tight around his rib cage, because there’s a small nagging voice in the back of his head, screaming that he might not – probably won’t – be able to fix this.
He's still wandering, exploring - he vaguely realizes time has passed, that he has that distant nagging sensation of hunger, but he's too fascinated by everything to try to figure out the monetary system at the moment. A concern for a later time.
He runs into the monks before he stops, and isn't that a ride? People who can sense feelings, potentially read minds - he's reading between the lines, or more like, reading between the body language and tone of voice because the language doesn't sound like anything he knows.
Eventually, they get a rough translation going - it's very rough, but he can see how he can refine it quite quickly, and with the level of technology they have it should be a breeze - and a star chart, and a map, and he's not on Earth anymore.
He’s really on another world, in another galaxy. Very likely, in another universe altogether.
It's fascinating.
(There's not going to be an easy way back, he thinks, and the ache of loss is low, deep in his gut, deeper than he wants to look at. He’ll deal with it later – if the damn monks will let him deal with it later – he might never see Ally again, never see their child grow up. It's ... He'll deal with that later. He got here. Even if they don’t know a way, he might be able to get back.)
(At least, out of everywhere he could have ended up, he ended up somewhere high tech, somewhere that might give him a fighting chance to reverse what happened.)
(Hope. It's a strange, cutting thing that, at times, he almost wishes he didn’t have.)
It's not until years later, years of working closely with the Jedi, working to understand their technology and understand them, working to understand what happened to him, that he finally gets it.
He could reverse it. Could go back across time and space, possibly to that exact moment of demolecularization, and be back in Eureka. It would take years of study, years of setting up the technology, but it’s possible.
But it would be a wasted trip.
Reversing displacement, the demolecularization, would reverse the trigger point. It would reverse the rupture in Space-Time, and instead of just him dying, all of Eureka would instead. There’s nothing the Jedi have, nothing that he’s found in all the Republic’s vast stores of knowledge that would lead to a different outcome.
He’s looked.
Nathan just stares at the data, at the technology that could send him home, send him across universes, and knows he’ll burn it before he lets anyone use it. It's not a trade he can make. A rupture in space time is not that easy to correct, even for high-tech space wizards.
Yoda finds him later, in the gardens, watching one of the small waterfalls tumble over rocks and plants alike.
"I never took much time for this, before," he said, as Yoda comes to stand by him. "Too much time in the lab, not enough time to sleep or eat, let alone going for walks through nature. Yet this -" He snorts, shaking his head. "You have to walk through this. The paths are quicker through the gardens than going around."
"Good for the soul, nature is," Yoda agrees. "At peace, you will be?"
"You knew, didn't you," Nathan laughs; and it’s a desperate, hurt sound. He runs a hand down his face, wiping away tears. Nearly five years, he's been searching for answers. "You knew, and didn't tell me."
"Knew, I did," Yoda replies solemnly. "Ready for the knowledge, you were not."
Nathan lets out a soft breath. "I can handle a lot."
"Harm you, did it? Working it out? Or help?"
Nathan is silent, and the only sounds around them are the sounds of the gardens; the rustle of leaves, the babbling water, the soft singing calls of the birds. "I don't know."
"Balanced, you are not. But we are here to help. Sorry, I am, if I made a mistake, keeping this knowledge from you."
Nathan looks over at the little old Jedi. "I would have known, rather than waste five years looking for an answer that wasn't there." He looks away. "But I understand why." The ache of missing Ally, missing his life has slowly faded with time, especially as the answers became clearer. At least the years of research weren't a complete waste; most of the time has been spent catching up, learning branches of science that hadn't even been conceived, let alone studied on Earth. He's gotten the equivalent of two PhDs in that time, and he's midway through three others.
"I want to develop a place here, like Eureka was for me."
"A haven?"
"Yes. Someplace where people can explore science, solve problems, work together."
Yoda nodded. "A worthy goal, that is. Help, I will."
Nathan nodded, and watched a fish leap up the waterfall. "Thank you." The political issues here were complex and at times made Earth's problems look like kids playing with water pistols. On the global scale since the end of the Cold War, Earth had been fairly politically stable, and he had enjoyed the relative lack of military pressure to develop weapons. The Galactic Republic feels like a shaken beehive in comparison.
He already feels like he can breathe easier, like he didn't abandon Ally, didn’t abandon the child he’ll never get to know - he did everything he could to get back to her. The hurt will never go away, and developing a new Eureka would be years in the making, no doubt.
He’s never been good, idle.
He's looking forward to the work.