Chapter Text
They decide to tell Vance. Grace isn’t certain it’s the best idea. She still struggles to accept the passengers’ story, that it isn’t just some strange mass hallucination. And she isn’t the one involved in a governmental intelligence agency (she cannot remember which one Vance is in, although Ben and Saanvi and Mick have mentioned it).
It doesn’t help that the leaders of the Lifeboat are divided as well. Ben and Saanvi are firmly on the side of bringing Vance into the group. Saanvi has already brought in a research colleague from the university, Troy, who she had worked with in the other timeline. He was willing enough to believe everything once she had shown him scans of the passengers’ brain activity and genetic markers, which remained unusual, and the composition of a tiny bit of sapphire they had discovered in the cockpit of the plane (Grace was still unclear how they had gotten that).
But Mick is hesitant. Grace knows Mick trusted the Vance of the other timeline as much as Ben and Saanvi but she isn’t so sure about this one. “He was a huge problem for us for months,” Mick argues with Ben and Saanvi. “It took some seriously strange situations, not to mention pretty awful human rights abuses by the Major to change his mind.”
“We’ve been working together for months now,” Ben counters. “He’s suspicious about the missing passengers, but he knows there’s something else going on that’s definitely abnormal. He even knows that the Major is starting to have people do research on Biblical sigils. So it wouldn’t be completely out of the blue.”
“Plus,” Saanvi adds, “We’ve got the advantage of knowing him quite well. There are things he wouldn’t have told many people, but I know, or Ben knows. That also worked really well with Troy.”
“You remember personal details about Troy?” Mick asks with a raised eyebrow. Ben covers a grin.
Saanvi protests. “I listened eventually! He just…likes to talk a lot. And I would tune it out. I know, I know, I can be very focused on my work, not that good with small talk.” She huffs. “I do remember if I like someone. I know all of Nicole’s favourite movies, for example. And there are a lot of them.”
Ben shifts in his seat, his grin gone. Grace and Mick notice, but Saanvi doesn’t. Mick tries again. “Ben, he’s a spymaster. You don’t think an already suspicious passenger on a suspicious flight saying things about you that very few people should know isn’t going to ring all the alarm bells?”
“Mick, I hear you,” Ben tries. Zeke comes in, and wordlessly hands Mick a cup of coffee, perching on the armrest. “But we have to try,” Ben goes on as Mick murmurs her appreciation and takes a sip. “Vance knows we’re keeping things from him, and he’s in the best position to stop the Major but he won’t be able to if we don’t help him stay a step ahead.”
Mick throws up her hand. “No, I know, I know.” She sighs and Zeke rubs her shoulder. “I just worry.”
“I’ll tell him.” Ben assures her. “I’ll tell him and then if it goes sideways, it won’t implicate any of you. Saanvi has her own research, and TJ can say he was just interested in archaeology.”
“We aren’t letting you take the fall alone!” Saanvi replies immediately, outraged.
Mick agrees, exasperated. “Of course not, Ben, we’ll all…”
“Bring him here.” Grace interrupts. They all turn to look at her, as if they have forgotten she is there.
“What do you mean lo— Grace?” Ben asks. Mick and Zeke notice the slip but Saanvi does not, instead frowning at Grace like trying to decode her suggestion. Bless, Grace thinks. That woman is always so busy trying to solve problems she barely notices anything else.
“I mean, invite him along to the house, say you want to discuss some findings. I’ll have food and invite him to stay for some. It’ll be us five, and you can take him aside and explain it to him. He might be a little less likely to think you’re some kind of secret operative or a terrorist cell when he’s having a suburban dinner party. And if he thinks you are the only crazy ones, well,” Grace shrugs. “He’ll have two non-passengers to question.”
They look at Grace with something like concern and something like admiration. “Aren’t you worried about the kids?” Mick asks, at the same time Saanvi thoughtfully says, “It could work”.
“I wasn’t thinking of having them in the house. They’re teenagers, we tell Vance they have a basketball game, or went to hang out with friends. Look, I’d like nothing more than to keep them as far away from…all of this…as possible. But if Ben tells Vance, any blowback is going to affect us all, including Cal and Olive. So we can’t avoid them getting involved anyway.”
Ben and Mick look hesitant. Zeke’s expression is thoughtful, but Saanvi is on board. “I can invite Troy as well.” She adds. “We can bring some new results in from the sapphire and from the brain scans. If anything maybe they can serve as another piece of proof.”
“I don’t know…?” Ben glances at Grace.
She takes a breath. “Look, I was,” – frankly, still is – “the most skeptical of anyone you’ve brought into to all this. And my other self was as well. I can’t say it will be easy. But I would be less likely to walk away if I was shown multiple testimonies to the same story, had some physical proof on hand, had a quiet space to take it all in.”
“You never walked away.” Ben says, pained.
“Vance doesn’t have children in the middle of it.” Grace counters and she feels bad but it’s true and should be said.
Zeke nods. “Yeah, it was different for all of us, but I think it’s better than trying to convince a government agent of apocalypse and visions and time travel over a Starbucks. Or worse, walking right into their offices.”
They decide to vote. Saanvi, Zeke, and Grace are for it. Ben votes against it. Mick can’t decide, but finally is persuaded, as long as they have a safe house established to take the kids while they do it. Grace appreciates that detail. It would not have been something to naturally occur to her.
“Tarik still has access to his mom’s old house upstate,” Grace suggests. “We can ask him for the keys.”
Ben looks surprised. “Are you two talking again?”
“We are.” Grace shrugs, uncomfortable. “Just a bit. I reached out to apologise.”
Ben nods and doesn’t push. Grace is getting used to the hurt expression on his face every time now he is reminded of the distance between them. But this time he also looks thoughtful. “That’s good to know. It would be very helpful if we need it.”
The proposal is met with mixed approval. There are almost fifty people packed into the Stone’s living room and another several dozen dialing in via Skype or WhatsApp. Radd and Joe and some others – who have very valid reasons to distrust US governmental agencies – are reluctant. Bethany, and her wife Georgia, who is one of the few partners that has been brought into this network, disagree. The flight attendant argues that this is their best bet to stave off the constant harassment by law enforcement and reporters in their lives.
In the end there is a consensus, after several hours of discussion (and passengers, Grace reflects as she and Cal and Olive get another batch of lemonade to pass around the living room, love to discuss). The suggestion is that Ben, Saanvi, and Mick will tell the story, and avoid singling out any other passenger or say whether other passengers agree. Eagan is still opposed. Adrian is skeptical but, as he says, if Ben and Mick and Saanvi fail to sell the story, he’ll claim they were the crazy ones.
In the meantime, they agree to set up several safe houses – the passengers are now experts at going off the grid. If Vance responds poorly, a signal will be sent out and the passengers will vanish. Some argue against it, or straight up refuse to leave behind their lives again, and Ben tells them they are welcome to stay but that they cannot guarantee their safety or that their lives will not continue to be interrupted by interrogations or reporters or government suspicion.
Amouto stands up once the murmurs die down. “No one says that we’re back in the bad old days of the detention centre,” He assures everyone. “But we know this government.” He and Bethany and Joe share a look, and Grace gets it. It took a mystical flight for Ben and Mick to learn what Black people in America have known for years. “They can change their mind quickly about our rights when they want to. And it may not be because of Vance. The Major was a much bigger danger to us than he ever was. Who knows what would have happened if she hadn’t died. Now she’s involved again.”
Ben glances at Saanvi, who stares straight ahead, lips white. Marko in the front seat shifts and mutters something in Bulgarian. He has brought a daughter to translate, who seems to be taking everything in stride with a very unimpressed Eastern European attitude.
TJ stands up. “I agree, this is better than it looks. If we can get Vance on our side we can be two steps ahead of anyone who decides 828 starts becoming a big problem again. And look,” He adds, as murmurs start again with all the passengers. “It is frustrating, to feel like we’re going backwards. But there is no Death Date. We saved the world. And now we can prevent more wrongs from happening. The world will always have its Majors and its Meyers but we know how to stop them.”
Ben nods approvingly and Grace is charmed by how proud he looks. She is still adjusting to the fact that Ben and Mick stepped off that plane with a new extended family of sorts, but she has to admit she has been impressed by all of them so far (she is still withholding judgement on Eagan, mostly because he is annoying).
“Then it is decided,” Ben announces. “Everyone knows the plan. We’ll let you know when it happens and if there’s a need to bug out. Try to leave in small groups. You know the drill.”
Telling Vance doesn’t go anything like they expect. The agent is willing to come to the house, which surprises Grace already. She knows it was her idea, but to be honest she had her own doubts. But Vance is all politeness when he arrives, although the massive SUV waiting outside the house makes it clear that he is never completely alone. He asks about the kids and graciously accepts Grace’s offer of a drink, opting just for a sparkling water.
Ben suggests they eat before talking. The agent waits for everyone to be seated before he takes a sip of water, leans back, and says: “So who here is going to explain to me how the 828 passengers managed to live through about six years of crazy on a five hour flight?”
There is absolute silence. Grace barely breathes. She glances at Ben, who is looking at Mick and then Saanvi, and then looks at her, and Grace tries not to take that order personally, because yes, those are his co-conspirators, his partners.
She glances at Zeke. He is stunned as well, and then looks at Mick, then at her. That gets her moving. “Well,” Grace says, standing up calmly, “It sounds like you have a lot of talking to do. Zeke, could you please lend a hand with the food?”
Grace doesn’t miss the calculating glance Vance casts her way, but she pretends she does. In the kitchen Zeke and she confer in hushed tones.
“What do you think?” Grace asks. This wasn’t what they had expected. She is glad Cal and Olive were so excited about the chance to visit their uncle for the weekend. Tarik was surprised but pleased to see his niece and nephew, and accepted Grace’s request to keep their presence quiet, with the excuse that reporters sometimes liked to hover around and ask questions about the plane.
Zeke shakes his head. “Do you think he had the house bugged?”
Grace had genuinely not thought about that. She supposes it would be the clever thing to do for a spymaster.
“I don’t know.” Grace is nervous, but she busies her hands setting out the chickpea and bulgur salad she had made. Zeke and Mick are vegetarians, so Grace has been experimenting with new recipes. “Should I send out the alarm?” She is thinking of Cal and Olive. Maybe her brother could take them over the border to Canada?
“No…” Zeke shakes his head. “If he already knew that much he could have just come in and arrested us. Or them. Or someone. I think we need to have faith he’s doing it like this for a reason.”
Grace thinks too many people have asked her to have faith recently. But she agrees and they take out the food to where Saanvi is in the middle of a very complex theoretical argument on the world-bending properties of blue sapphire.
As Saanvi’s explanation gets increasingly impenetrable – except to Troy who gazes at her adoringly – Ben gently interrupts. “Vance…” He coughs when Vance throws him a look. “Agent, why don’t we start at the beginning. Would you mind telling us where you heard this?”
“Stone, I am not in the habit of revealing my sources.” Vance replies dryly.
Mick crosses her arms. “And we’re not in the habit of explaining all the messy details of our lives to government agents. Unless you’re trying to strong-arm us?” She glances at the SUV outside the house, raising an eyebrow at Vance. He doesn’t say anything. “Right. So why don’t we try to work together here?”
Vance hesitates, and for a second Grace thinks about all the power he has, how an order from him could bring down the weight of the US government on their heads, could ruin their lives forever. Her eyes find Ben’s and she is comforted for a second to know that they are both thinking of the twins.
But Vance must make a decision because he leans back and sighs. “You are a crazy bunch, you know that? I’ve never had such a strange case in my life. Stone, I meet you and you act like someone I’m supposed to know. Detective, your work is making you a rising star in the force, but there are cases you should not be solving, much less stopping ahead of time. And Doctor Bahl, I am not a scientist but I know enough to see that the advancements you are using, not just in biomedical research, but in programming, chemistry, and even a bit of physics, are years ahead of what they should be.”
The whole table looks at Saanvi, who shrugs in embarrassment. “I started to dabble in my free time. Sorry, I don’t have hobbies.”
Ben looks amused and exasperated simultaneously. “Someday I will teach you how to crochet or something.” He murmurs, and Saanvi laughs quietly.
Grace hates the sudden hot feeling in her chest. She hates even more the sidelong glance from Mick and Zeke and even goddamn Vance.
Luckily Vance is not interested in getting stuck in awkward personal drama. “And that’s just the three of you, although you are the worst of the lot. Then we have Mr Adrian Shannon and Eagan Tehrani, who has an alarming accuracy in predicting the stock market, and Bethany Collins, a flight attendant, and her wife Georgia who out of nowhere seem to be running the most sophisticated smuggling network for undocumented immigrants in the tri-state area.”
Mick and Ben look like they are about to protest. Vance holds up a hand. “Relax, I’m not going after them. I assure you that at the moment I don’t have enough solid proof, nor interest. Let the idiots at ICE chase their tails trying to figure that one out. My point is that it wasn’t just the missing passengers, or all this sudden agency chatter about blue sapphire and Old Testament shit or whatever that caught my attention. Almost every single passenger who stepped off that plane is – and let me say this plainly – so goddamn weird.”
Well. That is hard to argue, Grace thinks.
“So I’ve been watching all of you closely, waiting for someone to slip up and talk.” He gestured around the table. “You lot, and Tehrani, Shannon, and Collins were the most professional. I could tell this one was taking the time to debug everywhere she went.” Mick threw Grace an embarrassed look. Well, that explained why Grace had caught Mick checking their living room lights so many months ago, insisting they had flickered and probably needed replacement. For that matter, Ben had been excessively thorough in his cleaning the last few months. Last week she caught him dusting behind the bookcase, which they haven’t done in years.
“But there are weaker links in the passenger group. It didn’t take long for some of my agents to overhear a few of them meeting in a café, talking about adjusting to normal after six years of crazy. After that we kept picking up bits and pieces – some nonsensical, using words like Death Dates, and Callings, and Lifeboats, but consistently, always taking about years of experiences together. And we checked our records. Most of these people shouldn’t have spent more than the five hours of the flight together, and maybe a day or two in Jamaica. So, no, I don’t have one source to reveal to you. Just what the detective here will admit is a decent bit of basic intelligence gathering and deduction.”
Grace is impressed. So are the others. Ben even has a stupid grin on his face. “Can’t keep secrets from you, Vance.”
They all jump when Vance slams his hand down on the table. “Goddamnit Stone, that’s what I mean. We don’t know each other! Not even my fellow agents talk to me like that.” He adds grumpily.
Ben tries again. “Okay, then why don’t we try to explain from the beginning? We’ll tell you everything we know. But,” He glances around the table. “It’s up to you if you want to believe us.”
Ben does explain everything. The food gets cold, because no one is in the mood to eat. Grace keeps her phone clutched in her hand, ready to send the text to Tarik if anything goes wrong. Vance remains stony-faced throughout. Only brief twitches of his eyebrow indicate when he thinks something is particularly shocking. Saanvi tries to jump in at various points whenever she thinks something needs to be explained in more scientific detail, with Troy hastily jumping behind her to assure that he has been able to duplicate some of the biomedical results. When Saanvi gets too caught up, Ben can usually bring her back down with a hand on her shoulder, but Grace barely notices. She is more preoccupied with trying to gauge the agent’s reactions.
Ben finally gets to the point where they are re-emerging from the plane in LaGuardia and reunited with everyone else. He glances at Mick and then falls back, silent.
Vance is staring at his clean plate. “Doctor Bahl, your arm.” He says without looking up. Saanvi jumps, glances nervously at Ben, and then offers up her forearm, with the scar from Angelina’s bullet.
The agent stares at it. “So Angelina Meyers, one of the missing passengers, is the woman who gave you that? Who kidnapped your non-existent kid?” He looks at Ben. “Who kills…” Vance does hesitate, but only for a second before staring at Grace, as if daring her to hear how ludicrous it sounds, “kills Mrs Stone. Another Mrs Stone. Because Angelina believed she was the angel sent to Earth by God to bring about the apocalypse? But then she spontaneously combusts on a plane that rose out of the magma of the earth because she was not one of the deserving?”
The table is quiet. Ben sighs and puts his head in his hands. Saanvi looks like she wants to cry or burst out into another complicated scientific explanation.
Only Mick looks unperturbed. “We know how insane it sounds.” She says quietly. Grace notices that Zeke is holding her hand. “Trust us. It took us years to adjust to the crazy. But that’s what happened. And we were sent back and we were given second chances across universes or dimensions or whatever.” She glances at Zeke and smiles. “Even across death.”
Grace refuses to look at Ben. She has heard the story before, but this is the second time she has heard the whole thing through. Now she has had time to consider some new details. Ben did the same thing when she died and Eden was kidnapped that he did when Cal was diagnosed. He became obsessive, even at the cost of the other people in his life. Even at the cost of his other children. She wasn’t surprised to hear him mention that it was Saanvi who helped him snap out of it, who made him feel guilty enough to start helping the Lifeboat again, to think of Cal and Olive. She feels as grateful for Saanvi as she feels resentful.
Saanvi tries next. “I haven’t figured out how it all works…some things are definitely outside of our current grasp of…well, every type of science I can think of. But there are some strange consistencies with this version of ourselves…this timeline if you will.”
“So you’re all time travelers now?” Vance asks, still grumpy.
Saanvi shakes her head. “It’s unlikely. As in, I am sure there are many aspects of current affairs that will probably stay the same, maybe for even a year or two. But just our presence here, when we had disappeared in the other timeline, sets off a domino chain, a butterfly effect if you will, not just of one person but multiplied by 127 passengers and two captains. We’re more like travelers from a divergent dimension. We couldn’t tell you with any certainty what events that we experienced in that one will or will not occur here.”
“Except the Death Date.” Michaela adds, confident.
Saanvi nods, although she is less certain. “Yes, it is highly unlikely that would occur since that seemed clearly tied to our disappearance and our Callings.”
“Which you don’t have now?” Vance clarifies. Ben shakes his head. “Because, you see, that would be a much more persuasive argument. If I could see you actually had superpowers.”
“It’s also more likely to get us put in a lab.” Saanvi mutters.
“What makes you think I still won’t, if all you say here is true?” Vance counters.
“No,” Ben says with clear conviction, those steady blue eyes trained on the agent. “You won’t. You are a good man.”
Vance meets his gaze and for a interminable minute the table is silent. Then the agent sighs and slumps back in his chair. “God, I am going to regret this, aren’t I?”
Ben barely suppresses a smile and even Grace feels light-headed. She can’t believe their gamble worked. But Ben Stone’s certainty seems to twist the universe into what they need it to be.
Vance joins them on the next meeting between the leaders of the Lifeboat. Ben has even invited Adrian and Eagan along, since their operation has become hugely successful not only helping people in the Lifeboat, but also creating a very valuable new web of contacts in the less than licit world.
Eagan balks when he sees Vance, since Ben had thought it better to explain everything in person. “Way to backstab a backstabber, Stone.” The conman hisses.
Vance turns. “You must be Tehrani.” His face gives little away, aside from a tiny quirk of the eyebrow.
Eagan plasters on his best smarmy smile. “Oh yes, Agent Vance. Your favourite passenger.”
Vance gives him a look over. “I think I know exactly how my other self felt about you, Tehrani. I suggest you tread carefully.”
Eagan snorts. “This one doesn’t change much, does he?” He says in lieu of a response and falls into his seat.
Grace leaves them to their scheming. She knows the initial plan, since it was discussed at that very tense dinner a week ago, and she is tired of all the back and forth. She retreats to the kitchen instead, where Cal is making himself a snack.
“Want some juice with that, honey?” Grace offers, and Cal nods.
“So what’re they talking about in there?” He asks. “
Grace shrugs. “You know them, sweetie. It’s going to take an hour just for them to decide where is the next place they should meet.”
Cal rolls his eyes. The allure of secret meetings of the passengers faded fast for him, particularly with all the bickering. Olive remains very interested, though she is often annoyed at how much time is spent wasted on logistics when she wanted to hear more about the sapphire and the mythology.
Cal gets his snack and wanders upstairs. Grace is just putting away the dishes (she needs to remind the kids that they have responsibilities to keep the house tidy), when Agent Vance walks into the kitchen.
Grace doesn’t hide her surprise. “Agent Vance, I…can I help you?”
Vance sighs and loosens his tie. “I just wasn’t expecting the process to be this…” He waves his hand tiredly at the door to the living room. “…democratic.”
Grace smiles despite herself and pours him a glass of sparkling water. He takes it with a murmured thanks. “As the mother of twins and wife of a very absent-minded professor, I can tell you that this house hasn’t been this democratic in years.” She jokes.
Vance huffs a laugh. Grace is intrigued. From everything Ben and Mick had told her about Vance, he had been an imposing, austere Director of the NSA (that’s the agency it was, the NSA). But she supposes that was the Vance they met who was almost five years older than this one. This one was still an agent, if a high-ranking agent from the sounds of it. Maybe not everything that makes Vance that Vance has happened yet. Maybe it never will.
Vance catches her staring and gives her an inscrutable look. “What did it take?” He asks unexpectedly. “What did it take for you to go along with all of this? You seem like a very level-headed person. How did you get sucked into this crazy?”
“Well, my twins are genetically half of that crazy.” Grace points out, half-joking, half-serious. She looks down at her cutting board. She’s taken to experimenting with new recipes when the house is full of Ben’s passenger guests. They seem to enjoy taste-testing for her. Amouto was a big fan of her jollof rice last week. “It was hard.” Grace admits. “I’ve never been…religious I guess. But too many strange things kept happening, things that made no sense with how I understood the world to work. So in the end…”
“Occam’s razor. Your husband tried to explain the concept to me.” Vance shakes his head. “As if he’s the only one to have read Russell in college. Academics.” He huffs. “But it doesn’t apply here. Because this isn’t the simplest explanation. Mass delusions, conspiracy, psychosis...In fact, you are forced to make a ridiculous amount of assumptions. The only thing that really sells it is…”
“…their conviction.” Grace finishes the sentence for him.
Vance looks at her, impressed. “I hope people aren’t in the habit of underestimating you, Mrs. Stone.”
Grace smiles. “You can call me Grace. Look, I don’t have Zeke’s faith, or Troy’s science, or your resources, Agent Vance. But I can usually tell when my husband is lying. And in this case, he is 100% certain that it happened. And so are the rest of them. That is a difficult thing to ignore.”
“And so we fall through the looking glass.” Vance mutters. “I’m not sure how much of all the crazy I’m going to believe. But for now, I do think your husband and this rather sophisticated civilian organization may actually be a useful asset in countering some of the worst tendencies in our government. And that is something I can work with.”
Grace shrugs. “Got to start somewhere.” Her water is beginning to boil, so she turns to tend to it.
Vance stands there for another second. “Thank you Mrs — Grace.” He says to her back. “…you can call me Robert.”
Grace turns in surprise, but Vance has already left.