Work Text:
June 19, 2023
It had been underlined in his mental calendar for 16 years. That was the day. The day he and the love of his life would be reunited. Chloe and Dogstar...Dorian. He corrected. Sometimes, he forgot that his callsign didn't matter anymore. Not to anyone but the Secret Service now, anymore. Still, it was what she had called him. Hopefully what she would keep calling him.
He knew it was crazy. 20 years putting his entire love life on hold for a girl he knew for a couple months a decade and a half ago. But time worked differently for him and it wasn't like he knew what he was missing out on. Pimple-faced nerds who end up with a internship at a federal agency at 18 aren't exactly Casanovas, so he had never had a girlfriend before The Incident. And then after...they didn't know how long they would be trapped in the loop. They didn't know if they would ever get out! Forever is a long time to have to work with your ex, so they had all agreed to keep it professional. And then after...well, he didn't think anyone would have blamed him. She wasn't even born yet when he first came back. But it just seemed...wrong somehow. Unfaithful to this future girl of his.
So he didn't. He went on a date, here and there, in the sense him and women dressed up and went to the same place at the same time. But he never once took them home. He never once let them into his heart. It wasn't as difficult as he thought it would be. It turns out when you sent 10 years living the same day, you find ample distractions when every day brings something new. And he had his career to think about too. That was something he could do for her, even before they would be reunited. He was armed with nearly a century of advanced knowledge and he would bring it to bear to put himself in the best position to help her. To show her he was worth it. Relatively minor things, in the grand scheme, and absolutely nothing that would put The Date in jeopardy. After that, history could do whatever it wanted for all he cared. But until then, he tweaked just enough that he was always in a position to benefit from it. That he was able to parlay success into success, power into power, until he was staring down the barrel of the Presidency.
Pilar had laughed in his face when he had told her this, in 2016. She was the first person he ever introduced into his circle about what his former life had been. He tried to seek out the others from 2098 but either they didn't remember (Why him? Was it because he was in physical contact with a Sailor Scout at the time?) or they didn't want to remember. But after 20 years and when it all seemed so dangerously close, he needed SOMEONE to talk to about it and the plucky ambitious aide who hoarded his other secrets seemed like the best bet to hold one more. She wanted him to be President, badly. She said as much. But she also told him that the Presidency was not something to be taken on to impress a girl. That it would drain him of everything he had. It was his turn to laugh then. "Things are a lot less stressful when you always know the correct answer to every crisis". She had smiled at that, in the same sort of way a wolf does when it spots a rabbit. She got it.
But as much as she got the mission, she never got the REASONING. That even if it was "for a girl", why not? She was worth it. She was worth the stress of 10 presidencies, if it came for it. He was living the fantasy of every teenage boy who had ever lived. No, he was living a fantasy beyond that, the fantasy so far beyond what they think they could reach they dare not even think it. There he was, a simple-faced teen, and this beautiful, intelligent, powerful older woman had taken an interest in him. Had wanted to be with him. And now he gets to reunite with her and she's just as beautiful and intelligent...but HE'S the handsome, powerful, charismatic one. And since no time will have passed for her, it'll be an instant glow-up. All the passion she felt for him when he was a loser funneled towards him now that he is a winner. If it took forever to capture that feeling, he'd wait forever. But he didn't have to.
June 19, 2023. It was coming. And he would be ready.