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Bertbert should be used to this by now.
It’s well into the wee hours of the morning, and she’s rifling through her bathroom for the first aid kit she keeps for this specific occasion. See, Sigian anatomy is different enough from human anatomy that a Sigian first aid kit may very well kill a human.
Which is to say, Leif is sat on her fancy kitchen counter getting his blood all over it.
“You have a kit specifically for me?” He asks, shrugging his coat off.
“Not at first, no. After the fifth time… yes. I got a kit specifically for you.” Bertbert’s trying to remember the order of operations for human first aid. She remembers that one show - what was it called, Grey’s Anatomy? Stitches and disinfectant are common first aid procedures for Sigians, but she’s trying to remember where all his organs are.
“Are you trying to remember where all my organs are?”
Bertbert sighs. “Yes. Let me know the ones you can afford to lose.”
“I’d prefer none of them but I’d say a kidney is fair game.”
Once she has all her shit together she turns to get an actual good look at him. She kind of glazed over all the actual injuries - he just showed up at her door covered in blood and she panicked.
He looks a bit shit.
His hair is singed, there are burn holes in his coat, and most of his wounds are either scrapes or blast wounds. She’s glad whoever’s after his ass this time didn’t use bullets. The one time she had to get them out of him she vowed to buy herself a pair of gloves.
“Are you hurt anywhere else besides the obvious? Broken ribs, that sort?” Bertbert asks. His undershirt seems relatively put together besides a tear or two so she’s hoping this’ll be quick.
“I don’t think so? My ribs feel like they’re in one piece.”
“Okay then. We’ll disinfect your wounds and slap a bandage on them… I don’t think you need stitches, but I have them here in case.”
“We?” Leif asks, incredulous.
“What?”
Leif shifts his weight from one shoulder to the other. “Berts, just leave the stuff here. I can fix this myself. It’s, what, four in the morning? You should be asleep.”
Bertbert fiddles with the disinfectant. Brushes her nails against the cap. “I do have work in the morning. But…”
“But?”
“Look at you, Leif. You look like shit. I don’t have faith that you’ll put yourself back together.”
“I’ve handled far worse. Trust me.”
She deadpans. “Trust me” are two words Leif says that are warning signs of trouble.
“Leif, put your hand out.”
“What?”
“Just do it.”
Leif pulls his left hand out, parallel to the floor. It shakes. Bertbert can tell he’s doing everything in his power to make sure it’s not doing that. Which is bad.
“Listen, I’m a rightie. My left hand’s going to shake. I don’t even use it that often.” Leif is still trying to reason with her. It’s not working.
“Leif, just let me fix you. Okay?”
He hesitates. “Fine.”
Bertbert will admit, a part of her reasoning is because she knows if she left him be, he’d fix himself up and take her medkit with him. She wonders if he’d stop to say goodbye.
She soaks a cloth in disinfectant and dabs it over his wounds. A part of her feels like she shouldn’t be this gentle with him. Another part of her wants to. Unfortunately, the latter is winning.
“Hey, Berts?” Leif pipes up, after a stretch of silence.
“Mm?”
“Earlier, you said after the fifth time, you got a medkit specifically for me.”
“I did say that, yes.”
“Cool. Uh, so, this is the first time I’ve ever been here.”
Bertbert stops in her tracks. Looks back up. She didn’t realise it before but now that he’s mentioned it, he does look a little on the younger side. How the fuck is he here? Chronologically it’s all wrong.
“… Time travel?”
“Uh, maybe. Actually, yeah. Built a rudimentary Time Machine and whiffed the date and time. Next thing you know, like, a million Ted’s are on my ass. Recognised your ship, so I… you know. Stole a cruiser and flew myself on over.”
“Stole a cruiser… Right. That didn’t look like your ship. Still doing crime, are you?”
“I guess. Hope this doesn’t have any consequences on the past, butterfly effect style.”
Bertbert tosses the cloth to the side and swaps it out for her bandages. “We both know that isn’t a real thing”
“You do. Me? I’m not so sure.”
She wraps his arm with the bandage. It’s weird, seeing this Leif here. She remembers hiding under a table with him, remembers when he dragged her to a steaming spaceship. Remembers how this Leif’s arm is significantly less scarred than her Leif.
“So, tell me,” she says, pulling the bandage tight and cutting it from the roll. “What’s the latest with you?”
“Shouldn’t you know? Also, jesus, could you pull a little less tight on that?”
“No promises. I don’t know where in your timeline you are right now. Don’t want to spoil your future for you.”
He’s quiet for a bit. He watches her work. She sticks a cotton pad over where he’s been shot and wraps the bandage over. Not as tight as his arm, so no complaints.
“…Workin’ under Låfftrax.”
That’s what she was scared of. God knows what Låfftrax would do with a Time Machine. She can rule out the possibility that this is her Leif. She doesn’t remember him ever building her a time machine. Much less a successful one.
“Did you build the time machine for them, Leif?”
He doesn’t respond. Looks away. Picks at the hem of his discarded coat. Bertbert doesn’t really see him like that often. It’s guilt.
“Did you build that Time Machine for them, Leif?” She repeats, with more force.
“No. I didn’t. Made it for myself.”
For whatever reason, she doubts it. He’s telling the truth - or part of it, at least. She feels almost silly for thinking that he’d build a whole time machine for Låfftrax, but she couldn’t rule out the possibility. This isn’t her Leif. She can’t afford to keep letting her guard down.
“Made it for yourself.” She repeats.
“Yeap.” He’s unconvincing.
They stare at each other for a while. Bertbert knows he’s not telling her the whole truth. Leif knows that Bertbert knows that he’s not telling her the whole truth. It’s a matter of who breaks first.
The answer is Bertbert. She’s not happy about it. “You’re not telling me something.”
“I’m not.”
“Why’d you really build that machine, Leif?”
He wrings his hands together. “I wanted to… fix things.” He looks up from his hands. “Between us.”
“Leif…” Bertbert starts.
“I fucked up, Berts. I fucked up, and you got hurt because of me, and Verge… I thought… maybe if I could go back and do it all over, I could fix it.”
“You and I both know that wouldn’t work.”
“I wanted to try anyway. I’d do anything. To fix it.”
Bertbert sighs, for what feels like the thousandth time that night. “You’re doing anything but fixing it right now. Building a time machine that could easily fall into Låfftrax’s hands… it’s a stupid move, Leif. More stupid than usual.”
“Maybe I’m a more stupid Leif than the one you’re used to.”
“Sure seems that way. How’d you find me, Leif?”
“I told you. Recognised your ship.”
“Coincidental.” Bertbert crosses her arms.
“Okay, fine. The machine’s wired to look for signals that your ship gives off. For whatever reason, it locked onto here. Didn’t even let me correct the course or anything.”
“So your time machine is… uniquely wired… to come back to me.” She rubs the bridge of her nose. It’s cute, she’ll admit, but it’s also so, so stupid.
“…Yeap.”
“Leif… when you get back, promise me you’ll scrap it.”
“But—“
“Not a suggestion, Leif. Promise me you’ll scrap it.”
She watches a spark go out in his eyes and slaps the little voice in her head that tells her to give into it. You’re better than this, Bertbert, she tells herself.
“I will.”
“Now. As much as I enjoy patching you up in my kitchen… I think you should go.”
“Okay.”
Leif slides himself off the counter, dragging his coat with him. Now that he’s stood up, Bertbert is kind of mad that he’s still taller than her. She watches him loosely put half his coat back on, leaving his hurt arm out of it. He stops short at her door.
It’s familiar. Bertbert thinks she’ll never stop experiencing this - watching Leif go. He’s hesitating again - the same way he’ll hesitate hundreds more times in hundreds of other realities, with hundreds of other Bertberts.
He turns, suddenly. Faces her. “Do I ever see you again? After this?”
She can’t know for sure. This is not her Leif.
“I don’t know, Leif. That’s up to you.”
“Right.”
He turns his back to face her again.
“This is it, then. See you around, Bertbert.”
He takes a step out of her door, and she can’t help but call for him.
“Hey.”
“Yeah?” He half turns, almost like he knows that if he faces her fully that he’ll never leave. Suddenly, she’s forgotten what she wanted to tell him.
“Don’t forget to scrap that thing. I know how much you love your machines.”
He smiles, the same half crooked way every Leif she’s ever seen does. At least that’s consistent, too.
“I will, I will. Goodbye, Berts.”
“Goodbye, Leif. I’ll see you around.”
“Hopefully I’ll be less bloody.”
A smile picks at the corners of her mouth. “God forbid more of your blood stains my furniture.”
She stands at her doorway for a long while after he leaves. After his ship peels out of her eyesight. After she knows he’s gone. Bertbert takes comfort in knowing it won’t be the last she’ll see of him.