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Listen. In Behrad’s defense, those gummies were strong. Whatever Gideon put into them hit different this time and when Behrad wakes up, it’s to fists pounding on the door.
He blinks with confusion and realizes that he’s incredibly nauseous, lying in the bathtub, fully dressed and covered in mysterious glowing goop that looks uncomfortably similar to the goop that had led to him being trapped in a time loop.
“Open up! There’s only one bathroom in this God forsaken time ship and I will break down this door if I have to!”
Oop. And there’s Zari. Though, it doesn’t seem to be his Zari. Behrad opens the door with a sheepish smile. “Heeey Flannel Zari. I didn’t realize you were coming out of the totem today. Sorry. I… don’t know how I got in here actually.”
He’s expecting an exasperated eye roll. Maybe a playful quip. Instead, the color drains from Zari’s face as she stares at him in horror. “Behrad?”
Behrad squirms under her intense stare uncomfortably. She hasn’t looked at him like that in a while. “Uhm. Yeah? Again, sorry for hogging the bathroom. I’ll just let you—“
And then Zari pulls him into her arms, devastated sobs escaping her lips as she clings onto him tightly.
“Woah,” Behrad says, looping his arms around her too, only making her cry harder. “Bad dream or something, sis?”
“Behrad,” she hiccups out. “I… I don’t understand.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to think I don’t either.” He looks up. “Hey, Gideon? You got any clue what’s going on?”
“It appears, Mr. Tomaz, that you are an anachronism.”
“Uhm, sorry what?”
“The timeline clearly states that you had passed in—“
“No, I know the whole shebang. I’m confused why that’s suddenly a problem?”
“Because you died, Behrad,” Zari says, pulling away to study his face. “But you’re here. And you’re… you’re older and you know Gideon—“
“Oh crap,” Behrad breathes, realization dawning. “Crap, crap, crap.”
“What? What is it?”
“Gideon. Did you just call me Mr. Tomaz?”
“Of course she did,” Zari says. “That’s your name.”
Behrad lets out a shaky breath, holding himself up against the wall. “I’m in the wrong timeline.”
.-~*~-.
“Okay, let me get this straight.” Sara crosses her arms with a pensive furrowed brow, a familiar sight that releases a modicum of tension from Behrad. “You’re from an alternate timeline where you didn’t die…”
“It’s more that it’s a timeline where the Anti-Metahuman Act of 2021 never passed so we didn’t live the kind of life where me dying was really on the table—“
“Stop. Even if you’re from an alternate timeline, this is still our near future and learning of the divergences between our timelines could impact our actions here and inevitably, Zari’s past.”
“Yeah, but the thing is—“
“Ah!”
“But Sara—“
“Nope!” Sara points a finger into Behrad’s chest. “I don’t care about what the me you know is like or what she would do, but my priority is to protect my crew, and Zari is part of that crew. So, even if you think it would make things ‘better,’ that is not your choice to make. Do you understand me?”
“Then whose is it?”
Sara glares. “It’s not yours.”
And after the months of having Sara as his captain, Behrad knows that there’s no way to argue with that.
“The only reason you’re not in a holding cell is because Zari and more importantly, Gideon are vouching for you. Don’t make me change my mind.” And with that, Sara stalks away.
“Intense in every timeline, huh?”
Zari chuckles tearily.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
“You didn’t do anything, Behrad. Just… you’re alive. And you’re happy. I can’t know too much about this other life you’ve lived but… were you safe?”
“The safest,” Behrad says. “And even if I wasn’t the happiest, I’m happy now.”
“And the other me, are you and her close?”
“We are now.” Behrad sees she caught onto what he didn’t say as her face falls. “It’s a completely different life,” Behrad says in an attempt to reassure her. “You two are so different.”
That’s apparently the wrong answer because Zari flinches. “And this other me, she… was she not good to you?”
“It’s a different life—“
“So she wasn’t. She got to have you alive and safe and she didn’t even—“
“Hey.” Behrad says, voice more hard than he intended. “She did what she could. And she’s worked her ass off since she was a kid and yeah we had our issues but she loves me. And I won’t let you talk down on her just because we didn’t grow up in a dystopia.”
“That dystopia was my life and my Behrad was the thing that made that life worth fighting for but he sacrificed his life just to save me even though I was supposed to protect him. So, I’m sorry that I don’t feel more sympathetic for someone who doesn’t appreciate what she has even though she has everything.”
Everything. Everything meaning Behrad.
Guilt pools in Behrad’s gut. He and the other Zari have talked. They’ve bonded in their own way but they haven’t really talked. It was a fresh wound that Behrad didn’t want to reopen more than he already had. But that wound would always be open for her, even when she had him, because he would never be that Behrad.
“Everything okay in here?” Nate asks as he knocks on the doorframe.
“Fine,” Zari says. “I was just leaving.” With that, she storms out.
“Aren’t you gonna go after her?” Behrad asks.
“Why?”
“Because…” Oh. They’re not together yet. “Nevermind. Timeline differences.”
“Timeline— wait, am I with your Zari?”
“No. Constantine is. Though, I’m not sure if they’re at the on or off of the on again off again situation they’ve got. He’s addicted to magic blood, it’s a whole thing—“
“Wait. Back up. Zari. And Constantine.”
“My Zari,” Behrad says. “A completely different person than yours.”
“And we’ve never…”
“It’s complicated.”
“And what does that mean?”
“That means that I think you’ve got a chance with this Zari. And that you should go for it before it’s too late.”
“Too late?”
Behrad shakes his head. “Spoilers.”
Nate lights up. “Was that a Doctor Who reference?”
Behrad chuckles. “Yeah. Ray got me into it.” Nate’s face falls and Behrad realizes when in the timeline he is. “Ray’s possessed by Neron, isn’t he?”
Nate’s jaw clenches, eyes unable to meet Behrad’s, full of grief and guilt. “Yeah. He did it to save me and I— I just…” He finally look back at Behrad. “Do we save him?”
“I don’t know,” Behrad lies. “The—”
“Differences, I know, I just… did you?”
Behrad nods. “Yeah. We did.”
Nate lets out a sigh that’s more like a sob and nods. “Okay. Okay, thank you. It may not go the same but… at least I have hope.” He claps a hand on Behrad’s shoulder in an achingly familiar way before he heads out.
Behrad closes his eyes, holding his head in his hands. He has to get home.
“You know me.”
Behrad’s head snaps up as he sees Zari stand at the door. “What?”
“When you opened the door, you recognized me. You called me Flannel Zari. What does that mean? How do you know me?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Behrad,” she says. “You know me. In this other timeline that has apparently been changed, you somehow know me. How?”
“Zari—”
“Behrad. Please. How do you know me?”
“Because… because in my timeline you live inside the totem.”
She stills. “How?”
“In my timeline, what happened to you did happen but the timeline branched in your past. So that’s why me and my Zari exist and the old you live in the totem.”
“But I can come out of the totem.”
“And my Zari has to go in.”
“Why can’t we both be out?”
“Because then I’ll die.”
Zari flinches at his words. “What?” she whispers.
“You can’t both be out because that makes two divergent timelines coexist meaning I can’t be alive and dead. Time wants balance and…”
“It’s me or you.”
Behrad sighs. “Yeah.”
“And I would never let you die again.”
Behrad swallows past the lump in his throat. “I didn’t realize… I didn’t know. What he meant to you. Your Behrad.”
“You should ask me about it when you get back. I think she’s just happy that any version of you is alive but… I can’t imagine a life where I stop grieving for him.”
Behrad’s body begins to glow, a tingly feeling spreading through his veins. “I think I’m going back.”
Zari immediately tackles him with another hug, pressing her ear against his heart. “I love you, Behrad. I love you, I love you, I love—”
Behrad wakes up in the medbay. He clutches his pounding head with his hand. “Oh man, what were in those gummies?”
“No idea,” Zari, his Zari, says. “But they got you to go into the engine room and crochet the wires. We found you passed out covered in Bosonic hyper-fluid.”
“Mamma Mia,” Behrad groans.
“Did you have another crazy Gideon trip?” Nate asks.
“You could say that,” Behrad says. “And I think I need to take a trip into the Totem.”
He waits until his time hangover is gone and braces himself for his travel. He has been rehearsing what he’ll say for hours but it all disappears from his mind when he sees the last thing he expected.
Him.
He’s younger than Behrad, no older than 20, and his eyes are like the other Zari’s. Haunted.
It really hits Behrad what Zari said about Behrad being lighter than her Behrad. Behrad had met this other Zari after having a lifetime with his but the differences were so stark that it was easy to separate them into two different people.
But seeing this warped reflection of himself, he can see why Zari is so perturbed about her double.
This other Behrad is covered in scars and there’s a weight to him, like he carries the world on his shoulders in a way Behrad had gotten a glimpse of but not nearly like this him.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” the other Behrad says, voice rough and hoarse in a way Behrad’s has only gotten after screaming all night at The Smell concert.
“I— I’m sorry. I was looking for Zari.”
“She should be topside by now.”
“No, not… I'm here to see your Zari.”
“Why?” He sounds genuinely confused, like he can’t imagine why Behrad would ever go out of his way to talk to her.
“I thought I should… I needed to… I didn’t realize you were in here.”
“You weren’t supposed to know.”
“Why?” Behrad feels his chest tighten. “You could’ve gone out there with Zari—”
“No. I can’t.”
“I’ll gladly swap with you so you can spend time with her out there—”
“I’m dead!”
Behrad flinches, immediately snapping into silence.
“Do you get that? I’m dead. I’m not like Zari. I’m here with the rest of our ancestors. This is our resting place. But Zari’s still got life. And as long as your Zari is out there, she can go out to live it.”
“And what happens to her if something happens to my Zari?”
“I don’t know,” he says gravely. “And I don’t want to know.”
Silence falls between them.
“I’m glad she has you,” Behrad finally says, the words quiet. “This Zari. That’s why I came here. Because I didn’t realize how much I… how much you meant to her.”
“I hoped I would have to wait a lifetime for her. Her lifetime. But… I’m glad I have her too. I just wish it wasn’t like this.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for? Death was a mercy in the world we lived in. And I died protecting Zari. It will always be worth it.”
And at least that, the devotion to his older sister, Behrad can understand.
“It was my fault anyway,” the other Behrad says. “If I hadn’t used my totem and became a vigilante, ARGUS would’ve never come after me.”
“Hey, don’t take all the credit. I joined the resistance too.”
They both turn to see Zari leaning against the doorframe. “Hey, Behrad. Didn’t expect to see you in here.”
“I was just heading out, actually.”
“Tell Nate I said I love you.”
“I will,” Behrad says. “He loves you too.”
She smiles. “I know.”
“I love you, too,” Behrad says. “I know we don’t… that we’re not… but I do.”
Her smile turns teary. “I love you too, jaan.”
“I’m glad you have him,” he says, parroting his words from before, gesturing over at the other him that glares at Behrad like he wants to blast him away with the totem.
“I’m gonna be okay. We both will.”
The other Behrad wraps his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into a protective hug.
They’re gonna be okay.
When Behrad comes out of the totem and gives his Zari a long to which she protests for wrinkling her outfit, she eventually melts into his embrace.
“Thank you,” Behrad says, finally pulling away.
“For what?” Zari asks, head cocking with confusion.
“For being my big sister.”
She smacks his arm playfully. “Ugh. You’re such a sap.” She softens. “Of course. It’s easy when I’ve got the best little brother a girl could ask for.” Her nose wrinkles. “Though, you could stand to take a shower. You reek.”
He laughs, bickering with her all the way to the bathroom to which they fight for.
Yeah. We’re gonna be okay.