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Alec's knuckles were white with how hard he was squeezing his fists. He was grinding his teeth, his jaw set in a painful line, and looked like he was assaulted by too many emotions to know which one to express.
"What do you mean you lost him?"
Isabelle let out a heavy, sad sigh.
"I mean exactly what I said, Alec. He was jumping rapidly to lose his pursuers, but not fast enough. They pulled him out of the tunnel mid-jump. There is no way to know when exactly he landed. And his signals disappear, either because he broke his time-set or..."
"So he has no time-set" cut Alec, refusing to hear the other option. "Do you know where he landed?"
"Yeah, with great precision but..."
"How big is the time window?"
"Alec..."
"How big Izzy?"
She didn't want to tell him. She knew what he was going to say, to do, and she wanted to stay silent. But he was still her superior, and he'd find a way to know anyway. But more than that, he seemed so sad and lost, broken and angry, oscillating between smashing the nearest piece of furniture to pieces and collapsing on the floor never to move again, she knew he had to do something.
"A century. Give or take."
His expression cracked and she saw him swallow back tears.
"How long does his signature reach?"
"I'd say a little more than a day."
"And how long do I have to stay in the right day to get a signal?"
"About an hour."
They were both calculating silently in their mind while looking at each other. A century. Give or take 36500 days to visit. 36500 hours to wait.
"Alec, you can't."
"I have to."
"But you can't. That's not what Magnus would want."
"I don't give a shit what he would or wouldn't want. I won't let it go Izzy. Not this time."
She felt her eyes swell up, tears threatening to fall.
"Jace was lost in the millennia, Alec. There was nothing you could have done."
"Why not? Why not try? Who knows when he was exactly? I might have found him on the first day, or the last. But we gave up. We said it was not possible. I'm not letting go again, Izzy. I'll go. I don't care how many years I have to spend looking. I'll find him again."
She nodded gravely. Who was she to tell him not to go? They were mad with grief when they lost Jace in the tunnels of time, when he fell off the grid beyond any chance of being located. Alec had wanted to take the long road then, but their parents had forbid it, even deleting the signal so they couldn’t know where he was. They weren't there to do so now.
They had been lost too.
"Here is the place" she said, handing him the coordinates of what was a little busy Parisian street in the twentieth century. "Start in 1981, and go from there."
"Okay. Okay. Izzy, I..."
"I'll see you tomorrow, Alec," she said. He turned his eyes away, unable to face her. She couldn't help but look: she took him in, his face, his determination and strength, how beautiful and fierce he looked. She would look the same the next time she would see him, but he wouldn't.
He jumped.
The man had been sitting at the bench every single day for thirty-two years.
It had been longer actually – her mother owned the café when she was born, and she already talked about him like she had known him for a while. He came at the same hour every day, for exactly an hour. Most days he sat on the bench, but when the weather was too bad he came into the café instead. Sometimes he came to eat or use the bathroom - everyone knew him. Well, everyone knew who he was and his name - Alec. Apart from that, no one knew anything.
He was graced by eternal youth, that was for sure. She had the firm impression he had the exact same face as the first time she remembered seeing him when she started helping in the café as a teenager. She was the owner now. She sat behind the bar, chatting clients up and making cocktails and coffees when she felt like it, and she stared at the man.
He usually had a distraction. Sometimes he drew, sometimes he read. He kept reading the same book for an absurd amount of time – she guessed he was only reading for this particular hour in his day, between one and two pm. Since she had moved into the apartment above the café, she had discovered he came on the weekends too. He came during the holidays. He came on Christmas day. Every day, he came.
He would write or read or do crosswords puzzle, but mostly he stared at his watch. It had to be one of those fancy phone-connected things for there was no way a regular watch could hold a man's attention so long. He played with the buttons, held it far or close to his face, but never seemed to find what he wanted to find in there, for after an hour he would leave, looking dejected and miserable.
People had tried to talk to him over the years. Regulars at the park or at the café, young boys and girls seduced by his sad blues eyes and thoughtful expression. As far as she knew, none of them had ever gotten anything out of him, barely a word. She had tried to, a couple of times, when she was younger, but soon let it go. She was full of curiosity but the man carried a sorrow with him, a deep longing that made it hard try to pry. He seemed ready to shatter at a single movement or words out of place. She just let him be.
And then, at half past one on a grey Wednesday afternoon, she was shaken out of her thoughts by a loud beeping coming from a window table.
The man's watch was beeping.
For a moment, he seemed completely frozen, hopelessly lost. His eyes were wide and unbelieving; he was half sitting half standing, having no idea what to do. He sat down abruptly and began to play furiously with the buttons of his watch. He was agitated, anxious.
And then the hour passed, and he stayed.
She was so surprised she couldn’t bring herself to resume her work. He stayed, fidgeting and clearly losing his patience for whatever he was waiting. Two hours and cups of coffee later, he was still there.
The watch beeped again. He jumped out of his chair and abruptly turned his head, so fast it had to be painful, to look out of the window, into the street.
There was a man in the park, near the bench. He was tall and lean, Asian looking, and very strangely dressed. He was stumbling, as if drunk, and looking around him with frantic eyes and panicked movements. The man with the blue eyes was out of the café in a second. She didn't even think of asking him for money - he was already crossing the street, running like a madman.
He crashed into the other one.
She couldn't help but stare. After a long embrace, they started talking, and then arguing. The Asian one seemed furious, and her mystery man on the verge of tears. She saw with some surprise that they were making their way back to the café, the Asian dragging his... friend? behind him. He stormed in and went straight for her. She was a little scared, but when he spoke, his voice was full of pain, vulnerable.
"I'm begging you, please, tell me how long he has been coming here."
She watched him, stunned into silence. Blue eyes was tugging at his hand weakly, trying to convince the other to let go and leave, but not wanting to get away at the same time.
"Ex... Excuse me?"
"You own this place right? You must have seen him. How long?'
She hesitated. She knew exactly how long, but wasn't it a bit strange? Sure was, but seeing them, how desperate they both looked, she figured it was not what they would dwell on.
"It's been at least thirty years, but I think it’s actually longer."
She almost regretted having spoken, seeing how her words seemed to crush the Asian man completely. He stumbled backward, looking at the other man with wide, disbelieving eyes.
He began to cry.
"How much longer?" he asked.
"67 years," answered blue eyes simply without meeting his gaze.
"You took the long road. For me."
"Of course I did Magnus! I couldn't... I couldn't let go. Time help me, I couldn't let you go."
"How long has it been for you then Alexander? How much older than me are you now?"
He sounded both angry and sad. They had attracted quite the attention, but the clients at least had the decency to pretend like they were not eavesdropping. She was even beyond that. She was listening intently, fascinated. It wasn't as if they were going to notice anything anyway. They were completely lost in each other.
"It's... It's been four years, Magnus."
"Four years you've been waiting, and how many more? Alec, how could you?"
"How many more? Any, Magnus. Four more years, ten, twenty. I would have waited until the day I die, do you hear me?" screamed Alec. They were both crying now, posture rigid and tense, ready to lash out. But then the Asian man sagged. He put his hand to his face.
"For me it was only yesterday, and still I missed you. I am so sorry."
The waiting man went soft at that, all tension leaving his body. He was struggling not to reach out, his arms firmly pressed at his sides. The other one noticed.
"Come here my love," he said quietly. Alexander went into his arms and sank in his embrace.
"I missed you so much,” he kept repeating. “I missed you so, so much…”
He was crying openly now, sobbing quietly against the other's man’s chest, trying to shrink his tall body to disappear into the smaller one's embrace, Magnus, who turned toward her with an apologetic face.
"I'm very sorry for the disturbance,” he said with a polite, if strained, voice. “We'll be on our way, once his bills are paid.
"Forget about it,” she said without thinking. “I... guess we won't see him anymore?"
He smiled a little, pleased with her understanding.
"No, you won't."
"Then I'm glad he found... what he was looking for. It's on the house. You can go."
"Thank you very much."
His focus shifted back to the man in his arms.
"Alexander. It's time to go home."
"I'm never letting go of you again" came the muffled answer. Magnus laughed a little.
"I bet. Let's go."
They must have left then. They must have turned to the door and walked down the street to disappear around the corner. She couldn't really tell, but they weren't there anymore. And true to their word, she never saw any of them ever again. Or once, maybe, but she was very old and they looked exactly the same, so it couldn't be.