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It starts, as it ends, with an adventure.
It starts, as it ends, with the Library.
It starts, as it ends, with a boy.
It starts, and it ends. That’s all there is to it.
Jesper knows he’s going to lose his mind the very moment he sees him again.
***
It’s been so very long - or that's certainly how it feels. Far too long, at that, one might say. Long in a way that’s left a great big gaping void right in the centre of his chest, pulverising his hearts, killing him slowly, pointless in comparison's attempt.
It’s strange how time passes differently when you’re waiting for someone. When you miss them. Especially when you know you’re going to get them back. You’re hanging by a thread that you’re waiting for them to cut, set you free so you can be together once more.
Sometimes, the knife is blunt.
Though Jesper has a feeling that, with Wylan, it’ll be all too sharp.
Wylan was the name he’d given, back in . . . back in the Library. An archaeologist with a shit ton of sass that Jesper both couldn’t stand and deeply admired. Heterochromic, he’d noted – one brown eye, one blue. Blend them together and he may have just gotten the colour of the Gallifreyan skies spot on. Pretty. Kind. Kind in a way that had gotten him killed, sacrificing himself for them all.
Reckless, it might be called. Calculated, only they really understood.
Because, as always, there was more to it than just that.
There was the diary, first, this leather book with a cover imitating the TARDIS and pages that were practically falling out thanks to how well it had been used, loved. Except it wasn’t really a diary, not in the traditional sense, at least – no, Wylan had made another use of it. After having asked if they’d done this, that, the other, Jesper thinking he’d gone absolutely barmy, he’d shown him pictures, drawings, memories beautifully and neatly sketched onto the parchment pages. Talented wasn’t righteous of a word enough to describe them, him. Jesper’s eyes had misted, and Wylan’s heart had shattered, and that was . . . well, that was that.
He knew.
There was, too, more baffling and intriguingly, sending Jesper's mind spinning starlike - the sonic. His own, Jesper had noted, the very same cherry blossom branch, though it had had modifications made to it that he didn’t even know were possible for one such. In instance, the music notes that it offered instead of written text, crotchets, quavers, rests for spaces, abbreviations for more particular information, breaking down syllables and spelling out words with gentle yet magnificently complex chords.
There was a silver halo of them around the head, spiralling, almost. Jesper had asked what it meant. Wylan hadn’t told him, but he had a feeling he’d figure out either way.
He’s not sure what to expect, really, when it happens. He knows it has to happen, though, because it’s fixed, a point in his timeline that he cannot avoid. He wonders if Wylan’s thinking the same thing, wherever he may be, whatever he may be doing. Jesper travels forwards, Wylan travels backwards, though the timelines are iffy, and the same principles apply.
For now, though, he’s stuck waiting. Stuck grieving, mourning over a boy who is dead yet will live once again in his timeline. Who he will meet, who he will fall in love with all over, for every day more, who he will marry - he knew his name , for Saints sake - and who will be sent back to that library and die for someone who doesn’t know him that he’s known all too well because he knows love and love knows no bounds.
The TARDIS groans, admonishing him gently amidst his grief. Jesper presses his tongue to the back of his teeth and then blows out a low breath before moving to start her up and get her going. It’s just them, now, until the end of the universe, until Wylan.
His Wylan.
No. Not yet.
In what Jesper could only consider a final act of the heart, a vow complete, Wylan had told him what happened before he wound up in the Library. The end, no other name for it. Where he had last seen him, what future-Jesper had likely spent a few thousand years running away from much like he did everything else. He’d shown up in Wylan’s manor, the manor he’d helped him reclaim, leaning on the door to the music room with a new hat, smiling so wide Wylan worried a light breeze from the open window would make it stick. He’d taken him for a night with the singing towers. Darillium. A joyfully solemn sight it was. Apparently, Jesper had made a quip that they weren’t nearly as beautiful as Wylan, both in appearance and in voice, and that he’d cried, the first Wylan had ever seen him cry.
I suppose now it all makes sense. You knew.
Jesper had cried then too, and hadn’t stopped for a very long while after, the tears coming in floods that could fill endless canals.
Time can be rewritten!
Not those times. Not one line, don’t you dare.
There was something in Wylan’s voice, made up of pure desperation and a raggedly pained edge, like memories were flooding back to him in melodies, a burning heart extinguishing too quickly, that shut Jesper up for good.
You watch us run.
He had no doubt that he would, none at all.
For now, though, the most he can do is chase.