Archive of Our Own

Electrons hum through the air, elegantly orbiting their particles as they ponder the countless possibilities for the ending of the story they’ve been observing.

They can spin along every path simultaneously, but humans can only choose one.

Quantum imaginings of infinite branches collapsed down into a single version of reality. Which version of reality though?

Well, let’s find out.

Nimbostratus

Belly is stopped at a red light, afternoon sunlight slanting through the rolled down windows.

She taps her fingers against the wheel as she takes a sip of her iced coffee. She had added syrup after syrup until the barista had bewilderedly asked if she wanted to upgrade her cup size so she would actually be able to taste the coffee. Belly had politely declined and sheepishly asked for whipped cream on top. She takes another sip, letting the sugar rush through her.

Three sips later and the light is still red. There’s a line of cars starting to pile up behind her. Someone honks. Belly resists the urge to lean out the window and flip them off, instead settling for muttering obscenities under her breath. She’s a real lady. She’s also a decent driver. She never even comes close to hitting a curb anymore.

Well, except for when Steven is being especially pretentious. Then she’ll maneuver his car right alongside the sidewalk until his voice pitches several octaves higher and he’s screeching about his tire rims. But judge presiding, she’d like to have those instances ruled as special circumstances, please. The special circumstance being that even though she loves him dearly, her brother can be an insufferable prick sometimes and someone has to put him in his place, thank you very much.

She knows what to do in the case of a broken red light. Come to a complete stop, yield, then proceed with caution.

She just wishes the light would give her some sort of sign. Blink out I’m broken to her in Morse Code. Form a mouth and tell her in plain English. French would work too, she thinks she still remembers enough to have a casual chat with a talking traffic light.

Water explodes across the front of her windshield.

Her foot nearly slips off the brake as she startles. Rivulets of water and bright blue translucent shreds are strewn across the glass.

She peers out the window, searching for the source, and spots a little girl in pigtails with a pile of water balloons cradled in her arms. There’s a boy across the street that Belly guesses was the intended target, shoulders shaking as he laughs at the misfire.

The girl gives Belly an abashed wave, calling out an apology, and Belly smiles warmly as she waves back.

She turns on her wipers, sweeping away the droplets of water and fragments of rubber. Belly scans the intersection one last time before she takes a deep breath and releases her foot from the brakes.

She drives through the red.

Rain

Baby sea turtles rely on the stars and moonlight to find their way to the ocean, but sometimes artificial lights disorient them, leading them astray from the water.

Her voice shakes as she tells him that he deserves someone who loves him with every fiber of their being, someone who loves him in the way she now knows she’ll never be able to no matter how hard she tries. That she loves him but she’ll never be in love with him.

When she finishes, voice raw and fingers twisting in her lap, Jere’s eyes have a glassy sparkle to them.

The silence stretches for long enough that Belly is tempted to reach out and undo her words. She loves him enough that she would live on the sand under the harsh glow of streetlights forever for him—but that wouldn’t be fair to either of them. So she steels her resolve. She sets her jaw and lets her words echo even as her pulse flutters and her chest aches.

Then the couch shifts, and there’s a soft flurry of movement as he stands up slightly and bends to press a kiss to the hair above her forehead. His touch is gentle even as she feels his hands tremble as he cradles the sides of her face.

When he sits back down on the leather of the couch, the years fall away for a moment. The crinkle above his brow unfolds and the dark circles beneath his eyes vanish. He’s the boy who used to host shadow puppet shows with her under the soft illumination of flashlights while the rest of the house slumbered.

He’s never been more her Jere than in this moment.

He relinquishes her with the quiet anguish and understanding of a pure heart watching a baby sea turtle instinctively journey to the sea where it belongs.

The electrons are abuzz, vibrating in the air at this revelation. They want to accelerate down to the West Coast and spell out this turn of events.

Patience. This isn’t his story. It’s Belly’s.

Now hop on the universal wave function. We’re taking a trip to the City of Light.

Stratocumulus

The gentle waters of the Seine flow slowly past her as Belly rests her chin against her fist, strategizing.

She’s playing chess on the Quai d’Orsay alongside the bank of the river. Her opponent is a man with greying hair wearing a plaid newsboy cap, his mischievous eyes framed by wire rimmed glasses.

He’s a fierce rival despite being preoccupied by the crowd of pigeons gathered around him. In between his turns, he tears off pieces from his baguette, fresh out the oven from the bakery across the street, and fondly scatters them across the ground for his feathery friends.

Belly watches in amusement for a moment before sliding her piece forward. She hits the button on her clock and he reluctantly pulls his attention back to the board.

Their pieces dance across the painted squares for several turns, moves precise and confident.

Belly hesitates only once, hand hovering over her rook. Her fingers dangle in the air for a moment before she’s firmly grasping the piece. She castles, queenside, then hits her button with a definitive click.

Three moves later and she has her opponent in checkmate.

He takes the loss gracefully. Tells her, Bien joué, little lady, in a rumbling voice.

He salutes her with a sharp bow that she acknowledges with a delighted curtsy before he returns to his pigeons.

Altostratus

The heels of her espadrilles create a staccato rhythm against the cobblestones as Belly strolls through Montmartre. There’s a distinct charm coloring the atmosphere, and everything is imbued with an air of free spirited vibrancy. The flowers dance, the buildings stand tall, and laughter flows gaily as people wander the hills.

A woman descends the stairs from her apartment and steps daintily out onto the street. She cuts a sharply sophisticated outline in a floor length evening dress and cropped leather jacket against the backdrop of the quaint bohemian neighborhood.

Belly observes as she straps her helmet into place, coiffed locks falling in a midnight black waterfall down her back. She meticulously lines her stilettos along the deck of her electric scooter, sleek satin against the matte finish of the aluminum, and ensures her helmet is secure before pushing off with a single graceful sweep.

Belly watches, spellbound, as the woman glides effortlessly up a steep rise, cardinal red silk of her dress billowing around her in the crisp swirl of evening wind.

She waits until the woman has crested the hill and vanished from sight before she continues her path down the street, debating if she should stop in a cafe for another pain au chocolat and wondering exactly what would be the maximum number of the pastries that someone could reasonably have in a single day. She’s just decided that there is in fact no such thing as too much pain au chocolat when a sharp cry of, Attention! slices through her musings.

A rush of air, and a flash of bright yellow. Her hands are shooting up before she can even think, and suddenly she’s holding a rubber ball.

Incroyable mademoiselle! she hears a clear voice call out. She looks over and finds a small group of children gathered by the brick wall behind a boutique, their spirited exclamations and laughter ricocheting off the stone. A few of them are beckoning her with animated gestures, and she walks over.

She hands the ball back and she’s returned with a field of gap toothed grins and a chorus of, Merci! Through their overlapping chatter and her admittedly shaky grasp of the language, she manages to piece together that the children are playing a game of wallball, and they’re inviting her to join them for a round.

Belly pantomimes thinking for a moment, exaggeratedly tapping a finger against her chin before calling out, Allez! as she points at the girl currently in possession of the ball. Shrieks of laughter resound through the street as everyone scrambles into place. She brings two fingers up to her eyes, swiftly points them at the boy standing next to her in a silently teasing gesture, and he scrunches his nose and sticks his tongue out at her in return.

She hones in her focus, energy sparking through her limbs and down to the tips of her fingers. The ball is served, bounces once against the ground before soaring through the air. Belly steps forward to hit it.

There’s no need for her to jump to reach it, but she still feels like she’s flying.

Altocumulus

Belly is walking back to her apartment, red lip muted around the curves of her mouth from pain au chocolat and laughter and the hem of her skirt fluttering gently around her legs in the cool night breeze. Her camera is a comforting weight around her neck as it swings against her sternum with every step.

She had found it at a thrift shop in Marais, sleek black and vintage, and had bedazzled it herself. She takes it with her practically everywhere, her shots inexpert but earnest. The white paint on the walls of her room has been rendered nearly invisible under the jumble of her photographs plastered across them.

She revels in discovering the wisps of beauty in the ordinary, framing them through her perspective, capturing the world as she sees it through film. Messy and flawed, but endlessly alive.

The soft taps of her gleaming black ballet flats come to a halt when she sees it, illuminated by the silver rays of moonlight. She lifts her camera up to her eye, carefully framing a shot of a crack running along the pavement.

The way there’s a hint of a curve, a subtle rise before it unrestrainedly spirals outward, slightly slanted at the edges, reminds her of the shape of Conrad’s smile. She hasn’t seen it in years but she would know it anywhere, can recognize it even etched in the motionless stoicism of stone.

Her chest warms as the shutter clicks.

The electrons are getting restless.

Slow down. It takes time to grow, to find yourself. Why are you trying to rush the wondrous journey of life?

The sun shines brighter when we put in the work.

Cirrostratus

The waters of the Seine glisten under the mellow flare of the sun, rushing merrily below her as Belly expertly weaves her way through the similarly merry rush of people drifting across Pont Neuf.

She tucks her camera under the lapel of her coat as she walks, protecting it from the flurry of people surrounding her. As she’s making her way through the maze of limbs and blur of colors, she sees a flash of black and white at the edge of her vision. Belly is momentarily stilled when she spots the mime performing just in front of her along the edge of the bridge.

He seems almost as ancient as the stone he’s standing on, with his classic black and white striped shirt, suspenders, and a red heart of lipstick. Every passerby traces a wide arc around him, as though the door in front of him is made of concrete brick and mortar instead of air charged with imagination.

Belly watches the endless flow of people skirt around him, but the mime remains composed, smile never faltering. Belly feels an echoing smile curving across her face. She strides forward, raises her fist, and raps cheerfully on the door of sun kissed wind and dreams.

The mime looks surprised for only a beat before a grin is breaking across his face. He picks up a rope crafted from tendrils of the breeze, and lassoes it around her waist, using it to pull her through the frame of the door. She gasps in mock outrage even as a laugh escapes her, before she’s immediately standing her ground and pulling back.

They tug the rope back and forth, expressions fluctuating between glaring eyes and furrowed brows, and barely contained laughter. The mime gives a particularly forceful yank and Belly stumbles a few steps forward. She rights herself quickly, pressing her weight into the ground and steadying her stance before giving her mightiest heave yet. The mime staggers dramatically before collapsing to the floor in a jumble of limbs.

He lays still for a moment before enthusiastically popping back up in a burst of motion. He dusts himself off, snaps his suspenders with a flourish. Then he’s flexing a bicep, looking down at the muscle and gesturing to it and then pointing at Belly. She fans herself with her hand, blushing and feigning embarrassment even as a smile unfurls across her face. The mime tips his hat to her, winks, and springs into his next act.

Belly watches the resolute flow of his movements, the meticulous way he situates the sole of his foot on a rung made of everything but metal. She thinks about reaching for her camera, the strap warmed from the sun as it rests against her neck.

The mime, sensing her gaze, looks up and shoots her another beaming smile. She blows him an exaggerated kiss in return, to which he lifts both hands off the rungs to catch, promptly falling off his ladder. Belly stifles a laugh as he lifts an arm to jauntily wave at her from his position on the ground. She doesn’t reach for her camera.

Some beauty lingers solely in the air between people, invisible.

Cirrocumulus

The paper whispers gently under her fingertips as Belly carefully maneuvers a fold into the shape of a delicate petal.

She’s sitting on a bench under the shade of a tree along Place Dauphine. Dapples of sunlight pierce through the veil of green above her, shadows intermittently dancing across the paper daisy she’s folding to life. A swirl of mild spring wind tickles her cheek, loosening a few strands of hair from the dutch fishtail braid adorning her head like a crown. The strands move in harmony with the shadows, swaying to a tune only they can hear.

The pockets of her jean jacket are overflowing with bouquets worth of warped paper flowers, collateral damage in the wake of her quest to create just one perfect daisy. Belly narrows her eyes in concentration as she lines the edges of her next fold up. This is going to be the one, she can feel it.

She’s just gotten her edges precisely aligned when the sun is blotted out by a shadow looming over her. Excuse-moi, she quips, irritation seeping into her tone as she looks up at the owner of the offending shadow.

It belongs to a man with hair the silvery color of moonlight and hazel eyes, dressed in a knitted sweater and trousers. He rubs a hand along the back of his neck as he apologizes for disturbing her. He explains that he saw her as he was walking by the square and that his wife’s favorite flower is a daisy, and he was wondering if she would possibly be willing to teach him how to make one so that he could give it to his wife.

Belly’s irritation melts instantaneously, like a scoop of ice cream dropped onto the sidewalk on the hottest day of the year. She shifts over on the bench to make room, excitedly gesturing to the spot next to her as she moves to hand him a piece of paper. He takes a seat, crossing his legs at the ankle and accepting her invitation as well as the paper with a soft smile and a gentle, Merci.

Belly shows him how to transform the square of paper into a daisy, the spirited hum of their chatter as they fold interspersed with the serene rustling of paper being creased.

When they both finish their flowers, Belly’s is the most immaculate one she’s managed to create yet, crisp petals and a round center. Her companion’s flower on the other hand, is rather endearingly lopsided. He looks over at her flower then down at his own, a slight frown creasing his brow.

She leans forward, ready to tell him she likes his better, when he pulls a pen out of the pocket of his coat and doodles a smiley face in his daisy’s center. We must cultivate our garden, he quotes sagely as he twirls the now smiling daisy between two fingers, a mirroring smile ticking up at the corners of his mouth. A delighted laugh bursts out of Belly, and for a second, she swears his eyes flash the grey of clearing storm clouds glinting in the sun before she blinks and they’re hazel again.

Belly lays the two flowers down on the bench and takes a photograph of them. She stares fondly at the odd juxtaposition of her precise flower next to his unrestrainedly cheerful one, before picking them up and handing both over to her companion. He protests, attempts to hand the flower that she made back to her, but Belly shakes her head with a smile. She tells him, One for your wife, and one for you.

A smile breaks across his face, like a surfer cresting effortlessly across a wave. He holds both flowers close to his chest as he thanks her profusely, before bidding her goodbye and making his way across the square. Belly watches him walk away, the slope of his shoulders receding into a speck in the distance.

She turns around and begins walking in the opposite direction, a garden of crumpled flowers in her pockets and a bright daisy of warmth blooming in her chest.

Cirrus

Belly’s soufflé is incinerated.

Oh non, ma chérie, her instructor exclaims when she sees it. Her hands are on her hips as she leans down to peer at Belly’s attempt at the dessert, the polka dot fabric of her apron rustling softly. You did such a wonderful job with the croquembouche last week. What happened here? Her eyes are crinkled and mouth slightly downturned as she examines the chocolate wreckage.

Belly however is entirely unfazed. She glances down at the dark clouds of smoke radiating up from her ramekin, the corners of her mouth tilting upward and then glances back up at her instructor. A woman happily in love, she burns the soufflé, she says, voice lilting around the edges of the quote.

The instructor’s frown softens, a gentle shine creeping into her eyes. Ah, jeune amour, she murmurs dreamily. And how long have the two of you been together?

The spirals of smoke twist into the shape of fond memories, and Belly feels the trace of a smile begin to blossom. Oh, we’re not together, she replies.

The instructor looks entirely taken aback at this. She shortly takes her leave, casting a confused glance over her shoulder at Belly.

Belly remains undeterred. She leans her elbows against the counter as she scrapes off the scorched top of her soufflé, excavating the ashes until she finds a perfectly edible spoonful of chocolate decadence.

She thinks that even if she never sees Conrad again, she’ll still burn every soufflé she makes for the rest of her life—and she’s okay with that.

But she can almost picture them sharing one someday, shoving a spoonful of charred chocolate into his mouth and insisting she burnt it just for him—because I know you don’t like things too sweet—as they collapse against each other laughing.

She smiles at the thought as she casts about for another spoonful.

Cumulonimbus

The burnished wood floor gleams softly under the beams of sunlight diffusing through the arching glass ceiling of the Musée d’Orsay. Belly shifts her weight, loafers clicking faintly as she tilts her body to view the painting she’s standing in front of from a different perspective.

Georges Seurat’s Harbour at Port-en-Bessin at High Tide.

It’s painted in the style of pointillism. A coastal town awash in soft turquoise, cream, and sage. Sailboats docked in the tranquil waters, clouds cresting across the sky, and lush hills rolling onto the sand as the town breathes peacefully. Everything built from careful, minuscule dots.

The painting transforms depending on how she looks at it. Step far enough away, and the dots disappear into a seamless landscape. But step too close, and the town fragments into abstract dapples. Every dot is a unique burst of color, separate on its own, but together forming a vibrant world.

Belly lifts her camera hanging around her neck up to her eye. Through the lens, the town blurs into somewhere familiar, the faces of everyone she’s ever loved beaming at her from the shoreline and every dot aglow with a decision she’s made.

Belly thinks it’s the most beautiful painting she’s ever seen.

The air shimmers as the electrons thrum with the force of their anticipation.

This is the moment they’ve been waiting for.

Ready?

Thunder

He misses his train.

Papers flutter across the platform and he kneels to help gather them. Hands them back with a polite nod. He stands just in time to see his train leave the station without him.

He buys another ticket. Catches the next one.

The car he steps into is crowded. He walks down the aisle, scanning the rows.

There’s an empty seat next to a woman staring pensively out the window. He’s about to step forward. Is abruptly rendered motionless when he sees her reflection in the glass.

He blinks. The reflection is still there.

He continues walking.

Unbeknownst to him, she sees his reflection mirrored in the window.

Still. She remains in her seat.

But wait—the glass shimmers, the train shudders, everything hums then disappears.

The electrons spin through the air, vibrating with laughter, amused at the artifice of a branch that managed to trick them.

Oh, you thought that was how it ends? Think again, that’s just a branch that never happened. It could’ve, if different choices were made, but that isn’t the case here.

This is what really happens.

Countless possible branches collapsed into a single reality. Decoherence. A reality spun through every choice and decision.

Okay, here we go.

Lightning

Storm-cleared grey eyes meet sun-warmed brown across the bustling platform of a train station.

An ocean of strangers form a rushing tide between the two people who would recognize the outline of each other’s shadow in the middle of an eclipse.

She’s waiting for her train. He’s waiting for his. Sunlight glints off the rails.

They both stand frozen. Time is an accordion that stretches, halts at its crescendo before collapsing back in on itself as the musical notes of their shared history float through the space between them.

She thinks if her heart was photographed in this moment, the flash would illuminate the blazing spark in her chest. He thinks that if he was hooked up to an EKG right now, the machine would burst into flames with how bright the spark in his chest is burning.

The crackle of the announcements overhead, the blinking departure boards, the vibrations of an approaching train, metal against metal. All of it falls away.

She takes a step forward at the same time he does. And across the tracks, Belly is hit with the full force of the casual magic of Conrad’s smile.

Quick—take a chance.

Fuck it all up and start over again. Take another chance.

We create the world we live in.