Work Text:
What do you even do when you find out there’s an alternate reality where you had died in your early twenties, and the man you love has crossed universes just to take you back in his arms?
This is, currently, the grave dilemma she is in as she gets led away from eye-burning red passage to passage, wrist in hand of someone—something—she’s never seen before. It’s like her life had gone upside down in the matter of a few hours. The red encompasses her, filling her vision and her thoughts. A haunting series of what she can only describe as audio glitches play in the background, and for a moment she thinks is this real?.
The stranger in front of her leads her to a cabin in the snow. They produce a coat from seemingly nowhere and lends it to her when she begins shivering. They move like a painting, she notes. They don’t speak at all, but somehow she understands their every word.
The sunflower in the corner lays, unmoving. She can't tell if it's real or plastic.
They tell her things. Things that she should've—would’ve—never learnt about if it weren't to them. She doesn't really understand most of it. Alternate dimensions? Differing spacetimes? They stop speaking when she clutches her head, shaking it. She thinks that if they utter another word of this her head will explode. God, her head hurts.
They sit down next to her, borders of their body never sitting still. So, so red.
Something big will happen soon. She can't be here for it.
They say that she might have to learn to live on her own from now on. The man who now calls himself Mono has papers she can use to rid her of her legally dead ordeal. She can't stay here for long, either. They're aware that those inside the company are aware of their existence and the cabin they're sitting in here right now and if they find her out something catastrophic will happen.
Ava sighs. What is she meant to do, then?
They look at her. Three pairs of eyes roam her face. She will have to wear that same uniform to fit in. The only way out is through flight, and they don't have the means to hijack one. She will have to blend in through the next travel.
They disappear shortly after and warn her not to look around too much. He's always watching. He has eyes everywhere.
She turns to her right, toward the messy corkboard planted on the wall. They're asking far too much of her, honestly. How is someone able to casually live with the fact that not only does time and space travel exist, but an entire organization has been founded from her death in this… universe?
She looks away from the corkboard. Her head pounds to the digital rhythm that seems to haunt the entity and this cabin.
They aren't gone for long, and when they come back, their hands are holding a black uniform. The same mask they're wearing—only difference is that it's in black aswell—is placed on top of the clothes.
The next shipment will be tomorrow, they inform her as she's putting on the uniform. They'll be bringing in and out a few people, aswell, which will be the perfect chance for her to blend in as a stranger since they weren't able to take any visitor bands for her.
She holds the plastic mask in her hands. It makes a click when placed on her face.
It's suffocating.
It keeps her warm, atleast.
They vanish in and out like a flickering light for the rest of the day, occasionally bringing her food scraps. Sleep does not come easy to her and the bed quality is… not the best. Do they even need sleep?
She wonders what her family and friends think happened to her.
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Her heart feels like it's going to beat out of her chest with how fast it's beating. Can the others on board hear it? Images flash through her mind. Someone asks her for her name or talks to her and she stutters for long enough that they realize she's not meant to be here. The red one whose name she just realized completely forgot to ask actually forgot a small but integral part of the uniform and someone notices and she gets kicked out. Something fails or goes wrong and she gets left again, left to die in the cold with nobody by her side and eventually forgotten to time just like the version of herself that died at twenty and—
Nothing happens. Her hands, perfectly fitted around the outfit’s gloves, grip her legs tightly.
They're blindfolded for the last part of the journey. As soon as they're dropped off, she forces herself to walk.
She has no idea where she is.
With only the satchel handed to her by the entity whose name she will never be able to learn that holds a new, false identity, she continues onwards into the unknown.
This tragedy is not hers to learn. She will bury it with the rest of the thoughts that will never again come to light.
She just wishes she had been able to thank them. Wherever they are right now, she hopes they'll get their happy ending.