Work Text:
“When it rains, it pours.”
Those words come unbidden to Neil’s mind as he lies in bed, staring aimlessly in the dark as he hears the rain outside. It’s not a heavy downpour—there’s no thunder or lightning or loud lashing of rainfall, only a soft, gentle pattering of raindrops—but nonetheless, it’s enough for him to recall those five words Faye once used to sum up one of the worst days of his life.
It was raining then, too, he remembers. Maybe not quite as gently as the rain falling now, but the rainstorm on the day of his mother’s funeral sure as hell hadn’t matched the storm that had raged inside him. Forget a nice little shower—if Neil had had it his way, there would’ve been a nonstop deluge of pouring rain, complete with huge claps of thunder and blinding flashes of lightning. On the day Lynri Watts was buried too soon—far, far too soon—it would’ve only been appropriate.
Beside him, over the sound of the sprinkling, Eva lets out a light breath. Neil turns onto his side to face her; he can hardly make her out in the darkness of her bedroom, but he knows she’s fast asleep and probably dreaming about dancing jellyfish or something as silly and un-depressing as that. Good for her, he thinks, and it’s not a sarcastic thought. If there’s anyone who deserves silly, un-depressing dreams about their weird favorite animal, it’s Eva.
Isn’t there someone else who deserved that, too?
The thought pierces through him like a knife, and Neil abruptly sits up, tearing his gaze away from Eva and pushing the covers away from his body. Yes, of course Lynri deserved to dream about happy and funny things, of course she did. She deserved so much, more than anyone. She deserved to see Neil grow up, to fret over him even when he was a grown man, to gush over him finally dating Eva and annoy him with questions about when grandchildren would come. She deserved to grow old, to have a peaceful retirement, to spend her last years surrounded by the people she’d loved and would’ve loved.
She deserved to be alive right now, right at this moment.
Whose fault is it that she isn’t?
Neil chuffs out a bitter laugh, shaking his head. What a stupid fucking question. He knows the answer—he’s known it since he was nine. It’s his fault his mother is dead, his fault for forcing her to choose between herself and him. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant, her condition wouldn’t have worsened and everything would’ve been fine. Everything would’ve been better.
(Why didn’t everything get better when he altered her memories? It should’ve gotten better, because that’s how memory alternation is supposed to work: one thing is changed, and everything gets better. Why didn’t everything get better?)
His gaze is drawn to the blurry, glowing red light beside Eva’s side of the bed—the alarm clock. He reaches out over her sleeping form and gropes for his glasses on the night table. Once he’s put them on, the time is immediately in focus.
1:22.
One hour and twenty-two minutes past midnight.
Twenty-two years to the day since Lynri died.
...Wait, what?
Neil turns away from the clock, his stomach clenching. No, that doesn’t sound right. Is that right? He mentally does the math, counts the years in his head, and...no. No, that isn’t right. His mother hasn’t been dead for twenty-two years.
She has been dead for twenty-four years.
Dear Lord.
Had he thought of Lynri at all during her last two death anniversaries? He has the sinking suspicion that he hadn’t. Last year, he’d had his then-upcoming surgery to worry about, and the year before that, the blissful newness of his relationship with Eva left him no room to think about anything else. Except he should have been thinking about something else—about someone else.
How could he have ever forgotten about his mother for even an instant?
Looking at Eva again, Neil is halfway through reaching a hand out to shake her awake when he decides against it. What’re you thinking, dumbass? he scolds himself as he drops his hand. It’s barely been a week since winter finished—obviously, Eva’s exhausted and doesn’t need him to interrupt the best bit of rest she’s gotten since the end of November. And besides, even on the very slim chance she doesn’t try to murder him for waking her up, what would he even tell her? “I feel like crap because I just realized I forgot about my dead mom for two years in a row”?
Listening to him unload about his angst over Lynri’s death while at her grave is one thing, but having to deal with him moping at some ungodly hour in the morning is one thing Eva definitely does not deserve.
With the rain still in his ears and the guilt congealing in his stomach, Neil gets out of bed, manages to change back into his day clothes in the dark, and leaves Eva’s apartment for his own.
If there’s any (undeserved) solace to be had right now, he knows exactly where he can find it.
Inside Neil’s machine, the Golden Lobster Hotel and Beach Resort is simulated, and his clothes transform into the button-down shirt and shorts he’d worn during that work vacation eight months ago. He steps into the hotel’s lobby, the sound of piano playing greeting his ears. Looking around, he notices how empty the room is—there’s the piano player and a receptionist at the front desk, but that seems to be it.
Neil frowns. While he certainly isn’t complaining about the lack of a crowd, he hadn’t expected to see so few people, and he especially hadn’t expected to not immediately see the only person he’s here to see. Where is—?
Oh, he thinks, his question answered as soon as he turns to his right. There, standing in front of some tables and wearing a red swimsuit, is his mother.
“Ma!” he exclaims, hurriedly striding over to her. He sees she’s also looking around the lobby, a confused frown on her face, but her eyes snap to him once she hears his voice.
“Neil?”
His name is all Lynri gets out before he’s wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into an embrace. She starts a little, but quickly returns the hug, and he swears the warmth of her arms enveloping him feels more real than a touch simulation has any right to be. Is it his imagination? Wishful thinking? Or is his tech just that good? He doesn’t know, nor does he care. All that matters is that his mother is here, and it’s enough.
(It is enough. It is. It isn’t really Lynri, but it isn’t really not Lynri, either, so yes, it’s enough. It has to be, it has to be.)
“Good to see ya,” Neil murmurs into her shoulder, feeling a sudden lump form in his throat.
“Good to see you, too,” Lynri echoes, and he can practically hear the smile in her voice as she says it. All it does is make him tighten his embrace, and his eyes screw shut against liquid heat. Damn it, he can’t be crying already.
“Neil,” Lynri says after a brief moment, her voice gentle, “you can let me go now.”
Never, is the only thing he can think of, but even if she’s an AI, his mother’s word is still law. And so, as he blinks the tears away, he ends the hug and draws back from her, giving her space and really looking at her for the first time.
With a twist of his stomach, Neil notes just how young this Lynri looks—early thirties, probably, and almost certainly no older than he is. If his mother was still alive, she would be in her late fifties by now, with lines on her face and gray in her hair. God, she should’ve gotten to live long enough to get face lines and gray hairs...
But now isn’t the time to brood over what his mother should’ve gotten. “So, Ma, you wanna get a bite to eat?” Neil asks, pasting a smile on his face and hoping the cheeriness in his voice doesn’t sound too forced. “There’s a restaurant nearby.”
“That sounds good,” Lynri agrees, nodding. “But before we go...” Her voice trails off as she sobers, giving Neil a concerned gaze. “Honey, why isn’t Dad here?”
Oh, shit.
He doesn’t speak, doesn’t think, doesn’t breathe, just resets the simulation. Barely a second later, he’s back where he started, standing right outside the hotel.
Of all the things Neil is completely, absolutely not interested in at the moment, talking about his father and why he isn’t in this particular simulation is at the top of the list. This simulation is meant to be about spending time with his mother at a beach resort, with the biggest worries being stuff like messed-up food orders or sand getting everywhere. Anything—or rather, everything—to do with Quincy has no business being included.
Is it childish? Maybe. Does Neil care? Hell no.
He reenters the lobby and repeats meeting with Lynri. He greets her with another hug. She hugs him back. He asks if she’d like to eat again. She agrees again, and he leads her out of the hotel and towards the restaurant.
She doesn’t ask about his father this time around.
“So here I am, annoyed out of my mind. Because, y’know, this should be a totally easy mission. We grant Adam Danvers’ wish to be a famous singer, get paid, and go home in time for lunch. But no, something’s really screwy with one of his young adult memories, so Eva and I—”
Neil has not stopped talking since he and Lynri sat down at one of the restaurant’s indoor tables. From the time before they take their orders to after their drinks and food arrive, he rambles nonstop about anything and everything that comes into his head, whether it’s the books he’s been reading, the movies he’s watched, or the patients he and Eva have had recently. It’s like he’s regressed back to being that four- or five-year-old who endlessly babbled at mealtimes when he was supposed to be eating, back to a time when his mother’s condition didn’t seem so bad.
The familiarity of the situation is something akin to comforting.
“—hafta go and find some way to trigger it. There’s nothing wrong with the machine, and there’s no external stimuli we can use to jog the memory—”
“Don’t forget to eat, Neil,” Lynri reminds him after swallowing a bite of her scrambled eggs.
“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Neil says, glancing down at his barely-touched fried eggs, French toast, and bacon. He grabs one of the four pieces of French toast on his plate and takes a bite, quickly chewing and swallowing. “Anyway—”
“And by ‘eat,’ I mean ‘eat more than one bite,’” Lynri cuts in, a slight, amused smile spreading across her features as she sips her water.
Neil lets out a dramatic sigh even as he feels a grin tug at his lips. “All right, all right,” he relents, taking another bite of the French toast slice. His real mother would insist on him eating, too, even if it was less what the AI Lynri had just said and more, “For goodness’ sake, Neil, would you please eat?” Regardless, the gist is the same, and the comforting familiarity has only grown.
There’s a lull in the conversation as the meal goes on. Neil finishes with the French toast slice before getting started on one of the two fried eggs, and Lynri alternates between continuing with the scrambled eggs and eating her strawberries. He’s about two-thirds of his way through the aforementioned first egg when Lynri breaks the silence.
“Neil, why are you wearing those glasses?”
“What, these?” he asks rhetorically, swallowing his latest bite of egg as he points his fork at his glasses’ extra-reflexive lenses. “Why wouldn’t I be wearing them?” he adds, now grinning fully.
But Lynri is frowning, apparently not appreciating his playful response. Laying down her own fork, she presses, “Do you have an eye condition? Is that why your glasses look so...so...” Her mouth twists, as if she’s struggling to come up with the right word. “Like that?” she finally finishes, waving her hand in a helpless gesture.
“Nope,” Neil answers, his grin still in place. “My glasses look like this because I thought an extra-reflexive coating would make them look awesome.”
Well, that and he thought it would help shield his eyes from nosy strangers’ curious glances, but that sounds way too serious. Why bring down the mood?
Not that his mother needs any help in that regard, it seems. Her eyes widen and her lips part in disbelief, staring at him like he’s just said he’s going to hop onto a spaceship and become supreme ruler of the Milky Way Galaxy. After a few seconds, she closes her eyes and sighs.
“Dear,” she says, opening her eyes again and fixing Neil with a stern look, “they don’t look awesome at all. And more importantly, your eyes are much too beautiful to be hidden by those things. If I were you, I’d—Neil!” she suddenly exclaims, interrupting herself.
Neil is laughing. He can’t help it; it’s funny—so funny—to hear this version of Lynri give her brutally honest opinion on his glasses. It sounds like something any mother would say, something his mother would’ve said if—
And then he abruptly shuts his mouth. God damn it.
His mother didn’t get to live long enough to scold him for his ridiculous life choices.
He no longer feels like laughing.
“Sorry, Ma,” he says in a would-be causal voice, grabbing his orange juice and forcing a gulp down his suddenly tight throat. “The glasses are here to stay.”
If Lynri notices any change in Neil’s mood, she doesn’t comment on it. Instead, with a slow shake of her head, she asks, “But why would you want to hide your eyes?”
Neil gives a half-shrug. “Cool looks require great sacrifice.”
“Oh?” Lynri sounds skeptical. “Did Dad agree with that when he saw you with those glasses?”
Neil’s only response is another reset.
“Did Eva agree with that when she saw you with those glasses?”
Much better.
He smiles at Lynri as he picks up his fork. “Actually, she said they looked stupid.”
The conversation goes on from there, with no more mention of Quincy.
After they’re finished eating, they go to the beach. They build a sandcastle, walk along the shoreline, swim in the ocean (Neil, reverting to his little-kid mode, insists on having a race, which Lynri indulges him in), and do any other beach activity Neil can think of. There’s plenty of chitchat between them to be had—mainly coming from him, of course—but he never lets these conversations take a turn for the...uncomfortable. If he hadn’t appreciated the memory machine’s reset feature before, he certainly does now.
Time passes, and he and Lynri eventually return to the hotel with ice cream cones. Once there, they go up to the rooftop pool to relax in sunloungers and enjoy their frozen treats. For the next long while, silence settles over them, but not unpleasantly so, as far as Neil’s concerned. Really, with the delicious vanilla ice cream and comfortable chairs, not talking at all suits him just fine at the moment.
He’s run out of things to ramble about, anyway.
At some point, Neil leans back in his sunlounger, his ice cream cone all eaten and his eyes drifting closed. Slowly, vaguely, he feels his limbs get heavier; a nap sounds really good right now...
“It’s getting late.”
“Hmm?” Neil blinks his eyes open at the sound of Lynri’s voice, then straightens in his seat and looks up at the sky, which is now orange. “Huh, it is,” is all he can think to say about that (time’s going by this fast? Kind of weird, but okay). He gets to his feet and smiles at his mother, who has also finished with her ice cream cone. “Wanna go back to the beach? We can watch the sunset from there.”
Lynri doesn’t respond. She stays in her sunlounger, her hands twisting in her lap, her face pensive.
“Ma?” Neil’s smile fades. “You okay?”
Still no response. After a moment, though, Lynri stands up and walks over to Neil.
“I’m fine, sweetheart,” she finally says, smiling in reassurance. Her smile quickly vanishes, however, as she places her hands on his shoulders. “Are you okay?”
“Sure I am,” Neil answers at once, forcing another smile on his face. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He’s in the middle of raising his hands to remove Lynri’s from his shoulders when she tightens her grip.
“Neil, I’m serious,” she insists, her face the very picture of worry. “Why isn’t your dad here? Why don’t you want to talk about him? Why do you keep resetting this world?”
Wait, what?
“You know about that?” Neil blurts out stupidly. Of course his mother knows about that. She helped invent the machine.
Lynri continues as if he hasn’t said anything. “I know that my...that her death was heartbreaking for you. I know you just want us to have a fun day together. And it has been fun,” she swiftly adds as Neil opens his mouth again. “But I think it would’ve been more fun if Dad was a part of it.” By now, she is blinking rapidly and the space between her eyes is pinched. “Why isn’t he?”
“Ma, I...” Neil’s voice trails off, his mind scrambling for something to say, something that can divert Lynri’s attention away from Quincy’s absence. The seconds tick by, and the pause only grows.
Lynri’s hold on his shoulders softens, but she doesn’t let go. “You can be honest with me, you know,” she says. “Please, honey, just tell me what’s going on.”
After a couple more seconds of silence, Neil raises his hands again and takes his mother’s own off him. She doesn’t stop him this time. He glances briefly at their now clasped hands before returning his gaze to her.
“Look, let’s go back down to the beach, okay?” he says at last. “We don’t want to miss the sunset.”
Lynri says nothing at first, only gives Neil a look that he can’t quite figure out. Is it disappointment? Resignation? Something else entirely? Either way, after a moment, she closes her eyes with a sigh, then opens them again.
“I need to use the bathroom first.”
“All right,” Neil readily agrees, relieved that she seems willing to let the subject of his father drop. “I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”
He sits at a table, idly drumming his fingers on its surface in time to the piano music. Five minutes pass, then ten, then twenty. After twenty-five minutes have gone by with no sign of Lynri entering the lobby, Neil starts wondering what’s keeping her. Bathroom breaks aren’t supposed to last this long, are they?
After half an hour has passed, Neil stands up and heads to the elevator. Maybe Ma lost her keycard or something?
Once he’s out of the elevator and onto the second floor, he walks down the hall of hotel rooms. He passes about six doors before he comes across Lynri’s room, which he only recognizes as hers because she’s now opening the door and stepping out into the hallway.
“Oh, there you are, Ma,” Neil says, smiling. “I was about to send out a search—”
And then his stomach drops, the joke dying in his throat as his lips part in utter dumbfounded-ness. No. No. No fucking way. Following right behind Lynri, looking as young as she does and wearing swim trunks, is...is...but it can’t be!
“Dad!?” Neil blurts out, staring uncomprehendingly at the AI version of Quincy, who has the nerve to smile at him as if he and the real Quincy haven’t been estranged for years.
“Hi, son,” Quincy greets, a bright, cheery note in his voice. “Was there a beach party and I wasn’t invited?”
“How did—what just—why are—” Neil splutters, still staring, and for the next several seconds, he truly doesn’t understand what he’s seeing.
And then it clicks.
Neil whirls on Lynri, his shock giving way to fury. “You overrode my admin privileges!?”
Lynri raises her hands in defense, her expression pleading. “Neil, I’m sorry, but there’s obviously something wrong and—”
“You’re right, there is something wrong,” Neil interrupts, pointing a finger at Quincy, who’s now looking taken aback, his smile gone. “This guy? Is not supposed to be here. I don’t know what memory you dragged him out of, but you’re gonna put him—”
“Don’t talk to your mother like that,” Quincy cuts in sharply.
“Don’t you fucking talk to me!” Neil explodes.
“Neil!” Lynri exclaims, horrified.
“I don’t want him here!” Neil glowers at his mother, waving his hands in frustration. “That’s the point of all of this! I get to spend a beach day with you and no one else! What part of that d’ya not get!?”
Before Lynri can say anything, Quincy speaks up again. “For the love of pugs, Neil, calm down.”
Neil switches his glare to his father. “I’ll calm down when you stop pretending you have any right to go on vacation with me and my mother.”
“What are you even talking about?” Lynri asks. “Of course Dad has a right to go on vacation with us—he’s your dad.”
Neil scoffs. “Funny, I think he forgot that.”
Quincy flinches, a stricken look on his face. “How can you say that?”
“Oh, I dunno, Dad,” Neil says, venom coating his every word. “How could you go and let another woman and her son live in our house after Ma died?”
His question hangs heavily in the air. He watches as Lynri and Quincy exchange a glance, and his mother’s expression is now soft with understanding.
But Neil is in no mood for pity or comfort or anything else Lynri wants to offer. “Two years,” he continues, and Quincy returns his gaze to him. “Ma’s body had been cold for only two damn years, and you decided dating again was a good fucking idea. And two years after that, you decided it was an even better fucking idea to marry some single mom with a kid and move them in. What, Ma and I weren’t enough for you? You just had to replace us with a new family?”
“Neil, I—he—your real dad—” Quincy stammers, fumbling his words. He steps forward, but Neil steps back, still glaring, his fists clenched tightly by his sides. “I know you and your mom weren’t being replaced,” Quincy finally says.
“Bullshit!” Neil yells. “If you really loved us, you never would’ve gone out with other women in the first place! So why?! Why wasn’t Ma enough for you?! Why wasn’t I—”
His breath hitches, interrupting himself, and his eyes burn with unwanted, impotent tears; from behind his glasses, he blinks furiously. In the back of his mind, where a tiny sliver of himself that’s all reasonable and grown-up exists, he knows he’s being unfair, knows Quincy couldn’t be expected to put his life on hold forever after Lynri’s death. But in this moment, Neil is that eleven- to thirteen-year-old boy again, confused and angry and hurt that his father could so easily toss him and his dead mother aside, and there’s no room for anything resembling fairness.
“Neil.” Lynri steps towards him, her arms opening for a hug, and Neil backs away again. Her arms drop, but she nonetheless goes on. “I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do about your dad remarrying. You were so young, and so many changes happened so fast; no one would’ve expected you to handle it perfectly or understand everything right away. But Dad’s right—whatever mistakes he made before or after your real mom died, getting remarried didn’t mean he was replacing you and her with another family. And while I can’t speak for the real Lynri,” she adds, smiling gently, “I know I would’ve wanted you to have a good mother figure after I was gone. Your stepmother was good to you, right?”
All Neil can do is nod, however reluctant it is. After all, he can’t exactly say Catherine, the woman his father married, was the wicked stepmother from Cinderella while he was living with them. She was always nice to him, always wanting to include him in family activities and hardly ever really getting angry with him, even when he was at his teenage worst. He certainly doesn’t remember her trying to turn him into a slave, so, yes, as far as stepmothers go, Catherine wasn’t bad.
She just wasn’t—and isn’t—his mother.
“So,” Lynri continues, her smile widening slightly, “why don’t we start this simulation over again, with you, me, and Dad? We can have a nice beach day—all three of us—and talk everything over. How does that sound, sweetheart?”
Frowning, Neil looks at Lynri’s hopeful face, then at Quincy, then returns his gaze to Lynri. As his heart tightens in his chest, he answers with only three words:
“I’m sorry, Mama.”
Lynri’s face immediately falls. “Neil—”
“Neil, wait—” Quincy starts, his eyes widening in alarm.
Ignoring his parents’ protests, Neil logs out of the machine, leaving the simulation behind.
Back in the real world, in his apartment, the rain outside is conspicuous by its absence. Neil removes his helmet with a heavy sigh, feeling suddenly drained and exhausted.
He ought to go back to Eva’s place. It’s still early enough in the morning that he can enter her apartment, get redressed in his pajamas, and crawl into her bed without her ever being aware he left at all. Later, he might tell her about today being the day his mother died. Will he tell her about his memory machine? About the simulated world he’s just created, about why he even has a machine in his apartment in the first place? Maybe, maybe not.
Regardless, those are things to do in the next little while. For now, Neil remains sitting in his chair, clutching his helmet in his arms and silently stewing in his own brooding.