A Circuit of Time: Book Two of Spark (A MPHFPC Fanfiction)

Chapter One

"For bird's sake, I did tried to find you, but we were at war!" Emma shouted back, "Where do you think I can go after Caul turned Florida into this god-forsaken desert?"

"You should try harder! Horatio literally told you where we were going!"

Emma went quiet. When she finally spoke again, her eyes were red, "I have given up hoping anything good for a long time. I'm sorry, Olive. I really am." Olive stood up and put her arms around her long lost friend, and they both cried in silence.

"I asked the council to let me take you on our next operation. If it all goes well, they will believe you are on our side." Olive said, just loud enough for Emma's ear, "I won't let you fight the wights alone, you will only get yourself killed. And I can't lose another friend."

*

A boy led John and Blanche to their living quarter when it was about four in the afternoon. It included one living room, a small kitchen and three bedrooms. "I hope you find it comfortable here." The boy said, "Dinner starts at five-thirty, in the public dining room downstairs. Or you can also go to the town and buy your food whenever you want."

They assured the boy they can manage their food just fine. Then the boy ran away humming to himself.

"I guess that's it." John said to himself as he planted himselves on the sofa. "Though I was expecting something tougher, more army-styled."

"I'm not going to complain about a loop run by ymbrynes. There propably isn't anywhere safer and more comfortable than this." Blanche said as she settled herself next to John, "There was a time when there's more ymbryne, almost every one of them run a place like this. They say there was a loop in Amazon where peculiars build their entire city on trees, and another in Mongolia where its residents can talk to their sheeps."

"Yeah, wish Caul didn't ruin everything." John said wishfully. "I really want to see a city on trees."

"We may still be able to go there, just have to travel in the past." Blanche said, "We call that Leapfrogging. Going from loop to loop until we reach the time and place we want to go. It's difficult and dangerous, but it can be done." Her eyes sparked with longing of a better time she never got to see.

"The real time travel. Seems harder to believe than a place that repeats its last twenty-four hours forever." John said. "I hope we will have time for those when this is over."

"Me, too. I'm so tired of these fighting."

"You don't have to fight if you don't want to." John sat up, "You have helped me find Emma, you finished what your father set out to do. It's my fight now, mine and Emma's. You can just rest and enjoy the life you can have under an ymbryne's care—"

"How can I live with that?" Blanche shook her head, "I've been living in comfort while my people were being slaughtered and enslaved for way too long. I was one of those monsters. If Mr. Wilson never betrayed the rebellion, Caul may not be ruling this world now."

"You don't know that. And you were too young to do anything."

"Maybe. But we could have done more after the war is over."

"And then what? You will only get yourselves killed. Sometimes the best we can do to defy our enemies is to stay alive. And you did just that, there's nothing to be ashamed of." John paused. Looking at Blanche, while everything that happened in the past two month replaying in his head, he realized that he, too, was willing to sacrifice the future of this damned world just to keep her safe.

Does that make me evil? John wondered. Will I become another accomplice of wights?

"Mr. Wilson did what he had to do to save you from a bloody war ten years ago, I'm sure he wouldn't want you to rush into another one." He finally said.

Blanche threw her arms around John and whispered in his ear, "I will stay back and do what I can to help you guys in this loop, but you need to promise me one thing: whatever you are going to do next, come back alive no matter what."

John hugged her back. "It's not like there's anything I can do right now," He said, "but I will try my best."

"That's not enough."

"Alright, I will come back to you alive, no matter what happened, I promise."John said.

"That's more like it," Blanche laughed gently.

John felt she leaned her head on his chest.

With one hand on her back, John could feel through the fabric that the diamond-shaped scales on Blanche's back had become thinner and more fragile than last time she showed them to him. He assumed that to be the effect of having part of her soul removed, but decided not to ask her for comfirmation. They both had a tough day, and John didn't want her to worry about another thing they couldn't control.

They sat like that for a long time, talking about tourist loops and old stories from a better time, until they were so exhausted that they fell asleep in each other's arms.