***ALEX***
Watching Fionna save her human's life, that was incredibly beautiful. But now, we're already experiencing unforeseen side effects.
Namely, the new guy in the cave.
Everyone else seems to know him, but not Fionna and Gabe. And not me, either. When I first spotted him as we all gathered around Fionna, I kind of overlooked the fact that he wasn't Harris. Hell, my first thought, seeing this unassuming guy with his glasses and beanie, was something along the lines of, When did Harris evolve into Dylan O'Brien? Then I thought, Does Harris have a brother?
Finally, I realize what's so wrong with this picture. While Gabe stares at our new friend, reduced to shocked stuttering as he tries to make sense of his presence, I actually voice it. "Where the fuck is Harris?"
"Who now?" asks a bemused Russell.
"This guy!" Gabe struggles to get his phone out of his pocket, he's so panicked. Finally, he unlocks it and pulls up his photos, including a selfie of him and Harris, the latter kissing his cheek photo-booth style.
"You're dating Harris?" Glasses reaches under his beanie, almost dislodging it from his head as he scratches it. "I didn't know he was...I thought he...well, you know what? I kinda did get a vibe off him. But...how? He's still alive, and you're...well..."
"Yeah, since when did Gabe have a new squeeze?" Kensi asks. "I thought he was still getting over that dude he knew before."
Fionna remains silent. All she does is gape at Glasses, her lips fluttering. Is she hyperventilating? I'm tempted to hug her until she calms down, but Kensi beats me to it. So I take a different kind of action. Standing in front of Glasses, I ask, "Who are you?"
Tall though I am, I'm a bad intimidator. Glasses just looks up at me, arms crossed and eyes narrowed behind his spex. Yeah, this guy is so totally not Harris. I've barely even met Harris, but I feel like I've known him for years. One of those warm, welcoming people with an infectious, boyish attitude. Glasses, on the other hand, comes off cold and prickly. A little unfriendly, even. I think it might be because I know he's not supposed to be here, but I don't instinctively trust him the way I do with Harris.
"You seriously forgot who I am already?" he scoffs. "I just introduced myself to you, like, ten minutes ago. I'm Jay. Jay Cross. I work with your brother-"
"No, you don't." Gabe stands next to me, staring down Jay as well. "I don't know you!"
"Is this your idea of a joke?" Jay shakes his head.
Wait a minute...Jay Cross. I know that name. I borrowed it to use for the vampire hero Aron and I created. For The Venom Chronicles, not that there's been a second one to make it well and truly plural yet. And I picked that name because... "You used to date Gideon, didn't you? Erm..." I snap my fingers. "Sorry, you wouldn't know about him. You knew him as Dani-"
"Yeah, Gabe already told me about her. Uh, him. Sorry." Jay looks over at Gabe. "You sure you don't know me? We're partners, man. Not, you now, love partners like these two ladies" - his eyes flick over to Fionna and Kensi - "but, you know, Guardian partners. We come to Earth and check on your human, come to Heaven and check on my angel - God, that boy needs help. He's more repressed than I ever was, and I didn't even think-"
"Whatever you're saying, it doesn't change anything." Gabe turns away from Jay and starts pacing the cave floor next to the Black Mirror. "'Cause I still don't know you. My partner isn't you. My partner is Harris McCallum. And yes, he's my love partner too. I love him. He's the best boyfriend I've ever had. And..." He rounds on Fionna, his eyes suddenly blazing, almost white. "And you took him away from me!"
"What?" Fionna disentangles herself from Kensi's embrace and jumps to her feet. "Don't pin this on me! I had no idea-"
"Of course not! You were only concerned with-"
Kensi, Kelly, and I step in before Gabe and Fionna can come to blows. I pull him back to a far corner of the cave, grasping his shoulders like he's a boxer or something. The girls do the same, gathering near the entrance. Ty, Russell, and Ariel stand back, all looking neutral. And Jay's in the middle, his gaze swiveling between the girls on one end, and me and my twin on the other.
"Look," I whisper to Gabe. "You're right. Fionna did this for herself. Except not really. But you're right. We should've seen this coming. Changing the past, of course we'd wind up changing the present too-"
"Easy for you to say." Gabe pulls away from me violently.
It hurts me, seeing him this angry. Never, not even when he lashed out at me after I caught him cutting, has he retreated from me like this. He's told me time and again that I'm his rock. How unmoored from reality must he be?
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch the girls talk for a moment. I can't hear them clearly, not from this distance. So I refocus on Gabe. He's got his head in his hands, and he's almost in tears. "Why?" he whispers. "Every time I..." He looks up at me, and I expect him to turn away, but he doesn't. "I know this sounds stupid, but everyone I love, I lose."
"That's not true," I say automatically. "Look, you've got Fionna. You've got...you've got me."
"I didn't have Fionna anymore, for a while. After she died. And after I died, after White Shadows, I thought I'd never see you again."
I approach him again, just waiting for him to sprout porcupine quills to repel me. Someone's coming up behind me - Jay, I think. "You ain't getting rid of me that easily." I wink at Gabe, then stand him up on his feet and wrap my arms around him.
For the longest time, he stays still. Then he returns the hug, slowly but surely. "At least I can count on you every time." He pulls back, and I leave my hand on his shoulder. "We need to fix this, Alex. We need to-"
"Whoa, whoa, back up," Jay cuts in. "Are you suggesting we undo what Fionna just did?"
"NO!" Gabe and I both yell at him.
Finally, Jay looks suitably scared of us. He cringes for a moment, then relaxes. "'Cause I have a better idea," he says. "If I'm not supposed to be here, let me use the Mirror to undo my own death."
"Can you even do that?" asks Ariel. "If your counterpart's still alive, then does the Mirror default to your own death?"
"How should we know?" asks Russell. "None of us work for Peppermint, dude. Just you."
"It's a chance we gotta take," says Jay.
Everyone else watches him intently, and I'm sure we're all wondering the same thing. It's Ty who asks the million-dollar question, though. "Why are you so quick to take that chance?"
"Believe me," Jay says, "I know when my life's detoured into the wrong story. I'm not about to be part of some angst-ridden teenage Flashpoint Paradox."
Fionna glowers at him. "Should I be offended?"
"No, that's typical Jay," Kensi says with a reassuring shoulder-pat. "Blunt to a fault. All the faults, really."
"You serious?" Russell asks Jay.
"Even Gabe doesn't remember how I kept telling him I didn't belong here." Jay tilts his head at my brother, who only blinks in response. "I dunno if it's 'cause he's one of those Breakers or what-"
"You know that?" I ask.
Jay eyeballs Gabe, who shrugs and says, "What he said."
"I'm confused," Ariel chimes in. "What are you all talking about? You didn't..." He looks over at the Mirror, which still sits idly on the cave floor, the screen no longer glowing from Kensi's power boost. "You're saying you've created a time paradox from using this?"
"Yeah." Fionna's voice, at first, is small. "Yeah, that's what...so, Jay - that's your name, right? Jay, if you wanna take a shot at using the Mirror, maybe it'll fix thing. I mean, unless you guys want me to undo what I just did..."
Everyone's quick to shout "NO!" Gabe, I notice, takes a bit longer to chime in than the rest of us, but he's also very vocal in his argument.
"Look, I'm pissed," he says. "You wiped my relationship from reality. But I won't make you kill your human to set things right for me. Hell, we can't even say why this happened. We gotta be more rational about this. Think it through." He bites his lip so hard, I'm surprised it's not bleeding. "I can't even think...I mean, how? How does saving your human switch Harris for Jay?"
I step around Gabe and turn to Jay so I can ask him the question that's really on my brother's mind. "Uh...if you don't mind me asking, how did you die?"
Jay sighs, the sound echoing eerily off the cave walls. "I don't mind," he says. "And I figure if Gabe and Fionna don't remember me anyway, they could do with a refresher course." He crosses the cave and kneels in front of the Mirror the way Fionna did before. "Basically, what happened was, my friends and I went to the Ice Palace to watch the Solstice Rising, terrorists attacked, we fought them, and...well, you said Harris was supposed to be dead, not me?" He looks up at Gabe, who nods mutely. "Bet he would've died right after me, then. Last thing I remember before they slit my throat" - only now do I notice a scar over his Adam's apple, not unlike the one Steve Walker had after his own death, which probably explains Jay's raspy voice - "they broke Harris' leg hella bad. I tried to help him, but they got me." He takes off his glasses, which have a couple of fresh tear stains dotting the lenses. "And you know what? All the times I've talked about it - maybe two or three since it happened - I-I've never mentioned this, but I-I-I heard my dad screaming my name. He was...he was in with the terrorists, you see..."
And that's when he completely, absolutely, utterly loses it. He melts into a puddle of pure devastation, screaming a raw scream that makes my own throat tighten like it's full of crushed glass just from hearing it.
When he's able to speak again, I have to get closer to him to hear his voice, because it's been reduced to a ragged whisper. "I need to know. I need to know my dad wasn't really one of them."
"I thought I told you he wasn't," Russell says gently.
"Forgive me for not believing you."
I can't help but smile at this - now I can see how Jay would work well with Gabe as a Guardian. He reminds me a bit of myself, not implicitly trusting Russell even when the guy seems to have all the answers.
Of course, today, Russell doesn't have the answers. He doesn't seem to remember Harris at all...or does he? I bet if anyone else is immune to the side effects of time paradoxes, it'd be him. He already pretty much runs on his own plane of existence anyway. But no, I'm looking at him and he seems just as genuinely confused by all this as the rest of us.
But perhaps no more so than me, Gabe, and Fionna.
Huh. Maybe Jay's right. Gabe and I, being Breakers, are already able to cross universes unaided and with fewer ill effects. Maybe in addition to handling changes in space, we're also better equipped to handle shifts in the time part of the continuum.
"All right then," Russell says. "Jay, you can-"
Ariel shushes him. "I hear someone coming."
We all creep forward slowly, all our defenses up. Including our elementals. Kelly's even ready to lay some mossy waste to whoever's trying to invade our-
"Russell?" Another familiar face enters the cave. Dominic Park. I talked to him for a while on that mini-golf course in the Second. Russell's friend. Only today, with a crackling set of light blades spiking out from one hand, he's not looking as friendly as I remember.
"Park, please tell me you're not here on tadpole business again," Russell laughs. "I know, this mission's unauthorized, but would anyone have ever authorized it anyway?"
"That's why I'm here," Park says stiffly. "To-" He stops short when he sees Ariel lurking around behind Russell. "No. NO. You're...I don't believe this. You dumbass!"
Russell steps aside and sweeps his hand towards Ariel. "Dominic Park, Ariel Mazouz."
"I know who he is!" Park's blades spark as he points them at Ariel, who simply extends his own dark blade in response. He doesn't exactly hold it up, ready to use as needed, though. Instead, he holds it loosely, dragging the business end against the ground.
Ty and I, strangely, are the ones who come in between Park and Ariel before they can come to scrivly blows. (That's the proper word for it, right? Not "scrivic," like "angelic" or "demonic?") We both ignore our respective siblings' pleas for us to stay out of it, and each face one of these guys. Ariel for Ty, Park for me.
"Stand aside, angel," Park says, raising his blades again.
I hold my arm in front of my chest and form an ice version of Captain America's shield. (And because I'm that geekboy angel, I even give it a crude imitation of Cap's actual shield pattern.) "Hey, don't tell me you don't remember who I am. You know my name. Alex Snow. We played mini-golf in Tahoe, you and I!"
"I know," Park says. "Why wouldn't I remember that?"
"I dunno, 'cause there's been a bit of a time paradox?"
Park blanches. Then he zips past me - what is it with light scrivs and super speed? - and confronts Russell all over again. "You're working with our Number 8 Most Wanted, and you've fucked up the timeline?"
Russell crosses his arms. "I take full responsibility. But this had to be done, Park."
Fionna stares in shock at Ariel. "Most Wanted? What...?"
"Like I said." Ariel scuffs his shoes on the rocks below. "Checkered past."
I look up and out through the woods, feeling like even though it's a familiar scene under the red sky of Hell, I might as well be on Mars or someplace. How did everything go so badly wrong? All Fionna wanted to do was bring her human back to life-
Wait.
What's that?
There's a flash of light, a tiny one, way off in the distance.
Muzzle flash?
Or something worse?
"SHOOTER!" I push Ty and Ariel aside, spreading my wings painfully fast and raising that ice shield again.
The latter doesn't protect me from this, and the former? Big bloody mistake.
A dot of light trails gracefully into this clearing. Then it splits in two, and the two halves grow to match the size of the original.
They hit my outstretched wings.
My entire body freezes, and I crumple, hitting the ground.
The worst part? I can't even scream through the pain.