Your lights are on, but you're not home
Your will is not your own
You're heart sweats and teeth grind
Another kiss and you'll be mine
– Robert Palmer (Addicted to Love)
=/\=
"What's the plan?" HD asked Sheilagh. They were on Cape Canaveral on January twenty-seventh of 1986 – the day before the Challenger disaster.
"Well, we know that the launch just plain didn't happen in the altered reality," she said, "plus we know it happened because of a computer lockout."
"Yeah, NASA couldn't launch the Challenger as planned," HD confirmed by surreptitiously checking a PADD. "The delay gave them the idea to check the shuttle one last time, and the inspection crew found a cracked O-ring. They aborted that particular mission, and then they checked the entire fleet."
"Right. They congratulated themselves on having dodged a bullet and then they were flying again once everything was fixed. They got back to flying considerably faster than in the original history – they even fixed the foam issue that did in the Columbia a few years later. So they were all set when the Trill came knocking, as it were, less than six months later."
"First Contact went off without a hitch, except that Earth became a subordinate power, struggling to keep up. There's no World War III, surprise, surprise!" HD smiled, "This was definitely a mixed bag – a Federation was still founded. Er, it looks like they called it the Congress of Planets. Earth wasn't a founding member. It was Tandar Prime, Andoria, Betazed and Ferenginar."
"I can imagine how it turned out," Sheilagh said, "So let's talk strategy. We need to get in, and I need to lift the computer lockout. This is before Wi-Fi so I need to, physically, be inside the complex. Fortunately, this is pre-9/11, so security is a lot looser. Anyway, I think that's about it."
"Sounds easy enough," HD said.
"I even made us ID badges."
"Badges! Badges! We don't need no –" HD looked sheepishly at a confused Sheilagh, "uh, sorry, I forget not everyone likes old movies."
"Why don't we watch it together when we're done?" she asked. "But first, let's focus."
"Right," he said. Inwardly, he was ecstatic. They were still on.
=/\=
In 1957, there was a shot. Polly barely had a moment to duck. Cramer crumpled in front of her. Dan ran out to see, as did the bar hostess. Polly cradled Cramer's head in her hands. "Can you do anything?" asked the bar hostess, a little panicky.
Polly just shook her head. There were more shots, whistling around then. The bar hostess ran back into the building. Cramer looked up at Polly. "Don't worry," she said, "I know it doesn't look good. It isn't good, except you should know, Hank, that with your death, you help to save the future."
"Future?" he asked weakly.
"Yes," Polly said, "you're helping to make it work out right again."
"Good," he said, "at least there's a meaning. Thank you for," he gasped, "for telling me." His head lolled to the side and he was gone.
Polly and Dan did not stand up, as bullets were still flying. He engaged his implanted Communicator and voice commanded the Audrey II to beam them both up.
Once they had materialized on board the ship, he said, "I guess we should confirm this, right?"
"Right," she said absently. She flew them to May of 1975 and they checked broadcasts. Sure enough, there were numerous broadcasts and commentaries about the fall of Saigon, "Looks like we're good to go," she said, "Could you start the flight? I, uh," she gestured at her nurse's uniform, which had Cramer's blood on it, "I need to change."
"Of course," he said, "but answer me one thing."
"Sure."
"Why did you tell him he had helped out the future?" Dan asked. "He didn't know that in the original history."
"Well, of course he didn't," she said, "but it's purely otric – no change to the timeline is even possible, when it's someone right on their deathbed, and there are no present day witnesses, right? So if I could provide a little comfort to the man, I was going to do so. Now, if you'll excuse me." She hustled herself off to the little bathroom in the back and he was left alone with his thoughts.
"Comforting some guy you just met," he said quietly to himself, "Either you are compassionate or you're foolish, Polly Porter."
And in the shower, as she stripped off the day's events and thought about the man she'd just seen killed, Polly thought to herself, if I can provide meaning – even just a smidgen of it – to someone like that, where the end is near and it's hopeless and I have to make sure that it stays hopeless, well, whenever I get a chance to do something like that, I'm going to take it.
=/\=
"Ready to go?" Rick asked Tom.
"Sure. We'll do as you suggested. You'll pilot the Wells, and fire a pulse shot near the amplifier dishes over there on Point Abic. I'll hike over there with Malcolm here and hop over to the other side before the opening shuts. You'll land here and stay here until you get the temporal flare signal from me," he held up what looked like a black Christmas cracker, "or I'll just show up in Fluxy. Either way, it'll be time to go. If y'all don't hear from me within five days, leave without me."
"And if you're done early, you'll stay for our anniversary, won't you?" Lili asked.
"You sure you don't wanna be alone?" Rick asked.
"I didn't say you were invited to stay all day long, Richard," she said, smiling.
"Then we're off," Malcolm said, kissing Lili, "I shall return before you even know I am gone. Uh, give us perhaps fifteen minutes before taking off. I don't move quite as quickly as I used to."
"Sure thing," Rick said, standing with Melissa and Norri.
=/\=
They had been walking for a little while when Malcolm said to Tom, "Might I inquire something of you?"
"Of course."
"The cuff," Malcolm said, hitching his left sleeve up slightly in order to show off his own, older iteration of it, "under what circumstances did you get it?"
"I got it from Rick's sister, Eleanor," Tom explained, "she told me that she was only supposed to give it to her true love."
Malcolm stopped walking for a moment. "Oh, that's lovely," he said, "Lili gave it to me the first time she ever told me that she loved me. Of course, she was married to Douglas at the time. I was not then, and I never have been, her one true love. But I like to think that, perhaps, I am the second of two."
"I'm sure y'all are. She adores you; it's obvious."
"Are you marrying this, this Eleanor?" Malcolm asked, "Oh, I do not mean to pry."
"It's all right. I'm getting up my nerve and trying to figure out how I'm going to propose. I want the conditions to be perfect."
"Then you'll never do it," Malcolm said, "trust me, lad, it does not need to be perfect. It just needs to happen. Oh! We have arrived already."
=/\=
Lili looked at Rick, "How'd you get the key charm?"
"I was given it when I was five, by my parents. I was told to only give it to someone really special, to my true love."
"So you haven't met that – woman – man, perhaps – yet?" Norri asked.
"Woman," he said, "and, I think maybe I have. But it can't happen."
"Why not?"
"Because she died in 1969, Lili."
Lili thought for a moment. "Did you tell her you love her?"
"No, I didn't. I told her she was different, but not that I, that I loved her." He hadn't said that aloud before. It felt strange to say it, but it felt correct.
"Can't you go, maybe, to her death bed at least, and tell her? What is her name, anyway?" Melissa asked.
"Milena Chelenska."
"Just say, 'Milena, I love you,'. And I cannot promise it'll be enough for either of you, but at least you will have said it," Lili stated, tapping a finger on her version of the key charm.
=/\=
Whoa, you like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh yeah
It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough
You know you're gonna have to face it, you're addicted to love
–Robert Palmer (Addicted to Love)