⏳ 2016
I needed to see him. And I couldn't do it without my strange friend.
Kamar-Taj was abandoned this time of year. It was too cold for pilgrims to make the long journey to the temple, a perfect time for me to take advantage. Rain, hail, or shine, I knew he was in there. I knew he was in the mansion, practising and meditating.
I stepped out of the portal into his mansion. I walked into the parlour, the grey light of a wintry afternoon filtering through the windows.
"Hello?" I called. I took to the stairs.
I'd never liked the smell of the place. The stench of age was truly there. And, yes, I'm aware of how ironic that sounds in my case. No need to point it out.
The top parlour made a museum exhibit looked undressed. Weapons were strewn across the walls and in cabinets. Artefacts and antiquities were scattered throughout the hall. An empty cabinet stood idle in the corner, tall and menacing even though there was nothing inside.
"Hello?" I called again. "You here?"
"I am."
I turned to the second staircase leading to the upper floor of the mansion. And there he stood, in all his splendour and power, an incredible aura floating off him that was purely overwhelming. His cloak whipped behind him, a mighty backdrop of his robes. He stared at me. He stared at me with such intense eyes that I resisted urge to the flinch.
"I need your help, Stephen," I said.
"I know."
I wasn't surprised that he did. He always knew.
We moved up to the top floor of the mansion and sat before the intricate window overlooking the temple below. Silence held us until I made the first sound. "You owe me."
"Do I, now?" he replied, an eyebrow raised.
"If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be here, Sorcerer Supreme."
Strange considered such a statement, stroking his manicured moustache and beard. He knew I was right. He knew if I'd never told the Ancient One of his arrival in the coming years, the acts that had brought him to Kamar-Taj would not have been set into motion. And now it was time for the debt to be paid.
"Stephen, I need a favour," I uttered carefully.
"When the Lady of Time asks for a favour, it's not something to be taken lightly," Strange noted. "You're asking for a big favour, I assume?"
I bit my lip. "It's not going to be a small one."
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, indicating to me to tell him what sort of favour was there to ask.
I wasn't sure how to put it. It wasn't going to be easy to pull off. We were going to need some powerful magic, magic we both had but would drain of it easily, him more so. I was going to be going against the golden rule in the Time Walker rulebook. I was going to be breaking a vital rule of the universe.
But I needed to. I needed to see him, and I was going to do that no matter the cost, and there very well would be one. A high one.
"I need you to help me meet the dead," I said blatantly and outright as if I was informing him of the weather outside.
Stephen inhaled and exhaled. He knew as well as I did that that kind of necromancy was not to be taken lightly. It was a deadly school magic, but not an impossible one.
"Who?" he asked.
"A friend. A Time Walker."
"There will be a price, Andi. You know it will be a heavy one."
"I know. And I know this is going to be dangerous. The way he was killed...it's unlike anything you've dealt with." I leaned forward, sitting at eye level with him. "But I'm willing to pay whatever price to see him. I have unfinished business with him. I just want to talk to him." Strange clenched his jaw, thinking about his reply. "Please, Stephen."
He massaged his moustache once more before he stood, and I followed. "How long?"
"An hour. Two at the most."
"Do you have his body? Where it can be located, at least?"
I grinded my teeth. "No." I pulled my watch from my pocket, it swinging back and forth from the chain in front of us. "But this belonged to him once."
Stephen seized it. "It'll have to do."
I followed him down to the mansion lobby where the space was plentiful. He placed it in the middle of the room. He pointed at it. "Sit." I sat before my watch, legs crossed and looking up at him. "Put your fingers on it." Gingerly, I placed the index and middle fingers on the golden lid.
Strange began, magic flowing freely from his fingers, green energy floating around me. A circle had formed, magic rising up to about my shoulders.
"I'm going to take you to where you last saw your friend," Stephen detailed. "You have two hours and I'm pulling you back."
I nodded and closed my eyes. I felt my hair lift around my shoulders as the atmosphere around me chilled. When I opened my eyes again, I stood in a place I'd never thought I'd see again.
A galaxy swirled before me, blue and purple and green nebulas exploding, stars dotting a dark sky. I stood on a platform in the middle of it all, marvelling at the beauty of his personal galaxy that was now long gone.
"Andi." I turned and felt my heart leap into my throat.
There he was, standing right there in front of me, blue eyes gazing into mine and that cheeky, boyish smile I knew all too well.
"Hello, Eilian."
I warily walked up to him as if he were a ghost. But he was a ghost. It wasn't truly him. It was an illusion. An illusion that could think and feel and retained all his memories, but a ghostly figure all the same. It was all magic.
I reached out with ginger fingers, and was shocked to feel his warm skin under them as I touched his face. He placed a hand over my fingers, feeling them and touching them, and they were warm. Could it be? Could...he really be real?
I hugged him. I wrapped him in my arms and pulled him tight, terrified to let him get away. Strange had come through. Eilian was real. He was as real as the heartbeat I felt on my chest—his heartbeat.
"What's happening?" he whispered. "How am I here?"
I laughed and cried simultaneously as I pulled back, but didn't let go, and wiped away my tears. "Magic."
"Magic? Stop pulling my leg."
"Have you ever known me to lie, Eilian?"
He grinned. "I suppose not."
We sat on the platform overlooking the galaxy, our legs dangling over the side, kicking the skies and stars. I told him everything. I told him everything that had happened since he...
I told him about my friends, about New York, S.H.I.E.L.D., and Sokovia. I told him about what happened at the Chronos, that I'd defeated Eon. I told him about Primavera and the Lord of Time and their demise.
And I told him about Steve. I told him so much about the man that held my heart...and the man who was breaking it.
"You moved on pretty quick," was all he had to say about that.
I smirked, unashamed of my new relationship. "Let's face it, Eilian, you're not exactly relationship material."
"Rubbish."
"You abandoned me in the Viking Age!"
"But you love Vikings."
We laughed and reminisced, and I dreaded the moment he was going to ask that godforsaken question. I knew he would eventually, and I wasn't ready.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked the question that set the queasiness bubbling. "You're breaking a vital rule by doing this."
"I know," I sighed. "But I needed to see you. I need...guidance."
"For what?"
I rubbed my hands together to try and stop them from shaking. "Where do I even begin?"
Eilian remained silent for a minute before he asked a question that I'd never thought his selfish mouth would utter.
"He makes you happy, doesn't he?" he asked.
I smiled warmly as I pictured the blue eyes that were so easy to get lost in. "He does, Eilian. He really does." I frowned, my brows knitting together and my face contorting into an expression of guilt and pain. "Not right now, though."
"Why?"
I threaded and released my fingers. "We're fighting. All of us. Things aren't...things aren't smooth sailing at the moment."
He raised his chin. "A civil war."
I turned to him. "How did you know?"
"The path of time doesn't lie, Andi."
I squinted as my brow furrowed further. "What?" I pushed myself to my feet, stumbling back in the process.
"The path of time. It's what determines our destiny. Everyone's destiny. Mine led me to death. Yours led to becoming the most powerful being among us." He stood, but kept his distance. "You're straying from it."
I didn't understand what he was trying to tell me. The Ancient One had spoken to me about some path during our last meeting. It was something I blew off when I heard it. Now that my ears were hearing it again, perhaps it was more important than I'd first realised, and that made me nervous.
"What do you mean?" I asked, shaking my head.
"You're straying from your path, Andromeda," Eilian said flatly. "You're straying because of him." I knew he meant Steve, and he was right. I'd made so many compromises for him, because of him. I wasn't fulfilling my duty in full because I wanted to be with him. "And something bad is going to happen because you'll do whatever you can to protect him."
"I-I don't understand."
"Remember when I told you that sometimes you must betray those you love to save the innocent?"
Just hearing those words come from his mouth again sent familiar shivers down my spine. "Y-Yeah?"
"I meant it. This civil war. It is breeding more losers than winners." He stepped up to me and took my hands, gripping them to emphasise his point. "You have to choose a side, Andi. You know you do. You know you don't have a choice. You must stand united with the one who saves most. You must choose: the man of morality, who wishes to save the lives of many over one by surrendering his right to choose; or the man of freedom, who is willing to sacrifice everything to save the life of his closest friend." He tilted his head, an expression of pity painted on his face, a look I never thought I would ever see. "Either way, you will all fall divided. You will all splinter."
How he knew all this was beyond me. He'd been dead for so long, it was impossible for him to know all this. I...I didn't understand.
"What do I do, Eilian?" I whispered. "I don't know what to do."
He smiled, one of support and confiding as he continued to hold my hands. "Do what you think is best."
"But I don't know what that is!"
"Yes, you do. You know you do. You know what you have to do, Andi." He planted a soft kiss on my cheek, warm and loving and kind, and placed a hand over my heart. "Listen to it. It's telling you what you must do. Damn your job, Andi. Damn your duty. Damn your path. Make your own." He grinned. "That's what I did, even though it led me back here."
A bright light exploded to my right, and I knew our time was up. I didn't want it to be. I needed more time.
He cupped my face in his hands and smiled once more. "Listen to it and it will lead you to where you want to go, where you want end up." He kissed my forehead gently. "I love you, old girl. Good luck."
I smiled back through my tears, brushing back one of his stray strands of dark hair. "Goodbye, old man."
I closed my eyes, and, when I opened them again, Strange knelt before me, sweat trickling down his temples, heaving breathlessly. "Time's up."
I blinked slowly as the grogginess began to subside. "Time's up."
"Did you find what you were looking for?"
I stood, snatching my watch off the floor and pocketing it. "Yeah. Yeah, I did."
"You know you will pay the price for this eventually, Andi."
"I know," I said. "And I don't care."
I generated a portal behind me. I was done trying to be continually convinced to join one side over the other. I was going to find Steve. I was going to find Bucky. I was going to fix this mess. I'd known this was coming. The signs were there ages ago. The premonitions and prophecies had always been there and I'd failed to stop it beforehand. I was going to one way or another, no matter the cost.
"Thanks, Stephen," I said.
"Where are you going? What are you going to do?"
I sent him a sideward glance. "To stop a civil war."
❈Author's Note: Hey, there! I couldn't help it. I had to bring back Eilian one last time for a little guidance for Andi. But you know what this means, guys! The pièce de résistance is on the horizon. Get ready.
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