It had been exactly one week since Ibex's performance at the Sink Club, and boy had it been quite a whirlwind since then. You'd spent some of the week up in Liverpool, staying up at the Dovedale Towers until you'd all had to go back home, back to life, school, and other things. It had been a fun few days until about Saturday when Miffer had completely had it. All week since the gig he and the rest of Ibex had been fighting, about nothing in particular, just about this that and the other thing. That Saturday morning he had finally had enough so he and his girl went off and you all hadn't heard from him since. He'd be back, you knew, sometimes he just got rather miffed—hence the loving nickname.
Nothing of too much particular interest happened between now and then though, Freddie as lively as ever. He was absolutely itching to book a new gig and play for even bigger and better crowds. The Sink had filled him with so much joy and enthusiasm, he simply couldn't contain it. Even more than usual he constantly burst into song, had bigger dips and spells in overall hormonal levels, and also grew an overwhelming desire to take the world by storm—his shyness of course often got in the way of this, but maybe that was a good thing.
He'd been acting sweet, rather lovely really, devoting all of his attention to either you, songwriting, or his and Roger's booth in the Kensington Marketplace. Not too much had been selling but he'd had a good time of acting like the perfect little salesman. You'd noticed a clever trend he'd come up with when you'd stop by for a visit. At first when a customer walked by he'd keep himself rather composed and reserved but then ever so slightly lure them in with the power of suggestion. Maybe it was a play on his timid side using it as an advantage or simply just being clever, but it sure did drum up at least a little more business than the usual methods did. Roger of course had been bold and brash about his business; he would be right up front about what was for sale and what he thought you should have. Together they made a great team. Roger would catch their attention, Freddie would entice it, and then before you knew it Rog and Fred had people buying bits and bobs they'd found in an alley dumpster on Oxford street.
One interesting event that did occur this week was a visit from Roger's mother. You'd never met her before, let alone even really remembered looking at any photos of her back when you lived in 2017. She had this fairly intimidating presence about her, Mrs. Winifred Taylor, maybe it was her rather recent divorce. She sure seemed to mention Micheal a lot in casual conversation and his eccentric recklessness. You'd never seen a room full of 20 year old boys and girls look so scared stiff when she came by on Sunday afternoon. She just popped over for a quick cuppa to check up on Roger and with that she was gone, like a sort of will-o'-the-wisp—materializing briefly to try and guide Roger back down the path he was apparently supposed to have gone, and then vanishing without a trace.
Today was finally Tuesday the 16th of September, the day you'd agreed to meet Brian down at Imperial College to talk through more of the whole time travel dilemma. It felt like such a relief to have someone like Brian beginning to help you through all of this, even though Freddie and Roger knew you weren't from here it still was difficult because you felt like talking with them about it never exactly made any headway on making you feel better. Of course Freddie found many ways to make you feel right at home here, but still there was always this sense of longing. Brian, at least from your last meeting, appeared to find a way to make it feel less unknown, more—in the oddest sense, rational.
You awoke shrouded in an attitude of optimism. Freddie had already gotten up, he'd been waking up early all this week since the gig, and as of late has taken a liking to try and feel as though he could be of more use around the flat. One of those things he thought he could be helpful with was attempting to cook...and he absolutely couldn't. Roger had joined him on this little venture and every day since they'd been back they'd tried one new things. Yesterday's culinary adventure was attempting to heat up some beans on the stove, they of course burnt to a crisp at the bottom of the pan—yes pan—and singed the handle of the one wooden spoon you all owned. After you got dressed today, you found them in the kitchen attempting to boil an egg.
"Rog, darling, how exactly do you boil an egg?" asked Freddie as he turned to Roger.
"You, umm - I don't know. I think it has something to do with hot water," responded Roger, arms crossed, the two of them standing absolutely vexed by this egg sitting on the countertop.
"You two are hopeless," you said pulling up a chair and sitting down to tie your shoelaces. You'd have to go out and meet Brian soon.
Freddie ignored your comment and sauntered over to you, "Running a bit late for work today aren't we?"
It was nearly eleven, he was indeed correct. You'd asked Mary yesterday if she wouldn't mind covering your shift today. You weren't quite sure how long your meeting with Brian would be even if you had set it for just lunch. You were surprised by how fine Mary always was with how much time you took off and covering your shifts. You felt rather guilty and someway you wanted to make it up to her but you were never quite sure how when it came down to exactly what.
"You're one to talk," you quipped back with a smile, "Why exactly aren't you and Rog at the booth?"
"Oh don't you try something smart, we've just come back for some lunch," Freddie paused and turned to the stove, "And I haven't got the slightest clue how to cook this damn egg!" He put his hands on his hips, stared at it a moment and declared in upheaval, "Thats it! I'm through faffing around with this cooking shit. Sod it all to hell!" Who knew an egg had so much power.
"Here, let me take care of it," you finished tying your other shoe and started boiling water and then you grabbed a piece of toast. You glanced at the clock, 10:50. Goodness, you were cutting it close to meet with Brian, you had said about lunchtime and getting to Imperial from here would take ages, "Now I've got to rush off to work, but Roger, just pop this egg in when the water starts boiling and then wait 10-12 minutes, then you're golden," you handed him an egg.
"It's going to be golden?" he asked, "I don't know any boiled eggs that turn—"
"No I meant—whatever, you've got it. Gotta run!" you said quickly grabbing your toast out of the toaster and buttering it, "I'll be home before long, shouldn't have to work too late," you placed your toast on a napkin, grabbed your purse and gave Freddie a quick kiss goodbye, "Love you".
"Oh," replied Freddie, rather surprised at your rush, "Love you too, dear".
"I'll be back soon enough," you gave him a kiss on the forehead, he looked rather dejected for a moment but it cheered him up a little.
"You'd better," he replied with a smile, "Especially before its really at sixes and sevens in here, Roger and I are sure to cock something else up".
"Oh you'll be fine," you gave his hand a little squeeze goodbye and smiled. Next thing you knew you were out the door.
You rushed your way down the street to the Ainslie Wood Road bus stop to catch bus 158—you'd had this all planned out very thoroughly in your head, so you were hoping you'd still make it in time to meet Brian for lunch and not be too late.
The bus ride to the Blackhorse Road tube stop didn't take very long, about 15 minutes or so, and the tube to the Green Park tube station wasn't all that long either, maybe 20 minutes, finally you ended up in South Kensington and from there it was just a quick ten minute walk.
Brian had said to meet him just inside Blackett Laboratory, but you had an absolute hell of a time finding it. Eventually you consulted a map posted outside one of the buildings and found it to be on the complete opposite side of campus. Who puts a physics building on the opposite side of campus as all the other science buildings?
Finally you made it to Blackett Lab where you found Brian leaning up against a tiled pole reading what appeared to be a book of a longwinded title, in this case it happened to be Discovery, Invention, Research Through The Morphological Approach by Fritz Zwicky.
"Hiya Brian!" you greeted him with a small wave. It took a minute for him to close his book, he was clearly invested.
"Oh y/n, hello!" he responded with a smile as he got up and carried held the book in hand, "Have you eaten?"
"Ah, no," you sort of laughed, "I woke up a bit late and had to rush on over here without much to eat".
"Here we'll stop by the cafe a minute," he replied as the two of you began to walk down the hallway together. He seemed to enjoy walking these halls, something about the minds at work behind closed doors gave him a sort of confidence. He took a breath in of the stagnant air as he walked, closed his eyes and smiled.
"What's the book on?" you asked as you walked by the yellow tile walls, every now and again passing a classroom door or a statue of some important figurehead in science.
"Hm?" he opened his eyes, escaping his daze.
"The book you're reading, looks...intellectual," you laughed, it really did. It had the collegiate tweed colored brown and the typical 60s scientific art design.
"Funny you should ask," he replied, "An astronomer I've been learning about, Fritz Zwicky, he developed what he called the morphological approach to problem analysis. In essence, it decomposes a problem into multiple discrete-value dimensions. Then, using systematic field coverage, the approach examines each distinct combination of values. He then uses input as one axis and output as the other, and creates two dimensional grids of input/output combinations. Just thought it was a helpful way to look at timeline problems, or simply discover a new perspective of solution finding".
You were gobsmacked, "Brian you lost me at morphological," you replied, laughing, "How exactly do you even begin to understand all that!?"
"Haven't the foggiest," Brian laughed in reply.
Brian and you arrived at the library cafe, they didn't have much on but you grabbed a turkey sandwich to go. Brian had eaten already himself so the two of you decided to head back to Brian's astronomy class just down the hall.
Brian opened up the heavy classroom door which lead to a beautifully large, wooden-panel lecture hall. As you walked down the stairs to the front your eyes traced along the wood pattern lining the walls and then followed up to stare at the tall ceiling of this catacomb that seemed to go on for a miniature eternity.
"So you're really just allowed in here?" you asked, still admiring the expanse as Brian took a seat on the front desk and stared out at the rows of seats climbing up to the back door from which you came.
"I like to study here occasionally, my professor doesn't mind all that much, he's got Tuesdays off anyway," answered Brian.
"Oh," you replied, taking a seat, digging into your sandwich, and looking out to the classroom.
It was quiet a moment.
"So," Brian clapped his hands and jumped off the tabletop, "I've got a theory for you".
"A theory?" you inquired as Brian paced about in front of you, he looked deep in thought.
"On your traveling back to the past," he answered, talking with his index finger pointed, still deep in thought, "Have you heard of the grandfather paradox?"
"I've heard reference to it once or twice," you replied, snacking on another bite of your sandwich.
"Well here's a basic outline of it," said Brian as he slipped behind the desk and began drawing with a piece of chalk on the blackboard. You turned around to continue to listen, "Suppose you go back in time and decide you want to kill your grandfather, following through on that would then cause you to never be born and thus you could never go back in time to kill your grandfather," he sketches this all out in a flow chart, "This would then result in a paradox".
"Right," you responded, "But what has a paradox got to do with my situation?"
"I'm getting to that," said Brian, placing down the chalk, "I think you're facing a causal loop".
"Causal loop?" you asked, this was so fascinating and each line of Brian's little lecture he delivered left your curiouser and curiouser.
"Yes," he planted his foot up on the teacher's chair and talked now with both hands, "It's difficult to explain fully given that it is a paradox, but basically it is a loop in time where a time traveler is caught in a loop of events that may predestine them or predates them traveling back in time".
"But that doesn't answer how I got here?" you replied.
"No it doesn't, but it can explain why," said Brian, then popping back off the chair and sliding up the slate panel of the blackboard to reveal another blank slate underneath. He then seized up the piece of chalk and began to draw out your timeline, "So you came here from 2017... to back here—" he drew a large arrow back to 1964, "Back to 1964. That must mean that somewhere in your timeline, something you did starting from 1964 changed the course of your life in 2017, thus sending you into a loop of going back in time".
"Wouldn't I then not know about what events are right and what events are wrong?" you questioned, "If its a loop, then how do I know events are different than they are playing out to be?"
Brian pondered this a moment, chalk resting below his lip, "It could be that your memories from before the loop are preserved, if someone—let's say—deliberately threw you into a causal loop".
Now this brought questions, "Now who would do a thing like that?!" you exclaimed.
"Vengeful future grandson?" he quipped.
"Funny," you replied, rolling your eyes.
Things then suddenly got more serious now, that jest seemed to have brought Brian back to the present.
"I still need to do some more research, though that can be rather difficult now," he paused, "I wanted to talk to you today about another issue as well," he said, now sitting down next to you, chalk still in hand, his face rather serious.
"Yeah of course, what's going on Brian?" you asked, he twiddled the chalk with his fingertips.
"Nothing all too serious, I just wanted to let you know that I decided to join Professor Jim Ring's research team studying zoological light as a part of my PhD," answered Brian.
"That's fantastic! Congratulations!" you replied, my god he was smart.
"But the thing is, I've got to go off to Tenerife and study in the observatory for a short while. I'm actually leaving tomorrow. Sorry I didn't tell you sooner, but I'll be back in a month exactly," Brian explained.
"No need to apologize!" you said, "Don't worry I completely understand".
"I just felt a bit guilty considering I'd promised to help you through all of this," he continued, he grabbed your hand. It took you by surprise a little bit.
You turned to look at him in the eyes and gave a slight smile of camaraderie, "Just put all this research out of your mind for the next month, focus on your research," you gave a slight squeeze of his hand and let go, then you turned forward and stood up, "I've lasted this long," you smiled, hands on hips—a rather Freddie-like move.
"Thanks for understanding y/n," stated Brian.
"No problem," you smiled, feeling confident that come a month from now things could resume and maybe a plan between the two of you would formulate.
You and Brian spent the rest of the afternoon discussing this and that, you learned a little more about that book he had been reading. You spilled a little of what happens in the distant future regarding life and technology. He was more than pleased to learn he does in-fact complete his PhD eventually. You worried some of this information you were divulging could possibly affect Brian to maybe change the course of things in his own life, but you realized Brian knowing the success of his passion in the future would discourage him from wanting anything to be different. Eventually, the afternoon slipped away and, with time, so did you. You said goodbye to Brian and made your way home.
_______
We start to dip a little into Brian's world in this chapter. The image that goes along with this chapter contains some photos of Blackett Laboratory as it looks presently at Imperial College. In the top left corner is the book I had Brian reading in this chapter. I have no idea if Brian ever actually read this book but I knew he respected Zwicky and this book just so happened to come out in 1969 so I figured, if I were Brian May and I were trying to solve an impossible problem wouldn't I go to a book about solving problems first.
I had fun with this chapter a wee bit because I get to start to try and introduce the whole scientific and theories behind why y/n is where she is. If it ends abruptly that's just because I began to realize how deep I was getting into this and that I needed to pace myself better. Also its incredibly unlikely that if Brian would figure absolutely everything out within 2 weeks of just hearing that time travel even exists, he's got Smile and his schooling. Working through quantum physics problems at this time seems a little stressful to say the least. Brian did at this time exactly go off to Tenerife for different lengths of time for research with Prof. Ring. Also the egg story with Freddie and Rog is completely true, word for word and there's no way I wasn't including it.