I Know You'll Be by My Side

Allison laid in her bed staring up at her girlhood room's ceiling as the sun slowly turned her bedroom from black to gray to pink to orange to yellow. Over those few hours, the reality of her situation finally began to sink in. She and her siblings were here indefinitely. They were never going back to where they'd come from or to any of the days leading up to the apocalypse. She was going to have to grow up all over again.

She brought one of her hands up to cover her mouth as she curled into a fetal position. Allison gasped and choked and heaved on air as her eyes began to blur with tears. She was never ever going to see Claire again. She would never hold her daughter in her arms or smell the lavender scent of her favorite bubble bath or hear her funny little snort-giggle after Allison told her a knock-knock joke. There would be no more stories about Spaceboy before bed or "I love you"s when she dropped her off at school nor would she get to listen to her talk in her sleep anymore.

Allison pressed her hand harder against her mouth, but it did little to muffle the high-pitched keen of her sobs and, soon, there was a soft knocking at her door. She ignored it in favor of staying huddled beneath her covers and letting her eyes run over with her tears. Not quite a minute later, she heard the door to her room open. Its opening was then followed by a quiet, "Allison?"

She brought her knees to her chest and hugged them tightly while she willed away the owner of the voice. Shouldn't Luther already be outside and jogging around the academy? Maybe he'd had a nightmare and decided to sleep in until Dad forced them to get up? Allison didn't remember waking in the middle night to the sounds of him choking back yells as he fought his way out of a night terror or the creaking of his bed as he tossed and turned in his sleep, though. Maybe she'd been too exhausted from her own bad sleep the last few days to wake up from his. Allison sniffled into her knees. How could she have been so stupid? She should have made sure Luther was away before she let herself go like this.

"Allison?" he repeated before shuffling across her floor to her bed. "Are you okay?" he asked her as he laid a deceptively gentle hand on her back.

"Fine!" she called through her covers as she worked on scrubbing away the remnants of her tears.

Luther didn't move his hand and she could almost hear his hesitation before he said, "It's just that I was sure I heard you crying."

"Maybe it was Diego," Allison replied in an utterly thoughtless and stupid move.

He practically fell off of her bed from laughing. "Oh man!" he exclaimed. "That's the funniest thing I've heard since we came back in time."

Allison couldn't help herself. She started to giggle too. It was funny. While Diego certainly could be moved to tears with the right motivation and she wouldn't even blame him if he did start to cry at some point about the situation they'd all found themselves in, Allison didn't believe he'd ever be so loud about it. When she was genuinely sad or upset about something, Claire hadn't been a noisy crier either. At the thought of her daughter, all of the levity Allison had just felt fled from her. A fresh wave of heartbrokenness washing over her, she began to sob.

"Allison?" Luther said before grabbing the covers over her beginning to pull.

She tried to stop him, but it was pointless. He'd always been stronger and while Luther was typically quite good at taking a no from her, in this case, this moment, he pulled until the covers were down by her feet. She hid her face in her hands instead of turning to face Luther.

His touch was warm as he placed his hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Through her fingers, she whimpered, "E-Everything!"

"Everything?" he echoed with a note of confusion tinging his words. "I know being thirteen again isn't ideal, but now we have years to figure out how to stop the end of th—"

"No!" she snapped. "Could you for just a minute forget the mission?" she demanded as she turned around and roughly shoved his hand away from her and then him off of her bed with no small amount of effort. "I know you probably won't get it since you didn't lose anything agreeing to come back here, but what's wrong is that I'll never see Claire again!"

Luther stared at her with big, sad eyes. "I'm sorry," he whispered after a moment as Allison glared at him from her bed.

As soon as Luther finished his apology, Allison was overwhelmed with guilt. He hadn't deserved to be yelled at. He'd only come in here because she was the one making a show of herself by crying too loud for the academy's thin walls. Slipping down from her bed to sit in front of Luther, who'd sunk to the floor after his apology, Allison pulled her knees tightly against her chest and said, "It's okay. I know you only wanted to help."

Luther reached out and placed a hand on one of her knees. "I know I don't know what it's like to lose a child," he murmured, "but I do know what it's like to lose someone who matters to you."

She wiped fresh tears from her eyes. "I know you do," she whispered. "I'm sorry I accused you of not losing anything for agreeing to Number Five's crazy plan."

He curved his lips into a tentative smile and scratched the back of his neck. "I didn't, though," he said. "Not really." Luther brought his own knees up and rested his arms atop them as he turned his head away from Allison. "I'm not the missing link anymore, Dad and Ben are alive again, all of you are back here at the Academy…" He took a deep breath. "The worst that's happened is I've lost a few years, so, yeah, you aren't wrong."

"Luther…"

He waved off her words. "You guys all lost a lot more than me." He met her gaze. "Especially you," he said. "You've lost Claire, your daughter." He blushed and ducked his head. "From my understanding about how creating life works, even if you get back together with Patrick and try to, um, uh, conceive Claire the exact same day and way you did before… There's no guarantee she'd still be made. You could end up with an entirely different baby. Which would be fine, because I'm sure you would love it no matter what, but it wouldn't be Claire and—"

Allison leaned in and cut off Luther by putting a hand over his mouth. "Stop talking," she said.

He stared back at her with big eyes.

She couldn't help but smile at him. This was why she loved Luther. He could be so sweet even when it was to his own detriment. She could only imagine how uncomfortable it had to be for him to even think about her and Patrick being together. Allison also appreciated that he wasn't trying to downplay her loss and was even sympathizing with the fact that what was would never be again for her. Even if she tried her damnedest, Claire wasn't going to exist again. For all intents and purposes, she was dead. Even if she didn't exist here and never would.

Getting on her knees, Allison leaned over and wrapped her arms around Luther. "Thanks, Luther," she whispered. "You are really good at making me feel better."

He put a hand on her back and returned the embrace. "You're, um, welcome."

She sighed contentedly before pulling away. Taking one of Luther's hands, she suggested, "Why don't we get dressed and go downstairs for breakfast together?"

"Yeah, I'd like that," said Luther, grinning.

I feel if they do go back all the way back to when they are teenagers in time, Allison is going to have some really difficult moments struggling with the fact Claire is gone and likely for good.

Thank you a million for reading!