Huddled together under a bridge like rats. It shouldn't be like this anymore, Sarah thought. They had stopped it. All of it. Rachel was dead. The danger should have died with her.
"This is crazy," Alison said. The others ― Sarah, Cosima, Helena ― turned to her. "That message, it couldn't have been real, right?"
There it was. A thick feeling of unease spread through the air.
The message.
It had been sent to their phones that day, around three in the morning. An indecipherable link from an unknown number. They would have discounted it as spam, if not for the accompanying text: It's MK. Watch the video. URGENT.
The link took them to the video: Mika speaking into the camera, wearing the sheep mask.
"Sisters. Please listen carefully to everything I'm about to tell you. This video will be deleted as soon as you've finished watching it. If you're seeing this, it means there are people still after us. It means they've found me and that I've been taken. Or killed. It means that you're the only ones who can stop this."
Cosima spoke up. "They're looking for us. We know that."
It had been a close call for Cosima. The message had put her on high alert, which is how she noticed the whispers and soft footsteps at the entrance to her apartment. She was halfway down the fire escape when she heard the loud bang of the door being kicked open.
Luckily, Delphine was out of town, but without a safe way to contact her, she had no way of knowing if she was okay.
"Throw away your phones. Do not try and contact your loved ones. Any electronic trace you leave will be enough for them to find you. I know because they found me."
"Okay," Alison conceded. Her voice was high, laced with panic. "Okay. There are people looking for us. What about the other thing?"
She glanced around to her sisters, the same nervous look mirrored on all their faces. The silence was heavy.
The other thing.
"What I'm about to tell you will sound impossible. But it's important that you please, please put your trust in me. All our lives depend on it. You, me, all our sisters - we have an ability."
There was a pause here in the video, several seconds of Mika shifting uncomfortably, heavy breathing trapped behind a mask. Finally, she spoke again.
"We have the ability to send our consciousnesses back in time."
"I mean, time travel? Is that meant to be a joke?" Alison whispered furiously.
"Right, yeah," Sarah grumbled. "It's all just a big joke. Mika punked us."
"The attitude isn't necessary." Alison jumped at the sound of a siren in the distance. "Fine. But you don't honestly believe it, do you?"
"Four of you. It won't work with any fewer than four. Whatever this is that's inside us, in our DNA, it needs to resonate with more of its own. Our powers feed each other. Together, we can tear a hole in time."
A small, muted laugh came from behind the mask.
"It's really cool."
"I believe it," Helena said, matter-of-factly. She gave a knowing look to Sarah, who wasn't eager to return it. "We felt it, Sarah."
It had happened a few weeks ago. It had been a slow process, but Sarah had convinced Helena to open up about her past. Sarah was the only one she would talk to. It was during a particularly horrific story that Sarah placed her hand on Helena's arm.
And then…
A sharp chill shot through the skin of her fingers and into her veins. An image tore into the front of her mind.
She was in her bedroom at S's house. She was drawing on Felix's arm with a black marker. Felix was a kid, maybe eight or nine. She remembered. They used to give each other "tattoos". One of many stupid things they used to do when they got bored. It was a memory she'd long forgotten, pushed back over the years into the recesses of her mind, but now it was here in front of her, crystal clear. She could see the dust particles floating in the light of the window. She could smell meat cooking downstairs. She felt herself losing awareness of where she really was.
That is, until she felt Helena jolt her arm back. The vision evaporated as quickly as it had appeared, and she saw Helena retreating to the other end of Felix's couch, pulling her legs up to her chest, shivering violently. She stared back at Sarah, wide-eyed and afraid.
"Helena," Sarah whispered, hoping more words would come. Whatever had happened seemed to have affected them both. It was hours before Helena spoke again, and they silently agreed not to bring it up.
"In order to jump, one of you will need to focus on a clear, powerful memory. If it's strong enough, and if you allow your abilities to resonate with each other's, you should all be thrown back to that moment in time."
"I don't know what I felt," Sarah lied. Mika's words made some sense to her. They made her out-of-body experience make sense.
Helena had been focusing on a powerful memory. Sarah touched her arm. Their powers "resonated," whatever the hell that meant. They were both sent back in time. Partially, at least. Mika said they needed four to make the full jump.
The idea made Sarah sick. She had only started to feel like things could be normal, that she could have a life outside of all this clone shit. But this… if this was real, it was far from fucking normal.
"What happened? Do you know something?" Alison asked, shooting frantic glances between the two. Helena nodded and reached a hand toward Alison's. Alison instinctively pulled away but Helena kept her hand held out. Confused, Alison placed her palm over Helena's. After a beat, she shuddered and jumped back, bumping into Cosima.
"What was that?" Alison asked, hysterical. No one responded. "What was that?"
"You know what it was." Sarah said flatly. Fine. Okay. She had to accept it. This was their new reality. Time travel. Fucking time travel.
Alison shook her head back and forth, muttering to herself, lost in her own mind.
"If we're gonna do this, we need to do it now," Sarah said, digging up new determination. There was nothing to do but jump down this rabbit hole, just like the others, and hope they could they could find a way out. "They'll find us soon."
Cosima and Helena nodded. Alison's face contorted with worry, her breathing quickened, but she didn't object.
"Cos," Sarah whispered, tender. "You alright with this?" Her eyes lowered to Cosima's wedding band. Cosima's followed. She twirled it back and forth with her fingers. They couldn't be sure how things would change.
"You'll be in the past, but only for a short time. For me, it was a little under an hour. After that, your consciousness will jump back to the present. Not your current present, but a new present shaped by your actions in the past. For example, if you jump back five years and kill someone, when you return to the present, you might find yourself serving life in prison. You'll have no memory of the past five years. And the 'you' who was sentenced would have had no memory of murdering someone. At least, this is my understanding of how it all works, based on a very limited data set. Unfortunately, it's all we have to go on."
"Yeah," Cosima said after a deep breath. "Yeah. I want to see a future that's safe for us." She looked around at all the others in turn. "All of us." She drew another deep breath, then took Sarah's hand, held it tight. "Besides, what kind of a scientist would I be if I turned down the opportunity to time travel?" She put on a brave smile, reached out to Helena who took her other hand. Everyone looked to Alison.
"We need you, sestra Alison," Helena said, voice soft. The air was still as they waited. Somewhere, a car door closed, startling Alison. With a huff, she quickly grabbed the others' hands and shut her eyes.
"Dear Lord, please watch over us," she began. No one protested. Slowly, their eyes closed and heads bowed. "We need you now, more than ever. Please protect us and our sisters. And let our new future be a bright one. Amen."
"Amen," they repeated.
Sarah felt Cosima gently squeeze her hand. Her cue to begin. She cast her mind back. She remembered the chill in the air that night. She remembered the hum of the lights hanging overhead. She remembered the feel of the concrete under her step.
A feeling like ice ripped through her body. Her blood ran cold. She felt herself lose balance.
She remembered the look on Beth's face before she jumped.
"It's a longshot. But if there's anyone who can help us, it's her. You need to go back. You need to save Beth Childs."
Sarah felt herself falling, but she couldn't tell in what direction.
One.
Two.
Three.
A/N: Due to the restrictive formatting on this site, I won't be able to post the rest of this story here. BUT if you enjoyed this, the entire completed work (17 chapters!) is available at Archive of Our Own. Hope you'll check it out! :)