DISCLAIMER: I do not own Glee. If I did, then, well- let's just say it would be a VERY different show.
WARNING: Yes, I spell the short form of "mother" m-u-m. This is because I'm Australian. Yes, I know the story is set in America. I hope this doesn't bother you, dear reader. If people are bothered enough by it, I will change the spelling in future chapters.
Feedback please! Enjoy!
~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~
Prologue
Sugar Lopez-Pierce was normal. Well, as normal as a girl with two mums could be. Even in the year 2036, society still hadn't completely accepted the idea of same-sex marriages. So, really, by the moral, non-judgmental worldview that she had grown up with, she was normal.
But, thanks to a little Irish, ahem, problem, her circumstances were about to be turned upside down.
If she didn't change these circumstances by midnight, October 12th, 2036, she'd be a lot less than upside down.
She, and all she knew, would cease to exist.
~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~
Sugar slammed her locker shut. The retinal scan pad in the centre of the door bleeped its final Morse code-esque message for the day before fading back into crystals behind the glass. Sugar hated the retina scans- they hurt her eyes, and she already had to wear glasses despite both of her parents having near-perfect eyesight. The locker to her right slammed shut the next instant, revealing wavy, near-black hair and spectacles, both of which belonged to her best friend, Harmony. The pale girl turned around, gently settling the back of her head on the locker door. She sighed.
"Thank God that's over. I don't think I would've survived another moment of that stupid professor's drivel."
Sugar turned to look her childhood companion and teenage confidante in the eyes- well, she would be looking straight into her eyes, if Harmony's weren't shut tight, her forehead wrinkled in a mixture of headache and relief.
"Well, it's Economics. What did you expect?"
"Hey, I didn't sign up for that class. Why the hell did they have to make it compulsory?"
Sugar screwed up her nose. "Apparently, if we want to stay off the streets and employed, we have to know about every which way the world can go wrong."
"I know, it's just so depressing."
Sugar smiled weakly, tugging at the other girl's wrist in an effort to get her out of the hallway and into the car park. "Well, maybe we should just take it as a reality check. Our parents didn't have to worry about any of this stuff, if they didn't want to. But, unfortunately, America thrives on capitalism, and the idea that they have dominion over every other country in the world."
Harmony groaned. "See what I mean? This is why I don't do history. I don't understand why you chose it. It's useless. Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler- they're all dead. Why study them?"
Sugar rolled her eyes, shaking her head slightly. "It's not so much studying the people, but what they did that changed the way that we behave as a society today. If it weren't for Stalin, a lot more countries would have probably tried, and failed miserably, to implement Communism. If it weren't for the moon landing, both the Americans and the Soviets would be living in constant fear. And if it weren't for Rosa Parks, Shaniqua Jones would still be sitting by herself in the back of the bus, if at all."
They had reach Harmony's car, and she pulled open the passenger door for Sugar. Harmony threw her bag over the back seat, her brow furrowing more as she did so. "I still don't get why you find it so interesting."
Sugar shuffled in her seat, capturing Harmony's attention fully. "Well, what would you do if you knew what was going to happen in the future? What if you could go back through history, and change something? What would you do to make the world a better place? Maybe you could save a life, even save the world."
Harmony stilled for a moment, then scoffed, slamming Sugar's door. She slid across the bonnet, jumped in the driver's side and fastened her seatbelt.
"Sugar, I think you've been watching too much Doctor Who. Time travel doesn't- can't- exist."
"I resent that! One can never watch too much Doctor Who. The Doctor's a better history teacher than any other. And I know time travel isn't real- it's just a dream, really."
Harmony smirked as she turned the ignition, and the car kicked into life. "You've been hanging out with Rory too much anyway. When you talk to him, you make me look blonde... and, knowing you sometimes, that's saying something."
"Well, most of what he said goes over my head anyway. Remember when we were twelve, and he was addicted to that Meet the Robinsons movie?"
"How could I forget? He wouldn't shut up about the damn memory device- thingy."
"Believe it or not, he actually showed me a prototype of it."
"Seriously? When?"
"When we were both freshmen. It was only a month before you moved from New York. This was when I still thought he was just a science geek that only socialised through World of Warcraft."
"Gosh, who plays that anymore? And did the thing actually work?"
Sugar's disparaging look formed into a lopsided grimace. "I don't think so. He kept pretending that he could tell what was gonna happen next, or faking amnesia. But you know him; he can't hide a damn thing from anybody." Sugar felt a buzz from her pocket. She reached in and pulled out her phone. She tapped twice on the surface of it and a message came up.
Harmony peeked over from the driver's side. "Who is it? What does it say?"
Sugar pulled the phone out of Harmony's gaze. "For your information, miss nosy, it's the mad man himself. Here, lemme read the message;
Movies at my place tonight? I'll provide popcorn... and the GREATEST TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT SINCE THE TOASTER!"
Harmony snickered. "What was so great about the toaster? It cooks bread. Occasionally turns it into something that looks like coal."
Sugar slid the phone back in her pocket. "Well, do you wanna go tonight or what?"
"What, and encourage this madness? Nuh-uh. Besides, I've got a composition due for music on Monday."
"Relax, Harm, you always come up with them at the last minute and ace them anyway. I'm going, even if you aren't."
Harmony groaned. "Ok, fine. I'll go with you and see what sort of thingamabob Irish has concocted this time."
~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~
"Rory, don't stay up too late, you've got a college football game to go to with your father tomorrow morning!"
"Alright, Dad!" Rory called from the basement of their quaint suburban home. It was certainly not quite what life was like in Ireland, all those years ago. Rory still had flashbacks of cold winters spent in front of the fire in their spacious home on the northern hillside. It's where e fell in love with science- how the wind whistled through trees, how the waves crashed along the shore- how his father's stories of the leprechauns could possibly be true. Which, of course, according to science, they couldn't be. Still, however many memories he had, he didn't take life in America for granted for a second. He had friends here, family, and access to cable TV. Rory heard a knock on the door to the basement stairs. He quickly adjusted the sheet covering his latest masterpiece, before sprinting up the stairs to greet his friends.
Too late. Harmony opened the door with her usual gusto- too much gusto- and slammed Rory square in the nose. Luckily, he managed to get a hold onto the banister before tumbling halfway down the stairs. He glanced back up at the door, squeezing his nostrils shut with his left hand while still gripping the banister with his right, to find Harmony's shocked and deeply apologetic visage and Sugar's amused one.
Harmony offered a hand out to Rory, worry still indenting her brow. "I'm so sorry, Rory. Are you okay?"
"Yeb." Rory replied through the torrent of blood issuing from his nose. "Jusb grand."
Sugar pulled a tissue from her purse and held it to Rory's bleeding nose, while Harmony encouraged him down the stairs and into the nearest bean bag.
"Thank you guys." Rory said, folding the tissue over to a side that wasn't soaked in red.
"So, what is it that you wanted to show us?" Sugar inquired, honestly curious. Harmony just rolled her eyes.
Rory sniffed- by this point, much of the blood had drained from his nostrils, and he was again capable of coherent speech. "As you both know, Spielberg has been an inspiration to me my entire life."
"Oh no, not Spielberg again." Harmony near- whimpered. Ignoring her apparent discomfort, Rory continued.
"His portrayal of time travel in the Back to the Future trilogy has- if you'll pardon the pun- sparked an idea. What if time travel, or rather, temporary traversal of a different part of the time plane, could actually happen? Sure, it would require mass amounts of energy, but, according to earlier calculations, under the right conditions, it could be done."
Sugar tried in vain to grasp what he was saying, so she settled for a nod and asked, "So... how?"
The glint that often entreated Rory's eyes was there again. He strolled over to the sheet- covered object in the corner of the room, pulling the sheet off with a flourish. The object was revealed to be a large metal cage, with 2 copper frames attached to its extremities and a large amount of tubing lining the inside of it, initiating and terminating at a small black box, which sat about waist height in the device. "With the help of a miniature Hadron collider, something large enough to transport living organisms through time, but small enough to efficiently permeate the fabric of space-time, grit, spit, and a hell of a lot of duct tape."
"Whoah, wait a Hadron collider? Now I'm no genius, but I've heard that's pretty high-tech, dangerous stuff." Harmony said, now gripping the arm of her chair a little tighter.
"Well, it wasn't easy, but I managed to figure out a way to contain it. Well, in theory." Rory explained. "Which is where you guys come in."
"Wait... you want us to test that thing? Jeez, Rory, we're friends, but I'm not gonna take a split atom in the heart for you." Harmony stated incredulously.
"What? No! No, I'm gonna test it, I just need you to make observations... and tell my parents if I don't make it back."
Sugar couldn't believe what Rory was saying. "Rory, you're only a senior in High School. If this thing works at all, it'll probably blow you up. I'm not gonna let you do that."
Rory shook his head. "Ye of little faith- I've already written a thesis, sent it to the local university, and they think it's gold. So, whether or not I live to tell the tale, I'm going. Back in time, 25 years."
With that, he thrust a stopwatch into Harmony's hand and a clipboard into Sugar's, before disappearing into the thickly-wired cage, slamming the opaque burnished silver door behind him. Sugar took a step towards the device in an effort to get a closer look, but Harmony seized her wrist and pulled her back behind the couch. The surge protector next to them began to spark, and Sugar squealed.
"Don't worry, it's meant to do that!" Rory's muffled voice echoed from the metal device. "It powers the collider!"
All the same, Sugar and Harmony crawled over to the other side of the room, tipped a coffee table and took refuge behind it. But Sugar couldn't help herself, and peeked over the top of the table at the device.
The copper frames were slowly moving up and down the body of the device, and the piping around the machine was glowing blue. From within, she could see Rory's silhouette. There was a large whirr, then a BANG- and the entire thing, surge protector and all was gone- and Rory was gone with it.
~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~
Sugar stood, tugging Harmony's sleeve. Harmony was still cowering behind the coffee table, eyes squeezed shot, hands clamped over her ears.
"Harmony, it's all right. Come look."
Harmony cracked open one eye, and slowly ascended to her feet. When she saw that the device had vanished, her jaw just about hit the floor.
"Wha- where'd he go? Where'd he GO!"
"Well, I think he might have gone to the past. Just an educated guess."
"But- that's impossible. I don't care what sort of sciency papers he's got on this, Rory's a crackpot who's pulling the wool over our eyes, because time travel cannot ever, EVER happen."
BANG! Harmony screeched, immediately shrinking back behind the table, pulling Sugar down in a heap beside her.
"Ow! What the hell, Harmony!"
Harmony didn't respond. She had her hands over her ears again and her eyes squeezed shut. Sugar sighed a barely audible sigh over the whirring and banging in the back ground. Even if she didn't want to admit it to her more cynical friend, she was slightly concerned for Rory, even for themselves. The whirring slowed to a crawl, eventually fading to nothing. She heard footsteps, coming closer.
"What did I tell you? It did work!"
Sugar whipped around. Rory was standing over the table, grinning like the idiot that he was. She tackled him to the ground, partially proud and partially relieved that he not only got out of that infernal metal death trap alive, but finally made something that actually worked.
Harmony crawled out from behind the table, eyes lighting up when she saw Rory. Rory grinned back at her. However, Harmony's smile turned into a scowl, and she slapped him square in the face. Rory's reaction was priceless.
"What the hell, Harmony? Do you want me to start bleeding again?"
"You scared the crap out of us, Hummel- Anderson! Don't ever do that AGAIN!"
Rory ran a hand through his hair. "Uh... actually, I was planning on going into the future, picking up a more efficient power source for the machine..."
Slap. Harmony hit him again.
Rory grasped gingerly at his cheek. "Some other time, maybe?"
"Yeah, Irish, another time, like your distant future. Very distant future."
Rory pulled himself and Sugar to their feet. "I've got to tell my fathers. And the university. And maybe NASA." He immediately sprinted up the stairs, pulling the door open to find... a strange, scruffy- looking giant-like man looming over the doorway.
"What- who are you? Get out of my house, you lousy squatters! All of you, go, now! ... What's that big thing in the corner? Whatever it is, get it out of my basement, otherwise it goes to the scrap yard!"
Rory scrambled back down the stairs, pulling Harmony and Sugar into the device, flicking a couple switches and almost punching the LCD- screen attached to the silver piping. The device started sparking and whirring again, before blinding them all with a brilliant white light.
~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~
The three of them tumbled from the machine onto pavement. Goodness knows where the pavement was, but at least it was pavement not currently occupied by a creepy tall guy with too much facial hair. Harmony blew her hair out of her face and dusted off her skinny jeans.
"Once again, Irish- what the HELL!"
"Uh, oops?"
Harmony brought her hand over her shoulder to slap him again, but Sugar managed to get between them before she could follow through.
"Harmony, slapping Rory isn't gonna fix anything."
"Really, Sugar? 'Cuz it's sure gonna make me feel better."
"Harmony, turn around, count to ten. Calm down. Rory, what do you think happened?"
"Uhm, I'm not sure. That guy certainly wasn't there when I left... I might have changed something in the past, creating a completely different tangent in the future?"
"Really, Irish?" Harmony snapped. "How come we're in this supposed tangential reality too? We didn't go with you in this stupid hunk of junk." She spat, giving the device a forceful kick. "At least, not of our own will."
"Hey, be careful! We're gonna need that, if we want to get out of this mess. My theory is that, when the device was initiating its past-cycle mechanism, it emitted a low-frequency radiation that, somehow, attached everything in the close vicinity to its respective reality. At least it didn't happen with purely spacial dimensional travel, otherwise we'd still be running from... whoever was in my house... I mean his house... well, really, I mean... oh gosh, now I'm confused."
"Well, get your head together, because I have questions. What could you have possibly done to change our reality to one where the furry T-rex is in your house?"
"Uhm... well, I may have talked to someone from the past, or, rather, she talked to me. For some reason, I landed in a hallway lined with lockers. It looked like our school, but a lot dirtier. She came up to me and, well, we spent a good hour talking."
"Talking? About what?" Sugar asked.
"We talked about current affairs. Well, past affairs, really, I'm desperately curious about the past, Sugar, you know that as well as I do. She seemed quite well-read on the current economic, social, and political information of the time."
"What time, exactly?"
"2011. She was talking about presidential campaigns, social prejudice, all that stuff. And then she started talking about cats."
Something clicked in Sugar's brain. "Cats? What about them?"
Rory shrugged. "She mentioned something about putting her cat on an Atkin's diet. And something about a girl... her name started with S..."
"Rory?"
"Yes, Sugar?"
"I think you were talking to my mother."
~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~
Rory's eyes widened as he realised what he just did. Really? He'd just talked to a teenage version of Sugar's mum? No wonder she looked familiar. But what could he have said or done to her that created a future where his house was not actually his? He'd been careful not to reveal any information about the future. He'd been especially careful to make her feel like she was just talking to a normal fellow student from 2011. He scratched his head- well, at least he tried. His scalp met no resistance from his fingers, and his fingers felt nothing of his scalp, despite the fact that his hand and head were clearly in the correct physical proximity. He pulled his hand down to his eyes.
Except there wasn't a hand, merely a faint outline of where Rory's hand used to be.
Why?
Oh.
Oh dear.
That's why.
Rory looked back up to Sugar and Harmony.
Harmony was missing her right earlobe, and Sugar was missing only the very tip of her nose.
Hypothesis confirmed. Rory stood, fear gripping his insides and entreating his usually sparkling eyes.
"Get in the time machine. Something's wrong."
Harmony rose her eyebrow. "Well, yeah, doofus. We're stuck in a tangential reality."
"No, I mean, there's something worse wrong!"
With his remaining hand, he plucked Sugar's bag from her shoulder, earning him a yelp of disapproval, and rummaged around, finally pulling out a makeup compact and flicking open the lid.
"Sugar, look at your face!" Rory said, turning the compact so Sugar could see her face in the mirror.
"Rory, what is wrong with you? Nothing's wrong with my- oh my gosh!" She squealed. "What the hell happened to my nose!"
"The same thing that happened to my hand." Rory said, lifting his other arm. He snapped the compact shut, tossed it back in Sugar's bag. She quickly snatched it back from him, flinging it back over her shoulder. Rory opened the door to the time machine, and Sugar scampered inside after him.
"Harmony, come on!"
"Nuh- uh. I want an explanation before I set foot in that thing."
Rory's head popped out of the doorway behind Sugar's. "There's no time. Get in, otherwise you'll be able to hear just as well as Sugar will be able to smell, in a couple of minutes."
Harmony groped at the sides of her head, shrieking when her right hand met no resistance. She tore inside the time machine, slamming the door behind.
"Ok, I'm good now. Let's get out of here- and hope to God you know what you're doing, Rory."
Rory punched at the screen, green crystal bars flickering on and off, before finally settling on a date- October 13th, 2011. The machine kicked into life, and the copper frames began to glide along the sides once more. A wire in the ceiling jolted with electricity, showering sparks on top of the three steadily disappearing teenagers.
"It's never done that before." Rory mused, causing Sugar to collapse against the side of the machine and Harmony to turn pale green. Brilliant white light filled the small capsule, before exploding into black.
~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~
The machine landed on its side- luckily with the door still facing outwards. Harmony was sprawled on top of Rory, who was in turn trying to simultaneously open the door and prevent himself from collapsing on top of an unconscious Sugar.
"Harmony, gerroff!" Rory almost growled through clenched teeth, just as he managed to get the door open. Harmony tumbled out onto the pavement, Rory following suit- ending with him on top of Harmony this time. Harmony, surprisingly strong, considering her lithe physique, shoved Rory off her, pulled herself to her feet and sprinted to a nearby trash can. She flung the lid off and began tearing her way through the trash. It was disgusting, but she was desperate. Right at the bottom of the barrel, under about a dozen banana skins and ten dozen empty Styrofoam coffee cups, she seized hold of paper and pulled it from the garbage. It was just what she was looking for- a newspaper. Today's newspaper. Well, not her today- newspapers disappeared when she was about five years old. She unfolded it (why do people fold newspapers before putting them in the trash anyway?) and read the top:
Lima News
Thursday, October 13th, 2011
She lost it. And when Harmony lost it, she lost it big-time.
"IRISH! Get your ass over here!"
Oh dear. Harmony was scary when she was pissed. Rory immediately felt like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Nevertheless, he stood, turned, and face Harmony's wrath.
Harmony was seething. "First, you, without warning, completely alter our past. Second, you almost cause me not just to go deaf, but to lose my hearing- like, literally lose my ear- and third, you bring us back to TWO THOUSAND AND FREAKING ELEVEN?" She verbally attacked Rory, brandishing the paper, waving it rapidly back and forth, dangerously close to his face.
Rory swallowed. "Um... yes?"
Harmony's brow furrowed further her face contorting into what was about to be that look- that look that told him she would personally drag him down to hell, dismantle his limbs and throw them one by one into a pit of burning sulphur. Before he could give her the opportunity to do just that, he tried one more time-
"I can fix it, though?"
It really was more of a question than a statement, a plea for Harmony to allow him to escape with his life- and his genitals- but only if he was extra lucky. He looked up at Harmony, even stooping so low as to use puppy-dog eyes. No one could resist the puppy dog eyes- not even Harmony. Well, relatively normal Harmony, not furious Harmony. Thankfully, Harmony dropped the paper, slumping herself down on the park bench next to the trash can. A street lamp flickered on and off above it, bringing Harmony's face into the light. It illuminated something Rory had never seen- Harmony had allowed one tear to slide down her porcelain cheek.
"I'm so confused, Rory. And scared. How on Earth are you going to fix this?"
Rory plopped himself down beside her, securing an arm around her shoulders. Thankfully, his formerly transparent hand had now become completely opaque and corporeal.
"I don't know. But at least we're not fading away anymore."
Harmony again pressed her palms against the side of her head, slumping back against the bench again once she was met with the flexible cartilage of her outer ear. The she suddenly remembered. Harmony turned to Rory, eyebrows upturned in panicked concern.
"Where's Sugar?"
"Shh, calm down. She's still unconscious in the time machine."
"We should get her out of there."
Harmony stood, pulling at Rory's hand. She jogger over to the time machine and, gently as possible, pulled her friend out by her shoulders. Harmony looked back at Rory.
"Are you gonna help me or not? She's heavier than she looks."
Rory met her eyes. "Oh, right. Sure."
He walked over to the machine, grabbing Sugar's ankles.
"One, two, three, lift!"
They hoisted Sugar upwards- too far upwards. Her forehead collided with the door frame. Sugar groaned and her eyelids fluttered, but miraculously, she remained unconscious. Rory and Harmony carried her over to the park bench, carefully laying her down along it, kneeling on the pavement.
"Sugar?" Harmony prodded gently at her arm. "Wake up, Sugar." Sugar gave no response.
"Hold on." Rory said. He strode over to the time machine, taking from within it a small white box with a red cross on the front. He returned to the bench, opened the box and pulled out a broad, short, white plastic stick.
"What the hell is that?" Harmony hissed.
"Smelling salts. Hopefully the smell will wake her up."
"Smelling salts?" Harmony whipped the salts out of his hand, taking a whiff. She gagged. "Okay, if that doesn't wake her up, nothing will." She said, handing the stick back to Rory, who then waved it beneath Sugar's nostrils. Almost immediately, she started spluttering and wheezing.
"Rory, I thought I told you to get some new deodorant! You really stink!"
Rory chuckled. "Welcome back."
Sugar smiled back at him, before glancing upwards and squinting into the lamplight. "Where am I?"
"I think a more appropriate question would be, "when are we"." Harmony said, dropping the newspaper onto Sugar's stomach. Sugar sat up against the cold iron arm of the bench and straightened out the newspaper. She gasped.
"Two thousand and- Rory, I'm gonna faint again." Sugar said, gripping at her forehead
Rory went to pull out the smelling salts out again, but Harmony smacked his hands away from the first aid box.
"No. I could go a lifetime without smelling that nasty, icky stuff EVER again." Harmony pulled the first aid box towards her, cracked open an ice pack and placed it on Sugar's head.
"Thanks." She said.
"No problem. Looks like we're not going anywhere anytime soon."
"Well, in that case, I'd better go check the time machine for damage." Said Rory, attempting to stand up, only to hit the ground again, thanks to Harmony.
"You're not going anywhere, mister. I want to know every detail about how this happened. It's the only way we're gonna be able to get back to our reality- our present reality." Harmony tugged again on the sleeve of Rory's polo.
Rory sighed. "All right. Bear in mind, I'm making assumptions, and not factoring in variables, and-"
"Oh, just get on with it!"
"All right! I suppose this will make more sense if I start from the beginning. A couple of months ago, I started wondering about how time works- theories, like entropy, the laws of thermodynamics, that stuff. I figured if I could go back in time, make only the subtlest of changes, and make some qualitative observations once I'd returned to the future... I'd be able to eventually form a thesis, send it to a university, be hailed as a pioneer of science and retire by age 35. I knew that I'd be breaking fundamental rules of time travel, but... I was curious.
"So, the plan was to go back to a random, but relatively recent place in time, and make a tiny change to the place- say, putting a small rubber ball in a hallway. A busy hallway. I was going to do that- but then... Sugar, your mother- well, she spotted me. As one would be, she was curious as to what I was doing. To divert her attention, I struck up a conversation with her about the first thing I saw, which happened to be a campaign poster for a student presidential election. We ended up talking about what was happening around the world then, before she started talking about cats and I managed to make my escape, get back into the time machine and return a mere minute after I left. But then I come back to a present where there's a strange, tall man in my house, and... well, you guys know the rest.
"From this, I can deduce that my presence in that reality altered our existence somehow. By having an impact on someone from the past prevented us from existing in our present." Rory finished.
Sugar's eyes widened. "I think I understand. You went into the past, met my mum, and somehow stopped her ending up with my mama. Dammit, Rory!"
"Well, I didn't know!"
"Wait, but if it was only Sugar's parents that were affected, why did we start fading away too?" Harmony interjected.
"We must have somehow prevented a chain reaction from occurring."
"Which means our parents- all of them- are somehow linked." Sugar threw her thoughts into words.
"Why did we not know this before?" Harmony pondered.
"They must have severed their connections before we were born. They presumably haven't had contact with each other because- well, we don't exactly have a parents meet and greet in high school, do we?" Rory said, scratching at the pavement with a piece of gravel.
"All this time, and we never knew." Harmony mused, leaning back against the park bench. "But what do we do now?"
Rory set the gravel down, lifting his head with newfound determination.
"We have to somehow get Sugar's parents back together."