Disclaimer: I do not own these Characters or the Continuum series, as if any of you really thought that I did…

"Convince me you're the one to help me get back to the future," Keira ordered coldly, allowing her anger and disappointment in him to chill her words.

"You're going to kill the other me," the Alec who had jumped back in time told her point blank, showing no sign of emotion.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because you have to. You agreed with the Freelancers to kill one of me, and now you've asked me to convince you that I would be the one to send you home. But you don't see it yet, do you? You have to choice me. Why? Because I don't care anymore; other me is all concerned about doing the right thing and saving all those people who will die, but you need them to die. They have to die for your future to exist," Alec told her cruelly.

"That's not fair," she protested.

"Fair! That's a laugh! You need me to be a cold manipulating bastard, that's the one of us who can create the world you are so desperate to get back to. You showed me you are willing to do absolutely anything, hurt absolutely anyone, to get back to the ones you care about. I just decided to do the same thing," he took a breath, "Emily's death showed me I have to do whatever it takes to get what I want, but what pushed me over the edge was realizing you'd actually kill me to get what you want. And I'm not talking the cynical me that 'betrayed' you, no I'm talking this time's me, the one that trusts you, that thinks you're his friend; you'd kill him to get what you need. That's what you just asked isn't it, 'convince me you're the one who can get me home,' give you an excuse to kill him… you remember just the other day when you told me, 'I'm your friend, Alec' yeah, some friend!"

"You think this is easy for me!?" Keira demanded outraged by the accusation, and yet taken aback. He was a genius and even now his arguments were hard to refute.

"It doesn't matter! Don't you get that?! It has to be this way, you have no choice. But when you finally get back and hug your son, will you be able to put all this behind you, or will you realize what a monster you truly are, that you were willing to have untold millions die to be able to hold him in your arms? You'll try to tell yourself that its ok because you didn't see it happen or know their names, then you'll think of the Alec who trusted you, who thought of you as a friend, who was trying to find a better course for the future to take, and you'll remember the look in his eyes when you shot him to get what you wanted; that that was the price to get home."

"Alec please don't…" tears were coming to her eyes as she pleaded with him to stop, but he pressed onward ruthlessly.

"You made me realize we have to do whatever it takes, good or evil, to get what we want. I wanted Emily back alive; I want to live a good life with her, for that to happen the other Alec has to go away. You need me; he's desperate to find a way out of this, he might even fix the time machine, make it work for you, send you back, but you'll never get home, because he'll never stop trying to alter things; to fix the things you need broken. I know, I was him. But realizing who you really are, what you would do, broke something inside of me, I just don't care anymore," he told her, "so kill him, believe me, you are doing him a favor, at least he'll never have to see you for who you truly are. Or, if it helps, you can pretend when he's dead that he was really only friends with the other you; that at least neither of them lived to betray the other..."

Bang! The gun fired, the conversation ended, the choice had been made. Alec, her friend, had been spared, but had her future been doomed?