Title: Dahlia

Author: cloudsongs

Genre: Sci-Fi/Romance (JacobxBella)

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Jacob, a physicist who successfully builds a time machine, goes back in time to stop a mysterious woman from stealing his invention to discover something surprising.

AN: As you can tell, I've been really into sci-fi lately with Her Many Lives being a story about interdimensional travel and parallel universes and I Am Not a Robot about robots and future tech. I like to think that Jacob is extremely intelligent and probably would have been a STEM major or something lol.


Chapter 1

"Balance metric pressure at 057," said Jacob, reading off his notebook. He stood behind a large, seven-inch thick glass wall as he watched his two partners run through their eighty-third practice simulation.

"Metric pressure sustaining 057," replied Sam. "Releasing valve." He turned the lever completely, letting out a loud hiss as the pressure climbed and stabilized.

"Prepare to load M.R.D."

"Radioactivity meters online, ready for exposure."

"Docking hatch open and clear," said Embry, a tremble in his voice. "Preparing to load." He opened the hatch of a small metallic box with Cullen Enterprises etched on the side and with a large crucible tong, he pulled out a small plastic cube that emitted a faint bluish glow to load inside the machine.

"Hold full exposure duration at no more than ten seconds…nine, eight, seven, six…five, four, three two…one."

"M.R.D. in place," squeaked Embry.

"Close hatch," said Jacob. "Listen carefully, Em. Turn handle left 45 degrees. Lock it at high noon to engage sequence." The machine whirred to life and an almost blinding white light poured out. "Left 45, the right." He watched carefully as Embry's shaky hands attempted to follow his directions. "Left…right…you just caused a thermonuclear explosion; wiped out the whole city."

"Sorry, Jake," said Embry into the little mic inside his radiation suit. He climbed down the small set of stairs in front of the machine and tried to wipe the sweat on his forehead through the suit. "I promise I'll get it right on the day."

"This is the day, Embry."

Sam sighed and took off the helmet of his suit. "You want us to switch?"

"No, there's not time for him to learn the meters." Jacob said as he flipped through his notes and rewound the footage tapes.

"I'll never understand how you're able to solve the most complex mathematical equations, but you can tell left from right," Sam complained.

Embry also took off his helmet. "It's a form of dyscalculia. The parietal lobes of my cerebral cortex…"

"Okay," Jacob cut him off. "We have time for one more practice run. Reset everything."

Sam groaned loudly. "We've been at this for 72 hours straight!"

"Only two more before we go live!" exclaimed Jacob. "I'll get you more coffee."

"Coffee…amphetamines…more coffee. You're gonna kill yourself."

Jacob was already drinking the rest of his lukewarm black coffee, making obnoxious sipping noises. "C'mon, we're precious moments from a topological anomaly."

"Is that what I should tell everyone at your funeral?"

"No, of course not. You signed a confidentiality agreement." Jacob winked though Sam couldn't see him.

Jacob stepped into his cool, dim-lit office and powered on the small voice recorder on his desk before slumping into his worn leather computer chair. "Jacob Black, project log. Tentative results. Opening a traversable wormhole in the space-time continuum, first ever recorded. This tear that I will create in the fabric of the universe is powered by the M.R.D or yellowcake. Extremely volatile, radioactive substance, so, of course, all precautions will be taken. Possible dangers range from manageable radiation leak to…well, the universe collapsing into itself." Jacob grimaced as he said this. "It's now 47 minutes until we initiate the first part of the sequence…opening one end of the wormhole."

Jacob rushed back into the machine room where his partners were stretching their backs and resetting from their previous simulation.

"Okay, he should be here soon. I'm gonna give him the Big Bang speech."

Sam snorted. "Oh, Jake, give him the fireworks."

"That's what he's here for," Jacob smiled.

"Now, once opened, we should detect a unique sequence of particles sent through from the other side, a sequence so unique that we will know that we sent them to ourselves. And I will have proof of the findings to show our venture capitalist Edward Cullen. And he will provide the necessary M.R.D. for us to open the other end."

Jacob was at the limousine door as soon as it pulled up and tried to not look like an excited puppy meeting its owner when the window rolled down. He saw the face of a young, white man with copper hair and a lazy smile. Jacob saw the peak of a young woman's legs beside him.

"Let's see what I'm paying for," drawled Edward.

"Then, we will send this unique sequence of particles back through to ourselves, thereby proving that the project is a success."

"The Big Bang," said Jacob as he walked Mr. Cullen through the darkened hallways of his underfunded laboratory. "We have proven theories…"

"It isn't my ideal situation. To have an investor be this kind of major factor in an experiment. But I only have enough M.R.D. to open one end."

"We are about to embark on a journey that's going to take…"

"Enough of the physics lesson," said Edward. "Get on with the light show."

The whole thing is an experiment in certainty. I'm certain it will work."

Jacob waved his hands at Sam and Embry to get to their positions. "Balance metric pressure at 057."

"Metric pressure sustaining 057. Releasing valves."

"Docking hatch open and clear," said Embry.

"Prepare to load M.R.D."

Embry repeated his previous steps but instead opened the hatch to a box that contained a cube that emitted a faint bluish glow. "M.R.D. removed from containment."

"Hold full exposure no longer than ten seconds." Jacob began his countdown.

"M.R.D. in place," said Embry. He exhaled and began to whisper to himself. He glanced at the small sheet of paper taped to the machine beneath the lever indicating left and right. "Close hatch. Turn handle…left 45 degrees. Lock at high noon."

"Engage sequence." Jacob thought he felt all the air whoosh out of his body. He handed Mr. Cullen a pair of goggles and donned his own. "Here we go."

The blinding light filled the room to every corner that it was indistinguishable from daylight. The machine whirred, louder and louder, the light only getting brighter with every passing second. Jacob couldn't see anything in the machine room. He tried looking at the small TV screen in the control room and caught a black figure emerge on the screen. He blinked. For a brief moment behind his eyelids, Jacob saw a orange hue, circling and melting within itself until a small black hole formed at the center. A faint ringing sounded off in his ears. And then the blackness took over.


"Jacob. Jacob."

Jacob sat up from the floor with a yellow BIC highlighter between his teeth. He spit it out into his hand.

"We thought you were having a seizure," explained Sam.

"Did it work?" Jacob breathed.

"Kept you from biting your tongue."

"No," Jacob waved it off. "The machine."

Sam frowned. "The magnetic core melted. The regulator's blown."

Jacob curled his lip in annoyance and threw the highlighter across the room. "Where's Edward?"

"He left when you were unconscious." He patted Jacob on the shoulder, squeezing it for comfort. "You can only burn a candle at both ends for so long, brother. You should go home and get some sleep."

"I sold my home to pay you and Embry," Jacob deadpanned.

Sam wiped his face in exasperation. "Maybe it was sabotage."

Jacob rolled his eyes. "Right."

"No, I'm serious. Maybe it was visitors from the future who came back to destroy our project because it eventually leads to some distant apocalypse." They needed some kind of explanation for why it didn't work. Especially with amount of money sunk into the project.

Jacob considered this seriously. "It's a distinct possibility."

A sudden series of knocks on the glass window startled both men. "Guys," they heard Embry's voice through the control room's intercom. "Look what I found." He held up a cylindrical glass container with an ethereal light within holding a fully-grown pink dahlia.

All three went into Jacob's office. Jacob pulled open the footage of Run #001 while Embry slid the container behind a large magnifying glass. He found the footage of Embry pulling the dahlia container from within the machine, where the wormhole should have been.

"It's an exotic hybrid of the dahlia genus," confirmed Embry.

Jacob continued to rewind the footage further back in their run, to the point after they began the sequence initiation. "There. Right there. Do you see that black speck?" The bright lights from the machine clouded what any of the men could properly visualize.

"Could be a missing pixel," said Embry.

"It's moving," said Sam, squinting at the blurry screen.

"Yeah, there it goes. There." A faint, dark figure moved across the screen.

"I think that was Embry."

"No, no. I saw someone! I saw it before I blacked out. It looked like a person. Not Embry." He rewound the footage once more to look at the figure. "They went out the front."

He grabbed his coat from his chair and ran out of the laboratory to the front where he met Mr. Cullen. It was dark outside, and most of the lights from the other laboratories in the building were already shut off for the night. The only remaining sources of light were from the garage parking lots. He looked around him, turning in circles to see if there was anyone hiding behind him as he continued forward to the front of the building. He looked to his right and saw a lithe figure with long, dark hair leaning against a concrete pillar, a sliver of smoke escaping from a thin cigarette in her hand.

He quickly walked towards her and asked, "Where did you just come from?"

The woman turned around, eyes wide, and clearly startled. "I should be asking you. How did you do that?" she asked incredulously.

"What?"

"That," she said, her eyes turning to look behind her, her cigarette pointing away from him.

Jacob shook his head, wanting to get back to the main issue. "How did you get here?"

The woman's mouth pulled up from one corner and her eyebrows drew together in amusement. "In a car. How did you get here?"

"You didn't just walk through a wormhole?"

"You're making me feel like I did," she giggled.

"I just met you." He felt like an ass.

Her eyes were hooded, and her smile was barely contained by her full lips. "Then why are you acting like you know me?"

Jacob shook his head again. He only then noticed what a beautiful woman she was. "I don't."


A/N: Let me know what you think!