The research facility was rebuilt soon after it was destroyed. Difficult as it was, I eventually returned to work there, though the pain on some days was near unbearable. It didn't get any better after I found Clive—or rather, Clive found me. Having something to work towards is no cheer at all when it reminds you every day of the one time you were too late.
I had to enjoy my days of sunshine while they lasted; it wasn't long until I'd be moving underground. Clive and I had recently discussed the plans, ones of his design, and we were both quite enthused to be relocating Bill Hawks to the underground "London" in such a fitting way. I hoped it would give him the scare of his life. He deserved far worse.
I got so tired keeping up with all of this strangeness and secrecy. I was growing old before my time. But it would be worth it, the loss of my youth and good cheer and the pleasure of natural sunlight, if the time machine worked. If it worked, if that miracle could ever come to pass, I could undo everything that had gone wrong, everything would at last be as it should. Bill would be brought to heel, perhaps even exposed before he could go through with any of his plans. My good name would be restored, I would even be acclaimed. And Claire would be alive again, or rather, she would have never died, and her blood would never have been on my hands. What colossal irony it was, that I had cut off the life of the only woman I had ever loved. If I could right that…if I could only see her again…That was what I worked for. Her voice in my ears was fading, I could no longer remember the fine details of her face and the way her hair fell down onto her shoulders. I couldn't have her erased all the way. If I didn't remember her, then surely no one would, and she deserved to be remembered forever.
I was certain our designs would have worked, if they had only been given more time. Clive Dove believed me, and he was paying me well to finish what had been started. I could do it without Bill. I had the resources now, and I had more motivation than I could have ever imagined in the days when Bill had been my friend and Claire had been by my side.
So I worked, and waited, and the number of weeks I had left in the sun grew fewer and fewer.
There was no way I could have expected Claire to ever return. I had never entertained the fantasy that the time machine had worked and saved her somehow; I had held her limp body in my arms and prayed to a God I had long neglected that she would be alright, though I knew it was far too late for hope. Every year since, I'd marked the anniversary of her death with memories of when I had been a happier man and bitter vows to ruin Bill. I'd bring him down with me.
When the tenth anniversary came, I woke up alone, at an early hour, and wondered how I had kept going this long. Outside the walls of my apartment, London's people went on as usual, not acknowledging, probably not even aware that anything had happened that day.
Though, the weather that day did have a certain cast to it, a dirty, smoky kind of overcast that hung in the air as if the incident had occurred only recently. Clive noticed it and so did I.
"Celebrating?" he asked sarcastically, calling me at work as he was prone to; I didn't think he had a job. I didn't know much about him really at all.
"Certainly remembering. I think I may go on a walk today…I need time to myself…" I simply didn't want to speak to him today. Why didn't he go do something important? Wasn't he supposed to be busy?
"Yes, I'm remembering as well. The screams of the doomed trapped inside that burning building are still fresh in my ears…" he spit. Clive would talk this way. I wondered if he secretly blamed me for the incident. I wouldn't put it past him.
"In fact, I believe I'll have that walk right now. Is there anything I should be doing?"
"Just keep on with the usual. I'm practicing my acting." I could practically hear the smirk in his voice; oh, I wished I could tell that mad little prat to stop talking.
"Yes, good luck with that. Goodbye then." I hung up and dropped the phone as if it was superheated—after him, I needed fresh air more than ever. He was barely more than a naïve secondary schooler, but his perpetual arrogance unnerved me a little. I wasn't certain how dangerous he really was.
I stepped out a back door that was unofficially reserved for smokers, and within a few steps I had lost myself in thought. I do have a knack for bringing up the feelings I least need to have, and I'm quite accomplished at making myself miserable. Occasionally I enjoy it. I traversed the courtyard and when I ran out of courtyard to traverse, swept the empty white halls like some lab-coated ghost, stewing in my own misery of course, and hardly taking note of where I actually went. Footsteps seemed to follow me, but I avoided them. I had no desire to see anyone. At work, and anywhere else, there was no one who wanted to see me.
Claire's appearance was sudden. I hadn't even been thinking of her, or anything from that day, but rather the echoing footfalls that simply wouldn't cease wherever I went. They continued, soft, uneven steps that mirrored mine, as long as I walked; they stopped soon after I stopped. I grew irritated with them, and at last turned on my heel and around the corner I had just turned.
A woman was leaning against the wall as if exhausted. Her face was turned down, but she looked remarkably like Claire. I didn't know anyone in the building who looked like that.
I finally did it, I thought. I've been working too hard and I'm giving myself hallucinations. I've started having waking nightmares about her.
The woman slid along the wall with stumbling, drunken steps, lifted her eyes, and fell to her knees right in front of me. It was Claire—the same Claire that had stepped into our deathtrap ten years ago. Her glasses were broken, and she was bent double as if in pain or very winded. "Esscuse me? I was hoping you could tell me," she said dazedly, trying to focus on my face. "W-where am I?" As if only this effort had tired her, she collapsed with her forehead on the tip of my shoe. She loosely grasped my pant leg to try to pull herself up, but that was all she could manage.
I knelt down, reached out to help her up. I touched her. She was warm, she was real.
Claire blinked, squinted at me, and a look of horrified recognition crossed her face. "It really worked, didn't it? You look like Dimitri…"
"I am Dimitri," I said, barely able to speak myself. "And you're…Claire, you're alive…"
"Just barely, feels like," she said thickly.
I held her. She was shivering. She was fragile, but she was really here.
"How far'd I go?" she said. "How many years later is it?"
"Ten exactly," I said. I glanced at my watch, at hers. "Give or take a few minutes." I helped her stand.
"Oh my god…" She leaned into me, too weak to walk unsupported. "You look so old."
"I've been working." I had to get her out of here. I could take her home.
"On what?"
"The same time machine. I thought the last one hadn't worked, and it—" This would be a lot to explain. "You need to rest. I'll take you to my place, and then I'll explain everything to you. But it's gotten complicated…"
"Complicated? What, did I cause some time paradoxes or something?" she half-joked. Even exhausted as she was, she was still Claire. "Ow."
"Not that I've noticed—is something wrong?"
"Just feeling awful…I don't think time travel has much viability as a leisure activity…"
I took off my coat and placed it over her head and shoulders, being sure to keep her supported. "Wear this, just in case…I don't think it would be good if anyone were to see you as we left. You were supposed to have died in the explosion."
"Explosion?" She halted in her slow progress.
"The machine exploded and…Claire, everyone thinks you're dead."
"I guess that makes sense," she said in a low voice. After a moment she tried to start walking again, and I aided her. "I get it. So it would be weird if I reemerged suddenly, huh?"
"Certainly." We stepped into the sunlight, and, painfully slowly, crossed the road to the parking lot.
"But what about my mum and dad and—oh god, Hershel, what would he do without me? I can't just act dead forever. I have to tell them I'm ok…"
"Don't be hasty. A lot has happened. I think you should hear all the facts first." I gingerly loosened my hold on her to search for my car keys. I always forget where I put them; this was so routine it was ridiculous. The minutiae of the universe didn't even care that a miracle had just occurred.
"You're right...Oh, you've still got the same car," she said with a note of amusement, as I laid her gently down in the back seat. She held onto my sleeve, though I offered her my hand.
It's true, I thought as I started the car, it was an old thing. And not very clean at all. "I'm sorry."
She laughed—a beautiful sound—and it had been so long since I'd heard it that I nearly melted. I had forgotten how much I'd loved her, when I was a younger man, but I was remembering so fast it made me want to cry.
"This is so strange…they replaced that little ice cream shop on the corner there. What a shame." She raised herself up as best she could to drink in the sights of London as we passed them by. "So, what amazing new technology have we developed in the past ten years?"
"Hmm, well, cell phone technology has gotten quite impressive lately." I glanced in the rearview mirror at her. "And then there's color television."
"Oh, that'll never catch on."
I nearly missed a turn just marveling in her alive-ness. "What was it like?"
"The time travel?" She laid her head down again as if the mere mention of it tired her. "Scary. It was like…hm. It was like free-floating in outer space and being squeezed through a tiny dark tunnel at the same time. I swear my heart stopped! Thought I had died, for a minute." She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "I suppose I should start writing about it."
"No, you shouldn't. A lot of things have changed, Claire." My voice hardened. "I mean it. You ought to lay low."
"I'm just dead, not a criminal, Dimitri."
"I know. I just…I'm under a lot of pressure right now." As if that was an excuse. I knew full well I just wanted Claire all to myself, to be her guide in a world that was alien to her.
"All right. You can tell me about it at your place." Her eyes traveled over the old magazines on the floor and the ends of her mussed-up hair. She bit her fingernail. "Do you know what happened to Hershel?"
Like anyone else who read the newspaper, I knew exactly what had happened to Hershel. He had continued being a remarkably intelligent and personable man who was incredibly interesting to everyone who met him. "What do you mean by that?"
"Just…is he ok? Is he teaching? Does he…has he moved on?"
"He's a professor at Gressenheller, and I suppose he's successful. He's acquired a bit of a reputation for meddling in police investigations and otherwise making strange discoveries."
"Oh, he still does that? You're kidding! I'm so glad." She looked distant. "But do you think he has anyone…?"
"I don't claim to know anything about his personal life, Claire, but it's been ten years. A lot changes in ten years."
She nodded, still chewing on her nail. "I know that."
