Lena woke up, bones vibrating, heart caught in her chest. She reached for her neck, took a ragged breath, and swallowed past a tight lump. The pillows propped around her harness shifted, the edge of a smooth plastic corner digging into her arm.
She rolled over, tucking her knee up under her and sitting hunched for a long few heartbeats, feeling it pulse behind her eyes. Her ears still rang with the echoes of a scream (had it been her own?) and the soft whine of her accelerator settling the stitches between spirit and body back into place.
Again?
Again.
She tossed aside her blankets, legs carrying her in long strides across Emily's apartment.
Five minutes.
Lena exhaled a shivering whine, expecting her girlfriend's startled jump as cold hands snuck under her shirt for a warm hug.
"Oh- good morning, did I wake you?"
(Good morning, Lena. How did you sleep?) (Did you have a weird dream?)(I'm making breakfast)
A dozen repeats of the conversation spiraled sideways through her head, and Lena tucked herself a bit tighter against the warm body. She laid her forehead into the curve of Emily's neck, breathing in her skin and the sizzle of roasting potatoes. She could feel the moment Emily stiffened, could almost hear the churning realization as the perceptive woman noticed her trembling breath, hands clutching too-tight.
(Nightmare?) (Are you alright?)(What's wrong?)
Before Emily could voice any of those, Lena took a breath and murmured the word against her neck.
"I'm looping."
A beat to process, and the possible responses settled into one-
"Four." She answered before Emily could ask. A lie. She'd counted over a hundred.
"Oh, Lena…"
She choked on a sob, letting her girlfriend turn around to embrace her, the two of them sinking to the floor after Emily flicked off the stove.
"There's nothing you can do."
Emily, the darling, accepted her answer again, expression sinking as warm hands stroked over sleep-mussed hair.
(Let me help.)(I'm so sorry)(I love you)(stay strong)
The clock moved ever onward, softly clicking toward another recall.
"Do you need to take a break?"
Lena exhaled a shuddery breath of a giggle, hands sliding up into Emily's hair, holding her close.
"You always surprise me, luv. That's a new question." Their lips brushed, Lena felt the sad smile against her own.
4 minutes.
"That wasn't an answer."
"...I can't."
"You can." Emily corrected, smoothing her thumbs over Lena's cheeks and pulling her head back to look her in the eye.
"Lena, you didn't have to tell me." Brown eyes flicked down, head leaning into her palms. "But you did, so that tells me you need help. So if I can't help directly, take a day off. Relax. You can't help anyone if you're falling apart."
"You said that a week ago." She complained half-heartedly.
"Well, past-loop me was onto something. Did you take her advice?"
The guilty glance away answered that.
"We could go somewhere tonight. Just fly away for a day and forget. You can try again when you're rested."
"It won't work."
Emily frowned, tilted her head.
"Why not? It has before."
"Just….Don't worry about it."
Lena kissed her again, palm sliding to rest a thumb against Emily's pulse. She felt and heard and tasted the woman's sigh.
A furtive glance to the stove's clock.
Three minutes.
Her phone buzzed where she'd left it on the nightstand.
"I love you."
Emily shifted, probably uncomfortable kneeling on their tiled floor.
"Love you too. Taking a break after all? You don't have your phone on you."
Lena watched Emily's brows furrow, drinking in her expressions, the heat of her body. The smooth warmth of compassion and understanding and Lord, she couldn't keep doing this .
Two minutes.
But she had to.
She had to.
There must be a way out. She just had to be faster. Angela wasn't fast enough. None of the doctors nearby were fast enough. She wasn't smart enough to fix this. Not skilled enough.
She could only go back so far. Three minutes was easy. Five was pushing it.
Fifteen put a strain on her Accelerator and vibrated her body until it felt like she was about to fly back into the jittering slipstream of lost time.
Lena kissed Emily's cheek, her neck, the side of her temple.
She felt the vibrations of a hum, a warm kiss on her own cheek.
One minute.
"I love you." She whispered again.
She felt the first flutter of Emily's pulse under her thumb. A little half-beat that didn't quite match up.
Emily paused, tensing as the first tightening of her chest began. The sense of impending doom. Pain radiating up her neck and into her jaw.
"Lena?"
Her breath was shallow when Lena hugged her, the heavy slump telling her the nausea and lightheaded feeling was slipping in.
"I love you." She repeated, holding the redhead and helping to slide sideways, gently laying her down on the floor.
She didn't interfere with the pained clutch at her abdomen, ignored the sheen of sweat.
"Am I…"
"Yes. Heart attack."
The words still tasted like ash, chest hollow and somehow filled with ice at the same time.
The phone buzzed again, a useless mission that couldn't be of any help to this.
Thirty seconds. She had to go back soon. She had to try this time. Try to learn. To understand how she could save Emily.
"Lena."
She paused, holding the trembling hand that reached out for her. Her cheeks were hot and wet, tears tucked tightly in her throat.
Ten seconds
Hazel eyes met brown, then drifted slightly off-mark as the woman's heart spasmed, slowing, missing beats and shuddering behind her ribs.
"Stay with me, Lena."
"I will." As many loops as she could manage.
"No." The hand squeezed her fingers weakly. "Stay here. "
Three seconds
"...As you wish."
Zero.
The moment passed, and time ate into her recall, the potential for seeing Emily alive and fine just slipping through her fingers like water.
Lena held her girlfriend's hand to her chest, curled over her body as the failing organ twitched it's final time and stopped.
She didn't cry.
She'd cried for hours already, broken between ten minute chunks of desperate loops and calls to Angela, calls to hospitals, countdowns and burnt potatoes and straining the accelerator's capacity to its limits.
Lena exhaled, the knot in her gut deadening, mind scattering into denial and apathy and dissociation until a half-hour later, when Someone knocked on Emily's door and called out for Tracer.
In their bedroom, her phone jingled again.
The voice called for her more urgently, and Lena closed her eyes, holding slowly cooling fingers and the echoes of horror and fury at herself for letting the moment slip away.
She could have gone back.
She could have tried again.
Could have continued a hundred more times, until her soul and body really were separating again.
But instead…
She stayed.