Author's Note: Several years ago, when I first began writing the TRINITY BLOOD: UNEXPECTED RESULTS series, a friend (and UR fan) gave me the writing prompt "paradox," requesting a story pairing Johanna Sinclair with anyone in the AX. With a prompt like that, who else could it be but Abel Nightroad? I only recently re-discovered the story via my LiveJournal, and decided to share it here.
Like a lot of my UR stories, this one has a musical cue that goes with it - "Kudai Sesou" from the CHRNO CRUSADE soundtrack.
AN INFINITY OF POSSIBILITIES, AND NO CHOICES AT ALL
Johanna and Abel sat quietly side by side in the AX's library, relaxing with glasses of wine, not saying much to one another and simply enjoying the peace and quiet of the other's company.
"'You can never go home again,'" Johanna said abruptly, her voice slightly melancholy.
Abel glanced up at her, startled. "What do you mean?"
"It's a quote, I think. As much as I want to go home... what happens if I do? What happens if I inadvertently change the future, and none of you exist?" She lifted her eyes to meet his. "It could happen, you know."
"I know," Abel said softly. "But think of it this way... maybe somehow, what you learn here, you can use to prevent Armageddon from happening. I think that's something all of us would willingly accept as a better alternative than what we have now."
"Or I could make things worse," she replied.
"You don't know that."
"You're right, I don't," she admitted, taking another sip of her wine. "Besides, even if I could change things for the better when I got back... who'd believe me? I'd find myself locked up in the psycho ward. Trust me, Abel, I've read way too much science fiction."
She held up her wine glass so that it caught the firelight, sending fragments of light in every direction. "Causality... temporal paradox... infinite possibilities... imagine it. As many different possibilities as there are fragments of light."
Abel glanced down at the wine glass she held, watching it throw colored splashes of prismatic light on the far wall of the library.
They both subsided for a few moments, then Johanna sighed.
"Of course, another variant on the temporal paradox theory is that it's possible that now that I've been brought into this future, this future is locked in, with no way to stop Armageddon."
"You really have given this a lot of thought, haven't you." Abel didn't meet her eyes as he gazed into his wineglass.
"Yeah."
"So have I."
"And?" she asked.
"And what?"
"And what conclusions have you reached?"
He stared into his glass, as though seeking an answer from the deep red liquid there, then he took a long swallow of wine. He still didn't look at her, though, but instead drained the last of the wine from his glass. Then he stood up, set his wine glass down on the table, and turned to leave.
As he reached the door, however, she called out to him.
"Abel!"
He stopped, but did not turn around.
"You asked what conclusions I've reached. I've reached a paradox of my own."
Ever so slightly, he turned around so he could look at her.
"On the one hand... I wish you'd never come here. But now that you're here... I wish you would never leave."
He met her eyes directly for a single instant, then he turned and was gone, and the glass that Johanna was holding slipped from her numb fingers to shatter on the floor into countless fragments of light.