Vision
A/N: This is based on the final scenes from 3.21 'The Last Sam Weiss' where Peter enters the machine and travels to the future. But I thought, if the machine can take him to the future, surely that's not the only place it can take him. This is Part 2 of the 'Moments' series. Part 1 'Withered' (which didn't get a single review :/) is currently up as well.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but an insatiable imagination.
[Then]
He's imagined so many things in his life, dreams and ambitions that he clung to like a child. Hope is his totem, and he keeps it safely tucked away in the breast pocket of his conscience. He fiddled with it when he went back over to the other side, twiddled it between his fingers when he found out that his Olivia was trapped on the other side.
Now he clutches it so tightly that he wonders how he hasn't crushed it yet, because on the list of things that he's never considered, this tops all the others.
The table that he sits at is some material that he's never seen before and never will again, he sets his hands carefully on the table even though it feels strange. He feels like the table is not something that he should know, at least not in this proximity. There's a need for there to be a pane of glass between them and a bright floodlight shining overhead.
But when two of them come into the room with sheets of paper the colour of alabaster he worries, only because he's seen that shade of paper before, or rather will.
They lay out the details for him, the unavoidable conflict between the two universes and the inevitable destruction if nothing is done. Though he already knows all of this he listens, because what they explain next is of greatest importance.
They have no means to stop it, so like Plato did unto his pupils he gives them the means and the tools they figure out on their own. He builds the interface specifically, and doesn't allow an ounce of information to leak from his secret store. Nothing that precious should be given away freely.
He watches them build it, and from the sinews and fibres of technology the monolith rises as déjà vu creeps over him like a slug that squirms against his skin.
There's this gnawing in the back of his mind, pestering him but he ignores it for the sake of ease; he doesn't want to deal with something that has yet to pass.
When the machine is built, he feels the gnawing again and runs his hands through his dishevelled hair, a dull throb pressing against his skull.
He's sitting at that same table; the one that he thinks should be behind a pane of glass when they tell him. It's short and to the point, but he can still see the guilt in their young eyes. The universe is but in its infancy and they have nothing to base their actions on, only blind intuition.
And even Peter knows that that's not always reliable.
The way that they tell him isn't harsh; their words are low and soft, like feathers caught in an autumn wind.
They need someone who will be able to power the machine.
They are from another time, another place and thus cannot.
But Peter, he is from the time marked in little golden numbers on destiny's watch and that is why they tell him that he will power the machine. He doesn't try to argue because it has already happened, or will. There's more than one reason why he alone designed the interface; he the only one not from here and thus it is only logical that they would choose him. He just took any notion of surprise out of it when he desgined the interface with his genes.
The muddy pool of the timeline blends with the clarity of his mind and it gives him a headache.
It makes the gnawing in the back of his head even worse.
He's certainly glad they don't let him create the drawings; his lack of artistic skill with a pencil had been jarringly evident as a child. When he tried to draw serene forests with a herd of deer scampering about, Walter had always told him that they resembled test tubes and eyeballs with legs.
Later, as they prepare him for the machine, he raises an eyebrow when they tell him that he will go back. As to where, he doesn't have to ask. The First People are like that, riddling and rarely resort to direct answers. Peter imagines Gandalf standing before him.
As he steps into the machine and slips his arms into the slots he realises the profound irony of all this.
He is the creator and also the user.
He is DaVinci given the proper wings to fly.
With a final wry thought he thinks that even Shakespeare won't top that kind of irony.
Fin
Please review, I love to hear what you guys think :)