He uses marihuana to concentrate. It helps him streamline his thoughts when they run rampart in his mind. Which happens more often than not; the ideas seem to swirl about endlessly in his skull, distracting him even from the most basic human needs such as food, hygiene or sleep. There is always something else to take care of first—another thought to note down before it swerves out of existence, a schematic to scribble, or calculations to be done without delay.

What he neglects, she always tries to make up for, going above and beyond her duties as his personal attorney. After all, which other attorney would bring their client pizza after 10 pm.

She knocks on the workshop door, but doesn't bother waiting on the answer. It's why she had the keys after all.

"Will?"

They met at university through her college friend who was researching along with Will. Already at that time, a generation younger than most of the other researchers he seemed to know more than the rest of the team could understand. And already at that time his mind seemed to wander.

"Alison Cunningham, law." she said when they were first introduced.

He shook her hand awkwardly. "William Joyce."

She vaguely remembers mentioning that she really liked books of his namesake James Joyce as a way of small talk, but the remark fell on deaf ears. Soon, she would find out that he was just as rambling as the Irish author's writing.

They got into a custom of grabbing coffee or lunch together for lack of anyone else to hang out with. Her friend soon found other engagements and, later, an engagement, and Alison has never been one to enjoy third wheeling. Besides, Will's theories fascinated her—or maybe it'd be more fitting to say that Will fascinated her. As for him—he needed her. She handled all his paperwork from simple transactions, to grant applications. He was the brains and she navigated the shark-infested waters of bureaucracy for him.

And sometimes even his diet.

"Will? You there? I brought food."

In the very back of the room she could see sparks flying in the dim light, welding.

She would never get used to how vast the workshop was—and how cluttered; a multitude of computers here, boxes piled up over there, various parts and papers scattered over any desks in the vicinity. And now, in the middle of it all stood a huge circular structure, the purpose of which she could not even begin to guess.

"Will." she said, touching his shoulder gently when she finally made her way across the repurposed warehouse. "Snack break."

"Alison." He startled, almost burning himself on the hot metal. "I didn't hear you coming."

"Of course you didn't." she chuckled. "But you could've seen me if you didn't have your head up in the clouds... or is it Meyer-Joyce field now?"

"Actually homosphere has nothing to do with—"

She interrupts him before he manages to sit her through an entire lecture on the subject. "I know. It's a joke. Pizza?"

He nods, "Yes, please. Let's take it to the front. Less dirt there."

"Speaking of dirt," she says, navigating the forest of metal rods and pipes back to the front of the workshop. "You've been wearing that shirt for two weeks now."

He shrugs. Her eyes narrow in understanding, "You've been sleeping in here again, haven't you?" The sweaty mattress right by one of the computer desks answers her question for him.

She watches him gorge himself on the pizza, ravenous as an animal that hasn't eaten in several days. He wipes his greasy hands on his pants and she groans. "Wow. You really don't dress to impress, do you?"

"It's not me that should make an impression." he says, pointing towards the structure behind them.

"All right, impress me. What is it that you've been working on?"

"It's a time machine."

"You're kidding." But Will isn't much of a joker—and certainly not one that would go this far for a joke. "You're not kidding." Her mouth flies open at the realisation that the structure behind her is indeed a time machine.

She watches his eyes light up like a Christmas tree as he begins to explain to her the intricacies of time travel, somehow involving his pet hamster in the early experiment.

"Hold on..." she says. "You created a miniature black hole to send your pet hamster through time? This is a whole new level of crazy."

"Are you surprised?"

"Not one bit." she laughs. If indeed there was a thin line between genius and madness, then Will had always been tiptoeing, if not outright swinging, on the edge between the two extremes.

"So how does it work?"

"Picture time as an egg," he says. "If you move the egg clockwise, it travels to the future. If moved counter-clockwise it'll go to the past. At that moment two eggs exist—future egg and the past egg..."

"Sounds simple enough, but why is there an egg in this?"

"It's anything but simple—we're talking manipulation of the Meyer-Joyce field through a rotating black hole. Any miscalculation could cause the field to collapse—time would explode and stop entirely. Boom. Finito. No more time. That time egg would be fucked." he exclaims excitedly.

She raises an eyebrow, "Will—"

"Fair enough, I need to replace the egg with something else."

"Yeah, you do," she laughs a little. "But what I meant is—" Her hand snakes its way into his greasy palm and presses it firmly. "Are you okay?"

He fidgets a little, unsure how to respond to something so intimate as a touch, "Huh?"

"I mean... if it works, it's going to be an amazing breakthrough and all, but... all this talk about calculations, the time collapsing; it sounds like you're under so much pressure. Will, I—" I love you, she almost says, but catches herself in the nick of time. That's not something he needs to hear. "I worry about you." she says instead.

He gets up and starts pacing, fidgeting with his hands as he tends to do when pondering. Her hand drops into her lap, abandoned.

"My calculations are sound." he says. "Should be. I took every precaution. Even conducted that live subject experiment with Schrodinger on a miniature prototype—" As he speaks, his eyes flit towards a nearby marker board; he traces the equations with his fingers, recalculating, just in case.

She can see him slipping into that territory beyond reality—the far side of Will—that rambling, anxious, overanalysing self of his.

She diverts his attention back to the present while it's still possible. "So when are you taking me to see dinosaurs?"

"Well, that's the bad news—you actually can't use it to go see dinosaurs. Sucks, I know. And before you ask, no—can't go back and kill Hitler either. That sucks, too."

"So what can you do?"

But Will's mind is already racing in its own track: "Jump that big would require a massive amount of chronon energy; even if it were possible to source that many chronon particles with the technology that I have available—which it's not, then you're still facing a less philosophical issue."

She tilts her head as a way of showing that she's paying attention.

"The machine can only send you through time as far as the first activation of its core—the core is the machine. Think about it—no machine, no travel. Time is not a portal—you travel by entering and exiting the corridor, which means you always exit where the machine is located at the time. If it didn't exist then—"

"Then you can't travel there, I get it." she nods. "So when are you going to fire up the DeLorean?"

"Tomorrow."

On the February 28, 1999 the world would change. She did not yet know how, but she wouldn't let him face the consequences alone. Just in case.

"Cool. I'll bring eggs."

He laughs, but his expression immediately grows serious, "No, you really shouldn't. The miscalculations, the explosion... I wasn't kidding."

"That's why you'll need somebody to ride the shitstorm with you. And maybe clean up afterwards."

Somebody had to take care of him, if he himself wouldn't.

"Which reminds me—I'll be taking that shirt. Pants, too."

Occasionally that also meant doing his laundry.

"You clean up pretty well."

She had asked him to come with her to the university ball years ago. It was the last time she can remember him putting any effort in his looks—and even then she suspected it had been his mother's nagging rather than genuine interest on his part. She had dolled up for him, had an expensive dress made, but in the end, after a few fumbling attempts at dancing, they spent the evening drinking up the punch bowl and smoking weed on a rooftop, watching stars. He was explaining black holes to her in his usual long-winded, winding fashion. She kept thinking of how differently she had imagined that night would go.

"Will you be my date?" she had asked.

"Okay."

She was disappointed by his underwhelming reaction, as if she'd just asked him whether he'd like sugar in his coffee.

Everyone assumed they'd been dating. Alison would have loved to tell her friends that, alas Will clearly didn't have the social awareness to gauge the situation by himself, and Alison herself never spoke up, not wishing to make things awkward in case he didn't reciprocate. As a result she would find herself in this stalemate situation for years to come; frustrating to be sure, but to her their friendship was too precious to gamble on.

"You really don't need to fuss." he says.

"Do you really think I'd offer if I minded doing it?"

He has no argument to retort with.

"I'll swing by tomorrow to check up on you. Don't blow yourself up in the meantime."

He makes vague promises while nervously fidgeting. For the moment, it puts her mind at ease.

But when she comes by the next day, the whole place is in disarray. The door to the workshop flung open, muffled cries coming from the inside. She races towards the silhouette huddled and moaning on the ground.

"Will? What the hell happened? And who are you?" Her words fall on the woman crouching on the other side of his body, trying to soak the blood from Will's gunshot wound with her hoodie.

"I'm Beth Wilder. I came through the machine, long story." the woman says. "I'm on your side."

Alison has the presence of mind not to question the situation, focusing instead on Will's continuous blood-loss. "I better fetch the first-aid kit."

For the moment she is grateful for the times she's had to literally sort out Will's mess and tidy the place up—the familiarity helps her navigate the layout of the workshop with ease even under stress. It's the only reason she knows where to look for the first-aid kit—because she put it there. Otherwise Will would be liable to bleed out right now.

She can hear the woman's voice, albeit muffled, drifting away as she passes out of earshot. "Will, I know it's a lot to take in, but you have to listen to me—"

From what she can tell something bad is going to happen, related to Will's work. But she won't find out just what for another seventeen years.

The conversation hushes as soon as she returns, but she disregards that detail. With some effort, she manages to stop the bleeding, but her girl scout camp medical training can only do so much.

"We should get you to the hospital." she says.

The following weeks are jumble of paperwork, stress and unanswered messages.

She tries to visit Will at the workshop several times, but her keys no longer fit—the door locks have all been changed. When she calls, Will never answers his phone. Never calls back. Once he comes to see her in her office. He is distant, almost professional, when he asks her to buy the Bradbury Swimming Pool building, but under that facade he's nervous, his hands are shaking. She tries to get through to him. He shakes her off.

They don't talk after. The last message he sends her reads: Stop coming by the workshop. I'm working on something big. It's not safe.

It breaks her heart when she has to muster all her formality to convey that the purchase was a success.

Will,

I put all of your paperwork regarding the purchase of the Bradbury Swimming Pool in this folder. I knew you'd lose track of the documents otherwise. I've made sure that the purchase can't be traced back to funds from your research grant. I don't know what you're up to, and it's not my business to ask, but we've known each other long enough for me to say this: I trust that you know what is best for you but I can't pretend that I'm not concerned. Your career is showing so much promise and your recent actions feel like a drastic turn in a direction I can't begin to understand. I kept my promise and haven't told Jack (or anyone else) about this, but he's worried about you, even if he doesn't know how to show it. Jack hasn't heard from you in months. He needs you.

Your attorney and friend,

Alison Cunningham
March 29th, 1999

I need you, she might have added had she been just a little bit less of a coward.

Sometimes she visits the workshop, hoping against hope that this time he might answer the door. A few times she bumps into that woman—Beth—on the way. Her brain comes to the worst possible conclusion, a sharp pang of jealousy in her gut. A feeling she has no idea how to cope with. Whenever she sees her, she just mutely hands over the food as if acknowledging some manner of defeat. She knows he keeps in contact with Beth—and only with Beth.

All the same, she waits. She waits for him to reconnect with the reality. To call. She gives up waiting in 2009.

She loved a scientist, so naturally she marries a jock.