AN: So, my friend and I were discussing our favourite sci-fi shows and then we starting talking about time travel and then I remembered how much I loved writing time travel stories. So, here's a time travel story. ^^
I have no idea how often this will be updated. Whenever I feel like, I guess. Finding Me is still my main priority right now but writing this on the side helps to keep me from getting bogged down.
So, hope you enjoy!
Chapter One – Oh, a Magic Door. Well, why didn't you just say?
"Kira! We have to keep moving." Thomas yelled but his sister wouldn't move.
"He was right behind us..." She said frantically and he nodded.
"I know. He got caught in the wave." He said and she shook her head in disbelief. He grabbed her arm to make her look at him and she jumped a little as if she had been shocked through their respective armours.
"He just... disappeared." She whispered hollowly and he nodded.
"I know. He was on the other side of the temporal shielding. Kira, that means they have already succeeded. We need to keep moving if we have any hope of stopping them. Of getting Caius back." He said and she flinched at his name.
"Right. Keep moving." She said with renewed determination as they headed deeper into the facility.
Commander Sophia Shepard knew one thing above all else.
This war needed to end.
In all honesty, it should have ended years ago. It shouldn't have even begun. But if humans were good at one thing, it was holding a grudge. So, the war against the turians had waged on, for almost thirty years. Although, it made no sense to her as to why. If she believed in that kind of thing, she might think that some higher power wanted the war to continue, because she wasn't coming up with any logical explanations for why it had lasted for so many years. Why so many had had to be lost before everyone turned around and asked 'Wait, why are we fighting, again?'.
So, when Captain Anderson delivered the news that the war had officially ended, she was the happiest the rest of the crew had seen her. Until, of course, she had found out her next assignment.
"Shepard, right now the entire galactic community is wary of us. I just need you to keep things quiet for now. Stay out of trouble and patrol the edges of our space." He had told her and she frowned at him.
"Where will you be, sir?" She asked and he sighed, clearly annoyed.
"Someone, somewhere got it into their heads that I would make a decent diplomat. Something about making a show of our soldiers playing nice with the enemy." He told her and she smirked. Suddenly keeping out of trouble didn't seem so bad.
"Do you think you'll manage to happily sit in a room full of turian diplomats?" She asked and he sighed once more, folding his arms.
"If it keeps the peace, I'll manage. Just as long as they don't stick me in a room with that bastard Saren." He said and her smirk widened into a full blown grin.
"Oh, I'd pay to see that." She told him and he raised his eyebrow at her.
"Just as I'd pay to see you locked in a room with turian that kept on thwarting your missions." He told her and she frowned at the thought.
"Vakarian." She spat. "The only downside of this war ending is that I won't get to kill him personally."
"'Personally'?"
"Oh, I'm sure he'll piss the wrong person off at some point and get a bullet between the eyes." She said jokingly and he smiled.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you liked him." Anderson teased and Shepard rolled her eyes.
So now she was sitting in the CIC, trying to look busy. She, of course, had paperwork. She always had paperwork. But she was a big believer of procrastination so it sat waiting on her terminal while she tried to think of some way to alleviate her boredom.
Patrol jobs were the worst.
"Erm, Commander?" Joker's voice called over the comm and she walked up to the cockpit to answer him, having nothing better to do.
"Yeah?" She asked, her senses immediately put on alert by his anxious demeanour.
"The sensors are picking up… something." He told her and she frowned.
"Like a ship?" She asked and he shook his head.
"Like a spacial distortion, right in our path." He told her and she shrugged.
"So, go around it." She said, begrudging having to state the obvious.
"I can't. The controls are jammed." He told her.
"How did we not see this earlier?" She asked, confused.
"It wasn't there earlier. It just appeared." He said and she frowned as she tried to figure out what to do next. She was a combat specialist, not a physicist.
"Will it damage the ship?" She asked and he gave her a look that clearly said 'I'm not a physicist either'.
"I have no idea. I don't even know what it is." He settled for saying and she quickly looked over the scans, wishing, for probably the first time in her life, that she knew more about spacial anomalies.
"It looks quite small. Where will it hit us?" She asked.
"The cargo bay. We've got five minutes." He told her and she nodded, moving to speak into the intercom.
"All hands, evacuate the lower decks. Something is about to hit us there." She told the crew, hoping that that would be enough, before she headed down to the crew deck, fully intending to observe the effects for herself.
"Commander, what's going on?" Alenko asked as he fell into step behind her, both of them stopping at the elevator to the lower decks, waiting to find out what was happening below.
"Hell if I know. Some kind of... anomaly." She said, shrugging.
"Anomaly?" He asked and she rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, I have no idea. I just hope it doesn't rip the ship apart." She admitted and he frowned.
"Do you think that's likely?" He asked worriedly and she smiled back at him, reassuringly.
"Kaidan, it'll be fine." She said with confidence she didn't feel. But, if they were about to die horribly, worrying Kaidan with the information wouldn't change things.
After a few moments the ship quaked a little before becoming still again, Kaidan and Shepard exchanged significant looks.
"Was that it?" She asked hopefully before the elevator activated.
"Commander, there's no one down there." Kaidan told her and she shrugged.
"Maybe whatever it was messed with the ship's systems." She reasoned before the elevator arrived on the crew deck.
And, inside, was a woman.
She was a little taller than Shepard, with bright blue eyes, one of which was covered by a glowing blue visor, and deep red hair that had been cut, albeit badly, into a short bob. She was wearing light armour that looked more advanced than any Shepard had ever seen, coupled with a sniper rifle and pistol strapped to her back that were so obviously advanced that Shepard was immediately itching to get a better look.
"Commander Shepard? I'm Kira Luna, Temporal Agent." She said, smiling a little, as if she found something amusing. Shepard gave herself a moment to get a closer look at the woman, Agent Luna, and noted that Luna was a little younger than her, but only by about a year or two.
"'Temporal Agent'?" Alenko asked, voicing Shepard's question, and Luna nodded, a more serious look crossing her features.
"Correct. My job is to correct anomalies in the time line." She clarified and Shepard narrowed her eyes a little.
"So, that spacial disturbance...?"
"Was me. My apologies. I had a rip a hole in the fabric of space-time to get here and methods are still... crude." She said and Shepard suspected that she was making an effort to be polite, suspecting that there was a joke hidden beneath her almost smile.
"Then why bother at all?" Kaidan asked and she raised her eyebrow.
"Didn't I just say? I'm here to correct an anomaly." She told him and Shepard could see her desperately trying to not roll her eyes.
"What anomaly?" Shepard asked and Luna gave her an apologetic smile.
"I'm sorry, I can't tell you. It's better if I don't divulge too much." She said and Shepard folded her arms.
"So, you appear on my ship, out of nowhere, and can't tell me why?" She asked, annoyed and confused, and Luna nodded.
"Well, I can tell you what I need from you." She said and Shepard narrowed her eyes at the woman's impertinence.
"What you need from me?" She repeated, incredulously, and Luna nodded.
"I can give you ident codes if you doubt me. But I do have orders for you from the Alliance. Just not the Alliance from your time." She said as she passed the files from her omni-tool to Shepard's, who glanced over them.
"We're supposed to go to Eden Prime?" She asked, frowning, and Luna nodded.
"Yes. It's about to be attacked. You were supposed to be ordered there by the Council in this time period but the anomaly has messed that up." She said and Kaidan frowned.
"The Council? They have no authority over Alliance ships." He said and Luna sighed.
"Look, I won't be able to answer most of your questions. Most of this won't make any sense to you. Until it does. Just trust me when I say that this is important." She said and Shepard narrowed her eyes once more.
"Trust has to be earned." She said and Luna nodded, finally cracking a grin.
"Oh, I don't think that'll be a problem." She said and Shepard shook her head.
"Cocky one, aren't you?" She asked and Kira shrugged.
"Maybe. If you don't mind, I'm going to find a quiet corner to hide out until we reach Eden Prime. The less I interfere, the better." She told them and Shepard nodded in understanding.
"I'm going to contact Anderson. This will be his decision." Shepard warned and Luna nodded before heading back into the elevator.
"That's okay." Luna said, shrugging, as she heading back down towards the cargo bay. Shepard turned to Kaidan, shaking her head.
"Well, that is officially the weirdest thing to happen to me. Ever." She announced.
"Yeah. How far into the future do you think she's from?" He asked and she raised an eyebrow.
"You're not even questioning the fact that she's from the future?" She asked and he shook his head.
"Did you see her weaponry?" He asked and Shepard nodded.
"Yeah. My thinking exactly."
"So, how far?" He asked and she shrugged.
"Who knows. Why are you asking?"
"Because she's the spitting image of you." He told her and Shepard frowned.
"No, she isn't." She said dismissively before frowning. "I don't trust her."
"Of course you don't trust her. She appeared out of thin air and started ordering you about." He said and she nodded, glad she wasn't the only one who found the entire thing surreal. "And, she does. I mean, not exactly. She has blue eyes, you have brown, and she's taller, I think. But she could easily be your sister."
"Okay, I think I've reached my weird limit for today. I'm gonna go and talk to Anderson. Hopefully things'll start to make sense real soon..."
"Yeah, I wouldn't count on it, Shepard."
"What do you mean, I should work with her?" Shepard asked the hologram of Anderson in front of her, fuming.
"Shepard, she's legit." He confirmed and she gave him an incredulous look.
"Really? Because, I'm struggling to reconcile what I'm being told with, you know, reality." She said and he just shook his head at her.
"Says the woman currently commanding a spaceship. Who can move objects with her mind." He said and she sighed.
"But time travel?" She asked and he nodded.
"That's just the world we're living in today. You can trust her, Shepard." He told her and she frowned.
"How do you figure that?" She asked and he shook his head.
"I'm sorry, I can't tell you anything. But those files you passed to me from her? One was an encrypted message." He said and she gave him a quizzical look.
"From who? What did it say?" She asked.
"From me. To myself. And it had enough evidence to support what she's saying as well as a few pieces of information that lead me to believe that you can trust her. Just... Try to talk to her. See for yourself." He said and she nodded.
"Alright, then. I'll set a course for Eden Prime. And, in the meantime, I'll talk to our guest..."
Shepard approached the cargo bay uncertainly. She had no idea what to expect from Agent Luna. Her impression so far was that she was cocky and... well, that was it. She had only spoken to her for a few moments. She had no idea what to expect.
What she didn't expect, was to walk in on a private call.
"-ink the timeline is trying to correct itself. I mean, the Normandy's still here. Shepard's still in charge." Shepard heard Luna say and she hid around the corner. On the one hand, she didn't want to eavesdrop but, on the other, she hated being kept in the dark.
"Yeah, I read that in the history banks. 'Schematics stolen from the turians led to its development'. To be honest, the only thing that doesn't play out is-" A male voice said over her omni-tool, sounding slightly distorted, but Luna cut him off.
"I know. It seems ridiculous that it's so important but... Well, time's funny like that." She said, shaking her head.
"So, plan? Besides getting them on track, I mean." He asked and Luna sighed.
"Why are you asking me? You're the one with all of the qualifications." She said and the man on the other end of the line gave an audible sigh.
"Kira, don't even start with that. Seriously, this stuff hurts my head. I can do it, but we both know you'll do it with fewer errors." He said, reluctantly, and she gave a small laugh.
"I'm sorry, did you just admit that I'm better than you at something?" She said, grinning.
"Kira, quit stalling. For once in your life, please just take something seriously and tell me how to not mess this up." He said and the smile immediately fell from her face.
"Just don't tell them anything they don't already know. Tell them where they need to be and when. That's it." She said, her tone dead.
"Thank you." He said appreciatively. "Is there really nothing else I can say?"
"Of course there is but I don't have time to go over each and every possible thing that you could or couldn't say. If you're not sure and it's not necessary, stay silent." She reasoned, her tone still dead, and he sighed again.
"I didn't mean what I said. About you not taking things seriously." He said and she shook her head.
"Yes. You did. And you're right." She said and the line went quiet for a few moments before the voice started talking again.
"So, how are things going on your end? How did you get Shepard to listen?" He asked and Shepard's ears immediately pricked up at the mention of her name.
"Told her I was a 'Temporal Agent' sent by the Alliance in the future. Technically true but I made it sound a lot more organised than reality." She reasoned and Shepard immediately frowned. So, Luna had been lying to her. But then why did Anderson think she could trust her?
"'Temporal Agent'? I wish I'd thought of that." The man responded and Luna gave a small smile.
"You were always a shitty liar, Tom." She told him and he laughed a little in response.
"Yeah. I guess. So, how are you getting on with her?" He asked and Shepard cocked her head, curious to hear the answer for herself.
"I don't think she likes me very much." She said and Shepard wondered if she had been that obvious.
"Kira..."
"What?"
"You know what. This isn't the Shepard from our timeline." He told her and Shepard frowned. Why were they talking as if they knew her? Did this mean that they weren't from too far in the future?
"Oh, she's close enough to the stories. The perfect soldier. Her first reaction to my story was to check with her superiors. You two would get on brilliantly. Seriously, I wish we could switch." She said and the man, Tom, laughed a little in response.
"I couldn't agree with you more." He said before going quiet for a few moments. "Kira... Are you okay?" He asked softly and Kira took a deep breath before replying, obviously steeling herself against something.
"I'm fine." She replied shortly and Shepard didn't believe her. And, apparently, neither did Tom.
"No. You're not. Kira, I'm not okay so I can't even begin to imagine how you feel right now." He said sympathetically and she shook her head.
"I don't want to talk about it." She said, her voice hard.
"Kira, we'll get him back. We'll fix this and we'll get him back." He assured her but she just shook her head again.
"Tom, even if we stop the Reapers, the timeline has changed beyond recognition." She told him, her voice saturated with resignation.
"You said yourself, it's trying to correct itself." He reasoned and she gave a sad smile.
"But we no longer exist here. This isn't our timeline. There will be another Kira and another Thomas born here. We no longer belong." She told him sadly and he sighed on the other end of the line.
"I would tell you not to give up but I know that you have no intention of doing so. You may be a pessimist but you don't give up." He said and she gave a weak smile.
"You know me. I like to expect the worst. There's a small chance I'll be pleasantly surprised." She said, a little humour in her otherwise hollow voice.
"Yeah... You should definitely be here instead of me." He said and she smiled a little.
"Hopefully we'll meet back up soon. I'd better go. I think someone wants to speak to me." She said before shutting off her omni-tool and turning to face Shepard. "I really must be distracted if I didn't notice you for so long." She muttered and Shepard looked a little apologetic. Her snooping may have been justified, but it was still wrong.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to eavesdrop. I just... I don't like being kept in the dark." She admitted and Luna shrugged.
"No apology necessary. I would have done the same in your position and I would have meant it." She said simply, causing Shepard to frown.
"I don't like being lied to." She said, folding her arms.
"No one likes being lied to, but everyone lies. Funny how that works." Luna said and Shepard narrowed her eyes.
"That doesn't justify it." She told her and Luna raised an eyebrow in response.
"I wasn't trying to justify anything." Luna said.
"You seemed to sure that I was going to trust you but you've done nothing so far to earn that trust." Shepard said and Luna sighed in response before nodding.
"You're going to trust me because it will quickly become apparent that I know what I'm talking about. But, for now, I'll answer any of your questions that I am able." She said, resignedly and Shepard had to admit that she was a little caught off guard.
"You were just telling your friend that he should keep quiet." She observed and Luna shrugged as she sat down on a crate.
"Tom has no real sense of time. Not in the way I'm talking about it, at least. Time is very abstract and you need to be able to think in the abstract. It's difficult to explain and, I'll admit, I'm not the most articulate person in the galaxy. Suffice to say, I won't tell you anything that could be damaging because I know what not to say. Tom does not." She said and Shepard frowned as she sat down opposite her.
"So, who is he?" She asked and Luna cocked her head a little. As if she hadn't been expecting the question.
"He's... Another Temporal Agent." She said and Shepard rolled her eyes.
"Don't forget, I overheard your conversation. I know it's a load of bull." She reminded her.
"Right. Look, shortly after time travel was discovered, it was banned. To stop things like this from happening." Luna explained.
"Things like the anomaly you were sent to correct?" Shepard asked.
"Yeah. It changed... everything. Tom and I were protected from the effects at the time but every major government was... just gone. So we did the only thing we could do. We went back to fix things. But, like I said before, since time travel was banned it hadn't been perfected. Hence my bumpy arrival. You can't travel to the same place twice. It's very technical but let's just say that it damages the surrounding time. This was the closest I could get. Thirty years away." She said and Shepard's frown deepened.
"The war? The First Contact War? That's the anomaly?" She asked and Luna frowned before shrugging.
"Not exactly. I'm sorry, I really need to stay away from that." She said and Shepard nodded, glad to finally have some answers.
"So, Luna, you didn't tell me who he was. Tom. You two sounded close." Shepard told her and Luna nodded.
"He's my brother. We worked as part of the same spec ops team before everything got messed up. And, call me Kira." She said.
"Okay then, Kira. Who was the other person you were talking about?" Shepard asked and Kira took a deep breath before shaking her head.
"I can't..." She said softly and Shepard frowned.
"Another topic you need to stay away from?" She asked.
"Something like that." Kira responded quietly and Shepard nodded.
"Okay then. So, who are you?" She asked and Kira frowned.
"I told you. I'm Kira Luna." She said simply and Shepard shook her head.
"I like to know my crew, Kira. If you're going to be here, I'd like to know who I'm working with." She explained and Kira shrugged, obviously a little confused.
"What exactly do you want to know?" She asked.
"Anything, I guess. Where are you from?"
"A little, out of the way colony. I don't think it's been founded yet." Kira quickly responded and Shepard nodded, accepting the answer.
"What's your service record like?" She asked and Kira thought for a few moments before responding.
"I guess I should be honest with you. It's hardly exemplary. To be honest, they probably would have kicked me out if I wasn't so good. That and they knew my brother would follow. I have several red marks on my record for insubordinate behaviour and a couple of commendations for quick thinking. Really, they're the same thing. It just depends on the CO." She said and Shepard sighed a little as she nodded. Great, a trouble maker.
"You talked about me as if you knew me. You mentioned stories…" Shepard said and Kira spent a few moments thinking before she replied.
"You weren't supposed to hear that. No one should have to live with that kind of expectation placed on them." She reasoned.
"So, do you know me?" Shepard asked and Kira shook her head.
"By reputation only. Anyway, like Tom said, you're not the Shepard from our timeline. You're similar but the war has changed you. It's changed everything." She explained but Shepard frowned.
"And yet, you came here. You came to me for help." She said and Kira nodded.
"Yeah. In this timeline you tried and failed. There was only one real difference and apparently it messed up everything." Kira told her.
"What difference?" She asked.
"I can't tell you. All I can do is guide you and hope to get things as close to my timeline as I can." Kira reasoned.
"In your timeline, in your future, there's peace?" She asked after a few moments and Kira nodded.
"Yeah. There was peace."
"Okay. Then let's get it back…"