Back To You

Category: Romance, AU (very much) sort of supernatural, more in later chapters

Pairings: JR (what else?), some CM in later chapters

Rating: M, also in later chapters

Summary: "If you could go back in time, change something that went wrong for you, would you do it?" - "In a heartbeat."

Acknowledgement: The plot of this story is inspired by a great X-Files story, called 'Eleventh Hour' written by Rachel Anton. You should find that on www gossamer org

A/N: Yeah, I'm actually attempting another story, very different from what I usually write - as far as the plot goes. Although the basic structure of the story is already written, I don't know how fast I'll be with the details and the updates, so please bear with me. I can promise though, that I will finish it.

A Light in the Darkness

"And then the temporal flux is carrying the brainwaves over the threshold to the parallel timeline. All we need is to compensate …"

She liked listening to him. His dull and monotonous voice in which he told her the same things over and over every hour of every day numbed her to a comfortable degree.

She asked herself sometimes if mental institutions were called that because there were mental patients there, or because people went mental when they were in there.

Not that she cared much about that. She didn't care much about anything these days.

Once a day her boring routine was interrupted by one of her friends visiting her. She dreaded those visits, because she knew they were hurting, she knew she was the reason and she couldn't help it.

Phasing it out, forgetting it, listening to the crazy guy everyone just called 'The Professor' yammering on about the problems he had with building his stupid machine was the only thing in her life now.

In her dreams she sometimes saw their faces. The horror on Mon's face as she had pulled the knife out of her hand the first time. The way they always looked at her when they had to drag her home after she had been sitting at his grave again for hours.

Pneumonia had almost done the deed of killing her after she had been sitting there in the pouring icy cold rain for almost a whole night. It felt oddly right when it rained when she was there. It felt like the skies wept for him too.

Slashing wrists was something that always seemed to be so easy when you watch it happen on TV or in a movie, but it was actually not easy at all. You have to know precisely where to cut and how deep. It had gotten even harder the third time around since they hadn't trusted her around sharp objects anymore after the second time. It had taken the second time for them to understand that this wasn't a cry for help, it was her wanting to end the pain.

The last time, in the bathtub, she had used a not so sharp letter opener. She still remembers wondering why it didn't hurt when the dull piece of metal finally broke the skin after she had applied an enormous amount of pressure. Nothing did hurt anymore, save for her smashed heart, her torn up soul. In retrospect, it was a stupid idea to use that thing. Even though she'd made herself bleed, she never would've managed to slash an artery with this dull blade.

It was then they had decided to bring her here. They had cried and tried to explain it to her that they couldn't watch her all the time, that she was safer there, that there were supposed to be specialists here who would be able to help her.

As if anyone ever could. No one could, because no one could bring him back.

Sometimes she remembered the moment when it hit her that he would never come back. It wasn't the moment when she held his bleeding and broken body in her arms, when she watched the sparkle of life dying in his eyes, when she screamed at him to stay awake, when she slapped him so he would wake up again. Over and over until someone managed to drag her away from his lifeless body. It wasn't when she stood in the hospital, clothes still covered with his blood and the doctor had told her that there wasn't anything they could have done for him.

It wasn't even at his funeral, when she saw his family almost collapse under the agony of having lost their brother, their beloved and only son. It wasn't when she had placed a single red rose on his coffin, right next to the white ones from Phoebe and Monica.

It was when she stood in the apartment they had shared for over a year and she had opened the freezer. A worn copy of 'The Shining' was lying in there, bookmarked with a ticket stub from a movie they had seen together.

Chandler had found her that day, collapsed on the floor next to the fridge, clutching the book to her chest. He had taken her in his arms and held her for hours. It still felt like he was the only one who understood her. Because he had loved him too, and he had his own regrets to deal with.

Chandler was the reason she was still alive. Sometimes she despised him for that. She had stopped eating after they had brought her here. There were more ways to die than just slashing one's wrists.

Of course the doctors had found it necessary to put an IV in her arms and tie her to the bed so she couldn't pull it out. But they knew they couldn't force her to live if she really didn't want to.

Chandler had visited her the day after they had removed the IV, effectively giving up on her.

"He wouldn't have wanted that, Rachel. He must be rotating in his grave when he sees what you do to yourself."

"I killed him."

This was the answer she always gave when someone said something like this to her.

"You didn't, it was an accident."

And this was what everyone always said after that. But she knew better. He had died because of her, because she had called his name when he was right in the middle of crossing the street. He had turned around and smiled at her, waving a little. It was a magical moment. In that moment she had known without any doubt how much she had been in love with him.

He had told her he loved her two days before that. She had blown him off, she had tried to let him down easy but in the end, she had blown him off. And it took her two days to realize that she had been wrong, that she hadn't even recognized what deep feelings she had for him.

When he had waved back at her, smiling brightly and happily, the only thing she wanted in that moment was to tell him, to shout 'I love you' right there in the middle of a busy New York street.

The moment she started doing just that, she heard the screeching of brakes, the blaring of a horn and the sickening sound of a human body getting hit by a car. The sound of crushing bones and rupturing tissue. He hadn't screamed or said any last words. When she ran to him, cradling him in her arms, his eyes were already distant and her shaking fingers couldn't find a pulse on his neck.

No one ever blamed her. Not his family, not her friends. The driver of the car had been going way too fast, it had been his fault. She faintly remembered someone telling her he was in prison now.

It didn't matter. If it hadn't been for her, the man she loved would still be alive and she would've had the chance to tell him what she felt for him.

"I killed him," she repeated, tired of having the same conversation over and over again.

Chandler was the only one she even talked to anymore. The shrinks exhausted her with their endless questions, their endless attempts at getting her to talk or to 'deal with her grief' like they called it.

Chandler had shaken his head at that, probably tired of this conversation as well.

"Want me to tell you a story about him?" he had suddenly asked.

She had turned her head to him quickly, looking at him hopefully. Her reaction had obviously taken him by surprise and he had smiled a little painful smile.

"Do you?"

She had given him a weak nod, failing at the attempt to smile back.

When he was done telling her the story, tears had been running down his face. He had caressed her sunken cheeks gently and whispered to her, "I'll tell you another one tomorrow, if the nurses tell me you ate something."

It was blackmail and it was disgusting, but when the nurses brought her some soup for dinner that evening, not even bothering to check if she would eat it, she did.

It had been that way for weeks. He told her a story, she ate. It seemed to heal both of them. She had put on some weight again, still twenty pounds away from what they considered healthy for a woman her size.

And now she was sitting in the professor's room every day, watching him assembling some pieces of junk which he had found God knows where to something he called his time transportation device.

She didn't care. It just calmed her down to listen to him. If she listened to people, she wouldn't have to listen to her own thoughts.

"Rachel," the professor suddenly said intently, startling her. Usually there was no intensity about the professor. "If you could go back in time, change something that went wrong for you, would you do it?" he whispered urgently.

She didn't even need to think about that. "In a heartbeat."

"Then let's do it Rachel, let's do it now. I've assembled the machine, I need someone to try it. Will you try it?"

On some level she knew she should ask him if he was sure it worked, or how it worked, or… but again, she didn't care. The thought of going back, of changing what had happened, of seeing him again was so electrifying, she suddenly felt alive again, she felt like an incredibly heavy weight started to be lifted off her shoulders.

"Yeah, I'll do it."

"Then let's do it now before they take it away again."

Her heart was beating wildly in her chest, she could feel the blood flowing through her veins again, she already made plans for what she would do, for what she would say.

The professor put some weird cables on her head, some on her fingers.

"Which day do you want to be brought back to?" he asked after he had finished.

"May 19th, 2002," she answered mechanically. The day Joseph Francis Tribbiani had died.

A blinding pain pierced her head when the professor's machine starting working with a loud buzzing. And then everything went black.

tbc

A/N: I'd be happy if you'd tell me what you think.