Author's Note: As usual, none of these characters are mine. Thanks to PB Headless for beta reading again.
Isaac Fried sat wearily up in bed as his alarm went off again. He had been awake for a while, of course, those bloody teenagers had seen to that, with their bloody cars and their bloody swearing all the time. Joyriding, Isaac had heard it called in the papers. Fat lot of joy it brought him.
He creaked slowly out of bed and went to put the kettle on. A moment later, he realised that he had run out of teabags, and he couldn't stand the taste of coffee. He poured the hot water down the sink and turned the television on. Someone had been arrested. Shame nobody would arrest those bloody kids.
He sat on the sofa and opened the shoebox he kept on the coffee table. He spread all of the photos out in front of him and gazed at them. Him and his mother, when he was just a baby. His father in his new uniform. His mother and his sister, sitting on the front step of their house.
It wasn't working. He picked up another piece of paper, covered in numbers. Statistics. Six million dead over six years.
He tried harder, but still it didn't work. He was still here, and now, and alone.
One day, one day soon, it will work, he thought.
One day soon, I'm going to kill Hitler.
"Right, how are we going to get in?" Kelly asked Nathan.
"What? You dragged me all the way here against my will and you don't even know how to get in?"
Kelly shrugged. "Alisha sort of told us to come here so I took you with me. You know her and Simon wanted to be together."
Nathan looked sceptical.
"Oh, for fuck's sake! You're really crap at this, aren't you? Simon's worried cos he's going to go back in time, but that means he's got to leave Alisha. And Alisha's worried cos she doesn't want him to go back in time because she saw him die."
"Right, yeah. That's compassion isn't it?" Nathan asked, "I'm not overly good at compassion. I prefer to go out and get pissed and then swear at people."
Kelly glared.
"Alright, alright! I'll give them a bit more space! Honestly! And while we're on the subject of respecting people's privacy, I can't help but feel now would be a good moment to break into our bereaved friend's house. After you…" He held up a key, a smug grin on his face. "Everyone leaves the spare key next to the front door. It was under that flowerpot. Easy."
"Wait!" A voice came from behind. Kelly rolled her eyes.
"Marnie!" Nathan exclaimed, wheeling round to greet his girlfriend.
"What's happening?" she asked, "why are we just waiting around here?"
"We were waiting for you," Kelly said. "Shall we get on with it?"
They unlocked the door and went inside. It was a small flat, with a sofa in one corner opposite a small television. Kelly walked through to the bedroom, while Nathan and Marnie began searching the living room.
"Are we sure this is definitely his flat? Only last time we did something like this I ended up shitting on Nikki's bed," Nathan called through to Kelly.
"Yeah, there's all his trophies in here."
Marnie stopped for a moment and looked at Nathan. "You shat on a bed?"
"It was a friend's bed, to be fair. Well, we were friends afterwards. Well, not really, I shat on her bed, but we were kinda friends."
Marnie shook her head in disgust.
"Hey, that's pretty rich coming from the girl who wet herself in the middle of the Community Centre," Nathan retaliated.
"I was pregnant, you were just being a dickhead," Marnie replied. Nathan grinned.
"What is it, Simon? What does it say?" Alisha asked, trying to read the letter over his shoulder. Simon said nothing, his face expressionless. He folded the letter and put it in his pocket.
"I can't tell you," he replied. "It's too soon."
"But- is it bad? Is something wrong?"
Simon nodded faintly. Alisha put her arm around his shoulder. "It's alright," she said. "You're not him yet, are you? You're still here, and you're still with me. You're Simon, not the guy in the Hoodie."
"But I think I might be," Simon said, breaking away from her and standing up. "I'm training, I'm practising parkour, and I'm getting better, and I've got the apartment, and the clothes he left behind. I think I'm nearly there."
"Simon, you-"
"I need to do it, Alisha. But I'm not going to leave yet. He said that something happens that means we can't be together, so I need to live the rest of my life before then. I need to spend as much time with you as I can, before it's too late."
"Me too," said Alisha, "and who knows? Maybe it won't happen. Maybe we'll just grow up and move on and you'll never have to go back." She smiled. "Let's hold onto that, eh?" She stopped as her phone rang. "It's Kelly," she told Simon. "Hello?" she said, answering the phone.
There was a pause. "Okay, I'll see you there." She hung up. "They've found something, they know where Curtis might be."
"Alright, you'd better go and find him."
"What about you?" Alisha asked, looking worried.
"I just… I need to sort some things out. I'll catch up with you later."
Alisha hesitated, but nodded and left. Simon sighed to himself and watched the clocks on the wall. Soon. Soon he would become his own future.
Those bloody kids again. In broad daylight, as well. Isaac Fried grumbled to himself as he opened the front door to put the bins out. There was another one, a tall black boy leaning on the lamppost opposite his house.
"Go away!" Isaac shouted. "Go on! Bugger off!"
The boy did nothing, just looked around and stood there, as if he were waiting for something.
Isaac tutted and went back inside. Things would change, soon. If only he could work out how to use this power he had bought. He knew he shouldn't have trusted that bloody dealer. The power had only worked once, when he realised he'd missed Countdown. He found himself ten minutes into the past, just in time to watch it from the beginning. Since then, nothing.
Soon, though. He'd crack it soon.
"Over here!" Marnie called, brandishing a sheet of paper. Nathan and Kelly turned to look at her. "I think it's a clue! Or something."
"Marnie," Kelly said, taking the paper from her, "you keep saying that. Is it actually anything worth looking at, or is it another pizza menu?" She was beginning to get exasperated. She'd already had to make a force field between Nathan and Marnie to stop them snogging every few seconds, and she wasn't sure they were taking this very seriously. She looked at the paper she held in her hand. "No, wait, this is good actually," she said sheepishly.
Marnie grinned. Nathan tried to look over Kelly's shoulder at it, but found himself bumping against the invisible wall like a bird that hadn't worked out that windows were made of glass. Kelly disabled it and they gathered round.
Printed on the paper was a photo of an elderly man, underneath which was written a name and address in Curtis' handwriting. Isaac Fried, 42 Overman Terrace.
"We need to tell the others," Kelly said, heading towards the door. She stopped in her tracks as she saw a head peer around the doorway. "Who are you?" she asked indignantly.
The man in front of her was in his mid-thirties, with dark brown hair parted in the middle. He looked at her, as if considering something. "Are you the owner of this house?" he asked, stepping further into the room.
"No, it's our friend's. We were-"
"Stop there, miss. Detective Inspector Cooper, Wertham Police Force. I have reason to suspect you have…"
Before Cooper could say any more, Kelly had created a forcefield around him and yelled "come on!" to the others. The three of them sprang out of the door, racing along the road away from Curtis' house. They only stopped ten minutes later and bent over, panting. "Well, that was fun, but we really ought to find Curtis," Nathan said, "I mean, I do love running away from the police as much as anyone else, but I've only just finished one lot of community service, I'd rather not start another one."
Kelly got her phone out and called Alisha. "Don't tell her we nearly got arrested!" Nathan hissed, but Kelly shushed him with a wave of her hand.
"Alisha, we've got something. I think we've found Curtis."
Once Alisha had left, Simon took the letter out of his pocket and read it again. He closed his eyes and lay back on the bed, his mind racing. What now, then? What should he do now that he knew-
He sat up, and quickly scanned the letter. Realising what he had missed, he leapt to his feet and hurried out of the door. He had to find Curtis, and he knew exactly where to look.
"Curtis!" he exclaimed, arriving opposite Isaac Fried's house fifteen minutes later. He'd taken the quick route, out of the apartment's skylight and over the rooftops across the estate. He hadn't fallen or tripped once.
Curtis looked up, surprised. "How did you find me?"
"The Hoodie. The future me, he left me a note. You need to stop, this isn't going to work." Simon looked seriously at his friend. Curtis wasn't looking at his best, Simon had to admit, and he couldn't have eaten very well since he had stormed out a fortnight ago.
"Leave it, I know what I'm doing."
"No," insisted Simon, "you don't. This is all going to go wrong if you carry on like this."
"No, I-" Curtis began to protest but at that moment the door of the house opposite opened and an old man stepped out. Simon ducked behind a bush and watched as Curtis walked over to him. The man seemed irritable, and began to walk away, but Curtis followed him along the road, talking. Simon could not hear what they were saying, but both seemed equally insistent not to give up their power.
The man eventually seemed to win the argument, and Curtis sat, dejected, on the pavement. Simon crept out from behind the bush and hurried over to him. "Well?" he asked, looking at Curtis.
"He's not going to give it up. He says he needs to kill Hitler."
Simon thought for a moment, then stood up and ran after the man.
"Wait!" he cried. Isaac turned and looked at him.
"Another one, eh?" he croaked, "well, I'm not changing my mind. Just leave me to it, I'm going to do it. Soon."
Simon looked sympathetic. "You're not, though. Are you? You've tried, but it's not working."
Isaac stopped in his tracks, studying the awkward youth who stood before him. "What do you mean?"
"How old were you? When the Holocaust started?"
"Three. I was only three." He grabbed Simon's arm. "Can you imagine what that's like? To lose everything at that age? I can't even remember my parents. I only know what they look like from my photographs."
Simon nodded slowly. "I really am sorry for you, but that's not the way the power works. When you use it you end up the same age as you were at the time. You need to feel remorse in order for the power to activate and even if you could get it to work you'd be a three-year old boy again. You would have no way of preventing those things from happening and you would have to live them all over again."
"…You're right. I wouldn't stand a chance. I… I'll give the power back to that boy." He turned around and headed back to Curtis. "I've changed my mind. I'm going to give you your power back."
Curtis looked incredulously at Simon, as if it were a joke. Simon smiled, and gestured for Curtis to go with Isaac. They walked together towards the building Seth had made into his shop. "I'm going to go and meet Alisha," Simon said, "tell her what's happened."
Isaac groaned as he heard the sound of cars a few streets away. "Those bloody teenagers again," he mumbled, before realising who he was with. "No offence meant, of course. Now whereabouts was-"
He stopped mid-sentence as the joyriders came racing around the corner. One saw the two pedestrians in time but another, a red sports car, did not stop. It sped past its opponent and cannoned into the startled figure of Isaac, hurling him a few metres across the tarmac before hurrying on, eager not to be caught. The car it had been racing hesitated, then followed before Curtis could see a numberplate. He knelt down next to Isaac's crumpled body.
"No, no, don't die. I need to save Nikki! I need to save Nikki!"
Isaac looked up at the boy kneeling over him and gave a sad smile. "I'm sorry about your girlfriend. I'll say hello to her for you." His eyes came unfocused and his head slumped to one side. Curtis stood up and stared in the direction of the fleeing joyriders. His power had died with Isaac. Once again, he had no idea what he was going to do next.