As her vision blurred, Raven began to panic.
Oh god. Was this the end? Was she about to die of a fucking heart attack trying to figure out what the hell her mother's final secret was? With goddamned Lexa Woods staring her down? Because that was not the way she wanted to go. She was too young, dammit! She hadn't lived enough—hadn't seen enough of the world or done enough with her life. Hadn't watched a sunrise or had mindless sex with a stranger or seen the Eiffel Tower or dived with sharks or—oh, holy mother of god, she hadn't cleaned up! Shit! She was going to die. She was going to die, and Gram was going to bring her back to life just to chew her ass out for ransacking their apartment!
Wait! Wait.
Was this even what a heart attack felt like? Was it supposed to be easing like that? Did that mean she was closer to being dead? Oh, god.
It seemed like an unbearably long time before everything came back into focus. But when it did, Raven saw that Lexa was still standing in front of her. Good. She wasn't dead—unless this was her own specific version of hell, and she was to be haunted by an angry Lexa Woods for the rest of her days.
Raven mentally slapped herself—stop it, Reyes—and tried to focus on Lexa in front of her. But she quickly noticed something was off.
The background behind Lexa had changed—drastically. In fact, as Raven turned swiftly around, she found that the entire room had changed. Where Lexa's pristine bed had been was a different one, topped with tangled sheets hanging half onto the floor. And there was a lot more clutter in general: books piled onto every flat surface, clothes strewn hastily about the floor, unpaired shoes waiting to be tripped over.
"What the hell did you do?"
Lexa's accusing tone brought Raven's attention whipping back around to her, but Lexa's gaze was on a calendar tacked to the wall behind her, one whose markings signaled that it was April 28, 1942—crap.
"Why would you assume I did something?" Raven stalled, looking down at the journal and suddenly realizing there was nothing but air in her hand. Oh, shit! She rotated frantically, searching for it. Maybe she'd dropped it. Hopefully she'd dropped it. Please, let her have dropped it!
Five 360's later, the book was still nowhere in sight, and Raven was squeezing the key between her thumb and forefinger so tightly it hurt, just trying to make sure it was there.
Multiple scenarios ran through her mind at rapid-fire pace. Maybe she'd hit her head on the shelf harder than she'd thought and was going crazy. Maybe the stress of her mother's death and their subsequent money troubles had finally gotten to her. Maybe this was all just a dream, a strange and disturbing dream. Maybe she really had died and gone to hell. Or—
Raven thought back to the bedtime stories. She could still hear her mother's voice, from many, many years ago, stressing to a sleepy, six-year-old Raven, "These stories I'm telling you, they're important, okay? Every story is important."
Every story is important.
Was it even possible? It couldn't be. Physics, science, rationality. Those were real. Hard, cold, real, and comforting. There was an explanation for why things worked the way they did, and even if there was no explanation, that just meant it hadn't been discovered yet. But this…Time travel was not real. It couldn't be. It was crazy. She was crazy. Shit. Can you know that you're crazy and still be crazy?
"Raven. Raven! Raven!"
If looks could kill, Raven would surely be dead—that is, if she weren't already, and that possibility had yet to be ruled out.
"I— Yes, Lexa?" Raven found herself saying. What a strange feeling: words coming out of her mouth of their own volition.
"I repeat," Lexa practically growled, "What. Did. You. Do?"
"Well, I got this key in the mail. I was supposed to get— But, you know, eBay. So I couldn't finish my invention. And then— It glows. With my mother's name. So then I opened the journal. And now we're here. Like she said. Like in her stories. We're here. In 1942. And it's real. I think. Except, time travel doesn't exist. So it's not real. And— Can something be real and not real?" She hadn't meant to say that—any of that. How was— Why was this rambling spewing forth from her lips?
Lexa just stared at her. Caged zoo animal. Right. "I mean," Raven said, stressing the words—each one felt like it took an enormous amount of energy to form. "I found a key, with my mother's name on it. I went into your room—"
"You mean you broke into my room."
Right. She'd already forgotten about that. Raven filed that away for some later apologizing—groveling, more like. And that was assuming there even was a later. Huh, she mused, feeling unnaturally giddy all of a sudden, maybe hell wasn't all fire and brimstone. From her perspective, it seemed more icy words and braided hair. "I went into your room to get my mother's things," she continued, breathing easier. "And I found a journal. So I opened it. And now we're here, in 1942."
Okay, maybe it wasn't so much caged zoo animal as escaped mental patient. Damn. Don't giggle, Reyes. Lexa will kill you.
"You can't possibly think that we've…what? Time traveled?" Lexa muttered. "That's crazy." You're crazy, were the words Lexa clearly thought but didn't voice.
Raven had already resigned to the ridiculousness of their situation, though. She was probably dead or dying, and she doubted it made a lick of difference what she termed crazy. Though, if she really was crazy and Lexa really was here with her, that made Lexa crazy too.
She had to work to keep the threatening laugh at that thought from escaping her lungs, knowing that Lexa would not appreciate it. So she remained silent—with great effort—while Lexa's panicked gaze jumped around the room, taking in every foreign object in what had formerly been her bedroom.
"Let's say," Lexa started slowly, eying the inventor warily. "Let's say I believe you, which I don't. Why the hell are we in 1942? And how the hell do we get back to 2015?"
"I don't know," Raven admitted. "I don't have the journal anymore. Just the key."
Lexa's eyes widened in alarm, and she reached forward to snatch the key out of Raven's grip, examining it. "It doesn't say anything on it," she muttered, turning it around over and over again.
Raven snatched it back. "What?" She repeated Lexa's movements and then heaved a giant sigh and sat down, cross-legged, her deliriously giddy mood evaporating as sudden exhaustion took over. "Nope," she said, popping the 'p.' "It doesn't anymore."
Lexa sat too, opting instead for the single, wooden chair in the room. She unceremoniously brushed the clothes and books off of it with a couple of muffled thumps onto the stained, carpeted floor, and sat, perfectly straight, on the uncomfortable throne.
They shared a long, commiserating silence before the opening and slamming of a door caught their attention, and voices entered the apartment.
"Monty, you have to go. You'll be safe there! They'll take care of you!" a male voice cried exasperatedly as feet shuffled across the floor and Lexa and Raven stared wide-eyed at each other.
"Don't be stupid, Jasper!" a second voice rejoined. "They're not taking care of us! They're rounding us up! Keeping the Japs locked away like we're threats!"
The footsteps came closer, and suddenly, the bedroom door was opening, and Lexa was pulling a startled Raven into the tiny, cluttered closet.
"That's not true!" Jasper insisted, though Lexa and Raven could both hear the slightest tremor in his voice as they strained to hear. "They'll keep you safe until the war is over!"
"And what about you?" Monty yelled, making Raven jump slightly, though Lexa reached around to try and hold her still. "What was that?" he asked.
They held their breaths while the objects Raven had startled around them stilled and then exhaled in relief when Jasper ignored them.
"What about me?" he sighed. "I'm going. I got drafted. I don't have a choice."
"I could enlist! We could be together!" Monty insisted.
Raven ever so gently reached over to crack the door open a little, wincing at the painful way Lexa's nails dug into her arms and ignoring the hot breath rushing from her flared nostrils onto Raven's face.
"No!" It was Jasper's turn to yell, and now both women could see that the boys were in each other's faces, just an inch or two of air between them. They looked young, Raven's age, probably. "You can't! I won't let you!"
"Let me?" Monty scoffed, coming so close his chest bumped into Jasper's. "Let me?! You're not in charge of me."
"I love you, dammit!" Frustrated tears tracked down Jasper's cheeks, and he turned around, putting some space between them as he wiped them away angrily, staring, unseeing, out the window.
Monty sighed softly, deflating before their eyes. "I love you, too," he murmured, coming to stand beside Jasper so they were both staring out the window. "That's why I can't imagine staying behind while you're out there. I can't— I can't lose you, Jaz"
"And I can't have you out there," Jasper noted tearfully, facing the other man. "They'll put you on the front lines, Monty! What am I supposed to do? I can't do this with you out there!"
"It's not going to be a cakewalk, Jaz," Monty said gently, leaning his head against Jasper's chest. "They're rounding up the Japanese. They're cutting off our bank accounts and locking us up in our own neighborhoods. I don't know what they'll do to me."
"I know," Jasper admitted in a whisper, wrapping his arms around Monty. "But it's better than what could happen out there.
"Jaz—"
"Please," Jasper begged, squeezing Monty tighter against him. "Please just…just do this for me. I can't— I can't, Monty. I can't protect you out there. I can't keep you safe. Please just— please. If you love me, if you really do, go."
"That's not fair," Monty accused gently, shuddering a little in their embrace.
"All's fair in love and war," Jasper joked, managing a somber giggle out of both of them.
"I'll go," Monty relented. "But you had better come back to me, all right?"
"Yeah," Jasper promised, the tension flooding out of his whole body. "Yeah. I will. I promise."
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Forgive me if any of this is not historically accurate. I'm trying to make it work for the story I want to tell.
According to my little bit of research, Civil Exclusion Order No. 20 was issued on April 24, 1942, so Monty, whom I've made Japanese in this story, has already reported for registration and must now report for removal to a Japanese internment camp on April 29 (that would be tomorrow within the story). Meanwhile, Jasper has been drafted into the war and must report for training. And Lexa and Raven must figure out what the hell is going on.