A/N: A short filler chapter to keep us steaming ahead. I hope you enjoy and thank you for reading!

"He's engaged?" Leck asked, eyes wide and brows nearly reaching his hairline. "How did that happen?"

Eric shrugged, tired shoulders rubbing against the wall. Although he begrudgingly understood why Kyle did what he had done, he was still struggling to come to terms with the situation. That selfish, homesick ten year old, that stubborn, pining sixteen year old he had once been, still didn't fully comprehend.

But he would have to for Kyle.

For us.

"He got tired of waiting, turns out my whole 'spreading out my visits' idea wasn't a great one," Eric replied, before shaking his head. "He didn't know where I was, or what had happened to me. He was worried sick and…" Eric stared at the floor guiltily. "A-and miserable…"

He hated it, how he could make Kyle so ecstatic to see him, so peaceful in his arms – literally give him life – and yet he could also depress him, and worry him, and make him turn to comfort at the bottom of a bottle… or in the arms of another.

But no, that wasn't Eric's fault, was it? It was his absence and… time. The older Eric became – as young as he still was – the more he was realising the significance of inescapable time. And it seemed nobody felt its impact more than he and Kyle.

"But he still loves me," Eric added, raising his eyes to Leck. "He told me that, and he meant it. I know he did. And I obviously still love him… but maybe I just need to keep my distance. I need to think through some things, things I've got wrong."

"Well, I'm really sorry," Leck replied, rubbing the back of his neck. "I know I was a bit begrudging about it all at first, but I have been rooting for you guys."

Eric shot him a tight, appreciative smile. "Thanks, Leck."

Leck smiled back, mahogany eyes tired but sincere. As sincere as his question of 'are you alright?' had been when Eric left the time transporter more disorientated than usual and fighting back tears.

Eric had nodded, just wanting to get to his quarters and take out his residual frustration and despair out on his room. He didn't want Leck – the guy he had made a crucial deal with – to see him cry. But perhaps he was becoming more than that, more than just a pawn, and maybe that wasn't so bad, when Eric was clearly in need of comforting. In need of company.

"You said you had things to think through…" Leck said, glancing at the large machine Eric had stepped out of.

"Yeah?"

"Does that mean the time transporter?" Leck asked, looking at Eric now. "Do you still want to build it?"

Eric requited Leck's gaze with surprise, before running a hand through his hair and staring at the time transporter too. It still represented something to him, it was still as tempting and formidable as ever. It offered all Eric had ever wanted, and despite his and Kyle's bittersweet talk, Eric was unsure whether to pursue what he so desperately craved. If it was right. Eric's plan was fuelled by promises, not necessarily answers.

"Yeah, I still want to but… I don't know if it's the right thing anymore," Eric replied. "And maybe I need to start thinking about that, you know? When I first went back to the past it was to save Kyle, because I wanted him to live. Yeah, it was a good thing and of course I didn't know then he would love me back but… it was still what I wanted. I'll always want to find a way to go back to him for good. But maybe he doesn't want that anymore? Maybe being together forever isn't a possibility."

Eric was surprised at how easily the admission rolled off his exhausted tongue, but unsurprised at the dull pressure in his chest, his heart rejecting the notion.

"Time Chi- Eric-" Leck quickly amended. "Don't be discouraged okay? Please."

Eric huffed. "I'm trying! But it's pretty difficult when the guy you're in love with is marrying somebody else. He wants me, he wants this Neil, but he can't have us both. Neil has something I can't give him. He has all the time in the world to be with Kyle. And me? I was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Leck shook his head. "Not necessarily."

Eric's eyebrows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Ideas about time travel have advanced a lot in the past five hundred years. Now that we have the technology to make it possible." Leck explained with a simple, sure smile. "It turns out that the butterfly effect isn't exactly true. You know, when you change one thing in the past and it completely alters the events of history? I mean, it is true, in a way. Like, if you hadn't saved Kyle then he would have died. But that's a big change. Literally life and death. But the little things? Like stepping on butterflies? Doesn't impact on history all that much."

Eric sat up from his position on the floor, intrigue releasing the aching pressure out of his ribs.

"Then what does happen?" He asked.

"Going back to the past, changing space and time, creates alternate timelines," Leck continued. "The more you go back to the past, the more timelines you create. And you've been a lot, so you've opened up a whole smorgasbord of them. Maybe there is a timeline where you didn't save Kyle, but you haven't been there, so we can never know. But that doesn't stop Kyle from existing in potentially hundreds of others. There is a timeline where Kyle marries this guy, there is a timeline where you didn't come here at all, and there is likely a timeline where you and Kyle end up together. You just have to make it happen."

Eric liked the sound of that, so much so that a smile spread uncontrollably across his face. Although he still needed to unravel questions, search for answers, at least a slew of possibilities had exploded before his eyes.

"Thank you, Leck," he said quietly.

Leck shrugged with a half-smile. "Just something else to contemplate."

"Yeah," Eric nodded, biting back a grin. "Yeah, I definitely will…"

Eric's nights grew restless.

Not because he was pining, or depressed, consumed by the benefit (or curse?) of hindsight, but because his conversation with Leck upon returning home had ignited a new flame of hope. Brighter and stronger and closer than before. A huge, though idle dream was now being shaped into determined reality, a once floating, flickering flame stood rigid and confident with new life. Eric couldn't shut it off or blow it out, even if he wanted to.

Before he had left the laboratory he had agreed to meet Leck in a week's time, to share his thoughts on the time transporter and to discuss the status of their deal. The small smile on Leck's face told Eric that he knew his dream was unmovable, no amount of mistakes or fiancés could stop Eric from discovering that elusive, perfect timeline.

Between studying, sketching and planning, Eric had thought of Kyle. Specifically, he replayed their recent conversation over and over, cross-referenced it with every other conversation they had had, hoping to find answers to what was best for him if that responsibility didn't rest entirely on Kyle's shoulders; Eric hoped it would be buried somewhere in the loop.

Just as if he were going to visit Kyle again, Eric had sneaked out of his quarters during the early hours of Saturday morning. Even in the dark and with little sleep, Eric had found his way to the laboratory he felt he had visited a hundred times before.

"These are all just rough notes and sketches, okay?" Eric said, tense and a little breathless as he placed his week's work on the desk.

"Alright then," Leck chuckled, glancing at the bulging notepads and scattered graph paper. "I'll be sure not to go too hard on you."

Eric flushed and scowled, ducking his head as Leck leafed through his notes.

"Wow…" Leck gasped, eyes wide as they scanned the pages. "These are great, Eric! I mean, really impressive."

Eric scratched at his arm, "Thanks," he smiled.

Such modesty was rare of him, but he had never cared about anything this much.

"We could make serious headway with these," Leck continued enthusiastically, fingers tracing the pencilled lines of rough sketches. He looked up at Eric. "You must have done a lot of research, huh?"

"Yeah, well, I couldn't go into the library without warranting suspicion," Eric replied. "So I had to hack into the database and install all the texts they had here."

Leck arched an eyebrow. "And you didn't get caught?"

"Nope, I figured out a way to do it all anonymously," Eric answered. "I created this code to disable the security."

Leck scoffed incredulously. "You know the AAA has one of the most stringent and impenetrable online security systems in The Plains, right?"

Eric glanced at his work, all the information he was able to obtain surreptitiously. "Clearly not impenetrable enough…" he muttered.

Leck shook his head and laughed. "That's pretty remarkable… and kind of scary," he slid his gaze to one of Eric's notes. "You know, you could rule Ubaleh with all that knowledge."

Eric thought of how his ten year old self would've reacted to such a statement, he'd be just as driven to claim that power as Eric was now to reunite with Kyle. It was such a silent, gradual shift in aspirations and priorities. Maturity as well as circumstance, the former had led Kyle to fall in love with him in the place.

He smiled to himself, "I don't think so…"

Leck tucked his hands into the pockets of the lab coat he always put on while in there. "Well, you're not the only one who's been hard at work."

Eric raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yeah," Leck grinned softly, reaching into his bag. "Unlike you, I have proper access to AAA databases – within my field at least – and I came across something."

After tapping the screen and placing the tablet down on the desk, a hologram shot up like a tiny, frozen firework. An icy blue translucent time transporter hovered in the air.

Eric blinked. "Is that a-"

"Yes," Leck's teeth gleamed in the faint glow. "A time transporter built forty years ago by the UAA."

"And where is it now?" Eric asked, gaze fixed on the floating machine.

"Underground," Leck replied. "When the AAA took over the city, most UAA projects were put there."

Eric lifted his gaze to the scientist. "But you can still access it, right?"

"Sure," Leck nodded, "whether it still works is another matter. But if it doesn't I'm thinking-"

"We could use its parts for our own transporter?" Eric asked, trying to bite back a premature, giddy smile. It was exhilarating, knowing their plan was in motion and that they were onto something.

"Exactly," Leck confirmed, with an equally eager grin.

"Then that's what we'll do," Eric nodded, smile tight and confident. "Next time we meet up like this."

He figured it would be another restless night tonight, as that hopeful flame swelled.

"… There were too many bugs, too dangerous, so the AAA had no choice but to shut it down," Leck explained, he and Eric regarded the crumbling time transporter with sombre awe.

"I'm surprised it didn't occur to them to dismantle it," Eric replied, charred silver and burnt steel casting dull shadows in his eyes. "Sure, it was glitchy but parts can always be prepared, right?"

Leck sighed. "You knew Blavius, he thought the AAA could build something better from scratch. Yes, they were arrogant but they did succeed."

Eric nodded, cold in the underground wasteland that used to be the UAA's scientific labyrinth. Nobody had died in the ransacked maze, only information swiped rather than human lives and yet it still felt haunted; needing life and work and projects rather than sustaining them. The forgotten institution was still very modern, its demise a premature one, and yet with the damp smell, the obtrusive, rotting dark and the acrid atmosphere that turned light into smoke, it felt pre-historic. Fossils made of scrap metal buried in man-made caverns.

Everything down there had been so smugly wasted, a dismissal of the old for a pointed, stubborn new. Eric was reminded why he had placed tentative trust in the otters in the first place, they had the same petulant, douchebag mindset. But they had betrayed him and now Eric had changed, matured. Some childhood traits he may have grown out of, but some had been embedded into his personality permanently. Resourcefulness being one of them…

"And I guess they've helped us out too," Eric shrugged.

"How do you mean?" Leck asked, turning to Eric with knitted eyebrows.

"Well, it had his problems and it's a little rusty but why break this thing apart when the infrastructure is still there?"

"What?"

"We've already got a foundation, a fairly secluded place to work…" Eric's growing confidence took hold of his legs, making him walk towards the machine and away from the observers' balcony. "The parts need to be repaired but they're not dead. The machine just needs to be resuscitated that's all. My notes were promising, you said so yourself! With my engineering skills and your scientific know-how we can get this thing up and running again!"

"Yeah, okay, I get the point!" Leck laughed in exasperation, rolling his eyes. He lifted his gaze to the machine in front of them, and the weight of it drifted phantom-like to his shoulders. "But…"

"But what?" Eric asked, moving towards Leck again.

Leck's gaze was resigned when it slid to Eric. "It could take a while…"

"How long?"

"Well… It took ten years to build this, and that was with a full team and proper clearance," Leck explained." If it's only us, and only secretly then it could take about… fifteen, twenty years, maybe?"

Eric blinked, confidence and enthusiasm waning when he swallowed the heavy reality. Like he was gulping down the earth.

"Oh…" He whispered, looking to his feet and running a hand through his hair. Eric thought of Kyle's words: We've been waiting our whole lives for each other… But is that any way to live?

I don't know. I don't know what my life is supposed to be and maybe I'll never know. But being with Kyle is such a huge, important part of it. It's something I have to do and… I'm good at waiting.

Leck sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Eric replied, lifting his head and shaking it. He let out a short, rueful chuckle. "Nobody said this would be easy, right? And I've got the time."

Leck appeared to wince, Eric was unsure why. He didn't know if it was because he looked so damn pitiful and tragic, or because Leck needed to hastily squirm out of this deal, if it required sacrificing such a large piece of his own time.

"Do you have time?" Eric asked softly, encouragingly.

Leck's fingers slid from the railing and he wrapped his arms around his chest.

"I like my job. At least, I like my field of work," Leck replied, closing his eyes and taking a quite breath. "Since graduating the education program, I've realised the difference. I enjoy what I do and I'm good at it, but I can't really see it leading anywhere." He met Eric's eyes with small smile. "It'd be nice to do something worthwhile, to know I've made a difference to someone's life."

Again, Eric thought of what Kyle had said to him; how there was more for Eric to come back to, that there were people who cared about him. He may not have recognised it in the past, or his visits to the past, but he realised it now in the present/future.

Eric smiled widely, "thank you."

"No problem."

Jogging back up the steps and standing beside Leck, Eric observed the time transporter, studious and calculating.

"You know our original deal?" He asked.

"Yeah?"

"I have four visits left, right?"

Eric glanced at Leck and the scientist nodded.

"You want to see Kyle again?" Leck asked, returning the glance.

Eric shook his head, dismissing the brief look of surprise on Leck's face.

"No, I want to, uh, make some things right," he explained. "While I still can."