Chapter 38

Time after Time

Penny closed the front door and took a deep breath, resting her forehead on the cool wood. Without Eloise and Daniel the house was strangely quiet. In a good way. She didn't think she could have taken much more. She turned her head slightly as she strained to hear the small sounds that told her that Hairy Desmond was still sitting in her dining room. And that now she was alone with him.

Clean-Shaven Desmond was, apparently, living in Millar Barracks somewhere north of Glasgow.

And Eloise Hawking was either a liar, or… she cut that one off mid-thought, pulling back from the front door. Enough was enough. She needed another cup of tea before she even went there.

Hairy Desmond was still sitting quietly at her dining room table staring into his empty cup.

'Here, I'll get you a refill.'

His thin smile was disconcerting. Yes, it was the same Desmond, and at the same time it… wasn't. She gently took the cup and saucer from under his hand. They didn't touch. It had been six months since she had last seen him – well the clean-shaven version anyway. She hadn't changed all that much in that time. But he had; she could see it in the way he moved, the slump of his shoulders, the way he held himself. She put the kettle on, the normal, familiar motions of making tea a solid counterpoint to the ridiculous situation they had both found themselves in. She turned her back to him as she fiddled with the tea bags and the kettle, looking around once to make sure he was still there. He was. And he was watching her silently, his shaggy, dirty hair almost covering his eyes. The beard gave him a wild, almost feral look. He really needed to wash.

Was she seriously entertaining the thought that this Desmond had traveled through time to be here? Eloise's stern and dour expression as she had sat there pontificating at the table suddenly struck her as absolutely ridiculous. The woman was clearly out of her mind. Like some fierce headmistress, all tweed skirt and tight lines, with her tights and neat shoes… Penny had a sudden, inexplicable desire to giggle, to laugh and laugh until this whole ridiculous situation floated away down the plughole like the water from the cup she was rinsing. She snorted and held her hand over her mouth, her shoulders shaking.

Desmond was watching her with a hint of amusement.

'I'm sorry,' she cleared her throat, wiping her eyes, 'this is all just so… silly.' She swept her arm over the kitchen and dining area. She cleared her throat and poured the tea, watching as the steam rose up towards the ceiling. Steam. Ether. Dust. Ashes. She couldn't believe it. Eloise had to be wrong. She sobered up immediately. Eloise had to be wrong. She set the teapot and cups carefully on the table and sat down opposite him. Then they both just sat there, all the humor gone, sucked out of the room as the reality of the situation pushed down on her. A heavy silence filled the space between them. It was awkward.

'Do you believe her?' Penny eventually broke the silence.

He looked up, then took a deep breath. 'No.' Another pause, then his voice, still almost too quiet to hear, 'Do you?'

She hesitated, 'No.'

He gave a half laugh and picked up the teapot, smoothly pouring tea for both of them.

'But I did speak to you at the barracks,' she added quickly, 'it was you. Or at least someone who sounded exactly like you.' Could it have been a set-up? Could Eloise have planted someone in Millar Barracks to sound just like Desmond when she phoned? But then Eloise would have had to have planted Desmond in her bedroom as well, and why would she do that? OK, so now it was getting almost as far-fetched as time travel and space ships, which, quite frankly, seemed to have a more plausible motive than Eloise being part of some conspiracy against her.

'I think I preferred it when we thought you were being drugged. I think we should just go with that, Des.'

He let out a sort of breathy laugh before he shook his head.

'Eloise is a genius.' She said almost to herself. 'I looked her up when she first made contact with me. And so was Daniel – a genius - before his mind went. I mean, if you read about their research, they're huge in their field. World famous. And it's all time travel – it's all about whether or not history is fixed. I never thought… well.' She was silent for moment. 'It all seemed so far fetched… '

Desmond was gazing intently into his teacup again. 'I think I'm going completely insane,' he said quietly.

She took in his appearance. He did look insane. The hair. The beard. God, Des, please get rid of the beard, the wild eyes. He'd always been so well dressed and now he looked like a prisoner on some dirty protest. But given what Eloise Hawking had just told them… well, sanity seemed kind of irrelevant now, at least the sort of sanity that holds the world in place and makes any sense of it. If the context has spun into crazy, then how can you even judge if you're insane? She had just sat through over an hour of the most insane conversation with Eloise Hawking. The madness certainly wasn't restricted to Desmond's attempts to try and make sense of it.

'No.' She said firmly, 'You're not mad, Desmond. Eloise Hawking is the one who's insane. Look, there must be a reasonable explanation for all of this, I mean…' she gave a little puffy sigh. 'Let's go with the drugs, OK?'

He smiled over at her, a small sad smile.

'Because seriously, if you're on drugs then so am I. Maybe Eloise drugged our tea… Maybe she just gets a rush from messing around with people's heads. Perhaps she's completely bonkers and this is her way of showing it. I mean, you get those doctors who are barmy and go around killing their patients for fun, maybe she's the theoretical physicist's version of that – only she drives everyone insane instead of… oh god maybe she did it to Daniel!'

Desmond was watching her speculatively.

'Or maybe I'm the one on drugs,' she finished lamely.

'Hey.' Desmond stood up and moved around the table towards her. 'I can't believe you're really here.'

She waited, suddenly frozen. This was Desmond standing in front of her. Her Desmond, the one she had lived with and cried over, the one who had felt so close that she hadn't known where she'd ended and he'd begun. They'd been so close… He reached out a small, uncertain hand and gently touched the side of her face. She held her breath. He was here. This was the man who had given her such happiness and then broken her when he'd gone. She should be angry. She was angry. But this Desmond didn't seem like the one who had left her six months ago. He was different. Not so different that he wasn't still achingly familiar, just different enough that she was finding it hard to be angry.

'You broke my heart.' She said flatly, not wanting to lose the reality she'd suffered under for the past six months. 'You joined the army and you broke my heart.'

'I know.' He let his hand drop slowly to his side. 'I'm sorry.'

'Why?' she whispered the words and watched as took a deep, staggered breath.

'I was a fool. A coward. I had… issues.' He spat out the word, like it didn't really fit but he couldn't think of anything else to put in its place. 'But I never stopped loving you – it was always for you, Penny, I… wanted to deserve you.'

She shook her head. Deserve me? Since when had that been an issue? 'I don't understand.' She said quietly.

'No – I'm sorry. I just wasn't… good enough.'

'You were always good enough, Des. Except when you left.'

'I'm sorry. I need you back, Penny. I need to know, I… I love you. I can't live without you, I just…' She saw him swallow uncomfortably. 'I just don't know what's true anymore. I… I can't believe you're really here. You've no idea how long - ' He took another small step towards her, gently tugging her out of her chair and pulling her towards him, wrapping his arms around her. The familiar warmth coursed through her, that feeling of home she'd always felt when she was in his arms. Only now - she pulled back almost immediately, her breath coming faster. This was too much, too soon.

'I'm sorry,' she whispered, 'I'm still- you left Des, you left and you really hurt me, I-' she took a deep breath. 'I'm sorry.'

He took two steps backwards and stood there looking completely defeated.

'Besides, you smell. And I don't think I'm going to let you near me again until you've had a wash.' She could see his tentative smile as he looked down at his feet. 'And those clothes? They need to go. I think I've still got some of your old clothes upstairs…'

'You've got some of my clothes? Here?'

'I couldn't bring myself to throw them out. Look, I've no idea…' she took a deep breath; she could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. This was too much. It was all too much. 'Look, Des, let's just keep it normal, OK? I'll get us something to eat and you – well, I'll get those clothes.'

He followed her up to the bedroom and stood by the door as she rifled through the cupboard. She didn't know what to say. She didn't even know where to begin. Maybe with the elephant in the room.

'So it's true then?' she asked him, then looked up at him, meeting his gaze, 'You're from the future.'

He smiled a half smile and looked away.

'Des? What year is it for you? Really.'

The sigh seemed to come from the very bottom of his feet. '2004.'

'Eloise was right then?'

He didn't answer.

'So what happens now?' she asked.

He gave a half laugh, 'Like that woman said, we don't know,' he hardly disguised the anger lacing his words.

'I had no idea, absolutely no idea what was going on. I didn't even know that you and Daniel, well, that you knew each other.'

'Are you really his brother?'

'Eloise said I was.'

'And you believe her?'

'Well, short of a DNA test.' She bit her lip. Did she really need to know? She hadn't spoken to her father for six months - ever since Desmond had joined the army. She knew her father had had something to do with it; Des hadn't been right since that day he'd gone to see him. She should never have let them meet. She sighed and stood up, reaching over for her bedside phone and tapping in the familiar number. They needed to know, and this was the quickest way.

He answered after two rings. It was his direct line, and he knew only a handful of people had that number.

'Who is this?' his voice was sharp. 'Penny? Is that you?' God, he even recognized her breathing.

She steeled herself and started talking before she gave in to the impulse to slam the phone back down on its cradle. 'Is Daniel Faraday my brother?' She threw the question at him and waited.

She heard the sharp intake of breath, the hesitation, the moment of uncertainty that told her everything she needed to know. Charles Widmore didn't do uncertainty. For the fist time in her life, her father was speechless. Before he could say anything else, before he could deny it and confuse her with his lies and half truths, she pulled the phone away from her ear and replaced it on the cradle. Then she pulled the cable out from the wall. He wasn't going to get hold of her again tonight.

'Right. So now we know that one is true.' The phone started ringing from down in the kitchen. She'd have to go down and pull that one out of the wall as well. 'How about that shower now, Des? You still smell…'

She switched off all the phones and then busied herself with food; pasta, pesto, salad. Simple. Quick. And then Desmond emerged from the shower ten minutes later looking more like the Desmond she knew. The beard and the hair were still there, but in his own clothes, clothes that actually fit him… well, it looked more like him. He'd lost weight and filled out at the same time. She had to remind herself that this man was seven years older than the one she knew. Wait – was she really buying into this?

Neither of them spoke as they sat down to eat. It was a relief, in a way, but there was so much she wanted to know, so much that she couldn't even begin to get her mind around it.

'So. Tell me what happened to you – after you joined the army.'

He looked up from his food, his fork poised mid air. He carefully put the fork down and stared into the distance for a moment. 'I missed you.' He said simply. 'That's what happened.'

She swallowed the lump in her throat. Any resolve she had to stay strong and protect her heart was swiftly crumbling.

'Des, I-' her voice was interrupted by a loud thump coming from upstairs. The sound had come from the bedroom. She stopped speaking and looked over at Desmond. He stood up carefully.

'The bedroom?' he asked quietly.

She nodded.

'Wait here.' She watched him walk warily to the hallway and then heard his footsteps as he climbed the stairs. She followed him, taking the stairs quickly. She stopped at the door to her bedroom and gasped when she saw a man lying on the floor in a heap.

'Oh my god!' He was filthy, dressed in a sweat-stained grimy t-shirt. And if Desmond had smelled bad, this man was in another league entirely. He was positively ripe. Desmond was already kneeling down beside him with an ear to his chest.

Penny stood there frozen, her hand over her mouth. 'Is he alive?' she stuttered.

Desmond sat back on his heels and nodded.

'You know him?' It was a guess, but Desmond seemed too – comfortable sitting there next to him, as if he knew the man lying there wasn't a threat.

'His name is John Locke. He was with me in the hatch - when I used the failsafe key.'

'I thought you said his name was Kelvin?' Why was she arguing about semantics when this man had just landed in her bedroom? She could feel the panic rising again.

'There was a plane crash. John Locke was one of the survivors. They found me in the hatch.'

'So, what, he's unconscious?'

Desmond shrugged. 'I think so.'

'And he's from 2004 as well?'

Desmond nodded.

'Well, what do we do with him?'

'We wait until he wakes up.' Desmond was watching her with concern. He was different, this Desmond. Older, more weary. But there was a depth to him, a maturity that hadn't been there before. The panic was threatening to overwhelm her. She wanted this strange man gone. She wanted it to be just her and Desmond. No more time travel.

'Well, what's he doing here?' She realized as soon as she said it that it was a stupid question, but really, there was a strange man lying on the floor of her bedroom and she didn't like it.

Desmond looked up at her. 'The same as me,' he whispered. Then there was a shimmer, as if the room were floating. She took an instinctive step back and then rushed forward as Desmond and the man on the floor slowly faded into nothing.

'No!' she heard her voice shouting the words, 'Des!'

And the next moment he'd gone, both of them had gone, leaving her staring at the floor where the two men had been, her last memory Desmond's wide eyes looking into hers.