Chapter 24
Co-written by AliasJaneDoe and coloradospace
This was all such a mess. Brennan rubbed his hands roughly across his face then took a deep breath, trying to clear his head.
"She going to be okay?" Shalimar asked him, motioning to the other her.
He waved his hand in a gesture of not knowing but answered anyway. "She has a broken wrist, concussion..." He watched as Jesse and Emma fretted over her, Lexa standing nearby with her arms crossed over her chest, merely observing as one of the Adams - Brennan wasn't sure which anymore - did the whole "how many fingers" routine. Shal was squinting and seemed to still be working on how many Adams. Although given the situation... He shrugged, feeling out of place.
"So she's not dying?" The blonde woman frowned. "There was a lot of blood."
"Scalp wounds bleed a lot. She'll have a scar, but she'll live." Or at least he thought so. He studied the expression of the Shalimar standing beside him. "You're disappointed?"
"Well, no her, no getting ripped apart because of her, right?" The question was apparently rhetorical and she simply strolled back over to her group. Emma still clung to that Brennan while he talked over his com-link with Genomex. Mason Eckhart, despite various protests against the idea, was being invited to their little party.
Brennan wasn't all too happy about them calling a truce, but he supposed it was necessary. It was the entire world at stake after all. Or more accurately, four worlds. He was getting the worst headache, and he didn't even want to think about the cause.
He resumed feeling out of place. Jesse, who'd been deposited leaning against the fence, had given him the cold shoulder earlier. He supposed he deserved it for the way he'd abandoned him. Brennan sat down beside him anyway.
"Shal's gonna be okay," he remarked.
"Good for you," Jesse replied, only glancing at him briefly before looking the other direction.
But the look was long enough for Brennan to tell he was relieved, even though it wasn't his Shalimar.
"What do you want?" he said when Brennan didn't leave.
"Just trying to mend some fences," he commented, flicking at the chain link behind him. "Look, Jess..."
"Is there where you tell me you're sorry and the people I love could still be alive?" He finally returned his gaze to Brennan.
"Yeah," he replied, feeling awkward.
Jesse shook his head in dismissal. "Save it. It's not true anyway." He paused. "This is the part where you walk away, because I don't have that option. Go back to your... them."
The harsh bite to his tone made it clear he didn't want to talk, at least not to Brennan, and he gave up. "Fine." He stood and took a few steps back toward the others. "But I am sorry," he added before walking away.
"Do you have to be such a jerk to him?" Lexa intercepted his retreat and glared at him.
"He's the one who's so damned determined to be by himself," Brennan snapped at her. If there was one constant thing in all of this chaos, it definitely would be Brennan and Lexa's animosity towards one another.
"He knows an Emma died in the explosion on this world," she commented as if that somehow explained everything. "We've all been trying to figure things out, and it came up, and he knows."
"So?"
She stared at him, clearly wondering how he could be so dense. "Take a look around, Sparky." She grabbed his chin and pointed his head in the direction of her world's Emma, and he let his gaze linger there until her fingers pulled his face too far the other way. She left him looking at the second Emma. "The math isn't that hard."
Then he realized what she meant. They knew a third Emma had died several months before the explosion ever happened. If they were only dealing with four dimensions... "Crap."
He allowed himself a moment to wonder if that might have been his Emma as well, if he really belonged in the world where he'd waken up, if that Jesse was all he would have left when this was over. Brennan couldn't figure out how he felt. If his Emma was dead then... he had no idea. He didn't even know what he was planning to do if she were alive. Declare his unconditional love for her? He scoffed at himself. It was just one Emma that he wanted.
The other Brennan cut his thoughts short. "Mason's on his way," he announced.
"I still don't like this," Shalimar complained. Adam, Jesse, and Emma all pushed her back down as she tried to get up.
"None of us like it, Shal," Jesse replied. "But we're kinda on the clock for getting this mess sorted out."
"We should get her back to Sanctuary," Emma said softly.
She started to shake her head but caught herself and just groaned. "I'm not leaving. I'm part of this."
"So," the other Brennan said, "options?"
They all took turns staring at each other for about a minute.
"What if we leave the planet?" Emma blurted. "With a spaceship!" She stuck out her arms and started making airplane noises.
Her Brennan dropped his face into his hand and mumbled an, "Oh dear Lord..."
Shalimar wrinkled her brow in thought. "That couldn't actually work, could it? If it's Earth being destroyed, could we just get off it?"
"No, the entire idea is completely absurd," Jesse snapped. "While we might be referring to our different realities as parallel worlds, it's really a matter of entire dimensions. No matter where we go in the galaxy, we're still in the same universe, alternate or otherwise, and it's all being torn apart. I mean, we're talking massive scale rip in the fabric of space-time here."
"What did you just say?" Brennan asked, suddenly forming an idea.
"In short," Jesse clapped his hands together, "boom. Need me to act that out with sock puppets for you?"
Brennan was tempted to be just as childish and stick his tongue out at Jess but simply rolled his eyes in annoyance. "I meant about time, smart-ass."
"What do you mean?" the other Jesse asked. "You think we should find Diana?"
"It's an option, right? We've got multiple worlds - dimensions," he corrected, "so that means multiple hers. We have to be able to locate at least one of them."
"No, time travel is not an option," Adam said. "One main theory is that the person doing the time travel is only altering their own existence, effectively creating a parallel path... here let me show you..." He drew a line in the dirt, then made a branch off of it as if about to diagram a sentence. "This top line is the original timeline..."
"Would you stop that!" Jesse snapped at Jesse.
Brennan looked behind him to see the other Jesse making his hands quack like ducks at each other while Adam talked.
"We're wasting time we don't have." He motioned to Adam's drawing. "Time travel would just be making more timelines, meaning more dimensions, meaning a bigger mess than we're already in. So next. Who's got plan C?"
Lexa watched him with concern. "Are you okay, Jess?"
He calmed his tone. "Headache."
"I'm already feeling it too," his double confirmed.
"The obvious solution here is to get all of us back where we belong," Jesse stated. "I'd suggest attempting to recreate the original accident, but seeing as you decided to kill yourself, we can't do that." His last remark was directed to Brennan.
"Hey, it was the tremors that killed him," he said, but his voice was indifferent.
Emma stuck her arms out again and Brennan pinned her wrists firmly to her sides in a tight grip.
Brennan frowned at his double. "What if we try with just us and hope wherever the rest of us are, they've got their half of this already fixed? Meaning those of us not of this Earth all go back inside after Eckhart gets here and we start playing roulette."
"We're playing Russian Roulette?" asked Emma timidly, pressing herself closer against her Brennan. She was notably afraid. He placed a quick kiss to the top of her head to soothe her.
Jesse paced a few steps. "And if it doesn't work? The rest of us just sit back and do nothing."
Brennan let go of Emma's wrist before nodding. "Right. And if we don't all end up in the right places, then we'll take care of it."
"Take care of it how?" Emma asked, speaking to one Brennan but with her eyes on the other. She was worried about him.
"You're really gonna make me say it? Fine, I'll be devil's advocate." He pulled his gun out of his waistband. "We already know we don't get sick on world's where our counterparts are dead."
"Devil's advocate indeed," Adam murmured.
Emma started crying. "I don't want to play that game, Brennan," she whimpered. "Don't make me play."
Brennan whispered something to her that the others couldn't hear, and she quieted. Then he looked across at the other Emma with a blank expression, but his cold gaze made her shiver.
"So if you don't all make it home, you start whacking yourselves!" Jesse gasped. His eyes darted from Brennan to Emma to Emma. "Or us."
Brennan took a subconscious step closer to the Emma who was standing by herself. He carefully met his double's eyes. However far he was willing to go to protect the Emma in his arms, Brennan would match it to protect this one, his or not.
"Whacking?" Shalimar repeated, grinning at her Bren and Emma. "What are we, the Mafia now?"
"Nobody is whacking anybody," the other Jesse said. "If there are only four dimensions, this should be a simple matter. As soon as Eckhart gets here, we'll go reality hop a few times until we get it right. And that's the end of it."
Everybody settled into a tense silence once more.
"When you get home, look me up," Lexa said to Jesse, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. "In another world, who knows..." She left him leaning on Adam for support, despite Adam looking like he could use some help himself, and headed back to her own group, to her own Jesse that things would never work out with.
That left all the goodbyes finished, except for one.
"You probably shouldn't come inside," Brennan said to Emma.
She nodded. "I know."
He swallowed awkwardly. "Well, so long." He turned to follow the others into the Naxcon building.
"Brennan, please don't do this," Emma whispered. Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance. She started to reach for him but dropped her hand back to her side.
Brennan paused without turning around. If he looked back, it would only make things more difficult. If he said one more word, if she did, he'd never leave. He closed his eyes briefly, forcing himself not to reply, then he resumed walking.
His double met him as he entered the building. "You still don't remember where you're from?"
He shook his head. "No."
"It's not just one world you're putting at risk, so you'd best settle that." He handed Brennan his gun. "One way or another."
