A quick note: When the section breaks ("000") appear without a bolded year immediately afterward, it's still in the same year and same character(s). At those points, they're merely functioning as a section break.

1962

The church basement was set up with long folding tables covered in plastic tablecloths. The chairs rimming the long rows were mostly full. On each of the tables, a bowl of individual butter pats, packets of creamer and sugar, and syrup containers every five seats or so.

Their butter supply was in a milk glass bowl with little nubbies all over it, probably a donation from a parishioner. Vanya's fingers were scraping the damp leg of her ruined pants as she wondered if the next bowl down the table would match, or if they were all different and thrown together from convenience.

Even though the other congregation members had left them a few chairs to themselves on either side, the murmur of their collective conversations was still loud enough that Vanya could go short periods and forget that Luther was sitting across from her, silently hunched over his own breakfast.

Neither really wanted to be there, and neither had asked the other if they'd wanted to try somewhere else before bowing to the PANCAKE BREAKFAST 8 A.M. banner outside the small church. They'd stumbled upon it just off of downtown, both, Vanya assumed, too consumed with horror to pass up a free meal as they slowly realized where they were.

Now, she was extremely hungry, and only the thought of drawing Luther's attention was slowing her consumption of the last pancake on her plate. Vanya desperately wanted to get up and get more. She would have if she were alone.

She hated that she was actually glad she wasn't.

Luther hadn't made any moves to restrain her, and he seemed even more depressed and upset than she was. But not angry, just lost and dejected. He also didn't seem aware of her fuming. The pitch of the voices spiked a little, and Vanya was just barely able to stop herself from throwing a couple of nearby chairs against the wall. Her powers clawed as she swiftly put a lid on them.

Vanya knew holding onto her anger was a bad move, especially right now, but she was tired of making excuses for her siblings. So she kept tearing bites off her pancake with her fork tines in a silent, blistering fury and worked on building the courage to stalk over and get more pancakes when she was good and ready.

When Luther had awoken half an hour ago, Vanya had mistakenly thought she'd burned through her initial anger during the long night.

No such luck.

"Vanya?" he'd blinked at her, slowly raising his head and immediately pulling a pained face. He'd eased himself up using only his right arm. And then he'd clutched his head and stared blankly at her.

For her part, Vanya hadn't slept at all, too overwhelmed by the sheer force of her emotions. And in those first moments after Luther was awake and looking at her, the feelings had only intensified.

But again, he hadn't tried to move any closer to her. And when he'd slowly gotten to his feet, Vanya had followed suit, and they'd walked side by side out onto the bright street.

"You're still hungry." Luther's voice was quiet, and as soon as Vanya was shoving the last bite of pancake in her mouth, he was rising and painfully taking her plate. She watched him, wide-eyed, as he limped over to the buffet line and refilled both of their pancake stacks.

His left arm was shaking when he set the paper plate back down in front of her. And when Vanya involuntarily flinched at the close contact, he did too. Then he sat the rest of the way down and bent over his stack again. His left shoulder had shifted lower than his right, and his arm was hanging at what had to be an uncomfortable angle.

Vanya cursed herself and started eating again. She wanted to just be angry, not fumble her way through this noncommittal, half-worry about him. But she'd been right that he was injured. If the two of them were going to get through this, they both needed to rest and heal. Her own headache was better, having lifted like a stormfront over the long night. But she still felt too full inside her own mind, and her wet clothing definitely wasn't doing her immune system any favors.

And, as if he'd known what she was thinking, Luther was suddenly saying, "Hey, are my…are my pupils the same size?"

Vanya looked up at him, met his eyes, grimaced at the contact, and mutely nodded her head.

"Good," he sighed and let his head fall forward again, "I don't have a concussion."

That was the first thing he should have said! A very potent wave of anger crested over Vanya's head, and it took everything in her not to slam her fork down on the table. Instead, the syrup bottle next to them exploded like Mentos in Diet Coke, and the two of them joined everyone else in the room at looking up to the syrup-splattered ceiling, then back down to the cracked bottle.

"Sorry." Luther's arm was slow to reach for it, and Vanya could see that his fingers couldn't really grip with any force. "I was…eager."

Everyone else looked at his oversized shoulders and his embarrassed smile and went back to their other conversations.

There were a few horrible seconds of silence interrupted only by streams of syrup heeding the call of gravity and splattering back down onto the table. Luther was still holding the ruined bottle, and Vanya was the one who ducked her head this time.

She hated admitting to herself that she was afraid of him. Hated it. But this was sixty years from when they were supposed to be, in Texas no less, and if the man she was with forced her outside with him, everyone would simply ignore it. She couldn't exactly unleash her powers in here, and she didn't trust her voice or her temper at the moment to level any half-decent empty threats.

Time for honesty, then. She deliberately kept her voice quiet, nonthreatening. "If you thought you had a concussion, I wish you would have told me immediately. We can't afford to get hurt or separated right now. Five will have an absolute cow. We have to deal with things together; we don't have a choice."

"Did anybody bother you?" Luther asked after a tense moment of silence. "While I was out, I mean."

"I don't think anybody even knew we were there." She snuck a glance up at him. He was already staring back. He looked…concerned. But not offering false hugs and then betraying her concerned. So that was something.

"You're right," his fingers worried over the edge of the syrup bottle. "We'll need to work together. And I'm…I'm the leader."

It was all Vanya could do to raise an incredulous eyebrow at him, too appalled that he was reasserting his authority after everything that had just happened to try and argue.

They both went back to their food.

Vanya focused on eating and chipping away at her emotions. They felt unwieldy and annoyingly fluid. Every time she tried to catch them in her hands, they found a new course and kept going. It was infuriating. And when Luther made the perfectly reasonable observation that they should go before one of the parishioners got brave and tried to come over and fold them into the flock, Vanya stood wordlessly, dumped her plate, and made her way outside without waiting.

It wasn't very team-like behavior. But when Luther joined her half a minute later, he didn't call her on it. Instead, he threw his massive shoulders back, put his hands on his hips, and said, "Okay, next up. Shelter."

000

1961

Allison was…an idiot.

Even the sight of police and flashing lights and the sound of something hard striking bodies over and over again weren't enough to give her pause. And by the time she realized she was in the middle of a literal riot, it was already too late. She was enveloped in the crowd, in the screaming, almost as soon as she got close enough to realize what was happening. And as Allison wandered mutely through the wailing scene around her, it felt like the moment when Alice finally fit through one of the doors in the room at the bottom of the rabbit hole. Allison had loved that book as a child, had been fascinated, if not a little morbidly, by the concept of falling into an unfamiliar world and deciding to go onward.

But she was here now. She'd gone somewhere. Right into…this.

Even in the midst of the chaos, she could feel it the moment she became a target. Immediately Allison spun and grounded herself. It was easy to reach out and stop the first blow from landing. Then the second. Which was when she realized she was defending herself against a cop. And as the officer lowered his hands in momentary surprise, Allison mentally breathed a sigh of relief before waving her hands at the bandage across her throat. If she could get law enforcement's help, especially if one of them recognized her, this would all go down so much easier.

She was in the middle of gaping like a fish, another way to demonstrate that she couldn't speak, when the officer was reaching out and shoving at her. Allison was strong and sturdy; it was hard to knock her over. She'd learned to stand her ground by watching how Diego would brace himself against Luther's overwhelming advantage.

Now, the muscle memory of righting herself from a blow was the only thing that kept her off the pavement.

It had been a long day. The sound she'd run toward wasn't what she'd been expecting and definitely not what she'd bargained for. Not after this nightmare of a day. In short, Allison was sick of this and jumped to her second-nature defense without hesitation.

The agony of unthinkingly opening her mouth and trying to speak began in her throat but ripped down throughout her whole body. And if it hadn't been for another woman, a little older than her with a kind face, getting between her and the cop, Allison wasn't sure what would have happened. Because the look on that cop's face…there was something in that moment before they lost eye contact that told her this was bad in ways she didn't even realize yet.

He'd looked like he wanted to lunge for her, absolutely feral.

"She's hurt," the woman was saying as the officer screamed something about Allison attacking him. The woman's next statement felt like crossing some invisible line. "That's what you get for picking a fight."

There was a dangerous edge to her voice and everything around them felt like it was escalating in a moment. Then the man was lunging for the woman instead, and Allison was back in the thick of it and trying to fight him off, and one thing led to another, and the three of them ended up tumbling to the ground.

The officer was furious, and that made him fast and deadly. But Allison knew her fair share of brutality, refined over years of increasingly dangerous missions, and she was faster. By the time he even knew he was on his back, Allison had thrown herself between him and the woman, straddling him and pinning him to the pavement.

"Don't…don't…" She was vaguely aware that the woman had gotten up too and was for some reason trying to pull Allison off of their attacker. She was muttering an incomprehensible string of nonsensical warnings.

Beneath her, the cop was a purple mix of terrified and furious. And it made Allison equally furious that she couldn't scream down at him. But the woman was still desperately trying to make Allison move, and it was in looking up during that brief moment of pause that Allison's eyes caught on the clothing and the buildings and the cars around them.

As the chaos spun around her, horrible and very real, Allison finally realized what, exactly, she'd just thrown herself in the middle of. Five had dropped her in perhaps one of the worst possible places. She was alone. In the past. And black. And she'd just handed a cop's ass to him to boot. Somehow this crapshoot of a day had gotten worse.

How the hell had this happened?

Allison was being shoved sideways before she could counter the momentum. The sound rushed back in all at once, having briefly snuck away as her blood ran cold in realization, and now the screaming and pleading filled her ears until they were overflowing. It was so loud it was making her physically sick. The chaos kept churning as the cop got to his feet, and the woman wrapped her arms around Allison's shoulders.

He had a nightstick in one hand.

Oh, Allison was not in the mood for this. She was on her feet just as quickly, and she probably would have kicked off round two if the woman hadn't grabbed her left arm and raised it. It took Allison a second to realize it was in surrender and another second to force herself to put her right arm up too. It was even harder to keep the glare off her face.

The officer didn't seem surprised by this sudden shift. And he eyed Allison's neck for a few seconds like he was just now noticing that something was wrong with it. He was hesitating.

"You scared her, and she reacted." The woman's voice was hoarser than before. It was calmer too, and her head was held high. Her posture seemed to absorb and mute what was going on around them. "Just arrest us. Please."

So he did.

000

The woman with the kind face was named Odessa. She told Allison that while they waited in the large holding cell the officers put the women who'd been arrested in.

Allison had begun the day awaking in the infirmary at home and she was ending it decades earlier in jail of all places.

The murmur of voices swirled around them, at least twenty other black women with their beautiful, prim 1960s clothes ripped and stained and, in some cases, bloody. Allison was trying not to listen to them, trying to keep herself from spiraling into all the smaller rabbit holes off of this one about what all of this meant for her. But she still occasionally caught fragments of conversation like "serving…sentence out," "nope, now way…I'm going home," "not for bail, I've got parents who need…," "not meant to hold all of us anyway…." "…won't post it…can't stand this anymore…"

Allison did not want to spend the night here. She was exhausted and her throat was hurting worse now than it had all day. And it was almost impossible to communicate clearly with Odessa. In the slowly calming aftermath, while Allison was learning that she was in Dallas, Texas, Odessa was trying her best to figure out why Allison's hair looked the way it did, where she'd gotten her strange clothing, why she'd approached the riot at all.

Except it hadn't been a riot. It had been a protest. And now there were numerous separate discussions going on about who was going to try to post bail and who was going to serve their sentences and drain resources from this hellish system.

Allison's sense of injustice was screaming almost as loudly as her throat as she nodded or shook her head at the other woman's questions. She hated to think what she might have done if Odessa hadn't been there. Either at the actual protest or now. Back in the thick of it, Allison would have either been beaten herself, or she would have knocked the cop off his high horse in rage. The second option sounded better up front with the added potential of running off into the night and not being locked up. But then she would have been alone and mute and not known where to go.

At least she had Odessa, whose sincerity and genuine calm was probably the only thing keeping Allison grounded enough to not start hyperventilating.

When the cops—the actual instigators of the riot, no doubt—came to the holding cell a half hour later, Allison didn't do anything. She didn't have to. Odessa had finally given up trying to get answers out of her and promised she'd be back before going to consult some of the other women. Allison tried not to listen to them talking logistics and resources. Between being unable to speak, being dressed the way she was, and a deeply ingrained need for rebellion after growing up in her own screwed-up family, she might have considered not fighting this and simply serving a sentence too.

She hated her powers more now than ever before. But she'd use them in a moment if it would get all of them out of here. She hadn't been kidding when she'd told Luther that getting what she wanted usually ended in more misery, but right now, she hardly doubted that a well-deserved rumor was out of line.

She intentionally glossed over the thought of Luther, not ready to deal with the bubbling, thick emotions focusing on him would bring up. Her mind was already partially being taken up by Vanya. That worry had come back while Odessa was running through her family-focused questions. Allison had nodded that she did have siblings, and yes, she did have a sister. It had almost made her burst into tears wondering what kind of trouble that sister may be in right now because of her.

So, no thinking about Luther. Instead, Allison sat back and contented herself with imagining all of the ways she would have rumored Harold Jenkins in vengeance. After all, trying to restart her life and stop doing this over and over again had failed. She might as well enjoy wrecking her own life a little.

"Come on, honey." Odessa was back in front of her suddenly. And Allison blinked at her and her outstretched hand for a few moments before reaching back. "You're okay. It's gonna be okay."

Allison didn't know what her face looked like, but Odessa's lips were tight around the edges as she grasped Allison's hand and led her through the large holding cell and over to a group of women standing by the door.

After a confusing succession of talking, paperwork, and an avalanche of angry glares from the various cops, Allison tried not to take too deep of a breath as the group of men and women who'd posted bail were finally released and allowed to leave.

Odessa kept Allison's hand tucked in her own as they walked outside. Allison had managed to forget, for a little while, where they were. But as they went over to request a ride from one of Odessa's friends who'd come to pick someone else up, the word "Dallas" was screaming at them from multiple buildings and signs in the area. The sheer irony of shooting one of her earliest roles here, given a room in a swanky hotel and told not to be shy about taking what she wanted from the room's minifridge, gave Allison a headache. She'd liked the city then. It was warm and she'd eaten so much barbecue, she'd been sick of it for six months afterwards. Her throat remembered too and ached a little more.

"This is not over, okay?" Some of the men had regrouped nearby, somehow still energetic after that exhausting two hours, and were consoling each other. "Ray will be here next time, he promised. But this was good, what happened here tonight."

"Being mercilessly clubbed and then paying a hundred-and-fifty dollars to get out of jail, Miles?" another of the men asked. His dark slacks were gritty with dirt.

"They attacked us. And the newspapers know it." Miles, presumably, put his hat on with an unsteady hand. "For now, we'll just have to hope that they print the truth."

That seemed a lot to hope for this late at night. And Allison was just thinking that maybe this day was trying to prove that it could be as long and terrible as it wanted when the other women finished their conversation and Odessa insisted Allison come stay at her place.

"We'll get you feeling better," she patted Allison's shoulder as they climbed into one of the women's cars. The radio was on and playing a blatantly '60s, glaringly country, ballad.

Yes. She'd be able to speak again soon. Allison reached for a seatbelt before remembering that there were none, not yet anyway. She settled back and breathed through her nose instead, aware of and increasingly grateful for Odessa sitting next to her in the dark backseat as they drove off. Allison would start speaking again. And even though she knew she shouldn't, with the mood she was in, she daydreamed about rumoring all of those racist idiots the entire way to Odessa's home.

We're going to wait on getting into Diego's adventures for a hot minute to give our new sibling team (woo!) and Allison a chance to get comfy in the '60s. You know, as comfy as you can get after unexpectedly traveling back in time after narrowly avoiding the apocalypse.

*showers thanks on Katie for beta-ing*

(Also, please note that I am not a member of the African American community, and I am in no way trying to claim their experiences and stories as my own. Parts of Allison's story arc—like the other siblings'—will be different in this AU, but the civil rights aspects are very important and will definitely remain. I wanted to state upfront that I am only attempting to tell an AU of what the show gave us regarding Allison's experiences with racism and to faithfully write this specific character's internal conflict regarding the prejudice she encounters. The way I write Allison will be based on my understanding of her as a character and how I anticipate she would react. If readers notice anything incorrect or amiss, please let me know!)

Thanks for reading!