This is a heavy one, guys. Content warning for gun violence and violence in general.

New Mexico, 2047

Jenna sat on the floor with her two chihuahuas, swaying with the music coming from the man and woman sitting on the piano bench in front of her in their quaint adobe house.

Felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders

Should I break or retreat and then return

Facing the fear that the truth, I discover

No telling how, all these will work out

But I've come to far to go back now.

Jenna loved her parents' cover of the old bluesy tune, and she swore that it was Xolo's (the longhaired male chihuahua) favorite song. Her mother, Hannah, was recently voted the top female vocalist of her generation, and her father, Mateo, was a genius songwriter. Together they made up a tremendously successful folk rock duo, bringing the genre back into the mainstream with their debut album La Muerte released in 2038. Over the following decade, they'd released six more albums, all hits, and become well known for their outspokenness and activism. Five of their albums had donated over 50% of their proceeds to different charities and causes. But besides concerts and public appearances at award shows, the couple kept a relatively low profile. They'd been living in eastern New Mexico since the year after Jenna was born, not wanting the public eye to compromise Jenna's childhood or their private relationships.

I am looking for freedom, looking for freedom

And to find it cost me everything I have

Well I am looking for freedom, looking for freedom

And to find it, may take everything I have

Mateo played the piano while Hannah strummed her guitar, singing the chorus together. Xolo jumped up to try and lick Jenna's face and she giggled loudly, the sound adding to the rustic beauty of the song. She fell back on the floor as both dogs smothered her with kisses, and Hannah couldn't help but think about how perfect this moment was. It was a nice break from what had been a busy few months, the country divided into multiple passionate opinions on the state of the world and what should be done about the various environmental disasters that seemed to always ravish the areas most in need. Hannah and Mateo had headlined numerous benefit concerts and been working on several campaigns to elevate the voices of the oppressed. Naturally, this was making some people very angry, and the number of anonymous death threats they'd received hit an all-time high since they're achieved fame. Three weeks ago, they'd announced they'd be taking the summer off from everyone to spend time at home with their daughter and family. So far, it had been doing wonders for their mental and emotional well-being, and they'd begun writing again, enough to fill two albums if they wanted to book the time in a recording studio.

Their extended family was something of a rarity; everyone was so close. Hannah and her brother were as close to each other as they were to Mateo's siblings; Hannah's parents and Mateo's parents had so much love for each other and their children, it was almost overwhelming. But, as they say, some things happen for a reason, and the reason for such a strong, loving family bond was that they would need it with what they were about to go through.

As the song ended, Mateo was beginning to tell Jenna it was time for bed when he was interrupted by someone knocking at the door. Mateo rose to answer it to find a man in his 50s standing on the other side pointing a gun to his head.

"Whoa!" Mateo said holding up his arms as he stepped in front of his wife and daughter.

"Line up against the wall!" the man ordered, but Hannah just stepped up next to Mateo, staring down the intruder while the dogs barked up a storm at all the commotion. "Tell those rats to be quiet!"

"Who are you?" Hannah asked, refusing to back down.

The man grinned wickedly. "Don't you recognize your own uncle?" he asked.

Hannah looked confused. "What?" she said. "I don't have any uncles..."

The man huffed. "Does the name Benjamin Cahill mean anything to you?"

Hannah narrowed her eyes at him, putting the pieces together in her mind. "My mother never mentioned you," she said.

"Probably thought I was rotting in prison with the rest of them," the man shrugged, "But they couldn't get rid of all of us." He sounded a bit fanatical at the last part.

Jenna watched the scene unfold with terrified eyes. "Mama, is he going to shoot me?" she asked.

"No, baby," Mateo said. "He wouldn't shoot a defenseless child," he said like it was a challenge.

The man snorted, "Sure I would. We've done it before."

"We?" Mateo asked.

"Rittenhouse," Hannah answered before the man could, and the man's hands were noticeably shaking now. "Give it up, Ben," she said. "Your organization is doomed, you really think this will prevent that? We've been fighting you for decades, there's very few of you left. It's over," she spoke confidently as she took a step towards him.

"Don't move!" the man called Ben ordered.

Jenna was now crying. "Mommy," she called out at the same moment Hannah took another step forward to try and disarm him.

She had just grasped his wrist when a shot rang out and Hannah fell back, blood soaking her shirt from the wound in her stomach. The dogs had long since run out the door, startled when they attempted to bit the man's legs and he kicked them, hard. Their barks could still be heard coming from outside underneath Jenna's shrieks.

Mateo had rushed to his wife's side, putting pressure on the wound and begging her to stay with them. Hannah pointed towards Ben and Mateo looked up to see him aiming his gun at a petrified little Jenna, and he stood up, putting himself in between them as he shouted at her, "Run!"

Another shot rang out, hitting Mateo right in the forehead, and Jenna took only a half-second pause before she darted down the hall towards the back door, running as fast as she could in her slippers. Ben tried to pursue her, but the desert environment provided Jenna with an intense cover of darkness as she ran in the direction she knew led somewhere safe.

"You've lost," Hannah struggled to say, trying to keep the man distracted to protect her little girl. The barking could still be heard through the open doors, and it was clearly irritating the assassin.

"Shut up!" he shouted, a crazed look in his eyes as he began pacing back an forth.

Jenna ran as fast as she could towards the border. Near it was her grandparents' ranch, about a mile and a half from where she lived. The adrenaline kept her running, and when she finally saw the light coming from their house she almost passed out from exhaustion. Still, she forced herself towards the door and started banging frantically.

A beautiful woman in her early sixties answered the door, the silver streaks in her black hair glittering in the light like a halo.

"Grandma!" Jenna shrieked as she hurled herself at her, tears running down her face, looking a total fright.

"Jenna?" a man's voice called - her grandfather - coming to find out what was going on.

"Sweetheart what's wrong?" her grandmother asked with a worried voice. "Did you walk all the way here?"

"He shot them! He shot mama and then he shot Daddy! He shot them!" she said in a breathless panic.

Her grandfather was already armed and ready. "Who?" he demanded, his commanding tone urging Jenna to focus.

They were already in the car and speeding towards Jenna's house when she answered him between hiccups, tears still flooding her vision, "A man! Mama called him Ben!"

"Ben?" her grandfather questioned, turning to his wife. She seemed confused for a moment before her eyes widened, "It couldn't be..." she said in shock.

"Stay here!" her grandfather ordered as he jumped out of the car and burst through the door of Jenna's house. But Jenna was just like her mother, and her mother before her, stubborn and disobeying.

Her grandmother had run right after him, and Jenna followed behind her. Benjamin had been on the phone, frantically speaking to someone when her grandfather knocked him over roughly, her grandmother rushing to Hannah's side as she struggled to breathe, a sickening amount of blood pooling on the floor next to her.

Jenna had never seen her grandma so scared as she did in that moment, holding her daughter's hand as she tried to put pressure on the fatal wound.

Her grandfather was in a struggle with Ben, who'd taken a hard hit to the face evidenced by the blood gushing from his nose. Strangely, Ben was smiling, gruesomely baring his bloody teeth. "You're too late, Sarge," he taunted. In one quick movement, he overpowered her grandfather and reached for both of their guns, holding one at her grandfather's head and one aimed at Hannah.

"You won't get away with this," her grandmother said coldly as she rose to a standing position. "You think you'll be some kind of martyr? It's over, Ben," she growled at him.

But Ben wasn't deterred. He looked down towards Hannah and Lucy reacted as quickly as she could, shooting him in the chest.

But not before he'd pulled the trigger that delivered the fatal blow to Jenna's mother.

It had been about a month since her parents' death, and Jenna was grieving on her grandparents' couch as they were having a heated discussion in the kitchen.

"Everything we have indicates he was the last one," Lucy said, her voice hollow.

"I couldn't protect them," her husband mumbled, head in hands. He fully expected Lucy to blame him, to never forgive him for allowing Benjamin to take their daughter away from them.

"Hey," Lucy said, wrapping her arms around him as tears filled her eyes. She pulled his hands away and forced him to look her in the eye. "It's not your fault," she said with conviction, but the expression he wore was so heartbroken she knew he may never completely believe her. "We've done everything to protect them their whole lives," she continued.

"Someone must have betrayed us," her husband said in a whisper. "But who would do that? We've locked up the rest of them, and everyone else who knows about all this would never..."

Lucy's face grew somber. "Perhaps it was an accident..." she said quietly.

"How could it be an accident?!" her husband demanded, his voice growing louder, but Lucy grabbed his arms as he tried to stand up, forcing him to stay with her.

"We thought Ben didn't know about Rittenhouse because he'd only been a teenager when we put Cahill Senior away," she continued. "But what if Ben was secretly part of this all along? Didn't he work as a computer engineer at Mason's rival company?"

Despite his age, her husband still remained just as handsome as he was in his youth, and it still gave her chills every time she saw that vengeful look come over his blue eyes. "You think he found out where they lived from Mason?" he said lowly.

"It's a possibility," Lucy answered quietly, not liking the implications at all.

Texas, 2048

Jenna had been living with her grandparents for over a year now, attending private and group therapy sessions at least once a week to deal with the trauma of all that had happened.

The official report released said that Hannah Logan and Mateo Santana had been killed by a crazed fan who then shot himself. There was no trial, no official public funeral service, but many fans had organized their own in different cities around the globe. Jenna's grandparents had moved to a farm in rural Texas, taking her with them as they decided they'd had enough of the public eye for their lifetimes. Taking care of the animals had been helpful in giving each of them a sense of purpose to bring them out of the darkness. Her grandparents had been devastated at the loss of their daughter, and just like the animals helped Jenna, Jenna helped them. They continued on because Jenna needed them, and they weren't going to let anything more happen to the people they loved.

One night, when they were beginning to feel alright again, they sat Jenna down and told her what they could about all the events that had led to that night. They told her about what had brought them together, about the lifeboat and the mothership and Garcia Flynn. They told her how the time machines had been destroyed and how dangerous they had been. And the promised that they would keep her safe.

That lasted until the mothership appeared on their farm five years later.

I know that in canon traveling to the future is not possible, but I had to tweak that rule for this story.