Waters of Time
Disclaimer: Don't own Victorious
A/N:
-THE FIFTH-
"If I go back, my friendship with Trixie and Amber ends. If I go back, mom and Josh…they…" She turned away and rushed towards her bedroom. The bile in her stomach spun like a storm, and her lungs felt as though they'd been lit aflame. "I don't want to go back. I don't want to be in pain anymore. I don't want to be lonely."
She sat down at her computer and opened her Skype, whining when she didn't see Krissy's name. "You're still looking for her?" Trina shrieked as her version appeared leaning over her shoulder. "You mean you haven't figured it out yet? You don't belong here, this isn't your life. It's mine. Krissy doesn't exist in my life, deal with it." Trina looked over her shoulder as the girl leaned back and scoffed. "We're beginning to collide, by the way, so all the memories and things from that life of yours are beginning to fade. Can't say I'm happy about it, but I suppose it won't matter because we'll become one and the same. You'll be the one who ceases to exist, however."
"Me? But…" Trina looked towards the graduation picture and frowned. It made sense. Everything she knew from her life, all that she experienced, she yearned for. It shouldn't exist, however, if she chose to remain here.
"What did Trixie tell you? Everything happens for a reason. In your timeline, and I know it hurt, there's a reason mom and Joshua died. There's a reason you're where you are, and not here, where I am." The girl leaned back against the desk and curled her hands around the edge. "I'm the dream, the fantasy. I'm everything you want, everything you dream about, but not what you need."
Trina frowned and turned her eyes to the Skype chat where Tori was talking. "Been another one of those days," Tori had typed, "Haven't seen Dad at all. I don't think he knows I exist. My grades are starting to slip, and I don't feel well anymore. I feel like I'm drowning, Trina…wish you were here. Love you cousin."
"You think I've got it easy?" The girl put her hand to her chest and chuckled vainly as Trina turned her gaze up to her. "This life or the next, everybody has hurdles. I have my own problems, Trina. Our father, you know the actual man, don't think he talks to me."
"Dad? He calls me once in a while."
"Lucky you." The girl scowled and rolled her eyes. "He's all but existent in my life." The girl pushed herself from the counter and glanced at the computer. "I talk to my cousin every day because I worry about her. She hasn't been making friends, she's constantly by herself at that house. I feel like if I don't talk to her every day, she'll slip away." A heaviness came over Trina and she turned her eyes down to the ground. "Of course that's just my own worries, she's probably doing fine."
"You have a couple great friends though. More than I do."
"And yet both of them could be in California. Trixie could be taking care of her sister, Amber ought to be taking care of her little cousin. How do you think I feel about keeping them away? Think that makes me feel good? I constantly ask them about their relatives, I'm pretty sure it's taxing on them but they never say."
"So you've got it hard too."
"Yeah but I deal with it. Don't you get it?" Trina felt the girl's burning glare as it dug deep inside. Her muscles tensed as the girl walked around her. "You don't dwell on what you can't change. It's hard, yes, but you get over it and move on." She scoffed and rolled her eyes.
"As if it's easy."
"It's not! It never is." She winced as the girl's voice lashed out, stinging her eardrums. "You have to work through the hard shit to get to the good crap. Don't you understand that? Instead of dreaming about what you wish you could have, why don't you work towards achieving that." The girl jumped in spot and put her hands to her chest, scoffing angrily. "Hell, I'm behind where you're at."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"For one, I have to wait until I finish college before I can move to California. Yes, I'm planning on moving there to spend some time with Tori. The issue there is I'll probably not get to be spending much time anymore with Trixie or Amber unless they decide to move down there, which is unlikely in this timeline."
"You say 'in this timeline'."
"That's because this is my timeline." The girl shook her head once more and scowled. "Do you honestly think you mean nothing to the people in your time?" Trina leaned over the desk and frowned.
"Sure feels like it. Doesn't feel like I matter to anybody-like I've made a difference."
"As if you haven't been comparing this line and yours the entire time." Trina winced as the girl slammed her hand down onto her shoulder. The room around her slowly transformed into a hospital room. She saw herself in the hospital bed with Tori standing beside her. David and Holly were in the room, standing close together. All of Tori's friends were present.
"What's this?"
"We are not idiots, Trina. This is you, 'asleep', while you experiment with my timeline. My life becomes your reality, this reality ceases to be. Or it won't cease to be, but, what do you think's going to happen in the end?"
She held her breath and watched with a quivering gaze as Tori reached over her body, hugging her. "I'll say that line will start to become like mine."
"What?" Her hand moved up to her chest and she looked with wide eyes. "I don't…I don't understand. I'm sorry."
The girl beside her folded her hands together and slid them down her face with a heavy sigh. "This version of you will die. Your uncle will then have lost not only his nephew and his sister, but his sister's child. He'll avoid the issue, throw himself in his work. Holly might start up that affair of hers again when this happens, and Tori will likely go into a depression. She's easily susceptible to depression."
"She's got her friends."
"Yeah, for now." The girl rolled her eyes and growled impatiently. "I know you're not supposed to die in that timeline, Trina. You're supposed to live. There was a reason you survived, there's a reason that Uncle David took you in when mom died. Maybe that reason was to avoid becoming my line? Because believe you me, I'd love to be in your shoes."
"Bullshit."
The girl's face dropped and her eyes narrowed. "Do I look like I would be bullshitting you at this point?" She pointed off to the distance and her voice rose. "I love mom, I love my brother, and I wouldn't trade my life for anything, but that doesn't mean I want to spend every day trying to lift my cousin's spirits when she feels lonely. That doesn't mean I want to feel like I'm keeping my best friend from going to be with her sister! In your time line, Tori's not lonely. In your time, Trixie and Amber both are taking care of their relatives. Why don't you learn to do what I do, live with what you can't change, work with what you have, and strive for a better future. How about that? How about doing things the way they're supposed to be, and give me back my life?"
"But you just said my decision doesn't affect you. Basically."
The girl moaned and kicked the wall next to her. She rubbed her forehead, then turned around after a few seconds. "Okay. So obviously showing you that people care about you and comparing shit won't help. Let's start with something else. What's missing right now? Who isn't here when I am?"
"Krissy?"
"Yep." A sudden pain struck her and she looked to her feet, mourning over the realization that she would lose such a great friend. "It may not matter to you in a few minutes, but look at all you'd give up for my life."
"I can forget about my writing too."
"Yeah, I've been meaning to talk to you about that. I don't write, I don't think about it. I have no reason to. You do, and you've made great friends through it. Granted, most of them are online, but there's nothing wrong with that."
"That site is the best thing that's happened to me at this point."
"It is. You've had a lot of good times thanks to it. You've met your best friend and mentor there as well. Also, Uncle David is actually softening up isn't he?"
"He wants to take me down to the gun range and teach me to fire a gun." Trina laughed lightly and watched as the girl put her hands down to her hips. "I guess when you think about how he is in your time…then he's definitely getting better at paying attention."
"Right, not as reclusive. Aunt Holly's still around too."
"She's given up on that affair of hers. She and Uncle David have started to go for marriage counseling as well."
"And obviously most importantly you don't have to worry about Tori crying over being lonely-each and every last day." Trina's eyes widened as she studied her cousin. "You say that's you, but you've made clear bounds in changing that, you just haven't noticed because you're constantly dwelling on how bad things are. You ignore the good stuff that happens in your life."
"I guess."
"And good things will keep happening. They do for everyone, life is about ups and downs, it's about taking the good with the bad, and growing. All the good things that happened in your life, would you seriously trade them for what I have?" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
The girl crossed her arms and looked to the hospital bed. "If you didn't know that we were going to merge, if you could still remember everything about your real life even if you chose to keep this one, how would you feel?" Trina opened her eyes halfway and frowned.
"I don't know. I'd probably think about how hard Uncle David's become, about how happy Tori is-or was. Even now I find myself constantly wondering about how Jade or Robbie are doing, in your time."
"Shitty. I'll say that much." Trina looked over and gasped out as the girl motioned to Beck and Jade. "They break up far more frequently because of her mental anxieties. With no one to soften her or help keep her calm, she's got nothing. As for Robbie, he's got no one to help keep his mind off Rex. You think it's bad in your time? He's worse in mine, at least in yours, Amber's there to help keep his mind on other things."
"I thought everything would be better in this time. Better…without me."
"Funny how much you impact someone's life even without directly impacting a thing. Isn't it?" Trina chuckled sadly and brushed her nose with her finger.
"Sure."
"You've got a decision to make. My life or yours-everything good you have in your life would you trade it for mine? If you keep working at things, Uncle David may finally pay more attention to you and Tori. If you keep working at things, you might make some friends in your own life…who knows what's in your future! We're not meant to know the future, and we're not meant to change the past. You just get this one chance. Would you trade your writing site and Krissy for all this?"
"We're not so different, are we? I mean both of us are athletic, both of us look the same-"
"Those are all external. Of course we lead similar life, and newsflash, we could make the same friends." It would be nice to meet Trixie or Amber, to be friends with them, though she wasn't sure the possibility of such an event. "Internally we're much different, but we could be similar I suppose. If you actually stopped dwelling on something you can't-shouldn't change, and started focusing on the present and what you want out of life. Focus on making yourself happy."
"I-"
"In the end it's your choice." The girl pressed her lips together and sat down in an empty chair. Her legs crossed and her finger tapped her temple. "In the end it's no skin off my teeth. You're the one who dies. Not me. I'm just trying to save your ass, but now why would I do that?"
"Because you're me, and we actually have compassion for other people?"
"Ah, there's something." The girl lowered her hand and clapped twice. "Good job. Should I leave you to think? Do you want to stay with mom and Joshua?" The girl snapped her fingers and gasped. "Ah but wait, it won't matter. Want to know why? Because when we merge, you won't even know you existed. Or, should I say, I won't know."
Trina's heart stopped and she cringed while thinking about the girl's words. "What good is changing time, when you don't even know you did it? All of your memories, all of your experiences, everything-kiss it goodbye. All you're going to do is let the girl in the hospital bed die. Don't feel bad about it, though, because we won't even know it. This whole thing will be like a dream…to me."
"So I'm going to become you. That's what you're saying."
"That's what I've been saying! That's what Krissy was trying to tell you. There's not room for two identical versions of us in the same universe. You don't belong. Mom and Josh are dead in your time, you cannot change it." Trina felt a wave of pain wash over her as the girl's voice rose to dangerous levels. "Even that little experiment with you changing the time-doesn't happen. You can't do it. That's not how it works, that's not how the world works."
"I thought I created this new timeline when…"
"Nope." The girl stood up and walked over, patting Trina's shoulder. "The truth? When I, we, were twelve-in your timeline you went to bed and went to sleep. In mine? I stayed up all night long, I didn't go out to give mom a hug because she didn't honk the horn until I did. I stayed up to watch and see what Joshua was looking for."
"What was he doing?"
"There were a group of kids outside the house that night, just making noise and throwing shit at the house. Joshua was trying to get them to leave." The girl crossed her arms and closed her eyes. "I went outside after he went to bed, and they threw rocks at me." Trina rubbed her arm and her forehead creased as she tried to visualize the incident.
"The next morning, Josh didn't see me on the lawn when he left. Our neighbor saw me, she called mom, and mom came home with Josh. She made it all better"
"But when I went back-"
"You were dreaming then. You saw your version. The minute you picked up that phone, if you had looked outside, you would have seen me." The air grew silent and she lifted a trembling hand above her mouth. "Unconscious on the ground." The girl removed her hat and pulled her bangs back to reveal a pink scar on the corner of her head. "You see that?"
Trina's stomach twisted and her breath caught in her throat as she cringed in pain. "Oh god. That's from the rocks?"
"Yeah. So I had a different trauma than you. For the longest time I stayed away from other kids." The girl returned the hat to her head and pat her hands together while circling Trina. "Trixie was my first friend. We bonded over a common interest and I started to trust her. My friendship with her helped me to willingly talk to other people, which led me to talk to Amber when I saw her crying that day she got the news about Rex."
"You don't dwell on what happened?"
"Oh don't get me wrong, Vega. I think about it every fucking day." The girl removed the hair tie from her ponytail and fluffed her hair over her shoulder. "To this day I still wish I stayed inside the goddamn house. Just like you, I think about what happened back then, but I know I can't change it. That said, there's no point in dwelling on it. I've had to make myself move on, stop wasting my tears on something I cannot change, and spend my time living in the present from day to day."
"I…understand."
"Yeah, then understand you're just trading one trauma for another." She didn't want to give up on the good things that she had, that much she already knew. "You can be strong like me, but in a different way, do you understand? You don't have to change the past to be happy, you can make that for yourself."
"I'll try."
"You'll be fine. Trust me." The girl pat Trina on the shoulder and looked to her with a reassuring smile. "If I can make, I should think that you could too. I mean, we are one in the same, right? Just with different paths in life. You were not meant to have my life, Trina, and I'm not meant to have yours."
"I really wouldn't trade all the good things that have happened to me. Now that I think about it…"
"No?"
"I think." The skin around her eyes tensed and she pulled her lips back into a line. "I think I want my own life back. I miss mom and Josh, and seeing them again was…it was like a dream, but it isn't my life." The girl's smile increased and her shoulders rose.
"Sounds like you've made your decision. Good luck, Trina."
What is real?