Chapter 1 – The Weirdest of Meetings

Emmy sighed contentedly. To her, there was nothing as comfortable or as comforting as a nice hot bath. Her eyes shut, lying back in the warm, bubbly water, she felt totally relaxed, for a change. Her boyfriend was due home from his lecture any minute and Flora was sitting in her room studying. As usual. All was well in their house. As least, as far as anyone else knew.

But Emmy was still scared after her ordeal eleven months ago with the Grounds of Rebirth. It was only then that she discovered how frightening that the freedom of the press could really be, along with the influence of social networking sites. She remembered how she had been the centre of attention for months on end, every single headline reading how she was depressed and vulnerable and unable to cope with the stresses of life. And worst thing about it was that they were right. Well, at the time they were. And as for the social networking sites, well that was what annoyed Emmy the most. Some of the messages boosted Emmy's spirits, like the ones which said that they admired her bravery and how she was coping and that they wished her a speedy recovery from her ordeal. They were nice to begin with. But there were some which were chastising. Some of which read that they knew that she was on Vaughan's side and that she deserved to go to prison, just like him, some that read that people thought that the whole fiasco was probably some sort of publicity stunt, like the rest of Professor Layton's 'adventures'. It was after these started coming in that Emmy decided to delete all her accounts on the internet and finish with technology forever.

But what stressed Emmy out the most were the constant nightmares, and the fact that she didn't even know why she was having them anymore. She had been to visit her father a few weeks ago, and all was well there. He had apologised for his treatment of her, both as a child and after she left London and she had forgiven him. He promised never to hurt her like that again, and this time, she really believed him. And yet, every night in her dreams, he continued to do so.

Emmy didn't want to worry the professor with such silly little nightmares. He had enough on his plate as it was; what with the press attention he had been receiving himself, and work and Flora and everything else. And yet, after it had been established that Emmy was 'better', they had been growing distant from each other. Work had taken over their lives once more, along with everyday life. Everything was always the same, day in, day out. They never had time for themselves.

And she hadn't seen much of her uncle either, and when she had finally plucked up the courage to talk about it to him, he merely replied that it was 'probably for the best'. He always looked so guilty whenever he was around her, despite her telling him that she had forgiven him, and that everything he had ever done for her in the past ultimately outweighed the terrible things he had done, at least in her mind. But it changed nothing.

All of these problems were weighing down on Emmy's mind and causing her more stress than she liked. And the fact that she felt that she couldn't talk them through to anyone made it worse. This was why a sudden intrusion on these painful, stressful thoughts was welcomed by Emmy, as the doorbell sounded.

"I'll get it!" came a call from the hallway as Flora bounded down the stairs.

"I suppose this is my cue to return to the real world," Emmy thought, getting out of the bath and grabbing a towel from the rack. "I expect that's Hershel."

Flora opened the door to indeed see the professor standing there. But it was the people standing behind him that shocked her. Emmy was stood behind him with a nervous smile on her face. The other people were a tall teenage boy of around Flora and Luke's age, who was grinning from ear to ear, and Bronev.

"Uh..." Flora trailed off."I could have sworn that Emmy was in the bath," she thought, confused.

That was when she noticed something different about the professor. He looked... dare she think it... older than he did this morning. His hair was greying and he had more lines around his eyes than she remembered, as did Emmy. It seemed as though they had aged a good ten years since she last saw them. Only Bronev looked the same, and he was the first to speak.

"Is the professor or Emmeline here, my dear girl?" he asked. Flora could tell by his tone of voice that he seemed tense, as though he was speaking about something terribly awkward.

"Uh... well... uh... I'm not sure anymore," Flora confessed.

Bronev smiled. "As much as they look like them, these people are not the professor and Emmeline that you know. It is a very complicated situation. Where was the last place that you saw Emmeline?"

"She's in the bath," the Emmy-look-alike-person piped up. "I remember."

This comment took Flora aback completely. She took a step backwards, unable to believe her ears. "How the hell does she know this?" she thought awestruck.

"Why don't you go and get her while we all get seated in the kitchen?" the professor-look-alike-person suggested.

"Uh... okay," Flora said nervously, turning away and running back upstairs. "This is too weird for me," she thought.

The boy smiled widely. "Is that Flora?" he asked, grinning.

"Yes, it is," the Emmy-look-a-like replied.

"I can't believe how small she used to be!"

Flora knocked on the bathroom door. Emmy opened it, dressed in a fuzzy yellow dressing gown and a pair of matching slippers. She noticed Flora's confused expression and frowned. "Is everything alright, Flora?" she asked.

"There are these people at the door, and I think I know who they are, but then again, I don't, and I'm really confused, and Bronev is there too, and he said that it's a really complicated situation and he needs you there and the professor too—"

"Whoa, slow down!" Emmy laughed. "Uncle Leon is there?"

"Yeah. They're in the kitchen."

"Well then let's go and sort this out," Emmy said firmly, taking Flora's hand and leading the way back downstairs.

When they entered the kitchen Emmy stopped, awestruck by what she was seeing. Another Emmy and the professor sat at the table with a weirdly familiar-looking boy and her uncle, who was grinning at her awestruck expression. In fact, it looked like they were all laughing at her reaction.

"Wh... what the fuck?" Emmy whispered. "Who the hell are you?"

The boy tutted. "And you always told me not to swear, mother," he scolded. "Shame on you."

"And who are you?" Emmy rounded on him.

"Ah," he said, turning to the Emmy-type person and suddenly looking sheepish. "Well..."

"Is someone going to tell me what's going on? Uncle Leon, tell me what's going on!"

"Why don't you sit down, my dear?" he smiled.

"Just tell me," she said in a pained voice, looking exasperated.

"Alright. I went to visit our dear friend Doctor Folley, and apparently, these people came down from her attic. They claim to be your, and Layton's, future selves. Make of that what you will."

"Uh... I'm really sorry if I sound rude here, but can you go back up into Doctor Folley's attic? 'Cause you guys are kind of weirding me out," Flora said anxiously.

The three of them laughed.

"Same old Flora," the boy grinned.

Flora turned to him. "You still haven't explained who you are. You don't look like Luke and hopefully I never had a sex change, so..."

"... That only leaves one scenario," the boy finished. He held out his hand to her. "My name is Alfendi Layton, son of Hershel Layton and Emmeline Altava Bronev, your foster brother." He smiled at Bronev. "Make of that what you will."

"Brother...?" Flora looked quizzically at Emmy, who looked horrified.

"I'm going to have a baby?" she asked faintly.

"Ah," Bronev said. "I assumed as much."

"I'm gonna be a big sister?" Flora asked gleefully. "I always wanted a baby brother!"

"Never mind that, I'm going to have a baby!" Emmy cried.

"And I'm going to be a granddad," Bronev smiled.

"And Luke's gonna be an uncle!" Flora grinned. "And the professor's gonna be a Daddy again!"

"And you're gonna be a Mummy," Alfendi sneered, pointing at Emmy. "My Mummy."

Emmy looked terrified. "I think I'm gonna cry."

"I always did have that effect on people," he smiled.

"I... when is this going to happen? How?"

"Well..." Alfendi scratched his chin and gave Emmy a coy look. "You obviously love my father very much, so one night you—"

"I know how it happened; it's just... well..."

"You're in shock," the other Emmy finished. "I remember the feeling. But you don't have to worry."

"When am I having the baby?" Emmy whispered.

"In about nine month's time," the Layton look-a-like replied. "Though I may have to warn you that my younger self may be in quite a shock himself."

"He's not the one who has to have it," Emmy groaned. "Wait... I'm... I'M PREGNANT?!"

The two laughed again. The other Emmy checked her watch. She turned to Emmy.

"Try not to look so shocked, your Hershel will be here any second."

And sure enough, they heard the front door open.

"Sit down, you three," the other Layton requested, pointing at the remaining two chairs and getting up from his. They had all sat down when they heard the professor call out to them.

"Emmy? Flora? Is anyone home?"

"In here!" Emmy called out in a strangely high voice. She was still in shock.

The professor entered the kitchen in shock. "Emmy, are you alright? You sound a little—"

He stopped and looked at the current guests.

"Hello," Alfendi grinned cheekily. "There's a face I've seen before." He winked at his father.

"Shh!" the other Emmy scolded.

"It appears that we have quite a bit of explaining to do," the other Layton smiled.

Alfendi stood up again and offered his seat to Layton. "Sit down Dad. You look like you need to."

"Dad?" the professor muttered, sitting down. Now he looked even more confused. He glanced over at Emmy, who looked as though she was struggling to take something in. He looked at Bronev, who was still grinning. He then looked at Flora, who was looking from the other Layton to the other Emmy to Alphendi and frowning as she did so.

The professor cleared his throat. "So, what exactly is going on here?"

"We're from the future," Alfendi replied. "He's your older self," he pointed at the other Layton, "she's Emmy's older self," he pointed at his mother, "and I'm your son. We're from fifteen years in the future, and we've come to tell you of a mystery that you and Emmy here have to solve in order for your future to be sealed. I don't really understand this part, so I'll let Dad continue."

"Very well," the other Layton smiled at his son. "We've come here from fifteen years in the future in a prototype time machine that was invented by Claire and her father."

"Claire?" the professor asked. "But..."

"This prototype was invented before her death. She and her father did an in-depth study of a method of time travel that had already been discarded by the department of poly-dimensional physics. The department were positive that the use of movement through wormholes was the best method to travel through time, but Claire and her father knew that it would be impossible to select your own destination. So, Claire and her father used another method."

"Another method?" the professor asked. "But... Claire never mentioned this to me, and she was always keen to talk about her work."

"I'm getting to that. There are four methods of time travel; movement through wormholes, like the way that Dimitri Allen wanted to, using curvature in space-time, which was ruled out by the laws of space-time relativity, faster-than-light time travel, which is to this day being studied by poly-dimensional researchers in Sweden, and, of course Claire' father's method."

"But she never told me about it," the professor said. "She told me that her father was a physics enthusiast, but she never mentioned that they built a fully-functional time machine together."

"That is because they didn't think that it worked," the other Layton explained. "They tested it out, but they couldn't establish any movement between periods of time. But they did achieve something that they didn't know of. They had established a connection between their present and the future. So, theoretically, they opened up our porthole to your time, which is how we got here."

"So, you can travel here to us, but we can't travel to the future?" the professor asked.

"Precisely," the other professor smiled.

"And I do remember Claire mentioning a failed prototype. That must be the machine you used to get here."

"Indeed."

"But... if the machine can't travel from our present to the future... doesn't that mean that you three are stuck?" Emmy asked, smiling.

"Yes. Which is where you all come in," the other Emmy said. "we need you to get in touch with Dimitri Allen and get him to take a look. He has other theories himself that will enable your time machine to travel to the future and get us home."

"So, why did you all come here in the first place if you were only going to get stuck?" Flora asked.

"A very good question, Flora, to which the answer is a very complicated one. You see, we already experienced this entire scenario fifteen years ago, when I was your professor and Emmy here was your Emmy, if you get my drift. Our older selves came back in time and had us solve this mystery, and now the time has come for us to pass the mystery on to our younger selves, and n fifteen years time, they will have to pass it on to their younger selves, and so on and so forth. This must happen in order to keep a balance in the space-time continuum and prevent a paradox, or the end of the world."

"Wow," Flora whispered. "But... I have one more question. This whole situation seems very familiar to me. How do I know that you're not just some imposter pretending to be the professor, and that these two aren't just pretending to be Emmy and the professor's son? Because last time, Luke's future self just turned out to be Clive..."

"Well then, to get rid of any doubts you all may have, I believe a test is in order," Alfendi smiled. "My Mum and Dad are bound to know things about your Emmy and Hershel that only they would know. So I think that they ought to ask them a few questions, to authenticate their identity. And because I'm their son, if they are the genuine article, that means I am too. Eh, Dad?"

"I believe your logic is sound, my boy," the other Layton smiled. He turned to Emmy and the professor. "Ask us anything."

The professor thought for a moment. "What is my mother's maiden name?"

"Well, if you're referring to our adopted mother, Lucille, then I believe her maiden name is Jenkins, but if you are referring to our birth mother, Rachel, then I believe her maiden name was Winters. Am I correct?"

"Er... indeed you are." The professor frowned.

"What about me, Emmy?" the other Emmy smiled.

"I have a question for you," Flora interrupted. "what colour pen do I have in my pocket?"

The professor smiled at her.

"Well, I believe Luke told me about this little test before. It was in the facsimile future London, up in the towering pagoda, when Don Paolo was disguised as the professor and was testing the 'future professor' who turned out to be Dimitri Allen. He asked what colour pen there was in his pocket, he explained that if he had forgotten what the colour was, then he would have lost an entire portion of his memory, which would have destroyed his entire persona. And it turned out that there was no pen in his pocket at all. Is that the test you set out to me?"

"Uh... yeah..." Flora said; a small smile on her face.

"But that is not the case this time. In fact there are two pens in your pocket, one red and one blue, which you were using to do your accounting homework before you answered the door to us."

"Okay..." Flora suddenly looked quite scared.

The other Emmy smiled and turned to her younger counterpart. "Now, Emmy, is there anything you would like to ask me? To authenticate my identity?"

"No, no, it's okay, I believe you now," Emmy stammered.

"Yeah, me too," Flora agreed.

The other Emmy turned to her husband, caught his eye and grinned. "Well, I believe that clears things up nicely."

"So... you remembered those facts about Flora and the pens and the homework purely on the basis that your future self said it to you fifteen years ago?" the professor asked.

"Yes," the other Layton smiled. "Not one of us actually witnessed this with our own two eyes, but we merely depended on the events of fifteen years ago to have provided us with the truth. This is what is called an anomaly of events, a chain of events that have happened and are known of by people who did not actually witness it but were told by themselves of another period and had to tell themselves later on. This whole scenario that we are in now is an anomaly of events. This is the first time in your history that it had happened, and it will happen again in fifteen years, exactly like this. And there are others which will occur later on, but I'm afraid we are not allowed to tell you at this point in time, as it will alter the course of history, which could very well threaten our very existence. Do you understand?"

"Kind of..." Flora frowned, trying to understand it all. "Thinking about all this is giving me a headache. This s so complicated!"

"Yeah, it is," Emmy agreed.

"Well, hopefully, you'll all get your heads around it soon," the other Emmy smiled.

"And how is Luke going to react to all this?" Emmy asked. "He's coming tomorrow."

"Well, we'll see when it happens, won't we?" the other Layton smiled.

"Oh, and Layton – our Layton that is - I think you ought to know that Emmeline – our Emmeline – is pregnant. I thought that I ought to give you a heads up."

"I... what? WHAT?!" he demanded.

Emmy gave him a weary look as everyone else laughed.

"I know," Emmy said, looking terrified again. "I'm going to have a baby! In nine months! OH MY GOD, I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE I'M GOING TO HAVE A BABY!"