Title: The Time Traveler's Wife
Genre: Romance
Rating: T
Pairing: Hiro x OC
Spoilers: N/A
Summary: "Yes, that's right. You're going. You've been gone for ages. You're already gone. You're still here. You've just arrived. I haven't even met you yet. It all depends on who you are and how you look at it. Strange business, time."
Word Count: 1,427
Warnings: N/A
Disclaimer: Not mine. Summary belongs to Doctor Who.
A/N: I am pretending Heroes: Reborn doesn't exist.
When Hiro appeared, eyes still tightly scrunched closed, the sun was blistering down on his face, a stark contrast to the cool and dark comic book store he had been in just seconds before. He cracks one eye open hesitantly and, upon seeing the same skyline he had just before seen out a window, opens them both joyfully.
He's in a park, and all around him is a melee of activity. There are people setting up tents, and hanging lights. There are people arranging flowers, cooking at grills, arranging picnic tables. A stage is being erected against a copse of trees. Everywhere there is movement and merriment, groups of people laughing and smiling. Parents are beginning to throw down blankets while their kids run and play around them.
It's peaceful
Sure that he is in the correct place, Hiro looks around, wondering how to check the date. His eyes fall on a banner in front of the stage and he makes a beeline for it.
"Valentine's Day Concert! 0 days"
The number has clearly been replaced numerous times, but it is a huge, happy, pink zero right now. Which means today is Valentine's Day. Which means today is his date with Jamie. He blanches.
"Young man, are you alright?"
Spinning around at the frail voice, he comes face-to-face with an elderly woman, maybe in her 80's, looking at him in concern. "H – hai!" She frowns. "I mean, yes, I'm alright."
She doesn't look convinced. "Are you sure? You look very pale…" As he stutters out an excuse, she glances at the banner and smiles. "Are you perhaps meeting someone here tonight?" When he pales considerably further, she lets out a rasping chuckle. "I can sense a nervous man a mile away. My husband is just like you. Though he fainted dead away after he worked up the nerve to ask me out." Her eyes are fond and far away.
"R- really?"
She looks back to him. "Oh, my yes. He's always been a nervous fellow." She grins, triumphant. "We've been married 60 years." At Hiro's wide-eyed expression, her smile widens. "Seems like a lifetime, but somehow not really. So, what about your date has you looking so terrified?"
Started at the abrupt change of topic, Hiro scrambles to keep up. "Uh, well, ma'am, I –"
"Rosemary."
He blinks. "Well, Mrs. Rosemary," she nods approvingly, "I live in Japan, so I do not see her much." Not a lie. "It's our first date." Also not a lie.
"This is a perfect place for a first date!" Someone calls her name from somewhere behind them and she glances back. "Well, that's my husband calling. Now, young man, first dates are nothing to be nervous about. Just be yourself. Though," she glances down at him, at his wrinkled office uniform, "maybe be yourself in something a little nicer." Her name is called more insistently, and she smiles a farewell at him, wiggling her fingers in a wave.
Hiro stares after her, forlorn. "Something… nicer…?"
After discovering that he was, in fact, in Los Angeles, as he had previously thought, finding somewhere to buy a new set of clothes was fairly easy. He just followed the crowds of people until they led him to the first street frequented with department stores and darted into the first one that had a men's display in the window. One glance at a price tag had him gagging and (as un-heroic as it was) trying it on the dressing room so he could disappear with it.
Stealing expensive clothes probably wasn't what the universe expected him to do with the powers he had, but sometimes there was no choice. Like now, when he had a date tonight and he wasn't even sure if his credit card would work in the future. He promised himself he'd make sure he kept his accounts open. And he promised the store (silently) that he'd bring back these clothes.
By then he was already gone – disappeared and reappeared in front of Comics Straight to You – the now sunset glow of the city illuminating the figure on the step.
With a gulp, Hiro took her in. She'd done something to her short, tomboyish hair, making it look purposefully disheveled, like she'd just artfully rolled out of bed with the perfectly messy hair. Her stormy eyes were lined with dark liner, her high cheekbones were a swatch of highlighter. Hiro was at once extremely glad he'd randomly chosen dark slacks and a sleet grey button down because Jamie's dress with a cascade of silver and blue sequins and toole, baring her shoulders and ending at her knees. She looked positively fey – Queen Mab out for a romp with the mortals.
When she glanced around and saw him, she started in surprise. But then a brilliant smile blossomed on her face, as slow and as brilliant as the sun rising. "Why, hello there, handsome."
Hiro felt his heart contract painfully in his chest. "Jamie-chan! You look nice – beautiful! I mean, beautiful – um – " Who was he kidding? He wasn't cut out for this! A beautiful, gorgeous, funny girl (who lived in his future!) was no one for him, he –
Suddenly, she stuck one dainty leg out in front of her, wiggling her sandal-ed foot at him. "What do you think? I couldn't resist, since it's how we met."
When he looked closer, he saw she'd painted her toenails with little panels from World Heroes, right down to the smallest detail. He felt a sudden rush of air as he took a deep breath –
- and grinned at her. "Yatta!"
After that, Hiro couldn't even remember why he'd been so nervous. Jamie loved comic books and heroes and adventures! She was so incredibly easy to talk to! So what if she preferred DC over Marvel (she said she liked imagining made-up cities, since she already lived in a real one), he liked her in spite of her faults!
"I'm just saying, as great as Captain America is – Superman is better."
"No, no, no! Superman has so many power!" Hiro was emphatically waving his arms from where they sat on the picnic blanket Jamie had brought. "Captain America is more real, you can relate to him!"
She was frowning at him. "Superman lost his people yes, but his family was the Kent's. People can't relate to an adopted kid loving his parents, and then losing one of them? Captain America is a man out of time. Who can relate to that?"
"You'd be surprised…" When she tilted her head, birdlike and inquisitive at him, he fought to catch himself. "You'd be surprised what there is to relate to. He's out of time, but other people are working jobs they hate, or in classes they don't understand. And many, many people are soldiers, stuck in war zones all over the world."
She glanced away. "That's a good point…" When she glanced back at him, side-eyed, her eyes were sparkling. "Henry Cavill is still hotter." Her smile was impish and coy and suddenly, Hiro was compelled, but feelings completely beyond his control.
As the fireworks suddenly bloomed into sight over their heads, Hiro leaned forward, placing a gentle hand behind Jamie's head so he could pull her closer, and pressed their lips together. She froze in astonishment for one moment, but then she eyes fluttered closed and she half rose off the blanket to move closer.
Hiro's heart was thudding in his chest as loudly and as brightly as the fireworks, faster and faster, until he couldn't breathe with the force of it. When he pulled back and opened his eyes, Jamie was smiling at him softly, the lights reflected in her eyes like vivid flowers. His heart was beating so fast… He couldn't breathe…
With a sudden hush, the fireworks paused before the finale, and the field descended into darkness for one brief, endless moment.
And in that second, Hiro, overcome with the nameless emotion churning in his chest, lost control of his gift. without a thought for where, or when, he was going, he vanished.