A huge thank-you to my brilliant beta, HaydenXCharm. Any remaining errors are my own!

Resetter

Roxanne had always wondered how that had happened. Her head injury right before Prom. She didn't know why she hadn't thought of it before. It really had been a long time. It still seemed strange. Her Mom and Metro Dude were sitting in her hospital room when she woke up. She closed her eyes, and didn't open them until he had gone.

"If he said Megamind did it, he's lying. Metro Dude did it, and I'd like to press charges."

There was something else she'd like to press, if she could get her hands on it. Was there a way to control, how far back you reset? Was that the impossibility? Did you simply keep trying, and trying again, and finding that cause and effect was far too vast and varied to possibly predict?

"Oh honey," her mom said.

"For once, Megamind wasn't even doing anything. Metro Dude was antagonising him. I wanted to help, and instead, I've gotten him landed in prison!"

Her mom put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "It'll be okay, sweetie."

"It won't, not unless we do something. He can't miss graduation! He has to graduate! If he doesn't, his life is going to be one big horrible mess all because of me. We have to call the police!"

Her mom sighed and ran a hand over her forehead. Roxanne stared in wonder. She'd never noticed. Her mom had grown her bangs out in her forties, so it had been a while since Roxanne had seen her do it. They had the same nervous gestures, and they seemed to have the same hair. It was oddly comforting, almost like looking into a mirror at her old self.

"It's okay. They're here. They want to take a statement from you."

Roxanne wanted to be the one to tell Minion. She took a guess, based on how homely the Evil Lair looked in her future. She was sure she could find her way there. She got herself discharged, and like a total brat, she bossed her mother through the streets. Talk about embarrassing: needing your mother to drive you to the den of all evil.

"Pull up here," Roxanne said, eagerly. "And wait. I can't show you where it is, but I won't be long. I promise."

"Sweetie," her mom said, looking concerned.

"Look, Mom, I'm doing this whether you're here with me, or not. Now please just wait for me here. It won't be long."

Evil Lair was a little less weedy, and a lot less interesting. It was empty, but there were signs of the uses the space would be put to. There were a couple of panels and consoles, a car, held up on cinder blocks, its engine spread out on a tarpaulin beside it. Minion was there, sitting dejectedly at a chair beside a workbench.

"Minion! It's okay! They're letting him out! First thing tomorrow," she promised.

"Miss Ritchi!"

Roxanne nearly tripped over a bundle of cables, and put a hand out to steady herself. Blinking, she froze. It couldn't be.

"The... reset button?!"

Minion raised his finger. "Sorry, the what?"

Roxanne crossed her arms. "Megamind's reset button. It's what I pressed, what brought me here!"

Minion shuddered. He gasped. He shrunk away from her, in his tank. "I thought there was something off about you."

"Oh, thank goodness. I'd actually be worried, you know? If I honestly came across like a teenage girl."

Minion stepped closer and reached out a hand. He touched her. "You really can't tell the difference, can you?"

Roxanne was a sharp one. She had a sneaking suspicion that Megamind had used the button himself. "I don't understand. He chose this life?"

Minion stammered. "M-miss Ritchi! It's, you called it, a reset button?"

She nodded. "That's what the label said."

"Label?"

"More of a post-it, really." That Minion had put there, oh. Whoops. Had she just created a time loop?

"No, you've got it all wrong. It's not a reset button. The physics for that would be impossible. No, it's something else. It gives the user a glimpse back in time. It's only a short glimpse, but there are some things that are worth that."

Roxanne froze. "How short?" Was she going to disappear, again?

"I can't say for sure. We... haven't tested it yet. We were hoping to stretch it out for as long as eight days."

"Eight days," Roxanne said. She rubbed at her upper arms. "So that'd be tomorrow, counting from last Thursday."

Minion smiled unhappily in sympathy. "Quite possibly."

"How, how will it happen? This seriously isn't a second chance?" Metro Dude would grow up into Metro Man, and he would die. She kind of hated him, right then and there, but she didn't wish him harm. Megamind would allow evil to corrupt his heart. He would become a murderer and a liar, a thief. He'd become a villain again, and he'd pretend to be Bernard and sit on a picnic blanket beside her and wistfully dream about the other directions his life could have taken. This was not fair.

"I imagine it will be like the way you got here, only in reverse. Ah, Miss Ritchi? May I ask?"

"Ask what?"

Minion smiled hopefully. "Well, you came back. Here. For us? You knew how to get in."

Oh, oh god. Minion was a good kid. Fish. A good teenaged fish in a robot gorilla suit. Yep. He seemed to like her. She liked him, he tended to be the voice of reason in their kidnappings. In general, really. He was the good cop to Megamind's bad cop, if they could really be compared like that, and she didn't have the heart to correct him and break his poor scaly heart.

"When I go back, I'll be standing right here." She looked down. "Oops, little to the right, actually."

Minion looked a little teary, at that. "And you stood up for him? They'll release him in time to graduate?"

She had an honest smile for that. "He'll be there, even if I won't. Minion? It's going to be hard. I mean, really hard. It's going to be like this last week never happened, for me. I don't remember anything from... er. Back then."

"I know. But still, one day, we'll catch up with you."

"I'll be there all along," she said, with a shrug. "I have to go. Oh! But tell him. Tell him to write something for the Metro City Herald. Tell him I said I wanted to see high school out with one last great edition."

Minion looked thoughtful. "I'll see what I can do."

Roxanne ruffled her fingers over his gorilla hair arm. "I'll be seeing you."

"Bye!"

Thursday night. Eight days? This would be the end of day seven. She let her Mom fuss over her, she tidied her desk up, did a load of laundry as a gift to her past self, and pulled up the covers. Better safe than sorry, right? Since when had Megamind's inventions matched the description on the box? She closed her eyes, and tried to set aside her worries. What would happen, when she got back, was still a lifetime away.