Chapter 20 Back to the Beginning

It was mid morning in Grand Forks. The sun was casting a golden glow into the train station where I was sat with Jacob and Harker, the two men enjoying a breakfast of coffee and cookies. When the dust had settled the night before I had somehow dragged them to a bench and gotten them comfortable. Jacob had woken first, while the moon was still high. He had asked what had happened and I told him I would have to fill him in later. Then just before dawn Harker came around and asked how he came to be here. He actually thought he was dead for a while, but I informed him all was well. I cooked up some story about how Howe had somehow fallen on the train tracks as a locomotive had rushed past, putting an end to him, and lucky for me the Englishman swallowed the story, probably because he was suffering concussion.

The two men had spent most of the early hours in a daze, and when the station staff finally arrived I was able to coax them inside with the promise of food and drink. Now they seemed much more alive thanks to sugar and caffeine. And to top things off there had been an announcement that our train would be along in the next hour.

So we sat together and enjoyed our final few moments as a group in silence before the station was disturbed by a small crowd of travellers arriving for the morning train. We stood and walked together to the platform, where we stopped, a cloud of steam filling the air from the train that had just arrived. Harker took my hand.

"Isabella Swan, I thank you for your help on this adventure." He said earnestly.

"Quincey, we wouldn't have stood a chance without you." I replied. Jacob stepped up and took his hand in a manly handshake.

"Yeah, we're gonna miss you bro, this would have been a lot more impossible without you."

Harker looked us both in the eye. "I would also no doubt be long dead without you. And I thank you for sharing your tales of your own time, these I shall carry with me for all of my days."

He smiled a sad smile and backed away as we moved toward the train. "Goodbye Quincey, live a great life." I said as I stepped aboard. He raised a hand and then was gone, swallowed by the steam.

Our journey had been quiet. Jacob had spent long periods of time staring at me, and I assumed he was trying to extract the true story of the night's events. "We were rescued." I said as we were only an hour away from our last stop. "By someone so unlikely I don't even believe it myself, and if I told you it would make me see how unlikely it really is." His smile dropped. I knew this wouldn't keep him off my back for ever but it would do for now.

The long horse ride from Port Angeles to Forks and then on to La Push was quiet, and I wondered if he would ever speak to me again. Then we arrived outside Quil's house and he helped me down to the ground. "Ok" He sighed. "I get it, you won't tell me. That's fine. But one question." I looked at him quizzically. "Was I awesome in battle?" I nodded and gave him a hug. He hugged me back long and hard. This was what adventure was all about, bringing us closer together.

"Come on." I said. "Let's go home."

Inside the dark house Quil was waiting, and he asked us to sit, once more, cross legged on the floor. He allowed a moments silence to fill the air, hanging as heavy as the curls of smoke from his pipe. Then he raised his eyes to me and spoke. "It is done?" I nodded once. "Very well. And those who would stop you?"

"Dead." I whispered. "Well... dead again..."

He smiled a knowing smile. "I understand. And the future, your present, it is intact." He said slowly, looking into the distance. Jacob made a face as though a realisation had smacked him between the eyes.

"So, wait just one second." He said, mulling over his words. "It occurred to me just now that Shovelface probably wouldn't have gone to that hospital if we hadn't turned up." I thought about it and looked on as he continued to riff. Quill also remained silent. "So you could say we kinda came here to put our own present in place, y'know, giving him to Carlisle and all that." He was picking up speed. "Which means time is cyclic. Sarah Connor principle. If we hadn't come back then we wouldn't have set things in motion, and wouldn't have wanted to come here in our own time." My head was starting to spin, and I wasn't sure if it was the theory or the smoke. Quill took a deep draw on the pipe, probably to help him ignore Jacob. "So it's kind of a paradox. And we were never in any real danger." Just then a knife landed point end down in the floor right between Jacobs legs. We all looked up to see Quil's wife with a tray of food and a very guilty expression. Jacob was transfixed on the knife as it wobbled just a few inches from his crotch. That would have been ironic.

A few hours later we stood in the barn, Quil and his buddies including Ephram Black surrounded us, and we shook hands with each in turn, thanking them for their help. One of the younger guys was sitting on a bicycle which was rigged up to our machine, and he started to peddle furiously, making the lights on the display turn on. Jacob tapped a few keys and opened a small hatch, pouring in the Nitrotrinadium we had been given. The inside began to glow bright green. This was it.

"Well guys, it's been real." He said to the group. "Thanks for everything."

"I'll always remember you." I said, looking at Quil, but speaking to all of them.

"Lets hope this thing doesn't turn us inside out." Jacob whispered as he took my hand and lead me to the door. We looked back, gave a wave and stepped into the green light.

The world went super bright green, then was black. Then there was a pop and a fizzle and we jumped out of the machine just in time to witness it collapse in on itself in a ball of smoke. "I guess that saves us the trouble of destroying it." I said.

We stood and dusted ourselves down, looking around. The barn seemed unchanged in the darkness. I was suddenly unsure if it had even been day or night when we left 1917. Wow. My head was fuzzy and I had that feeling you get when you wake at four am because you heard a noise. How odd.

We stepped out into the night air and I felt immediate relief at seeing an electric light illuminating the porch in front of the black house. And there was my truck, parked up not far away. I turned and whispered to Jacob "Call me in the morning" and climbed in my truck, trying to make as little noise as possible with my apocalyptic engine. I watched his waving figure diminish into the distance and then there was just darkness behind me.

At last I slipped into bed, worn out from the adventure. I knew it would not take long to find sleep that night.