AN: Sorry for the delay - bad migraine kept me in bed all day and this chapter ended up being longer than I anticipated.

Trigger warnings - creepy shit ahead. You've been warned.

Voices. Multiple threads of conversation coming from every direction. Different places, different times, different speakers.

I've been here before.

Had I? I couldn't remember. Maybe that had been a dream.

We were here before.

My head was pounding - a deep pain that started from the back of my skull and increased in pressure as my thoughts began to collect.

Shit, what did I do?

"I'll go! I'll go, just…don't hurt her."

"Becks, no."

That voice…I don't remember it.

"The world, Rebecca, is not fine."

"Becks…"

"Becks?"

Dark wood. A table. Chopsticks – still wrapped. I looked up. Jenna sat across from me in the booth, frowning in concern at me.

"Hm? What?" I stared at her before turning my head once I noticed the server, a younger guy – maybe in his late teens – standing next to the booth taking our order.

The fuck was that?

I tried to make up for yet another space-out on my end. "Oh, uh…I'll have whatever she's having."

Jenna raised an eyebrow as the server thanked us and walked away. "Seriously? You hate tuna."

Oops. I shrugged – tried to play it off. "Oh, well I guess you can have mine then."

Jenna laughed and folded her hands on the table. "All right, I'll bite. Something happened today. Come on, spit it out."

I shook my head. "N-no. I just…it's been a weird day is all. Sorry," I said as I fidgeted with the chopsticks. And it was true. I had some hazy memories of earlier in the day – something about a report for work and then Dennis messaging me constantly to let me know he just had to show me something when we met up next. Then I dropped Jenna off at the park, ran some errands, and picked her up.

So why was that so hard to remember? And Jenna and I are…together? Like together together? I think I knew it, yet it was still a surprise to me and I couldn't figure out why. Should I go to the doctor or something?

My Focus beeped. I noticed the current time: 17:21, October 3rd, 2070. The hell? 2070? A reminder: Clean fish tank tomorrow.

"It's okay. I guess I forgive you," Jenna teased. She took my hands in hers and winked, making me smile and calming me down a little. Everything's fine. I'm here, she's here, we're having sushi – it's all good.

A brief flash of light. I looked down and noticed the ring she was wearing. Not that it was weird she was wearing a ring – she wore jewelry all the time. The weird part was that she wore it on the ring finger of her left hand and the piece itself was a brilliant white gold with two small sapphires surrounding a slightly larger diamond.

Is…that what I think it is?

She noticed me staring at it and glanced down. "What? Oh, shit, did I lose a stone?"

"No, no," I rushed. "I was just looking at it. It's really nice."

She shot me a very unamused look. "Well, I would hope you thought so considering you picked it."

But that's an enga-

My heart skipped a beat. "I-um…I did?" What the hell? "I mean, yeah but I can still comment on it, right?" I flashed her my most convincing grin.

The unamused expression remained on Jenna's face. "Oh, I see how it's going to be. Five months later and you still want me to throw sunshine up your ass at the fact that you completely surprised me for once."

I smirked, trying to remain cool. "You're damn right I do." But on the inside, I was flipping out.

We're engaged. We're together together and we're fucking engaged. I wanted to remember. Why can't I remember? Maybe I should go see a doctor.

She gave my hands a squeeze. I looked up, met her eyes. The concern in them had returned. "Hey. You're okay, right? You seem…distracted."

I nodded. "Yeah…yeah. Sorry, I just…I'm just a little out of it today. I think I'm just kind of tired."

The server arrived with our food and set the plates down in front of us. After asking if we needed anything else, he left again.

Jenna immediately began to dig in to her meal. "I'm so fucking hungry."

I laughed. "Yeah, I see that." I poked at mine with my chopsticks.

Her mouth full of food, she glared at me and grabbed my plate, sliding it across the table toward her.

"Enjoy," I deadpanned. I'd just have to eat when we went to my parents' house later.

Mom. Dad.

"It'll be okay, you'll see. We love you so much."

A ripple. It was so small but I knew I saw it out of corner of my eye. The fuck? I looked up.

Nothing. Just the older, slightly worn ceiling of the restaurant. I blinked and shook my head again. Maybe I need sleep.

"This is so good." Across from me, Jenna was demolishing her dinner like it was the last meal she'd ever eat.

"I like how you just went running and now you're eating your weight in spicy tuna rolls," I pointed out.

She waved me away. "Don't even start."

I grinned. Teasing Jenna was something that I rarely got the opportunity to do. "I could help you if you wanted. Wouldn't want you to have to bear that burden on your own."

She swallowed. "You don't even eat this stuff, Becks. I'm not letting you near them – you'll just mutilate them and leave most of it on the plate."

"I'd be willing to help out a little bit, even if I hated it." I dramatically reached out toward the sushi with my chopsticks.

Another glare. "Rebecca Johnson, I swear - if you so much as touch these rolls I will beat your ass and you will sleep on the fucking couch until after we're married."

I set the chopsticks down. "All right, all right. No need to threaten me."

She gave me a curt nod, as though to further assert her dominance over the situation, before returning to her meal. I leaned back in the booth and waited patiently while alternating between sipping my drink and playing with my keychain.

"Finally! Was there a lot of traffic?" Mom greeted us at the door as soon as we entered the foyer.

I gave a short laugh. "There's always a lot of traffic, Mom."

Mom…? I wanted to cry, but I wasn't sure why. And we were at my house…only it wasn't my house. Apparently, I didn't live here anymore. Because Jenna and I live together? The concept was still really strange to wrap my mind around. We'd always had sleepovers and were planning to get an apartment closer to the university together eventually but this was different. Especially since I wasn't even in university anymore.

"My fault, Sarah. I was starving after my run and ordered a lot of food," Jenna said, giving me a pointed look. The front door slid shut behind us.

Mom side-eyed me. "That's very sweet, Jenna, but honestly, there's no need to make excuses for my daughter, especially since she's suddenly decided the call functionality on her Focus no longer works."

There's not much hope I'll get out of this one. "Sorry, Mom."

"Is that Becks?" I heard Dad call from the living room.

Mom gave me a long, disapproving stare before speaking up loud enough for Dad to hear her. "Yes, they just got here." She turned her attention to us again. "There's some leftovers if you girls are still hungry."

I nodded and made a beeline for the kitchen, passing through the living room on my way and nearly running into Dad.

"Whoa! Where's the fire?" he exclaimed, a dorky grin crossing his features.

Dad…

I gave him a hug. "No fire, Dad. Just hungry."

He released me and stepped aside. "Yeah, I'm just going to get out of your way, then."

I laughed and rushed to the kitchen, where Dennis sat at the table, also consuming leftovers apparently.

"Yo," he mumbled with his mouth full of pasta.

"Wow, nice," I said. "You get lots of girls with that pickup line?"

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Ha ha, you're hilarious."

I was about to retort with some witty remark when all the lights in the kitchen went out. There was a faint, purple light coming from somewhere but I couldn't pinpoint where. The air was silent and heavy. Looking around, the walls were…strange. Old. Rusted over and ruined. In fact, very little of the kitchen remained save the structure and the table where Dennis had been sitting.

Where he was still sitting.

Only, it wasn't him. A dark figure sat in his place – maybe it was him – motionless and quiet. The light was enough, though. His skin, decaying and grey – the purple lighting reflecting off it slightly. There was no expression – no way in hell he had seen that coming.

The dead eyes that stared straight into me – the misshapen bullet hole that graced the space just above them. I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to throw up.

Dennis…

"You gonna eat or you just going to keep staring at me like a creeper?"

I blinked. The lights were back. The kitchen was fine – normal and not falling apart. Dennis…he was sitting straight ahead, devouring his pasta. There was no body. No bullet hole. Everything is fine.

"Sorry…long day," I blurted, my heart still racing. I walked to the fridge and opened the double doors, searching for the food Mom had cooked earlier. I prepped a plate and stuck it in the microwave before sitting at the table to join my brother.

"So, what's up? Just visiting?" I asked. What the fuck was that?

He nodded. "Yeah. Just finished up commission so I left the studio early. Mike's working late on something of his and I didn't want to get in his way. You?" He took another bite. "How's everything in nerd land?"

I rolled my eyes. "Funny. Fine, just wrapping up a project myself. Mom called Jenna and said she wanted us to stop by."

He grinned, indicating he knew exactly what was going on. "Ah."

The microwave timer went off. I shot Dennis a dirty look before getting up to retrieve my food. "All right, what do you know?"

He put his hands up. "Why would you think I know something?"

"Because you always do."

The grin remained on his face. "I know nothing."

"Nothing about what?" Mom and Jenna walked into the kitchen as I grabbed a fork from one of the drawers and went to sit at the table again.

Dennis pointed his fork at me. "Becks is whining because she thinks there's some grand scheme at work here."

"I am not whining."

Jenna exchanged amused glances with Mom. "I love you, Becks, but I'm going to have to side with Dennis on this one."

I groaned and ate my food in sulky silence while the three of them talked cryptically about whatever the hell it was that I was apparently not allowed to know.

"So, are you going to tell me what that whole secret conversation was all about or do I have to guess?" I asked as I kicked off my shoes after walking through the front door of the small apartment Jenna and I shared.

"I could, but I'd have to kill you." Jenna slipped out of her running shoes and closed the door behind her as we walked into the living area together, the room mostly dark save a few nightlights that were plugged into the walls. "I'm gross – I'm going to go shower."

"All right," I said and watched her head down the hall. I took a moment to scan the place to see if anything was familiar yet – a tiny kitchen, black appliances, an old couch that suspiciously resembled the one we had in our, well, my parents' basement. On a glass end table, a picture frame rested – the picture inside none other than the cheesy selfie Jenna and I had taken at the Sunblast years earlier. I picked it up and smiled, recalling the crazy night when Jenna had gotten us into a club, a club that I had been technically underage for.

And I almost told her the truth.

A ripple. The same damn thing that happened earlier at the restaurant. It appeared on the photo for a split-second and then it was gone. What the hell…

But I had told her the truth, eventually. When? I wanted to remember. I knew the memory was there.

I think I should call the doctor's office tomorrow.

I took a closer look at the photo. I was holding up a peace sign like a dork and Jenna, drunk off her ass if I recalled correctly, was kissing my cheek. It had been a wild night and Mom had been so pissed when we'd stumbled into the house later on. I set the frame back down and explored the rest of the apartment.

There was a guest bathroom near a small bedroom down the hall. The bedroom had a desk with an array of electronics on it and some folders haphazardly scattered across it.

I continued down the hallway until reaching the end, where the master bedroom, presumably mine and Jenna's room, was. I could hear the shower running from the attached bathroom – the door was closed. A king-sized bed flanked by nightstands sat at one end of the room and a large holoprojection screen on the other. A chest of drawers was off to the side. I crossed the room and went through the drawers, fishing through them for something to wear to bed. Score. I recognized a pair of plaid shorts and a loose t-shirt I loved, though both looked much older and worn down than I remembered.

I changed and got into bed, the comforters warm and inviting on the chilly October night. The room still felt strange, though. Unfamiliar. Like everything else had been all day. Something didn't make sense and I couldn't figure out what it was. The spacing out, the voices, the headaches, the ripples. That weird…nightmare thing with Dennis and the fact that I couldn't remember anything – my own fucking engagement to top it all off.

I sighed. Maybe I was just overworked. Maybe the stress was finally starting to get to me, just like Mom had been concerned about.

Fuck it. I needed to chill out and this was not the way to do it. I took my Focus off and placed it on the nightstand next to me before switching on the holoprojector. Some rerun of an old show I used to watch in high school was on. I watched for a bit, enjoying the low-budget cheesiness and bad acting.

The shower stopped and a few minutes later, Jenna emerged from the bathroom. Her blonde hair was still somewhat damp and she was wearing an outfit similar to mine.

"Those are mine," I pointed out.

She looked down and then back at me before shrugging. "They're comfy. Scoot over -that's my side."

I smirked and moved to the other side of the bed before feeling the comforter pull away a bit as she climbed in. After a few seconds of shifting, I finally felt her slip her arm under me as she rested her head on my chest. "You okay, babe?"

I took a deep breath. Am I okay? I didn't really know. "Yeah…yeah, it's just been kind of a weird day."

"Because of work? You have vacation days, why not take some? We haven't been skiing in a while."

"Yeah, maybe."

"Also, I think we should go with the green for the table settings. I know what my mom said, but I don't really like grey. Plus, it's a freaking wedding and grey can get dismal, you know?" she added, looking up at me.

I smiled and nodded. "Sure, thing," I said, meeting her eyes.

Jenna held my gaze for a few seconds before shaking her head. "You're incredible," she murmured and leaned in to kiss me. I reciprocated faster this time and our lips moved against each other fluidly for a bit before she pulled away. "I mean," she continued, "it's important that we do this our way. I'd hate to have it and then a few months later we're all, 'That was nice, but it would have been better if-,'"

"It would have been better…"

Another ripple.

"No, no, no! Becks!"

Someone was screaming. Like they were hurt, no, dying.

"STATE FUNCTION REQUEST."

"…right, Becks? Becks?"

I looked down again. "I-sorry." I felt guilty. "I don't mean to keep spacing out." I smiled again. "I'm excited – I swear. It's going to be the best fucking wedding ever."

Jenna seemed to be satisfied with that answer. She pressed up against me. "You're really tense. Relax. It's like you're about to run out of here or something."

I gave a small laugh. "Old habits die hard, I guess."

She giggled. "Track is over, Johnson!" she announced in what was a pretty accurate impression of my old trainer. I shook my head, laughing silently.

Another ripple. It was in the ceiling, just above the projection this time. Relax, Becks. And I would have, except-

Her hand moved – slowly grazing across my stomach before shifting downwards.

I jumped. Met her eyes again as I looked down, her expression betraying that her course correction had not in fact, been an accident.

"Becks? This is okay?" Of course, it is - don't fucking stop.

"I…Jenna, what are you doing?"

She tilted her head. "What does it look like I'm doing, silly?" She pushed herself up and forward so that she was mostly on top of me, straddling one of my legs.

"I'm fine-," A name. Someone…someone else?

"Uh…sorry. Stupid question." Before I could say anything else, Jenna leaned down and covered my mouth with hers, pressing her body into mine as she kissed me.

Hazel eyes…almost yellow in the sunlight. Freckles – her shoulders covered in them. Shoulders I clung to safely as she moved with me.

A hand at my side. Pulling my shirt up, reaching under the fabric. Her hand dragged across my skin – over my side and up towards my breast.

Over the scar.

Not a ripple. A distortion. This isn't right. Her lips were on my neck before she began biting down near my collarbone. I made a sound, reacted, but it didn't sound like my voice. I closed my eyes. Tried to focus. The million voices returned.

A long sigh. "I-I need you."

"Becks?"

A name. I had it.

"Aloy."

"ERROR. UNRECOVERABLE EXCEPTION THROWN. RUNTIME ENDED."

More AN: Thanks for reading. This was an interesting bit to write so I'd love to hear your thoughts. :)

Credit goes to Quantum_Reality on AO3 for the Sunblast club flashback.