AN: On Dreamwidth there is a game called Milliways_Bar. Characters from all fandoms show up in the bar at the end of the universe. I've toyed with the idea of submitting my app to play Ivo. This was written for that purpose though I subsequently decided I didn't have the time.

I took the idea of anomalies from Primeval, one of my absolute favorite shows. I put Ivo through the anomaly twice and then into Milliways.

In Milliways, one can go backward and forward and even the dead can come play. Here, I brought Danny back to help Ivo heal.

Réponse à Anon : Merci beaucoup pour ta review! Je suis navrée mais j'ai tellement de problèmes à trouver « Tim ». Je travaille sur le caractère d'Ivo maintenant et à vrai dire je ne sais pas quand je pourrais publier la suite. :(

So, literally into the universe - outer space - we go!

Happy reading,

Pace is the trick

Across the sea lies the fountain of renewal
Where you will see
The whole cause of your loneliness
Can be measured in dreams
That transcend all these lies
And I wish and I pray
That there may come a day for a savior's arms
For a savior's arms

~ Enigma of the Absolute, Dead Can Dance

In Milliways

In the bar at the end of the universe, Ivo finds –

Danny.

It's only his third time in the anomaly and he is isn't altogether convinced he believes it's happening. Not prone to dreams or nightmares, he's captured by the notion that this might be what is known as "lucid dreaming". He is very conscious of what is happening to him and equally certain it can't be real. Yet there are aspects of this that throw him. A man of science, he knows time travel is not possible but still there are things that demand explanation. Perhaps most interesting of all is the fact that the dinosaurs looked nothing like those of Jurassic Park in his first two forays into the land before the time. Feathers! Who would have thought? But it makes sense, it explains so many things that have left them baffled for decades. Birds are survivors of that primeval age. He has his work cut out for him on that front.

Now in Milliways, he sees a very real, very alive Danny before him. Even if this is only a dream, he'll take it.

Danny is sketching as he so often does in the late afternoon at home. Facing him, Ivo cannot see what it is. He can't see his eyes through those treacherous dark locks that hang like heavy drapes across his furrowed brow but he can follow his line of vision to the exact spot on the paper and he senses his pleasure, pleasure that he is back now. He knows Danny knows he's there though he doesn't acknowledge him, knows that the amused smile that curves his full pale lips is for him. They sense one another the way animals with finely honed instincts feel and smell their mates.

"I'm interrupting?" Ivo smiles as well. He feels so comfortable with Danny, as if they had never been apart. He isn't sad at all. They might be at home, Danny drawing as he walks in from the university. Where is the pain that has been part and parcel of his existence for the past decade, the empty ache that wracks his chest with every memory? Where is the dry taste of desperation, the feeling of mournfulness, the sense of irretrievable loss? He couldn't even bring himself to look at a photograph of Danny in his world, and here he is – looking at Danny.

"Not at all," Danny murmurs in a perfect parody of Ivo's British accent. "Gimme two seconds and I'm done." He lifts a finger and licks it and then reaches to smudge something on the upper right hand corner of the page. He hazards a glance at Ivo and there is laughter in his eyes.

"One," says Ivo easily as if they have all of eternity stretching out before them. "Two."

"It wasn't a literal two," mocks Danny. His smile broadens.

"Alas, I am a very literal sort of man," Ivo deadpans, leaning now against the wall to give Danny his more than two seconds.

"Too well do I know it," says Danny scathingly, but there's laughter in his voice as well. "There!" Immensely satisfied, he holds the drawing arms-length away from him to assess his handiwork. "A perfect likeness." And he hands it to Ivo.

It isn't at all. Ivo bursts out laughing. It is a caricature of him dressed in his familiar brown suit, blue and white striped shirt, blue tie. He's standing in front of chalkboard looking ferocious – to instill terror in the hearts of his students ("To encourage them to apply themselves!" the sputtered protest). Even the tiny stegosaurus on the black slate looks duly frightened as it tries to tuck its enormous spiky tail between its legs.

Ivo's hair is longer, darker, and he sports a reddish raggedy beard – his grooming a striking contrast to his attire. A professor trying to appease his fashionable sister. He's a younger happier Ivo, the Ivo from Danny's time.

"I remember those days," he says fondly, gazing at his portrait. But still he feels no sadness.

"I do, too." Danny is looking straight at him now, unabashedly in love. Danny is inscrutable for most people but not Ivo. Ivo can read him like a book. He knows that expression – like the contented family cat grooming itself after a sumptuous meal of warm salmon and cream sauce.

"I love it," says Ivo simply. "I shall put it in my office." He doesn't have an office here. Back – there?

"It's a good place for it," Danny says agreeably.

"Will you come back with me?" It's hurried and worried and suddenly he's much too serious.

"I can't." Danny presses his lips together thoughtfully and looks down at his lap, neither angry nor bitter. It's simply a fact of his existence. "But you can stay here with me." He looks back up and holds out his hand in invitation.

Ivo hesitates but takes it and allows himself to be drawn in. "If I do," he pauses, "what happens? Back there, I mean?"

"I don't know," Danny answers truthfully. "I can't go back from here. I only hear the stories."

"What do the others say?"

"That time doesn't change. That here we move forward but there you stand still."

"I like that," the thought makes him happy, actually. "I want to be here with you but - " and again he hesitates.

"But there you have Tim," Danny finishes for him.

"You were gone," he says by way of explanation and apology.

"I'm not blaming you." And he truly isn't.

"I don't know what to do." Ivo is completely at a loss. "I want to be here with you. I'm happy with you. And there aren't any problems here!"

Danny practically cackles. "Oh I assure you there are problems. Just not the kind you're used to."

"I don't want to lose you again," Ivo says forlornly.

"Then stay awhile." Danny smiles at him and places his arm around his shoulder. "We can talk."

And they do. They talk for hours.