Once George had left, she rounded on him. "William, what on earth was all that about? I've never known you to speak so harshly to anyone, let alone George!"
"Forgive me for my outburst, Julia, but I was a bit put out when I learned that he had discovered the time travel suit."
"What?"
He handed her the box with the previously mentioned item.
Glancing up, "He didn't use it did he?"
William simply looked at her.
"Oh my. That is not good at all."
"No it is not. He knows everything now."
George was many good things but keeper of secrets was not one of them.
"What do you intend to do about this?"
"What would you have me do?"
"I don't know. You could...go back in time and make sure he doesn't find it."
Frowning, "Time travel is not a toy, Julia. One does not simply play around with it whenever it suits their fancy."
"So you're fine with him potentially telling others?" she asked surprised.
Murdoch smiled a little. "George is known to be a fanciful lad. Who would believe him?"
His words made sense but she wasn't reassured by them. Past experience reminded her that people who went on about time travel tended to get locked up in the asylum (not that she would ever let that happen to George, though if she vouched for him, they both could end up in there). In fact, she had been just about ready to put William in there when he demonstrated the teleportation feature for her benefit. When someone disappears in front of your eyes, it's hard to think them crazy. If anything you question your own sanity.
"I don't know, William..."
He took the box out of her hands and held her close. The steady rhythm of his heart beat helped to calm her own down.
"There's absolutely nothing to worry about, Julia. Trust me."
"All right, William, we'll do things your way."
"That must be a first."
She punched his arm and he let go of her, smirking.
"Well, I am going to go bathe now," she said. "So I will see you in a few hours. Don't be late."
"I wouldn't dream of it," he said giving her another deep kiss that left her knees weak.
He smirked again, picked up his hat from the hook and left.
As she soaked in the soapy suds of her perfect temperature bath, her mind went blissfully blank and she sighed in contentment. Before long she dozed off. Far from the pleasant dreams one tends to expect while in such a relaxed state, she instead had strange, vaguely disquieting visions of an abstract nature. Thankfully the now cold water roused her from such unpleasantness.
But as she dried herself off, she found her mind becoming troubled once more, as if her subconscious ideas were trying to force themselves to the surface. Most would have attempted to dispel such notions but she wasn't most people. She had read several articles by the German psychoanalyst Freud and he had stated that a persons unconscious thoughts, what he referred to as the id and superego (the former incorporating instincts and drive and the latter conscience) were just as important as conscious thought, if not more so. In other words, she shouldn't dismiss these current feelings of unease simply because it would be preferable.
So Julia let herself be overwhelmed by the increasing sense of dread, and just when she couldn't stand it any longer, a single thought swam across her awareness. It was such a simple thought, one that she should have asked herself earlier, but that her mind had apparently decided to shield her from.
Why had George gone looking for the suit?
The impact of this single thought was staggering.
Quickly she got dressed and headed down to the station.
George was in the middle of a phone call but when he saw her expression, he promptly made his apologies and hung up.
"Come with me right now," she said in a commanding tone that scared him a bit.
They headed to the back of the station house, where many a conversation had been held in private.
"Why did you go looking for the suit?"
"I was worried about the detective."
"Why?"
Puzzled he said, "I thought it obvious. He was acting very strangely."
"Strange how?"
"Losing his temper for one thing."
She seemed quite shocked by this response. "You mean his outburst earlier this morning was not the first time?"
"No, he was very surly for hours the other day while we were investigating Mr. Dasgard's death. The inspector didn't seem to think anything of it, chalking it all down to wedding jitters but I was under the impression that he was using cocaine."
"Why did you not tell me this earlier?" she snapped.
"I didn't want to needlessly worry you until I had more concrete evidence that something was indeed wrong."
She seemed to be contemplating something very seriously.
"George I want you to tell me everything you can about your conversation with him today."
"He actually said that?" she said slowly. "He actually said that Professor Harm was a source of inspiration to his research?"
"Yes."
"And that the future was murderous?"
"Yes."
"And he asked where you had gotten the suit from?"
"Yes, I thought that was a bit odd."
"All of it is extremely odd, George!" she exclaimed, suddenly rather frantic and light headed.
"Doctor are you all right?" he said concernedly grabbing hold of her arm when she swayed slightly.
A terrible, impossible idea had begun to form in her mind but unlike the last time, she was not quite ready to allow it entrance yet. If she did, she would completely lose it and be absolutely useless. And there was no time for that.
"I'm fine," she lied, getting a hold of herself. "George, do you know where William is?"
"No, I'm sorry, I don't," he said shaking his head. "But he's probably at home getting ready for your wedding."
Despite her best efforts this idea made her sick to her stomach.
"Are you sure you're all right?" George said, still holding on to her.
"Yes, yes," she said waving him off of her. "I just need a moment to collect my thoughts."
"Please confide in me, doctor. I am more than happy to assist in any way possible."
"That's very kind of you to offer, George, but you've done enough as it is. And it would take too long to explain."
And I hope to God that I am wrong.
"Then don't, but let me help you all the same. It will be my wedding present to you."
"If I need your assistance, I shall call on you. But until then, just stay here."
He furrowed his brow but said nothing and let her pass by.
There was only one way to confirm her suspicions and it was to go directly to the source. The problem was finding him. He was not in his abode, nor any of the other usual spots, such as underneath a certain magical tree in the park, or his church. It was far too early for him to be at the church they were to be married at (different from his place of worship since a Catholic priest would never marry them) but she decided to check it out all the same. Other than a few people silently praying, there was no one there.
By complete chance (or possibly her subconscious mind was at work again) she passed by the building that Dr. Roberts was still presumably frozen within. The idea of him in his icy cage brought up another thought, one that had been puzzling her since her fears had taken hold and was one of the major impediments to her believing the possible reality of the situation.
She tried the doors but they were locked. She supposed this made sense since otherwise hooligans could potentially come across the doctor and unplug him.
Without any other ideas of where William could be, Julia went home. And lo and behold, there he was sitting on her doorstep!
"I heard you were looking for me," he said smiling widely, like a crocodile. "Just couldn't keep away, could you?"
"Something like that," she said returning the smile.
Julia did her best to smile normally even though she was very nervous all of a sudden. Apparently he bought her display for he didn't question it.
"Shall we head in?"
"I thought you'd never ask," he said, giving her a look that often made her heart flutter in anticipation. In this instance however, it was due to a much less pleasant reason.
Before they even got into the parlour room he had grabbed her from behind and began kissing her neck fervently. Her instinct was to move away from his embrace but she knew better than that. If he suspected anything was amiss, things could turn sour in an instant. So she put up with this as best she could, biting her lower lip to keep from screaming.
Once she had mastered her emotions she said as casually as possible, "Remember when you proposed to me in the hot air balloon four months ago?"
"Mmm," was his only response.
"I'd like to go up in a similar one during our stay in Prague. The balloons rich reds and purples were so regal, they made me feel like royalty." In reality the colours had encompassed the entire spectrum, like a rainbow. Someone who had been there would know that, especially someone with such a flawless memory. "What do you say to that?"
"Whatever you want my queen."
She might have taken this as enough confirmation that she was right in her suspicions except that William was currently preoccupied and might not have heard her properly.
Determined to double check she turned around to face him, wrapping her arms around his neck and said, "I just hope the weather is as nice as it was the last time. It was so lovely to be able to see the city for miles in every direction, pretending like the people below were my subjects."
The day had started out nice but had poured shortly after his proposal forcing them to land early. They had joked about it being an ominous sign. She wasn't laughing now.
He smiled, "Yes, you did have a gay old time, didn't you?"
As he responded thusly, she had to blink rapidly to keep from bursting into tears. That was all she needed to know. The man before her looked and even smelled like William but was clearly not him! Which meant that he was a psychopathic double from the future intent on mischief!
It explained every odd thing he had done or said in the past twenty four hours!
It explained everything!
How could she have been so fooled? How could she have not noticed the differences in manner and speech? Her William would have never kissed her in public that way! And he had always been so particular about keeping future vocabulary under tight wraps. But then this morning...she shuddered internally, not wanting to think about what had preceded that...he had been so lax about it, but she hadn't given it a second thought. Had her love blinded her to the truth? If so, the illusion was now shattered and it was all she could do not to squirm away from his touch and hit him over the head with something heavy.
On second thought...
She forced herself to kiss him, doing her best not to gag and while he was distracted she manoeuvred them over to the couch where a lamp was sitting on a small corner table. Even though she knew this wasn't really William, when it came down to physically harming someone who looked identical to him, her resolve wavered. But then he stuck his tongue down her throat again and somehow the necessary strength returned to her.
Blindly she grasped for the glass shaft and with trembling fingers she picked it up and brought it down on his head, partially shattering it.
Immediately he let go of her and simple stared at her in a dazed way. She was afraid it hadn't worked and was about to hit him again with the broken remains when he crumpled to the floor.
It disturbed her a great deal to see him laying there with a bit of blood leaking out of his skull, shallowly breathing. She took no pleasure in hurting others, even murderers, even people who had tried to kill her; it was simply not in her nature. That is why she still didn't own a gun, even though three different serial killers (what they were called in the future) had almost finished her off; current company included.
Not wasting any time she ran to the kitchen, grabbed some linens and raced back to the parlour room. Next she brought a chair over to the unconscious double, hefted him up into it like she would a dead body; the main difference being that she had to rely on leg strength for this exercise. Apparently every version of William was quite solidly built and by the time she had him in place she was breathing heavily from the effort.
Finally she used the various linens to tie his arms and legs to the chair, implementing the sturdiest knot she knew how to do, and then tugged on each of them in turn to make sure they were quite secure.
Satisfied with her handy work and supremely happy that Marcella had been sent home earlier that day so that she could avoid having to try and explain this rather unusual spectacle to her, she paced around the room, anxiously watching the clock tick closer and closer to the start of her wedding, waiting for him to wake up.
And when he did, then what? Would he really tell her where her William was? She knew he wasn't dead because of the bizarre connection between the timelines. If one died, so did the other. Which was apparently the whole reason for this William's hatred towards hers. He blamed William for the death of his mother in the future and for some reason time travel cannot correct this universal conclusion.
Whatever plans he had had for her on their wedding night could only have been sinister in nature. Likely after he violated her in the most intimate of ways he had planned on killing her, and then release her William from whatever hell he was currently in, leaving him to be framed and hung.
No wait, that couldn't be it...otherwise he would end up killing himself.
Growing more and more impatient with every passing second, she decided to speed up the process by using smelling salts. Every proper lady had some in her purse. Though she didn't count herself one and anyone looking on the scene now would certainly agree with this assessment, she did in fact have some in her purse.
Salts in hand, she somewhat violently shoved them under his nose, giving him a few slaps for good measure. He sputtered into consciousness, slightly red eyed and dazed and eventually focused on her face. He tried to move his arms but couldn't and appeared confused until he saw his restraints.
"Julia," he said slowly, "what is going on? Why am I tied up?" He winced. "And why is my head killing me?" Realization crossed his face when he saw the broken lamp pieces on the floor, next to some dried blood. "You assaulted me!" he cried, trying to escape once more. "I can't believe this!"
She dragged a similar chair over in front of him and sat down. "Where is he?"
"What? Who?"
She smiled grimly. "You know who. William. My William. Where is he?"
He looked at her like she was insane. "It is my understanding that weddings can be stressful times for the brides but-"
"None of that now," she said sternly. "The game is up. There's nothing you can say to change my mind. I know you're not him. And frankly, I can't believe I was ever fooled. You may look the same, but you're nothing like him."
After studying her silently for a few moments he said fairly bitterly, "The talk about hot air balloons, that was some sort of test...one that I obviously failed."
"How very perceptive of you," she replied sarcastically. "Now tell me where he is."
Narrowing his eyes he said, "And why would I do that?"
"Because you value your good looks."
"Really?" he said sullenly. "You would torture me?"
The way in which he responded, in fact his whole dour mood seemed strange to her. He didn't seem upset so much because he had been found out but rather because she didn't have any qualms about hurting him.
Wait a minute...
"Were you actually looking forward to marrying me?"
His only response was to look away but this was plenty of confirmation for her.
"How could you possibly have wanted that? You tried to kill me!"
"I made a mistake, all right!" he barked. "I wasn't in a very good place, mentally. But when I was put in deep freeze I was in a sort of dream...limbo state in which I was able to reflect on my life choices up till then. I came to the conclusion that revenge would never make me truly happy. And since I knew that you were the source of my double's happiness, I decided that you could be mine too."
Flabbergasted by this response, she simply stared at him open mouthed.
"But surely you must have known that I would figure it out sooner or later."
"It was a calculated risk," he said nodding, "but one well worth it." Catching her eye, "Whatever faults William possesses, it can't be denied that he has exquisite taste in women. You make me want to be a better person. You are truly one of a kind, Julia."
His compliments were not in the least flattering, all she experienced was annoyance at his delusion. The only reason he would persist in saying such things is if he thought there was still a chance for them.
"I wish I had met you, or rather your double, sooner...before..."
This statement seemed at odds to his previous one but she didn't bother to point this out. Instead she decided to wound him some more to bring him back to reality.
"Before you went and murdered a bunch of people."
He winced again and hung his head.
"It's true I've made many mistakes-"
"Mistakes!" she exclaimed. "Murder is hardly a mistake! There is never a reason that justifies it! There is always another way!"
He didn't respond, apparently cowed.
"Enough of this!" she said grabbing his lapels. "If you actually care for me as much as you claim to, you will tell me where he is!"
William from the future looked at her in a pained way for several seconds. Then his expression neutralized, he opened his mouth and...
George walked in on them!
