Chapter Ten: Out of Time

It had been two hours and there was no sign of Yuri in the castle. Flynn had every knight and servant who could spare the time scouring the building for him. The building was huge and had hundreds of places a child could hide. With so many people searching for so long, though, Flynn had to conclude Yuri had made it out of the castle.

"I can't believe it's happening again." Flynn sat on the couch in his living room, leaning forward on his knees and gazing at the coffee table.

Estellise rubbed his back. "It'll be ok. We'll find him."

Flynn's stomach was tied in knots. "I feel like I'm eight years old again. This is just like what happened the day he disappeared. Everyone searching and me sitting here helplessly, gradually realizing I might never see Yuri again."

"Don't say that. We'll find him and everything will be ok."

"It's my fault. I shouldn't have yelled at him."

"Remember when I got kidnapped by Alexei? I know you were really worried then, too." She reached down to clasp his hand. "But you found me and everything worked out ok, didn't it? Just like we'll find Yuri now."

"I really hope so." He couldn't shake the feeling that he'd ruined his second chance. Getting Yuri back after all these years had been a miracle, and it had only taken a week to lose him again. "I don't know if I can do this again. The not knowing. The constant wondering what happened. Convincing myself I'll see him again one day and then feeling that hope slowly slip away." Flynn hung his head and ran his fingers through his hair. "I wish he had never come back. It's just cruel to give me a week with him only to go through this all over again."

Flynn took a long breath and then jerked to his feet. "He's not in the castle. We would have found him by now. He's out in the city and I can't just sit here."

"I'll help you look."

Flynn frowned. "The empress can't just wander the streets."

Her face fell. "Oh… well, I guess you're right."

"I'm sorry." He squeezed her shoulder. "I appreciate your help, but you should stay here in case they find him. If they bring him to you, give him a hug and then lock him in his room until he's twenty-five."

"Heh, got it."

It had been an hour. Flynn hadn't found anything, but he honestly didn't expect to. It was just like when he was a kid and spent hours wandering around the lower quarter in the hope that Yuri would suddenly pop up out of nowhere.

What had he done wrong? He'd only been Yuri's guardian for a week and he'd already lost him. What did that say about his parenting abilities? This was a disaster. He was only twenty-two; he wasn't ready to raise a child. He couldn't even keep track of the kid!

On a long street of shops in the public quarter, he started asking around again. He didn't have a picture of Yuri, so all he could do was ask any of the vendors if they'd seen a boy matching his description.

"...about 8 years old, around yea-high," he held his hand around his waist, "shoulder length black hair, walking with a bit of a limp."

"Oh!" the woman behind the stall nodded quickly. "Yes, I think I know who you're talking about!"

"Thanks for your… wait, really?" Flynn had given this description to so many shopkeepers or anyone else who might have been watching the streets for hours that he hadn't expected to find someone that had actually seen Yuri. He was so accustomed to apologetic shakes of the head that he wasn't sure what to do with this information.

Thankfully, the women continued without being pressed. "It was a few hours ago. I remember seeing him walk by alone and wondering where his parents were, and then a minute later I heard him shouting and making a fuss. A man claiming to be his father was trying to lead him away, but the boy insisted the man wasn't his father and that he didn't want to go with him."

Flynn took a step closer to her stall, the smell of her baked goods not even registering in his excitement. "What did the man look like?"

"He was kind of short, round, and wore glasses. Around middle-aged, I'd say."

Mr. Herbert. Flynn was angry, but not surprised. "What happened? Did the boy leave with the man?"

"No!" The woman smiled slightly. "I thought the situation looked suspicious so I intervened. The boy confirmed that he needed help and I knew for sure that the man must be some kind of predator. Thankfully, and knight showed up then to take care of the situation."

Flynn's whole body relaxed. So, Yuri was with the Knights. He was probably sitting at a Knight outpost right now waiting for them to figure out if the boy's story about being the Flynn's nephew was true and worth bothering the commandant about. "Do you know what district of the city the knight belonged to?"

The woman shook her head. "No, sorry. He was a captain, though. He wore purple armour and had blue hair."

And then Flynn's relaxation vanished. "I see."

"Does that help?"

"Yes, it does. Thank you for the information, and thank you for trying to help. We need more citizens willing to get involved if they see something suspicious."

"It was my pleasure to help that boy! Have a nice night, Commandant!"

Flynn walked away, his heart fluttering. Before he'd been afraid of never finding Yuri again but being able to hope he'd successfully run off to live alone. But he knew Cumore and Herbert intended to harm him and he was worried sick that it had already happened. His heart ached to think of how frightened Yuri must be and the prospect of finding him in this huge city before they could throw him into time again made him want to break down and cry. Was he going to spend the rest of his life only seeing his friend once every thirteen years?

Estellise's words came back to him. He'd worried horribly about her when Alexei took her, but they'd gotten her back, hadn't they? They'd found her first at Baction and then at the Sword Stair, because that was where Alexei needed her for his plan. Herbert had taken Yuri for his plan - and Cumore presumably to cash-in on any radical discoveries - so where would he need him? Where he could do his experiment. Flynn was on his way to the mage headquarters before he even finished the thought.

The good thing about being the commandant was that no one ever stopped him or asked what he was doing somewhere. When he marched into the mages' Zaphias building after the fastest walk across the city he'd ever made, not a single person told him he was in a restricted area or that he needed permission to access the experimental labs in the back of the building. The only person he spoke to was a young woman at the front desk, who took one look at the storm brewing behind his eyes and didn't hesitate to answer which room number Mr. Herbert had headed to a few hours ago.

He didn't knock. Cumore and Herbert snapped their heads around when the door banged against the wall. Herbert stood near a long metal counter with a stopwatch, while Cumore had his arms crossed and lounged against the wall. The counter was covered with microscopes, a tray of surgical tools, flasks, and test tubes One of the tubes, Flynn was furious to see, appeared to contain blood. On the floor in the middle of the room were two large red stones identical to the reformed blastia Rita had used in her own experiments. What he didn't see was Yuri.

"Where is here?" Flynn demanded from the doorway.

"Get out of here." Cumore pushed himself off from the wall. "You're interfering with science."

Flynn sneered at him. "As if you're in it for the science. What percentage of the profits did he promise you?"

"He's right, though," Herbert said. "We're on the cusp of a major scientific breakthrough."

Flynn's sword slid from its sheath. "I didn't ask you what you were doing. I asked, where is he?!" His eyes darted to the stones and to the stopwatch ticking away in Herbert's hand. His rib cage shrank to squeeze his entire chest.

"Now, that's an interesting philosophical question," Herbert said with a glance at his watch. "Just where are people when they're outside of time?"

Flynn strode forward and his voice scraped out, "How could you?" They'd done it. They'd thrown Yuri into the portal again. He was too late. "He was just a little boy. He had his whole life ahead of him, and you took that from him. For what? For science?"

"That child was the first living being to travel through time. He ought to thank me! Before, he was a poor orphan who'd grow up to be just another homeless nobody living on the fringe of society down in that gutter you call a neighbourhood. But now, he's paving the way for the greatest scientific advancement since the invention of blastia." He jabbed a stubby finger at Flynn. "It's you who's harming him! You want to keep him as nothing but a useless child. I'm turning him into progress."

Flynn couldn't stop himself from starting, "You are so full of…" but he remembered what uniform he was wearing and stopped himself before he became completely unprofessional. "That's some fancy wordplay to try to turn yourself into a hero here. However, I'm still going to arrest you on charges of abduction and," he pointed with his sword to the test tubes and the smears of blood on the shiny countertop, "unethical experimentation."

"You can't!" Herbert backed away as Flynn approached. "Please, wait just five more minutes! You'll see, that boy will be perfectly fine! I used the ratio of how far he travelled last time to cut back on it this time. He was only supposed to be gone for ten minutes! He'll be here any second!"

Flynn glanced at the stop watch in his hand. The minute hand crept toward the three. "You're five minutes over already. How many more years of his life have you stolen?"

"Not stolen!" Herbert waved his hands while his eyes kept going to Flynn's sword. Flynn wasn't going to use it on him, but he didn't need to know that. "The biopsies proved his tissues show no sign of unnaturally accelerated aging and there doesn't seem to be any unhealthy stress on his body. We haven't taken any years from him!"

"What about the years he was supposed to spend growing up alongside me in the lower quarter?"

Herbert scoffed. "The boy would hardly complain about that. Who wouldn't trade that for becoming the adopted son of the commandant and living in luxury?"

"It was his life! The life he was supposed to live, and you took that away from him and hurled him out of his own time. You're under arrest for such flagrant abuse of a child."

Flynn reached for his handcuffs, but then a burst of light crackled near the ceiling. Yuri dropped out of the air and crashed to the ground with a thunk. This startled Flynn, and that gave Herbert time to zip past him and make a run for the door. Cumore was already almost there, after spending the entire confrontation sidling toward it.

Flynn ran after Herbert. He only took half a second to notice that Yuri lay on the floor with his hands bound in front of him, coughing and panting. Herbert stepped around Yuri to make it to the door, but then Yuri stuck his leg out and Herbert toppled to the ground. Flynn was on him within seconds and yanked his arms behind his back to lock the handcuffs on.

Cumore had already booked it into the hall. Torn, Flynn looked to Yuri, who nodded.

"G-go," Yuri panted, and because it was Yuri, there was still more anger on his face than fear even after all he'd been through. "Get him!"

Flynn dashed after Cumore. The knight was stopped by a closed door at the end of the hall, and while he fumbled with the knob, Flynn caught up with him. Cumore whirled around and pressed himself against the door.

"N-no!" he whined. "Don't hurt me! It wasn't my fault! I don't kn-know anything about blastia magic!"

Flynn lowered his sword. "I know that."

"I didn't even want to hurt that bra - I mean, that poor child! Herbert is the fool who planned everything."

"I said I know that." Flynn sheathed his sword and Cumore visibly relaxed. "I'm fully aware you're not an evil mastermind, Cumore. You're not smart enough for that."

Cumore clearly wanted to argue that point, but being faced by a furious commandant stayed his tongue.

"You know what you are? A bully. You pick on people who are smaller or weaker than you. You caned Yuri because you could - because he was too small to fight back. And I think I find that even more disgusting than someone who harms others for corrupted ideals."

"Yes, you're right." Cumore clasped his hands. "I swear to work on this problem and become a knight more worthy of the title."

Flynn snorted. "You've run out of chances, Cumore. I caught you red-handed involved in the abduction and practically torture of a child. Maybe you can work on this in prison, which is where you're going to be for a long time."

"But… but, Commandant, sir, I've only ever loyally served-"

"Drop it." Flynn rolled his eyes. "And you know? You're probably lucky you helped the mages steal Yuri's life. I'm certain that if Yuri was the same age as me, you would have run out of chances with him a long time ago. But because he didn't have the chance to grow up and give you his justice himself, you're getting it from me and you're under arrest."

Flynn wasn't worried about Cumore escaping. Every knight in Zaphias would recognize him and be happy to turn him in, so his only chance would be to flee into the wilderness. Considering Cumore considered entering the public quarter as good as going camping, that wasn't an option for him. Instead, Flynn stepped into the main lobby just long enough to ask the woman at the desk to send for the knights to escort two felons to jail, and then rushed back to the lab room to check on Yuri.

When he got back to the lab, Herbert lay on his stomach talking to Yuri. "...and you'll see it was all for the best. You should be so proud of helping me. I'm sure you'll understand when you're older. If you just-"

"Shut up," Flynn said.

"But-"

"Don't talk to him." Flynn stepped past the cretin and dropped to his knees in front of Yuri.

Yuri leaned against the side of the counter, eyes rimmed with red and bound hands between his folded knees. On his right arm was a wide swath of white bandage with splotches of blood starting to show through, his face was pale as a sheet, and a few feet away was a puddle of vomit.

Flynn snatched a scalpel from the counter and sliced through the rope around his wrists. Next he grabbed a cloth and gently wiped Yuri's mouth, and then gripped his shoulders. "Are you all right?"

Yuri glanced away. "Feel pretty crummy, but I'm ok."

"Good." Flynn let out a prolonged breath to relieve the tension he'd built up since discovering Yuri missing. Then that tension escaped through words. "What were you thinking?! I told you not to leave the castle on your own! This is what I feared would happen! You could have been killed!"

Yuri's head lowered further and his shoulders tightened beneath Flynn's fingers. "Sorry," he muttered.

"Why do you have to be so reckless? Like it or not, you're still a child and…." Flynn stopped when he was finally able to register Yuri's face. He'd never seen his friend look so small. Flynn's hands lowered to Yuri's back and then pulled him against his chest in a crushing embrace. "I was so worried about you."

After thirty seconds of this, Yuri squirmed. "Flynn… you're kinda crushing me…."

Flynn let him go. "Sorry. How do you feel? You're sure you're all right?"

Yuri shrugged. "I feel like I got squeezed through a tube while spinning in circles but at least I didn't pass out this time."

"Interesting!" Herbert piped up. "I'd hypothesize that the farther in time you travel, the greater a toll it takes on your body."

Flynn's head shot around. "What did I tell you about speaking?"

Herbert's excitement paled under Flynn's gaze. "R-right…."

"Actually…." Flynn took Yuri's wrist and gently pulled out his arm. The bandage covered several inches just below his elbow joint. "What did you do to him?"

"It was nothing seriously invasive," Herbert began. "I just needed some samples of various tissues as a control so I could check how the second round of biopsies was different after the trip through time."

"So you just took a scalpel to his arm? You didn't even give him any drugs?"

"I didn't want any additional chemicals interfering with the test results."

Flynn stared at him for a few long seconds as he reined in his fury. "No, I was right, go back to not speaking. I don't want to risk testing my patience any further."

In a cupboard below the counter, Flynn found a first aid kit with some apple gels. He gave these to Yuri and then said, "Does your ankle still hurt?"

Yuri nodded.

"I'll carry you home. Come here." He turned around and let Yuri climb onto his back. Flynn piggy-backed Yuri out of the lab and down the hall. As he reached the lobby, knights were arriving and already had Cumore in embarrassed custody. "The other culprit is in the lab down the hall," Flynn told them. "I've already subdued him."

"Yes, sir!" the knight saluted.

Outside, Flynn began the walk home. It was fully dark now and by the time they reached the royal quarter, the streets were deserted. They walked along a tree-lined boulevard, listening to crickets chirp their pleasure for the warm night.

"Flynn." Yuri's voice broke the silence when they were a few blocks from the castle. "I can walk."

Flynn came to a stop. "Are you sure? I don't mind."

"Yeah. I can walk. Put me down."

"As you wish." He crouched so Yuri could slide off his back. Instead of starting to walk again, Yuri stared up at the lights of the castle and then slumped to the curb with a sigh.

"What's up?"

Yuri rested his arms on his knees and stared at the cobbled road. "I'm sorry, Flynn. I know I shouldn't have snuck out. I promise I'll do what you say from now on."

Flynn waited a moment to see if Yuri was done, and then sat beside him. His fingers pressed into the boulevard's warm grass. "I'm sorry for shouting at you."

Yuri looked up at him surprise.

"I shouldn't have yelled, especially a few minutes ago. But, do you know why I did?"

"'Cause you're a jerk."

Flynn chuckled. "Ok, maybe that's part of it. But, I yelled because I was scared. Ever since you disappeared as a kid, I thought I would never see you again. I was really scared that would happen again. I would be furious at anyone who put you in danger or risked your life, even if that person was yourself."

"I didn't mean to scare you."

"I know. You're a good kid. Just… a little more reckless than my heart can take."

"I'm not helpless, you know. You don't have to always decide everything for me."

Flynn sighed. "Yuri, you know I love you, right? When we were kids, you were like a brother to me."

"Yeah."

"But, things are different now. Our relationship can't be the same as used to. I told you I wasn't your friend anymore, and that's sort of true. I said you could live with me, but we're not two friends living together. I'm your guardian now. I want to have fun with you, but it's more important to take care of you."

"But I don't need to be taken care of."

Flynn's arm encircled Yuri's shoulders. "Maybe you're right. Maybe you could survive on your own. I managed from when I was ten, after all. But, it wasn't really that great a life. I'm going to give you the life the I wished I had. I'm not going to give you away to anyone else. I know it's weird to think of me like this, but… I'm going to be your dad."

"I guess… it's not really possible to just be friends anymore, is it? You don't even like playing games."

Flynn smiled a little. "You're mostly right. I do like playing with you, but my enjoyment comes from seeing you happy, rather than having fun with the toys myself."

"I think I liked you more as a brother than a dad."

Flynn pulled him tighter against his side. "I know. And it's really not fair that we didn't get the chance to grow up that way. But, this is what we have so let's make the best of it."

Yuri was quiet for a while. He scuffed his shoes on the cobbles and fiddled with the ragged edge of his shirt. Finally he said, "Ok. If I had to have a dad, I would pick you."

"And you know that means sometimes I'm going to tell you to do things you don't want to do."

"Yeah."

"And I expect you to do them. I'm not being a bossy friend; I'm being a parent."

Yuri pouted. "I get it."

"But no matter what, please don't run off again. Cumore and Herbert are taken care of, but I was telling the truth about other people trying to hurt you to get to me."

"Yeah." Yuri rubbed his still sore arm. "I'm not letting that happen again."

"So, are we good?"

Yuri held out his left arm. Flynn automatically met it with his own and they shared the special highfive they'd come up with so many years ago. "Yeah," Yuri said. "We're good." He used Flynn's shoulder to help himself to his feet. "Let's go home."

"Ok. But actually, I really should carry you. Estellise said not to put stress on your ankle, and you've certainly done that."

Yuri seemed to want to argue, but his foot was sore enough that he caved without a fuss. He climbed onto Flynn's back and rested his chin on Flynn's shoulder. As they walked, he tightened his arms around Flynn's chest and said, "Hey, Flynn? I'm hungry. Can we have supper when we get back to the castle?"

"Of course."

"And dessert?"

"Nope."

"What?!"

"No dessert for a week. That's your punishment for sneaking out."

Yuri pulled one arm away so he could lightly punch Flynn's shoulder. "I was kidnapped! And experimented on! And sent through a freaky vortex through time and I coulda died!"

"All good reasons why you shouldn't have snuck out."

"Is this what you're gonna be like as a dad? Punishing me for things I already got hurt doing?"

Yuri was the kind of kid who'd consider the possibility of losing a limb an exciting risk and prior injury as proof it had been an awesome adventure. Restricting his access to cake, however, might convince him to toe the line. "Yep."

Yuri sighed dramatically. "You suck."

After a few more minutes of walking, Yuri said, "Hey… Flynn?"

"Hm?" Flynn was enjoying the walk home. The night was peaceful, he finally had charges he could stick Cumore with, and he had Yuri's weight reassuringly in his arms. After all the stress he'd gone through nearly losing him for the second time, part of him didn't ever want to put him down again.

"You won't tell anyone I threw up, right?"

"Why would I?"

"It's just… it's not really cool, right? And - and it wasn't 'cause I was scared or anything. I just felt really sick 'cause of the time travel."

"I understand."

"And maybe I was crying a little, but your body just sort of does that when things hurt a lot so it's not like that means I was scared."

It was lucky Yuri was on his back because he certainly wouldn't have liked the amused expression on Flynn's face. "I know."

"But… even though I wasn't scared… thanks for saving me."

"You don't have to thank me. I promise I'll always be there to pull you out of your messes."

"'Cause we're family, right?"

They reached the steps of the castle and Flynn smiled as he carried Yuri into their home. "Yeah. That's right."