Some Legends are Told
Tick…. Tick…. Tick…. Tick
The steady rhythmic ticking of the clock in the café was driving Tadashi crazy, tempting him, once again, to take it off the damned wall and dispose of it granting him some blissful silence. It had been two hours, thirty six minutes and thirteen seconds since he'd arrived home after abandoning Hiro in the park.
Tick…. Tick…. Tick…. Tick… Ring.
Tadashi leapt to his feet and rushed to the door when the café doorbell rang two hours, thirty six minutes and forty five seconds after the incident in the park, relief coursing through him at the awkward sight of Hiro attempting to manoeuvre his wheelchair into the café. The glare that Hiro directed at him the moment he spotted him was deadly. "How could you just leave me there?!" Hiro demanded, shoving the door open. "I can't exactly just get up and walk home!"
Tadashi walked over towards the doorway and grabbed hold of the door, holding it open for Hiro. "You're here, aren't you?" Tadashi pointed out, oh so casually. It was a façade but one he knew how to hold. He was not about to admit that he'd been questioning his own decision the entire time he'd counted the seconds, waiting for Hiro to get home. That would defeat the point of the entire exercise.
"No thanks to you." Hiro wheeled his way into the café.
"Hmm." Tadashi agreed absently. Releasing the door, he grabbed hold of the handlebars and wheeled Hiro over to a table in the back corner of the café. Lying on its surface was a wrapped sandwich. Tadashi pushed the food in front of Hiro. "Eat." He ordered crossing his arms.
"Im not hun…"
"If you say you're not hungry I'll take you back to the park and leave you there again. The extra exercise should whet your appetite."
Hiro shut his mouth and glared at Tadashi as he unwrapped the sandwich his brother had placed in front of him. Not breaking the stare, he lifted the bread and pointedly took a bite.
Tadashi nodded in satisfaction before walking away, heading towards the café's counter. "I'll get you a glass of orange juice."
Tadashi returned few minutes later, by which time Hiro had given up on his pretense of anger. He'd had a lot of time to consider the reason for his brother's actions on the way home. He was tired, his hands were blistered and bleeding and all his muscles were sore. As a result he was cranky but he wasn't really angry at Tadashi. Tadashi had done what he'd done because he'd been worried about Hiro and the extremity of the action he'd eventually resorted to only showed just how deep that worry had run.
Tadashi slipped into the seat directly across from Hiro and silently slid one of the glasses of orange juice over towards him. Hiro placed the remaining half of his sandwich down onto the table and stared at it intensely, carefully avoiding his brother's gaze. "I'm sorry."
"Excuse me?" Tadashi's tone was filled with surprise.
"I'm sorry, ok?" Hiro repeated, peering up at Tadashi through his bangs. Tadashi was staring at him in confusion, orange juice suspended half way between the table and his lips. "I didn't mean to make you worry." Hiro clarified, looking away once more to pick at his food.
Tadashi sighed and placed the glass back down onto the table before reaching over to brush Hiro's bangs out of his face. The act was futile as they slipped right back into place. "We're family. Worrying about each other is part of that."
Hiro blinked, fighting back stray tears at Tadashi's words. Reaching up he grabbed hold of one of Tadashi's hands, his breath hitching when his fingers encountered familiar cool metal. Tugging Tadashi's hand down, he placed it on the table before carefully tracing the all too familiar logo engraved into the dark grey metal. "I've been thinking."
"Hmm?" Tadashi hummed in response hoping to prompt Hiro to continue. He watched as Hiro played with the strange bracelet that had become his link to both Hiro and life itself.
Hiro stopped playing with Tadashi's bracelet and pulled up the sleeve of the dark blue, long sleeve top he was wearing, revealing the identical bracelet that was still attached to his own wrist. Tadashi glanced at it, not surprised to see it there. "Am I the one that pushed you through the time rift?" Hiro asked, glancing up at Tadashi once again.
Tadashi's answer was both simple and succinct. "Yes."
"I see." Hiro processed the confirmation for a moment before asking yet another question. "Did you see the space between?" Hiro was curious to know what Tadashi had encountered in that space. Tadashi had made his last choice on the day he had died in the showcase fire which meant there could be no threads for him to follow as he no longer had a life to live.
"No."
Hiro blinked in surprise. He hadn't expected Tadashi to know what he was referring to. "You know about the space between?"
Tadashi flushed, a flicker of guilt crossing his features before vanishing from sight. "We were researching time portals and I stumbled upon some theoretical notes that described it while I was trying to find you." Tadashi hedged, not about to admit that the notes in question had been written by Hiro himself.
Hiro nodded, accepting the explanation before asking the key question. "Why not?"
"You tell me." Tadashi reached out to trace the bracelet on Hiro's wrist. "You're the one that invented this."
"I may have a theory…" Hiro volunteered hesitantly, not sure if he really wanted to share it. It was only the beginning of an idea and he hadn't really had enough time to think it through but Tadashi had always been a good person to bounce ideas off of. "But I'm not sure how accurate it is."
"Theorize away." Tadashi leaned back and prepared to listen.
"The portal would always link to a specific time in the timeline but I never managed to step into the time that the portal would link to. I'd end up in the space between. I've been trying to figure out why I always ended up in the space between instead of the actual time the portal was linking to. I think that I added an additional variable to the equations that were running the portal simply by stepping into it in the first place. Technically I shouldn't have survived the transition. The portal reacted by sending me into a space that only allowed me to travel within the limits of my own lifetime."
Tadashi smiled, the action tinged with melancholy. He remembered the diary entry written by the future Hiro that recorded a theory along similar lines. "Makes sense."
"I didn't really realize it until recently." Hiro admitted, looking away from Tadashi in shame. He couldn't believe it had taken him so long to stumble upon something that had been right in front of him all along. "I can't believe I missed something so obvious!"
"It's not that obvious if you take into consideration the circumstances of your capture and the complexity of the project you were pulled into." Tadashi said softly leaning in once more to rest a hand on one of Hiro's in support. "You may be a genius but even genius comes with its imperfections. You're just as human as the rest of us you know."
Hiro chewed his lip, remaining silent. Tadashi's words made sense but it was still a weakness Hiro wasn't comfortable with facing.
"So… what's your theory?" Tadashi prompted, when Hiro made no move to continue speaking.
"I think the bracelet synchronized to my lifespan the moment I stepped into the portal." Hiro explained reaching out to tug on his own copy of the object in question. "It was already linked to my lifespan when I put it onto you at the showcase fire," Hiro continued, remembering the nightmare that had plagued him from the moment that he'd made the decision to use the time portal to track down and speak to Tadashi. Not one to believe in coincidences, he'd realized the dream had been more of a premonition than a nightmare, "and pushed you through the rift."
"If your theory is correct wouldn't that have thrown me into the space between that was linked to your lifespan instead of my own?" Tadashi asked.
"Theoretically, yes, but you're not me." Hiro pointed out. "You're my brother and even though your DNA is very similar to mine it's not exactly the same. The rift accepted you because you share a lot of my DNA but it couldn't really process you correctly because technically you…" Hiro hesitated, taking a deep pained breath before continuing. "Technically you were not supposed to exist." He finished on a whisper.
Ignoring the whisper of pain that Hiro's words managed to awake in him, Tadashi seriously considered the idea before speaking. "I still existed in the moment that I stepped into the rift."
"But the portal didn't exist then." Hiro pointed out hitting the crux of the issue right on the head.
"So you're saying the portal let me enter because my DNA matched yours but threw me out because it didn't know what to do with me?"
"In layman's terms, yes." Hiro agreed. "But I don't understand why it let you enter in the first place. Even though your DNA is a close match to mine, it's not an exact one and the portal should have been able to detect that before allowing you to enter the rift."
Tadashi frowned, absently filtering through the information he'd received since expectantly stumbling three years into the future before realizing Hiro was missing something important: the very thing that had been instrumental to helping Tadashi and the gang find him in the first place. "Strong emotion."
"What?" Hiro glanced up at Tadashi once more, confused.
"The portal reacts to strong emotion. I think the portal let me enter the rift because you desperately wanted it to." Tadashi said.
Hiro blinked, Tadashi's words swirling around in his mind as the final pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. "Strong emotion." He whispered, reaching out to grab hold of Tadashi's hand once more, squeezing it as hard as he could. Giving up his fight against his emotions, he released the silent tears that he'd been holding back and lost himself in the joy of having his brother at his side.
- BH6 - BH6 - BH6 –
Guest: My friend is going home today! I'm relieved as well. I agree, the previous chapter was a nice light hearted balance for everything that had come before and a build up towards the end.
Guest: I so agree. He is also the only other character I like almost as much as Hiro which is why I couldn't think of anyone else to use XD XD XD.
WriterGreenReads: Jack was an awesome distraction wasn't he? XD
Tori657: I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter I wrote on a whim. Hiro is slowly adjusting once more and will probably be fine! He's a strong kid after all.
shooting2stars: I am so glad I was able to still surprise you so late in the game. Jack was definitely a light-hearted fun character to write and lightened the tone of this story a little. Hiro is getting there with his recovery and will most definitely be ok! As for his devious plans... they didn't quite play out the way he had hoped.
Dreamer: I'm glad you felt the confrontation between Tadashi and Hiro was realistic after they both found out the extent of Hiro's injuries. I figured Hiro would be bitter and Tadashi would be tired of being 'perfect' and collected. It's a lot of hard work. I can't thank you enough for saying my characters come across as three dimensional. It's one of the biggest compliments an author can get. We all want the characters to be relatable and real and that's not always easy to accomplish. Particularly when you are taking over someone else's characters. I like how this story ended up. I really enjoyed the interactions between the gang, love how Fred became and integral part towards getting to the solution, enjoyed the dynamic between the brothers and loved Aunt Cass. It all fit together a lot better than I ever imagined it would. I also really enjoyed slipping in Jack Frost. Funk is 100 percent the correct word to use btw XD. Onto the personal notes: My friend is doing much better! She is going home today! YAY! Onto the other question: No, I am not a scientist. I am a whole brain orientated person though so I do have both an artistic and scientific side. I write technical documents for a living and am involved in the analytical design of software solutions so I am used to analyzing things rather in depth.