Author's Note: This chapter had a lot more going on than I originally intended, but I definitely do not regret it. I had to move some events around to make sense, but I am eager to cover them and delve into the character and plot development I have planned. Once again, I appreciate every view, kudos, bookmark and comment. (:

Chapter 3

Even before, it was rare for Saanvi to spend any time at home. She would much prefer being in the lab, discovering new things and solving cases that had no obvious explanation. It was a challenge, but she felt useful. Even when she stopped receiving Callings, she was still dedicated to helping Ben and his family make sense of theirs, if not through magic, then at least with logic.

Being sent home early made her feel unneeded, lacking the tools to be worth keeping around. Realistically, that made no sense, but being told that she looked like death and could use a few hours of sleep by a higher up was about as good as telling her she was not useful there and may as well leave.

That was earlier this morning, before she had been flagged down by a vehicle driving way too close behind her. When a man in a black suit stepped out of the driver's side, Saanvi conceded that this was where it ended for her. She had done something to screw up and this was karma coming to decide her fate, one way or another.

The fact that the man didn't even ask her to step out of her car was relieving, but it had left even more questions when he requested that she follow him. Her "stranger danger" alarm had not stopped ringing since her car had, but something told her that the man who spoke to her–and the others that most likely occupied his car–wasn't going to take "no" for an answer.

And so, shutting her window and locking the car door, she followed after them mindlessly.

When they finally pulled into a lot, she frowned heavily. The detention center, filled with more tents than she cared to count. Why was she here?

Being sent home from work had been a miserable feeling on its own, but this was just the icing on the cake. It was unrealistic to wish that this place had phased out of existence the moment they stepped off the plane, but Saanvi had opened herself up to the impossible a long time ago, so couldn't help but hope.

Exiting her car slowly, she looked around, hoping that she could make some sort of the sense from all of this. No one seemed willing to give her answers, and even the man who had first pulled her over–who was now guiding her arm–gave her little to work with in the way of an explanation.

She had been directed to one of the tables set off to the side of the one of the tents, and the older woman on the one side didn't even glance up before she was pointing with her pen at the chair across from her. It was a clear order to sit down, and Saanvi wasn't to assume it was a mere invitation. The woman had her dark hair pulled back, leaving the expression on her face–as well the firm lines they wore–clear to Saanvi.

"Umm," Saanvi started, feeling a different kind of anxiety rise in her throat. "I don't quite understand. Why am I here?"

The woman began writing on a clipboard that was set in front of her, and the silence carried along for a few seconds–certainly enough to make Saanvi feel like she had spoken out of turn. But she could be patient if she really wanted to–at least, she told herself that–so she placed her hands, folded, on her lap and waited. Waited.

"You are Dr. Saanvi Bahl, correct?" the woman asked, finally lifting her head to look her in the eye. Saanvi had a feeling it wasn't really a question.

"Um," she said again, before following with, "yes, I am."

The woman wrote a bit more on the clipboard, and Saanvi felt that unending patience begin to crack. "What am I doing here? No one has told me anything. Am I–"

"Rivera," said a voice behind her, and Saanvi jumped at the familiarity. She turned as best as she could in the chair, and her suspicion was confirmed when she saw Vance standing behind them, She opened her mouth, ready to speak up, but shut it just as quickly. Vance wasn't even looking at her. "Leave this one to me. We're wrapping up here."

Wrapping up? Saanvi let her gaze travel around the lot, and saw that some of the tents were already being packed up. She hadn't even been sitting for that long, and yet it seemed they were already in a rush. Her confusion only grew more.

The woman gave Vance a small nod before taking her clipboard and the small suitcase next to it. Saanvi hadn't noticed it at first, but the woman was very quick to organize her belongings before taking her leave. Saanvi was left sitting in the chair and looking up at Vance who quickly moved to the other side of the table. He didn't take the seat previously occupied, though. He just stood and looked down at Saanvi, peering at her with squinted eyes like he always did.

It was intrusive then, and it was intimidating now.

"Dr. Bahl, my name is Robert Vance. I am in charge of looking into the disappearance of the 11 passengers of flight 828. You were brought here to answer some questions."

It all made sense now, not that Saanvi didn't have some sort of idea.

"To find out what happened to them," Saanvi provided, although she knew it to be unnecessary.

"You catch on fast," Vance said, and the way he said it only made her clasp her hands tighter.

Her parents always said she had a guilty conscience, and that she couldn't keep the truth a secret to save her life. Her brain was screaming at her to be quiet–she technically didn't do anything, and there was little she could do to help Vance and his investigation. But her eyes inevitably drifted away out of habit, looking for something else to take their attention.

Ben Stone.

She saw him just as clearly as if he was in front of her, exiting a tent across the lot with a look on his face that she couldn't discern. For a moment, she forgot why she was even here, and was invested to know why Ben of all people happened to be here at the same time as her.

"Do you have a relationship with Ben Stone?" she heard Vance ask suddenly, and Saanvi snapped back to attention, noticing Vance was looking between her and where her eyes previously led. Saanvi was not a subtle person in the slightest, and she couldn't expect Vance of all people to not notice.

"Ben Stone?" she asked, as though clarifying, but she knew it was a nervous tick that kept her talking. "Oh, no–I… uh, I help his son at the hospital I work at. We don't know each other that well.

Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through her skull, momentarily blinding her from the world around her. It was what she felt earlier, when she had been working in the lab. When she had called Ben and dropped her phone from the pain.

Liar.

A soft, feminine voice hissed in her ear, sharp as a thorn.

Vance gave her an odd look, although not one she would say was concern or even suspicion. It was blank, and she was certain he was preparing himself to question her further. She prayed she could keep her answers vague, and keep the impossible truth far away. Keep her head from pounding even harder. Keep her eyes on Ben.

"All right," Vance finally said, pushing in the chair that Rivera had left behind. Then, he said, "You can go."

I can… go? She was baffled. That was hardly an interview, and she hadn't even given the vaguest of answers to any questions she was sure he wanted to ask. But the look Vance gave her said she was dismissed, and any former loyalty he had to her–and the rest of the passengers–was long gone. It was sad, and Saanvi wasn't about to wallow in it.

Saanvi stood up from the chair and Vance walked away before she could say anything to him, although that wasn't really anything… new.

She walked to her car with her eyes peeled, wondering just where Ben had gone, before she spotted him just across the lot. They locked eyes, and she waited as he moved to join her.

His hug was unexpected but welcome, and his hands on her cheek were a blessing in disguise as she felt the remnants of her migraine began to fade. His words of concern were so like him that she was caught up in the familiarity and comfort. For the first time in the last month, things felt somewhat normal again, but she knew that "normal" was relative.

She stared at him, concern written all over his face, and knew that the feelings that she had clung to for so long had never left. Ben Stone had so much love to give, and he didn't realize just how much she pined for it. The feeling of being wanted, of being loved. Even back in her room at the very detention center they currently stood at, she could feel his slight hesitance in the way he touched her.

He had kissed her fervently then, and she was so caught up in it that she never even questioned it. She hadn't asked Ben what the feelings meant, and whether they were anything more. On what they thought was the last night of their own existence, she brought it up then, just to know. She knew he wasn't over Grace, and even the part of her deep down that hoped for something more knew that him sleeping with her was not going to mean anything.

They loved each other–that was clear. She would freely admit it–she did, and he did as well. But that love didn't go as deep for him as it did for her. It was why when, after the headache faded and his hands remained, they began to feel like the scorched earth that 828 had sprung up from. Pain.

Saanvi had pulled away then. She gave her excuses, all of them she could, because that was easy and it hurt less. Everything hurt less when she pulled away. The headache returned, but as a dull ache that paled in comparison to the intensity of the fire.

She got in her car with the prints still on her cheeks, and she couldn't help her tears from flowing.

By the time Saanvi made it home, she could only described the feeling she had as draining. Every bit of her was sore and tired, and she had to admonish herself for feeling that way when she had barely worked half a shift. She had only been doing routine work, and that hadn't been enough, apparently.

When she opened the door to her apartment, she saw that everything was the same as she'd left it–blank walls, clean counters, and untouched couches. It was miserably plain, and she wanted to revel in it. Take the misery and shove a hammer to its face.

She threw her bag on the couch, wishing that it was heavy enough to make a dent in the wall if she chose that direction. But it wasn't, and Saanvi had to settle for slamming her hands hard on the counter. It hurt, but that was the point, wasn't it? God, she was a mess.

She reached for the glass beside her and began to fill it with water, nearly dropping it and jumping herself when she saw a figure walk into the room.

Saanvi grabbed her chest with her other hand and then pushed her hair back, trying to sort herself out but knowing she was failing miserably.

"Bad day?" Alex asked, moving to stand on the other side of the counter.

A bad day? Call it a draining day and she'd be closer. But those words had been said before, and Saanvi was sure Alex was tired of hearing them.

Saanvi didn't answer for a while, until Alex cleared her throat. "Uh, yes… yeah, it wasn't… the greatest."

"Seems to be happening a lot these days," Alex said, rounding the corner and placing a hand on her elbow. While Alex looked concerned, she also looked frightened in a way. Her grip on her elbow tightened, and for a moment Saanvi wondered if she was losing color in her face. Was she about to pass out and Alex was making sure she didn't fall over?

She had gotten light-headed before, so she knew the feeling didn't always hit right away. But she shuffled her foot, and found that she was stable. She looked back in time to see Alex's hand coming to touch her face.

Saanvi instinctively pulled away before realizing what she was doing. The look of concerned was still there, but the other emotion was stronger–it was alarm.

"God, Saanvi, what happened to your face?"

Saanvi immediately reached up to touch her cheek, but only felt smooth skin under her fingers. It wasn't rough or scarred, and she didn't feel any blood. She even brought her fingers into her eyeline to check, but there was nothing.

"It's all red," Alex went on, probably noticing Saanvi's confusion. "It almost… looks like handprints. Saanvi, what happened?"

The burning. The thought hit her suddenly, and she felt her hands come up to touch her cheeks once more. It didn't feel warm, nor swollen or in any way injured. She turned to the counter and grabbed her back, shuffling through it until she found the small compact mirror she kept in it. Flipping it open, she looked at herself, and nearly dropped it right then and there.

Besides the fact that her eyes were red–from either tears or exhaustion–both cheeks were reddened as though sunburned, shaped like the same hands that had held them not even an hour ago.

"I… don't know," it was the truth, but the prints were too close to be a coincidence. Her mind was running a million miles a minute. "Sunburn, maybe, but–"

"It's been cloudy all day," Alex interrupted her, moving past her to grab a towel. Saanvi heard the sink turn on, but she hardly noticed, so engrossed by the image in the mirror that she didn't even think to follow. Pressing her fingers against her cheek, she found that nothing happened. The redness remained, although it didn't hurt or sting like sunburn normally would. It also wasn't peeling or scabbing over like various other skin conditions.

It was bizarre, but she knew staring at herself wasn't going to give her any more answers than she had already. She moved to close the mirror, but stopped just short. For a moment, she saw a ripple in the image reflected back at her.

Saanvi looked back up, noticing that Alex was wetting the towel in the sink at that moment. Had she just seen her out of the corner of her eye? She looked back at the mirror, fully convinced of this when her reflection continued to stare back, unchanged.

She was ready to close it again, but then it happened. The mirror rippled just slightly, and Saanvi watched as she–her own image–faded just slightly, her skin turning its normal shade yet the entire image losing part of its visibility. It was a ghostly visage, one that still followed her movements even if it didn't match her appearance entirely.

Raising her hand, she moved to touch the mirror, but as soon as it made contact, her true image faded back into place, as though it had never left at all. At the same time, Alex appeared in front of her and she felt a cool touch again her cheek brought on by the rag that had been wet.

"So, are you going to explain this?" Alex asked, pressing the rag against her cheek in several places when Saanvi finally closed the mirror.

"I told you, I don't know what it is or what happened," she said, moving to hold the rag herself to give Alex a free hand.

"Saanvi, this isn't the first time you've said that," Alex responded, moving to the other side of the counter again. "You said the same thing two weeks ago, remember? Things just keep 'happening.'"

"If I knew, I would tell you," Saanvi said, moving past her to sit on the couch. She was as confused as Alex, but the things she knew already made it much worse to think about. The possibilities were something she didn't even want to consider.

Alex was silent for a while, and it was only when she moved to join her near the couch that she even looked up. "You've been out of sorts since you got off the plane."

"I know, I'm sorry," Saanvi said immediately, but Alex quickly followed.

"You said that last time, too. Saanvi, what aren't you telling me? Why can't you just talk to me?"

"I am talking to you," Saanvi said, dropping the rag onto the couch to stand up. "There's just nothing to say. I've been dealing with work and new developments. There's a lot going on."

"I've seen you stressed before," Alex said, as if reminding her of something. "This is different. It's like you're a different person nowadays. Do you want to talk to someone else? Is that it?"

She knew immediately what Alex was implying, and her heart began to to race. "No, no. I don't need to go and talk to anyone." The last person she had "talked" to had betrayed her in the worst possible way. It could have ended there, if Saanvi didn't end up being directly responsible for taking her life in return.

Her eyes traveled down, and Alex sighed. "You're doing it again. We talk, and then you'll just be gone. I hear you talk in your sleep–you never used to do that, either. There's something going on, and I don't know why you won't just be honest with me."

"I can't," Saanvi snapped, her eyes wide as her hands flew upward dramatically. "I can't talk to you about this. I'm still figuring things out too. This is all so new and…"

"New?" Alex echoed, and Saanvi stopped, watching as she processed what she was saying. "Saanvi, what do you mean by new? You mean your apartment? Because if you need, I can–"

"No, no, I don't mean that." She closed her eyes and pressed a palm to her forehead, unable to get the words out that she desperately wanted to. "I just–you know what, I can't talk about it right now. It's been a long day. Can I just call you later?"

The last line was pleading, and she knew it was kind of pathetic. But the panic she felt but very quickly moving in, and Alex was the one person she did not want around for it.

Her desperation must have carried in her voice, because while for a moment Alex looked like she wanted to argue, she eventually gave the smallest of nods and grabbed her bag from the couch. She didn't kiss her, nor did she even give her a glance as she gathered her jacket and left the apartment, the door closing loudly behind her.

The "peace" Saanvi was left with was pure silence, and at that moment, she wasn't sure anything else quite matched it.

Ben knew that when he made it home and saw their car in the driveway, he had been gone for far longer than he ever hoped to. It wasn't 5 and a half years worth, but it was definitely enough to make Grace wonder where he had gone this morning.

It was why when she nearly squeezed the life out of him and then resorted to admonishing him, Ben did not say a word in his own defense. He tried to reassure her several times by resting his hand on her shoulder, but Grace wasn't finished with her ranting, and he knew full well that he deserved it. Why should he even try to stop her?

"I don't understand, Ben–why would you just take off and not even text me? You could have even left a note. Was it Michaela? Your mom?"

He knew she was just throwing out names hoping to make sense of it, but they both knew that had it been either of them, he would have had no issue with letting her know he had an emergency. But it wasn't an emergency–not really, and the desperation to tell her what happened was being quickly drowned out by the draining feeling that was creeping over him. He couldn't lie, but how much of the truth could he tell?

"I went in for questioning," he finally said, pulling out a chair at the table. Grace followed him and chose to stand beside him as he finally slumped into the chair, "about the missing passengers of 828."

"Now?" Grace asked. "You didn't just stay to talk here?"

"It wasn't exactly my choice," he said warily, and then sighed when the reality sunk in. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. They don't know anything, and it's probably going to stay that way for a while."

A pause followed, and he looked up at Grace. The face she made was similar to when she mentioned the storm, only now alongside the confusion, she was also incredulous.

"I've never known you to be so…" she began, but seemed to struggle to find the words. Finally, she followed with, "How can you be so sure? If they questioned you once, they can do it again."

Yeah, and that was something he was all too aware of and not eager to repeat. He really needed to speak to Saanvi to figure out how they would move forward with that. But until then, he was left in the dark with both what to do and just how much Vance knew beyond what he told him. Daly was dead–by Vance's own words–and that was enough of a surprise that Ben was left spinning.

"They probably will, but I doubt we'll have much information to give that will help," he said, shrugging.

"You don't seem overly concerned about this," Grace observed, and Ben realized that his "casual" attitude must have sounded so off to Grace, not knowing what he knew. Eleven people go missing on the same flight as you and don't even think to question it? He pictured the words in her mind, and knew she would not let that go.

"Ben," she said, pulling up a chair to sit beside him when he didn't immediately respond. "This thing–this flight 828 thing–I'm really concerned. You've brought it up more than once, and now they're pulling you out of your home for questioning?" She shook her head, and then met his eyes. "Ben, you didn't… you don't know anything, do you?"

"No!" he answered far too quickly, and his head pounded.

Liar.

"It's…" he started, pinching his nose and tilting his head back as the words he wanted to say began to jumble in his thoughts. "It's a complicated situation. I can't… It's hard to explain."

"Ben, you're starting to scare me," Grace said, pressing the back of her hand against his forehead. She had done it before as a comforting gesture, but right now he was positive she was checking him for a fever. He didn't blame her–he probably sounded crazy.

"It's not… Okay. The passengers, we–we went through something. An experience, I guess. It changed everything we know." The words were tumbling out, but still they felt wrong. He could never pick the right ones to describe what they had gone through. Explaining it to Grace the first time was hard enough, but now, it was impossible.

"Experience?" Grace echoed.

"All of us–all of the passengers. The missing passengers, too. We all… lived through something. Another life, maybe."

Another life. That was a way to describe it that barely scratched the surface of what it actually was. They hadn't lived another life–they had lived their actual lives after being chosen to take on the Callings.

That had been their reality, and the reality here was that the Grace sitting before him did not go through everything that he had witnessed. She didn't hold a gun to Jace's head when he was intent on killing Cal. She didn't give birth to Eden and spend the time she had loving her with every fiber of her being.

She didn't bleed out trying to defend her daughter from a woman convinced that she was an angel that would bring on their salvation.

Grace still hadn't said something, and Ben knew she was waiting for him. Instead of explaining though, he asked the one question that his brain supplied:

"Do you believe in second chances?"

Grace pulled away for a moment, still looking confused. Ben knew immediately that she didn't quite get what he was asking. It was easy to misunderstand, and he knew where her mind was going. He didn't even let her get the chance to respond.

"We–the passengers… The plane went missing. For five and a half years, we were missing, presumed dead. You all had to move forward without us. But for us… nothing changed. The plane never disappeared. We all came back the same as we were when we boarded. But everything else was different."

"Hey," she stopped him suddenly, pressing her hand further against his head. He knew now, though, that she was trying to calm him rather than check if he was still mentally there. "Ben, you're all fine. Your plane landed fine. It hadn't been five a half years."

"Not here," he went on, now intent on making sure Grace understood that what he was saying wasn't metaphor or a story built from a very odd dream–it was real, and she had to hear it. "It was there–in that previous life. We were being… tested. By who or what, I don't know. But we made it–we passed whatever test it was, and were brought back here. To do things over."

To do things right.

While there was no voice in his head this time, he could feel the pressure building in his head once more, and knew that a migraine wasn't that far off.

"In a world where you could do things over," Grace concluded, but she wasn't looking at him. She looked contemplative, but that doubt was still casting a shadow over her, and Ben's heart dropped when he realized she wasn't saying it with understanding–she was saying it for his sake alone.

"Mom?"

Both of their heads jumped up at Cal's voice, and they looked to find him standing at the foot of the stairs.

For the shortest, blinding second, Ben wondered if his son had heard their entire conversation. Did the words resonate with him? Did any of it sound familiar to Cal? It was impossible, surely–but then again, was anything impossible now?

"I need help with my homework," Cal finally said, and Ben's gaze dropped. Cal hadn't heard a thing, or if he had, he had no idea what they were talking about. This Cal hadn't lived that life, and the thought that he could remember any of it was foolish on his end. He shouldn't wish for that kind of thing. He was here to do things right, not put Cal through all of the suffering he had to endure a second time.

"I'm coming," Grace said, and the smile she wore made Ben feel both warm and cold. He had missed that smile so desperately, wishing for nothing else than to see it again. But it was for someone else, and it was different–detached from the person he had lived with and fought for.

Grace looked at him for a short moment and gave him a small squeeze on his arm. They would talk later, he knew, but he doubted things would go any differently than how it had already. He was asking for a lot, he knew, but he didn't know what else he could ask for. She was ready and willing to listen, yet he couldn't say anything worth a damn.

Here she was, alive again, but Ben had never felt farther away.

Ben fell asleep on the couch that night, feeling too emotionally drained to even sleep in his own bed. He hoped Grace hadn't taken it personally, as he had done so many times before when his work or personal thoughts got too overwhelming for him to share a bed. She was curious but never judged him for it. Tonight, though, she simply gave him a nod before disappearing into the bedroom.

Sleep hadn't come easily, but that was nothing new these days. He was surprised when he checked his phone at 2am to find that he had actually fallen asleep, but that was the only time he could recall that he had slept at all.

The clock ticking in the living room had always been white noise to him, something that could soothe him regardless of the time or circumstance. But now, it nagged at him, the ticking grating at him until he was positive that it was louder than normal.

Thunder rumbled outside, but Ben couldn't even spare a thought to it. His thoughts were on the passengers–the flashes of photos and a board full of notes blinding him momentarily as he rose from his sleeping spot.

The house was understandably quiet, and Ben barely made a sound as he approached the doorway that had become so familiar to him in another life. It was ajar, something that should have immediately alarmed him, but the intrigue was too strong for him to ignore.

Pushing the door open slowly, he wasn't really surprised when nothing came to greet him. He stepped forward quietly, looking around in the dark as if it would tell him anything. The boxes were the same, the shelves were the same, and the wall…

He flicked on the light, and there they were–the passengers, their photos, and every note he had ever written that connected them. It was all exactly the same as he had left it.

Except for the red X that crossed through every single photo on the board.

He brushed his fingers against them, convinced that he was somehow lucid dreaming–something he was never able to achieve before. This board didn't exist in this timeline. He shouldn't be able to see them, and if it was merely a dream or memory, having each photo crossed out intentionally was never something he could do.

One photo dislodged itself them, falling to the ground without any grace or explanation. It fell face-down, and looking at it, Ben felt the dread build up in his chest once more.

If he was dreaming, he really wanted to wake up.

Reaching down, he grasped the photo between his two fingers and turned it over. Saanvi's face smiled up at him, although now marred by the red X that crossed the photo from corner to corner.

It was so familiar. So familiar, and so tangible, that he could almost believe it was there. Dream or not, the heat he felt at his fingertips was certainly real.

The picture was real. It had to be.

And it was all gone in a second when it crumbled into ash.