Chapter 2: Everyone Remembers Oscar Part I
Yup, Oscar was not expecting to wake up in Atlas after hearing what the Brother Gods said after he passed out.
What he did not expect was waking up on his bed in Mistral, back in his aunt's farm.
It was early in the morning, the sun had just started to peek over the horizon. He got up, turned on the regular lamp with practiced hands, and grabbed the calendar.
Year 78.
Two years before the Fall of Beacon. A few months after that, he met Oz. Atlas was roughly two years or so after that.
Four years.
He had been sent back in time four years.
Oscar sat on his bed and looked at his hands. They were indeed noticeably smaller than what he remembered.
He wondered how everyone was doing. Did they manage to escape from the whale? Were the civilians okay? Was Ruby okay?
He was two years in the past. He could change things! He could prevent the Fall of Beacon! He could make sure Atlas survived! He could…he could….
Wait, why was everything blurry?
He put a hand to his eyes.
Oh, he was crying.
He quickly rubbed his eyes, but the tears would not stop flowing. Days of torture, desperation, escape, and having had his worldview shattered multiple times in rapid succession finally took its toll.
He cried and cried until the tears dried out.
Oscar breathed deeply. He wanted to cry more, but no more tears fell, and his aunt would be waking up soon. He had to keep up pretenses until he could leave again. She would never believe him if he told her the truth.
He chuckled slightly. Heh, leave. He was back home, safe and sound, and the first thing he wanted to do was leave?
He got up and stretched. He could feel the lack of strength and flexibility in his younger body, yet another thing to build up again, but at least it was something he could do while in his aunt's farm.
"Oscar!"
Speaking of.
"Oscar!"
He could hear his aunt calling for him. There was something strange in the way she said his name, but chalked it up to just him misremembering how she called him. It had been a while, after all.
"Oscar!"
Or not. His aunt sounded frantic.
The door of her room slamming and the rapid footsteps up the stairs were the first things that alerted him that something was wrong.
The second thing was Aunt Pine herself opening the door to his room. She looked like she had seen a ghost, her wide eyes and haunted expression gazing into Oscar's own.
Oscar started to speak. "Auntie, I–" he began before his aunt slapped him.
Then hugged him tight.
"Don't run away like that ever again!" she said as she tried valiantly to crush his ribs, and without aura, she just might.
"Auntie…can't….breathe…"
She let go, but not before grabbing his shoulders and looking him square in the eye.
"What were you thinking?! Running away like that?! You stupid boy! Do you know how worried I was when I saw you were gone with only a note left behind!? I spent months frantically searching every town and city in Anima looking for you! What would your mother say?! Then just when I thought I'd never hear from you again, I saw you on the news on Atlas' Most Wanted List! Then Atlas is attacked by the largest Grimm ever seen! What do you have to say for yourself?!" she shouted, breathing heavily and her face flush from anger.
Oscar, initially feeling guilty, blinked.
It couldn't be…
"Auntie, what year is it?" He asked slowly.
"What does that have to do with anything?!"
"It has to do with everything."
Aunt Pine sucked in a breath, ready to scold him again, when she saw the date on Oscar's calendar.
"W-what?"
Her anger replaced with confusion, she moved past her nephew and clutched the calendar in her hands.
"Year 78? It can't be…it's Year 82, isn't it?" Then she took stock of her surroundings and gasped.
"This is the farm. I'm back at the farm? But how?" she said, as if seeing the house for the first time.
Suddenly, she felt Oscar hug her from behind. Slowly, she turned around, Oscar did not let go, and patted her nephew on the head tenderly.
"Oscar, do you know what's going on?" she whispered, trying not to be afraid, in case it might attract Grimm.
Oscar looked up. Aunt Pine saw his face clearly for the first time that day. He looked far more youthful than what she remembered, and his eyes…
They were the eyes of someone who had experienced the world, all its wonders, and all its hidden secrets.
What had his nephew been doing?
Oscar nodded. "I do."
It was seven in the evening, and Qrow was at a bar in Atlas. He did not want to be in a bar in Atlas. He did not want to be in Atlas at all, but duty called and he had to answer.
After this drink, that is. And this other one.
He was on his tenth drink when a rush of memories slammed into him with the force of an undiluted 95% ABV shot of alcohol. He slammed his head on the table, confused, disoriented, dizzy, and drunk all at the same time.
A few hours later, when he finally felt that his mind was not going to melt from the slightest movement, he groggily got up.
"Oscar," he said, tasting the word on his lips.
He knew the kid. Ozpin's latest incarnation. Had been the first of their group to meet him at a bar in Mistral. A scrawny farmhand with dirty clothes who asked him for his cane back.
Except, he also knew that he had never met an Oscar. He remembered the boy after the fall of Beacon and Ozpin's death, when he also knew that Beacon was most definitely still standing and Ozpin was most definitely still alive.
So what the fuck?
His alcohol-addled brain wracked for answers when it hit him.
Ozpin.
He needed to call Ozpin. He needed to know that he wasn't going crazy. That this wasn't some sort of enemy attack intent on undermining them.
He pulled on his scroll and was about to call Beacon's headmaster when the door of the bar opened and someone Qrow would have never imagined entering a bar walked in and their eyes met.
"I should have known you'd be here," said General James Ironwood as he pulled up a seat and called the bartender.
"Didn't take you for someone going on a pub crawl, Jimmy," replied Qrow. "I thought you were more of the 'drink a fancy glass of wine alone next to a fireplace' type."
"I'd rather not drink at all," the General replied gruffly. "Something happened recently, however, that forced my hand."
"Heh," said Qrow. Momentarily forgetting about Ozpin, he nursed his drink. "What, shot a kid off Atlas, lately?" he blurted out without thinking.
He did not expect Ironwood to pause mid-drink.
"What did you say?" said the General.
Qrow frowned.
"I said, did you shoot a kid off Atlas?"
Ironwood slammed his drink down and looked at him. "I don't know why, but I remember shooting a young man off Atlas. It has haunted me all night, but I also cannot remember when I had done so."
Qrow's eyes widened. "Was…was the kid's name Oscar Pine, by any chance?"
The General blinked. "He was. Qrow, how–?"
"I remember him too," replied Qrow. "I was the first guy the kid met after he left his farm in Mistral. Except I also remember that happening in Year 80, just a few months after the Fall of Beacon…"
"Two years from now," finished Ironwood. "Memories of the future, two years from now."
"Well, you shot the kid two years and a few months after that, but yeah, somehow we've received memories of events that haven't happened yet," replied Qrow.
"The question is," said Ironwood, ordering another drink. "How?"
Qrow smirked and finished his drink. "Isn't that the million dollar question."
They sat in silence for a few minutes, before Qrow remembered something else and spoke again. Something that he had almost forgotten about the headmaster.
"Ozpin?"
"Ozpin."
What neither of them did not realize was that they wanted to talk to Ozpin for similar, but entirely different reasons.
Author's Note: I felt this was a good place to end the chapter. Enjoy!