Twice In A Lifetime - Part 5/9 - Interlude

[serene_quill]

Title: Twice in a Lifetime – Part 5/9 – Interlude
Pairing: Jack/Nathan
Rating: this segment PG, overall NC-17
Word Count: ~3100
Warnings: AU, general insane plot bunny that got out of its cage when it’s highly likely that it shouldn’t have. Also a tissue warning for those who get teary easily, which includes me!
Disclaimer: No, I don’t own them. If anyone who does own them finds me witty enough to give them to me though, I won’t object!
Summary: When you’re messing with quantum mechanics and looping in time, you never can be sure how many times you’ve tried to correct the same mess. Because it is a time loop, because only a select one or two carry the memories, maybe the events of “Once in a Lifetime” were just one loop. This story is one time where Henry got it just right for himself and Jack, Nathan and Allison didn’t manage to stop Henry when they sent someone back, causing the next loop, the events of episode 112, “Once in a Lifetime”. But those events don’t matter now. Because this is the story of the loop before. And while in quantum mechanics, it didn’t actually happen, in the heart it did actually happen.



An Interlude, In Which There Occurs Some Startling Appearances, A Pair of Expectant Mothers, and The Beginning of the End

May 15, 2010. 2:00 p.m.

Nathan glanced down at his pager, rolling his eyes as he saw a 911 for GD. He looked over at his husband, who was talking into his cell phone, a worried frown on his face. He sighed, looping an arm around Zoë’s shoulders. “Remember how we wouldn’t promise to not do this today?” he asked his stepdaughter.

“Of course, Atta,” Zoë said, rolling her eyes. It had taken months for Zoë to decide on a name for Nathan, and he had gone four shades of red before hugging her and threatening to not let go when she settled on the Latin word for ‘dad’. She claimed it was just being scientifically appropriate. “Go, save the world. Next lifetime I want dads who aren’t superheroes and don’t leave my graduation!” she called out to both of them as Nathan crossed the grassy lawn to join Jack.

“You were robbed!” Jack called, blowing her a kiss. Nathan chuckled as he climbed into the car. He knew Jack was more proud of Zoë’s salutatorian honor than he let on, and possibly enjoyed it even more than if Zoë had been valedictorian because he got to complain about her being ‘robbed’. He spotted Henry and Kim headed for their car as well, and pointed. “Great,” Jack said sarcastically. “I thought the world only ended on graduation day in Buffy.”

“I could kill Fargo for giving you and Jo those DVDs,” Nathan grumbled, earning a swift grin from Jack. “What’s going on?”

“Allison said there’s an emergency up at GD, something about radiation in Section 5.” Jack put the tiny car into gear, wincing as it accelerated slowly. “God, I want my old Jeep back.”

“What idiot’s project exploded?” Nathan asked, focusing on the crisis.

“That’s the thing,” Jack told him, the worry lines increasing. “She says it just suddenly appeared in chamber A-734.”

“Not possible,” Nathan felt a cold chill run through him. “The artifact has been in storage over at Cheyenne Mountain for the past two years.”

“Well, somehow we’ve got radiation in its chamber and no way to tell if anyone was inside,” Jack sighed, continuing to try and force the small car to accelerate faster. “I swear, Nathan, I’m going to Portland and buying a Jeep.”

Nathan chuckled, sitting back. “You’ll never find fuel for it,” he pointed out logically.

“Henry will hook me up,” Jack said confidently.

“Next time just listen to me when I tell you there’s a tornado warning,” Nathan suggested, starting a familiar quarrel.

“Oh, right, because it’s not like I left it sitting in the middle of the road or anything,” Jack retorted.

“Well, no one else lost their vehicle,” Nathan replied, sitting up a little straighter as Jack turned up the road to GD.

“You drive me crazy, you know that?” Jack asked as he pulled into the parking lot.

“Ditto,” Nathan replied cheerfully, leaning over to press a quick kiss to the other man’s lips. He climbed out of the car, nodding to Henry and Kim as they arrived. A few feet behind them, Jo’s jeep pulled in.

“Dr.’s Deacon,” Jack grinned, still amused by the newlyweds.

“Dr.’s Stark,” Henry replied, grinning wickedly as he slammed his truck door.

Jack scowled as Nathan and Kim grinned. “You guys just aren’t going to let it drop, are you?” he asked, heading for Jo. He offered her a hand as she slid out of the Jeep. “They’re making fun of my PhD again,” he told her, and Jo rolled her eyes.

“I still think it was a nice gesture, Dr. Stark,” she told the scientist, who grinned. A year back, he had contacted UCLA, where Jack had done his undergraduate degree in Criminal Justice, and nominated him for an honorary PhD. Jack hadn’t been amused to be added to the “doctor dulls” as he called them, and Eureka had gone all out to make a big deal out of “Dr. Carter-Stark” as the PhD read.

“Should you even be here?” Nathan asked Jo, focusing his attention back on the present and not the enthusiastic private thank you he had gotten after the PhD presentation. She gave him a dark look, one hand falling to her gun even as the other fell to the rounded curve of her abdomen.

“Remember where I said it was a bad idea to suggest she take it easy?” Jack told him as they hurried up the stairs into GD.

“This is different,” Nathan pointed out. “Radiation, of an unknown origin?”

“True,” Jack agreed, giving Jo a sympathetic look. “Sorry, Deputy Fargo, you’re not coming any farther than Allison’s office.”

“Wasn’t planning to,” Jo replied condescendingly. “But the day you figure out how to get yourselves knocked up, you can tell me what I can and can’t do.”

“Amen,” Allison said, greeting them at the top of the stairs. She was easily twice as round as Jo, and Jack and Nathan both stooped to kiss her cheek.

“Hello, twins!” Jack happily told Allison’s stomach, grinning. “Is your mommy taking it easy like Dr. Laden told her to?”

“You can’t really call them twins,” Nathan pointed out, though he knew it was a fruitless argument. “They’re only half siblings.”

“So, radiation?” Jack asked, ignoring Nathan all together. Nathan waited as Allison turned to lead the way up to her office and as expected, Jack turned and made a face at him.

“We’re drawing a blank,” Allison confessed. “I’m afraid at this point we’re going to have to send a team in to see what we can find out from the site itself.”

“I’ll go,” Jack volunteered, trading a look with Nathan. Nathan nodded, settling back. It was a long-standing agreement they had ever since getting married; only one of them went into a dangerous situation if there was a choice.

“I’ll go too,” Henry said, looking grim. “Since I’ve been deputized twice already now. Third time’s the charm, right?”

“Just might make it a long term thing while Jo’s supposed to be on bed rest,” Jack informed the other man, clapping his shoulder. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

“Be careful,” Kim called after them, and Nathan made sure the sentiment was clearly written across his face when Jack turned back. Jack nodded, acknowledging the unspoken request.

Needing an outlet for his concern and curiosity, Nathan rounded on Allison, giving her a pointed look until she sank into a chair. “There, I’m sitting,” she said, rolling her eyes. She tapped her rounded stomach impatiently.

“You know, we could have done them one at a time,” Nathan teased her. “I don’t know where you got the crazy idea to do twins.”

“As you just pointed out, they aren’t really twins, and your monster is much more trouble than Jack’s,” Allison said, shrugging. “Though it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that little Abigail is doing much better with the new RF antibody treatments Dr. Laden developed.”

“Good,” Nathan said softly. He laid a hand gently on Allison’s stomach, smiling slightly. “But we are not naming her Abigail.”

Allison chuckled. “Now Nathan, if you’re going to give her your ex-wife’s name for her middle name, I think Jack’s ex-wife should provide the first name.”

“And I said over my dead body,” Nathan grinned as he sat on the edge of Allison’s desk. The first meeting between Abby and Nathan had gone wrong in so many ways that it was one of Eureka’s longest living horror stories about Nathan. To be fair, Nathan thought, the second, third and fourth hadn’t been much better, but he’d gotten better at blaming S.A.R.A.H. for the mishaps. And Abby had gotten much friendlier since he put a ring on Jack’s finger.

“I still don’t get it,” Jo observed, settling into a chair. “You really didn’t plan out the genetics this way?”

“No,” Nathan replied, shrugging. “We were just planning on whoever’s sperm managed to get the results being the father and letting the genetic tests stay sealed. The fraternal twins thing got the best of our curiosity though.”

“So, the little boy is Jack and Allison’s, and the girl is yours,” Jo asked, and Nathan nodded. “How’d you explain that to Kevin?”

“We told him Uncle Jack and Nathan needed an incubator,” Allison replied dryly.

A screen activated on the wall as Jack activated a camera on his HAZMAT suit. “Hey, you guys getting this?” Jack’s voice echoed in the office.

“Yes, you’re online,” Allison replied, studying the image. “You guys about to enter the section?”

“Yeah,” Jack replied, adjusting the camera slightly. “The radiation levels have dropped slightly according to Henry, so it looks like the filtration system has kicked in, and the damage isn’t too bad.”

“That’s the first good news we’ve had,” Allison said in a low tone, keeping it off the comm. line. “Okay, I’m unsealing the section now.”

The image was clouded over, a haze of dust and debris filling the air as they entered. “Okay, Henry, take two guys and head down through the tunnels, make sure they’re clear. We’ll clear the chamber itself,” Jack’s voice was clipped and authoritative through the headset.

Nathan frowned, noticing the scorched walls as Jack walked. “Looks like an explosion,” he mused, gesturing to a few points on the video.

“The artifact was capable of doing this,” Kim pointed out, shaking her head. “It took us almost seven months to figure out a safe extraction method after the first failed tests.”

“I would think that it would need to actually be present to do this,” Jo put in, looking a little pale.

The camera had reached the chamber, but they heard Jack’s reaction before they could see what he was looking at. “Henry!” he yelled, and was fumbling to adjust the light. It took Nathan a moment, but he suddenly could make out the smoldering remains of a skull. There was a body fused into the wall of the artifact chamber.

Allison picked up the phone, dialing quickly. “I need a roll call,” she ordered, looking up at the screen. “I need the names of any Eureka residents unaccounted for in the next 30 minutes.”

Thirty minutes later, Nathan found himself walking into Kim’s bioengineering lab, the charred remains looking even more distorted and grotesque. “Any chance we can get DNA from it?” he asked Henry, who was pulling off his protective gear.

“Unlikely,” Henry replied, shaking his head. “There’s hardly anything left, and most of it has been radiated pretty badly.”

“Roll call came back,” Allison announced as she entered. “Everyone’s accounted for. I called over to Cheyenne Mountain, and they aren’t reporting any anomalies with the artifact or missing personnel.”

“Double check?” Jack suggested, tugging at his own protective gear. Nathan stepped over and helped him free his arms from the suit. “Bodies don’t just appear out of nowhere.”

“Neither does radiation,” Nathan pointed out. “I’ll get all of my databases interfaced with a computer here at GD and see if I can figure out what might have drawn this radiation back here,” he told Allison.

“Good,” Allison replied, turning to Kim. “Kim, I know it’s a long shot, but I was thinking…”

“Three steps ahead of you,” Kim said, producing a hypodermic syringe. “I’ll take some samples and try putting it through the reconstructive process.”

“You think that’ll work?” Henry asked skeptically, looking at the corpse. “It seems like an awfully long shot, and the program is still experimental.”

“It is,” Kim agreed with a smile. “But I’m up for the challenge.”

Jack frowned, noticing that Henry didn’t seem pleased. “Henry?” he asked, keeping his tone low.

“I’m just remembering three and half years ago,” Henry replied, shrugging. “Is this something we should really be rushing forward to test and experiment with? Maybe we should wait for the results from Cheyenne and see what Nathan comes up with before we start messing with a body that seems to have appeared from nowhere.”

“It doesn’t seem too dangerous,” Jack pointed out, puzzled. Henry shrugged, pulling back on his dress shirt.

“I’ll be in my lab,” he told Allison, giving Kim a quick kiss before he left.

“That was odd,” Jack observed, turning back to Nathan.

“You should go back to Zoë’s party,” he told Jack, nodding to the corpse. “This could take us all night. I’ll page you as soon as we find something.”

Several hours later, Nathan stopped poring through his research, rubbing his eyes and picking up his now empty coffee mug. He sighed, turning and finding the coffee pot empty. “Looking for something?” Jack’s voice floated over to him, and Nathan fell in love all over again, seeing the Vinspresso in Jack’s hand.

“How’d you know?” he asked, gratefully accepting the coffee.

“Seemed like an espresso kind of day,” Jack told him, running his fingers gently through Nathan’s curls. “How’s it going?”

“Slow,” Nathan replied, catching an odd look on Jack’s face. “What’s happened?”

“Jo and I have been taking calls all evening,” Jack told him. “Things from the past popping up in the present.”

“Like?” Nathan prompted him, pulling up a few puzzling readings he’d found earlier.

“My Jeep,” Jack said wryly. “Permit sticker says 2007. The keys were in the ignition, identical to the set in my pocket. And that was the good part. It’s getting worse. Tornados, the flooding from Seth’s failed irrigation experiment two years ago. They’re all coming back.”

“Might be linked to this,” Nathan said, pointing to the data. “See? Those should look familiar to you. By-products of tachyon radiation.”

“Tachyon…” Nathan waited while Jack puzzled it out in his memory. “The things Walter Perkins was messing with and caused all the time shifts? Fargo was saying that the Jeep was showing signs of temporal relocations.”

“Exactly,” Nathan agreed, transmitting the data on the radiation up to Allison. This was bad news, and he had a sinking feeling it was worse than he suspected. “Come on, let’s go find—”

“Dr. Stark?” Kim’s voice came from the door, her face drawn and pale. “I have something you need to see.”

Nathan followed her, not used to the level of panic on Kim’s face as he entered the lab with the charred remains again. Jack gave the remains a wide berth, and Kim shakily pulled up the DNA reconstruction results. “It’s only 46% complete, but it found a match,” she whispered, and Nathan stared blankly at the results, looking from Kim to the blackened body.

“That’s not possible, you’re right here,” Jack said, looking to Nathan as though he had an explanation.

“Maybe you contaminated the sample,” Nathan tried desperately, not liking where his mind was taking him.

“She didn’t.” Henry stood at the door, looking grim.

“What did you do, Henry?” Nathan asked, his shoulders slumping.

“I think you’ve already put it together,” Henry replied mildly, watching Nathan.

“You used Walter Perkins’s tachyon accelerator to go back in time, to change events,” Nathan guessed, and Jack stared at him, stunned. “You prevented an accident, one that killed Kim.”

“Henry,” Kim whispered, looking horrified.

“I couldn’t lose you!” he protested, reaching for her. Kim stopped him, tears on her cheeks.

“You created a paradox!” Nathan wasn’t sure why he was shouting, but he suspected it had to do with what he knew deep down was about to occur.

“Can you honestly tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing if it had been Jack?” Henry shouted back, and Jack whistled loudly, halting the argument.

“I don’t understand,” he said into the sudden silence. “So Henry went back and saved Kim. What’s the problem?”

“He created a paradox, a contradiction in time which can’t be resolved,” Nathan explained. “Because the laws of physics operate on time being a constant force, a paradox rips apart time and will destroy everything. What we’re witnessing is two timelines, coming back together after Henry ripped them apart, and now they’re trying occupy the same space, trying to conform to the laws of physics. What I don’t understand is how. Even with the machine, time travel isn’t actually possible.”

“The artifact is transdimensional,” Henry replied heavily. “I used the fragment extracted in the previous timeline to send my mind back. This timeline, the fragment was extracted safely, much later, so I don’t even know if it can be used in the same way.”

“It sent your consciousness back,” Nathan repeated, slowly beginning to understand.

“The note,” Jack exclaimed suddenly. “The one we could never figure out, why it didn’t fit into the scheme, why there was no informant to be found. You made it all up to stop the test!”

“I had no idea I was about to stumble into a real plot,” Henry admitted, holding his hands up helplessly. “Once things got going though, I had to play it out. I hated lying to you, but it turned out for the best.” Nathan stared at Henry, unable to believe that a spur of the moment lie had triggered the chaos that had followed the aborted test.

“Okay,” Jack breathed, looking stunned. He looked at Kim, considering for a long moment, and sighing. “How do we fix this?”

“We can’t,” Henry objected, but Nathan cut him off, his heart aching.

“We have to send someone back, to stop Henry and eliminate the second timeline,” he said, his eyes closing as he spoke.

“But Kim—” Jack started. Before Nathan could say anything, another voice interrupted Jack.

“It’s the only way,” Kim said tearfully, this time letting Henry take hold of her hand. “I won’t let you unmake reality for me.”

“I won’t be part of this,” Henry said, grabbing Kim’s shoulders. “I love you too much to do this.”

“I’ll do it.” The words were out of Nathan’s mouth before he could stop them. Seeing the looks of surprise around him, he added, “Who else is going to?”

“You really think you can?’ Henry challenged him, pointing a shaky hand at Jack. “You will lose Jack, those twins Allison is carrying, everything. Nathan, it could still equalize.”

“You know it won’t,” Kim was crying. “There are tornados and floods popping up on Main Street, Henry.”

Nathan stared at Jack, unable to move. Jack closed the space between them, lacing his fingers through Nathan’s. “Is Kim right? Is this the only way?” Jack asked, his voice soft and low.

“Yes,” Nathan whispered, hating himself for the tears gathering behind his eyes.

“Then listen to me very carefully,” Jack told him, his voice fierce despite the tears shining in his own eyes. “No way do we not end up together, Nathan,” he said. “I have faith in you,” he added, before pulling him into a tight hug.

“You can’t know…” Nathan started, cut off by a fierce kiss.

“I love you, moron,” Jack reminded him, and Nathan nodded, carefully blinking back tears.

“Love you too, idiot,” he replied, pressing a second kiss to his husband’s lips. He turned to see Allison in the doorway, her face somber, clearly having overheard most of the conversation. “How much time do we have before you can have the tachyon accelerator brought out from the vault and ready to use?”

“About two hours,” Allison replied roughly, pulling out her cell phone. “I’ll call you if we need you before then. Go say your goodbyes.”

Nathan swallowed hard, kissing her forehead and resting a hand on her stomach, briefly saying goodbye to the twins inside. “Let’s go find Zoë,” Jack said softly. Nathan took the hand he was offered, following Jack out of GD.



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