The Same Time (Time Series book 2)

by Brona Mills

  ‘He was never supposed to travel?’ I ask. ‘All those times he saved me were never supposed to happen?’

  ‘If that were so, then Mike would have never had his career,’ Audrey says, slipping out of her ballet pumps. ‘You were always there, which means David always saved you too.’

  Mike shakes his head. ‘You can’t give me hope of getting my sister back, but David has to die to get her back.’

  Liam nods. ‘The equator line. I always wanted to scour the centre of the earth. When we look at the theories of the laws of attraction, most of them come into play with the notion of reality is perception.’

  ‘Your perception of reality, no matter if right or wrong, becomes your reality,’ Audrey clarifies.

  ‘And if you’re standing at the centre of the world, harvesting the centre of your own universe. With everything else in play. We might just be able to manipulate things and see what happened,’ Liam tells us.

  ‘Is that what Caitlyn was doing?’ Mike asks.

  ‘I don’t know. I never met her. But it’s what I’d do, and it looks like her travel plans were exactly what mine would have been. She believed me, and she wanted to see for herself.’

  ‘But how did she get lost, or whatever has happened to her?’

  ‘I think at one point, when realities were crossing, things were changing, and she happened to be in the right place, looking in at the right time and got stuck. Wherever she was, when things reset, the anchor sucked her in and kept her.’

  ‘You want me to travel to the equator, to see if we can get her back?’

  ‘No, I want you to look,’ Liam tells Mike. ‘Your life and your perception of reality and your universe is the centre of all things that have been altered. You can tell us exactly what you know about Caitlyn’s disappearance, we can tie it in with what I know about the travel plans across the centre of the earth, and Audrey can let us know what happened in her version of reality. We can see what’s changed and then we can work from that.’

  ‘Caitlyn did a trip here the morning she disappeared.’ Mike’s finger lands on the equator line that runs through Ecuador. ‘It was in the police report. The company confirmed that she came back out of the cave, but asked to be dropped at the village nearby rather than home at her hotel. She said she had plans there and a ride home.’

  ‘So they left her out there?’ I ask.

  ‘She’s an adult. What were they supposed to do?’ Mike argues.

  ‘She went back into the caves,’ Liam says.

  ‘How do you know?’ Mike asks.

  ‘It’s what I would have done. To get closer to the centre of the earth, she would have needed to go farther than the tourist trip took her.’

  ‘Do you think something happened to her down there? Maybe she slipped or fell?’

  ‘Or disappeared? The last place she was seen was also in David’s alternate reality. I saw her there, and so did David. We both saw her disappear somewhere else when he left. So maybe, her being this close to the centre of the earth, when realities were crossing, pulled her somewhere else, like limbo,’ Liam explains.

  ‘Do you think David could be in limbo too?’ I ask.

  ‘If he is, then that means that for Caitlyn it’s not somewhere physical. Her body is missing too. At least David is in a hospital with IVs and being looked after. If Caitlyn were missing with no one looking after her, her body would have died after a few days.’

  ‘So we might find my sister, but it’s going to be years too late? Why the hell don’t you just bring her back to life and then kill her again for me?’ Mike retorts.

  ‘I told you this might all be bull. I never wanted you to get your hopes up.’

  Audrey nods. ‘I think Liam was the guy who broke her heart and the reason she came home.’

  ‘But you said I never met her until she came home and started working for David. How could I break her heart if I never met her?’

  ‘Oh, Liam, a girl can fall in love with someone she never met. If you were giving her information on tapes about your life’s work and passions. And this fuelled her own passions for travel. It didn’t matter that you two never met. She fell in love with your passions and your work, and you allowed her to be a part of something spectacular, all the time trying to save her life. It’s more than a lot of people ever manage to experience even with partners they’ve had a long time. When she came home suddenly last year, Stella called it straight away. Some fella broke her heart and she scarpered.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Not a lot. Just that she was working on something for someone and in the last message he told her to give up and go home. She took it personal. Said that he thought she couldn’t work through the problem so he dismissed her.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like something I’d do,’ Liam frowns.

  ‘No, but remember, perceptions become reality.’ Audrey winks.

  ‘There are two sides to every story.’

  ‘Actually there are three. Your side, her side, and the truth,’ I chirp.

  ‘How do we find out the truth?’ Liam asks.

  ‘Caitlyn told us,’ Audrey says. ‘Stella and I took her out to lunch the day after she came home. She told us what happened. That she wanted to confront him, but she realised he was right and then she felt like a fool and couldn’t tell him who she was. It didn’t make much sense, but now I realise it was because she’d already met you, and you two hit it off straight away.’

  ‘So Liam saved her?’ Mike asks.

  Liam shakes his head. ‘Not in this time line, I didn’t. I never had any contact with her. How did I get tapes to her years before I met her?’

  ‘Maybe this is the thing that needs changing. She was always listening to tapes and updating the files to her phone. Maybe you need to go back in time and record everything you know. That way she stays safe and becomes your wife, like she always was,’ Audrey says.

  ‘How does that help David?’ I ask.

  No one answers.

  ‘We need everything in line and you can make one of those damn wishes,’ I tell Mike.

  ‘You want us to wait a year before we try and get my sister back? Until we have a chance to wake David up? Or what? Four years until another leap year?’

  ‘No. We’re going to try it today. Everything that’s ever happened with our time travels has come from this day,’ Liam says. ‘There’s another major shift at the end of the twenty-four hours of your birthday. The same time Audrey always disappeared. If we get the timing right, like you’ve somehow managed on your own all these times, we might have a chance of this working again. No point in waiting.’

  ‘What if I get it wrong? What if I wish for the wrong thing or say the wrong thing, and neither of them come back?

  ‘Today is a leap year, the strongest things are going to get. Unless you want to wait another four years?’ Liam lights the candles on the cake Audrey had in the kitchen.

  ‘There wasn’t a cake and candles when I made the wish in the front seat of the car.’ Mike throws out.

  ‘We have to try and get everything right. You have to try, Mike. You have to tell him to come back to me. DD once said he felt like he gravitated towards me, and he can do that this time, to make it home. I can be the centre of his universe, his gravity force, and I can pull him to me. He only needs to hold on.’

  ‘When David found out a few months ago that he was going to travel, he made a decision not to tell you,’ Liam tells Mike.

  ‘He didn’t trust me.’

  ‘He knew you didn’t trust the universe. Not when it came to Audrey’s safety. Your focus was always on Audrey and not on the bigger picture. It’s why he chose to leave you behind. If you were to travel with him, you would confuse the universe. So I’m going to tell you, when you make this wish, you have to trust the world to get itself back in order. Don’t obsess over your family or Audrey or the details. You try too much to figure out how it all works. Just trust that it will.’

  Liam looks at his watch, and we
all wait in silence. ‘We’re on the last minute,’ He says. ‘Forty seconds.’

  Mike takes a deep breath ‘I wish, we can all live in our happy ever after.’ He blows out the candles.

  The white light engulfs us, and I’m finally seeing what Audrey went through all these years ago, and what David did each time he came to save me. I place my hand over my lower belly and remember the pain at losing my baby. The pain of my marriage ending, and I make a promise to the universe that I won’t be able to live without David. I waited my whole life to find my soul mate and now it’s possible to have David and DD all rolled into one. To have the man with all the memories of what we’ve shared together. What’s the point in David risking everything to keep me alive, if a chunk of me is going to die without him? If Mike and David get to ask the universe for things, then so am I. I’m going to ask for David to live in the same version of reality that I survive in. I deserve my happy ever after, otherwise what was the use of David fighting so hard? The bright light and noise is loud and scary, but once it has fully engulfed us, it’s calming for a second before we’re pinned down by gravity, pulled at from below while being thrust forward.

  The light retreats and I’m back sitting in the hospital next to Andrew’s bed, like I was when this whole alternative whatever thing started this morning. Ethan and Max come into the room and I nearly jump into Max’s arms.

  ‘It’s okay Mom,’ he soothes.

  I look at Ethan over Max’s shoulder and the crinkle around his eyes relaxes.

  ‘Stay with Andrew,’ I tell Max and run out the door and down the stairs, crashing into Liam at the bottom. I stare at him, and he at me. Nervous to ask what the hell is going on.

  ‘I think things reset,’ he tells me. ‘I did it.’

  ‘You made it back to Caitlyn at the dinner party?’

  ‘It was strange. Things were exactly as I remembered them, but from a different perspective. Instead of the boy sitting watching them, I was me, at the table with them. When we disappeared, I went to a different time in England. I knew who she was and where to find her when she was sixteen, and I knew what I had to do. I got everything we knew onto tapes and left them for her.’

  I let out a breath. At least wherever I am, I’m not alone. Liam knows exactly what’s happening. ‘I remember Caitlyn coming home from her travels.’

  Liam looks down at his left hand and chuckles at the ring on his finger. ‘I remember her, too. We diverted our flights to Manchester on the way home from vacation because I needed her to see the pub in Blackpool. All those things she learned from my tapes and our trip saved her. It gave her the information she needed to save herself when we disappeared from that dinner party in the alternative future. This time she knew it wasn’t just about the location, she needed to focus on the people around her too. To help her navigate her way home.’

  ‘Do you think it was also enough for her to save David?’ My heart thuds in my chest.

  Liam looks at me from the corner of his eye. ‘Maybe. We were both trying to hold onto David when we were leaving. I think the first time, Caitlyn got lost along with him, but somehow he needed to be lost to survive. With everyone bringing him back, maybe it was enough to pull him all the way back. I arrived here when things reset. Caitlyn was on her way to Mike’s house to check on the girls. She must have been put back there too.’

  ‘Call her. Tell her to turn around and come here. We need to see her. Mike and Audrey will need to see her.’

  I walk to the ER entrance and wait for the ambulance to pull in with Mike and Audrey, like it did this morning.

  ‘Do you remember when Caitlyn interrupted us a few months ago?’ Liam asks. ‘She said those tapes told her how to save David. I tried, Stella. I really tried to tell her everything I could think of that might help him. I remembered what you said about people being our centre and I thought of Caitlyn and David and you, and even Mike and Audrey. How we all get to be complete with each other. That she should hold onto him.’

  ‘I was back in Andrew’s room, so maybe David was put back in the car, like he was the last time.’

  When an ambulance pulls up, the gurney is taken out the back, and Mike hops down, holding onto Audrey’s hand as they push her through the doors.

  ‘Mike?’ I ask.

  ‘Caitlyn’s here?’ he croaks. ‘I remember it differently now.’

  I nod. ‘Two sets of memories, but this one feels stronger, like it’s the right one. Why do we remember a reality that has ceased to exist? I never remembered all the times DD showed up to try and save our baby.’

  ‘Because this time we were the ones skipping through them. We hold onto those memories and experiences.’

  ‘Like David held onto each and every way our baby died?’

  Liam breaks eye contact with me. ‘Probably.’

  ‘DD tried to save us but ended up torturing himself time and time again.’

  Audrey pulls his hand closer to her chest as we follow her down the hall. ‘The last time it all felt dizzy around the edges. Like a dream. Caitlyn’s okay, Mike. I can feel it.’

  We are pushed out of the way while people tend to Audrey and stand at the edge of the neighbouring curtain. My hands shake as I take hold of the edge, my knuckles turning white clutching at the thin layer of fabric, holding my own moment of reality together.

  ‘You need to know something, Stella, before we step in there.’ Mike lays his hand on my shoulder. ‘He would never take it back. He would die for you and Max in every version that this universe throws at him, Stella. If this didn’t work, it might be time to let him go.’

  I pull the curtain back and David opens his eyes and blinks a few times. The fluorescent lights above must be too bright for him.

  Mike and Liam flank on either side of the gurney and put their hands under David’s arms to hoist him into a sitting position.

  With a groan, David leans forward and reaches his hand out to me.

  I intertwine my fingers with his. ‘Welcome back,’ I tell him.

  David jerks our hands, pulling me forward, crashing into him. Mike puts his weight at David’s back to help him support us both, and I let a giggle escape.

  ‘You’re my core,’ David whispers through my hair. He clasps the back of my head. He pulls back and takes my face in his hands, studying me hard. ‘I’m so damn sorry that I wasn’t there for you.’

  ‘You were,’ I tell him.

  David sighs and gives me one tight squeeze before inching to the edge of the gurney. He stands, still not releasing me. ‘Audrey okay?’ he asks Mike.

  Mike nods. ‘Yeah. And Andrew is going to wake up soon and we’ll be discharged by the end of the day.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Mike chuckles. ‘Call it a hunch.’

  ‘Are we good now?’ Liam asks. ‘Everyone got their happy ever after. Three couples, and we finally get to live in a time like we should have been?’

  Mike smiles sadly. ‘I say we don’t fuck with fate anymore, and let things play out the way they’re supposed to be.’

  Liam nods. ‘No threat of going anywhere else, right?’

  David smiles and pats Liam on the shoulder. ‘You’re never going to believe where I’ve been.’

  ‘Where?’ Mike asks.

  The end.

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