He laughed. “Damn right! And no, I didn’t sign on to get rich. It’s family money. And a lot of it is tied up in trusts and such. What I could get my hands on to help you, I did.”
“Thank you for that.”
“I wish I could have given you more.”
He clearly had pull, not least because though I was in jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt (a nice navy blue one that was almost new, but still a t-shirt), no one was acting like I was woefully underdressed. No one was acting like I was woefully anything.
So I ordered the turbot. And the Aberdeen Angus beef with alliums. And the Cullen skink. And the braised Jacob’s Ladder. And the risotto of wild mushrooms. And Warren never so much as blinked, just listened while I reeled off my order to the waiter and, when I was finished, smiled at me.
“I want to hear all about your latest jump—are you sure you don’t want any wine?”
“The perfect question—you’d think I’d want a barrel of booze after all that, right? No, all wine tastes like bad grape juice to me. I’ll stick with milk. And my latest jump was a clusterfuck, pardon my French, though that’s not French.” I glanced around and lowered my voice. “Are you certain it’s okay to talk here?”
“Here” was a cozy alcove in the far corner of the restaurant, overlooking the gardens but set apart from most of the other tables. There was a living tree behind me which, while impressive, wasn’t big enough to hide an eavesdropper. During the day, the room was probably splashed with sunshine. Now, in the evening, we could see all the fairy lights strung through the trees outside, making the grounds glow and giving fireflies a run for their money. It was as magical a setting as possible without actual magic.
“Please—I wouldn’t take you somewhere you couldn’t be yourself. And I’m done keeping I.T.C.H.’s secrets—besides, what if someone did overhear? They wouldn’t believe us.”
“Fair point.” Our efficient waiter, clad head to toe in spotless white, returned with drinks, then unobtrusively glided away. “I never thanked you for the flowers.”
He inclined his head. “You deserve flowers. You deserve a greenhouse. A dozen greenhouses.”
“Maybe, but where would I put them?”
So Warren drank his wine and I guzzled my milk and told him how a med student from Washington D.C. ended up interred five hundred years ago in a London cemetery full of sex workers.
“That’s terrible, Joan, and my heart breaks for her family. But you said yourself—you couldn’t have saved her. Even if you’d left as soon as we sent you the report.”
“Doesn’t make me feel any better.” I could barely do justice to the smoky Cullen skink, in which creamy potatoes did wonderful things with smoked haddock and parsley. “What are we going to tell the Lupez family? Or the cops who will tell the Lupez family?”
“That poor woman. I don’t know.” Warren shook his head. “Thank God you made it back at least.” He reached out and touched the hand I wasn’t using to scoop skink. “We were all relieved, and not just because we had very real concerns that your roommate would have us tortured and killed.”
I had to smile. “Isn’t she the best? And don’t worry, she saved the torture for me. Dragged me to the hospital and had me scanned up, down, and all around. It took forever and you can’t bring snacks into those scanners, you know.”
He laughed. “No, you can’t. She’s just looking out for you. And I’m sure she’ll be relieved when she gets the test results and they show you’re perfectly normal.”
“They’ll show nothing of the kind, because I’m not ‘perfectly’ anything, but you’re sweet to say it. And she won’t be relieved, either; if there’s no physiological damage she’ll have to assume I’m crazy. If it was a tumor, she could at least come up with a treatment plan. That’s where she shines. She’s a formidable maker-of-plans.”
“But she doesn’t have a baseline.”
By now I was noshing my way through the Aberdeen Angus beef with alliums, which managed to be meaty and delicate at the same time, with the reduced red wine sauce brightening the dish and giving it a pleasant tang. “She does, though. I’m in a drug protocol for a new migraine med, and we needed a baseline for me to get into the study. Which I listed in the paperwork you didn’t bother to read.”
Warren groaned so loudly, he puffed his bangs out of his face. “God, that was embarrassing. I don’t know what Ian Holt was thinking. He added a completely unnecessary step that ultimately helped you figure out we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. I was against it from the beginning.”
“Probably figured I would have thought it weirder if I didn’t have to sign one,” I suggested. Which was true. If they’d been all ‘hey, glad you’re back, run along now, nothing to see here and have a great life and we don’t care who you tell about this’, that would have set off every alarm bell in my brain. “But the sneakiness made it worse. There are so few of you left, it makes the potential for errors a lot bigger. Your little group always seemed—don’t take this the wrong way—dangerously fragile. So not only did I have to wonder what you were keeping from me, I had to wonder when you guys were going to shatter under pressure, possibly while I was on the wrong side of a gate.”
“Shattering under pressure did seem inevitable,” he admitted. “Who wouldn’t, eventually?”
Well. Thomas Wynter, for example. He seemed to thrive on the chaos I brought with me. And why was I thinking of Thomas while on an outing with Warren? Time to get back to it. “When did you decide to officially give up?”
“About ten minutes after you and your friend left, that’s when. It’s ridiculous that we allowed it to go on for this long.”
“Ridiculous, insane, self-serving …”
“Yes and yes and yes. Ian’s reached out to a few colleagues at the Oxford Research Institute, he wants to bring in some outsiders, show ‘em what we’ve done. And go from there.”
I shrugged. “Boot a few up on the platform and open a gate, they’ll get the picture.”
“Let’s call that Plan B,” he suggested, which made me laugh.
“Are you worried? About getting in trouble?”
He’d been about to take another sip of wine, and paused. “I … a little. Ian thinks once people see what we accidentally accomplished, they’ll be sore amazed and niceties such as using property and equipment we didn’t understand might be overlooked.”
“Could be. Listen, if you want me to testify or whatever, I’d be glad to tell them that you took the disappearances seriously. Don’t take this the wrong way, but none of you went near a shower once you realized what was wrong.” Or a toothbrush. “I’ll tell them you used your own money to keep things going, that you tried to save the people who fell through the gates.”
“That would be very kind, Joan, but I’d never ask you to defend our crimes.”
Well. I wouldn’t defend everyone. Holt and Karen could suck eggs. But Dr. Forearms’ heart was in the right place, at least. I wouldn’t want to see him imprisoned. I loathe long-distance relationships.
“It is what it is,” Warren continued. “Everything goes dark tomorrow, and we’ll face whatever consequences there are. To tell you the truth, I’m almost looking forward to it.”
“Weird that ‘everything goes dark’ sounds like a positive. Y’know, ‘woo-hoo, everything’s going dark! Finally!’”
In truth, I was a little giddy. One way or another, this was going to be over. Maybe the government would crack down and we’d all have to sign non-dis agreements for real and no one would ever speak of this ever again. Or maybe everything would change overnight, and different (and, it must be said, smarter) scientists would figure out the kinks. Maybe time travel would eventually be the new self-driving car. Who knew? Either way, I was well out of it.
“Are you sorry to be saying goodbye to Tudor England?”
I opened my mouth to answer in the resoundin
g affirmative, then hesitated.
I’d never eat leeches again. I’d never go to a cream tasting festival. I’d never save a monarch, console a queen, or meet some of the most notorious figures from history. I’d never use a gold and silver-scrolled spoon to gobble apple mousse, or smell Other Thomas’ hair and stroke his forearms. And I’d never be the world’s only time-traveling wrangler of Losties. I’d go back to being ordinary.
Dammit! Was Lisa right? Not about me being crazy, but about me getting off on being a vital cog in I.T.C.H.’s machinery of scientific douchebaggery? Because that was a sobering thought. That was a horrible thought.
When a certified genius physician who has known you for over a decade points out certain fundamental facts of your personality, she’s probably right.
“I won’t miss Henry VIII,” I said at last, and Warren jumped a little. Maybe the question had been rhetorical. “Or Anne. I’ll be sorry to never see Mary Boleyn again—she was great.” What can I say? I have a real fondness for sly geniuses. “Or Thomas Wynter.” I also have a fondness for men who see the best in me, despite constant clues that I am, in fact, the worst.
Christ, my eyes were starting to water! And I knew why. I would have liked to have seen Mary Boleyn, happy in her country house with her fat babies and a besotted William Stafford, who probably walked around with the expression of a man who couldn’t believe his good luck. I would have liked to have hit the cream eating festival circuit with Wolsey’s bastard when we weren’t making out like teenagers or taking long naps together on feather beds.
I decided to put my almost-tearfulness down to a stressful week. “Yes, some parts I’ll miss. Sure. But the upside—no more doomed queens and no more Lady Eleanor.”
“Yes, you mentioned her—one of Anne Boleyn’s ladies?”
“Yes, she managed to get Henry all turned around on the issue of holy fools predicting the future, which could have really screwed me over. And speaking of screwing over …” Now for the hard part. But I’d made up my mind the minute I realized Warren was calling to ask me out: I had to tell him. “I have to tell you something. It’s overdue.”
“That sounds dire.” He tried to smile.
“If I don’t do this, I’m no better than I.T.C.H. Uh. That came out wrong.”
“I’m in no position to take offense,” he pointed out.
“True.” This time I waited until the waiter had set down my pear Almondine with caramel croustillant and sorbet and left. “I broke your time traveling rules.”
“Which?”
“All.”
“When?”
“A lot.”
Warren, who had started on his chocolate sorbet, dropped his spoon. “What are you saying?”
“I used the Heimlich to save Henry VIII from choking to death. I talked Catherine of Aragon out of war. I got Henry to invite the Duke of Suffolk back to court after his banishment. I got Anne to let Henry bone her at Calais instead of waiting for her wedding night. And I might have set Mary Boleyn up with her second husband—that one’s still up in the air.”
He stared at me, then stammered, “You—you changed history?”
“No, no! I fixed history. Maybe. Warren, what was I supposed to do? Let Henry VIII die years before Elizabeth I was born? The Heimlich wasn’t me jumping the gun—he was purple, for God’s sake. He was dying in front of everyone.”
Warren looked utterly staggered. “But why wouldn’t you tell us this?”
“Really, Warren? You’re going to get pissy about me keeping you out of the loop?”
“This is a little more than ‘out of the loop’. This has profound and world-wide consequences!”
“And losing control of time travel tech isn’t? Why do you think I didn’t want to say anything?” Hmm. I really was no better than I.T.C.H., which was unpleasant to think about. “Something weird was going on back there. I know the word’s overused, but I mean weird like the dictionary defines it: uncanny and/or supernatural. Abnormal. Mysterious. I could never figure it out so I just did the best I could and kept my head down.”
“Okay. Okay.” Warren was taking deep breaths while he clutched the table. He’d gone so pale, his brown eyes were so wide, I considered ordering him a brandy. “Okay. Well. It’s not like you changed anything—you just—”
“Strove to put right what once went wrong.”
“Yes. Er. Yes.”
“Uncharted territory, Warren,” I reminded him. “Territory you shoved me into.”
“Yes.” He was starting to calm a little, possibly because he’d drained his red wine in two monster gulps, then motioned for a refill. “Yeah, you’re right. I get it. And as you pointed out, I don’t have the moral high ground here.”
“And it’s not like I came back to a nuclear hellscape. Right?” I glanced around the restaurant. “Everything’s the same as far as I can tell. The king is still the king, the president is still the president, velvet scrunchies were making a comeback when I left, and they still are—see? That girl over there has a red one. Although if anything had changed, would we even know? What if that girl had a velvet headband? What would that mean?”
“Above my pay grade,” Warren said shortly. “Both of ours.”
“Tell me about it. Just thinking about it’s enough to bring on a migraine. Look, it’s obvious you’re upset, and I’m sorry for that, but I—”
I cut myself off because there it was again—that niggle. That ticklish feeling that I was missing something so big, it might as well have been digging into my chest like the world’s worst underwire bra. Warren’s phone beeped at him and he snatched it up, but it didn’t matter because …
Because why? It wasn’t like migraines were rare—millions of people had them every year. All over the world.
Millions.
Out of billions.
And like that—I had it.
Chapter Sixty-Four
It took all night, and a lot of reading, and time wasted cursing the god of tiny fonts, and too many phone calls, but by morning I had it.
My first jump: I saw the squiggly, shining lines I assumed were migraine aphasia, popped an experimental Maxipan, and opened my eyes in Calais, France, 1520. Sans my icy cold Coke, which had arguably been the worst part.
The dentist. Dr. Inning. I’d warned her the font on the paperwork I.T.C.H. wanted her to sign was so small it would give her a headache. Her response: I get enough headaches. Bad ones, the kind that make me throw up.
Amy, who was drunk when she fell through the gate. I was so relieved to find her whole and unscathed I didn’t think about why she’d been drinking. She even hinted that her family didn’t approve of self-medicating her migraines: But prob’ly I should get back to my family. They don’t like the, y’know, my drinking, but the headaches c’n get really—I should get back.
And, later: You guys. C’mon. M’gettin’ headache. I’d even teased her about a hangover and she corrected me: it’s not a hangover.
Teresa Lupez’s missing person report: visiting from Washington D.C., missing thirty hours, last seen leaving The Tower of London. I called her family, apologized for disturbing them, then lied and said I was investigating her case (I was, but not for the reason they thought). They confirmed she suffered one or two migraines a month and her Imitrix prescription had run out. She’d left the Tower to go to Urgent Care for a shot.
The reason the whole of London hadn’t fallen through gates was because the whole of London didn’t suffer migraines. Very specific migraines: the kind preceded by a visual aura, which only hit 15% of migraine sufferers. The few who did have that particular migraine had to be in the London area and right on top of a gate and inadvertently walk into it.
But none of them could see the gates, which is why they needed help to get back. I could, but not, as Lisa suggested, because I was making something up to feel special.
No,
I could see the gates because I was the only one who got migraines preceded by aura and was taking an experimental drug.
Which meant that this was all Lisa’s fault! Yessssss! Vindication!
The stupid thing? It was in everyone’s paperwork, including mine. I might not have signed the right name (or year), but I was pretty open about my headaches. Most migraine sufferers were—it’s just easier if it’s out there. And while solving the mystery made me feel good, I also understood how ridiculous it was that a layperson had been the one to see the pattern. Because it was right there. All I.T.C.H. had to do was read their own paperwork.
And speaking of I.T.C.H., I had to tell them. Especially Karen. Ooooh, I couldn’t wait to rub everyone’s chronic migraines in her face!
As if to punctuate this gleeful thought, I heard Lisa’s car pull in, which was startling. I assumed she’d been deeply unconscious given that she was running on slow sleep rations. It was only eight a.m., where had she been?
But that was great! I couldn’t wait to tell her, either. Then I—
Couldn’t. The Losties getting migraines didn’t prove I had gone back in time any more than my rigged gown or fancy flatware had. It just proved other people shared my delusion. If they would even back me up—Dr. Inning and Amy had both seemed in a rush to forget the whole thing; neither of them had been even a little pleased to hear from me.
Well. By now Lisa probably felt bad about our fight. She was volatile, but she wasn’t too proud to admit when she got it wrong. I’d hear her out and we could go from there.
And just in time, because the kitchen door was delicately kicked open and Lisa, more wild-eyed than usual, rushed in laden with any number of file folders, X-rays, and lab reports. “Joan! Thank fuck.”
“I accept your apology and I’m willing to—”
“We have to go see those itchy fuckers right now!”
“Okay, first, I love how you butchered the acronym, and second—hey!”
“Right now, right now, Joan, right the hell now!” She was herding me outside like a bewildered milk cow; I had to claw for my purse on the way out. “Come on! Before this gets any worse!”
A Contemporary Asshat at the Court of Henry VIII Page 28