I'll Just Stand Here and Watch You Go

Chapter 6

They stood, stock-still, in the mouth of an alley. Aurora clenched her jaw shut against a plea. Come on, say something. Be angry with me, or something. Say you don't believe me.

Alec opened his mouth. "It's not so much Back to The Future as Terminator, isn't it?"

A helpless laugh burst out of her, like coughing up seawater. But the thought was sobering. "I suppose... you're right."

Alec heaved a great sigh, looking away again. "What the fuck."

"What the fuck," she agreed, closing her eyes, dropping her head back, released from the great weight of it all.

His mouth quirked in spite of himself. "At least, unlike Terminator, you're not out to kill me."

They started walking again, Aurora kicking a pebble out of her way with more force than was necessary. "Yeah. I'm not out to get you."

"So, you're from the future." He turned back to her.

"Yes." She nodded, watching the pebbles on the sidewalk.

"Nineteen years in the future."

"Yes."

"A future where I died two days ago."

"Yes." She stopped in her tracks. "How could you believe me so easily?"

"Is this where you tell me you're yanking my chain?" He stopped too, narrowing his eyes at her.

"No!" she protested. "I just – yeah, that, why didn't you ask that first? Why didn't you ask me if I was yanking your chain?"

"I don't know," he replied, almost petulant. Definitely angry. "If this was a prank... it's a really fucking complicated one."

"What? Nobody's ever pranked you before?" It was half-meant as a joke.

"Hey, I love pranks as much as the next person," he said, lifting his hands out of his pockets. "But this one is really fucked up."

"This isn't a prank," she corrected quietly. "This is real life."

He sighed again, exhaling the breadth of the world. "Yeah. Really fucked up."

They didn't speak for the next few moments, with Aurora caught up in the sights around her and Alec seeing the world in a new way for the first time.

"I almost died twice," he mused out loud, shaking Aurora out of her reverie. "And you think death isn't done with me yet."

"Don't take my word for it," she replied darkly. "Just – be careful until the day has passed. Or maybe be careful for the rest of your life? Which sounds better to you?"

"You're full of sass, aren't you?" he said, but with humor.

"Sorry," she replied automatically. "But I was being serious." She halted, forcing him to halt, too. Her eyes, dark eyes that won't quit, seemed to fill her face. "You get pulled from a burning building, and then get hit by a car? Any damn thing can happen. Who's to say that death isn't still trying to collect you? It's like a bad Hollywood plot."

"Or a good Hollywood plot," he returned absentmindedly, as they started walking again. They didn't speak again, now just trying to avoid a busy sidewalk with people rushing to go about their lives.

"How do you even know?" he began, like a burst of inspiration. "That I was supposed to die today? That it would be like – last night?"

All at once she tensed, her neck tautening as if she was trying hard to keep from looking at him. "I – I can't tell you that."