The Timeservers

Chapter 13

New York City, New York

The Spire

Guardian Park

December 4, 227 P.F.E

1300 hours
There's a small patch of park on the edge of the island. It faces the North so it's not in the shadow of the Spire. The park is covered in frosted trees and evergreens. There's a slight wind blowing through the trees today, ruffling his hair and catching the loose strands of Sophia's.
"I like it here," Sophia sighs, contentedly. She unfolds one of the extra blankets she took from Leo's room and flops down on it, letting her legs sit in the air for a moment before crashing, crossed, to the ground. Snow blows up around her. Sophia tilts her head to look at Leo upside down and smiles. "Aren't you coming?"
Leo sits beside Sophia and falls back onto the blanket. They stare up at the sky for a little bit. "That cloud looks like an elephant." Leo points to the offending cloud.
"What?"
"It looks like an elephant."
"Is this a Historian or a you being weird thing?"
"I don't know."
"Okay, you don't have a past and don't really know yourself. What do you know?"
"I like the color blue. I really like Filipino food, halo-halo is the best. I don't know what else."
"That's okay, I know." Sophia turns to Leo and he turns to face her. "I've been in your ear during most missions and stalking your page since you got here, I literally made it- for my job, mind you. You're funny, you can't talk to girls but it's in a cute way, every time you feel sad or like you're alone you pull up that little corner of carpet that you think is a big secret and put on the sweatshirt there. When you're really sad and lonely you eat this chunky ice cream, a cherry thing I think. I've always wanted to try it but I don't know what it's called."
"Black Jack Cherry Frozen Yogurt," Leo provides.
"You may not really know who you are, but sometimes it takes an outside observer. I just know all this because we live next to each other and you seem to forget I'm there when you're hanging out with my brother sometimes. I hope I'm not totally creepy."
"We're spies. Everything we do is pretty weird or creepy. I also never forgot you were there," Leo consoles and pats Sophia's hand.
"I know you don't feel connected to New America or North America. Have you ever thought about the Timeless?"
"You mean if they're real?"
Sophia nods. "Of course, if they're real."
"I wouldn't mind being a Timeless. No time to have to tie to. Not having to be a ridiculous spy."
"You know that we're on a literal island of spies, right? Anyone could be listening."
"You asked. What about you, if they were real?" Leo asks, turning his head to face Sophia again.
There's a crease in Sophia's forehead and there's a little bit of sadness in her eyes. "I wasn't built for this time." The sadness swells until tears are forming in Sophia's eyes. She tries to draw them back and stop the weeping from making it out of her chest. She digs her hands into her hair, done in two buns with small braids swirling through them.
Leo sits up quickly and Sophia does the same. The tears flow onto her cheeks and she starts to shake a little. Neither of them is sure whether Sophia reached out to him or he reach out to her but they end up wrapped in each other's arms. Sophia sobs for a few more minutes, fighting the whole time to get the tears under control. "Stop crying, stop crying," she whispers to herself, pressing her fingernails into her palms in an effort to distract herself into stopping.
It takes ten minutes for her to calm down and another few minutes for her to make sure she won't burst back into tears at a moment's notice.
"I'm sorry," Leo whispers, letting Sophia go and backing away, wrapping his arms that had held her so gently around his own legs which he presses to his chest. "I didn't think-," Leo lets the sentence stay there, not sure where it was heading in the first place.
Sophia wraps her arms around her own torso. "It's not you. Do you ever feel like you're in the wrong time?"
Leo smirks, but only a little of it is from mirth, the rest is sadness and irony. "I'm a Historian living in New America. Wherever I go I'll be in the wrong time."
"Time's funny like that. If I was a Historian, I'd want to be in Victorian times, I like the houses and the idea of afternoon tea in the lavish gardens. Or I'd want to be a suffragette. I wouldn't have to fight for anything now, but I'd love the feeling of being tied to the people who did."
"I'd be 21st century all the way."
"Really? The most common time?" Sophia pokes, trying to get the mood back to a happy place. She even decides to throw in a friendly punch to the shoulder.
"Hey, I happen to like the 21st century. It feels right somehow," Leo counters.
"Speaking of time, we should be getting back. Your protégé will be looking for you. We want to get to her before Kelly does. Oh, and happy six month anniversary."
"What?!"
"I hope you didn't forget. June 4th, we started dating," Sophia explains.
June 4th rips through Leo's mind, shredding it to pieces with a headache and confusion and disjointed images with no meaning. His heart starts beating quickly and he sinks to his knees, shaking and sweating.
"Leo? Leo, what's wrong?" Sophia asks. She drops to the ground and tries to reach out to Leo. It doesn't register to him, and everything she says is garbled somehow. The images come faster, flashing in front of him at crazy speeds and all demanding attention. There's a house, storms, disease, fires, wars, black oceans, thick fog making it hard for people to breathe.
Leo can feel himself losing control, slipping into whatever world the images come from. It's not a world he wants to bring Sophia down to with him, not when he knows what might happen if she comes. "Get away! Go away!" Leo yells. He pushes her away before losing all sense of the real world. It slips away, being replaced by the horrors in his mind.