4.6 | Dark Ages ✓

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HE TOLD HER everything.

As they took a slow walk to the bridge, he told her everything that she needed to know. About his experiment, Strand F, and how it would be stolen away. About the first zombie that would be created, which would spark what the world would come to know as the Dark Ages. About how, in two weeks, she would receive a call from Jimin asking for her help to save the world.

In two weeks, she would meet a man, Taehyung, at a café called Serendipity.

"Pretend that you don't know who I am," he'd said, slowing his pace to match hers. "Pretend that all you know about me is that I'm a bioengineer and that you've never met me before."

While she scribbled his instructions down in a notebook, he'd taken the time to admire the tints of her hair under the sunlight. A rosy flush had colored her cheeks when his hand had accidentally brushed hers earlier, and he wondered how deeply she would blush should he reveal how many times he'd dreamt about her. His posture was relaxed, his gun tucked away under his jacket, and he'd almost forgotten that he was a man on a mission.

In her presence, however briefly, he felt like another man.

A man who wanted to shut his eyes as he listened to her voice. A man who almost smiled when he realized how fascinated she was by him. A man who could leave his past behind when he was around her, because she knew him in his future.

"Earlier, you said you'd met Jimin and he'd told you about Marlow," she'd said, finally looking up from her notebook. "Wouldn't that mean your current self wouldn't know about Marlow?"

He should've known that, given her brilliant intelligence, she'd put two and two together. "Yes," he'd said, "he wouldn't."

"Should I tell him?"

Should she?

He thought about the repercussions of him—the other him—knowing about Marlow. If I knew that I was not responsible for the Dark Ages, what then? He would not blame himself. He would be able to work on a cure without any guilt. He would, like Jimin, readily accept the honour of being the man who saved the world.

But then, would Seokjin still visit him, knowing that he wasn't responsible for the Dark Ages? Would their conversations have played out the way it did, with Taehyung eventually telling him to go to Antarctica? Would the base in Antarctica still exist and, if it didn't, what would happen to Hoseok, Yoongi and Jungkook?

In the fabric that is time, pull on one thread and you could unravel everything.

"You told her no." Namjoon's voice breaks the silence at last.

Taehyung glances over at his brother. They're out on the front porch, gazing out at the empty street. While the Dark Ages are over, zombies will still lurk in the shadows until Antigen V is spread across the world. He's not any safer than he'd been before his jump, and he isn't taking any chances. They're now on the lookout for any survivors in this desolate town, and he's spent the morning sharing his time-travels with Namjoon.

"I told her no," he affirms quietly. "My other self had to live out the next five years believing that he was a monster, so that I could go back in time and have things play out the way they did."

Namjoon is silent for a moment or two, before he speaks again. "If it helps, I always knew the truth."

"How?"

"She told me." Namjoon offers him a faint smile when he looks up in surprise. "She knew that you'd met Seokjin while time-travelling, so she was careful to avoid him. But she tracked me down and told me that it wasn't you who created Gen F. She made me promise to wipe out any record that you and Jimin had anything to do with it. When I cleared out all evidence, she arranged for me to leave for Antarctica. I hid out there as the world descended into anarchy, then helped out with the war effort by designing tanks to take out the zombies. Remember that tank you saw that came to pick up Jungkook?"

Taehyung stares at him. "That was yours?"

"One of my best," Namjoon says. "It nearly killed me to have to drive off, knowing that you were in there fighting for your life. But she'd told me that you had survived it, so I trusted her and left."

Taehyung shakes his head in disbelief. It was her all along. She had kept his and Jimin's secret from the rest of the world. She had kept Namjoon safe in Antarctica. She had been there for him from the beginning of the fallout to the very end—

—one year ago.

He swallows and glances at his brother again. "And you still don't know where she is?"

Namjoon lets out a heavy sigh as he fixes his gaze on the empty road ahead. "No, I don't."