Parallels- an MCSM AU [COMPLETED]

TWENTY-SEVEN- The Worst Solution

i've! been!! planning!!! this chapter!!!! since the very beginning of working on this story!!!!!

let's hope it's just as good as past me imagined it!

!!!!!!!!!

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Reuben.

Beacontown faded to a colourful blur as I raced back to the Order Hall. It felt like I'd been tossed into a two-dimensional world, with no space to breathe. My heart pounded mercilessly in my chest, feeling almost like it was trying to break free of my ribs and escape to a world where this wasn't real.

This wasn't real.

This couldn't be real.

But it made too much sense. Fred had sent something forward in time that the Prime- me, in this case -would connect with. No one had actually said it had to be an object, we'd all just guessed that.

And what had I connected with more than Reuben? He'd been my loyal pet, and my closest friend.

And now I was going to have to kill him.

I threw open the doors of the Hall, not bothering to close them behind me as I hurried up the stairs. I called Julia's name, but there was no answer.

The bedroom at the far end of the hall was usually empty, reserved for any travelling friends that didn't have another place to stay. That was where Julia had been staying in the time she'd been here, and I didn't hesitate to go inside.

She was sitting on the orange bed, looking silently out the window with an expression of detached despondency. The door creaked loudly when I entered, but she didn't look up.

"Julia?" I asked. Her shoulders tensed slightly, but she didn't make any other movement.

"Julia. Come on, I know you can hear me, just listen." I ordered. When she still didn't acknowledge my presence, I sighed. "Julia, I know how to fix it."

She finally lifted her head to look at me, her expression laced with confusion. "You...what?"

"The timelines. I know how to fix them. I know how to put everything back to normal; I figured out whose timeline is the problem. I know Fred's failsafe." I rambled.

"Who? What do we do?" She asked, starting to get to her feet.

"Essa. In all of our timelines, there's only one thing that's been entirely consistent. Yours, mine, Jacek's, Jo's...all of them except Essa's."

"What is it?" she asked quietly. I could practically see the complicated gears of her brain turning as she tried to puzzle out the difference.

I inhaled deeply, trying to prepare myself to say the words aloud. "Reuben. He's still alive in her timeline. Lukas fell, and Reuben survived. He's the variable we need to remove." My voice cracked on the last sentence, broken by the tightening of my throat.

It's impossible to describe Julia's expression at that moment. All the colour drained from her face, and she stared beyond me, beyond anything, as she realized what had to be done. "No. That's...oh no."

"It's the only constant. We've been looking in all the wrong places, following all the wrong leads. That's why it took us so long to figure it out. We were looking for something that was absent, not something that was still there. But the whole time..."

Julia pressed a hand to her forehead. "Oh god, no. This can't be right. Not Reuben."

"It is." I whispered. "He's the problem. He's...he's the thing we need to...need to remove."