100 Yellow Doors

9:00 p.m.

She had killed him.

This was the first thought that passed Iman's mind when she half-staggered into the duplex and saw Julien on the floor, wooden stake protruding from his chest, and a strange, altered version of herself kneeling over him.

I did this.

It was a dream, after all, and everyone did strange things in dreams. What else could this be but a dream? Fritz sitting in absolute stillness on the floor, hands knotted in the carpet, his eyes gaping wide and empty at nothing in particular. Sera, weeping like a child, hands pressed to eyes and tears seeping through fingers. And Julien, quivering on the ground, dying.

I didn't make it in time.

But she had to—she made sure of everything—

I didn't make it.

"Jules?"

Julien's head twitched. "Im-Iman?"

Reality hit her then, like a train going full speed. This was no dream. No nightmare, even. Only the truth.

Iman screamed.

Or maybe someone else did; it was hard to tell. She fell to her knees, mouth still open, crawling over to Julien. There was already a woman kneeling there, and Iman, startled, looked up into a reflection of her own face, already blotched with tears. What was this mess of emotions in Iman's chest? Was she confused? Terrified? Angry?

"You're Iman," said the woman. Her face filled with a sudden understanding Iman was so, so jealous of. "I see. This all makes so much sense now."

Iman ignored her, closing Julien's hand in hers. He was trembling from head to toe, as if the carved wooden stake that rose from out of his heart like a grim mountain were draining him, all of him, inch by inch. Think, Iman told herself. Think, think, think. She darted forward, closing her hands around the wood—

"Immy, don't," said Julien, lifting an unsteady hand to rest over hers. "There's no point. I don't have long. Ah. You weren't...you weren't supposed to see this...but it's okay."

"No," Iman cried, taking his hand again, squeezing his palm against hers, willing it to stay there, willing him to stay. "It's not okay, Jules. It's not—"

"You're not...listening," he said, searching her face with a pained frown, as if her sorrowful expression did him more harm than the sharp object stuck within him. "I wanted...I wanted this, yes? I've lived a very long time, you know. I wanted...I wanted it to all be over."
"Jules," Iman sniffled, lifting their tangle of fingers to her cheek, pressing them against her wet face. Julien just grinned at her, however timorous. "Please don't leave me. Please don't. Please stay. I need you here; I need you."

His eyes fell to the ring upon her left finger, a glittering silver, pure enough to bring the slightest of sizzles to his skin. "No," he said with a light chuckle, "you don't."

Julien's skin was ashen, healthy pink devoured by grayish-white, purplish veins starting at his fingers and climbing over his body like snakes. Iman shuddered, pretending not to notice. They were going to be okay. She was sure of it, even as she wept, even as Julien's face grew blurry through the tears.

They had to be okay.

They always got through it, whatever it was.

"Immy," Julien stammered. "I—I'm going now, so let me just say this, okay? You were the one...the one who never lied to me."

"Jules, wait—"

"I'll always love you for that," he said, his lips drying even as Iman watched, the skin cracked and crumbling. "Always."

When he turned his head, hair falling in limp gray strands beneath his ear, he was gone.

His hand dropped from Iman's, slipping with a lifeless thump to the floor.

Iman, her whole body shaking with grief, gently eased Julien's eyes closed with her fingers.

And when she could, she got to her feet.

"Iman," Fritz said, looking up at her, his own face tear-streaked, so unlike him that it shot another bullet through Iman's already bleeding chest. "I'm so sorry—"

"Shut up, Fritz," she said, her voice rising. "Didn't you listen to a fucking word he said? There was nothing we could have done once he made up his mind. There was nothing."

Seraphine whimpered and turned away, pressing her face into the wall, muttering Julien's name under her breath.

"Rosario?" Fritz sniffled.

Iman blinked as the woman that so looked like herself stood and dusted off her skirt. So this was the one who had turned him? His maker, now his destroyer? Iman wanted to race forward, to close that woman's throat in her fist and hold fast until she suffocated. But even in her despair, Iman was not stupid enough to attempt something so futile.

"He made me promise something," said Rosario, "before he died."

"You mean before you murdered him?" Iman snarled. "Oh, sure. Please, enlighten me."

Rosario pressed a finger to her temple, as if working away a migraine. "He begged me to take away your time traveling ability, Iman Patel. So that you might live...normally, yes?"

For a moment, Iman was silent. It was only the rain, interrupted now and then by Sera's persistent cries.

Then, Iman laughed.

How like Julien, she thought, to think of her even as he left this world, to ensure she would be taken care of even after he was gone. How like Julien, to find everything he'd been searching for, and it still not be enough. How like him, Iman thought, to know exactly what she wanted.

If she wanted that, still.

Iman let her begrudging eyes fall to the carpet again, where Julien lay.

And on his lifeless face, there was a smile.

"It's Iman Caulfield," she corrected, "and no, thank you. I don't need you to take anything away."

Now it was Rosario's turn to pause. "What?" she stammered. "But why? I thought you'd—"

"It's simple, really," Iman said, and though it hurt, God it hurt, she forced herself to smile, because she knew Julien hated to see her cry. "Because I'll see him again. I know I will."

She had wanted him there forever. She'd wanted him to hold more crappy housewarming parties, to bring her copious amounts of cookies he'd baked, to tie Beck's bowties for him. She had envisioned a life where she and Julien were always side by side, in the present, and in the past, and in the future.

But even just one of those was good enough.

Iman had nothing left to do there. She knelt beside Fritz, who stared at her, his face a livid mix of admiration and perplexity. "Bury him somewhere warm, okay?" she said. "Someone told me he used to love the sun."

Julien Morales.

She walked out into the night without an umbrella, let the rain soak through her borrowed dress, stick her hair to her forehead.

One day I'll see you again.

She was cold, wet, shivering. She was alive.

So just wait for me until then.