vagabond.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧   

Sunny sits up to take the bottle with a small smile of silent thanks, placing the pill in her mouth as she unscrews the cap and promptly swallows the sedative. She takes another small sip of water, not wanting to leave Lamisi without, and places it on the nightstand before returning the back of her head to the duvet. “Half an hour,” she murmurs to herself, glancing at her watch before letting her arm flop down at her side. A yawn follows, tired regardless of the chemical aid. The mattress shifts slightly under her friend’s weight as she’s joined atop the bed. She has to lift her chin to look at Lamisi when her tone changes, the mention of Ibrahim having had an unexpected result. She doesn’t question it aloud, instead allowing the weight of her gaze to swim with pressing curiosity that she likely wouldn’t drop. 

Current concerns provide a brief distraction, however. “Would that be a bad thing?” she asks, genuine in her questioning. “I–” she cuts herself off with a small laugh before admitting, “I’ve spent so much of my life working towards time travel with one very specific goal and… now that it’s looking increasingly impossible to achieve it, I feel sort of free.” That is what makes her feel guilty. Not the thought of having trapped the entire team here but the fact that the idea of saving her sister was slipping through her fingers more readily than she’d anticipated. Her gaze fixes on the ceiling as she considers the additional source of Lamisi’s very-specifically-boy troubles. “You kissed him because you wanted the creep to piss off– or you kissed him because it was a good opportunity to do it after wanting to for ages?” Sunny’s fingertip traces a mindless pattern over the covers as she speaks, still studying the cracks in the paint above their heads. “Did he kiss you back?”

.

A resounding yes is what Lamisi wants to respond with. Of course, being stranded in an abandoned 1980s London for the rest of their lives would be a bad thing. Being pulled sporadically into other dimensions or timeframes would be just as bad; she couldn’t imagine finally getting her footing in whatever reality they’d been dropped into, only to be plucked away just as quickly. But she senses Sunny is confiding in her, and so she lets Sunny muse aloud uninterrupted. Free. Lamisi thinks again to the last conversation they’d had together in the Savoy lobby, Sunny with dilated pupils and smelling faintly of battery acid, very seriously hinting at the very goal she mentions now. “Interesting. I would think it would be...upsetting more than freeing, not being able to accomplish something.” She looks over at Sunny. “But I could understand it, even if I can’t relate. People like us - we ruminate over our goals. Think them to death, imagine the variables it takes to make it all happen for us the way we want to. Then something like this happens, and it makes the entire set null regardless of the variables.” A groan leaves her lips. “I’ve been listening to coding talk for too long.” 

Sunny’s next questions threaten to trigger a tension headache. She’s played over the moment in her mind dozens of times since like a wordless feature film; it’s easy to recall that Ibrahim had been more stunned than anything else. “Both,” she admits with a sigh. There’s no use in lying to Sunny, even if Lamisi wanted to. “If I were to guess, both. It wasn’t exactly a conscious decision. I wouldn’t say he kissed me back, exactly, but he didn’t not kiss me back either. He was...surprised, I think. Which was a bit of the goal at the time, because...well, you’ve seen Ibrahim angry. We weren’t meant to be making a scene, and I knew it would de-escalate things quickly, so...” she trails off, and she isn’t sure why, but the lump in her throat suddenly makes an appearance.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧  

Sunny laughs, just once, the sound short and blunt in the back of her mouth. She shed any notion of guilt less than an hour after their arrival here, having come to the conclusion that, even if it was her miscalculations that led the machine to dispense the team into an entirely unpredictable time ( and dare she say it, dimension ), she was stuck here too and thus was just as put out as the others. If not more so. An awareness that her homegrown desire to make her way back to the fateful day of her sister’s death was growing increasingly unlikely had been pushed aside but threatens every now and again to rise through the back of her mind. Exhaling a quiet breath, she eyes the medication in her palm. “How long does it take to kick in?” She’d swallow it dry now if she had to but doesn’t want to risk falling asleep while Lamisi is mid-sentence. Her friend is strong – perhaps one of the strongest on the team – but the day has been long and not even a doctor with golden bedside manner and an ability to compartmentalise could be expected to keep a brave face on all of the time. 

“Worried,” she echoes, the word holding a little too much weight to be comfortable. Sunny closes her fingers around the capsule in her hand to keep it safe as she allows gravity to take control of her body and leans back until her head hits the bed covers. Dark eyes look at the ceiling, unseeing. “Let’s pretend for a moment that I had nothing to do with the project, okay? Because it sounds to me like you’re feeling guilty about making me feel guilty and that’s– well, fuck that. She cranes her neck marginally to look Lamisi in the eye while patting the mattress beside her in invitation. “If you don’t talk to me about this I’ll go and get Ibra and suffer the weird tension between the two of you.” The warning glimmers with a hint of amusement. 

.

The pill is starkly white against Sunny’s palm. Lamisi caps the bottle, briefly assesses, and leaves the woman on the bed alone to determine whether water runs in the bathroom sink. Something brown and unbecoming sputters from the faucet before dribbling into nothing; with a sigh, she returns to the bedroom. “We’ll have to find water. But - here.” She plucks a half-empty water bottle from her bag and offers it to Sunny. “I promise I didn’t backwash into it. It’ll take about half an hour to an hour, give or take. And it’s not terribly strong. Would’ve looked a bit odd if I stocked up on horse tranquilizer.” Of all things to wish for, Lamisi suddenly wishes she had a change of clothes. She’d hardly done anything physically strenuous in the past 12 hours, but it felt like she had; she wants nothing more than a hot shower and clean clothes. But she settles for slipping off her shoes and settling on the duvet next to Sunny, swinging her legs over and settling cross-legged with her back against the musty headboard, pillow pressing into the small of her back. Sunny is right, of course. Lamisi doesn’t want to make Sunny feel worse (assuming she is feeling guilty - Lamisi would). 

“I mean - yeah, that’s part of it. But what I meant is some of what I’m worried about has nothing to do with you,” she explains. The mention of Ibra pulls the corners of her mouth into a frown. “Don’t do that.” The plea falls from her lips too quickly. She realizes she’s actually being annoying as hell, vague and tip-toeing around confiding in Sunny when her friend doesn’t deserve it. With a sigh, she rests her head against the headboard and fixes her gaze idly on the clouded mirror sat atop the vanity. “There’s the fear we aren’t going to get back to 2020 ever, obviously. Or, at least, our version of it - this has to be some bizarre alternate reality we’re in right now. Who’s to say we aren’t stuck in this freaky dimension? And with Scout gone, it means any one of us could get stranded somewhere alone if we’re not careful.” She chews briefly on her lower lip before she continues. “And then when we were back in 2060...Ibra and I had this really weird moment. Before you say it - I’m aware, this is all very primary school for a group of time travelers, and I’m probably only tortured over it because we’re all so tired. But there was this person that came over and wouldn’t leave me alone, and Ibra was getting angry, and I diffused by pretending we were together to get the creep to leave us alone. And I kissed him. And we’ve been avoiding each other ever since.”

WHO: Nehal & @lamisiboateng​ WHEN: Time Jump 02. Day 02. WHERE: The Roller Disco.

Nehal would say that, all in all, her exploration of the new not-London ( as she’d so aptly named it ) was off to a great start. There had been her rather unpleasant encounter with Sam – but she was choosing to ignore that and focus on the positives. Sure, the library hadn’t boasted the answers she’d hoped it would, and the streets were just as deserted as when they’d arrived, frustratingly barren of both life and answers. Something colossal had to have happened here, she was sure of it – cities as big as London didn’t just disappear. She’d spent the better part of her adult life studying the rise and fall of civilisations, there had to be something to set this all in motion, some sort of catastrophic event. Something big enough to get thousands of people to just up and leave – or disappear otherwise.

So, to recap, her search for answers had actually been a failure. But, she’d gotten plenty of cool photos and taken notes on everything she’d seen, so she chalked that much up to a win. Plus, she’d stumbled across an abandoned Roller Disco about an hour ago, managed to find a pair of skates that fit her, and figured out how to get the record player to blare out some Blondie, so that was helping to keep her spirits lifted. Her mind couldn’t help but drift back to her fellow time travellers, she hoped they weren’t all cooped up in the hotel worrying themselves to death, but she couldn’t help but suspect this would be the case. She’d have to tell them about this place later.

A movement in the corner of her eye catches Nehal’s attention, and as she spins to try and get a look at what it had been, her feet catch on one another, sending Nehal sprawling to the ground with a thud. A curse leaves her lips as pain instantly shoots through her left ankle, but she takes a moment to glance around the Roller Disco in search of whatever it was that she’d seen – seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Weird is the one thought that crosses her mind before she’s brought back to the pain in her ankle – man, that hurt. She suspects it’s merely twisted, but Nehal’s medical knowledge is next to none, and the only person she thinks might be able to help is likely back at the hotel. It was going to be a long walk back.

Nehal hasn’t gone far when she spots a familiar face, letting out a sigh of relief that she might not have to hop as far as she thought. She leans against the nearest wall, calling out to try and attract the doctor’s attention. “Lamisi!” She calls, shooting the other a grin despite her pain, “Lend a hand?”

.

Lamisi hadn’t been as eager as other members of their group to explore their new surroundings. Whereas for others the shift had brought excitement with a touch of apprehension, Lamisi is all nerves - worried about getting home, worried about Ibra, worried someone in the group would end up abducted by some secret apocalyptic society. And it didn’t exactly help that they’d been transported into the abandoned shell of their home city. At least 2060 had been alive, all blinking lights and sleek surfaces and shimmering clothing; a smidge headache-y, but somewhat jaunty. This version of London is...sad. Vintage, and visibly disintegrating. Everything blanketed in a centimeter-thick layer of dust. 

But she decides to take her own advice (or rather, Sunny’s parroting of her own advice) to heart and go for a walk regardless, clear her head and get a whiff of fresh air. Lamisi had spent most of the morning making a crude set-up of a medical station in the Savoy lobby now that they’d settled in there for the time being. Still, it was out of habit and excessive caution that she brought a downsized version of her supplies with her in the bag she slung across her shoulder. She sidesteps a small pile of broken glass outside the storefront just next to the Savoy, pauses to look over the Thanes, and tries to throw a wrench into her own internal spinning wheels if only for a moment. 

The distraction that manifests itself seems too good to be true. One moment, Lamisi is picking her way across the street and weaving around an abandoned Land Rover. The next, she catches sight of Nehal leaning against a brick wall and looking distinctly pained. “Yeah, sure. What happened?” As the doctor approaches, her gaze floats upward to see the dingy, rusted roller skate painted on the metal sign above Nehal’s head. “Oh, dear. Were you...roller skating?”

She’s restless. The thought of going to bed was as appealing as sitting in the lobby risking having someone try and speak to her, which was to say not at all. For all Nimi’s kind-heartedness, Sunny’s not sure she could stomach their attempts to find hope in the current situation and certainly wasn’t in the mood for Charlie to pose another alien-based theory. Instead, Sunny stretches her legs and catches sight of Lamisi turning in for the night. A moment’s hesitation stops her from immediately knocking on the door, having no intention of intruding should her friend prefer to be alone, but it’s concern that has her knuckles pressing against the wood, testing the handle to step into the room. “Hi,” she greets in return, gaze skimming the darkness of the room. The golden glow of a lone candle flickers as the door closes behind her, long shadows cast over the 80s decor. One corner of her mouth lifts at the doctor’s offer. “You don’t look so bright-eyed either.” Her response is less humorous than intended given the circumstances, fluttering to the floor like a dazed moth. “I’m fine. Thank you.” Her pride orchestrates the answer but it’s the looming hours ahead that force Sunny to correct herself. “Actually, maybe something to help me sleep would be for the best.” 

Approaching Lamisi’s assigned bed, she takes a hold of the covers and gives them a firm shake to dispel the signs of time that gathered in between the threads. Satisfied, she sits on the end of the mattress and watches Lamisi search through her medical kit. “You should take one too,” Sunny prompts. “Tomorrow’s going to be– well, quite frankly, pretty shit. I don’t know how we’re going to figure out what to do next.” A small groan of dread is exhaled at the thought of it. Being held accountable for mistakes was far from an enjoyable pastime – particularly when said mistakes meant getting stuck in a vacant 1980s. Silence lingers before a quiet apology is offered ( useless in her opinion but perhaps a rare source of comfort ), “I’m sorry. About all of this. How are you holding up?” 

.

“Even Jin doesn’t look bright-eyed,” Lamisi points out humorlessly. “The bar for ‘bouncy’ and ‘awake’ is pretty low.” It felt like weeks and months had stretched between the moment they’d been in their dingy basement. Lamisi wasn’t particularly fond of the lab herself - it was somehow more lifeless than the bleached white of the hospital - but now she found herself longing for the faint, moist scent of asbestos. Their surroundings now felt doubly as foreign as 2060 had now that there was no endpoint in sight. She’s glad that Sunny corrects herself so she doesn’t have to do it herself, and she quietly crosses back to the bed where she’s set her bag, lifting it and setting it on a nearby velvet armchair instead as Sunny grasps the comforter by the bottom. Dust shimmers faintly in the glow of the single candle, but barely; she can see Sunny out of the corner of her eye settle on the mattress. As her hands sift through pill bottles, she wonders if she ought just ask Sunny if she’d rather sleep here; it wasn’t like it’d make a difference to Lamisi, able to fall asleep relatively easily in normal circumstances regardless of who was snoring next to her. If it would give her friend any degree of comfort. 

Focusing on Sunny’s wellbeing allows Lamisi to table her own inner turnmoil (with Ibrahim and otherwise), and she’s wishing Sunny hadn’t asked how she was holding up before the question’s finished. “I’m not holding this against you, first of all. And it’s not even just because I like you.” Lamisi straightens, unscrews a bottle, shakes a small white capsule into her hand and turns to drop it into Sunny’s palm. “We - well, I - signed onto this knowing it wasn’t perfect. Understanding the risk. And yeah, the risk sucks now that we’re in it, but...I’m not upset with you, is what I’m trying to say.” And then she wants to dive headfirst into the bit she knows she should say - that the minds behind the project are bright enough to figure out what’s wrong, that Lamisi is confident that they’ll work it out, that she trusts them - but the fact of the matter is Lamisi isn’t confident at all, and the conversation feels too Ibrahim adjacent. Because if she thinks too much about him, she remembers the way his lips felt pressed (no matter how briefly) against hers just a few hours prior, and she wants to disintegrate right into the musty ornate rug beneath her shoes. Especially when she remembers the very intentional way they’d avoided one another downstairs. “As far as holding up goes, I’m...okay. Worried, I guess. But not about anything you have to feel guilty about.” 

By the time the clock struck, Lamisi had convinced herself that things would work out as they were meant to - that the machine would pull them back into their dingy 2020 lab, smelling faintly of asbestos and stale Doritos. She realizes she trusts Ibrahim, and Sunny, and everyone else on the team (well, mostly). And so, being pulled into some bizarre apocalyptic version of 1980s London was the last thing she’d been expecting. Even Charlie, Jin, and Ilkay - arguably the most immeasurably optimistic members of their mismatched group - seemed rattled as they picked through the abandoned streets of London to the Savoy.  Passing around cans of beans and stale crisps in the lobby had an obvious somber undertone. And as Jin sorts out who is meant to sleep where in the hallway of empty hotel rooms, it strikes her that they’ve never been this quiet. Tired, she supposes. But surely worried.

Lamisi files obligingly into the room Jin cheerfully lists off and finds it ominously unlocked. Thankfully, it looks as though her room had been cleaned prior to its last occupant - still, everything is still covered in a layer of dust. She knows what to expect, but still disappointed when the flickering of the light switch does nothing; she settles for setting the candle someone had given her on the wooden vanity and striking the match to somewhat illuminate the space. It’s when she’s setting her bag on the end of the bed that a soft knock turns her attention back to the hallway from which she’d come. “Hi,” Lamisi greets Sunny. She, too, looks as tired as the rest of them. Quiet. Feeling guilty, she predicts, that the machine has seemed to glitch beyond any rhyme or reason even if the astrophysicist wouldn’t admit it. She’s about to ask if Sunny’s spoken to Ibra and remembers the last time they’d spoken they’d argued - the question falls flat before it spills from her tongue. “Do you need something to help you sleep? I might be able to scrounge that up. You look exhausted.”

🌍 If it were your muses decision, where would they have gone in time?

The obvious answer is about 32 years prior, in the winter of 1988 in a dimly-lit kitchen. The boring answer, and yet it’s difficult for Lamisi to imagine much else. “The 1960s might be neat,” she decides aloud. “I’ve only see Twiggy on America’s Next Top Model - would be cool to go back to when everyone was dressing like her. Plus, the music industry really gone off. Though - now that I think about it - the future is a bit more interesting. Once we get all the kinks sorted out, obviously. I’d like to see what medicine’s up to 100 years from now.” 

🛍️ If your muse could bring one thing from 2060 back to 2020 with them, what would they choose?

✨Has experiencing the future made your muse want to change anything about their life or their future plans?

Lam’s touch always seemed to ground him, calm him down, help him see the world with different eyes. She pulled his focus from his worries to think about the present, like a stop sign in the middle of the race that his mind was constantly in. He was thankful, and still his heart ached with longing, wanting to teach out and entwine their fingers together, smile grateful at her as he kissed her knuckles. Not that it was a possibility anymore. “Did she tell you something about it?” he asks innocently, trying to divert the focus from his own awkwardness and silence, but growing worried as Lam’s own silence stretched. He never meant to drag her into this - shit, it had been cowardly enough to send Sunny after her when he could not - and now here they were stuck in this weird dance around each other. Perhaps Sunny did have a point in wanting to change the past, one way or another. 

“It is,” he agrees with her as he looks around. He has always been a man of science, a promoter of development and change, and yet there’s a nostalgia in seeing the coffee shop so change, so futuristic, in a way. The smell of coffee is welcoming though, and the fact that no one turns to look at them for their old-fashioned clothes as they walk forward, his arm instinctively wrapping around Lam’s shoulder as someone pushes past her. “Seems like people haven’t change at all the last forty years,” he huffs indignantly, before realizing their position and letting go of Lam, scratching the back of his neck. “Well, we don’t really have money so I don’t know how we’ll order anything… but perhaps if we pretend to be investigators, asking the bartenders about the ‘changes in the modern world for the past 40 years’, they might treat us to some coffee. They might even find the clothes to be a cute touch.” With that in mind, he gestures for Lam to walk ahead and move towards one of the tables.

Sunny had told her something about it, in very little words. Then again, Ibrahim is a smart man - she doesn’t doubt he’d be able to put together that Sunny wants to go back in time to dramatically change the course of the future based on how heated their discussion had appeared. Already a bit uneasy with the prospect of the butterfly effect, it feels exceedingly uncomfortable to hypothesize with her ex-partner why her close friend wants to shift the past unsupervised. A dynamic in their relationship that had never existed before, when they’d once talked to one another about everything and anything. “Sort of,” she explains, but she lets that conversation take a brief pause as they duck through the coffeeshop. The warmth of his palm through her shirt seems to linger even as his arm drops from her shoulder, the gesture creating a brief jitter of sorts in her line of thought. “She just said there was something she wanted to change. Sorry - no, fix. Something she wanted to fix.” It seems like a fair amount of information to divulge, simultaneously all of the information she has and yet Lamisi’s gut feeling adds another layer she can’t quite put words to. 

They both reach a vacant table; as soon as they do so an employee (a live person, Lamisi notes, an oddity in the 2060 service industry) seems to notice from a few tables over. She settles into a seat, noticing the screen that flickers to life embedded in the surface of the table outlining a menu. “Weird,” she points out, until the waitstaff appears at their table and clears their throat. “Hello. Servers are down - so I can take an order and put it through the system manually.” The woman looks bored, and Lamisi offers her a kind smile. “So - funny story. We’re journalists, actually. Reporters. Doing a piece on how the restaurant industry has evolved over the course of the past few decades.” The lie falls from her lips seamlessly, settling comfortably into her (past) role of being the designated ‘talker’ between the two of them. It occurs to her that journalism might very well be obsolete by then, but Lamisi’s already elbow-deep in the facade, so she pushes onward.  “And we’ve heard so many wonderful things about this spot that we wanted to come by and give you what’s bound to be an amazing review as well as ask someone a few questions. But - awful luck, you see - we happened to get mugged on the way over. So we actually can’t order anything.” The corners of her mouth pull into a frown, nothing but sincere in expressing her faux-disappointment. “It seemed like a shame to pass up still coming by when we’ve traveled across the city already, so we were wondering if we could maybe pick your brain a bit?” The waitress glances at the clock - bored, still, but expression softened just barely. Enough to humor them. “I can come and answer a few questions in ten minutes or so? The owner would kill me if I passed up on the free press, but I’m swamped. I’ll put in an order for a drink to tide you over, and it’ll pop up on the bar over there.” She gestures to the edge of the sleek counter, where businessmen checking their tablets hover waiting. “Thank you - that’s so incredibly thoughtful of you. We’re happy to wait.” It isn’t until the waitress disappears from view that Lamisi shifts her attention back to Ibra. “Easy peasy.”

It’s no surprise to anyone that Lamisi and Ibra are the most reliable pair, the most likely to find themselves back in the lobby of the Savoy as instructed before they are pulled back into 2020. And ironically enough, time travel is now the very last thing on Lamisi’s mind. A collected exterior does little to represent the chaos that is her internal monologue, a jumble of old feelings and the sensation of Ibrahim’s lips (no matter how briefly) touching hers and sweaty palms she wishes she could wipe against her shirt without it being glaringly obvious. And she knows - she knows - how comical it is, to be so concerned about making her ex-partner uncomfortable by crossing a platonic boundary he’d drawn on the sand years ago that she forgets they’ve magically materialized forty years into the future. Not to mention they’ve arrived at the final countdown, the minute hand on the glowing clock in the Savoy lobby chipping away at every second left until they (ideally) return to 2020. 

Lamisi notices Yas first. Ibra separates from her as they near their earlier meeting spot, something she tries her best not to over-analyze - is he upset with her? Embarrassed, maybe? Annoyed at how the cafe fiasco had transpired? - and her gaze manages to settle on an unfamiliar face. Someone she doesn’t recognize. Someone distinctly dressed in clothing similar to theirs, hovering in a way that makes it clear they’ve arrived with Yas. And the appearance of a new straggler manages to be the perfect distraction for Lamisi to grab onto, able to briefly dismiss tumultuous thoughts of Ibrahim. “Oh, no,” she sympathizes with a kind smile. “You haven’t been dragged here along with us too, have you?” The brief, sideways glance to Ibrahim is entirely subconscious and ultimately unwanted, as is the pervasive thought that he ought to know another innocent civilian has been flagged by the ever-mysterious code. She shakes it off, turns her attention back to the stranger. “I’m Lamisi. I’m the doctor that’s meant to ensure everyone’s - relatively - alright. And the man I came in with, that’s Dr. Ibrahim Ayadi. You’ll have to chat with him, and he can answer your questions. How are you feeling? Seems everyone’s complained a bit about motion sickness, but otherwise?”

ੈ✩‧₊˚

İlkay frowns at the image of having a giant, swollen ankle for two or three weeks. Aside from the pain ( she can get by with the occasional pang that rides up her leg ), the sight of it is disturbing. She can’t exactly land a new job hobbling around on a sprained ankle, what kind of employer would hire a klutz with an injured foot? They’d be begging for disaster. “ Well, I don’t know how much longer I can zip around on my moped before I lose my mind, ” she sadly laughs at this revelation, of still being the delivery girl but there wasn’t much she could do about it. She registers how pathetic, how concerning her lighthearted comment sounds, shrugs it off and tries to dim her deprecation by expressing her gratitude. Lamisi is ahead of her though, and in all honesty, İlkay’s been a bit slow to everything today. It’s been an awfully long day, with many twists and turns and just as many surprises, coincidences. The kind of thing you watch on television, the kind of drama and elaborate schemes you’d make fun of a soap opera for writing. Didn’t expect the challenge of a lifetime to be thrown at her. She was good at pretending, though. Had learned to shoulder her indignation, questionably skilled when it came to clumping her rage with the rest of her displeasure and waving it off until it’d warped into something paralyzing and inescapable. Lamisi commenting on her composure is a compliment. İlkay is such an act. An impressive act.

“ I can’t hold much of a grudge, it isn’t productive. Also, bad for my skin, ” she wraps a strand of hair around her finger, viewing her bandaged ankle with some appreciation. It’s harder to notice the swelling and suddenly, she’s overwhelmed with thanks for the woman’s presence. İlkay can be convincing, but after some time the pain begins to slip through and with her sore ankle she wasn’t sure how much longer she’d last. “ Thank you, really. Not just for my ankle, but for listening. I know I can be quite talkative, ” she accepts the ice pack with a generous smile. “ I think setting your mind to something and dedicating yourself to see it through to the end is the hardest part of doing anything. I bet you considered dropping out of the project when Charlie made his first flat Earth joke ? You get used to his shenanigans, I’m sure you know by now. He’s kind of like … the human version of a golden retriever. ” İlkay refrains from immersing herself into the image of puppy-dog eyes ( the one thing Charlie can maybe outdo her in ) and shifts her leg up to her chest, nesting the ice pack on her knee as she waits for it to get cold. “ So, when you first got your part in all of this, did you find it hard to believe? Building a time machine … it’s the sort of fantasy a child indulges in. ” Lamisi told her she’d been lucky to drop-in at their moment of success, but İlkay did not feel lucky. Not in the slightest. After picking at Ibrahim’s brain and trying to get a drunk Yas to tell her as much as possible, she still felt disconnected from what was happening around her. There were moments where she wanted to drop to the floor and start laughing because it was too-appalling. Where’s the hidden camera? she wants to ask. I have to get back home, take me back, she wants to cry, but being intensely-emotional after everything wouldn’t make her any more of a welcomed guest. She figures answers, for now, are the closest she can get to some form of emotional comfort. 

.

“Unhappy with your job?” Lamisi guesses at Ilkay’s clear disdain regarding moped transportation, unknowingly opening a can of worms. This, she’s used to - gently prodding along conversation, being a responsive listener. And Ilkay fits the bill as the perfectly, overly-talkative patient who wouldn’t pay any mind to whatever Lamisi was doing to treat an injury. Thankfully, nothing more extensive than wrapping an ankle was required; she also envisioned Ilkay being the squeamish, low-pain-tolerance type. She vaguely recalls some sort of low-grade outburst happening in reception the last (and only) time their paths had crossed, kind enough not to mention it. At Ilkay’s serious explanation regarding holding grudges, Lamisi chuckles. “Well, you mustn’t have a malicious bone in your body. You have very nice skin,” she points out matter-of-factly. 

Ilkay’s gratitude is dismissed with a small wave of her hand, absent-minded and casual, as she gets everything in her medical bag sorted to set down on the floor and push aside with her foot. “Of course. This whole thing must be...incredibly jarring. Upsetting, even. And anyway, this -” she nods down at Ilkay’s leg, “ - is what I’m here for. If this is the worst injury we end up with, it’s made my job easy.”  She meant what she said earlier - she’s incredibly shocked that Ilkay is handling this so well. Emotion seems to glimmer beneath the surface, and Lamisi predicts it’ll settle in later that she’s been unceremoniously drop-kicked off a cliff into their time travel project without consent. “Yes, something like that. I tune him out now most of the time. Though sometimes he says something ridiculous enough to drag me into the discourse - I don’t have a perfect track record.” She pulls a good-natured face. Personally, Lamisi thinks Charlie’s a bit more annoying and obtrusive than a golden retriever but purposely doesn’t say so. “And...definitely. This was the 73rd attempt. I didn’t hop on until a bit later in the project, but it’s always been a bit difficult for me to believe any of this was possible, especially as time went on.” Her ability to consistently show up at laboratory meetings had little to do with the actual time travel; at least now Lamisi can admit it to herself. “So to end up here was...surprising. Bizarre. A bit frightening, even. All of that. On the other hand, the minds involved in the project are incredible - good people to trust, and be hopeful that it’ll all work out as they’ve calculated. We’re meant to be pulled back to 2020 eventually. I’m sure Ibra mentioned that to you.” 

.

“ I’m sure the view distracted him plenty. ” He knows that if anything, the actual distraction would be the need to talk him out of taking them on the most potentially dangerous flight of the century, but he doesn’t mention it. Sometimes, when you’re so enthralled by something, you temporarily forget the fear that is deeply rooted in your brain, which is why in certain cases, sharks don’t terrify him as much if he’s too preoccupied with the gorgeous blue waters stretching out below his feet. Well, that is until he’s eventually pulled out of the trance and reminded that it’s not the best idea to hang around something that has once bitten you in the ass before—literally, just the wrong spot. “ Good to know that you’d even attempt to bail me out in the first place. Very heartwarming, ” he says it a little sarcastically, but the sentiment is still there. There’s no denying that his dynamics with the team aren’t always sunshine and rainbows and Hyuk has to admit that if he were in Ibrahim’s place, he would definitely consider, even just for the briefest moment, leaving him behind to gain the upper hand in this project. Eat or be eaten, right?

“ I suppose we should be relieved that we didn’t get scattered across the city in body parts. I don’t doubt that you’re the master of your craft, but something tells me that even you wouldn’t be able to put all of us back together. ” As ridiculous as it might sound, but it was something Hyuk was concerned about—such forces by travelling almost at the speed of light should technically be lethal, but for once, he’s thankful to have been proven wrong. Certainly, his faith in Ibrahim, Yas, and Sunny should have never wavered in the first place. (Maybe he’ll just stop relying too much on the consumption of media.) “ You’d speed up the process. I get the importance of leaving the past untouched, but as for the future … I’d say there’s no harm in changing the name behind the patent of a cure. ” 

.

Lamisi tries to imagine how, exactly, Hyuk could have convinced Ibrahim to get into a flying vehicle in any scenario and fails. Ibra might have needed his fight or flight to knock him fully unconscious, with Hyuk dragging him into the passenger seat by the feet. And she imagines by ‘the view distracted him plenty’, he means it inspired some degree of paralyzing fear. “Of course. Though I suppose - hypothetically - the machine would pull us back to 2020 regardless of whether or not we were together? So you’d poof out of whatever hyper-futuristic cell they’d put you in pretty quickly,” she muses. “At any rate, feels like I’ve got to be a bit of the responsible one in the bunch, and Ibra would be disappointed if you weren’t a part of the team any longer I’d imagine, so you’re much better off with the rest of us.” She knows how her words could be interpreted - that Ibra would be disappointed about the financial loss - but she also knows they’ve built an odd, mismatched sort of community in the dimly-lit basement back in 2020 London. Some of them more willing to acknowledge it than others. 

She lets out a dry laugh and shakes her head at his prediction. “Uh, definitely not. I’m an ER physician, not a surgeon,” she assures him. “Once the parts are fully detached I’m a bit useless.” But the mere thought doesn’t fail to make her shudder. “I feel like a broken record today, but I truly...well, I wasn’t prepared for this to actually work. I’m happy I even had the foresight to put together a relatively well-rounded medical kit before we left, because I didn’t really think about how actually traveling through time could affect everyone’s health. And I’m really, really glad it just seems to be a bit of motion sickness.” Her nose wrinkles. When Sunny and Hyuk offer it so simply, it seems silly to consider not taking back any bit of knowledge that could further the medical field. Save more lives, sooner. Selfish, even. Her apprehension is hard to explain, even to herself. Ironically, it nearly feels inherited from a specific chief scientist. “Maybe. I mean - okay, what about you? Say there’s some sort of company, or development, or something that’s big here in 2060 that you go back to 2020 and choose to invest in. Would you do it?”

🔬

For someone who hated being in charge as much as he did, Ibra figured he did a pretty good job. It came naturally, he supposed, not trusting anyone else with the decision to keep each other alive to delegate it, so at the end he directed everyone into pairs or small groups - logical pairings, not that he wanted to stay with Lamisi in particular, but it made sense - and crossed his arms over his chest as he watched them all disperse out into the streets of London. It was a gamble, and if it were up to him, they’d just stay there for the next few hours and make sure no one messed up, but they all were excited young scientists - of sorts - and keeping them there seemed useless when they could all be gathering information. At the very least he sent a quick prayer to Allah, that they all would return safely and without messing up their future. 

Once everyone was gone, he could feel the giddy nervousness in his chest as he approached Lamisi. The hug was nice, and he had to keep reminding himself that it didn’t mean anything despite how much he wanted it to. Hey had hugged before. It wasn’t a big deal. He wouldn’t be a creepy and make it a big deal. “Guess it’s just us left, huh?” he said instead, wincing slightly at how, despite his best effort, he still sounded awkward. “Let’s go take a look around. See what we can find. I’m sure the rest of the kids would be alright. Or at the very least, if any of them get locked up for driving one of those flying cars, they should still be picked up by the time machine. We’ll see.”

They start walking down the street, close enough for shoulders to brush now and then with the excuse of not wanting to get separated, when Lam asks him about Sunny and he turns to her with a sneer - not directed at her, but at the memory - and huffs. “Not really, no.” There was no point in lying to her, after all. “She wants to use the machine by herself and I told her no, which of course upset her. I just don’t get it. If there’s something she wants to see, she could just ask me. We could talk about it, but she demanded it like it was her right…” he sighs, his impassive mask breaking a bit to show confusion, anger, fear, before it went back to neutral. “I fear I might’ve made a mistake choosing her.”

The sight of the Café was a good distraction, and he smiled slightly at her when she bumped her shoulder with his. “Perhaps, it’s worth a try.” He grins and opens the door for her. “After you.”

.

Lamisi had guessed as much. Sunny had looked angry, sure, but Ibra himself looked...well, more irate than usual. Their occasional tiffs seemed to annoy him more than anything else, and this felt different. She catches the brief flash of distress in his eyes. Her hand moves to touch his elbow, briefly give it a squeeze before dropping back to her side. An affectionate gesture that - hopefully - seemed platonic enough. “That’s odd. We’d been talking earlier, and...” Lamisi trails off, a crease appearing between her brows. The pieces fall together, and she realizes she’s somehow been placed firmly in the middle. Sunny had said she wanted to change something. She’d argued with Ibrahim about wanting to use the machine, alone. Whatever it was, it must be something big enough to know that Ibra would never allow it - and she wonders if Ibra knows Sunny wants to divert the route of the future as directly as she does. Whether Lamisi should tell him. Because now she knows Ibra will pick up on her hesitation. Damnit. 

She ducks through the door as he holds it open, glad for a moment of distraction from the Sunny debacle. The cafe barely resembles her version of a cafe - customers order from screens and holograms and a mixture of mechanical arms behind the bar prepare orders. Still, the scent of freshly-ground espresso and croissants is oddly comforting. “This is...bizarre,” she proclaims with a glance over at Ibrahim. Someone tall brushes in past them, and she subconsciously shifts closer to Ibra to avoid getting shoulder checked. “Okay. I guess we should - should we leave? Should we find a table? I’m realizing I actually don’t know how any of this works and we probably stand out like sore thumbs.”

 6: A compliment my character would say to yours ⫸ ilkay.

3:  Something my character wishes they could say to yours ⫸ jin. 

8. My character’s general opinion of your character ⫸ charlie.

İlkay simulates her startlement, piecing together a beady stare and a pert smile to sell the image of Lamisi catching her by surprise. “ Oh ! Yes, that incident, ” İlkay wishes she could erase the memory that nudges her with utter humiliation, “ How could I forget? ” It could be worse, she supposes. Lamisi could have described the incident in more detail, but she’s genial enough to leave it at tweaked wrist. She acknowledges her ankle and İlkay is grateful it isn’t in any worse condition, she isn’t as careful as she should be when she does have a broken limb. Bedrest isn’t as manageable as it sounds, nor as one makes it seem to be. “ That’s a relief. Although, ” İlkay watches Lamisi draw out the roll of bandage, “ The swelling’s a bit disturbing. I think I may have strained it a bit with all the walking and running. You don’t think it’ll take too long for it to stop looking like a plum, do you? ” Her deliveries and knack of tripping over her own two feet have left İlkay with enough experience in the department of sprained ankles and scraped palms. She knows there’ll be some bruising to manage, knows that it won’t be appealing. İlkay only hopes she can shield it from someone’s critical stare, knowing she’ll have to get back to job-hunting as soon as they drop back into their own time. 

“ Yes, I think I talked the man’s poor head off. He was surprisingly lenient when it came to me asking all sorts of questions. And he just about knew the answer to every one of them ! I guess ten years is a long time to get yourself prepared for that sort of thing, doubt and inquiry. ” It isn’t unlike her to start rambling to someone she’d just meant, already letting her guard down in front of them and willing to share any bit of information ( whether it was called for or not ). It was like she thought of doctors and dentists as shrinks, believed waiting rooms were a perfect opportunity to get acquainted with strangers. A risky habit which usually ensued a predicament. “ You knew each other before the project? Wow, makes you think of what they say about fate, doesn’t it? ” İlkay angles her head to the side and thinks of her own form of luck. Would she even be here without her kindred’s ties to the project? She had been waiting for the moment she’d catch them in their lies, finally figure out what secrets they’d been keeping from her. Her wish had been granted in its entirety, “ You make it sound so simple. Your role is quite important here—I know that there’s a trio here that can get themselves in a lot of trouble when they put their thick heads together. If they didn’t have you, they’d probably be fried into crisps or something. I’m sure of it. ”  She’s sure there’s enough stories about them to go around. It might’ve been the one thing she hadn’t asked the others yet, how her friends and family were viewed in their eyes. İlkay saves it, for now a faint grimace climbs onto her face each time the elastic spins around her swollen ankle; she stables herself by gripping the fabric of the seat beneath her. She should be used to this. “ You don’t happen to have a lollipop in that bag of yours, do you, Doctor Lamisi ? ”

.

Lamisi chuckles at the vaguely-horrified look in Ilkay’s eyes. “Well, yeah - I’d guess running through the streets was probably not the best thing for your ankle,” she agrees with a warm grin. “But it’ll survive. Swelling always makes it look worse than it really is. Probably will hurt a bit until you can lay down and rest and ice it properly - I’m sure you’ll have to walk on it for a bit until we get back home.” In reality, she’s thankful this is the worst injury she’s seen since this whole thing started - she can’t stop being grateful for the relative lack of damage considering she hadn’t been emotionally prepared to get to the future in the first place. “I’d say full recovery time would be about 2 or 3 weeks. Might need to zip around on your moped a bit more than usual to get around.” 

She could very well guess what, exactly, Ibrahim had been thinking when pulling Ilkay aside. Ibrahim was concerned - worried there were others, worried she’d head back to 2020 and leak news of time travel to the press, worried she’d gossip about it to her friends and accidentally get committed for hallucinations. But he’d probably tried his best not to show it. It seems it’d worked considering Ilkay had gotten a good impression. “He probably wants to make sure you’re alright. I mean, I’ll be honest - I’m surprised with how well you’re handling all of this. It’s impressive.” The bandage by then is wound expertly around Iklay’s swollen ankle; she secures it gently, checks it’s tight enough, then straightens. The girl is incredibly talkative. It’s not hard to see why Ibrahim would have had questions - plural - to entertain. “Yes, we did.” Lamisi fails to mention the weird, complex-but-not-complex emotional baggage lingering between herfself and Ibrahim, settling with, “He reached out to me to recruit, wanting a doctor on the team for liability reasons. I promise you, though, it’s not nearly as glamorous and exciting as it sounds. You’ve been lucky enough to be dropped in at the most excitement this project’s seen in years. Normally, it’s just a bunch of boys seeing who can drink their soda the fastest in a basement and the scientists muttering to themselves in a corner.” She pulls out a gel ice pack, gives it a shake, and offers it to Ilkay. “No candy, but next best thing. This should get cold in a minute. It’ll help if it’s hurting you.”

Lamisi wonders if she’s the only one sensing the uncomfortable, awkward energy lingering between herself in Ibrahim as he directs the others in the group to investigate the city. By then, they’ve all (miraculously) made it to the Savoy as instructed - she greets Quincy with a wave, accepts the cup of water with a smile, then watches off to the side as many of them pair off. It seems somewhat strategic: Sunny’s most likely to keep Charlie in line, Akira and Yas can handle themselves, Hyuk and Jin naturally want to stick together. Lamisi is expecting to be with Ilkay when she realizes quickly that the woman’s already slipped out of the lobby, and suddenly, it’s just Ibrahim left looking at her. Guess it’s just us left, huh? he says. They agree to leave and see if anyone will speak to them, tell them about the world they’ve been thrust into. 

The purpose of their excursion quickly falls to the wayside. She’s not exactly sure why she’s the one paired up with Ibra, who has a clear endless fascination for how 2060 has evolved - someone like Yas or Akira or even Quincy had more of a genuine interest than she. Still Lamisi humors him, and as they slip out onto the sidewalk (or whatever futuristic version of a sidewalk this is), she debates asking him what it was exactly the conversation with Sunny in the lobby had turned into. It isn’t uncommon for the pair to bicker; most of them in the lab can tune it out by now. Lamisi occasionally hears Sunny grumble about it over a pint. Nothing terribly out of the ordinary. But there’d been a certain energy that made it feel different - maybe the way Sunny had pulled him closer by the shirt, the crackling anger nearly tangible from across the room. 

“Are you and Sunny alright?” Lamisi poses the question diplomatically, breaking the companionable silence that’s settled between them. “She seemed pretty pissed about whatever you guys were talking about in the lobby. Hard not to notice.” The sound of a bell tinkling catches her attention, a swinging door just ahead with Interval Café printed in shining letters. It seems odd to see something so foreign and familiar all at once; even the scent of espresso wafting down the walkway makes her nostalgic for 2020. Dramatic, she reminds herself. They’ve barely been in the future for a few hours. “Do you think anyone in there might want to talk?” she suggests, bumping her shoulder lightly against his arm.