safe and sound

The recollection of how Hannah was bought into this mess came flooding back to him. A strange bubbling of frustration pooled in the pit of his stomach and no matter how he tried, he couldn’t shake it. Maybe this was the reason he was looking for. Maybe if this time he was able to convince her to leave, then none of this would have happened. She wouldn’t have been hurt. He knew now though, that despite his best efforts, Hannah would always be entangled in this world. After all, years had passed in reality since the fire. Her words shook him from his thoughts and he nodded knowingly. “Yes,” he sighed in relief. “This is our chance Hannah. Our second chance.”

At the confirmation that their little bookshop was still standing, Hannah’s face filled with happiness. Their second chance. Oh, how they needed it. The first time left destruction in every possible aspect of their lives. Having a chance to rewrite that was such a blessing, but the curse was in risking the possibility of reliving it all. If she had the opportunity to even rekindle her friendship with Jonah, though, she would risk everything else. “I’ve missed you, Jonah. So much.” She brought him back into a hug, squeezing him as though she hadn’t seen him in years.

“Not a clue, unfortunately.” He had been trying to figure that one out himself. “Maybe… maybe it’s fate’s way of making sure things don’t end so bad this time.” It had ended bad, the details were fuzzy but they were coming back and he knew that very few good things had been a result of the school’s reconstruction. “We can hope.” He always had hope. Throughout everything, Freddie had never let all of his hope slip away. It had faltered at times, sure. But he held onto his positive outlook with everything that he had. If not for that, he wasn’t sure how he would have gotten through the tough times – even though he had yet to live some of them. “It’s not odd at all,” he reassured her, smiling once again. “And I do not have any plans or anyone to meet up with.” In fact, he wasn’t sure that anymore of his closest friends were around. At least he had Hannah. Even if he had technically only known her all of ten minutes. “This familiar unfamiliar face is  all yours.”

Hannah nodded in agreement. “I hope you’re right. I’d like not to lose some important things in my life this time round. I’m sure you and the other Whittemore alums would like not to lose some things, too.” She certainly hoped that Jonah wouldn’t lose his sanity this time. Shaking her head, she let those thoughts fade so she could focus her attention to the present, even if it felt like the past. “Good.” She grinned. “How does a picnic sound?” she asked. Some things didn’t have to change. The picnic they’d shared at the first reunion had brought them to this comfort she felt, after all. Perhaps it could bring her more now.

So it wasn’t just him. He wasn’t crazy. “Hey,” he replied, unable to stop the smile that spread across his face. He trusted her. He knew that. And he missed her. It didn’t make sense, to miss someone that he didn’t know, but very little of what went on at Whittemore had ever made much sense. He was filled with relief, seeing her there, knowing that she was okay, this stranger that was somehow one of the most important people in his life. It was almost hard to think about, not in an emotional way but in an actual mental and physical way, but flashes were coming back. A picnic. A dance competition. “Bizarre,” he agreed, and he didn’t know how but he knew that he meant it as he said, “I’m glad to see you too.”

“Any idea why we’d be back here, reliving this... nightmare?” she asked him. She couldn’t seem to figure out how to have a conversation, still fumbling about with the concept of a second chance. Was she supposed to converse as though she hadn’t met anyone but Jonah, as though she didn’t already know them? Or could she jump back into the familiarity of the relationships she had built the first time around? How was one supposed to handle time travel? “This might seem like an odd question maybe, but do you have plans? Anyone to meet up with or anything? I think Jonah is busy, and it’d be nice to spend more time with a familiar unfamiliar face.”

“Just fine,” she was quick to answer, steadying herself before throwing a small, reassuring smile over her shoulder as she came to recognize brunette beauty. It’d been an ages since she’d seen the store owner after all and as mind boggling and typically Whittemore as the situation was, here they were in a time where she was fairly certain they hadn’t even been acquainted of each other yet. “Hannah. Do you— do you remember too? I mean, it’s all starting again, isn’t it? This has all happened before,” she tried clarifying, finally turning to face her fully with the hope of not sounding like an utter loon.  Being apart of an alternate timeline was difficult and strange enough when no one else had seemed to remember anything, not in the way she had with her firmer grip on reality at least, and she wasn’t at all keen on having that happen again.

With a nod, Hannah let Kitty know that she wasn’t alone. This strange repetition of events was occurring to many of them, if not all. She couldn’t understand it in the least. Hell, she’d only just given in to acknowledging the truth of the matter. “I think it has. It’s incredibly confusing. I have two separate memories fighting for dominance, it feels like. Do you think we can keep things from getting so... bloody this time?”

The mix of guilt and sentiment he felt when turning to face the girl was strange. On one hand he felt as though it had been years since they’d been in contact, and on the other he couldn’t remember a day going by where he didn’t see her face in the shop. Wait. The shop. Overcome with a strange feeling of relief, his face lit up. He enveloped the girl in a hug before lifting her off the ground, spinning her about in glee. To onlookers this would seem strange, hell, even Hannah probably found it rather peculiar, and yet in that moment it was the most natural thing ever to Jonah. Setting her down, he shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t know what this is, or why it’s happening, but .. it’s good,” he said, a sign of hope in his tone as he nodded. “It’s good.”

Laughter bubbled up as Jonah twirled her around. He was a strange boy, she knew, but this seemed absolutely out of context, even for him. “Jonah, what’s the matter with you?” she asked, wide smile on her face. “Just five minutes ago, you were up in arms that I was here with you.” Then she looked into his eyes. Between that look and the hopeful undertones in his voice, the memories of that first reunion came flooding back. She remembered the confusion and pain--a different kind than she felt now--and the horrible events that unfolded, including the loss of both the bookshop and her friendship with Jonah. “Antique Corner-- Is it still...?”

It was horrifying in a way, to be back. It felt like it wasn’t the first time and worse, like it wasn’t the last. Freddie couldn’t figure out what the blur in his mind was, the walls he couldn’t quite get around. Half of him felt like he should be caring for zoo animals, half of him felt like he should be looking out for his friends. All of him felt like he should be running as far away from this place as possible. He was walking with his hands in his pockets, trying to assure himself that he’d just had a strange dream that was messing with his head when he heard an unfamiliar voice. No, familiar. No… yes. “Slightly,” he admitted, looking up to see a familiar unfamiliar person standing in front of him. “I know you?” The comment came out like a question, he needed her to confirm it. “I don’t know you. Hannah?”

“Freddie.” Relief flooded her voice. A smile lit her face as her confusion died down even more, the tension in her mind easing greatly. She knew him; she was sure of it. There was no other way she would feel such comfort and security with an absolute stranger. This reunion had happened once before, and she could remember her time with the boy beside her that much more clearly. “I haven’t seen you in years, but at the same time... I know that this is the first time I’ve met you in this lifetime. Bizarre, isn’t it?” Hannah turned to face him fully, the smile glowing as she let herself remember another life. “I’m so glad to see you.”

Never the one for any sort of vanity, Kitty Valance was an odd sight to be presented with as she stood reflected within the frame of a floor length mirror — the glow of her youth and vitality nearly blinding as nimble fingers trailed over the smooth edges of her jaw right down to the velvet of her skin now clear and unmarred from her treatments. “Is this real?” she voiced out loud, an open ended question full of just as much surprise as there was belief as a sudden dizziness had overcome her. It was like the more rational parts of her brain we’re working overtime as she tried to clutch at something to hold onto — the image of a more fragile version of herself that had found peace in awaiting the key to death’s door burned in her mind. “What day is it?”

“I’ve been getting the feeling that it is,” Hannah answered from the doorway. She sighed and leaned against the frame, arms crossing as she looked on at the other girl. “To be honest, I’m not one hundred percent sure of the date right now, but I think it’s Friday. Don’t hold me to that either.” A light smile crossed her face as she considered the humor of the situation. With a tilt of her head, the brunette observed Kitty’s preoccupation with her reflection. She looked the same as Hannah recalled, but she hadn’t seen her in her blurry memories of the other lifetime. “Is everything okay?”

His attempts to remember what the hell he felt so responsible for had induced a worse migraine than hitting his head off the sharp corner of the open cupboard door. He now considered that perhaps he should run into it a few more times to snap him out of this satanic pit, “I’m alright if you ignore the eternal suffering that I’m going through,” he didn’t even sigh, his statement dull and yet his voice lighter than it had been since the last time he recalled opening his mouth. “Thanks, Hannah, you’re really helping. Ever thought about being a doctor?”

“No, I haven’t, and I hope that’s not sarcasm. What can I do to help you? Oh, oh, hang on. I’ve seen this on television. The doctors always ask what the date is when someone might have a concussion. Do you know what today is, TJ?” Granted, she wouldn’t be able to confirm his answer at this moment since she couldn’t quite settle on the date herself, but maybe he could give her a boost on her own memory.

As if the thought was the most natural thing in the world, Texas realised that the thoughts that were cluttering her mind were a new brand of unusual but she couldn’t quite find a way to articulate what she meant. As usual she was left with the inability to explain herself as a normal person would and she momentarily cursed the whirlwind that went on every day inside that pretty little head of hers, “There’s nowhere you’ve never been before, we’ve trod a million paths, Hannah,” she told the woman in font of her – although thinking about it, girl seemed like a better term, as if she had seen them both weather even if it seemed unlikely as they stood there. “I don’t know, perhaps he didn’t come,” she suggested sounding more like a version of herself that wasn’t her at all, the thought of her twin sister twirling in her mind in a melancholic fashion, “Maybe it’s better not to be found at all this time around. Hide and seek.”

The more Texas talked, the more Hannah remembered her. The quirkiness of her was a side she only could have known in person. Thinking about it, she could see glimpses of a previous arrival to the Whittemore reunion. It was like some sort of alternate reality, and she had been more excited about the prospect of this arrival than confused. “He had to have come. He was here before, and how would I have gotten here if he didn’t come, too? I remember because he was upset with me for convincing him to bring me with him, and he tried to send me back to the shop countless times. Has this actually happened before? I’m not just going insane, am I?”

Sitting at the kitchen island in Warwick that had been long gone ever since TJ could remember, he realised in no time at all that this was in fact real life – even if he had never bought into REM cycles lasting only seconds, for a dream, this had gone on long enough. All he remembered was the blur of blue light that had been haunting him for… well, he couldn’t remember quite how many years it had been now he tried to think harder about it. Certainly too many. He couldn’t help but feel a twinkle of his spirit return against his will, his young body somehow overriding his old mind, a confusion between two versions of himself that he couldn’t piece together, “Either when I hit my head on that cupboard I got a nightmare concussion that gave me a really bad slice of reality or I need to hit my head harder because the alternate is even worse.”

Hannah wandered into the Warwick kitchen. Though she was still very confused, things were starting to become clearer. She could remember more about the reunion now that the initial shock of the “deja vu” was wearing off, but of course it hardly explained anything. “You hit your head? Are you alright?” she asked, moving closer to inspect the injury. “Well, at least you’re resourceful enough to grab the frozen peas. That should be a good sign, I’d think.”

It was like waking up. There was a blue light she could vaguely remember, one that blurred the images from what could only have been a dream. Except she had been here before, she had read that letter before, and she had lived through the blurry memories that came after. Only two of those memories were clear, one bringing joy and the other a nightmare she’d tried to run away from for years. Her body carried her forward as thoughts jumped through her mind, preventing her from realizing that someone was just ahead. “Hannah,” she began, although it came out as more of a question. “This isn’t  This has happened before. Really happened before.” 

“No...” Hannah shook her head. “It hasn’t. It hasn’t really happened. I’ve never met you before, Milli--” If this hadn’t happened, how did she know her name? Her eyes bulging at the shock of all of this, Hannah suddenly started laughing. “I don’t understand what is going on here. I’ve never met you, but I... but I know you? Like I’m so sure, but at the same time, I’m not sure of anything.”

While Texas was confused she was not under the impression that this was any mere feeling of repetition, whether or not it was her fond and lost memories of her daughter that reminded her of the truth or not, she was very much aware of it, “I mean I thought that you came later,” she pointed out simply, unaware of the implication of her own words as she always had been in this lifetime that she was now puzzled by, “But you were here when it all went red, red, red. Maybe orange, blinding colours of denial. But Trevor’s still alive now. For a few more days, he’s still in the same world as me and he’s still good and that’s pretty nice.”

What the hell was happening? Two separate sets of memories were at war in her mind, fighting for dominance, but it only left Hannah more confused than ever. “I have no clue what you’re on about, but this is the first time I’ve ever set foot here. At least... I’m pretty sure,” she mumbled, losing herself to her thoughts yet again. Nothing felt right, but everything felt familiar. The whole concept left Hannah lightheaded. “Where is Jonah?” Maybe changing the subject to something--someone--absolutely familiar would ease her racing mind.

“Deja Vu?” Texas questioned, a tone that was foreign to her considering she did not often question, most of her points simply unrelated and extremely strange. Her head tilted to the side as she wound a loose pink ribbon around her skinny wrist for a third time, her gaze meeting Hannah’s and recognising the girl immediately although perhaps in this lifetime they had never met. “I don’t think so,” she pointed out easily, her tone unfaltering, “But aren’t you early?” she stressed, her brow furrowing slightly as if this was her main concern, “I didn’t think you arrived the same day as me and Danny. Oh, Danny,” she mused, expression softening, “What a dandelion.”

Brows furrowed, Hannah studied the girl’s face. “You’re Texas White, aren’t you? Oh, my God! Jonah and I have you recorded! We have to have it recorded because he pipes in every three minutes, but that’s another story. I can’t believe you’re here! It’s so nice to meet you; I feel like I know you, but I guess that’s a celebrity thing.” Finally taking a breath, she snapped herself out of the brief starstruck moment. “I’m sorry-- Early?? What do you mean?”