The Universe's Mixer

The ways that the sun had faltered previously would pale in comparison to this.

Every defiance of the natural order of things was progressively worse. The sun not going down in a timely manner. The sun getting stuck at high noon for a prolonged period of time. Even then, it hadn't been as outrageously wrong as it decided to be on this day and the days following. Instead of just a few hours, or even a large handful of hours, this interruption went on for three full days.

It began with an incredible slowing, like a clock running low on batteries. The movement didn't altogether halt as it had before, just inched through the sky like a sickly turtle. Seconds stretched into minutes, minutes into hours. That would have been enough, on it's own, to cause problems and further worry. But it didn't end there.

As the stars began to blossom in the sky, the sun reversed its course. Spreading light again in the sunset that had already happened that evening. The reds and oranges spreading out once more, only this time, opposite of the way it had previously shown itself.

The clocks still moved forward, the way that they should. Time still progressing in the manner that it always had. The days and dates on the newspapers going on as if nothing had changed. As if to spite the fact that the sun was being wholly abnormal in it's route.

72 hours would pass before the problem self-corrected. At the end of the run, the sun would slow again during the reverse sunrise, pause briefly, and then completely go back to normal.

The sun that had stayed up too long was bad enough. This? This was just beyond what Dexter was willing to consider alright. This was the sun moving backward in the sky. On the complete opposite path of what it should have been.

There was also news about a girl named Fred dying. He'd met a girl named Fred before. He didn't know if it was the same Fred he'd known, or if it was another version of her. But he was pretty sure that it was still Fred. There couldn't be too many of those floating around. There had been a crime scene for it, of course, but he'd not been called in for it. There was no blood. No blood meant no Dexter. It didn't mean, though, that he couldn't snoop in the file and see what was going on.

He'd thought to find Wash to talk about this new change in the sun's habits. The other man had been bothered about the sun not going down. It had created a moment for bonding. Bonding was good. Bonding meant that there was another person in this place that would rely on him to behave normally. Or, as normally as he could stand to. Dexter needed all the people he could get who needed him to be a human being.

But he was a bit distracted from that by a strange phone call directing him to Stark Tower. It was vague, and the voice on the other end insisted that it needed to be him to take the call, but wouldn't say why, or what was needed from him. Dexter had his work box with him, because that was the only reason he could think of that he'd be needed. Work. He arrived at the building and announced his presence in a professional manner.