Where did you get that? You know what,
nevermind...
⚠
--
The past few weeks had been...indescribable. Battling robots, the memory update that had left her with some very drastic physical changes, then a future child with Evie, and then a future Evie who Sara was apparently married to. It wasn’t a bad thing, it was just a whole bunch of huge things all at once that left her mentally reeling.
When Sara left work that day, she briefly debated heading to the training grounds for a workout, but that idea was quickly dismissed with the lure of going home and just...sitting for a few minutes.
She had no idea who she would find at the apartment when she arrived. Evie might be home, or might be at work still. Then there was Keira. This incredible teenage girl who knew how to handle herself in ways Sara never could at her age, who called her mom, and displayed skills that had to have been taught to her by Sara herself. She was perfect and she was terrifying. She also had access to come and go from their apartment as she pleased, so it was possible she’d be there too.
When Sara did get home, she went right to her and Evie’s bedroom to get out of work clothes, and then into something comfortable before heading out in the living room. “Anyone home?” She asked, at the same time she spotted the balcony door open.
“Hey.” She said to Keira upon finding her out there….with a bottle of wine. “Where did you get that?” Keira was sixteen. Which, okay, wasn’t exactly shocking. God only knew how many bottles of wine Sara had acquired at that age. She wasn’t going to lecture a teenager on drinking as long as they were being careful. “You know what, never mind, hold on.” Sara vanished just for a moment to grab herself a glass from the kitchen. She wouldn’t lecture, but she would make her share.
Vallo was a weird place to grow up, especially as people came and went from different worlds. Keira had made friends to have them disappear before, and it was always lingering in the back of her mind that neither of her moms were native to Vallo either. She didn't think about it often, because they'd all lived together for years, but it was there and acknowledging the fact allowed herself to at least keep the pretense of her guard up, should the worst happen.
What she hadn't been expecting was to be transported back to the past, to witness life before she came into the picture. She'd tried to take it all in stride, as you had to in a place like Vallo, but it had helped immensely once she'd turned to the network and discovered she wasn't alone.
Which made seeking out Sara and Evie less daunting. Now, Evie remembered her and Sara was adjusting just as much as she was. But as her mom stepped out back onto the balcony, she held out the bottle to pour.
"We've had this conversation before," Keira mentioned. She didn't hide much from her parents, and hadn't felt the need to conceal this particular bottle of wine, either.
"Work calmed down yet?"
“You’ve had this conversation before.” Sara corrected as she stepped back out onto the balcony with a glass. “This hasn’t happened for me yet.” Lucky as a former time traveller, she had a pretty handle on confronting possible futures. Keira existing was a surprise, but it wasn’t hard to believe.
Sara dropped down into one of the other seats on the balcony, tucking her feet under her and holding up her glass to indicate Keira should pour her some wine. “Work never calms down.” Sara said with a sigh. “There’s guaranteed something every month, and by the time we’ve recovered from that, it’s the next thing. At least this month wasn’t violent.” Part of her loved the chaos, part of her hoped she was on to something else in her career by the time Keira was the age she was now.
“So are you out here for the views and enjoying the taste of wine, or is there something else on your mind?” Because sitting on a balcony with a bottle of wine by yourself was often a sign of the latter, but who really knew.
"Fine, I've had this conversation before with you, in the future," Keira replied, with a shrug. She loved these conversations with her mom. And how half the time Sara skipped the scolding but the other half she'd raise an eyebrow.
"Yeah, that's one of the reasons you told me I needed to learn how to fight early on," she nodded. "All the different things that showed up trying to kill us whether from here or other worlds." It had definitely seemed more targeted once she wound up living with outlanders, but that could be a factor of age, too.
"Maybe both? The view is great and so is the wine. But…" Adrian had her thinking about the timeline and whether or not they had completely fucked it up now. That seemed unfair to drop on her mom though, making her responsible for ensuring a certain future took place.
"This is just weird," she settled on. "Mostly a good weird, but weird."
Sara nodded once, satisfied with that admission. She wouldn’t be surprised that they had this conversation. She wasn’t surprised that a teenager was drinking wine. There was an infinite number of stupid decisions that Sara had made growing up, as long as Keira wasn’t making the same one. “I’m glad it’s a conversation then and you’re not doing the same dumb things I did.” It was better to know she was drinking somewhere safe and somewhere they could find her, instead of Keira sneaking around.
That she understood entirely. She’d met alternate versions of her family members, she’d met a younger version of herself, and younger and older versions of her loved ones. “I don’t know if it helps to say that you eventually get used to it if it happens enough. But hopefully this doesn’t happen enough for you to get used to it.”
Sara took a sip of her wine, relaxing back into her chair. “Do I talk much about my time travel stories in the future?”
"A little," Keira said, hanging onto every word now. She hoped it didn't happen that frequently that she'd get accustomed to it. "You do talk about some of the dumb things you did in hopes that I won't repeat your mistakes though," she added, amused. "We talk a lot. Like this…" she said, holding up the bottle. "I don't keep secrets, if I'm going out you know where I am, and I know if I ever need to, I can reach out to both of you and you'll lecture me after you make sure I'm safe."
She hadn't needed to do that, but she left Sara guessing on that.
"So what has time travel been like for you?" she asked, not sure how to hint at what she wanted to know without coming straight out and admitting she was worried.
It was hard not to be relieved to hear that, even if Keira wasn’t really her daughter specifically. Maybe someday. But there was an older version of Sara out there somewhere that had that claim. Still, the relief to hear that was probably visible. Had she had that kind of relationship with her parents things might have gone differently for her. But then again, she wouldn’t change her past now. “Good.” Sara said with a nod. “I’m glad to see I haven’t picked up any terrible parenting habits.”
Hopefully the stories she told Keira really did have an impact.
“Messy.” she said automatically, because it was. It was hard to know if Sara did or didn’t pick up on Keira’s unsaid question, but it didn’t matter, because Keria’s question was really rule 101 of time travel. “It was never really a situation where you could win. You’d fight to protect the timeline, but in the process something else would happen that would have a ripple effect. Then you’d have to focus on fixing that. The process really just repeated.” Actions from one problem had consequences that caused another. It was a never ending job. “Time is weird though. It’s both fluent and structured. Some things can change completely without having any major impact. Some things are fixed points and will happen to matter what you do to change it. And for everything else we had the ability to erase minds.” she said with a shrug, taking another drink. “But then that’s just how it worked for me. That doesn’t even take into account the idea that new time lines are happening, splitting, and growing based on every decision that we make.”
Keira listened to all of that, thinking of what it meant for her. "So my life exists as I know it still?" She could live with the timeline forking off, but the idea of losing the life she had, with the family she had… that was a bit much.
“Is that why you’re out here with wine?” Sara asked gently, not with judgement. “I wouldn’t worry about that too much.” Her existence in this world wasn’t dependent on herself or Evie, Sara knew that. But how she ended up living it? Yeah, it did. Sara could understand that concern. “Assuming that new timelines are made based on our choices and decisions, I think your existence is pretty safe. When you go back to your own time, I wouldn’t expect any lasting consequences.”
"Adrian started it," Keira muttered. "Day one, talking about how we probably broke the timeline." She took another drink, and then glanced at Sara. "I'm going to bother you more about your time travel adventures when I get back though. You know, if I remember it and everything." Sara seemed to, but this was Vallo so who even knew?
All of this was still very weird, but she felt more at ease.
"I've liked getting to see you too before you're married," she added.
“Even broken timelines can be fixed. I should know, I’ve seen it broken enough.” Plus, she didn’t think Vallo was going to do anything that was going to end up...breaking itself. It wasn’t hard to see why Adrian would be concerned, but Sara didn’t think they had anything to worry about. “But I wouldn’t let it stress you out. You’ll return to whatever timeline you came from where we all found each other.” It was Evie and Sara’s future of finding that path that might not be guaranteed. But that wasn’t something that needed to be said.
“You should.” Sara said with a laugh, and then another drink. “I have some stories, years on a time ship with a team of chaotic gremlins like the Legends leads to some insane situations.”
Married. Just because she was used to time travel didn’t mean she didn’t still get thrown off. Marriage itself didn’t surprise her, Sara could see herself getting married. She and Evie had just moved in together though, and now all of a sudden there was marriage. It wasn’t a bad thing, it had just thrown her off for a moment. “That’s so surreal to hear no matter how many times I hear it. We only recently moved in together. Very specifically to the highest floor here so Evie can get the most out of her morning nose dive out of buildings.”
"Mom, your life sounds chaotic," Keira said, borrowing Sara's word. "And awesome." The stories she remembered always seemed that way, but a lot of the stories she'd grown up hearing about had taken place in Vallo. And then of course, she had been part of a few those herself.
"Yeah, I guess it would be," she agreed. "And you have time to enjoy just living together and letting mom nosedive off the balcony. I'm with you. The elevator is great. Though I did try seeing if I could jump once… off a much lower height and into a pool. Which is good because no, I couldn't."
Before her older self at Keira, she had a team of misfits that literally reigned chaos (in the best way). It was definitely chaotic. But it also let her know that there wasn’t much she couldn’t handle, and helped her accept that pretty much anything was possible. “It is. Was. Still is in a way I guess.” She had more people to watch out for on her teams here, the trade off was that there were so many of them that the bonds weren’t as close. But that was okay.
It didn’t surprise her in the least that Keira had also tried jumping. “I do it from time to time. But yeah, agreed, the elevator and my coffee are usually my go to choice to start the morning.” Whatever morning rush Evie got from the jump, Sara was happy she had it, she just didn’t relate. “I’ve had enough of jumping out of buildings for quick exits.” almost always so she didn’t blow up. “So then on top of fighting, did we teach you other skills? Free running, parkour, weapons training, aerial acrobatics, escape and evasion?”
"All of that," Keira nodded, beaming. She loved learning everything. It had felt empowering, especially having come from a place where she had been scraping by. "As well as how to pickpocket and not get caught by extremely observant people…" which the two of them had been when they'd caught her. Of course, her skill level hadn't been all that impressive at the time either.
"And then I've learned from everyone else too. I'm really good at throwing knives." Diego had taught her that, of course.
Sara didn’t even need to ask who the knives might have come from. Despite the fact that Evie and herself were both perfectly proficient, they didn’t have that special brand of knife happy. Everyone had their favorites.
She also noted that Keira didn’t mention anything particularly harsh. Both herself and Evie had gone through some horrific things that somehow passed as training to get where they were. The last thing she would ever want to see would be for anyone, especially their kid, to go through anything similar.
“Good.” She didn’t want to push too much or ask for too much information. “So, did you eat yet?” Sara finished off her glass of wine, holding it out for a refill. “I can order us something that goes with the wine.”
Keira topped off her mom's glass, then grinned. "Yeah, let's get dinner." She liked the idea of ordering in and spending a lazy evening just hanging out. It wasn't that different from being back home.