Nothing happened, and yet the timelines built up like cobwebs. Thought slowed. Time slowed as more of it occurred in a single place.
"How long have you been ten? How many times around have we done already? I'll keep doing this until I crumple from the inside out. I don't think even you can stop that, warper."
The world--worlds--shivered, and Buddy's hand closed harder on Sarah's. How could his grip hurt? Sarah whimpered. She'd never heard that sound from her own throat.
"He's made you--normal," Jane said. "Like Disney Hercules." The woman sat on the ground at their feet, clutching her torso as though racked by cramps. "Slower. Soft. Vulnerable. So you can taste and feel, and need him, for the thousand-to-one chances and good saves, because you can't depend on yourself. Erased your family, or ensures they get killed in the worse way possible." She took a slow breath. "Where is Silverlake, Buddy?" Sarah watched in numb horror as Buddy's mouth twisted.
"He dies in the church collapse. He always dies, so that he doesn't use Sarah." Jane pushed herself slowly to her feet. Her eyes sat above deep, dark bags. Her cheeks were cavernous, her timeline trips devouring everything they could as she searched a hundred hundred worlds for the one where she found them again. Even Sarah felt the timelines shaking with her breath.
"You... could do anything," Jane said. "Anything, at least locally. Why did you do this?" Buddy let go of Sarah's hand. She stepped back, and he snarled soundlessly at her panic.
"Because I can do anything! I've made things so good for everyone. I've solved everything, everywhere I can reach!" Buddy reached out without moving; Sarah felt her fear draining away. She whimpered, again, at a loss she couldn't remember.
"I can make anything into anything I want. I can fix everything. I have fixed everything, so many times, and it never works. Something like this, like you, always happens. But I make it better!" he snapped at Jane. "Every dog too crazy to rehome, every technopath lashing out at her." He looked at Sarah now. "Please. You're the Grasshopper. You're the biggest good on the west coast. Show me what I need to do!"
Sarah pressed her hands to her temples. Flashes of the woman--Jane--flashes of Buddy, a brindled puppy's head poking from the duffle hanging from the hands of a cried-out woman in a top hat, days and weeks of patrol with Buddy, carrying Ben out of the collapse, paperwork in an office, a bright yellow suit--Super Safety--… the woman, Jane, keened, and Sarah felt the sound in her own stomach.
"You need to stop. Just... stop, Buddy. Please." Sarah dropped her hands. Something went out of him when he saw her tearstained face. "It hurts. You're--my bud. But. I don't think I've known you more than a day, the same day, so many times. I miss my--I miss Calli, and my dog, and Jane can't do this anymore. I need my powers. I've helped--will help--so many people. Please stop making me a bystander in my own life."
Buddy's shoulders dropped. He took a long breath. "Okay," he said. "I'll... stop. Do you... do you want Rhea Rose back? I can do that. First." He watched her face intently, and Sarah hesitated too long.
"No," she whispered. "I miss her so much. But I can't do that. I can't let you change what was. It wouldn't be her. Just stop it."
Buddy sighed, and then he'd never been.
Sarah raced up skyscraper alongside her brindled boxer, leaping and throwing themselves higher and higher to keep up with a rogue flyer in an eye-searing costume. Calli floated above them, keeping the fugitive in sight. She had an open line to Ben, who advised her of police movements. Things weren't great. Things weren't great, but they were together. They fixed it one day at a time.
Wow. Again! Great stuff! Keep it up!
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