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Amelia Watson opens her eyes to a world that is ending.
She takes notes. It's frantic. Every minute detail; Patient zeros, and where a disaster originates. She doesn't miss a beat.
Her timeline is doomed and she knows it, but she thinks to herself: There has to be a way . A missing puzzle piece. Something she overlooked. A possibility she hasn't accounted for.
She can't stay in the future for long. A dark gas makes her lungs feel heavy. It makes her breath shallow and takes too much effort. The sea threatens to swallow every mountain top. She barely has a place to use as a vantage point.
Amelia coughs and grits her teeth. Time to go, huh?
Click.
Amelia Watson jots down everything she knows. The notebook she uses has a huge, roughly written F.F. on the front of it. It means Future Findings. She's still proud of that name to this day. She doesn’t care that it sounds a bit close to a certain marvel team up.
She deflates. Every second she spends in the future, the more her body degrades. The more she has to stay in her 'present' to heal.
She has to make her observations quick. Accurate.
She has to make every second count. If she can move her limbs she can work towards getting the future she wants.
She has to.
She's the only one that could do it.
The weight of the world lies on her shoulders.
She has to-
"Hey, idiot! You the-"
A few knocks on her door have her snapping back to reality. The twang in their voice helps point to who the person is.
"Gura! What if she's resting?!"
This voice was more reserved. Doesn't cut through noise as much as the first one did.
"Oh, sorry." Gura's more hushed this time. The embarrassment was clear in her voice.
It’s then that she remembers who she does it all for.
“You can come in.” She says, half-assed. She didn’t bother to raise her head which was currently planted on the table.
There was a momentary silence before she hears them open the door and come in. She doesn’t know what to expect.
“Happ-”
“Ha-”
The two girls freeze. Amelia is scared to even look up.
“Happy Anniversary!”
“Happy 1 year!”
Oh fuck. Her stomach stinks. There is no fucking way she forgot about this.
She picks up her notebook. Scans through the dates and feel disappointment weigh her down.
The reason she was overworking herself in the first place was to make time for today.
Slowly, she looks up. She sees Ina holding up a cake. Gura dual wielding party poppers as if they were assault rifles.
The absurdity of the situation makes Amelia lose her composure and burst out laughing. The cake was prepped horribly, and Gura is still struggling to pop both party poppers at once.
“I’m sorry I completely forgot but… what the hell is this?!” She stands up to inspect the cake closer. Maybe sneak a few kisses in. Who knows .
“What else? A cake! For… you! For… us.” Gura’s eyes were practically spinning in circles. She was fidgeting, even.
“You didn’t have to…” She says, but her heart melts. There’s a warmth that’s helping her ignore how exhausted she is.
“Ina you’re so cheesy for this.” The shark mutters.
“You had the idea and forced me to learn baking in a day.”
“That’s not-” Gura deflates. “-completely true!” She continues.
Amelia is alarmed. “Ina? You spent the whole day on this?”
The priestess scratches the back of her head. “Yeah…”
The detective fights the urge to say ‘ And it still sucks this bad?’
“What about the meditation I taught you?”
“It’ll be fine, Ame. Can’t I miss a day?”
“Watson.” Gura whines. “It’s our special day. Come on.”
Amelia feels like she’s been mentally flicked on the forehead. Right. The present. She’s spent so much time obsessing about the future that she’s forgotten what she already has.
“I’m sorry. You’re right.”
Amelia sees it. The little tremors in Ina’s movement. The way Gura has been reacting to loud sounds and dismisses even the thought of Atlantis.
None of those matter right now.
So she lets herself get dragged to their living room, where Ina sets down the cake and lets out a sigh. She’s probably tired from holding it up.
Gura walks behind them, looking at the ground. The shark’s eyes are fixated on the plushies all piled up in a corner. Amelia is sure it was her idea in the first place.
Amelia scans the rest of the room. There’s balloons hung up and other various party decorations. Enough beer for myth and council, too.
There’s party hats in 3 distinct colors. Cute . She grabs the yellow one and puts it on.
She doesn’t want to think about what this would all mean down the line, and so she asks:
“...Are we splitting the cake evenly or did you guys make three cakes?”
Her girlfriends panic. They look at each other mouthing words Amelia can’t make out.
“You can have it.” Gura replies. It’s decisive.
“Yeah! I can make some more in the future!” Ina is panicking. She has her hands splayed out as if protecting herself from the cake.
So that’s how it is.
“I wouldn’t mind sharing, you know! Really!” Amelia says, dry. She knows it’s a lose-lose situation whatever she does. She either:
a) Eats some of it and be toilet ridden, or;
b) Decline its existence until the night ends.
Option A would leave her unable to work and extend her time in the present . Getting nursed back to health by her girlfriends doesn’t sound too bad, but she has work.
Option B would leave Ina disappointed, and make her the target of Gura’s teasing.
Oh, fuck it.
She cuts a slice and finishes it. She had to summon all her willpower just to not make a face.
“Seconds, please?” Amelia says, smug.
The night continues like this. Ina and Gura bring out their own surprises. They have fun disturbing the whole neighborhood with their karaoke. They find out Gura has enough energy to run a town while drunk.
. . .
The sun’s already rising when the detective puts the girls to sleep. Their exhaustion from attempting to bake the whole day, and the small party made this easy.
Amelia considers a future where all she does is work, work, and work . To piece together how her timeline ends up like that as fast as humanly possible.
She can’t . She couldn’t possibly do that on their anniversary.
It’s selfish, and she knows this. Depending on how you look at it, it’s the corniest thing she’ll ever do, too. I wouldn’t trade the world for my girlfriends.
A part of her dies at the thought. She looks over at her bed and still sees the two sound asleep. At least no one knows I’m doing this.
With a click of her watch, reality shatters. The world falls silent as she’s back in her office a few hours earlier.
And she waits.
"Hey, idiot! You the-"
"Gura! What if she's resting?!"
The distinct two knocks while shouting. This back and forth.
Amelia can’t help the smile that creeps up on her face. The warmth that’s overwhelming her senses. It’s as endearing as the first time she was in this situation
Ina and Gura were outside her door the second time that night.
“Come in.”
There was a momentary silence before she heard them open the door and come in again.
This time she won’t undermine what her girlfriends did for her. Maybe bully Gura a bit more. Spoil Ina with praises. It might push her more into baking. Who knows .
The knocks would be followed by a third, a fourth, a sixth, and so on.
And no matter the little deviations she made, she’d remember it all. The embarrassment in Gura’s voice. Ina’s faux confidence. She wanted to hold on to these precious moments forever, but she could only fight off her exhaustion for so long. She doesn’t know how many times she’s lived this night already as she falls asleep in her girlfriends’ arms.
Amelia Watson closes her eyes. Her world is at peace.