TIME & TIED: AWARENESS

ARC 1.1 - Of The Device

PART 6a: WELCOME CHANGE 1

"Of all the... how could this... how could you have been so clumsy?!" Carrie choked out, embracing the familiar anger as it swept back over her.

“Okay, wait,” Frank said quietly, fiddling with his broken glasses. “True, I have no depth perception. Still, maybe with your help--"

"My help? MY help? What are on about, Frank?!" Carrie shouted. “All I’ve got is geography, I don't know the first thing about the blinking lights and circuitry in the time device!” She put her hands on her hips. “There, I admitted it. You happy now? So, while your temporal theories are keeping you all safe and alive in my past, if I die out here, it will all be YOUR fault!”

She regretted the words as soon as she’d spoken them. That was WAY over the top. But she was sick, and scared beyond belief, and that was such a foreign feeling - she preferred feeling the anger. Except... pushing away the only guy who could help was really stupid. Damn it! And after everything with her mama they were at the point where she didn’t think she had any more tears left to shed...

Frank cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, Carrie. Truly I am. I did find a couple of sturdy twigs and some dry wood before I fell. How about we at least pick it back up and return to the lake?"

Carrie bit her lower lip, stifling another sneeze. She couldn’t apologize, not again - he knew she hadn’t meant it, right? He had to know. "It’s fine. I have no intention of dying here, Frank,” she asserted.

"I know. Let's go back to the device." Frank struggled to stand up again, succeeding by favouring his right leg.

Carrie wondered what more she should or could say. Nothing came to mind. She would control her anger from now on, maybe that would be enough. She offered Frank a hand and supported him as best as she could they struggled back up the slope.

***

"This is so goddamn pointless!" Carrie cried out, throwing aside Frank's swiss army knife.

"We're managing okay," Frank said reassuringly.

“Oh, shut-- Frank, stop with the platitudes,” Carrie revised. Forcing herself to speak calmly, she began to count off on her fingers. “I have a headache, and a runny nose, and I’m possibly getting a temperature, and I’m hungry, and tired and goddamn it, you’re no better off, so why am I complaining to you?” She collapsed at that, putting her head between her knees. “It’s been over a DAY, and we’re no further ahead.”

Frank rubbed his temples. He was getting used to Carrie's outbursts of emotionalism. They weren't a bad thing, actually. Sometimes she could spot a futile effort early on, be it in time machine reparation or the poor shelter construction methods they had been attempting.

If only she was a bit more attentive and could verbalize things in a nicer way... but even there Frank was starting to realize something. Carrie wasn't especially shallow or prone to violent outbursts. It was more that she preferred keeping a particular distance from people. Which translated into lashing out.

Was she even aware of it? He wondered why that was the case, and whether this experience was giving him any insight into her fourteen year old counterpart - his classmate.

Aloud, all he said was, “It's clouding over anyway, maybe it's time for a break."

***

Carrie let out a grumbling noise. There he was, acting all calm and congenial again. Saying nice things for no discernible reason, offering help without expecting any favours in return. How incredibly naive. The real world didn't work that way - being pleasant for the sake of being pleasant only made you into an easy target. Or into a tool that could be exploited.

Under normal circumstances Carrie would personally show Frank the error of his ways... yet right now she was finding this quality of his oddly enviable. Of course, unlike her, he hadn’t spent a couple years in high school yet. She wondered absently whether the Frank of her time period had really managed to maintain this same outlook on life.

"I don't know if a break will help," Carrie said with a sigh and a cough. She lifted her head. "We can’t break into the device’s silver coin box. I’ve tried prying at the exterior slot with your knife, jimmying it with your bank card, we’ve dismantled your mini camera for parts to try and activate circuitry, we’ve even fed a whittled down wooden coin into the thing... dammit, I'm ready to just throw it into the fire we made!"

She took in a deep breath. “You were wrong. We should have struck out for civilization this morning. We're getting nowhere."

“Again, even assuming I could walk well, we have no idea which direction to go," Frank reminded her as he squinted back at the machine through his broken glasses. “Plus we ARE further along - I believe we've managed to readjust the time machine's month and day. Since we’re already in the correct year, we merely need to TRIGGER the thing."

Carrie pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yeah. That's what you said three hours ago," she murmured.

***

Frank looked back over in her direction and saw Carrie’s eyes starting to brim with tears. He was surprised it had taken this long - he’d cried a bit last night himself, after she’d fallen asleep. No need to be brave for the both of them if she was unconscious, right?

For that matter, Frank wasn’t certain if his continued desire to project reassurance was due more to male stereotypes, or the curious temporal situation that seemed to have put her life in greater danger than his own. Since his future still existed in her past.

“I hurt, Frank," Carrie confessed at last. “Physically, mentally, emotionally - I'm not thinking straight any more. A lot of what you’re saying has started to go in one ear and out the other. Worse, those are storm clouds moving in, meaning it's going to rain. I... I'm tired. Maybe... maybe we saved my mother in the past, so now we're being punished. Maybe there's no way out of this for me. Her life for my life. I should have expected as much."

Frank pursed his lips. Carrie was sounding so serious it was scary. “You told me yesterday you had no intention of dying."

"I don't. But maybe it’s not my decision. Maybe you can't fight fate. I can't recall the last time I felt so helpless - unless it's when I finally realized my mama wasn't coming back. Which is probably not a coincidence.” Carrie lowered her head again, coughing and sniffling at the same time. "God, why is everything coming back to her now... and why is this damn cold making my eyes water so damn much."

Frank paused before reaching out to gently place a hand on Carrie's shoulder. She didn’t shrug him off. “Here’s the thing," he said. "I survive another two years relative to you, right? And I'm NOT going to leave you behind. So we must both get out of this somehow! Yeah?” He ventured a smile.

"You say that now," Carrie fired back despondently without even looking up. "But I’ve been thinking on that. If my mother’s alive in the present, and I don’t remember it, I may have changed history by picking you up too. All we’ve got to point to your survival is my swan - which could have been broken by someone ELSE originally, right? Meaning I’m changing everything, and my memory is wrong. So my curiosity and headstrong attitude will ultimately kill us BOTH."

Frank felt like someone had punched him in the gut. “Um. Okay, interesting theory,” he yielded, dropping his arm back to his side.

Carrie winced. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said it aloud," she sighed. "Maybe there was some hope in what you said.”

"Maybe," Frank said dubiously. He really didn’t want to think too hard about this though. Because her logic seemed sound. He really would need to do more time travel research. Assuming they ever got out of here.

Was there any way he could spin this, to keep her from giving up hope? To now keep HIMSELF from giving up hope?

“Okay, on the bright side,” Frank suggested, “the berries we've been eating haven't been poisonous and no wild animals have attacked us. So it’s not like time is actively trying to kill us, it’s all been pretty passive-aggressive.”

Carrie laughed at that, though her laugh was hollow. "Don't say it like that. You'll jinx us," she chided. She then slugged him in the arm, but without much force behind the blow. He wondered if that was intentional, or merely due to a lack of energy.

Thunder rumbled ominously in the distance.

Then the unthinkable happened.