TIME & TIED: DESTRUCTION

ARC 3.2 - With The Group

PART 58a: SEE KINGS 1

"We're practicing for a play," Carrie said, quickly repeating her earlier explanation in the face of Glen's bemused expression.

The redhead raised an eyebrow at her. "Pretty fast rehearsal, given how you and Frank were in the cafeteria with Luci not five minutes ago. Besides Carrie, aren't you the only other one here taking drama? And wasn't Chartreuse absent this morning?"

"Yes, she's quite ill," Carrie agreed, swiftly changing tactics. "Yet apparently she still wanted to come in to try out this extra credit play for English class. We saw her in the room unconscious, so we're leaving now to bring her to the nurse's office."

"I see," Glen said. “Well, don't let me hold you up then. Though moving through the hallway after the bell is liable to, well, be a major headache. Might I suggest you pop through the back door access to the stage? And wait until classes resume?”

Carrie exchanged a quick glance with her time traveling classmates. "Makes sense," Frank admitted grudgingly. He moved to grab the time machine, and the blanket he’d tossed over it earlier, to hide it. He made sure Glen didn’t spot the device.

"What major headache are you referring to there?” Julie demanded.

Glen shrugged. "Lots of people shouting and moving about as they get to class?”

Carrie saw Julie peer closer at the redhead, whose expression remained neutral. As Clarke had already retrieved Chartreuse and was heading for the back door access, along with Frank and the blanket, Julie fell into step behind them.

"Right then, thanks Glen,” Carrie called out as she brought up the rear. "And we're still on for, ah, this Friday, right?"

"Of course," Glen replied, offering back a smile. Carrie matched it, before hurrying through to the backstage area and closing the door.

***

"I don't get it," Frank said. "We've been sitting in this pizza parlour for almost an hour now, yet you haven't sensed us being here as causing any sort of temporal change. Not even when other customers came in. Why in the school hallway, but not here?”

"Yeah, I've been wondering about that myself," Carrie admitted as she toyed with her pop can.

The two of them had taken up positions on the stools by the window of the establishment. It was only a block away from the middle school they’d once attended. A very light rain was falling; they both knew it wouldn’t last.

"I think it has to do with the fact that we're now playing a very passive role in our own history," she decided. "Not crossing our paths as we did at school, not planning to blow up buildings that we know still exist in our present, really nothing that matters. Of course, if my father chances to stop by here, that could all change. So keep your focus.”

"I will,” Frank retorted. "Though I will remind you that it was your idea to be out in public this way.”

Carrie gestured vaguely. "I was thirsty. Besides, we’d attract more attention by hiding out in the bushes. In here, we blend in.” She took a sip of her drink. “We can head out when the rain stops. Supposedly Soh’s necklace was lost after school."

“Thing is, had me and Clarke proposed coming in here to buy something, you would have shot down that plan," Frank pointed out.

Carrie glared. “You making any kind of point there?”

“Merely that we should probably get a better idea of what sets off your headaches, and what doesn’t. Much like how we’re learning more about the time machine.”

With effort, Carrie quashed the snarky response that came to her head. Because he had a point, damn it. “Yeah, but no,” she said, looking back out the window. “We will not be playing guess and check with my head. Me staying sane, it’s kind of in all our best interests.”

“I didn’t mean provoking a headache. Not really,” he clarified. “Thing is, not every trip into the past has resulted in changes to time. Remember Luci’s trip last year, going back to when she started high school? That fulfilled a destiny instead. So is it equally possible that we were always destined to come back to this pizza place and order something?”

She reflected on that. “It’s possible,” Carrie granted. “It’s also possible that we weren’t always destined to do it, but that once we arrived in the past, and once I’d dealt with the initial headache... that’s when this event became inevitable. There’s really no way to know. All I can say for sure is that the me in this time frame never experienced a problem.”

“Which is it’s own issue,” Frank continued. “Since you carried on a conversation with Glen that you hadn’t been previously aware of. Why didn’t HE give either of you a headache?”

Carrie’s grip tightened on her soda can. “Glen was one person. Unlike the four students in the hall.”

“But he’s closer to you than those freshmen were.”

“Not really.”

“No? You said you were going out with him again on Friday.”

She smacked the can down onto the counter, then turned back to face him. “Fine, yeah, on Friday we DID see each other. It’s when Glen told me about Lee’s focus problem. What, is the issue of me dating Glen the real point you’re making here?”

Frank raised his palms up. “Whoa, what? No. Defensive much?”

“No! Yes. Shut up,” Carrie said, warring with her emotions. He’d touched a nerve there, and they both knew it.

Frank hesitated at her gaze, but pressed on. “Listen Carrie, people from the future are after you. And after a month, Glen is still living all alone in a hotel. We've seen no sign of his parents, we know so little about his past, and sometimes he makes those cryptic remarks, like about the headache. It seems at least plausible that he’s trying to--”

“Frank, if Glen were from the future, acting to change our present around us? I’d feel it,” Carrie fired back, pointing at her temples.

“Would you? Or would your other feelings get in the way?”

Her hand fell back to her side. Her gaze drifted back towards the window. “Fine, I want to believe I would. You could be right. Maybe I have the blinders on, maybe I don't understand time as much as I think I do. But worrying that I can wipe us all out of existence, it takes a toll, okay?”

She took in a deep breath. “Thing is, in truth? I don’t have feelings for him. Not the way you’re thinking. It’s only, dating Glen, it makes me feel normal. And I think I'm allowed to feel that way. Or was I absent the day you and Luci bought the monopoly on touchy feely goodness?”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Frank flinch. Then he turned away too. "No, you really weren't," he said. "Seeing as she's spent more time in the past two weeks with that book of Linquist's than she has with me.”

He sighed. “I've tried what I can to break through, which works for a time, but she always ends up back in her room, trying to break that infernal code. I think maybe I was too inattentive towards her over the summer. We’ve been drifting apart, and now I’m not sure what to do about it.”

"Oh. Uh, that’s too bad." Great, now she felt bad for bringing up relationships at all. Carrie downed the rest of her pop, to avoid having to speak. Outside, the rain stopped falling.

“Headaches aside,” she said at last. “Corry has the right idea. If Glen has a secret, I won’t learn it by distancing myself. Besides, if it’s my destiny to make my own past life miserable, so be it.”

Before Frank could say anything back, Carrie jumped off her stool. “Come on then, let's find a good place to scout out the school grounds before their classes get out."

***

Clarke looked up as Julie entered the secret room beneath the LaMille mansion. "Anything happening upstairs?" he inquired.

"Random dusting. Neither Jeeves nor Mimi will notice the smelling salts are missing." The brunette knelt down next to Clarke and the unconscious pink-haired girl on the floor. "Any change with her?"

"Nope," the tall blonde admitted. “So let’s hope this will wake her up." Taking the vial from Julie, he opened it and began to wave it back and forth in front of Chartreuse's face.

"Still nothing," he murmured after a moment. “Weird. She really doesn't seem hurt! There's nothing stronger than this around here, is there Jewels?"

Clarke turned to look back at Julie, only to find that her attention had been diverted. "Jewels,” he repeated, clearing his throat purposefully for good measure.

The brunette slowly turned away from the black box on the floor. The one Frank had handed over to them when they’d parted ways. "I wasn't going to do anything to it," she said quietly. "I don't even know how to program it yet, not really."

"That's good," Clarke remarked. "Since that sort of betrayal would likely cut you off from the few friends you have left."

Julie frowned. "You say friends, yet I got the sense that Carrie wouldn't have left that thing with us today if you hadn't been here to keep an eye on it.”

Clarke reached out to touch Julie’s shoulder. "Can you really blame her?" he asked softly.

Julie clenched her hands into fists for a moment. "No," she granted. "I meant what I said to everyone though. I want to start helping, to try and get past my first memories of time travel."

"And I'm sure the others will see that. You’re on this trip with them already, right?”

Julie nodded - even as her gaze drifted back towards the time machine. "Still, to think that we have the means right there to affect our own pasts... it's incredible, isn't it Phil? I mean, it would be so easy to just drop back a week or two... to stop Sue from acting the way she did at the dance..."

"Jewels..."

"Oh, I wouldn't," Julie said quickly. "Really I wouldn’t, not without consulting with Carrie. But I can't help thinking it, can I? That’s the way my mind works. Devious as ever, right?" She finally turned her back on the machine, firing off a weak smile. "At least now, I’m trying to use my powers for good?"

Clarke frowned, about make a reply when there came a groan from the floor. Both teenagers turned quickly to regard their pink haired companion. She had apparently come to her senses enough to bring a hand to her forehead and begin mumbling to herself. Being the closer of the two, Clarke leaned in to try and hear what she was saying.

"What? What is it?" Julie inquired after a moment.

Clarke looked up at her in confusion. "Something about Carrie tracking 'like, the wrong sister'."