( DECLASSIFIED INFORMATION. )

When Byers walks through the door from Milliways to the storage closet back into his office/home, it's only a few minutes after this and his clothes have thankfully changed back to normal.

He's as quiet as he can be, tiptoeing down the hall with his bag. By the act of some god, he doesn't fall, the floorboards don't creak, he doesn't make a single ( Read more... )

It's now 4 in the morning (the clock in the other room just chimed) and Byers hasn't slept a wink.

It's not his fault, really -- he just can't sleep.

He's in Boston, it's 1959, Niki is just a room away...

It's 1959.

It's the past.

And he?

He is head over heels for the woman in the next room -- head over heels like he's never been before.

He doubts he's ( Read more... )

After this, Byers sneaks back into the warehouse through the storage closet-turned-portal, tiptoeing down the hall to his room.

He doesn't hear anyone typing, he doesn't hear rock music blaring --

"And at the end of this first half, the Giants are ahead of the Redskins by two touchdowns --"

CRAP.

He hurries to his room without making a sound, and ( Read more... )

Byers can't remember the last time he was this nervous.

He slips into Milliways sometime in the early afternoon, dressed (as always) to impress. His ensemble looks like this, only in grey with a navy blue tie.

(Cashmere is fancy.)

Other things that are fancy are Swarovski crystals, and Byers is quite satisfied with the necklace he chose for Niki, ( Read more... )

Guppy had patched (and cleaned) him up in no time, provided him with painkillers, and sent him on his way. The wound on his shoulder looked a lot worse than it was; it hurt, but there wasn't any nerve or muscle damage.

Byers was lucky.

He stumbled through Milliways with his bloodied shirt in a bag, rusty scalpel in another.

When he got home, he was ( Read more... )

What though that light, thro' storm and night,
So trembled from afar-
What could there be more purely bright
In Truth's day-star?
                                                           - E.A. Poe

Byers doesn't intend to sleep tonight (he hasn't for the past two; he can survive another night), but his eyes are getting heavier and heavier by the ( Read more... )

That holy dream- that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.
                                                           - E.A. Poe

Byers doesn't remember falling asleep.

He remembers not wanting to, though.

He's in a different part of the hospital, this time. He finds himself standing in the ( Read more... )

Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?
                                                           - E.A. Poe

The previous dream had left Byers a bit shaken -- especially when he discovered the dried blood on his mouth -- but he kept repeating "it was only a dream" to himself ( Read more... )

In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed-
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.
                                                           - E.A. Poe

CLANG.

The sound of metal crashing against metal echos down the hallway and Byers freezes, breath catching in his throat.

It's too dark. He can't see past the ( Read more... )