flavour of the day, grapefruit and strawberry shortcake with malt and fresh peaches
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Postdetermined
Rating: G
Challenge: FOTD: phatic, Grapefruit #8: in stone, Strawberry Shortcake #25: little april showers
Toppings/Extras: fresh peaches, malt
Wordcount: 543
Summary: It’s time for the Black Ops team to go home. Nearly.
Notes: My word, another FotD. Post-Timeless, just about! Phatic: denoting speech used to create an atmosphere of goodwill. Grapefruit PFAH: Robyn : a glow-in-the-dark rubber duckie. Peaches: The challenge for you is to clearly say what you think without referring to or borrowing ideas from others.
The night rain was warm and soft as it pattered against the green landscape around them. The Black Ops team were stood under an ancient archway, even more ancient to their time-travelling eyes, seeking a little shelter from it. And just a little shelter from the trouble that awaited them once they returned to the labs, and the dead Newson, and a company in turmoil.
Just then, they could breathe in the hearty air and pause.
“Do you think we changed things?” Robyn asked after a while, gaze fixed on the stream that rushed by ahead of them, seeking out the Caribbean ocean between the nooks of rocks and slashes of grass.
“What do you mean?” Victor asked softly, barely audible over the susurrus of rainfall.
“Well, obviously,” Bradley interjected before she could respond. “Did you see Jacob? If his daughter hadn’t given him that look of hers, he would have brought back every machine gun he could get his grubby mitts on. And Ashdown hoarded quite a bit of toothpaste.” He paused. “Probably not enough to interfere with the timesteam too much, though.”
Pushing some of her hair from her eyes, Robyn glanced sidelong at Victor. He knew what she meant. Ashdown. The last they’d seen of him he’d been carefully helping his sister up the path to his home, looking tired and whole. What next?
“If Adam’s to be believed, this was all meant to happen anyway,” she finally said. “I’m glad.”
“Yeah,” Taisy said idly, picking a droplet-dotted flower and sniffing at it daintily. “We would’ve been in so much trouble if we destroyed the universe by accident.”
“I’m not a fan of predetermination, though.” Bradley wrinkled his nose. “More of a free will kind of man.”
“I wouldn’t say predetermined,” Robyn said. “Postdetermined, maybe. Nothing we did was set out rigidly. Hence the multiple selves and the demon dimensions. But we got it right in the end.”
“Thank God.”
Smoke-grey eyes fixed on the scene in front of them, Victor opened his mouth to speak-probably something profound, she liked to think-but then halted. “Rubber duck.”
“Rub a what?” That was Bradley. Robyn paused to punch him lightly on the shoulder and all four of them watched as it-indeed, a rubber duck-drifted down the ripple-smitten stream past them and then onwards for sea. “Looks like Ashdown raided more than the toothpaste.”
Taisy glanced over her shoulder, where the lights of Ashdown’s manor were visible, and some of its impressive façade. “Do you reckon he knows we’re still here?”
“This is technically his back garden,” Robyn sighed, finally rocking forwards on her feet. It was striking her as time to wind down and head back. Head home for the last time. Head for a fate indeterminate: it would have been nice to be able to catch a glimpse of their future, but she was fairly sure Adam would drop something like ‘temporal fracture’ on them, and she’d had enough of them. “Time to go?”
The entire group, for all of their differences, stalled the moment in union.
“Postdetermined,” Victor said, “by us. Who we’ll be. Who we want to be.”
All four of them found that a good enough reason to linger just a small while longer.