Fic: On Time, Chapter 2 (CSI, Nick Stokes / Greg Sanders)
Title: On Time, Chapter 2
Fandom: CSI
Pair: Nick Stokes / Greg Sanders
Disclaimer: Not mine, etc.
Feedback: Always Welcome
Spoilers: Play With Fire
CSI Las Vegas Main List
On Time, Chapter 1
Nick opened his eyes carefully. The room looked like a hospital ward, with white linen and metallic beds. The other beds were empty. Bright light was flowing through the curtains, making his headache even worse.
“How are you feeling? The first time is always the worst.” Greg came in carrying a covered tray. “I brought you some food.”
“I…. I… what time is it?”
“About seven in the morning. Wednesday.”
“Wednesday? I’ve been out of it for almost a week? What the hell did you do to me?” Nick wanted to leap up and grab the guy by the throat, but he was too weak to do anything else than glare at him.
“I should have been more specific.” Greg sat down on the edge of the bed and left the tray on the nightstand. “Wednesday, the fifth of June.”
“June?! It was January last night!”
“Nick, listen-”
“You’ve kept me here for months! Everyone must be worried sick-”
“Nick! Listen to me. I don’t know how to say this, so I…. I’ll just say it. Those people you `re talking about are all dead.”
Nick just stared at him.
“It’s not June 1959, it’s June 2047. You’re parents have been dead for a long time. And so are your siblings. Some of their children are alive, but you’ve never met any of them.”
“They…. They don’t have kids.”
“They do. Or they did.”
“Is this some kind of a sick prank?”
“No. I’m not the best person to explain this to you, but you are my designated project, so I guess I have to do it. This place is IFPTL, we’re a government agency. A top-secret government agency. It was founded in 2039.”
“To do what?”
“Like the name says, to investigate future and past timelines. In the early 2030s a group of scientists developed a way to move back and forth in time. If it had become public, all different people would have tried to use for different purposes. All timelines would have been tampered with and it would have lead to a total chaos. So it was kept secret. Not even other agencies know about our existence.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Nick asked with his eyes wide. "Or are you on some weird drugs?"
“No. Our purpose is to investigate and examine past and future. We’re not allowed to interfere. If we do something hasty in the past it can change the whole future. You’re the first exception they allowed.”
“Why?”
“Because we have seen the future and we had to prevent it somehow.”
“What does that have to do with me? I’m a cop, I’m not going to be a president or anything.”
“You started something that could cause a lot of damage.” Greg too a long breath. “Are you sure you’re well enough to hear this?”
“Tell me, or I’ll march out of here right now.”
“You wouldn’t get very far, this is a maximum security building. But I’ll tell you. When I contacted you it was thirty-first of May, 1959. You were thirty-two.”
“Get to the point.”
“In December 1960 you left the police force to help your dad on his ranch after his heart attack. In February 1961 you married Elizabeth Richardson, you old high school sweetie and your first child was born the following year. In 1964 you had twins. Two boys.”
“I had two boys?”
“Both of them turned out to be unstable. They got in trouble with the law and in their early twenties they started an organisation.”
“What kind of an organisation?”
“I guess cult would be a pretty good word for it. They preyed upon those who were disappointed with the world. Their goal was to create chaos, they believed that if the current order would be torn down, they would put it together again, playing the saviours of the whole world. Their numbers increased. Both brothers had several children with their female followers. It became a network of stepsiblings, keeping the whole thing together. When they got stronger their actions became more and more serious.”
“What actions?”
“Like I said they wanted to create chaos. They targeted on people and groups that would lead to maximum retaliation. How can I explain it….. Do you know how the first World War started?”
“Somebody shot somebody…. Or something like that.”
“Close, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo. But all the tension was there before, it just needed something to get things going. That was how they operated. They aimed at the situation where things were ready blow up and then gave them a little push. Retaliation follows, it grows and more and more people get involved. They started from small, and over several decades they increased their efforts. They went from small local stunts to national scale, and finally it all lead to a civil war. Different sides received help from abroad, and it split the rest of the world to several sides. Man against man, family against family, state against state, country against country. Until nobody really remembered where it all got started.”
“And my kids started it all?”
“Yeah, but they didn’t get to see the big finale. First one died in 2002 and the other one in 2007. Their own children carried on their mission.”
“What about…. What about my family? Lizzy and I?”
“She….” Greg paused. “In 1973 she left with another man. She died in a hit-and-run in 1981.”
“And me?”
“You had a heart attack in 1978.” Greg pulled the lid of the tray and offered him a cup of hot soup. “It’s a lot to digest. The situation, not the soup.”
“So why did you…. I mean……”
“I told you we kept an eye on the future timelines. The civil war erupted in 2053. And finally it lead to absolute destruction. Just…. A boom of biblical proportions.”
“2053? Then…. Why didn’t you stop it right here? Arrest them or something.”
“Because it had already started. The seed had been planted and it just needed a spark. Their organisation was way too large to take down. We couldn’t do anything about them, but we had to do something. That’s why we got a permit to do this.”
“This?”
“We altered history, so that they never existed. We removed you from your own time, and because of that none of it happened.”
“What about me?”
Greg looked at him with unusually sorry expression. “I’m sorry about that. But we accomplished what we were aiming for. You understand that?”
“I guess…. Do they know?”
“Who?”
“My family. Do they know what happened to me?”
“I’ll show you.” Greg pulled a yellowed old newspaper clipping from his pocket. “This was published three weeks after we took you.”
Nick took the clipping and unfolded it. A smudgy picture of him was under the headline: Dallas detective still missing.
“You vanished without a trace.” Greg explained. “The Dallas PD called off the search two months later.”
“Take me back.”
“What?”
“Take me back to 1959. I wont get married, I wont have children. I’ll even have myself castrated, but I have to go back.”
“No.”
“What the hell do you mean No?”
“I can’t take you back.”
“You took me away, you can take me back!”
“We can’t interfere with the timeline any more than we already did. Time is delicate.”
“So I’m stuck here?”
“Yeah.”
“What….” Nick closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “What do I do now?”
“You’ll try to adapt. You’re still the same age as you were when I took you. Thirty-two. You got a lot of time.”
TBC