LIBERATION GIRL

PART II

Well, so what if he had found her? She was not a prisoner, and neither Time nor this upstart Russian would capture and control her. She was getting tired of this time period anyway, it was high time she was leaving.

It wasn't bad while it lasted.

She stood up, her eyes never leaving his, and walked towards the door, daring him to say something. His eyes were on her, but the smirk on his face never faded.

"Lysa?" Maxine asked from her seat, noticing that something was wrong. Lysa hadn't cursed in front of her since the day she'd first arrived; it wasn't exactly considered proper for boarding school girls in this time period.

"See you someday, Maxine," Lysa said to the English girl, a little more choked up than she expected herself to be. She opened the door and then dashed out. Running down the narrow corridors, she relived her few peaceful months.

She didn't really feel so ready to leave as she wished she did.

Lysa ran outside, all the way into the grass and sunshine, and when she had nowhere left to run, she simply stood still, staring up into the sky. The Machine wasn't even ready, she realized, tears falling freely from her eyes. They were tears of hopelessness and confusion, not sorrow. She had nowhere to go. If only she'd had more time, everything would have worked out.

He must have followed her closely from the Now. He'd pinpointed her location in time nearly exactly, missing her by months.

She heard his footsteps before she saw him, and anticipated his figure as he turned the corner. There was nothing to be done, so she just stared at him.

"Lysandra," he said by way of a greeting. He never used her title, but unlike her friends, he never used the short form either. It was probably a perfect summary of what he thought of her; not worth a formal title, and certainly not worth familiarity.

Lysa licked her lips and looked around her, trying to assess her odds. "Alexei," she said, hoping she remembered correctly. The day he had chased after her came back to her in flashes. There had been a woman with him- Natalie or something.

He stepped closer to her. She fought the urge to run away, but she knew that there was nowhere to go. He ran a hand through her dark curls, his expression unreadable. "It's grown," he said, as though he hadn't quite expected it.

She felt her face heat up and thanked her dark complexion for hiding her blush. "It's been quite some time."

"Not for me, it hasn't," he quipped, a humorless smile gracing his face. He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled his gun out with his other hand. He certainly didn't seem like a substitute teacher now, Lysa thought. It was unnerving how he could be so nonchalant while holding a gun, so comfortable. He pressed it against her temple and she gulped, her heart racing.

She looked around, wondering what her odds of getting away were. No vehicle, no Machine, no weapon.

He seemed to read her mind, shoving her head forward with the gun. "I will kill you if you don't listen to me, do you understand? I will barter your body if I have to." His jaw was clenched as though it hurt him to touch her, and she hated him for it.

He seemed much more threatening to her now that he was wearing clothes that actually fit and had a gun to her head. Was he this in control the first time they met? He couldn't have been.

"I liked you better when you had that ridiculous bomber jacket on," she said, smirking as she recalled how silly he'd looked.

He hardly noticed her teasing, and his blasé expression made her heart flip. He really was going to kill her, the bastard. Cool as a cucumber.

She spat at him, overcome with anger. "Rebel scum... Do you think my father would let his Empire crumble for a girl?" Even though she asked, she knew she was bluffing. Her father would do anything for her. Perhaps it was better if she died, so that the rebels wouldn't be able to use her.

He hit her head lightly with the gun to shut her up and she reeled, struggling to stay standing.

"His Empire is crumbling," he said, "but he does nothing to help us."

She threw her head back and laughed. "You would start an epidemic to overthrow him," she said slowly, trying to make him see sense. "He is not perfect, but you are despicable."

Alexei gave her an odd look and pushed her to make her keep walking. "Greeks are always talking nonsense," he said, herding her along, the cool metal of the gun still pressed against her temple.

He led her into the parking lot and made her take a seat next to him. Lysa was impressed; he must have been here for at least a few weeks if he'd managed to get a ride and a job as a substitute teacher. What she was most curious about, however, was that he knew where and when to find her. What had given her away? He drove with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on his gun, and kept looking back and forth between the girl and the road. When she asked the question on her mind, he laughed. It was a deep, mirthful laugh, and it startled her.

"Time travel found its unlikely origins in a girls' boarding school in 2138. If you were better read, you would have known that."

She frowned and slouched down in her seat. Of course, of course. How could she have overlooked it? It was like a giant arrow pointing towards her. She felt queasy and took deep breaths to try and ignore the sick feeling in her stomach.

They drove for quite a while, but Lysa wasn't sure where they were going. One thing was for sure; he wasn't telling. Instead, she tried to muster up sympathy in him. "You were an officer in the Imperial Army. Why are you doing this?" she asked, sneaking a glance at him.

"The Empire doesn't follow the rule of law... the land will reject it."

Fucking idealists. She should have known better than to try and discuss serious politics with him. "Well, how are we getting back to the Now?" she asked, changing the subject. A slight frown betrayed him.

"Fuck you. Fuck. You. You need my help, don't you?" she asked, the hair on her skin standing on end.

"You're so pleasant," he remarked. For all his bravado, she could see that he was tense. Their safe return depended on her cooperation. Even though it made her want to jump out of the car and kill herself, she saw an opportunity here. If she could build the Machine, she could escape. Her fingers itched to start building again.

"Oh, and don't try killing yourself; you're worth more alive, and not just for the ransom."

Her eyebrows rose. "What is that supposed to mean?" she asked. "I am the Diadochos in name only; my father will find someone more competent to take his place."

He laughed. "I was not referring to your position as successor. You see, there are very few people who can travel time successfully. Most people get spliced, and those who survive the jump usually can't adapt to the time period; they just don't have good traveling sense." He hesitated. "Your father must have recognized your talent. That's why you're so valuable to him."

She sat in silence. He'd traveled time successfully too, hadn't he?

"Although," he added, "I think you are underestimating your worth as successor. If he wanted someone else, he would not have named you the Diadochos."

It was something she had considered many times before. "Well... perhaps he has someone in mind to marry me, someone who can rule from behind my title?" she suggested. Unbidden, the image of her cousin Anker flashed in her mind. Would he make a good Emperor? He cared for little, but his cruel disregard gave him an edge, and he was already close to her father.

The Russian beside her merely chuckled, perhaps guessing at her line of thought. "Maybe yes, maybe no. I will tell you that there are many men who fancy the idea of your Crown on their heads, but I hope you have more pride than that."

The rest of the drive passed by in pensive silence.

He had a small apartment on the outskirts of town, but it didn't look particularly lived-in. He must have only been in town for a few weeks. There was no furniture, but the rooms were filled with equipment; the building blocks of the Machine. Lysa was a little disgusted at how disorganized he was being about the whole thing, and cracked her knuckles, eager to get started. She had gotten far on her first Machine with Maxine's limited help; this one would be a piece of cake.

Her boarding school put out Missing Persons notices for her, but as she had no documentation, no one was actually able to prove that the new girl named Lysandra ever really existed. It was funny how she was written off as a person of no importance, considering who she was in her Now. Of course, Maxine and her other friends would never forget her, but they would never be able to find her either. This was what Alexei had been banking on, and it worked. He hid his tracks in ways that the old fashioned people of the time simply weren't able to keep up with.

Alexei never asked her for her money, and Lysa was more than happy to not contribute. He went out during the day to work odd jobs, keeping her left wrist cuffed to a long chain that hooked to the wall; she was never able to leave the apartment. She tried to ignore the weight of the chain against her wrist, but it wore her down. It wouldn't have affected a normal person, but it was on her weak hand, the one injury that would never really leave her.

She tried to hide her weakness in front of Alexei, so that he wouldn't be able to use it to his advantage. When she was on her own, she made adjustments around the room, like leaving the coffee table near her hand so that she could rest it there when it shook too much. The length of the chain was enough that she could work on the Machine, however, and that was how she spent her time, obsessively fixing every last detail. If she couldn't be free, she would find a way.

It occurred to her one day that she had, in fact, invented time travel, or at least, laid down the basics for others to build on. It was thanks to her that items could be transported between the Now and the past.

There was something else she was considering now too- time travel had always been limited to the past and the Now of the item being transported. What if she were able to break down that barrier as well, and allow herself to travel into the future? Most discussion on the subject assumed that visiting the future was impossible because it had yet to occur, but Lysa felt that it wasn't exactly a leap. If she could dream it, she could do it.

And so she spent hours studying text books that she made Alexei bring her from the local library. They were woefully outdated, but once she was given the basics, Lysa could easily build on them. She was never given a military training like her friends, but she was tutored extensively, and this was her forte.

She practiced sending herself her gold coins five minutes in the future. The first thirty-two times, she failed. Sometimes, she sent herself half a coin and other times, she lost the coins altogether. It was on her thirty-third time that she perfected her method, receiving her coins at five minutes on the dot. Perfect calibration.

Freedom was close.

Alexei had, of course, no idea as to what Lysa was doing, even though he helped her put the machine together according to her directions. It wounded her pride to ask him for help, but she simply wasn't physically able to get it done on her own. If he suspected anything about her hand, however, he gave no indication.

They slept on the floor each night, close enough to feel warm, but not so close that it felt improper. Even at night she was chained, and although Alexei apologized about it from time to time, she imagined that he rather enjoyed it. She never complained about it, though. She wouldn't give him that satisfaction.

Sometimes, before they fell asleep, he talked to her about his day, telling her about the backwards people he met at work, or the strange cultural differences he'd noted. None of it was really new to her, but she was polite and feigned interest from time-to time. She never really talked back, though she did share anecdotes from her life in the palace every now and then.

"I have a dream about you," he confessed one night. It was dark, but his voice sounded giddy; Lysa imagined he was smiling. "Not, you know, a real dream, but a day-dream."

"Yeah?" she asked, exhausted from a long day of working on calculations. "Sounds perverted, don't tell me about it."

He ignored her quip. "I dream that someday you'll march right up to your father, dressed in your full Imperial regalia. You'll be so brilliant right then, Lysandra, it'll be as though you shine. And you'll say, 'Your Majesty, I've come to warn you of a People's Revolution'. The look on his face will be worth it, Lysandra, but it won't be just that... The Empire will crumble at your feet."

Lysa chuckled. "I don't know if I should be flattered or offended that you think I could do that. I am not Moses, and your people are not the Jews." She was worried that the allusion would go over his head; he was Russian, after all. When he didn't reply to her right away, she voiced her fear.

He puffed up his cheeks into his pillow. "I'm not ignorant of your gods! Natalya read me that story, once. It was in some English storybook we found. Parting the sea or some nonsense, and pyramids."

"You can understand English?" Lysa asked, surprised. English had gone out of fashion centuries before; those who bothered with the Bible read it in Greek.

"Only simple phrases, like 'Hello,' and 'My doctor's son enjoys gardening,'. Nothing useful, unfortunately. The classes taught at the Imperial Palace always were rather lacking."

She was caught off-guard and inched away from him subconsciously. "You've been in the Imperial Palace?" she asked.

He stilled for a moment, completely frozen, before taking a deep breath of air. "I used to live there," he answered slowly, as though he were carefully considering his words. "I... I-I've actually been in the inner part of the Palace, seen the Throne."

Only His Majesty's most trusted advisors were allowed into the actual Inner Palace, the location of His Majesty's bedroom chambers and ancient Throne Room. Visitors were usually shown a replica of the throne, and official meetings were held in a more modern setting, in the Outer Palace. Lysa had known him to be a traitor, but she had never guessed the extent of his betrayal until now.

"Who are you?" she asked. Was he perhaps a personal servant? A member of His Majesty's Guard? Or...

"I was born in the Imperial Palace," he said, interrupting her thoughts. "The son of a Russian slave. Your father discovered that I could travel time, and I came into his favor. He still thinks of me as something of a son... if it weren't for him, I wouldn't have risen in the ranks as quickly as I did; Russians never do."

She sat up from the floor, running her hands through the black tangles of her hair as she tried to sort it out. He sat up beside her and put his hand on her shoulder, wincing as she shook him off.

"Your rank, now," she commanded him, enunciating each word with her lips and teeth and tongue.

He shifted a bit, looking uncomfortable, before resting his hands at the back of his neck and pulling away from her. "W-well, that is to say... Lieutenant-at-large." He had the decency to lower his head when he spoke these words, as though he were suddenly reminded of her own rank in polite society.

In her mind, a thousand thoughts flew. She was jealous that he saw more of her father than she did and that he had not only been to the Inner Palace, but that he served there. From what he had just said of his closeness to the Emperor, it seemed that Alexei was closer to being crowned the next Emperor than she was.

"You are a traitor," she said, falling back down to rest her head against her pillow. "You are a traitor to His Majesty and a traitor to the people of His Empire!"

With each accusation she made, each time she said the word "traitor", her anger grew. How could someone who knew her father, who grew up with him, be so cruel? If only she were so lucky as he! She would have freely given her left hand to have had her father in her life. Hell, who was she kidding? She would have given both.

He mumbled something that sounded vaguely like "Greeks," punctuated with some exasperated swearing. He lay down beside her and closed his eyes.

She threw her arms into the air, frustrated. Her breathing was heavy as she gazed up at her fingers in the dark. "Do you know how lucky you were to be so close to him?" she asked, unable to let the subject go and fall asleep. When he didn't respond, she dropped her arms back down and her cuffed wrist clunked against the wooden floor.

Lysa almost thought he had fallen asleep when he finally stirred. "Yes," he said, mumbling into his pillow before turning around to face her properly. "I am a traitor. But what would you prefer? That I be like the heartless Anker, who kills for your father but remains wholly unaffected?"

She couldn't reply, simply staring at the man lying beside her, dumbfounded.

"Oh yes, your cousin, that sociopathic son-of-a-bitch. We were assigned to the same centuria when we were younger. Did you know that he loved you? I think you're the only thing he ever gave a damn about."

She laughed at his ludicrous statement. It was not the accusation that her cousin was a sociopath that set her off. The fact that Anker killed without guilt, she knew. His lack of conscience, his strange quirk of personality, was what made him a brilliant political player in the eyes of all who knew him. But the words love and Anker did not belong in the same sentence.

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," she said. "Anker does not have feelings for anyone!" As she considered it, the idea seemed even more hilarious, and she began alternating between giggling and gasping for air.

"I suppose it is kind of funny," he agreed, though he didn't sound happy in the least. His tone immediately ate away at her own amusement, and her giggles ceased. "I mean, consider how many innocents he killed in your name, Lysandra. He carried a picture of you always. How hilarious."

There was a black silence as Lysa considered the verity of his statement.

"Well, Anker would make a better Emperor than either of us," she said, leaping to her cousin's defense. "His so-called sociopathic tendencies are exactly what would make him a good ruler, capable of separating his conscience from what would be the good of the country. Men are side-tracked by personal needs, but Anker is much more than just a man."

Alexei snorted at her assertion. "Anker is much less than a man, Lysa, and the traits you've described would just as easily make for a good tyrant."

He came home late from work, carrying a couple of large bags. He must have greeted her, but she hardly glanced in his direction, struggling to hold her balance on top of a chair while fitting a screw into the Machine. She was having trouble securing it, and every time she got close, her hands quaked or the screw slipped out, forcing her to start the process over. It was, more or less, the last piece before the Machine would be in working condition, and Lysa was stressed.

Alexei reached up to steady her arm with his own. "Need any help?" he asked.

She took a deep breath, trying to ignore the sensation of his arm on hers, and tightened the screw until it was all the way in. The links of the chain made a clinking sound as she lowered her arms. "Thanks," she said, stepping down from the chair to look into his eyes.

She fidgeted a bit under her gaze, pulling her messy hair away from her face and behind her ears. She hadn't washed it in the past three days, and she felt grimy. She hated him a little for this, because no matter what their situation, he always looked golden and shining, always clean. The blood on his hands never showed.

He leaned forwards and pulled her hair back out. She cringed, preparing for whatever he was going to say.

"I like it long," he mumbled.

It hadn't been what she was expecting.

She had first cut her hair short when she was a little girl, after her father, His Majesty, had passed the new Water Law, rationing the usage of water. It was meant to be a symbol of her solidarity with the people, to show that she too had to sacrifice hygiene and vanity for the Empire.

In retrospect, it had been a meaningless sacrifice. Yes, like everyone else, her bathing had been rationed, but she still lived a life of luxury.

She stepped away from him. The sound of the chain dragging against the floor woke him from his reverie, and he ran back to the door to show her what was in the bags he'd brought home.

"I bought you something," he said, carrying them closer to her, fighting the boyish grin off of his face. She sighed and looked over at his bags, her disinterest obvious. In a smaller bag, there was a bottle of wine that he carelessly placed on the table, obviously not the main event. He reached into the larger bag and, after struggling for a few moments, pulled out something large and puffy, curled up like a caterpillar.

She stared. "What is it?" she asked, feeling a bit dumb. It was made of a shiny synthetic material, and as Alexei unwrapped it, Lysa hoped very much that it was not supposed to be a dress.

"This," Alexei said, "is a sleeping bag. I figured we could make your last few days here a bit more comfortable."

Perhaps he felt guilty that he'd kept the Diadochos on a dirty wooden floor. No doubt he expected her to be impressed, and she imagined that he must have saved up for quite some time for such a luxury.

She didn't care what she slept on at this point, and said as much to him. She had been through hell and back, and if she never saw a feather bed again, she wouldn't give a damn.

He was miffed at her rejection, but tried to appear calm, running a hand through his scruffy hair. "I'm not trying to be cruel to you," he said, looking her in the eye. "You act as though I'm the villain, when we both know that it's your father."

She rolled her eyes. "Right, and I suppose it's his fault I'm cuffed to the wall? I don't complain, but it chafes, you know. There's a rash, and one of my cuts is infected." It was a lie, but she hadn't hesitated in telling it. She needed to be free.

"Chërt!" he swore. "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, closing the gap between them to examine her wrist. He pulled the key from out of his many pockets and unlocked her. "I'm so sorry, Lysandra. I'm an idiot."

Her hand began to shake slightly, much to her annoyance. She stepped away from him and rubbed at her wrist, trying to conceal the spasming. "Afraid my father won't want damaged goods?" she asked, keeping a strong grip on her hand.

He looked a little hurt at her words, and she wondered, for one fleeting moment, if she'd misjudged him. He was so sincere, and it was true that any of the other rebels would have just offed her by now. She swallowed hard. There was no time for second thoughts, however. She grabbed the wine bottle off the table with her good hand and pretended to read the label, trying not to look too eager.

"Lysandra... I'm holding you hostage, but that doesn't make me a mon-"

She swung the bottle and smashed it against his head. He fell like a rock, and she felt a rush of energy.

She hurried to the fridge, pulled out the vials of different solutions, and injected them into her arm with a hypodermic needle and syringe. She gave a loving look towards the Machine. "Guess it's you and me, old friend," she said, gingerly stepping over Alexei's body.

She hesitated for a moment and then approached him, gently picking off the glass shards near his face. She noted with some dismay that he would be needing stitches. Before she could change her mind, she pulled out what remained of her gold, and placed it beside him.

In another life, she mused, they could have been friends. She reached into his pocket and pulled out his gun. The weapon felt heavy in her hands; she'd never held one before. Strapping herself into the Machine, she turned the dial carelessly, not worrying about where she ended up, so long as she was sufficiently in the future and out of Alexei's reach. A warmth filled her as the Machine welcomed her.

She could feel herself beginning to leave, and knew it was time to take a risky last measure; she had created the Machine, and now she had to destroy it. With her last bit of consciousness, she released the safety of the gun, held it steady using both hands, and shot into the power box. The Machine would self destruct as soon as she was gone. Sparks flew and she cried out as the gun recoiled and thudded against her chest. It would leave a bruise, but by destroying the Machine, she had insured that Alexei would never be able to follow her into the future.

He would probably be able to build a new Machine, one that would take him to the Now, using the notes she'd left him; she wasn't cruel enough to leave a man homeless.

That was her last conscious thought. When she would wake up once more, she would be much, much later.

She woke up coughing blood. It heaved up from inside of her, in disgusting, clotted masses, and though she was still blind from the Machine, she knew the taste. She spit out sticky glob after sticky glob, hating the metallic bite it left in her mouth.

Apparently her traveling technique had not been as flawless as usual; she was lucky she hadn't gotten spliced. She felt the familiar wave of nausea ride up and down her body, but this time, she managed to keep her food down, swallowing several times just in case.

Breathe in, breathe out.

She wiped her bloody fingers across the tiled floor and pushed herself up.

Her vision was returning to her now.

She was too dizzy to understand her surroundings at first, but she came to realize that she was in a hospital. The walls and the floors were a bright, shining glass, but it was the rows of colorful, miserable people who broke up the monotony. Masked patients, some of them sick unto death, were falling over even as they walked in. She recognized the hospital, though the chaos was unfamiliar to her; this was a government run institution a mere thirty minute drive away from where she lived in the Now.

Her eyes widened as she took in the streams of masked patients; the virus must have found its way into the hands of the rebels. She stood up and began to walk unsteadily towards the receptionist's desk, pocketing Alexei's gun in her jacket so that she wouldn't get arrested on sight. In her view, nurses rushed from one end of the hall to the other. Everything here seemed so fast.

"Give me a mask," Lysa said, blinking at the woman before her. The receptionist seemed startled by her abrupt command, so Lysa tried again. "I need a mask, please." The air was cool, and Lysa found herself looking to the vents, wondering how many of the infectious agents were entering her body at that very moment. The mask would hardly help.

The receptionist nodded and handed her a box of masks with gloved fingers. "Just take the whole box," the woman said through her own cloth mask. "I don't need to get infected."

Only then did she realize what a mess she must have looked. She would have been ashamed, had she any energy. Lysa grabbed the box and slipped a mask on. It probably wouldn't do much good, but it was better than being wholly unprepared. Once she was masked, she tried to approach various different doctors, informing them that she knew the structure of the virus and that she could help them make a vaccine.

A few of them simply laughed at her, but one of them had the decency to look her in the eye and say, "We're not looking for a vaccine, sorry."

She was floored. "Why not?" she asked. "Surely you know the oath you take as a-"

"Imperial Orders. The vaccine already exists; anyone who can pay for it can get it, but if you're short on money, you're out of luck. We've even run out of antivirals."

Seeing the shocked look in her eye, he explained that it wasn't terribly expensive, but this didn't make her feel any better.

Lysa was confused. Her father had been the one to make this decision. "I don't understand," she mumbled, but the doctor pushed her out of his way, eager to get through his patients for the day. She sat down on a bench and watched the patients stream in and out, unable to take any of it in. So many people in the Empire were unable to afford care, and were being needlessly punished. The price itself may not have been unreasonable, but putting a price on it immediately affected the number of people who would bother to get vaccinated.

It made very little sense; no ruler benefited from the destruction of his own country. It was standard procedure to provide mandatory vaccinations to prevent epidemics like this, that much she knew. A certain percentage of a population needed to have immunity to an infectious disease before the population could be considered safe as a whole. The only reason to charge for a necessary vaccine would be to make money, unless the coffers were already empty. She found herself wondering if it was possible that the Empire itself had released the disease into the public. It had kept a close eye on the virus, after all. No doubt they had plenty of time to build up stores of medicines, but they hadn't.

Why hadn't they?

Lysa knew, with painful clarity, who would die from the virus. The poor, the disenfranchised, and the rebels, who would not be able to show their faces at a government hospital. Betrayal was the worst fucking feeling, and Lysa knew now what Alexei had tried to tell her all along. She was filled with rage and sadness; the people she had loved were the ones who were at fault. It made her shake to her very core. Yes, her father probably justified his actions in his mind, but that didn't make it right.

For once, she found herself at a total loss. The future was already made; it wasn't as though she could change it. She stared off into space, doing nothing. No one noticed her; she was just one of many. Before, there had always been solutions to her problems; everything had been mathematically sound. Elegant, one could say. But how could she right a wrong that had already happened? It was impossible.

Her imagination turned with images of metal, gears, and glass; a glowing Machine, holding her tight and taking her home. She made a promise to herself then and there: if she ever got back to her Now, she would forget the technology that took her to the future, she wouldn't share it with the world.

There was a reason people only traveled backwards.

She fell asleep on the bench, hopeless and unsure of where or when to go.

She woke up and fell asleep several times, occasionally wandering around to try and steal food from patients' rooms. She always returned to the bench to sleep. She wasn't sure of how much time had passed; had it been days already? She didn't bother keeping track, and sleep claimed her yet again.

When she woke up some hours later, she felt cold in her extremities, her hands and feet icy to the touch. She shivered uncontrollably and rocked back and forth. And though she was in a hospital, it seemed that everyone was too busy to help her, Imperial Princess Lysandra.

Yes, if she breathed the word Diadochos, they would fall before her feet, but that thought sickened her more than anything else. She closed her eyes and her eyelids seemed to burn against her. She stood up from the bench, but in a flash, she fell to the floor, her legs crumpling beneath her. She steadied herself with the palms of her hands, red from effort, and then surveyed the room, her head pounding.

"I need to get out," she said, and forced herself to crawl to the hospital doors. She pulled herself up and tried to push the door open, but slipped and fell again. Tears threatened to spill down her face. "I'm an idiot," she moaned. After everything, after all she had done, she was going to die because of an infectious disease, one she had studied extensively while she had been in the boarding school. It was terribly stupid.

She clenched at the marble floor, trying to grip something, anything. "I'm an idiot!" she screamed, much louder this time, as though she wanted all of time to know the truth. People were likely staring at her by now, but she didn't care.

Warm arms picked her up and held her close. She felt herself relax into them, as if she belonged there.

"I can't say I disagree, Lysandra."

She recognized the voice, and it made her want to wretch. She struggled to get out of his grip, but she was weakened, and he was relentless. "It's impossible, you couldn't have followed me," she said, her voice weak. She controlled her breathing, afraid that she would start dry heaving if she didn't. Did she still have her gun? She couldn't remember.

"I didn't follow you. This is my Now," he said. "You returned from the future seven years ago and told me I would find you here today."

She accepted what he said and realized when she was. She was seven years ahead of the Now. If what he said was true, that was what she had to do next, but it made no sense that she would go back to the Now only to seek out Alexei. "Why would I do that?" she asked, trying to get away from him. She didn't want him to get infected, even if he was an idiot. She wiped sweat off her forehead with her cool, clammy hands, trying desperately to maintain some semblance of dignity.

Her forehead burned against her hands.

"Because I'm going to give you antivirals and save your life, and together, we're going to save the Empire," he said, his face falling into an easy grin. "Or perhaps we'll destroy it, I haven't quite worked out that part yet."

She snorted, but looked him over. He did look different. Older and more mature, but he still had that boyish glow that seemed to indicate sincerity. No wonder he'd fooled her father into trusting him.

He picked her up and carried her to his car. She protested, but he informed her that he was already vaccinated. She struggled anyway, and even informed him that she had a gun, but he didn't take her threat very seriously. The next thing she knew, she was in the passenger seat of his car. She swore under her breath and reached for the door to open it, but her hands wouldn't stop shaking.

He grabbed her hands and put them in her lap. "Hey, take it easy," he said, strapping on her seat-belt.

She stared at the side of his head. There was a long scar around his ear and along his hairline; her doing, she realized with a pang of guilt. She too had taken physical damage for playing with time, though, and now that Alexei had captured her, it seemed as though all the struggle was for nothing.

Useless. Lysa wanted to die, and with any luck, she would. Maybe that was the light at the end of the tunnel, she thought, pulling the jacket of her school uniform over her fingers in a failed attempt to warm them.

He eyed her struggling and leaned back, keeping one hand on the steering wheel, and pulled out an extra jacket from the back, dumping it in her lap. It was a military jacket, Lysa noted, the brass buttons glittering even in the dim lighting. All it did was remind her of his betrayal.

"To cover your hands," he said, the corners of his mouth hinting at a smile.

He thought this was funny. She was being kidnapped again and he was amused. She pushed away his jacket and it fell to her feet.

His blue eyes crinkled, though he tried to keep the smile off his face. "Chërt, you crazy bitch! You haven't changed at all."

It seemed very familiar to her, being kidnapped in a car driven by Alexei, but this time the cars were fewer and moving much faster, zipping through the roads with ease. Lysa wondered what Maxine would think if she could see Lysa's world, fast and bright.

In a way, it all seemed heartless to her now. The glass walls and pass-codes and speeding cars... none of it held any pleasure for her anymore. What she wouldn't give to be back at the boarding school, living a peaceful life with Maxine!

Even as she thought this, she felt some remorse. Maxine's time would soon be destroyed by war, and Lysa cringed as she recalled the patriotic speech she had once given her friend. Did Victory bring back the father lost in battle?

She blacked out, and much to her displeasure, she was completely disoriented when she regained consciousness. It was dark, and they appeared to be zooming through narrow tunnels. That was all she could tell, but at least her shaking had stopped. The fever must have subsided for the moment.

"We're underground," he said, when he noticed her craning her neck to get a feel for where they were.

They were going to the rebel headquarters, she guessed. After endless driving in near pitch dark, they reached a parking lot with a few flickering lamps. Somehow the old, beat-up look to the place comforted Lysa. Alexei undid her seat-belt and held her under her shoulders, supporting her as he led her towards the entrance.

She thought it would be a military style base, and while there was some of that, there were also quite a few labs inside. She was too tired to notice much of what was going on, but he explained that she had helped him build the labs, so that the Empire wouldn't have a monopoly on the vaccine. They were having troubles distributing it, but they would greatly minimize the number of deaths through their work.

And from what he was implying, there were other factions who were helping in their own ways too.

"When the government fails, the people rise up to meet the challenge," he explained. Same old idealistic bullshit, but this time, she was all right with it. The People...

Lysandra remembered the first time she met her father, His Majesty Anatole. He had introduced himself first as her father, a mere mortal with no title attached. He had an easy smile and kind, dark eyes, and she knew why her mother loved him, then. Later in the evening, when he put on his crown, he spoke with an air of authority, as though he were no longer just a man. That was what it meant to be Emperor, but she wondered if her father had lost his way.

She took the antivirals Alexei gave her, accepted his blanket, and even ate his food, now that she was assured that she wouldn't die. He pushed her into a shower cubicle, and she could hardly complain; how long had it been since she had been clean? It felt good to scratch off the grime, to get the blood out from under her fingernails.

It was only when she was fully comfortable that she pulled the gun out of her jacket pocket, pointing it straight at him. She had to clasp one hand over the other to keep the gun from shaking, but she still looked intimidating, and the stance made her look more professional.

"How do I know that you're telling the truth?" she asked, thrilled to be at the other end of his gun for once.

He paused, looking at the gun in her hands. "It'll take a few years, but you'll learn to be ambidextrous," he said, looking into her eyes.

She swore under her breath; he knew about her hand. "You're going to have to do better than that," she snarled, releasing the safety.

He didn't even tense, much to her disappointment. "I took out the bullets," he said, "while you were in the shower." Before she could think of a response, he leaned in to kiss her, and as their lips met, she felt it from the tips of her ears to the curl of her toes. It didn't feel like a first kiss; the intimacy was different, a kiss between lovers, as odd as that was. He trailed kisses across her collar bones, his lips meeting her scars. She shivered as he pulled away.

"Oh," she said, lowering her weapon. There was no doubt that he'd kissed her before. Often.

She was confused. She hardly knew Alexei, but it was clear that in the future, he knew her. She wondered how he would react when she met him again in the Now. How would she explain it?

It wasn't that she trusted him completely; she had no idea how to feel about her father, but she no longer felt trapped by her own fate. She had choices, there were always choices, and she would always find a way out.

He led her to the Machine, handing her a small paper bag full of drugs and supplies she would need to treat herself. "You know what to do, right?" he asked. "Have yourself quarantined for two weeks so that you don't infect anyone. Find me in the Now and write down where and when I need to find you in the future, so that I can save you today. And then work like hell on finding the materials and funds to distribute the vaccine. You'll survive, and you can study your own blood for antibodies."

Lysa nodded. She had assumed as much, but it was good to hear it. She strapped herself into the Machine, as she had done so many times before. As Alexei moved to close the door, however, she held out her arm to stop him. "Wait. I want to thank you, for giving me direction."

He laughed. "You'll thank me many times, Lysandra, just like I'll thank you. I've loved you so long."

She was surprised by his frank declaration, but tried to smile politely. "Well, I don't love you."

The confession made him laugh, but it didn't upset him.

The future was strange, to say the least, but maybe it wasn't meant to be understood, not yet anyway. She shut the door, revelling in the feel of being in the Machine once more. In the dark, there was no time or space, only herself, and as she breathed, she could feel the Machine breathe with her.

She was going to free her world.

THE END

(Well, not exactly.)

Author Note: oh emm gee, sorry this was such a long and boring read! my favorite character was Anker, no lie. I guess I have a thing for psychos. Off-screen psychos, no less.