Time After Time: Interruption

[x-firestar.livejournal.com]

It's time for a snack break - but the universe decides it's time for something else, as well.



Angel gingerly nudged the door open as she walked into the lab, concentrating on not dropping the overloaded tray of food. It was not the first of its kind to be brought down to feed the hungry scientists and she doubted it was going to be the last one. A piece of bacon poked out of her mouth as she chewed while she walked – after all, the food looked good and she wasn't about to starve herself. She looked around for some place to set it but it seemed everything was covered in papers or notes.

"Mmff!" she said around the bacon as she tried to locate either Forge or Ben. Maybe they'd been eaten by their work…

"Hello there!" came the exclamation from behind a row of computer monitors. After some shuffling, Ben's head emerged, bearing a confused look that quickly turned into a smile. "Angelica, splendid! It's good to see you. Mister Forge and I believe we are close to a breakthrough."

It was a startling thing to realize that a future, other her had married a very large dork. A hot dork, but a dork. She raised her eyebrows at him and a pop-tart caught fire – fair warning that if the tray wasn't taken soon, the rest of the food was going to follow suit.

"Oh, food, yes! Very good!" Ben exclaimed, marching himself around to the table. He looked at the spread of snacks and gave a quick frown. "I confess, I'd been hoping for those little pizzas you make, with the parmesan and the prosciutto. That was our first date, remember? When there was that horrible rainstorm and..."

His voice trailed off as he looked away sheepishly. "I'm sorry. I have to keep reminding myself that it was a different Angelica. So much the same, but... not."

They found a place to put the tray and she quickly settled it on the table, smiling a little awkwardly at him. "No, no, it's okay. Weird, but okay." She grabbed the pop tart she'd cooked but left the rest alone, though she was willing to toast the rest of them for the two if that's what they wanted. "Really weird, I'm not gonna lie. I mean, you look at me and forget I'm not your wife – and I look at you and sorta see what could happen."

She frowned. "Though our worlds are totally different, right? So what you experienced over there might not translate to over here…" Angel wondered if there was even a Ben Russell in her United States.

"There are many differences. Mutation, obviously," Ben gestured at the toasted pastry, "and yet so much the same. I understand you're a photographer. My Angelica, she... you... she worked... works with holography, three-dimensional images. I didn't meet her when she was your age, but I can only imagine that the two of you would - well, it's a hypothetical situation. But no, not totally different," he said quietly, reaching out to brush his fingers over Angel's hand for a second before grabbing a piece of bacon.

A faint blush played across her face as she ducked her head a bit. "Can I just say this is still an incredibly odd experience?" she asked, tearing off the crust of her pop-tart. She'd eventually eat the entire thing first but she liked the crust the best. "I still don't understand half the mumbo-jumbo you speak and I keep getting glimpses of me – god I hope I don't stay such a spaz – that's not me in the future. On the other hand, I can snort flames, so you know, weird is relative I guess."

Ben laughed. "I'm sorry to say, you are still quite a spaz. It's always been endearing, though. And your mutation, Forge explained it as microwave generation? Extraordinary. So many small things that connect us all." He gestured between himself and Angel. "The first signals to come through the dimensional barrier? Were microwave energy. Straight from the heart of a star, in another universe."

"Really?" Angel asked, fascinated. "I've had to read up a lot on microwave energy – that stuff was never my strong suit. I like chemistry where I can blow things up. "I'd like to go up in space one day. I get close with flying." She smiled, big and bright, as she talked about the experience. "The best thing in the world is just jumping off the roof into free fall because I know I can catch myself. There's total freedom, you know? Nothing like it."

"I can only imagine --" Ben started, then stopped suddenly as a strange humming began to sound in the room. On nearby benches, paperclips began to stand on end and the clock on the wall began blinking. "Oh no," he breathed. "Not now. Angelica, you have to get out of here!"

The hair on her arms and back of her neck were standing straight up as Angel scrambled to her feet, reacting to the panic in his voice. "What's going … whoa." She stared as behind him parts of the floor and wall seemed to ripple. It was like when he'd first appeared in the Danger Room but it was obvious that he hadn't started this one. A step back and she could feel something tugging on her and she clenched her hands.

He wasn't done yet; it wasn't ready. It wasn't fair.

And Angel went up in flames.

"There's a fundamental imbalance to the procedure!" Ben yelled over the din, searching for something to brace himself on. "The universe can only stay out of balance for so long before it tries to correct itself! I'm sorry, Angelica. I'm so sorry..."

"I have no idea what that means!" she yelled from above – she wasn't on the floor anymore. Instead, Angel was hovering above the lab, legs tilted at an angle as she forced her powers to thrust against the pull. Her eyes flicked in anger to the portal. "But stop apologizing and just hold onto something!" There were alarms going off in the mansion but she ignored it – ignored everything but the pulling sensation on her body.

The last time she'd managed to go up to her 'next step', she'd been afraid and used. Now, she was afraid again but it wasn't for her own safety. Someone was going to die if Ben got sucked back in – maybe him, she realized, since he wasn't wearing the entire suit.

Her eyes closed for a second as she took a deep breath and when they opened again, all color had been replaced with rolling sheets of blue flame. They spread quickly, coating her as she forced her powers out, acting on instinct as she flared hot and bright. Her gut had once told her to run into a burning building and she'd come out all right. Angel was just going to have to trust that it would turn out all right now.

Tendrils of energy seemed to stretch from the portal, glowing as they reached towards Ben. When Angel's powers flared, however, the portal glowed in response, and the tendrils seemed to pause.

The flashing of the energy from the portal seemed to shift and mimic the flickering of Angel's flames, and as she pushed towards it, it began to shrink slightly.

"The best thing in the world is just jumping off the roof into free fall because I know I can catch myself."

The thrust cut off and Angel had the weirdest sensation of being in free fall going sideways as the suction from the portal drew her closer. Careful to note where Ben was, she put on the brakes by starting up the thrusting again as hard as she could. It was hard, very hard, but she'd been at the school for other two years and had been under two flight instructions who had known exactly what they were doing when they taught her. She might not have a clue about what to do with the rest of the powered abilities in her new form but flight was nearly second nature.

This close to the portal, with that much energy going…

There was a feeling of intense pressure, and then the wavering portal simply... vanished.

Before, Angel hadn't been able to turn it off. With the release of the pressure, however, she suddenly couldn't maintain it and with a shriek, she tumbled down to the ground. From the ceiling, she could hear the pinging of hot metal as it cooled down and she groaned, wondering if she was going to have a lump on the back of her head and if Mr. Marko was going to have her for lunch.

She felt hands on her shoulders as Ben rushed to her side. "Angelica! Are you all right? That was... yes, somehow the energy you projected acted as an antiparticle to the trans-universal space through the portal, causing a Welles-Rembrandt inversion - oh, never mind all that, are you all right?"

Angel couldn't help it, she started to giggle just a little bit. Part of it was due to the adrenaline but the rest was all Ben. "Oh, just dandy," she said, sitting up slowly. She wasn't used to getting hurt after flying but then again, she wasn't used to her powers shorting out like that. "You're still here, though, that's good. And Forge was probably far enough away that I didn't set his arm or leg on fire, that's good, too. Ow, my head, that's not so good. But I'll be okay, I've survived falling out of the tree house with no fire shield, so…"

"Nevertheless," Ben insisted, "let's get you to Doctor Grey-Summers. Although I suppose this means we don't have much time to lose..."

"Yeah, the whole universe trying to spit you out, thing? Not on." Angel was surprised – she thought that once things had stopped pinging, Ben would shove his head right back into the research. He was right, they apparently didn't have much time left. But he was now leading her gently, if not slowly, from the lab in search of the doctor. Just in case.

She stared at him for a moment before smiling. "I guess there's more to you than just being hot, for an older guy, and a dork…"

Ben laughed. "You said that when we first met, as well."