Katrina’s hand was cupped around darkness. Black, yes: but only darkness. There was nothing there.

There is nothing there, Katrina, he said, folding his hands over her own, to prove it to her. Her hands were on his face. It was a curious sensation. Somehow—

(sisterfriendsupporter)

—familiar.

But it was gone, like his dream.

“I think there was a dragon in mine,” the former Kabal leader said, to fill the darkness. “Also, people who would not listen to commands.”

And you.

There...isn't? Shook the thread back and forth, still seeing it clinging there, but Slate caught her hand and made her stop. His hands went right through the threads as if they didn't exist at all. As if they were only an illusion.

There was something familiar about that action. Slate, real. Reminding her of what was real and what was only a dream.

Except she hadn't ever had this problem before.

“I think I remember a dragon, too. It burned up and left all these threads here...” ...and now they won't disappear andI'mafraid.

She tried not to think about them, though. If she shut her eyes and leaned against him, maybe they would just not be there by the time the sun came up again.

“Did you really dream about me?”

Slate lifted his arm, and let Katrina slip underneath. As he had a rather boney shoulder, this seemed a more comfortable seating arrangement.

“The dragon in mine was burning as well,” Slate said. This was apparently a common thing for dream dragons to do, given the data set he had available. “Though it dropped… perhaps ropes? They were useful. I made a circle with them.” He frowned. “It was not a perfect circle, though, I do not think.”

They are not there, Katrina, he stated. See?

He looked down at her hand, and concentrated. He tried to show her what he saw: a hand, clasped in his. The shades of gray painted on it by the dim light, and the way the shadows of the room played across it. There were no threads. None at all.

You do not need to be afraid. I told you. I will protect you.

“Or perhaps I told the you who was in my dream.” Dreams could be confusing, like that: some things about them seemed as true as reality. Or truer. Was this, perhaps, Katrina’s problem? Slate could somehow sympathize.

I will protect you, he stated again, for good measure.

It was odd, that his dream so closely matched what she remembered of hers. Maybe they had both seen the same television show or heard the same advertisement. Who knew where the stuff of dreams came from? Real life things making it into dreams wasn't her biggest concern right now.

It was more the opposite, really. The threads that wouldn't go away, leeching over from the dream world into the real one.

With her own eyes closed, looking through Slate's vision, it really did look rather normal. It was just a dark room with grey light filtering over everything. Her hand and her arm were bare of the spidery black threads. Unless he was really good at lying with his mental images, they really weren't real.

Thank you.

She snuggled against him, keeping her eyes closed, letting the darkness wrap around her like a blanket.

Do you think maybe I could stay here? On the floor. With him. Until the light came to chase the darkness and the bad dreams away.

He would protect her, he said. Three times made a promise, even if one of the times had been in a dream.

“Of course, Katrina.” Slate answered. He reached with his free hand and drew his blanket back to himself, and over his new floor mate. He readjusted the arm around her shoulders, as well, as her angle of snuggle changed.

Of course.

Gavrilo’s girlfriend found them like that, in the morning. She gave a snort, and walked on to the kitchen.

*ding*

Katrina walked through the door of a bank. (Not the same one she had come to with Gavrilo yesterday.) This one, she was hoping, would be much friendlier. This time she was hoping for a job.

“Hello,” she curtsied, still unused to the tiered, hand-me-down skirt, “I saw the sign in your window. I was hoping to work for you as a secretary.”

The burly bank manager eyed her up and down in a way that clearly would have violated twenty-first century rules about workplace relationships. Katrina gulped.

“A little young aren't you? And what do you suppose qualifies сте за посао у нашој банци¹?”

Katrina blinked. That was strange. “Umm,” well, she thought she should answer the best she could. He had definitely said something about qualifications in there, somewhere. “I got good grades last year- or rather- the last year I was in school. I'm very responsible. I'm definitely old enough for a job, because I'm 16 now.”

The man looked at her like she had grown another head. A really ugly one, “Прљаве стране куја. Оставите сада моје банке²!”

She had no idea what he was talking about, but he looked none too pleased about it. Before he could shout any more, or throw anything at her she turned on her heel and slipped out the door.

*Донг³*

Even the bell sounded less cheerful now. A backwards glance showed a bloated fist shaking at her through the front door and a lot of foreign writing in the windows that she could have sworn she could read when she had walked through the door.

What was going on?

---

¹ ...you to work in my bank?
² Dirty foreign (censored)! Get out of my bank!
³ *dong*

Dragon Speak.

He was a Colombian mutant, originally, though Slate had acquired him before he had acquired the rest of the country. His primary ability was to bleed rubies, cry diamonds, and otherwise produce gem stones out of his bodily functions. As a side note, the ingestion of the stones allowed a person to read and speak any language known to man for a short time. Slate did not generally tell people how these gems were produced.

He had, of course, brought an ample supply along. They were, quite prudently, stored in the safe within his hotel room. Thirteen thousand miles away. Ninety-eight years from now.

Gavrilo was full of politely baffled smiles, and words Slate did not understand.

His girlfriend was much more easily deciphered. She pushed a tin can into his hands, gripped his arm in a most uncomfortable manner, and brought him to a street corner.

Slate followed her pointing finger, and obediently sat.

As the morning passed, a few coins began to build up. He could tell how much they were worth numerically, but was uncertain what amount of goods or services they could be exchanged for. He shook the can. ...Not much, he suspected.

His head still hurt. And the auto-mechanic was a very loud thinker.

It took minimal language skills to deduce two things: that the barrel-chested man did not appreciate him sitting outside of his shop, and that he had more important things to do than yelling at the успорити¹ who was просјачење² on his street corner. Because његов јебени шегрт није могао да нађе кључ за јебенијебени спасе свој живот³.

Slate was entirely unclear on what that meant, but he was getting very tired of having the image of a wrench beat into his head. јебени⁴ tired, to put it locally.

Finally, he could stand things no more. He stood up and walked through the open garage door, past the mechanic’s uninviting gesticulations. He crouched down, and fished the wrench out from under the tool bench, where the man’s nervous apprentice had dropped it nearly a half-hour ago. He slapped it into the mechanic’s hand, which shut up both his mouth and mind briefly, and stalked back out to his street corner.

The silence was blissful while it lasted, but it did not last long. Slate was forced to leave his post twice more to hand the mechanic a Philip’s head screwdriver instead of a flat, and to use a butter-knife-not-a-steak-knife to pry off clips from a casing. It contained an air filter, Slate discovered. This was secondary to his headache relief.

Lunchtime came. Slate found that, despite the interruptions, he had enough coins in his tin to purchase an apple from the grocery store across the street. He accomplished this task with an acceptable level of proficiency, and returned to his corner with great pride. He was preparing to take his first bite when the mechanic dropped half a sandwich on his lap.

Slate pointedly ate his apple first.

---

¹ dim-wit
² begging
³ His (censored) apprentice could not find the wrench to save his (censored) life.
⁴ (also censored)

Katrina clutched her piece of scrap paper nervously in her hand. She had never been so nervous in her life as she was for this job interview- if one could call walking up to an airplane hanger in Niš and asking in broken Serbian for employment a “job interview”.

There were only about five planes at the hanger. They were very old... or rather, she reminded herself, brand new versions of very early models. Because in this time line, airplanes had only been invented ten years ago.

Katrina, who had her pilot's license, could technically fly these things. She had practiced for hours and hours on every kind of airplane imaginable on a simulator. Including the Blériot XI-2 and the Farman HF.20, both of which were parked in the yard around the hanger. The older planes were trickier than modern ones, even on simulations, but she was confident that she could fly them both.

She straightened her back, put on her most confident smile and marched up to the nearest official looking man she could find. He seemed to be some sort of officer of something: he had on a very crisply pressed uniform.

He looked at her questioningly.

“Americky peelowt¹,” she pointed to herself. “Ya mogu da laytay².”

She waved her hands at the aircraft, “aviona³,” she specified. She hadn't even had to look at her paper. She had remembered every single phrase Gavrilo had taught her.

She raised her own eyebrows in expectation. She really really was hoping for “da” and not a “neh⁴.”

---

¹ америцан пилота = American pilot.
² Ја могу да лете = I can fly.
³ авиона = airplanes
⁴ да / не = yes / no

Starter teeth ground down.

It was like having a mechanical picture book beat into his head, all day long.

Rear axle—štȁ jěbati pǎkao?¹ Did they run over a kráva?²

An occasionally graphic picture book.

Battery connections just dirty. Waste of my jěbati³ time. Where’s that jěbati Americky⁴?

That jěbati Americky looked up from his book. Sava Petrovich glared back. With a sigh, Slate grabbed a rag, and cleaned the connections. Not even Sebastian’s wife thought this loudly.

“Dȍvōljno dȍbar⁵,” the mechanic grunted, in a tone that implied he could desist.

“Nema na jěbati čemu⁶,” the former Kabal Leader answered, to which Sava broke out laughing. As the mechanic himself had taught Slate this, he was unclear on why the man found it so funny. Every time. Slate sat back down with his book: the instruction manual for a Austro-Daimler. It had pictures. Said pictures existed outside of his skull, for which he was grateful. He flipped a page, and studied the diagram of an engine. His leg was twitching. It was a curious and unnecessary action, but he saw no reason to stop it.

twitch twitch twitch—

In the next room over—the actual shop entrance—a bell jangled. Slate sprang up. Sava glanced up briefly as the young American ran past, then returned to his work with a grumble and a shake of his head.

“Katrina. You must keep your eyes closed. This is a surprise.”

He took the girl’s hand, and led her towards the back of the store; behind the counter, to the creaking wooden stairs. They went up.

“I will know if you peek,” he warned.

That is probably a lie. But you still should not: this is a surprise.

Down a narrow hallway, through a door that stuck a bit on its frame.

“You may now open your eyes,” Slate stated.

They were in a small room. The ceiling above them slanted down at an angle towards the wall, following the roof above. A door to the left led off to a little bathroom. To the right, sunlight spilled in through a window overlooking the street.

“Mr. Petrovich said we can stay here. It’s it wonderful?”

Below them, a muffled clatter and curse came through the floor. Their apartment was directly above the mechanic’s garage.

“He is even renting it to us at a discount,” Slate stated, quite proudly.

---

¹шта јебени пакао = What the (censored) (censored).
²крава = cow
³јебени = (censored)
⁴јебени амерички = (censored) American
⁵довољно добар = Good enough.
⁶нема на јебени чему = You’re (censored) welcome.

1913 felt kind of lonely sometimes.

She couldn't really talk to anyone. She didn't fit in. She didn't even understand the most fundamental of things for living in this time period. Like how to wash her clothes, or how to turn on the stove, or how to use a chamber pot.

She also missed her family, especially her mom and Calley. Ghost and Zephyr, too. Also, the other kids from Future Sight. They were all living in a future that she could no longer help save, at least not from here.

Katrina wasn't sure she could have survived it all without Slate there. He was logical, familiar, and comforting in a strange time and place. He was the one who found them a place to live, who bartered for a mattress to sleep on then insisted that she be the one to sleep on it, who suggested that she write letters to the people she was missing.

After a long day of sweeping floors, peeling potatoes, or scrubbing uniforms for the Serbian Air Force, it felt good to come home to the little apartment above the mechanic's garage and find Slate there.

I missed you today! She gave him a quick hug.

“Want to play a game of checkers before it gets too dark to see?” They had a homemade set. The board was a grid drawn on a piece of paper. The pieces were washers and bolts from the garage downstairs. “I want to be the bolts this time. They seem luckier.”

There were many things that Slate tried not to do.

Adding “jěbati” to his sentences was one of them—Gavrilo had finally taken him aside on night, and told him what it meant. With gesturing, to emphasize the point. The next morning, the mechanic had been—if anything—more amused with Slate’s sudden change in dialect.

Using a “cutthroat” in the manner implied by its name, was another. For the first few days after being introduced to the shaving implement, Slate had been very thankful he was a healer. After that, it had occurred to him that growing a beard might be the less arduous option. So it was that his goatee was being slowly hidden by brown overgrowth.

For a third, he tried not to cheat at checkers. He really did. But Katrina thought very, very loudly. And he was getting better at listening.

If I move here—

If I could just—

How did he do that?

The telepath scratched at his stubble, and suggested, somewhat mildly: “Perhaps it is time to go to bed.” Though they had not finished their current game, he was quite confident of the outcome. He did not mean to be, but he was.

In his dream, there was a television on in the background, but he could not hear it until he was done with his shaving.

He clicked the razor off, and set it on the counter; splashed water on his smooth cheeks, and looked into a face that was… disorienting, for a moment. He looked older. Didn’t he?

The feeling passed. Just morning vertigo, perhaps left over from his dream. He did not remember what it was—only that he had woken up abnormally pleased with the idea of electric razors, and with the vague idea that, perhaps, the sound their car had been making was caused by a loose fan belt (and the absurd notion that he knew what a fan belt was, and how to fix it). Slate toweled his face dry, and leaned out of the bathroom.

Katrina, he thought, do you have the directions?

“—instituted a quarantine in lower Manhattan, as a precaution. CDC spokesman David Olsterholm reminds both humans and mutants to avoid drinking unfiltered water, to help prevent such re-occurrences of the Outbreak. In other news, the European Union has announced plans to go ahead with the formation of a team aimed to re-start the Gulf Stream. Democratic candidate Nigel Banks has come out in support of the role mutants are to play, while adding his concerns to the chorus of voices opposed to the proposed intentional Haywire infections—“

Outside of the episcopalian church Katrina stopped Slate with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Here, your tie is crooked. Hold this.” Katrina handed him the invitation and the gift so her hands were free to help him out. She then smoothed out her own skirt, thinking for some reason that the skirt was so much shorter than she was used to, before accepted a program from the usher.

“You can put your gift over on the table,” Lee smiled at them and indicated the correct direction, “and don't forget to sign the guest book!”

“Thanks,” Katrina smiled back.

The ceremony was about to start. The bride's brother waved them into the sanctuary.

“Hurry,” he insisted, and Katrina, naturally, felt compelled to do so. They just barely made it before the processional started. She checked her program, though she knew most of the people in the ceremony already. First down the aisle was Naveed accompanied by Iris. Then the best man and maid of honor, Tarin and Lee.

Finally the bride made her appearance. Her dress fit her form perfectly, then flared at the end like a mermaid tail. Her red hair shone brilliantly in the stain-glass filtered light.

She's so pretty, Katrina thought to Slate. Someday I want to have a dress just like that.

Slate had heard that, at these events, one must sign the guestbook. Katrina and Naveed seemed to have a different view—namely, that he must sit down. Now. His hand was still stretching for the pen as Katrina coaxed him up the aisle. Sonya waved at them from near the front, gesturing to a pair of empty seats she’d managed to save between herself and a woman who looked very much like an upright mountain lion. Her appearance did not startle him, but it did annoy him; annoy him, because he could not remember her name, even though she had applied for one of the Academy’s positions. Sandy? Sally? Sara? Or was he only thinking of ‘S’ names because of her proximity to Sonya? (This train of thought made it significant easier for Katrina to lead him.) They made it to their seats just as the music was starting.

It seemed strange to him that the Pastor who stood at the pulpit was a man he did not recognize. But then, Pastor Kelley had other things to do today.

“Do you, Rupert Kelley, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, in sickness and in health, ‘til death do you part?”

“I do.”

He only had eyes for the woman in front of him. Slate approved of such focus.

The reception was somewhat overwhelming, though not as confusing as the bachelor’s party had been. He primarily focused on staying next to Katrina’s side. This led to slight problems when the red-headed bride sent her bouquet sailing over her shoulder; he knew he was not supposed to catch it, but it had been on a trajectory aligned with his face. He attempted to make up for the gaffe by handing it to Katrina.

Judging by her blush, this was perhaps an inappropriate thing to do. (The sighs from the other women around them somewhat contradicted this impression, however.)

In the end, it seemed that he had survived his first wedding. It was an interesting experience.

…Though he failed to sign the guestbook before they departed.

It was late, but she was so close to finishing. If she could just concentrate for another hour or two, she was sure she'd have it right. The silver chain on the desk glinted in the dim light of the one small lamp she had lit.

She had the clothes part down. The touch of cotton, the way it moved when he walked, the color blue that so perfectly matched his eyes.

It was the voice that was giving her the most trouble. She wanted to get it exactly right.

Her fingers wove their way through white fur with black spots here and there as she closed her eyes and tried to remember back. The rumbling purrs from her lap helped block out the other small noises of their creaky little house (which actually seemed quite large to her most of the time).

The purring also helped her remember someone from long ago. She focused on the memory of his voice, capturing the way it sounded, reproducing it like a quiet echo of the past around herself and her cat.

“Hello! I’m Calley. Are you new here? … Do you like mathematics?”¹

"Objection! That is in need of poking!"²

"I... I didn't plan this! I didn't plan for that stupid cat to run across the road! I didn't plan to crash into the van! I didn't plan to chase Miss... Miss Floral Glades through Buffalo, and-and I didn't plan to kill those men! So... so you can just stop yelling, and-and go study math!”³

"Let's assume for a second that peace cranes aren't going to cut it. If you could do anything—I mean anything at all—how would you force everyone to be all peaceable?"⁴

“What's scary is that I'm here. And... I didn't plan to be. I've been planning for over a year. Since before I met you, even. Every day, I've had a plan, and a goal, and things I had to do. And now it's over. And I won, I guess. But... I don't have anything planned now.”⁵

Two salty drops fell onto white fur with black spots here and there that reminded her so much of her best friend; her best friend that had disappeared one day without telling her where he was going and then had never come back. She still hadn't completely given up hope, but the hope almost seemed to make it worse. Hope meant that she could never accept that he was really gone.

“Sorry, Duke,” she whispered to the feline, when he stood and rubbed against her chest as if to ask why the petting had stopped. “I'm just being sentimental. Maybe it was a bad idea to give him his voice. It's too late now, though.”

Katrina slowly stood, so the cat had time to hop onto the floor before his lap perch completely disappeared.

“Come on, let's go give Slate his present.” The blonde illusionist picked up the silver chain from the desk and made her way into the small bedroom that she and Slate shared. It was very late and giving him the permanent illusion necklace really could wait until morning, but she needed someone human to comfort her right now.

---

¹ = Curled up with a book for both
² = Poking the Mansion's secrets to see if they wiggle
³ = Flower Print and Stripes
⁴ = Pax Noel: A Peaceful Christmas
⁵ = Embrace the Sulk All Ye Who Enter Here

Night after night, the years unfolded.

The first flick caught him off guard. He blinked and blinked again at the little spots of paint suddenly on his nose, and did not quite understand how they had gotten there until he saw Katrina. Her paint roller hovered over the tray. An impish grin played on her lips.

“Did you just--?” He began to ask, perhaps naively.

She did it again, in clear confirmation.

The art room of the Pax Academy ended up with a certain Pollock flair.

They never did get a second bed before winter set in. On the night of the first snow, Slate started to tell her of the first time he had been ice skating—of Susan, the woman who had taught him. But the memory was confused in his mind, tangled up with another, just as real.

The rink’s wall was white, and perilously thin between his hands. Her mitten was teal, and stretched out towards him.

I do not think this is a good idea— He stated, forgetting to use the voice she had given him. His mouth and nose were huddled deep in the comforting folds of his gray scarf, but it was not big enough for him to completely hide inside.

The mitten was patient; it waited until he was ready to pry his fingers away from the wall, and put his hand in hers.

That night, they slept in the same bed for the first time. Just slept, with both their blankets wrapped over and around them, and the snow falling outside. It was warm.

There were candles in silver stands set between the red poinsettias in their pots, and smartly dressed staff making sure everyone had a fresh glass of wine to gesture with, and enough hors d’oeuvres to spoil their appetites. Everyone who was anyone was there, of course.

The red-headed reporter seemed intent on puzzling the young couple out. “And how do you know--?”

“Ms. Dumonde! Mr. Swartz!” The boy broke in, with all the ceremony of a proper New York teen. “They’re seating for dinner. Come on—you need to sit next to us.”

“Aren’t all the seats pre-assigned?” The red head said more than asked, with a sort of indulgent smile.

“That’s why we need to swipe them now,” Felix replied. “Come on. I don’t want to end up next to a politician for the next two hours.”

He didn’t seem to notice the irony.

The photograph was later hung in the Community Center’s lobby: the two Pax teachers, their student grinning between them. And sandwiching them in on either side: the New York State Police Commissioner, and the President of the United States.

Morning after morning, he helped Katrina find her way back to the present. To their little apartment, with its cast iron stove and cobbled together checkers board; to the walls where he had hung up a diagram of a Gräf & Stift Double Phaeton’s engine, and she had pinned up an article on Adolphe Pegoud’s amazing first airplane loop. They talked about the dreams, sometimes. Neither of them mentioned getting a second bed anymore.

Down in the garage one day, the mechanic paused for a moment, and wiped his hands off on a rag. “When are you going back home, Americky?” He asked abruptly, his eyes on the engine.

Slate did not answer immediately. He went to the tool bench, and extracted the proper wrench from the forsaken drawer the mechanic had lost it in; returned to the older man’s side.

“I do not think we are,” he answered, as he reached in under the hood.

And that was okay. They had each other; they had a future. Even if it was different than they had imagined.