“Wait,” I say, holding him back and he follows my gaze to where I’m standing, talking to Annis – at least the me from this time. I really have somehow brought us back to 1012, to the day that Constantine and I first met. I am gazing over her shoulder at him. We look at each other – the time traveling us, that is – and then back through the crowds at our past selves. Or is it our present selves? We watch as Annis pulls me away, berating me. We watch as he follows us, and I wander off on my own.
“I look a fright.” I mutter to myself.
CK snickers. “Vain fool,” he says. “You are beautiful.”
“I’m a mess,” I say forlornly. “Look at my hair! And my clothes!”
“Shh,” he says, watching the scene intently, waiting to see what will happen, like we didn’t already live it.
We watch as he – past ‘he’ – comes up behind past ‘me’ and I turn into him.
I apologize.
“Always apologizing,” he mutters next to me. “I don’t think that there is much you can do to change what happens next, my sweet, but if you meant what you said, now is your chance,” he says with a sidelong glance.
“Of course, I didn’t mean it, you idiot,” I mutter back as I watch us introduce ourselves. “Christ, I remember wanting to touch you so badly. I thought it was your whole reason for being there, was so I could.”
“It was,” he says with a soft smile, which I return, and he puts his arm around me, giving me a quick squeeze. He lets me go, as our past selves part ways and he steps forward. “Where are you going?”
“If past me can hear current me, I am going to tell him what I should have done in the first place.” I follow that with a bit of a drag, getting confused and race after him as he stalks off in the direction of himself. My heels not made for these blasted cobbled streets, I am several feet behind him.
“You can’t interfere,” I call to him. “No one can see or hear us, obviously. And what should you have done in the first place?”
“Gone after you, kidnapped you and taken you to Normandy where I could have turned you properly,” he says back to me over his shoulder.
He stops in front of his past self, who peers at him curiously. Oh, fuck. It seems our past selves can see us.
“CK, no!” I say to him as he opens his mouth to speak. “You cannot change the past,” I reiterate.
He looks at me blandly as his past self looks at me with suspicion, his eyes lingering on the expanse of my bare legs in my heels and up to the low-cut top of my slip of a dress.
“I can if it gets me what I want. What I should have had. What I was denied.”
“CK, no,” I plead with him. “If you do this, I will lose Devon. I will lose Cole.”
“Maybe not. Maybe you will still sire them, who knows? It might still happen. All I care about is being with you.”
“What is this?” past CK demands of us. “Explain yourselves.”
My CK turns to face himself. “You have to make this right. It isn’t the way it was supposed to be. Go after her. Take her, take her and run!” he yells as I launch myself at him, wishing with every ounce of my being that I am back on the jet in 2013, outside of Toronto, with everybody who means something to me on board as they should be.
We land in a heap on the floor of the G6 with everyone staring at us.
“Where the fuck did you go?” Cole asks.
I push my hair out of my face and scramble to my feet. I turn to CK, who is looking mighty pissed off with me. I take in the rest of the passengers on board. Everyone is accounted for.
Devon is glaring at me. “Liz?” he asks.
I ignore him and turn to Cole and ask desperately, “Cole? What are you? What are you to me?”
He stares at me quizzically. “Livvie, are you okay?”
Livvie?
“Cole!” I snap at him, “Answer me.”
I fall into his arms as he says, “Charge, lover, best friend…”