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islndgurl777 · 5 months ago

Text

the endings we choose

Fandom: 12 Monkeys

Length: ~3700

When Time allows them to remember the life-that-wasn't, Ramse, Katarina, and Hannah have different reactions. Luckily Cassie, Jennifer, and Cole are there to explain. Timelines can be erased. Love (and family) cannot.

Sequel to writing about the past for the future tense, hashtag not-a-red-shirt problems

Both on AO3 here.

YEAR

2043

Ramse

José’s been having weird dreams. Nothing specific he can put his finger on, nothing he can remember with real clarity except bright flashes of light, the staccato sound of gunfire, and the taste of his own blood in his mouth.

Strangely, he doesn’t awaken from these dreams frightened, but rather… lonely? Aching. Like there’s something important to them that he’s missing. Someone .

It’s maddening to wake day after day with the persistent feeling that he’s forgetting something important. He starts making to-do lists so he can keep track of anything he needs to do in an effort to stop the dreams or make the wrong feeling go away, but it continues. For weeks, the same dream, the same feeling haunts him.

There’s nothing special about that day in March 2043 except that he awakens with a much clearer idea of what exactly it is that he’s been dreaming about for months, a plot so crystal clear and cogent in his early morning brain that he has to pause for a minute to marvel at the fact that his unconscious mind put such a wild tale together.

A plague and a dead world and a time machine and a brother.

That last is what drives him the most crazy, because he can feel the man’s name at the tip of his tongue, will open his mouth to say it like he’s said it a thousand, a million times… but he doesn’t know what that name is. He knows this man down to his bones, to his very soul, and José knows he’s the source of the ache in his chest, but he’s never seen the man before in his life, and he doesn’t even know his name.

How can he miss someone who never existed?

He takes Sam into the city for a boys’ day. They take the train in and wander for hours, José pointing out landmarks he remembers from his youth, and at one point he says without thinking, “Your uncle Cole once-.“ He stops dead in the middle of the sidewalk, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach.

Cole. Cole. Who was that?

He doesn’t register Sam guiding him away from the middle of the sidewalk until his back hits the rough brick wall of the nearest building, and his legs almost give out under him.

“Daddy?” Sam says, sounding worried.

José blinks and shakes his head to clear it. His kid needs him and that takes priority over his weird mental break. “Yeah, buddy?”

Sam tilts his head to the side, eyebrows furrowed, and says, “Who’s Uncle Cole?”

Tears spring to his eyes at the name and his breath hitches in his chest again. “I- I don’t-“ he shakes his head and tears his eyes away from Sam’s confused face, looking around for answers he knows he’ll never find and he stops at the sign of the hotel across the street.

Emerson.

A strangled noise catches in his throat and he suddenly knows.

It was all real.

The Kalavirus. Splinter technology. Titan.

James Cole.

He swallows against a dry throat and straightens. Holds out his hand for Sam and squeezes it for his own sake as much as to reassure his son. “C’mon, buddy.” His voice is rough so he clears it. “We might have some people to meet.”

Cassie

There’s a hesitant knock on the door to the room and Cassie’s heart leaps into her throat.

James should be here for this. He was the one who was supposed to greet his brother when Time finally caught up and he remembered them, but Jennifer had said it should be Cassie instead.

“Why?” she’d blurted, knife raised in the act of slicing a block of cheese for their wine night. She’d frozen, mouth agape and stared at Jennifer as if she’d grown another head.

Jennifer rolled her eyes and put her hand on Cassie’s wrist, slowly lowering the blade. “Why not?”

Cassie let go of the knife and turned to fully face Jennifer, speaking a little slowly because it was absurd she even had to say it. “Because it’s Ramse. He’s Cole’s brother. Shouldn’t he be the one to-”

Jennifer was already shaking her head. “No, it should be you.”

‘Why?” Cassie pressed again. “Why does it have to be me?” Their mutual hatred for each other might have settled into a mutual understanding of each other there at the end, but that was hardly reason enough for Cassie to be the one to tell Ramse the story of everything he’d missed.

“Because he might not believe it’s over if he sees me first,” Cole said from the doorway. He must’ve come to get refills for him and Deacon. “He knew Time was supposed to unmake me after Titan, and if he sees I’m still alive before we get a chance to explain how, he might panic and think this is all still… temporary. He doesn’t deserve that, not after…” He sighed and shook his head. “He deserves to be happy, and maybe that means he never knows I’m here, but if he needs answers, he should hear it from you.”

His eyes pleaded with her to do this for him, and there’s not much she wouldn’t do for James Cole, so in the end she nodded and agreed to be there in his stead.

She wipes the palms of her hands on her thighs and lets out a slow breath as she walks to the door.

He’s the youngest she’s ever seen him, aside from when they’d dropped James off at the orphanage in 2015, or maybe the difference in his eyes is that he hasn’t lived through the death of the world. He looks healthy, and so unburdened.

His voice is the exact same though, as he lets out a raspy, “Hi,” that throws her back to just before the final battle at Titan.

“Hi,” she says, a little stunned by how happy she is to see him.

They stand there staring at each other for a long moment before a high-pitched, “Hi!” comes from behind Ramse, jolting Cassie’s eyes away from him.

She sucks in a breath and the tears break free. “Sam,” she breathes, reverent. He’s unmistakably the same boy she’d known in the unmade timeline - the one Ramse had been hellbent on destroying the world for, the one he’d become the Traveler for, the one he would have killed his brother, her and their son for.

They’d undone it all and yet he’s here, half-hiding behind Ramse and looking up at her curiously.

Cassie suddenly understands Ramse completely. This man had been willing to end the world for his son and his family, and she had almost done the exact same thing. And for both of them, there had been only one person who could have prevented them from doing so.

Cassie looks back to Ramse and can’t contain her happiness any longer. She pulls him into a hug, and he’s just startled enough to let her. He wraps his arms around her slowly, gives her one firm squeeze, and then pulls away, wiping his eyes as he does so.

He clears his throat and turns to Sam. “This is your Aunt Cass,” he says, voice still rough.

Cassie doesn’t bother wiping away her tears, just opens the door wider and gestures for them to come in. “Have a seat. I’ll order us some lunch, and then I'll tell you a story,” she says.

As she watches them settle in on the couch in suite 607, she bites her lip and considers her options. Finally, she decides that sometimes, Primaries and husbands don’t always know best, so she pulls out her phone to send off a quick text. She clears her throat and sits in the armchair next to them and continues, “After that, there’s some other people you might want to see.”

Katarina

“You ever think this technology could be used for something else?” Jennifer blurts as they watch a stack of crates disappear from the platform in front of them in a flash of blue light.

Katarina turns to her and cocks her head. “Haven’t I taken enough funding from Markridge, Jennifer? And now you want me to start another project?” She can’t deny the little thrill that shoots through her at the thought of a new project, but she’s decided she’s retiring once this one is finalized. She’s ready to let the young scientists take up the mantle and usher in the future.

Jennifer shrugs and her voice is strangely intent as she says, “Might not be as difficult as you thought, adapting that machine for other uses.”

She lets out a short bark of laughter. “Like what?” She can’t think of anything her machine is equipped to do except teleport objects, except perhaps someday soon people, but that’s years of work down the line. Nothing she could do anytime soon.

With a huff and a bit of a pout, Jennifer turns away and says, “Just thought I’d ask!”

After Jennifer mentions it, Katarina starts having strange dreams. What other advancements in technology could her life’s work beget? For some reason, her unconscious mind leaps from travel to time travel, and a series of dreams keep her sleeping poorly for weeks.

She keeps sneaking out in the middle of the night for a calming cigarette until one night when Elliot joins her. Instead of rebuking her for falling off the wagon, he holds his hand out for the pack and lights up alongside her. “I’ve been having the strangest dreams,” he murmurs, pressing a hand to his forehead.

Katarina nods and takes another drag of her cigarette. “Me too.” They sit in comfortable silence for a long time before she continues, “I dreamt I had radiation poisoning from the machine.”

Elliot freezes, then turns slowly to look at her. “I dreamt that too. And then I dreamt that Deacon shot me.”

Now it’s Katarina’s turn to freeze. She hadn’t dreamt that, but it still feels… correct, which is a strange feeling to have about a man who was a good friend to both of them and who gave such a beautiful toast at their anniversary party last year. “Elliot…”

He stubs out his cigarette and shakes his head, holding his hand out for her. “I think we need to gather more data, what do you say, Kat?”

She huffs and rolls her eyes, but also puts out her cigarette and reaches for his hand. “Dreams are not a science, Elliot. I don’t think ‘more data’ will help with this one.”

They walk through the door hand in hand and he gives her a little spin, dancing her into the circle of his arms as they cross the threshold. “Well, then, at least I will have gotten you back into bed, wouldn’t I?” he smirks as he presses a kiss to the corner of her eye.

She swears she doesn’t giggle as they make their way back into their bedroom.

Jennifer

In the end there’s no lightning bolt moment that marks the time before Katarina knew and the time after.

Jennifer and Deacon are sitting across from them at their dining room table. It’s their biweekly dinner double-date and they’re a couple bottles of wine down as a group when Jennifer says something so nonsensical that Katarina barks out a laugh and says with affection, “You’re still as batshit crazy as ever, Ms. Goines.”

And Jennifer pauses in the middle of her laughter, eyes still bright with happiness.

“I can’t thank you enough for your contributions to our project, Ms. Goines,” Katarina had said as she shook Jennifer’s hand at their first meeting.

Jennifer’s nose had wrinkled and she’d shook her head. “No, I don’t think we’re there yet. You can just call me Jennifer.”

Katarina found herself, for some inexplicable reason, bucking years of propriety instilled in her by her father and had agreed immediately. “Then you’ll call me Katarina.”

Jennifer reaches over to squeeze Deacon’s hand, finding it without looking, because this is it. This is the beginning of them starting to close their own little loop. And her smile widens further as she nods to Katarina and says, “Always, Jonesy. Always.”

Just the two of them are out on the patio finishing another bottle of wine when Katarina brings it up. “How on earth did you convince me to create some of the serum to send Mr. Deacon back to, when, 2016? 2018?”

Jennifer takes another sip, nearly finishing off her glass, and shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you, Jonesy. Time said it was cool? Cole wasn’t the only one who worked his ass off to save the universe, y’know. I had a little something to do with it too.”

Katarina snorts rather inelegantly and absolutely does not spill any of her wine down her shirt, no siree. “And much like Time conspired-- with my help, by the way-- to return James to Cassie, so you and Time have conspired to return Mr. Deacon to you?”

“Uh, yeah!” Jennifer says with a roll of her eyes. “Well, Deacon-- this Deacon-- helps too. Because he wanted to. Wants to? Will want to?” Even though she forgot to tell him he wanted to until it was almost too late. But his books are almost finished now, so it’ll be fine. Just like she knew it would be.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Ms. Goines. Jennifer.” Katarina lets out a muttered curse in German. “I can’t believe you found a way to bring this family together again, despite… everything.”

Jennifer thinks of Lasky and Adler, both retired now, but whose work had once again been instrumental in technological advancements at Raritan. Marcus, whose path had not drawn him into their orbit in this life, but who she keeps tabs on anyway through a number of contacts in the military. A long list of the women who were once her daughters, some of whom she was able to help in this life, some of whom she was not, but every one of whom she’d loved in the life that got erased and this one.

She sighs. “Love can’t be undone, Jonesy.” She raises her glass in a toast - to everyone she’s ever loved - and drains it. “Now about the machine…”

Hannah

Hannah doesn’t think she can recall a single one of her own birthdays that her Uncle James wasn’t present for. There had to have been, when she was very young, because he and Aunt Cass didn’t meet her mom until her Aunt Jenny introduced them after Markridge became a major donor at Raritan, but that was so long ago now that it really doesn’t count.

Her Uncle James has been a constant in her life for as long as she can remember. Birthdays, graduations, the occasional soccer game before she got fed up with team sports.

“Have you ever thought about fighting?” he’d asked her once, after she’d quit sports for good but was lamenting the lack of physical activity; she wasn’t meant to sit still.

She lifted a brow at him and said drily, “I’ve thought of punching one or two of the cheerleaders who bully the freshmen, if that’s what you mean.”

He barked out a laugh. “No, like boxing, or MMA, or some self-defense? I think you’d like it.”

She cocked her head. “I’ll think about it,” she promised.

A month later he was helping her through some moves at the gym and he smiled widely at her, tears in his eyes, when she threw him over her shoulder on pure instinct. When she tried to apologize he waved her off with a laugh and said, “No, I’m fine. You just reminded me a lot of my mom just then.”

The point is, he’s such a large part of her life that it doesn’t surprise her when he pops up a lot in her dreams, and her parents are science freaks (stated with utmost affection), so having dreams with wacky stories about plagues and time travel really aren’t that strange to her.

She starts having weirdly specific and scary dreams but chalks it up to being too old to drink coffee past 5 pm and adjusts her diet accordingly.

“You should take your uncle out for this birthday,” her mom says to her apropos of nothing during one of their weekly phone calls.

Hannah’s fork pauses in the act of digging through her box of takeout, trying to remember what day it is today, and which uncle her mom could be talking about. “James? I thought Cassie was taking him to the Keys for the week?”

Her mom hums and says, “Something came up.”

Hannah makes a sound like she’s considering it as she finishes chewing her food.

“Get dressed up, go to that bar you two like so much. Make a fun night of it,” her mom prods, and her tone is so carefully casual that it sends a shiver down Hannah’s spine.

“Mom?” she says, and sets the box of noodles on her coffee table. “Is something wrong?” She hates how weak and thready her voice sounds. A pit is forming in her stomach; if something’s wrong with James she thinks she might actually die from the pain.

“Hmm? Oh, no, Hannah, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to worry you.” Katarina mutters under her breath in German, quiet enough that Hannah can’t quite pick it up. “I just know he misses you, and I thought it would be nice for you two to spend his birthday together.”

Hannah lets out a shaky breath and gives a short, sharp nod. “I’ll text him tonight.”

Her work schedule demands she meet him there rather than going together, and she’s a little late arriving at the Emerson. She rushes through the lobby and heads straight for the bar, an apology on the tip of her tongue, but she stops dead just inside the door when she sees him.

Cole is sitting in an armchair near the window, watching the amber of his whisky sour swirl in his glass while he waits for her. Headlights flash through the window, blinding her for a moment and in that moment she remembers a much younger Cole sitting in front of a fireplace with her and her mother as they all drank whisky sours on the promise of “one minute more.”

Before that the last time she’d seen him he’d been a few months old, a heavy weight in her arms that she’d wanted desperately to hold onto forever, but one she knew she’d have to give up.

This version of Cole has salt-and-pepper scruff on his cheek and deep wrinkles next to his eyes. He looks like his father, she thinks. A deep ache presses on her heart at that and she feels a sob catch in her throat.

She feels like she’s wading through pudding as she crosses the bar over to him. If she’s here right now, he shouldn’t be, and now that she’s fully aware of who he is she’s afraid to find this miracle she’s known and loved her whole life is about to evaporate before her eyes.

He sees her then and his eyes light up as he stands to greet her, but he takes in the look on her face and pauses instead of going for his regular hug. “Hannah?”

She lets out a sob as she throws her arms around him, squeezing-squeezing-squeezing as tight as she possibly can. She never wants to let him go again.

“Mom,” he sighs into her ear, and she lets out a hysterical laugh into his neck. “I’m so happy you’re here.”

Cole

Hannah shakes in his arms, but she has a vice-like grip around him so he can’t pull away to look into her eyes and check on her. “Hannah,” he says quietly into her hair again, loosening his own hold on her.

She shakes her head and whispers, “Just give me another minute. One minute more.”

He nods and tightens his grip again, happy to give her this.

In the erased timeline, he’d held her when she was four and nearly died of meningitis at Spearhead, and he didn’t hold her again until she lay dying in his arms that day at JFK when they killed the world.

In this timeline, he’s held her countless times.

“This is Hannah,” Jones said, bouncing the toddler on her hip and giving them an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, we may have to reschedule dinner. I’ve barely started cooking since this one’s being a bit of a grump about going to bed.”

Cassie nodded and opened her mouth to reassure her it was fine, but it snapped shut when Hannah launched herself from Katarina’s arms into Cole’s.

“Woah,” he said, catching her with ease. “Careful, kiddo.” He adjusted his grip to put her on his own hip and looked into her eyes.

“Hannah!” Jones gasped, stepping forward to take her back even as Hannah leaned her head on Cole’s shoulder and snuggled in.

“It’s okay, Katarina,” he said, brushing his cheek along Hannah’s, meeting Cassie’s eyes.

She nodded and turned to Jones. “James can tell her a bedtime story in the living room while we finish up in the kitchen, if you want?”

Jones laughed at her daughter’s antics but left him to hold Hannah while he murmured a story to her about a serpent who only traveled in one direction.

That was the first, but there have been countless hugs since to mark hellos, goodbyes, congratulations, breakups, or even just because. They hadn’t had enough before, so he’s made sure to make up for it in this life.

“Okay,” she says, nodding into his shoulder and loosening her grip.

He pulls away and looks down into her eyes, red-rimmed with her eyeliner and mascara smudged up so much she reminds him of when she used to be a Daughter. “Hi,” he says, his own eyes a little watery.

“How…” She swallows hard and shakes her head, eyes searching his face. “How are you here?” she asks, lifting her hand to cup his cheek.

He squeezes her other hand in his and guides her to the settee next to the chair he’d been occupying. Once they’re seated he starts, “At the end of the world, when Time was supposed to unmake me, one of the best women I know chose a different ending.”

#12 monkeys #12 monkeys syfy #12 monkeys fic #james cole #cassandra railly #jose ramse #katarina jones #hannah jones #jennifer goines #crystal writes a thing

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