Chapter Text
Jon woke with a start, and immediately cried out in pain. He glanced down and saw the spreading red stain on his side. “Shit,” he muttered through gritted teeth as he pulled himself to his feet. He awkwardly shrugged off his jacket and, one-handed, balled it up & pressed it against the wound.
Looking around, he tried to figure out where he was. All he could see was a soot-stained brick wall in front of him, and a handful of bins clustered at one end of the alley. He stumbled towards the bins, clutching the bundled-up jacket to his side, and hoped for a street sign or a landmark that he recognised.
Struggling to hold himself up, he looked both ways at the end of the alley. Something about the shops he could see was familiar, but before he could work it out he collapsed to the ground again. The last thing he heard before he passed out was a voice asking if he was all right.
~
He woke again to the sound of a soft beeping. He rubbed one hand over his eyes, and noticed that there was a thin plastic tube – a cannula, something in the back of his mind added – inserted under his skin and attached to an IV. Right, he thought, I’m in a hospital. He was starting to wonder how he was going to get out of there when a nurse opened the door. “Oh,” she said. “You’re awake…”
“How…” Jon coughed when he tried to talk, his throat was dry. “How long have I been here?”
The nurse picked up his chart. “You were brought into A&E a couple of days ago. Some kids found you collapsed on the street & called an ambulance. You had a pretty nasty stab wound.”
“Oh. Uh, what day is it?”
“It’s Tuesday. You have had a bad time of it, haven’t you?”
“No, uh, what date? What year?”
“It’s the fifth… no, hang on, the sixth of September 2015.”
- How… god, I only started as Archivist six months ago…
“Sir?” the nurse said, “Can you tell me how you’re feeling?”
Jon swallowed. “Sorry, must have blanked out there. I think I must have hit my head.”
“Right. Can you tell me your name?”
“Jon,” he said. He was about to add Sims but stopped himself. There was, after all, another Jon Sims out there, and he had a feeling that using his real name right now would be a bad idea. “…Blackwood,” he said. “Jon Blackwood.”
~
He spent another couple of days in the hospital, trying to persuade a succession of doctors that he was ready to be discharged.
He’d found a battered wallet amongst the pile of his clothes on the chair next to his hospital bed. He had no cash – there hadn’t been much call for it during the apocalypse – but there was a debit card there that had been about to expire. Now he was just glad he could get something to eat and a taxi home. He figured that his past self would understand.
He left the hospital as quickly as he could, and walked until he found a charity shop, where he bought a shirt, jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. The next stop was the Costa Coffee across the road, where he first ducked into the customer toilets to change clothes and then dutifully queued up to buy a coffee, because his grandmother had drilled into him the idea that if you used the toilets in a shop you had to buy something there.
Dressed somewhat more presentably, he withdrew some cash from a nearby ATM and flagged down a taxi to take him home. After paying the driver, he made a beeline for the loose brick in the garden wall where he’d always kept a spare key, and let himself in.
It hadn’t been much of a flat – just the ground floor of an old, terraced house, on a street where almost every house had been converted to flats just like it. The front room, with a battered second-hand sofa, TV in the corner and over-stuffed bookshelf. The tiny kitchen, with just enough space to turn around (unless the fridge was open). The tinier bathroom next to the bedroom. Not much, but it had been his. Walking in now felt strange, like it was his but not really his anymore.
He spent a long time sitting on the bed, trying to decide what to do. He knew when he was – the news on the TV had confirmed it. He had two problems – one, his past self would be coming home at some point (though not particularly early), and two, as far as he knew, he was the only person here who knew what was going to happen.
He wondered what had happened to Martin. Had he been thrown back in time too? Were there two Martins out there right now, the one he knew and the one who belonged in 2015?
Eventually, he came to the conclusion that he was going to have to go back to the Institute. Martin – or one of the Martins, at least – would be there. He could warn his past self about Elias, and the Institute, and what the job of Archivist really meant. Maybe he could stop it all from happening… it was only 2015, he was still the new archivist. Sasha and Tim were still alive. Maybe he could change things, maybe he could save them.
He splashed some water on his face in the bathroom, and brushed his hair back from his face. It was longer than he liked it, and he grimaced when he saw how many grey streaks there were, but a haircut wasn’t exactly a priority right now.
~
“Good afternoon, welcome to the Magnus Institute, how can I help you, sir?”
Jon had to bite his tongue when he saw Rosie behind the reception desk. He swallowed, and pushed down the memories of what he’d learned about her. “Hello, uh, yes, I’d like to see your head archivist. I’d like to make a statement.”
“Oh, of course, sir. Let me just see if Mr Sims is available.” She picked up the phone on her desk and dialled his extension number. “Hello, Mr Sims? There’s a… gentleman here who’d like to give a statement…” She listened for a second. “Yes, he asked for you specifically…. All right, I’ll send him down.”
Rosie put the phone down. “You can go through – the Archives department is through that door, then down the stairs and through the door on the left. Just look for the sign on the door.”
Jon was already heading for the stairs. He walked there almost on autopilot, and had to stop himself from just walking into his office. Instead he knocked briefly on the door.
“Yes?”
“I’m here to give a statement?”
“Come in,” a terse voice replied. Had he sounded like that? He could barely remember. He pushed the door open and saw his younger self sitting at the desk and peering at something on his computer screen. The younger Jon Sims looked up at him, “Well?”
“Sorry.” He pulled up a chair next to the desk and sat down. “Your receptionist said I could give you a statement.”
“It is one of the things we do here.” His younger self pulled out a blank statement form and a pen.
“Actually I’d like to give a live statement.”
“Uh… all right,” Sims said. He reached for the tape recorder and a fresh tape. “Can I take your name?”
Jon glanced around, checking that the door was closed. “My name is Jonathan Sims. I’m … you, but from the future. I know you don’t believe that, so… our dad died when we were two, we don’t remember him. We were raised by our grandmother, she lives in Bournemouth in a house by the seaside.”
Sims gave him a steady look, then sighed. “Did Tim put you up to this?”
“Wha- no!”
“Martin, then? I’d be surprised, he doesn’t seem the type for pranks.”
“When we were eight, we read a book called A Guest for Mr Spider, and we saw what happened when the kid that bullied us knocked on that door. You never told anyone that, did you? Not even Grandma.”
“How do you know about that?”
“I told you, because I’m you.”
“Let’s say – hypothetically – that I believe you. Why are you here?”
“Because the world’s going to end, and you have a chance to stop it.”