Chapter Text
Okay, so. Here’s the thing about time Traveling.
Time isn’t like space, where everything has a nice little spot to hang out in relative to all the other spots. Time happens all at once, and going from the present into the past into the future is less like taking a step and more like the moment that an optical illusion finally slides into focus; suddenly what you thought was a duck is actually a rabbit and also you’re in the 1790s.
Which is to say, it only takes a moment’s lapse in concentration to end up not when you mean to be at all.
And really, Plum mused, she couldn't be blamed for getting distracted by this particular patch of time because it stood out like the sorest thumb in the universe.
Up close, it didn't seem all that distinct from any of the other timelines surrounding it. But when viewed as a whole? It was like… Like a house that's perfectly symmetrical, except for a single extra window on one side. Or an artfully arranged mosaic with a single missing tile.
That's weird, she only just had time to think, and then her previous destination was gone, and she was falling.
---
Theodore Coldwater-Waugh largely considered himself to be a hard man to rattle, but this, he had to admit, was not how he was expecting his morning to go.
His morning chores were mostly completed at this point, with only a bit of firewood left to deal with before he had some time to relax. He tugged idly at his sleeve, which was threatening to unroll down his arm, and considered his options. If he were feeling particularly responsible, there was some canning that could be done, and he had a few of his warmer clothes that needed some repair work before the weather began to turn, but he was honestly just not feeling it today. Pa had found another Earth book during his last trip to the market, and now that Dad was done reading it Teddy was really looking forward to having his turn. He was considering the merits of setting up the hammock versus just lounging on the daybed, when with a loud
“God DAMN IT!”
a woman fell out of the sky and landed in his woodpile.
He immediately dropped his axe and began picking his way over to her, hoping that the crunching noise he’d heard on her impact was just the wood. She didn’t seem to be hurt. Mostly she seemed pissed.
She was, he couldn’t help but notice, very cute. She looked about his age, with dark curls spilling out in a halo around her head where she was lying, but to be honest the most eye-catching thing about her was her clothes. They weren’t anything like his own baggy Fillorian clothing, he mused as he knelt down beside her. Her clothes didn’t drape, but seemed to be tailored to her, and the colors and patterns were much brighter and more defined than any of his own homespun garments.
“Are you alright, miss?” He reached out a tentative hand.
The woman groaned and ground the heels of her palms into her eyes. “Yes? I think so? Ow.”
“Looked like it hurt. You gotta be careful, in the, um. Sky.” Why was he so bad at talking? This sky woman was gonna think he’s an idiot. “Can you move? Are you bleeding?”
“I don’t think I’m bleeding anywhere,” she propped herself up on her elbows, taking stock of her new position. “My ankle hurts pretty badly. Fuck.”
Teddy hummed and dropped down to sit cross-legged at her feet. Her shoes were just as weird as the rest of her clothing, but luckily they didn’t obscure her ankles too much. He could already see where one was beginning to swell a little, and as he prodded it gently he heard the woman hiss.
“Yeah, that probably doesn’t feel great. Here, let me, um.” He stood and took a step toward the house, but then hesitated. What kind of guy just leaves an injured person in the woodpile, however briefly? His parents would be ashamed. He turned back and tried to make his face look reassuring instead of sheepish. “I think I’m going to have to pick you up.”
“No, no, I’m fine.” The woman was clinging to one of the nearby stumps to hoist herself onto her knees. Teddy felt a pang at the thought of that pretty fabric getting all dirty. “Just need a second to catch my breath, and I’ll be out of your hair. Feel free to get back to your chopping.”
“What? No, you’re hurt, I’m not… I have to help.”
“No, you don’t, I’m only hurt because I’m an idiot.”
“No, don’t, don’t be mean to yourself. Here, let me-”
Teddy held out his arms expectantly. The woman raised an eyebrow.
“Are you going to try to carry me?”
“We need to wrap your ankle!” Teddy waved in the direction of the cottage. “It’s like, right over there, I’ve got stuff, I just need to get you in there!”
“I can teleport. How do you think I got up there to fall in the first place?”
Well. That was one mystery solved, at least, even if it opened up several new lines of questioning. “Respectfully, ma’am, it doesn’t look like you’re very, um. Good at it? At least, not at the landing part. Sorry.”
Teddy kind of expected anger, but after a moment the woman simply sighed. “No, you’re probably right. At least, I’m not sure I could land without hurting my ankle worse. Brace yourself?”
He blinked, and then obeyed. In an instant the woman was gone, and he could feel a weight at his back and arms wrapping around his shoulders. “What the-”
“Oof. Okay, let’s piggyback.”
Still somewhat taken aback, Teddy reached back to hoist her up into a more comfortable position. She clung a bit tighter, like she was afraid he would drop her. He couldn’t help but grin a little. Farm boy, baby. He could do this all day.
As he made his way around the small woodshed, the woman spoke up. “Thank you, by the way. For insisting on helping. My name is Plum.”
“Plum?”
“I know, it’s sort of weird-”
“No, I like it! My family runs an orchard - well, my mom’s part of it anyway. Plums are great. I’m Teddy, or, um, Ted. If you’re being serious. Or Theodore, if I’m in trouble.”
Plum chuckled. “I see no reason to full-name you at the moment, Teddy. But I’ll keep it in mind.”
He couldn't really help but smile back.
After ducking through the (annoyingly low) doorframe, he gingerly deposited Plum on one of the mismatched chairs around the little table and began opening the kitchen drawers, trying to remember which one contained what Pa called the "oops box." Eventually he remembered that it was not in fact in the kitchen, it was on his bedside table, because he had spilled candle wax on himself and needed the burn ointment. He re-emerged from the bedroom with the box to find her wrapping her colorful cardigan a little more firmly around herself and looking around the room with interest. Teddy plopped down onto the floor and carefully turned her leg to get a better look at her ankle.
"I, um. How do you take this shoe off? Is there a lace, or…?"
"Oh, no, the laces are just decorative, there's a little zipper on the side."
"A what?"
"A zip- oh, you might not have those. Here."
After removing the shoe, and excitedly playing with the zipper for a moment, he pulled a roll of linen bandages from the box and began firmly wrapping Plum's ankle.
"So… you must be a Traveler?"
Plum nodded. "Among other things. You've probably guessed that I'm not from… where are we?"
"Fillory," Teddy replied. "A few days south of Whitespire."
"Of fucking course it would be Fillory."
Teddy looked up in surprise. "Is that a problem? Are you not supposed to be here?"
"I- well, no, I'm not supposed to be here, but I am allowed to be here if that's what you mean." Plum fidgeted with a button on her sleeve. "This may be a lot to understand, but. I can Travel through time."
"Like Doctor Who?"
"Yes, like Do- how do you know about Doctor Who?" Plum leaned closer. "Has… has he been here? Is he real?"
“Ah… no, sorry, I don’t think so. Or at least I’ve never seen him? If the Doctor is real he’s never been here.” He grinned, a little bashfully. “I used to beg my dad for Doctor Who stories before going to bed. They were my favorite. I think at some point he ran out of stories to tell me and started making up his own, to be honest.”
“Oh.” Plum, Teddy was privately delighted to see, looked a little embarrassed at her earlier excitement. “That’s very sweet. Your dad must be from Earth, then?”
“Mm.” Teddy stuck his tongue out slightly while he attempted to fasten the bandage, before realizing and abruptly withdrawing it. “Both of them, actually. Mom was from here, though. There, see how that feels.”
As he sat back on his heels, Plum slowly rotated her ankle a little and sighed. “That does feel much better, thank you. That should be enough to get me to the clinic without injuring myself any more, at least.”
Teddy flushed a little and fidgeted with a loose string on his tunic. “It was no trouble. Um, if you aren’t in a hurry, maybe I could make you lunch too? I was just about done for the day, so…”
“I’m never in a hurry.” Plum winked at him. “One of the few perks of the time travel thing.”
He grinned back, and rose to his feet. As he headed toward the kitchen area Plum spoke again.
“So is it just you here?”
“No, there’s three of us.” He considered finishing off yesterday’s loaf of bread, but instead decided to pull down the fresh one from earlier that morning. As he mentally debated the merits of the various jams in the cupboard, he continued, “Mom died when I was pretty little, but Dad and Pa are still here. I actually have an apprenticeship in the next town over lined up for the fall, so that’ll be good. I’ll be working with the Tailor’s Guild. I’ve gotten pretty good at working with linen, but they’ve recently struck a deal with the League of Sheep and I’m looking forward to getting my hands on some good wool-”
---
Well, this definitely could have ended up much worse, Plum thought to herself as Teddy cheerfully explained the delicate politics of the Fillorian tailoring world. She quite liked him, actually. He seemed a little lonely, she thought. With no one around but his parents, who seemed to be absent, she wondered if he got to talk to anyone his own age at all.
She really hadn’t meant to Travel through time at all. She was supposed to be working on her normal Travelling, but ever since determining that that other horomancer guy was full of shit, she’d had a hard time stopping herself. It was like her body instinctively just didn’t want to stay in linear time any more. At least she was getting better at aiming, present misadventure excluded.
As she examined the shabby but well-loved interior of the cottage, she idly felt around for the source of what she had begun privately referring to as the Temporal Sore Thumb. She seemed to be in the relative past from her starting point. Here and there were a few things that gave off whiffs of being from closer to her own time period; a tattered and patched leather bag hanging by the door definitely seemed to be modern, and when she looked closer at the contents of a nearby bookshelf she was fairly certain that mixed in with the parchment were a few sheets of notebook paper. Everything around her gave off a vague miasma of Offness, which was concerning. Teddy himself seemed to have a cloud of it clinging to him. As she mused, he slid into the chair across from her and proudly presented a sort of peasant charcuterie board.
“It’s not much,” he said shyly. His ears were red, how cute.
“It looks delicious.” Plum picked up a slice of bread and began perusing the homemade-looking cheeses. As Teddy began piling a little of everything onto his own piece she asked, “So, are your dads busy then? I haven’t heard anyone else around.”
“They’re here. They’re, um…” Teddy’s brow furrowed. He looked deeply confused for a moment, but then the expression passed and he shrugged. “I haven’t seen them, but they’re here.”
Well. That was odd. She decided to press on. “You haven’t seen them? When was the last time you saw them? Do you remember?”
“Of course I remember, they…” He appeared to be wracking his brain for the memory, before again shrugging. “They’re around. They have to be.”
Have to be, huh. Plum was starting to get an idea of what was happening here, she just couldn’t figure out why. She opened her mouth to ask another question, when she saw the bear.
It was sitting on the mantle, propped up against a vase of flowers that were just beginning to wilt. It had clearly been well-loved; its wooly texture had been worn away in many spots, most notably its arms, and its eyes were a pair of mismatched buttons. What drew her attention, however, was the little vest the bear was wearing. It was made of a dark blue material, and though it was also faded with age she could see a subtle floral pattern on it. It would have been completely unremarkable, if she hadn’t spent most of that morning’s Intermediate Practical Magical Applications class staring at it, idly considering asking Professor Waugh where he’d gotten his shirt.
“Teddy? Does the name Eliot Waugh mean anything to you?”
“Um, yeah?” Teddy blinked at her confusedly. “That’s my Pa’s name? Do you know him?”
“I might.” Yeah, that would explain the Offness. Plum wasn’t positive of his exact age, but Professor Waugh definitely didn’t look old enough to have an adult son. If this was a defunct timeline, it should have faded from existence entirely, but for some reason parts of it were hanging around. That explained Teddy’s absent parents, too, if this timeline was trying to collapse. “I only ever met him on Earth, though. Would you mind telling me why he lives here, now?”
“Oh, uh, sure. He and Dad - oh, my dad’s name is Quentin? You might know him too, if you know Pa… anyway, they came here to solve the Mosaic. The beauty of all life, or whatever? I honestly don’t think it’s actually solvable, but they’re both stubborn, so they’re still going at it. The Mosaic, I mean. Going at the Mosaic.” Teddy was beginning to look a little worried. “Is everything okay? You look kind of serious.”
The Mosaic, huh. Where Jane got the key that started this whole mess. Or, Plum mused, where she will get the key. From an old man.
If Professor Waugh and this Quentin person solved the Mosaic as old men, and ended up back in their own time after, that would mean that this timeline must have been erased after happening. But since none of the timelines would exist in the first place without it, it was continuing to exist even with nothing holding it in place, like the keystone of an arch. The only thing supporting it was the fact that the surrounding timelines depended on it to exist.
She looked up at Teddy, who really was beginning to look concerned, bouncing his leg and unconsciously shredding a block of cheese with his hands. She did her best to look reassuring. “Everything is fine! I think you must be in an offshoot timeline, is all.”
Her reassuring look must not be working. “Offshoot? What do you mean?”
“Just that, the version of your, er, Pa, that I’m familiar with? He’s a bit younger than yours, and he doesn’t have any children that I know of. And I’m afraid I’ve never heard of this Quentin person. I think he has something going on with Charlton, actually.”
Teddy froze. “Something’s wrong, then. They’re supposed to be together. I mean, even when they weren’t together, they were together. And who the fuck is this Charlton?” He suddenly rose from the table, and began grabbing things from around the house and stuffing them into the threadbare leather bag by the door.
“He’s one of my classmates, I- what are you doing?” Plum asked, with a sinking feeling that she already knew the answer.
“Packing,” Teddy replied, still with a serious expression that did not look at all at home on his face. “I need to go see my Pa. The one you know, I mean. Something’s wrong, he needs me. He needs Dad. I have to find out what’s going on.”
“Teddy- Ted. You can’t just… Your timeline doesn’t really exist any more. I don’t want to upset you, but there’s a very good chance that he doesn’t even remember you.”
“He does. Or if he doesn’t, he will.” He came to stand in front of Plum, still seated at the table. He looked at her pleadingly. “Please, Plum? I just need a ride, and then I won’t bother you any more. I just, if something happened to them I need to help. They’re my family, Plum.”
No meddling. That was her one rule. Meddling was how you get Janes, and she was not going to be another Jane. Keep your head down and no meddling.
But his eyes were pleading, and. Well. He had wrapped her ankle for her. And fed her lunch.
Plum sighed and, propping her hands on the table for support, stood. Her ankle barely twinged. She gave Teddy a stern look.
“There are rules you will need to follow, alright? First, no just running off to find him. I am going to ask someone I know, and see if he can shed some light on this. You are going to behave and not talk to anyone unless I tell you to. We don’t want to try to mess with anything, we’re just going to find out what happened.”
Teddy’s face broke out into a huge grin. A very attractive grin, god damn it. He held out a hand to her. “Thank you,” he said earnestly, “I promise, this is going to go smoothly, and then you can drop me back off right here.”
Exactly. Smoothly. Because they were just going to talk to a few people, and that was it. Plum took his hand, and they were gone.