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It feels unfair, that she keeps stumbling into good things that deep down she can’t keep. Claire, Ray, even Eglaf - they’re all part of something that she knows she has to give up to save their world, and as she goes to the kitchen to get him a glass of water, it feels like a knot wedges in her throat. It makes her think of Luther, of what he told her in her kitchen back in Dallas. How they were special, how people like them could never have normalcy, and she hates it because she knows he’s right. Hasn’t that been abundantly clear by now?
She focuses on Ray, though, and after she gives him a glass of water, she takes his free hand and guides him over to the living room where they could sit on the couch. If she’s going to dump more information on him, he might as well be comfortable.
“I was actually here before Dallas,” she admits with a small sigh. “I just didn’t remember that part when I landed there in the sixties. I’m not sure why, but it’s as if your memory gets wiped and you only remember being here once you arrive. I was here for almost two months, I think, before I was ported out to Dallas.”
She’s not sure if he’ll believe her; after all, she had kept so much from him back then. Where she came from, who she really was, what she could do. She always told herself it was to protect him, but she knows damn well it had been done to protect herself as well.
At his question, she a small smile crosses her lips as she reaches over for his hand. “No, it’s not ending. Whatever we did in the sixties, it stopped the world from ending. I was able to go home long enough to see that, before I was dragged here again.” There’s no victorious smile, though. No celebration, no excitement at the fact that the world had ended. How could she? They had won, but they had lost. She had lost everything.
“I’ve been back here for over a month,” she continues. “Time is different here. I was in Dallas for over two years, but it was barely two days here. There are a lot of people like us, who have been transported here from our home worlds. Some of my siblings are actually around, too.” She looks down at his hand in hers, and she finds herself smiling. Because despite how much has happened, how much she has been trying to just survive with the heartbreak that seems to swallow her whole every time she breathes, she finds herself more at ease right now. He’s here. He’s really here, and it’s as if that gaping wound she keeps trying to ignore isn’t bleeding so profusely at least at the moment.
“I can’t believe you’re really here.”
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"So let me make sure I follow you for a moment. You went home, came here, then to Dallas, then back to New York, and somehow wound up back here?"
He runs a hand over his face, letting his breath out on an overwhelmed sigh. "Back home— Dallas— you've been gone two months. About to go on three. There was a march, and I got this eerie feeling, like the whole world was coming to a stop. When I opened my eyes again, I was in the orientation with those stuffy, office types."
But the fact that she begins to explain that time works differently here, he shakes his head. Of course it does. Of course whatever wild science rules her life is absolutely unpredictable, and as much as he'd like to refute it, to beg for a better explanation, he can see it in her face, in the way she looks at their joined hands, at her smile. This is the Allison he said goodbye to, open and honest and real, and he finds himself trapped for a moment, caught up in watching the tension work its way out of her body with each breath.
He turns to her, glass of water forgotten on the table, and takes up both of her hands, thumbs brushing over the backs of her knuckles, one catching on the ring on her left finger. It feels like years and years and years ago he went to a start-up jeweler, Eisemans or some such, and found the delicate diamond that had her name written all over it. Something about seeing the ring makes him feel dizzy all over again. She's here. She's real. This is real, despite the time between them, despite the goodbyes and the hurt and longing.
"Sorry, baby, this... this is crazy, you know that, right?" He laughs. "That you're there, and I'm here." Ray shakes his head and looks up at her, meeting her eyes. "You're sure this isn't a dream? Because I've had a dream like this before, but it wasn't nearly as bent as this is. I don't want it to be a dream."
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The annoyance is very much there, because there’s no love loss in any way between Allison and the people behind all this. Especially since she’s pretty damn sure she had been sedated after her second landing, as if somehow that would make her more compliant (and it had worked), but she’s not about to tell him that right now.
Instead, she just listens to him. Takes in the details about how she has been gone for almost three months. How he woke up here, and unconsciously she gives his hand a small squeeze. For someone like Ray, who had a normal life and normal job and didn’t have to deal with this level of insanity, she’s sure that this must be overwhelming. For a moment she wonders if it’s the Hargreeves luck that somehow struck him when he married her; if by association alone it had caused the portal to pick him, to drag him here, and suddenly she isn’t sure if she should tell him how glad she is to see him or apologize for cursing his life by being in it.
“I know,” she assures him with a small laugh of her own, even if it feels like it gets caught in the back of her throat. “I’ve been having that same dream. That somehow I’ll wake up and you’re here, with me. Or that we can go to this beach I really like, and we can just...be.” Her voice is soft, soft in a way that only Patrick and Ray have heard and known, because Allison is generally so guarded. Ray, especially, has seen a side of her that Patrick hardly saw, and it’s in full display now as she cups the side of his face with her hand. As she reimagines a life she feared she had lost after leaving Dallas, and he’s here. Solid and real, with her. “If you’re dreaming, then I’m dreaming, too. I can show you where I work. The restaurants Klaus and I have discovered together that I think you’ll like.” She grins, letting out a breath as it really hits her that this is happening. He’s here. “God, Ray. I’ve missed you so much.”
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It's such a strange word, something he's heard in brief showings of the Twilight Zone at the barber shop. But she says it with such ease and the men at the orientation had, too. Portals that pull people through time. Shaking his head, he lets out another bewildered laugh. "You know, I had a feeling about you. When I first saw you I thought, that girl's a unique bird but she's gonna be mine. I don't think I was wrong on either count, but I think I underestimated just what unique was going to mean."
Rumors, time traveling, special powers, strange siblings, all wrapped up in a loving, vibrant, intelligent woman. Unique doesn't begin to cover it. "But here we are. In whatever real world this is. Take me to that beach, or to restaurants or anywhere your heart desires. Like I said before, I don't have much, but what I have is yours, if you'll have me. Here."
His fingers brush over the ring on hers. "I don't know much about this time traveling thing, about portals... but if there's no way back, if everything's frozen until they're fixed, then I guess we have no choice but to move forward until they are. I know we said our goodbyes, Allison, I know that. And I would do it a thousand times over if it meant you got to go home again, but while we're at this intermission, I'd like the opportunity to say hello again."
God, he's missed her. Ray smiles, small and thoughtful as he looks down at their joined hands, but he looks back up at her in earnest. To love Allison Hargreeves, even a day more, would be a blessing he could never repay. "If you'll have me."
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Her features soften when his fingers brush over her ring, and she tilts her head slightly as she watches him. They had only had one year together; one beautiful year that she never expected to have, and the idea that they could have more time together, that they could actually have a life here, it damn near knocks the air right out of her chest.
"I don't know what I did to ever deserve you, but I'm so thankful for you." She leans in to kiss him, soft and loving before resting her forehead against his. She knows this isn't forever, and although maybe she shouldn't be so willing to do this again considering she knows damn well how much it hurts - and she knows how finicky the portals can be, and that he can disappear at any moment, with or without goodbyes - she doesn't want to let this escape them. How can she, when she has been dreaming of this moment ever since arriving back in Eglaf?
"Nothing has changed, Ray," she assures him quietly. "I haven't taken off my rings, because I still feel like I'm married to this...amazing, wonderful man that I met in Dallas, in the sixties. A man that has the patience of a saint while his wife has a temper that can torch the world." She smirks faintly, but she pulls back slightly, just enough so she can meet his eyes. "I love you, Raymond Chestnut. And I'll have you, for as long as you'll let me."
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"Well, patience of a saint I'm not so sure, but that temper..." He teases, whistling low as though it's something to be lauded. "But the thing is, I wouldn't have her any other way. Passionate and fiery and intelligent. Why I feel like I've pulled a star straight down from the sky and begged her to marry me. I'm just the luckiest man in the world that she said yes."
He laughs, a hand raising to cradle the side of her face, and he memorizes her features then, soaking in the very light of her if only so he can press a kiss to her forehead. "And I'll have her until the very day I die and turn into stardust myself. Nothing could bring me more joy than that."
He draws her other hand to his lips, kissing it softly. "That's a promise. I'm not so naive to think this place will let us stay forever. We've both got purposes greater than this moment, a plan set out for us whether we like it or not, but until that day, Allison Chestnut, I will not leave your side."
Ray smiles, warm and full and happy, because he'd never imagined this could happen. He never imagined he'd hold her again after that teary goodbye, never imagine that he could say the word wife again in the present tense. But here they are, two strange little stars trying desperately to find each other across the expanse of night and time.
"Now, I'll have a lot of questions, and I apologize for trying your patience, but I love you. Your family might take a little time, but all of this, everything you told me then and now, I love you for it. Don't you think otherwise. I don't think I got to say that proper before... well, when we said goodbye."