Epilogue

Dr. Sam Becket
never returned home.

lol jk

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Epilogue (Real)

One Year Later

It was a warm morning. Colin was already wiping sweat from his brow as he emerged from his bedroom to join Quinn and their birth parents for breakfast. The floor-to-ceiling windows of the apartment gave striking views of the technologically advanced city that surrounded them, but they were also letting in the full heat of the sun.

Colin punched in a setting on a control panel on the wall, and the windows darkened a little, dampening the harsh heat of the sun.

No sooner did he come into view of Quinn, did his brother launch their timer towards him, leaving him scrambling to catch it.

“You’re not delicate with this thing, are you?” he asked, noting the various cracks on the screen.

Quinn shrugged. “Just look at the message.”

Colin glanced down at it, and turned on the display. On it was a message he and Quinn had been hoping to see for some time.

“Nice!” he announced. “A year to the day, huh?”

“Has it been a year already?” asked Maggie, coming up behind Colin, and peering at the timer. Colin nodded, as she continued to the breakfast table, leaning over Quinn and giving him a peck on the cheek.

“If you three are going to Earth Prime,” said Elizabeth Mallory, “could you bring me back some of those fruits I like? What are they called again… ‘bonobos?’”

“Bananas, Ma,” Quinn said, suppressing a laugh. “I’ll try and make sure I don’t land on ’em this time.”

“Thank you, honey.”

Quinn wolfed down his cereal and Maggie stuffed a piece of toast into her mouth, as Colin grabbed an apple to go, and the trio bid goodbye to Elizabeth and Michael Mallory, bound for Earth Prime.

*          *          *

Professor Maximillian Arturo emerged from the lift, striding into Project Long Jump with purpose.

As he walked past the various staff, each greeted him with a cheerful nod. Feeling in high spirits, he approached his son, placing a hand on his shoulder as he worked at his multi-screened terminal.

Will turned around, startled. “Oh, hi Dad.”

“I trust you’ve notified the off-worlders about the transmission Higgins received, William?”

Will smirked. “Of course.”

“Wonderful,” said Arturo, rubbing his hands together. “This time, I plan on seeing the anomaly for myself.”

Will cringed. “I’m not sure I’m game to go back there.”

Arturo scoffed. “William, take some initiative for once in your life! Nothing ventured…”

“Nothing gained…” Will said, sighing.

“That’s the spirit! Now, have you seen Mister Mallory?”

“Which one?” asked Will.

Arturo chuckled, as he realised that the iterations of his various companions were beginning to get a sight convoluted.

“Alpha,” he said, stroking his beard.

Within the Higgins system, they had decided to designate known doubles with unique numeric signifiers based on their home world coordinates – aside from Nexus Quinn, who had been so named for his pivotal role in a plethora of Earths. However, since the discovery of the temporal paradox doubles of his friends, it had become necessary to differentiate the branched offshoots of the very people he knew from Earth Prime.

Thus, they had decided to designate those who had not experienced the invasion of Earth Prime as ‘Alpha’ (α) and those who had as ‘Omega’ (Ω). It had seemed like the fairest categorisation that wouldn’t have deemed one more ‘original’ than the other.

Will pointed to a door across the room. “Over in the server room.”

“Jolly good,” Arturo chirped, and headed towards the door. As he walked, a chime from Higgins sounded over the intercom.

Ah, excellent timing.

Arturo changed his direction, and headed for a door on the opposite side of the room. He opened it to find a wormhole opening, and three sliders tumbling out.

“Good morning,” he said, as Quinn^Ω, Maggie^Ω, and Colin climbed to their feet.

“Mornin’,” said Quinn, brushing himself off.

“Mister Mallory, I shall let your counterpart know that he should adjust the entrance velocity parameters in the homing beacon. You came out of that one rather roughly, didn’t you?”

Quinn’s face lit up. “Oh, is he here? I have some probability readings from Earth 820H to go through with him.”

“He is indeed. I heard he was in the server room.”

“Great!”

Quinn dashed off to see his double, as Colin watched. The younger Mallory brother then turned his attention to Arturo.

“How are things ’round here, anyway?”

“Positively humming along.” Arturo turned to head back to the main area of the facility. “We’ve had more technological breakthroughs in this facility alone than any other university in the world for the past four years. I daresay John, Mister Mallory and I are collecting Nobel prizes at the rate I used to collect top pupil awards as a lad.”

“That’s awesome,” Colin remarked. “I’d say I’m jealous, but I live on an Earth that’s decades ahead of any other one I’ve seen, so I can’t complain.”

As they approached the main floor, the pair of Quinns burst out of the server room, with a giggling Wade Welles being piggy-backed by Quinn^Ω. Quinn^α launched himself at Colin, pulling him into the kind of unrestrained, semi-violent hug only a close sibling could get away with.

“How you been, bro?”

Colin laughed as the hug turned into more of a headlock. “Oh, you know. Chewing gum, kicking ass. The usual.”

Arturo stood back, watching the youthful exuberance with a smile.

Wade climbed off Quinn^Ω, and sauntered up to Maggie.

“What are you doing down here?” Maggie asked, looking her up and down.

“I work here now,” she said in a terse tone. “I happen to be pretty good with computers, and I’m training to be Will’s relief. Turns out he’s been putting in fourteen hour days for like eight years.”

Maggie processed this for a moment, before grinning. “Sounds like my sister’s gonna be in good hands when she makes her first leap.”

Wade returned the grin. “She’s in the gym right now, if you want to lose a sparring match to her.”

Maggie flexed her bicep. “Hey, I’ve been training too.”

“Take it up with her,” said Wade with a shrug. “I heard she whooped your ass last time.”

“Yeah, well, Sherri still ran circles around the both of us.”

“She certainly did,” Arturo chimed in. “Now, Miss Welles, if you keep flapping your gums like a gossiping wife instead of getting back to work, the next person you’ll be chit-chatting with is the lady at the unemployment office. You have much left to learn, so do toddle off.”

Wade rolled her eyes. “I forgot how much of a grouch you are.”

She leaned in towards Maggie^Ω, whispering. “He’s all bark and no bite. I know he loves having me around.”

She is right, of course. But she’ll never catch me admitting to it.

Wade headed over to Will, where she sat beside him, peering up at the screens.

“So, where are John and Sherri?” Colin asked, finally getting to the question Arturo had been anticipating.

“Presently, they’re off-world. I believe they are seeing one Doctor Beeks.”

Quinn^Ω grinned. “Really? Finally. When will they be back?”

“John insisted that he would meet us at the anomaly.”

“Speaking of which,” Quinn^α added, “I may have roped Remy into coming. Told him it was a gig.”

“He doesn’t remember anything, does he?” Quinn^Ω asked.

“Nope, didn’t think it was my place to say anything, either. I’ll let the Omegas take the lead on explaining all that.”

Quinn^Ω took a deep breath. “It’s not gonna be easy, but thanks.”

*          *          *

Colin knocked on the door of his former home, as Quinn^Ω stood further back, nervously shifting on his feet. As the door opened, Missus Mallory’s mouth broke out in a wide smile.

“Colin!” she cried, grabbing his face and showering it with motherly kisses, as Colin awkwardly laughed.

“Hi, Ma. Good to see you, too.”

“You really need to visit more,” she said, looking him up and down. “Your hair is looking a bit scruffy. I’ll get your father to book you in with his barber.”

“Hey, Mom,” said Quinn^Ω, waving.

Missus Mallory leaned to one side to look beyond Colin, and smiled.

“Quinn, you’ve brought me quite the surprise today.”

“Oh, I have one more up my sleeve,” Quinn^Ω said, face flushing. He turned, and beckoned over Quinn^α, who was lingering at the bottom of the porch stairs. He trotted up the steps, and the two Quinns each gave her a sheepish grin.

Missus Mallory squinted at the pair.

“Oh no, not more of these parallel world doubles,” she said. “They give me a headache. Which one of you is my son?”

“Uh, that’s the thing,” said Quinn^α, “we kind of… both are.”

“We’ve been, uh, sharing our role with you for about a year now,” Quinn^Ω explained, “but we thought it might be time to give you the whole story.”

Missus Mallory rubbed her temples. “Oh, this is going to be more of a migraine, isn’t it?”

She stepped back, gesturing inside. “Come on in, then. I’ll put on some tea and take an aspirin.”

As the three entered, she called down to the basement. “Michael! The boys are here, and they’ve multiplied, apparently!”

*          *          *

“Well John, I think we’ve made some breakthroughs today,” Verbena said as she set down her notepad.

John stood from the psychiatrist couch, stretching. “Doesn’t feel as rewarding as a scientific breakthrough, I gotta say.”

“Regardless, I’m sure you’ll be seeing the benefits of your treatment in no time.”

“If you say so. Thanks.”

Verbena smiled. “I hear there’s another birthday party tonight at the… um, roadhouse.”

“That’s what Higgins told us,” John said. “You coming?”

“Oh, I don’t know…”

“Come on, you’re one of the team. I’m sure everyone’ll be delighted to see you.”

“Well, I’ll think about it.”

John nodded, and headed for the door. “Hope to see you. I know it’s a little weird, willingly stepping into what we can only describe as a pocket dimension. But I think all the kidnapping is over now, for what it’s worth.”

He left her with that thought, as he strode away from the Albuquerque office, and joined Sherri in a nearby park. Sammy Jo was sitting with her, tapping at a handheld device.

“Okay, the calibration is almost complete,” she mumbled, head down. “How’s… that?”

Sherri blinked a few times, moving her new bionic eye back and forth.

“Wow, this eye is so much clearer than my old one. Can I just replace both my eyes with these things?”

John chuckled as he looked down at the glass-coated robotic eye, which looked very nearly the same as her natural one.

“I wouldn’t do that until we’re out of beta phase,” he said, before giving Sammy Jo a pat on the back.

“It looks great, Sammy. I think you’re gonna be the next Beckett featured in Time Magazine. Sam is yesterday’s news.”

Sammy Jo grinned up at him. “Thanks for your help.”

Sherri stood from the park bench with renewed energy. “Alright, we’ve got a drive ahead of us. Let’s get something to eat before we bounce.”

*          *          *

Sam whistled as he wiped down tables in his relatively new home, named for his best friend.

It had taken him a few years to carve out this little space beyond time, but it had been a necessary step in the life that stretched out before him, both full of possibilities, and somehow already known to him in some strange way.

But he was almost ready to open this place for his first annual birthday event; why visit everyone separately when he could bring them to him?

He moved to the kitchen door, and peeked inside, where a fifty-five year old woman put the finishing touches on a sheet cake.

“How’s it feel to be catering a party you already attended?” he asked her, grinning.

Donna glanced up at him. “Awkward enough that I intend to stay upstairs until it’s over.”

Sam moved behind her, and wrapped his arms around her waist, kissing her tied-back hair that smelled of citrus.

“Okay, but you’ve got to make an appearance next year, because by then everyone will think you’re missing.”

Donna nodded. “Fine. Now if you don’t mind, I need to finish this.”

She looked back at him with a grin. “I hope you have a lovely night with your friends.”

Sam headed back out into the bar, and peered out the window at the bustling Kearney Street of San Francisco. Reflected in the glass was the face of Al the Bartender — or Weird Ernie, as the case may have been.

“Alright,” he muttered, flipping the ‘Closed’ sign. “Al’s Place is officially open for business.”

As he unlocked the door, he grinned as he spotted a flustered Rembrandt Brown loaded up with portable musical gear. Sam pulled open the door.

“Funny, I never seen this place open before,” Rembrandt mumbled, as he struggled to lug the equipment through the door, and glanced around. “Though I’m sure I’ve been in here.”

“Welcome to my establishment, Mister Brown,” Sam said with a smile. “I’m a big fan. Do you need a hand with that?”

The End.

Thank you so much for reading. I hope you liked this ridiculous labour of love. And even if you didn't, it doesn't matter 'cause it's not canon anyway!

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