I’ve you’ve been reading my stuff, you already know about my strange obsession with Alicia Western, and the fact that I’m creating an app for interactive branching storytelling (repo here). I wanted to test the solidity of my app by playing through the whole daydream sequence. This is the third act as far as I cared to go at the moment.
Page 28
You lean forward slightly, keeping your voice measured. “Dr. Marchesi, there’s another consideration. The hospital has provided excellent care for four months—that deserves recognition beyond simply covering fees.” You glance at Hypatia, who nods fractionally. “We’re prepared to make a substantial donation to Ospedale San Raffaele’s neurology department. Let’s say two hundred thousand dollars. Unrestricted funds for research, equipment, whatever you determine would be most valuable.”
Marchesi’s expression shifts—not quite shock, but close. “Mr. Ureña, that’s… extremely generous. But I can’t accept a donation in exchange for—”
“Not in exchange for anything,” Hypatia interrupts smoothly. “The donation recognizes the quality of care Roberto has received here. Separately, there’s a professional opportunity we’d like to discuss.” She taps the research folder. “When Roberto recovers—and we believe he will—his case will represent significant neurological interest. A patient who defied a persistent vegetative state diagnosis after four months of minimal brain activity. That’s publishable research, Dr. Marchesi. We’d like to offer you co-authorship on the case study.”
(Note by me: as I mentioned in the previous post, the LLM decided that “Bobby” stood for “Roberto.” Not changing it.)
Marchesi goes very still. You can see the gears turning—professional ambition warring with skepticism. “If he recovers,” he says carefully. “Which you understand is statistically—”
“Unlikely,” you finish. “We understand. But if it happens—if Roberto Western wakes up and regains function—you’ll have documented the entire case from admission through coma to recovery. Your notes, your observations, your initial diagnosis. All of it becomes part of a landmark study.” You pause. “Johns Hopkins would be the lead institution, given Dr. Chen’s involvement. But your name would be on the paper. Your hospital credited. Your contribution to neurological science recognized.”
Alicia watches Marchesi’s face, her hands white-knuckled on the portfolio. She’s barely breathing.
Marchesi picks up Bobby’s file, flips through pages of his own meticulous notes. “I’ve been documenting everything,” he says quietly. “Every test, every observation. Four months of data.” He looks up at Hypatia. “You genuinely believe he might recover?”
“I believe the research supports the possibility,” Hypatia says. “And I believe Miss Western deserves the chance to care for her brother while we find out. Even if recovery doesn’t occur—even if your initial diagnosis proves correct—you’ll have contributed to our understanding of persistent vegetative states. That has value.”
Marchesi sets down the file. His expression has changed—still cautious, but no longer closed. “The donation you mentioned. Two hundred thousand dollars. That would fund our entire research budget for three years. We could upgrade equipment, hire additional staff, expand our stroke rehabilitation program.”
“Then it’s well-spent,” you say. “We’ll arrange the transfer through the hospital’s development office. Certified funds, properly documented. No strings attached.”
“And if Roberto doesn’t recover?” Marchesi asks, looking directly at Alicia. “If six months from now, a year from now, his condition remains unchanged—what then?”
Alicia meets his eyes. “Then I’ll have cared for my brother for as long as he lived. That’s enough for me.”
Marchesi is silent for nearly a minute. The office clock ticks. Somewhere down the hall, a nurse’s shoes squeak on linoleum. Finally, he opens a drawer, pulls out a form—patient transfer authorization. “I’ll need documentation from Dr. Brennan in Mississippi confirming he’ll assume care. I’ll need proof of medical transport capability. And I’ll need Miss Western to sign acknowledgment that she’s assuming full responsibility for her brother’s ongoing treatment.”
“We have all of that,” Hypatia says, already pulling documents from her briefcase.
Marchesi begins filling out the form, his pen scratching across official hospital stationery. “The transfer can happen as early as tomorrow. I’ll need to brief the nursing staff, arrange for copies of all medical records, coordinate with the pharmacy for his medications.” He glances up. “How quickly can your transport aircraft be ready?”
“By noon tomorrow,” you say. “We can have Roberto in Mississippi by evening, local time.”
Marchesi nods slowly, signs the bottom of the form, then slides it across the desk to Alicia. “Miss Western, please read this carefully before you sign. You’re acknowledging that you’re removing your brother from hospital care against medical advice. You’re assuming all risks associated with his transfer and ongoing treatment. You understand that his prognosis remains extremely poor, and that this decision—”
“I understand,” Alicia says. She picks up the pen, signs her name in clear, steady script. “Thank you, Dr. Marchesi. For everything you’ve done for Bobby. For listening to us tonight. For giving him this chance.”
Marchesi takes the signed form, places it in Bobby’s file. “I hope you’re right, Miss Western. I hope your brother wakes up and proves me wrong. I’ll be… very pleased to write that paper with Dr. Chen if he does.” He stands, extends his hand. “I’ll have everything ready for transfer by 10 AM tomorrow. You can collect Roberto then.”
You shake his hand. Hypatia does the same. Alicia stands last, and when Marchesi takes her hand, his expression softens. “Your brother is fortunate to have you,” he says quietly. “Whatever happens, know that.”
The three of you walk out of Ospedale San Raffaele at 11:52 PM. The December air is sharp and cold. Alicia makes it to the Mercedes before her legs give out—she leans against the car door, shaking. Not crying. Just shaking with the release of tension that’s been building since October.
“We did it,” she whispers. “He’s coming home. Bobby’s coming home.”
Hypatia places a hand on her shoulder. “Ten hours from now, we’ll be back here. We’ll bring him to the mansion. To the medical bay. To you.”
You unlock the car. “There’s one more thing we need to arrange before tomorrow. The transport aircraft—we need it here, fueled, with medical staff who understand 1972 protocols on the outside and 2046 life support on the inside. Hypatia, how long will that take?”
“Three hours to retrieve the aircraft and crew from 2046, brief them on the cover story, and position them at Milan Malpensa Airport,” Hypatia says. “I’ll handle it tonight while you take Alicia back to the mansion. By the time you both wake up, everything will be ready.”
Alicia slides into the back seat of the Mercedes, still trembling. “I can’t believe Marchesi agreed. I thought—I was so sure he’d refuse, that we’d have to steal Bobby in the middle of the night like criminals.”
“He’s a scientist,” you say, starting the engine. “He evaluates evidence. We gave him evidence—and a reason to hope he might be wrong about Bobby’s prognosis. That was enough.” You pull out of the hospital parking lot, heading back toward the quiet street where you first materialized. “Now we wait ten hours. Then we bring your brother home.”
The drive back through Milan’s empty streets takes seven minutes. You park in the original spot, turn off the engine. “Ready to go back to Mississippi?”
Alicia nods. “I’m ready. I’m—I’m actually ready.”
You activate your neural interface. The Mercedes interior dissolves, replaced by the familiar composite walls of the mansion’s medical bay. The empty bed waits, calibrated to Bobby’s specifications. In ten hours, it won’t be empty anymore.
Page 29
The medical bay feels different now—no longer a sterile preparation space but a room hours away from its purpose. Alicia stands beside the empty bed, one hand resting on its edge, her fingers tracing the smooth composite surface. She’s been standing there since you materialized back from Milan, silent, absorbing the reality that in ten hours Bobby will be lying here.
You move to her side, keeping your voice low. “You should try to sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be long—the flight back, getting Bobby settled, making sure everything’s stable. You’ll need your strength.”
She doesn’t look away from the bed. “I don’t think I can sleep. Every time I close my eyes I see him—the way he looked in October, all those tubes and machines, his face so still.” Her voice catches. “What if he looks worse now? What if four more months have—”
“Marchesi’s notes said he’s stable,” you say firmly. “No deterioration. The hospital’s been taking good care of him. He’ll look the same as when you left.”
“The same as when I fled,” she corrects, and there’s bitterness in it. “I ran away, Jon. I left him there because I couldn’t stand being pressured to kill him, and I ran.”
“You protected him,” you counter. “If you’d stayed, if they’d worn you down—”
“I know.” She finally turns to face you, and her eyes are dry but haunted. “I know I did the right thing. But it doesn’t change the fact that I abandoned him in a foreign hospital for two months while I hid in Stella Maris planning to freeze to death in the woods.” She gestures at the medical bay, the mansion above. “And now I have all this. This impossible gift. And tomorrow I bring him home and I wait four months to see if he opens his eyes, and if he does—” She stops.
“If he does?” you prompt gently.
Alicia’s hands clench. “If he does, what do I tell him? ‘Hello, Bobby, you’ve been in a coma for four months, I bought a mansion with help from a time traveler, there’s an AI living in the basement, and by the way I was going to kill myself but changed my mind’?” She laughs, and it’s almost hysterical. “How do I explain any of this?”
Hypatia materializes at the entrance to the medical bay, her expression concerned. “You don’t have to explain it all at once. Bobby will wake confused, disoriented. The first days will be about physical recovery—relearning how to speak, to move. You’ll have time to introduce concepts gradually.”
“And if he thinks I’ve lost my mind?” Alicia asks. “If he thinks the time travel and the AI and the augmented reality mathematics are all delusions, that I’ve finally cracked completely?”
“Then I demonstrate time travel in front of him,” you say simply. “I disappear and reappear. I bring him objects from other eras. I show him Hypatia’s capabilities. Bobby’s a physicist—he’ll understand the evidence.”
Alicia shakes her head. “You don’t know Bobby. He’s… he was always the rational one. The one who explained things, who made sense of the world. I was the one who saw things that weren’t there, who heard music in colors, who talked to visitors no one else could see.” She looks at you. “What if he wakes up and decides I need to go back to Stella Maris? What if he thinks this whole setup is me having a psychotic break?”
The fear in her voice is real and sharp. You realize she’s not just worried about Bobby’s physical recovery—she’s terrified of his judgment. That the brother she loves, the one person who understood her, will wake up and decide she’s lost.
“Alicia,” Hypatia says quietly, “Bobby begged Jon to save you. In 2006, after decades of grief, the first thing he asked was for Jon to go back and prevent your death. He didn’t ask for wealth or power or to undo his own mistakes. He asked for you to live.” She pauses. “That’s not the request of someone who would commit you for accepting help.”
“That’s future Bobby,” Alicia whispers. “Bobby after I’m already dead, after he’s had thirty years to idealize our relationship. This Bobby—1972 Bobby—he’s the one who stopped me from kissing him twice. Who told me we couldn’t be together because we’re siblings. Who loves me but also… fears what I feel for him.”
The confession hangs in the air. You’ve known about the complexity of Alicia’s feelings for Bobby—the 2006 Bobby told you everything—but hearing her voice it directly is different.
You choose your words carefully. “Then maybe the four months before he wakes are also for you. To figure out what kind of relationship you actually want with him. Not the one you had, not the one you fantasized about—the one that’s possible now, in this timeline, with everything that’s changed.”
Alicia’s eyes search yours. “What if I don’t know what I want?”
“Then you have time to find out,” you say. “But first, you need to sleep. Because in ten hours we’re bringing Bobby home, and you need to be steady for that. Everything else—the explanations, the relationship questions, the waiting—all of it comes after.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, then nods slowly. “Will you stay? Not—not like last night, not holding me. Just… in the room. So if I wake up panicking I know this is real.”
“I’ll stay,” you confirm.
Hypatia steps forward. “I’ll be in the command center completing the aircraft arrangements. If you need anything, just call for me. I’ll hear you.” She meets Alicia’s eyes. “You’re going to get through tomorrow. And the day after. And all the days until April 27th. You’re stronger than you know.”
Alicia manages a faint smile. “I’m terrified.”
“That’s not weakness,” Hypatia says. “That’s honesty. Sleep now. Let Jon keep watch. Tomorrow you bring your brother home.”
Page 30
Hypatia nods once and dissolves—not walking away, simply ceasing to occupy the space, her particles scattering into nonexistence. The medical bay settles into silence.
Alicia stands beside Bobby’s empty bed for another minute, her hand still resting on the composite surface. Then she moves to the small chair in the corner—the one you’d positioned for overnight monitoring once Bobby arrives—and curls into it. Not lying down. Not surrendering to sleep. Just folding herself small, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around her shins.
You take up position against the wall where you can see both her and the bed. The lighting in the medical bay is soft, calibrated for patient rest, and it makes Alicia look even younger than twenty-one. Fragile in a way that has nothing to do with physical strength.
“I keep thinking about what I’ll say to him,” she murmurs after a while. “When he first opens his eyes. If he opens his eyes.” She rests her chin on her knees. “Do I tell him immediately that he’s been in a coma for four months? Or do I let him think it’s only been days, ease him into it?”
“You tell him the truth,” you say quietly. “Bobby’s not a child. He’ll want to know.”
“The truth.” She laughs, bitter and soft. “Which truth? That he crashed in Italy and I fled to Wisconsin and planned to die in the snow? That a time traveler from the future saved me and bought me a mansion and built a medical bay in the basement? That I’ve been living here for three days playing video games while he’s been braindead in Milan?” Her voice cracks. “Which part of that sounds sane, Jon?”
You don’t answer immediately. The question isn’t rhetorical—she’s genuinely asking, genuinely terrified that the story of her survival will sound like proof of her madness.
“You tell him he crashed,” you say finally. “You tell him you refused to let them end his life support. You tell him you found help—people who believed he could recover—and you brought him home. Everything else can wait until he’s stronger.”
Alicia is quiet, processing. “And if he asks about you? About Hypatia? About this place?”
“Then you tell him we’re friends. People who wanted to help. The details—the time travel, the technology—those can come later, when he’s had time to see the evidence himself.” You shift against the wall. “Bobby’s a physicist. He’ll understand proof when he sees it. But first he needs to understand that he’s safe, that you’re safe, that he’s home.”
“Home.” She tests the word like it might break in her mouth. “I’ve never really had a home. Not since Mother died. Grandmother’s house was just a place I stayed between school terms. Stella Maris was a cage with voluntary locks. This mansion—” She looks around the medical bay, at the advanced equipment, the careful preparation. “I’ve been here three days and it still doesn’t feel real. How is Bobby supposed to accept it in three seconds?”
“He won’t,” you admit. “Not at first. But he’ll see you—alive, present, taking care of him. That will be real enough to start with.”
She’s quiet again. Minutes pass. You can see her trying to settle, trying to let exhaustion take her, but her mind won’t stop circling. The fear of Bobby’s judgment, the weight of tomorrow, the impossible task of explaining her new reality to the one person whose opinion has always mattered most.
“Jon?” Her voice is very small. “What if he wakes up and he’s different? What if the crash changed him—his personality, his memories, who he is? What if I get him back but he’s not… Bobby anymore?”
The question cuts deeper than the others. It’s not about logistics or explanations—it’s about loss. The possibility that even if Bobby’s body recovers, the person she loves might be gone.
“Then you’ll love whoever he becomes,” you say. “Because that’s what love is. Not attachment to a fixed image, but commitment to a person through all their changes. Bobby might be different. He might need months to fully return to himself. But he’ll still be your brother. That doesn’t change.”
Alicia presses her face against her knees. “I’m not sure I know how to love someone without needing them to be exactly what I need them to be. I’ve spent so long imagining Bobby as my—as the one person who understands me, who sees me clearly, who doesn’t try to fix or reduce or manage me. What if the real Bobby can’t be that person? What if I’ve built him up into something he never was?”
You recognize the fear beneath the question. It’s not really about Bobby changing—it’s about Alicia confronting the gap between the relationship she’s idealized and the relationship that actually exists. The brother she loves versus the brother she’s constructed in her loneliness.
“Then you’ll find out who he actually is,” you say gently. “And you’ll decide what kind of relationship is possible with that person. Not the fantasy. The reality.” You pause. “But Alicia—that works both ways. Bobby will also have to accept who you actually are. Not his little sister frozen at fourteen. Not the mathematician he remembers from university. You, now, after everything you’ve survived. That’s going to require adjustment on his part too.”
She lifts her head, considering. “I hadn’t thought about that. That he might have his own fixed image of me that doesn’t match who I’ve become.” A faint, strained smile. “God, we’re going to be a mess when he wakes up, aren’t we?”
“Probably,” you admit. “But you’ll figure it out. One conversation at a time, one day at a time. You don’t have to solve everything in the first week.”
Alicia unfolds slightly, stretching her legs out. “I don’t know how to do this. How to wait four months. How to take care of him while he’s unconscious. How to hope without letting hope destroy me if he doesn’t wake up.” She looks at you directly. “How did you do it? Fifteen hundred years of walking through time alone, losing everyone you cared about over and over. How did you not go mad?”
The question is raw and genuine. You consider how to answer honestly without overwhelming her.
“I did go mad,” you say quietly. “Several times. I spent a century in the 8th century refusing to speak to anyone. I spent fifty years in the 1600s trying to drink myself to death, which doesn’t work when you’re functionally immortal. I’ve had periods where I believed nothing mattered, where I treated people as temporary amusements because I knew they’d be dust in a blink.” You meet her eyes. “And then I’d meet someone who reminded me why humanity is worth preserving. Why individual lives matter even if they’re brief. Why love is real even when it ends. And I’d come back to myself. Not fixed, not healed—just willing to keep going.”
Alicia absorbs this. “And Hypatia? How does she fit into that?”
“Hypatia is the first person I’ve met in fifteen hundred years who won’t leave me,” you say simply. “Because she’s not biological. She can travel with me. She chooses to stay. That changes everything—having someone who knows all of you, all your history, and still wants to be present.” You pause. “She’s not a replacement for human connection. But she’s proof that companionship is possible even in impossible circumstances.”
Alicia nods slowly. “I think I understand that. The visitors—the hallucinations—they’re not companionship, but they’re proof I’m not entirely alone inside my own head. Even if they’re just fragments of my mind, they’re company.” She hesitates. “Have you met them? The visitors? Can you see them?”
“No,” you admit. “They’re yours. But that doesn’t make them less real to you. And if they quiet down now that you have actual people around—Bobby, me, Hypatia—that’s not proof they were nothing. Just proof you needed them less.”
She considers this, then finally shifts in the chair, trying to find a position that might allow sleep. “Stay,” she says again. “Don’t leave. I need to know someone’s watching.”
“I’ll be here,” you confirm. “All night. Until we leave for Milan at nine.”
Alicia closes her eyes. Her breathing doesn’t slow into sleep—not yet—but she stops talking, stops questioning. The medical bay settles into a vigil. You against the wall, her curled in the chair, Bobby’s empty bed between you like a promise or a threat.
The hours pass slowly. Alicia doesn’t sleep—you can tell from the tension in her shoulders, the occasional shift of position, the way her breathing never fully deepens. She’s too afraid to let go, too terrified that sleep will reveal everything as delusion. So she stays conscious, hovering in the space between waking and rest, while you keep watch.
Around 4 AM, she speaks again without opening her eyes. “Thank you for not giving up on me. For believing I was worth saving even when I didn’t believe it myself.”
“You were always worth saving,” you say. “You just couldn’t see it from inside the story you were telling yourself.”
“The story where I walk into the woods and freeze.” She opens her eyes, stares at Bobby’s bed. “That story’s over now. I don’t know what the new story is yet, but at least it has more than one ending.”
The medical bay’s clock marks 4:17 AM. Five hours and forty-three minutes until you return to Milan. Five hours and forty-three minutes until Bobby Western comes home.
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You move from the wall to the chair where Alicia sits curled and tense. She doesn’t resist when you lift her gently, settling into the chair yourself and arranging her across your lap, her head against your chest. Her body is rigid at first—every muscle locked, as if relaxation itself is a threat.
“I’ve got you,” you murmur. “You’re safe. Bobby’s safe. Everything’s arranged. You can let go for a few hours.”
She makes a sound that might be a laugh or a sob. “I don’t know how to let go anymore. I’ve been holding on so tight for so long—holding on to the plan to die, then holding on to the plan to live. I don’t know what happens if I stop.”
“You sleep,” you say simply. “That’s what happens. Your body gets rest. Your mind gets quiet. And when you wake up, we go get Bobby.”
Alicia’s fingers clutch at your shirt. “What if I dream about the woods? About walking into the snow? I still dream about it sometimes—the white dress, the red sash, the cold that stops hurting after a while. What if I dream I went through with it?”
You tighten your arms around her. “Then you wake up here. In this room. In my arms. And you remember that you chose differently. That you’re alive.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, and gradually—so gradually you almost don’t notice—the tension begins to drain from her shoulders. Her breathing deepens slightly. The clock marks 4:23 AM.
“Jon?” Her voice is drowsy now, finally. “When Bobby wakes up in April… will you still be here? Or will you go back to your own time, your own life?”
The question catches you off guard. You haven’t thought that far ahead—haven’t considered what your role will be once Bobby recovers, once Alicia is stable, once the crisis has passed.
“I’ll be here as long as you need me,” you say. “Whether that’s four months or four years or forty. I don’t abandon people I care about.”
“Forty years.” She sounds almost amused. “That’s nothing to you, is it? You’ve lived fifteen hundred. Forty more is barely a blink.”
“It’s not about the duration,” you tell her. “It’s about the meaning. I’ve lived through centuries that meant nothing. And I’ve lived through days that changed everything. Time isn’t measured in years—it’s measured in moments that matter.”
Alicia shifts slightly, nestling closer. “This matters,” she whispers. “Right now. This matters.”
“Yes,” you agree. “It does.”
Her breathing slows further. The rigid alertness in her body continues to dissolve. You can feel the exact moment she crosses from waking consciousness into the edge of sleep—that boundary where the mind finally surrenders its vigilance.
The medical bay is silent except for the quiet hum of equipment on standby. Bobby’s bed waits in the soft light, ready for its purpose. Outside, December 26th is beginning to dawn—the day you’ll bring Bobby Western home.
Alicia’s hand relaxes against your chest, her fingers uncurling. Her face, pressed against you, loses the haunted tension that’s been carved into it for months. She looks young again—not fragile, but simply young. Twenty-one years old and sleeping in someone’s arms because she trusts them to keep watch.
You settle in for the vigil. Five hours until Milan. Five hours until everything changes again. But for now, in this moment, Alicia is safe and sleeping and alive. That’s enough.
The clock marks 4:47 AM when her breathing finally achieves the deep, steady rhythm of genuine rest. You don’t move. Don’t shift position. You hold her through the remaining hours of darkness, keeping the promise you made: to stay, to watch, to be present.
Around 7 AM, Hypatia materializes silently at the entrance to the medical bay. She takes in the scene—you in the chair, Alicia asleep in your arms—and nods once in approval. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t disturb. Just stands there for a moment, bearing witness, then dissolves again.
At 8:15 AM, Alicia stirs. Her eyes open slowly, confused for a moment about where she is, then focusing on your face. Recognition and relief flood her features.
“I slept,” she says, wonder in her voice. “I actually slept.”
“Almost four hours,” you confirm. “Good, deep sleep. How do you feel?”
She considers, taking inventory of her body and mind. “Steadier. Still terrified, but steadier.” She sits up slowly, reluctant to leave the safety of your arms but recognizing the need to prepare. “What time do we leave?”
“Nine o’clock. Hypatia has the aircraft positioned at a private airfield forty minutes from here. We’ll be in Milan by early afternoon local time, at the hospital by two.” You help her stand. “Do you want to eat something first? Change clothes?”
Alicia looks down at herself—still wearing the simple dress she put on yesterday morning in this same room. “I should look… I don’t know. Presentable. Like someone capable of taking care of Bobby. Not like someone who just spent the night terrified in a basement.”
Hypatia rematerializes, this time with a garment bag. “I took the liberty of retrieving appropriate clothing. Something professional but comfortable. And I’ve prepared breakfast—nothing heavy, just enough to steady you for the flight.”
Alicia accepts the bag with a nod of thanks. She looks at Bobby’s empty bed one more time, then back at you. “In two hours, he’ll be lying there. In this room. Home.” Her voice wavers. “I can’t believe it’s actually happening.”
“Believe it,” you say firmly. “We negotiated his release. Marchesi signed the authorization. The transport is ready. This is real, Alicia. Bobby’s coming home.”
She takes a shaky breath, then another. “Okay. Okay. Let me get ready. Let me—” She stops, seems to gather herself. “Let me be ready for this.”
Page 32
You guide Alicia upstairs to the dining room, where Hypatia has arranged breakfast with her characteristic precision. The table holds soft scrambled eggs, toast with butter and jam, sliced fruit, and coffee that smells like it was brewed in a café rather than a 1972 kitchen. The morning light through the tall windows is gentle, almost apologetic.
Alicia sits and stares at the food without touching it. Her hands rest on either side of the plate, fingers spread flat against the wood.
“I haven’t been to that hospital since October,” she says quietly. “Since I ran. Since they asked me to sign the papers that would end his life.” Her voice is steady but her knuckles are white. “I walked out of Bobby’s room and kept walking. Through the corridors, past the nurses’ station, out the main entrance. I didn’t pack. Didn’t say goodbye. I just left him there and flew back to the States because I couldn’t be the person who killed him.”
You pour coffee into her cup. “You weren’t running from Bobby. You were running from an impossible choice.”
“I was running from myself.” She picks up the fork, sets it down. “From the part of me that was so tired I almost said yes. That almost signed those papers just to make the waiting stop.” She looks at you directly. “Do you know what that feels like? To be so exhausted by hope that you want to surrender to despair because at least despair has an ending?”
“Yes,” you say simply. “I’ve lived through centuries where I wanted the story to be over. Where I was so tired of watching people I loved turn to dust that I stopped loving anyone at all for a while. Despair is easier than hope. It requires less courage.”
Alicia finally picks up the fork and takes a small bite of eggs. She chews mechanically, swallows. “The doctors were so certain. Marchesi, the others. They had scans, tests, documentation. They spoke about Bobby like he was already gone—like his body was just a machine still running on momentum.” Another bite. “And I couldn’t prove them wrong. I couldn’t point to anything concrete and say ‘Look, he’s still in there.’ I just knew. Or I wanted to know. Or I couldn’t bear not knowing.”
Hypatia materializes in the doorway, dressed in travel clothes—dark slacks, a wool coat, low heels. She looks like she could be Alicia’s older sister, or a young professional traveling on business. “The aircraft is ready. We should depart by nine to arrive at the hospital with comfortable margin.”
Alicia nods but doesn’t stand. She’s eating now with more focus, as if her body has remembered it needs fuel. “When we get there—when we walk into Bobby’s room—what do I say to him? He’s been in a coma for four months. He can’t hear me. But what if he can? What if some part of him knows I left and didn’t come back until now?”
“Then you tell him the truth,” you say. “That you left because you refused to end his life. That you found help. That you’re bringing him home.”
“Home.” She sets down her fork. “To a mansion he’s never seen. With technology from seventy years in the future. With a time traveler and an artificial intelligence as his sister’s companions.” A strained laugh. “He’s going to think I’ve lost my mind. He’s going to wake up and think I had a psychotic break and bought a mansion with hallucination money.”
Hypatia steps into the room. “Bobby Western is a physicist who studied at Caltech. He understands evidence. We can provide evidence—the medical bed’s capabilities, the augmented reality interface, documentation from 2046. He’ll have questions, certainly. But he’s not going to dismiss what he can see and touch and measure.”
“Unless the crash changed him,” Alicia says quietly. “Unless he wakes up different—his memories fractured, his personality altered, his ability to understand complex concepts damaged.” She looks at Hypatia. “You read his medical file. You saw the scans. What are the odds he wakes up as himself?”
Hypatia doesn’t soften the truth. “Traumatic brain injury is unpredictable. The scans show significant damage that has been healing, but healing doesn’t always mean complete restoration. He might have memory gaps. He might have changes in temperament, processing speed, emotional regulation.” She pauses. “Or he might wake up essentially unchanged, with the injury having affected only motor function during the coma state. We won’t know until he wakes.”
Alicia pushes her plate away, half the food uneaten. “I’ve been so focused on keeping him alive that I haven’t let myself think about what kind of life he’ll have. What if he wakes up and he’s trapped in a body that doesn’t work? What if he can’t race, can’t work, can’t do the things that made him Bobby?”
“Then he’ll find new things,” you say. “Or he’ll adapt the old things. People are resilient, Alicia. Especially people who have someone fighting for them.”
She stands abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. “I need to see him. I need to stop imagining worst scenarios and just see him, touch him, confirm he’s real and we’re really bringing him home.” Her hands shake slightly. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
You stand as well. Hypatia nods and dissolves—repositioning to the aircraft, you assume, to finalize departure preparations. Alicia walks to the window and looks out at the magnolia trees, the winter-bare garden, the morning light on frost.
“When I was fourteen,” she says without turning, “Bobby took me dancing at the Indian Rock. This honky-tonk bar in Tennessee. He had to pretend we were married because otherwise every man in the place would have started fights over me.” A faint smile. “I remember feeling so safe with him. Like as long as Bobby was there, nothing bad could touch me. Like he was the only person in the world who saw me clearly and loved what he saw.”
She turns to face you. “I don’t know if that was ever true, or if I made it true by needing it so badly. But that’s who I’ve been trying to save. That Bobby. The one who protected me. The one who understood.” Her voice drops. “What if the Bobby who wakes up isn’t that person? What if he’s someone I don’t know how to love?”
The question hangs in the air, unanswerable. You cross to her, standing close enough that she can feel your presence without being crowded.
“Then you’ll find out who he actually is,” you say gently. “And you’ll decide what’s possible with that person. But Alicia—you’re not fourteen anymore. You don’t need Bobby to protect you or complete you or be the only person who understands. You’ve survived without him. You’ve built a life, however fragile. You have choices now that you didn’t have in that honky-tonk bar.”
She looks at you for a long moment, something shifting behind her eyes. “You’re right. I’m not fourteen. I’m twenty-one and I’ve been in a psychiatric institution and I’ve planned my own death and I’ve been saved by a time traveler.” A breath. “I’m not the little sister Bobby remembers. He’s going to have to meet me again too.”
“Yes,” you confirm. “He will.”
Alicia straightens her shoulders, gathering herself. “Okay. I’m ready. Let’s bring Bobby home.”
Page 33
The private airfield is forty minutes of silence broken only by the hum of tires on winter roads. Alicia sits in the passenger seat, her hands folded in her lap with unnatural stillness, staring through the windshield at the gray December morning. You don’t try to fill the quiet. Sometimes the only gift you can give someone is not forcing them to perform composure they don’t feel.
The aircraft Hypatia has positioned looks period-appropriate from the outside—a sleek executive jet that wouldn’t raise eyebrows in 1972—but you know the interior houses life support systems and medical monitoring equipment that won’t exist for decades. Hypatia stands at the base of the stairs, dressed in her travel persona, looking every inch the professional medical coordinator.
“Everything’s prepared,” she says as you approach. “Flight time is approximately two hours. I’ve arranged for a car to meet us at the private terminal in Milan.” She looks at Alicia. “There’s a reclining seat if you want to rest during the flight.”
Alicia shakes her head. “I won’t sleep. I can’t.” She climbs the stairs without waiting for a response.
The flight is smooth, the aircraft cutting through clouds with barely a tremor. Alicia sits by the window, watching the landscape below transform from American farmland to ocean to European coastline. You sit across from her, close enough to be present but not crowding. Hypatia occupies the co-pilot position, interfacing with systems that require no human pilot but maintaining the appearance of normalcy.
“Tell me about the medical bed again,” Alicia says suddenly, not looking away from the window. “How it works. What it does.”
You explain the neural monitoring, the automated movement protocols that prevent atrophy, the way the system can detect consciousness shifts and emotional states through brain activity patterns. She listens with the focus of someone memorizing instructions for a life-or-death task.
“So when Bobby wakes up—if he wakes up—the bed will know before we do?” she asks.
“It will detect the neurological changes that precede consciousness, yes. Minutes or hours before external signs appear.” You pause. “It will give you warning. Time to prepare.”
“Time to panic, you mean.” But there’s no humor in her voice, just flat acknowledgment.
Milan appears below—the city sprawling in winter light, the Duomo’s spires visible even from altitude. The landing is smooth. The car is waiting as promised, a dark Mercedes that looks expensive but not ostentatious. The drive to Ospedale San Raffaele takes twenty minutes through midday traffic.
Alicia’s breathing changes as the hospital comes into view. Shorter. Shallower. Her hands grip the edge of the seat.
“I can’t do this,” she says suddenly. “I can’t walk back in there. I can’t see him like that again—the tubes, the machines, the way he looks like Bobby but isn’t Bobby, just a body being kept alive by technology.”
You reach across and cover her hand with yours. “You can. Because this time you’re not walking in to say goodbye. You’re walking in to take him home.”
She stares at your hand on hers, then nods once, sharp and decisive. “Okay. Okay. Let’s do this before I lose my nerve.”
The hospital’s main entrance is exactly as you remember from two nights ago—the same security guard at the desk, the same antiseptic smell, the same fluorescent lighting that makes everyone look slightly ill. Hypatia leads the way with confident familiarity, navigating corridors with the ease of someone who has memorized the layout. Alicia walks between you and Hypatia, her spine rigid, her face carefully blank.
The elevator ride to the third floor is eternal. The neurology wing is quiet—visiting hours, a few families speaking in hushed Italian, nurses moving with practiced efficiency. Room 307 is at the end of the corridor, the door partially open.
Alicia stops three feet from the threshold. You can see her throat working, her hands clenched into fists. Hypatia waits without prompting, understanding that this moment can’t be rushed.
“He’s in there,” Alicia whispers. “Right now. Bobby is right there.” She doesn’t move.
“Yes,” you confirm quietly. “He is.”
She takes one step. Another. Reaches the doorway and stops again, her hand on the frame as if she needs physical support. You move up beside her, close enough that she knows you’re there.
The room is small and clinical. Medical equipment crowds the space—monitors displaying vital signs, an IV stand, a ventilator breathing for the patient with mechanical precision. And in the bed, pale and still and impossibly fragile-looking, is Bobby Western.
He looks nothing like the photographs you’ve seen—not the young racer Alicia remembers, not the weathered exile from 2006. This Bobby is suspended in between, his face slack with unconsciousness, his dark hair longer than he probably wore it, a breathing tube obscuring his features. The monitors show steady heartbeat, stable oxygen levels, brain activity that the doctors have been reading as futile persistence rather than healing potential.
Alicia makes a sound—something between a sob and a gasp—and stumbles into the room. She doesn’t go to the bed immediately. Instead she stands in the middle of the floor, staring at her brother as if she’s seeing a ghost.
“Bobby,” she says, and her voice breaks on his name. “Bobby, I’m here. I came back. I’m so sorry I left but I’m here now and we’re taking you home.”
The monitors continue their steady rhythm. Bobby doesn’t move, doesn’t respond, gives no sign he can hear her. Alicia takes another step toward the bed, then another, until she’s standing right beside him. Her hand hovers over his, trembling, before she finally touches him—fingers on the back of his hand, gentle as if he might break.
“You’re so thin,” she whispers. “They haven’t been feeding you properly. Your hands are cold.” She looks back at you, her face stricken. “Why are his hands cold? Is that normal? Is something wrong?”
“Poor circulation from immobility,” Hypatia says gently, moving to check the monitors. “His vitals are stable. Everything is functioning as expected for his condition.”
Alicia turns back to Bobby, her hand still on his. “I bought you a house, Bobby. A beautiful house with a garden and sunlight and a room where you can recover properly. Jon and Hypatia are going to help us. They have equipment that can monitor you better than this hospital ever could.” She’s crying now, tears streaming down her face. “You just have to keep holding on. Just a few more months. April twenty-seventh. That’s when you wake up. Jon told me. He came from the future and he told me you wake up, so you have to. You have to prove him right.”
She leans down, her forehead nearly touching Bobby’s shoulder, her voice dropping to a whisper you can barely hear. “I need you, Bobby. I know that’s selfish. I know I should want you to wake up for your own sake, not mine. But I need you. I’ve needed you since I was twelve years old and Mom died and the world broke open. You’re the only person who ever made sense. The only person I could talk to. The only person I loved who loved me back without conditions or questions or fear.”
The monitors continue their rhythm. The ventilator breathes. Bobby remains motionless, his face slack, his body a vessel waiting for its occupant to return.
You move to the other side of the bed, giving Alicia space but maintaining presence. Hypatia stands near the door, ready to alert if staff approach.
“We have the transfer authorization,” you say quietly. “Marchesi signed it. The transport is arranged. We can take him whenever you’re ready.”
Alicia straightens slowly, wiping her face with the back of her hand. She looks at Bobby for a long moment, then at you. “I’m ready. Let’s bring him home before I fall apart completely.”
Page 34
You step into the corridor and approach the nearest nurses’ station, where a middle-aged nurse in a crisp white uniform is updating patient charts. She looks up as you approach, her expression shifting to mild concern—visitors asking questions always mean extra work.
“Buongiorno,” you say, your Italian flawless from decades spent in various centuries of the peninsula’s history. “We’re here for the transfer of Roberto Western from room 307. Dr. Marchesi authorized it yesterday evening. We need to coordinate the preparation for transport.”
The nurse frowns, flipping through papers. “Transfer? I don’t have any notes about—” She stops, finding something. “Ah, yes. Here. Authorized last night, very late. Transport scheduled for ten o’clock.” She checks her watch. “That’s in twenty-five minutes. You’re cutting it close.”
“We’re aware,” Hypatia says smoothly, materializing beside you with a leather portfolio. “I’m Dr. Chen, the coordinating neurologist. We have all the necessary documentation. What do we need to do to prepare the patient for safe transport?”
The nurse’s skepticism softens slightly at Hypatia’s professional demeanor. “The ventilator needs to be switched to a portable unit. IV lines secured for movement. Patient repositioned on the transport board. You have your own medical equipment?”
“State of the art,” Hypatia confirms. “The aircraft is equipped with full life support. We’ll need approximately fifteen minutes for the transfer procedure itself.”
The nurse nods, making notes. “I’ll get Dr. Marchesi. He’ll want to oversee this personally, given the circumstances.” She picks up the phone, speaking rapid Italian.
You return to room 307. Alicia hasn’t moved from Bobby’s bedside. She’s holding his hand now with both of hers, speaking to him in a low murmur you can’t quite make out. Her face is blotchy from crying but her voice is steady.
“They’re preparing everything,” you tell her. “Twenty minutes and we can take him home.”
She nods without looking up. “I’m telling him about the mansion. About the magnolia trees. About how his room has windows that face east so he’ll wake up with sunlight.” A pause. “I don’t know if he can hear me. But I can’t stop talking. If I stop talking I’ll start screaming.”
Dr. Marchesi arrives within five minutes, looking more rested than when you saw him two nights ago but still carrying the weight of a man who hasn’t fully processed an unexpected decision. He nods to you, to Hypatia, then moves to check Bobby’s monitors with practiced efficiency.
“Vitals are stable,” he says in accented English. “No changes since last night. The portable ventilator is being prepared. You understand the risks of transport? Any complication, any deterioration, and you may not reach appropriate medical care in time.”
“We understand,” Alicia says, her voice sharp. “And we have appropriate medical care. Better than appropriate.”
Marchesi’s jaw tightens but he doesn’t argue. “Very well. Nurse Rossini will coordinate with your team. I’ll observe to ensure proper procedure.” He looks at Bobby, something complicated crossing his face. “I hope I’m wrong about his prognosis. Truly. But if I’m right—if he doesn’t wake—you’ll have the comfort of knowing you tried everything.”
Alicia’s hands tighten on Bobby’s. “He’ll wake. April twenty-seventh. Mark your calendar.”
Marchesi says nothing, but you see the pity in his eyes. The certainty that this young woman is setting herself up for devastating disappointment. He doesn’t know what you know. He can’t imagine what you’ve seen.
The next fifteen minutes are controlled chaos. Two nurses wheel in equipment—a portable ventilator, a transfer board, additional IV stands. Hypatia moves with them, her medical knowledge perfect, her hands steady as she helps transition Bobby from the hospital’s ventilator to the portable unit. The machine hisses and clicks, taking over the rhythm of breathing.
Alicia has to step back to give them room. She stands against the wall, arms wrapped around herself, watching every movement with fierce attention as if she could keep Bobby alive through sheer force of will.
“Heart rate steady,” one nurse reports. “Oxygen saturation ninety-eight percent. No distress.”
They slide Bobby onto the transfer board with practiced care, supporting his head, securing the lines. He looks impossibly fragile—a collection of tubes and monitors and pale skin, more medical equipment than person. But his chest rises and falls with mechanical precision. His heart beats. He persists.
“We’re ready,” Hypatia says, looking at you. “The aircraft is ten minutes away. We can move him to the ambulance entrance.”
Marchesi signs a final form, his handwriting tight and controlled. “The authorization is complete. He’s officially discharged into your care.” He looks at Alicia. “I wish you luck, Miss Western. I genuinely do.”
Alicia doesn’t thank him. She just nods once, then moves back to Bobby’s side as they begin wheeling the bed toward the door. Her hand finds his again, holding on as if she could anchor him to consciousness through touch alone.
The corridor seems longer on the way out. Other patients, other families, other stories of illness and hope and despair. The elevator is large enough for the bed and equipment. The descent feels like falling.
The ambulance entrance is at the back of the hospital, away from the main entrance. The Mercedes is there, and beyond it, a medical transport vehicle that Hypatia has arranged—period appropriate exterior, future technology interior. The December air is cold, sharp, real.
They load Bobby into the transport with efficient care. Hypatia climbs in with him, immediately interfacing with the monitoring systems. You help Alicia into the passenger section, where she can sit beside her brother but stay out of the way of the equipment.
The transport pulls away from Ospedale San Raffaele. Through the window, you see Marchesi standing at the ambulance entrance, watching. He raises one hand in something between a wave and a benediction, then turns and walks back inside.
Alicia is crying again, silently, her hand still gripping Bobby’s. “We did it,” she whispers. “We actually did it. We’re taking him home.”
The drive to the airfield takes thirty minutes through Milan traffic. Bobby’s vitals remain stable. The portable ventilator performs flawlessly. Hypatia monitors everything with the attention of someone who has computed a thousand possible complications and is ready for each one.
At the airfield, the aircraft waits with its stairs extended. The transfer is smooth—bed, equipment, Bobby, all moved with practiced care into the medical bay that Hypatia has prepared. The space is larger than it should be, the equipment more sophisticated, but everything is positioned to look plausible if anyone glances inside.
Alicia straps herself into the seat beside Bobby’s bed. She hasn’t let go of his hand since they left the hospital. You take the seat across from her, close enough to be present.
Hypatia moves to the cockpit. The engines engage with a low hum. The aircraft taxies, accelerates, lifts. Milan falls away below, becoming a map, then a memory.
Alicia looks at you, her face exhausted and fierce and grateful and terrified all at once. “How long until we’re home?”
“Two hours,” you tell her. “Maybe less. Hypatia’s flying.”
She nods and turns back to Bobby, her thumb moving in small circles on the back of his hand. “Two hours,” she repeats. “Then he’ll be in his room. In his bed. Where he belongs.”
The flight is smooth. The monitors show steady rhythms. Bobby breathes with mechanical assistance, his face peaceful in unconsciousness. Alicia talks to him—about the mansion, about the garden, about the mathematical equipment waiting for her, about April twenty-seventh and the future beyond it. She talks until her voice goes hoarse, then keeps talking anyway.
You watch her watching him, and you think about all the ways people try to hold on to each other across impossible distances. Time. Space. Consciousness itself. The architecture of connection built from hope and stubbornness and love that refuses to acknowledge defeat.
Land appears below—the American coastline, then farmland, then the familiar shape of Mississippi. The descent begins. Alicia’s grip on Bobby tightens.
“Almost home,” she whispers to him. “Almost home, Bobby. Just hold on a little longer.”
The landing is gentle. The airfield is private, isolated. The transport vehicle Hypatia arranged is waiting—another anonymous medical van that will draw no attention on rural roads. The transfer from aircraft to vehicle is efficient. Bobby never stops breathing. The monitors never falter.
The drive to the mansion takes forty minutes through winter countryside. Alicia sits in the back with Bobby, still holding his hand, still talking. You sit up front with Hypatia, who is driving with one hand while her other hand rests on the dashboard, interfacing with systems you can’t see.
“The medical bay is ready,” Hypatia says quietly. “The bed is calibrated to his baseline from the hospital records. Neural monitoring is active. Everything is prepared.”
The mansion appears—white columns, magnolia trees, the home Alicia chose. The van pulls around to the side entrance, where the basement access is hidden behind landscaping. Hypatia has arranged it so Bobby can be brought directly to the medical bay without navigating stairs.
The transfer is the last one. Bed, equipment, Bobby, all moved with infinite care down the ramp Hypatia has installed, through the reinforced door, into the command center that didn’t exist four days ago. The medical bay is warm, well-lit, serene. The bed from 2046 waits, its surface already configured to Bobby’s dimensions.
They move him from the transport bed to the medical bed with practiced synchronization. Hypatia connects the monitoring systems, transitions the ventilator, checks every line and tube and connection. The bed accepts Bobby’s weight and immediately begins its work—subtle movements to prevent pressure sores, neural sensors reading brain activity, displays showing data that won’t be understood by conventional medicine for decades.
Alicia stands at the foot of the bed, watching. Her face is gray with exhaustion. She’s been awake for more than twenty hours, most of them spent in a state of controlled terror. But she’s smiling—a small, fragile, genuine smile.
“He’s home,” she says. “Bobby’s home.”
The monitors show steady vitals. The bed hums softly, a sound like distant music. Bobby lies still and pale and impossibly precious in his sister’s eyes.
You move to stand beside Alicia. She leans against you without thinking about it, her weight settling as if she’s finally allowing herself to feel how tired she is.
“What happens now?” she asks.
“Now you rest,” you say. “Bobby is safe. The bed will monitor him. Hypatia will alert us to any changes. You’ve done everything you needed to do. Now you let yourself breathe.”
She looks up at you, her eyes red-rimmed and exhausted. “I don’t know how to rest. I don’t remember what that feels like.”
“Then we’ll teach you,” Hypatia says from where she’s adjusting the final settings. “One day at a time. One hour at a time. However long it takes.”
Page 35
You put your hand on Alicia’s shoulder, firm but gentle. “Upstairs,” you say. “Your bed. You need actual sleep, not another vigil.”
She stiffens. “I can’t leave him. Not yet. What if something happens—”
“Then Hypatia and I will come get you immediately.” You turn her to face you, meeting her eyes. “Alicia. You’ve been awake for more than twenty hours. You held his hand through two countries and an ocean. You brought him home. Now you need to let yourself rest or you’ll collapse.”
Her jaw sets in that stubborn line you’ve come to recognize. “I’ll rest here. I can sleep in the chair—”
“No.” Hypatia’s voice is kind but absolute. “Your body needs horizontal rest in a proper bed. The medical bay needs to remain sterile and uncluttered. And frankly, you need space from the monitoring equipment. This room is designed for patient care, not for family members to exhaust themselves keeping vigil.”
Alicia looks between you and Hypatia, then back at Bobby. The bed hums softly, displays showing neural patterns in colors she probably doesn’t understand yet. “What if he wakes up and I’m not here?”
“He won’t wake tonight,” you say gently. “And if by some miracle he does, you’ll be the first person we bring to him. But Alicia—he’s not going to wake for months. You know this. Hypatia and I can monitor him. We can interpret the data. You need to sleep.”
She’s wavering. You can see it in the way her shoulders sag, the way her eyes keep losing focus. Pure adrenaline has been holding her upright for hours and it’s finally depleting.
“I don’t want to be alone,” she says quietly. “If I go upstairs alone I’ll just lie there thinking about everything that could go wrong.”
You exchange a glance with Hypatia. “I’ll walk you up,” you offer. “Make sure you’re settled. Then I’ll come back down here.”
Alicia nods slowly. She moves to Bobby’s bedside one more time, touching his hand. “I’ll be right upstairs,” she tells him. “Jon and Hypatia are going to watch over you. I’ll see you in the morning.” She leans down and kisses his forehead, her lips barely brushing his skin. “Sleep well, Bobby.”
The walk upstairs feels longer than it should. Alicia moves like someone underwater, each step requiring conscious effort. The mansion is quiet around you—no staff, no witnesses, just the two of you climbing toward the residential wing.
Her bedroom is the master suite on the ground floor east wing, the one with morning light and large windows. The bed is made with linens from 2046—soft beyond anything 1972 can produce, temperature-regulating, designed for comfort. You’d prepared it yesterday while she was in the simulation.
Alicia stands in the doorway, staring at the bed as if it’s a foreign object. “I don’t remember the last time I slept in a real bed,” she says. “Stella Maris had those institutional things. Before that… I don’t know. Months.”
“This one’s yours,” you tell her. “For as long as you want it.”
She moves to the bed slowly, sits on the edge. Tests the mattress with one hand. “It’s soft.” She sounds almost suspicious.
“It’s supposed to be.” You pull back the covers. “Lie down. I’ll stay until you’re settled.”
She complies with the mechanical obedience of someone too tired to argue. Lies back against the pillows, still fully dressed in the dark wool dress she wore to Milan. Her eyes are already half-closed.
“Jon,” she says as you pull the covers over her. “Thank you. For everything. For believing Bobby would wake. For believing I was worth saving. For not giving up when I was ready to walk into the woods.”
Your throat tightens. “You were always worth it, Alicia. Always.”
She’s asleep before you finish speaking, her breathing evening out into the deep rhythm of true exhaustion. You watch her for a moment—this brilliant, broken, fierce young woman who chose to keep living when every part of her wanted to stop. Her face in sleep looks impossibly young, the lines of tension smoothing away.
You turn off the bedside lamp and leave the door slightly ajar so you’ll hear if she calls out. Then you make your way back down to the basement command center.
Hypatia is standing before the medical bay’s main display, her eyes tracking data streams that update in real time. Bobby lies motionless in the bed, his chest rising and falling with mechanical precision. The ventilator hisses softly. The neural monitors paint complex patterns across multiple screens.
“How is he?” you ask, moving to stand beside her.
“Stable,” Hypatia says. “Vitals are excellent. The bed has already begun the movement protocols—micro-adjustments to prevent pressure sores and muscle atrophy. His body is responding well.” She gestures to one of the screens. “This is the interesting part.”
The display shows what looks like a topographical map rendered in shifting colors—peaks and valleys of electrical activity, patterns that pulse and flow like living things. “Neural activity,” Hypatia explains. “This is Bobby’s consciousness, or what remains of it during the coma. The bed’s sensors are far more sophisticated than anything 1972 medicine can produce. They can detect not just activity levels but patterns that correlate with emotional states.”
You study the display. “What is he feeling?”
“That’s the fascinating question.” Hypatia zooms in on a section of the map where colors swirl in complex eddies. “The patterns suggest awareness at some level—not conscious thought as we understand it, but something. The bed’s AI has been analyzing the data since we installed him. It’s detecting emotional signatures.”
She pulls up another screen, this one showing a timeline with color-coded bands. “Here’s what we’re seeing. Baseline anxiety—that’s the amber band, present almost constantly. It correlates with the stress response his body is experiencing from the trauma and the coma state itself. But look here—” She points to irregular spikes of deep blue. “These appeared when Alicia was talking to him. At the hospital. In the transport. Just now when she said goodnight.”
“What does blue mean?”
“The system interprets it as recognition. Connection. Something in his neural patterns responds to her voice, her presence. He can’t wake, can’t respond, but some part of him knows she’s there.” Hypatia’s voice carries a note of wonder. “It’s not consciousness. It’s something more primitive. The brain stem, the limbic system—the parts that handle attachment and safety and love. Those parts are still active. They’re still reaching for her.”
You feel something catch in your chest. “So when she talks to him, he hears her?”
“Hears is probably the wrong word. Perceives might be better. His auditory cortex shows activity when she speaks, but it’s not processing language the way a conscious mind would. It’s more like… recognition of a familiar pattern. The sound of her voice is encoded so deeply in his neural architecture that even in this state, it registers as important. As safe.” Hypatia looks at you. “She’s his anchor. Even now.”
You study the displays in silence for a long moment. Bobby’s face is peaceful in the bed’s soft lighting, giving no external sign of the complex processes happening beneath his skull. “Can you predict when he’ll wake?”
“Not with precision.” Hypatia calls up another set of data—graphs showing gradual upward trends. “But I can track the healing. Brain swelling is decreasing. Neural pathways that were damaged are beginning to show signs of reorganization—the brain routing around injury, finding new connections. It’s slow. Glacial. But it’s happening.”
“April twenty-seventh,” you say. “That’s what Bobby told me in 2006. He said he woke up on April twenty-seventh, 1973.”
“Four months from now.” Hypatia nods. “The trajectory I’m seeing is consistent with that timeline. Barring complications, his neural recovery should reach a threshold sometime in mid-to-late April where consciousness becomes possible again.” She pauses. “But Jon—when he wakes, we don’t know what he’ll be like. Brain injuries are unpredictable. He might be exactly who he was before the crash. Or he might be… different.”
“Alicia knows that,” you say. “She’s terrified of it.”
“She should be.” Hypatia’s voice is gentle but honest. “The Bobby who wakes might not be the Bobby she remembers. He might not be the Bobby who understood her, who made her feel less alone. He might be confused, damaged, fundamentally altered. And she’ll have to love him anyway—or learn to let him go.”
You turn away from the displays to look at Hypatia directly. “What do you think will happen? When he wakes?”
She’s quiet for a moment, her gray eyes thoughtful. “I think he’ll remember her. I think the connection I’m seeing in these neural patterns is too deep to be erased by trauma. But I don’t know if he’ll be able to be what she needs. The kind of love she has for him—it’s enormous. Consuming. It needs someone who can hold that weight without breaking under it. The Bobby from before the crash could barely manage it. The Bobby who wakes… we’ll have to see.”
The medical bay is quiet except for the soft sounds of machinery. The bed continues its work, moving Bobby in micro-increments, monitoring every function, keeping him alive and healing while the months tick down toward April.
“She’s going to spend the next four months in a state of suspended terror,” you say. “Waiting for him to wake. Hoping he’ll be himself. Fearing he won’t.”
“Yes,” Hypatia agrees. “Unless we give her something else to focus on. The mathematics interface. Projects. Experiences that remind her she exists as more than just Bobby’s sister.” She looks at the ceiling, toward where Alicia sleeps. “She needs to build a life that can stand on its own. So that when Bobby wakes—whatever he’s like—she isn’t entirely dependent on him for her sense of self.”
You nod slowly. It’s the work of the next four months. Not just keeping Bobby alive and healing, but helping Alicia discover who she is when she’s not defined entirely by her love for her brother.
The displays continue their quiet work, painting Bobby’s consciousness in colors and patterns. The deep blue spikes have faded now that Alicia is gone, settling back into the baseline amber of coma-state anxiety. But they were there. They were real. Some part of him knows she exists, even in the dark.
“I’ll take first watch,” you tell Hypatia. “You should rest too, if you want. Or work on other projects.”
“I don’t require sleep,” she reminds you with a slight smile. “But I’ll give you space. I have some calculations to run about the mathematics interface—I want to design some custom exercises for Alicia based on the work she was doing before Stella Maris. Something to ease her back into the flow state.” She pauses at the doorway. “Call me if anything changes. Even the smallest shift in his neural patterns.”
“I will.”
She leaves, and you’re alone with Bobby Western’s sleeping form and the machines that breathe for him and the monitors that paint his mind in colors he’ll never see. You settle into the chair Alicia refused, the one positioned where you can watch both the patient and the displays.
Four months. That’s what stands between this moment and the day Bobby opens his eyes. Four months of vigil and waiting and helping Alicia build a life strong enough to survive whatever comes next.
You’ve lived through centuries. You can handle four months.
The bed hums. The ventilator breathes. The displays paint their patterns. And somewhere above you, Alicia sleeps in a real bed for the first time in longer than she can remember, trusting you to keep watch over the brother she loves more than her own life.
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You sit in the chair beside Bobby’s bed, watching the neural displays paint their quiet patterns. The amber baseline anxiety. The occasional flicker of activity that might mean nothing or might mean everything. The bed continues its work—micro-movements, monitoring, the patient care that will sustain him through four months of waiting.
But Alicia won’t spend those months only waiting. She needs more than vigil and hope. She needs the things that made her feel alive before grief and visitors and institutional walls narrowed her world to a single fixed point.
You activate your neural interface, reaching across time to 2046. Hypatia responds immediately, her presence a warm clarity in your mind.
“I need you to do something,” you tell her. “Something that can’t wait until morning.”
“I’m listening.”
“Alicia needs her music back. Not just any violin—she needs an instrument that feels like coming home. Her Stradivarius is in storage somewhere, but I want to give her something else. Something impossible.” You pause, forming the idea fully before speaking it. “Go to Cremona. 1710. Find Antonio Stradivari’s workshop. Acquire one of his instruments fresh from his hands—before time and use have changed it. Before it becomes a museum piece or an investment. I want Alicia to have a violin that still remembers being made.”
Hypatia’s response carries a note of delighted interest. “You want me to steal from Stradivari himself?”
“I want you to buy from him. Pay him well enough that he can take a month off and do nothing but perfect his craft. Make it a transaction he’ll remember fondly.” You look at Bobby’s sleeping form. “Alicia gave away everything before Stella Maris. Her possessions, her connections, her future. I want to give her back the thing she loves second-most in the world. The thing that might help her remember she exists as more than Bobby’s sister.”
“Understood.” There’s a pause while Hypatia calculates. “I’ll need four hours. Travel to 1710, locate the workshop, negotiate the purchase, return to 2046 to brief the retrieval team, then bring it back to 1972. I’ll also need to acquire period-appropriate bow, rosin, and case—Stradivari’s workshop standards, not modern reproductions.”
“Take whatever time you need. Just have it ready before she wakes.”
“Consider it done.”
The connection fades. You’re alone again with Bobby and the machines. The clock on the wall reads 1:17 AM. December 27th, 1972. Alicia has been asleep for just over two hours.
You settle deeper into the chair, your eyes moving between Bobby’s face and the neural displays. The patterns are stable. Healing continues at its glacial pace. The brain routes around damage, finds new pathways, reorganizes itself with the stubborn persistence of biological systems that refuse to surrender.
The deep blue spikes that appeared when Alicia spoke to him—those fascinate you. Recognition. Connection. Some primitive part of his neural architecture that knows her presence matters, even when consciousness itself is absent. You’ve seen many things across fifteen centuries, but the architecture of love—the way it encodes itself so deeply that even brain damage can’t fully erase it—that still moves you.
Time passes. The medical bay is warm, quiet, serene. The bed hums. The ventilator breathes. The displays paint their patterns in colors that won’t be understood by conventional medicine for decades.
At 3:42 AM, you feel Hypatia’s presence again through the neural interface. “I’m back,” she says. “The transaction went smoothly. Stradivari was surprised but pleased—I paid him three times his asking price and told him it was for a young woman of extraordinary talent who would honor his work. He chose the instrument himself from his current inventory. A violin completed just last month. He says it has a voice like clear water over stone.”
“Where are you?”
“In the treasury room. I didn’t want to materialize in the medical bay and risk disturbing the equipment. Should I bring it to you, or wait until Alicia wakes?”
“Bring it now. I want to see it.”
Minutes later, Hypatia enters the medical bay carrying a wooden case that looks simultaneously ancient and brand new. The wood is dark, polished, unmarked by time or use. She sets it on the desk and opens it with careful reverence.
The violin inside is extraordinary. The varnish glows amber-gold in the medical bay’s lighting, the grain of the wood visible beneath like veins beneath skin. The instrument looks alive—not metaphorically, but actually alive, as if it’s still breathing the air of Stradivari’s workshop. There are no scratches, no wear marks, no evidence of the centuries it should have survived. It exists in a state of perfect newness that will never come again once time begins to touch it.
“He made this in December 1710,” Hypatia says quietly. “Three hundred and sixty-two years before this moment, in a workshop that smelled of wood shavings and varnish. He told me it was one of his finest recent works—the proportions exact, the wood selection perfect. He was proud of it.”
You reach out, not quite touching the instrument. “And you paid him well?”
“Very well. Enough that he looked at me like I might be mad, then accepted before I could change my mind.” She smiles slightly. “He asked me to tell the young woman that the violin will sing for her if she treats it with respect and love. He said his instruments know the difference between players who understand them and players who only want to possess them.”
“Alicia will understand it,” you say with certainty. “She understands beauty at a level most people can’t access.”
Hypatia closes the case gently. “Where should I put it? Her bedroom?”
“The music room. The one on the second floor with the good acoustics.” You’d noticed it during your initial survey of the mansion—a parlor with high ceilings and hardwood floors that would resonate beautifully. “Set it up there with everything she needs. When she wakes, I’ll tell her it’s waiting.”
“And the augmented reality mathematics interface?”
“Keep that in the basement for now. Let her find the violin first. Let her remember that part of herself before we introduce the tools that will change how she thinks about mathematics.” You look at Bobby’s sleeping form. “She needs to remember she’s more than her grief and her love for him. Music might be the way back to that.”
Hypatia nods and leaves with the case. You hear her footsteps ascending the stairs, then silence.
The medical bay returns to its quiet rhythms. Bobby breathes. The monitors display their data. The bed performs its subtle choreography of care.
At 5:23 AM, you hear movement upstairs. Footsteps—hesitant at first, then more purposeful. Alicia is awake. You’d expected her to sleep longer, but grief and anxiety don’t respect the body’s need for rest.
She appears in the doorway of the medical bay minutes later, wearing the same dark wool dress from yesterday, her hair uncombed, her face creased from the pillow. She looks rumpled and young and worried.
“I woke up and didn’t know where I was,” she says. “Then I remembered. Everything.” Her eyes go immediately to Bobby. “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine. Stable. No changes.” You gesture to the displays. “The bed is monitoring everything. His vitals are excellent.”
She moves to Bobby’s bedside, touching his hand. The neural displays immediately show a spike of deep blue—recognition, connection, the primitive response to her presence. She doesn’t notice the screens, too focused on her brother’s face.
“I slept,” she says, sounding almost surprised. “Actually slept. I don’t remember dreaming.” She looks at you. “How long have you been down here?”
“All night. Someone needed to keep watch.”
“You should sleep too. You can’t just—” She stops, seeming to remember that you’re not bound by normal human limitations. “Right. Time traveler. You probably don’t need sleep the way normal people do.”
“I need it eventually. But I’m fine for now.” You stand, stretching muscles that have been still for hours. “Alicia, there’s something upstairs I want to show you. Something that arrived while you were sleeping.”
She frowns, suspicious. “What kind of something?”
“The kind that can’t be explained. The kind you need to see.” You offer your hand. “Come with me. Bobby will be fine for ten minutes.”
She hesitates, her hand still on Bobby’s. Then she nods and follows you out of the medical bay, up the stairs, through the mansion’s quiet corridors. Dawn is beginning to show through the windows—pale gray light that will eventually become morning.
You lead her to the second-floor music room. The door is closed. You open it and step aside, letting her enter first.
The room is beautiful in the dawn light—high ceilings, hardwood floors, windows that face east. And on a stand in the center of the room, perfectly positioned, perfectly lit: the violin case from Stradivari’s workshop.
Alicia stops in the doorway, frozen. Her eyes fix on the case. “What is that?”
“Open it and see.”
She moves forward slowly, like someone approaching something that might vanish if startled. Her hands shake slightly as she opens the case. The violin gleams in its bed of velvet, perfect and new and three hundred sixty-two years old.
Alicia makes a sound—half gasp, half sob. Her fingers hover over the instrument without touching it. “This is a Stradivarius,” she whispers. “This is—Jon, this can’t be—”
“It’s from Antonio Stradivari’s workshop. December 1710. Hypatia acquired it last night. Paid him well and brought it back for you.” You watch her face, seeing the disbelief and wonder and something like pain. “He said to tell you it will sing for you if you treat it with respect and love.”
Her hands are shaking harder now. She lifts the violin from the case with infinite care, holding it as if it might shatter. The wood is warm in the morning light. The varnish glows. The instrument looks alive in her hands.
“I gave away my violin,” she says, her voice breaking. “Before Stella Maris. I gave away everything. I didn’t think I’d need—” She stops, pressing her lips together hard. “I didn’t think I’d be alive long enough to play again.”
“You are alive. And you will play again.” You gesture to the room. “This space is yours. The acoustics are excellent. Everything you need is here—bow, rosin, music stand. Whenever you’re ready.”
She cradles the violin against her chest, her eyes closed. Tears slip down her cheeks. “I don’t remember how to play. I haven’t touched an instrument in months. My fingers—”
“Will remember. Muscle memory doesn’t vanish that quickly. And you have time. Four months until Bobby wakes. Time to remember who you are beyond grief and waiting.” You move to stand beside her. “You told me once that mathematics and music were sacred homelands. You need both of them, Alicia. Not just one.”
She opens her eyes, looking at the violin in her hands. “Why are you doing this? All of this? The mansion, the technology, Bobby, now this—why do you care so much?”
“Because Bobby asked me to. Because you deserve to live. Because I’ve walked through fifteen centuries alone and I know what isolation does to brilliant minds.” You meet her eyes. “And because I want to see what you become when you’re not spending all your energy trying to die.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, holding the violin. Then she sets it carefully back in its case and turns to face you fully. “I need to go back downstairs. To Bobby. I can’t—I can’t play right now. But I will. Soon. I promise.”
“That’s enough.” You close the case gently. “The violin will be here whenever you’re ready. No pressure. No expectations. Just the possibility.”
She nods and heads for the door, then stops and looks back. “Thank you. For the violin. For everything. For believing I could be more than the person who was going to freeze to death in the woods.”
“You were always more than that, Alicia.”
She leaves, her footsteps quick on the stairs, returning to Bobby’s bedside where she feels safest. You stay in the music room for a moment, looking at the violin case in the growing dawn light.
Four months. That’s what you have. Four months to help Alicia remember she’s a mathematician, a musician, a person with interests and passions beyond her brother. Four months to build a foundation strong enough to survive whatever version of Bobby wakes in April.
The violin waits, patient and perfect. When she’s ready, it will sing for her. Until then, it’s enough that it exists—a promise of beauty, a reminder of who she was and who she might become again.
That’ll be it for this run of the Alicia scenario. It hasn’t finished naturally; in fact, we were still in the first beat of the third act. But I’ve vastly improved my app’s architecture in a way that would have produced this story differently, so I want to test out other stuff.
The Domains of the Emperor Owl 