In my mind, I saw it all again. Helios, terrified, clamped to Leon, and refusing to let go. Leon, his blue eyes bright with desperation for Helios and then cold with contempt for me. A silent pod. Just the sound of his heavy breathing. I pulled a gun on him and I would have used it. He went ahead and saved Helios anyway. Behind my back. We never spoke again. Then he died.
It tumbled out in a rush of badly chosen words and jerky sentences and when I had finished, I shut up because I was afraid of what would come next. There was no good way out of this. Would he condemn my actions? I would understand if he did because I condemned my actions. Or would he tell me the same thing had happened in this world and once again, I would have to make a choice about what to do. What to say.
I tried to take a breath, but it came out as a deep, shuddering sigh. ‘I went to see Helios. Joe Nelson, I should say. I told him I’d made a mistake. I apologised. It was little enough, but it was all I could do.’
He nodded and then said, ‘What would you say if I told you I’d done the same thing here? That I had lifted Helios out of Troy and taken him to safety. That I’d done the same as your Leon. What would you say?’
There is a time in everyone’s life when they wish either they had or hadn’t said something. Very few people get a second chance. A chance to unsay the wrong words and replace them with the right ones. The words they should have said.
‘I would say, “I wish I had your compassion. That if it happened to me, I hope I could find the strength to do what you did. But I’m afraid I wouldn’t.”’
The words hung between us. Without knowing why, I’d said something important. For a moment, I thought he might say something. I waited, but that moment passed.
A little hesitantly and not without some emotion, we talked of our deaths.
‘Leon, how did I die?’
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand my question.
‘An accident. A stupid, stupid accident.’
‘You mean I didn’t die on the job?’
‘If you mean, was it a work-related fatality – no.’
‘You said they found me in my office so I assumed …’
‘Oh. Sorry. Yes, you were at work, but not bounding around the timeline endangering life and limb. You were actually at St Mary’s, where you were supposed to be safe.’
‘What happened?’
‘It was stupid,’ he said again, angrily. ‘A bird’s nest or something fell down your chimney. And then, over the weeks, a ton of soot and rubbish accumulated on top of it and one day you switched on your gas fire …’ He stopped.
I said nothing.
‘And there was no battery in your detector. It was sitting on the window sill.’
He was angry. Angry that I, of all people, should have done such a thing. I know my Leon had always chased around St Mary’s, yelling at people for disconnecting their alarms. People took them out because, they said, they kept going off and it’s very irritating when you’re trying to work. St Mary’s, sadly, has never made the link between the detectors going off and there actually being a reason for this happening.
Except for me. I’d always tried to show a little solidarity. Obviously, his Max hadn’t and it had cost her her life. That’s probably irony.
‘Why didn’t you return to the future?’
He and Dr Bairstow were from the future. Sent back to found St Mary’s and – I remembered – keep it and us, safe.
‘Many reasons. They would have reassigned me. You would have been even further away. I didn’t want to be in a world that didn’t have echoes of you bouncing around it …’ He tailed away.
‘But you didn’t stay at St Mary’s.’
‘No. No, I didn’t. I … We … I made myself the perfect life I wanted to have with you.’
Something in his voice made me look up. It hurt me to look at him. His face was so unutterably sad …
I said softly, ‘Leon …’ and he reached out for me.
We held hands in the dark, each taking and giving comfort to the other. His hands were warm and strong and rough. Just as I remembered.
I tried desperately to keep the exhaustion and fear from my voice. ‘Leon, how did this happen? How could it happen? Why am I here?’
‘I don’t know, love. I don’t have the physics for this. I’m not sure anyone does.’
‘Try.’
‘You mean explain physics to an historian? I don’t have any crayons.’
I said nothing in a way that could clearly be understood and he relented.
‘OK. Here’s our two lives, running parallel to each other, sometimes similar, sometimes not, but never touching. And then – something happens. Some event somewhere – maybe you weren’t supposed to die in this world, I don’t know – but somehow, our two worlds touched. Just briefly. Just long enough for a door to open and for you to step across into my world.’
He stopped for a moment, gripping my hands so tightly that it hurt.
Should I say anything about Mrs Partridge? But how would that help?
He was speaking again.
‘I will be forever grateful, eternally thankful that you did that. The door has closed now. I know you can’t ever go back, but – if you will let me – I will devote the rest of my life to making sure that you never, ever, for one moment, regret it.’
For some moments, there are no words.
And then we got going.
Chapter Six
Pompeii.