Chapter 12: Finally some answers?

March 12th, ????

The first thing that Rick was aware of, was the fact that he was in a lot of pain.The world came back to him slowly, and he thought he heard someone weeping. His eyes fluttered open, only to be blinded by a bright light.

The only thing he could see was white.

And then he remembered what had just happened.

He had been shot.

While… in a time coma…

Rick raised his head to look down at his stomach, but there was no injury. He was also in normal jeans and a t-shirt instead of the nasty seventies outfit he had on before. Slowly, he sat up, and it was then, that he realized the woman who had been leading him through this place was sitting down next to him, her back to him. She was also in what appeared to be some present day-ish blouse and jeans, her long straight black hair flowing down her back.

She was crying.

“M-Mary?” Rick asked a little hoarsely. Mary whirled around, her eyes red and puffy from the tears.

“You’re alive!!” she screamed, throwing her arms around him. Rick sat there awkwardly as she sobbed on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure what to do. He felt like he barely knew her, and yet here she was-risking her life for him.

“Um… Are we… close in the future?” he asked hesitantly. Mary drew back from him, wiping the tears from her eyes.

“Uh… Yes. I would say so.”

Rick stared hard at her, realizing that she did seem to have a sense of familiarity for some reason. He just couldn’t put his finger on what that was though. He looked around to see that the two of them were sitting in huge white expanse with nothing in sight.

“So… where are we?”

Mary sniffed and turned away from him, seemingly unable to hold back the tears.

“Hold on… Sorry… I’m just… I’m still kind of overwhelmed…”

Rick suddenly felt really bad for her as the recent events started coming back to him.

“I’m… I’m sorry I… ran off…” he apologized. “I was just… scared. I still am.”

Mary sighed. “I know Rick. I know…”

“Oh and… by the way… how am I… still alive?” Mary coughed.

“Well… I healed you. I wasn’t sure if it would work though. I’ve never healed someone in their own mind before.”

“You can heal people?” Rick asked incredulously. Mary managed a smile.

“What can I say? I’m advanced in my abilities.”

For some reason, Rick found himself giving her a small smile.

“Well… erm… thanks. For… you know, saving my life and all.”

“You’re welcome. Now please don’t go running off again.”

“Trust me. You do not have to worry about that anymore.”

Mary hiccuped, and then wiped more tears away. Then she stood up and held a hand out to him.

“What do you say we get you to wake up?” she asked with her familiar mischievous smile. Rick sighed and then allowed her to help him up.

“Where are we again?” he asked.

“We’re still in your mind. But, you were dying, so if you can imagine how…”

“Oh… So how do we get out of this?”

“Well do you remember anything else?”

Rick closed his eyes and reached back into his memories. The last thing he remembered at the moment was Cadi accidentally breaking a kid’s arm… He could feel himself getting closer and closer to the incident that put him in his current coma, but for some reason he still couldn’t remember it.

Without warning, the song “Wake me up before you Go Go” started to play, and he heard Mary scream in delight beside him, grabbing his arm.

“Rick!! You made it to the eighties! We’re so close! And I love this song!”

Rick opened his eyes to see that color was slowly starting to come back to the white world around him. He looked down to see now that he was a wearing a weird colorful shirt and his companion was wearing some large baggy sweater that came off her shoulder. Her bangs were curled, and her hair suddenly seemed huge. She smiled at him and grabbed him by the arm.

“Let’s get you out of here!” she exclaimed.

Whoosh!! The two of them ran along as their surroundings solidified to show that they were in a very eighties looking town, complete with a gym with odd shapes and color schemes, a 1984 Audi 500 parked at a run down gas station, and some advertisements for movies like the Goonies and the Breakfast Club.

And as he looked around, he started to realize that the town they were in looked suspiciously like Hill Valley from Back to the Future…

“So, I just have to find something that doesn’t fit in this time right?” he asked as they slowed down and started to walk around.

“Yeah. Either that, or find your sister.”

“Ok…”

The problem was, that all the times before, it had been fairly easy. But now…

What was here that didn’t belong?

“Mary? When did cell phones come out?” he asked suddenly, pointing to someone holding a large blocky cell phone.

“Well, the first one was made in 1973, but they didn’t start coming out commercially until ten years later, and-.”

“Ok-I get it…” Rick pouted, looking around.

He noticed a kid with a teenage mutant ninja turtle backpack, but that really boomed during the eighties so… He closed his eyes and tried to think back to all the times his parents had reminisced to the good old times of cassette tapes and “good movies.”

“I don’t know!!” he exasperated. “I can’t see anything that-”

Whoosh!!

Suddenly, without warning, a blast of cold wind blew through the town, and as Rick looked around, all of the people seemed to have vanished.

“What the-?”

Eerily, snow began to fall.

“What is going on?!” Rick lamented, creeped out by the empty town.

“Hmmm. I think since we’re so far along in the timeline of your coma, the times are starting to morph into your memories…”

The cold wind started to blow harder, causing the two of them to shiver.

“But what’s so significant about snow?” he asked, rubbing his arms, his breath coming out in a little cloud.

“Don’t you remember what brought you out of the 1800’s? You and Cadi running through the woods?”

“Yeah, but that was just the setting. Why is the snow so significant?”

At this, Mary looked a little confused.

“Why do you think the snow is significant?”

Why?

Because…

Wait-why did he think the snow was significant?

Rick was silent as the snowfall became heavier.

“I-I don’t know… It’s just a feeling I guess…”

For a moment, Mary still looked confused, and then something seemed to dawn on her.

“Oh…. OH. Crap.” she muttered, her eyes wide. Rick eyed her suspiciously.

“What?”

Mary bit her lip and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him into one of the abandoned stores and out of the snow.

“Um… I can’t… tell you…”

Rick gaped at her. Hadn’t they just had an argument like this that led to him running away and almost dying?!

“What do you mean you can’t tell me?!”

Mary wrung her hands.

“You-you have to understand Rick… I… I have to protect all of existence. If I tell you parts of your future, it could alter things, and we’d have some major paradoxes on our hands.”

“What would a paradox do anyways?”

“I don’t know! I’ve never let one happen!!”

Rick narrowed his eyes and grabbed a jacket off of one of the racks beside him.

“What-so you’re saying I don’t get to choose my own path? That I’m destined to do whatever you want me to? Just cause you say to?!?”

“That’s not what I’m saying!!” Mary exasperated, flushed and frustrated. “Of course you make your own decisions!! But there are certain pockets in the time stream that are destined! If you know too much, you could alter things and then-.”

“And then what?”

Mary stared at him, a mix of emotions showing on her face. He could tell she was angry, but she also looked… scared? And sad?

“Rick, if you don’t do as I tell you, a lot of people could cease to exist.”

“Why?”

“Because… Of some things you’re going to do in the past.”

Rick was not expecting this. He blinked, a bit taken aback.

“I-I go into the past?! Like-like how you’re from the future and-and then I-.”

Mary groaned and pinched her nose.

“Ok look. I’ll explain one more thing to you and then we have to continue on and get you to wake up. Ok?”

“Only one thing?”

“ONLY ONE THING.”

“Ok Ok! Geez. Can I at least ask the question?”

“Fine. As long as it’s reasonable.”

Rick thought for a moment, his mind racing. What should he ask her? He still had a million questions and was still worried about what was going to happen. What would be the thing that would help him trust her the most?

“Ok-so… how do you know these things would even cause a paradox?” he asked finally.

Mary sighed, and then took a deep breath, looking very tired.

“So, this is going to be hard to explain, so bear with me.”

Rick folded his arms expectantly.

“In the timeline, there are certain events that need to be set, otherwise, it would create a paradox. Everything else can go along as it wants to as long as it doesn’t affect those events. For example, I didn’t expect your parents to find out about your powers so fast. That was not anticipated, but fine. The problem would have been what they would have decided with the scientists. That’s why I wrote that letter. Your father would have decided to confront Harry and Emille, and… in the process… your parents would have been killed, which would have completely altered your future, thus altering… a set event that is going to happen soon.”

Rick opened his mouth in surprise to say something, but Mary held up her finger to silence him.

“The reason that I know this is complicated. My powers are similar to you and Cadi, but also very different. I can see the time stream. I can see the pockets. I can see the places where time is in flux, and the events that must happen. And because I can see all of this, I have to protect it. Do you understand?”

“Not really…” Rick replied, standing there feeling more confused than ever. “I mean… Kind of? I guess?”

Mary took in another deep breath, a determined look set on her face.

“Good enough. Now do you trust me enough to stop asking questions?”

Rick stood there silently in the abandoned store as the snow fell outside the large shop windows. He took in a steady breath to calm his nerves, and then let it all out, strangely feeling like some kind of stress or weight was being lifted off of his shoulders.

“Yes. I trust you.”