Happy Boostlethon, gladdecease!

[fleur_de_liz]

Title: Queenside Castle
Author: fleur-de-liz
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; language, violence, discussion of character death
Summary: Theodora Kord hasn't dealt well with Booster's death. When a couple of time travelers offer her a chance to change the past, will she take it?
Notes: Thank you, poisonivory for beta duty!



Nobody told Theodora the hardest part of grief was simply living.

She never knew how much of a struggle it would be to simply pull herself out of bed in the morning, put on her shoes, make a cup of coffee. She didn’t know how much it would hurt to walk down the hallway to her office, or take her car keys out of her purse. She didn’t expect to break down sobbing in the middle of the grocery store, one hand on her shopping cart and the other holding a pomegranate.

Then again, she never expected to lose Booster.

Theodora reverted to using her full name when it got too hard to hear people call her Ted. She buried herself in work, trying to pull KORD Industries out of the smoldering wreckage Maxine had left it in. Her therapy was bruising her knuckles on the jaws of any thug or goon who crossed her path. Some nights she didn’t even put on the suit, just went looking for trouble in a wrinkled blouse and scuffed heels.

She slept on the couch more often than not, afraid to disrupt her bed and lose the smell of Booster’s perfume on the sheets. There was a line of dresses in Theodora’s closet that didn’t belong to her, a bra that would never fit her breasts haphazardly draped on the dresser, a hairbrush littered with fine gold hairs. Booster’s ghost lingered in her messy apartment, but Theodora didn’t have the strength to exorcise it.

Theodora would have collapsed under the weight of her despair three years ago if it hadn’t been for Jimena. She had never expected to become anyone’s mentor, certainly not a sixteen-year-old girl with homicidal magic space armor. But Jimena had asked for guidance, going as far as flying to Hub City just to meet Theodora.

“You’re the Blue Beetle,” she had said, standing in the middle of Theodora’s office wearing holey jeans and grass-stained sneakers. “And now I am too. And I can’t do this on my own.”

Before Jimena, Theodora had intended to stop being the Blue Beetle. She wanted to put everything in mothballs and cardboard and tape, shut away the guns and goggles. She wanted to escape the “and Booster Gold” that seemed to hang in the air whenever someone said “the Blue Beetle.” But Jimena wouldn’t let her walk away from that life. She called Theodora on the old JLI com line for advice, asked her about tactics and strategy and weaponry, borrowed the Bug, hacked into Theodora’s computer systems, and generally made herself at home in Theodora’s life.

Jimena was the reason Theodora was lying on the floor of the Beetle’s Nest, under the Bug, a screwdriver clenched between her teeth. Motor oil dripped from a leaking hose onto her sternum, her blouse partly unbuttoned. She should’ve put on coveralls, but there was something strangely satisfying about doing mechanical work in her office clothes and trashing them.

“Note to self,” Theodora muttered around the screwdriver. “Give Jimena driving lessons before she takes the Bug out again. Sub-note, make sure she learns how to avoid trees.”

She sniffed, trying to choke back a memory. Booster was terrible at driving the Bug as well. Theodora closed her eyes, pushing against the phantom feeling of tumbling, the screams that had clawed out of her throat as Booster sent them careening towards a cow pasture. She could smell Booster’s perfume and hear her laughing as she jerked them back up into the sky, narrowly avoiding both the cows and the ground.

“Dr. Kord?”

Theodora jumped, nearly bashing her head against the hull. She scrubbed a dirty hand across her wet eyes, spat out the screwdriver and tapped her ear. “Go ahead, Jimena, I’m here.”

“I was calling your name for like five minutes. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, just…distracted. Trying to patch up the Bug,” she replied, scooting out from the Bug’s underbelly.

“You know I’m really sorry about that, right? Anyway, um, Dr. Kord, do you know any time travelers?”

Theodora grimaced. “More than I probably should. Why?”

“Um…well…there are two of them in my living room right now. They said they’re looking for the Blue Beetle, but I’m pretty sure they don’t actually want me. I mean, I guess I can deal with them, but time travel makes the Scarab uneasy and it just makes my head hurt,” Jimena replied.

Theodora wiped her hands on her skirt and sighed. “I’ll be there as soon as I can get the spare Bug up and running.”

“Are you sure? I mean, I don’t want you to have to go to all this trouble if it’s just nothing. Maybe I can send them there to you?” Jimena suggested.

“No, I’ll come to you, it’s okay. I’ll be there soon, Jimena. Just…don’t get in the time machine or anything with them. If they tell you they can have you back two seconds after you left, tell them I think it’s bullshit,” Theodora said, pulling her shirt up over her head.

Jimena let out a soft sound, like a surprised half-laugh. “Okay, Dr. Kord. I’ll see you soon.”

Theodora had taken off her shoes before she’d started work on the Bug. She shimmied out of her skirt and wriggled out of her tights, throwing them onto the ground and hurrying across the cold floor to the case where she kept her costume. She yanked the glass open and pulled out her suit. She had to struggle to get it over her hips, rolled her shoulders to get the sleeves to stop pulling awkwardly under her arms.

“Note to self,” she said, stuffing her boyishly short auburn curls into her cowl, “schedule a hair appointment.”

The spare Bug was garaged in a hangar under the KORD Industries’ company parking lot. Theodora clipped on her utility belt, gloved fingertips brushing the BB Gun in its holster. She skimmed her hands over the pouches and pockets, checked the weight of them, and hurried through the tunnel that connected her lair to the secondary hangar.

It was a slightly older model, one Theodora should’ve let Jimena borrow in hindsight, but it was still a reliable airship. She climbed into the cockpit, running a quick diagnostic as she booted up systems. Everything seemed to be operational, if a little out-of-date. She opened the hangar bay doors, recessed in the ground of a vacant lot next to the last of the KORD Industries parking spaces, and raced down the runway into the blinding blue of the afternoon sky.

Hub to El Paso was never a terribly challenging flight, though Theodora did have to change her onboard clocks to Mountain Time and back whenever she flew out to see Jimena. She settled into her chair, the autopilot on, and watched the clouds brush by the viewports.

There weren’t many time travelers Theodora actually associated with, especially with Booster gone. She wondered if it was the Legion of Superheroes looking for her; she didn’t really talk to them, but they seemed the most likely choice. She didn’t think anyone else would confuse her with Jimena. She just didn’t know what they would want with her.

“Probably something Booster fucked up. Or will fuck up. Always cleaning up your messes, aren’t I?” Theodora said bitterly, staring up at the ceiling, blinking back tears. “Shit. Fuck. You stupid selfish bitch, why did you have to die and leave me like this?”

Something started pinging on the dashboard, a small yellow light blinking. Theodora swallowed and pushed a button next to the light. “You’ve reached the Phantom Stranger.”

“What’s shaking, Thunder Thighs?”

“What do you want, Gardner?” Theodora asked, kicking the underside of the console. She and Gal Gardner had never been close. They’d taken potshots at one another during their days in the League and gotten into at least one knockdown, drag-out, hair pulling fistfight. Theodora’s ribs had never been the same since the last one. Lately, though, Gal had been more cordial, taking the time to check in with her periodically. Theodora suspected Jimena had something to do with it.

“Just wanted to see what you were up to. Tor and Bernardo were bitching at me to call you.”

Theodora kicked the console again. “I’m going to El Paso. Beetle stuff.”

There was the crackle of static, or maybe it was just Gal clearing her throat. “Listen, Ted-“

“Theodora,” she corrected.

“Ted. I know we ain’t the best of friends, but if you wanna talk and shit, I’m here. Y’know I know how you feel.”

Theodora clenched her fists. She felt the lump in her throat rising, the tears welling up in her eyes starting to burn. “No, Gal, you don’t know. Tor came back. Booster is never coming back. I’ve got to go.”

“Ted Kord don’t you fucking dare hang up on-“ Theodora disconnected the line.

She yanked back her cowl, feeling the lenses of her goggles smack against her spine. She hunched over, hands covering her face as she wept. Thick, ugly sobs rattled her ribs. She howled and cursed, screamed out three years of grief and regret until she had nothing left in her.

And by then, she had reached El Paso.

+

Theodora set the Bug to hover above Jimena’s house, high enough that it wasn’t immediately noticeable. She went into the back and splashed a little water on her face, tried to make it look like she hadn’t been crying. At least the amber tint of her lenses would hide the redness in her eyes. She pulled on her cowl, took a deep and shuddering breath, and descended on the sky-wire.

The neighborhood was quiet, nothing out of the ordinary other than the grown woman in the bright blue bug costume standing in the middle of the Reyes’ tidy front yard. Theodora sucked in another deep breath and walked up to the door, one hand instinctively hovering over the grip of the BB Gun. She sniffed, cracked her right index finger knuckle with her thumb, and rang the doorbell.

“Coming! Coming, I’m…oof! I’m…” The door swung open, and a slightly harried-looking Jimena leaned forward, grinning broadly at Theodora. “Hi Dr. Kord.”

“Hi sweetie.”

Jimena backed up to let Theodora in, one hand on the doorknob, the other pushing a loose lock of dark hair away from her face. “Can I get you anything? I didn’t know what else to do with them, so I made tea and we still had some cookies from the bake sale, so...”

“You made tea?” Theodora asked, arching one eyebrow.

“I didn’t want to be rude,” Jimena said sheepishly.

Theodora stepped into the Reyes’ living room, hand still warily hovering around her BB Gun. The room was neat enough for company, but there were little telltale signs of a hasty cleanup: a pile of magazines hidden behind an end table lamp, the corner of a coat sticking out from the closet, textbooks and notepapers shoved to one side. Theodora imagined Jimena had politely excused herself, slammed the door in the time travelers’ faces, and hurriedly cleaned up while arguing with the scarab embedded in her spine.

“I…um…this is Dr. Theodora Kord,” Jimena said to the two people seated on the lumpy floral couch. “She’s the…the other Blue Beetle. The first one. Well, the second one, really, but I never met Dr. Garrett so she’s the first one to me and I’m just gonna go refill the sugar bowl.”

Red-faced, Jimena grabbed the bowl off the table and disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Theodora with the two time travelers. They both stood, carefully setting down their teacups. One was a tall woman with short-cropped auburn hair, similar to Theodora’s but shorter, more neatly kept. Her features were strong and somewhat familiar, though Theodora couldn’t quite place them. Her companion was a young man, absurdly tall with a handsome face and piercing blue eyes. They were both wearing street clothes, but their outfits had a slightly dated look to them.

The woman extended a hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Dr. Kord. Rip Hunter, Time Master.”

“Oh, so you’re Rip Hunter,” Theodora said, cautiously shaking her hand.

“You’ve heard of me, then,” Rip said.

Theodora wrinkled her nose. “Booster might’ve mentioned you once or twice. Usually in conjunction with the phrase ‘stole a time machine from.’ I take it you have spares.”

Rip nodded while the man beside her snickered quietly. She gestured to him. “My assistant, Mitchell Carter.”

“Call me Mitch,” he replied, offering Theodora his hand. “I hope Shelly mentioned me once or twice too.”

Theodora stared at him, her hand caught in his grip. When she realized who he was, she jumped back like she’d been burned, clutching her gloved hand to her chest. Absurdly tall with a handsome face and piercing blue eyes. Just like Booster. “You’re…you’re her brother. Oh God. Oh God.”

“Dr. Hunter told me what happened,” Mitch said, sitting back down slowly. “I’m sorry.”

Theodora backed into an ottoman and collapsed into it just as Jimena came back from her self-imposed kitchen exile. “Why are you sorry? She was your sister.”

“She was your friend,” Mitch said.

“Best friend,” Theodora said softly, hunched over, arms resting on her knees.

Jimena sat down in the armchair behind Theodora. “Dr. Hunter, you said you needed the Blue Beetle for an important mission. We’re both here. Maybe you could tell us what’s going on now?”

Rip cleared her throat and pressed a button on the clunky watch on her wrist. A hologram flared to life, displaying a tiny universe of circling planets. “As you may or may not know, our world is one of fifty-two separate alternate realities known as the Multiverse. The worlds are all connected through significant events that shape the fabric of our shared universe. Recently, the time stream in several worlds has become…unstable. I’ve had no less than a dozen different Rip Hunters complaining to me about the tears in the fabric of the Multiverse, as if I’m personally responsible.”

“Okay, so your job sucks. What’s this have to do with us?” Theodora asked.

“Mitchell and I have been attempting to repair the anomalies in our own timeline in the hopes that it would stabilize the rest of the Multiverse, but so far our efforts have been unsuccessful. We believe there is a single moment in time that is affecting the rest of our timeline, and our research suggests the only way to correct it is with the aid of a Blue Beetle.”

Theodora scratched the back of one hand. “And what moment of time is so jacked up that you need one of us to help you?”

“It’s Booster,” Mitch said. “We need to save my sister.”

“No,” Theodora said sharply.

Jimena looked over at her, eyes wide. “No? Dr. Kord, she’s your best friend.”

“No!” Theodora insisted. “I’m not stupid. I’m not falling for this bullshit. I know what happens when you fuck around with time travel, and it’s never good. So no, I’m not going to be jumping out of my seat. I’m not getting my hopes up.”

Jimena stood up and brushed off her pants. Theodora watched as the armor oozed over her skin, covering her in a blue and black carapace, leaving her pretty face uncovered. “That’s okay, Dr. Kord. I understand. But if it’s all right with you, I’m going to go with Dr. Hunter and Mr. Carter. I don’t want to be responsible for time and space and everything getting all messed up if there’s a chance I can help fix it. And…well…I know I never met Ms. Gold, but I think she’d at least want us to try.”

Theodora felt sick, the nausea rising up from the pit of her stomach and settling just behind the lump in her throat. She wanted so desperately to hope, to think that there was a chance to see Booster again. But she also knew her heart was still so fragile, just barely holding together. She couldn’t take losing her a second time.

“If we’re going to go, we need to go now,” Rip said, grabbing another cookie off the plate on the coffee table.

Jimena closed her mask over her face. “Okay, but you promise you can get me back here like, three seconds after we left? Because I need to be here when my brother gets off the school bus or my mom will gut me, have me taxidermied, and then use me as a novelty coat rack.”

Mitch stood as well, taking one last swig of tea and grabbing two cookies. “You’d be amazed at what Dr. Hunter can do with time travel. She saved me when I was literally milliseconds away from death.”

“Where did you park?” Jimena asked. “What’s your time machine look like?”

Theodora swallowed. “…I…I’ll come.” Everyone stopped and looked at her. “But...but if this is some kind of trick, Hunter... If this is your idea of the timeshare presentation…I’ll take you to save your girlfriend and give you a coupon for one free adventure in the time machine but first you have to watch my Powerpoint about owning a share in some horrible condo in 1850s Bludhaven…then I reserve the right to bite you.”

“You’ll bite me?” Rip asked.

Jimena smiled. “My little brother likes to use that one too. It’s funny until you actually get bitten.”

They followed Rip out the front door, Jimena locking it behind them. Theodora didn’t remember seeing a time machine on the way in, but once Rip decloaked it, there was no way she could have missed it. It shimmered in the sunlight, a human sized iridescent soap bubble that hovered just above the front lawn.

“Are we all going to fit in there?” Theodora asked skeptically.

Mitch grinned. “It’s bigger on the inside.”

Once they had entered the time sphere, Mitch shrugged off his civilian clothes to reveal a white, blue and gold suit that looked almost identical to Booster’s, except cut for a much taller and broader frame. He pulled on a pair of gloves and gave his fingers an experimental flex.

“When Booster brought me to your time some years ago, she’d planned to make us a brother-sister duo. I kind of grokked that up, so I’m hoping that once we get her back, we can try again.”

Theodora offered him a thin smile. “Booster Gold and…Wonder Twin?”

“She picked out Goldstar, but I was thinking about Supernova.”

“You can come up with any name you want, Mitchell, but you’re still working for me,” Rip said, pushing buttons and pulling levers at the console. “I pulled you out of time to be my assistant, not to follow your sister around and make toothpaste commercials.”

The time sphere shivered, and then it shifted in a way Theodora couldn’t quite describe. In the time it took to exhale, it had rocketed forward into a kaleidoscope of shifting colors. Theodora thought she caught glimpses of people and places in the whirl of light and color, but they passed by too quickly to make out any definitive picture.

“Where are we going?” Jimena asked, her armored hands pressed against the smooth curve of the glass.

“The Vanishing Point,” Rip said, shifting another lever. “The only place in the universe untouched by the time stream. The perfect base of operations for a Time Master.”

Theodora stared out the window, her stomach still churning with unease. Everything about this felt wrong. She didn’t trust time travel. There were too many variables, too many opportunities for mistakes. She never understood how Flash could be so cavalier about running around on her stupid little treadmill, when one wrong step could change the very course of history. She worried about the consequences for trying to alter the past, and all of those consequences led to Booster remaining dead.

“That’s it right there,” Mitch said as the time sphere began to slow.

“Wow,” Jimena murmured.

Theodora looked up. The Vanishing Point reminded her of The Never-Ending Story, the shining white castle of the Childlike Empress floating on a jagged fragment of Fantasia, the rest of the world engulfed in Nothingness. The time stream undulated in the air around the floating fortress like an aurora, while clumps of dirt and rock slowly orbited the large island.

The sphere descended through an open hatch in the fortress, touching down on a platform in a laboratory Theodora couldn’t help but be envious of. There were large rolling chalkboards, like the kind Theodora remembered from elementary school, covered in scribbled mysteries. Banks of computers lined one wall, while tubes and wires and shiny silver vent hoses zigzagged across the floor. Jimena hovered just above the ground, afraid to step on anything that could be important.

“Welcome back, Dr. Hunter,” said a tinny voice.

Theodora coughed around the lump in her throat. A familiar--if slightly different than the last time she’d seen it--floating object zoomed into the laboratory. “Skeets.”

“Hello, Dr. Kord. It’s nice to see you again. And this must be Miss Reyes,” she chimed, turning her optical scanners towards Jimena. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Jimena smiled nervously. “Um…thanks? It’s nice to meet you too, I think?”

“Skeets was…Booster’s robot assistant,” Theodora explained, remembering how much Skeets always hated being called her sidekick. “Skeets, I thought Maxine dismantled you for parts so she could spy on us. I found shards of your circuitry in Booster’s and my goggles after the house in Highland Park blew up.”

“Ms. Lord only dismantled my chassis, Dr. Kord. I was able to remotely send my files and software…my personality, if you will…to a remote external hard drive. Dr. Hunter retrieved it and downloaded me into a new body,” Skeets said. “She told me about Booster.”

Theodora nodded. She hadn’t talked this much about Booster in months, and it hurt like a punch in the solar plexus. “So…what are we doing here?”

“Dr. Hunter wants to make sure we have a plan before we go back in time,” Mitch said.

Rip picked up a sheaf of papers and started rifling through it, tacking a few to a corkboard on another rolling frame. “Time travel, Theodora, is a very delicate operation. The past, the present, the future; it’s all interconnected, like a spider web. It’s not a line like everyone believes.” She wound pieces of string around the pins on the corkboard. “If you try to change the wrong thing, move an immovable moment, shake the firmament, the whole web crashes. However, sometimes you can find the right strand to pluck, something that will change the course of time without altering its overall makeup. It’s simply a matter of finding that one little moment.”

Jimena fluttered around the lab, looking at everything and mumbling either to herself or to the scarab. She came upon a bank of circular monitors that looked as fragile as the time sphere, soap bubbles framed in sleek metal. “These are really cool.” She cautiously reached a hand towards them. “What do they d-“

An image flicked onto the nearest sphere’s screen. A woman dressed in black, holding a gun, smoke and a flash issuing forth from the barrel. Another person’s silhouette in the foreground, turning slightly towards the screen, her face just barely illuminated. Theodora recognized the delicate upturned nose, the way the light caught her eyelashes.

Her knees threatened to give out, her legs buckling under her. She sank to the floor slowly, eyes transfixed on the screen. She couldn’t move, couldn’t look away. All she could do was kneel on the ground, shaking and quietly moaning, staring at the moment of Booster’s death.

“Mitchell, shut off the screens,” Rip barked.

The other screens flickered on now, each one displaying another image. Each picture was the same, but also slightly different. Sometimes the woman in black was a man, sometimes she wasn’t even human. One picture had the person in black in the foreground. None of the other images showed Booster, though. They showed someone, most often a man, dressed in shades of blue.

“Wh-what the hell is that?” Theodora choked. “Is that…shit, is that supposed to be me?”

“Mitchell!” Rip said again. Mitchell scrambled, trying to find the switch to shut off the screens.

Theodora slowly got to her feet, her knees knocking together. She shuffled her way over to the screens. Her eyes burned and her nose felt like it would never stop running. “Is this why you needed me so badly? Is this what your great plan is? The universe needs Booster, so we’ll just kill off Beetle instead? There’s two now, so the old one’s expendable? Is that it, Rip?”

“I won’t let you hurt Dr. Kord,” Jimena said angrily, raising her right arm. It rippled and became an impressively large plasma cannon. Theodora could almost hear the bright chirping voice of the scarab as she added her displeasure as well.

Rip held up her hands. “No! I’m trying very hard not to kill anyone. Please put down the weapon, Miss Reyes. This...what you are seeing is how this one particular event occurred throughout the Multiverse. In most worlds, it is the Blue Beetle who dies at the hands of Max Lord, whether they are men, women, or talking dogs. I’m not sure why our world is an outlier, but Mitchell and I have been studying every one of the fifty-two different worlds in order to change the outcome.”

“What happens if we can’t fix it?” Jimena asked, the cannon dissolving and becoming her arm once again. “I mean, just out of curiosity.”

“It will be catastrophic,” Rip replied. She tapped one screen in the upper left-hand corner. The image of a Blue Beetle and a Max Lord changed to one of the Earth, slowly spinning on its axis. “This is Earth Prime, the supposed nexus of the Multiverse, the Earth from which all others diverge. Their Rip Hunter believed Ted Kord’s death was a fixed point in time and could not be changed. They tried to correct it once.”

“What happened?” Theodora asked, staring at the screens.

“They pulled the wrong string. Created an alternate timeline where Max Lord managed to take over everything. They corrected that mistake, but they never went back to fix the initial anomaly. As a result, the timestream continued to destabilize until…for lack of a better term…it rebooted.”

“What rebooted?” Jimena asked.

“Time itself!” Rip said. “The entire spiderweb collapsed and when the metaphorical cosmic spider rebuilt it, the fabric of time was fundamentally altered. The shockwaves of this temporal collapse are slowly making their way through the Multiverse. Earth-2 has had a similar collapse, and it’s only a matter of time before it reaches us.”

Theodora stepped a little closer to the screens, scrutinizing the images. “And what happens if we let the collapse happen? Maybe the rebooted timeline is better.”

“Earth-Prime’s version of Jimena was and is the only Blue Beetle in this new timeline. Danielle Garrett, you, neither of you were ever the Blue Beetle, if you existed at all,” Rip said. The image of Earth-Prime became one of two men in familiar costumes. “If our timeline is reset, you will never know Jimena. You will never know Booster. The friendships you two forged during your time in Justice League International won’t exist anymore. It happened to these two. And it will happen here if we don’t save our Booster.”

“Then I guess we need to figure something out and quick,” Jimena said glumly. “Because I really don’t want to lose Dr. Kord, or Ms. Gardner, or…well, anybody. That would be awful.”

Theodora shivered. Losing Booster was the most painful thing she’d ever experienced, worse than being shot by Hector Bertinelli’s crossbow bolts, or Gal breaking her ribs, or nearly being crushed to death by Doomsday. But never knowing Booster, never making her laugh or holding her when she cried, never waking up in bed with her…Theodora was positive that she’d never feel whole without her. She looked up at the image of Booster and Max.

“…Wait…”

“What?” Mitch asked.

“Skeets, can you zoom in on Max?” Theodora asked. Max’s disturbingly calm face filled the screen. “Her nose is bleeding.”

Jimena shrugged. “Ms. Gold probably clobbered her good.”

“No, no. This is…Max’s nose always used to bleed when she used her mind control powers. Booster and I used to give her shit that it was her brain leaking out her nasal cavities,” Theodora said.

“Mind control powers, yeah. Right, isn’t that why Wonder Man…um…y’know…” Jimena mimicked snapping someone’s neck. “Isn’t it? Because Ms. Lord had Superwoman under mind control, and then everybody got mad at Wonder Man, but nobody seemed at all concerned about the mind-controlled angry Kryptonian with the laser eyes?”

Theodora sighed. “I know, Jimena. The problem is Max shouldn’t have those powers. She hasn’t had them for years! She’s a cyborg…or she was…I don’t think she should even be bleeding. I don’t know what happened, but that…that has to be what’s wrong. Max…whatever happened to Max caused all of this.”

“We were focusing on Booster. We never even considered it wasn’t her timeline at all that was at fault,” Rip said. “Stupid mistake. Skeets, I need you to go through Maxine Lord’s history. Focus your search between three and five years ago. We need to figure out when she stopped being a cyborg and why.”

“I’ll help look too,” Jimena offered. Maybe there’s something the scarab can find. I kind of still don’t know everything she can do yet.”

Mitch followed them to the computer banks, leaving Theodora alone with Rip. The two of them stood staring at the screens. Theodora watched as they shifted to images of the different Blue Beetles and Booster Golds from across fifty-two different worlds.

“One thing I’ve observed across the whole of the Multiverse is how much you two always seem to care for one another,” Rip said quietly. She shifted, rubbing the inside of one wrist with her thumb. “I won’t let this be destroyed.”

Theodora glanced at her. “Why do you care so much?”

“Let’s just say I have a personal interest in this mission.”

“If we fix this…if we stop Max from becoming crazy and evil…the house in Highland Park won’t blow up. I’ll never lose Danni’s scarab. Jimena won’t become a Blue Beetle. Is that why you needed us? One last hurrah for the kid?” Theodora asked. She didn’t want to look back at Jimena, didn’t want to think about losing her sweet little protégé. She didn’t want to lose anyone.

Rip shook her head. “Jimena Reyes has an important part to play in the future. She’ll get that scarab if I have to put it on her back myself.”

Theodora stared at Rip, trying to figure her out. Her familiarity was going to nag her for the rest of this adventure, she was certain of it. She almost wanted to ask her, but she had a feeling Rip wouldn’t be forthcoming with that information.

“Hey, Rip? I think we found something,” Mitch called.

Rip and Theodora joined the rest of their little team at the computers. Skeets called up a series of images, all of them with a timestamp in the lower right hand corner. One image showed a woman floating in a cryogenic tube in a laboratory, the timestamp from just a few days ago. Another image was of two women, completely identical, floating in equally identical tubes, the timestamp from a little more than three years ago. The final image was that woman, Max, standing on a crowded subway platform, a phone pressed to her ear and a briefcase in hand. It was dated five years ago.

“With Miss Reyes’ help, we were able to isolate the magnetic resonance of Maxine Lord’s cyborg endoskeleton,” Skeets explained. “When we traced that resonance back through the timestream, we were able to locate her. However, we also found a second Maxine Lord, without the magnetic resonance, but identical as far as her DNA.”

“Somebody cloned her?” Theodora asked, frowning at the screens. “But why? And how did you even get those pictures?”

“Scarab hacked the security cameras. I’m not sure how she hacked them through time, but…y’know…alien technology,” Jimena replied, shrugging. “This picture of Ms. Lord at the subway is the last one we found before her signal disappeared. We couldn’t find her again until the scarab picked it back up at the lab. So whoever took her did it here.”

“Then it seems we have a target,” Rip said. “Skeets, get those coordinates into the time sphere. We’re on the clock, people.”

They piled back into the time sphere, Rip taking the helm. Skeets stayed behind at Vanishing Point to keep an eye on things. Theodora sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. For years she had wondered why Max had gone mad, why she would plot against the people she cared about. Why she would murder somebody she had always loved like a little sister. She had hated Max, hated what she’d become. Now that she knew it hadn’t been Max at all, she didn’t know what to think.

Jimena walked across the time sphere and stood next to her. “You okay, Dr. Kord?”

“I don’t know, kiddo. This is…it’s a lot to take in.”

She nodded. “I’ve been thinking about it. I mean, what I would do. I don’t think I could be as strong as you, Doc. It’d be like if Paquita and Brendan…yeah. I just…I couldn’t do it.”

Theodora put her arm around Jimena’s shoulders. She quietly admitted, “I couldn’t do it either.”

Jimena stayed by her side while they traveled through time, through the multicolored swirl of days and years. Theodora stared at nothing in particular, trying to choke down the hope that was rising up inside her. She wanted to believe that this would change things, that she would go home and find Booster standing there, checking out her reflection in the curve of a spoon, making sure she didn’t have lipstick on her teeth. But that gut feeling that she shouldn’t be here kept nagging at her.

Theodora looked over at Rip. She knew nothing about this woman, other than she called herself a Time Master. It bothered Theodora a little that Rip’s assistants were Booster’s dead brother and her robot assistant. Who gave this woman the right to spend time with them? Why did she care so much about Booster, about their relationship? It felt like everyone here was in on some great secret that Theodora wasn’t privy to, and that bothered her. It felt like high school all over again, and Theodora had despised high school.

The time sphere slowed, the aurora of time fading out as they approached their destination. Theodora sucked in a breath.

“Ladies, Mitchell. We’re here,” Rip said.

+

Rip landed the sphere in the station lobby, the great glass bubble invisible to passersby as they hurried down the stairs to the platforms. Theodora shivered. It had been years since she’d been back to New York, but the subway smell was just the same as she remembered it. It was a fetid mélange of hot pretzel, body odor, stale air and garbage that made her think of her days in the League. Somewhere a busker was playing the harmonica badly.

“Wait. We can’t all go down there,” Theodora said.

Jimena looked up at her. “Why not?”

“In case you’ve forgotten, most of us are wearing spandex. If we go down there, we’re going to cause a scene. We could put Max in danger,” she pointed out.

Rip nodded. “It’s a valid point. Jimena, that suit of yours can disguise you, can’t it?”

“Well, yeah, I guess. I mean, it makes me street clothes and stuff. Paquita thinks it’s kind of weird and gross but it saves me from ruining any shirts when I transform. Why…oh. Oh, you want me to go down there,” Jimena said, her armor already changing into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

“I’ll go with you. We need to do this discreetly. Get Maxine out of there without alerting whoever is responsible for kidnapping her,” Rip said. “Mitchell, Theodora, you two be ready in case something goes wrong.”

They carefully exited the time sphere, heading towards the subway platforms. Theodora watched as Rip did something to the turnstiles that let them right through without needing a ticket. She sighed, kicking at the wall.

“So…” Mitch said. Theodora looked over at him. He looked equally uncomfortable with being made to wait. “Tell me about Shelly.”

Now Theodora actually stopped and stared at him. “Tell you what?”

“Anything. Everything. Before we came to get you and Miss Reyes, Dr. Hunter so very tactfully pointed out that you’ve now known my sister for longer than I have, between her disappearing to the past and my…um…dying. We’re going to have a lot of catching up to do, and I want a head start,” he said.

Theodora swallowed. Then she started to tell Mitch about everything. Playing pranks on Gal Gardner and hiding J’ann J’onnz’s cookies. Traveling to Paris, Bialya, Kooeykooeykooey. Cookouts with Miss Miracle and Big Bard. Sitting in lawn chairs on the roof of the Embassy and watching the sun rise. Hospital beds. Breakfasts. Fights and name-calling and hair-pulling. She talked about Booster’s beautiful face and the way they laughed so hard together. Going out for drinks together. Waking up together. Booster saving Theodora’s life when the house exploded in Highland Park. Theodora saving Booster’s life when she lost her arm. When she finally stopped talking, she was shaking and her throat hurt.

And then Jimena came flying back up the stairs.

“We were on the wrong platform! Hurry!” she yelled.

Theodora bolted out of the open hatch, cursing up a blue streak. She flipped the BB Gun out of its holster and up into her hand in one smooth movement while she weaved her way around confused onlookers. She left Jimena, Rip and Mitch in the dust as she vaulted over a turnstile, powerful legs clearing the metal ticket reader easily. A transit cop hollered at her, but she couldn’t hear him over the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears.

She looked around, trying to figure out which platform Max could’ve been standing on. Before she could make her decision, it was made for her. Theodora spotted two men in charcoal gray suits speedwalking up one staircase and through the concourse, shoulder-to-shoulder with a woman in impeccably tailored business attire. To the untrained eye, it could’ve been a power meeting between three business partners. Theodora knew better. She bolted back over the turnstiles and followed them through the maze of corridors.

She tapped her ear. “Jimena? I’ve got a visual.”

“Scarab’s picking up Ms. Lord’s robotic whatsits, I’m going to try and loop around the building and cut off their exit. I don’t know where Dr. Hunter and Ms. Gold’s brother went. We got separated.”

Theodora was gaining on Max and the two goons. She matched their pace and strode right up alongside one of them. “Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?”

“What the--“ The man turned to look at her, and when he did, Theodora headbutted him. Stars exploded in her vision, and undoubtedly in his as well. He fell out of step with Max and the other man, clutching his face.

Max stopped short, dropping her arm quickly to break free of the other man’s grip. “Ted? What the hell is going on here?”

Theodora lunged at the second man, ducking under a wild haymaker. She swept his legs out from under him, sending him pitching backwards. She grabbed Max by the wrist and ran. “I was hoping you’d tell me. Any idea who those creeps are?”

“No! They came up to me while I was waiting for the train and told me that they had some sort of EMP device and if I didn’t go with them, they’d use it and knock out my cybernetics. Which, as I’m sure you’re aware, would kill me. How did you know I was in trouble?” Max asked.

Theodora looked back over her shoulder. The two men were up and running again. One’s nose was bleeding, but he ignored it. Theodora aimed the BB Gun and fired the strobe, the blinding light halting them in their tracks. She steered Max around a corner. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I have a Martian, two gods, and a woman from the twenty-fifth century on my payroll, Ted, try me,” Max said dryly.

Theodora pushed open an employees-only door that led to a long hallway. She could smell fresh air. “Long story short, I’m from the not-so-distant future. If I don’t stop those guys, they’re going to kidnap you, stick you in a cryogenic freezer, and clone an evil version of you with your mind control powers who is going to take over a secret government organization, attempt world domination, murder Booster, and get killed by Wonder Man.”

Max stared at her for a moment, silent and wide-eyed. “Well. Shit.”

At the end of the hallway was an emergency exit with the alarm system disabled, the door propped open with a brick. Theodora nudged the brick out of the way with her boot and shoved open the door as wide as it would go. Max stumbled out into a back alley and stopped short, forcing Theodora to bump into her as she followed her out.

“Why’d you stop?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because there are something like two dozen burly men with guns and a large black getaway van waiting for us,” Max said dryly.

Theodora swore and tapped her ear. “Jimena? Where are you?”

“About fifty feet in the air, looking down at a big group of thugs. You and Ms. Lord might want to cover your ears, Doc.”

Theodora looked up and caught sight of Jimena hovering over their heads, building some sort of large cannon out of her own body. “Max? Cover your ears.”

Max pressed her hands to her ears and Theodora did the same, her gloved hands tight against her cowl-covered ears. There was a horrible high-pitched shriek, electric blue shockwaves pummeling the crowd of thugs. They crumpled to the ground, moaning and rolling around in pain. Jimena floated down to the ground, turning off the cannon.

“What’d you think? I modeled it after Black Canary’s sonic scream,” she said.

“What?” Max yelled, letting go of her ears.

Theodora shook her head, trying to rid herself of the ringing. “We need to get out of here before the goon squad gets up.”

“I’ll clear a path,” Jimena said. She plowed her way through the pile of disoriented villains, pushing them aside and out of the way. When she got to the van, Jimena grabbed it by the front bumper and gave it a good hard shove, opening up an escape route. Theodora led Max through the path Jimena made, threateningly waving her BB Gun as the kidnappers attempted to get to their feet.

Max looked around. “Now what? I’ve no doubt someone is calling for reinforcements. After all, why bother sending all those people to kidnap me if they’re just going to give up and let me go?”

Suddenly there was a loud pop, the time sphere materializing in front of them. Mitch stuck his head out the door, grinning hugely. Theodora couldn’t get over how much his smile resembled his sister’s. “Anybody need a ride?”

“Where’ve you been?” Theodora asked, all but shoving Max into the time sphere.

Rip shook her head. “There was another time crisis that we had to attend to. But it’s of no consequence, we’re here now and Maxine Lord is in our custody.”

“And you are?” Max asked.

Theodora sighed. “Max, Rip Hunter, self-subscribed Time Master. And that’s her assistant, Mitchell.”

“It’s nice to meet the you that doesn’t want to murder my sister,” Mitch said, extending a hand.

As they escaped into the time stream, Jimena looked around at the rescue party. “So…now that we’ve got Ms. Lord, what do we do with her? We can’t take her back to the present with us, right? And if we drop her back off somewhere, what’s stopping those guys from finding her and kidnapping her and screwing everything up again?”

Theodora scrunched up her face in thought. “I think I’ve got an idea.”

She murmured a destination to Rip and off they sailed, through the stained glass swirl of space and time. Max leaned against the glass, looking worn out and just a little rumpled. From the way she quietly fingered her hems and pockets, Theodora guessed she was trying to ride out the need for a cigarette. She slowly approached Max, leaning up against the sphere’s hull beside her.

“You okay?”

Max sighed. “Well, I certainly didn’t expect to run for my life today. And I most definitely didn’t expect to be called a murderer. That man, he’s Booster’s brother?” Theodora nodded. “He looks like her.”

“Well, they’re twins, so he ought to.”

“Ted,” Max said, closing her eyes. “You know I’d never hurt Booster, right? I may threaten to kill the both of you on a regular basis, but I would never…”

Theodora closed her eyes too, fighting back tears. “I know, Max.”

The time stream spat them out in a quaint little neighborhood in New Jersey. Each yard was neatly kept, each house like it was made out of gingerbread. Theodora remembered coming here with Booster and causing mayhem of one kind and another. She sniffed, pulling back her cowl to wipe at her eyes.

“Aw no, is this Bailey?” Max moaned. “Isn’t there somewhere else you can send me?”

“It’s either here or with Gardner. It’s just for a few days. Just until this dies down. And don’t you dare mention time travel or any of this to them,” Theodora threatened.

Max rolled her eyes. “Please, Ted. I’ve seen Back to the Future. I’m not about to negate my own existence.”

Theodora and Max stepped out of the time sphere and walked up to a house they both knew well. Max rang the bell, then tried to smooth out her hair and straighten up her suit. The door opened, and standing in the doorway was a mountain of a man. He glowered down at them, arms folded across his huge chest. The bunny slippers and the apron did nothing to detract from his imposing figure.

“Hi Bard,” Theodora said, smiling. “I need a favor from you.”

“No.”

Max stepped forward, poking him sharply with one well-manicured finger. “Now look here…”

“I got this,” Theodora said. “Look, Bard, it’s just for a couple of days. Some ninjas or something tried to kidnap Max and we don’t want her going back to her place until we’re sure she’s safe. Is it weird and dumb for anyone to try and kidnap someone who has the entire Justice League on speed dial? Yeah, but let’s face it, we’ve faced far weirder and dumber. Just…just park her in front of a computer for a couple of days. I’ll owe you so big, Bard, please.”

Bard pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know if I want a favor from you, Beetle.”

“Well then, there we go,” Theodora replied.

Max sighed heavily, running a hand through her hair. “I don’t want to be here either, if it’s any consolation. I just need somewhere to stay where there’s no chance anyone will try to throw me in the back of a van or fry my internal circuitry.”

“All right, fine. But just until you’re certain you’re safe,” Bard grumbled.

Max turned to Theodora and offered her a small, sympathetic smile. “Thank you. And good luck. I hope everything works to your favor, Ted.”

“Me too. Hopefully I’ll see you soon, Max,” she replied, squeezing Max’s hand before heading back to the time sphere.

Rip pulled a lever and they were gone before Theodora had even settled herself inside. They were off again in that swirling rainbow vortex, racing ahead in time two years. Theodora shivered. It would be strange, seeing the Highland Park house again. She had been living between there and the apartment in Hub, depending on where work needed her. Booster came and went as she pleased, like a cat, jet-setting off to one fabulous photo shoot after another. She would come home and spend a few nights, reclaim the house with her bottles of nail polish and her rice cakes and the smell of her perfume on the sheets, and then be off again. The longest she stayed in one place was right before she died, helping Theodora unravel the mystery Max had set before her.

It was dark when they landed outside Theodora’s house, the streetlights flickering on. She could see two figures moving around inside, their bodies silhouetted in the windows: one short and curvy, the other tall and slender. Theodora grimaced.

“We’re both home.”

Rip nodded. “You are indeed. This is going to make extracting the scarab that much more difficult. You cannot retrieve it from the house; you’ll see yourself and create a time paradox.”

“And I can’t go in there either,” Mitch pointed out. “Shelly thinks I’m dead.”

Jimena rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine. I’ll go ring the doorbell and pretend to be a Girl Scout or something. Dr. Hunter can sneak in through the window or walk through the walls or whatever Time Masters have to do and grab Khaji Da and go.”

“Works for me,” Theodora said with a shrug.

Just as they were making their way out of the time sphere, Jimena froze. Everyone else stopped, fearing that they had been spotted.

“Something’s wrong,” she murmured. “I can feel it. She can sense it too.”

From out of the clear, calm night, a bolt of brilliant blue-white light shot down from the heavens and struck the Highland Park house. The explosion was deafening, the rush of wind knocking them back and rattling the sphere. Theodora felt her mouth go dry and her stomach give a horrifying lurch.

“No.”

Rip started fussing with some handheld device. “Hm. This is the correct timeline given the outcome of our earlier actions.”

“No, this can’t…not again…I can’t…you lied to me!” Theodora screamed, rounding on Rip. She threw herself at the woman, shaking her by the shoulders as hard as she could, like a terrier with a rat. “You said this wouldn’t happen! You said if we saved Max everything would be different! You said we would save Booster! How could you lie to me? And why was I so stupid believing you?!”

“Dr. Kord, stop!” Jimena shouted, trying to pull her back. “Stop, please! This isn’t going to make it better!”

Mitch stared at the house. “Nobody’s coming out.”

“What do you mean, nobody’s coming out?” Theodora asked, turning away from Rip to watch her home burn. “Booster broke that left front window and pulled me out of the house.”

“Well, she’s not,” Mitch said. “I can’t see anyone moving in there.”

Jimena swore under her breath. “You’re both going to die in there.”

“Mitchell, go,” Rip said.

Mitch propelled himself forward, flying towards the house. He paused and looked back over his shoulder. “Wait, where’s the scarab?”

Theodora chased after him, down the lawn, towards the searing heat. “It’s in a glass case on the far wall! Under a picture of the League!”

She stood back as Mitch blasted a hole in the front window, the glimmer of his forcefield protecting him from the backdraft. Theodora watched and waited, holding her breath. The smoky air carried the sounds of sirens.

Moments later, Mitch emerged from the house, two bodies floating along behind him. He carefully set them down, retracting his forcefield. Theodora found herself staring down at her own burnt face, watching herself struggle to breathe. Booster lay beside her, half-curled around her. Her hair was on fire, the back of her costume melted away.

“Are we…are they…” she asked, voice barely coming out.

“You’re alive, but not by much,” Mitch said softly. His voice sounded rough, full of ash and smoke. “From what I can tell, you both got hit pretty badly. I think Shelly was trying to get you to the window but passed out. I…um…I couldn’t find the scarab.”

Rip shepherded them back to the time sphere and quietly away as fire engines and ambulances screeched to a stop in front of the driveway. Theodora watched the burning house fade away into time.

“Dr. Hunter, when I was in the house…I thought I saw someone. Through the smoke. Another person in the house. I don’t know…maybe I was hallucinating. It was hard to see,” Mitch said.

Jimena made a soft sound. Theodora looked over at her. She wasn’t crying, but she certainly looked close to it. “What…what’s going to happen to me now? What’s going to happen when we get back to my house? Without the…without Khaji Da…I won’t…I’ll never…”

“We’ll worry about that when we return to the present,” Rip said.

The trip back was a silent, somber one. Theodora couldn’t erase the image of the house exploding from her mind. Every time she closed her eyes she saw her own burnt and blistered body tangled up with Booster’s, lying on the wet grass. She looked over at Jimena, who seemed just as morose. She was probably saying her goodbyes to the scarab. At first Theodora thought it would be difficult to imagine being bonded to something in that way and then losing it, but then she thought of Booster.

She wondered what changed, what the outcome of their interference would be. Maybe for all their meddling, nothing had actually been fixed. Maybe the kidnappers had gotten to Max after all. Theodora scuffed the floor with the toe of her boot, wondering if she would end up like Mitch; tied to Rip Hunter and stuck wandering through time, trying to make things right.

“Dr. Kord?” Jimena asked as the time sphere slowed down. “If…if I don’t remember you…if we never met in this new timeline? I just want to say…um…thanks. Thank you. I…I don’t think I could’ve been the Blue Beetle without you.”

Theodora reached over and pulled her into her arms, hugging her tightly. “You’ll always be a Beetle, Jimena. Even if I have to find you all over again and train you without powers.”

“We’re here,” Rip said.

Theodora took Jimena’s hand and they slowly made their way out of the time sphere. There was Jimena’s house, exactly as they’d left it. There was the Bug, lazily floating overhead, basking in the early afternoon sunlight. At the very least, there were no red skies or apocalyptic volcanoes on the horizon. Everything looked as it should.

Jimena’s armor quickly retracted. Theodora looked over at her, expecting her to say that the scarab was gone. “I can see Martín’s bus at the end of the block. He gets worried when I’m all…hey. Hey! I’m still…no, you don’t need to be rude about it. If you’d rather be a paperweight I can have Dr. Hunter take us back.”

“Scarab seems to be just fine,” Theodora said.

Rip nodded, standing in the doorway of the time sphere. “I’ll be monitoring the effects of our little endeavor on the time stream. I may have need of you again.”

Mitch gently shoved her aside and stuck his head out the door. “We should get together again when the fate of time and space isn’t at stake, okay?”

And with that, they were gone. The time sphere winked out of existence just as the school bus pulled up in front of Jimena’s driveway, the brakes letting out a short, high-pitched squeal. Martín hopped down the stairs and ran towards them, his backpack thwacking him in the lower back as he lurched forward.

“Hi Ms. Ted! Did the Royal Flush Gang break out of prison again? Is Ms. Gal coming over too? Can I have a ride in the Bug?” he asked excitedly.

Jimena pouted at him. “You got nothing to say to me?”

“Mom said you gotta clean the bathroom.”

Theodora smiled and squeezed Jimena’s shoulder. “As much fun as helping you clean the bathroom sounds, I think I need to head home.”

“Are you going to be okay?” Jimena asked.

“I don’t know. I think it depends on what I’m walking into. I’ll let you know if we need to steal the Flash’s cosmic treadmill and chase down Rip Hunter.”

Jimena gave her a wary look. “Don’t go off time traveling without me, okay? And definitely don’t go punching Dr. Hunter. You could hit her and it could wipe New Zealand right off the map or something.”

“I will try very hard not to negate the existence of New Zealand. I’ll talk to you later, kiddo. And Martín? Next time I come, I’ll take you out in the Bug. Promise.”

Theodora called down for the skywire with the control in her glove. The cable descended and she grabbed tight, letting it pull her back up into the Bug. It looked no different than when she’d left. It was still the same spare Bug she’d taken out just a few short hours ago. She sank into the pilot’s chair, disengaged the hover mode, and plotted a course for home.

+

It was just starting to get dark in Hub when Theodora got back to the Beetle’s Nest, and by the time she got the Bug put away and changed back into her greasy, rumpled work clothes, the sky was purple-black. She picked up her briefcase from the corner and headed up to the garage for her car, then began the drive home.

Her heart thumped loudly against her chest as she drove. Turning up the radio did nothing to quiet it, nor did the deep calming breaths Booster’s stupid yoga tapes often suggested. She expected the worst. She expected the apartment to be exactly the same, except maybe the walls were now beige instead of grayish-blue. There would be half-empty takeout containers in the fridge and the same damn bra on the dresser. She sighed, bracing herself for the inevitable heartbreak.
When she got home, she stopped to check the mail, sifting through bills and junk, then walked up the three flights of stairs to her apartment. With another deep breath, Theodora shifted the mail around in her hands and fumbled to find the right key. She jiggled the key in the lock, twisting it a little to the left before turning it to the right. One of these days she would fix the lock so she didn’t have to do complicated maneuvers to get it open. Then she shoved the door open with her shoulder.

The lights were on. Or rather, more lights were on than she’d left on when she walked out the door that morning. The television was also on, and Theodora was positive she’d shut it off when she left. She put down her briefcase and kicked off her shoes, slowly moving in. She set the mail down on the kitchen counter and noticed half a pomegranate lying on a cutting board, arils and splashes of deep magenta juice scattered across its surface.

Theodora heard footsteps. She crouched into a fighting stance, waiting for the intruder to come around the corner. She didn’t know what kind of intruder broke into someone’s house, ate a pomegranate, and watched the news, but the world was full of bizarre people.

“Ted? That you?”

Her heart nearly stopped. Booster wandered into the living room, her hair damp, her face freshly scrubbed. She was wearing a spaghetti strap tank top and pink pajama pants. Now Theodora could hear the en-suite washing machine running. Booster smiled at her and her knees turned to jelly.

“You…”

“How’s the Bug? I told you not to let the kid take that one out,” Booster said as if nothing was wrong. As if she hadn’t been dead for three years.

Theodora felt her face start to crumple up. “Booster…”

“Hey, what’s the matter? Come on, I wasn’t gone for that long,” she said.

Thick, ugly sobs escaped Theodora’s throat. She staggered forward, body moving of its own accord. Booster looked confused and worried, but opened her arms and let Theodora fall into them anyways. Theodora clung to her, breathing in the smell of her shampoo.

Booster rubbed her back gently. “Hey, hey. I missed you too, babe. Monaco was a total drag. I spent four hours in a makeup chair getting my scars covered up and they didn’t even take pictures of my back! The director was a total douche. There wasn’t even any crime for me to fight, so I spent the whole time bored out of my utterly gorgeous skull! There weren’t any cute cabana girls in blue bikinis, either.”

Theodora sniffled, her fingertips brushing against the bare skin of Booster’s back. She felt thick scar tissue. Then she remembered the Highland Park house exploding, the two of them lying on the lawn at her own feet.

“C’mon, you look like you had a rough day,” Booster said, gently leading her over to the couch.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Theodora managed weakly.

Booster flopped down onto the couch, grabbing the remote and turning up the volume. The nightly news was on, the newscasters about to cycle through the headlines again. Theodora curled up beside Booster, afraid that she would disappear if they weren’t close together.

“Opening arguments continued today at the World Court in the Alexandra Luthor trial. Luthor, as you may recall, attempted world domination three years ago and is charged with a laundry list of crimes including…”

Theodora stopped paying attention to the news as her memories gave an abrupt lurch, the altered timeline catching up to her. Lex Luthor had been behind everything. She’d approached Max five years ago and attempted to recruit her for a secret project. When Max turned her down, Lex tried to have Cadmus kidnap her and clone her, build her a more compliant Max to be the perfect scapegoat. Theodora had foiled that attempt. After a week of hiding out in Bailey, Max had gone to the Justice League with her concerns, but Lex had denied any involvement. Lex wasn’t deterred, though, and pressed forward with her plan. She gathered a secret cabal. She built the OMACs that threatened the globe. She stole Batwoman’s satellite and used it to blow up the Highland Park house, revenge on the Blue Beetle for denying her the perfect patsy.

“Ted? You okay?” Booster asked.

“Just a little dizzy,” she said softly, massaging one temple with her fingertips.

Booster leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Then I guess the wild welcome home from Monaco sex will just have to wait. You work too hard, Ted.”

“I missed you so much, Booster,” Theodora said.

She smiled, snuggling Theodora closer. “Well, I’m not going anywhere for a while, so you don’t have to miss me.”

+

Far away from their apartment, in an island floating at the end of time, Rip Hunter watched Theodora and Booster on her screens. There were still outcomes to observe, ripples to study, but at this point she could say the mission was a success. One thing still bothered her, though.

“How did Jimena get the scarab, if neither Booster nor Ted nor Mitch took it from the house?” someone asked from behind her. Rip heard footsteps and didn’t turn.

“I should’ve known. You always have to meddle,” she said.

The other woman laughed softly. “What can I say? I had a personal interest in this mission.”

“You could’ve disrupted everything,” Rip pointed out.

An older woman with close cropped auburn hair and brilliant blue eyes stepped up beside Rip, watching the screens. She smiled. “But I didn’t, did I?”

“I was certain you’d figure out my parentage before we finished the mission,” Rip said. “You kept giving me a look.”

“Yes, well, when you’ve worked with three of the greatest detectives the world has ever known, you begin to become suspicious of everything. I never did get to thank you properly, you know. I never forgot what we did, but I never thanked you.”

Rip turned now, offering her a small smile. “Like you said, personal interest. I wasn’t about to let what happened to Earth-Prime happen here. I’ve already talked to some of the other versions of me. They’re all going to fix their own timelines. Then we’ll figure out what to do about Earth-Prime and Earth-2.”

“Good. I know you’ll make everything right. Your mom and I are very proud of you.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you and Aunt Jimena,” Rip said. “I’ll be home for dinner tonight, Mother.”

Theodora squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll tell Mom to expect you. Don’t be late.”

Rip went back to watching the screens, knowing that at least in this corner of the universe, everything would be okay. She smiled, shutting off the images one by one, leaving one last lingering shot of two women curled up together on a couch in Hub City, warm and safe.

“Checkmate.”

++