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The ribbons of time traveling power ceased swirling around Rory. While she had been more prepared for it this time, the parting words of her father filled her with trepidation, for as she faded from his view, she could have sworn to Amenadiel that he had said:
“You have my word….that I will not abandon you!”
Despite wanting her last words to both of her parents at the same time to be ‘I love you’, she hadn’t had the chance to say anything as her power took her back to the bedside of her aged mother, in the chair she had nearly toppled over in her initial rage that had sent the whole course of the last couple of weeks in motion.
She slid her hand into her mom’s hand and as she watched her face, Chloe’s eyes flickered open.
“Look who’s back. We were wondering when you’d be coming back.”
Rory, still reeling from the events she had endured in the last few hours, grew confused.
“We?”
“Hello darling,” a masculine voice said behind her.
She spun in her chair, and at the sight of her father standing a bit away from the foot of her mom’s bed, she stood in shock, managing to topple over her chair after all.
“But how? How is this possible! You promised! You were supposed to promise! You tricked me!” she screamed, starting to walk over to her dad with the plan of beating his chest with her fists in frustration. In her peripherals, she noticed that some of the items and pictures scattered around the house were different than they were before.
“Rory please,” her father begged. “Take deep breaths and please listen to me.”
Surprising herself, she began to do just that.
Okay, she thought. I’m obviously still here because the fabric of space hasn’t fallen apart.
“Explain,” she growled, glaring at her father.
“Well, it’s like this,” he began. “Remember when your Mum got a little research crazy, getting all those time travel books mortals had written over the past few decades?”
She nodded.
“Your mum is quite the intelligent woman. She read in one of those books a particularly interesting theory on how it is that the future could be altered without the traveler being aware. Basically the reason why none of your memories changed while you were with us in 2021, it’s…well, it’s because you were in the past.”
At the obvious confused look on her face, he sighed.
“Okay so I’ll try to explain this as best I can. In order for your memory to catch up with the alternate version of events that came about due to the change, you have to physically be in the time after all of those events had occurred. That’s why when Chloe and I made the decision to basically say “fuck fate”, none of what we planned on changing would have had the opportunity to settle into your brain.”
Try as she might, she found herself incapable of believing him.
“If that’s the case, why do I still only remember you having never been with us?”
“Just give it some time,” Mom said. “You have 43 years’ worth of memories to let take hold.”
“Okay! Say I believe this, and the memories of what you guys say would have had happened take hold. What about the memories of the past where I grew up without a dad? Will I still remember those just as clearly? Will I get confused when you reference something having happened with both of you there, but a part of me knows it either didn’t happen that way or not all?”
Her dad held back a flustered stutter.
“I, or rather we, hoped that once your brain is done doing it’s upgrade, as it were, that the timeline you lived without me will fade, and seem like nothing but a barely remembered dream.”
Rory looked at her mom for reassurance, desperately hoping that their theory held true. Her mom had fallen back to sleep with a smile on her face.
“Alright,” Rory began, steeling herself for the worst because she couldn’t help but be a little pessimistic. “Help my brain with its “upgrade” and tell me some things that we experienced as a family, together.”
Her dad did just that. He also reassured her about the purpose they had discovered for him in regards to helping the damned souls in Hell.
“They have already tortured themselves with their guilt loops for thousands of years, what’s a few thousand more?” he had said. And that was that on that.
Later that night as she laid her head down to rest, a montage of new memories began to flood her mind.
Turns out that her dad had kept that tacky tricycle he had bought for that non-Christmas he threw for her. She had learnt to ride it when she was four. Turns out that despite her wings sprouting when she was three, she had been upset when they wouldn’t support her for flight just yet. He had taught her to ride it, so that she could pretend while riding that the wind brushing her face would simulate the wind in flight.
He had been there with her and her mom on her first day of school, his advice on how to keep her wings tucked in to hide the existence of celestials from mortals echoing over the words of advice her Uncle Amenadiel had given her. She remembered every birthday, every celebration, every time she had gone to him for advice or to watch More Bones, his presence filling the memories with subtle differences to how they were for her originally.
In just a few short weeks, her childhood of sadness, disappointment, and rage at her father’s absence quickly faded, just as her parents had said they would. And in just a couple years, she knew that pain no more.