Chapter Text
"Ach, calm your wee nerves, I can hear you," Horizon says while setting down her coffee, her sensor datapad screeching and jingling after the first results of her scans have returned.
She picks up the pad and keeps swiping warnings off the screen, "I ken, I ken, you've got a lot to tell me."
"Beep-bada-beep?" Newt chimes as he hovers next to her. The hovering robot really must know: new data means new tests, which could mean feeding his singularity. If he was capable of speech instead of his beeps, the pleasure he took from absorbing things would be most unsettling. Something about snuffing out the light and hiding things deep in his compressed heart is... thrilling.
It's a good thing he's cute, at least.
"Noo jist haud on, Newtie. Dinnae bump into me so much. We already waited 5 days for these results, ye can wait a few seconds," she says with a smile, patting Newt on the top of his frame.
Unfortunately, it's all background noise. No matter, it will just take a few days of adjusting the antennae, then a few days of collection, then tuning the dishes to a lower frequency, then a few days of collection, then lowering the entire assembly, then a few days...
This would be easier with more equipment. And a full team. And some idea of what the signal would look like. Elliott and Ramya were glad to help piece things together initially, but they had their own lives, and she couldn't expect them to drop everything for weeks at a time. Natalie and Dr. Caustic were somewhat helpful, but this test went beyond electrical engineering, not to mention all of the room Caustic predicted he would need to monitor his spiders if his schedule did clear up. He didn't divulge what that schedule was made of; probably better that way.
So, it's just Mary, wishing she had more time to unlock all of time. Given its anomalous nature, the Rift on Olympus is a perfect place to search for a path backwards. Find the signal, modify the Phase Runner, get back to Newton. It sounds so simple, minus all the ridiculous science in between those steps.
"Nothing worth noting, I'm afraid," she says, frowning. Newt also looks despondent as he droops to the floor.
Mary leans on a nearby console, occasionally swiping back through the data while twirling her pen in her other hand. Certain things stick out as promising only to be disproven by whatever shows on the next slide. She stares up into the ceiling of the rift.
He's out there, somewhere, out past the screaming of the stars. Fusion and flares and prophetic sinkholes, all drawing in anything they can find in the vastness. All she needs is a link, a bookmark. Some way to fold over history and move the stars.
She will move them all for Newton.
"I know you're out there, Newtie. I just have to find the right time... so to speak."
Stupid, belligerent Time. She imagines it like water in a bucket, splashing over the sides and out of so many holes. You can't plug them all, so you have to buy more holey buckets to catch the flow, and then more and more and more until the buckets themselves make their own streams. An ever-expanding fractal, and she has to find a specific bucket she's spilled out of, hoping she can climb back in and pick a different stream now.
Time should really invest in some Flex Seal.
She can't look at the sky any longer, as the stars seem to push back at her, their vastness and weight shouting her down. Holding her head high through all of this is starting to feel more difficult than escaping a black hole. She goes through the motions: that recording was real, and it was her and Newt on it, so she knows that she succeeds... but it also means it's a different timeline than her current one, because Pathfinder mentioned knowing a much older Newton. If that's true, what if she's not the right Mary? What if she spends the rest of her life just to be the wrong one? What if she never...
She doesn't remember ending up on the floor, or holding her head in her hands, or how all these tears seem to empty from her eyes while a void fills her chest. But she can't stop remembering Newton, and every memory is a sweet knife that she puts in her own back.
He ran about the research facilities, smiling all the while and asking everyone what they were working on. The anti-gravity playground she built for him was something he spent most of his time outside on, pretending to be a scientist or some daring space adventurer. Just like his Ma. And she would read him so many books, and hold him tight, and he would fall asleep in her arms, and she can't see straight from all the sobbing, and she keeps clutching her knees as a poor substitute for her son. Her head is filled with pain and thoughts of what she cannot have, and the stars above laugh at her incompetence.
Newt floats over to her and nudges her, offering a small dose of comfort. She falls onto the robot, giving him a hug. People aren't suppose to escape black holes either. It doesn't seem like much when compared to the infinite number of failures that could await, but it's enough. She had less than that when stuck on the event horizon.
"C'mere, Newtie. There are mysteries of the universe out there, but every question has an answer. Science can take us into the future, so it can surely take us to the past. Ach, that's a bit dark under a different context, isn't it?" she laughs.
There is a sharp knock at the door to her lab, and Horizon lifts herself from the ground and wipes the tears away. "That'll be Pathfinder with the replacement fuses."
She opens the door and greets the MRVN, "Thank ye, dearie. Seems we need more and more of these as the weeks go by. I should really ask Natalie to give the circuitry another look over."
"Happy to help, friend! I could take a look at it, if you'd like, Dr. Somers. I've picked up some electrical engineering tips along the way."
As Horizon takes the box of fuses from him, she considers the offer, "Aye, I suppose ye have. Path of all trades," she says with a smile, "Och, and call me Mary. Newton made you, so that makes us family. Though, I suppose that makes me your grannie. I am gettin old…"
"Sure thing, grandma Mary!"
Something about that takes a piece of her. A lost hope, something so trivial when compared to the twisting of stars, but there was a time when having grandchildren was comforting; yet another wonderful stone to stand on while crossing the river. Well, maybe, if Newton did survive, then that's still possible. Maybe they're even still alive...
Then she looks at Pathfinder and knows it to be true. Sure, he doesn't carry the family resemblance in a physical way (unless Newton had some work done), but the MRVN's voice is a future song. Newton was so bright-eyed, just like his ma, lookin at the universe like a present to unwrap. The Somers have always seen possibilities and hope, and what was Pathfinder if not hope personified?
Hope, walking right in front of her. And had walked in front of Newton. And spent a lot of time near the Phase Runner…
"Pathfinder, dear, stay right there!" Mary calls while rushing to a table of instruments.
"Okay! I'm good at waiting."
Mary returns with a corded scanner and searches around for an outlet near Pathfinder. There isn't one to be found, and Discovery is filling her with nervous energy. So, she opens up a small panel on Pathfinder's back and plugs the scanner in there (all MRVNs have these, but Pathfinder has an extra seven, and a popcorn maker too).
"That tickles!" says Pathfinder. It doesn't, actually, but he feels like it's still appropriate to say so.
The scanner whirs and beeps as Horizon glides it along Pathfinder's frame. Some parts have been replaced over time due to damage, but his head and torso are mostly original. That's where the scanner really takes off, and so do Horizon's eyebrows.
"These readins," says Mary with a smile, "They're the best I've gotten yet. The wavelengths match, the dating lines up, and there's only a small amount of deviation… unless… Maybe that deviation's what I've been missing. Yaldy! That's it, Pathfinder!"
"Am I it?" Says Path, both excited and confused.
"No. Well, yes, but not you, but a part of you!" she replies, happily pacing back and forth while thinking aloud, "I always knew I was missing some data, and you've got the right signature! I can fold time thanks to you! This is brilliant!"
She gives Pathfinder a hug and kisses him on the side of his head, which makes Path's screen show a blushing face. Before he can respond, Mary has already skipped back to her console, making changes to her settings. There is a terrifying intensity in her unblinking eyes as her fingers turn the calculations around, running numbers at a speed she's never gone before.
And then a small success message appears on the screen. And Horizon freezes, awestruck. Pathfinder slowly walks over and joins her in staring.
"Did it work?"
"It- yes. It did. It worked. It… worked?" she says while sinking back in her chair, still staring at the screen, "It worked. I'm gonna see him again."
Mary screams, tears pouring down her face, "I'M COMIN' FOR YE, DARLIN'! YER MA'S COMIN' HOME!"
The doctor sobs into Pathfinder's arms, hugging him again, this time so tightly that he might actually need some more replacement parts. He knows what to do in this situation, so he hugs her back. They stand there for a couple of minutes while Horizon cries tears of joy and gasps, trying to form words. The scientist in her wants to get to the next step, but the mother in her demands that she be free for a moment, free to feel everything that she's hoped she would.
Once she can finally put together a sentence, she starts, "I'm -sniff- I'm sorry to fall apart on you there, Pathy. I didnae mean to be up to high doh, but sometimes you just have to celebrate."
"Crying is good, grandma Mary. When I was a therapist, I learned that it's an emotional response needed in acceptance and- " Pathfinder realizes this may not be the best time, so he goes back to: "Crying is good."
Horizon finally unclamps her hug from the MRVN and wipes her eyes. It's going to happen. No more just saying it. It's gone from "Hope" to "Truth". She cannae hardly believe it.
"So, what do we do now?" asks Pathfinder.
Horizon's face grows daring and determined: "We need to do a little shopping."