Chapter Text

I - Number

The first thing Wendy Bennett did after getting kicked out of class was buy a coffee she couldn't afford.

It wasn't an impulsive decision so much as a matter of principle. If Professor Hartman was going to stand at the front of a lecture hall and describe her as "academically gifted but catastrophically disruptive" in front of eighty students, then she deserved some form of compensation. The university certainly wasn't offering refunds for public humiliation. A caramel latte and a chocolate chip cookie seemed like a reasonable settlement.

By afternoon, spring rain had swallowed the campus whole. Water slicked the sidewalks in silver sheets, turning every passing student into a blurred reflection beneath the gray sky. Umbrellas drifted between buildings like dark flowers blooming and disappearing in the mist.

From beneath the café awning, Wendy watched them all with mild interest while stirring ice cubes around a drink she had barely touched.

Her disciplinary notice sat folded beside her coffee.

She stared at it for several seconds before crumpling it into a ball and shoving it back into her backpack.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Problem solved.

The backpack itself looked like it had survived a small war. Pins covered nearly every available surface, ranging from biology jokes to bands she no longer listened to. Half the zippers were decorated with keychains she'd impulsively bought at conventions and forgotten about immediately afterward. Somewhere at the bottom lurked at least three overdue assignments, two pens that no longer worked, and a notebook she hadn't opened in weeks.

Wendy leaned back in her chair, balancing precariously on two legs while the rain drummed steadily against the awning overhead. She knew she was going to fall eventually. She always did. The knowledge had never once stopped her.

For a while, she simply watched the rain.

Students hurried across the courtyard in clusters, heads bowed beneath umbrellas. Others sprinted between buildings without any protection at all, accepting defeat with the kind of resignation unique to college students. Somewhere nearby, a cyclist hit a puddle and immediately regretted every decision that had led him there.

Wendy was beginning to think the afternoon might pass peacefully when her phone buzzed across the table.

The contact name made her sigh immediately.

RAVEN.

She answered before the second ring.

"What did you do?"

On the other end, Raven sounded genuinely offended.

"Wow. No hello? No concern for my wellbeing?"

"Concern implies surprise," Wendy replied. "What did you do?"

A brief silence followed.

Then Raven said, "My phone fell off a balcony."

Wendy closed her eyes, a breath escaping her lips. It could've been worse, she thought.

The rain somehow seemed louder with the growing headache she was going to get from living and dealing with a 5'2 girl with jet-black hair and apparently having a misfortune magnet around her at all times.

"Raven."

"It wasn't my fault." The girl immediately says after hearing the underlying tone of exhaustion in Wendy's voice.

"You dropped your phone, Rae."

"Technically, it fell."

"From a balcony." Wendy quickly added, an eyebrow raising even though Raven couldn't see her judging her right now. It was probably better that she couldn't.

"You're focusing on the wrong part of the story."

Wendy pinched the bridge of her nose.

Around her, students moved in and out of the café carrying steaming drinks and armfuls of textbooks. Someone inside laughed loudly enough to turn several heads. Life continued as normal while Raven, apparently, continued functioning as an active threat to technology.

"How bad is it?" Wendy asked.

"The screen looks like modern art."

"Lovely." Wendy huffed with sarcasm oozing through her tone, letting her chair stand properly without having the risk of possibly breaking the legs that tried hard to keep her from falling as much as gravity allowed it.

"I can only read half of anything."

Wendy watched another student make the mistake of stepping directly into a puddle, regretting their life choices midway.

She shifted on her seat to pretend she hadn't seen the mishap. "How are you calling me right now?"

"Voice assistant."

The answer came so quickly that she physically recoiled. Who even had to use Siri for dialing calls? Elderly people, sure.

"That's horrifying." She comments, a dramatic shudder to add emphasis on how ridiculous this situation was.

"I know!" Raven drawled, a literal whine coming from her. It was a noise of pure disdain, one where you know that this was a normal occurrence.

For a moment, all Wendy could hear was traffic passing through wet streets and the distant murmur of voices on Raven's side of the call. Then her friend released a dramatic sigh, "I need you to call someone for me."

"No." Wendy immediately replied.

"What?"

"No," She insisted, because no way in hell was she getting roped up into this myriad of self destructive acts that challenge the force of nature.

"Wendy."

"Absolutely not."

"You don't even know who it is."

Wendy picked at the paper sleeve wrapped around her cup, already feeling the headache developing into a full blown migraine.

"It doesn't matter who it is. Every time I help you with something, it somehow becomes my problem."

"That's not true." Raven's voice became defensive, though it all but covered the shame that went through Wendy's ears. And she was the type to hear tones and unintentionally memorize how someone talks, so she knows when someone is lying.

"You accidentally got me banned from a bowling alley." Wendy pressed, her tone deadpanned.

"That was one time."

"It was three times."

Raven had the audacity to sound wounded, she does that whenever she felt like Wendy was antagonizing her but was weighing the circumstances. No hard feelings, just mutual understanding that: Yes, she was the villain here.

"You make it sound intentional, Wen."

"The manager had your photo, dude." A small short laugh came from Wendy.

"He was overreacting!"

"He called security."

"He was a diva in disguise."

Wendy laughed despite herself and immediately regretted encouraging the conversation.

A notification appeared on her screen.

Raven had sent a photo.

The moment Wendy opened it, she groaned.

"What am I looking at?" She immediately asked as she stared at the blurry image.

"A phone number." Raven answered like it was the obvious that it was an image of a phone number.

"No, seriously."

"That's a phone number, Wen."

"It looks like a treasure map!"

The image showed a scrap of notebook paper covered in smeared blue ink. Rainwater had transformed several digits into abstract artwork. The first few numbers remained readable. The rest looked as though someone had spilled coffee on them, stepped on them, and then attempted to recover them through interpretive dance.

Raven laughed, before adding to the disaster, "It isn't that bad."

"One of the numbers is literally a squiggle."

"It's probably a three."

"Probably?"

"Maybe a five."

Wendy dropped her forehead against the table, the thunk was most likely heard from her end because Raven laughed a little more.

"You're unbelievable," she groaned.

"Love you too."

Before she could argue further, the call disconnected.

Of course. That's just lovely.

Wendy stared at the photo for a long moment. Then she looked up at the rain, as though the universe might provide guidance.

The universe, predictably, offered nothing.

Just gray clouds, cold weather, and increasingly questionable life choices.

With another sigh, she unlocked her phone and opened the dial pad. She told herself she was only doing this because it would ultimately save time.

And she usually lied to herself.

The first attempt connected her to a grumpy elderly woman who informed her she had the wrong number before hanging up abruptly. She crossed out a number that had been a possibility of what the whole number could be.

The second reached a dentist's office. Another number she crossed out.

The third didn't connect at all. A more aggressive scrape of paper, she crossed out the number.

By the fourth attempt, the situation had become personal. She wasn't helping Raven anymore. Now she was just dialing out of spite.

The rain intensified while Wendy studied the blurry photograph on her screen. Water rattled softly against the metal awning overhead, spilling from the edges in steady streams. Across the courtyard, a group of students made a desperate run toward a nearby building while attempting to share a single umbrella. The arrangement failed almost immediately, leaving all of them equally soaked.

Wendy barely noticed.

Her attention remained fixed on the image.

She zoomed in until the pixels began to dissolve into meaningless shapes. One digit looked vaguely like a three. Another could have been a five. The final number appeared to have given up on being a number altogether and settled into a loose approximation of modern art.

"You're a three," she muttered to the screen. "You have three energy."

The number, predictably, offered no opinion.

She changed the digit anyway and hit call.

The phone rang while she drummed her fingers against her untouched coffee cup. By now, the challenge had evolved beyond helping Raven. Logic no longer mattered. She simply wanted to prove she could solve the puzzle.

The first ring passed.

Then the second.

By the third, Wendy was already composing a message explaining exactly why Raven should never be trusted with paper, pens, phones, balconies, or really any object that could potentially interact with gravity.

Then the line clicked.

A burst of static flooded the speaker.

Wendy frowned immediately.

The sound wasn't what she expected. Most bad connections produced a familiar digital crackle, sharp and artificial. This sounded different. Softer. Older somehow. The noise drifted beneath the silence like distant radio interference caught in a storm.

For reasons she couldn't explain, she sat up straighter.

The static shifted.

Then a voice emerged.

Male.

Quiet.

Gentle.

The kind of voice that seemed to arrive carefully rather than suddenly.

"Hello?"

Wendy blinked.

Something about it immediately caught her attention.

"Uh, hi."

Silence lingered for a moment.

The rain continued falling around her. Somewhere inside the café, a milk steamer hissed. A student laughed loudly before being shushed by a friend. Yet all of it seemed strangely distant compared to the faint crackle coming through her phone.

Finally, the man spoke.

"Who is this?"

The question carried no suspicion or irritation. If anything, he sounded confused and.. strangely cautious.

Wendy glanced at the number displayed on her screen. "Actually, I was about to ask you that."

There was a pause.

Then he laughed.

The sound surprised her.

It wasn't dramatic or especially memorable on paper, but something about it felt remarkably genuine. The laughter came easily, without self-consciousness or performance. It was simply amusement finding its way into the world.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I thought I knew everyone who had this number."

Despite herself, Wendy smiled.

"You'd be surprised."

His laughter returned, quieter this time.

Thunder rolled somewhere in the distance. The connection crackled briefly before settling again.

For a strange moment, Wendy found herself trying to picture him.

She had no information to work with beyond a voice. Still, her imagination immediately began constructing possibilities. Maybe he was another student. Maybe he was older. Maybe he was standing somewhere near a window watching the same storm.

The thought should have felt ridiculous.

Instead, it felt oddly natural.

"What's your name?" he asked.

Wendy dragged her finger through a ring of condensation on the table.

"Wendy."

"Wendy." He repeated it thoughtfully.

Not absentmindedly. Not as a question.

As though he were committing it to memory. The simple act made her unexpectedly aware of herself.

She wasn't sure why.

"I'm Michael."

The name itself didn't mean anything, yet the feeling of familiarity returned. A faint tug somewhere in the back of her mind. Like hearing the opening notes of a song she couldn't quite place.

She frowned slightly.

"Michael what?"

There was a brief pause before amusement colored his voice again.

"Just Michael."

Wendy laughed, leaning back on her chair with a raised eyebrow. "Oh, you're one of those people."

"What people?"

"The mysterious people." She answered, spinning the pen in between her fingers and ultimately failing as it slips from her index finger and hits the table.

"Mysterious?" he asked, the tone was somehow nervous. Wendy caught it.

"The kind who introduce themselves like they're already famous."

A laugh escaped him after a brief pause. Wendy didn't think further into it. "I wasn't trying to be mysterious."

"That's exactly what a mysterious person would say."

His laughter came more easily now.

Wendy found herself listening for it.

Outside, the rain continued its steady assault on the campus. Students moved through the gray afternoon beneath umbrellas and hoodies. Cars hissed across wet pavement beyond the university gates.

Life continued normally.

Yet somehow the conversation had begun to feel separated from everything around it.

The realization struck Wendy unexpectedly.

Normally she wasn't good at conversations with strangers.

She got distracted.

Or bored.

Or impatient.

Usually all three.

Yet several minutes had passed without her checking her messages once.

That alone should have worried her.

Instead, she found herself asking questions.

Michael answered thoughtfully, often pausing for a second before speaking. Not because he seemed uncertain, but because he genuinely appeared to consider what he wanted to say. It was a rare quality.

Most people waited for their turn to talk.

Michael actually listened.

The conversation drifted naturally from one subject to another. Music became movies. Movies became travel. Travel became stories about places neither of them particularly planned to visit but both somehow found interesting.

At one point Wendy glanced down and realized her coffee remained completely untouched.

The ice had melted.

The cookie was gone.

She didn't remember eating it.

That felt mildly concerning.

"Okay," she said eventually, checking the time on her phone. "This is probably the longest wrong-number conversation in human history."

Michael laughed softly.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. I was avoiding responsibilities anyway." Wendy replied, flicking a crumb from her table.

"College?"

The question caught her attention.

"Yeah."

"What are you studying?"

"Biology."

There was a brief pause.

Then he asked, "What's that like?"

Wendy blinked.

The question itself wasn't unusual.

The sincerity behind it was.

There was no polite obligation in his voice. No attempt to fill silence. He sounded genuinely curious. As though he truly wanted to know.

She couldn't remember the last time someone had asked that way. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

"Stressful. Expensive. Mostly me staring at molecules and wondering where my life went wrong."

His laughter crackled warmly through the static.

"You don't sound like someone who regrets it."

"I don't."

The answer came easier than she expected.

Rain continued to streak down the café windows. The afternoon crowd had thinned considerably, leaving only a handful of students scattered among the tables. Some studied. Some pretended to study. One appeared to be asleep on a textbook.

Wendy watched droplets race one another down the glass while Michael described a song he was working on.

He spoke about it vaguely. Almost shyly. The hesitation surprised her.

People usually enjoyed talking about things they created.

Michael sounded as though he cared about the song enough to worry whether it would sound foolish out loud.

For some reason, that made her listen more closely.

Eventually a notification appeared on her phone.

Then another.

Three missed messages from Raven. One from a class group chat. And a reminder about an assignment she had completely forgotten existed.

Reality, unfortunately, had excellent timing.

"Well," Wendy said reluctantly, sitting forward in her chair, "reality is calling."

On the other end of the line, Michael hummed softly. "I should probably go too."

"Probably."

Neither of them hung up.

The realization arrived almost immediately. A strange pause settled between them—not awkward or uncomfortable, just reluctant. It was the kind of silence that appeared when a conversation had reached its natural conclusion but neither person seemed particularly eager to be the first one to leave.

Wendy picked at the peeling paper sleeve wrapped around her cup.

"Hey," she said. "If Raven ever figures out who you were actually supposed to be, maybe I'll let you know."

"I'd appreciate that."

"Or I could just text you."

The pause that followed was subtle at first, barely noticeable. Then it stretched a little longer than expected.

"Text me?" Michael asked.

Wendy frowned.

"Yeah."

There was another brief silence.

"What does that mean?"

She laughed immediately. "Text you. As in send you a message."

".. What?"

The amusement faded from her expression as she listened to his voice. There was no trace of teasing in it. No hint that he was setting up a joke. He sounded genuinely confused.

Outside, thunder rolled across the city, and a cold breeze drifted beneath the awning. Wendy stared out at the rain before glancing back at her phone.

"You don't know what texting is?"

"I don't think so." His voice came soft, like he was almost embarrassed that he doesn't know what it was.

For a moment, she simply sat there.

"It's sending a message on your phone," she explained.

"A written message?"

"Yes."

"Without calling?"

"Yeah."

The conversation stalled again.

Wendy found herself studying the dark screen of her phone as though it might somehow explain what was happening. Every reasonable explanation she came up with collapsed almost immediately. If he were joking, he was extraordinarily committed to the bit. If he wasn't joking, then she had absolutely no idea how someone could reach adulthood without knowing what texting was.

A grin slowly spread across her face.

"Okay."

Michael immediately sounded wary.

"Okay what?"

"Either you're eighty years old, or you've been living under a rock."

His laughter returned, warm and easy.

"I don't think either of those are true."

"Then explain yourself."

For the first time since she'd met him, Michael hesitated.

The pause wasn't especially long, but it felt different from the thoughtful silences that had appeared throughout their conversation. This one carried uncertainty. When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than before.

"I don't know how."

Something about the answer made Wendy sit a little straighter.

It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't frightening.

It was honest.

The realization settled over her slowly as rain tapped against the awning overhead. Around her, students continued moving through the gray afternoon, carrying umbrellas, backpacks, and unfinished conversations. The café remained warm and noisy behind her. Everything felt ordinary.

Yet the strange feeling she'd experienced since hearing Michael's voice returned.

That faint sense of familiarity.

That feeling that she was missing something important.

Wendy twirled the straw between her fingers.

"Fine," she said at last. "Let's start simple."

Thunder rumbled somewhere beyond the campus. The connection crackled softly through the speaker.

"What year are you in, Michael?" She had intended for the question to be a joke.

The silence that followed was immediate.

Wendy waited, the silence meant that he was thinking or hesitating. Or was genuinely confused as to why she was even asking.

Outside, rain continued to race down the windows. A car hissed through standing water beyond the courtyard. Somewhere in the café, a blender started up again.

For the first time since the call began, Wendy felt a small knot of uncertainty tighten in her chest.

When he finally spoke, his voice was distant beneath the static.

"1987."