Chapter Text
When his vision cleared, Garrick was looking directly into Imogen's eyes and his first thought was that she was as beautiful as the day he met her.
Which was easy because this was the day he met her. He'd nearly forgotten they'd met in passing before they first spent any real time together.
"Imogen," he whispered, in awe of her. Because it had worked, brilliant fucking woman that she was, the additions to the rune array had worked. More than worked, because the Imogen standing in front of him right now was still blonde, hair pulled back in pigtails, all of six years old.
"You know her already?" said a quiet voice behind Imogen, and it was Bodhi, six year old Bodhi, and Garrick's brain was already spinning out. Sweet Bodhi, who had also just met Imogen all of an hour before, who had no red around his dark eyes.
"What happened?" Imogen hissed, but Garrick remembered this day clearly.
"This is the day we met," he told her. His voice was so high in his own ears and he could feel himself blush.
Bodhi stepped in, looking back and forth between them. "You're being real weird," he told Garrick. "I'm gonna get Xaden." He was gone before either of them could think of something to say to him.
"How did you even know that?" Imogen asked, leaning in closer so she could whisper.
"I- remembered what you were wearing. I only saw your hair in pigtails like that once."
"Yeah, because you said that's how babies like Sloane wear their hair." She stomped her foot. Garrick wanted to laugh at her doing something so… so six-year-old, but he could feel himself wanting to tug her pigtail for snapping at him. Apparently some things are just wired into kid brains, he thought.
"Shit, sorry, I forgot about that," he admitted.
Imogen scoffed. "You would." She put her hands on her hips and Garrick felt like he was seeing both of her at once- the woman he knew and the little kid, all knees and elbows. "That doesn't explain why I'm six, idiot."
"Maybe since it was both of us, the magic decided our fate changed when we met?" Garrick shrugged.
"I guess. Fuck, now what? We're kids, we can't-"
"Garrick?" Another young voice echoed down the hall and Garrick froze.
"Xaden?" Garrick hesitated before turning around. It didn't make sense. They were all kids, there was no way, but he still braced himself, trying to shove away how Xaden had looked the last time he'd seen his best friend.
"I thought you were getting snacks. Where'd you find a girl?"
"That's Imogen," Garrick thought quickly. "Her mom and dad are here for-" He stopped as he realized what he'd said. When he looked at Imogen, her eyes were already wide in realization, her body shaking a little, her eyes shining.
"My whole family's here," she said with quiet awe. "My mama and my sister and- and my papa!"
Fuck, of course, he thought. Garrick hadn't thought about it at first because there was so much to think about, this was so wildly outside of their plan, but that meant not only was his dad here and his aunt Morag but his mom was still alive out in the country.
Before Garrick could put his thoughts together into a sentence, Imogen had broken into a run. She dashed through the halls straight to the Assembly chamber, Garrick right behind her and Xaden on his heels.
The door to the chamber was closed and it towered over six-year-old Imogen, but she used all of her strength, hanging from the latch to open it and shoving it open with her shoulder until she could run inside.
Garrick, a little taller and a little wider, had to stop to open the door further. By the time he got into the room, Imogen was already in her father's lap, her face buried against his shoulder as she sobbed "papa, papa," over and over to him.
"Young man, would you happen to know why young Imogen is so upset?" Garrick's spine straightened instinctively at the sound of his father's voice. He looked over and it blew him away—not only was his father alive but he looked so young standing there next to Fen. In his head he did the math; if he was seven, then his father wasn't much older than Brennan had been. Wasn't that a wild thought?
Xaden skidded into the room right behind Garrick, nearly bowling him over, and then it was Fen looking… much more amused than Garrick could ever remember him looking, actually. Like he thought they were cute or something. And then he realized that despite his father's words, his dad was looking at him the same way.
Huh, that was weird to think about.
Garrick tried to hold himself together but there were already tears on his face as he looked at his father and then his dad was there scooping him up in a hug. Despite everything that had happened—that was going to happen—that he hoped was not going to happen—despite all of that, he felt safe in that minute, in his father's arms.
After they both finally calmed down enough to make up some ridiculous story about scaring themselves talking about bad things happening before Xaden had found them, Fen adjourned the meeting for dinner.
"We need to write down everything we can think of as soon as we can," Garrick whispered to Imogen after they were ambushed by a fretting Bodhi outside of the Assembly room. "It'll be too easy to forget." Imogen agreed.
Dinner itself made Garrick aware of the body he was in for the first time; his father had to stop him before he made himself sick because his eating habits were built around a much larger body. Imogen sat on her mother's lap and picked at her food, and Garrick could tell she was thinking the whole time. After dinner all four of the kids went up to the room Bodhi and Xaden shared.
"I need paper," Garrick announced. "Have you got blank notebooks?"
"I did some sums in this one but it's mostly new," Xaden handed one over, then another. "This one's good though." Garrick automatically handed the nice one to Imogen and grabbed pencils for both of them.
"What're you drawing?" Bodhi asked, looking over Imogen's shoulder as she started scribbling.
"Not drawing," she said, and then she paused. "Maybe drawing. Mostly writing."
"Kay, what're you writing?" Bodhi asked again.
"Don't bug them," Xaden said and immediately looked down at what Garrick was writing. "What's that?"
Garrick paused for only a second before Imogen jumped in. "It's a secret right now," she said confidently. "We'll tell you when it's ready."
"Where'd you get a secret?" Bodhi sounded impressed as he sat on the floor next to Imogen.
"Yeah, how'd you two get a secret? I was with you when we ate." Xaden was not impressed. Garrick realized that he wasn't sure he'd ever actually had a secret from Xaden when he was seven, or even for a couple years after that. They just… didn't work like that.
"That's part of the secret." Imogen didn't even look up at him.
Garrick couldn't take his eyes off the frown on Xaden's face. Even though Imogen was the one talking, it was aimed directly at him.
"Why didn't we talk about telling people?" he asked Imogen.
"It wouldn't matter. We weren't going to be here." She didn't look up from her notes.
Garrick tore his face away from tiny Xaden (he was so small! Bodhi was so small! Imogen was so small!) and resumed scribbling down everything he could remember. The thoughts were all over the place: venin attacks he remembered, how Draithus went down, Panchek, when Zolya fell, the Battle of Basgiath, what he remembered about the wards, fucking Varrish, Resson, everything with Violet, back through his years at Basgiath, fostering, the Apostasy, and even that was ten years in the future.
Fuck there was so much. The farther back he went, the harder it was to remember details and the more emotional he felt. The dates got more vague, but the broad strokes were there before that.
"This is so boring." Xaden sat down next to Garrick. "Are you crying?"
"No," Garrick said, though he could feel how hot and blotchy his face was.
"Why's your writing so weird?" Xaden was bending in to look at it. "That's not how you write in lessons."
"Reasons," Imogen answered before he could.
"Ims, you can't just keep snapping at Xaden forever," Garrick looked up. "We've gotta figure out how we're gonna save the world."
"If you're saving the world, I'm in," Xaden insisted. "You can't do it without me."
Imogen laughed. "I totally could. I could save the world with just Garrick and Bodhi."
"Me?" Bodhi squeaked. "But-"
"Xaden is my friend and I don't want to leave him out." Garrick wasn't expecting that much anger in his answer. Imogen pouted at him again. "Sorry! Thinking is really hard."
"Why don't you like me?" Xaden asked her, his arms crossed about his chest. The glare he levelled at her was… almost adorable. Fuck, it was hard to take him seriously.
Garrick looked at Imogen and she was glaring just as hard as Xaden was. He needed to step in. "She likes you fine," Garrick snapped, trying to stop them. "Just trust me, Xaden, okay?"
Xaden stepped back, blinking at Garrick. "Yeah, okay. Come on, Bodhi, let's go see if there's leftover cookies."
"What was that?" Imogen asked after they were alone.
Garrick shrugged. "He's my best friend but I'm his best friend too."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't just trust him because I'm supposed to, Immy, I trust him because he trusts me too."
"Don't call me Immy," she said, then looked down at her notebook and sighed. "What are going to tell them, Gare?"
Garrick sat back, letting his notebook flip closed. "I don't know. Maybe—wait. One more thing we should get down." He flipped the pages again and started drawing in the runes from the time travel array. "We can use the rune array if we have to prove it to the grownups. Colonel Mairi'll know even if she hasn't invented it yet."
"That's wrong," Imogen leaned over, scribbling on top of Garrick's own lines. "It's like this."
"That one's fate and this one's movement—"
"No I think this one was definitely—"
"It's not; this is the split one—"
"I'll split you, idiot—"
There was a cough from the doorway and Garrick realized Imogen was practically laying on top of him, drawing over his lines.
"We brought cookies!" Bodhi announced. "And milk. And then we gotta get ready for bed and Imogen's sleeping over."
"She's s'posed to go down an sleep with her sister," Xaden added as Imogen shoved herself off of Garrick.
"No, she stays," Garrick said. "So we can tell you what happened."
"But it'll be bedtime," Bodhi insisted. "Where's she gonna sleep?"
"I'll sleep with you," Imogen told Bodhi, and his eyes went so wide Garrick almost choked on his cookie laughing.
"You're a girl," Bodhi whispered, as if any of them didn't know. "It's not chivalry."
Imogen rolled her eyes. "We can sleep heads-and-feet if you're worried."
"Anyway, chivalry doesn't count til you're courting," Xaden jumped in to explain. "Imogen's not a girl til then."
"The word you want is lady," she insisted. "I'm a girl, but I'm not a lady until I'm older."
"Careful, Immy, you're already starting to sound six."
"Call me Immy again and I'll change the timeline by breaking your legs." Luckily for Garrick, Bodhi's and Xaden's mothers came in then to herd them through some semblance of a bedtime routine.
Of course, the last time Garrick had seen Xaden's mom, he'd just almost died, and the time before that had been Xaden's tenth birthday. His mind was already racing, wondering if there was some way he could stop that from happening, though he had no idea where he'd even start. Well, he had time, right?
The thought made him giggle to himself as he pulled on a pair of Xaden's sleep clothes. They didn't have much of plan, or any backup, or any idea where they could find allies. Time was the one thing they'd found.
Once they were all dressed for bed, Imogen had assured Lady Riorson half a dozen times that she was fine sharing with Bodhi, and Garrick was tucked into Xaden's sheets (but not under his quilt, because the quilt was special), the four of them were finally left alone again.
"Kay, Garrick. I have done all the waits I'm gonna do." Xaden sat up and wrapped his quilt around him like a cloak. "Why are you being weird and why is she so weird?"
Garrick looked at Imogen but she just gave him a shrug that said he wanted to tell them so this was his show. Fuck, how was he going to explain this?
He sat up in the bed next to Xaden, looking his best friend in the eye. "Okay. But you have to promise you believe me. This isn't a game."
"My dad says don't promise 'less you know what you're promising," Xaden said carefully. "But I'm gonna listen."
Garrick took a deep breath. "Imogen and I just got back from the future."
"The future?" Xaden sounded more confused than disbelieving, and Bodhi was just watching with big eyes, so he kept going.
"Yeah, when we're grownups." Garrick said. "We kinda know what might happen, and some of it is bad stuff, so we want to make sure the bad stuff doesn't happen."
Xaden was quiet, studying Garrick and then Imogen for a minute. "What kinda bad stuff?"
Okay, he just had to keep this from getting too dark, right? "Like there's a big war and it's bad and lots of people die." There, that sounded bad but not specific, he thought.
"Do we get to fight? Are we soldiers?" Xaden asked, excited now. "Are we heroes?"
"Yes, we have to fight," Garrick said carefully. "But war's a lot less exciting than I thought. And—and I don't like it when people die." When he looked over at Imogen, he saw that Bodhi had snuck his hand out from under the blanket at some point and they were holding hands now.
"Who dies? What happens?" Bodhi asked.
Garrick had to press his palms to his eyes, trying to keep back all the answers to that question.
"Too many people," Garrick said finally. "I don't want to say til we're older and we're gonna make sure nothing bad happens. Okay?"
"Okay. We'll save everybody," Xaden agreed. "How come I don't get to go to the future?"
Before he could answer that one, Imogen finally decided to help. "You and Bodhi are too important to everybody already. Garrick and I can be sneakier."
"But I'm the best at sneaking!"
"Not like that," Imogen continued. "Like, you're gonna be the duke so people pay attention to your manners and stuff, right? It's like that. Garrick and I can get away with stuff because we don't matter the same way."
"Garrick matters lots," Xaden insisted, grabbing his arm, and Garrick couldn't help grinning at his friend.
"To his friends, yeah," Imogen said, "but not like for being duke. It's like how Garrick's dad talks to people like your dad can't."
"Like how I can sneak stuff out of the kitchen when you're supposed to be on best behavior," Garrick added, and Xaden seemed to give in.
"But you'll be my advice-ers, and tell me all the important stuff, right? Like the council, only not boring?"
Imogen nodded. "We'll definitely tell you the important stuff."
"Kay. I trust Garrick an he trusts you," Xaden nodded and yawned. "Am I the best fighter in the future, Gare?"
"Only when you cheat against me," Garrick snickered, but Xaden looked offended.
"I don't cheat!"
"Use every weapon," Garrick said solemnly, quoting his aunt Morag. She said that all the time in lessons if Garrick or Xaden complained about the other cheating.
Xaden yawned again and laid back down. "'Xactly. Ev'ry weapon."
Garrick couldn't help picking up on Xaden's yawn. When he looked over, Bodhi and Imogen were already asleep.
He wanted to complain about being tired while it was still light outside, and how much being seven sucked like that, but he was asleep before he finished the thought.