I'll Always Come Back to You

Rory stared at me through the window, pressing her hand to the thick plate glass. “You’ll come back?” she asked, her voice crackling over the speaker in the room.

I nodded, not sure that I could trust my voice at that moment. I cleared my throat and smiled. “Always,” I promised. “I’ll always come back to you.” It was one of the few promises that I could make.

Rory meant it in another way; I knew that. She meant after, but I could not promise her that. I looked beyond her, to the clock just visible over her head. We had less than a minute left together. I could hear the hum of electricity as the generators kicked on, and the fine hairs on my arms raised with the current.

My heartbeat thundered above the static hum ringing in my ears.

Thirty seconds.

“I love you,” I said as the last seconds edged closer, and Rory stoically wiped her eyes, mouthing the words back. The world around me went white, then burst into a kaleidoscope of colours and geometric, fractal patterns.

I blinked, counting the seconds until it passed.

My heart slowed back to its normal rhythm, and the edges of my vision returned. As the ringing in my ears subsided, I could hear a voice calling out. “Mister, hey, mister. Are you okay?”

I sat up and smiled as I looked into the familiar doe-like, wide eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

The world around me broke into chaos as my senses caught up with what happened. Sirens screamed in the distance, and nearby I could hear the joyous screeching of children at play.

No matter how many times I came back, the experience was always jarring. “What happened?” Rory asked. “It sounded like an explosion, and then you were just...here.” She held her hand out to help me.

I still felt unsteady but knew from experience that the feeling would not last long. “Not sure,” I lied, stumbling as I attempted to take a step. Rory held out a hand and helped steady me, a worried look on her face.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You look a little pale.” I nodded as I stumbled again, a wave of nausea rippling through me.

I could no longer remember how many times we had gone through this exact exchange. Had it been a hundred? A thousand?

Time blurred as I gazed into her eyes. Green like the grassy knoll we stood upon and flecked with hints of brown and gold. I can still remember the first time I gazed into those eyes and how they had captivated me as much as they did now.

From Rory’s perspective, this was the first time.

“Maybe we should take you to the hospital,” she suggested and her eyebrow cocked with concern. I just shook my head.

“Jetlag,” I said and attempted to take a step. This time I was more steady on my feet.

Rory laughed, and the sound was like sleigh bells on a clear, crisp winter morning. Her laughter rang through the air as her lips turned upward slightly at the corners. “You’re funny. Where did you travel from then?”

I shrugged my shoulders, deciding to go for the truth this time. “About twenty years from now,” I said. Rory only laughed again.

Even after coming back as many times as I have, I still have not figured out what draws me to this exact spot, this exact moment, every single time.

At first I thought it was some calculation or coordination we had missed, or in the wrong spot, but I poured myself into the formulas and there was not one clue there. After the first dozen, or so, times I stopped worrying about finding something in the code or the formulas.

She became my reason. Rory was always there, waiting for me.

I knew she wasn’t actually waiting for me. Her reason for going to the park that day was as simple as wanting to enjoy the beautiful summer day and read on the knoll.

Our lives have stayed relatively consistent each time. Rory is always a few months shy of her twentieth birthday when we meet. I have no way of telling, for sure, so I presume that I am still twenty-five—the age when I first came back—though sometimes it feels as though my hair is greyer and I have more wrinkles than I remembered.

Despite the similarities, there is never a sure way to know how this time will go. Sometimes I have told Rory the truth, sometimes I choose not to. Of the times I have told her, sometimes she takes the news well and...well, I try not to think about the times she has not taken it so well.

She stops and helps me take a seat on a park bench next to the footpath and takes a seat beside me. “My name is Aurora, but everyone calls me Rory.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Rory,” I say and can’t help but smile. Her beauty always strikes me that first time. The way her long fiery hair burns with hints of copper and gold when the sun hits it, the faint smattering of freckles across her cheekbones and nose. “I’m Rhys.”

Rory took my outstretched hand and shook it, her green eyes glimmering with a smile. Her cheeks flushed, and she looked down at her shoes as she fiddled with the hem of her dress. “This probably sounds crazy,” she said, drumming her fingers against her thighs. “W-would you like to grab a coffee?”

I smile and pat my pockets. “Can I get a rain-cheque on that? I seem to have lost my wallet on the way here.”

“My treat,” she offers and pushes to her feet, reaching out a hand. “Come on, there’s a great shop around the corner.”

I take her hand and let her lead me to that little coffee shop. She orders the most sugary frozen coffee drink, topped high with whipped cream and drizzled with caramel. “Don’t judge me for it,” she pleads as she plunges a straw into it and takes a sip.

“Wouldn’t think of it,” I laugh. “It’s not every day I get treated to coffee by a beautiful woman.”

Rory blushes and brushes a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “Not every day a guy just pops up out of thin air and then claims that he’s from the future,” she whispers, her eyes darting around.

This is new.

“It was just a joke,” I say, trying to backtrack, but Rory’s eyes narrow.

“There have been rumors,” she whispered. “They wouldn’t be happy to know the rumors are true.”

“Who?” My heart was pounding. This was not normal. What had gone wrong to change it so drastically?

“I don’t know. They don’t really have a name, at least not an official one,” Rory whispered under her breath. The coffee shop was almost empty, but her eyes darted here and there. “People just call them Hoppers. They showed up about a year ago, claiming they came from the future.”

“What do the Hoppers want?”

I heard the metallic click as the safety clicked off and cold metal touched the back of my head.

“You,” a voice behind me said. “Don’t make any sudden movements. Hands up.”

When I did not move fast enough, the person nudged me with the gun. I raised my hands, and they came around, patting me down.

Rory sat quietly, hands up, and a look of fear on her face. Anger swelled in me. I wanted to protect her, but this was new to me and I did not know how to react to get us both out of this situation.

“I don’t understand,” I said as the agent pointed to the ground, and Rory and I both sank to our knees on the rough tile floor, lowering onto our bellies with our hands on the backs of our heads.

“I think you do,” the agent said. “You have been traveling through time, on the same trajectory loop, for the last forty years.”

Forty years? How? There was no way forty years had passed since the first time I had gone back.

“You have me mistaken.”

“It has taken us forty years to figure out how you did it, Rhys Taylor, but we have figured it out. You probably never suspected that we would watch your wife, did you?”

“I don’t even know who you are!” I screamed, but the agent laughed.

“Oh, Mr. Taylor, you may not know who we are but we have been following you closely for a good long while. Now, if you would kindly come with us. We have some questions for both you and your wife.”

“Wife?” Rory laughed, and the agent turned a withering look in her direction. “Lady, you’ve got it all wrong. I don’t know this man.”

“Then why has his trajectory always looped back to you?”

Rory stared at the agent, then turned to me. “I...I don’t know.”

The agent handcuffed us both and secured us both in the back of a windowless van. They put black bags over our heads, and in the darkness I could hear Rory crying.

“Rory, I’m sorry,” I said, and she hiccoughed.

“What did they mean? Why did they call me your wife?”

“I’ve come back to this day and time...I don’t even know how many times. All I know is every time you are there. I love you. And I know it sounds strange, we’ve just met…” Once I started I could not stop talking. I spilled it all out in case I never got another chance to tell Rory it all over.

“No matter what, I’ll always come back to you,” I promised.

Rory sniffled, and her foot brushed against my leg. I knew she couldn’t see it, but I smiled.

The van rumbled, and the engine cut out. The black bags lifted off our heads, and I took a deep breath, relishing the fresh air after breathing through the thick fabric for so long. Streaked mascara ran down Rory’s fair cheeks, and her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. The agent ushered us into a nondescript concrete building.

I could feel the thrum of electricity as soon as we crossed the threshold, and the fine hairs on my arms stood up.

“Mr. Taylor, you have threatened existence itself with your ideas and experiments. The Continuum is not to satisfy your fantasy, to relive your life with this woman. You must return to your time and stay there.”

I turned to Rory. How could I? My time…

If what this Hopper said was true, I would be sixty-five in my time. Rory would be long dead. The children we may have had would be old enough to be grandparents in my time.

“No, no, I can’t. I promised.”

I feel hot tears on my face.

The agents drag me into the room I am familiar with.

But something is different this time. Rory and I have not shared our life together as we have all the other times before.

For the first time I worry that this could be the last time.

Rory stares at me through the window, pressing her hand to the thick plate glass. “You’ll come back?” she asked, her voice crackling over the speaker in the room.

I nodded, not sure that I could trust my voice at that moment. I cleared my throat and smiled. “Always,” I promise. “I’ll always come back to you.”