Folios/v7/Time-landscape-2019/MS-163
The moment they arrived in Carlisle, Kate knew she had been there before. It was larger and more sprawling than she remembered, but there were still traces of the Carlisle she knew in the old buildings that had survived the years since she’d last been here in 1745. The town square had a department store, a pharmacy and a cafe instead of the dressmaker’s and greengrocer’s and butcher’s of her memories, but the cathedral was still there, ancient and immovable as always.
“Can we – can we just drive past the castle?” she asked, a little desperately.
“This is crazy,” Tom said. “Someone could find us any minute. What are you doing?”
“Please, Tom,” she said. “It’s important. We’ll be quick – I promise.”
“You have ten minutes. Then we have to leave,” he ordered.
She nodded her agreement. Matt was still watching her, worried, and she knew that he was experiencing the same sense of déjà vu that she was.
It was the castle that had changed the most. The moat was gone and instead neat lawns bordered the crumbling walls, and a busy dual carriageway thundered past the entrance. But it was still a military facility, with tanks parked in the car park as tourists wandered along the retired castle battlements.
Tom waited in the car, ready to drive off as soon as they were done, while Kate and Matt went inside. The castle was just opening for the day, and Kate impatiently bought tickets from a half-asleep attendant.
Matt was silent beside her. As they entered the castle courtyard, he grabbed her hand, holding on like an anchor. She shivered slightly, pulling him close.
They went straight up to the battlements, which were wider than she remembered and neatly paved and fenced. Kate took a deep breath, suddenly hearing the cannonfire that had echoed around the stones all those centuries ago.
> Time merging has reached 100% completion in time-landscape 2039
Matt let out a shuddering gasp beside her; she could feel him trembling.
Now she looked closer, she could see that much of the castle was exactly the same. She led Matt silently to where they had stood watching the Rebels digging trenches in the snow in 1745. Now it was a playground, and the sound of laughing children filled the ancient battlefield.
“It really happened, then,” she said, stroking a hand over the cold stone, worn with another three hundred years of weathering. The cannons were still there. She touched one of them, wondering if it was the same one that she had repaired with Matthew.
“I don’t understand,” he said hopelessly. “It was all real?”
“It was,” she confirmed. “We were here.”
“And … and other places. The Crimea?”
“And Bletchley Park. We were there too.”
He nodded. “Why? Why did it happen? Why do we keep coming back?”
“The closest we ever got to an explanation was witchcraft. Even now, three hundred years later, I don’t have a better reason.”
“There must be a reason. Why?”
“We keep helping,” Kate remembered. “We stopped the murder at Bletchley Park, saved Alan. We keep helping.”
“And now? Now we do what? Make sure the bacteria is destroyed? Stop an apocalypse before it starts?”
“Apparently.” She tried to push away the swells of a panic attack. They couldn’t do this: it was too much responsibility. They weren’t anything special.
“It’s really important, then,” he said, quiet, resigned. “If we’re here, if we were brought back again, it must be a huge, pivotal moment. It has been every other time, even if we didn’t know it then.”
“What if we fail?” Her voice was almost inaudible, breath misting in the cold morning air. “What happens next time? We come back and the world is a wasteland?”
“We won’t fail,” he said, determined. “This is what we’re here for. We can do this.”
She turned to him, pressing her face into his shoulder and breathing in deeply. He wrapped his arms around her, held her until they both stopped shaking. “We can do this,” he repeated.
The encampment was quiet, almost peaceful, as Matthew and Katy rushed back from the front line to the tent where the generals were meeting to discuss the battle. A soldier stood on guard at the entrance, dozing on his feet as the generals inside planned their next move.
“I don’t think we should wait,” Matthew said. “It could happen any time.”
“Shall we just barge in?” Katy asked doubtfully.
“Yes?” Matthew took a hesitant step forward, eyeing the quiet horizon. “There isn’t any sign of rockets yet.”
Katy straightened her shoulders, cleared her throat and, regardless of anyone watching them, she leant up to kiss Matthew, quick and soft. “We can do this,” she promised. “It’s going to be fine.”
“See you on the other side.” He cupped her cheek, then pushed a curl of hair behind her ear.
She shivered. “Don’t say it like that. It makes it sound like you mean in the afterlife.”
He blinked once, twice, and it looked like he was going to cry, but then he smiled. “If that’s what it takes to find you again.”
“Oh, trust me. You aren’t getting rid of me now.” She kissed him again, and then finally pulled away. “Let’s save the world.”
When Katherine brought Matthew his dinner, she was shocked at how much worse he had become in the hour she had been away. His skin was redder, blistering, and he was trembling badly. She shook him awake gently, and he sat up shakily. He managed to eat only a little of the meal before he threw up once again. She chattered as she tucked in the blankets, trying to distract them both.
“So you say I was a servant in a war in eighteen fifty-four? That other me sounds very brave. I’m not sure I’d be able to do that. I must seem so dull in comparison. I don’t even know how to boil potatoes properly!”
Matthew blinked blearily, rubbing a hand across his forehead. “You were amazingly brave. But you aren’t dull now. You’ve just lived a different life. I am sure there are lots of things that you can do that the Katy I knew couldn’t.”
“So the minute you saw me I swept you off your feet with my sparkling wit and personality? You proposed on the spot and we were wed within the hour?” She was trying to make him smile, but he just answered seriously.
“Not precisely. Actually, I thought you were a boy.” When he saw her outraged expression, he hurriedly added, “You were dressed like a boy. You introduced yourself as Kit.”
“Oh.” She lay down next to him, turning to face him and making herself comfortable. “So how long did it take for you to find out I was a woman?”
He turned his head on the pillow to grin cheekily at her. “You’re a woman?” He broke into weak laughter at her unamused expression. “It’s a long story and not one I’m very proud of. I got angry and treated you badly. I’m quite ashamed of myself, so I’d rather not give you all the details. But eventually I got to know you as a woman.”
“And you fell deeply in love?”
Considering she’d been teasing him almost incessantly since she’d met him, it surprised her when he actually blushed, his cheeks reddening even more than they already were.
“I was in awe of your determination to survive at all costs. When I met this tiny little girl, who’d found a way to carve out an existence when the whole world was against her, I felt as if I’d been mollycoddled my entire life. She was fiery and funny and challenged me in a way no one else had. So, yes, I fell in love.”
She gazed at him, filled with utter amazement that this was how he saw his Katy. Then she folded her arms. “What do you mean, a tiny little girl? I’m not tiny!”
“What? Oh, well. Katy was a lot shorter than you. She was very skinny. I don’t think she had a consistent food supply growing up.” He paused, looking sad. “I wonder if she would have grown as tall as you if she’d been raised properly. It’s horrible to think that just the way people live can change so much about them – not just their memories, but their physical appearance too.”
“Katy’s a lot braver than me.”
“I’m sure that isn’t true. When I … arrived … you were in the middle of defending your city. You could have chosen to leave Carlisle with your family, but you didn’t, you stayed to fight. You could even have just waited at home to see what would happen, but you’ve been on the battlements, assisting the garrison with the cannons. That sounds wonderfully brave. If anything, I’m the weak one. In comparison to both versions of you, I’m a coward.”
“I think you’re very brave. You went to a battlefield as a journalist. That takes a lot of courage.”
“I think that was an anomaly,” he admitted in a low tone. “I was caught up in the glory of it all.”
“I don’t think there are any true heroes. Just people who ignore their survival instincts long enough to do something incredibly foolhardy.”
“That sounds about right. Although even with hindsight, I think I made the right decision – or the version of me that lives in this century did. Defending Carlisle was worth one life.”
There was a silence, and then Matthew smiled brightly, trying to reduce the tension. “Wait … you don’t know about dinosaurs, do you? They weren’t discovered until my century.”
She shook her head. He grinned. It was the most excited she’d seen him since his arrival. “You’re going to be utterly amazed. Do you know what a fossil is?”
They talked for a while longer, and once Katherine had got past the shock of giant spiky lizards that roamed the earth, she was very interested. But he was growing more exhausted, so she let him sleep. By morning she was wrung out, having spent the night in a light doze, worrying dreadfully. Matthew had woken up several times to throw up, and she made sure she was there to care for him.