Title: Blocked
Fandom: original
Rating: G
Length: 690 words
Notes: Time travel. Influenced by (but unrelated to) Sisyphus: The Myth. Follows on from Not this time and Every crumb a blessing, but hopefully sort of stands alone too. Much thanks to mergatrude for beta! <3 No archive warnings.
Summary: “You can’t try again,” said Weir, the technician on duty.
Grey stopped in his tracks. “What do you mean, can’t?”


“You can’t try again,” said Weir, the technician on duty.

Grey stopped in his tracks. “What do you mean, can’t?”

“I mean the facility manager said no.” She was lying on her back with her head under the time machine installation, grease all over her arms and clothes, not even looking at him.

Grey swallowed a tide of helplessness and worry and did his utmost to sound calm and rational. He’d made two more attempts to travel back since Elgin had gone without him, and each time the machine had failed. “What am I supposed to do? I need to get back there.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. I’m just a technician—” Weir stuck her head out and glared at him. “—and you’ve already cost us more parts that I can easily replace.” There was grease all over her lined face, too, and in her short hair.

Grey shoved his hands in his pockets. “But—”

She slid back under the machine and began unbolting something, grunting with the effort. A long, twisted component slid to the ground with a clatter before she spoke again. “Look, you know the deal. Either work it out with the facility manager or find some proof that the failure string is a coincidence. Otherwise we have to assume you’re coming up against a time event horizon. There’s no point throwing good fuses after bad.”

Her voice was muffled and infuriatingly reasonable.

Grey ran his hands through his hair and locked his fingers behind his neck. “Proof?”

“That’s what I said.” She was obviously done talking.

Grey wasn’t popular with either of the techs, the mysterious facility manager, or the long queue of other people waiting their turn to travel back to the 2010s. But he couldn’t give up on Elgin or their plan. Mostly Elgin. He turned on his heel and picked his way over cables and around crates to the tunnel to the door of the airlock. He needed to go outside, to move. He needed a plan.

Proof. Something he’d left for himself in the past to find now—evidence that he’d really been there. That this wasn’t a fool’s errand. If he’d done (was going to do) that, if it was anywhere, it would be in the caves. He glared at the old, fogged window in the airlock door. Six hours to get there, who only knew how long to find whatever it was, and six hours back. Then he huffed and went back into the main dome of the facility. If he was going to the caves, might as well make it worthwhile.

If Weir got the machine up and running, someone would be going through this afternoon. He grabbed a crumpled scrap of old paper from the floor and smoothed it out. It was printed on both sides, a page from a microwave instruction manual, but there was room in the margins. He begged a pen off Bryson, who happened to be passing, then crouched down and scrawled a note: Elgin, I am coming. Leave a sign in the caves so I know you got this. Grey

He hesitated. What if he told Elgin to mark the sign, whatever it was, with both of their names? Would that count as proof that he’d been to the past? Would it be enough to get him another try at the machine? Could he get away with it?

If the facility manager discovered he’d fabricated evidence, they wouldn’t just cut off his access to the machine; he’d be cast out entirely—and Elgin, too, if they ever somehow ended up back here. There was no room for liars and cheats in the facility. But how would anyone find out? He raised the pen again. P.S.

Elgin’s friend Adams passed by and said, “Hi, Grey, how are you doing?” and Grey stopped.

No. No, he’d do this right. He had to. And it would work out. He said hi to Adams, crossed out the P.S. and folded the note, then went to find out who was travelling this afternoon, to ask them if they’d act as his courier.