The moment Kayla landed it was bad, and every second that ticked by after was worse. She didn’t know where she was or what she was doing or what year it might be, all she knew was that she would have given anything to make the world stop spinning. There were voices she couldn’t pay enough attention to identify, and before she knew it she was being tugged by the middle out of wherever she was and into the ether.
Steve tried to yell for Kayla when he arrived into whatever destination his body was existing in, but nothing came out. He had no capacity to focus on anything. It was worse than anything the white-haired doctor in Tuscany had ever forced upon him. It was so bad he didn’t even register when the next jump was upon him.
Kayla and Steve’s next landings were 15 seconds behind each other – closer than any jump had been in years – and they both threw up immediately upon arrival. They were no more able to focus this time than last time, and Steve wasn’t even aware that this was a new destination. They were on the pier at Allied in 1986, and Kayla vaguely registered that Bo was freaking out that both his sister and his frenemy were puking at the exact same time for no apparent reason. She flailed for something to hold on to as she fell to her knees with what was, no question, the worst vertigo she’d ever experienced. Steve was doing no better. He made the mistake of trying to focus his eye on his surroundings, his gut continuing to betray him as a result.
“What the hell did you do to her?!” Bo spat over his shoulder with equal amounts of accusation and repulsion. Kayla was gasping for air on all fours as Bo held her by the shoulder with one hand, and held her braid back with the other.
Steve had managed to sit heavily against the a crate. Finally able to put words together even as the pier continued to spin, Steve barely got his wife’s name out. It was a scream in his head, but it was a pathetic croak to everyone else.
“Don’t talk to her,” Bo said with a bit less anger than he started with, as watching them both be so incredibly ill was unnerving. “Actually, just don’t try to talk at all, man.”
But he pushed ahead. “Stock—holm …,” he rasped. “Kayla … Stockholm …”
“Stockholm?” Bo asked completely confused.
“Yes,” Kayla was able to hiss out in a whisper. “I—rem—.” It was all she could do until her surroundings stilled.
Steve’s dizziness hadn’t really ebbed much when the third tug came. “Shit!” he found some strength to truly shout. “Another one!”
Kayla was finally able to open her eyes and turned around on her knees. She grabbed on to Bo’s yellow, sleeveless hoodie and let him hold her as her head hung over his shoulder so she could connect eyes with Steve. Their bodies had no strength, but they each extended an arm toward each other, and Steve could see when the jump found Kayla. He heard her moan then he was gone again.
Steve landed in an apartment he didn’t recognize in 1977. The intensity of the vertigo hadn’t diminished, and he collapsed on the floor of whatever room he was in. Marina didn’t hear him fall the floor in a heap from her position in the bathroom doing her hair, and Steve didn’t have the physical strength to call for Kayla or feel for his surroundings. All he knew was he had no idea where or when he was as the jump sickness assailed every cell of his body. When he was finally able to open his eyes, his vision was with both of them, not just the one.
“Where am I?” he mumbled into the carpet.
“What did you say?” Marina almost sing-songed from the bathroom. Steve didn’t really want to recognize her voice, but he did. He whispered out an expletive, which she didn’t hear. “Steven? Did you say something?”
Steve looked around. The apartment wasn’t familiar at all, but he knew the furniture, and this was not a time he wanted to be in. Luckily, he wasn’t going to have to navigate it as the next jump tugged him so hard he was practically gasping for air. The last thing he saw was Marina’s feet approaching as the slipstream flung him across both continents and decades into another apartment in the next millennium.
Steve sucked in and immediately smelled a mix of baby wipes and … cold cuts?
“… And you can’t,” he heard Kayla’s angry voice. Steve closed his eye to the spin. He reached out his hand, but all he caught was air as she spun away from him.
“Uncle Steve,” a woman’s voice whined in a strange plea. Nothing was familiar yet, other than the abject sickness that wasn’t letting up. The woman repeated herself as she watched him slump his body against the doorway.
“Uncle Steve, are you ok?” This time it was a much stronger voice – one that always sounded like she was doing you a favor just by addressing you. Sami. I think. Much as he wished the rollercoaster would stop, the downward momentum only continued, his stomach about to be left behind.
Sami’s tone made Destination Kayla turn back, and the next thing Steve knew he was leaning on her as she led him to the couch.
“Steve! What’s wrong?”
“Is he drunk?” Sami asked with absolute sincerity.
“No, he’s not drunk, Sami – ya know what, maybe you should just go now. Ok?” Steve heard their voices but not really the words they were saying. Steve huffed out nauseated breaths; it took all his strength not to throw up this time. He let Kayla lay him down, his eye shut against the spin.
“Ok, just … Aunt Kayla, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have let Ava come.”
“Oh fuck, not again.” Now Steve found his voice and flailed to get up.
“Sami! I’ve got this,” Kayla insisted as she fought Steve’s attempts. “Go!”
Steve opened his eye to a slit just in time to see a flash of emerald green sulk away, closing the door behind her.
“Kayla? Sweetness?”
“I’m here, what’s wrong?!” She sat beside him on the couch and felt his forehead. “You’re completely green.”
“She’s not here with us is she? Please tell me that witch isn’t here.”
Kayla took a beat then quietly replied. “If you’re talking about your crazy ex-girlfriend, no, she’s gone.” Girlfriend? Even in the ex sense, Steve cringed. The waves of hostility coming off of Kayla were palpable, though, and given that he had no idea what his surroundings really were, she was his only clue as to why. He had to sober up real quick, however, when Kayla felt for Steve’s pulse and about jumped out of her skin. “Jesus, Steve, your heart is racing. I’m calling an ambulance!”
“No! No, I’m ok, it’ll pass! I know you don’t understand, but it’s gonna pass.”
“Steve, something’s wrong, what if you’re contagious, Joey can’t catch this!”
“It’s not! Look, I’m already better.” Kind of. He looked her in the eyes, and it was an improvement with only three of four of her looking back at him. He registered that her hair was short, and that’s really all he could garner.
“You can’t even focus!”
Steve closed his eye again, then took a very deep breath. Then he very carefully tried again, and this was a definite improvement. He wasn’t thrilled to see his clearly distressed wife staring back down at him, but he was completely relieved at the improvement. He didn’t bother asking Kayla if this was her or not, clearly it wasn’t. It was a bad moment to be at the disadvantage.
Kayla felt his pulse again and was surprised. “Huh. Ok, you seem to be improving here, but you nearly passed out.”
“I know. I …” He wanted to say she was just going to have to trust him because he couldn’t explain it to her, but he knew this was a bad scene right here, and he just took the easy way out as he waited the unknown amount of time for his Primary Kayla to get there. “… think I’m just hungry.”
Kayla crossed her arms under the peach bodice of her blouse and said, “well, between Maggie and my mother we’ve got plenty to eat.” Her tone was so cold.
“We’re fighting about Ava, aren’t we?” Steve asked softly.
“Ya think?!” Kayla snapped. She stood up in what Steve recognized as disgust and hurt and crossed over to the desk in the corner.
The room was stable around him, now, but he could feel instability in the air, like an undertow beneath a deceptively calm surface. He carefully sat up and gasped as he got his first cogent look at the front door with blue and silver balloons decorating it. And every corner of the room. He turned himself around and finally got a full view of the room. His breath caught in his throat when he spied the giant banner that said Welcome Home Joe hanging on the wall.
And a bassinet not ten feet away from him.
“Joe …,” Steve said in wonder. “Joey can’t catch this …” “My God, Joe … That’s my baby boy!”
The look on Kayla’s face was no less anguished, but concern was now also etching her eyes. “Of course, it is.” And they were the last words she’d be saying as this destination’s Kayla. Steve didn’t see her freeze, because his wide eye was on that bassinet with his son sleeping inside of it. As a result, he didn’t see when Kayla arrived just as sick as the previous jumps and fell against the desk.
The vertigo was like an old enemy coming back to continue tormenting her on this fourth jump away from LA in even fewer minutes. She held on to the desk and somehow controlled her gorge as she screamed out Steve’s name.
Steve tore his gaze from the white bassinet and cursed at himself when he saw her. This had to be his Kayla arriving. He was up like a flash, despite the air roiling around him like a warning. “Sweetness?” He knelt beside her. “I’m here, baby, I’m here!”
In response, Kayla clutched on to him with one hand and just moaned. It was all she could do to stave off another bout of heaving.
Steve wanted to pick her up and take her to the couch, but he could feel that he just didn’t have the strength of the younger man he’d been for so many years before this, the jump effect not helping matters, and settled for taking her to the floor with him and gathering her up into his lap while she rode it out.
Steve knew she was her, but Kayla’s fog was thick, and she didn’t know which Steve she had. It took a full minute for her to no longer feel like she was going to gag, though the room was still spinning. “Steve,” she gasped.
“Shh, baby, I’ve got you.”
“Do you remember Stockholm?”
“What is this, 20 questions?”
“Thank God,” she whimpered.
“Shh, baby,” he kissed her head. “It’s ok.”
Steve held her close against his body, and she just held on until she felt like she could let go without falling. Finally, Kayla took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “Where are we?”
“Not yet. Just stay here ‘till it’s over.” Kayla heard the waver in his voice, as well as the tone; he was older, and he wasn’t ok, either. “Can you sit up?”
“I think so. Now tell me,” she insisted as he gently pulled her up to lean against the leg of the desk, “when is this?”
Now Steve’s eye creased in heavy emotion. “Oh, Sweetness. We’re in our apartment. Joe’s right over there.”
Kayla’s eyes got as big as saucers, and Steve could see the pulse race in the hollow of her neck beneath her cameo.
“Joey?”
Steve nodded. “He’s over there. I haven’t even seen him yet.”
Kayla let out a strangled cry. “My God! We’re home!”
Of that Steve wasn’t so sure, but they were close. And right now nothing was going to stop them from seeing their little boy.
Moving through the charged air to get the ten feet to the bassinet was filled with fever dream anxiety. It was like trudging through waist-high water, they felt like the atmosphere was pushing against them. Like they wouldn’t make it before the next jump took them. Somehow they had an innate feeling that the jump was around the bend. But they were home. This was the jump home, right? It had to be. But then why did both of them feel like it was about to get taken away again?
Moments later, a two-month old baby named Joe Johnson that they hadn’t seen in ten real time years was now in front of them, sleeping in bliss, his ruby red lips making sucking movements just like his sister, Emily, used to do.
Steve and Kayla quietly began to sob.
“I have to hold him,” Kayla barely whispered. “Before it’s too late.”
Kayla placed her hand softly on Joe’s warm belly. She gasped, and Steve dropped his head into his hand, he was so overcome. She unhooked him from his sleep apnea monitor, lifted him out from under the pristine white hood of the bassinet, and held him against her breast.
“Oh God, Steve,” she cried. “It’s Joey. It’s really our Joey!”
Steve put his pinky into his baby’s tiny little hand, and Joey gripped it in a grasp reflex. “I’m so happy to see you, Little Dude,” Steve cried, enjoying the feel of his son holding on to him. “Strong little baby boy Johnson.”
Steve and Kayla couldn’t tear themselves away from their baby. They just wanted to be with him, hold him, love him.
Still sleeping in his mother’s arms, they went into their bedroom, and sat on the edge of the be together.
“Joey,” Kayla cooed. “My sweet, sweet boy. You’re such a sweet little baby, you know that? Do you know how much your papa and I have missed you? Do you know how much we think of you every day?”
Kayla gazed up from her infant’s face to look at her husband. His longing was heartbreaking. “Your turn,” she said.
Steve took the warm bundle to his own breast without hesitation. Just then Joe very calmly opened his eyes and looked right up at his father. No crying, no whimpering baby sounds. Just a serene baby waking up in his father’s arms.
Steve ran his knuckle down his son’s porcelain cheek. He kissed the top of his head, smelled his clean hair, and rubbed his cheek against the baby’s head. And he smiled down at his boy.
“I didn’t remember his face anymore,” Steve’s voice cracked. “I didn’t remember our baby boy’s face.”
Kayla’s eyes misted. She stood up and held her husband against her as he held their son. She said nothing, but her touch alone told Steve that the only judgment between them was of himself.
“He’s my son, Kayla. He’s so beautiful. We made this beautiful baby. How could I forget what his face looks like?”
“We’ve been away a long time,” she said softly.
Now Steve finally looked at her. “I barely got any time with him.” Kayla was silent. “Neither of us did.”
The fact that these ten real time years had gone by since that first day they’d jumped on March 2, 2009 was hard for them to wrap their brains around. More insane to them was that it was still the same day for Rolf. The fact was their heads were swimming. Not moments ago they were in 2004 with their oldest child, now they were here back in 2009 with their youngest. They’d had no time to adjust, and they could feel the air vibrating all around them. They’d never experienced that before, but they just inherently knew it meant another jump was coming.
Now Joey cooed, and it cut through all of it. They giggled at the beautiful sound of his voice and couldn’t stop staring at him, stroking his little baby arms, and feeling overwhelming amounts of love. The coos soon became fussing, and Kayla’s breasts reacted to the sound of it.
“Oh boy,” she said as she hunched slightly with the unmistakable feeling of engorgement. “It’s been a long time since I felt this.” They’d lost all track of real time, and the disorientation was still significant. But all this baby knew was this was his here and now, and he was hungry – and they were the only parents that were present.
“When in Rome, Sweetness.”
Joey latched on to his mother’s breast like a champ, and no matter what baby or what timeline, the relief of nursing felt quite good, indeed.
They were arranged in the tender positioning that made Steve and Kayla feel so close to each other and their son, with Kayla feeding Joe while leaning back against Steve in their bed. She wanted this to be it. She longed now for this to be really and truly done. Even as her routine of 2004 was still active in her hindbrain – and even as she’d ache for her life with Steve and Emily and their potential future in 1989 – Kayla needed for these jumps to end right here, right now. They were back. Right …? Even she was going to find, Kayla ran her hand over her sternum while Joe nursed. She paused her hand there and sighed. No scar. “I thought we were home. But we’re not.”
Steve nodded. “I know.”
“He was 8-months-old when we jumped. But I haven’t had the surgery yet. I think we just brought him home.”
“It’s not over,” Steve said. “I can feel it.”
Kayla’s eyes watered. All she could do was nod.
It didn’t take long for Joey’s tiny little belly to get full, and he unlatched himself from his mother’s breast. Then Steve took over so he could burp his little man.
Kayla finally looked away from her son to really take a good look at her husband. It had been so long since she’d seen his aged face. He was so handsome, and the look in his eye as he held his son was beautiful. Steve looked up at his wife and smiled. He knew what she was thinking and loved her for it. He palmed the side of Kayla’s face, and stroked her cheek with his thumb.
“I love you,” he whispered. Then he kissed his little boy on the top of the head. “And I love you, too.”
It was only moments later that the tug pulled at Steve’s gut. “Next one, Sweetness! Oh, Jesus, it’s bad.” Steve somehow found the strength to give Joey to Kayla, he then promptly fell heavily against the headboard.
Kayla knew she had only seconds. She scrambled with their baby in her arms to sit beside Steve against the headboard. She held him in her left arm as Steve automatically did the same with his right. He was secure with both of his parents, and they’d be together with him when they left and this timeline ended.
“Say I love you to your Papa.” Kayla was crying. She couldn’t help it. The tug reached her, and then she cried more.
“He loves you, too, Sweetness.” She nodded and smiled through her tears. Then Steve reached across them all for his wife’s hand. “We both do.”
“I love you, too. I’ll find you.”
But he was gone. And then so was she.
The next four jumps were the worst physical torture either of them had ever experienced. One jump after the next, over an over, the sickness intense to the point of that they would have done anything for it to stop. Only one lasted long enough for them to gauge their surroundings. Kayla was at the Emergency Center, Steve was on the docks, people they didn’t remember surrounded them in their separate locations, and by the time those people realized something was wrong with them they were gone again.
Rolf looked at the computer display. He didn’t need the printouts, he knew that none of these numbers were going to make any sense. There would be no trend to glean. No analysis to be made. No way to change the duration of the jumps or when they came. The ripples each and every time a major change was made had flung them from one year all the way back decades to another one, just to be flung forward again. They had six more years to go on the 16 he’d hard coded into the slipstream; it could not be changed. It could be stopped or it could run its course; no in between. And no way to know what would become of them if he did anything but walk away and allow the latter to happen. Nothing was more of a shock, however, than the year he saw coming next. “Zaat … is spectacular,” he said in awe. And it was too bad, too, because it was the perfect time for him to jump in, himself, as he said he would. But there was no way he’d be able to reach them, and it wasn’t like he’d have the news they wanted, anyway. So, he looked ahead for the next opportunity. Because on this one they’d have to be on their own.
Kayla arrived to the fifth jump away from Joey (and eighth from LA) to a room she knew all too well. The jump sickness was notably better, but the room still spun. She regained her bearings very quickly this time and was grateful. The sting of leaving Joey after so short a visit was a terrible melancholy, so at least not having to deal with the jump sickness was something positive.
She looked around and confirmed that she was in the kitchen of the home she grew up in. Again. The design and contents made it clear that this was before the updates of her later adulthood, so there was a bit of comfort in her memories of their 1979 jump. If it was that early, of course, it was going to be a mess with him on the ship again. Kayla ran her hand through her hair in disappointment – and froze. It felt wrong. It felt really wrong. In fact, she, herself, felt completely strange. She was facing the sink, and it felt, frankly, very weirdly proportioned. She caught a distorted glimpse of herself in the faucet. Very carefully she rose her arms to eye level and turned her hands over and back. Every hair on her body stood up as she slowly glanced down at her body. Before she could do another thing someone entered the swinging door behind her.
“What’s up, Buttercup?”
She turned around. It was Roman. And this Roman was a teenager.
Kayla screamed.