Home Sweet Home

[Sara Stanton]

"I don't... know. You can't just... inject time into somebody."

[Robin Stanton]

"Well that's quitting talk!" Robin says, turning into pale-pink goop, her foot that's still on the other side shooting out in several strands and latching on to the Boy. She pulls and tries to yank him through the portal, strained noises coming from somewhere in the amorphous blob that's mostly smooshed up against the invisible barrier.

"Don't... be... so... stubborn, dad! We're... going... home!"

When she doesn't make any progress beyond hugging her dad against the interdimensional barrier the goop sinks into Will, absorbing into the clay in an attempt to make him more 'Robin' in composition so he'll pop over. The pink goop twitches and wobbles with the strain of non-existent muscles until something suddenly gives.

And Robin pops through the portal, knocking Will back with the force of the sudden release and landing on top of him as a blob.

"Ah, beans..."

[Will Stanton]

"Robin!" Will cried, freaking out.

[Samantha McManus]

"Robin, you can't... you can't stay. You need to help your mum."

[Robin Stanton]

"I tried to pull him through!"

[Sara Stanton]

"Robin, sweetie, no!" Sara cries out. "No. No, I was supposed to get Will back, not lose the rest of my family!"

[Null]

"Forget about me," the boy said. "Can you lock onto her in some way? With your lab full of doohickies?"

[Sara Stanton]

"I don't know... yes... maybe..." she stammers for a bit, trying to think straight. "If she slipped through then..." She pulls up a hardlight screen and swipes at it to minimize a bunch of files and notes and starts scribbling.

"The transference of properties works, it's just... off. Her power's slightly different, there's an adaptive component that picks up on molecular structures... like mine... it's why she couldn't pull him through. It picked up on his properties. What I need is a way to have them pick up on mine. I just... need some kind of linkage. Wait... wait!" she says, snapping and holding up her index finger before going through a bunch of files until she finds the one she's looking for, pulling up some kind of complicated three-dimensional diagram.

"The crystals propagate through dimensions!" she says loudly as if that explains everything somehow. Then after a moment of confused looks she adds, "They're minerals! Like rocks and stones! I can pull you through! I just... need to hook a couple things together..."

[Will Stanton]

"You're technobabbling again, sweetheart. Just...you know. Deep breaths, isolate the problem, and solve it, one step at a time. You've got this."

[Tereza Rozanov]

Tereza subconsciously moves closer to Sam. This wasn't something she could fight and she was at a loss for how to help.

[Samantha McManus]

Sam kneels down and puts an arm around Tereza.

Then, she tries to reach across the rift herself, albeit just with her mind.

Who is she looking for?

Why, Will's Morrigan.

[Sara Stanton]

"Right... right. I just need... a catalyst and some samples, I got all of that." she says and starts gathering up things. most notably the device she used to inject the two Wills with earlier and a fist-sized chunk of crystal. She starts strapping the crystal into some kind of frame to hold it that has thin metal poles poking at or into the surface with cables running off of them. She hooks up the cables to a computer terminal and starts pulling up two files of rapidly scrolling code of DNA. She takes the injector thingie and hesitates for a moment, regarding the crystal chunk carefully before lifting the injector above her head and slamming it's syringe part into the crystal. Tapping a button on it's side she watches as a bit of clay spreads out through the cracks in the crystal introduced by the syringe with the tip of her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth. "Okay, okay, yeah. This could work. I got the catalyst, I have the genetic thumbprint, I have the right dimensional coordinates..."

"Now all the science just needs a bit of elbow grease..." she says, rolling up the sleeves of the lab-coat she must have put on at some point. You can't do science without a lab-coat. And then her arms turn to stone and slowly grow translucent as she crystallizes her hands. "Here goes nothing."

And with that she thrusts her hands into the crystal humming with electronic data and Will-clay, disappearing into it up to her elbows. The read-out on the screen goes crazy-nuts with data, genetic sequences, quantum signatures and who knows what else rushing past and trying to match up as Sara reaches into the crystal. "Come on... come on..." she mumbles, face scrunched up trying to maintain the integrity of her arms as they dissolve into the crystal. Finally the screen flashes along with a loud ding.

Code: Select all

Match found
Dimensional Properties stabilizing
Synchronization at 96%
97%
98%
99%
100%

And at that Sara pulls outward on the crystal, widening it and tearing it open with arms that shimmer with shifting facets and in the crystalline aperture two silhouettes take shape...

[Will]

Stepping through the aperture was...

Oh gods, not yet another Will.

He carried with him a small duffel bag, slung over his shoulder, and smiled as he stepped through the rift.

"I believe this is where I came in," he said, smiling at the assembled masses.

[Robin]

"Science! Yes!" Robin announces as she pops out next to Will. "That felt like it took foreeeeever!"

[Samantha McManus]

Sam blinks, still questing with her mind as she looks to her left and to her right, to where Robin and Will's halves were and possibly still are.

[Will Stanton]

And, in fact, they were there, looking just about as confused as Sam did.

[Will]

"The chronology was out of sync," Will explained, back through the rift, a bit apologetically. "It's 2035 here; it's 2019 there. With both a fourth- and fifth-dimensional variance in play, Sara couldn't bring us across the threshhold.

One of those had to change, and, well, the only one that changes on it's own was...time.

I waited four and a half billion years. Another 16 or so, it turns out, didn't kill me," he said, with an apologetic shrug.

[Samantha McManus]

"So ah..."

"...you're stuck with us for sixteen years," she says to Robin.

[Robin Stanton]

"And yet that's not the craziest thing that happened today... Cause that would be the fact that Dad's the one to explain what just happened."

[Will]

"Look, the only reason I know this is because, you know, I heard myself saying it. So, uh, write this down, me."

[Null]

"But if you only know about it because you heard...wait...no....argh!" the Boy said, holding his head.

[Robin Stanton]

"Aww man, my friends! My subscribers!" it suddenly occurs to Robin after making a dumb joke.

[Robin]

"Are right where and when you left them!" the older Robin supplies with a grin.

[Robin Stanton]

"Wait... sixteen year vacation in a day? Exploring an alternate dimension? Hell yeah, this is gonna make a killer vlog!"

[Samantha McManus]

"...I mean, you could probably get trending by suddenly showing up and doing a stream sixteen years older."

[Tereza Rozanov]

Tereza just looks back and forth at the group, not completely comprehending what's going on due to being still a little buried in wolf brain.

[Sara Stanton]

The moment Will finishes his explanation Sara is wrapping her arms around him and Robin, pulling the both of them into a big hug.

"It worked... It worked! I swear, I am not letting go of you for the next month or so!"

[A.S.H.L.I.E.]

"Dimensional waveform is collapsing." Ashlie's voice chimes in on the lab side of the portal. "I've held it for as long as I could, but energy consumption is increasing exponentially."

[Will Stanton]

Will has been sitting on his butt while all this has been happening, trying to take into account the absurd sight -- a full six-pack of Stantons, three on either side of a dimensional rifty...thing.


"I get to go home..." he whispered.

"I get to go home!" he shouted, springing to his feet, and doing a cartwheel.

"I get to go home, I get to go home, I get to go home!" he said, dancing around, finishing it up with a kiss on Tereza's wolfy snout.

"Woo-hoo!"

[Samantha McManus]

"I guess we've... got no choice but to do it this way."

[Null]

The Boy was...less pleased by this turn of events.

"Sixteen years. Right. OK.

...We'll see about that."

[Will]

"It's OK, Sam," the Will across the dimensional rift said. "Everything works out. And...

...Well, spoilers. But sometimes, things happen the way they're supposed to, yeah?"

[John Hino]

John joined those going back... to the future... and smiled at the happy Will. "Glad to be getting you back Will."

[Robin]

"What he's trying to say is th--ooph!" Robin starts before she's interrupted by Sara giving her a tight squeeze.

[Sara Stanton]

"No spoilers! I learned that much from your Aunt Nailah. You can tell me everything later." she says with a big smile.

[Samantha McManus]

"We should find Viv," she says to Tereza as she stands back up.

[Will Stanton]

Will put one arm around Sam's shoulders, and another around Tereza's.

And another around Robin's.

"She's out there. We'll find 'er," he grinned. "Everything's A-OK."

[Tereza Rozanov]

Tereza smiles at the reunion. "She's probably somewhere enjoying space and time not warping on her."

[Samantha McManus]

"You know one thing I noticed, though?"

[Tereza Rozanov]

"I probably don't, but that's why you're going to tell me, right?"