Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s 2019. 

I’m in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I am about to be evaporated, the energy that binds my cells together dispersed into the atmosphere. 

I can feel every atom in my body vibrating faster and faster, splitting and colliding and converting. 

Time skips and jumps, control slipping, with the knowledge everything is about to end.

I am afraid.

It’s 1959.  

I'm in Gila Flats, New Mexico.

I left my watch inside the intrinsic field chamber. I'm locked inside, fully aware that when the countdown ends, my skin will burn off of my body.

Through ten inch glass, I watch Janey’s eyes fill with tears, with fear. She turns and flees the room, telling me she can’t watch.

I don’t want to be alone.

It’s May, 1959.

Janey buys me a cold beer. She’s smiling. Our fingers touch as I take the glass.

It’s 2009.

I’m in Vietnam, in a crowded bar. Angela sits alone. She does not know me yet.

I wish she did.

I buy two glasses of beer.

It’s 1971. 

I’m in Vietnam, in a bombed out bar. Edward Blake shoots the mother of his child dead. He turns to me, asks why I didn’t stop him. Accuses me of not giving a damn about humanity.

It’s 1985.

I’m on the surface of Mars. Blake's daughter Laurie accuses me of the same thing. She asks if I believe it’s all worthless, if we’re all blind stupid things stumbling through our lives. 

A moment ago she described a snowglobe from her childhood. How she watched the snow fall slowly and believed that inside the glass ball was a different sort of time. Slow time.

How in a moment of crisis, it shattered, spilled out.

It’s 2019.

I’m in a cage filled with a different sort of time.

Viscera is spilling across the ground, close enough to touch. The remnants of Senator Joseph Keene Jr.

Laurie sits nearby. The time has come for her to go, to play her part. She is not safe here.

No one is.

But I don’t want to be alone. 

For at least a little while longer, I don’t want to be alone.

It’s 1977.

Washington DC is shouting, full of pro-police protestors, believers in Senator Keene. 

Laurie and I try to contain them. They call me a freak against God.

I tell them they will return to their homes. It is not a request.

They vanish. 

Laurie stares. We are alone.

She is afraid of me.

It’s 1966.

Janey’s suitcase won’t shut. She’s crying, angry. Saying I’m perverted, horrific. Telling me that, inhuman as I am, I will never love anyone.

It’s 2009. 

Angela tells me she hates Doctor Manhattan for destroying Vietnam and getting her parents killed. 

Later we fight, she asks what the point is of a relationship you already know the ending to.

I am honest with her, more than I ever was with Janey, with Laurie.

I never want her to be afraid of me.

She tells me to leave.

It’s 1971. 

I liquidate a company of Vietnamese men with a wave of my hand. 

A boy stares up at me, motionless, eyes filled with terror.

It’s 1990.

I’m on Europa. My children look up at me, eyes filled with awe.

I wonder at creating something so kind, so dependent. Wonder if it was beautiful or inhumane. 

It’s 1936.

Before everything, a kind woman tells me to create something beautiful.

It’s 1985.

I stare at Laurie in the starlight on Mars, realizing in wonderment how even something horrible can create something beautiful. Realizing the truth of thermodynamic miracles.

Hours later I will realize that, miraculous as she is, I cannot continue to be her burden.

It’s 2009.

I miss thermodynamic miracles. Miss being part of a world where astronomical odds turn air into gold. A world so crowded with miracles that they become common and we forget to wonder at them.

I miss humanity.

I go visit Adrian.

It’s 2019.

I see Adrian for the first time in ten years.

I send him away with the prick of a finger.

I never have the chance to thank him for giving me humanity.

It’s 1985. 

Adrian has snuffed out three million human lives. 

To keep the peace, he says. To make all work out in the end.

But nothing ever truly ends.

It’s 2019.

The energy is building around me, charging the air.

This is the end of my life. It always was, always would be, always must be.

It is not the end of everything. Things will go on.

Angela stands beside me. 

Her eyes are full of fear. But she stays steady.

Too steady. 

The energy builds.

It’s not safe any more. She must get to safety. 

I must be alone. But I’m too far gone to send her somewhere myself.

I tell her to go, to move away.

I’m not moving away. I’m here. I’m staying.

The energy builds.

Less than an hour ago, she tried to defy the impossible to save me.

It’s 2009.

I tell her we will end in tragedy.

But then, all relationships do.

She smiles. It’s heartbreakingly human.

Angela agrees to get dinner with me.

It’s 1985.

On Europa, I look out at what I have created. I wonder if it is beautiful. Wonder if it is enough.

In 24 years, Angela will liken this grand creation to the quick spurt of seed in a premature orgasm.

I will laugh. I had missed the companionship, the humor of humanity.

It’s 2019.

Angela stares at me with panic and desperation and love in her eyes. 

I had missed all of that too.

She tells me to stay.

I try.

I find myself in those blissful, normal years. Years I could not see before. 

It’s 2010 and I take her hand at our wedding. It’s 2016 and I’m terrified at the hospital. It’s 2014 and we laugh in a movie theater. It’s 2018 and we play at the park with our children. It’s 2011 and she leans her head softly on my shoulder. 

My atoms are ripping themselves apart.

It’s 2009 and I place more trust in her than I ever have in anyone.

I do not know if I did well with godhood. Perhaps no one would. Or perhaps another would be a better steward of it.

It’s 2009 and Angela laughs as I pull an egg from my closed hands. 

I do know I did beautifully with normalcy. 

The centrifuge whirs in 2019. My body is disintegrating in cold fire.

It’s 1959, energy digs through skin and bone, taking me to pieces.

The loop finally closes. 

Angela stands too close.

I am not alone.

There is love.

I fall into the light.