Work Text:
Okay, so apparently he spoke Romanian.
Clearly, he did. The words flowed easily on his tongue, and it couldn't just be his muscle memory — these muscles weren't even his, they belonged to the Leapee, if he was remembering that term correctly. It was Ben's own mind that had remembered the vocab, the conjugations, the order of the words.
How many other languages did he know? Ben couldn't begin to guess. He felt the knowledge simmering under the surface of his mind, clearly there but frustratingly out of reach. Was it four, five? Did he tell the number as a fun fact at parties, in between anecdotes about quantum physics?
Who could be sure. It was all just a haze.
Ben looked at his face in the rear view mirror again. Except that the face wasn't his , it was borrowed from some burglar from the '80s. It felt wrong, to look at it, to use it to speak and emote. Like suddenly waking up with a mask superglued to your face, and you can't get it off no matter how hard you try. Only, Ben hardly remembered what had been underneath the mask.
Addison remembered, though.
Addison knew him, way better than he knew himself. Ben wasn't sure he'd have even remembered his own name without her reminder.
Dr. Ben Song . She'd said his name like she had said it a million times before. Maybe Addison used to introduce him to people. She didn't really seem like more of an extrovert than he was, but it would make sense for them to have been paired up for meetings and stuff, and maybe Addison liked to take the lead on the talking. This is Dr. Benjamin Song, I'll be accompanying him as an informational hologram during his upcoming Leaps through time.
There was still a large part of Ben's brain insisting that this was all ridiculous. Time travel was nothing but science fiction, it would never work in reality! It would require a wormhole, or faster-than-light travel, or a million other impossible things that he couldn't quite shake loose from his amnesiac subconscious. Those doubting thoughts were quieter than he figured they should have been, though. Maybe past-Ben (future-Ben?) really had prepared for this. Maybe he'd spent a long time purposefully retraining his brain about what was and wasn't possible.
Thanks a bunch for that, Other Ben, he thought. Would it have been too much trouble to retrain it so I could, I don't know, remember anything about my own life?
Addison remembered, though. This woman he didn't know knew him, and geez, did that make him feel bad. Ben could tell that she would sometimes search for a hint of recognition in his eyes, but she hadn't found it yet. Sure, Addison seemed familiar, but only in a half-formed sort of way. Her face was as recognizable as his own — and unfortunately, the answer to both was "not especially".
At the end of the day, he was just glad that someone knew who he was. Ben certainly didn't, and apparently he wasn't allowed to tell what he did know to the people around him. Reasonable, but so isolating. The mask was glued on for good, apparently, until he got to return home.
And yeah, Addison didn't know his exact motivations for Leaping — in fact, maybe she didn't know him that well at all. They were only coworkers, after all.
But she'd known he spoke Romanian. She probably knew what other languages he spoke, too, if Ben wanted to ask. This stranger knew him a heck of a lot better than anyone else around, and, despite it all, that was comforting to know.
"Y'know, it's really unfair that you made it to space before I did." Addison was watching him fiddle with the antenna from her perch atop the shuttle. Ben turned from his work (well, David Tamara's work) and smiled up at her.
"How is it unfair ? I'm the one who loved space. I'm pretty sure, at least. That's backed up by the fact that… well, that I'm in space right now, and it's awesome."
"Of course it's awesome, that's my whole point! I'm saying that I'm the one who should get to do awesome things, because I'm the one who was supposed to Leap. According to our contracts and all that, I should be in your shoes right now. I mean, your space suit."
Her tone was light, but Ben could tell this was some heavy territory. Boy, he wished he understood why he'd taken her place. It seemed like such a jerkish move, and he really wanted to believe he wasn't a jerk.
Probably not a jerk , he decided. Addison is great, and seems to like me. Somebody great wouldn't be friends with a jerk. Therefore, Q.E.D., I am not a jerk .
The reassurance almost worked. He tried to resume the track of their conversation.
"I hate to burst your bubble, Addison, but this space suit is not that comfortable. It's probably way nicer just projecting in."
"Being comfortable isn't the point, though!" Addison laughed. "It's about the immersion. I mean, watch this."
Addison stood up on top of the metal structure, then began to walk away from Ben. In just a few paces, she was standing in a spot with nothing underneath her — just floating in space, but without any sign of drifting away. To make things extra freaky, she jumped in place, then landed right back on her invisible floor. It reminded Ben that the room Addison was experiencing, the gravity, everything, was totally separate from his reality. Different space, different time. It was so easy for that to slip his mind.
"So what?" Ben responded. "You can't drift out into the void of space, oh nooo, so saaad." He held up his hands mockingly in the last bit. Is it okay to make fun of her like this? But it really just felt like falling back into old patterns, and Addison showed no signs of offense.
"Excuse you. I would be great at drifting out into the void of space. I could be my own satellite, just spinning around Earth for days and days till somebody got me. Or maybe I could reach escape velocity and go explore the stars."
"Yeah, I can believe that. But really, if you wanna explore space that much, why would you get a job as a time traveler?"
"Well, according to you, they're the same thing. You frickin' Einstein-lover." Ben burst out laughing.
"I haven't heard that insult before!"
"Not an insult." Addison said, quietly.
Ben looked up at the stars. He thought he remembered hearing something about spacewalks being one of the loneliest experiences possible. Not this one.
Gosh, he hoped Addison was his friend. Really his friend, not just a coworker taking pity on the memory-addled, trapped-in-the-past idiot.
And, even more, he hoped that he wasn't a jerk.
Not even five minutes into the Leap, and Ben was being unexpectedly kissed.
And like, obviously that was unpleasant in general. Not a recommended experience, even if it was completely understandable for this girl to want to aggressively make out with her boyfriend… with no forewarning… in the back room of his family's gym.
Maybe not all that understandable, actually.
But, even aside from the surprise, it felt wrong , in a way he hadn't expected.
No, get off of me, this isn't right — I'm taken!
Wait, what?
But it felt true. In fact, the situation felt almost natural — being surprised at work by a romantic encounter in the back room.
Danny Hill's girlfriend wasn't natural, though. The flavor of her lipstick was distracting, the scent of her perfume all wrong.
I'm in a relationship , Ben thought, and believed it fully. It resonated with sections of his soul that had been dormant ever since he Leaped, so much that he had forgotten they were even there. Maybe, back home, he was even in love.
All the more reason to take care of this Leap and get back home.
"... There was someone there. Someone I-"
Addison was clearly taken aback, and Ben longed to finish confiding in her. But, in an instant, he was swept away.
The space between Leaps was blue.
He'd seen it three times, by now. It had been the very first thing his mind had experienced after Leaping — for a few terrifying moments, it had been the only thing it had experienced.
Reconnecting with a body sparked a few of his most basic memories, but for a while, in that blue space, he didn't even remember what it was like to be human.
Each time he returned, it seemed a little less empty, though. A little more comforting.
For Ben, that place lasted both a split second and an eternity. And there was nothing to do there but think.
That one newly-remembered moment swirled around Ben's consciousness. It wasn't an important moment. His partner wasn't confessing her love, and Ben wasn't doing some grand romantic gesture for her. Both of them were hardly even awake, in fact.
But the moment was casual, and so deeply saturated with love. It was utterly clear to Ben, despite the muddled blue limbo surrounding him, that he and that mystery woman were in love — had been for a while. And would be forever.
The scientist part of his soul disagreed. Well, not forever. After all, I'm not even with her now…
But another part fought back. Of course I'm with her. Her memory reached through to me, of course my love will still be reaching her, even now that I'm gone. Feelings like this can't be crushed by something as superficial as time.
I'll see her soon, whoever she is. However many Leaps it takes, I will see her again.
In his blue isolation, the memory played over and over again, both comforting and hollow.
… Will I?
Addison was sitting in the back seat.
Except that she wasn’t, really. She was sitting on the edge of a big platform at the Project, where he was supposed to be. When Ben looked in the fold-down vanity mirror, Addison was very clearly not behind him. In fact, the only way her image hadn’t been left behind by the car’s movement was because she’d pressed a button on her handlink that locked her position relative to Ben’s, allowing the hologram to seem in sync with his changing velocity.
It was funny, which details had started coming back to him.
Ben had settled into Leaping enough that he was kind of starting to reverse-engineer his memories. He could tell from a couple times lip-syncing to the radio that he'd probably liked retro music, or at least listened to a lot of it. In this body, specifically, he'd fidgeted with his earlobes a couple times — maybe his real body had pierced ears, too. And, finally, he kept accidentally trying to check in with Addison by looking to his left, towards the driver's seat. Each time, Jake would look back at him instead, and Ben would have to give a vague smile and turn back.
Why did he have that instinct?
They parked for a minute, Jake getting out to check a particular spot for their escaped target. She wasn’t gonna be there, he knew, but Ben-as-Eva hadn’t managed to convince him of that. Ben turned back and saw Addison tap on her handlink again, probably to readjust her movement in case Ben got out of the car. He stayed, though.
"Did we used to carpool to work?" Ben had his neck twisted at an uncomfortable angle, but wanted — needed to have this conversation.
"Uh, why… why do you ask, Ben?" Addison seemed immediately uneasy.
"I… I remember some things. What I've told you about, and other little things that I didn't even wanna mention. I know all the lyrics to Jessie's Girl, did you know that?"
"I, I did know that, yeah."
"And for all of today, I've been thinking, 'that's weird, it should be Addison driving." Y'know, I look over, and I expect it to be you. Did we, like, have a long commute together?" Addison hesitated, then replied.
"I mean, yeah. Neither of us lived far, but with the traffic here, and all the security checks to get in, there was a lot of driving time most days."
"And you, you would drive me?"
Addison sat silently, looking like she was a world away. Which, Ben supposed, she was. He cleared his throat.
"I mean, I get it. I really do. You're not supposed to tell me anything, because you guys don't know if you can trust me. I don't know if you guys can trust me. But," he turned his body so he could face her more directly, "that won't stop me from remembering things. I'm not saying you tell me everything, Addison, but can you please just answer this one question?"
She answered by looking down at the glowing handlink once again. After a few beeps, Addison disappeared — and reappeared to Ben's left, in the driver's seat. Oh, I was right. This feels… perfect.
Addison looked straight into his eyes.
"Yes. I did drive you to work."
Ben broke out into a grin. He almost wanted to reach out and grab her shoulder or something — we were friends! — but he knew he would find nothing but air.
The car door opened abruptly and Jake slid back in, directly on top of Addison's hologram. She laughed, immediately relieving the tension.
"Excuse you, I was here first!"
Ben laughed too, prompting a strange look from Jake even as his form clipped with Addison's in unnatural ways.
Addison pulled out her handlink again, but Ben interrupted.
"You know, you don't have to move."
And, as the Leapee's fiancé launched into another speech about moving to Illinois, Addison didn't move to the backseat. She just pressed a button to lock her position to Ben's, scooted a little to the side so the hologram overlap was less of a problem, and kept on smiling.