Threads of Time

by Inocas

Summary:

After an accident with the temporal anomaly, Raven Reyes finds herself torn between four possible futures - each linked to a man who could change the fate of the world: Gabriel, the scientist who understands the soul of time; Bellamy, the warrior guided by faith in others; Roan, the surviving king of the ruins; and herself, fragmented into versions that struggle to exist.

But when the echoes of these futures begin to leak into reality, Raven realizes that time doesn't want her to choose... it wants her to rebuild everything.

With the universe on the brink of collapse and hearts weighing more than any calculation, someone will have to sacrifice themselves if the present is to survive.

A story about love, time, identity - and the price of carrying all the lives that almost were.

Notes:

I'm going to write in a different format to what I'm used to.

Chapter 1: The Shard of Time

The lights of the anomaly tore through the sky like inverted lightning bolts, their hum echoing throughout Sanctum. It was supposed to be contained - sealed behind layers of ancient technology and science. But something had failed.

Raven Reyes was fixing a containment panel when she felt the discharge run through the metal floor, up her spine like a death knell. She tried to run. She couldn't. The wave engulfed her.

When she opened her eyes, Raven was lying on the damp grass, the forest in sepulchral silence around her. Slowly, other figures emerged from the colorful haze of the anomaly: Gabriel, panting, eyes wide with fear and fascination. Bellamy, bruised but alive, always trying to understand before reacting. And, inexplicably, Roan, the king of Azgeda, who should have been dead a long time ago.

“That doesn't make sense,” muttered Gabriel. "The anomaly... threw us somewhere between worlds. Or between times."

But for Raven, it was more than that. When she touched the ground with her left hand, the world exploded into visions: four paths, four possibilities, four futures - each with one of them. And in all of them... a choice she would have to make.

 

 

Vision 1: Gabriel

They were in an ancient tower, transformed into a laboratory. Gabriel was at his side, the two of them working together to unlock the secrets of the anomaly, rewriting the laws of time. There was love in their eyes - not idealistic, but born of mutual admiration and shared pain. But something threatened them: time was beginning to shatter, and only Raven could fix it, even if it meant losing her forever.

 

Vision 2: Bellamy

She saw Bellamy leading a new group, trying to rebuild what was left of humanity. He was older, more calloused, but still the same determined man who believed in her when few others did. Raven was her advisor, her strength, and with him she learned that she didn't have to save the world alone. But the future was uncertain - someone was hunting down leaders like Bellamy, and Raven's choice between staying and fighting or running away and surviving would decide everything.

 

Vision 3: Roan

This future was the strangest: Roan had survived, not only in body, but also with a purpose. In an unlikely alliance, he and Raven led a nomadic people, reborn from the ashes of war. There was tension between them - fire and ice, intellect and instinct - but also respect. He saw in her a reluctant queen. And perhaps, in time... more than that. But war loomed on the horizon. Peace would only exist if Raven was able to unite ancient enemies - or destroy Roan to prevent him from becoming a tyrant himself.

 

Vision 4: Alone

In this future, she was alone. None of the men had survived. She had become a guardian of time, trapped between realities, guarding portals and watching over those who dared to cross. The power was hers, but so was the price. This was the path of solitude - of sacrifice. But perhaps, the only one everyone else could live on.

 

 

 

Raven fell to her knees, the visions disappearing just as quickly as they had come. The others were still dazed, unaware of what she had seen. But she knew. The anomaly wasn't just a rip in space-time.

It was a choice.

And she would have to make hers.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2: Land of Fire and Ice

The desert was cold at night.

Raven held his rifle in his freezing hands, his eyes fixed on the horizon. They were camped near an old railway station covered in sand, now converted into a temporary shelter by those who followed Roan, the last ruler of a forgotten people.

She still didn't trust him. But he trusted her - which made everything more complicated.

“You're thinking too much again,” said Roan, approaching without a sound, as only a trained warrior could. He was bare-chested, scars criss-crossing his shoulders and back like maps of past wars.

"I'm not thinking too much. I'm thinking enough for both of us," she retorted dryly, without taking her eyes off the field.

Roan laughed low, a rare harsh sound. "My spies are back. That rebel group? They're closer than we expected. We'll have to move tomorrow."

Raven finally turned, facing him. "What if running away isn't enough? What if this time, in order to survive, we have to... change?"

Roan tilted his head. “Change how?”

"Stop running away. Build. Stop pretending we're two temporary leaders. Someone needs to give these people a name, and it can't just be war after war."

Roan looked at her for a long moment. There was admiration there, and something older, quieter: a desire for redemption.

"And who would lead this new people? You or me?"

“Maybe... us.”

 

The word hung in the air like an impossible echo. But he didn't laugh. Nor did he deny it.

“If you go with me,” said Roan, "there will be no turning back. Not for you, not for your science. You'll have to learn to kill like a war queen."

Raven took a deep breath. The blood was pounding in her temples. Living in this world meant leaving parts of her behind - or maybe just discovering new ones.

“Then teach me,” she replied. “But you know what, Roan?”

He arched an eyebrow.

"In the end, I'm going to end up leading this whole thing. You'll only be here to keep me from losing my mind."

Roan smiled. For the first time since she'd met him, the smile seemed sincere.

 

 

The camp was silent, but Raven couldn't sleep.

Ever since they had agreed to lead together, she and Roan had been the backbone of that small nation of nomads - warriors, renegade scientists, orphaned children, survivors of forgotten wars. Everyone looked at them as if they were the last stars in a hopeless sky.

But that night, Raven woke up in a cold sweat.

She was somewhere else.

Shattered glass. White laboratory light. She recognized the equipment - ancient, complex technology, modified by skilled hands. And there, in front of her, Gabriel Santiago, his face smeared with oil and his eyes pleading.

"Raven, time is collapsing. I need your help. Only you can stabilize the timeline."

She moved closer. Everything in her screamed that this was real. She felt the warmth of his hand when he touched her, the smell of burnt metal. And most disturbing: the genuine affection in his gaze.

"If we don't fix this now, the other paths will destroy you from the inside. All the conflicting futures... they'll tear you apart."

She blinked. The world spun.

 

Raven woke up to Roan holding her by the shoulders.

"You were screaming in your sleep. You said his name."

She didn't answer right away. She felt the weight of the visions in her bones. Roan didn't insist. He just looked at her with that mixture of patience and suspicion.

A few days later, it happened again.

They were marching through a dense forest. Raven stopped suddenly - the sound of leaves being trampled disappeared. The light changed. And the smell of rain gave way to the dry cold of the mountains.

He was in Skyring, or something very like it. And standing in front of her, with a devastated expression, was Bellamy Blake.

“You're alive,” he murmured, approaching her carefully. “I've waited... so long.”

She wanted to say it wasn't real. But the touch of his hand against her cheek was. So was the pain in his eyes.

“Did you choose Roan?”

"I... didn't choose. I'm still inside the anomaly, Bellamy. I don't know what's real."

He pulled her to him, desperate. "I am. This is. Our future is. You and I... we are balance. You are the beacon. If you choose the wrong path, all futures collapse."

She blinked. Everything disappeared.

This time, she fell to her knees in the middle of the forest. Roan ran up to her.

"Again. The anomaly." His voice was firm, but there was something else - fear? Jealousy?

She stared at him. "I'm connected to the other futures. I saw them, Roan. Gabriel needs me to stabilize time. Bellamy says I'm the key to everything."

 

Roan kept his face hard, but his eyes wavered. “And what am I in those futures?”

“In some... you're dead.” The sincerity was cruel. But he deserved it.

Roan turned his face away for a moment, then answered:

“Then we have to win this future before the others destroy us.”

Over the next few nights, Raven began to train with Roan more intensely. Each sword stroke was a way of anchoring himself. Every decision, an attempt to affirm: this is the path I choose.

But the echoes were coming. Gabriel calling out to her in the middle of the night. Bellamy reaching out through the trees. Sometimes a future where she was alone, surrounded by portals and voices from times past.

And little by little, a question grew:

What if the anomaly didn't show her different futures... but pieces of the same future?

What if, in order for the world to survive, Raven had to unify all paths - and all men - into one impossible destiny?

 

 

Chapter 3: The Fractured Heart Theory

Gabriel would call it “temporal quantum resonance”.

Roan preferred to say: “The universe doesn't know what to do with you.”

But for Raven, it was simple: she was breaking into pieces.

The visions were more intense. They no longer came only at night - but during training, at decision time, even in the middle of conversations. More and more, she felt as if there were four versions of herself, coexisting, living different fragments of the same life.

And the anomaly... wasn't letting her choose. It was forcing her to remember. To unite.

Gabriel appeared at the camp on a night that no one remembered living.

Only Raven saw him. He was older, thinner, with red eyes. “You're almost there,” he said. "The anomaly is testing you. It doesn't just want to know who you choose. It wants to know who you are when you can't save everyone."

Raven touched his chest. It hurt. Literally. As if her heart was... in shards.

Gabriel continued: "Each man represents something you need to carry to mend time: Roan, instinct. Bellamy, the purpose. Me... the memory. And loneliness? That which remains after you've lost everyone."

She stared at him. “What if I don't want to lose anyone?”

"Then you'll have to do the impossible: cross the boundaries of the anomaly and reunite all the versions of yourself. But Raven... you won't come out the same."

 

Roan noticed the change.

“Are you talking to ghosts?”

"I'm talking to futures. And I need your help." She explained everything. For the first time, without hiding the visions, or the men.

Roan listened. Then he was silent for a long time.

"If you need me to get through this hell, I'll get through it with you. But if in the end you choose someone else... let it be for who you are, not for what it hurts to lose."

She returned to the anomaly.

This time, not as a victim. But as a navigator.

As she touched the center of the time field, the four Ravens merged - a warrior, a scientist, a strategist and a lone watcher. At the center of this intersection, there were also the three men. All different, all waiting for an answer.

But the anomaly spoke.

There is no choice. There is convergence.

The worlds could not exist in parallel. In order to move forward, time needed an anchor point.

Someone would have to stay.

Chapter 4: Crossing Time

There was light.

Not like the cold light of the anomaly, but a warm, natural light. Sun streaming through leaves. The smell of wet earth. Muffled voices.

Raven opened her eyes.

And cried.

She was lying on the ground, her body wrapped in a thermal blanket, two pairs of arms around her. Clarke held her face carefully, her blue eyes brimming with restrained tears. Emori, sitting on the other side, was pressing a compress against Raven's neck, as if she were trying to keep the present whole by force of touch.

“You're here,” Clarke murmured, smiling through her exhaustion. “We thought we'd lost you.”

“Three days,” said Emori, voice embittered. "Three days trapped in the anomaly. Then, out of nowhere... you reappeared. Passed out. With temporal marks on your wrist."

Raven blinked. The voices in her head were silent. There were no more multiple futures. Only one.

The real one.

She tried to sit up. The world spun, but Clarke helped her. And then, when she looked around...

She saw Bellamy.

Leaning against a tree, arms crossed, his gaze locked on her as if he wanted to cross her. There was something in his eyes - pain? relief? doubt?

And next to him, Gabriel, silent, watching with a more restrained but equally intense expression.

Raven shuddered.

Because now she knew what they couldn't know: how many lives they had lived together. How many loves, how many losses, how many deaths. And it was all in her - but not in them.

 

“Raven?” said Bellamy, taking a hesitant step forward. “Are you all right?”

She hesitated. For a split second, she saw the other version of him - the man who held her hand in a forest that perhaps never existed. She felt the echo of the touch. The taste of the choice that was never made.

And with Gabriel, the same thing: she remembered the laboratory, the trust, the nights trying to decipher time while the world collapsed.

But here... they were just friends. Colleagues. Survivors.

“I'm alive,” she replied, firm, even though inside she felt anything but firm.

Clarke and Emori moved away a little, giving her space. Raven stood up with an effort. The others watched from a distance - Echo, Murphy, Hope, even Octavia. But she could only see two faces.

Two living ghosts.

And then, for the first time, Raven did something she rarely did: she stepped back.

She took a step back, eyes downcast, avoiding Bellamy and Gabriel. Not out of fear. But because she knew too much. Because each of them carried within them a history that never existed - and a love that perhaps only she remembered.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered.

And she left, stumbling through the forest without saying another word.

 

That night, alone at the top of a tower, Raven watched the stars. She knew that none of them would understand what she had lost in order to restore that gift. And maybe that was for the best.

But deep down, she felt the anomaly still pulsing somewhere far away. As if to say:

"The choice wasn't the end. It was the beginning."

 

Raven spent days unable to sleep.

It wasn't nightmares. It was worse. They were longings for something that never happened.

At night, she dreamt of a campfire in the desert, of Roan teaching her how to wield a sword. The sound of his hoarse voice saying “build your world, Raven Reyes”. She felt the weight of shared responsibility - and of the choice she could never make.

During the day, he pretended to be fine. She repaired power panels, updated maps, ignored Clarke and Emori's stares. But she avoided Bellamy. And Gabriel. Not for lack of affection - but for too much remembrance.

Until one afternoon, Gabriel showed up at his workshop.

Uninvited. Without warning.

“You look different,” he said. “Since you came back.”

Raven remained on her back, fiddling with an old terminal. “Three days stuck in a time rift will do that.”

“It's not just that.” He moved closer. "You're... emotionally disconnected. But hyper-focused. Like you've experienced something intense that you can't fit in here."

Raven put down her tools. She turned around slowly.

“You don't remember, do you?”

Gabriel frowned. “Remember what?”

She studied his face. Same look, same restless mind, but... no trace of the shared memory. The laboratory, the nervous laughter, the impending loss. All that was hers alone.

“Forget it,” she said, and left before he could press any further.

 

It was Bellamy who confronted her next.

They were alone on a reconnaissance mission, collecting data from sensors near the anomaly - now sealed, but not dead. The field vibrated subtly, like a wound healed with hurt.

As Raven collected the data, Bellamy spoke, without looking at her:

“The night you came back... I saw your face.”

“I was disoriented.”

“No. It wasn't just that.” He turned around. "You looked at me as if... you'd just lost me. Or left me."

The silence between them hurt more than any wound.

Raven clenched her fists.

“You shouldn't remember,” she finally said. “But... it feels like something stuck.”

Bellamy took a step. "What was it? Us?"

She wanted to lie. But she couldn't anymore.

"Yes. In another time, another way... you and I were more than that. I was your anchor. And you were my reason."

He went still. He swallowed. “Did that... happen?”

"No. But I lived. You didn't."

Bellamy nodded, slowly. And then, for the first time, he moved closer. He touched her arm. A simple gesture.

But her skin burned with the touch.

“Maybe,” he said softly, “time isn't as linear as we think.”

 

Things got worse when Roan started appearing in other people's dreams.

Echo was the first. She dreamt of him on a throne of metal and sand, calling her “sister of the storm”.

Then Clarke, who saw a tower where Raven led a city under the name Reyes-Kru - with Roan at her side, shrouded in ice and shadow.

Even Gabriel, finally, confessed:

"I have flashes. A laboratory. You smiling. And then... darkness. As if I'd lost something that was mine."

The anomaly had been sealed, yes.
But the consequences were seeping into the present.
Forgotten memories were struggling to return.
Time didn't want to be fixed. It wanted to be understood.

Chapter 5: The Call of the Fragments

It was Murphy who said out loud what everyone already feared.

“We're being pulled back.”

Gradually, those affected by the visions began to show symptoms: dreams that repeated themselves in identical patterns, words in languages they had never learned, reflections of places no one had ever visited - except inside the anomaly.

And in every case, a face returned: Roan.

Gabriel began to document the reports. Bellamy helped cross-reference the stories with the data they had collected from the anomaly.

And Raven... Raven already knew. It wasn't just residual memory. It was temporal contamination. As if time had tasted alternative realities and was now claiming everything at once.

At the center of it, her.

 

During a tense meeting in Gabriel's makeshift laboratory, Raven outlined the possibilities.

"What happened to me wasn't isolated. The anomaly collapsed into multiple timelines. I escaped. But the other versions... weren't erased. They were trapped in the temporal residue."

Gabriel added: "Every time someone dreams of Roan, or of impossible places... it's as if those pieces are trying to reconnect. And if they don't... the present will crack."

Clarke crossed her arms. “Crack how?”

“Paradoxes,” said Bellamy. "Identity lapses, mental breakdowns, even physical distortions. You're saying that time is trying to reconnect all futures... at the same time?"

Raven nodded. "And it's using them. It's using us."

 

 

 

The next morning, reality broke.

Literally.

At the edge of the forest, near the old anomaly barrier, a man appeared walking among the trees.

Wounded. Covered in sand. Armed with a blade of black glass.

Roan.

He wasn't a vision. He was real. He was breathing. He walked with anger and determination.

Raven ran to him. The world was spinning.

“How...?” She choked on the question.

He looked at her - and there was something in his eyes. Memory.

“You called me,” he said, voice hoarse. "Not with words. With time. With what you broke."

Raven stepped back, her heart pounding. Bellamy and Gabriel arrived right behind her, weapons in hand. Roan looked at them like someone who recognizes ghosts.

“Each of you carries a piece of her,” said Roan. "And time wants to unite you. With or without you."

 

The anomaly, although sealed, has not disappeared - it has just changed form. Gabriel theorizes that it now exists inside people, and can be activated by emotional resonance or synchronized memory.

Raven proposes a risky plan:

Use the fragments of everyone - Gabriel, Bellamy, Roan, and herself - to create a new entrance to the anomaly, not to escape, but to integrate the fragmented realities into a single stable future.

But this will require everyone to relive their alternative versions, completely, at the risk of losing themselves in the process - or choosing not to return.

And Clarke asks:

"What if one of them doesn't want to come back? If Roan... decides to stay with his version of you?"

Raven swallows dryly.

“Then we'll find out if love in broken time is still love in the real world.”

 

 

 

 

 

The new anomaly had no color.

It was a silent tear in reality, as if time had stopped trying to impress and was now just waiting.

Raven, Bellamy, Gabriel and Roan positioned themselves around the activation point, drawn by Gabriel with formulas taken from the Disciples' old records.

“Last chance to give up,” said Raven, humorlessly.

Roan smiled sideways. “Too late for that.”

Bellamy tightened his holster. “Leaving a mission unfinished has never been my style.”

Gabriel looked at her. "We're with you. But remember: time doesn't give second chances. Only mirrors."

They held hands.

And they jumped.

 

 

 

 

The anomaly fragmented them not in space, but within themselves.

Each was thrown into their own version of the future - now recreated with full consciousness.

 

Gabriel:
In a laboratory suspended over an abyss of temporal emptiness, Raven and he were about to complete the formula that could stabilize reality. But he knew: if he did, he would erase that life, and with it the silent love they shared between microscopes and memories.

“If you choose to go back,” he said, holding her hand, “promise me you'll remember.”

Raven touched his face. “Remembering is inevitable.”

 

 

Bellamy:
In the forest, between a new civilization and the rubble of the old world, Bellamy and Raven led as equals. They had lost so much. But in her, he had found peace - and she, purpose.

As the anomaly began to disintegrate the dream, Bellamy grabbed her by the shoulders.

"I want this life. But if you have to go... then go. I only ask one thing."

“What?”

“Don't stop fighting for yourself.”

 

Roan:
In a desert of dust and ice, she stood next to Roan on a makeshift throne of molten metal. He held his sword firmly. The crowd below shouted her name: Reyes-Kru.

“We did this together,” he said, without emotion in his voice, but with love in his gaze.

“You made me believe there was more to it than survival.”

Roan leaned his forehead against hers. “If you go... don't look back.”

“What if I want to stay?”

“Then the real world will have to wait.”

 

 

 

In the center of the anomaly, the four were brought back, each with eyes full of tears and silence.

Time was waiting.

“Now,” said the anomaly - with the voice of all versions of Raven at the same time - “you must decide.”

The rule was clear: only three would return with their memories fused. The fourth would have to stay - be absorbed, becoming the link that would keep time stable.

Raven choked. “No... I can't choose one of you to disappear.”

Gabriel took a deep breath. “Then maybe we should choose for you.”

Bellamy held out his hand. “Let's decide together.”

Roan smiled sadly. “Someone always needs to stay to guard the entrance.”

Time began to collapse around them.

Chapter 6: The One Who Stayed

Time was falling apart. Versions began to overlap. Memories collided. The walls of the anomaly shook with the cries of futures that would never be.

Raven fell to her knees.

“I can't do this... I can't lose anyone else...”

Time was unmoved. The anomaly demanded balance.

Roan, Gabriel and Bellamy were silent. They all knew. They had all lived with her. They had all loved some part of her. But only one was ready.

And it was Gabriel who took the step.

“Raven,” he said softly. "You taught me that time is more than a line. It's a choice. A hope. A constant pain. And... sometimes... it's a gift."

She lifted her face. “No...”

But he was already smiling. A calm smile, as always. The smile of someone who accepts the end with grace.

"I'm the oldest of us. The most tired. I've lived more lives than I should have. And in this... I loved you in silence, with the precision of a scientist and the fear of a man."

Roan muttered something in Trigedasleng - an oath of honor. Bellamy clenched his fist, eyes watering, unable to stop what he knew was inevitable.

Gabriel touched Raven's forehead.

"Live this life. With everything it carries. Don't try to fix what's already healed."

And then he turned away. He walked towards the center of the anomaly, where the fabric of time pulsed with golden and blue light. With each step, parts of him crumbled into particles of memory - until all that remained was the silhouette of a man who understood that to love is to let go.

And he disappeared.

 

Time stabilized with a wave of energy that went through everyone present like a universal heartbeat.

Raven woke up on the floor, with the sky above her. Bellamy held her hand. Roan knelt beside her, silent.

The anomaly... closed. Forever.

But something inside her had changed.

It remembered everything. All the paths.
But Gabriel wasn't on any of them.
As if he had never existed there.

And yet... her heart knew.

 

 

 

 

Months later, Raven found a small plant growing in a crack in the old laboratory that Gabriel used.
A blue flower. Rare. Fragile. Out of place.

Next to it, on an aged piece of paper, just one sentence:

“Time does not wait, but love leaves its mark.”
- G.S.

Raven smiled with tears in her eyes. And, for the first time, she felt whole.