A/N: Based on the movie "Edge of Tomorrow" (or "Live. Die. Repeat." to some) and taking place in the years afterward.

Beyond Tomorrow

Bill Cage came to, and for a moment was disoriented. Had he just woken up from a nap? A pain shot up his left leg and he tried to rub it, only to find that his left arm was trapped. Glancing about, he found himself within a crumpled mass of metal, fabric and plastic.

It flooded back to him, in such a rush his muscles jerked automatically in reaction when he remembered in a flash.

Car accident.

He had been driving along on a rainy day when he was startled out of his thoughts by red lights ahead. Stabbing the brake pedal hard, he had spun off the road and rolled before coming to a stop; probably down the embankment alongside the road that ran through this area.

At least he wasn't being rained on at the moment, although the glass lying about spoke of some of the windows being broken. As he gathered his thoughts, more pains checked in as some of the adrenaline from the incident wore off. Although healthy before the accident, at eighty-five he was far from a young man and had some of the various and usual complaints of a person his age. He calmly assessed the situation and determined that he probably had some broken bones; tasting blood in his mouth it was possible internal injuries could be added to the list.

His calm was born of a unique past shared with no one except perhaps his late wife. During the war with the alien Mimics, he had found himself reliving the same day over again after being repeatedly killed in battle. This was explained to him by fellow soldier Rita "Rose" Vratski that having come into contact with the blood of the Alpha version of the Mimics, both had been thrown into a loop as the alien's way of resetting the circumstances to ensure victory the next time.

Consequently, Rita had come to know death of not only herself but her friend Hendricks hundreds of times; after a blood transfusion during a treatment for an injury made her lose her ability, Bill had gone through the same baptism and used her experience as a guide. In the process, it was his turn to watch Rita die untold hundreds of times (and she him) as they struggled to overcome the alien threat. After losing his ability due to a blood transfusion as well, they both undertook a last-ditch attempt and ultimately managed to kill the head alien called an Omega at the cost of both their lives. Fortunately, the act had reset time again to before the battle but with the difference that the aliens had no leader, and no chance to win.

In the words of his leader, Master Sergeant Farell:

Battle is the Great Redeemer. It is the fiery crucible in which true heroes are forged. The one place where all men truly share the same rank, regardless of what kind of parasitic scum they were going in.

In all honesty, Bill had to admit that he wasn't the greatest human being before his battle experiences, having only fought with editing video footage. But that fiery crucible he had been thrust into time and again had taught him not only battle skills but acceptance of death, sacrifice, respect for others, and most surprising of all love. Even with these lessons, the loss of Rita after nearly forty years of marriage after the war had been the one death he found most difficult; for even marriage was a fiery crucible at times, and what they had forged was a partnership of the purest alloy of their two souls.

Bill pondered all these things as a trickle of muddy water started running down his shirt from somewhere above. He had died burnt, splattered, skewered, exploded, drowned, shot, crushed and other ways that didn't even have a name. If he was finally going to leave this world by car accident, so be it. The pain would end, and he would either not be at all or someplace in a hereafter. It was out of his hands now, he thought calmly.

As his thoughts drifted, he suddenly became chilled with a notion and his mind focused again. What if he wasn't going to die?

No, he was badly injured and had no idea when help would arrive. He was probably a goner. But something was still there, nagging. What was it? Then he realized what it was, and he got scared for the first time in decades.

The Omega. When he died in the process of killing it, time was reset. If he died now, would time be reset again? He had assumed it wouldn't, but would he find himself waking up on that RAF chopper in London again? If so, then everything would start again. He'd have Rita back.

But then his parents would die again.

Then his sister would disappear.

The miscarriage. The twins. Friends dying. Rita lingering as her health declined.

Even if he changed things, people were still going to die and something else worse might happen; he had learned sometimes you just can't change an outcome. He would be counting down the days until he lost his wife again, even if was by a different circumstance. That was if time was reset. It was almost too much to bear and he couldn't think of a way to escape his fate. Suddenly, a giggle escaped his lips. The giggle turned into a laugh, a laugh that was painful as he fought for breath in his mangled condition but a laugh that gave him sweet release. Because for the first time in nearly a lifetime he thought about it and realized he didn't really know for sure what would happen when he died, and that put him on the same footing with everyone else. It was liberating to feel truly normal, and he blacked out happy.

The EMTs found him with a smile on his face.

The End

A/N: Even though I wanted to see this in the theaters, somehow I missed it and only got around to seeing it recently. If you're going to throw somebody into a time loop, then I'm happy that you can improve his or her character in the process.