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He swallowed thickly, hoping to relieve himself of the constricting feeling that overtook him at her words. He knew this was coming, he was expecting it for the better part of the entire afternoon and evening, ever since she first mumbled those cursed words of having to rectify her mistakes.

He had reasoned with himself, unintentionally even, as his mind wondered in the presence of Stella or as he walked without a clear destination around campus, that her motivations were beyond his understanding. He reasoned that he ought to accept them, since he had no choice or power in the matter anyway. She could've left and changed the universe without so much as a wave in his general direction. But here she was, flat-out telling him… that she was going to wipe his world from the face of existence.

Needless to say, Warren couldn't help the bubbling anger from searing up inside him. He felt conflicted, emotions of his time and a time forgot all warring for their opportunity to exist. It was probably more complicated than that, he thought briefly, but his knee-jerk reaction was for his face to fall into a simmering glare directed in Max's direction. It didn't hold nearly as much anger as he felt it did and the first tiny pin-pricks of something else were appearing at the corners of his eyes.

She reared back. In fear, shock, or some other label-less emotion and Warren sought to school his features. He was always the rational type (or so he thought) that spoke with the calmness befitting someone with an interest in science. But who was he kidding… he was as emotional as they come.

His throat tightened. Everything in his being wanting to yell such cliché exclamations like: 'You can't!' or 'I won't let you!' or a heart-rending 'why?!' but his gaze softened when he saw her expression of utter dejectedness directed at him. This pained her just as much as it pained him, and he still barely understood why, or this odd connection between them.

"Okay," he said between large inhales of breath. He calmed himself quietly then, and the electrified air between them had settled back into itself. Both pairs of shoulders relaxed, and Max resumed her normal posturing, closing her eyes briefly in what looked like relief or resignation.

Was he really going to accept this fate so readily? Frankly, he hated the idea. He thought she would try to fight this, or even stay, as far-fetched as that sounded. He knew she couldn't stay, and the thing calling her back to her original time was so strong and important that he sensed she would fight to the death whoever tried to stop her.

Even knowing this, truly knowing this, he hated the idea and yet accepted it at the same time. This girl, in the short time he had known her, had completely uprooted everything he ever understood about the world and his own insignificant existence. She was a storm in herself, bringing about a destruction of the foundations of his reality.

Not to mention his emotions.

Warren's heart pulsed again, as it already had several times that day; a strange and stronger pulse than should be medically possible. It started when Max had first approached him, and continued at light intervals throughout her explanation. He chocked it up to the shocking information she had shared with him and perhaps a feeling of sickness that came with it. But only a short while ago, when his confessions of an otherworldly Warren had caused words to spill from his mouth did he realize that this feeling wasn't apart of his everyday. And it had only doubled in intensity.

He resisted the urge to grab at the skin on the lower left of his chest. It hurt, as he had mentioned to her previously in a joking manner, but he hadn't emphasized just how much it truly did hurt. It was like a sinking feeling, where whatever weight inside him had fallen into a bottomless pit that was his stomach. It caused him to flinch and almost gasp. The pain surprised him, but what surprised him even more was that he enjoyed it.

He assumed the feeling was the 'love' that the other Warren had felt for her, and perhaps he was right, but he couldn't be entirely sure. That's sure as hell what it felt like, regardless of what Warren even understood of the feeling. But there was something else twisting in his gut, something passed his original and childish assumptions.

'What are you doing to me?' he begged in his mind. He can't imagine that someone in this universe, that someone being him of all people, could ever feel such a strong sensation. The feeling roiled over him, made him want to laugh, want to cry… he'd never felt anything like it.

But as he looked over at Max's stricken and concerned expression, the feeling returned stronger than ever and he couldn't help the groan that escaped his lips.

"W-Warren?" she asked quietly, her face a mix of several emotions as she had taken in his previous joking air, to his hard confessions of the universe, to his tenderness, his sudden anger, and now this. She leaned over and placed a hand on his shoulder, steadying him as he rocked forward.

"Don't mind me," he gasped, "just battling some inner demons…" he mustered a smile and Max's face only fell further.

"What's wrong? Are you feeling sick?"

Her question was so normal and grounded in reality that Warren couldn't help but chuckle. He didn't know what he was feeling, only that it was eating him from the inside. It still hurt, but what made him double over was the weight in which it rolled over him, trying desperately to tell him something.

"Seriously…" Max continued, almost reproachful at his joking manner, "do I need to call someone? You're starting to worry me." She squeezed his shoulder.

"It's okay, it's okay," he smiled, actually starting to feel a little better as she rubbed soothing circles in his back. If anything, he never was one to want to appear weak and in need of assistance in front of a girl, least of all, as he had recently discovered, Max. "Just a stomach-ache," he lied.

For all their truth-telling and confessions of the universe, suddenly Warren didn't want his time-travelling companion to know anything about the emotions he had just experienced. It felt wrong to tell her considering the lightness that had previously enveloped their company together. He felt that odd closeness with her, the type that made it so easy to speak and discuss things as if they were other peoples' secrets and not his. Sure, he could share other Warren's deepest desires, but those weren't really his emotions, were they? But now, the need to hide this part of himself was strong enough to halt him in worrying her further, hoping to preserve that feeling of light camaraderie they had built up so quickly.

He also felt he was just being a fool. Or perhaps just stalling for time. What was he trying to do expanding time that was already at an end? Whatever it was, he didn't feel a need to divulge this information. Hadn't he already told her enough?

The air felt different now, regardless of what he tried to hide from her, and Max definitely felt it too as she awkwardly shifted her hand away from him, to the photo album still in her lap.

Silence fell and the pain of a minute ago had already faded away as if it never happened. Warren sat back up and looked at her to where Max refused to meet his eyes.

"So this is it, huh?" he said with a delicate curl of his mouth. "How does this work anyway?" his curiosity getting the better of him as the question as to what the photo album's true purpose came to attention.

All the confidence Max had had when she grabbed the album only moments before had drained out of her, her skin a matching pallid tone. She hesitated, opening the cover with shaking fingers. He once again had to resist the foreign urge to grab onto them to steady her. He truly was beginning to feel sick with himself as Stella appeared again in his mind.

She flipped the book to a random page and began her explanation with a stoicness uncharacteristic to her. She described the moment she discovered her ability to travel to different periods of time simply by holding onto a photograph, and how that was why she ended up in this universe in the first place. She travelled to the distant past through a photograph. Otherwise, her explanation continued, she could reverse time simply through the flick of her palm.

That caught his attention and Warren interrupted her, eyes wide. "You can just rewind time at the drop of a hat just like that?" Something else occurred to him and he sat up straight, wary and curious, "have you been rewinding this conversation at all?"

Max's expression opened up after that, feeling like she was being accused of something unsavory, and she waved her hands in front of her face. "No, no! I haven't even tried once since coming to this time…"

He liked seeing her flustered like this, he mused again, and a grin returned to his face, himself wanting to see more of this side of her. However, he quelled anymore of his more questionable remarks he had at the ready. He was already beginning to feel even more like an asshole then he believed possible considering his utter neglect of Stella. Her name thrummed a steady beat in his mind, it growing louder the longer he spent in Max's presence.

"Oh yeah, and why's that?" he settled on asking, his head in his palm. He was starting to feel a little tired, the night having drifted on far too long already. He wanted to sleep, but the adrenaline kicking through his veins would prevent that from happening for a very long time.

"Because…" Max began, "it wouldn't feel right… since this isn't where I belong. Sure, I can rewind time for any manner of dumb stuff in my time, but here?" she merely shook her head.

"What kind of dumb stuff?" he asked, his voice still light, bordering on playful. He was trying his damnedest to get back to the airy atmosphere they had settled into very briefly earlier… he hoped it would make the transition back into reality a tad easier for him to accept.

Then again, a side of him knew, that he was just trying to distract her.

And it had worked beautifully, Max already on a tirade of how she would rewind to fix conversations with her peers, water her plant, take a photo, or any number of arbitrary everyday tasks. She glossed over her more questionable activities, such as using her ability to sneak into other peoples' rooms to gather information. Warren laughed at that. Maybe Max wasn't the saint that other Warren regarded her as after all.

"I probably would use your power the very same way…" he commented, hoping to ease any tension or embarrassment she might have felt, and she nodded her appreciation, holding back a laugh of her own.

"Ah-! I just remembered the time I used my power to help you get an A on your chemistry project. Took me some time to weasel the info from the teacher, but I managed."

Warren sat up. "I needed help with chemistry? Can't say I'm not a little disappointed in my other self. But thanks, regardless," he smiled, it not quite reaching his eyes.

'I feel evil,'Warren thought to himself. Like dangling keys in front of a child, he was working to occupy his companion's thoughts. He never thought himself capable of such an act before, a heaviness once more weighing over his shoulders.

"You should've seen your face…" Max continued before her eyes widened to the size of saucers and Warren had full reign on the blues of her irises. He caught himself staring but then she immediately began rummaging through her bag with fervor.

"Why didn't I think to look in the first place? I'm such a moron," she mumbled to herself, quickly pulling out a well-worn looking journal. She flipped the pages open, sighing in relief with what she saw, and turned to a particular spot. She waved the page in his face and surprise colored his skin at what he saw.

It was him. Looking like himself, as he always did. He was sitting at a lab table, flashing a grin and a peace sign. It was odd since Warren had no recollection of taking such a picture, but it felt so natural and real that he knew it was entirely possible a photo like this could exist. He just couldn't remember of course, since it never happened to him.

Shock enveloped him as his hands slowly inched up to grasp the photograph. He was literally in the process of glimpsing another universe, another timeline, another… version of himself. Talking about it was one thing, but actually seeing it? Warren was at a loss for words, and he scoffed in disbelief, a laugh escaping his throat at what he was seeing.

"Handsome devil," he tried to joke, but he couldn't mask the tremble that shook his voice. He couldn't take his eyes away, the scientist that he strived to be was taking a bigger battering in a single day than most people experience in a life time. He thought of what he could do with this information, what he could do to change the world if something of this nature were ever to get out into the public. The papers he could publish, the research he could conduct…

But he quickly dismissed any and all ideas of the sort… Max wasn't some experiment… and he certainly couldn't just announce to the world that time-travel existed. His rational mind returned just as fast as it had flown away from him. There was a lot he could do with this information, with evidence even, but he knew he never would. Whatever force held him back, he guessed it was the one currently sitting next to him, a mixed expression on her face.

"Right?" she said offhandedly and Warren glanced at her, but she was already steamrolling ahead, "thanks to my photography skills at the very least," she teased.

"Do you have more?" he asked with more enthusiasm than necessary and leaned towards her. She obliged hesitantly, but entirely willing, enjoying his interest.

She flipped through the photos, explaining each one briefly. A lot of them were inconsequential things, like statues or animals, but he drank in every single one like he was parched. Her fingers suddenly moved to turn a page, her voice quiet but Warren dismissed this and pointed, disregarding any tact in his need to see more. "Who's that?" he asked at the unfamiliar girl with the unusual blue hair.

Max stiffened and Warren immediately began to suspect just who that girl was, and without even an ounce of doubt, he already knew. The person she loved. And the person she hurt.

"Sorry," he said quietly and she shook her head. It would never be his intention to hurt the poor girl, and he was feeling more sorry by the second. Her smile faded considerably but didn't disappear. She peered at the photo, half-longingly, and Warren merely watched her, waiting for whatever she would concede to revealing about her life.

"That's Chloe," she said, "my best friend from since I was a kid." Her hand touched the photo and her fingers flinched away from it, as if she felt it pulse in response. She frowned.

"…What happened to her?" His voice dropped a level, quietly matching the tone of the now more somber mood. He prodded her gently, but firmly, and hoped for a proper explanation. It would be with this story that Warren would finally come to understand just exactly why Max needed so desperately to leave this timeline. Something great and significant enough that had caused her to disrupt the natural flow of time in the first place.

Her eyes drooped close as she launched into a brief recollection of her relationship with Chloe, how they had drifted apart and reconnected. She discussed the differences between the timelines... how different they were, and how Max's influence and interference in Chloe's father's death had made such a great impact. Warren could do nothing but nod as the information revealed more and more about Max as a person if anything, to go so far for a single person, only for it to blow up in a way she couldn't particularly come to accept nor deny.

Chloe was miserable in one sense, in her original timeline, but miserable in another sense, in the current time. As Max continued, her words devolved into what sounded like a tirade, anger directed at herself. Her eyes misted, but no tears fell. Her hands balled into fists as she entered the last leg of her speech.

"When you found me… I had just come from her house. I ran out of there like a bat out of Hell when she asked me… she—," a tear fell, "she asked me to… end her life."

At this, Warren's jaw dropped. He couldn't for a second imagine the hurt and pain that Max must have felt to have her best friend, the person she was trying to help and save, ask such a thing of her. Chloe had her father back, and yet a part of her life was still missing something, a hole that existed in her universe that could never be filled, no matter what, even if Max transcended time. The thought was depressing, and his eyes blackened at the thought. Max's pain was tangible, and Warren felt a beat of pressure in his chest as her expression passed into grief.

"Max, I am so, so sorry," he said, with lack of anything better to say. He was bad at this, he knew. But he also knew that he could better understand her reasoning for wanting to leave this time so badly. There was nothing left for her here, not anymore. She couldn't live in a time where a Chloe like her existed, not one so burdened by a life she didn't want.

He wore an expression to match hers as his scheming of keeping her here or distracting her had caught up with him. He felt terrible, and turned his head away to squeeze his eyes shut, disappointment coursing through him. He was being a bad friend and a bad person, and he hated that he felt this way about himself. She didn't belong here. She didn't belong here. She doesn't belong here.

"Now do you understand?" her words were nothing more than a whisper, but he heard her loud and clear. This was her final explanation and he would receive nothing more. He either had to accept her reason or not, but nothing would change her decision in the end.

He nodded, his eyes steeled. He understood. As much as he disliked the idea, or feared the consequences of her actions, he understood her. In a similar situation, if he were to find himself in one, he would hate to travel to a new time and find Max an empty and quiet shell of herself who wanted nothing more than to die.

He paused in his thoughts, idly wondering why Max was the only person he could conjure in this example. Oh, but he still knew the answer to this very much so and sighed at the obviousness of himself. That roiling pain that plagued him since meeting this mystery girl… it was every incarnation of himself, willing itself to live, to be close to her, mend that connection; it reacted to her in kind, shared her emotions, loved her, berated itself, and died. And the closer she came to deciding to leave, the Warren that he currently was was dying along with it.

Life was fleeting that way, and he never felt more like an insignificant speck than he did at that very moment.

"Yes," he said simply, all humor drained from his face at the conclusion of his own realization.

"I'm sorry I got you wrapped up in all this. I'm really sorry. If anything… I should've rewound and never tried to talk to you. This wasn't very fair of me." She turned away, the stagnant silence settling over the two of them. They were possibly thinking the exact same thing. This was the end.

Instead, Warren shook his head. The thought of never meeting Max in this light was a twinge in his chest that he didn't want to explore. He could've gone on, lived a relatively peaceful life with Stella by his side, continued on at school being mildly bullied until the day he graduated. He could have lived a life unburdened by this strange knowledge and the fear of being erased. But for some reason such a reality sounded so… boring to him, so completely inconsequential and without meaning. "No, I'm glad you did," he said with a genuineness that surprised him. Did he enjoy this type of pain too?

She eyed him sadly and unsure. "Do you mean that?"

"I've never had a more interesting day in my entire life… so thank you, Max. It really was a pleasure to meet you," he placed a hand to his chest, feeling rather dramatic at the moment. His head tilted, and a smile grew on his face. "We'll see each other again soon, won't we?" A tear rolled down his cheek.

Max reared back, a quiet gasp escaping her lips. She had worked miraculously hard to keep the reality of the situation from hitting her, but seeing his torn expression, cut between a sad acceptance and such a friendly admission, it broke whatever wall she had carefully constructed around herself in order to stay firm. She had had enough of seeing her closest friends in pain for one day

"Oh, Warren, please don't look at me like that," she begged, tears returning to her eyes.

"Sorry," he said, touching his fingers to his cheek. The wetness there momentarily shocked him until he saw the tears flowing freely from Max's own eyes. There it was again, that odd need to reach out and touch her. He let it control him, not worrying about consequences anymore. Wherever he was, or whenever, was of no concern to him.

His hand reached out to cup her face, wiping her tears away with the pad of his thumb. She briefly smiled before leaning into his touch. The movement felt so natural, and he no longer felt the burning embarrassment that came from his interaction with the girl. Something had changed between them in the brief time of a few hours, an entire lifetime worth of interaction and friendship being summed up in the blip of a second. A culmination of every iteration of who he was and who she was in several spanning universes.

The thought dizzied him, as well as the sensation of skin against skin that he was currently experiencing. He felt drunk. And in this drunken state, he languidly pulled her face closer to his, the pair staring at one another in some silent understanding. She didn't resist in any fashion; in fact, her hand came up to rest over his own.

He could think of nothing else at the moment, his mind a blur. He really wondered if he would see her again, and if this was his last chance to say or do anything as the Warren that he currently occupied.

So he did something he knew current Warren would never do in a million lifetimes, but specifically this one, and closed the distance between them completely.

It was a chaste kiss, light and sweet, but not one without a heavy meaning. He felt the longing within him twist at his actions, and his grip on Max momentarily tightened as his hand slid from her cheek to her neck in order to steady her against him. His held tilted, against his own wishes, his body reacting to her of its own accord, and his lips moved against hers with a quiet intensity.

When her mouth parted in a soft sigh did Warren finally realize where he was and any and all haziness in his brain was wiped out in an instant. He flinched back as if he had been burned, his hand still on her neck, while Max's eyes fluttered open in surprise at the sensation.

"A-Ah, I didn't mean to do that!" he cried out in uncharacteristic panic, suddenly and painfully aware of what he had just done. He expected an equally loud response but Max merely shyly turned away, possibly sharing his sentiment. Then again, the pair realized, neither of them seemed particularly against the idea.

"Don't have a cow, Warren…" Max admonished. Regardless of if he meant to do it or not, it had already happened, and feeling guilty about it was just going to make her feel bad. Redness colored her cheeks.

He saw her worrying her lip between teeth and he immediately crashed back into Earth, reality continuously beating him over the head. "Not that I didn't want to," he said reassuringly, his eyes not once leaving her mouth. "Gods, what am I saying…" He ran a flustered hand through his hair before moving to touch the skin of his own lips. He still couldn't believe what had possessed him, and what was still possessing him, urging him on with a feverish longing to grab onto her again.

However, he resisted, and the moment caught up with the pair of them. Warren looked at Max and the two companions locked eyes briefly before launching into shy laughter.

"Pretend that was from other Warren, will you? I'm sure the chump has been dying to do the same." He couldn't stand to look at her for very long and he turned away to steady the hammering in his chest. This was a little too much for him to handle, but just as interestingly, he realized that a lot of that inner turmoil… was just as much current Warren as it was something else. The thought gave him pause, and another ashamed blush rose to his cheeks.

Unaware of Warren's meandering thought process, Max spoke up, "I'll pass it along to him, shall I?"

He looked up at her then, the meaning of her words bringing a smile back to his face. "He'd like that." And he certainly knew for a fact that he would, the flaring in this stomach told him as much.

The two fell into companionable silence, each one looking out into the distance. Warren could swear he could see the very beginning vestiges of a sunrise peeking over the horizon. He knew that couldn't be true, that time hadn't passed that quickly in their conversations. Or it did, he couldn't know. Time had truly escaped him, he could never fully grasp or understand it, certainly not after this.

But the arrival of a new day broke them out of their reverie, a reminder that the day would go on, and their private world would soon be overwhelmed by an outside force that could never understand. It hurried him, and Max seemed to feel the same as the two of them got to their feet and faced one another.

He held her by the elbow as she absently flipped open the album and pulled out a photograph of two smiling faces.

"This is it, this time, huh?" Warren laughed lightly. The night had extended so far beyond his reach, he felt like his universe was ending for the fifth time already. They had already said goodbye several times it felt like and the clenching in his chest and stomach loosened.

She reached out in response, pressing her hand against his forearm and lightly squeezing. "I'm sorry," she said.

Warren merely shook his head. She didn't know what would happen to him, and neither did he. He didn't want to risk saying anything that might shed some hope on their situation. For all they knew, Warren was soon to become a nonexistent blip in the universe, and everything he knew and held dear would be wiped off the map. He couldn't let any sort of strain weaken his conviction on letting her go and so he kept his mouth shut. Her apology held all the weight of what either one was feeling already: Fear, remorse, and acceptance.

"Goodbye, Warren," she said again with that final tone that he loathed so much as she carefully held the photograph up to eye level. She solemnly turned away but Warren kept his gaze fully focused on her. His eyes ate up the details of her features, her skin, her hair. He probably would never forget this face.

He was shaking in anticipation.

"I'll see you around." He hoped that was true.

Tears sprung to her eyes but she didn't turn back to look at him, her eyes clearly trained on the photo in front of her. His eyes slid close, not sure what sort of feeling would pass over him as the inevitable finally happened. It was curious. He was calm. And for a brief second he thought he saw a bright light shine through his eyelids. Perhaps the sun had risen. He saw this sudden white light…

And then it was black.

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AN: Hey everyone! It's me! I actually managed to post in a timely manner lol. This chapter was a little different than the last few... things changed pretty dramatically, huh? Anyway, I really struggled with how I was going to take this story. I originally was only going to make it a two-shot but it just... kept going. And at this point, I could have continued it on and on or ended it here... so I settled on ending it. A story like this couldn't really fit into the canon if I continued on. Plus, I feel this shorter length matched the bittersweet nature of its existence (lmao sorry Stella.) I hope you all agree and understand! Plus... I didn't want to post my new LiS fic until this one was finished. (There will probably me one more epilogue chapter after this though.)

Sooo, there you have it. Please tell me what you thought of this! I really tried to mix up my writing in the last chapter, feeling my last few felt rather juvenile. I'm still just having fun with it. Hope this story made sense too. I had my own ideas about what Warren was feeling but some of it is up to interpretation. Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks again to everyone who read and reviewed and 'I'll see you around'! :)