Enjoy!

Two Sides of Life

Chapter Ten

It was only nine the next morning that Alex snuck out of the hotel room leaving Spencer and her mother asleep and unconscious, respectively. She had left Spencer the gun in case it came down to it, but she had hopes that it wouldn't. She quickly found the nearest private hospital to the bar from last night and made her way through the cold city to it. She decided quite early in the trip to walk there giving her time to think. Last night she had told Spencer more than she ever really planned or wanted to, but thinking back on it, the idea that she wouldn't have had to explain at some point was stupid to begin with. Slowly but surely, more and more was being revealed. Now both Alison and Spencer knew the truth behind why Spencer changed how she did. They knew the story of August 17th. The other three didn't, nor did the guys but it was still one more person than she had originally planned. The entire group knew how Toby died, as Alison filled them all in on that last night. They all knew the story of A.D and who she really was.

But the one thing none of them knew, the thing that Alex had always planned on never sharing with them was her plan. Her mother knew, as did her sister but she hoped that was it. She didn't even know if she was going to go through with it. That indecision was on the three reasons she was going to visit Avery.

As she walked through the frigid streets of London, her mind wondered to the future. Not only her own but everyone's here as well. She truly didn't know where things would continue from here. Her sister was in the hospital with a gunshot to the abdomen, her mother was lying unconscious on a hotel bed, she herself was recovering from a shrapnel gash to the shoulder though that was a bit trivial in retrospect. It wasn't long before truths that she would've much rather have avoided bombarded her thoughts. Running from the truth can only last so long. It wasn't a permanent solution, nor was it even a good one. Truthfully, it was just one she didn't want to accept.

The truth of the matter was that she and her sister were nothing to time but paradox's. Paradox's though complex in theory, aren't in all actuality that hard to understand. And for someone that had plans to time travel eventually, it was easy to decipher exactly the repercussions that would follow. Paradox's can only be fixed when you make it to the end of the line. What was their end of the line? Nothing good. There were really only two ways this could end for them. Either they lived out their days here or at the end of this they died trying to fix everything. They wouldn't be able to make it back to their own time, not after they had been disconnected from it which the creation of the paradox had done exactly that.

She wanted to find an alternate possibility. She needed to but she didn't know of any. Alex may have studied time in preparation for her plans but she never had done it as extensively as Avery apparently had. This was the second reason she needed to speak with Avery.

The final one was none other than her mother. What were they going to do with her? Sending her back wouldn't work because now she was also effectively part of the problem. They couldn't let her live out her days because she surely wouldn't let them do so peacefully, so that left death. But could they do that? Alex had been tempted mere hours earlier yet, she didn't go through with it because of Spencer. Another indecision.

The thoughts ended as she stopped in front of the hospital. Entering slowly, she scoped out the lobby. There was a nurse at the front desk, and after checking her pockets, Alex strolled up and stopped right in front of the desk.

"Can I help you?" The nurse questioned without so much as glancing at Alex.

"Yeah, I'm looking for my sister. I was told she was admitted here, her name's Avery Walker." To even get to London they had to come up with false information and as Alex already had a false identity that all that needed changing was dates, they decided it would be easiest if Avery adapted to her persona rather than create two completely new ones, though Alex did have to use a British accent that she was thankfully rather skilled at.

"You are?" The nurse still had yet to look up.

"Quinn Walker. Her older sister." The best lie is one sprinkled with the truth.

"Room 23, second floor." The nurse supplied the information not having looked up once, Alex could see why they chose this place, not many questions.

It only took Alex a minute or two to get upstairs and find the room. She entered the room silently to find Avery staring back at her from the bed.

"To what do I owe this visit?"

"I need your help." Alex's grim voice stopped whatever retort that Avery was about to respond with as she just nodded for her to continue. "Three problems that I don't have the answers to. I think you do."

"Lay 'em out."

"Well the first and probably easiest is our dear mother. Much like us, she can't be sent back and we can't let her live out her days. So that lives death. Are we really left with no other choice than to kill her?"

Avery looked in thought for a few seconds as she tilted her head back and forth. "We can send her back." She finally responded. "She isn't like us. She isn't a paradox. While we in fact are indeed stuck here, she can be sent back."

"How?" From what Alex knew of time travel, it didn't seem possible.

"Well sending her back will only send her back to our reality. When this present changes, we will cease to exist, she still will and can be sent back. She just will be sent back to our reality not the one that's going to stem from this one once we change it."

"You seem like you already know how we're going to change it."

"I do. Now your plan, I will admit was a good one. But mine is better." And as if on cue he door behind Alex opened to reveal Wren. The older Wren. He eyed Alex as he closed the door behind himself.

"Alex." He nodded a greeted.

"Wren." Alex returned before turning back to Avery as Wren came to sit on the other side in a chair next to the bed, opposite Alex. "What's he doing here?"

"He's part of the plan. You originally wanted to do something that would cross a line even I don't think I would. The idea I have is simple, we make them forget." Avery explained as if it was no big deal.

"Make them forget? Forget what?"

"Us. Everything about the future. That's why I brought my dad back with me, he was able to get access to the tech at work and bring it back. It can erase chunks of memory."

"So you what? What to erase everything they know about us and the future from all of them? How the hell does that seem like a better plan? They won't be any the better for it!"

Avery sighed, clearly exasperated as she shook her head and let it drop back into her pillows. "The idea is that we take it away from all but one of them. That one can, let's call it, guide the others from making the same mistakes and falling into the same pitfalls."

"Okay and say that works. Which is a long shot by the way. But about the missing time. It's been days filled with nothing but us and the future, you take that away and they'll have lost time that we can't explain."

"Yes we can. We take the memories back to when I kidnapped them but before they saw you. When they wake up, they'll be free and they can chalk it up to having been locked up there for days. And I know you're next comment will be about the guys, and I have that covered, they don't know much so we can just erase the bits they can't know and make it look like they took naps or something." Avery shrugged slightly.

"You know coming from you, that sounds like a really shitty plan." Alex remarked.

"Maybe so but do you have a better one?" Wren sneered. He obviously had not warmed up to her any.

"And what about us? Both of us are stuck here. So what do we do about that? Live out our lives? Play with theirs like puppet masters?"

"We'll disappear. The very second that time makes its first change, our reality won't be this one anymore and we'll be even more disconnected. You can't live in a reality you don't belong in." Avery seemed to strain over this. Obviously the thought of just vanishing into thin air wasn't a nice one for Alex but at least Alex made it to being an adult. Avery never did, it was hard to remember that she was really only 17. Even if she never did act it. "And I put back my dad after you leave." She finished with a bittersweet smile.

"How long between now and the first big change?" Alex dreaded the answer even though she already had a good idea of what it would be.

"Anywhere between one to three years. You're born in nearly three, that means Spencer gets pregnant in a little more than two. That will be the first really big change that has to be made. How it changes we can leave up to the person we let guide them."

"Which will be who?" Wren wondered out of curiosity looking at his daughter.

Avery looked at Alex. "I know you told Alison about the twins miscarriage. You don't want that to happen to her. And the only way it won't would be if she was the guide. But if we did that, reality would change much sooner."

"We would disappear sooner." Alex said what Avery had avoided saying. "Why do this for them? You've been torturing them for months but now you're doing this? Why?" She wondered.

"I tortured them because of the hell we lived. But, just last night I took a bullet for one of them. The future doesn't have to be hell as long as we don't let it."

"So Alison."

"Alison it is." Avery agreed. "And I suggest you say whatever you want to them. Because we need to do this as soon as possible."

"Yeah."

Alex left the room only to be stopped by Wren before she even got five feet down the hall. He slipped something out of his pocket and handed it to her once he stopped in front of her. Alex looked down at it to see it was very similar in shape to a taser but unlike one, it had a small touchscreen on the back of it with numbers. It was the device Avery had referenced to earlier.

"I'm sure you can figure out how to work it?" Wren asked with a raised eyebrow. The statement wasn't particularly mean in tone which truthfully surprised Alex. Past interaction between the two was normally rather rude. "I don't hate you no matter what I made you think. I don't like you per say. But I never hated hated you. Just do me a favor and watch out for her until it comes time." He opened his mouth to say something more but must've thought better of it and walked past Alex and back into Avery's room.

When Alex got back to the hotel room, the site she was greeted with was anything but what she expected to find. What she expected to find was not the site of the entirety of the group cleaning up the bed her mother had just been on before she left. She did not expect to see the guys carrying a plethora of rolled up quilts and sheets that blood was seeping through.

"Where the hell is my mother?" Alex questioned in confusion as she entered the room.

"Did you see the guys carrying the quilts and shit on your way in?" Hanna questioned as she exited the bathroom. Alex nodded slowly. "That was her corpse." She paused in her step and looked at Alex. "She woke up, Spencer shot and killed her. I don't know much more than that so don't ask." She continued to her destination leaving Alex standing their in complete bewilderment.

"What the fuck?" Alex wondered.

"I said don't ask!" Hanna shouted from the other side of the room obviously having heard her question.

"We're going back to Rosewood." Alison supplied as she entered behind Alex along with Emily both with duffel bags packed and in hand.

That's how several hours later, the entire group wound up back in Rosewood. Older Spencer had been buried somewhere in England's woods, just before they all met back up at the airport, probably to never be found again.

How Alex came to be standing on Alison's porch at one in the morning the next night was all down to the plan. Alex had texted Alison asking her to come down in need of a talk. She was sitting on Alison's steps when the door opened and closed as Alison sat beside her.

"So what is so important that you have to wake me up at one in the morning for?" Alison wondered as she looked out at the night. Alex sighed, it was now or never.

"I need to tell you the plan. And the others can't know."

Alison looked skeptical but she nodded nonetheless. Alex pulled the taser looking device out of her coat pocket.

"This will erase memories. As long as the plan works, only one of you will remember anything from the past few days."

"You mean you and Avery and the future. We won't remember it? Why? We can't change it if we don't remember it!"

"One of you will remember. That person will be a guide to make sure that the same events don't happen. You can't remember it because people aren't supposed to know the future. This is the easiest way."

"And what about you huh?" Alison demanded no longer the calm person she was when she first sat down.

"Avery and I are paradox's. We will only be around until reality changes, then the things that led to us being us won't happen. And we'll… we'll just vanish." Alex bit her lip. "I'm telling you think for a reason. You need to be that guide. And the first change needs to be the twins. And when that happens, Avery and I will vanish. You need to make sure that our past doesn't become your future. So please, help me."

Alison sat in silence for a few minutes before her resolve hardened and she nodded. While she didn't particularly like it, she understood it. "What do you need?"

It was late that morning that all of the girls were waking up in the place where this time adventure originally began. They found that they were untied and free, four of them equally confused while the fifth merely played the part of confused. The guys also had gaps of time but all of it was explained away fairly easy.

It was five months later that Emily and Alison were in the car on their way to the hospital after Alison's water broke.

It was in between the moments that Emily left the room for the briefest of seconds that Alison managed to inform an unknown phone number of the status of what was about to happen.

Her last sent text was a warning that she was ten centimeters dilated. The last she received was a simple congratulations and a wish of happiness.

It was the moment that the first cry hit the air that time changed forever and two people vanished from the world, never to be seen in this reality again.

But this didn't signify their death as they had believed it would but merely their bodies. Once they discovered the fact that they were basically ghosts to the world but could still roam it, they went their separate ways. Alex went back to Rosewood for a time and stayed to watch over everyone before breaking off and spending sometime elsewhere while Avery, well Avery ventured the world.

In the end though, they both wound back in Rosewood the day Morgan Alexandra Cavanaugh was born four years later with no complications. Then once again when three years after that, Trinity Avery Cavanaugh was born. It seems Alison kept a few reminders of them around.

So I know the ending may seem a bit rushed and that is because in truth it kind of was. I really didn't have any ideas as to how I wanted to continue so I decided I would rather end it than drag it on. Hope it was still good for you though and that you enjoyed it. It was really only ever meant to be a short story anyway so ten chapters seems like a good place to end it. I hope the ending was satisfying that the future did change in a way.

Anyway. Thanks for reading! Let me know what you though over in a review! They are much much appreciated. -DS