"So."
"So what?"
She sits at the edge of the rooftop, the loose ends of her red shirt flapping in the wind and her head tilted up as she looks towards the stars. "What are we going to do about us?"
He looks up to find the moon covered in shadow, an eclipse he hadn't expected to occur, as he silently ponders the weight of her words. There had never been an "us" in her eyes until now, despite his many attempts of persuading her to see "us". "What do you mean?"
She doesn't take her eyes off the darkened moon. "I guess you were right after all," she says after some hesitation. "In the grand scheme of things, we're the only ones who are left as time continues to march on. We're the irregularities: the girl who jumps through time and the boy who freezes it."
"The children of time," he murmurs, his eyes shifting from the night sky to her face. As always, she still has that slight frown, but he knows her well enough to see that spark in her eyes. She has an idea, and all he has to do is wait.
"I know how you feel about me."
He jumps at the statement, and says nothing.
"How far are you willing to go to act on those feelings?"
Such a simple question, yet such a difficult answer. Her head has turned so that she can see him face to face, and he hopes that in the darkness, she can't see his flushed face. He can't bear to look at her, so he turns his gaze towards the drop below them.
She pushes herself away from the edge and stands up. "I apologize if this seems too cruel, but I want to see how far you would be willing to go," he hears her voice from behind him. He pushes his glasses higher up his nose and trains his gaze up at the sky. If he wanted, he could freeze the eclipse at the moment the moon would be completely eclipsed, for lack of a better word, but he wants to hear her idea first.
"You'd have to tell me first before I decide if it's cruel," he replies with some hesitation.
She hums quietly to herself. "I want to see if you can find me after I jump."
"What?" He turns around, taking care not to fall of the roof in the process. He sees that her expression has changed to something a little more mischievous.
"A game of hide-and-seek, but for the children of time. How does that sound?" she asks. "How far are you willing to go?"
He should say that this challenge is cruel. It's not fair that she can jump through time, that she can walk through time just like how she can walk on this planet, while he can only work within the present, the time of "now", to stop or reverse the small things. But because he must work within time, he has learned to be patient, to be truly patient, unlike her, whose patience is only superficial. "You're the one hiding, aren't you?"
"Would you find me?"
He would. He has all the time in the world to search for her. He has done it before. He can find her again even when time is against him.
"Eventually," he answers after another moment.
For the first time in a long time, he sees her wan smile. "Then I'll go." She backs away from the roof's edge. He gets up in order to move out of her way as she runs toward and launches herself off the roof. She vanishes in midair, leaving him alone in the coolness of the night.
Challenge accepted, he thinks, and he takes his seat again at the roof's edge.
He looks up to the moon again, whose face has begun to brighten as the eclipse slowly ends, but he's no longer looking. Instead, he closes his eyes and remembers why he began to pursue her from the very beginning, chasing a memory from a childhood he has nearly forgotten. He had met a girl who looked exactly like her, how lost she had looked and how surprised he had been when she called him by his name. He had always wondered why she seemed as if she knew him.
As an immortal, he has lived too long for his memory to extend so far, but for just this moment, he remembers why she had seemed so familiar to him when they first met, at that time when they should have died. We're children of time, he thinks. Of course our stories are backwards. I've already found you, but you're looking for me. My past is your future, but...
He shudders at the implications of that thought. Would that mean that he would never see his feelings reciprocated in the way that he truly wants? Would that mean he would see why she is who she is now? Is that something he wants?
Is that something he can bear?
His gaze drops down to the street below him as his mind wanders. He knows that he is nowhere as strong as she is, that he could never bear the same burdens that she hides from all eyes, even time itself. He still remembers her surprise all those centuries ago when he was still young, and although he doesn't remember the exact words she said, he does remember how surprised she was at how ordinary he used to be. She must have been expecting more of him, he muses, but how does that reflect on her own past then? Was it more terrifying than his? What was she hiding that she wanted no one else to see? Did she even want him to see?
Well.
He turns his gaze back up to the place that she vanished. If he was correct, she should be making her way through his timeline until that first meeting. And at that first meeting, she would know him, know who he was, better than she knew him in this moment, while he would meet her then, and then know nothing about her for decades. Meanwhile, he would have to keep heading forward In time, never certain of what the future would hold for him.
That hardly seems fair. But then again, time was never fair.
He'll just have to take the long way, that's all.