The Variant's Shadow - LokixOC - ONGOING

* A Good Plan *

When Ophelia finally found her way back to Timely’s lab after proving that she was, in fact, able to lie, she found Sylvie right where they’d left her, sitting by herself. They briefly looked at each other. 

“You killed her ?” Ophelia asked, looking around the room. Sylvie shook her head and watched her, until she stopped and sighed. “She took Miss Minutes with her.”

“Why do you need her ? You have the variant.”

“She knows things about me that I don’t,” Ophelia replied. She sat next to Sylvie on the edge of a table. “You need to come back with me.”

“I can’t.”

“We have a deal.”

Sylvie laughed. “You broke your end of it when you sided with him.”

“I said I’d let you live your life on your branch,” Ophelia corrected her. “This is not your branch, and killing was never involved.”

“How do you even know it’s time ?”

Ophelia pointed at her head. “You very nicely gave me what I needed to know. It hurts, by the way.”

Sylvie looked at her friend’s face for a moment, then frowned. “It can’t just be a bad week,” she said. “It hasn’t been that long for you, but you’ve changed. What happened ?”

Ophelia checked behind her, making sure that she wasn’t resting her back on something that could kill her. “Helping you was easy,” she said in a quiet voice. “Turns out I’m missing a lot more memories than just the ones of my life before the TVA, and I may not be as clean as I thought I was.”

“I can help.”

“I’m not sure I want to know,” she admitted. She looked down at her hands. “What if I’m right and I’m a terrible person ?” 

Sylvie smiled. “You have free will now. You helped me because you wanted the truth, I’m offering you more of it.”

Ophelia remained quiet for a few seconds. She really didn’t want to know if she was right about herself. But the TVA was in trouble, and she had already spent too much time worrying about her own head when so many people were in danger. She had to focus on that instead of things from her past. She had to get answers. 

She looked back at Sylvie and nodded. 

Nothing happened when Sylvie’s hands touched the sides of her head. She took them back and held Ophelia’s hands instead, who was about to ask if there was something wrong. 

Then images began flashing in front of her eyes. 

The protest for women’s right to vote. A large panel with the date. 1937. Loki, standing in her branch’s living room. The dress she’d stolen back from the TVA. Statues. A Tempad. Lightning. 

The flashes stopped for a second, but a new one started, clearer than the others. Ophelia was standing in He Who Remains’ office at the End of Time. She was facing herself. The memory was fading already. The other Ophelia was looking at her, tears rolling down her cheeks. Before everything went dark, Ophelia heard her own voice. “I’m sorry.”

Sylvie took her hands away and stared at a very confused Ophelia. “What have they done to you ?” she asked. 

Ophelia was still trying to understand what she’d just seen, to put words on the flashes. “They took my memories.”

“That’s not it. I can’t hold onto any memory because your mind is broken,” Sylvie explained. “Everything is missing. How many times did it happen ?”