pulse // supernatural

the sun comes up

She wakes up on the side of the road. It's the middle of the night. A full moon hangs in the sky, casting a weird blue haze over everything and stretching weird shadows from the trees nearby. There's a light fog that hangs in the air, and she feels like it should be cold but it isn't, even though she's wearing her favourite blue sundress. Her feet are bare, and her hair's tied back with ribbons.

She gets up out of the grass slowly, wiping the dew from her hands onto her skirt. How had she gotten out here, on the side of the road? She doesn't remember, which is strange. And even stranger, she doesn't really seem to care. 

The road stretches out left and right into the mist, so she picks a direction and starts walking. She's hoping someone passing through will stop and give her directions, but there are no cars or trucks or anthing, not even a sign by the side of the road to give her a clue as to where she is. The road just goes on, and on, and on.

Eventually, just when she thinks she might be lost forever, the fog clears and the trees thin, and the lights of a diner pull her to its warmth and safety. Relieved, she stumbles through the door and falls into an empty booth, her feet glad for the respite. She's been walking for hours. The diner is busy for the middle of the night; the air smells like freshly brewed coffee, and the low hum of a hundred conversations hangs in the air. She leans against the window and closes her eyes, listening. It reminds her of-

Wait.

Her eyes fly open again.

This isn't some random highway stop for lost and lonely travellers. This is her diner, the one she's served and cleaned and loved since she was fifteen years old and looking for her first job. And now, outside, it's the main street of her little backwater town in Iowa, and it's the middle of the afternoon.

"Your break finished yet?" a familiar voice asks beside her. Saskia, all dark eyes and runaway curls, her hands planted firmly on her hips. There's a notepad crumpled in one of her fists. It bears a strong resemblance to what would happen to your face if you messed with her.

"What?" Theresa asks, still trying to process how the time passed so quickly, and how she had gotten here from the deserted highway she clearly remembered walking. 

"That guy over there, I can't deal with him any more. I'm actually going to throw a plate at him." Theresa looks across the diner, in the direction Saskia is pointing, and as soon as she spots the man in question she remembers. This has happened before.

"The one in the red shirt?" she asks, just as she had the first time this had happened.

"Yeah, him," Saskia confirms. "Won't let me serve him, and refuses to leave. Keeps saying he wants you to serve him? I don't know."

She looks a little harder. "I know him from school," she says, because truly, it's Aaron, but it isn't Aaron as she knows him. This version is younger, fresh faced and lazing in his chair like he had been the day she had met him - this day. Like she's stepped back in time, rewound all of her mistakes back to this one day where maybe she could turn everything around. How, she has no idea. 

"Well, maybe you can get rid of him then," Saskia continues. "Way I figure it, you've got three minutes left of your break, and then you're selling him coffee or kicking him out." She uncrumples her notepad and leaves, pasting a smile back on her face as she turns to the newest customers. Theresa stares after her a moment longer, and then gets up and winds her way through the mess of chairs and tables that fill the diner. She sits down across from Aaron. He notices her only as she pulls the chair out, the legs squeaking against the polished wooden floor.

"Hi," he says with a lazy grin, straightening up and smoothing out his shirt.

"Aaron?" she asks hopefully. 

It's not the same thing she said the first time around, but he doesn't react any differently.

"Your friend's a charmer," he says, gesturing towards Saskia. "Tried to kick me out. I just really wanted to talk to you."

She eyes him, and then plays along for a moment. "Why?"

"To ask you on a date."

She'd been surprised, the first time. Back when she'd been 18 and not particularly cool, and Aaron had been the boy every girl wanted, way out of her league. This had been a dream come true. Now, she's wary, unsure of what is happening. She's a fan of science fiction, sure, but it could never be real. No one actually randomly travels back in time.

Has she even travelled in time? Usually, time travel has effects on the future. Anything you say, anything you do can change things. But this - she feels like she's not even here. Like there's a script everyone is following and they don't even notice when she falters and forgets her line. It doesn't matter what she does here, nothing will change.

She doesn't like this any more. "I have to go," she says, standing up. 

Aaron's eyes remain fixed on her chair. "I know," he says, like he hasn't even noticed her move. "It's a little sudden. I've been watching you though, and..." She stops listening, turns on her heel and walks away. On her way out, she passes Saskia; her friend is staring at Aaron, who is still talking to himself, a wry smile on her face. She doesn't even notice when Theresa waves a hand in front her of face.

It's creepy. She all but runs out of the door.

Outside, the blinding sun hits her eyes, forcing her to stop short. Her heart is pounding, and her breath catches in her throat. A car whizzes past, engine roaring, and it's all she can hear. There's a sudden pain in her chest, and she falls to the ground; for a second she can hear the screeching of tires churning up dirt, can smell fresh grass and the metallic tang of blood. For a minute, she can't breathe at all, no matter how hard she's trying, and the sun's in her eyes, and everything hurts so bad but she can't even scream because she doesn't have the air-

She blinks, and she's lying in the sand.

Now, that's not right. Gasping, she fills her lungs with seaside air and sighs it all out again, sitting up. A beach in California, on an unusually cold day; she knows this place too. She ran away from Aaron for this place, dreamed about it for months and months. And there's Toby, running along the edge of the water as fast as his little legs will carry him, a shower of birds taking off in his wake. It's the happiest she ever saw him, then or now.

This is a memory, just like the diner was a memory. And the grass and the blood and the car flying past? She has to really reach for it, has to battle through the fog in her mind, but she knows deep down that it is a memory too. A memory of the day she died.

She's suddenly glad she's already sitting down.

The more she sits and watches Toby, the more she remembers. The car, the impact, the grass. The sun in her eyes, staring at that thing she was never supposed to look at in case she went blind. That last breath that just wouldn't come, no matter how hard she tried. Darkness.

The thin, balding man in a suit that had pulled her out of the grass with warm hands and stood her next to her broken body. He'd called himself a Reaper. He'd offered her Heaven. And she'd taken his offer.

Toby runs up, laughing. "Mum, mum! Lookit the birds!" he says, pointing at the black spots that are settling back down on the water, further out than he can safely wade. 

She laughs and straightens his little red scarf. "They're very pretty, aren't they?" she asks, and he nods.

"I think I like birds," he says, and runs away to chase some more.

She remembers with a jolt that this is not her Toby, that she'll never see the real one again. He'll follow a script forever, just like everyone else. "Toby!" she yells after him, but of course he doesn't hear her, because when this was real she let him run away, like she had all the time in the world to spend with him. She'd never seen the car coming.

Suddenly, she's crying.