Time Passages (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

Lab Rats: Two in One

Julia's voice burst around them, "Guys, any time now would be fantastic."

"Almost there, almost there," C muttered, his steady hands navigating Speck's controls. 

"All right, take Danny first," she ordered. 

Then, once, he cut the mike, C murmured, "Dammit, this would be so much easier to do if they would just stand still."

"You're doing fine," Stuart assured him.  

"I know," C said.  "Okay, the kid's almost finished loading up."

The machine whirred ominously as the main screen informed the men, in red all caps, that it was "WORKING."  The bar demonstrating how much of Danny's and Julia's bodies had been locked on rose higher and higher by the second.  By now ninety-five percent was clear, but there could be no possibly safe return until his total mass had been ascertained.

Though he himself had never made the move across the time continuum, K had seen the physical toll it took on those who did, especially on the return trip.  Julia, he remembered, had dealt with the worst of it, being the first to be sent via that accursed glitch-ridden prototype, T-Rod.  Pulling Julia back across T-Rod's flimsy "bridge" had nearly killed her ten years ago.

It was an absolute miracle, though, that she came through without permanent mental or neurological damage, which everyone kept saying would be an inevitable consequence.  She did suffer a seizure like that of a severe epileptic and lay in a near-comatose state for about three days, but she came around nonetheless and made a full recovery over the course of the next few months.   

While Speck had a much more secure, sophisticated design, complete with its own form of A.I., the machine was not without its own glitches.  Everything had to be executed with the utmost care, respecting the device's unprecedented intricacy- which was why K was crossing his fingers so hard that his young friends would come back as whole and unharmed as they had gone in.

The bar hit one hundred percent.  "Okay, we got him," C announced. 

"How much longer for Jules?" Stuart asked K.

"Julia's at seventy-five," K replied.  "Just a half minute more, I'd estimate."

Then another call came in from forty-two years in the past, and Julia spoke again, this time in a scared, breathless tone, "Are you locked on yet?"

"We have Danny, we'll bring him in now," Stuart said.

"You promise it's safe?" she whispered.

"I promise, honey.  He's going to be fine."

Appeased, Julia gave a quick goodbye to Danny, and C executed the transport.  In a flash, there was only one red indicator light on the screen- Julia's.  The lights flickered in the room, but the men's eyes didn't look up and around, distracted.  They were on a mission.

Now came the part which always reminded K of the old Star Trek episodes.  Bit by bit, meticulously percentaged by the data counters, Speck reassembled Danny's body within its mollusk-like compartment.  As soon as the machine announced "Transport Successful," C darted over and lifted the emergency hatch.

Julia's comm beeped.  "Is he there?"

The boy lay limp on the Speck's floor.  His eyes were shut, his mouth slightly open, his limbs spread out to either side of him like he was attempting to make a snow angel without snow.  Gently lifting him out of the machine, C touched two fingers against Danny's throat.  K gulped.

C looked up at Stuart and gave him a thumbs up.  With a stoic nod, Stuart relayed the news to Julia, and K tried to conceal how completely relieved he was as he instructed his old friend to get ready.  He was just as fond of Danny as he was of Julia; he practically considered them his little adopted family.