Time Passages (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

Lab Rats II: Bucky 13

In the first moment he took to relax all day, as he finally stretched out comfortably in his big leather massage chair, a cold beer in one hand and the remote in the other, poised to do a little Netflix-surfing, Stuart suddenly remembered.

Damn, I forgot to call Jules back. 

Stuart cracked his neck wearily and looked over his cell's call history.  Things very likely must have worked out, for she didn't call again. Anyway, he'd been hard at work all this Sunday, as was typical; while his girlfriend liked to fritter the morning away sitting in church, he and his much more enlightened self always caught up on upcoming lectures, tweaked designs, tied up all the loose ends he didn't get to during the previous week. 

Probably the only thing he really wanted to accomplish, and couldn't solely because it was Sunday and most of the team didn't work then, was to get an early start on repairing Speck.  But he'd already called a handful of his most learned cross-continuum disciples to assist Steve and Tim over the next couple of days. 

It was too late at night to call her now. Julia always went to bed a little earlier on Sundays, he knew. That was one of the many things Stuart appreciated about Julia; she was a creature of habit. He could practically set a clock by her, she was so tied to her routine.  He never had to worry about Julia, honestly, and therefore he never felt jealous, except-

And then Stuart froze up a little, brows knitting, and cursed aloud when he remembered. 

Oh yeah. 

Except Freddie.

That was it.  She must have been calling about Freddie.  Her ex.  Her currently live-in ex. 

Fool he was, he'd been so wrapped up in his plans he didn't even remember Freddie was staying with her, even after he'd gone so far as to call and check in that morning.  Why had he even allowed that to happen, allowed that creature to just waltz right back into Julia's life without one word of protest? 

Stuart had witnessed the moment it all began back in 2017, when his two partners in crime, Dr. Christopher and Dr. Kurzweil, sent her into the past- the desired target, Saul Alinsky in 1971.  The idea had come from George himself, to send a modern college youth to this effective community organizer with questions concerning the modern era, and find out not only how Alinsky would respond to the questions, but how the college student would respond to Alinsky himself.

But that's not what happened. 

By some unforeseen glitch in the system, Julia was whisked to 1977 London, planted right in the home of one Freddie Mercury, all because she tried to look him up on her phone.  And though on this side of the continuum it only took two hours to bring her back, she was at that man's mercy for two solid weeks.

Stuart knew that at some point while she was trapped there, Julia and Freddie had become romantically involved.  And that confused him; for he had always heard that Freddie Mercury was gay, or (as Julia liked to describe it) bisexual with a considerable preference for men over women. 

Nevertheless, how deep the feelings went, and whether the two of them actually "got physical," was still a mystery to him.  Dr. Christopher had his own theories about what went on- theories that Stuart, after seeing firsthand how well-endowed Freddie happened to be, decided weren't so far-fetched after all- but Julia would never confirm or deny anything he claimed took place.  In fact, she had spoken very little of those two weeks- and even less of the man in general, save that there was nothing between them anymore, and anyway, too many years had gone by for feelings as shallow as theirs to keep lingering in the first place.