Parallels- an MCSM AU [COMPLETED]

NINE- New Obstacles

this chapter,, might be a little bad, because this was when i started fighting with writer's block a tad bit

it's not terrible, but it was written over the span of nearly three weeks, which i think made it kinda choppy and inconsistent.

sorry in advance.
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Julia threaded her fingers through her short brown hair. "He's gone. He's just gone. I don't understand it."

"He can't have just vanished, can he?" Lukas asked.

She shook her head wildly. "No way. He wouldn't have just left, not when he told me he'd be here. And he wouldn't have abandoned his research. This makes no sense."

"Are you sure there's nowhere else he would've gone?" I pressed, not wanting to accept that we may have just come all this way for nothing.

"Yes, of course I am. Ivor told me he'd be here, and even if he's been a shady character in the past, he wouldn't've lied or changed his mind without telling me. And you didn't see how obsessed he was with this whole timeline thing; there's no way he would've left all this stuff behind." Julia said, still wringing her hands anxiously.

Radar spoke up next. "Well...it has to have been at least two weeks since you last saw him, right? So...maybe something came up only recently and he didn't have a chance to get a message to you? Especially since you were kinda in another dimension?"

Examining the dusty shelves again, Lukas argued, "No. He's been gone for longer than that, from the look of this place. Which still leaves the question of where he went, and why."

"He would've left a note, or some sign of where he was going. Unless..." Julia started pacing, sounding even more worried than before. "Unless he didn't intend to leave. If something happened to him..."

"Let's not jump to conclusions. I'm sure we can figure this out." I told her gently.

"But..." Radar started nervously. "Without Ivor, do we have a way to learn more about the timeline deviations? What do we do?"

Julia shook her head again, not seeming to have fully heard what he said. "There's gotta be a way to find him."

"But what if we can't?" Radar worried. "If he's gone, how are we supposed to fix any of this?"

Julia hesitated for a second, then turned away. "I...I'm not sure."

Lukas crossed his arms. "You're not sure?" he echoed. "Are you really telling me you don't have a plan here?"

She stopped her pacing to give him an upset scowl. "Yeah. Ivor was supposed to help us; he was supposed to be here. My entire 'plan' was hinging on that."

"So what you're saying is, you didn't hesitate to pull us into this even though you had no idea what was really going to happen." Lukas challenged. His voice had taken on a hard, critical tone.

Julia's glare deepened. "I had no reason to believe Ivor wouldn't be here! I thought I knew exactly what we were getting into! Don't try to put this on me."

He let out a sarcastic laugh. "Yeah, you're clearly blameless here, subtracting the fact that you were the one to come barging into our lives and dragging us into this whole mess. This wasn't our fight, until you decided to make it so."

"Lukas." I said in a warning tone. I was ignored.

"What else was I supposed to do?" Julia snapped. "Do you really think that enlisting the help of myself from another dimension was my first choice? No! My friends are all gone, Lukas! They're deep in their own lives, and they either weren't willing to help or were too difficult to even get ahold of! I sought out Jess because I hoped that if my most-trusted friends didn't want anything to do with it, then maybe another version of me would!"