We Belong - Cable/Nathan Summers

17.

The Present

Chapter Theme Song: Tomorrow - Alicia Morton (Annie Soundtrack)

But that was impossible. 

One, how could she even be here in the first place?

And two, the girl staring back at him was a teenager.

But those were his eyes she was staring at him with, and the red hair she had was unmistakably her mother's. She carried herself with an obvious confidence that he was instantly proud of.

It was her, his daughter, his Hope.

"D-Dad?" She appeared just as shocked. "Daddy?"

"Hope? I-is that really you?"

"Yes," she cried. "Yes! Dad, I'm here."

"You're here."

"You're here."

"You're here."

"I'm here, I'm here!" She threw her arms around him - she was tall now, and he didn't have to lean down to hug her anymore.

He pulled away slightly to stare at her, still not quite believing it. "You're – older."

She chuckled. "And you're the same as I remember."

"How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

His stomach dropped. "Ten years?" Ten years from when he last saw her. He still didn't make it home for ten years? "You mean I don't get to see you grow up?"

"Yeah, at least as of right now, but we can still change that," she added hopefully. "We can still find a way to get you home sooner."

"Been trying, but it's a slow process." He took both of her hands in his, quickly realizing that one was cold and stiff. Looking down, he saw that the hand and arm on her right side were metal.

This struck him - so he had passed his virus onto his child, just as he had feared and Nina had comforted him about. "Oh, Hope. I'm so sorry."

"Don't be, it actually comes in handy a lot. Maybe when you get home you can outfit it with a bunch of cool gadgets like yours."

He couldn't help but chuckle, glad she didn't seem to see it as a burden as he did. "What the hell are you doing here? How are you even here?"

"Well, Uncle Wade showed up and-"

"Uncle Wade?"

"-And said that you and Mom were in trouble, or having trouble.  So, he asked me to come help resolve it."

"Uncle?"

"Uncle?!" Both turned to face Wade. "Aw, I'm tearing up over here!" He wiped away a fake tear. "Well, since you and Wifey are obviously going through a rough patch, I thought, who better to fix that than your own child? The child of your own making. The missing link between you, voila! Only, I sorta misjudged how far into the future..."

"Yeah, only sorta. But how'd you do it?"

"Well, you know those false-reality weapons?"

"Oh no..."

"Yeah, I managed to get myself one. Turns out, with the right fixing up, it can do the whole time-travel thing too. So, problem solved, you can get home! After we charge the thing, though, my jump into the future to get her took a lot out of it. But, I think it would have enough power to charge up your time device."