True to You

The Time is Right

There was no light in the room other than the flickering of the giant TV screen. At first Elliot thought the room was empty but then in the dim light she noticed the tufts of black hair barely visible over the back of the sofa where Jimmy slumped still and fixated on the images he was watching.

Closing the door behind her with a soft snick she started toward Jimmy but froze in her tracks when she heard her own voice. What the hell was he watching? As she drew closer the screen flickered and the images changed.

"Hey," she protested softly, "I wanted to see that."

"You can't, it's kind of a law," Jimmy said without turning his head. The entirety of his focus was on the images in front of him.

"Like that time we went camping and you told me it was law to have beer for breakfast when you're camping?" she asked as she sat down on the edge of the sofa being careful to leave some space between them.

He turned his head slightly, just enough in the dim flickering light of the TV for her to see more of his face than just his profile and for her to catch a glimpse of his lips curling up with the barest hint of a smile. "That was a good law and a very strong backbone of the Jimmy Sullivan civil code but no, this is more like one of those laws of physics. I don't understand why, it just is and there's no way around it – it's just built into the universe that you can't watch yourself in the rewind."

"So that was my voice." How strange that in a place where you essentially had no future – just an eternal now – you couldn't look back and reflect on your past. At least not visually.

"Well...yeah." Jimmy's brow crinkled. She wanted to reach out in the darkness and smooth away his confusion.

A child's laugh rang out through the speakers and it was only then that she took notice of just what it was that he was watching. Onscreen a five year old Laine twirled around in a black and red spotted flamenco dress and a pair of brilliant blue patent Doc Martens boots. Her hair was in two bunches one on either side of her head. Elliot felt her heart lurch at the sight. It had been Laine's birthday and Elliot had left Laine with her grandparents when she went out to pick up the birthday cake. She'd come home to find Laine in her eccentric outfit.

"She's always had a mind of her own when it came to clothes. She dressed herself that day and nothing I could say would make her change."

Jimmy's eyes were burning bright when he caught her gaze. "I like her attitude. It's a good look – sassy, tough and just a little bit cute."

"She's got a lot of you in her. It made me sad to see it sometimes, especially when I realized that I'd left things too late. She just powers along never trying too hard to fit in just quietly being her own person." Elliot startled at the touch of Jimmy's fingers against her wrist. He slipped his hand under hers and flipped his palm up – he didn't clutch or grab, he just let it sit there beneath hers, palm to palm.

"Hey, from what I've seen she's got a lot of you too. After all she had to get that dress and those boots somewhere, I'm pretty sure they didn't just magically appear in her closet. I'll lay you any bet you like that you bought them for her." Jimmy's gaze was back on five year old Laine who was imperiously demanding chocolate ice-cream from Elliot's mother.

Elliot couldn't help her smile. He was right, she had bought the dress and the boots. The dress was something cheap from a souvenir shop in Spain but the boots had been a crazy extravagance for a child who'd grown like a weed and barely lasted six months in any pair of shoes.

"I worry about her. She doesn't have a lot of friends and I worry that it's because a lot of kids her age aren't quite sure yet on how to deal with someone determined to just be their own person. I made her move around a lot growing up so I don't think that helped. I kind of felt like I had something to prove, that I wasn't going to let having a child get in the way of having a career." She felt Jimmy's fingers twitch beneath her hand and turned from the screen to look at him.