Reflections of the Past ((Aiden))

The sun streaked down onto the grass as Vader made her way around the grounds of the academy. Really it was nothing compared to blistering Texas heat that Vader loved, but it was nice to have it all the same, she liked it warm and found it uncomfortable to change her outfit habits for the weather of the north, but maybe that was Vader, maybe change wasn’t her thing. She wasn’t very sure. Having had tied her hair up she kept it out of the way as she walked this fine summer morning, and was on her way to do something just above killing time, she was going to try to work out her telekinesis, fun stuff. Although, granted, she wasn’t very sure where she was going, or how she would do it, but merely getting out and going was accomplishment enough. To be honest, today she wasn’t very focused, even though she had some time to cope with Aiden and all of the baggage that came along with it, she was still feeling the repercussions, and the one resounding in her head the most was “Who am I?”

Whether that troubled all teenagers or not, Vader felt she was grasping for a hand hold in empty air, her entire substance and innocent childhood had been washed a way, she wasn’t even very sure her favorite ice cream, not even memories of her favorite ice cream. Safe to say her foundation was more than rocked, a little more like non-existent. With a quick sigh her green eyes peered up and found herself at the lake, wonderful, she loved the lake. It’s surface was like glass, not a ripple to be found, the waters blue in reflection of the sky.

She walked over to the edge of the gentle lake and peered into it at her own reflection. How she had gotten older. She could still see the remnants of a young 12 year old face, but see was getting older, even at 16 she could see weariness from struggle and strife, but had some of that existed when she was 12? She couldn’t remember. She frowned at her reflection and picked up a stone to cast it into the water to break its perfect surface, but she paused. Looking at the smooth gray stone in her hand she got an idea.

She took a seat at the water’s edge and held out her hand, palm up. Slowly she began to channel all her energy onto that one spot, sort of feeling the stone in her mind and willing it to hover, an it obeyed, shakily. Well at first. She got it to steady and pause before gently turning it over, she smiled at her work and reached to pick up another one, copying the same format as before, levitate and turn over, and again with a third rock, and a fourth rock. Vader allowed herself a small smile, but it vanished as soon as she heard a small crack, like a twig being stepped on. She let her mind reach out and felt something familiar; a barrier. Aiden. She thought, unsure if she was pleased to see him again.

Already Vader was preparing herself to break through the barrier in Aiden’s mind. She hadn’t tried to break through the barrier since that day in London, but she hoped it would be easier than the first time. Vader paused for a moment before breaking down the barrier in Aiden’s mind and decided to wait. She reached out and took another stone but she paused as she caught her reflection again. But this time, she saw Aiden’s just behind hers. It was a little more distant and faded, but it was still there. Her smile flickered and gaze darkened as she looked at their reflections in the glass like water and could feel her throat tighten. A single questioned seemed to burn her mouth, and Vader bit her lip, hesitant to ask the question to the one person who could actually give her an answer and end her uncertainty. After a moment of silence Vader finally bit her lip and steeled herself for the answer.

She kept her eyes on the reflection but addressed Aiden in a faint whisper that only he could hear. “Have I…changed? Am I different?”

Aiden felt as if the days were droning by so so slowly. He had expected that he would be happy here, along with people like him. He hadn’t traveled at all except for that weird three hour gap within the CTF game but he still knew that here, for the first time since he lost Vader, people would understand. He wouldn’t have people be afraid of him, thinking that he was dead and therefore a ghost. But he didn’t like all the pressure here. He didn’t like his old life on the streets at all, but he didn’t like what these people were doing – changing who he was. They stressed over and over again that next time he teleported, don’t do it on Vader’s timeline. They told him how they thought it could work and to change him, make him better against his enemies, but he didn’t want enemies. He felt like he was now in a military academy. They were training him to fight for their cause. What cause? Even if Vader didn’t like him anymore and …thought he was a stalker, traveling to her timeline was apart of him. He assumed it happened for a reason too. It only happened when she was in danger or …dying. Every time he saw her die over and over again, it killed him as well, but he knew he had to always be there with her. Helping her.

As he thought about this, Aiden began to walk around the campus. He still had a dismal amount of friends …probably because he was rubbish at making them, and so he was always in his room. Fresh air seemed nice. Especially to clear his head. At least, that was what he had been told.

As he walked along, many of these things kept reoccurring in his head. Maybe it would be best to try to not just time travel in Vader’s timeline. He could be the next time Lord without a TARDIS. TARDIS’ did do a lot more than he, but still …time travel. Maybe – maybe he could go 1000 years in advance and see if the lizard men were really real. And he could meet the Doctor! Aiden sighed, knowing that it was just a tv show… but everything was possible right? He was a time traveler after all.

Walking along, not really knowing what he was doing or where he was going, he found himself at the lake, close to his …previous encounter. He saw the ground still collapsed. A clump of dirt still hanging there. Aiden shook his head, remembering the day it had happened. He was still slightly embarrassed, but he had made a good friend. One of his few and only. However, looking out a ways down the shore, he noticed a familiar figure. Aiden smiled faintly. He really missed her – his best friend – his only friend in the early days. Now she didn’t even know him. He felt as if she was only pity talking to him. Though both of them knew, she wanted to know more about her past and he would have to tell her. There was no way she’d break through the harder barriers into his childhood that he could barely remember. Only little pieces of it here and there. He wanted to go talk to her, but did she want to talk to him? He understood that she didn’t remember him at all… it was like he was sucked into the crack. But no… well… she had no recollection of him. He felt as if he were throwing himself on her and he didn’t want that to happen. He missed his best friend so much.
But she didn’t miss him back.
Deciding that he would go talk to her, he made his way over there. The worst it could get was her just telling him to leave. No harm done.

Coming up behind Vader, Aiden saw that she was levitating a few rocks. He slowed down and couldn’t help but gape at her power. He was always rather jealous of hers …though she did seem to hate it at times …and she did seem jealous of his. He walked forwards slowly, not trying to make it seem like he was barging in her cool mind voodoo thing and then SNAP a twig shattered under his foot. Between rocks falling and the lack of hair whipping which confused him for a split second, all he could make out was an “oops… sorry.” Aiden almost thought he caught eye-rolling but he wasn’t sure. Maybe that was just what he was expecting. He realized that the reason she didn’t turn was because of the lack of thoughts. So she knew it must be him.

He opened his mouth to say something, but he was cut off by a quiet, “have I…changed? Am I different?”

Aiden sighed, he knew this day would come sooner or later. “Well …yeah I suppose so. But that’s understandable. Everyone is different from the ages 12 to 16 almost 17. Plus the whole… memory loss thing. You could have turned your life around. You could be completely different …but no. You haven’t changed very much. A little – but you are still very much the Vader I knew.” Aiden walked into her line of vision slowly, so that he wasn’t behind her. He stood there for a moment before sitting besides her. “Do you want to know how it happened? How we… were changed?

Vader braced herself for the worst. Had she hated chocolate? Did she like basketball? “Well …yeah I suppose so. But that’s understandable. Everyone is different from the ages 12 to 16 almost 17. Plus the whole… memory loss thing. You could have turned your life around. You could be completely different …but no. You haven’t changed very much. A little – but you are still very much the Vader I knew.” Aiden replied. Vader relaxed, no longer fearing for the worst, but didn't really know what to say, or what she wanted to hear. Did she want to be the same person she'd been as a twelve year old? Who did she want to be in the first place? Who had she wanted to be when she was a child? She didn’t even care if she’d hated chocolate and liked basketball, even if it had made her a different person than the person she was now, but then again, who was she? The questions raced through her mind at an alarming speed, each one questioned her identity further, making her feel smaller then ever before. She looked again at the reflection in the lake, somewhere, however deep down, was a different Vader, no matter how alike she and Aiden’s Vader seemed, they where different, and she didn’t know which Vader she really wanted to be.

Aiden's arm brushed against her as he sat down and she flinched slightly, startled. Vader bit her lip and looked at the ground, feeling bad for Aiden. If she really had been his best friend…no, she had to have been, she believed him but it was hard for her to accept. It all seemed planned, like someone was trying to control her life. She felt bad, he had dealt with this a lot better that she had; he’d sat calmly at a table while she’d practically run away from a ‘ghost of her unknown past’, only to find Charlie and have to go back. Vader realized her stupidity of running from the one person who might have had answer, and thanked her lucky stars that Aiden had come to The Academy after Charlie had talked to him. If he hadn’t come to The Academy then Vader would be as clueless of her past as ever. Now she knew a few things about her past that had been obscured by the unending blackness of her memories.

Vader often wondered how she had remembered things like her name and how two times six equals twelve. Sometimes it felt like the information was just wired into her brain, but Vader knew that she’d learned the information, but she didn’t remember learning it. She couldn’t understand how she couldn’t remember a single fact about Aiden, or her family, but she could remember how to type and the different currency systems. It just didn’t make since to her, her brain didn’t make sense to itself.

“Do you want to know how it happened? How we… were changed?” Aiden asked, pulling Vader out of her thoughts.

“What?” She replied, while automatically trying to get into his mind to see what his question was. Vader was a little startled when she couldn’t get through, but the she remembered what he’d told her in London; she couldn’t get inside his head without breaking down the barriers in his mind.

It took her a few seconds for what Aiden had said to actually make sense without her going into his mind to figure out what the question was. “Oh…er…sure.” Vader answered, though she wasn’t very sure she wanted to know. “But could you call it something besides ‘changed’ please? It sounds...awkward. Could you just use ‘got our powers’ or something like that? Please?” She added quickly.
 

Aiden noticed how she seemed to be nervous. She didn’t want to hear that she was different, but she also knew that she wasn’t completely the same. She seemed relieved when he mentioned she was similar. Meaning she wasn’t a criminal or something. But she didn’t have to worry about that did she. She was only twelve when her memory was ripped from her. Aiden couldn’t help but think that he had part to do with it. Yeah, she was getting beaten by someone and almost shot. But no regular mortal could survive time traveling with him. He had learned that the hard way. Don’t think about it he kept urging himself, but an image of a small girl kept coming to mind. She was being abused, asking for any kind of help. He felt himself leaving and… she didn’t survive the 4 months trip in advance.

Aiden sat calmly as Vader seemed to be pondering something. He didn’t blame her, she had a lot to deal with at the time. The thought crossed his mind that she might be breaking into it, but he knew if she was smart, she wouldn’t. It was too much information at one time. It wouldn’t be good for her at all. He waited for a moment, then decided to break the silence he said, “I do like the new accent …Texanish Londoner… that where you’ve been right? London? Oh yeah, if you are curious about the London sounding type, you are from England. Though you’ve probably gathered that from my accent.” He thought about mentioning her parents but he didn’t really know apart from the fact her mum died when she was young.

When he asked her if she wanted to know, her immediate answer was “what.” He briefly smiled, knowing immediately he had just stopped her mid thought.
“Oh…er…sure. But could you call it something besides ‘changed’ please? It sounds...awkward. Could you just use ‘got our powers’ or something like that? Please?”

Aiden chuckled, “sure. Sorry.” He paused, trying to think of how to say it. “Er… let’s see. Well, I never met you until I was seven. You were six – almost seven. We were both kidnapped and I can’t remember what happened very well in the chamber because these men kept giving us these drugs, but they were trying to do an experiment that would change mankind. They kept telling me about wielding concepts of time and telling you about wielding concepts of the mind. But I’m pretty sure something went wrong. But we both woke up on a train to London. Gaps were taken out of our memory. We could remember our parents and families names but not they’re faces or where we lived or anything. And well… afterwards we just had powers. I would leave for days and show back up again. You would always wait for me. Back then, they were really frequent and short…”

“I do like the new accent …Texanish Londoner… that where you’ve been right? London? Oh yeah, if you are curious about the London sounding type, you are from England. Though you’ve probably gathered that from my accent.” Vader laughed. Texasnish Londoner. She thought, liking how it sounded. “Yeah I’ve been in Texas a lot. I guess that’s where we ended up. But I traveled a lot too. Berlin, Prauge, Rome, Normandy, Istanbul…Athens…lots of places filled with history and war and architecture. But it wasn’t just the big cities either! There was this little town Italy…there was a tiny inn that I stayed at for about a week. It’s amazing, but I always ended up coming back to Texas, I like it there. The thunderstorms are amazing. It’s got class and stuff but it’s also really relaxed there you can be at a ranch mucking out stables one day and be wondering around the center of Dallas or Austin the next. I don’t like the whole A&M/UT controversy though. I still don’t understand our—I mean American football; I still always ended up following the World Cup instead. I never went to school though, I just learned things while I traveled, which is so much better than school. I picked up bits and pieces of languages too, a lot more than I ever would have learned in a classroom. I mean, I did some traveling in the States as well, but it’s so boring compared to Europe…I quite like New Orleans though. The seafood there is excellent! And there was this tomato festival…I tried fried alligator there. It really does taste like fried chicken, only tougher!” She said, then suddenly snapped her mouth shut, only now aware how much she was talking.

Aiden laughed at her question, and she raised an eyebrow. Her question had been serious. “Sure. Sorry…Er… let’s see. Well, I never met you until I was seven. You were six – almost seven. We were both kidnapped and I can’t remember what happened very well in the chamber because these men kept giving us these drugs, but they were trying to do an experiment that would change mankind. They kept telling me about wielding concepts of time and telling you about wielding concepts of the mind. But I’m pretty sure something went wrong. But we both woke up on a train to London. Gaps were taken out of our memory. We could remember our parents and families names but not they’re faces or where we lived or anything. And well… afterwards we just had powers. I would leave for days and show back up again. You would always wait for me. Back then, they were really frequent and short…”

As he talked Vader imagined what the train had looked like. She could vividly see two children sprawled out on the dark blue seats, both asleep. The younger version of herself had more red in her hair than she did today, and the younger version of Aiden was just as scrawny as ever. The children both woke up within minutes of each other, and both had a confused looks on their faces. Vader imagined the girl sitting with her hand folded in her lap as silent tears streamed down her face, and the boy staring out the window at the passing countryside, with his eyes slightly watery.

Vader swallowed. “Well…that’s…” She started to say but then another thing came through her mind. “You mean to say that out powers aren’t natural?” She asked argumentatively. Her hands formed little quotation marks as she’d said the word powers, as if she doubted that they were simply powers.

She wondered if the image she’d envisioned in her mind was actually a memory or something her brain had conjured up after hearing about something she should remember. Vader needed to know, she had to have something to fill the empty gap in her memories, the one that left her wondering about herself. She could feel the wall in Aiden’s brain blocking her entry into his mind. The feeling was strange, foreign even. In that moment Vader knew that she had to break into his mind to find out if what she was seeing was truly real, or if it was just fake—a figment of her imagination that would never be real. She was sure that Aiden could feel her trying to get in, but she doubted that he could ever do anything about it. She tried the method that she’d used that day in London to no avail, the hammer against the wall did not do anything. She tried several more times before deciding that the method was ineffective and moving on to something else. This time she used something simple: dynamite. It was easier this time than it was the last, which sort of surprised Vader. The wall seemed to explode in her mind, and Aiden’s thoughts floated into her head. She searched for the memory, which he’d thought of recently as he’d just told her about it. Once she’d found it, Vader didn’t hesitate to look at it.

The first thing she noticed was that the seats weren’t blue—a detail that wouldn’t be important to anyone else but Vader. Instead they were a deep scarlet red, a red that reminded Vader of blood. Anger at herself washed over her, she hated this emptiness. The disappointment was worse however. The image had felt so real, so tangible, it had been right there, so close that she could almost feel it, but of course it hadn’t been real, it had just been her imagination there was nothing there and there would never be anything there. She had to accept that painful fact, regardless of how much she hated it or how much she strove to rebel against it.

((Sorry, I have little muse at the moment))

“Yeah I’ve been in Texas a lot. I guess that’s where we ended up. But I traveled a lot too. Berlin, Prauge, Rome, Normandy, Istanbul…Athens…lots of places filled with history and war and architecture. But it wasn’t just the big cities either! There was this little town Italy…there was a tiny inn that I stayed at for about a week. It’s amazing, but I always ended up coming back to Texas, I like it there. The thunderstorms are amazing. It’s got class and stuff but it’s also really relaxed there you can be at a ranch mucking out stables one day and be wondering around the center of Dallas or Austin the next. I don’t like the whole A&M/UT controversy though. I still don’t understand our—I mean American football; I still always ended up following the World Cup instead. I never went to school though, I just learned things while I traveled, which is so much better than school. I picked up bits and pieces of languages too, a lot more than I ever would have learned in a classroom. I mean, I did some traveling in the States as well, but it’s so boring compared to Europe…I quite like New Orleans though. The seafood there is excellent! And there was this tomato festival…I tried fried alligator there. It really does taste like fried chicken, only tougher!”

Aiden sat back and listened to Vader talk, she seemed to relax by doing so as talking about something you loved always seemed to do. Chuckling, he said, “wow…” He trailed off. “I’m really jealous. I’ve never been out of London until I came here. I’ve never even had the money to go to really posh places in London, so I wouldn’t really know.” He furrowed his brow, wondering how she could possibly have had the money to afford that. “Though, I am going to Fiji tomorrow to pick up someone. I’m rather excited about that.” He then reflected on what else she said. “It’s alright, none of us understand American football either, doesn’t matter though, football – the real kind, that is – is much better anyway. And I agree, you’d learn much more from traveling than classrooms. Yeah… though sounds like you only enjoyed New Orleans for the food.” He smiled, not trying to offend her in the slightest. “And… well… the other half of what you said I didn’t understand really. But I’ll just nod and pretend like I did.” And so he nodded. He doubted she would know it but it was something he used to say. She would often go off talking about everything, she was always much smarter than him, always learning things from other people’s heads. He would do that, she would laugh and realize she said too much.
He sighed realizing she wouldn’t remember anything that they used to do or any inside jokes or even… him.

“Well…that’s… You mean to say that out powers aren’t natural?”
Aiden shrugged, he had gotten over the fact. “It doesn’t matter much. Though most of the kids here were born with it, I bet there are few who got theirs …er… planted? Not really sure how to put it. And they probably don’t say it.” He trailed off. “I’ve heard that since ours aren’t ‘natural’ as you put it, that ours are more powerful. Yours surely seem to be, but I can’t say that much about mine. Sure, time travel is rare, but I only travel within 80 years.”

There was a moment of silence and so Aiden just looked down, calmly waiting for a response. However, instead of a response, he felt a prick in his head. He started to get a small headache and his vision blurred for a second as it did sometimes when he had headaches. He sighed, he should have been expecting her to try and get in. He must have been so different for her, scary even. She had had the thoughts of others always streaming into her mind and she could get anything she wanted, but here, with him, she had to act like… almost human. Not jumping to conclusions quickly or anything like that. Aiden felt a wave of pain and then it subsided. She had just broken in. Aiden waited for a second. She had to keep concentrating on it. If he made her lose concentration, the wall would build up again and it’d be even harder to break in. After what seemed like a minute, but was probably much less, Aiden said, “you know… if you really want to know something, you can just ask.”

Aiden realized that she looked frustrated at something. “Oh no.” He muttered briefly to himself. Why did he even let her break through in the first place. He reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, but then refrained from doing so. He strived to be with his best friend again, but he couldn’t do many things that they used to because she didn’t even know him anymore. He sighed, would their relationship ever be fully patched up again? “What did you find?” He asked simply. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too much. She didn’t look too scared or hurt, just frustrated. So it couldn’t be too bad… He hoped that it was a sign that she hadn’t seen him traveling to her dying in the future. That would indeed be a little offsetting. He didn’t think that she even knew yet that her past and future was the only place he traveled to.