Two Hundred Sixty

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[TRANSCRIPT]

[click, static]

It took me the better part of a day but I think I’ve done it. I think I’ve written out your whole message. It…I honestly have no idea what it says. I was so focused on the individual letters, barely any words formed from it as I went.

I…I should go get Harry. But she’s sleeping and…I think she needs the rest. After—we’re still working through things and I think—no, I know—we will be for a very long time. As we waited for your message to finish transmitting, we talked a lot. We maybe got a little…distracted from time to time, but she put it all out on the table, everything she’d been thinking and feeling that she didn’t tell me. Things she didn’t even write in her notebook. And I told her things…we aired grievances and shared the times when we thought we might get close to something, back in New York. She talked about how she felt about Pete and listened to me when I talked about him and…and she was really kind when I couldn’t parse the good from the bad, when I didn’t want to just write him off as a violent criminal. I mean, I don’t…well, there are a lot of things I need to work through and it doesn’t all have to do with Harry.  

Well. I could fill you in on all of it, on every detail, but…these broadcasts have been mine, separate from Harry, as much as anything in my life can be separate from Harry, and there are some things with her that are separate from the world. At least for now. 

I know I said I might stop transmitting now that we’re safe and I think…I think I am going to take a break. Disappear for a little while like you’re so fond of doing. I’m—well, I think I’m happy and I’m not totally sure what to do with that feeling. Especially since it’s laced with…well, Junior is still out there, we’re still trapped here and even though I know what it’s like to kiss her, to— I don’t think I’ve forgiven Harry yet, not fully. She knows that, she…she’s understanding of it. Genuinely. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to try to get there. Especially since I know I haven’t been the paragon of healthy communication and perfect relationship behavior so there are things that I need to…that I need her forgiveness on and, well, I think she wants to try to get there too. 

All that said—well, I don’t know what I’m going to find in your message and I hope it’s not goodbye forever, but maybe this is a goodbye for now. I want only good things for you Birdie. I hope you get a little peace of mind. A little closure. I’m discovering eve the tiniest glimpse of it really does wonders. 

Okay. Here we go. 

“Dear Whiskey, 

I am sorry that we couldn’t meet. You find yourself in a watch tower of my own creation. I wasn’t positive it would still be functioning in this timeline—you never do know when an earthquake or a storm is going to cause something to come toppling down—but I’m relieved to find that it is. I do wish I could have been there myself, but we can only enter timelines through great pains and effort and I have already interfered far more than we are meant to. Though I suppose my hand was forced when I ceased to be the only one communicating with you.

The person you know as Fox is, as you guessed, a purist. They want all people in all places to be instead in one place, following one path. They do not believe that anyone should be free to make their own choices and live with the consequences. They would prefer to guide your hand into another choice you cannot tak