WARNING. This is an alternate ending to the story. If you liked the ending as it was (ambiguous and somewhat dark), don't read any further. If your heart was broken and you feel like no amount of Moebius tissue in the world can dry your tears... this alternate timeline is for you.

"Pandora, what do you think? ....Pandora?"

"Hm?"

Alyssa snapped her head up from her dinner plate, staring at the expectant face of her host. Renowned philanthropist and billionaire Richard Devon had invited her here to talk politics tonight, but instead she had found herself unable to contribute much to the discussions at all. Now, everybody at the table was looking at her - a dozen perfectly made up faces, belonging to the rich and powerful who had convened here today. The set up was perfect, it was her chance to spin the web of connections that would give her an opportunity to save the future.

She had thought it would be easy to impersonate Pandora, but where her grandmother had been smooth and charming, Alyssa was barely passing as anything other than an inanimate object. Now their stares bored into her, and she felt paralyzed, as if her spirit inhabited an object and not a body indeed.

"I... I am sorry," Alyssa mumbled. "Please excuse me, I am not feeling well."

She got up from the table and left the room without another word or a look back. In the hallway, she didn't go for the bathroom. She picked up her coat, passed a confused looking maid and stepped out of the front door of Devon's estate.

She slipped into the coat, and the dark grey-fabric seemed to weigh heavy even before the rain drenched it. It was Pandora's. So was everything else she wore. Everything her grandmother owned fit her perfectly.

The woman's entire life seemed to fit her like a second skin. It also had a comparably creepy feeling to it. But at the end of the day, she was just an imposter.

Alyssa walked the streets of the city aimlessly. The neon glow of the lights above her head did little to enthrall her this time, and the freedom to walk wherever she wanted to go, without the restrictions of the underground bunker city, only made her feel lost.

It was still raining. Ever since she had arrived in 2107 three days ago, it had been raining. She recalled that she had seen a sunset on the morning of 16th March during her first jump. But not this time. The sky was as overcast as her mood was dark.

Had it been worth it?

She wasn't so sure any longer. She could have lived with the nagging sense of doubt whether she was qualified for this, but there was also that unbearable pain tearing through her chest. A giant hollow had replaced her heart, and made every breath feel like she was filling her lungs with liquid lead and misery.

She wiped a stray tear from her cheek.

Three days.

She had barely spent three days in 2107 and already she felt utterly hopeless. She had deluded herself, thinking that she alone could make a difference.

She had found Baker, but he was currently just an intern in a research lab. He was smart, but he lacked fifty years of experience in experimental quantum physics compared to the man she knew. Had known, once, in the future. At least he had believed her when she had told him her story, and had promised to do everything in his power to support her, which was currently not much.

The computer in her bracelet was still incredibly helpful, and had provided her with a projection of events that would allow her to make small and subtle changes, to steer the timeline on a better course in the long run, without disturbing too much. Minimum changes, maximum impact.

She had blown her chance tonight, and the silence of the bracelet seemed disdainful to her, as if the device was loathing her for her weakness. In truth, it was probably just calculating the next best course of action, now that the parameters had changed.

But the crystal nodes under her skin were burning again. Yesterday, she had noticed that red traces had begun to appear on her skin at the sites of the implants. She would have to find someone to take care of that, and whom she could trust. Maybe Baker could help.

A shiver wrecked her body. The rain had drenched her through and through by now.

She wanted to go home. But where was home? Pandora's apartment?

Unconsciously, her hand moved to clutch the broken key that hung from the chain around her neck. She traced her fingertips over the sharp edge left ever since her jump.

Home.

She knew where she had to go.

~ ~ ~

"Miss Caine, what an unexpected visit. It is delightful to welcome you here again."

The man at the welcome desk greeted her with a friendly smile, just like during her last visit.

The underground research station was connected to a building in the city. Now that she was no longer a shadow, but a VIP who had promised significant funds to the institute, she could simply walk through the front door instead of breaking in or out through an emergency exit.

"How can I help you at this late hour?"

"I... I just wanted to check on something," Alyssa said. "You have apartments down here, right? Or rooms? For the scientists?"

"We have rooms for rest, for those who have to work late or night shifts," he replied. "They are currently all occupied - it seems like you will have to make a booking."

It was a joke. It took her too long to realize that for a laugh to still be considered honest.

Alyssa forced a smile instead. "Of course. I am certain they are very... comfortable."

"Would you like me to call someone up for you? Are you meeting somebody in particular?"

"No, thanks... Although - Is Mister Baker around?"

"Solomon?"

The man raised an eye brow and gave her what he probably considered a knowing smile. This was the second time that she had come in and asked for the intern. She could imagine what he was thinking, given the hour of her visit especially.

"No, he already went home. But I can ring him up-"

"No need. Thank you."

She left the research station behind and wandered through the streets aimlessly, until she came upon a plaza that carved a wide, flat space into the thicket of looming high rise towers. At the edge of the plaza was a viewing platform, overlooking a park that lay nestled to the hillside below, and the city sprawled out beyond it.

Myriads of colorful lights dotted the landscape all the way to the horizon, most of them moving in a mesmerizing dance, like a fractured rainbow trying in vain to reassemble itself. It was the face of a city she had never known, for when she had been born it had looked very different already.

The rain had stopped by now, and the chill of her wet clothes had seeped into her bones, but she barely felt it. She had been walking the entire night, and she was still feeling restless, her hand tracing the edges of the key, over and over.

She wondered how long it would take for the sharp edge to wear down and feel as soft as the others, and she realized that the answer was actually very simple: fifty years.

She wondered if fifty years would be enough to wear down the sharp edges of her sorrow, too, and make the thought of him any less painful. She wondered if it had been worth it.

The important question isn't what you're willing to die for, an echo of Leon's voice resounded through her head. It's what you want to live for.

She had never thought about it that way before he had said that.

But what if I...

"What if I cannot bear this life?" she muttered.

"Don't say that, Ally."

She whirled around at the sound of a voice behind her. Startled, she almost tripped over her own feet at the sight and stumbled back against the railing behind her.

It was impossible. And yet he was there. Right in front of her. With his dark hair matted against his head from the rain, and a faint, lopsided smirk plastered across his face.

Another cruel illusion.

It wasn't the first time she was hallucinating like that. Ever since she had arrived here and killed the other version of herself along with Pandora, she was haunted by his image, in her dreams, and sometimes while awake. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

"Ally? What's wrong?"

A quiet whimper escaped her. His voice sounded so real, and the pain was unbearable. She had never missed anyone in her life so much.

"Everything..." she sobbed, burying her face in her hands. "Everything I did... was wrong. Oh I am such an idiot."

"I heard being in love makes people stupid..."

She chanced a look at him through the fingers of her hands and found him standing right before her now, so close that she could touch him, if only he was real.

But before she could make up her mind whether or not she wanted to risk trying it, he raised his hand and cupped her cheek tenderly. And his touch felt real. So real that she whimpered again. She stretched out her hands for him, despite expecting them to go through empty air.

But they didn't.

They made contact with the fabric of his jacket, and came to rest against his chest. She stared at them, and then up at his face.

"You... you are really here?" she whispered.

"Of course." His smile only grew wider.

She inhaled sharply, swallowing back a cry but failing to hold back her tears. She threw her arms around him. He didn't dissolve into thin air. He was there, and he held her embraced as she cried tears of joy.

"But how...?"

"Because you're awfully smart, Miss Caine." He chuckled. "I met you... an older version of you, in 2157. She had funded Project Last Hope, provided us with the resources. And after you jumped, this other version of you explained that now that you were gone, I could... I could go after you, if I wanted."

"She had to wait... because of the crystals," she realized.

"Because we could only start to make a second set once the first one was gone, yes."

"But if she is me in the future, but now you are here..." She furrowed her brow. "Does it mean we cannot save anyone?"

"It's a different future," he said. "She was alone. In her past, I... or a different version of me, didn't come to find her, or perhaps couldn't."

"But you found me..." She squeezed him tightly.

"Which wasn't easy. I arrived on 15th March, mere minutes after you, but without the device and your skills it was much harder to navigate this world. In the end, I got lucky. I found Baker. I explained to him what had happened and he believed me. But he couldn't reach out to you just like that, he didn't even have your contact details. But... when you passed by the lab and asked for him again just tonight, they contacted him. In turn, he informed me that you had just been at the institute and so I went to look for you. It really wasn't easy. You went for quite the hike tonight."

He turned to look out over the city. The clouds had parted at the eastern horizon. The rising sun tentatively spread its glow of rosy pink and gold, and slowly began to swallow up the glaring neon colors of the city.

"But you chose a nice spot. This place looks beautiful from up here."

She didn't answer and just stared at his face, taking in every detail of his features. He wore an expression of fascination as he scanned the landscape, as if he couldn't quite believe that he was here. She certainly couldn't believe that he was really here.

She brought her hand up to trace her fingertips over the contours of his face, and he turned back to look at her with a smile. He took her hand in his and placed a kiss against her palm, light as a feather's touch, right over the mostly-healed wound from her second jump. The sensation of his lips on her skin caused her heart to flutter erratically.

"Can you forgive me?" she whispered.

"Forgive you? For what?"

"For leaving you behind... I... the message I wrote..."

"Ally," he spoke her nickname with a familiar softness that caused a shiver to run down her spine, but his voice had an underlying scolding tone to it. "I just traveled fifty years into the past to come and find you, not to mention that I spent the whole night chasing after you through the streets of this city in the pouring rain. Do you think I'd do that if I held a grudge?"

He pulled her closer against him and caressed her cheek gently. She thought she would melt under that warm gaze from his brown eyes, but she could see a flicker of pain in his expression too. She was the reason for that pain. She had done this to him. He had done all this for her, and she hadn't even told him once how she felt.

"I love you," he said, "I am in love with every aspect of who you are. Your strength, your compassion. Your conviction. All of what makes you you. So how could I resent you for being you?"

Her tongue felt like it was tied in a knot, her lips seemed sewn shut. But she wanted so badly to tell him what she felt. She clenched the fabric of his jacket tightly and closed her eyes for a moment.

"Ally, I-"

"I love you," she cut him off. "I love you more than I ever loved anyone or anything in my entire life, and I'm sorry that I couldn't say it before, I'm sorry that I left without telling you anything, and I'm sorry that I hurt you, and I-"

His lips came crashing down on hers, stealing away the rest of the words along with her breath. For a moment, she stilled. There was a desperation to his kiss that mirrored her own, but he was holding it back, bottling it in, until she melted against his embrace and felt his breath quicken. She curled her fingers into his tousled, wet hair and his quiet groan of content against her lips caused her to shudder.

Her heart was leaping in her chest as he kissed her until they were both left breathless, and they broke apart to look at each other for a moment.

"You are really here..." she whispered, still in disbelief.

"Here and now," he confirmed with a smile. "By your side, forever. If you'll allow it"

Her words got stuck in her throat once more, but she had said the most important ones already. She didn't know how else to convey all that she felt, and so she just nodded and kissed him again. She clung to him, desperately pressing her body against his, fervently seeking to feel him closer to herself, even if it wasn't physically possible.

He had crossed through time to follow her, and now all she longed for was to cross any remaining space between them as well. And from the look on his face as he broke away from her kiss, she knew that he was thinking the same.

"Let's go home," he suggested. "And tomorrow, let's try to save the world."

This is it...the true ending. Or should I say, n-ding? (If you get that one, you get a cookie!).

I dedicate this to all you poor tortured readers who wanted a happy ending... I'll admit I wanted one just as badly as you, so here we are.

Also: if you get a chance, listen to the two songs in this chapter. They. Are. Amazing. It's uncanny how well they fit the mood of this story. If this was a movie, "2nd World" would play as the first credits roll, this would be the secret after credits scene, and "Attention" would be the song for the true, final credits.