IF ANYONE WERE TO ASK, RHETT WOULDN'T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN HOW HE MET NICKY GREEN. It was a few days after he had tried and failed to jump back home countless times and he had been on the verge of breaking, dealing with panic attack after panic attack; at least, that's what Nicky had called them.

A boy three years his junior, he wasn't sure how they had crossed paths. But then suddenly the recent high school graduate was tugging him along, hiding him in an apartment complex that he was sure no one else but them were aware of. Them and the people they stayed with.

"What are you doing?" he asked, coming to sit next to the boy who had textbooks open all around him on his bed. Rhett didn't have an apartment of his own in the building, but Nicky happily let him stay with him.

"Studying," the boy replied idly, "I'm gonna graduate in two years so I don't have to be so old when I finally start my practice."

"You're going to be a psychologist?" Rhett asked, reading the cover of one of the textbooks, "And two years?"

"I've already taken all my pre-requisite courses as well as all the mandatory ones back in high school. You wouldn't believe me if I told you how it all went down, just trust me." The boy flipped the pages of a few of his textbooks, going on to scan through all of them.

Rhett didn't know what to say. Nicky Green was a huge culture shock for him, trying to feed him information in such a casual way that he was able to pick up context clues, but it sometimes became too much for him.

"Hey, listen," Nicky said, looking up from his books, "When I'm done, we can go watch some movies and you can ask me whatever questions you want. How are you holding up?"

He groaned, rubbing his eyes, thinking back to the articles of Steve he had read. "Awful. Just awful."

Nicky pursed his lips into a smile, even though he couldn't see him. "It'll get easier, bud, don't worry."

Rhett sighed, staring up at the ceiling. "I'm not so sure about that, kiddo. I'm not so sure."

º º º

Steve was back at work and was much more on edge than before. Before, he worried about others recognizing him and alerting the authorities, but now he was on the lookout for Christian Hyde. As if his life couldn't get harder, he was now worried for the safety of both himself and Rhett, a man he was just beginning to remember more and more.

"How've you been, Grant?"

Steve jolted out of his thoughts to find Mona smiling at him, Rachel and a few of their friends sitting at their usual spot a ways away. He had to wonder what their jobs were as they tended to be there frequently, or Rachel was, at the very least. It had been a while since their Halloween party and Rachel had briefly questioned as to why he had left early, to which he gave a non-committal answer, Mona slipping in and saving him.

"I've been alright," he replied, fiddling with his phone where Diana was texting him with Rhett's phone, updating him on how their progress was going, "I've been spending more time with those friends I mentioned."

She grinned, reaching out to shove his arm lightly. "I'm happy for you!" After a moment, her smile grew wider, more knowing. "You're dating someone."

He raised his eyebrows, ducking his head as his cheeks turned red. "Uh, how did you know?"

She laughed, kind and soft. "People used to tell me that I had a certain smile whenever I thought of Lisa. I never really got what they were saying, but the way you smiled, looked just the way they described it."

He laughed as well, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, well, you and Lisa seem very happy together. Maybe I can get something close."

"You deserve something nice, Grant," she said, "You look like you've seen a lot."

He nodded. "I have. But I'm still going. I think they want you back." He motioned towards the group who had been trying to get him to alert Mona to come back to them, holding up shots.

She glanced back towards her friends. "I probably should. I was nice talking to you, Grant. You should join us sometime, even for just a drink. It's always nice to have more friends, you know?"

"Thank you, Mona," he said, moving to lean back against the wall as she made her way towards the bar, casting him one last smile over her shoulder before sitting down and picking up her shot.

Giving her a brief smile back, he turned his attention to the rest of the bar, making sure everyone was safe. Seemed like his job never really did change, only the setting did.

º º º

"Hey, Harry, thank you again, I really appreciate it."

Rhett drank another bottle of water as he listened to Nicky talk on the phone with one of his old patients. Harry Osborn, the boy hadn't been as prevalent in their lives as he once had, but from the muffled voice on the other end it seemed as though his crush on Nicky hadn't died out.

"He does know he's dating Johnny Storm, right?" Rhett asked, motioning towards the phone where Harry was on the other end, "And that Nicky is eleven years older than him?"

Diana scoffed lightly, shaking her head. "It's not an active crush, he just...really likes Nicky. After whatever happened, I don't blame him, Nicky pretty much saved his life from what I hear."

Rhett couldn't disagree with that argument, he was in the exact same boat. "He's saved a lot of us."

While Nicky finished up, Rhett went back over his files. He was surprised Nicky still had them, or that he had even been given them in the first place, but he remembered that when they were told to find a new place to keep them safe, the head of the organization that given them to Nicky for safe keeping.

"How does this work?" Diana asked, spinning on her chair.

Rhett clicked his tongue, reading over the process he had described back when they first found him.

"So it's all very internal," he said, tapping the page, "If you read here, I clearly had no understanding of how it worked because I just keep saying that I close my eyes and then I suddenly jump. But there's more to it than that.

"It's less envisioning that you're going someplace, but rather the feeling and intention that you're where you need to be. That's it. Very Wizard of Oz-esque."

"What if you couldn't jump back because you didn't feel like you needed to be there?" Diana ventured, jumping to the conclusion that everyone had when he first explained the process.

"That's not how it works, we say need, but it's more of a desperate want, but no desperation is needed. It's all just focusing and whatever they shoved in us does the rest." He splayed out his palms and shrugged; he was never truly told how it worked, just that he needed to use it. As a soldier, that was what was expected, he didn't question much, unlike Steve.

"Then how're you gonna do it again?" Diana asked, frowning.

Rhett couldn't help but laugh. "No idea. I'm just gonna sit on the table and you tell me if I disappear or not, yeah?"

She smiled, reaching out to pat his cheek, needing to stretch a good deal to do it, forcing him to lean forward. "You're cute, Rhett. I hope you don't die while we're trying to keep you from dying."

He laughed again, shaking his head. "Are you okay, Diana?"

She shook her head, still smiling. "No, school is the worst and depression is really kicking my ass right now, but I'm here now and I'm gonna make the most of this sleepover."

"Okay, we ready?" Nicky called out, pocketing his cell phone, gesturing to the cleared out dining table, "Sit up, Rhett, we actually do have all night."

The blond nodded, making his way towards the table, handing his drink over to Diana who immediately finished it off. She grabbed his file and began reading it over, glancing at the two men over the top. Rhett gave her one last pursed smile before he sat on the top of the table, legs crossed.

"Um, okay, so just focus and, uh, do a short jump, maybe a few minutes. Back to your room, maybe, I know you don't jump back here since we haven't seen you while we were here. So, uh, just..." Rhett placed his hands on Nicky's shoulders, stopping his rambling. He tilted his head, trying to catch the man's gaze, giving him his charming smile, the one that he always used whenever the man panicked.

"Hey. It's gonna be fine. And don't expect much, it didn't work last time," he pointed out.

"That's because you did an intense jump," Diana called out, reading over the file, "From what I can gather from the weird science tests on whatever is in your blood, you basically drained all your battery. Have you tried jumping in the past eight years?"

He shook his head. "No. I gave up after a year. I thought about it, but...after The Incident, too much would have changed, I didn't want to chance it."

"And you said that there was no real prep before you had to jump other than the breathing you have to do so you can focus yourself, so your battery is probably somewhat filled, right?" Nicky added, reaching out to adjust his collar, as if it would do anything. Rhett let him, laughing as he did, because it was such a Nicky thing to do.

"Yeah. I guess we're calling it a battery now, nice work on the name, Diana, you're really killing it with that." He winked, referring to her short lived time as 'Iron Maiden,' a hero that never went out to do anything except try and fail to help Spider-Man fight Adrian Toomes.

"Well, c'mon, Failsafe, we have all night," Nicky urged, using the nickname that he had made for him.

Rhett sighed and shifted on the table, sitting up straighter and closing his eyes, taking deep breaths. Resting his hands on his knees, he tried to remember himself when he was young. He immediately pulled away from that, heart racing at the thought of throwing himself back into the past; after all he had made, he didn't want that. He wanted to go to his room, a few minutes before now. He didn't think he had to think of a real time, time was something he conceptualized as easily as others, which was why he was the last resort candidate.

His mind was whirring with thoughts at a speed faster than he could comprehend them. Nicky always told him that that was how the mind worked, people didn't always notice their thoughts, but for Rhett, he noticed them. He noticed them slipping past him, just out of his reach. He struggled with them, often reluctantly letting them pass in favor of not confusing his students by talking a mile a minute.

He wasn't focusing. At all.

"Wow, this is a lot harder than I remember," he groaned, dropping his head into his hands.

"It's because you're old," Diana called out. He raised his head at her tone; it was as if someone was trying to sound like how they usually did, but just seemed to fall short. It was exactly how he was feeling at that moment.

"Something's off," he said, looking to Nicky, "I usually just focus and I can just go wherever if I make sure I'm certain. It's not a thought with my eyes closed and I'm there, it does take time, but it's not supposed to be this difficult."

"Start from the very beginning," Nicky suggested, leaning against the couch, "You're rusty, you must have had some ways to ease into it back when you were starting out, do that."

Rhett worried on his bottom lip, trying to remember what they used to do. He vaguely remembered them saying a mantra, a string of unintelligible words that had been handpicked by some doctor that they never did see again. He couldn't remember his, no matter how hard he tried, all he remembered was closing his eyes and, at first, saying the words, but then just thinking them, before soon not even needing to think them at all.

He told as much to Nicky who perked up instantly. "Oh, no way, it's like that one type of meditation. Transcendental Meditation, it's this new thing where you have to study from this one person, I forget his name, but then you learn the language and you can teach other people if you're qualified. Anyways, each person has their own mantra they say, it doesn't actually matter, all that matters is the repetition, that's what focuses you in."

Rhett blinked. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying," Nicky said, grinning, "You don't actually need to remember what you said. Just think of anything and focus on it. Though, I mean, if you were meditating it wouldn't be the same, but since you're not meditating...though maybe this is the same concept."

While he thought to himself, Rhett closed his eyes and tried to focus. He thought to Nicky, whom he always thought of whenever he let his mind wander. When he was the only other person he truly interacted with, Nicky was his whole world. Then there was Steve. Steve who he had wanted so long to find, only to never be able to ask him what he wanted; he later learned that he didn't actually have anything to ask. Diana, who snuck her way into his life so quickly that no one saw it coming. He had all these people and he couldn't focus on anything but them, but he couldn't focus.

"Shh..."

He froze. He didn't know where the voice was coming from, but he wasn't about to open his eyes to check.

"Shh..."

Taking a deep breath, he focused on that. The thoughts melted away, disappearing and leaving him with nothing but what he felt was an open ocean, a void. Not a consuming one, a nothing. A blue. A quiet hush.

He felt an odd tug on his whole body. Not a harsh tug, barely feeling, as if he was already immersed in water and he was just passing through. Not a wave, but a movement. A ripple, almost. His eyes were closed and he was almost unable to open them.

Until he did. It wasn't a difficult one where he struggled, but an easy one, as if he had to. Not waking up in the morning, but in the afternoon, an easy reflex triggered by something he did not know.

He looked around. He was sitting on his bed. He heard the sounds of Nicky talking from the living room. He glanced around, looking at his clock only to realize he hadn't checked the time before he left, meaning he didn't know if it had worked. But in his gut, he knew it had. He had the feeling. The feeling that something wasn't right, that he wasn't where he was supposed to be. He had felt it for years, losing it sometime in the third year; he had forgotten what it felt like.

He stood up and it felt odd. Strange. The way it had when he first jumped, like he was walking through water and his bones were lighter. He made his way to his desk, picking up the watch that always sat there, collecting dust and reminding him of the past he could never go back to.

A past that, he realized, he didn't want.

Pocketing it, he walked to his door and opened it carefully, peering out. He caught sight of Nicky on the phone, smiling at whatever the person on the other line was saying, before speaking.

"That's great, Harry, I'm really proud that you were able to have that conversation with him. How did he take it?"

Rhett couldn't help the slow grin that grew on his face, the giddy feeling in his chest. He did it. He actually did it. A few minutes, maybe, but it worked. He actually did it.

Closing the door, he sat back down on the bed and closed his eyes, forcing himself to calm down. But he couldn't, he was too excited, too worked up, it was near impossible to focus.

That was when the panic set in.

His heart raced as he realized that, if he didn't focus, he might be stuck in the past. Not an extreme past, but still the past. He didn't know what would happen if he were trapped then, what would happen when this version of himself coincided with the time he disappeared, that he had never tried.

"Breathe," he whispered to himself, "Breathe."

His hands clamped over the watch, tight, and then:

"Shh..."

He took a deep breath, panic instantly disappearing. He fell back into the cool comfort of the sound, grip on the watch never loosening. His anchor. The anchor they were all given when they made their first jump, the anchor that he had kept with him, even when he lost everything else.

He felt the ripple and opened his eyes a few moments later to find Diana and Nicky staring at him with wide eyes, clutching each other. He blinked, tilting his head and looking around.

"How long was I gone? Your time, I mean, did you count?"

Nicky swallowed thickly, pulling out his phone and checking the time. "Um...you were gone for about three minutes, which I guess is how long you were gone when you were wherever you were?"

"Yeah," Rhett sighed, "We were trained so we can actually come back to the exact time when we left, though we never did it well all the time. But I did it!"

"Yay!" Diana cheered, her tone still forced, but trying. That was enough for him as she stood and made her way over, hugging him, Nicky close behind.

"I need to set this," he said, tapping his watch, "It lets me know the time wherever I originate from if I set it. It won't change to the time it actually is whenever I jump, just like everything else does."

"Is it set to World War II time?" Diana asked, peering at it, "Because it kind of looks the same as ours?"

"I stopped it, actually," he said, tapping the face, showing the various arms, "To help me get back at around the right time. We can have one set of arms set to the exact time and it shows the exact date, but the other will keep ticking correctly."

"You sure you wanna change it?" Nicky asked, grasping his wrist as he was about to change it, "You always said you had it to remind you. I mean, it's a pretty awful reminder, but it's all you have."

Rhett thought back to Steve. Steve who was working his shift and promised to meet him in the morning. Steve who had somehow found his way into his life when he was sure the universe would never let him have something good again.

"No," he said, pulling up the clock and setting his watch to the exact time, down to the millisecond.

"I have a better reminder. Besides," he sighed, pocketing the watch and smiling at the two people who had wrestled their way into his guarded life and changed him, "You're my family now. I don't want to go back, even if I could."

That was the truth. The past was the past, this was his present, and he would be damned if someone took away his future.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

( 01.08.18 )

This chapter had so many problems including causing the entire story to disappear? So the ending isn't exactly what I originally wrote but whatever I'm happy

We're nearing the end, we've reached the bit where Rhett is finally coming to terms that this is his world and has fully chosen it. There are a few more chapters before the end but we're getting there y'all! (I don't know how it's gonna end, but I'm excited.)

I do TM and I had decided to make a brief mention to it as while I was writing Rhett trying to focus, I thought back to my meditation. Like, there's a mantra that's specific to each person (you have to be given it by the person who is teaching you, it's a complicated process) and so I figured that that would be vital to get Rhett to focus that much (also Chris Pine does TM which I think is rad)

That's all I have to say so...thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!