They converge on the cabin.

The world seems to be getting darker. It's impossible to tell the time, since none of them have watches. It could be late, or it could just be dark. There are inky clouds creating a ceiling of nightmares above them. Nearby, the ocean roars and crashes against the soar. It's a percussion section out of control.

Despite the darkness, Clara is hopeful. It's difficult to tell if their simultaneous arrival is coincidence or not, and Maverick worries that it's not. Clara, however, hopes that there is something magical and wonderful, and wholesome which has brought them together, rather than what she suspects.

Alvaro reaches the door. He swings it back and holds it open for Maverick and watches him swallow. Though he isn't used to doing kind things (for strangers as well as for people he knows well), he loves the squirm of Maverick's face. Afterwards, he holds the door open for Clara and walks in.

Then, Flo waits for Tim to hold the door open for her. When he crosses his arms over his chest and squares the shoulders inside his slightly-too-big shirt, she rolls her eyes, furrows her brow, and heads in.

Mickey, despite himself, holds the door open for the others (even Adwin).

Inside, they find Hubert, standing at the fireplace. He holds the sheet of paper in his hands, staring at the flames. The orange light tints the cabin, providing a soft glow around the young Frenchman.

The clothing on the floor behind him is still soggy. In the time they've been gone, no one had decided to clean it. Alvaro glances at them, hopefully not for too long. He needs to figure out where to hide his gun later.

Adwin notices his stare.

Unlike the men accompanying her, Clara's eyes have not left Hubert. "You're back." Her shoulders visibly relax a tension that she wasn't aware of before.

Hubert turns around to face the others, playing with the note between his fingers. "I told you not to leave."

He chucks the letter in the fire, and Maverick rushes forward. "What are you doing? We still haven't figured out what it says!"

"Relax," Hubert rolls his eyes, the smallest of smiles on his face. He runs a hand through his hair, sticking the other in his pocket. From there, he pulls out the actual note. "I just wanted to scare you."

Mickey snorts. He unintentionally mimics Hubert's stance. "Don't you think that's kind of unfair?"

"You all left when I told you not to," Hubert continues, cocking his head to the side. Clara notices that his eyes seem to shine in the low lighting. "Don't you think that scared me? Don't you think that's kind of unfair?"

"It's not your job to punish us," when Mickey steps forward, Alvaro puts a hand up against his chest, because he knows when violence is merited and when it is going to hurt those around him. Alvaro shakes his head back and forth. The brush is enough to give Mickey pause to think, and he thinks that Hubert deserves a beating in private.

Finally, Alvaro relaxes.

"What does it say?" Flo asks. She continues to hide at the door with Tim, even though she wants to snatch it from his hands. His fingers are shadowed in the room. Is he the devil she was warned about?

"La pourriture viendra. Vous n'avez guère de temps," he begins.

Clara had imagined that French would sound smoother. His accent is harsh and rough, no doubt like his hands are. Her husband's have always been so meticulously cared for, so delicate. She hates them.

"The rot is coming," Hubert steps closer to them, passing Flo the note. Her hands reach forward inch by inch, until they brush up against his fingers. His hands flinch away at her gentle touch. "You have little time."

Flo finds herself tilting her head to the side and biting her lip. She has always been good at reading the faces of strangers; it's what makes her so excellent at poker. There is something twitching in the boy's brow in front of her. Something hurting.

Beside her, Bev has bright eyes and a comically wide frown. "We found some rot in the woods. I take it that we don't like the rot, correct?"

Hubert shrugs.

"I think we ought to leave," Adwin swallows. It feels selfish to suggest, because he is concerned for his family and not the others, but his reservations don't change his intuition. Adwin rarely has a gut to tell him where to go. He has always felt like a brain in a body, and that these two things were inherently separate. This second, not so much.

Tim raises his hand, finally speaking. "I second that. A woman called me devilish. I may be devilishly handsome, but I don't think that's what she meant."

Mickey would agree to leave, surprisingly, but he has come to focus on Ivera's shallow breathe. He can't help his concern, not that he wants to stop worrying about her. Caring for someone else at your own expense is familiar to Mickey. When he looks at her, he watches as her eyes flutter open. "She's awake."

"She is," Ivera echoes. She pulls herself into a sitting position. Her body lags like a shitty video game. "Where am I?"

"Alaque?" Bev responds. "We're in the 1600s."

Ivy's head pounds, and her chest aches. "What's wrong with me?"

"You're not delusional," Adwin offers, his voice soft.

Alvaro smirks. "You don't know that. She could be delusional unrelated to all of this."

Ivy doesn't seem to notice their bickering. She does, surely, but with her hands caressing her burning throat, she has more to worry about. "No. Well, maybe but that's not... I'm sick, aren't I?"

Her eyes are soft. Hubert catches them from across the room. Flo watches him swallow, watches his eyes flick from the floor up to the ceiling, and dart everywhere except for Ivy. Then, Ivy looks back. Even for a ginger, the girl's skin has grown pale.

"You were cold for a while," Mickey kneels down next to her. He puts his cheek against his forehead, feeling her warmth. She is burning, even though she ought to be frozen. When he touches her hand, he gets the feeling again. The numbness spreads from their connection, like ivy climbing up his body.

When Hubert steps forward, his footsteps seem to echo. Besides the crackling fire, the sound is sucked out of the room. When he is next to her, he tries to remember the word for her disease in English, but he can't. "It's the grippe."

"What?" Bev asks, leaning forward.

"The grip," he repeats. "It's deadly. We have no treatment."

"I bet the 21st century does," Ivy leans back.

Clara's eyes flash. The 21st century? She has so many questions, all of them fly through her mind and muddy up the space.

Even Alvaro, the one from the most recent timeline, twitches. He imagines himself at 47, ringing in the year 2000. Actually, he had never imagined himself reaching the age of 30. Really, being 23 seems farther away than his own timeline.

"Don't talk about when you are from," Hubert reminds them. He runs hands through his hair, sticking it up on end.

"Why?" Tim demands, finding his voice is higher-pitched than he had expected. It seems as squeak as the mouse who is, without a doubt, living in their house. "Why do you keep telling us what to do? What do you know that we don't?"

Flo can't help but try to put a hand against his chest, but he knocks her hand away. From across the room, Mickey leaps over a bed, and then another, until he is in front of Tim. He grabs the boy by the shirt and pins him against the wall. This time, Flo is sure that the building shakes.

"Don't lay your hands on a woman," his voice is thick, and his eyes are dim.

When Maverick steps forward to stop him, Alvaro puts his hand on his chest. It surprises Alvaro that he has stopped two fights in one sitting.

Tim tries to shove him off, but his back is shoved further against the wall. "She laid her hands on me."

None of that information matters in this moment. All of them remain paused. Flo reflects that they look quite like a renaissance painting, spread about the room with the fire on one side and the violence on the other. The two are actually quite the same, really.

Mickey let's go. Tim shrugs his shoulders, adjusting them. It's the first time in his life that he has been pinned up against a wall, and he does not like it. Not at all.

Even though he is trying not to pick sides, Adwin is tempted to walk over and adjust Tim's collar. "Are we all settled now, then?"

When Mickey nods, returning back to his spot next to Alvaro, Tim fixes his clothes. He isn't used to concealing his anger, usually letting it radiate and warm a room. This time, however, he buries it inside him, letting his blood boil.

"How are we getting home?" Adwin asks the others, ignoring the creases that fall on Hubert's face.

No one has really acknowledged that they are away from home long enough to thought about returning.

"Must we?" Bev asks, twirling a loose strand of hair that cascades in front of her bright eyes.

"I'm sure you don't have to," Adwin offers a hand. When she flinches, he flinches back.

"We'll start a committee," Maverick tells the others. "You can be the head of it, Adwin. I'll also help."

"I'll run the committee on exploring!" Bev grins.

Maverick doesn't have it in him to announce that they, quite clearly, don't need a committee to explore the woods, or the rot that is to come.

"You can leave once you help us. The rot is coming, and the Grip is awful, and..." Hubert looks at Maverick. He tries to find a set of eyes that empathize, when he finally lands on Clara.

"And what?" Alvaro pressures. Mickey discreetly elbows him.

"I cannot speak of it," Hubert says. "Really I must be going."

He begins to brush through the crowd. His body nearly grazes Clara and she can't contain herself. "Wait."

Hubert turns around. His eyes flick down to her feet, and slowly crawl up her body. "Yes?"

"What's your name?"

The wind whistles through the cabin, and everyone's spine seems to chill. As usual, no one speaks. The moment feels too real to be a dream. Rain begins to tickle the rooftop above them, only barely sealed by the handiwork of the people of Alaque when they first arrived in the seaside clearing.

"Hubert Tremblay," he tells her, and his name is as beautiful as his voice. With that, he leaves them once again.

~~~~~

Sorry that I've been absent. Updates on this are going to be QUITE slow until May, when my school is done. Until then, I am trying to get Uprise all written. Check it out if you are craving my writing, because it's at least a little bit good if you like this.

I'll see you soon.