I COULD NOT be completely sure that the house was actually occupied.

It was impeccably clean —everything seemed organised as though it had a chalked outline to indicate its place. All of the furniture was harsh and angular; not very homely. The only softness came from the curtains, drooping plants or the thick woollen rugs. Every room felt like a showroom, never to house anyone but there for display. Like a simulation of a home.

Some things —picture frames and statues and small decorative pieces —had not been touched in months.

I watched how Adam gingerly stepped through the house and avoided coming into contact with any thing. He wanted to keep it this way; to preserve it either out of blissful memory or painful guilt.

My guess was the latter.

I had a feeling that he could not bring himself to rearrange or sully it in the way a home should be lived-in.

"This way," he said gruffly, leading me towards the back of the house. The bungalow was bigger than I had thought —there were many rooms, and the pale white walls helped to give the illusion of space.

He brought me to what appeared to be a study. It was dark and dismal. Severe drapes were blocking out the sunlight. This room was a little more disorienting —there was no colour scheme; no sense of harmony; and it was overwhelmed with books. A dark fabric armchair and shined mahogany desk sat on one wall, while spilling shelves lined all of the others. And on the back wall, stood a giant metal ring.

"Is that what I think it is?" I scoffed, pointing.

"It's a DIY time machine," he confirmed. "I got it for half of the retail price at a garage sale."

"People still had those, then?" I murmured.

He nodded, before sighing as he stepped closer. "My kid was so ecstatic when I brought it home. We spent a whole week putting it together. It was so much fun to go through human history —and he wasn't the only one who learned a thing or two. And...it still works," he added, his eyes narrowing.

I glanced between him and the machine, before piecing two and two together. "You went back in time to try and save them. But you could not."

His jaw clenched, but he gave a small nod. He ran one hand along the rim forlornly, as though the structure itself held the memories of his family. "I hoped to be able to prevent their deaths."

Alarm bells rang inside of my head.

We had been taught about the dangers of fooling around with time. Only Time-Eaters and Time-Catchers could change time, and they still did so without affecting too many realities. For them, it was more like retrieving pieces of time that had been, obviously, eaten up. Taking away a thread of happenings did not change the events —it only left pockets, as though the timeline had amnesia. Time-Catchers refilled those pockets, as though nothing had been taken in the first place.

What Adam had attempted —that was against their law. Not that law had ever stopped anyone before.

My brows furrowed. "You cannot do that," I warned. "I know you want to. I know your heart is in the right place, but it is not your jurisdiction."

"I...know," he sighed, letting his hand drop to his side.

I let out a breath and wrapped my arms around myself. It was cold in there, as well as dark.

The study reflected him: in amongst the perfection, Adam felt chaotic. Unhinged. This was the only room he allowed himself to immerse in —the only one he would allow himself to ruin. Simply because he felt similar and took the same approach towards himself.

"Tell me about them," I then quipped, staring at the time machine. "Your family."

"Why?" he frowned.

"Sometimes talking about things makes them less terrifying," I said, turning to meet his eye.

He huffed. I wanted him to open up a little bit and tell me what he deemed necessary for me to understand what we would face on our journey. Trauma was a part of that, especially in his case. I did not wish to pressure him, though, and I hoped that he knew that. Perhaps he did —and he chose to cooperate.

"I met Ketiwe twenty years ago," he began. "I was just starting my tertiary education, and had no idea of where it was going to take me," he said with some nostalgia. "Ketiwe was moving here from Mozambique, looking for a way to get away from her parents. We ended up living in the same apartment building."

"That sounds like the beginning of a beautiful love story," I murmured politely.

He almost smiled. "Not quite. She despised me at first," he admitted. "My family was originally from Trinidad, you see, and I was a second generation born British. After seeing how blended-in with British culture I had become, she tormented me."

There was still a ghostly impression of softness and affection as he said that, like he could not bear to think of her in any type of negative light.

My brows shot up. "And you still fell in love with her?"

It made no sense to me. I would have avoided her and moved out at the earliest opportunity.

"I have always been strange when it came to partners," Adam then confessed, glancing aside and folding his arms. "I seem to love that which hurts me."

Then pausing, I nodded slowly in understanding. I found myself drawn to that obvious jeopardy as well.

"When I worked up the courage to ask her on a date," he then continued, with his gaze fixed on the metal ring, "she threw pumpkin soup at me. It did not really burn, but my skin reddened. Despite how she felt; despite what she had done; she took me to a medical centre."

Had he meant that to be humorous?

I found nothing to be funny about it.

I was not going to lie —his wife was not shaping up to be a particularly likeable person. In fact, I was almost thanking the stars that I would not have to meet her.

"We went on that first date," he mused, "and confessed every fault we could find in each other. She had a lot more for me than I had for her. But in the end, there was a fine line between hatred and love."

I did not respond. The carpeted floor at my feet was becoming increasingly fascinating.

This was not how I pictured love.

I did not like to admit it, but I had imagined something more endearing and something which to fawn over. I could not find anything awing about his story so far. If anything, it left me sort of pissed off.

Though who was I to judge him —or her.

Perhaps working out their differences had indeed been beneficial, and she had meant her apology for treating him so cruelly. Regardless, he had forgiven her, and they had moved past it. Love had blossomed —from a shrivelled, poisoned weed.

Good for them.

"I'm not boring you, am I?" Adam then brought me back to the moment, inclining his head to the side. There was a slight hint of amusement in his tone, but his eyes were as set, empty and cold as before.

I started, and met his gaze. "No," I said earnestly, shaking my head. "I simply...got caught up in my thoughts. I apologise. I am interested."

I did not know whether that was still true, or if it had then morphed into a lie.

Adam let it slide, though, and proceeded to tell me about the years that followed. How he had never felt anything like how he felt for her. How they married in secret because her parents had not approved of him ( some reason about tradition and waywardness. Very similar to Ketiwe's initial views, in fact ). From the beginning they had known that they wanted a family, and so Adam bluntly explained how they had tried for a child.

"I do not need to know about that," I deadpanned.

"It's a basic urge to reproduce," he scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Most beings experience it."

"We do not," I informed him, casting a glare in his direction. "Dreamcatchers are not like others."

Adam let his gaze travel the length of me, very slowly. Heat spread within me, and I hissed a curse under my breath —which I was certain he heard. I then arched a brow when his eyes lifted to mine again.

"...I can see that," was all he quipped.

As though he had not just visually undressed me. I then turned to the side to hide my cheeks and their blush. As though I had not enjoyed it.

"Dreamcatchers are stitched into existence," I said after a brief cough. "We do not know much of...the conventional method," I carefully opted for.

"So you're all celibate?"

I paused, and stiffened as I thought about my people's history. "...I did not say that."

"Then how does it work?" he asked —and I could hear the smirk in his voice. It made my irritation simmer.

I thought about the ways in which it worked, too; in the way that Dreamcatchers did not usually derive any pleasure of their own, but were rather the ones tasked with giving it. It was a deed of servitude. There were a few places on our bodies that evoked those carnal sensations, but I was not about to reveal their locations.

And inevitably, I felt myself ache a bit at the thought of him touching those places.

Snap out of it, you fool.

I wondered how in the world we could have strayed so far off topic to be discussing the intricacies of conventional and unconventional sex.

"We are not talking about that," I abruptly clipped, deciding to concentrate on the task at hand. "We are supposed to be talking about your family."

I anticipated a shaking head and cold amusement.

But he smiled this time —a slow, wide stretch that was the first real display of emotion he had ever shown. It was the kind of smile that was meant to be cocky and coarse, but my heart fluttered slightly at the sight of it. I blinked rather than became embarrassed, and it seemed to cause some self-consciousness to kick in.

He glanced across the room, a frown replacing the smile just as quickly as it had appeared.

Was that a flicker of life? A developing defiance to his default walking-dead persona?

"My son, Grant, was a miracle," Adam then said tightly, realising that talking about his family was what would break the now strange atmosphere.

It had taken them a year and a half of trying before Ketiwe had finally been with child. They had loved their son more than anything —and I refrained from voicing that I did not understand the love of a parent. Perhaps there was a bond that formed only within the womb; because it made no sense to me otherwise.

My parents had felt for me the same way as any other Dreamcatcher they had known: indifference; and the fluctuation between general disappointment and pride only when I accomplished something.

"Grant had had so much left to do —so much more life to live," Adam struggled, looking down at the floor. "I wanted him to have a life better than mine; with more options. Something that my father had never given me. He had structured my life in such a meticulous way that it had no longer felt like my own. I didn't want that for my Grant. I wanted to give him freedom. His death...broke me in a different way."

"I —" I started, and immediately stopped when the human shot me a warning look. "I...am sure that he would have grown into a fine man," I said instead.

Adam offered only a grunt.

That appeared to be the end of it, as he remained quiet and thoughtful. Every muscle in his body was taut, as though in protest for speaking about what he had.

"Thank you," I then spoke up. "For finding the strength to tell me all of that. I know it was not easy."

"Damn right it wasn't," he snapped.

"...You really loved them," I murmured. "What happened in the war was completely unforgivable. I understand the wish to bring them back."

He hummed in response. "I tried...for the longest time. Days; weeks; months —I can't remember," he admitted. "But I can't get them back. Ever."

"It will be okay," I told him. "Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But one day. One day you will look back, and not feel like you are dying with them."

He met my gaze, and the browns shimmered in the rays of light streaming in from the gap in the heavy curtains. He did not need to say anything to me —he owed me nothing, so I was grateful he would even listen.

But he did respond. "I learned something, very early on in the exercise even though it consequently didn't deter me," he said flatly. He paused and swallowed uneasily, finding it difficult to get the words out. "...That I cannot alter the flow of time —only observe."

That was all that those time machines were good for —observation. It was like watching a stuck tape.

For him to have known that and yet still travel there relentlessly; seeing his wife and son's bodies over and over...I could not imagine such a fast path to death.

It had been Adam's desperation to see them alive that had kept him from burrowing himself completely in despair and darkness. And now that he had given up —had begun to let them go, he had lost that sense of purpose. For what was he living, if not for them?

For something else, I wanted to tell him. For something different. Maybe not better —but good. Lovely.

I did not yet know what that might be.

I then parted the curtains to glance outside at the position of the sun. It was now about midday. "So," I sighed, turning to face him. "What do we do now?"

Adam gave me a weary look, and rubbed his cheek uncertainly. "We set out for that cure."