Young Writers Society

A/N: If you haven't, go read part one, if you want. Or, just read this little synopsis of what's happened. So basically, Julian was interrogating Ms. Wilson in regards to a string of different pictures from various time periods in which she's pictured. He wants to get answers to this mystery of how she ended up in them, and her claim is that it's all photoshopped by her.

----

"It's okay," she croaks. Her grin slowly evolves into a smile, and her cheeks bunch up, creating half-crescent shapes around the corners of her eyes that I'd grown familiar with... under different circumstances. Her tears well up, filling her eyes with that shimmery blanket of water until she blinks.

"You knew it would end this way," she coos, her fingers weakly brushing my arm before her smile fades, and she convulses. Her whole body is thrown forward in a vicious thrust, as vomit projects from her mouth into my lap. I hold her hair back. I hold her.

"No. No I didn't," I reply, my voice growing quieter with every word. My hands hold her steady until she's done, and I wrap my arm around her shoulders. She looks up at me: pale, vomit still dripping from her mouth. She seems unphased, still trying to keep her composure.

"Oh, no, you're right," she wheezes, her voice raspy and throat stinging. "I knew this would happen. I am a pro photoshopper, after all."

"Don't you even joke about that."

She scoffs, and smiles a small smile as her shoulders bunch up in a weak shrug.

"Hah... Julian."

I look her in the eyes grimly. I know she's breaking. Her defeat is leaking through her eyes. 

"Time-traveller."

----

"So how's it work, then?" He asks, sitting down beside me on the sticky, shaded bench at the bus stop.

I turn to look at him slowly - just to be dramatic - smirking. I purse my lips out into a kissy-like grin, and I waggle my brows at him. "Last time I checked, the bus arrives at 3:20, and from there, you get on, show 'em your pass, and -"

He cuts me off. "No. I didn't mean that."

My silly smile dissapears in an instant, and I wink at him, deadpan. "Oh, I know."

"Yeah, but I don't," he replies, still having yet to actually look at me, his eyes facing out towards the street this whole time.

"I just explained -" I start.

He turns his head and looks me dead in the eyes. "Is Wilson your real name?"

I stare back at him wide eyed, and I mimic shock, but I can't maintain the act. I'm holding back laughter, and it's really hard. "Oh - ha - oh my, do you mean that? HA, ha - I'm not - snrk - me?"

Julian looks unamused. Though, it seems he gets that way quickly around me. I sigh deeply, his expression killing my laughter brutally. "Why don't you like any of my jokes?" I pout, and look at him with the biggest puppy eyes I can muster.

"Why don't you answer any of my questions?" He retorts.

I open my mouth with no words of wit to serve as a suitable comeback. I close my mouth. "Hmm," I hum, and point at him. "Touché."

He falls silent, and stares back out into the street. My eyes fall to the ground, though I briefly take note of his getup. He's wearing casual clothing - not the suit and badge back at the little precinct he dragged me to. Without the badge, he almost looks like a normal person.

"So do you stalk every person you interrogate?"

He closes his eyes, as if he'd already predicted I would ask that question.

"Amazingly, I actually take the bus," he replies.

I lean back a bit, my left eye squinting up as I look at him with scrutiny. "So the whole walking up casually and asking me questions that otherwise, out of context of our previous interaction, would sound cryptic and creepy, was just you... winging it? A golden opportunity thrown into your lap?"

He raises a brow and looks at me. This time I'm the one under scrutiny. "I didn't think for one second that you'd actually tell me anything."

"But you hoped I would," I say with a mischevious grin, elbowing him lightly in the side.

"That's assuming you have something to tell," he says with a little smirk - god that smirk - it's like he thinks he knows something I don't. It's like he thinks he knows me. I hate it. It shakes me to my very core. But I only shrug.

"So is this where the conversation ends?" He asks.

"Mmmyes, it seems we have reached an impasse," I say with a sigh, leaning back into the bench, and stretching my legs out.

He tilts his head to the side, and leans forward, cupping his chin in his hand. "You are the impasse."

----

I pull out my phone as I feel a buzzing in my pocket. It's the same 'no caller ID' number again, and I don't know who it is. My finger hovers over the screen and I consider finally blocking it, so I stop getting these calls, but curiositiy draws my thumb to the answer button. If I'm going to block it, I at least need to know for sure it's just some ad or scam, and not some old friend trying to contact me. So I pick up.

"Hello?" I ask.

"I have answers for you," responds a deep, gravelly voice. It sounds... unnatural. I turn around at the unexpected response, and I tilt my head low, holding my phone closer to my ear to make sure I heard that right.

"Excuse me?"

There's silence for a moment, before I hear a deep, agonizingly loud sigh. As if the sigh is contagious, I too, sigh. I know who this is.

"Ms. Wilson?" I ask, mostly confused. "How did you even get my number?"

"Deep web," is her quick, factual response.

I stutter a second. "What."

"OK! So you wanted to talk answers, right? Your curiosity is eating away at you and I can feel it."

Again. "What."

"Meet me at the corner of 17th and Longview."

"I'm -"

"Oh! Yeah. 7pm. I'll be wearing my staple fleece and I'll have a yellow scarf. Just for you. So you know it's me."

I shake my head, still just as confused. "Wait... what? What changed your mind? Why? This better not be-"

"I promise you won't be dissapointed," she says. And for the first time since I've spoken to her, she sounds sincere. Almost... too sincere. It sounds out of character for her.

"Oh... okay, then," I reply.

"Good. Meet me tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? But I hav-" and then I hear it. The beep. She hung up on me. I roll my eyes and mumble to myself. "And she called me cryptic."

----

"This is part of the deal," she says holding his hands, clasped together. "We only do this once, ok? Just to prove it to you that it's so?"

He nods, as if this is the first promise he's made in his life. "Deal."

She nods back, a look of focused determination on her face. "Ok."

"Ok," he says back, his hands still held by hers as he waits in anticipation... for a solid thirty seconds. He looks at her, still waiting. For a second, the thought occurs to him that maybe she's just crazy - another troubled mind, who created all of those photos just as a hoax. Perhaps, she was so deep in the lie that she felt there was no way out. Maybe she came up with it as some coping mechanism, maybe she'd decieved herself that she'd stepped out of reality and into science fiction. Maybe she was a pathalogical liar but she really did mean that all of this was for kicks and giggles.

"...Wilson," he says.

She opens her eyes, and looks at him as if he's just rudely interrupted her mid-sentence (not like they hadn't done that to each other countless times already).

"What?" She asks.

"So... are you going to... like -"

Suddenly, the two dissapear into thin air like a vapor; vanished, no longer occupying space and time on the street corner.

----

"So this is how it ends?" He asks, watching me stand in the doorway as I held the door open.

"Well I'm not some storybook character with this deep heart-wrenching backstory or anything," I reply with a small laugh. "I'm just in a few pictures. Never thought anyone would notice," I explain, and for once this last bit is actually true, but he doesn't know that.

He furrows his brows, and begins to slide all of the photos strewn across the table back into a pile. "Until me."

"Hah." I smile and shake my head. "...Julian."

He looks at me with still, discerning eyes. "Time-traveller."