THE LAST TIME (Error: Not Saved Chapter Five)

CHAPTER FIVE: THE LAST TIME

After that visit Hiro threw himself into his work more than ever. What did it matter that nobody understood the cosmic importance of his mission? He would bring Tadashi back home safe. Then they would see.

He soon lost track of the hours he spent jumping back and forth between the past and the present, trying to predict threats, trying to negate threats, trying to remove any possible thing that would kill his brother. And yet as he neutralized one threat another one sprang up, sometimes minutes, hours, days later. Then the cycle would begin again. Was it really his fault that he forget meals and schoolwork?

Looking at the calendar he gathered that about a week had passed since his first fateful trip. Funny. It felt like much more than that. But he'd spent hours upon hours in his own past, each time returning a split second after stepping into the Chronos II, until his own perception of time had completely fallen apart. Some days he felt like a very, very old man. Others he felt like a child just looking for his big brother.

It took another week for him to crack.

This time, he'd rescued Tadashi from a falling tree only to have him die of a sudden heart attack. A heart attack. Since when did Tadashi get heart attacks? And how on earth was he supposed to stop a heart attack? Go back into time and make sure his brother ate healthy and got plenty of exercise?

Defibrillators, he thought glumly as he sat down on a chair to dab at the scrape he'd gotten pushing Tadashi out of the way. Too little, too late. 

That was absurd. How could he be too late for anything when he had a working time machine?

He gave up on first aid, overturning the kit from his lap, unremorsefully stepping over the bandages and swabs that fell to the floor. Where was he going to get defibrillators, much less someone who knew how to use them?

Baymax.

He hadn't seen the robot for a while. That...that was his fault.

"Ow," he said loudly, involuntarily releasing pent-up pain into the cry. The result was instantaneous. Baymax appeared, dust floating off his red case.

"Hello, Hiro."

"Hey." Hiro was curt, business-like, refusing to admit that deep down he was just a little glad to see his old friend again. "I need your help." Fitting Baymax into the cramped Chronos II would be a struggle, but he'd manage. "Okay, just--"

"I heard a cry of distress. I will scan you for injuries."

"I don't need a scan, I need you to--" Of course it was futile. Baymax performed the scan in seconds.

"Hiro, you appear distressed. Your hormone levels show that your stress levels are abnormally high. You are also dehydrated and sleep-deprived. I suggest you take a break."

Frustrated, Hiro ran a hand through his hair, feeling his stress rise even as he spoke. "I don't need a health check now, Baymax, I need you to get in the machine."

"It would be advisable--"

Even his own robot wouldn't listen to him now, much less the streams of time, and irritation turned into anger. And then all the bottled sorrow and rage of the past few weeks came roaring back, sapping what was left of his breath, and Hiro rammed a fist into the side of the Chronos II. "Can't you just do what I tell you to for once?"

Of course he knew that was unfair; by disobeying him once Baymax had saved him. He was the one that couldn't get anything right. Tadashi had pushed so hard to get him into college, and now here he was, sitting in a garage with a dirty hoodie and a useless time machine. 

Baymax's voice, measured and artificial, cut through the silence. "Hiro, I think you should wait until your emotional state has stabilized before using the machine. I will not deactivate until you are satisfied with your care."

Until you are. Not until you say you are. Not until you put a band-aid over a gaping wound and say you're fine, everything's fine.

I am not satisfied with my care.

That last drop broke down what was left of his walls. "Shut up," Hiro cried, hating himself for saying it, hating himself for failing, for everything. "I'm not satisfied, okay? No one is satisfied. I will never be satisfied. I can't. Not with Tadashi gone." 

And then he was sliding to the floor, the coolness of the Chronos II gliding past his cheek, burying his head in his arms--tired, so tired--sobbing like the world had just ended--and perhaps it had.

Then Go Go came back.

She had fear and fire in her eyes, and she barely seemed to see Hiro crumpled on the floor, cutting a path straight to the time machine. "Hiro, we need to fix this."

Even in that second she was struck by how horribly old her friend looked. Gaunt more with stress than with hunger, skin stretched over cheekbones, fresh dark circles under his eyes. What have you been doing to yourself? 

All for Tadashi, everything for Tadashi, which made the painful irony of her mission even more acute.

She managed to get the door open, turned back to Hiro. "How do you work this? Come on, come on, there isn't time."

He managed to rise, shaky, feeling like the world was spinning around him. "What? I don't understand--"

"Wait, you don't know?" Go Go stared at him, incredulous.

"I don't know what?" Hiro put one hand against the Chronos II, too spent to try and figure out what was going on. 

"Hiro, your aunt is dead."

"What?" He reeled backwards, stumbling into Baymax, clutching his head. "How--when--why--"

"She was mugged walking to the bank from the cafe. She got shot."

Hiro felt like he was going to be sick. "And what can I--"

Go Go went on. "And she died because Big Hero 6 wasn't there to save her."

And then he was sick, almost, only vaguely feeling Baymax rush forth to support him, the salt of tears mixing with the taste of bile in his throat. 

"She probably wasn't the only one, Hiro. I don't know how many people were killed or injured or robbed because we weren't there. And so far I've let it pass. But this time--your own aunt--it's gone too far. We need to set things back the way they were."

A fog. A thick fog, surrounding him, clouding his thoughts, impossible to push through. "I still don't understand."

"The butterfly effect. Like that story we read. One small change in time, and you'll set off thousands of other changes no one can predict. Tadashi didn't die in the fire. Who knows what might happen because of that?"

The truth, smashing through the fog, brilliant and terrible like a blade of death. He could see it, and still he refused it. "But I can save him, Go Go." Even as he said the words he realised their awful futility. Even if he could save Tadashi would he not be sacrificing a hundred lives for his?

"No, you can't." She said this with such finality that he wondered what else she knew.

"But surely--surely there must be one version of time where he lives. I can find it, I just need more--"

"More time." Go Go laughed, bitter. "Don't you get it? No matter what you do, there is no version of time where Tadashi lives."

"Why?" 

"It's a paradox, Hiro. If he hadn't died, you wouldn't have built the time machine in the first place. But the time machine still exists. Therefore, for this present to exist, Tadashi has to die."

Still the fog, and every time a bit of it was cut away it pained him. This last revelation went straight to his already shattered heart. "So I can't save him."

"You can't save him. You can try, and try, but you'll be caught in a loop forever, and at the end of it all you still wouldn't have saved him."

He was shaking, uncontrollable. "What do I have to do?" 

"You know," she said, and he did.

"Callaghan?" The few defences he had left were almost laughably weak.

Go Go shook her head. "I don't know. All I know is the fire never happened. We've messed things up, Hiro, and we need to fix them."

We. No, that wasn't right. This was his fault. All of it. Messing in things he had no right to mess in. 

What would one man's life--or death--matter in the scope of the universe?

Too much, he thought, and yet nothing at all.

"And the others?"

Again she shook her head. "They have no idea. There was no time machine for them. For them things have always been this way. It's just us, Hiro, here in this garage. What are we going to do?"

Hiro looked towards the Chronos II, fog still swirling. One last doubt, only slightly defiant. "How do you know it will work?"

"I don't." Go Go's face twitched, a fault in a mask of strength. "I don't know it will work. But it's the only thing we can do."

Baymax stepped forth. Hiro wasn't sure how much of the discussion he'd understood. But when he spoke he tore away the last shreds of fog and broke the last of Hiro's will. "This is what Tadashi would have wanted."

Light, blinding light, unbearable pain, and then sudden, utter calm. 

He knew what he had to do.

It was time to turn back.

~~~

Go Go offered to go with him, but he refused. He had started this alone, and he would have to end it alone. So very, very alone.

He started up the Chronos II for the last time. As he travelled back to the day of the showcase he felt the same numbness he had felt on his first trip. Numbness, and coldness, and a complete lack of emotion of what he was about to do next.

He walked to the showcase hall, waited for the last few people to leave. At 10.30 sharp the hall was empty and silent save for the strange buzzing in his ears. He didn't know where Callaghan was; he didn't need to know.

All he needed was to splash out the gasoline and pile the nearest exhibits on it and douse the entire thing with more gasoline and then light a match. It caught fire beautifully. The crackling of the flames filled the quiet of the hall.

He left. 

He went home.

Go Go and Baymax were waiting there for him. They took apart the Chronos II into small pieces and brought them to the backyard. He destroyed those, too.