Choosing Battle

Choosing Battle
Damien's POV

"No," I said, stepping between the two Mayas.  "Nobody is dying.  Not permanently, not temporarily, not at all."

"Damien," Maya said softly, "if we don't do something, everyone in Portland dies.  Maybe everyone in history dies."

"Then we find another way," I said firmly.  "Maya, I've been a knight for ten years.  I've fought dragons and shadow creatures and enemy forces.  And you know what I've learned?  There's always another way.  You just have to be brave enough to find it."

The other Maya shook her head.  "I've seen forty-seven scenarios, Damien.  I've tried everything.  This is the only way that saves everyone."

"Have you tried everything?  Because I have an idea you might not have thought of."

Everyone stared at me.

"What idea?"  Marcus asked.

I looked around at all of them - Maya, the other Maya, Elena, Marcus, and the spot where I could feel Grandmother's presence.  "What if we don't save everyone?"

"What do you mean?"  Elena demanded.

"I mean, what if instead of trying to fix this whole mess, we just accept that some people are going to get hurt?  Grandmother, you're afraid the family magic will cause pain in the future.  But it's causing suffering right now by trying to avoid future suffering."

Grandmother's voice filled the air.  "You don't understand, boy.  I've seen what this magic can do when it's abused."

"So have I," I said.  "Marcus used magic to send me through time against my will.  That hurt.  But Maya used magic to heal people and protect them.  That helped.  Grandmother, magic isn't good or bad.  People are good or bad.  And if you kill all the good people to stop the bad ones, then only evil wins."

"That's very philosophical," the other Maya said, "but it doesn't solve our immediate problem.  This time bubble is still going to fall and kill sixty thousand people."

That's when I had my real idea.  The one that was either clever or completely insane.

"What if we don't stop it from collapsing?" I said.  "What if we make it collapse exactly the way we want it to?"

"Explain," Marcus said.

I took a deep breath.  "The bubble is unstable because it's trying to live in two time periods at once.  But what if instead of two time periods, we made it exist in no time periods?"

Everyone looked confused except Elena, whose eyes went wide.

"Damien," she said slowly, "are you suggesting we turn downtown Portland into a place outside of time completely?"

"Exactly.  Grandmother, you've been alive for three hundred years because time magic keeps you young.  But what if we took this whole area outside of time?  Everyone inside would stop aging.  Nobody would die.  And the magic wouldn't be able to spread to other places because there wouldn't be any time for it to spread through."

Maya grabbed my arm.  "But Damien, if we do that, we'd all be stuck here forever.  Everyone in this bubble would be stuck in this moment for forever."

"Would that be so terrible?" I asked.  "Maya, look around.  We have our family here.  We have each other.  We have a chance to build something good together.  Maybe being stuck forever with the people you love isn't a punishment.  Maybe it's a gift."

Grandmother emerged in front of us, looking thoughtful for the first time since this whole mess started.

"An eternal moment," she whispered.  "No past to mourn, no future to fear.  Just an endless now."

"But what about everyone else?" the other Maya asked.  "What about the people who have lives outside this bubble?  What about their families?"

"They'd be safe," I said.  "The bubble would be stable.  And maybe someday we'd figure out how to let people leave if they wanted to.  But Grandmother would finally have what she's been looking for - a way to not be alone anymore.  And Maya would have what she wants - a way to save everyone."

Maya looked at the other Maya, and something passed between them that I didn't understand.

"It could work," the other Maya said slowly.  "But Damien, there's something else you need to know."

"What?"

"In the scenario where I stayed in the past with you, we weren't happy.  Not really."

My heart sank.  "Why not?"

"Because I always knew I had abandoned my own time.  I helped your kingdom, but I never stopped thinking about the people in the present who might need my help too.  And you..."  She looked at me with such sadness.  "You never stopped feeling guilty about taking me away from my real life."

"That's not true," I said, but even as I said it, I wondered if it was.

"It is true," the other Maya said softly.  "Damien, love isn't enough if it's built on suffering.  Real love has to be built on choice.  Free choice, not forced choice."

I felt like someone had hit me in the stomach.  "So what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that maybe the reason none of the other timelines worked is because we were always trying to save everyone else instead of being honest about what we really wanted."

Maya - my Maya - stepped forward.  "What do you really want, Damien?"

I looked at her, and for the first time since I'd appeared in her living room, I told the complete truth.

"I want to go home," I said.  "I want to go back to my own time and finish the fight I started.  I want to save my country and protect my people.  But Maya, I also want you with me.  Not because I'm pushing you to choose, but because you want to be there."

"And if I don't want to be there?"  Maya asked quietly.

The words felt like eating glass, but I said them anyway.  "Then I'll go alone.  And I'll miss you every day for the rest of my life, but I'll know you're happy in your own time, living your own life."

Maya stared at me for a long moment.  Then she turned to the other Maya.

"And you?  What do you really want?"

The other Maya smiled, and this time it was a real smile.  "I want to go back to the past where I belong now.  I want to help Damien's kingdom.  I want to use our magic to make life better for people in olden times.  And I want to stop jumping between eras trying to fix everything."

"So we each go where we belong," Maya said carefully.  "You go back to the past, I stay in the present, and we both live with our choices."

"What about the time bubble?"  Marcus asked.  "What about Grandmother?  What about the sixty thousand people who are about to die?"

That's when Maya and the other Maya looked at each other and smiled similar smiles.

"We have a plan for that too," Maya said.  "But first, we need to know something, Grandmother."

"What?"  Grandmother's voice asked.

"If we can guarantee that the family magic will only be used to help people, will you stop trying to destroy it?"

"How could you possibly guarantee that?"

Maya grinned.  "Because we're going to split it up.  The other Maya takes the time magic back to the past.  I keep the healing magic in the moment.  Elena gets the safety magic.  Marcus gets the truth magic.  And you, Grandmother, get the choice magic - the power to help people make good decisions instead of bad ones."

"Five people, five types of magic, five different time periods," the other Maya added.  "No one person has enough power to become a tyrant, but together we have enough power to help people across all of history."

I felt hope rising in my chest.  It was a good plan.  A plan where everyone got what they really wanted.

But then Grandmother started laughing.

"Oh, my dear children," she said, and her voice was full of genuine love and terrible sadness.  "You still don't understand, do you?"

"Understand what?" Elena asked.

"You can't split up the magic," Grandmother said.  "Because there isn't time.  Maya, dear one, look around you."

I looked around and felt my blood turn to ice.

The shimmery edge of the time bubble was moving toward us.  Fast.

"The bubble isn't collapsing in ten minutes anymore," Grandmother said.  "All of our talking has made it more unstable.  It's falling right now.  We have about thirty seconds before this entire area snaps back to normal time and kills everyone inside it."

Maya grabbed my hand.  "Thirty seconds to decide?"

"Thirty seconds to decide," Grandmother confirmed.  "Maya, Damien, other Maya - what's it going to be?  Try to save everyone and probably fail?  Or save yourselves and definitely let sixty thousand innocent people die?"

I looked at Maya, and I could see her making the same estimate I was making.

Thirty seconds wasn't enough time to set up the clever splitting plan.

Thirty seconds wasn't enough time to make a stable time pocket.

Thirty seconds was only enough time for one thing.

For one of us to give ourselves to save everyone else.

And I could see in Maya's eyes that she had already chosen it was going to be her.

"Maya, no," I started to say.

But she was already stepping forward, power crackling around her hands.

"I love you, Damien," she said.  "In every timeline.  Forever."

And then she did something that stopped my heart.

She started glowing with enough magical energy to tear herself apart.