“My god.”

Words caught in Tessa’s throat as she stared down at a bleary-eyed reflection of herself that looked somehow older, somehow more feeble and aged than seemed possible. Sucking in each wet breath with the gasping rattle of the dying, her younger self stared back, watched her from the tomb of tubes and chrome that kept her alive, kept her waiting. The major swallowed, looked away, eyes moving to stare at the floor rather than look too long into that cybernetic nightmare, that bizarre mirror of a self that almost seemed to taunt her, whispering: This could be you. This is you.

“Can we have a moment alone?” She asked reflexively. Izzy grimaced, then turned her eyes to the woman she loved, the Tessa who lay broken and gasping against tubes and machinery on the hospital berth. The younger Tessa met her eyes, nodded once.

“P-lease.”

Izzy swallowed, reached for the younger Tessa’s hand as the major closed her eyes, breathed a tired sigh.

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yeah.” The younger Tessa managed. “I. . . need this, Izzy.” She looked up, eyes seeking her older self, lingering on her butchered hair, the years that had etched themselves that much deeper into her face. “There are things. . . that need to be said.”

“Okay.” The other woman tried a smile, sniffed past the tears. “I’ll be right outside. . . if you need me.”

“I love you, Izzy.”

Izzy smiled past new tears, squeezed her lover’s hand again. “I love you too, baby. Hang in there, okay?”

“Yeah.” Came the tired response, the half smile. Turning away, Izzy’s eyes caught against the older Tessa’s for an instant, and for that bare moment, there was something other than hatred in her gaze, something other than the blame, the confusion, the pain. Tessa swallowed, opened her mouth to say something, but before the words would come, Izzy was gone, the wall of her emotionless back disappearing behind a corner, gone in the whisper of a door. Beside her, the younger Tessa stirred, coughed.

“We’re alone.” She managed, and as the older Tessa glanced at her, there came a moment of relief, of understanding. The major swallowed, pulled in a shaky breath.

“I heard them say... you’re pregnant.” The younger Tessa hesitated, breathed. “Who. . . who’s the father?” Chuckling, the major looked away again.

“Want to know who you eventually hooked up with?” The younger Tessa bit her lip, eyes working silently, still bleary with blood. Her older self crossed her arms, sputtered an apologetic laugh, eyes wandering toward the ceiling. “A lot’s happened in the past four years, but I guess...” She sighed, turned back. “It’s Dimitrov.”

“Dimitrov?” Her younger self coughed again. “Ben Dimitrov?”

“Yeah.” The older Tessa smiled softly, absently tucked the edges of the blanket into the berth, worked the folds around the tubes, the spider-like legs of the apparatus clinging to her younger self’s chest and throat, framing the edges of her face. “Long story you probably shouldn’t hear, considering I’m from the future and all.”

“You’ve already changed the way things turn out.” The younger Tessa shot back, “Even if I was going to live, I...”

“Hey, hey, none of that.” The major shook her head. “You’ll get better. You’ve got a lot to live for.”

“Don’t lie to yourself.” Her younger self croaked back. “Our grandmother told you that.”

“Yeah.” The major managed a broken smile, reached out, squeezed the other woman’s hand. “Yeah, she did.”

“Just,” The younger Tessa coughed, “Tell me about some of it. Tell me about how you ended up with the Gray Society. . . or something. . .” She coughed again, sputtered against the equipment, eyes squeezing against the pain. The major’s smile softened a little, wet at the edges with new tears.

“Okay.”

Sitting lightly on the edge of the berth, Tessa’s mind went back to the years she’d stumbled through after losing Izzy, the highlights, the changes, the transfer to the Hephaestus. As she talked, she ran through the years like a blade across ice, just touching, moving at the speed of memory. She talked about her training, her work within the TALENT program, the lacings, seeing Ben again, being there for him as he suffered through his own loss, the strength he gave as she suffered endlessly through hers. She talked about playing the saxophone, about Panem, about the admiral, about Myyaelae and a thousand other things until, finally, her younger self reached out, caught her hand, locked eyes with hers.

“Tessa,” She fought to breathe, to push words into the air. “They won’t wait forever. They’ll be back soon. You know what you have to do.” She swallowed, almost whispered as her eyes darted across the bay and back again. “We both know that I would never want to go on living this way.”

“Yeah.” Was all her older self could say. She looked away, hesitated. No one knew Tessa better than her older self, the self that had looked back on these days and the person she had been with a sort of acceptant nostalgia, reliving her mistakes, her triumphs, sometimes smiling, laughing, sometimes crying. One gesture with her hand, and the lock on the emergency case across the bay where regulations required a handgun with a full clip of twelve rounds to be stored turned to putty, rolled off onto the floor. The younger Tessa closed her eyes, swallowed as the weapon cleared the distance, snapped into her older self’s open hand. The muzzle rose, crossed her chest to stare down at a spot between tear-wet lids, and for the barest space of an instant, the major, leader of Freyja squadron and hardened by years in Ultima Thila, hesitated, swallowed.

“Do it.” Came her younger self’s hoarse whisper. “Don’t make us suffer any longer.”

The doctor came rushing back into the bay before the third round had even cleared the muzzle, Izzy and Phoebe hot on his heels– and even then she kept squeezing, kept putting lead into the ruined face of her younger self, into the support equipment, the berth. When the first empty click came, Tessa dropped the gun, met Izzy’s terrified, tear-wet stare.

“It’s done.” She managed, and the words came flat, emotionless. The single edge of a tear-trail traced its way across her cheek, dropped to spatter on the collar of her black uniform.

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