Chapter 6
Morning found him on one of the balconies overlooking the mountains, leaning against the railing, and clutching a mug of tea. The heat seeped into his fingers, lessening the nearly ever-present ache that had worsened with the chill. He sighed into the air and his breath swirled up, melding into the steam rising from the mug.
His mind felt somewhat settled, though he still felt like he could slip and fall into an abyss of horror at any moment. Wong's words still echoed in his head. I want to continue that friendship. It felt a little like forgiveness. He didn't deserve it.
Not up to you. Time said with the ease of responding to a familiar conversation. It probably was. Time saw everything that ever happened after all.
Not everything. Time said, amused again. Using your own soul to reforge us was a surprise.
It had come as a surprise to him too. The spell they'd created was failing and he had just given everything he had left to make it work. Including his own soul apparently. It was bigger than him. What happened to him after would have been inconsequential. The universe would have been safe. That was all that had mattered.
She was right. Time mused. You have terrible self-esteem.
She also said it's not about me.
It really wasn't. He mattered little in the long run. If not him, there would be someone else to protect the planet. There always was. There would never be again. That universe was gone.
Grief tried to crawl its way up his throat. He took a sip of tea and forcibly swallowed it down.
For a moment wished it was coffee. But coffee made the shaking worse and he'd rather not spill it on himself again. He'd ruined many a good shirt that way in the early days. Tea was safer and he'd grown to like the taste. But he missed coffee. He wanted the normality that came with his old life, of drinking coffee during breaks, naming every single song Billy had thrown at him, and, most of all, the feeling of a scalpel in his hands.
He blinked hard and shivered a little. The Eye thumped his chest as if reminding him it was there. He looked down at it, frowning.
Why aren't you with Morgan?
He was, mostly, sure it wasn't her actual name. Did she even remember hers? Or did she pick a new one whenever someone asked? It was probably the latter judging by the way Master Hamir had laughed. Time had been happy to see her. It had been with her for so long compared to him and he'd felt that affectionate nostalgia when they'd met her again. It should stay with her.
You need me more. Time replied. There was an unspoken sentence there, a weight in its voice.
Dread skittered down his spine and he resisted the urge to tighten his grip around the cup. A phantom sensation of spikes piercing his skin, a sentence repeated over and over again, draped itself over him. He shuddered. He'd have to relive that century again if they couldn't stop Kaecilius and his followers from summoning Dormammu.
No. Mind said sharply. You will not be doing that. Your sanity is tenuous as it is.
The orange threads holding his soul together warmed further at that. He thought he saw purple outlining the threads, but he shifted his attention away. He didn't want to see how mangled his soul had become.
Got any suggestions?
The entirety of infinity considered it. Their consideration was a weight, large and heavy, nearly unfathomable. It didn't exactly hurt. It was just there, resting. The universe hummed around him, in him, a symphony that resonated in his bones, his soul.
I could just give him empty planets and dimensions to eat. Space said eventually and the feeling of infinity receded into the background. It was always there now. The stones were filtering it, were communicating with him using methods his mind could handle. Why? They didn't have to. Time had never talked to him in the loop, though he had felt a constant, steady calmness every time the loop had reset. Had that been Time? He'd clung to the feeling, to the Cloak, to the spell on his hands, and the words in his head. They were the only things that kept him going when could no longer remember the reason he was there.
Footsteps behind him jolted him out of his thoughts. He startled, mug jerking in his hands and spilling tea on the railing.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
Pain shot through his hands as every muscle in his body stiffened. He turned, tucking the Eye into his shirt, and tried to keep his expression blank. Mordo had stopped in front of the small table and was looking at him wary yet slightly amused. He wondered what Mordo knew, what Morgan had said if she'd explained at all. It would be just like her to tell them nothing.
"Just admiring the scenery," he said and winced internally at how raspy his voice was.
Mordo bent to pour himself a mug and for a moment Stephen regretted bringing along the entire set.
"It is beautiful scenery," he agreed, tilting the pot toward him. "Want some more?"
Stephen shook his head. He wouldn't be able to hold it once his hands untensed. Mordo shrugged, putting the pot down, and joining him at the railing.
"The Ancient One seems quite interested in you." Mordo said as he took a sip of tea. "I've never seen her quite so insistent on seeking out a student before. Normally, they come to us."
What makes you so special, asked the look on his face. Why you?
Stephen let silence be his answer. Mordo, seemingly unfazed, took another sip of tea. Stephen slid his gaze away from Mordo's hands and tried not to remember them wrapped around a knife.
They stayed in silence for a while. Mordo continued to sip his tea and Stephen tried not to think about the last time he'd seen Mordo. There was phantom, vicious ache in his hands. They felt nearly severed, tendons snapping and peeling back on themselves. He inhaled, letting the cool air sink into his lungs. He was at Kamar-Taj, on a balcony, and looking at the mountain where he made his first portal. Mordo didn't have a knife in his hands; he had a mug of tea.
The calm feeling he'd had was rapidly slipping away. He tried to think of an excuse. Abruptly leaving would further Mordo's interest, but staying here would mean trying to sidestep his questions. He missed Wong. Wong would have known what to do, what to say. Wong was here. He could go find him. Wong would take care of it, take care of him.
Brisk footsteps broke their silence. The Ancient One strode into the room and went directly to the table to pick up the pot of tea.
"Good morning, Master Strange." She poured herself a cup and brought the pot over. Next to him, Mordo startled and looked at him, reevaluating.
"Good morning," he said. "Would you like your necklace back?"
Morgan laughed and refilled his cup. "Keep it. It looks better on you."
Mordo's reevaluation turned into confusion and Stephen could feel his eyes sweep over him, seeking.
Stephen laughed a little. "I disagree, but I'll hang on to it. "
As if Time would let him do anything else.
"I see you've met Master Mordo." She topped up Mordo's cup and used a portal to place the pot back on the table.
"We were admiring the scenery." Stephen said.
Mordo did not smile, but the laughter was there in his eyes. He was still wary, but her presence had lessened it a little.
Morgan hummed and took a sip of tea. "It is lovely scenery."
Mordo looked between them, frowning. "I thought yesterday was your first time meeting?"
"It was and it wasn't." Morgan said cheerily. "Time does that to you."
Mordo frowned harder and started to ask questions. Stephen let the mug warm his hands and listened to them talk. Mordo was asking the right questions, but Morgan was very good at giving out cryptic answers. So far all he'd gotten out of her was that the time stone was involved somehow. He'd looked alarmed at that.
Stephen had seen that look turn to fear once and then grim determination. Mordo had decided that the world didn't need sorcerers. He'd thinned out the order enough that they had been struggling to keep everything that had wanted a piece of Earth away.
Stephen focused on his tea, on the world around him, the humming of the universe in his pocket and tried to stay in the present. The floor turned to tar beneath him and he exhaled forcefully. He wasn't there. The floor was stone and covered in rugs. If he was barefoot, they'd scratch his toes.
"Master Strange." Was that a shadow of concern on her face?
"Yes?" His voice was still raspy. The tea hadn't helped.
"Come." She said, turning towards the door. "Walk with me."
He followed, thankful to be away from Mordo, but apprehension swirled in his stomach. What did she want with him? Would she be disappointed in his choices? In hers? She had chosen to let him in and to be taught magic. She'd given him the title of Master, had he lived up to it? Was she disappointed in what he'd become? Was she disappointed in him?
Time stayed suspiciously silent.
Stephen drank his tea and tried to think of nothing as Morgan led him down empty corridors to the more secluded parts of the temple. It was darker here, though there were still patches of sunlight dappling the halls. They were further in the mountain now, the air cooler.
"I communed with the Time Stone you know." She said as they turned a corner and stepped into a a shaded courtyard. There was a fountain in the center. It sounded very loud in the quiet, almost like falling rain. It filled his ears, but not enough to block out her words.
"It showed me the important things."
Good. Time would have shown her Dormammu, Thanos, and The Scarlet Witch. She'd be prepared. She'd do a better job than him. The universe wouldn't become so damaged, wouldn't be destroyed. Mordo wouldn't lose his faith. The stones would be better protected, safer.
There was a feeling of disquiet at that. A sensation of rejection at the thought. A protest at the edge of his senses. It wasn't his.
Then, she took one of his hands in hers and his thoughts scattered.
She held his hand. She held his hand. They were looking out at the rain and she was telling him about his future full of possibility. She was stretching her last moments out so he got to say goodbye. No. No. She was alive. She was alive. It hadn't happened. It wouldn't happen.
"Stephen," she said gently. The sound of falling water was louder now, the smell of it in his nose. She'd led them closer to the fountain.
"You have become more than I ever dreamed you would be." Why was she smiling?
"Thank you." She said. "For everything you've done, for all the choices you had to make. You have made me very proud and I am thankful to have been your teacher. "
What?
He couldn't find the words to tell her how wrong she was.
His knees buckled and she pulled them over to a nearby bench. She sat him down with a gentle push of her palm against his shoulder. He stared into the distance. There was a sharp pain in his chest that he tried to breathe through.
"I-" he started to say.
She hushed him, sitting down, and gently embracing him. Tears welled up in his eyes again, spilled over. She held him as he wailed into her robes. The grief spilled out again, ripping at the inside of his throat as it went. She pressed him closer to her, tightening her grip, and let him cry until the world slid away into the dark.
Elsewhere, in a pocket dimension located in an actual pocket, six stones watched, listened, and felt. They hadn't expected to feel, not like this. They were anchors of the universe and had been content where they were, isolated and tucked away. No one had used them really, until Thanos. (Time had never considered itself as used.)
They didn't mind being turned to dust. They'd reform eventually and no one would use them in the meantime. Reality, who would have been the first to notice, didn't know the universe was slowly falling apart. None of them did until the call.
It was desperation tinged with grief. A grim determination to obtain the outcome no matter what. It was a plea, a last resort, a magnetic force trying to draw the pieces of them together and reforge them.
What it wasn't was a command. It was an ask, a desperate one, but an ask nonetheless. They could refuse. But as all sentient things were, they were curious and so they answered.
Reform, the call said. Become whole again and hold the universe together. Please. It will fall apart without you.
It was starting to. Already, rips in reality were opening.
And what, they replied, would you give us?
They touched a mind nearly gone, a soul nearly turned back into thread, a body falling apart.
Anything, everything, whatever's left, came the answer. Immediate, automatic.
Soul knew this soul as it did all souls, but Time, Time knew this soul well. Time had walked with this soul for at least a century, perhaps more. Time had seen this soul's life from birth to death. Time had known everything there ever was to know about this soul, but this, this had come as a complete surprise.
They pondered it, poured over Soul and Time's knowledge, the near-remnants of the asker in front of them. It was a simple ask really and they were curious as to what would happen.
They took the offer, the soul became theirs, and the universe fell apart.
And now they were here, feeling what the soul felt.
It hurt.
Why did it hurt?