You Did Ok, Kid

Part One: The Attic

XANDER

The house smells wrong. That's the first thing I notice when we move in. Not bad wrong, just different wrong. Like cardboard boxes and dust and other people's lives. Mum says it will start to feel like home soon, but I don't believe her. Home was the old house, the one with the creek out the back where Dad and I used to look for stones.

I don't say this to Mum, though. She's doing that smile she does now, the one that doesn't quite reach her eyes. I know if I mention Dad she'll get that tight look around her mouth like she's trying not to cry.

So instead I just nod and help unpack boxes, even though my arms ache and I'm tired and all I want to do is go back to bed and pretend the last four months never happened.

The ladder to the attic is in the hallway. Mum tells me not to go up there, something about spiders and rotten floorboards. But I've never been very good at following rules. Not the pointless ones, anyway. Marcus says that's because I'm too curious for my own good, and he's probably right.

I wait until Mum is busy in the kitchen, then I climb up. Each rung creaks under my weight, making me feel heavier than I am. The attic opens up around me like a cave, all angles and shadows.

It's exactly what you'd expect. Dark and musty and full of things people left behind because they weren't worth taking. I've got my torch, the red one Dad gave me two Christmases ago, and I sweep the beam across the space. Boxes. Furniture. A rocking horse with one eye missing that makes me think of zombie films.

I'm not really looking for anything. I just need to be somewhere that isn't downstairs, where Mum might ask if I'm alright. I'm not alright. I haven't been alright since Dad left. But everyone keeps asking anyway, like if they ask enough times the answer might change.

The pocket watch is in a tea tin, buried under buttons and old screws. I nearly miss it, but something makes me look twice. Maybe it's the way the torchlight catches the tarnished silver. Maybe it's just luck. The bad kind or the good kind, I'm not sure yet.

It's heavier than I expect. Cold, too. The case is worn smooth, like someone carried it for a long time. When I press the catch, it springs open with a soft click that sounds too loud in the quiet attic.

The watch face is cracked. The hands are frozen at twelve minutes past four. Roman numerals ring the edge, their gold nearly worn away. It should be disappointing, this broken thing. But when I hold it up to look closer, something happens.

The world flashes.

Not with light, not exactly. It's more like my brain flashes. Suddenly I'm not in the attic anymore. I'm downstairs in the kitchen, and Mum is handing me a sandwich. Cheese and pickle. My favourite.

Then I blink and I'm back in the attic, my heart doing weird fluttery things in my chest. The watch is just a watch again, silent in my hand. Except it's not ticking. The hands are still frozen.

I stare at it for a long time, trying to understand what just happened. Was it real? Did I imagine it? My hands are shaking slightly.

Then Mum calls up through the floor: "Xander, love, I need you to stay downstairs. There could be spiders up there. Lunch is ready!"

I climb down the ladder slowly, the watch clutched tight in my fist. When I get to the kitchen, Mum is making sandwiches. Cheese and pickle. She cuts mine diagonally, exactly the way I like it.

My hands start to shake again.

"Where did you get that old thing?" she asks, nodding at the watch. "Can I keep it?" I ask. My voice sounds strange in my own ears.

She barely glances at it. "I suppose. It's broken anyway." Then she pauses. "It wasn't... it wasn't your father's, was it?"

I shake my head quickly. "No. Just something someone left behind."

She relaxes a little. "Well then. Lucky find."

I turn the watch over in my palm. Lucky. I'm not sure that's the right word at all. But I keep it anyway.

DANNY

The bedsit smells of damp and cheap cleaning products. I've been here four months now, and it still doesn't feel like anything except a place to sleep between shifts at the call centre. A place to spread out my calculations. A place to fail quietly where no one can see.

The stone sits on my makeshift desk, grey with a white band running round its middle. I pick it up without thinking, my thumb finding the smooth groove it always finds. Three years of carrying this stone in my pocket has worn a path in my fingerprint.

"For good luck, Daddy."

Xander's voice echoes in my memory. Five years old when he gave it to me. Not five anymore. Eight and a half. He'd be very particular about that half.

Christ. Eight and a half now. And I haven't seen him in four months.

I set the stone down and force myself to look at the equations spread across my desk. Pages and pages of calculations, all leading to the same conclusion: I was wrong. Not philosophically wrong. Not theoretically wrong. Mathematically wrong. One decimal point in the wrong place. One tiny, insignificant error that turned my life's work into a disaster.

Three people injured. Millions in damage. My reputation destroyed. My marriage ended. My son growing up without me.

All because I put a decimal point in the wrong place.

The truly maddening part is that I've found the error now. It took me four months of obsessive recalculation, working through the night after eight-hour shifts listening to people complain about their broadband, but I found it. The calculations are correct now. The theory is sound. The chronal infrastructure would work.

If I could prove it. If I could show the world that I wasn't a failure, that my work had value, that the accident was just a mistake and not a fundamental flaw in my understanding. Then maybe. Maybe.

Maybe Catherine would look at me without that mixture of disappointment and pity.

Maybe my son would remember I exist.

Maybe I could look at myself in the mirror without wanting to smash it.

I pick up the stone again. For good luck. Some luck this turned out to be.

But I keep it anyway. Because it's the last thing my son gave me. Because letting it go would mean accepting that I've lost him completely. Because I'm a sentimental fool who can't admit when something is beyond repair.

The stone sits in my pocket. Always. A constant weight. A reminder of everything I've destroyed.

XANDER - Three Years Ago

The creek sounds different in summer. Gentler. The water is lower, moving more slowly over the smooth stones. I can hear birds singing in the trees above us, and somewhere far away, a dog barking.

"Look at this one, Daddy!" I hold up the stone, proud. It took me ages to find one this perfect. Smooth and round, grey with a white stripe like someone painted it on. "It's perfect for your collection."

Daddy looks up from where he's examining something under his magnifying glass. He does that a lot, looking at tiny things really carefully. Mum says it's because his work is all about tiny details that make big differences.

He smiles at me. Not the distracted smile he sometimes does when he's thinking about work. A real smile, the kind that makes his whole face different. "Let me see," he says, and I scramble over the rocks to reach him.

The rocks are warm under my hands from the sun. The water is cold when I accidentally put my foot in, and I laugh. Daddy laughs too.

He takes the stone from me, turning it over in his hands. His fingers are long and careful, the way they are when he's working on his experiments. "Xander, this is magnificent. Do you see this band? That's a different mineral. Quartz, probably. It was embedded in the original rock, and over millennia, as the stone was shaped by water, it became this perfect ring."

"Millennia means a really long time, right?"

"Thousands of years," Daddy says. He holds the stone up to the light, and the white band seems to glow. "This stone is older than human civilisation. Older than written language. Older than anything humans have ever built. And you found it."

He looks at me when he says that last bit, and his eyes go all soft. Mum says Daddy feels things very deeply, which is why he sometimes seems sad even when nothing bad is happening. But right now he doesn't look sad at all. He looks happy. Really, properly happy.

"You keep it, Daddy," I say. "For good luck. For your big experiment."

Daddy has been working on something really important for months. I don't understand it, but I know it's about time and making time work differently. He says if it works, people will be able to do more with their lives. Save moments that matter. Stretch hours into days.

I don't really understand what that means, but I like the way his voice sounds when he talks about it. Excited and gentle at the same time.

"You want me to have it?" He sounds surprised. "Really?"

"Yeah. Then you'll always have a little bit of today with you. The day we looked for stones together."

I don't know why I say that. It just feels right somehow. Like the stone should stay with him. Like it's meant to be his.

Daddy's face does that thing again, the soft almost-crying thing. Then he pulls me into a hug, right there on the bank of the creek, and holds me so tight I can hear his heart beating. He smells like his workshop, that mix of metal and paper and something else I can never quite name.

"I'll keep it with me always, kiddo," he says into my hair. "I promise. Every single day. It'll be my lucky stone."

And I believe him. Because Daddy always keeps his promises. Always.

We spend the rest of the afternoon at the creek. Daddy shows me how to skip stones, though mine just plop into the water. He tells me about erosion and sedimentation and all these big words I don't understand. But I don't mind. I just like listening to his voice and being here with him.

On the way home, Daddy holds my hand and the stone in his other hand. I see him look at it a few times, turning it over, smiling.

"Thank you, Xander," he says. "This is the best gift anyone has ever given me."

I don't understand how a stone can be the best gift. But the way he says it makes me feel warm inside, like I've done something really important.

That night, when Mum tucks me in, she tells me Daddy showed her the stone. She says he hasn't stopped talking about it all evening, about how thoughtful I am, about how lucky he is to have me.

I fall asleep smiling, thinking about Daddy carrying my stone in his pocket. My lucky stone. Keeping a little bit of today with him, forever.

At least, that's what I think then.

Part Two: Learning the Rules

XANDER

I keep the watch under my pillow at first, then in my bedside drawer when I realise the non-ticking sound it doesn't make somehow keeps me awake anyway. It's like my brain is listening for it, expecting it, even though the hands never move.

The second vision comes three days after the first. I'm holding the watch, turning it over in my hands the way I do with my river stones, when suddenly I'm somewhere else. School. The classroom. Mrs Pemberton is writing words on the board. Spelling test, she says. Surprise spelling test.

I can see the words clearly: accommodation, necessary, occurred, separate. Words we haven't studied yet. Words I definitely can't spell.

When the vision ends, I'm back in my room, my heart racing. I grab a piece of paper and write down all the words I can remember. Then I practise them until Mum calls me for dinner.

The next day, Mrs Pemberton announces a surprise spelling test. The words are exactly the ones I saw.

I get full marks for the first time ever.

Marcus is suspicious at lunch. "How did you know those words? You never get full marks in spelling."

"Just lucky, I guess," I say, which is sort of true and sort of a lie.

After that, the visions come more frequently. Small things, mostly. I see rain before the weather changes. I see the postman delivering a package. I see Trevor Michaels waiting behind the bike sheds to nick someone's sweets, so I take a different route home.

Each vision comes true, usually within hours or days.

I tell no one. Not Mum, who's working double shifts at the hospital and barely has time to notice I've found an old watch. Not Marcus, who would either think I'm lying or, worse, believe me and want to use the watch for increasingly ridiculous schemes. Not even Gran, who visits on Sundays and always asks if I'm managing alright with all the changes.

The watch is my secret. My superpower, as I start thinking of it. A small magic in a world that has felt distinctly un-magical since Dad left.

I use it for small things. The spelling test. Bringing my umbrella on a sunny morning because I saw the rain. Avoiding Trevor. It makes me feel less powerless. That's the truth of it.

Everything else in my life feels out of control. Dad is gone. Mum is working all the time and pretending she's fine when she's obviously not. The house still smells wrong. I still wake up sometimes and forget we've moved, and then I remember and it's like losing Dad all over again.

But the watch gives me something. Even if it's just knowing what's coming a few hours or days ahead. Even if it's just this tiny bit of control.

I don't think about what it means that an eight-and-a-half-year-old needs a magical watch just to feel okay.

I don't think about it because if I do, I might start crying and never stop.

DANNY

The call centre headset leaves a dent in my hair. Eight hours of listening to people complain about their internet connection, their bills, their lives. Eight hours of reading from a script, of being polite and helpful, of pretending I'm not a forty-three-year-old man with a PhD in temporal mechanics working a job a teenager could do.

The worst part isn't the mind-numbing tedium. It's the moments between calls when I have nothing to do but think. Think about what I've lost. Think about the family I walked away from. Think about my son growing up without me.

I pick up my mobile during my break. Catherine's number is still in my contacts. My thumb hovers over the call button.

What would I even say? Sorry for leaving? Sorry for being a coward? Sorry for choosing my pride over my family?

I put the phone away. Take out the stone instead. The grey one with the white band. Xander's lucky stone, though it's brought me nothing but bad luck.

No. That's not fair. The stone didn't cause my failures. I did that all by myself.

"Danny, you're up," my supervisor calls. Another call. Another problem to solve that isn't my own.

I slip the stone back into my pocket and put on the headset. The weight of it sits against my leg, a constant reminder of what I've lost and what I'm too broken to fix.

Later, back in my bedsit, I spread out my calculations again. The corrected ones. The ones that prove I was right about everything except that one crucial decimal point.

If I could just prove it. If I could just show everyone that the theory works. Then maybe I could get my life back. My career. My family. My son.

The equipment I'd need is still at the old facility. The Ashford Industrial Estate, Unit 7. I looked it up last week. The place was shut down after my accident, deemed too unsafe. But the equipment is still there. Abandoned. Waiting.

I could go there. I could rebuild the prototype. I could prove I was right.

The thought takes root. Grows. Becomes a plan. Then an obsession.

I tell myself I'm doing this for my family. To prove to Catherine that I'm not a failure. To give Xander a father he can be proud of.

But late at night, when I can't sleep and the calculations dance behind my eyelids, I know the truth.

I'm doing this for me. Because I can't accept being wrong. Because I'd rather risk everything one more time than admit I failed.

Because I'm exactly the kind of fool who chases redemption through achievement instead of asking for forgiveness through humility.

XANDER - Four Months and Two Weeks Ago

I'm supposed to be asleep, but I'm not. I'm sitting up in bed with my dinosaur lamp on, working on my project for school. It's about families, and I've drawn a picture of Mum and Daddy and me at the creek. I'm going to show it to Daddy when he gets home from work.

He said he'd be home by eight. It's past eleven now.

Mum has been downstairs for the last hour, pacing. I can hear her footsteps going back and forth in the kitchen. She keeps calling Daddy's mobile, but he's not answering. I heard her leave four voicemail messages.

Something is wrong. I can feel it in my stomach, that twisty feeling I get before something bad happens.

Then I hear it. The front door opening. Daddy's footsteps in the hallway, but they sound wrong. Too slow. Too heavy.

I grab my project and creep to my bedroom door, opening it just a crack.

Mum is at the top of the stairs. "Danny? What happened? You were supposed to be home hours ago. I've been calling."

Daddy is standing in the hallway. Even from here, I can see something is very wrong. His face is white. His hair is messy. His hands are shaking.

He doesn't say anything. He just stands there, staring at the floor.

Mum hurries down the stairs. "Danny, you're scaring me. Are you hurt? Were you in an accident?"

"I caused an accident," Daddy says. His voice sounds empty. Like all the Daddy has been sucked out of it. "The experiment. There was an error in the calculations. The temporal field collapsed. Three people hurt. It's my fault."

I don't understand all the words, but I understand 'my fault.' I understand the way his voice breaks on those words.

Mum's hand goes to her mouth. "How bad?"

"Bad. Jenkins might lose his arm. The others..." Daddy's voice cracks. He can't finish the sentence. "It was my responsibility. My calculations. My error."

I push my door open wider. "Daddy?"

Both of them turn to look at me. Mum's face is shocked. Daddy's is... I don't know what it is. It's like he's looking at me but not seeing me.

I hold up my project. "I made you a drawing. For your experiment."

My voice sounds small in the big silent house.

Daddy looks at the drawing. Then he turns away. Actually turns his back to me. "Not now, Xander," he says, and his voice is sharp. Angry. "Back to bed."

I've never heard him talk to me like that before. Never.

Mum climbs halfway up the stairs, her hand reaching for me. "Come on, love. Daddy's had a very difficult day. Let's get you back to bed."

But I can't move. I'm staring at Daddy's back, at the way his shoulders are hunched, at the way he's holding himself like he's trying not to fall apart.

"Bed. Now." His voice is even harsher this time.

I go back into my room. Close the door quietly. Stand there with my drawing in my hands, my eyes burning.

Through the door, I hear Mum and Daddy talking. Quiet voices. Scared voices. Words like 'investigation' and 'lawsuit' and 'career.'

I climb into bed and pull the covers over my head. The drawing is crumpled in my fist.

Something has changed tonight. Something big. I don't understand what exactly, but I know with absolute certainty that things will never be the same again.

And I was right.

DANNY

The front door feels impossibly heavy. Or maybe I'm just impossibly tired. There should be a word for this level of exhaustion, this soul-deep weariness that makes your bones feel like lead.

The house is dark except for lights upstairs. Catherine's silhouette appears at the top of the stairs, and I can hear the relief and worry in her voice even before she speaks.

I try to tell her. Try to form the words. But they come out all wrong, broken and jagged. Three people injured. My fault. My error.

And then Xander is there, in his dinosaur pyjamas, clutching a piece of paper. I catch a glimpse of crayon drawings. A family. Smiling faces.

The sight of him breaks something inside me. Because how do I look at my son when I've just proven myself catastrophically unworthy of his trust? How do I face his innocent belief in me when I've hurt people through my own arrogance?

I turn away. Can't bear to see his face. Can't bear the confusion and hurt in his eyes when I tell him to go back to bed. My voice comes out harsher than I mean it to. Angry. Not at him. At myself. But he can't know that.

I hear his bedroom door close quietly. The softest click. Somehow that gentle sound is worse than if he'd slammed it.

Catherine's hand is on my shoulder, but it feels distant. Everything feels distant. Like I'm watching my life from behind glass.

"Come sit down," she says gently. "Tell me what happened."

We sit at the kitchen table. I tell her everything. The activation sequence. The cascade failure. The screaming. The smell of burning flesh. Jenkins' arm. The others, their injuries. The way the project lead looked at me with such disgust.

Catherine listens without interrupting. When I finish, she's quiet for a long time. Then she says, "It was an accident, Danny. You didn't mean for this to happen."

"Intent doesn't matter," I say. "I was responsible. I checked the calculations, or I thought I did. Obviously not thoroughly enough. This is on me."

"What happens now?"

"Investigation. Probably a lawsuit. Definitely the end of my career." I laugh, but it sounds broken. "Five years of work. Gone. Because I made one mistake."

I reach into my pocket. The stone is there. The one Xander gave me. For good luck.

Some luck.

Catherine sees me holding it. "Danny. We'll get through this. Together. As a family."

"Will we?" I look up at her. "How can we? How can I face you and Xander every day knowing what I've done? What I've destroyed?"

"By being here," she says firmly. "By being a husband and a father. That's what we need from you. Not perfect calculations. Not a brilliant career. Just you."

But she doesn't understand. How can I be just me when being me means being a failure? When being me means hurting people?

I don't say this out loud. But I think it. And I keep thinking it, every day, for the next four months.

Until the thinking becomes too much, and I leave.

Part Three: The Dark Vision

XANDER

I can't sleep again. It happens most nights now, this lying awake staring at the ceiling while my brain refuses to shut off. Mum thinks I don't know she's struggling, but I do. I see how tired she is. How she forces smiles. How she cries in the shower when she thinks I can't hear.

I reach for the watch. It's become a habit, this holding it when I can't sleep. Sometimes it shows me things, sometimes it doesn't. But the weight of it in my hand is comforting somehow.

Tonight, it shows me something.

The vision is longer than any I've had before. Thirty seconds, maybe more. And it's darker. Not just in lighting, though the place is dim. But in feeling. Like something heavy pressing down on my chest, making it hard to breathe.

I see Dad.

He looks terrible. Worse than I've ever seen him, worse even than the night of the accident. His hair is too long, grey streaked through it. His face is gaunt, with deep shadows under his eyes. He's wearing the blue jumper, the one with the hole in the elbow that Mum never fixed.

He's in some kind of warehouse or factory. Big and empty, with harsh fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Equipment is scattered everywhere, cables snaking across the floor like black serpents. And in the middle of it all stands a machine. A big, complicated machine that looks like something from Dad's old laboratory.

Dad is holding something small in his hand. At first I can't see what it is. He's staring at it with an expression that makes my stomach hurt. Sadness. Deep, bone-deep sadness. And something else. Resignation. Like he's about to do something he doesn't want to do but has to anyway.

Then he turns slightly and I see it clearly.

The stone. The grey one with the white band. The one I gave him three years ago at the creek. My lucky stone.

He places it carefully into a compartment in the machine. I see his lips move but I can't hear what he's saying. Then his hand goes to a large lever on the side of the device.

The moment before he pulls it, Dad's expression changes. The sadness is still there, but now there's finality too. The look of someone making a choice they know is wrong but can't stop themselves from making. The look of someone who's given up.

The machine begins to hum. A low, ominous sound that I can almost feel even though I'm not really there.

And then the vision ends.

I'm back in my bedroom, gasping, the watch hot in my hand. So hot it almost burns. I drop it onto my bedside table and stare at the ceiling, my heart pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears.

I don't understand exactly what I saw. I don't understand the science of it, the equipment, what Dad was trying to do. But I understand the feeling. I understand that resignation. That finality. That look of someone about to destroy themselves.

My dad is going to do something terrible. And somehow, impossibly, the stone I gave him is part of it.

The sad stone, I think. That's what it looked like in the vision. A sad stone being used for sad magic.

I have to stop him. Somehow, I have to find him and stop him.

Even if he doesn't want to be found. Even if he doesn't want to see me.

Because he's still my dad. And I still love him.

And love means you don't give up, even when everything is broken.

XANDER - Four Months Ago

I wake up to shouting. Not loud shouting. Quiet shouting, which is worse. The kind where people are trying not to be heard but their anger leaks through anyway.

Mum and Daddy. Downstairs.

My clock says 3:17 AM. My stomach does that dropping thing it's been doing a lot lately.

I slip out of bed, my feet cold on the wooden floor. The landing is dark. Below, I can see light spilling from the kitchen doorway.

I creep to the top of the stairs and sit down, hugging my knees. Mum's voice floats up: "You can't keep doing this, Danny. It's been three months. You barely speak to us. You lock yourself in your study all night. Xander asks about you constantly and I don't know what to tell him."

Daddy's voice is quieter, harder to hear: "I'm trying to fix it. If I can just prove the calculations work, if I can show that the accident was a simple error..."

"I don't care about the calculations!" Mum says, and now her voice is louder, shakier. "I care about you. About us. About our son who cries himself to sleep because his father won't look at him anymore."

My hand flies to my mouth. I didn't know she knew about the crying. I thought I was quiet enough.

There's a long pause. Then Daddy's voice, broken: "I can't. I can't look at him, Catherine. Every time I do, I see what I've destroyed. The future I promised him. The stability. The father he deserves. I see it all gone because I made one mistake. One stupid, arrogant mistake."

My chest hurts. Is that why he won't look at me? Because I remind him of the accident?

"So fix it by being here!" Mum is crying now. I can hear it. "By being his father. Not by hiding in your study obsessing over equations that don't matter anymore."

"They matter to me!"

Silence. Heavy and terrible.

Then Mum, very quiet: "More than we do?"

"That's not fair."

"Isn't it? You chose your pride over your family, Danny. You chose your career over your marriage. And now you're choosing these pointless calculations over your son. So tell me, what part of that isn't fair?"

Footsteps. Daddy's footsteps, heavy and final, walking towards the front door.

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know. Out. I need to think."

"Danny, please." Mum sounds desperate. "We can work through this. We can get help. Counselling, therapy, whatever you need. Just don't run away from this."

"I'm not running away."

"Yes, you are! You've been running away for three months. From me, from Xander, from everything that isn't your precious work!"

"I just need space. I need to fix this."

"You need to fix us!"

The front door opens. Closes. Not a slam. Just a soft click.

I run to my bedroom window, the one that looks out over the front garden. Daddy's car is in the driveway. He's standing next to it, one hand on the roof, his head bowed.

For a moment, just a moment, I think he'll turn around. Come back inside. Say he's sorry.

But he doesn't. He gets in the car. Starts the engine. The headlights cut through the darkness.

And then he's gone.

I watch the taillights disappear down the street, and I know. I know this isn't just him going for a drive to think. This is something bigger. Something final.

Downstairs, Mum is crying. Proper crying, the kind where you can't breathe properly.

I climb back into bed and pull my blanket over my head. I cry too, but quietly. So quietly.

In the morning, Daddy's study is empty. His clothes from the wardrobe are gone. And there's a note on the kitchen table.

I don't read it. Mum tries to hide it before I come downstairs, but I see her folding it up, her hands shaking. I see the tears on her face.

She makes me breakfast like everything is normal. Pancakes. My favourite. But neither of us eats.

"Daddy had to go away for a while," she says finally. "He needs to sort some things out. It's not your fault, love. It's grown-up things. Complicated things."

But I heard what she said last night. About me crying. About Daddy not looking at me. About him choosing his work over us.

So I know it is my fault. At least partly. If I was better, more interesting, more worth staying for, maybe he wouldn't have left.

I don't say this to Mum. Instead I just nod and push my pancakes around my plate.

The note stays on the kitchen table all day. I still don't read it. Because as long as I don't read it, maybe it's not real. Maybe Daddy will come back and say it was all a mistake.

But he doesn't come back that day. Or the next day. Or the day after that.

And four months later, when I find the watch in the attic of our new house, I'm still waiting.

DANNY - The Same Night

I drive aimlessly until the sun comes up, then find myself in a Tesco car park, my head resting on the steering wheel, the engine still running.

Catherine is right. I am running away. I've been running away since the accident, retreating further and further into my work, into my calculations, into anything that isn't facing what I've done.

The stone is in my pocket. I take it out, hold it up to catch the early morning light filtering through the windscreen.

For good luck, Daddy.

Xander's voice, three years ago. His small serious face when he gave it to me. The absolute trust in his eyes.

I think about going back. Walking through that door. Telling Catherine she's right, that I need help, that I'm sorry.

But then I'd have to face Xander. Look into his eyes and see the realisation dawn that his father is just a man. A deeply flawed, broken man who let pride destroy everything that mattered.

I can't do it. Can't bear the thought of him seeing me like this. Better to leave. Fix myself first. Come back when I have something to offer. When I'm not just the man who failed.

It's cowardice dressed up as self-improvement. I know that even as I'm doing it.

But I do it anyway.

I find a bedsit to rent. One room, shared bathroom, £400 a month. I get a job at a call centre. I tell myself it's temporary.

Four months later, I'm still there. Still broken. Still too much of a coward to go home.

Still carrying a stone a five-year-old gave me and believing it might somehow lead me back to redemption.

Still not understanding that redemption isn't something you earn through achievement. It's something you accept through grace.

But I'll learn. Eventually. In an abandoned warehouse. From my eight-and-a-half-year-old son.

Part Four: Preparation

XANDER

I use the watch two more times over the next few days, trying to see more of the vision. Trying to understand where Dad is, when he'll be there, how I can stop him.

The second time, I see a bit more of the building's exterior through a grimy window. Chain-link fence. Weeds growing through broken tarmac. A faded sign I can't quite read. Industrial estate, maybe?

The third time, I see Dad's hands more clearly as he works on the machine. They're shaking. His fingers fumble with the controls. He looks exhausted. Defeated. Like he's already lost and he's just going through the motions.

Each vision makes it worse. Makes me more certain that I have to do something. That if I don't, something terrible will happen.

Marcus notices I'm being weird. We're in the playground at break and I'm not paying attention to anything he's saying. He's going on about some video game, but all I can think about is Dad and the machine and that look on his face.

"Xander? Hello?" He waves his hand in front of my face. "Are you even listening?"

"Sorry," I say. "I was just thinking about something."

"You're always thinking about something lately," Marcus says. He sounds hurt. "And you're being really weird. Weirder than normal, I mean." He pauses, looking at me closely. "Is it about your dad?"

I freeze. We don't talk about Dad. I haven't mentioned him in months.

"I know he left," Marcus says quietly. "My mum told me. She said I should be extra nice to you because you're going through a hard time."

My face goes hot. Everyone knows. Of course everyone knows. Small town, small school. Nothing stays secret.

"I don't want to talk about it," I say, my voice sharper than I mean it to be.

"Okay," Marcus says. "But if you do want to talk about it, I'm here. That's what friends are for, right?"

I nod, not trusting myself to speak. Marcus is a good friend. Better than I deserve, probably. But I can't tell him about the watch, about the visions, about what I'm planning to do.

Some things you have to do alone.

On Saturday, I take two buses to the old house. The one with the creek out the back. It's risky. If Mum finds out, she'll be furious. But I need stones. New stones. Better stones than the sad one.

The creek is exactly how I remember it. Fast-moving water, smooth stones worn round by time, the sound of it rushing over rocks. I used to love this sound. Dad said it was the sound of time itself, always moving forward, never stopping.

I spend hours searching. The water is cold, making my fingers numb, but I don't care. I need perfect stones. Stones that mean something. Stones that are about now, not about the past. Stones that are about hope, not sadness.

I find seven of them. My lucky number. Each one is special in its own way. One is perfectly round and black as midnight. Another is pale blue with dark speckles like stars. A third has layers of colour like a sunset frozen in stone. A fourth is pure white with gold veins running through it.

I put them in my rucksack like treasure. Like they're the most important things in the world.

Maybe they are.

The address comes from an envelope I find in Mum's desk when she's at work. I'm not supposed to go through her things, but this is important. Life or death important, maybe.

Gellar Research Services, Unit 7, Ashford Industrial Estate. Written in Dad's handwriting, the letters slightly shaky.

I look it up on the school library computer when Mrs Patterson isn't watching. The industrial estate closed down five years ago. Perfect place to hide. Perfect place for someone to do something they don't want anyone to know about.

That night, I pack my rucksack carefully. The seven stones, wrapped in my old Batman t-shirt so they don't click together. The watch. My torch. Water and cereal bars. Everything I might need.

I write a note for Mum: Gone to help Dad. Back soon. Love you.

It's not enough. I know it's not enough. She'll be terrified. But I can't tell her the truth. She'd either think I'm lying or, worse, believe me and try to stop me. And I can't be stopped. Not now. Not when Dad needs me.

I set my alarm for three in the morning. Lie in bed with my eyes open, staring at the ceiling. Waiting.

And trying not to think about how scared I am.

Part Five: The Journey Through the Dark

XANDER

Three in the morning looks like the end of the world. Dark and empty and cold. I've never been outside this late before. Never walked through streets where all the houses are sleeping, where streetlamps cast long orange shadows, where every sound feels too loud.

I'm terrified. Properly terrified. Not the scared feeling you get from a horror film or a nightmare. The kind of fear that sits in your stomach like a stone and makes your legs weak and your hands shake.

But I keep walking.

The night bus stop is forty minutes away. I've memorised the route from the library computer, but everything looks different in the dark. Buildings I recognise in daylight become strange and threatening. Shadows move in ways they shouldn't. A fox crosses the road ahead of me, its eyes reflecting in the streetlight, and I nearly scream.

I think about Mum. She'll be asleep now, but in a few hours she'll wake up and find my note. She'll be so scared. So angry. So hurt that I left without telling her properly. I almost turn back.

But then I think about Dad. About the look on his face in the vision. That resignation. That sadness. That look of someone who's given up on everything. And I know I have to keep going.

The bus driver barely looks at me when I get on. There are only three other passengers, all half-asleep or staring at their phones. I sit near the back and press my forehead against the cool glass, watching the city roll past in the pre-dawn darkness.

I try not to think about what I'm doing. Eight-and-a-half-year-old. Travelling alone in the middle of the night to find his dad. To stop him from doing something terrible with nothing but a pocket watch and seven stones.

It sounds mad when I think about it like that. Maybe I am mad. Maybe the watch has made me mad. Maybe none of this is real and I'm still in bed dreaming.

But the cold glass against my forehead feels real. The weight of the rucksack on my lap feels real. The fear twisting in my stomach feels real.

So I keep going.

The industrial estate is worse than I imagined. Chain-link fence with holes torn in it, exactly like in the vision. Buildings with broken windows and graffiti. Weeds everywhere, pushing up through cracks in the tarmac. It looks like something from a zombie film, like the world ended here and no one bothered to clean up.

I squeeze through a hole in the fence, my rucksack catching on the jagged metal. The sound it makes seems impossibly loud. I freeze, listening, but there's nothing. Just the wind and the distant sound of traffic on the motorway.

Unit 7 is at the far end of the estate. I walk slowly, my torch beam cutting through the darkness, jumping at every sound. A cat yowls somewhere. Wind rattles a loose sheet of metal. My own footsteps echo off the buildings.

The building is three storeys tall, made of corrugated metal and concrete. Most of the windows are boarded up, but I can see light escaping from cracks around the boards on the second floor. Faint blue light, flickering.

Someone is inside. Dad is inside.

My hand is shaking so much I can barely turn the door handle. It's unlocked. The door swings open with a rusty creak that seems impossibly loud in the pre-dawn quiet.

Inside, the building is huge and empty and cold. A metal staircase leads up, and it's from the second floor that the light is coming, along with a low humming sound. Mechanical. Steady. The sound of the machine from my vision.

I climb the stairs one at a time. Each step echoes. Each step brings me closer to Dad. Each step makes me more scared.

What if he doesn't want to see me? What if he's angry? What if I'm too late? What if the vision was wrong? What if I've come all this way for nothing?

The second-floor landing opens onto a large room, and there it is. The machine from my vision. Cables everywhere, snaking across the floor like thick black ropes. Flickering blue light pulsing from somewhere inside it. And Dad, standing beside it with his back to me, working on something.

He looks exactly like he did in the vision. The long hair. The thin face. The blue jumper with the hole in the elbow. He's muttering to himself, that soft stream of technical words I remember from before.

I take a breath. My heart is pounding so hard I think he must be able to hear it. I step into the room.

"Dad?"

Part Six: The Confrontation

DANNY

I spin around so fast I nearly knock over a pile of equipment. My heart is hammering. There's someone in the room with me, someone who shouldn't be here, someone who...

Xander.

My son. My eight-and-a-half-year-old son. Standing in an abandoned warehouse at four in the morning, his small face pale in the fluorescent light, his school rucksack on his back, looking at me with eyes that are scared and hopeful and determined all at once.

For a moment, I can't process it. Can't make sense of what I'm seeing. It's like my brain has short-circuited, like the image in front of me is so impossible that it simply won't compute.

Then reality crashes back. "Xander? What are you... how did you... you shouldn't be here!"

My voice comes out harsh. Angry. Panicked. All the things I swore I'd never be with him. "Does your mother know you're here?"

"I left her a note," he says. His voice is small but steady. Braver than I feel. "I came to stop you."

"Stop me from what?" But even as I say it, I know. Somehow, impossibly, he knows. About the machine. About what I'm planning.

He doesn't answer. Instead, he reaches into his rucksack and pulls out something that makes my blood run cold.

A pocket watch. Tarnished silver. And even from across the room, even after all these years, I recognise it.

The prototype. The first temporal device I ever built, the one that worked but not in the way I intended. The one that showed probabilities instead of creating fields. The one I thought was lost in the move all those months ago.

"Where did you get that?" My voice is barely a whisper.

"Our attic," Xander says. He opens the watch, showing me the frozen hands. "It shows me things, Dad. It shows me the future."

And suddenly I'm laughing. Hysterical, broken laughter that hurts my chest and makes my eyes water. Because of course. Of course my son would find the one piece of equipment that actually worked. Of course he'd figure out how to use it. Of course he'd see what I was planning.

Of course the universe would send my eight-year-old son to save me from myself.

I sink onto a crate, my head in my hands, still laughing that awful broken laugh. "The prototype. I thought it was lost. Your mother must have packed it by mistake." I look up at him through my fingers. "And you just happened to find it. My son just happened to find the one piece of failed temporal technology that actually worked."

"It's not failed," Xander says quietly, firmly. "It works. I saw you, Dad. I saw you putting the stone in the machine. The stone I gave you. And I saw your face."

My whole body goes cold. "What did my face look like?"

"Sad," he says simply. His voice cracks on the word. "Really, really sad."

Part Seven: The Truth Between Father and Son

DANNY

I look at my son. Really look at him for the first time in four months. He's thinner than I remember. There are shadows under his eyes that no eight-year-old should have. His clothes are slightly too big, like Catherine bought them hoping he'd grow into them but he hasn't yet. Too much stress. Not enough eating.

And he's looking at me with eyes that have seen too much. Eyes that have watched his father fall apart and disappear. Eyes that still, impossibly, hold hope.

I gesture weakly to the crate next to me. "Sit down, kiddo. I think... I think I need to explain some things."

He sits carefully, his rucksack still on his back, like he's ready to run if he needs to. The thought breaks something inside me. My son is afraid of me. Or afraid for me. Maybe both.

"Do you know what I do?" I ask. "What I used to do, before everything went wrong?"

"You worked with time," Xander says. "Mum told me. Something about making time work differently."

"Chronal mechanics," I say. The words taste like ash in my mouth. "The infrastructure of time itself. How it flows, how it can be measured, how it might be influenced." I gesture at the machine. "This was my life's work. Building a device that could create stable temporal fields. Do you know what that means?"

He shakes his head, and I feel a rush of something like relief. At least he doesn't have to understand the full extent of my failure.

"It means I was trying to give people more time. Not time travel, nothing like that. Just... pockets. Moments where time moved differently. Imagine being able to stretch an hour into a day. Imagine what people could do with that. The problems they could solve. The moments they could save."

I laugh, but it's bitter, hollow. "Noble, right? Except I made a mistake. A crucial, catastrophic mistake in the calculations. When I activated the prototype, instead of creating a stable field, it created a cascade. A feedback loop. It nearly destroyed the entire facility. Three people were seriously injured. The project was shut down. My reputation was destroyed."

I can't look at him when I say the next part. Can't bear to see his face.

"And I couldn't forgive myself. Every time I looked at you and your mother, I saw everything I'd destroyed. My career, our future, your chance at a stable home. How could I stay when I'd failed so completely?"

XANDER

I watch Dad talk, and I can see how much it hurts him. Every word is like he's pulling it out of somewhere deep inside, somewhere that's been locked up for months.

"By being Dad," I say quietly when he finishes. "That's all we needed. Not the science. Not the big magic. Just you."

Dad looks at me like I've slapped him. His face goes through about ten different expressions in two seconds.

Then he pulls out something from his pocket. The stone. My stone. The grey one with the white band. "This stone has been in my pocket every single day since you gave it to me. Do you remember what you said?"

"For good luck," I whisper. My throat feels tight.

"For good luck," he repeats. "And it wasn't, was it? I had it with me the day of the accident. I had it with me the day your mother and I had our final fight. I had it with me every single day as my life fell apart." He looks down at the stone, turning it over and over. "But maybe it was the wrong kind of luck. Maybe it was trying to bring me here, to this moment, where I could finally fix what I broke."

"What happens if you fix it?" I ask. "If you turn on the machine and it works this time?"

Dad takes a breath. "It proves I was right. It proves the calculations work. I can publish the results. Rebuild my reputation. Maybe... maybe even get a real job again."

"And then what?"

"Then I have something to offer your mother again. I'm not just the man who failed. I'm the man who fixed it. Maybe she could forgive me. Maybe we could..."

He doesn't finish, but I understand. He thinks if he fixes his work, he fixes everything. Like life is a maths problem and if you just find the right equation, it all adds up.

But that's not how it works. I'm eight and a half and even I know that.

"Dad," I say slowly, carefully. "That's not how it works. Mum doesn't care about your work. She never did. She just cared about you."

DANNY

I shake my head. He doesn't understand. "That's not true. When the accident happened, she was so disappointed. So angry. She said I'd put my work before everything else, before her, before you, and she was right. If I can prove the work was valuable, that it wasn't all for nothing..."

XANDER

"She was angry because you left," I say, and my voice is shaking but I keep going. "Not because the experiment failed. Because you left us. You chose to leave instead of staying and being sad with us."

Dad opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. He looks like I've said something he never thought of before.

"I couldn't face you both," he says finally, quietly. "Every time I looked at you, I saw everything I'd destroyed. How could I stay when I'd failed so completely?"

"By being Dad," I say again. Louder this time. "That's all we needed."

We stare at each other for a long moment. The machine hums between us. I can feel its vibration through the floor, through my feet, through my whole body.

Then Dad says, very quietly, so quietly I almost don't hear it: "But it's too late now, isn't it?"

And that's when I know. That's when I know I have to do it. Have to show him. Have to make him understand that it's not too late. That it's never too late if you just choose differently.

Part Eight: The Choice

XANDER

I reach into my rucksack, unwrap the Batman t-shirt, and pull out the seven stones. They click together in my palm, smooth and solid and real. "No," I say firmly. "It's not too late. But you have to stop trying to fix the old thing. The sad stone. You have to let it go."

I walk forward slowly, my heart pounding, until I'm standing right next to him. Up close, he looks even worse. More exhausted. More broken. But also, somehow, more real than he has in months. More like my actual dad instead of the ghost he's been.

I hold out the stones, my hand shaking slightly. "These are better. They're new luck. They're about now, not about before. Take them instead."

"Xander," Dad whispers. "I don't think you understand..."

"I do understand," I say, and my voice is louder now, stronger. "I saw what happens if you use the sad stone. I saw your face, Dad. And you don't look fixed. You look more broken. Please. Just... just take the new ones. Please."

My voice cracks on the last word. Suddenly I'm crying. Hot tears running down my face, and I can't stop them. All the fear and exhaustion of the night, all the months of missing him, all of it comes pouring out at once.

"Please, Daddy. Don't use the sad stone. It's too sad. Everything is too sad already. Please take the new ones. Please."

I'm eight and a half years old, standing in an abandoned building at four in the morning, crying and begging my father not to make a terrible mistake. I'm so tired. So scared. My legs are shaking and my chest hurts and I just want him to take the stones. I just want him to choose me instead of the machine.

Please, I think. Please just choose me.

DANNY

My son is crying. My beautiful, brave, impossibly courageous son is standing in front of me, tears streaming down his face, holding out seven river stones and begging me to choose them instead of the one he gave me three years ago.

Choose him instead of my pride.

Choose love instead of redemption through achievement.

Choose the present instead of trying to fix the past.

And in that moment, everything becomes crystal clear.

I've been so focused on fixing my professional failure that I couldn't see my personal one. I walked away from my family not because staying would have been too hard, but because facing them would have forced me to confront the truth: that I valued my pride more than their love.

That I chose my need to be right over my need to be present.

That I am, in every way that matters, a coward.

And yet here is Xander, who travelled across a city in the middle of the night, alone and terrified, because he believed his father could be saved. Because he had faith in me even when I had none in myself.

I look at the stones in his outstretched hand. Seven perfect river stones, each one carefully chosen. New luck, he called them. About now, not about before.

Then I look at the stone in my own hand. The sad stone. The stone I've been carrying like a talisman, like if I just held onto it long enough it would somehow magically fix everything I'd broken.

But it won't. Because stones can't fix what I've done. Science can't fix what I've done. The only thing that can fix what I've done is me, making different choices. Better choices.

Choices like listening to my son instead of my pride.

I hold out the sad stone to Xander. My hand is shaking. "Take it," I say quietly. "You're right. It is too sad. I should have let it go a long time ago."

Xander takes it carefully, reverently almost. He holds it in one hand, then offers me the other hand, palm up, seven stones shining against his skin in the blue light of the machine.

"These are better," he says again, his voice thick with tears. "I found them myself. They're good ones. The best I could find."

I reach out and take them, one by one, feeling their weight settle into my palm. They're smooth and cool, worn by water and time into perfect shapes. Each one is different. Each one is beautiful.

"Thank you," I say, and my voice breaks. "They're perfect."

I close my fist around them, and as I do, something extraordinary happens.

The machine, which has been humming steadily in the background for hours, suddenly changes pitch. The blue glow begins to fade. The temporal field I've been so carefully building simply... dissipates.

The machine powers down with a series of clicks and whirs, and then it's just equipment again. Expensive, complicated, ultimately meaningless equipment.

XANDER

I watch the machine die, the blue light fading to nothing. "What happened?"

DANNY

"I don't know," I say honestly. "Maybe it was waiting for me to make a choice. Maybe it knew I wasn't fully committed." I smile, and it feels strange on my face, like using muscles I've forgotten I had. "Or maybe there's more magic in river stones than in temporal mechanics."

XANDER

"The second one," I say firmly. "Definitely the second one."

Dad laughs. A real laugh. The first real laugh I've heard from him in forever.

Then he sinks down onto the floor, and I sit beside him. We sit there together in the quiet facility, surrounded by dead equipment and years of mistakes. And for the first time in four months, everything feels like it might actually be okay.

Not perfect. But okay.

DANNY

I sit on the floor of the warehouse, my son beside me, and for the first time in four months I can breathe properly. The weight that's been sitting on my chest, making everything heavy and difficult, has lifted.

The seven stones are cool in my palm. Seven smooth river stones, each one carefully chosen. New luck, Xander called them. About now, not about before.

He's right. Of course he's right. My eight-and-a-half-year-old son understands something I've spent four months refusing to see: that you can't fix the future by obsessing over the past. That love is more powerful than pride. That sometimes the bravest thing you can do is simply show up.

I pull him close, and he leans against me, and we sit there in the quiet facility surrounded by dead equipment and dying dreams. But for the first time in months, I don't feel like a failure. I feel like a father.

"I'm sorry," I say quietly. "Xander, I'm so sorry. For leaving. For making you think you weren't enough to stay for. For being so wrapped up in my own shame that I couldn't see how much I was hurting you and your mother."

"Are you going to come home?" he asks. His voice is small, hopeful.

"I don't know if your mother will have me back," I say honestly. "I hurt her badly. And she has every right to be angry."

"But you could try," Xander says. "You could at least try."

"Yes," I agree. "I could try. I should try. That's the least I can do."

We sit in silence for a while longer, watching the sky through the high windows begin to lighten with the approach of dawn. The industrial estate is still and quiet, but it doesn't feel desolate anymore. It feels like the place where something ended and something else began.

I stand up, my joints protesting, and hold out my hand. "Come on, kid. Let's get you home before your mother sends out a search party. Though knowing her, she probably already has."

Xander takes my hand, and we walk together through the facility. Down the metal stairs, each step echoing. Through the cavernous ground floor. Out into the early morning light.

The sun is just beginning to crest the horizon, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold. We both squint against it, and Xander raises his free hand to shield his eyes.

I look down at my son. At this small, brave boy who travelled across a city in the middle of the night to save his father. Who offered love when I deserved anger. Who believed in me when I'd stopped believing in myself.

I reach down and pat his shoulder gently. The words come easily, naturally, full of all the pride and gratitude and love I can't quite express any other way.

"You did ok, kid."

XANDER

Four words. That's all. But they settle into my chest like warm honey, spreading through me until I'm smiling so wide my face hurts.

"Thanks, Dad," I say.

We walk towards his car, and for the first time in months, everything feels right. Not perfect. I'm exhausted and scared about what Mum will say. My legs ache from all the walking. The watch in my rucksack feels heavier than it should.

But Dad is here. And he's holding my hand. And he said I did ok.

Maybe that's enough for now.

Part Nine: The Drive Home

DANNY

The drive home is simultaneously the longest and shortest journey of my life. Every traffic light feels like it takes an hour. Every mile marker feels like it arrives too soon.

Xander sits in the passenger seat, his rucksack on his lap, looking out the window. Every few minutes I glance over at him, still not quite believing he's real. That any of this is real.

"We should probably call your mother," I say. "Let her know you're safe."

"Can we get the chips first?" Xander asks, his voice small. "I'm really hungry. And the watch showed me we get chips."

I laugh despite myself. Despite everything. Only a child could survive a night like that and be primarily concerned about chips and trusting a vision from a temporal anomaly watch.

"Chips first," I agree. "Then we face your mother. Together."

The chip shop is just opening when we arrive, the smell of hot oil and salt making my stomach growl. I hadn't realised how hungry I was.

Mrs Chen, the owner, does a visible double-take when she sees me.

"Dr Gellar? Is that you? Haven't seen you in an age." Her eyes move to Xander, and her expression softens. "And this can't be little Xander? My goodness, you've grown."

"Just Xander now," my son says, drawing himself up slightly. "Not little anymore."

Mrs Chen laughs warmly. "I can see that. So what can I get you boys this fine morning?"

"Two portions of chips," I say. "Extra salt and vinegar."

As she busies herself behind the counter, she glances at us again. "You two been on an adventure, then? Bit early for breakfast."

"Something like that," I say.

We eat them sitting on the bonnet of my car, the sun warm on our faces, grease on our fingers. The chips are perfect, salty and crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside. It's the best meal I've had in four months. Possibly the best meal I've ever had.

XANDER

The chips are exactly like I saw in the vision. Even the way Dad is eating them, picking them up one at a time, concentrating on each one like it's the most important thing in the world.

I'm so tired I can barely keep my eyes open, but I force myself to stay awake. I don't want to miss this. Dad and me, together, eating chips as the sun comes up. It feels important somehow. Like something I need to remember.

"Dad?" I say through a mouthful of chips.

"Yeah?"

"What are you going to say to Mum?"

He thinks about this for a long moment, a chip paused halfway to his mouth.

"The truth," he says finally. "That I was wrong. That I was a coward. That I let my pride destroy the most important things in my life. And that I'm sorry. So, so sorry."

"Will she forgive you?" I ask.

Dad looks at me, and his expression is complicated. Hopeful and scared at the same time.

"I don't know," he says honestly. "But I'm going to try. Not because I've proven anything about my work. Not because I've earned it. But because you deserve to have a father who at least tries."

I nod, satisfied with this answer. We finish our chips in comfortable silence, and then Dad takes a deep breath.

"Ready?" he asks.

I nod. As ready as I'll ever be.

Part Ten: Coming Home

XANDER

Mum's car is in the driveway when we pull up. The front door flies open before we've even got out, and Mum comes running out in her dressing gown, her mobile phone clutched in her hand, her face a mess of tears and relief and anger.

"Xander!" She pulls me into her arms so tight I can barely breathe. "Don't you ever, EVER do that again! Do you understand me? I woke up and you were gone and there was just a note and I've been calling the police and I thought..."

Her voice breaks. She's shaking. I've never felt her shake like this before.

"I'm sorry, Mum," I whisper into her shoulder. "I'm really sorry. But I had to. I had to help Dad."

She pulls back slightly, and that's when she sees him. Dad, standing awkwardly by the car, his hands in his pockets, looking like he doesn't know if he's allowed to be here.

"Danny." Her voice goes flat. Carefully controlled.

"Hello, Catherine."

They stare at each other over my head. I can feel the tension, thick and heavy. Four months of hurt and anger hanging between them like a wall.

DANNY

Catherine looks exhausted. Her eyes are red from crying. Her hair is messy. She's wearing the dressing gown I bought her two Christmases ago, the one with the coffee stain on the sleeve she never managed to get out.

She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

"He came to find me," I say quietly. "Travelled across the city in the middle of the night. To stop me from making a terrible mistake."

Catherine's face pales. "What kind of mistake?"

"The kind where I was going to prove I was right at any cost. Even if it meant losing everything that actually matters." I take a breath. "Catherine, I need to talk to you. There's a lot I need to say. A lot I need to apologise for."

She looks at me for a long moment. Then at Xander, who is looking up at her with those hopeful eyes. Then back at me.

"You look terrible," she says finally.

"I know."

"You smell like chip fat and old buildings."

"I know that too."

"And I'm very, very angry with you."

"You have every right to be."

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. When she opens them again, there are tears streaming down her face.

"Come inside," she says, her voice thick. "I'll make tea. And then you're going to explain everything. And I mean everything, Danny. No more secrets. No more running away."

"No more running away," I echo. "I promise."

As we walk towards the house, Xander takes my hand on one side and Catherine's on the other. And for a moment, just a moment, we're a family again.

It's not fixed. Not by a long shot. There's so much work to do, so many conversations to have, so much trust to rebuild.

But it's a start.

XANDER

Mum makes tea while Dad and I sit at the kitchen table. The same table where we used to have breakfast together before everything went wrong. It feels strange having Dad here again, in this house he's never been to, sitting in a chair that isn't his.

But it also feels right somehow.

Dad tells Mum everything. About the machine at the warehouse. About his plan to prove his calculations were right. About how close he came to activating it. He doesn't leave anything out. Doesn't try to make himself sound better.

When he gets to the part about me showing up, Mum looks at me with an expression I can't quite read. Pride and terror mixed together.

"You took two buses in the middle of the night," she says slowly. "By yourself. You're eight years old."

"Eight and a half," I correct automatically.

"Xander." Her voice is very serious. Very Mum. "You could have been hurt. Or lost. Or..." She swallows hard. "You can't ever do something like that again. Do you understand?"

"I had to," I say. "I saw what was going to happen. I had to stop it."

"Saw?" Mum looks between me and Dad. "What do you mean, saw?"

So I tell her about the watch. About finding it in the attic. About the visions. About seeing Dad with the machine and knowing, just knowing, that I had to help.

When I finish, Mum is quiet for a long time. Then she says, very carefully, "Show me."

I pull out the watch from my rucksack and hold it. For a moment nothing happens. Then there's a flash. Brief but clear.

The three of us sitting in this kitchen. Laughing. Dad has his arm around Mum's shoulders. I'm showing them something on my laptop, something for school. We look happy. Really happy. Like a proper family.

The vision ends. I smile.

"What did you see?" Mum asks softly.

"Something good," I say. "Something really good."

Mum reaches across the table and takes both of our hands. Dad's and mine. She squeezes tight, and we sit there like that for a long moment, connected.

"This is going to take time," Mum says finally, looking at Dad. "A lot of time. And a lot of work. I can't just pretend the last four months didn't happen. The hurt doesn't just go away."

"I know," Dad says. "I don't expect it to be easy. Or quick. I just want the chance to try. To prove that I can be better. That I can be the husband and father you both deserve."

"Counselling," Mum says. "We need counselling. Both of us. Maybe all three of us."

"Whatever you need," Dad says. "Whatever it takes."

I look between them. Mum still looks sad, but there's something else there now too. Hope, maybe. And Dad looks more alive than he has in months.

It's not perfect. But it's better. So much better than it was.

Part Eleven: Six Months Later

XANDER

The creek behind our old house runs fast today, swollen with spring rain. Dad and I sit on the bank, our fingers trailing in the cold water, watching the stones tumble and shift in the current.

This has become our thing. Every other Saturday, just the two of us, coming here to search for stones and talk about everything and nothing.

Dad doesn't live with us yet. That's still being worked out. He and Mum are in counselling together, and separately, and Mum says it's helping. She smiles more now. Real smiles, not the tight ones she was doing before.

Dad comes for dinner three nights a week. On Tuesdays and Thursdays and Sundays. And every other Saturday is adventure day, like it used to be. Sometimes we come here to the creek. Sometimes we go to museums or the cinema or just walk around town eating ice cream.

It's not perfect. There are still hard days. Days when Mum gets that look in her eyes, the one that says she's remembering the hurt. Days when Dad seems sad even when he's smiling. Days when I remember how scared I was that night in the warehouse.

But it's better. So much better than it was.

"Penny for your thoughts," Dad says.

I pull my hand from the water and shake off the drops. "I was thinking about the watch."

"Have you used it lately?"

"No," I say. "Not since that night. I keep it in my drawer, but I don't need to look anymore."

"Why not?"

I think about it, trying to put the feeling into words. "Because I understand now. The future is always changing. If I kept looking at it, I'd always be trying to fix things that haven't happened yet instead of just being here. In the now."

Dad smiles. "That's very wise."

"Besides," I add, "the future I saw that night was scary. The one I've got now is better. I changed it by using the watch, but now I don't want to accidentally change it again by worrying too much."

"The watch shows probabilities," Dad says gently. "The most likely futures based on current choices. You changed those choices, so you changed the future. But you can't break the future by looking at it."

"Still," I say. "I think I'm done looking. For now anyway."

We sit in comfortable silence for a while. Then I spot something in the water and reach in, pulling out a smooth round stone. It's dark grey with flecks of gold that catch the sunlight.

"That's a beauty," Dad says.

I examine it carefully, turning it over in my palm. Then I hold it out to him. "Here. For your collection."

Dad takes it, feeling its weight, its smoothness. He's kept all seven stones I gave him that night. They live in a small wooden box on his bedside table in the bedsit, and every morning he takes one out at random and carries it with him all day.

"Thank you," he says. "I'll add it to the collection."

"What happened to the sad stone?" I ask. "The first one. Did we ever let it go properly?"

DANNY

I reach into my jacket pocket and pull it out. The grey stone with the white band. "I kept it," I say. "Not to hold onto the sadness, but as a reminder. Of what I almost did. Of what I almost lost."

I turn it over in my fingers, feeling the familiar smoothness. "But I think it's time to let it go properly. Would you do the honours?"

Xander takes it carefully, holds it up to the light. For a moment he just looks at it, and I wonder what he's thinking. What memories it holds for him.

Then he stands up, walks to the edge of the water, and draws his arm back. He throws the stone as hard as he can, and it arcs through the air, spinning, catching the light, before splashing down in the middle of the creek.

For a moment we can see it tumbling along the bottom, visible through the clear water. Then the current catches it and carries it downstream, away, until it's just another stone among thousands, indistinguishable from all the rest.

"Goodbye, sad stone," Xander says quietly.

I stand up and put my arm around his shoulders. "Goodbye, sad stone. And thank you. For bringing me here."

We stand there together, watching the water flow past, carrying the past away with it. The sun is warm on our faces. Somewhere nearby, a bird is singing. And for the first time in a very long time, I feel something I'd forgotten how to feel.

Peace.

"Dad?" Xander says after a while.

"Yeah, kiddo?"

"I'm glad I found the watch. Even though it was scary. Because it meant I could help."

I pull him closer. "You would have helped anyway. With or without the watch. That's who you are. That's who you've always been."

"Really?"

"Really. You have something better than the ability to see the future, Xander. You have the ability to care about people. To see when they're hurting and want to help them. That's a much rarer gift."

He thinks about this for a moment, then nods, satisfied.

I check my watch. The normal kind, the one that just tells time. "Come on. Your mother will be wondering where we've got to. And I promised we'd be back in time for lunch."

We walk back through the woods together. Xander keeps his eyes open for good stones, but he's not really searching. He's just enjoying the walk. The sound of leaves rustling. The dappled sunlight through the trees. The simple pleasure of being here, now, together.

When we reach the car, I pause before unlocking it. There's something I need to say. Something I've been wanting to say for months but haven't quite found the words for.

I crouch down so we're eye to eye. "Xander. I want you to know something. What you did that night, coming to find me, stopping me from making a terrible mistake... that took more courage than I've ever had."

"I spent months trying to fix the past with science and calculations. You fixed the future with nothing but love and seven river stones." My voice cracks. "I'm so proud of you. Not just for that night, but for who you are. For being braver and smarter and kinder than I ever was at your age. Than I am now, honestly."

Xander's eyes are shining. "I love you, Dad."

"I love you too, kid. So much. Never doubt that."

We hug there in the car park, a long, tight hug that says all the things we still don't have words for. When we finally pull apart, we're both smiling.

XANDER

That night, after Dad has gone back to his bedsit with promises to see us Tuesday, after dinner and homework and Mum reading me a story even though I'm probably too old for it, I go up to my room and take out the watch one last time.

I hold it for a moment, feeling its familiar weight. Then I open it and look.

The vision comes quickly. Clear and bright.

I see our house. Not this one. The old one, with the creek out the back. We've moved back. Dad is there, in the kitchen, making pancakes. Mum is at the table, drinking coffee, laughing at something he said. I'm older. Nine, maybe. Maybe even ten.

We look happy. Not perfect. There are still moments of tension I can see in the way they move around each other. Still careful spaces. Still healing wounds.

But we're together. We're a family. And that's enough.

The vision fades. I close the watch and put it back in the drawer.

I don't need to look anymore. I know what's coming. Not the details, maybe. Not the exact way it all happens. But I know the important thing: we're going to be okay.

Not because of magic or science or temporal mechanics. Because we chose each other. Every day, even when it's hard. Especially when it's hard.

I climb into bed and pull the covers up. Downstairs, I can hear Mum moving around the kitchen, the familiar sounds of home. Outside, the world is dark and quiet.

I think about that night in the warehouse. About being so scared but doing it anyway. About offering Dad those stones and not knowing if it would be enough.

It was enough. Love was enough.

Not big magic or complicated science. Just seven stones from a creek and a boy who loved his dad and refused to give up.

That was enough to change everything.

I fall asleep smiling, the watch safe in its drawer, the future unfolding exactly as it should.

One choice at a time. One day at a time. One stone at a time.

The End