Rewinding Fate--Take 3

 Rewinding Fate—Take 3

Katya
stopped
crossing out
meetings.

Stopped
moving houses.

Stopped
rerouting
school buses.

She looked
instead

at a photograph.

A hospital room.

A woman
holding
a newborn.

Gina.

Tiki's ears
flattened.

"Oh."

Katya nodded.

"If history
keeps introducing
Anthony..."

she said,

"...then maybe
history starts
too late."

Silence.

"What if..."

she whispered.

"...Gina
has different parents?"

Even the Time Machine

hesitated.

The air
inside
the cockpit

felt heavier.

Tiki
didn't joke.

"You know
what that means."

Katya
kept staring
at the photograph.

"A different family."

"A different childhood."

"A different face,
maybe."

"A different laugh."

"A different favorite song."

She swallowed.

"But she'd be safe."

Tiki
walked over.

"Gina
wouldn't be safe."

Katya frowned.

"She wouldn't
be Gina."

The words

landed

harder
than gravity.

Katya reached
for the controls.

Her paw

stopped

an inch away.

Because changing

a meeting

still left
Gina.

Changing

her hometown

still left
Gina.

Changing

her parents...

left someone else.

The machine
offered
the jump anyway.

Coordinates
glowed.

Hospital.

Delivery room.

Three minutes
before birth.

History
held its breath.

Katya
lifted her paw.

Then lowered it.

Quietly,

she deleted
the destination.

Tiki
looked at her.

"I thought
you'd do it."

"So did I."

The Time Machine
turned away
from the hospital.

For the first time,

Katya realized

there was a line

between

saving someone's life

and

erasing the person
whose life
you meant to save.

Destiny,
it seemed,

wasn't protecting
Anthony.

It was protecting

Gina.