Chapter Text
Determination. The power to control time. Given to one human in a century, this power comes with three main options. SAVE, the storage of a moment in time. LOAD, the return to such a moment in time. And the most powerful, the RESET, in which the power takes time back as far as it can go.
Ib didn’t know any of this. All she knew was that sometimes, time would rewind itself around her. She had no control over this power, and it wasn’t very strong, so she put it out of mind. Nobody else ever remembered what she did, and sometimes she’d use it to her advantage, but to her, it was just something that happened.
For nine years, that was all it was. And then Ib’s parents announced that they would be visiting a local art gallery. The next day, Ib woke up with the distinct feeling that she was forgetting about something.
“Never trust a yellow flower. And save the blue rose.”
“Mom?” Ib asked on the way there. “Is there such a thing as a blue rose?”
“Of course not, sweetie. They don’t exist. Not real ones, anyway.”
“Oh.” But something told her that was wrong. There was such a thing as a blue rose. She just knew.
And then she met Garry, and she knew she was right. Blue roses did exist. One in particular. She just wished she knew why she felt so attached.
She’d always felt there was something off about Mary’s rose. Not the material, but the color. Yellow wasn’t a good color for her, the way red fit Ib perfectly and dark blue was definitely the right match for Garry. It was wrong.
She’d found it being fake wasn’t a surprise. Someone with Mary didn’t deserve a yellow rose. She didn’t know why she felt that way, it just was. Red was her color. Garry was important to her. And a murderer didn’t deserve a yellow rose.
She watched the painting go up in flames in satisfaction, not caring about the extra petals on her rose or the fact that her hands were literally burning. All she wanted was revenge.
And after Ib was sure that the painting was gone entirely, she moved back, controlled this time, knowing what she wanted to do.
She walked into the gallery and prepared to jump into the other world, noting, as she walked this path, that Garry was, for the moment, alive. She’d try not to let this chance go to waste.
Again. And again. She kept failing, couldn’t keep him alive. But she had to. She didn’t know why. But something in her refused to leave and go home without Garry. She listened to that part more than anything else.
She was certain that, had injuries the possibility of carrying over through time travel, her hands would be a blackened mess of burn scars by now. Still, she continued. She’d never permanently die, just move back a bit, until he died, at which point she would burn Mary and go back all the way.
It was like clockwork, if the clocks actually worked for her. The only change was that she now saw things as they really were, no longer fawning over nonexistent bunnies.
She hated those dolls. They were like a living reminder of her failures. Still, she hoped that this time, whatever she said could keep Garry from going off the edge around them, that she could open the door to that room and not find him so utterly broken. Sometimes, it even happened, although it still reached the same end.
She wished there was a way to save him for sure. But she couldn’t control his actions, only influence them with her own.
“Please, Garry,” she whispered as she left with Mary. “Please be okay.”
It wasn’t just the inside of the otherworldly Gallery that Ib explored. The normal world and exhibit had plenty of things for her to do, as well, until she left to try again. She noticed several things, took note so she could properly visit them later, once she’d succeeded.
She knew, when she first stepped into the museum, exactly where Garry would be. The Hanged Man portrait. He had told her, once, that it represented self-sacrifice. That he would be drawn to it… Ib didn’t believe in fate, her entire motivation being to change it, but she was sure that was what others would say.
Still she continued, walking in a storm of blood and roses, her mind set on a single goal.
She realized that, maybe, she was going crazy. She didn’t care anymore. There was one thing she wanted, and she was going to get it, no matter what.
She could control time near perfectly now. She’d prove that fate didn’t exist. She’d stop it herself, with no help from anybody.
Perhaps she was going about this the wrong way. It wasn’t getting him not to give his rose to Mary. It was keeping Mary from ever getting a hold of a rose to begin with.
She wondered if it could be solved by simply going back a bit farther and wearing something with a pocket, but couldn’t think of anything in her closet that would work.
Still, when she and Garry fell, she clutched her rose tightly. She wouldn’t lose this time. She couldn’t.
It still fell. But Mary never got it.
Ib had won.
She didn’t want to forget. She didn’t know why she felt that way, but something in her knew that once they’d left, so would their memories. She didn’t want that to happen. She wanted to remember. After all, if she forgot, how would she remember the reason she knew so much?
“Garry-” She started, and stopped for a bit, properly composing herself. His rose was intact. She had succeeded in her quest, finally, showing the Determination that her red rose represented.
She had names for the colors now. Determination for red. Justice for yellow. And Integrity for deep blue. She didn’t know why they had those names, but she knew that they did. And that was just one of the questions she’d need to remember in order to answer properly.
“What is it, Ib?”
“Here.” She took his hand, with a cut on it from earlier, and now a few burns, and tied her handkerchief around it. “So nobody wonders about the burns.”
He accepted her gesture, didn’t comment on it. But, for now, her journey was over. She could go home.
She wasn’t entirely sure what she would do, after the Gallery. She’d just figured she’d get around to it when the time came. Now, it was over, and despite it being a complete hell, she almost felt lost.
She pushed away those feelings, and stepped through the painting.
He was in front of a rose sculpture now, and she wandered up next to him. She fingered the candy in her pocket appreciatively, glad that it had let her remember those trials. She wondered if the handkerchief had triggered his own memories yet.
“Oh! Would you like a better look?” Either he didn’t yet remember, or he was playing dumb. Ib was going to go with the former, because Garry was a terrible liar. That she had learned early on.
“Thanks. It’s an interesting statue, isn’t it?” She asked, wondering if she could trigger it herself. “I like roses. Just not yellow ones. Red roses are good, or… or blue.”
It wasn’t a conscious reaction, but he did back up a little. “Blue roses?” She was sure she was getting somewhere now.
She nodded. “I know they don’t normally exist, but… I like deep blue roses. I just get a good feeling from it- from them,” she corrected herself.
Garry paused, and pulled his hand out of his pocket. “Excuse me, but… what’s your name?” She could tell he was beginning to realize, and just smiled.
“You already know it.”
A year passed.