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He was dying. He knew that much for sure. He’d been dying the last thirty-three times. He’d tried everything he could think of. Nothing he did made any difference. His hand hovered over the button to activate the time distortion unit. He didn’t want to. Didn’t want to go back and watch them all die again. Didn’t want to keep track of how many times they each died first. He hit the button anyway.
The thought struck him halfway through his thirty-seventh attempt. He’d tried everything that he could think of, but there were a million alternate futures for everything everyone else could think of. Maybe he wasn’t the one who held the key to victory.
This time he just got them as far as he could. The grenade was new. That was a good sign. He was encountering things he hadn’t seen before. Unfortunately, he was dying again. Wash dropped to his knees next to him, trying to stem the flow of blood. He had enough time to either activate the unit... or give it away.
He reached down and unhooked the unit from his suit. “Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?” Wash was out of breath and desperate.
He forced the unit into Wash’s blood-stained hand. “Tag.”
The flash of green light cut off Wash’s reply.
Well, that went about as south as it possibly could. No pun intended. Because it would have been funnier before they lost South. Washington’s hands pressed down hard, sending a stabbing pain through his side. It was one thing to keep the blood inside his body, but it was quite another to keep the shrapnel in with it. He grit his teeth and tried to breathe around the blood. “Knock knock.”
“Just give me the damn thing already.”
The world stopped. He couldn’t have said what Wyoming just heard. He couldn’t have. Because if he did, that would mean… “...what?”
“The thing! Just gimme the damn thing!”
“Have I been...?”
“Yes!”
Suddenly, all of Washington’s actions made sense. The lack of communication, the incredible reflexes, the whispered counting, how he’d found him; he’d been looping. This wasn’t the first time he’d been through this hell. Wyoming had given his time distortion unit to the rookie. And Wash wanted another go at it.
He shoved it into his hands, wondering how many times he’d done this.
He racked his brain for another joke. There had to be something he hadn’t said yet. It was weird, being on this side of knowledge. As far as he knew, this was only the second or third time he’d done this. And he only knew that because Wash seemed to know what was coming, taking hits like he’d practiced. Because he had. “Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“Dwain.”
“Dwain who?”
“Dwain the tub, I’m dwowning.”
It would have been a lot funnier if his lungs hadn’t been full of blood.
The rookie made one joke on their way to the pelican. A knock-knock joke. It wasn’t very funny. A subdued sort of celebration that it was finally over.
He didn’t know what had happened, but he recognized the symptoms of looping. At least Wash had gotten them all out alive. That was one gamble that had paid off.
Wash sat with his helmet in his hands as everyone filtered out towards the med bay, congratulating themselves on another mission survived.
Wyoming hung back until it was just the two of them.
He reached down to check. The unit was still hooked up to his armor. He could look at its record… or he could ask. He sighed, which hurt, and carefully sat down on the bench next to him. He didn’t look up.
“...Agent Washington… Wash… I… I’m sorry.”
He blinked.
“...I almost hate to ask this, but… how many times?”
There was a long moment of silence before Wash whispered “...one hundred and forty-two.”
...damn.
“Wyoming! Are you doing your thing?” Agent Washington asked over the radio. It was the first thing he asked now.
“You’d better believe I am.” Somehow, he managed to sound cheerful for the others.
Wyoming threw his ruined helmet to the ground, tears washing the soot from his cheeks.
The rookie shot him a look. But nobody called him the rookie anymore. He’d set the record for most tries to get it right. And to them, it happened overnight. “Do you want me to take over for a while?”
He stared at him. Because they both knew full well what he was offering.
He sighed and took up his position.
Wash looked up from the readout on his gun. Four shots left. They couldn’t last like this. “...how many is that?”
“Forty-five.”
He just held out his hand.
Wyoming tossed him the unit.
The world disappeared in a flash of green light.
“Tag, you’re it.”