Carry Me

It made no sense to leave it as it was.

The past, a curious thing. Forever had he wondered what to do with it. It was deadly to mess with, amazing to look back at, terrifying to recount.

He must have stared out the porthole for a long while. The sound of Nameless Accident's voice echoed through his head, and he jumped at the sudden, innocent, little noise.

"I'm hungry," said the child, tiny as he was, "Whadduwe have for food?"

He turned to the boy. It was a precarious thing, dealing with him.

Nameless Accident was nameless because he refused to acquire the child's name. It would create an enormous problem if he were to ever return to the original storyline.

He was an accident because he was a mistake. The traveler had never intentioned to retrieve him, but he had run up to him in a moment of panic- his village was being torn apart- and he had no choice but to take him. Nameless Accident had forever remained nameless, and would forever remain an accident.

He had no plans to keep Nameless Accident.

As a soft response, he said, "Check in the cabinets."

Nameless Accident stared blankly. He frowned. "Why don'ts you ever talk to me?" he asked, stepping forward.

Immediately, the traveler turned, his voice sharp. "Step out!" No one could enter his room. Not anyone that he had mistakenly saved in his futile attempts to alter the course of the past.

The boy inhaled, instantly walking out of the room. He wished to talk with the one that'd saved him. But the idea was pointless. He was Nameless Accident, and no one would ever want him.

He went away.

The traveler turned back to his window. Around him, his machinery twisted and churned, ready to take him back to whatever timeline he wanted.

He remembered when he was younger, like Nameless Accident. He remembered experimenting with his machines and transporting himself to entirely different worlds. One time he had gone to the future, instantly regretting it. Everything he saw filled him with so much unbelief that he almost drowned in the feeling.

He pushed hair out of his eyes. Going to the future was not a good idea.

But that past was so much more promising. The past could change the now.

He had tried to change the now. He had done so in terrifying events.

Within weeks of his first rescue, his world fell apart. Literally. Pieces of physicality itself floated around him as the universe tore itself apart. Time traveling itself was not what'd caused it. Saving those who were in dangerous events caused it. He ended up doing it so much that the world could not catch up with him, and it almost broke.

So he returned those he rescued from death back to their timelines. Saving them from their fate had been the ruin of their lives.

He let them die instead. It was the way things worked. Tribes would attack villages, burn them to a crisp, and people would die.

There was nothing he could do about it.

Nameless Accident was the latest experiment of his. He was trying to test what would happen if he went into a timeline, for a split second, grasped someone by the wrist, and dragged them back into his room. Nothing had happened when he saved Nameless Accident. Nothing but a constant nagging "thank you" from the boy.

"Thank you" had never annoyed him so much in his life.

One thing that bothered him, though, was how Nameless Accident thought he would go back to his normal life. He thought that the traveler would return him once the time was right.

Because that's what he'd said. "When the time is right, you'll go back."

The time would never be right, would it? Nameless Accident would stay with him forever.

But that perhaps ruined the point of him being Nameless. If he was never going back, learning his name would not hurt the current world. If he was never going back, finally getting to know him would not hurt the current world.

If he was never going back, telling him that he wasn't would not hurt the current world.

He planned to add more Nameless Accidents to his record. They wouldn't be "accidents" anymore, as he would intentionally acquire them from their homes, but... intentions, really. Nameless Intentions.

What did he intend to do with them after he captured them?

Captured? Why would he think such a thing? He did not capture them. He saved them.

But the more he thought about it, the more it dawned on him. Nameless Accident was a captive. He was never returning to his home, being lied to, and being neglected. He was a captive. An oblivious one.

The traveler raised his head, thinking. He would go on a mission, he thought, to rescue someone else. While Nameless Accident obsessed with trying to find his favorite food, something called "pizza," he would go on a mission to capture- rescue- someone else.

He stole his hood off the hanger and tied it around his neck. He swiped some things on his watch, adjusting to the new time zone. And he powered up the machine and jumped through.

Skiddddd. Dust spread up in front of his face. Waving it out of the air with his gloves, he took a look around, searching for a human face.

There was none. It was night. His lungs burned when a new kind of air entered in, and he realized, with a sudden sickness, that he had gone to the future instead of the past.

All of a sudden, something threw itself against his back. He stumbled forward, turned his head, and there was the little silhouette of a familiar young boy.

Nameless Accident.

He'd come back into the traveler's room. And he'd found the still-active machinery. And he'd idiotically, ignorantly, innocently been sucked in.

A phrase came spilling out of his mouth. "What are you doing here?" His voice was a piercing yell. He would've drawn attention to himself, if anything had been nearby.

Nameless Accident rubbed his head. The nausea was just then sinking in. "I... I..." he stuttered out, giving no rational answer before vomiting the contents of his stomach onto himself.

He'd forgotten his first trip. The extreme dizziness from jumping from time to time had hurt his head so much that he threw up for almost ten minutes straight. The people had found him after that, offering him help as they saw the phlegm by his feet.

He felt sympathetic, almost, in that moment. He felt bad for the boy, that he had to go through such an experience. He was still so young.

Then again, he was still mad. Nameless Accident following him to the future when he was from the past would no doubt make his world crash.

The traveler knelt down to Nameless Accident and took things out of his pack. Water had helped him the first time. Maybe it would help the child, too.

After a few minutes, the fit was over, and the boy clearly felt like collapsing. Following his savior had been a very, very bad idea. And he'd vomited everything that he'd just managed to eat, so he was hungry again.

The traveler buried the throw-up in clumps of dirt and clasped the hand of his underling, pulling him up on his feet. He asked his earlier question with a gentler tone. "What are you doing here?"

Nameless Accident answered in the accent of his country. "I's..." he mumbled, swallowing, "I's looking for you buhcuz I's couldn't find the water taps and I got lost..."

The latter sighed. "Why did you come into my room?"

Nameless Accident blinked. "I... needed yoh help."

"I've told you a thousand times not to-"

He was interrupted by Nameless Accident's harsh coughs. He, too, was adjusting to the new air here.

They had both traveled to the future. A terrible idea. He had meant to go to the past- to somehow reverse the effects of the storm that'd taken the village of Nameless Accident- but instead he'd organized the machine the wrong way and... and... now they were here.

Nameless Accident looked up at him. "Where awe we?"

There was no telling. He did not know where they were. Somewhere in the future, where danger constantly lurked. If interaction with the past caused the timelines to rip apart, then interaction with the past and the future simultaneously would cause some sort of chain reaction.

He should go back. Return Nameless Accident before this got any worse. Throw himself into the past and try to alter the event that'd taken place to ruin Nameless Accident's own home.

Hopefully his little mistake wouldn't let every world fall apart.

He came out of his pondering state and turned behind him. The portal had closed, as expected. If he pressed a button on his watch, it would open again. Send he and Nameless Accidents back to their own reality. Their own timeline.

It wasn't exactly the best idea, though, to return so soon. The boy had just barely adjusted to this new world, and sending him back through would cause him to be horribly sick.

The traveler knew. He'd done it himself. It was hardly a cakewalk.

He took Nameless Accident's wrist (because he didn't want to lose him) and wandered forward. "Stay by me," was his only command.

They wandered.

The future was a desolate place.

It gave him time to think, not encountering anything. It gave him time to think of what would happen to Nameless Accident. A few months had gone by since his rescue. And if he returned him to his untouched story, he would indefinitely starve.

Like everyone else.

He had saved other Nameless Accidents in the past. Thought they would stay alive. Then, his interactions with them caused the world to rip itself to pieces, and he had to give them back. Their hometowns burned. And they starved to death.

This child, the one who skipped behind him, asking numerous questions, feeling everything he could touch, could not have that same fate.

He could not be returned.

So that meant there was no reason to not know his name.

So there was no reason to not tell him.

So there was no reason to seclude him.

So there was no reason for him to be a Nameless Accident anymore.

The traveler turned. He watched the boy as he jumped over a root jutting out from the ground and stared, wide-eyed, at a butterfly that flew by his face.

"What's it?" asked Nameless Accident, tilting his head, "Did's we find somethin'? Are we goin' back?"

Yes. They were. It was a simple task, rerouting his watch and climbing into the wormhole. It was like a waterslide through space.

He nodded. "There doesn't seem to be anything here."

The boy swiveled his head to look around. "What's dis, anuyway? Where are we?"

It would not, however, be a good idea to tell him about being in the future. "Nowhere important. We're going back now."

The wormhole opened. Soon enough, both of them were back in his room. Nameless Accident's fit almost returned and it took them both many minutes to return him to normal. The aftermath of time traveling took a toll on the human body.

He himself often felt it, even after years of jumping between the lines.

It was decided, after that mistaken trip, that Nameless Accident would not return. His past would not be tampered with; it would be left up to fate, as it was always meant to be. He would no longer be Nameless. And he would not be an Accident.

"What is your name?"

The child looked up.

"Wh... what?"

No one had ever asked him before.

"What's your name?" The traveler repeated the question.

The boy looked around. It took him a moment to remember. Finally, he found the courage to answer.

"Beau," he said, pushing back strands of curled hair, "My name's Beau, and nobuddy ever asked me that before."

Beau. He had to look up the meaning of the name in the Chronicles. He'd never heard a name like that before, even with all the ones he'd found out from past Nameless Accidents.

Beau. It meant "beautiful," or "admirer."

Beau looked up at his rescuer. "My mum named me that buhcuz she like my eyes." He looked away. "But nobuddy called me Beau but her."

His mother had perished in the fire that took his home.

The traveler found it hard to believe that such a name would be given in the hard times of the past. Tribes came and burned villages down until they were nothing but ash. Then they left the survivors to starve.

He could not alter the past. He could not send Beau back.

And he could not fly into the future.

But he had saved someone, all he had ever planned to do. He had saved someone without letting the world clash. He had saved someone for the first real time.