Papyllon flipped the switches off in the time machine with a flair, truly in his element. He was now back in his own time, excited for what the rest of the afternoon brought. Opening up the doors to look outside, he noticed that it was raining - more specifically, it was pouring. Papyllon looked over at his little brother Barry and Barry’s best friend and crush, Felicity Siskin-Hart.

“Looks like we’re going to need to figure out if it’s possible to turn our time machine into an actual TARDIS so we can start storing things like rain gear,” Papyllon chuckled before stepping out of the time machine and making a run for the door of his adoptive mother’s house to get inside. Barry and Felicity pelted after him and as soon as Papyllon unlocked the door, they all rushed inside. The two children giggled as they shook the water off as if they were dogs, it was a sight which Papyllon had seen his own children do and it made him chuckle as he worked to quickly dry himself off with a towel.

He walked over to the kitchen and turned off the crockpot he had left cooking dinner in since he was babysitting Barry and Felicity as well as his other siblings while his adoptive mother Zyanya was away for her newest book’s publicity tour. Papyllon lifted the lid to check that it hadn’t burned and was happy to discover that the chili mac had been perfectly cooked.

“Barry, could you grab me the bowls,” he asked as he grabbed a ladle from where it was kept in the drawer to his left.

“Sure thing,” Barry replied, grabbing a step stool so he could reach the shelf in the cabinets where the bowls were kept.

Once he had grabbed them, he carefully handed the stack over to Papyllon who took them from him and put them on the counter top to his right. He then grabbed a bowl from the stack and began dishing out the meal into the bowl, passing it to Barry to put on the table, passing another to Felicity to put on the table, until there were enough bowls of food for everyone in the house. Which was just the three of them since Melody had stayed over at a friend’s house, Flay was on a field trip, and Sinclair was also staying at a friend’s house for a birthday sleepover.

“When you two are done eating, I want you to dress for the rain. Since I can’t leave you here alone, we’re going to walk to my house so I can check in on my family and tuck my kids into bed and read them a bedtime story,” Papyllon told them before eating a spoonful of chili mac.

“Are we staying over at your house then,” Felicity inquired.

“I think you probably will since the weather is getting as bad as it is,” Papyllon answered around a mouthful of food.

Thirty minutes later and all three of them had finished eating their dinner as well as dessert, ten minutes after that they were ready to start their walk over to Papyllon’s house that lay only three blocks away.

Papyllon opened up the front door and let Barry and Felicity out first, then locked the door behind him as he left. He smiled to himself as he watched Barry and Felicity walk ahead of him down the sidewalk hand in hand as they shared an umbrella together, he couldn’t help but think about how much they already looked like a couple, even if they were kids right now.

As they neared the door to his house, he ran up ahead of them and went to unlock the door. To his surprise though, the door was already unlocked.

Cautiously and with a great deal of concern, Papyllon entered through the door.

The house was silent, more silent than he had ever heard it be since he and his wife Zephine had bought it. It hadn’t been quite so silent since that time, especially considering he had six children living in the house, seven if his daughter Jubilee’s best friend Elliot was staying over for a superhero movie marathon and sleepover. The only sound that filled his house was the roaring sound of the rain beating against the roof.

Barry and Felicity filed in after Papyllon, Barry flipped the light switch on to the living room. They all gasped in shock at what the light had revealed:

Furniture torn to shreds or knocked over, paper littering the floor.

“I’m going to take a wild guess and say your wife and kids didn’t have a riotous party while we were gone,” Barry said slowly, looking up at Papyllon, his concern evident on his young face. A face Papyllon was still getting used to seeing again now that Barry was a child again.

“No,” was all Papyllon could manage to say.

Papyllon ran to the stairs and up them, desperate to make sure that his family was just sleeping in their beds safe and sound instead of the horrible scenario that was playing through his head.

Running to each of his children’s bedroom doors and flinging them open, he discovered that all of the beds were empty. When he reached his own bedroom, he found that it was devoid of his wife Zephine.

Instead, he found the words:

BRING THE TIME MACHINE TO ME OR ELSE YOU’LL NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN

CROWLEY

spray painted in bright red paint across the wall in front of him.

Papyllon fell to his knees, his hands clenching tightly into fists as tears began to roll down his face.

How could this have happened? How could Crowley have known about it? Why did he want it? Were they all okay?

These were all the thoughts which had run their course through his mind as a white hot anger began to fill him. An anger this strong hadn’t made it into his heart in years, not since his days in the orphanage more than twenty years ago.

He heard the footsteps of Barry and Felicity come up behind him, felt the two of them each put a hand on each of his shoulders.

As much as their comforting touch was welcome, Papyllon knew he couldn’t wallow. He had to save his family and do so without having to give up the time machine that he had made with Barry.

It was time for a good man to go to war.

The rage that Papyllon felt in that moment was a white hot rage which he had not felt in a very long time, since before he started taking medication for his ADHD. This was a rage which probably even rivaled the “before times” and that alone should have frightened Papyllon more than a little bit.

Papyllon had no idea how on earth Crowley had managed to find out about the time machine that he and Barry had made together; they had kept it a secret from everyone aside from their family and Felicity’s family. They had been extremely careful, this should have never happened. Despite the onslaught of questions as to how this could have happened, what Papyllon knew for sure was that Crowley was going to seriously regret having ever thought that kidnapping his family was at all a good idea.

Teeth clenched, Papyllon got up off the floor and made his way over to his bedside table and opened up the drawer, lifting up the false bottom to reveal his fully functional replica sonic screwdriver that he and Barry had been working together to make. It was still a work in progress, but it was going to have to do. He put it in the pocket of his coat and shut the drawer, he almost walked back to the doorway, but noticed an odd phone on the table with a note next to it which read:

Call me on this when you have it ready for me. - Crowley

Papyllon opened up the flip phone and noticed that it had but one number programmed into it. Shutting the burner cell close, Papyllon put it away in his coat pocket and began making his way out of the room, Papyllon couldn’t help but notice the expressions that played across his little brother’s face. Concern, empathy, determination, and fear.

“We’ll continue to search the house for clues,” Barry told him, gesturing to himself and Felicity.

“Alright,” Papyllon replied, his tone carrying his confusion at the abrupt exit that Barry seemed to want to make.

Was his own anger that evident? Was his fury so frightening that Barry felt the need to extricate himself and Felicity from his general location?

He watched as Barry ran off with Felicity, feeling tears well up for some reason, but shook his head to stop them from coming. Now wasn’t the time, he needed to save his family.

Papyllon’s next course of action was to whip out his own cell phone from his pocket and call his adoptive mother Zyanya, he wanted to make sure that she was safe and hadn’t been kidnapped as well. When she answered the phone, he knew she was safe and quickly told her that he hoped she was having fun and remained safe before he hung up the phone and called each of the families where Sinclair and Melody were staying over at to make sure that they were okay. Finding that they were also perfectly fine and safe, he allowed himself to breathe a slight sigh of relief.

Papyllon brought out the burner cell, flipped it open and dialed Crowley. Upon hearing the dial tone end and another bean’s voice could be heard, Papyllon began to launch into what could only be best described as an angry tirade.

“I swear, if I find out that you hurt anyone in my family, so much as a scratch or a bruise I will raze your criminal organization to the ground,” Papyllon growled, his voice unrecognizable even to himself.

On the other end, he heard naught but a chuckle before at last he heard the other bean reply, “I’d like to see you try science teacher, but I think you’d find it much easier to just do as I say. Your family is alive, so long as you do as I requested.”

“Prove it. I want evidence that my family is still alive and well.”

“Very well,” was all Crowley said to Papyllon before shouting at one of his lackeys something that Papyllon couldn’t quite make out.

Suddenly, it was Zephine’s voice on the phone, “Papyllon, is that you?”

“Yes, it is. Are you alright Zeph? Are the kids okay?”

“Yes, yes, we’re okay.”

“I’m going to get you all back, I promise!”

“Yes you will Papyllon, if you do what I told you to,” it was Crowley again, Papyllon couldn’t help but clench his teeth in anger at hearing his voice again.

“Fine,” was all Papyllon said before hanging up. He stared at the burner phone in his hand, all manners of emotions broiling inside him as he did so.

“I found your dog,” Felicity said, poking her head into his room, “he’s totally fine. I think he just got knocked unconscious or something.”

Papyllon allowed himself to smile a bit through the sadness, anger, and fear; if nothing more than to try to keep a brave face in front of the children, “That’s good, I’m glad to hear that Thor is alright. Jubilee will be very happy to see him when she comes home.”

Papyllon scowled, frustrated with himself and this whole situation. There was no way he was going to give up their time machine if he could at all avoid it, time travel in the claws of someone like Crowley could and would screw up time to an unimaginable degree that would undoubtedly be beyond repair.

What would the Doctor do? He wondered to himself, desperately hoping to come up with an idea. The Doctor would certainly come up with a clever plan that would ensure that the bad guys would not get what they wanted while also rescuing his friends and family.

“Barry, do you think we could build a convincing fake time machine that looks like ours?”

“I mean, we could, but it would take us quite a bit of time,” Barry looked at Papyllon, confusion lighting his orange eyes.

“What if you brought all of the supplies that you’d need to make a replica with you in the time machine, build it in the past, then put it in a storage unit and come back to it in the present,” Felicity suggested.

Papyllon looked at her and beamed with delight, “Brilliant! That is a wonderful idea Felicity! Thank you!”

“You’re welcome, happy to help!”

“Alright you two, I need you to help me grab all of the supplies that we’ll need and meet me back at the time machine as soon as you can,” he said as he grabbed a duffle bag and began stuffing it with various different items to help them build the replica.

“Alright, we’ll meet you there,” Barry replied, nudging Felicity to follow him outside to the shed where he knew Papyllon kept the supplies that were left over from when they had made their time machine.

As Papyllon left his home, he looked around warily, worried that Crowley might have had someone posted in his neighborhood watching his house. Seeing that there was no one who appeared to be watching him, he hurried on his way back to his adoptive mother’s house with the duffle bag.

I just hope that this plan works, Papyllon thought to himself, racing through the rain as quickly as possible.

After one trip to a week in the past, a total of twelve banged fingers, five cuts, two “bound to become bruises,” at least half a gallon bucket of nails, no less than fifty wooden boards, four cans of Pantone/PMS 2955C paint, two boxes of pepperoni pizza, a whole twelve pack of root beer sodas, and several installments of very convincing looking technology later and trio had their replica time machine completed and safely locked inside a storage unit.

Returning to the present, Papyllon decided it was time to part from the two children, he called up Felicity’s dad Doūmak to ask him to watch Barry and Felicity because he had a family emergency to attend to. Thankfully, Doūmak agreed to watch them. The last thing that Papyllon wanted was for Barry and Felicity to be with him when he went to rescue his family, there was no way he was going to endanger them like that.

Hanging up the phone, Papyllon was met with the intense blaze of his little brother’s orange eyes.

“You’re not going to meet Crowley alone, I won’t let you Papyllon,” he began, crossing his fluffy arms.

Papyllon was more than a little surprised to hear his little brother use his actual first name and not his preferred nickname, Dyllon. Barry was being serious and was apparently putting his foot down, but two could play that game.

“Bartholomew Stormageddon Caldecott-DeWitt you are a child, by your own choice no less, there is nothing that you can do to help me. You forfeited the right to have a say in things like this when you drank that potion. Now, you need to accept your own limitations for once and let me handle this on my own,” Papyllon hated to say the words, wanted more than anything to take them back or tell Barry he didn’t really mean it, but he needed to say them to get Barry to back off.

“I know what you’re trying to do, you’re trying to push me away, but I’m not going to let you,” Barry responded, “I’m not going to let you do this alone. You need backup.”

“I don’t need backup Barry, what I need is for you and Felicity to stay safe while I take care of things,” Papyllon shot back, “just like the Twelfth Doctor, I have a duty of care!”

“Yeah, well just like Clara, I never asked you to,” Barry shouted back at Papyllon.

Papyllon was done with this conversation, he was running out of time to save his family and he needed to shut this whole thing down, so he resorted to the last weapon in his arsenal:

He threatened Barry.

“If you don’t go with Felicity and her dad, I will tell them both about your secret.”

Barry glared at him, a look that his fiery orange eyes intensified and truly made Papyllon regret saying that. Barry stormed off and Papyllon let out a sigh of relief before leaving the house.

One emotional drive to the storage unit, four muscular beans and one geek doing heavy lifting, no less than four straps to safely tie down one very convincing replica, and no more than five personal pep talks later and Papyllon was ready to go meet up with Dare and get his family back.

Papyllon steeled himself as he drove into the warehouse where Crowley had wanted to do the exchange. He got out of the truck, loudly slamming the door to announce his arrival. He brought his replica sonic screwdriver out and jumped into the back of the pickup and detached the straps holding the replica time machine steady in the bed of his truck. He waited, leaning up against the convincing replica as he waited for Crowley and his underlings to arrive, hopefully with his family.

Papyllon played around with his replica sonic screwdriver, tossing it up in the air and catching it when it came back down. He wasn’t bored so much as he was antsy and trying his best to hide that under a nonchalant facade.

A few minutes later, Papyllon’s ears picked up the unmistakable sound of tires moving across gravel. Finally, they were here.

“I see that you were a good boy and brought me what I wanted,” Papyllon heard a sinister voice say as it approached, “I do love it when people do what I want without being idiots.”

Papyllon continued to toss and catch his sonic until he saw his family be brought out of the vans from the corner of his eye. He smirked a bit before catching the sonic a final time, straightening his bowtie and then hopping down from the bed of the truck - landing right in front of Crowley.

“I see you were true to your word and brought my family, they’d better be unharmed or else I will blow up the time machine,” Papyllon gave Crowley a very hard look with his piercing dark magenta eyes, one which showed the fury that blazed within him.

Crowley waved a silent hand, signaling his lackeys to unbind Papyllon’s family. As soon as they were unbound, they came running up to him to give him a hug.

As soon as Crowley had the replica time machine, he started messing with it as soon as he got inside.

Papyllon took Zephine’s hand, “C’mon, we’re leaving now,” he whispered as he pulled her with him as he made his way out of the warehouse, checking to make sure the children were all following.

“Papyllon,” she began, “you didn’t really...did you?”

“Of course not,” he whispered back, “it’s nothing more than a convincing set piece. Now let’s get out of here before-”

“Halt,” Crowley shouted, causing Papyllon to wince slightly.

“What?”

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Well, you have the time machine and I have my family, I figured it was time to leave.”

“It’s not, not until I know that this thing works.”

“I assure you, it works perfectly.”

“That remains to be seen.”

Papyllon could feel sweat gather beneath his fur, he didn’t want to wait around for Crowley to find out that he had given him nothing more than a glorified set piece. He wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible and get his family to safety.

Suddenly, Papyllon heard the unmistakable sound of his time machine materializing (which he definitely didn’t purposefully make sound like the TARDIS from Doctor Who). Papyllon’s brow furrowed in confusion since he hadn’t made the fake one make that sound. Internally, he swore, knowing that his little brother must’ve decided to hop in the real time machine and try to rescue both Papyllon and his family.

Papyllon felt like groaning until he realized that his little brother was actually relatively clever and had parked their time machine out of sight of both Crowley and his henchmen and in doing so had created an added illusion of the fake time machine working.

“Boss, I think we got it working,” one of Crowley’s men shouted from inside the false time machine.

Crowley hurried over to enter backing inside the fake time machine, as soon as the door closed behind him, Papyllon took Zephine by the hand and pulled her with him to the real time machine. As soon as they reached the door, it popped open to reveal...not who he was expecting at all. He was prepared to give his little brother a lecture about how he told him not to meddle and to stay at home, but instead the individual he found himself facing was - himself.

“C’mon! Why so shocked? All these years watching and marathoning Doctor Who and ya didn’t see this coming?”

His own charm and...dare he say it? Cockiness? Was like Papyllon had just encountered the Doctor for real and he found himself laughing and shaking his head as he ushered his wife and children into the time machine before he himself entered.

The time machine that he found himself entering was vastly different from his own, in a way which was very shocking to Papyllon. He did, however, recognize a rare chance to make a reference...to himself.

“You redecorated,” he began, looking around, “I don’t like it.”

His probably future self laughed heartily as he flipped switches and pulled levers around the console, “Yeah you do. You’re just saying that for reference sake.”

“Yeah, I am. How far into my future are you anyway? Or perhaps I should ask how far back is all this for you?”

The look his future self gave him was not a look he liked and told him entirely too much, more than he wanted to know. That very telling look informed him that the original playout of this whole scheme went horribly wrong and he had lost several members of his family in the wake of the original timeline. His future self had gone back in time to save his present self from ever experiencing that pain.

“Nevermind, I can tell it doesn’t matter. It’s all getting re-written.”

“Yup.”

The rest of the trip was made without much more in the way of conversation between himself and...himself. Papyllon did spend a fair amount of the brief time spent in the time machine talking to each of his children to make sure that they were all okay.

When the trip was over, his future self pushed a button and made the doors open.

“Alright, time for you all to return home,” the smile on his face still had a tinge of sadness and yet also held a fair amount of joy.

While Papyllon’s wife and children exited the time machine, he stayed behind to say some parting words with his future self.

“So what happens to you now that you’ve done this?”

“Well, before the paradox catches up with me, I’m probably going to see what I can do to prevent Crowley from going after you and your family again. Erase his mind if I have to.”

“You can do that?”

“You’d be surprised what being alone in the future can do for you.”

“Not really, I’ve seen what it’s done to characters in shows.”

“Yeah, you have,” his future self chuckled, as if he had forgotten.

“Would it be weird to say thank you?”

His future self shrugged, “It’s a bit weird, but I see nothing wrong with it.”

“Then thank you for coming back in time to change the past.”

“Don’t thank me for that, it was nothing short of personal weakness, an inability to live with the fallout of my own choices in terms of how to deal with the whole situation. Just be glad that this wasn’t a fixed point in time and that it could be rewritten.”

“Sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry, I was being entirely too harsh.”

“I doubt it, you’ve been through a lot, more than I ever will.”

“Yeah,” there was a long, pained pause from his future self that was once again quite telling, “but I don’t regret preventing you from that experience. Enjoy this...chance I’ve given you.”

“I will, thank you,” Papyllon replied as he exited the time machine, giving a wave goodbye before closing the door behind him.

He watched as the time machine dematerialized, when it was completely gone, he went inside the house to be with his family. He was going to treasure every moment with his family, happy to have them back.