Felicity gazed about the overgrown forest in wonder, the golden light filtering in through the canopy was truly breathtaking.

She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at her best friend and the bean she had a massive crush on (though she certainly wouldn’t admit that to him yet) Barry, “C’mon! Hurry up Barry!”

Barry jogged over to stand next to her and gave her a beaming smile that made her heart flutter, “Sorry ‘bout that, I was looking at a particularly cool looking lizard.”

“And you didn’t call me over to share with me? How could you,” she replied, feigning indignation before bursting out laughing at Barry’s face as he seemed genuinely distraught that he had upset her, “I’m joking silly, it’ll take a heck of a lot more than not showing me a cool lizard to make me upset” she nudged him playfully and gave him a kiss on the cheek before running off.

Eventually, Felicity slowed down in her running, mostly because something caught her attention from the corner of her eye and she wanted to back track to go take a closer look at what it was.

Unfortunately for her, Barry didn’t seem to realize and he ended up crashing into her.

“Ah! Sorry Felicity, are you alright? Are you hurt,” he asked as he leapt up off of her, frantically examining her for injuries.

“I’m fine, at most I may have some light bruises that’ll form tomorrow, but I’m pretty sure I’m fine,” she laughed, “now c’mon! I think I saw something and I want to go check it out!”

“Okay,” he replied, eagerly falling in step beside her as she headed towards where she caught a glimpse of something.

“Over there,” she pointed towards a dark, definitely not tree shaped thing, “I think it’s a building of some sort.”

“That’s weird,” Barry replied, “I don’t think that anyone lives out here.”

“Let’s go investigate,” she suggested to him eagerly, already starting to walk in the direction of the thing, not bothering to wait because she knew Barry would of course want to investigate.

The closer they got, the more well-defined it became and it was very evident that it was some sort of house-like structure.

When they finally reached it, Felicity drank in the sight with her eyes. It was a mysterious, dilapidated building. It looked as if it hadn’t been lived in for many years and boy if that didn’t make Felicity’s brain tingle with excitement and dial her curiosity up to the max!

Faintly, from behind her, she could hear Barry very softly say, “Uh...Felicity,” in a very uncertain voice, which surprised her because Barry was never one to be so scared when it came to having an adventure.

Turning to look at him, she noticed he seemed very uneasy, “What’s the matter Barry? You’re never scared to explore stuff like this.”

“Yeah, I know...it’s just...what if we get hurt? We’re pretty far away from anyone being able to help us.”

“We’ll just be extra careful, c’mon. I promise,” she was practically begging, she couldn’t understand why Barry didn’t want to explore such a cool abandoned house. It was bound to be filled to the brim with all sorts of cool stuff that would help her figure out who once lived here and what might have happened to them!

“Alright…” he still sounded reluctant, but she’d take what she could get.

Excitedly, she ran up the porch and opened the door. She put a foot down carefully to test the floorboards to make sure that it wasn’t too rotten and she’d fall through.

“There’s not a basement, so you’re not gonna get hurt even if a floorboard breaks,” Barry stated, pushing past her a bit, sounding weirdly out of it. She wasn’t really sure how to describe how he sounded really, he sounded...dazed? Perhaps wistful?

Shrugging, she continued walking in the house, which was weirdly devoid of pictures, but was filled with papers littered all over the place, one of which she almost stepped on.

Picking it up, she noted that it was dated, but the year was smudged beyond legibility, she did her best to read what was written on it though:

“I wanted to log this moment because it is the day that my brother and I finally stop dreaming and instead start doing. We’re going to try and put our skills together to create our very own TARDIS of sorts-”

Felicity stopped reading and looked over at Barry who seemed to be cautiously checking through some drawers, “Hey, whoever lived here seemed to be working on making an actual TARDIS.”

Never before had she seen a head swivel as fast as Barry’s in that moment, the look in his eyes seemed to be a mix of surprise and fear and...some other third emotion that Felicity couldn’t quite place. He ran over to stand beside her and read the paper over her shoulder, she wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard him sigh.

“I’m sure my brother isn’t the only one to have ever thought of it, besides, I know lots of fans have made TARDISes. There’s one dude who made an actual remote controlled one that flies! We could probably look to see if any of these papers are more specific, but I think that’d probably take too long and it is starting to get kinda late.”

“That’s why I have a flashlight and packed some sandwiches for us! I mean, I didn’t know we’d find this building, but ever since I met you and got to know you, I’ve just learned to be prepared for adventures to happen,” she laughed and pulled out a sandwich and offered it to him.

He took it and began eating as he looked around the house, something which she followed suit in doing as she was far too curious to completely stop exploring just to have a bite to eat.

As she picked up and read through the papers, she came to the conclusion that whoever this was, they were quite an interesting bean.

She eventually found herself in some sort of study, the shelves were mostly bare and it seemed as if all the books had been taken. There was a note on the desk though and she, of course, couldn’t help but read it.

“This is probably the last time that I’ll write a journal entry under this name, I’ve fallen in love and the unfortunate curse of being a time traveler is that I happened to meet her in the future-”

“Awww,” she cooed softly to herself after reading the page, before shouting, “Barry, I think whoever lived here was an author and they were in the process of writing a love story!”

“What makes you think that? He seemed like a scientist to me,” he shouted as he came towards the room she was in.

“C’mere and read this page!”

She giggled a bit when she saw him grumbling as he came in, he seemed really put out that she was challenging what she was pretty sure he perceived to be a cooler theory about the previous owner being a scientist.

He came over and read the page and it did not go unnoticed by her that his reaction was not what she had expected.

He seemed wistful, but then for some inexplicable reason, it turned to worry and she couldn’t fathom why.

“What’s the matter,” she asked, hoping that he might tell her what was on his mind.

“Uh, nothing...yeah, I think you’re right,” his fiery orange eyes flitted around nervously, “dude was probably an author.”

“So...do you think all the papers are just various parts of different drafts of the manuscript,” she asked, watching him carefully.

He shrugged nonchalantly, “Probably.”

“I gotta say, it seems like one heck of a story. A guy building a time machine with his brother and then falling love with a girl from the future. I’d have loved to have been able to read the full thing...or at least know how it ends.”

“Yeah, me too..” Felicity looked over at Barry, but he was looking away from her and instead gazing out of the window in the study. His voice still sounded very wistful and she couldn’t help but feel like something was extremely off with her best friend.

“Dude, what is with you lately? You’ve been acting weird since we got here.”

He looked over at her, startled, “Uh, nothing!”

“Do you know something about this place that you’re not sharing? You seem to know a lot about it, you even knew there wasn’t a basement before we even made it far enough into the house to even find that out.”

“I, uh...noticed from outside that the house isn’t built to have one. There were no tiny windows.”

Felicity squinted, she hated to think that Barry of all beans was lying to her, but she couldn’t help but feel like something was extremely off with her best friend today.

She didn’t want to ruin their friendship though over something that might have really been nothing, maybe he was just acting weird because the house was admittedly pretty creepy looking due to the state that it was in.

Shrugging, she decided to see if there were anymore pages that were written. As she rifled through the multitude of papers and stuff on the desk, the paper she had read ended up falling off the desk. Bending over to pick up the paper, she realized that more was written on the back of it.

Her eyes skated over it, then did a double and then triple take. What she read caused her to look back over at Barry, who was still staring off through a window.

Quietly, just to test it out, she tentatively said, “Blaise?”

“Hmm,” was the hummed, absentminded response that she got from Barry and it made her shiver, “what’s up Felicity?”

“Uh...Barry, you just responded to the name Blaise,” she told him, weirded out by this experience already, even more so by his reaction.

“Oh, oops, I thought you said Barry,” he said, laughing it off, but Felicity wasn’t as convinced as she felt she probably should have been by his reply.

“I don’t think you did,” she replied, hopping off of the chair to come over to him, his face twisted in confusion and she hesitated to continue, wondering if perhaps she was wrong and her desire to solve a mystery had just caused her to find one that didn’t really exist.

“What in the world makes you think that Felicity?”

“The back of this paper.”

“The back of a page of paper that we just covered was written by some sort of romance author?”

“Yes, the back of a page from a romance novel that happens to have your name on it.”

“My name is on it? That’s absurd,” Barry laughed, “let me see.”

Felicity shook her head, part of her worrying that he’d rip it up or something.

He seemed to notice that she was reluctant to give it up, “I’m not gonna destroy it, I just want to see. If you’re that worried, you can just lift it up and show it to me.”

Tentatively, Felicity did so.

“Pfft, I think Papyllon is just playing a prank or something.”

“I don’t think so, if this was a prank...you wouldn’t have answered to the name Blaise. C’mon Barry, tell me the truth. What’s going on here? What is this place? Why do you keep spacing out in here.”

She watched as several emotions flitted across his face, ranging from fear, uncertainty, frustration and then finally to defeat.

He let out a huge, defeated sigh, “Alright, fine. I’ll tell you, but I don’t promise you’ll like it because unfortunately the ‘story’ isn’t done, just...gah! Just..please don’t freak out...or hate me...or think too weirdly of me...okay?”

“I think that depends on what you tell me, but okay.”

He seemed so...different, in this moment. Exposed and scared. Which was saying quite a bit considered she’d seen him face all sorts of stuff. She couldn’t help but wonder what it could possibly be that he was hoping to avoid having to tell her about this place.

“I’m the author, well...I wasn’t an actual author, but I did write all the stuff here. This used to be my secret base with my brother Papyllon when we were kids.”

“Uh...you are a kid.”

“Yeah, but Papyllon isn’t. Not anymore. He’s actually only seven years older than me.”

“That’s...not possible. He’s gotta be at least twenty-something years older than you.”

Barry chuckled and Felicity wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it or how to react to it, “He’s forty years old right now. I myself was born thirty-three years ago.”

“But that would mean...you’re your mom’s oldest child?”

“Biological child, yeah.”

“If you’re thirty-three years old right now, why do you look like you’re twelve like me and go to school with me?”

“Because I’m not thirty-three anymore, I’m twelve now.”

“How though?”

“Two years ago, I bought a potion off of some vendor in the future. They called it a Phoenix Potion and told me that it would turn me back into a child.”

“Why would you want to be a child again?”

“You read the papers Felicity, I’m pretty sure you know the answer to that.”

“For love,” she whispered, to which she saw him nod. She was about to ask him who it was that he fell in love with in the future, but some part of her, perhaps a hopeless romantic part of her, told her it was her, though she hesitated to ask if it was.

Looking at him, she could see that he knew she wanted to ask, “It’s okay Felicity, I know, you can ask.”

“Is the...is the girl you fell in love with in the future...the one you wanted to spend time with and grow up with...is she...me?”

“Yes, she is you,” he answered, a small...almost sad half smile played at the corners of his mouth.

She couldn’t bear to see her best friend so sad, even though she was still trying her best to process all this new information, she still felt the need to come over and comfort him, so she did. She wrapped him in a hug and pulled him close.

“I know I’m still wrapping my head around this and I honestly don’t know what to think right now, I’m somewhere between wanting to kiss you and wanting to get some alone time to think about all of this, but you’re my very best friend and I still care about you and I don’t want to run off to think about this when I know that you’re probably hurting.”

“I didn’t want to tell you, I mean, I have wanted to tell you the truth, but I...well...there’s not really a guide book to help you know when the right moment is to tell someone that you’re going through a second childhood for them. I don’t know if it helps at all, but future-you did agree to this, she figured it’d be the best solution to our problem of not being able to stay together in the same time period.”

“I think it helps...a little. I don’t really know Barry, it’s...a lot to take in,” Felicity looked over at the window and saw that it was getting late based on the fading afternoon light, “c’mon Barry, we’d better leave before our families get worried. We can...talk about this later.”

The last thing that Felicity wanted to do was get in trouble with her dads, they’d be furious and more than a little worried if she came home past their pre-established time.

Together they hurried out of the old hideout and made their way through the forest, though Felicity did stop for a moment to look back at the building. Silently promising herself to go back there and discover even more about her best friend’s past...then she’d figure out how she felt about this whole thing.

Still, she learned one other important thing today: her love for him wasn’t unrequited.

Word Count: 2,720