Nothing is more fun than being slammed out of your body about an hour into the past, which you must then relieve ad nauseam until everyone makes good decisions that don't involve being run over by a truck.

By fun I mean atrocious in every considerable meaning of the word, but I try to look on the bright side of things.

Mary takes a wide stance in front of me. "I'm going to knock you over," I say, if with considerably less effort. The first few minutes are always the worst, because I can't do anything that might alter the timestream. I manage not to glance over at the front of the line. At least someone died this time. We've restarted before just because Mary was picking fights. Mary is always picking fights. I am going to rot inside of my own body one day while Mary perpetually picks fights with everyone in the group.

With dramatic flair, Mary propels herself into the air. In theory, she should have hollow bones to help her balance out the strain of her already large body, at least for any kind of avian. I haven't tested said theory, but in light of recent shenanigans, I can't say I haven't been tempted.

I don't bother with the warm-ups. Instead, I shoot a small ball of aura at her nose, hoping the difference is insignificant enough that he doesn't realize I've subtly altered the timestream.

The small blast of plasma blisters her face, the skin sweltering red beneath the force of impact.

Human skin's lack of resistance to superheated gas continues to be generally pathetic.

Whoops.

"You're going to hold up the group," Gillian says, again, but our savior finally runs back to us, his trenchcoat flying up in all directions. "Red."

Red has that nervous expression only I know to be evidence of his interference with the fabric of timespace plastered across his face, as if he can't believe, after all this time, that he has managed to undo our mistakes again. I fake a battle scowl, already tiring of the scene, and Gillian and Mary... well, they don't know what just happened, do they? To them, this is the first time these events have transpired. In a matter of speaking. Mary and Gillian are never not fighting, and sometimes I have to beat Mary back in line. Red finally spreads his hands out and says, "Mary, get down."

Mary drops like a rock before spreading her wings back out to maximum surface area mere seconds before hitting the ground. She places the toe of her shoe to the earth and descends as if taking stairs, surveying us all with smug contempt. "What's the problem now?"

"You can tuck the wings away, for one thing." Red suggests.

"You're just ruining my day, Red. First the grapes, than this. Next you're going to tell me I'm breathing wrong." As if to demonstrate, she takes in a drawn-out inhale, going for several seconds and drinking in Red's silence. I take the moment to settle myself, putting on my Fighting Mary? Who's Mary? face. It is one of the many masks I use to defend myself in such situations. I add in a bit of Wow Red, you're so resourceful and competent. I can't believe you have every conceivable situation under control in there for good measure.

"You know exactly what you're doing wrong and you're still doing it," Red says, unimpressed. "Kali?"

"I wasn't taking the bait, if that's what you're implicating." I say. "I'm sure we can think of something more productive for her to do when we get closer to our destination, to keep her busy. I'll even supervise. You know how much I love spending time caring for my fellow aberrations against nature."

Red smiles. It is laughably forced, but Red's forced smiles are only obvious if you know what to look for. I have memorized every minute muscle twitch that has ever crossed his face. I could read to you in detail everything passing through the inside of his head. All of them. I have been here twice, but I have lived here, within this group, for a period of time long as what humans would call a lifespan and almost all of it has been repeated days. Everyone in this conversation is three sparks away from a wildfire. Mary has stained dozens of trucks. Gillian has broken her supposedly hollow bones. I have torn them both apart with my bare hands. The strain in Red's smile is evidence of every time he has turned back time to save them. It is every second spent breathing recycled air manifest at the edge of his mouth.

We are the only two who remember anything.

He doesn't know that I know.

"Forwards?" I offer.

"We're not going that way." he says. "There's a highway."

Please tell me we're going forwards, Red. "Fair." I shrug, casting a glance at Mary and Gillian. Gillian looks to Red with utmost reverence, that same dogged loyalty everyone in the group at least manages to pretend to hide. After all, Red has never steered us wrong before. It doesn't matter how scatterbrained he may appear to be. Wouldn't you trust someone who seems to know what's always about to happen next? "You don't think we're going to walk around a highway though, do you?"

Red looks towards Dylan, who has since entered the scene carrying a plethora of plastic bags across his arms. "Can you get around highways?"

Dylan shakes his head. "Can you get around rivers?"

"They taper off in places. There has to be somewhere on the highway... in a town or something..."

"It's just crossing a road. We don't have to be that wary about it." Mary says. "We've crossed hundreds of roads."

Thousands. Thousands of roads, Mary. We'd cross less if you knew how to look both ways.

"Roads always connect cities anyways. It's as good of a way as any to find somewhere to spend the night. We're not that far out of town, are we? That was one of those parks with signposts and tourists."

"Tourists with grapes." Mary adds, cheerfully.

Red's smile twitches again. Dylan, who is holding Red at the shoulder with an affection no one else in the group can approximate, notices this too and casts him the kindest of glances. "No one saw us, Red. It's fine."

"Thanks, Dylan. Gillian? Mary? You two go on ahead." Red says, and Mary carries on, grabbing Gillian by the hand. Gillian follows along behind her, eyes narrowed to slits sharp as knives. Red continues, "Wait, who's watching everyone else right now?"

"Elle?" Dylan says.

"That's going to end poorly. Alex and Damien are up there?"

"Yes? They got out of the way when this started. I don't blame them."

"Alex usually watches," Red muses.

"Well, sometimes you're not in the mood to watch Mary and Gillian go at it. I understand. Sometimes I'm in a Mary vs. Gillian throwdown mood and sometimes I'm in a 'hey, we need to sleep somewhere tonight and we're not going to get there if the two of you don't suck it up and shake hands' mood. Now, if we got Mimsy in there, that'd be--"

"Don't say catfight."

"Look Red, I love you, but sometimes you ruin my day." Dylan kisses him on the cheek, and Red's shoulders visibly scrunch. I'm still watching them with the same curiosity with which one might view ants, or a flock of passing birds. They are in another world altogether.

"You two." I say, shaking my head. "Speaking of cats, if we want to get anywhere today, we should go herd some."

Dylan snaps his fingers in my direction, which makes all of his plastic bags shake. "See? That's what I'm talking about."

"Kali, stop enabling Dylan."

"You two stop making out in public and I'll stop making bad puns. That way no one has to be uncomfortable."

"You'll find someone someday." Dylan teases. "Then you'll be good with the public makeouts."

If all my romantic advances weren't turned over by the fickle fabric of Red turning back time, I could have had either of you. Elle. As long as I'm stuck here, as long as there's always that chance that nothing means anything... well, there's no point, is there?

"She has a point, though. Dylan, we should head back up there. Feel free to help, Kali." Red trudges back up, hands in his pockets. Already the entire group is falling back into that streamlined order. We're a flock of geese. Someone has to take the position that leaves them most exposed to harsh air currents.

Dylan, stuck between Red and I, winks back at me. "If you rough up Mary a little I won't tell anyone. Including you-know-who."

"He knows everything," I say, stifling the kind of laugh that would make both of us uncomfortable.

When Dylan is gone, I take my own route around a few trees to the group at large, sliding in beside Elle. Her head is lifted with poise towards the sky, at once taking in all the splendor of the surrounding area (for what, Elle? It's another stretch of woods. You know what trees look like by now.) and successfully ignoring all of us. I can appreciate the latter. I feel something seize me in the gut. Plasma in the belly.

"It's a beautiful day." Elle says.

"Sure."

She snaps a twig beneath her foot.

"You 'herding cats'?" I ask.

"What?"

You're prettier than the trees, Elle. Stop staring at them. Look me in the eye. I shrug again. "Kids."

"Oh. Barely."

I bite my lip. Red and Dylan are reunited up front, and Gillian and Mary have rejoined the boys to form their little posse. Angel leads her girls along. Mimsy is Mimsy, and then she's more Mimsy, that is to say, she's a cat again. I reach out for Elle's right hand and she draws it over to a bag which she was formerly holding in her left.

We walk in silence.

Red settles the group in an indistinct patch of woods around the time the sun begins to set, to the aggravation of all the 'middle kids'.

"We're not making it into town?" Alex asks. "C'mon, Red. What's a little dark going to do?"

Red lists it out on all his fingers. "Make it harder to keep track of everyone. Give rise to all sorts of unfortunate situations. Reduce my eyesight."

"Like you can see anything anyways, goggles boy." Mary says, throwing her arms out around a log. She sinks into it, feeling up the bark. "Yeah, this sucks."

"Goggles boy." Red is looking at Dylan again. Dylan is putting down bags in the most inconspicuous places available, but he still takes the time to look up at Red. "That's new."

"Actually, it's pretty old, because someone can't fix his eyesight." Mary says.

"Snap," Alex agrees.

"Thanks, Mary. I think we're all aware I can't shapeshift. Does anyone else have anything smart to say, or can we go to sleep?" Red asks. It's been a long day. Well, perhaps not long by our standards, given that we only had one 'difficulty', but any day of straight walking where Mary decides to be an absolute tool is a long enough day. Sometime I'm going to shift into my Veritas and throttle her just to put her in her place.

My eyes blink closed and I settle next to Elle, who lays herself down and pulls out a blanket from a few towns back, lying it on the ground. She keels over stiffly, staring up at the stars. She looks like she's in rigor mortis, but I can sense the heartbeat under the skin.

Elle.

The others shift back into various forms to make sleeping less uncomfortable. Angel is a swan with Adaline and Trace as cygents. Mary is a falcon. Damien is a deer, young enough that his hide is still spotted, Alex is passed out in human form, and Gillian has tucked back into a turtle shell. For a real change of pace, Mimsy is a cat. She's wedged herself into a bush away from the rest of us, and unlike the others, who often fall asleep in positions no animal would naturally take (oh, but we make such better humans), she is curled in a manner akin to the feral cats we've seen in the more desolate towns. Dylan rests on Red's lap, back in the form of a fox, and Red strokes his ears from the middle.

He remembers nights of gunshots. Quick dips out of the area. Red knows which places an assortment of animals who should not, by any means, be sleeping together should rest, what nights we should take on less suspicious forms while he hides elsewhere, and the nights we can't afford to sleep. This is a night he can let go.

As I watch him with Dylan, pretending to be asleep by Elle's side, my heart twitches. there is something distinctly human about him, which never ceases to aggravate me. The rest of us play with our natures like water, but he is a rock in the middle of the river. A man leading monsters.

Elle's delicate breath stirs in her throat, as if spinning through her lungs, and I realize the rest of the group is already long gone. It always takes me a second to convince myself to submit to the darkness, no matter how much or little we do that day. I am not promised to wake up tomorrow. I know, in actuality, that the chances I won't even be awake for a restart are low, but it is overcoming the fear that troubles me.

The woods shudder with the noise of late summer, the air surprisingly cold against the bare parts of my skin.

I find it in me to fall asleep.

(A/N: And here's the real premise of the story.)