If you think I just sat on my hands and didn't try and get back to him, you're crazy.  In fact, that very Saturday, as soon as I got a grip on myself, I lifted my head, shouted "NO!" and jumped back in my car, headed straight back to the university, and charged for the Physical Sciences building.  I found the elevator, held down the basement button. 

I'm on my way, Freddie! I kept thinking.  Hold on, I'm coming!

But they were ready for me.

I had barely stepped off the elevator when two very intimidating men in suits and earpieces approached me, saying, "This area is off limits.  Please return to the surface."

"You don't understand!" I began.  "I need to see T-Rod!  I have to get back!"

"If you do not turn around, we will have to consider you a threat," one informed me mechanically.  "Return to the surface."

Behind them I saw a few big, strong men pushing machinery down the hall, Dr. C clapping his hands and urging them, "Come on, come on!  We don't have time!  George wants this place cleared out by tonight!"

"C!" I screamed, and he whirled, jaw dropping.  "C, tell these guys who I am!"

"Julia, go home," he ordered.

"I have to go back in, C!  Please!  I-"

"Julia, you have served your purpose, and I thank you, but we don't need you any longer.  Go home."

"I'm going to call Stuart!" I warned him.  "I'm-"

"What for?  He'll just defer to me."

"He's your boss!"

"I don't report to Dr. Proose," he said, pronouncing "Preus" incorrectly again.  "I report to George.  There's nothing I can do in relation to T-Rod that Dr. Proose is not required by his own terms to back up whole-heartedly.  Calling him won't get you back in.  I'm sorry, Julia.  You're done here."

My eyes narrowed, and I sprang like a lioness- only to be seized roughly by the agents and dragged back toward the elevator.  Still I struggled, screaming, "C, you bastard, LET ME IN!"

He sighed.  "Guys?"

At his word they manhandled me into the elevator and did not leave my side until we were in the parking lot.

"This is your one warning," they said.  "If you trespass one more time, you will be arrested and committed for up to thirty years or for a fine that shall not exceed 500,000 dollars."

"Where's the law that justifies that?" I snapped.

"Drive safe," was all they answered.  I didn't test them, however, and instead clambered obediently into my car and drove the long way home.  I tucked Stuart's card back into my bag, sat back, and indulged in a few more tears for the road, those bitter five words cruelly repeating in my head.

You have served your purpose.

I seriously do not know how I made it through finals week. I finished all my tests of course, some more successfully than others, but I was barely aware of my own surroundings. I could regurgitate facts in the form of filling in the appropriate multiple choice bubbles- but the facts meant nothing to me. I was just coasting, going through the motions because it was expected of me. Had I had my way, however, I wouldn't have even risen from bed in the morning, and just stayed there until someone kicked me out, pulled me to my feet and pushed me to the door.

My life had no meaning to me any longer.  I was dead inside.  And I do not solely mean in the figurative sense.  I really, truly wanted to die.  With each day that passed, I blamed myself more for his end- and I became more and more ready to take my own life as penance. I began to obsess less over Freddie, and more over killing myself. Death sounded so proper, so just, the very thing I deserved. 

For was I not one of the more decisive nails in Freddie's coffin?  Hadn't I practically murdered him with my own two hands?

At the rate I was going, I was more or less on the road toward a passive suicide anyway.  I couldn't sleep, instead just lay in bed every night, eyes open, debating internally whether or not I should make quiet use of one of the kitchen knives and slash my wrists to irreparably deadly shreds, while all day I dragged around, exhausted and frightfully wan. 

I wasn't eating much of anything at all; I had almost no appetite.  Nothing sounded good to me, the very aroma of certain things sent me sprinting to the bathroom, where I hurled up whatever few bites of food I forced down my throat.  That scared my family more than anything else; if I wasn't eating, something had to be wrong.

I overheard Mom talking to Dad the next Friday morning, the day of my final exam over my hardest subject yet: stats.  By this point I looked like a walking corpse- gaunt, half-starved, fatigued, dizzy.  I had been to the family doctor already at my parents' behest, but he found nothing physically wrong with me, besides what was disintegrating between my ears and in my heart.  I was caught in a downward spiral, and there was nothing anybody could do about it except put me in rehab which, "unbeknownst" to me, my parents had discussed a few days ago, arguing over whether or not a representative should come have a look at me and see if I qualified.

"It's that VR thing, I know it!" she was saying.  "Oh, Dear God, I feel so helpless, I hate this!"

"Wonder what they put in her head," Dad murmured, and he almost sounded defeated.  "Wonder what they made her see- or do." 

And they had indeed asked me, tried to pick my brain about those "two hours" I spent under T-Rod's spell, but I had told them nothing.  They would never believe me, anyway, not even if I produced Rudy's evidence.  C and K had covered their tracks much too well.

"Whatever it is, it's eating her up," she whispered, voice thickening.  "Oh, Julia.  My poor little goose... what did they do to you?   Why did you let them?"

Because I had to, Mom, I responded silently.  Someone had to kill him, and that someone had to be me.  And now, I'm facing good old-fashioned karma.  He died at my hand; it's only fair I should die at his.

"We'll be the death of each other, I swear," Freddie had quipped to me once.  I hung my head and sighed.  How ironic could you get?

It was my mother that drove me to school for this last exam; I was too far gone to drive myself.  She practically force-fed me a few bites of cereal that morning and only stopped when I said I was starting to feel nauseous.  She tried to make me drink a cup of coffee before I left, saying it would perk me up, but today, the very aroma made my stomach capsize, and I ran for the bathroom to throw it all up again.  So I instead had crackers and ginger ale for breakfast.  That, I kept down. 

My sweet, well-meaning mother.  She was trying.

"I'm, uh, going to be back in two hours to pick you up, okay?" she said carefully. 

"Okay," I croaked.

"Sweetie-" she began.

"Yes?" I looked at her.

My mother didn't go on, instead just patted my cheek, a sad, confused look on her face, and whispered, "Be careful."

"Mm-hm, I will," I muttered.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

I got out of the car and ambled shakily to the math building.  Behind me my mother watched; I could feel her eyes on me with every step.  She must have felt so helpless, a feeling we in my family have never taken well.  Though we love our privacy, we also want to fix things, help people- but when the situation is completely beyond our control, and we are powerless to do anything about it, that's when we lose our minds, just like I was losing my mind about Freddie.

But this pawn had served her purpose, just like C said.  So why was I still allowed to take up space on this planet?  I was now a waste of oxygen, a clock ticking her life away until someone finally did the world a favor and removed me. 

I looked behind me and watched Mom pulling away.  Shame the cars drive so slowly around the campus, I said to myself casually.  Or else I would throw myself in front of one of them.

I took the test and bombed it.  I know I did.  But that was okay; I had forgotten that the stats exam policy was identical to that of my psych class, so my GPA wouldn't suffer any, either.  Well, hurray, hurray.  My GPA, through it all, had survived the best, maintained at 4.0.  The things a girl will do for a scholarship.

I finished the test earlier than I anticipated; one hour in, I was passing in the scantron and hobbling out, weakly pushing the door open.  So now I was stuck on the campus for another hour, till Mom came and collected me.  I couldn't let her know I'd finished early; my phone still had not arrived in the mail yet.  Stupid postal service.

God, I would love to be able to keep something down right now, I murmured to myself. 

I pushed the building's double doors open, walked outside a few paces- then stopped dead in my tracks.  A few paces away stood a little man wearing one of those dorky Kyle Broflovski-style hats and a big brown coat, his hooked nose red with the cold.  As intimidating as a garden gnome.

But my weak knees only went weaker.

Dr. K.

"Julia!" he said haltingly.  "What a surprise!"

What ire I hadn't been allowed to shower on C, I now let loose on his partner.  My eyes narrowed.  "What do you want now?"

He drew back, startled.  "Huh?"

"You didn't just happen to prance over here, God, you're so obvious, K.  You were looking for me.  What do you f---ing want?"  My weak voice shook with anger- an exhausting emotion, for which I did not have the energy.

"I don't want anything, I-"

"Bullshit.  What is it this time?  You've pretty much taken everything, what more is there you can do to me?"

He took a step forward.  "Julia, listen-"

"Come just a little closer and I'll call my dad."  An idle threat, as I had no phone, but he hesitated just the same.

"What's he gonna-"

"My dad's a lawyer," I announced, and K didn't come any nearer.  Works every time.

Still he pleaded, though from a distance, "Julia, listen to me.  Do you know why I picked you?"

"Because you're a sadistic cold-blooded scientist, that's why.  Now go away!"  I turned on my heel and marched off.  Or tried to.

Before I could make a triumphant exit, I suddenly felt extremely lightheaded.  The ground seemed to slip out from underneath me and rise up to make contact with my face.  For another few seconds everything was dark.

"Julia, wake up," K's voice slowly drifted into my ears.  "Julia?  Are you okay?"

I opened my eyes.  I was in an empty classroom, the kind with the staggered, elevated rows of chairs- empty except for K and myself.  My head was pounding, and yet lighter than a helium balloon. 

"What happened?" I whispered.

"You fainted," he said.  "When was the last time you ate anything?"

"This morning- if two saltine crackers counts as eating anything," I whispered, holding my head and my stomach. 

"Don't move," he said.  "There's a snack machine right outside this door, what can I get you?  Snickers?  Peanut butter cookie?  What?"

"Anything but a cinnamon roll," I murmured.  "And a water too, please, haven't kept much water in my system lately."

He hesitated a moment.  "Why's that?"

"I keep on throwing up.  It's been a real fun week, let me tell you."

K's expression changed when I said that.  I was too dizzy to read anything into it, but he seemed to look even more worried than before.  He disappeared out the door, and came back less than a minute later with some fruity granola bar and a big friendly bottle of Ozarka.

"Thank you," I murmured, tearing open the snack bar and taking a small, tentative bite.  My stomach seemed to tolerate it, so I took a bigger chomp, scarcely remembering to chew.

"Slowly, now, chew it," he instructed.  "Wash it down-"

"I know how to feed myself, K," I sighed before taking a swig of water.  "It's the keeping it down that's tricky."

The tremulous voice became stern, almost fatherly.  "Julia, you're going to have to take better care of yourself."

"You sound like my mother," I grumbled.  "K, where's the nearest bridge?"

"What? Why?"

"'Cos I'm gonna jump off of it and, ideally, die."

"That's not funny."

"I'm not trying to be."

"Then why are you talking like that?"

"Because I want to.  Die, I mean."  My voice shook, tears filling my eyes.  "I know I sound absurd, but- but I'd just really love to not be alive anymore."

"Julia, stop saying that-"

"I don't deserve it!  I don't deserve life!  I killed him!  I KILLED HIM!"  I screamed those three shrill words louder and louder.

He grabbed my arms and tried to hold me still, telling me to hush and not to be hysterical.  K meant well, but he had a really terrible bedside manner.  Oh, God, if only John were here instead of him!  He was such a kind soul, and so sympathetic, whereas K...

"Would you please be quiet?" he hissed.  "Get a hold of yourself!  You didn't kill anyone!"

"Yes, I did!" I sobbed, collapsing in on myself.  "I killed Freddie.  He's dead because of me.  He wouldn't have died if I'd-"

"Julia, you don't know that!" he said.  "Look.  You didn't make his decisions for him.  He didn't have to do the things he did, live the way he lived or whatever he did that did him in- you did not force him to do those things!  He chose his way, just like you chose yours!  There was no other way it could have happened!"

"But if I'd stayed-"

"Julia, what's the point?  If you spend all day asking 'what if,' 'what if,' 'what if,' about every decision you make- constantly looking back, how do you expect to move forward?  You don't know what's ahead.  You know so much about the past, but the future- the future is yet to come!  The world hasn't ended yet!  What's happened has happened, the way it was supposed to all along.  It is NOT your fault.  If you spend the rest of your existence telling yourself it is, then yes, you might as well jump, because that's no kind of life at all."

He went to grab a tissue off the desk and gave it to me to dab my eyes.  I did so, then blew my nose.  I looked up at him through watery lenses.

"K, you realize you're compromising your own alibi by saying these things to me, right?" I murmured with a sniff.  "It was VR, not time travel.  You're contradicting your whole story."

"Not my story.  Theirs."  K sighed.  "Besides, I'm not compromising anything unless I outright say T-Rod was anything but a VR machine.  And I am not going to say that T-Rod was a time-travel machine- or, as Dr. Preus calls it, a prototype cross-continuum interface.  Because that's absolutely not what it is."

I almost smiled, and took another bite of the bar.  "Why did you pick me, K?  You were saying something about that a minute ago."

K shrugged, smiling shyly.  "It's because I remembered."

I squinted.  "Remembered what?"

"You."

"Remembered me?"  I cocked my head.  "But how?"

"When you walked up to Ledford last week, I knew I recognized you from somewhere.  I kept trying to place the face, but I knew I knew you- and that you had said something about twenty points.  'Two-zero.'  You did that with your hand, and it stuck with me for some reason.  So I- I chose you."

I gazed at him.  "You remember Vegas?"

He nodded, smiling.  "And here's the funny part.  I had no idea that was Freddie Mercury who was pretending to be Mark from Canada."

"Mark from Canada?"

"Mm-hm.  I don't remember the last name."

I stifled a laugh.  "That's okay." 

"But even when I went to see them play the Aladdin that year- Queen, I mean, first huge rock concert I ever saw- I had no clue that crazy guy in the diamond leotard thing jumping around all over the place- that that was Mark, your lover."

"We really were lovers, weren't we?"I looked down at my lap, trying to keep it together.  "Oh, Freddie.  My prince, please forgive me."

"So," K swallowed, "you did sleep with him?"

"If you can call what we did 'sleeping,' then yes, I guess so."

He nodded.  "I thought so.  That certainly would explain what you're going through now."

"What do you mean?"

"Julia, I need you to take this," he instructed me, pulling out that same package Dr. Ledford had tried to hand off to me.  "You'll need it."

"K, I don't do that stuff-"

"Oh, for God's sake, would you relax?  It's not drugs!  I don't even do that anymore... very often."

I actually snorted a little laugh this time.  "So what is it, then?"

"I cannot verbally tell you, because that would blatantly contradict the VR story."

"Oh, good grief-"

"I know.  Thank God for loopholes," K remarked.  "But I suggest you open it now, so that you don't go home with a badly wrapped brown package under your arm."

"Now?"

"Go ahead.  I'll stand guard."  With that he got up and started watching at the little window in the door.

So I ripped open the lumpy parcel, and a fortune cookie fell out.

"Hey!" I picked the curved shell off the floor.  Rudy had said to open it once I got to where I was going; now seemed like a good a time as any.  So I broke it in half and pulled out the little slip, read my fortune:

Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you:

That's all it said.  On instinct I finished the rest of it to myself, "By now you shoulda somehow reali-"

And then I stopped.  What was a fortune cookie from 1977 doing, spouting lyrics from "Wonderwall"?  My thoughts rocketed back to what Rudy's letter had said about an Oasis reference.  Had Rudy planted this in it himself? 

But then, how would Rudy know about Oasis, an alternative band from the 1990s- IN 1977?

Thoroughly confused, I turned the slip over, expecting some kind of explanation, but I received none.  Just your basic line of lucky numbers: 1, 2, 10, 20, 27.  Oh, great.  Big help.  What was the point of that, Rudy?

Okay, that explained that- kind of.  But who was Danny?

"There's more," K coaxed from the door.

"I'm getting there," I muttered.  I upended the package, and two things fell out.  One was my ring (HURRAY!), which would have made my heart sing and tears of joy to fall down my cheeks, but I was too horrified by the other item to care.

"K, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" I shouted.

He sighed, hung his head.  "A hunch.  I could be wrong, but-"

"REALLY?" I screamed, not because I was disgusted by the prospect- but out of genuine fear.  "I - I can't be!  That's impossible!"

"Did either of you do anything preventative?" he asked.  "Before- uh- making out?"

"That's none of your business," I dodged, thereby answering him with a big fat "No".

"Then it's not impossible," he said.  "Take the test when you get home-"

"I can't be!  I - I just can't!  I'm not-"

"Julia, denial is not going to help you this time.  You're dizzy, you're throwing up, and you're uber-emotional- you can't run away from what that might mean.  I could be wrong!  But you- it's better that you know for certain, isn't it?"

Knees weakening again, I rose- slowly- from the desk, picking up my fortune, my ring, and the thing so horrifying I couldn't even look at it, and threw them in my bag.  The room seemed to lean to one side.  I grabbed the side of the desk, pushed myself up, made myself walk toward