Future River's form snapped into sharper focus, grief-worn features hardening with defensive pride. “Coward? You think I wanted to spend fourteen years in a world where the only person I ever loved had been erased from existence?”
“I think you're so terrified of uncertainty that you'd rather destroy our present than risk our future. You couldn't handle loving someone without guarantees, so you've been sabotagingus from the shadows like some twisted guardian angel.” River said.
“I've been trying to save you from the kind of loss that fractures reality itself.” Future River stepped closer, and the temperature plummeted until their breath misted in the suddenly arctic air. “I watched love become obsession, watched care become control, watched myself destroy the very thing I was desperate to preserve.”
River felt the accusation land because it carried the weight of truth. They had walked that same path—the research charts, the desperate treatments, the slow transformation of love into medical mission. But seeing the warning signs meant they could choose differently.
“You're right,” River said, and watched Future River's weathered face cycle through surprise. “I have been trying to fix Finn instead of loving him. I turned our relationship into a cure-seeking mission, just like you did. But here's the difference—I can see it now. I can choose to stop.”
“Can you?” Future River's laugh was like glass breaking in an empty room. “When his episodes stretch into days? When you wake up beside someone whose mind is living decades in the past? When you realize that accepting his condition means accepting that you might lose him to it completely?”
River's hand found Finn's automatically, their fingers threading together with the practiced ease of people who'd learned to anchor each other through storms. “I don't know,” River admitted, his honesty clearly shocking his future self. “But I'd rather risk making your mistakes than guarantee our loneliness by giving up before we've even tried.”
“You’re still trying to control outcomes, still treating love like a problem requiring management. You haven't learned anything—you've just changed tactics.”
Future River's form began to flicker, temporal energy destabilizing under emotional pressure. “I'm trying to prevent you from becoming me.”
“By becoming exactly what destroyed your relationship in the first place.” River's voice rose with each word. “Manipulation. Control. Treating us like we're too stupid to make our own choices about our own lives.”
The argument was escalating beyond rational discourse, both versions of River fighting over fundamental questions about love and fear, protection and possession. River could feel years of accumulated desperation pouring out of his future self—all that grief and regret crystallized into the desperate need to prevent anyone else from experiencing the same loss.
“Stop.”
Finn's voice cut through their battle like a blade through silk, quiet but carrying absolute authority. Both Rivers turned toward him as he stepped slightly forward, brown eyes blazing with something that looked like controlled fury.
“Both of you stop fighting about me like I'm some prize to be won instead of a person with my own fucking agency.”
River felt shame burn through his anger as he realized they'd been debating Finn's future without including him in the conversation—treating him like an object of concern rather than an equal partner in his own life.
“I'm not some helpless victim who needs protecting from his own choices,” Finn continued, his voice carrying the particular steel that came from years of being underestimated. “I know exactly what I'm risking. I know my condition might get worse. I know loving me means accepting uncertainty that most people couldn't handle.”
Future River opened his mouth to protest, but Finn held up a hand that somehow commanded silence from a man who'd spent years manipulating time itself.
“I'd rather have five years of imperfect, messy, complicated love than fifty years of safety without connection,” Finn said, his words carrying the weight of absolute conviction. “I'd rather risk everything for the chance to build something real than accept protection that comes at the cost of never truly living.”
River felt his heart crack open with pride and love and desperate admiration for this man who faced impossible circumstances with such fierce courage. This was why he'd fallen for Finn—not despite his condition, but because of the strength it had taught him, the wisdom that came from accepting uncertainty as life's only constant.
“You don't understand what you're choosing,” Future River said, his voice breaking with years of accumulated pain. “You don't know what it's like to watch someone disappear piece by piece while you convince yourself that love should be enough to save them.”
“And you don't understand what it's like to be treated like a condition instead of a person,” Finn shot back, moving closer to River until they stood united against the specter of their potential future. “To have your humanity reduced to symptoms and triggers, to be loved for who you might become rather than who you are.”
Finn's voice grew stronger, more certain. “Every episode you triggered, every moment of doubt you manufactured, every time you made me question whether River loved me or just wanted to cure me—you created the exact dynamic that destroyed your timeline.”
The full scope of his interference, the way his attempts to prevent tragedy had created the very instability he'd been trying to avoid.
“You've been so focused on preventing the ending that you forgot love isn't about guarantees,” Finn continued. “It's aboutshowing up completely for whatever time you have, choosing each other every day even when that choice terrifies you.”
Future River went very still, his temporal form stabilizing as the weight of Finn's words settled into the space where his heart used to be. “I never learned to love your condition as part of you,” he whispered, voice breaking entirely. “I spent fourteen years trying to save you from yourself instead of learning to love you as you were.”
The admission hung in the cottage air like smoke from a pyre, carrying all the weight of choices that had led to ultimate loss. River could see his potential future clearly now—the man he could become if fear drove his decisions, if he turned love into medical necessity.
“I became exactly what you feared most,” Future River continued, his form growing more transparent as emotional energy drained from maintaining his presence. “Someone who saw your TPD as a problem to solve rather than part of the extraordinary person I loved.”
River felt tears burning behind his eyes as he watched this broken version of himself confront the full scope of his failures. Future River had convinced himself that grief and regret had given him wisdom, when really they'd just created another form of the same controlling obsession.
“You could have had a lifetime together if you'd just accepted that love doesn't require curing the person you love,” River said gently, his anger transformed into overwhelming sadness for this shattered echo of himself.
“I know that now,” Future River replied. “But knowing doesn't undo fourteen years of living with consequences I created through my own inability to?—”
