The cottage suddenly convulsed like a living thing in pain, walls shimmering as competing temporal fields began tearing at the fabric of reality. The lighthouse beam outside strobederratically, its steady rhythm shattered by the chaos building around them.
“What's happening?” Finn asked, pressing closer to River as their home became a battleground of conflicting time streams.
Future River's form was destabilizing rapidly, flickering between solid and translucent as his emotional breakdown triggered massive temporal disturbance. “My abilities are collapsing,” he said, his voice distorting as chaos consumed his presence. “Confronting the futility of everything I've done is breaking down the grief that gave me temporal access.”
The lighthouse beam blazed so bright it turned their windows into sheets of fire, then plunged them into absolute darkness. River felt Finn jerk beside him, body going rigid with the telltale signs of violent displacement.
“Finn,” River said urgently, turning to see his partner's eyes rolling back, consciousness being torn away by forces beyond their control. “Stay with me. Don't let the interference pull you under.”
But Finn was already convulsing, his mind caught between competing temporal fields like a ship in a hurricane. This wasn't the gentle drift of his usual episodes—this was violent, catastrophic displacement, his consciousness being shredded by the storm Future River's breakdown had unleashed.
“Stop this!” River shouted at his future self while supporting Finn's weight. “Whatever's happening, stop it before you kill him!”
“I can't control it!” Future River's form was barely visible now, flickering like a broken transmission. “The emotional collapse is creating a temporal storm! All three timelines are colliding!”
Reality bent around them as past, present, and future bled together in patches of impossible confusion. River caught glimpses of other versions of their lives—moments of joy thathad never happened, conversations in futures that might never come to pass, all bleeding through the cracks in linear time.
Finn was caught in the center of it all, his consciousness being pulled in multiple directions by forces far beyond human endurance. River watched helplessly as his partner's body went completely limp, mind apparently scattered across so many realities that his physical form could no longer maintain basic function.
“Finn!” River called, but Finn's eyes stared at nothing, seeing realities River couldn't access, experiencing timelines where their love had never existed.
The cottage shuddered like it might collapse, furniture sliding across buckling floors as the temporal storm reached critical intensity. The lighthouse beam outside was strobing like an emergency beacon, its century-old rhythm destroyed by the chaos consuming their reality.
“I have to get him out of here,” River said, trying to lift Finn's unconscious form while their world disintegrated around them. “The interference is too strong—it's going to tear his mind apart.”
“There's nowhere to go,” Future River replied, his voice barely audible over the sound of reality breaking. “The storm is centered on the lighthouse. The entire area is compromised.”
River felt panic clawing at his chest as he realized they were trapped in a supernatural catastrophe of their own making. Future River's grief-driven abilities, Finn's natural temporal sensitivity, and the lighthouse's mysterious properties had created a perfect storm that none of them could control.
“This is what you wanted, isn't it?” River screamed over the chaos. “You wanted to separate us, to prove that loving him was impossible. Congratulations—you're about to get your wish.”
“This isn't what I wanted!” Future River's voice cracked with desperate horror. “I never wanted to hurt him! I just wanted to spare you both from?—”
The cottage gave one final, violent convulsion, and then Finn was simply gone.
Not unconscious. Not displaced. Gone.
River's arms held nothing but air where the love of his life had been standing moments before. The absence was so complete it felt like a physical wound, like part of his own soul had been torn away and scattered across impossible timelines.
“Where is he?” River demanded, turning toward Future River's fading form. “What happened to him?”
Future River stared at the empty space with the expression of a man watching his worst nightmare come true. “He's been pulled too far back,” he whispered, his voice hollow with devastating understanding. “The temporal storm sent him spiraling backward through your entire relationship history.”
“How far back?” River's voice came out strangled, barely human.
“I don't know. Maybe to your first meeting. Maybe before you ever met.” Future River's form was barely visible now, his temporal abilities exhausted by the catastrophe he'd created. “My interference combined with the emotional intensity... I've caused exactly what I was trying to prevent.”
The cottage fell silent except for the lighthouse beam resuming its steady rotation, as if nothing had happened, as if the most important person in River's world hadn't just been erased from existence.
River stood alone in the devastating quiet, his arms still extended where Finn had been, staring at empty air while Future River's final words echoed in the space between heartbeats:
“I'm sorry. God, I'm so fucking sorry.”
Then Future River was gone too, leaving River completely alone in a cottage that felt like a mausoleum. The furniture they'd chosen together, the books Finn had left scattered around, the lingering scent of old paper and lemon oil—all of it remained, but without Finn's presence, it felt like a museum display of a life that no longer existed.
River sank to his knees on the cottage floor, staring at the space where Finn had vanished, finally understanding what Future River had been trying to save him from. Not the gradual pain of watching someone slip away, but the instantaneous agony of losing them completely, irrevocably.
The lighthouse beam swept through the windows in its eternal rhythm, no longer comforting but mocking in its constancy—a reminder that time moved forward even when the person you loved had been lost to it entirely.
