Summary :

Jim Lake may be "Young Atlas" but he's also learned that he works best with people supporting him. If he's going to fix the world, he needs help. He needs his team back.

Chapter 1 :

One of the first things Jim realized was that he had no idea how time magic worked.

Sure, he was back in his body at the start of his sophomore school year, but... but in his pocket was the reforged amulet. Which contained future bits and pieces of the amulet that Toby was currently carrying around but hadn't yet told Jim about.

(Jim gave it a day before Toby told him. Two, max. Secrets had never been Toby's forte.)

Isn't both amulets existing at the same time a paradox?

Which led him to thoughts of Cal- of Deya and his time in Camelot. Where there had briefly been two amulets and two Trollhunters at the same time.

Okay, so not a world-destroying paradox, then.

But. Wait.

Was Jim even the one in Camelot? Would be the one in Camelot? Or would Toby end up giving up his humanity to Merlin's machinations?

Dimly, Jim realized he was sitting on the floor of his room, head in his hands, amulet on the floor beside him, his breathing ragged.

I can't... I can't...

I need help.

I need my team.

And since the team for this couldn't be Claire and Toby, not yet, couldn't be Blinky and Aaarrrgghh...

...and Aja, Krel, and Varvatos wouldn't even be on the planet for months...

I need Douxie.

His mom had been working a late shift at the hospital again, so sneaking out wasn't even a problem.

Jim breathed easier once he saw Douxie working the closing shift at the cafe. Feeling like luck was with him, he walked inside, ordering a hot chocolate and a small pastry that he worked his way through, watching as the other patrons left, one by one. Eventually he was the last person in the cafe, and he could see the wizard summoning his best customer service smile, about to tell him it was closing time, and ask him to leave.

Jim beat him to speaking.

"Hisirdoux Casperan."

Douxie froze.

"Nine hundred and seventeen year old wizard. Apprentice of Merlin Ambrosius. Familiar of Archibald the cat-dragon."

As if on cue, Archie appeared, tail twining around Douxie's ankles. Jim smiled down at him, then looked back up at Douxie, whose hand was inching toward his spell bracelet.

"Douxie. I need your help."

The sign had been flipped, the lights shut out and all the cafe's usual closing-up routine done. Jim honestly didn't know whether or not his help had made it go faster - Douxie had kept sneaking glances at him the entire time, clearly equally intrigued and weirded out.

Hisirdoux locked the door behind them, then turned to face Jim. "Okay, so give."

"Now, now, patience, Douxie," Archie said from his shoulder perch. "I'm not sure a public venue is the best place for this conversation."

"We could go to my flat," Douxie offered after a slight hesitation.

"You mean your cot in the back room of the bookshop?" In his few spare moments to think about it, Douxie's lack of permanent residence in Arcadia Oaks had never struck Jim quite right.

Hisirdoux flinched.

Jim hissed through his teeth. "Sorry. Not supposed to know about that yet, I guess."

"Yet?" Douxie stared at him. His eyes narrowed. "Time travel."

"Time travel," Jim confirmed. "Come on. If we need a private place to talk, my mom's pulling a night shift at the hospital. My house is empty."

"Well." Archie jumped down from his perch. "This should be interesting."

Making tea bought Jim a few minutes to order his thoughts. He shouldn't know Douxie yet according to the original timeline, and Douxie shouldn't know him beyond Jim's being a consistent tipper. And this slightly younger Douxie wasn't as confident as the one Jim knew, but-

"Here." He set down three cups of tea on the coffee table.

"Thank you." Hisirdoux picked up his, took a sip. Archie sniffed at his cup, raised eyebrows, then began to lap.

Jim put his amulet down on the table between them.

"What... is that?" Douxie asked, eyes wide again.

"Tell me what you can, and I'll tell you what I can," Jim said.

Douxie's cup came back down to the table and his hand hovered over the amulet, looking at it like he was seeing things Jim couldn't. Which he probably was. "This is Merlin's work," he said. Wisps of blue light rose from the amulet, twisting toward Douxie's hand. "An amulet of power? And protection. Bonded to you," he added, glancing up at Jim. Then his eyes got even wider, snapping back to stare at the amulet. His hand yanked away. "That's not possible," he choked out.

Archie sniffed at the amulet. His eyes, too, widened. "Douxie..." he said softly, looking up at his partner. Then he looked back at the amulet, batted it softly with one paw. "Wait, this is that amulet... but it's not?"

"It's Merlin's Trollhunter amulet," Jim confirmed, "reforged."

"Reforged?" The other two spoke in unison.

"Right now, the Trollhunter amulet has chosen its first human bearer... and it's not me," Jim said. "In the original timeline, it was."

"Original timeline?" Douxie latched onto those two words like a lifeline.

"I'm from the future. A future where things went wrong, and too many people died." Jim sighed. "I have... about two years to try and set things right. But there's too much I don't know about how time works. I need a master wizard's help."

"But I'm not a master wizard," Douxie protested. "I'm just an apprentice."

Jim smiled. "Not yet. But you will be."

And then he got one of the shocks of his life as Hisirdoux's expression blanked and just seemed to... shatter. Like so much glass. And the master-wizard-to-be curled up and started sobbing.

"Douxie!" Archie cried.

Jim stood, hand half-outreached, not sure what to do. Archie jumped up on the sofa, wormed his way under Douxie's arm and licked at his cheek, purring softly for a moment before looking back at Jim. "It's been so long since we've seen Merlin," he explained apologetically. "Douxie's always wanted to be a master wizard more than anything else, but without anyone around to grant him mastery, I'm afraid, well, we'd almost given up."

"I'm sorry," Jim said softly, sitting back down.

"No, no, I'm sorry," Douxie said, swiping at his eyes and slowly uncurling. "It's just... been so long since I had any hope."

"Believe me," said Jim, thinking of the endlessness of the Darklands, "I understand."

"Now," Archie said, jumping back onto the table and poking at Jim's amulet again, "about this reforging business..."

"That's my magic, isn't it?" Douxie asked. "Older and newer layers of it."

Jim nodded.

"But I'm not that strong," Douxie protested. "I'm a hedgewizard at best, just ask anyone."

"You've always underestimated yourself, Douxie," Archie commented. "It's a bad flaw."

"You forge this amulet twice. I've seen you best godlings, befriend aliens, and save me from death more times than I can count," Jim said, blue eyes steady on Douxie's hazel ones. "You always fight to save people, and you will never, ever break a promise you've made. You're one of the strongest people I know, Douxie."

Douxie was staring open-mouthed at him. "We'll get back to that bit about aliens later," he said eventually. "For now, what do you need from a wizard?"

Jim swallowed. "I need to know how time works. Specifically about that hole in your memories around when Camelot fell."

"Oh." Douxie and Archie exchanged a speaking glance. "Afraid I can't help you there..."

"But I can," Archie finished. "What do you need to know?"

Jim hefted the amulet. "There are parts of this that came from the original amulet. So I know that the same thing can exist twice in the same time. What I don't know is... are there certain events that are locked in?"

"Explain," Archie invited.

"In the original timeline, I ended up back in Camelot and met Deya before she was Deya," Jim said. "Is that a constant? Does it happen to me no matter what, or will it happen to the new Trollhunter?" Best not to say Toby's name just yet. "Because as far as we pieced together later, us dropping through time was what was meant to happen all along. If it happens differently this time, what does that change?"

Archie studied Jim intently through his glasses for a long moment, then shook his head. "Sorry, no," he murmured, "it's all a bit fuzzy."

"But you were there," Jim protested.

"And I remember some of the things that happened, but not all," Archie replied. "I hadn't thought about it in a long time, but now that I do... there's a fuzzy spot in my memories where you, or the other Trollhunter, should be. I remember there was someone there, but not who."

"Time's in flux, then," Douxie said.

Jim grimaced. "Great. I don't suppose you have access to Merlin's time map?"

Douxie shook his head. "It would be in his workshop in Camelot."

"And good luck locating that," Archie added.

Jim breathed out. "All right. So... either the Trollhunter or I could end up back then, depending on how things go," he said. "Archie, was there a shard?" he asked, miming where the Green Knight had stabbed him.

The cat dragon nodded. "That, I am afraid, I can confirm."

Jim muttered a Trollish curse, one of the few he'd picked up on his own, wandering Trollmarket without Blinky.

So, things that would happen included the Arcane Order resurrecting Arthur as the Green Knight. Maybe they already had. And from there, Jim really couldn't see any way things could go other than how they had. Turning mind-slaved full troll, Merlin's amulet being torn from his chest, only Claire's tears bringing him back-

The hell if he was going to let Toby go through that. What was the point of there being two Trollhunters if they couldn't parcel out the worst and bear it between them?

But until that point in time, there was so much he had to do.

Douxie, though, just looked levelly at Jim. "There are things we shouldn't know about, aren't there?"

Mouth a line, Jim nodded. "Sorry, Douxie. But some things I can't risk." Not if they were all going to get out of this whole. Suddenly Jim realized the weight of just how much could go wrong. The next two years was going to be an extremely intricate dance. Getting Strickler together with his mother. Getting him and Nomura to defect from the Janus Order. Staying in the shadows and letting Toby grow into being the Trollhunter, while also keeping him from dying. Winning Blinky and Aaarrrgghh's trust. Saving Draal. Saving Vendel. Saving Heartstone Trollmarket. Saving Merlin. Standing back and watching Claire grow into the amazing shadowmancer she'd become. And that wasn't even counting in Steve and Eli and the whole mess with the Akiridions.

Jim's shoulders suddenly crumpled under the weight of it all.

"I don't know if I can do this," he whispered.

Self-doubt was his worst flaw. And, like clockwork, it cropped up every time he hit a wall.

His mother's voice came to him, saying "Neither of us ever give up."

And he wouldn't. But... it was just so hard, sometimes.

Douxie and Archie exchanged a speaking glance. "Well," said Douxie, "you've got us now, James Lake, Junior. And even if you can't tell us everything, surely a wizard and a dragon can help?"