Ethan stepped into the dawn of a world he had fought to free, the weight of his past battles pressing against his thoughts. The streets of the city no longer shifted beneath his feet. Time had stabilized, reality had stopped fighting against itself, and yet, for the first time in his life, he didn't know what came next.
Cassandra walked beside him, her gaze flicking toward the distant skyline. "You really think this is over?"
Ethan exhaled. "We stopped the rewrite. The Loop Bank is gone. The Architects are gone. Time is finally free." He glanced at her. "What else is there to fight?"
Cassandra smirked. "You tell me. You're the one who never knows when to stop."
Aiden strolled a few steps ahead, hands in his pockets, scanning the remnants of the world they had altered. "I gotta admit, I didn't expect us to actually win. Usually, there's some kind of catastrophic twist where everything falls apart."
Lyra checked her console, running final scans on the city's stabilization. "I wouldn't call this a clean victory just yet."
Ethan frowned. "What do you mean?"
Lyra turned the screen toward him. "Time's holding together, but barely. It's not rewriting itself anymore, but that doesn't mean the damage is completely repaired." She tapped a few commands, pulling up a fractured sequence in the system. "There are still anomalies. Some people who came back shouldn't exist in this timeline. Some events that never happened are embedded into history now."
Ethan clenched his jaw. He had expected consequences, but this…
Cassandra exhaled. "So what? We just let it be?"
Aiden shrugged. "Could be worse. At least no one's trying to erase us anymore."
Lyra's voice was quieter. "That we know of."
Ethan's instincts tensed. He had spent too long in a world controlled by hidden forces to believe it would be this easy. Someone always wanted control. And if time was still fractured, that meant someone would eventually try to exploit it.
Cassandra met his gaze. "So what do we do? Fix every broken timeline? Track down every displaced person?"
Ethan shook his head. "No. That's what the Loop Bank would have done. We don't control time. We don't rewrite it." He looked out over the city. "We let people decide their own fate."
Lyra hesitated. "Even if that means living in a reality that shouldn't exist?"
Ethan's voice was steady. "Especially then."
The choice had always been taken from them. Now, for the first time, they had it back.
Aiden smirked. "So, what now? We just… live?"
Cassandra chuckled. "Yeah, that's gonna be a problem for Ethan."
Ethan exhaled, rolling his shoulders. The war was over, but the scars remained. He didn't know how to stop moving. Didn't know how to exist without a fight.
But maybe… that was the point.
Lyra looked up from her console. "The city's adapting. The anomalies that are left? They're not destabilizing. Maybe time doesn't need to be fixed. Maybe it just needs to be left alone."
Ethan smirked. "That's a first."
Cassandra nudged his shoulder. "You're really just gonna walk away?"
Ethan met her gaze. "Yeah." He turned back toward the skyline. "For the first time in my life, I think I will."
Aiden grinned. "Well, if Ethan Carter is finally taking a break, I guess I should too. Maybe I'll start a business. Sell time-related memorabilia."
Cassandra rolled her eyes. "You'd find a way to scam people even in a world without time travel."
Aiden smirked. "Exactly."
Lyra looked at Ethan one last time. "You sure about this?"
Ethan exhaled. "No." He took a step forward anyway. That was the point.
The world wasn't perfect. The past was messy. The future was unwritten.
But for the first time, it was theirs.
And Ethan Carter?
He was finally free.